l the while he was speaking, I was looking at him straight into the face
and I felt all at once a complete trust in him and great curiosity on my
side also, for I felt that there was some strange secret in his soul.

"You ask what were my exact sensations at the moment when I asked my
opponent's forgiveness," I answered; "but I had better tell you from the
beginning what I have not yet told any one else." And I described all that
had passed between Afanasy and me, and how I had bowed down to the ground
at his feet. "From that you can see for yourself," I concluded, "that at
the time of the duel it was easier for me, for I had made a beginning
already at home, and when once I had started on that road, to go farther
along it was far from being difficult, but became a source of joy and
happiness."

I liked the way he looked at me as he listened. "All that," he said, "is
exceedingly interesting. I will come to see you again and again."

And from that time forth he came to see me nearly every evening. And we
should have become greater friends, if only he had ever talked of himself.
But about himself he scarcely ever said a word, yet continually asked me
about myself. In spite of that I became very fond of him and spoke with
perfect frankness to him about all my feelings; "for," thought I, "what
need have I to know his secrets, since I can see without that that he is a
good man? Moreover, though he is such a serious man and my senior, he
comes to see a youngster like me and treats me as his equal." And I
learned a great deal that was profitable from him, for he was a man of
lofty mind.

"That life is heaven," he said to me suddenly, "that I have long been
thinking about"; and all at once he added, "I think of nothing else
indeed." He looked at me and smiled. "I am more convinced of it than you
are, I will tell you later why."

I listened to him and thought that he evidently wanted to tell me
something.

"Heaven," he went on, "lies hidden within all of us--here it lies hidden in
me now, and if I will it, it will be revealed to me to-morrow and for all
time."

I looked at him; he was speaking with great emotion and gazing
mysteriously at me, as if he were questioning me.

"And that we are all responsible to all for all, apart from our own sins,
you were quite right in thinking that, and it is wonderful how you could
comprehend it in all its significance at once. And in very truth, so soon
as men understand that, the Ki