him, a beggar, in rags. I shall find him in some provincial town.

He will be married and happy. He will have a grown-up daughter.... I shall say to him: “Look, monster, at my hollow cheeks and my rags! I've lost everything--my career, my happiness, art, science, THE WOMAN I LOVED, and all through you. Here are pistols. I have come to discharge my pistol and ... and I ... forgive you. Then I shall fire into the air and he will hear nothing more of me....”

I was actually on the point of tears, though I knew perfectly well at that moment that all this was out of Pushkin's SILVIO and Lermontov's MASQUERADE. And all at once I felt horribly ashamed, so ashamed that I stopped the horse, got out of the sledge, and stood still in the snow in the middle of the street.