Despair

Part IVof a novel

Synopsis: In a comfortable flat in Berlin dwell our narrator, Hermann, a chocolate merchant; his wife, Lydia; and their maid, Elsie. A frequent visitor is the painter Ardalion, Lydia's cousin. Another caller is the philosophic Orlovius.

Although he is unaware of it at the time, Hermann's life reaches an ominous turning point when, during a business trip to Prague, he meets Felix, an unemployed wanderer, and immediately decides that the latter is his double. Felix, however, does not see this resemblance; yet he humors Hermann in the hope that the merchant can get him a job. This Hermann agrees to do and, still stunned by what he alone deems to be the uncanny closeness of their resemblance, he acquires his double's mailing address near Tarnitz and returns to his home in Berlin.

There he finds that his business is failing rapidly and that he now faces bankruptcy. In addition, he discovers Lydia and Ardalion romping, playing cards, wrestling occasionally in the painter's shabby studio. For the most part, Hermann--ever preoccupied with his mirrors, in which he may envisage himself as one of history's greats or an utter failure--ignores these frolics. One day he joins his wife and her cousin in a picnic at Ardalion's wooded retreat near Koenigsdorf. Hermann finds himself strangely and strongly drawn to this rustic bosque and, later, he revisits it alone on a number of occasions. Gradually, he discovers within himself an alien compulsion to see Felix again; he therefore arranges to meet his double in Tarnitz. Slowly a bizarre and dangerous plan, involving Felix, has begun to obsess him.

In a public park in Tarnitz, Hermann and Felix talk at length about their origins, their relationship to each other, and about Felix' role in Hermann's scheme. Hermann takes his double to dinner and then to his hotel. While Felix sleeps, Hermann steals away and entrains for Berlin.

The stage, he knows, is set for the playing out of his macabre scheme.

When I Returned from Tarnitz to Berlin and drew up an inventory of my soul's belongings, I rejoiced like a child over the small but certain riches found therein, and I had the sensation that, renovated, refreshed, released, I was entering, as the saying goes, upon a new period of life. I had a bird-witted but attractive wife who worshiped me; a nice little flat; an accommodating stomach; and a blue car. There was in me, I felt, a poet, an author; also, big commercial capacities, albeit business remained pretty dull. Felix, my double, seemed no more than a harmless curio, and, quite possibly, I should in those days have told friends about him, had I had any friends. I toyed with the idea of dropping my chocolate and taking up something else; the publishing, for instance, of expensive volumes de luxe dealing exhaustively with sexual relations as revealed in literature, art, science ... in short, I was bursting with fierce energy which I did not know how to apply.

One November evening, especially, stands out in my memory: upon coming home from the office I did not find my wife in--she had left me a note saying she had gone to the movies. Not knowing what to do with myself I paced the rooms and snapped my fingers; then sat down at my desk with the intention of writing a bit of fine prose, but all I managed to do was to beslobber my pen and draw a series of running noses; so I got up and went out, because I was in sore need of some sort--any sort of intercourse with the world, my own company being intolerable, since it excited me too much and to no purpose. I betook myself to Ardalion; a mountebank of a man, red-blooded and despicable. When at last he let me in (he locked himself up in his room for fear of creditors) I caught myself wondering why had I come at all.

"Lydia is here," he said, revolving something in his mouth (chewing gum as it proved later). "The woman is very ill. Make yourself comfortable."

On Ardalion's bed, half dressed--that is, shoeless and wearing only a rumpled green slip--Lydia lay smoking.

"Oh, Hermann," she said, "how nice of you to think of coming. There's something wrong with my tum. Sit down here. It's better now, but I felt awful at the cinema."

"In the middle of a jolly good film, too," Ardalion complained, as he poked at his pipe and scattered its black contents about the floor. "She's been sprawling like that for the last half-hour. A woman's imagination, that's all. Fit as a fiddle."

"Tell him to hold his tongue," said Lydia.

"Look here," I said, turning to Ardalion, "surely I am not mistaken; you have painted, haven't you, such a picture--a briar pipe and two roses?"

He produced a sound, which indiscriminate novel-writers render thus: "H'm."

"Not that I know of," he replied, "you seem to have been working too much, old chap."

"My first," said Lydia lying on the bed, with her eyes shut, "my first is a romantic fiery feeling. My second is a beast. My whole is a beast too, if you like--or else a dauber."

"Do not mind her," said Ardalion. "As to that pipe and roses, no, I can't think of it. But you might look for yourself."

His daubs hung on the walls, lay in disorder on the table, were heaped in a corner. Everything in the room was fluffy with dust. I examined the smudgy purplish spots of his water colors; fingered gingerly several greasy pastels lying on a rickety chair ...

"First," said Ardor-lion to his fair cousin, a horrid tease, "you should learn to spell my name."

I left the room and made my way to the landlady's dining room. That ancient dame, very like an owl, was sitting in a Gothic armchair which stood on a slight elevation of the floor next to the window and was darning a stocking distended upon a wooden mushroom.

"... To see the pictures," I said.

"Pray do," she answered graciously.

Immediately to the right of the sideboard I espied what I was seeking; it turned out, however, to be not quite two roses and not quite a pipe, but a couple of large peaches and a glass ashtray.

I came back in a state of acute irritation.

"Well," Ardalion inquired, "found it?"

Shook my head. Lydia had already slipped on her dress and shoes and was in the act of smoothing her hair before the mirror with Ardalion's hairbrush.

"Funny--must have eaten something," she said with that little trick she had of narrowing her nose.

"Just wind," remarked Ardalion. "Wait a moment, you people. I'm coming with you. I'll be dressed in a jiffy. Turn away, Lyddy."

He was in a patched, color-smeared house-painter's smock, coming down almost to his heels. This he took off. There was nothing beneath save his silver cross and symmetrical tufts of hair. I do hate slovenliness and dirt. Upon my word, Felix was somehow cleaner than he. Lydia looked out of the window and kept humming a little song which had long gone out of fashion (and how badly she pronounced the German words). Ardalion wandered about the room, dressing by stages according to what he discovered in the most unexpected spots.

"Ah, me!" he explained all at once. "What can there be more commonplace than an impecunious artist? If some good soul helped me to arrange an exhibition, next day I'd be famous and rich."

He had supper with us, then played cards with Lydia and left after midnight. I offer this as a sample of an evening gaily and profitably spent. Yes, all was well, all was excellent, I felt another man, refreshed, renovated, released (a flat, a wife, the pleasant, all-pervading cold of an iron-hard Berlin winter) and so on. I cannot refrain from giving as well an instance of my literary exercises--a sort of subconscious training, I suppose, in view of my present tussle with this harassing tale. The coy trifles composed that winter have been destroyed, but one of them still lingers in my memory....Which reminds me of Turgenev's prose poems...."How fair, how fresh were the roses" to the accompaniment of the piano. So may I trouble you for a little music.

Once upon a time there lived a weak, seedy, but fairly rich person, one Mr. X.Y. He was in love with a bewitching young lady, who, alas, paid no attention to him. One day, while traveling, this pale, dull man happened to notice, on the seashore, a young fisherman called Mario, a merry, sunburned, strong fellow, who, for all that, was marvelously, stupendously like him. A cute idea occurred to our hero: he invited the young lady to come with him to the seaside. They lodged at different hotels. On the very first morning she went for a walk and saw from the top of the cliff--whom? Was that really Mr. X.Y.? Well, I never! He was standing on the sand below, merry, sunburned, in a striped jersey, with bare strong arms (but it was Mario!). The damsel returned to her hotel all aquiver and waited, waited! The golden minutes turning into lead ...

In the meantime the real Mr. X.Y. who, from behind a bay tree, had seen her looking down at Mario, his double (and was now giving her heart time to ripen definitely), loitered anxiously about the village dressed in a town suit, with a lilac tie. All of a sudden a brown fishergirl in a scarlet skirt called out to him from the threshold of a cottage and with a Latin gesture of surprise exclaimed: "How wonderfully you are dressed up, Mario! I always thought you were a simple rude fisherman, as all our young men are, and I did not love you; but now, now ..." She drew him into the hut. Whispering lips, a blend of fish and hair lotion, burning caresses. So the hours fled ...

At last Mr. X.Y. opened his eyes and went to the hotel where his dear one, his only love, was feverishly awaiting him. "I have been blind," she cried as he entered. "And now my sight has been restored by your appearing in all your bronze nakedness on that sun-kissed beach. Yes, I love you. Do with me what you will." Whispering lips? Burning caresses? Fleeting hours? No, alas, no--emphatically no. Only a lingering smell of fish. The poor fellow was thoroughly spent by his recent spree, and so there he sat, very glum and downcast, thinking what a fool he had been to betray and annul his own glorious plan.

Very mediocre stuff, I know that myself. During the process of writing I was under the impression that I was turning (continued on page 156) despair (continued from page 104) out something very smart and witty; on occasions a like thing happens in dreams; you dream you are making a speech of the utmost brilliancy, but when you recall it upon awakening, it goes nonsensically: "Besides being silent before tea, I'm silent before eyes in mire and mirorage," etc.

On the other hand, that little story in the Oscar Wilde style would quite suit the literary columns of newspapers, the editors of which, German editors especially, like to offer their readers just such tiny tales of the pretty-pretty and slightly licentious sort, 40 lines in all, with an elegant point and a sprinkling of what the ignoramus calls paradoxes ("his conversation sparkled with paradoxes"). Yes, a trifle, a flip of the pen, but how amazed you will be when I tell you that I wrote that sloppy drivel in an agony of pain and horror, with a grinding of teeth, furiously unburdening myself and at the same time being fully aware that it was no relief at all, only a refined self-torture, and that I would never free my dusty, dusky soul by this method, but merely make things worse.

It was more or less in such a frame of mind that I met New Year's Eve; I remember the black carcass of that night, that half-witted hag of a night, holding her breath and listening for the stroke of the sacramental hour. Disclosed, sitting at the table: Lydia, Ardalion, Orlovius, and I, quite still and blazon-stiff like heraldic creatures. Lydia with her elbow on the table, her index finger raised watchfully, her shoulders naked, her dress as variegated as the back of a playing card; Ardalion swathed in a lap robe (because of the open balcony door), with a red sheen upon his fat leonine face; Orlovius in a black frock coat, his glasses gleaming, his turned-down collar swallowing the ends of his tiny black tie; and I, the Human Lightning, illuminating that scene.

Good, now you may move again, be quick with that bottle, the clock is going to strike. Ardalion poured out the champagne, and we were all dead-still once more. Askance and over his spectacles, Orlovius looked at his old silver turnip that lay on the tablecloth; still two minutes left. Somebody in the street was unable to hold out any longer and cracked with a loud report; and then again that strained silence. Staring at his watch, Orlovius slowly extended toward his glass a senile hand with the claws of a griffin.

Suddenly the night gave and began to rip; cheers came from the street; with our champagne glasses we came out, like kings, on the balcony. Rockets whizzed up above the street and with a bang burst into bright-colored tears; and at all windows, in all balconies, framed in wedges and squares of festive light, people stood and cried out over and over again the same idiotic greeting.

We four clinked our glasses; I took a sip out of mine.

"What is Hermann drinking to?" asked Lydia of Ardalion.

"Don't know and don't care," the latter replied. "Whatever it is, he is going to be beheaded this year. For concealing his profits."

"Fie, what ugly speech!" said Orlovius. "I drink to the universal health."

"You would," I remarked.

A few days later, on a Sunday morning, as I was about to step into my bath, the maid rapped at the door; she kept saying something which I could not distinguish because of the running water: "What's the matter?" I bellowed. "What d'you want?"--but my own voice and the noise made by the water drowned Elsie's words and every time she started speaking, I again bellowed, just as it happens that two people, both side-stepping, cannot steer clear of each other on a wide and perfectly free pavement. But at length I thought of turning off the tap; then I leaped to the door and amid the sudden silence Elsie's childish voice said:

"There's a man, sir, to see you."

"A man?" I asked, and opened the door.

"A man," repeated Elsie, as if commenting on my nakedness.

"What does he want?" I asked, and not only felt myself perspiring, but actually saw myself beaded from head to foot.

"He says it's business, sir, and you know all about it."

"What does he look like?" I asked with an effort.

"Waiting in the hall," said Elsie, contemplating with the utmost indifference my pearly armor.

"What kind of man?"

"Kind of poor, sir, and with a shoulder bag."

"Then tell him to go to hell!" I roared. "Let him be gone at once, I'm not at home, I'm not in town, I'm not in this world."

I slammed the door, shot the bolt. My heart seemed to be pounding right up in my throat. Half a minute or so passed. I do not know what came over me, but, already shouting, I suddenly unfastened the door and still naked, jumped out of the bathroom. In the passage I collided with Elsie who was returning to the kitchen.

"Stop him," I shouted. "Where is he? Stop him."

"He's gone," she said, politely disengaging herself from my unintentional embrace.

"Why the deuce did you--" I began, but did not finish my sentence, rushed away, put on shoes, trousers and overcoat, ran downstairs and out into the street. Nobody. I went on to the corner, stood there for a while looking about me and finally went back indoors. I was alone, as Lydia had gone out very early to see some female acquaintance of hers, she said. When she returned I told her I was feeling out of sorts and would not come with her to the café as had been settled.

"Poor thing," she said. "You should lie down and take something; there's aspirin somewhere. All right. I'll go to the café alone."

She went. The maid had gone out too. I listened in agony for the doorbell to ring.

"What a fool," I kept repeating, "what an incredible fool!"

I was in an awful state of quite morbid exasperation. I did not know what to do, I was ready to pray to a nonexistent God for the sound of the bell. When it grew dark I did not switch on the light, but remained lying on the divan--listening, listening. He was sure to come before the front door was locked for the night, and if he did not, well, then tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow he was quite, quite certain to come. I should die if he did not--oh, he was bound to come....At last, about eight o'clock the bell did ring. I ran to the door.

"Phew, I am tired!" said Lydia in homely fashion, pulling her hat off as she entered, and tossing her hair.

She was accompanied by Ardalion. He and I went to the parlor, while my wife got busy in the kitchen.

"Cold is the pilgrim and hungry!" said Ardalion, warming his palms at the central heating and misquoting the poet Nekrasov.

A silence.

"Say what you may," he went on, peering at my portrait, "but there is a likeness, quite a remarkable likeness, in fact. I know I'm being conceited, but, really, I can't help admiring it every blessed time I see it. And you've done well, my dear fellow, to shave that mustache off again."

"Supper is served," chanted Lydia gently, from the dining room.

I could not touch my food. I kept on sending one ear out to walk up and again up to the door of my flat, though it was much too late now.

"Two pet dreams of mine," spoke Ardalion, folding up layers of ham as if it were pancakes, and richly munching. "Two heavenly dreams: exhibition and trip to Italy."

"This person has not touched a drop of vodka for more than a month," said Lydia in an explanatory way.

"Talking of vodka," said Ardalion, "has Perebrodov been to see you?"

Lydia put her hand to her mouth. " 'Scaped by bebory," she said through her fingers. "Absolutely."

"Never saw such a goose. The fact is I had asked her to tell you ... It's about a poor artist-fellow--Perebrodov by name--old pal of mine and all that. Came on foot from Danzig you know, or at least says he did. He sells hand-painted cigarette cases, so I gave him your address--Lydia thought you'd help him."

"Oh, yes, he has called," I answered, "yes, he has called all right. And I jolly well told him to go to the devil. I'd be most obliged to you, if you'd stop sending me all kinds of sponging rogues. You may tell your friend not to bother about coming again. Really--it's a bit thick. Anyone would think I was a professional benefactor. Go to blazes with your what's-his-name--I simply won't have ..."

"There, there, Hermann," put in Lydia softly.

Ardalion made an explosive sound with his lips. "Passing sad," he observed.

I went on fuming for some time--don't remember the exact words--not important.

"It really seems," said Ardalion with a side glance at Lydia, "I have put my foot in. Sorry."

I fell silent suddenly and sat deep in thought, stirring my tea which had long done all it could with the sugar; then after a time I said aloud:

"What a perfect donkey I am."

"Oh, come, don't overdo it," said Ardalion good-naturedly.

My own folly made me gay. How on earth had it not occurred to me that if Felix had actually come (which in itself would have been something of a wonder, considering he did not even know my name), the maid ought to have been flabbergasted, for in front of her would have stood my perfect double!

Now that I had come to think of it my fancy conjured up vividly the girl's ejaculation, and how she would have rushed to me and gasped, and clung to me, babbling about the marvel of our resemblance. Then I would have explained to her that it was my brother unexpectedly arrived from Russia. As it was I had spent a long lonely day in absurd sufferings, for instead of being surprised by the bare fact of his coming I had kept trying to decide what was going to happen next--whether he had gone for good or would come back yet, and what was his game, and had not his coming vitiated the fulfillment of my still unvanquished, wild and wonderful dream; or alternatively, had a score of people, knowing my face, seen him in the street, which, if so, would have meant an end to my plans.

After having thus pondered over the shortcomings of my reason, and the danger so easily dispelled, I felt, as already mentioned, a flow of merriment and good will.

"I'm nervy today. Please excuse me. To be honest, I have simply not seen your delightful friend. He came at the wrong moment. I was having my bath, and Elsie told him I wasn't in. Here: give him these three marks when you see him--what I can do I do gladly--and tell him I can't afford any more, so he'd better apply to somebody else--to Vladimir Isakovich Davidov, perhaps."

"That's an idea," said Ardalion, "I'll have a shot there myself. By the bye, he drinks like a fish, good old Perebrodov. Ask that aunt of mine, who married a French farmer--I told you about her--a very lively lady, but dashed close-fisted. She had some land in the Crimea and during the fighting there in 1920 Perebrodov and I drank up her cellar."

"As to that trip to Italy--well, we shall see," said I, smiling, "yes, we shall see."

"Hermann has a heart of gold," remarked Lydia.

"Pass me the sausage, my dear," said I, smiling as before.

I could not quite make out at the time what was going on in me--but now I know what it was: my passion for my double was surging anew with a muffled but formidable violence which soon escaped all control. It started by my becoming aware that, in the town of Berlin, there had appeared a certain dim central point round which a confused force compelled me to circle closer and closer. The cobalt blue of mailboxes, or that yellow plump-wheeled automobile with the emblematic black-feathered eagle under its barred window; a postman with his bag on his belly walking down the street (with that special rich slowness which marks the ways of the experienced worker) or the stamp-emitting automaton at the underground station; or even some little philatelistic shop, with appetizingly blended stamps from all parts of the world crammed into windowed envelopes; in short, everything connected with the post had begun to exercise upon me a strange pressure, a ruthless influence.

I remember that one day something very like somnambulism took me to a certain lane I knew well, and so there I was, moving nearer and nearer to the magnetic point that had become the peg of my being; but with a start I collected my wits and fled; and presently--within a few minutes or quite as possibly within a few days--I noticed that again I had entered that lane. It was distribution time, and they came toward me, at a leisurely walk, a dozen blue postmen, and leisurely they dispersed at the corner. I turned, biting my thumb, I shook my head, I was still resisting; and all the while, with the mad throb of unerring intuition, I knew that the letter was there, awaiting my call and that sooner or later I would yield to temptation.

• • •

To begin with, let us take the following motto (not especially for this chapter, but generally): Literature is Love. Now we can continue.

It was darkish in the post office; two or three people stood at every counter, mostly women; and at every counter, framed in his little window, like some tarnished picture, showed the face of an official. I looked for number nine....I wavered before going up to it....There was, in the middle of the place, a series of writing desks, so I lingered there, pretending, in front of my own self, that I had something to write: on the back of an old bill which I found in my pocket, I began to scrawl the very first words that came. The pen supplied by the State screeched and rattled, I kept thrusting it into the inkwell, into the black spit therein; the pale blotting paper upon which I leaned my elbow was all criss-crossed with the imprints of unreadable lines. Those irrational characters, preceded as it were by a minus, remind me always of mirrors: minus X minus = plus. It struck me that perhaps Felix too was a minus I, and that was a line of thought of quite astounding importance, which I did wrong, oh, very wrong, not to have thoroughly investigated.

Meanwhile the consumptive pen in my hand went on spitting words: can't stop, can't stop, cans, pots, stop, he'll to hell. I crumpled the slip of paper in my fist. An impatient fat female squeezed in and snatched up the pen, now free, shoving me aside as she did so with a twist of her sealskin rump.

All of a sudden I found myself standing at counter nine. A large face with a sandy mustache glanced at me inquiringly. I breathed the password. A hand with a black cot on the index finger gave me not one but three letters. It now seems to me to have all happened in a flash; and the next moment I was walking along the street with my hand pressed to my heart. As soon as I reached a bench I sat down and tore the letters open.

Put up some memorial there; for instance, a yellow signpost. Let that particle of time leave a mark in space as well. There I was, sitting and reading--and then suddenly choking with unexpected and irrepressible laughter. Oh, courteous reader, those were letters of the blackmailing kind! A blackmailing letter, which none perhaps will ever unseal, a blackmailing letter addressed P. O. till called for, under an agreed cipher, to boot, i.e., with the candid confession that its sender knows neither the name nor the address of the person he writes to--that is a wildly funny paradox indeed!

In the first of those three letters (middle of November) the blackmail theme was merely foreshadowed. It was much offended with me, that letter, it demanded explanations, it seemed verily to elevate its eyebrows, as its author did, ready at a moment's notice to smile his arch smile; for he did not understand, he said, he was extremely desirous to understand, why I had behaved so mysteriously, why I had, without clinching matters, stolen away in the dead of night. He did have certain suspicions, that he did, but was not willing to show his cards yet; was ready to conceal those suspicions from the world, if only I acted as I should; and with dignity he expressed his hesitations and with dignity expected a reply. It was all very ungrammatical and at the same time stilted, that mixture being his natural style.

In the next letter (end of December. What patience!) the specific theme was already more conspicuous. It was plain now why he wrote to me at all. The memory of that 1000-mark note, of that gray-blue vision which had whisked under his very nose and then vanished, gnawed at his entrails; his cupidity was stung to the quick, he licked his parched lips, he could not forgive himself for having let me go and thus been cheated of that adorable rustle, which made the tips of his fingers itch. So he wrote that he was ready to grant me a new interview; that he had thought things over of late; but that if I declined seeing him or simply did not reply he would be compelled--right here came pat an enormous ink-blot which the scoundrel had made on purpose with the object of intriguing me, as he had not the faintest notion what kind of threat to declare.

Lastly, the third, January, letter was a true masterpiece on his part. I remember it in more detail than the rest, because I preserved it somewhat longer:

Receiving no answers to my first letters it begins seeming to me that it is high time to adopt certain measures but notwithstanding I give you one more month for reflection after which I shall go straight to such a place where your actions will be fully judged at their full value though if there also I find no sympathy for who is uncorruptible nowadays then I shall have recourse to action the exact nature of which I leave wholly to your imagination as I consider that when the government does not want and there is an end of it to punish swindlers it is every honest citizen's duty to produce such a crashing din in relation to the undesirable person as to make the state react willy-nilly but in view of your personal situation and from considerations of kindness and readiness to oblige I am prepared to give up my intention and refrain from making any noise upon the condition that during the current month you send me please a rather considerable sum as indemnity for all the worries I have had the exact amount of which I leave with respect to your own estimation.

Signed: "Sparrow" and underneath the address of a provincial post office.

I was long in relishing that last letter, the Gothic charm of which my rather tame translation is hardly capable of rendering. All its features pleased me: that majestic stream of words, untrammeled by a single punctuation mark; that doltish display of puny curdom coming from so harmless-looking an individual; that implied consent to accept any proposal, however revolting, provided he got the money. But what, above all, gave me delight, delight of such force and ripeness that it was difficult to bear, consisted in the fact that Felix of his own accord, without any prompting from me, had reappeared and was offering me his services; nay, more: was commanding me to make use of his services and, withal doing everything I wished, was relieving me of any responsibility that might be incurred by the fatal succession of events.

I rocked with laughter as I sat on that bench. Oh, do erect a monument there (a yellow post) by all means! How did he conceive it--the simpleton? That his letters would, by some sort of telepathy, inform me of their arrival and that after a magical perusal of their contents I would magically believe in the potency of his phantom menaces? How amusing that I did somehow feel that the letters awaited me, counter number nine, and that I did intend answering them; in other words, what he--in his arrogant stupidity--had conjectured, had happened!

As I sat on that bench and clasped those letters in my burning embrace, I was suddenly aware that my scheme had received a final outline and that everything, or nearly everything, was already settled; a mere couple of details were still missing which would be no trouble to fix. What, indeed, does trouble mean in such matters? It all went on by itself, it all flowed and fused together, smoothly taking inevitable forms, since that very moment when I had first seen Felix.

Why, what is this talk about trouble, when it is the harmony of mathematical symbols, the movement of planets, the hitchless working of natural laws which have a true bearing upon the subject? My wonderful edifice grew without my assistance; yes, from the very start everything had complied with my wishes; and when now I asked myself what to write to Felix, I was hardly astonished to find that letter in my brain, as ready-made there as those congratulatory telegrams with vignettes that can be sent for a certain additional payment to newly married couples. It only remained to inscribe the date in the space left for it on the printed form.

Let us discuss crime, crime as an art; and card tricks. I am greatly worked up just at present. Oh, Conan Doyle! How marvelously you could have crowned your creation when your two heroes began boring you! What an opportunity, what a subject you missed! For you could have written one last tale concluding the whole Sherlock Holmes epic; one last episode beautifully setting off the rest: the murderer in that tale should have turned out to be not the one-legged bookkeeper, not the Chinaman Ching and not the woman in crimson, but the very chronicler of the crime stories, Dr. Watson himself--Watson, who, so to speak, knew what was Whatson. A staggering surprise for the reader.

I put the third and most vicious letter into my pocketbook and tore up the other two, throwing their fragments into the neighboring shrubbery (which at once attracted several sparrows who mistook them for crumbs). Then I sallied to my office where I typed a letter to Felix with detailed indications as to when and where he should come; enclosed 20 marks and went out again.

I did not drop the letter, but stood there, bending under my burden as before, and looking from under my brows at two little girls playing near me on the pavement: they rolled by turns an iridescent marble, aiming at a pit in the soil near the curb.

I selected the younger of the two--she was a delicate little thing, dark-haired, dressed in a checkered frock (what a wonder she was not cold on that harsh February day) and, patting her on the head, I said: "Look here, my dear, my eyes are so weak that I'm afraid of missing the slit; do, please, drop this letter for me into the box over there."

She glanced up at me, rose from her squatting position (she had a small face of translucid pallor and rare beauty), took the letter, gave me a divine smile accompanied by a sweep of her long lashes, and ran to the letter box. I did not wait to see the rest, and crossed the street, slitting my eyes (that ought to be noted) as if I really did not see well: art for art's sake, for there was no one about.

At the next corner I slipped into the glass booth of a public telephone and rang up Ardalion: it was necessary to do something about him as I had decided long ago that this meddlesome portrait-painter was the only person of whom I ought to beware. Let psychologists clear up the question whether it was the simulation of nearsightedness that by association prompted me to act at once toward Ardalion as I had long intended to act, or was it, on the contrary, my constantly reminding myself of his dangerous eyes that gave me the idea of feigning nearsightedness.

Oh, by the bye, lest I forget, she will grow up, that child, she will be very good-looking and probably happy, and she will never know in what an eerie business she had served as go-between.

Then, also, there is another likelihood: fate, not suffering such blind and naïve brokerage, envious fate with its vast experience, assortment of confidence tricks, and hatred of competition, may cruelly punish that little maiden for intruding, and make her wonder--"Whatever have I done to be so unfortunate?" and never, never, never will she understand. But my conscience is clear. Not I wrote to Felix, but he wrote to me; not I sent him the answer, but an unknown child.

When I reached my next destination, a pleasant café, in front of which, amid a small public garden, there used to play on summer evenings a fountain of changing colors, cleverly lit up from below by polychromatic projectors (but now the garden was bare and dreary, and no fountain twinkled, and the thick curtains of the café had won in their class struggle with loafing drafts ... how racily I write and, what is more, how cool I am, how perfectly self-possessed); when, as I say, I arrived, Ardalion was already sitting there, and upon seeing me, he raised his arm in the Roman fashion. I took off my gloves, my hat, my white silk muffler, sat down next to him, and threw out on the table a packet of expensive cigarettes.

"What are the good tidings?" asked Ardalion, who always spoke to me in a special fatuous manner.

I ordered coffee and began approximately thus:

"Well, yes--there is news for you. Of late I have been greatly worried, my friend, by the thought that you were going to the dogs. An artist cannot live without mistresses and cypresses, as Pushkin says somewhere or should have said. Owing to the hardships you undergo and to the general stuffiness of your way of living, your talent is dying, is pining away, so to speak; does not squirt in fact, just as that colored fountain in that garden over there does not squirt in winter."

"Thank you for the comparison," said Ardalion, looking hurt. "That horror ... that illumination in the caramel style. I would rather, you know, not discuss my talent, because your conception of ars pictoris amounts to ..." (an unprintable pun here).

"Lydia and I have often spoken," I went on, ignoring his dog-latin and vulgarity--"spoken about your plight. I consider you ought to change your surroundings, refresh your mind, imbibe new impressions."

Ardalion winced.

"What have surroundings to do with art?" he muttered.

"Anyway, your present ones are disastrous to you, so they do mean something, I suppose. Those roses and peaches with which you adorn your landlady's dining room, those portraits of respectable citizens at whose houses you contrive to sup--"

"Well, really ... contrive!"

"... It may all be admirable, even full of genius, but--excuse my frankness--doesn't it strike you as rather monotonous and forced? You ought to dwell in some other clime with plenty of sunshine: sunshine is the friend of painters. I can see, though, that this topic doesn't interest you. Let's talk of something else. Tell me, for instance, how do matters stand with that allotment of yours?"

"Dashed if I know. They keep sending me letters in German; I'd ask you for a translation, but it bores me stiff.... And--well, I either lose the things or just tear them up as they come. I understand they demand additional payments. Next summer I'll build a house there, that's what I'll do. Then they won't pull out the land from under it, I fancy. But you were speaking, my dear chap, about a change of climate. Go on, I'm listening."

"Oh, it's not much use, you are not interested. I talk sense and that nettles you."

"God bless you, why on earth should I be nettled? On the contrary--"

"No, it's no use."

"You mentioned Italy, my dear chap. Fire away. I like the subject."

"I haven't really mentioned it yet," said I with a laugh. "But as you have pronounced that word ... I say, isn't it nice and cosy here? There are rumors that you have stopped ..."--and by a succession of fillips under my jaw I produced the sound of a gurgling bottleneck.

"Yes. Cut out drink altogether. I'd not refuse one just now, though. The cracking-a-bottle-with-a-friend affair, if you see what I mean. Oh, all right, I was only joking...."

"So much the better, because nothing would come of it: quite impossible to make me tight. So that's that. Heigh-ho, how badly I have slept tonight! Heigh-ho ... ah! Awful thing insomnia," I went on, looking at him through my tears. "Ah ... Do pardon me for yawning like that."

Ardalion, smiling wistfully, was toying with his spoon. His fat face, with its leonine nose-bridge, was inclined; his eyelids--reddish warts for lashes--half screened his revoltingly bright eyes. All of a sudden he flashed a glance at me and said:

"If I took a trip to Italy, I'd indeed paint some gorgeous stuff. What I'd get out of selling it would at once go to settle my debt."

"Your debt? Got debts?" I asked mockingly.

"Oh, drop it, Hermann Karlovich," said he, using for the first time, I think, my name and patronymic. "You quite understand what I'm driving at. Lend me two hundred fifty marks, or make it dollars, and I'll pray for your soul in all the Florentine churches."

"For the moment take this to pay for your visa," said I flinging open my wallet. "You have, I suppose, one of those Nansen-sical passports, not a solid German one, as I shall soon possess. Ask for the visa immediately, otherwise you'll spend this advance on drink."

"Shake hands, old man," said Ardalion.

We both kept silent awhile, he, because he was brimming with feelings, which meant little to me, and I, because the matter was ended and there was nothing to say.

"Brilliant idea," cried Ardalion suddenly. "My dear chap, why shouldn't you let Lyddy come with me; it's damn dull here; the little woman needs something to amuse her. Now if I go by myself ... You see she's of the jealous sort--she'll keep imagining me getting tight somewhere. Really, do let her come away with me for a month, eh?"

"Maybe she'll come later on. Maybe we'll both come. Long have I, weary slave, been planning my escape to the far land of art and the translucent grape. Good. I'm afraid I've got to go now. Two coffees; that's all, isn't it?"

• • •

Early next morning--it was not nine yet--I made my way to one of the central underground stations and there, at the top of the stairs, took up a strategical position. At even intervals there would come rushing out of the cavernous deep a batch of people with briefcases--up, up the stairs, shuffling and stamping, and every now and again somebody's toe would hit, with a clank, the metallic advertisement sign which a certain firm finds it advisable to affix to the front part of the steps. On the second one from the top, with his back to the wall and his hat in his hand (who was the first mendicant genius who adapted a hat to the wants of his profession?), there stood, stooping his shoulders as humbly as possible, an elderly wretch. Higher still, there was an assembly of newspaper vendors with coxcomb caps and all hung about with posters. It was a dark, miserable day; in spite of my wearing spats, my feet were numb with cold. I wondered if perhaps they would freeze less if I did not give my black shoes such a smart shine: a passing and repassing thought. At last, punctually at five minutes to nine, just as I had reckoned, Orlovius' figure appeared from the deep. I at once turned and walked slowly away; Orlovius outstrode me, glanced back and exposed his fine but false teeth. Our meeting had the exact color of chance I wanted.

"Yes, I'm coming your way," said I in answer to his question. "I've got to visit my bank."

"Dog's weather," said Orlovius floundering at my side. "How is your wife? Very well?"

"Thanks, she is all right."

"And how are you going on? Not very well?" he continued to inquire courteously.

"No, not very. Nerves, insomnia. Trifles that would have amused me before now annoy me."

"Consume lemons," put in Orlovius.

"... that would have amused me before now annoy me. Here, for instance--"

I gave a slight snort of laughter, and produced my pocketbook. "I got this idiotic blackmailing letter, and it somehow weighs upon my mind. Read it if you like, it's a rum business."

Orlovius stopped and scrutinized the letter closely. While he read, I examined the shopwindow near which we were standing: there, pompous and inane, a couple of bathtubs and various other lavatory accessories gleamed white; and next to it was a shopwindow with coffins and there, too, all looked pompous and silly.

"Tut-tut," uttered Orlovius. "Do you know who has been writing this?"

I popped the letter back into my wallet and replied with a snigger:

"Of course I do. A rogue. He was at one time in the service of a distant relation of mine. An abnormal creature, if not frankly insane. Got it into his head my family had deprived him of some inheritance; you know how it is: a fixed conviction which nothing can shatter."

Orlovius explained to me, with copious details, the danger lunatics present to the community and then inquired whether I was going to inform the police.

I shrugged my shoulders: "Nonsense.... Not worth really discussing.... Tell me, what do you think of the Chancellor's speech--read it?"

We continued to walk side by side, comfortably conversing about foreign and home politics. At the door of his office I started removing--as the rules of Russian politeness request--the glove from the hand I was going to proffer.

"It is bad that you are so nervous," said Orlovius. "I pray you, greet, please, your wife."

"I shall do so by all means. Only you know, I am pretty envious of your bachelorhood."

"Why so?"

"It's like this. Hurts me to speak of it, but, you see, my married life is not happy. My wife has a fickle heart, and--well, she's interested in somebody else. Yes, cold and frivolous, that's what I call her, and I don't think she'd weep long if I happened ... er ... you know what I mean. And do forgive me for airing such intimate troubles."

"Certain things I have long observed," said Orlovius nodding his head sagely and sadly.

I shook his woolen paw and we parted. It had all worked beautifully. Old birds like Orlovius are wonderfully easy to lead by the beak, because a combination of decency and sentimentality is exactly equal to being a fool. In his eagerness to sympathize with everybody, not only did he take sides with the noble loving husband when I slandered my exemplary wife, but even decided privately that he had "long observed" (as he put it) a thing or two. I would give a lot to know what that purblind eagle could detect in the cloudless blue of our wedlock. Yes, it had all worked beautifully. I was satisfied. I would have been still more satisfied had there not been some miscarriage about the getting of that Italian visa.

Ardalion, with Lydia's help, filled out the application form, after which he was told that at least a fortnight would elapse till the visa could be granted (I had about one month before me till the ninth of March; in the worst case, I could always write to Felix changing the date). At last, late in February, Ardalion received his visa and bought his ticket. Moreover, I gave him 1000 marks--it would last him, I hoped, two or three months. He had arranged to go on the first of March, but it transpired suddenly that he had managed to lend the entire sum to a desperate friend and was now obliged to await its return. A rather mysterious case to say the least of it. Ardalion maintained that it was a "matter of honor." I, on my part, am always most skeptical about such vague matters which involve honor--and, mark you, not the honor of the ragged borrower himself, but always that of a third or even fourth party, whose name is not disclosed. Ardalion (always according to his tale) lent the money, the other swearing he would return it within three days; the usual time limit with those descendants of feudal barons. When that time had expired Ardalion went to look for his debtor and, naturally, could not find him anywhere. With icy fury, I asked for his name. Ardalion attempted to evade the question and then said: "Oh, you remember--that fellow who once called on you." That made me lose my temper altogether.

Upon regaining my calm, I would have probably helped him out, had not things been complicated by my being rather short of money, whereas it was absolutely necessary that I should have a certain amount about me. I told him to set forth as he was, with a ticket and a few marks in his pocket. I'd send him the rest, I said. He answered that he would do so, just postponing his departure for a couple of days in case the money might still be retrieved. And indeed on the third of March he rang me up to say, rather casually, I thought, that he had got back his loan and was starting next evening. On the fourth it turned out that Lydia, to whom, for some reason or other, Ardalion had given his ticket to keep for him, was at present incapable of recalling where she had put it. A gloomy Ardalion crouched on a stool in the hall: "Nothing to be done," he muttered repeatedly. "Fate is against it." From the adjoining rooms there came the banging of drawers and a frantic rustling of paper: it was Lydia hunting for the ticket. An hour later Ardalion gave up and went home. Lydia sat on the bed crying her heart out. On the fifth she discovered the ticket among the dirty linen prepared for the laundry; and on the sixth we went to see Ardalion off.

The train was due to leave at 10:10. The longer hand of the clock would point like a setter, then pounce on the coveted minute, and forthwith aim at the next. No Ardalion. We stood waiting beside the coach marked "Milan."

"What on earth is the matter," Lydia kept worrying. "Why doesn't he come? I'm anxious."

All that ridiculous fuss about Ardalion's departure maddened me to such an extent that I was now afraid to unclench my teeth lest I have a fit or something on the station platform. Two sordid individuals, one sporting a blue mackintosh, the other a Russian-looking greatcoat with a moth-eaten astrakhan collar, came up and, dodging me, effusively greeted Lydia.

"Why doesn't he come? What d'you think has happened?" Lydia asked, looking at them with frightened eyes and holding away from her the little bunch of violets which she had taken the trouble to buy for the brute. The blue mackintosh spread out his hands, and the fur collar pronounced in a deep voice:

"Nescimus. We do not know."

I felt I could not contain myself any longer and, turning sharply, marched off toward the exit. Lydia ran after me: "Where are you going, wait a bit, I'm sure he's--"

It was at this minute that Ardalion appeared in the distance. A grim-faced tatterdemalion held him up by the elbow and carried his portmanteau. So drunk was Ardalion that he could barely stand on his feet; the grim one, too, reeked of spirits.

"Oh, dear, he can't go in such a state," cried Lydia.

Very flushed, very humid, bewildered and groggy, without his overcoat (in hazy anticipation of southern warmth), Ardalion started upon a tottering round of slobbery embraces. I just managed to avoid him.

"My name's Perebrodov, professional artist," blurted his grim companion, confidentially thrusting out, as if it held a dirty postcard, an unshakable hand in my direction. "Had the fortune of meeting you in the gambling hells of Cairo."

"Hermann, do something! Impossible to let him go like that," wailed Lydia tugging at my sleeve.

Meanwhile the carriage doors were already slamming. Ardalion, swaying and emitting appealing cries, had reeled off to follow the cart of a sandwich-and-brandy vendor, but was caught by friendly hands. Then, all at once, he gathered up Lydia in his clutch and covered her with juicy kisses.

"Oh, you googly kid," he cooed, "goodbye, kid, thanks, kid ..."

"Look here, gentlemen," said I with perfect calm, "would you mind helping me to lift him into the carriage?"

The train glided off. Beaming and bawling, Ardalion all but tumbled out of the window. Lydia, a lamb in leopard's clothes, trotted alongside the carriage almost as far as Switzerland. When the last carriage turned its buffers upon her, she bent low, peering under the receding wheels (a national superstition) and then crossed herself. She still held in her fist that little bunch of violets.

Ah, what relief.... The sigh I heaved filled my chest and I let it out noisily. All day long Lydia gently fretted and worried, but then a wire came--two words: "Traveling merrily"--and that soothed her. I had now to tackle the most tedious part of the business: talking to her, coaching her.

• • •

I fail to remember the way I began: when the current of my memory is turned on, that talk is already in full swing. I see Lydia sitting on the divan and staring at me with dumb amazement. I see myself sitting on the edge of a chair opposite her and now and then, like a doctor, touching her wrist. I hear my even voice going on and on. First I told her something, which, I said, I had never told anyone before. I told her about my younger brother. He was a student in Germany when the war broke out; was recruited there and fought against the Russians. I had always remembered him as a quiet, despondent little fellow. My parents used to thrash me and spoil him; he did not show them any affection, however, but in regard to me he developed an incredible, more than brotherly adoration, followed me everywhere, looked into my eyes, loved everything that came into contact with me, loved to smell my pocket handkerchief, to put on my shirt when still warm from my body, to clean his teeth with my brush. At first we shared a bed with a pillow at each end until it was discovered he could not go to sleep without sucking my big toe, whereupon I was expelled to a mattress in the lumber room, but since he insisted on changing places with me in the middle of the night, we never quite knew, nor did dear Momma, who was sleeping where. It was not a perversion on his part--oh, not at all--it was but the best he could do to express our indescribable oneness, for we resembled each other so closely that our nearest relatives used to mistake us, and as the years went on, this resemblance grew more and more perfect. I remember that when I was seeing him off on his way to Germany (that was shortly before Princip's pistol shot) the poor fellow sobbed with such bitterness as though he foresaw what a long and cruel separation it would be. People on the platform looked at us, looked at those two identical youths who stood with interlocked hands and peered into each other's eyes with a kind of sorrowful ecstasy ...

Then came the war. Whilst languishing in remote captivity I never had any news of my brother, but was somehow sure that he had been killed. Sultry years, black-shrouded years. I taught myself not to think of him; and even later, when I was married, not a word thereof did I breathe to Lydia--it was all too sad.

Then, soon after my bringing my wife to Germany, a cousin (who took his cue in passing, just to utter that single line) informed me that Felix, though alive, had morally perished. I never learned the exact manner in which his soul was wrecked.... Presumably, his delicate psychic structure did not withstand the strain of war, while the thought that I was no more (for, strange to say, he, too, was sure of his brother's death), that never would he see his adored double, or better say, the optimal edition of his own personality, this thought crippled his mind, he felt as if he had lost both support and ambition, so that henceforth life could be lived anyhow. And down he went. That man as sweet-tuned as some musical instrument now turned thief and forger, took to drugs and finally committed murder: he poisoned the woman who kept him. I learned of the latter affair from his own lips; he had not even been suspected--so cunningly had the evil deed been concealed. As to my meeting him again ... well, that was the work of chance, a most unexpected and painful meeting too (one of its consequences being that change in me, that depression which even Lydia had noticed) in a café at Prague: he stood up, I remember, upon seeing me, opened his arms and crashed backward in a deep swoon which lasted 18 minutes.

Yes, horribly painful. Instead of the sluggish, dreamy, tender lad, I found a talkative madman, all jerks and jumps. The happiness he experienced upon being reunited with me, dear old Hermann, who all at once, dressed in a handsome gray suit, had arisen from the dead, not only did not lull his conscience, but quite, quite contrariwise, convinced him of the utter inadmissibility of living with a murder on his mind. The conversation we had was awful; he kept covering my hands with kisses, and bidding me farewell. Even the waiters wept.

Very soon I realized that no human force in the world could now shake the decision he had formed of killing himself; even I could do nothing, I who always had had such an ideal influence on him. The minutes I lived through were anything but pleasant. Putting myself in his shoes, I could readily imagine the refined torture which his memory made him endure; and I perceived, alas, that the sole issue for him was death. God forbid anyone passing through such an ordeal--that is, seeing one's brother perish and not having the moral right to avert his doom.

But now comes the complication: his soul, which had its mystical side, yearned for some atonement, some sacrifice: merely putting a bullet through his brain seemed to him not sufficient.

"I want to make a gift of my death to somebody," he suddenly said and his eyes brimmed with the diamond light of madness. "Make a gift of my death. We two are still more alike than we were formerly. In our sameness I see a divine intent. To lay one's hands upon a piano does not yet mean the making of music, and what I want is music. Tell me, might it not benefit you in some way to vanish from the earth?"

At first, I did not heed his question: I supposed that Felix was delirious; and a gypsy orchestra in the café drowned part of his speech; his subsequent words proved, however, that he had a definite plan. So! On one hand the abyss of a soul in torment, on the other, business prospects. In the lurid glare of his tragic fate and belated heroism, that part of his plan which concerned me, my profit, my well-being, seemed as stupidly matter-of-fact as, say, the inauguration of a railway during an earthquake.

Having arrived at this point of my story, I stopped speaking, and leaning back in my chair with folded arms, looked fixedly at Lydia. She seemed to flow down from the couch on to the carpet, crawled up to me on her knees, pressed her head against my thigh and, in a hushed voice, started comforting me: "Oh, you poor, poor thing," she purred. "I'm so sorry for you, for your brother.... Heavens, what unhappy people there are in the world! He mustn't die, it is never impossible to save a person."

"He can't be saved," said I, with what is called, I believe, a bitter smile. "He is determined to die on his birthday; the ninth of March--that is to say, the day after tomorrow; and the President of the State could not prevent it. Suicide is the worst form of self-indulgence. All one can do is to comply with the martyr's whim and brighten up things for him by granting him the knowledge that in dying he performs a good useful deed--of a crude material nature, perhaps, but anyhow, useful."

Lydia hugged my leg and stared up at me.

"His plan is as follows," I went on, in a bland voice: "My life, say, is insured for half a million. In a wood, somewhere, my corpse is found. My widow, that is you--"

"Oh, stop saying such horrors," cried Lydia, scrambling up from the carpet. "I've just been reading a story like that. Oh, do please stop--"

"... My widow, that is you, collects the money. Then she retires to a secluded place abroad. After a while, under an assumed name, I join her and maybe even marry her, if she is good. My real name, you see, will have died with my brother. We resemble each other, don't interrupt, like two drops of blood, and he'll be particularly like me when dead."

"Do stop, do stop! I won't believe there's no way of saving him.... Oh, Hermann, how wicked! ... Where is he actually?--here in Berlin?"

"No, in another part of the country. You keep repeating like a fool: save him, save him.... You forget that he is a murderer and a mystic. As to me, I haven't the right to refuse him a little thing that may lighten and adorn his death. You must understand that here we find ourselves entering a higher spiritual plane. It would be one thing if I said to you, 'Look here, old girl, my business is going badly, I'm faced with bankruptcy, also I'm sick of everything and yearn for a remote land, where I'll devote myself to contemplation and poultry breeding, so let us use this rare chance!' But I say nothing of the sort, although I am on the brink of ruin and for ages have been dreaming, as you know, of life in the lap of Nature. What I do say is something very different, namely: however hard, however terrible it may be, one cannot deny one's own brother the fulfillment of his dying request, one cannot prevent him from doing good--if only posthumous good."

Lydia's eyelids fluttered--I had quite bespit her--but despite the spouting of my speech, she nestled against me, holding me tight. We were both now on the divan, and I continued:

"A refusal of that kind would be a sin. I don't want it. I don't want to load my conscience with a sin of that weight. Do you think I didn't object and try to reason with him? Do you think I found it easy to accept his offer? Do you think I have slept all these nights? I may as well tell you, my dear, that since last year I have been suffering horribly--I would not have my best friend suffer so. Much do I care indeed for that insurance money! But how can I refuse, tell me, how can I deprive him of one last joy--hang it all, it's no good talking!"

I pushed her aside, almost knocking her off the divan, and started marching to and fro. I gulped, I sobbed. Specters of red melodrama reeled.

"You are a million times cleverer than me," half whispered Lydia, wringing her hands (yes, reader, dixi, wringing her hands), "but it's all so appalling, so unexpected, I thought it only happened in books.... Why, it means ... oh, everything will change--completely. Our whole life! Why ... F'rinstance, what about Ardalion?"

"To hell, to hell with him! Here we are discussing the very greatest human tragedy and you plump in with--"

"No, I just asked like that. You've sort of dazed me, my head feels quite funny. I suppose that--not exactly now, but later on--it will be possible to see him and explain matters.... Hermann, what d'you think?"

"Drop worrying about trifles. The future will settle all that. Really, really, really" (my voice suddenly changed to a shrill scream), "what an idiot you are!"

She melted into tears and was all at once a yielding creature quivering on my breast: "Please," she faltered, "please, forgive me. Oh, I'm a fool, you are right, do forgive me! This awful thing happening. Only this morning everything seemed so nice, so clear, so everydayish. Oh, my dear, I'm most terribly sorry for you. I'll do anything you want."

"What I want now is coffee--I am dying for some coffee."

"Come to the kitchen," she said, wiping her tears. "I'll do anything. But please, stay with me, I'm frightened."

In the kitchen. Already appeased, though still sniffing a little, she poured the big brown coffee beans into the open bill of the mill, compressed it between her knees, and began turning the handle. It went stiffly at first, with many a creak and crackle, then there was a sudden easement.

"Imagine, Lydia," said I, sitting on the table and dangling my legs, "imagine that all I'm telling you is fiction. Quite seriously, you know, I've been trying to make myself believe that it was purely an invention of mine or some story I had read somewhere; it was the only way not to go mad with horror. So, listen; the two characters are: an enterprising self-destroyer and his insured double. Now, as the insurance company is not obliged to pay in cases of suicide--"

"I've made it very strong," said Lydia. "You'll like it. Yes, dear, I'm listening."

"--the hero of this cheap mystery story demands the following measures: the thing should be staged in such a manner as to make it appear a plain murder. I do not want to enter into technical details, but here it is in a nutshell: the gun is fastened to a tree trunk, a string tied to the trigger, the suicide turns away, pulling that string, and gets the shot bang in the back. That's a rough outline of the business."

"Oh, wait a bit," cried Lydia, "I've remembered something: he somehow fixed the revolver to the bridge ... No, that's wrong: he first tied a stone with a string ... let me see, how did it go? Oh, I've got it: he tied a big stone to one end and the revolver to the other, and then shot himself. And the stone fell in the water, and the string followed across the parapet, and the revolver came next--all splash into the water. Only I can't remember why it was necessary."

"Smooth water, in brief; and a dead man left on the bridge. What a good thing coffee is! I had a splitting headache; now it's much better. So that's clear to you, more or less--I mean the way it all has to happen."

I sipped the fiery coffee and meditated the while. Odd, she had no imagination whatever. In a couple of days life changes--topsy-turvy ... a regular earthquake ... and here she was, comfortably drinking coffee with me and recalling some Sherlock Holmes adventure.

I was mistaken, however: Lydia started and said, slowly lowering her cup:

"I'm just thinking, Hermann, that if it's all going to be so soon, then we ought to begin packing. And, oh, dear, there's all that linen in the wash. And your tuxedo is at the cleaner's."

"First, my dear, I am not particularly anxious to be cremated in evening dress; secondly, pluck out of your head, quick and for good, the idea that you ought to act somehow, to prepare things and so on. There is nothing you ought to do, for the simple reason that you know nothing, nothing whatever--make a mental note of that, if you please. So, no mysterious allusions in front of your friends, no bustle, no shopping--let that sink in, my good woman--otherwise we'll all get into trouble. I repeat: you know nothing as yet. After tomorrow your husband goes for a drive in his car and fails to return. It is then, and only then, that your work begins. Very responsible work, though quite simple. Now I want you to listen with the utmost attention. On the morning of the tenth you'll phone to Orlovius telling him I've gone, not slept at home and not yet returned. You'll ask what to do about it. And act according to his advice. Let him, generally, take full possession of the case, doing everything, such as informing the police, et cetera. The body will turn up very soon. It is essential that you should make yourself believe I'm really dead. As things stand it won't be very far from the truth, as my brother is part of my soul."

"I'd do anything," she said, "anything for his sake and yours. Only I'm dreadfully frightened and it is all getting mixed up in my head."

"Let it not get mixed up. The chief thing is naturalness of grief. It may not exactly bleach your hair but it must be natural. In order to make your task easier I've given Orlovius a hint to the effect that you've ceased loving me for years. So let it be the quiet reserved sort of sorrow. Sigh and be silent. Then when you see my corpse, that is, the corpse of a man undistinguishable from me, you're sure to get a real good shock."

"Ugh! I can't, Hermann! I'll die of fright."

"It would be worse if right in the mortuary you started powdering your nose. In any case, contain yourself. Don't scream, or else it'll be necessary after the screams to raise the general level of your grief, and you know what a bad actress you are. Now let us proceed. The policy and my testament are in the middle drawer of my desk. After having had my body burnt, in agreement with my testament, after settling all formalities, after receiving, through Orlovius, your due, and doing with the money what he tells you to, you'll go abroad to Paris. Where will you stop in Paris?"

"I don't know, Hermann."

"Try and remember where it was we put up when we were in Paris together. Well?"

"Yes, it's coming back to me now. Hotel."

"But what hotel?"

"I can't remember a thing, Hermann, when you keep looking at me like that. I tell you it's coming back. Hotel something."

"I'll give you a tip: it has to do with grass. What is the French for grass?"

"Wait a sec--herbe. Oh, got it; Malherbe."

"To be quite safe, in case you forget again, you can always look at your black trunk. There's the hotel label on it still."

"Look here, Hermann, I'm really not such a muff as all that. Though I think I'd better take that trunk. The black one."

"So that's the place you stop at. Next there comes something extremely important. First, however, I'll trouble you to say it all over again."

"I'll be sad. I'll try not to cry too much. Orlovius. Two black dresses and a veil."

"Not so fast. What will you do when you see the body?"

"Fall on my knees. Not scream."

"That's right. You see how nicely it all shapes out. Well, what comes next?"

"Next I'll have him buried."

"In the first place not him, but me. Please, don't get that muddled. In the second: not burial, but cremation. Nobody wants to be disinhumed. Orlovius will inform the pastor of my merits; moral, civic, matrimonial. The pastor in the crematorium chapel will deliver a heartfelt speech. To the sound of organ music my coffin will slowly sink into Hades. That's all. What after that?"

"After that--Paris. No, wait! First, all kinds of money formalities. I'm afraid, you know, Orlovius will bore me to death. Then, in Paris, I'll go to the hotel--now I knew it would happen, I just thought I'd forget and so I have. You sort of oppress me. Hotel ... Hotel ... Oh--Malherbe! For safety--the trunk."

"Black. Now comes the important bit: as soon as you get to Paris, you let me know. What method should I adopt to make you memorize the address?"

"Better write it down, Hermann. My brain simply refuses to work at the present. I'm so horribly afraid I shall bungle it all."

"No, my dear, I shan't write down anything. If only for the reason that you're bound to lose anything put down in writing. You'll have to memorize the address whether you like it or not. There is absolutely no other way. I forbid you once and for all to write it down. That clear?"

"Yes, Hermann, but what if I can't remember?"

"Nonsense. The address is quite simple. Post office, Pignans, France."

"That's where Aunt Elisa used to live? Oh, yes, that's not hard to remember. But she lives near Nice now. Better go to Nice."

"Good idea, but I shan't. Now comes the name. For the sake of simplicity I suggest you write thus: Monsieur Malherbe."

"She is probably as fat and as lively as ever. D'you know, Ardalion wrote to her asking for money, but of course--"

"Most interesting, I'm sure, but we were talking of business. What name will you write on the address?"

"You haven't told me yet, Hermann!"

"Yes, I have. I suggest Monsieur Malherbe."

"But ... that's the hotel, Hermann, isn't it?"

"Exactly. That's why. You'll find it easier to remember by association."

"Oh, Lord, I'm sure to forget the association, Hermann. I'm hopeless. Please, let's not have any associations. Besides--it's getting awfully late, I'm exhausted."

"Then think of a name yourself. Some name you're practically certain to remember. Would perhaps Ardalion do?"

"Very well, Hermann."

"So that's settled too. Monsieur Ardalion. Post office, Pignans. Now the contents. You'll begin: 'Dear friend, you have surely heard about my bereavement'--and so on in the same gist. A few lines in all. You'll post the letter yourself. You'll post the letter yourself. Got that?"

"Very well, Hermann."

"Now, will you please repeat."

"You know the strain is too much for me. I'm going to collapse. Good heavens, half-past one. Couldn't we leave it till tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow you will have to repeat it all the same. Come, let's get it over. I'm listening ..."

"Hotel Malherbe. I arrive. I post that letter. Myself. Ardalion. Post office, Pignans, France. And after I've written, what next?"

"No concern of yours. We'll see. Well, can I be certain you'll manage it properly?"

"Yes, Hermann. Only don't make me say it all over again. I'm dead beat."

Standing in the middle of the kitchen, she expanded her shoulders, threw back her head and shook it violently, and said several times, her hands worrying her hair: "Oh, how tired I am, oh, how--" that "how" opened into a yawn. We turned in at last. She undressed, scattering about the room frock, stockings, various feminine odds and ends; tumbled into bed and settled down at once to a comfortable nasal wheeze. I went to bed too and put out the light, but could not sleep. I remember she suddenly awoke and touched my shoulder.

"What d'you want?" I inquired feigning drowsiness.

"Hermann," she muttered: "Hermann, tell me, I wonder if ... don't you think it's ... a swindle?"

"Go to sleep," I replied. "Your brains are not equal to the job. Deep tragedy ... and you with your nonsense ... go to sleep!"

She sighed blissfully, turned on her side and was immediately snoring again.

Curious, although I did not deceive myself in the least regarding my wife's capacities, well knowing how stupid, forgetful and clumsy she was, I had, somehow, no misgivings, so absolutely did I believe that her devotion would make her take, instinctively, the right course, preserving her from any slip, and, what mattered most, forcing her to keep my secret. In fancy I clearly saw the way Orlovius would glance at her bad imitation of sorrow and sadly wag his solemn head, and (who knows) ponder perhaps upon the likelihood of the poor husband's having been done in by the lady's paramour; but then that threatening letter from the nameless lunatic would come to him as a timely reminder.

The whole of the next day we spent at home, and once more, meticulously and strenuously, I kept tutoring my wife, stuffing her with my will, just as a goose is crammed, by force, with maize to fatten its liver. By nightfall she was scarcely able to walk; I remained satisfied with her condition. It was time for me to get ready too. I remember how I racked my brains for hours, calculating what sum to take with me, what to leave Lydia; there was not much cash, not much at all ... it occurred to me that it would be wise to take some valuable thing, so I said to Lydia:

"Look here, give me your Moscow brooch."

"Ah, yes, the brooch," she said dully; slunk out of the room, but immediately came back, lay down on the divan and began to cry as she had never yet cried before.

"What's the matter, you wretched woman?"

For a long while she did not answer, and then, amid much silly sobbing, and with averted eyes, explained that the diamond brooch, an empress' gift to her great-grandmother, had been pawned to obtain the money for Ardalion's journey, as his friend had not repaid him.

"All right, all right, don't howl," I said, pocketing the pawn ticket. "Deuced cunning of him. Thank God he's gone, scuttled away--that's the main thing."

She instantly regained her composure and even achieved a dew-bright smile when she saw I was not cross. Then she tripped off to the bedroom, was long rummaging there, and finally brought me a cheap little ring, a pair of eardrops, an old-fashioned cigarette case that had belonged to her mother.... None of these things did I take.

"Listen." said I, wandering about the room and biting my thumb. "Listen, Lydia. When they ask you if I had enemies, when they examine you as to who might have killed me, reply: 'I don't know.' And there's something else: I'm taking a suitcase with me, but that's strictly confidential. It ought not to appear as though I was getting ready for a journey--that would be suspicious. As a matter of fact--"

At that point I remember stopping suddenly. How queer it was that when all had been so beautifully devised and foreseen, there should come sticking out a minor detail, as when you are packing and notice all at once that you have forgotten to put in some small but cumbersome trifle--yes, there do exist such unscrupulous objects. It should be said, to my justification, that the question of the suitcase was really the only point which I decided to alter: all the rest went just as I had designed it long, long ago--maybe many months ago, maybe that very second when I saw a tramp asleep on the grass who exactly resembled my corpse. No, thought I, better not take the suitcase; there is always the risk of somebody seeing me leaving the house with it.

"I'm not taking it," said I aloud, and went on pacing the room.

How can I forget the morning of the ninth of March? As mornings go, it was pale and cold; overnight some snow had fallen, and now every house porter was sweeping his stretch of sidewalk along which there ran a low snow ridge, whereas the asphalt was already clean and black--only a little slimy. Lydia slept on in peace. All was quiet. I began the business of dressing. That is how it went: two shirts, one over the other: yesterday's one on top, as it was meant for him. Drawers--also two pairs; and again the top pair was for him. Then I made a small parcel containing a manicure set, a shaving kit, and a shoehorn. So as not to forget, I at once slipped that parcel into the pocket of my overcoat which hung in the hall. Then I put on two pairs of socks (the top one with a hole in it), black shoes, mouse-gray spats; and, arrayed thus, i.e., smartly shod but still in my undergarments, I stood in the middle of the room and mentally checked my actions so as to see whether they conformed to plan. Remembering that an extra pair of garters would be required I unearthed some old ones and added them to the parcel, which necessitated my coming out again into the hall. Lastly, I chose my favorite lilac tie and thick dark-gray suit I had been often wearing lately. The following objects were distributed among pockets: my wallet (with something like 1500 marks in it), passport, sundry scraps of paper with addresses, accounts.

Stop, that's wrong, I said to myself, for had I not decided not to take my passport? A very subtle move, that: the casual scraps of paper established one's identity more gracefully. I also took keys, cigarette case, lighter. Strapped on my wrist watch. Now I was dressed. I patted my pockets, I puffed slightly. I felt rather warm in my double cocoon. There now remained the most important item. Quite a ceremony; the slow glide of the drawer where IT rested, a careful examination, and not the first one, to be sure. Yes, IT was admirably oiled; IT was chock full of good things.... IT was given to me in 1920, in Reval, by an unknown officer; or, to be precise, he simply left IT with me and vanished. I have no idea what became of that amiable lieutenant afterward.

While I was thus engaged, Lydia awoke. She wrapped herself up in a dressing gown of a sickly pink hue and we sat down to our morning coffee. When the maid had left the room:

"Well," I said, "the day has come! I'm going in a minute."

A very slight digression of a literary nature; that rhythm is foreign to modern speech, but it renders, especially well, my epic calm and the dramatic tension of the situation.

"Hermann, please stay, don't go anywhere ..." said Lydia in a low voice (and she even joined her hands together, I believe).

"You remember everything, don't you?" I went on imperturbably.

"Hermann," she repeated, "don't go. Let him do whatever he likes, it's his fate, you mustn't interfere."

"I'm glad you remember everything," said I with a smile. "Good girl. Now let me eat one more roll and I'll start."

She broke into tears. Then blew her nose with a last blast, was about to say something, but began crying anew. It was rather a quaint scene; I, coolly, buttering a horn-shaped roll, she, seated opposite, her whole frame shaken by sobs. I said, with my mouth full:

"Anyway, you'll be able, in front of the world" (I chewed and swallowed here), "to recall that you had evil forebodings, although I used to go away fairly often and never said where. And do you know, madam, if he had any enemies?' 'I don't, Mr. Coroner.' "

"But what's going to come next?" Lydia gently moaned, slowly and helplessly moving her hands apart.

"That'll do, my dear," said I, in another tone of voice. "You've had your little cry and now it's enough. And, by the way, don't dream of howling today in Elsie's presence."

She dabbed at her eyes with a crumpled handkerchief, emitted a sad little grunt and once again made that gesture of helpless perplexity, but now in silence and without tears.

"You remember everything?" I inquired for the last time, narrowly scrutinizing her.

"Yes, Hermann, everything. But I'm so, so frightened ..."

I stood up, she stood up too. I said:

"Goodbye. See you some day. Time to go to my patient."

"Hermann, tell me--you don't intend being present, do you?"

I quite failed to see what she meant.

"Present? At what?"

"Oh, you know what I'm thinking. When he--oh, you know ... that business of the string."

"You goose," said I, "what did you expect? Somebody must be there to tidy up afterwards. Now I'll trouble you not to brood anymore over the matter. Go to the pictures tonight. Goodbye, goose."

I never kissed her on the mouth: I loathe the slush of lip kisses. It is said, the ancient Slavs, too--even in moments of sexual excitement never kissed their women--found it queerish, perhaps even a little repulsive, to bring into contact one's own naked lips with another's epithelium. At that moment, however, I felt, for once, an impulse to kiss my wife that way; but she was unprepared, so, somehow, nothing came of it, except that I grazed her hair with my lips; I refrained from making another attempt, instead of which I clicked my heels and shook her listless hand. Then, in the hall, I rapidly got into my overcoat, snatched my gloves, ascertained whether I had the parcel, and when already making for the door, heard her call me from the dining room in a low whimpering voice, but I did not take much notice as I was in a desperate hurry to leave.

I crossed the back yard toward a large garage packed with cars. Pleasant smiles welcomed me there. I got in and started the engine. The asphalted surface of the yard was somewhat higher than that of the street so that upon entering the narrow inclined tunnel connecting the yard with the street, my car, held back by its brakes, lightly and noiselessly dipped.

• • •

To tell the truth I feel rather weary. I keep on writing from noon to dawn, producing a chapter per day--or more. What a great powerful thing art is! In my situation, I ought to be flustering, scurrying, doubling back.... There is of course no immediate danger, and I dare say such danger there will never be, but, nevertheless, it is a singular reaction, this sitting still and writing, writing, writing, or ruminating at length, which is much the same, really. And the further I write, the clearer it becomes that I will not leave matters so, but hang on till my main object is attained, when I will most certainly take the risk of having my work published--not much of a risk, either, for as soon as my manuscript is sent out I shall fade away, the world being large enough to afford a place of concealment to a quiet man with a beard.

It was not spontaneously that I decided to forward my work to the penetrating novelist, whom, I think, I have mentioned already, even addressing him personally through the medium of my story.

I may be mistaken, as I have long ago abandoned reading over what I write--no time left for that, let alone its nauseating effect upon me.

I had first toyed with the idea of sending the thing straight to some editor--German, French, or American--but it is written in Russian and not all is translatable, and--well, to be frank, I am rather particular about my literary coloratura and firmly believe that the loss of a single shade or inflection would hopelessly mar the whole. I have also thought of sending it to the U.S.S.R., but I lack the necessary addresses, nor do I know how it is done and whether my manuscript would be read, for I employ, by force of habit, the Old-Regime spelling, and to rewrite it would be quite beyond my powers. Did I say "rewrite"? Well, I hardly know if I shall stand the strain of writing it at all.

Having at last made up my mind to give my manuscript to one who is sure to like it and do his best to have it published, I am fully aware of the fact that my chosen one (you, my first reader) is an émigré novelist, whose books cannot possibly appear in the U.S.S.R. Maybe, however, an exception will be made for this book, considering that it was not you who actually wrote it. Oh, how I cherish the hope that in spite of your émigré signature (the diaphanous spuriousness of which will deceive nobody) my book may find a market in the U.S.S.R.! As I am far from being an enemy of the Soviet rule, I am sure to have unwittingly expressed certain notions in my book, which correspond perfectly to the dialectical demands of the current moment. It even seems to me sometimes that my basic theme, the resemblance between two persons, has a profound allegorical meaning. This remarkable physical likeness probably appealed to me (subconsciously!) as the promise of that ideal sameness which is to unite people in the classless society of the future; and by striving to make use of an isolated case, I was, though still blind to social truths, fulfilling, nevertheless, a certain social function. And then there is something else; the fact of my not being wholly successful when putting that resemblance of ours to practical use can be explained away by purely social-economic causes, that is to say, by the fact that Felix and I belonged to different, sharply defined classes, the fusion of which none could hope to achieve single-handed, especially nowadays, when the conflict of classes has reached a stage where compromise is out of the question. True, my mother was of low birth and my father's father herded geese in his youth, which explains where, exactly, a man of my stamp and habits could have got that strong, though still incompletely expressed leaning towards Genuine Consciousness. In fancy, I visualize a new world, where all men will resemble one another as Hermann and Felix did; a world of Helixes and Fermanns; a world where the worker fallen dead at the feet of his machine will be at once replaced by his perfect double smiling the serene smile of perfect socialism. Therefore I do think that Soviet youths of today should derive considerable benefit from a study of my book under the supervision of an experienced Marxist who would help them to follow through its pages the rudimentary wriggles of the social message it contains. Aye, let other nations, too, translate it into their respective languages, so that American readers may satisfy their craving for gory glamor; the French discern mirages of sodomy in my partiality for a vagabond; and Germans relish the skittish side of a semi-Slavonic soul. Read, read it, as many as possible, ladies and gentlemen! I welcome you all as my readers.

Not an easy book to write, though. It is now especially, just as I am getting to the part which treats, so to speak, of decisive action, it is now that the arduousness of my task appears to me in full; here I am, as you see, twisting and turning and being garrulous about matters which rightly belong to the preface of a book and are misplaced in what the reader may deem its most essential chapter. But I have tried to explain already that, however shrewd and wary the approaches may seem, it is not my rational part which is writing, but solely my memory, that devious memory of mine. For, you see, then, i.e. at the precise hour at which the hands of my story have stopped, I had stopped too; was dallying, as I am dallying now; was engaged in a similar kind of tangled reasoning having nothing to do with my business, the appointed hour of which was steadily nearing. I had started in the morning though my meeting with Felix was fixed for five o'clock in the afternoon, but I had been unable to stay at home, so that now I was wondering how to dispose of all that dull-white mass of time separating me from my appointment. I sat at my ease, even somnolently, as I steered with one finger and slowly drove through Berlin, down quiet, cold, whispering streets; and so it went on and on, until I noticed that I had left Berlin behind. The colors of the day were reduced to a mere two: black (the pattern of the bare trees, the asphalt) and whitish (the sky, the patches of snow). It continued, my sleepy transportation. For some time there dangled before my eyes one of those large, ugly rags that a truck trundling something long and poky is required to hang on the protruding hind end; then it disappeared, having presumably taken a turning. Still I did not move on any quicker. A taxicab dashed out of a side street in front of me, put on the brakes with a screech, and owing to the road being rather slippery, went into a grotesque spin. I calmly sailed past, as if drifting downstream. Farther, a woman in deep mourning was crossing obliquely, practically with her back to me; I neither sounded my horn, nor changed my quite smooth motion, but glided past within a couple of inches from the edge of her veil; she did not even notice me--a noiseless ghost. Every kind of vehicle overtook me; for quite a while a crawling tramcar kept abreast of me; and out of the corner of my eye I could see the passengers, stupidly sitting face to face. Once or twice I struck a badly cobbled stretch; and hens were already appearing; short wings expanded and long necks stretched out, this fowl or that would come running across the road. A little later I found myself driving along an endless highway, past stubbled fields with snow lying here and there; and in a perfectly deserted locality my car seemed to sink into a slumber, as if turning from blue to dovegray--slowing down gradually and coming to a stop, and I leaned my head on the wheel in a fit of elusive musing. What could my thoughts be about? About nothing or nothings; it was all very involved and I was almost asleep, and in a half swoon I kept deliberating with myself about some nonsense, kept remembering some discussion I had had with somebody once on some station platform as to whether one ever sees the sun in one's dreams, and presently the feeling grew upon me that there was a great number of people around, all speaking together, and then falling silent and giving one another dim errands and dispersing without a sound. After some time I moved on, and at noon, dragging through some village, I decided to halt, since even at such a drowsy pace I was bound to reach Koenigsdorf in an hour or so, and that was still too early. So I dawdled in a dark and dismal beer house, where I sat quite alone in a back room of sorts, at a big table, and there was an old photograph on the wall--a group of men in frock coats, with curled-up moustachios, and some in the front row had bent one knee with a carefree expression and two at the sides had even stretched themselves seal fashion, and this called to my mind similar groups of Russian students. I had a lot of lemon water there and resumed my journey in the same sleepy mood, quite indecently sleepy, in fact. Next, I remember stopping at some bridge: an old woman in blue woolen trousers and with a bag behind her shoulders was busy repairing some mishap to her bicycle. Without getting out of my car I gave her several pieces of advice, all quite unbidden and useless; and after that I was silent, and propping my cheek with my fist, remained gaping at her for a long time: there she was fussing and fussing, but at last my eyelids twitched and lo, there was no woman there: she had wobbled away long ago. I pursued my course, trying, as I did, to multiply in my head one uncouth number by another just as awkward. I did not know what they signified and whence they had floated up, but since they had come I considered it fit to bait them, and so they grappled and dissolved. All of a sudden it struck me that I was driving at a crazy speed; that the car was lapping up the road, like a conjurer swallowing yards of ribbon; but I glanced at the speedometer-needle: it was trembling at 50 kilometers; and there passed by, in slow succession, pines, pines, pines. Then, too, I remember meeting two small pale-faced schoolboys with their books held together by a strap; and I talked to them. They both had unpleasant birdlike features, making me think of young crows. They seemed to be a little afraid of me, and when I drove off, kept staring after me, black mouths wide-open, one taller, the other shorter. And then, with a start, I noticed that I had reached Koenigsdorf and, looking at my watch, saw that it was almost five. When passing the red station-building, I reflected that perchance Felix was late and had not yet come down those steps I saw beyond that gaudy chocolate-stand, and that there were no means whatever of deducing from the exterior air of that squat brick edifice whether he had already passed there or not. However that might be, the train by which he had been ordered to come to Koenigsdorf arrived at 2:55, so that if Felix had not missed it--

Oh, my reader! He had been told to get off at Koenigsdorf and march north following the highway as far as the tenth kilometer marked by a yellow post; and now I was tearing along that road: unforgettable moments! Not a soul about. During winter the bus ran there but twice a day--morning and noon; on the entire ten kilometers' stretch all that I met was a cart drawn by a bay horse. At last, in the distance, like a yellow finger, the familiar post stood up, grew bigger, attained its natural size; it wore a skullcap of snow. I pulled up and looked about me. Nobody. The yellow post was very yellow indeed. To my right, beyond the field, the wood was painted a flat gray on the backdrop of the pale sky. Nobody. I got out of my car and with a bang that was louder than any shot, slammed the door after me. And all at once I noticed that, from behind the interlaced twigs of a bush growing in the ditch, there stood looking at me, as pink as a waxwork and with a jaunty little mustache, and, really, quite gay--

Placing one foot on the footboard of the car and like an enraged tenor slashing my hand with the glove I had taken off, I glared steadily at Felix. Grinning uncertainly, he came out of the ditch.

This is the fourth installment of a major novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The conclusion will appear next month.