r!' thought she. 'He is bound to know of it anyway. But
now he will not forsake me. Ah, if he should, it would be terrible!' And
she threw a loving glance at his tall, noble, powerful figure. She loved
him now more than she had loved the Tsar, and apart from the Imperial
dignity would not have preferred the Emperor to him.

'Listen! I cannot deceive you. I have to tell you. You ask what it is?
It is that I have loved before.'

She again laid her hand on his with an imploring gesture. He was silent.

'You want to know who it was? It was--the Emperor.'

'We all love him. I can imagine you, a schoolgirl at the Institute...'

'No, it was later. I was infatuated, but it passed... I must tell
you...'

'Well, what of it?'

'No, it was not simply--' She covered her face with her hands.

'What? You gave yourself to him?'

She was silent.

'His mistress?'

She did not answer.

He sprang up and stood before her with trembling jaws, pale as death. He
now remembered how the Emperor, meeting him on the Nevsky, had amiably
congratulated him.

'O God, what have I done! Stiva!'

'Don't touch me! Don't touch me! Oh, how it pains!'

He turned away and went to the house. There he met her mother.

'What is the matter, Prince? I...' She became silent on seeing his
face. The blood had suddenly rushed to his head.

'You knew it, and used me to shield them! If you weren't a woman...!'
he cried, lifting his enormous fist, and turning aside he ran away.

Had his fiancee's lover been a private person he would have killed him,
but it was his beloved Tsar.

Next day he applied both for furlough and his discharge, and professing
to be ill, so as to see no one, he went away to the country.

He spent the summer at his village arranging his affairs. When summer
was over he did not return to Petersburg, but entered a monastery and
there became a monk.

His mother wrote to try to dissuade him from this decisive step, but
he replied that he felt God's call which transcended all other
considerations. Only his sister, who was as proud and ambitious as he,
understood him.

She understood that he had become a monk in order to be above those who
considered themselves his superiors. And she understood him correctly.
By becoming a monk he showed contempt for all that seemed most important
to others and had seemed so to him while he was in the service, and
he now ascended a height from which he could look down on those he had
formerly