een obliged to walk
fifteen versts on my way back, sleep would not have closed my eyes on
that night either.

I returned to Kislovodsk at five o'clock in the morning, threw myself on
my bed, and slept the sleep of Napoleon after Waterloo.

By the time I awoke it was dark outside. I sat by the open window, with
my jacket unbuttoned--and the mountain breeze cooled my breast, still
troubled by the heavy sleep of weariness. In the distance beyond the
river, through the tops of the thick lime trees which overshadowed it,
lights were glancing in the fortress and the village. Close at hand all
was calm. It was dark in Princess Ligovski's house.

The doctor entered; his brows were knit; contrary to custom, he did not
offer me his hand.

"Where have you come from, doctor?"

"From Princess Ligovski's; her daughter is ill--nervous exhaustion...
That is not the point, though. This is what I have come to tell you:
the authorities are suspicious, and, although it is impossible to prove
anything positively, I should, all the same, advise you to be cautious.
Princess Ligovski told me to-day that she knew that you fought a duel on
her daughter's account. That little old man--what's his name?--has told
her everything. He was a witness of your quarrel with Grushnitski in the
restaurant. I have come to warn you. Good-bye. Maybe we shall not meet
again: you will be banished somewhere."

He stopped on the threshold; he would gladly have pressed my hand...
and, had I shown the slightest desire to embrace him, he would have
thrown himself upon my neck; but I remained cold as a rock--and he left
the room.

That is just like men! They are all the same: they know beforehand all
the bad points of an act, they help, they advise, they even encourage
it, seeing the impossibility of any other expedient--and then they wash
their hands of the whole affair and turn away with indignation from him
who has had the courage to take the whole burden of responsibility upon
himself. They are all like that, even the best-natured, the wisest...

CHAPTER XXII

NEXT morning, having received orders from the supreme authority to
betake myself to the N----Fortress, I called upon Princess Ligovski to
say good-bye.

She was surprised when, in answer to her question, whether I had not
anything of special importance to tell her, I said I had come to wish
her good-bye, and so on.

"But I must have a very serious talk with you."

I sat down in silence.