at a foolish question! Such might be the wish of one driven to
despair, or of someone suffering from a long and grievous malady. Such
was not my position, for I enjoyed the blessings of happiness and good
health; no worse fate could have happened to me. My sudden death
prevented me from concluding several designs which I might have brought
to a successful issue if God had granted me the warning of a slight
illness. But it was not so; I had to set out on the long journey at a
moment's notice, without the time to make any preparations. Is my death
any the happier from my not foreseeing it? Do you think me such a coward
as to dread the approach of what is common to all? I tell you that I
should have accounted myself happy if I had had a respite of but a day.
Then I should not complain of the Divine justice."

"Does your highness accuse God of injustice, then?"

"What boots it, since I am a lost soul? Do you expect the damned to
acknowledge the justice of the decree which has consigned them to eternal
woe?"

"No doubt it is a difficult matter, but I should have thought that a
sense of the justice of your doom would have mitigated the pains of it."

"Perhaps so, but a damned soul must be without consolation for ever."

"In spite of that there are some philosophers who call you happy in your
death by virtue of its suddenness."

"Not philosophers, but fools, for in its suddenness was the pain and
woe."

"Well said; but may I ask your highness if you admit the possibility of a
happy eternity after an unhappy death, or of an unhappy doom after a
happy death?"

"Such suppositions are inconceivable. The happiness of futurity lies in
the ecstasy of the soul in feeling freed from the trammels of matter, and
unhappiness is the doom of a soul which was full of remorse at the moment
it left the body. But enough, for my punishment forbids my farther
speech."

"Tell me, at least, what is the nature of your punishment?"

"An everlasting weariness. Farewell."

After this long and fanciful digression the reader will no doubt be
obliged by my returning to this world.

Count Panin told me that in a few days the empress would leave for her
country house, and I determined to have an interview with her, foreseeing
that it would be for the last time.

I had been in the garden for a few minutes when heavy rain began to fall,
and I was going to leave, when the empress summoned me into an apartment
on the ground floor of the palace,