ich slowly descended, quivering in the air. At the moment
it touched the table Vulich pulled the trigger... a flash in the pan!

"Thank God!" many exclaimed. "It wasn't loaded!"

"Let us see, though," said Vulich.

He cocked the pistol again, and took aim at a forage-cap which was
hanging above the window. A shot rang out. Smoke filled the room; when
it cleared away, the forage-cap was taken down. It had been shot right
through the centre, and the bullet was deeply embedded in the wall.

For two or three minutes no one was able to utter a word. Very quietly
Vulich poured my ducats from the major's purse into his own.

Discussions arose as to why the pistol had not gone off the first
time. Some maintained that probably the pan had been obstructed; others
whispered that the powder had been damp the first time, and that,
afterwards, Vulich had sprinkled some fresh powder on it; but I
maintained that the last supposition was wrong, because I had not once
taken my eyes off the pistol.

"You are lucky at play!" I said to Vulich...

"For the first time in my life!" he answered, with a complacent smile.
"It is better than 'bank' and 'shtoss.'" [23]

"But, on the other hand, slightly more dangerous!"

"Well? Have you begun to believe in predestination?

"I do believe in it; only I cannot understand now why it appeared to me
that you must inevitably die to-day!"

And this same man, who, such a short time before, had with the greatest
calmness aimed a pistol at his own forehead, now suddenly fired up and
became embarrassed.

"That will do, though!" he said, rising to his feet. "Our wager is
finished, and now your observations, it seems to me, are out of place."

He took up his cap and departed. The whole affair struck me as being
strange--and not without reason. Shortly after that, all the officers
broke up and went home, discussing Vulich's freaks from different points
of view, and, doubtless, with one voice calling me an egoist for having
taken up a wager against a man who wanted to shoot himself, as if he
could not have found a convenient opportunity without my intervention.

I returned home by the deserted byways of the village. The moon, full
and red like the glow of a conflagration, was beginning to make its
appearance from behind the jagged horizon of the house-tops; the stars
were shining tranquilly in the deep, blue vault of the sky; and I was
struck by the absurdity of the idea when I recalled to mind that