ewilderment. Sometimes, for the most part suddenly, this
bewilderment passed into chill horror; her face took a wild, death-like
expression; she locked herself up in her bedroom, and her maid, putting
her ear to the keyhole, could hear her smothered sobs. More than once,
as he went home after a tender interview, Kirsanov felt within him that
heartrending, bitter vexation which follows on a total failure.

'What more do I want?' he asked himself, while his heart was heavy. He
once gave her a ring with a sphinx engraved on the stone.

'What's that?' she asked; 'a sphinx?'

'Yes,' he answered, 'and that sphinx is you.'

'I?' she queried, and slowly raising her enigmatical glance upon him.
'Do you know that's awfully flattering?' she added with a meaningless
smile, while her eyes still kept the same strange look.

Pavel Petrovitch suffered even while Princess R---- loved him; but when
she grew cold to him, and that happened rather quickly, he almost went
out of his mind. He was on the rack, and he was jealous; he gave her no
peace, followed her about everywhere; she grew sick of his pursuit of
her, and she went abroad. He resigned his commission in spite of the
entreaties of his friends and the exhortations of his superiors, and
followed the princess; four years he spent in foreign countries, at one
time pursuing her, at another time intentionally losing sight of her.
He was ashamed of himself, he was disgusted with his own lack of spirit
... but nothing availed. Her image, that incomprehensible, almost
meaningless, but bewitching image, was deeply rooted in his heart. At
Baden he once more regained his old footing with her; it seemed as
though she had never loved him so passionately ... but in a month it
was all at an end: the flame flickered up for the last time and went
out for ever. Foreseeing inevitable separation, he wanted at least to
remain her friend, as though friendship with such a woman was
possible.... She secretly left Baden, and from that time steadily
avoided Kirsanov. He returned to Russia, and tried to live his former
life again; but he could not get back into the old groove. He wandered
from place to place like a man possessed; he still went into society;
he still retained the habits of a man of the world; he could boast of
two or three fresh conquests; but he no longer expected anything much
of himself or of others, and he undertook nothing. He grew old and
grey; spending all his evenings at the club