em
to her as an offering.'

"These, mind you, were the words of a man in whom the heart was
absolutely single, absolutely dispassionate."

Until then Kalinin had told his story swiftly, with animation; but
thereafter he seemed, as it were, to become extinguished. After a pause
of a few seconds he continued--continued in slower, to all appearances
more unwilling, accents--

"At the time I believed what Lukianov said, but subsequently I came to
see that things were not altogether as he had represented--that woman
is merely a delusion, and poetry merely fiddle-faddle; and that a man
cannot escape his fate, and that, though good in war, boldness is, in
peace affairs, but naked effrontery. In this, brother, lies the chief,
the fundamental law of life. For the world contains certain people of
high station, and certain people of low; and so long as these two
categories retain their respective positions, all goes well; but as
soon as ever a man seeks to pass from the upper category to the
inferior category, or from the inferior to the upper, the fat falls
into the fire, and that man finds himself stuck midway, stuck neither
here nor there, and bound to abide there for the remainder of his life,
for the remainder of his life.... Always keep to your own position,
to the position assigned you by fate..... Will the rain NEVER cease,
think you?"

By this time, as a matter of fact, the raindrops were falling less
heavily and densely than hitherto, and the wet clouds were beginning to
reveal bright patches in the moisture-soaked firmament, as evidence
that the sun was still in existence.

"Continue," I said.

Kalinin laughed.

"Then you find the story an interesting one," he remarked.

Presently he resumed:

"As I have said, I trusted Lukianov implicitly, and begged of him to
write the verses. And write them he did--he wrote them the very next
day. True, at this distance of time I have forgotten the words in their
entirety, but at least I remember that there occurred in them a phrase
to the effect that 'for days and weeks have your eyes been consuming my
heart in the fire of love, so pity me, I pray.' I then proceeded to
copy out the poem, and tremblingly to leave it on her table.

"The next morning, when I was tidying her boudoir, she made an
unexpected entry, and, clad in a loose, red dressing-gown, and holding
a cigarette between her lips, said to me with a kindly smile as she
produced my precious paper of verses: