ossal business; that immense arena of toil and struggle,
through which an enormous vein of gold runs, may belong to
Darvid. How timely this is! The business will freshen him; snatch
him out of the evil dreams into which he has fallen for some time
past. Indeed, all these exaltations, all these elements of
feeling, which have risen in him with such power, are an
unwholesome and nervous dream, out of which he must shake himself
and return to clear, sober, sound reality.

CHAPTER XI

A rather long series of days had passed when Darvid entered his
clear, brightly lighted study, after winning one of the very
greatest triumphs of his life. In the antechamber he had thrown
into the hands of a footman, not his fur, but a somewhat light
overcoat; for that day, which for him had been lucky, was
succeeded by a warm, spring evening. Whoever might have seen him
when he was leaving the lofty threshold of the highest dignitary
in that city must have said to himself: "Happy man!" Though he
had grown evidently thin during recent days; gladness and pride
were beaming from his smile; from his eyes; from his serene
forehead. He possessed now that for which he had striven long in
vain: he held in his hand the colossal enterprise; before him was
a broad arena for iron toil and a great vein, of gold. It is
true, that while making ready for that moment of triumph, he had
spent days and nights like a Benedictine over piles of books and
documents, calculating, combining, covering many folios of paper
with arguments and figures. He had toiled immensely, thinking of
nothing save the toil; and now, when he stood at his object as a
conqueror, all people said: he is happy! He had received a
multitude of congratulations already; in the eyes of men he had
read much admiration. He had just returned from a meeting where,
by accurate and fluent speech, he had convinced and won over a
numerous assembly of men of uncommon keenness and significance.
Thus had he passed the day; now, in the middle of the evening, he
returned to his house; and when he had given the servant in
attendance the brief command: "Receive no one!" he asked:

"Where is the little dog?"

After that he dropped into a deep armchair near the round table,
and had the face, for a while, of a man who is waking from sleep.
For a number of days he had been so buried in thought over this
weighty enterprise, and that day from early morning he had been
so absorbed by the feeling of that