ing for revolution, they are getting
ready for war. I will join the Sisters of Mercy; I will tend the sick
and the wounded. I don't know what will become of me, but even after
Dmitri's death, I will be faithful to his memory, to the work of his
whole life. I have learnt Bulgarian and Servian. Very likely, I shall
not have strength to live through it all for long--so much the better.
I have been brought to the edge of the precipice and I must fall over.
Fate did not bring us together for nothing; who knows?--perhaps I killed
him; now it is his turn to draw me after him. I sought happiness, and I
shall find--perhaps death. It seems it was to be thus: it seems it was a
sin.... But death covers all and reconciles all; does it not? Forgive
me all the suffering I have caused you; it was not under my control. But
how could I return to Russia; What have I to do in Russia?

'Accept my last kisses and blessings, and do not condemn me.

R.'

* * *

Nearly five years have passed since then, and no further news of Elena
has come. All letters and inquiries were fruitless; in vain did Nikolai
Artemyevitch himself make a journey to Venice and to Zara after peace
was concluded. In Venice he learnt what is already known to the reader,
but in Zara no one could give him any positive information about
Renditch and the ship he had taken. There were dark rumours that some
years back, after a great storm, the sea had thrown up on shore a coffin
in which had been found a man's body... But according to other more
trustworthy accounts this coffin had not been thrown up by the sea at
all, but had been carried over and buried near the shore by a foreign
lady, coming from Venice; some added that they had seen this lady
afterwards in Herzegovina, with the forces which were there assembled;
they even described her dress, black from head to foot However it was,
all trace of Elena had disappeared beyond recovery for ever; and no one
knows whether she is still living, whether she is hidden away somewhere,
or whether the petty drama of life is over--the little ferment of her
existence is at an end; and she has found death in her turn. It happens
at times that a man wakes up and asks himself with involuntary horror,
'Can I be already thirty ... forty... fifty? How is it life has passed
so soon? How is it death has moved up so close?' Death is like a fisher
who catches fish in his net and leaves them for a while in the water;
the fish is still swimming