nd led her to a chair.

I stood facing her. We remained silent for a long time; her large eyes,
full of unutterable grief, seemed to be searching in mine for something
resembling hope; her wan lips vainly endeavoured to smile; her tender
hands, which were folded upon her knees, were so thin and transparent
that I pitied her.

"Princess," I said, "you know that I have been making fun of you?... You
must despise me."

A sickly flush suffused her cheeks.

"Consequently," I continued, "you cannot love me"...

She turned her head away, leaned her elbows on the table, covered her
eyes with her hand, and it seemed to me that she was on the point of
tears.

"Oh, God!" she said, almost inaudibly.

The situation was growing intolerable. Another minute--and I should have
fallen at her feet.

"So you see, yourself," I said in as firm a voice as I could command,
and with a forced smile, "you see, yourself, that I cannot marry you.
Even if you wished it now, you would soon repent. My conversation with
your mother has compelled me to explain myself to you so frankly and so
brutally. I hope that she is under a delusion: it will be easy for you
to undeceive her. You see, I am playing a most pitiful and ugly role
in your eyes, and I even admit it--that is the utmost I can do for your
sake. However bad an opinion you may entertain of me, I submit to it...
You see that I am base in your sight, am I not?... Is it not true that,
even if you have loved me, you would despise me from this moment?"...

She turned round to me. She was pale as marble, but her eyes were
sparkling wondrously.

"I hate you"... she said.

I thanked her, bowed respectfully, and left the room.

An hour afterwards a postal express was bearing me rapidly from
Kislovodsk. A few versts from Essentuki I recognized near the roadway
the body of my spirited horse. The saddle had been taken off, no doubt
by a passing Cossack, and, in its place, two ravens were sitting on the
horse's back. I sighed and turned away...

And now, here in this wearisome fortress, I often ask myself, as my
thoughts wander back to the past: why did I not wish to tread that way,
thrown open by destiny, where soft joys and ease of soul were awaiting
me?... No, I could never have become habituated to such a fate! I am
like a sailor born and bred on the deck of a pirate brig: his soul has
grown accustomed to storms and battles; but, once let him be case upon
the shore, and he chafes, he pi