, jaundiced and bored, and
arguing in bachelor society became a necessity for him--a bad sign, as
we all know. Marriage, of course, he did not even think of. Ten years
passed in this way; they passed by colourless and fruitless--and
quickly, fearfully quickly. Nowhere does time fly past as in Russia; in
prison they say it flies even faster. One day at dinner at the club,
Pavel Petrovitch heard of the death of the Princess R----. She had died
at Paris in a state bordering on insanity.

He got up from the table, and a long time he paced about the rooms of
the club, or stood stockstill near the card-players, but he did not go
home earlier than usual. Some time later he received a packet addressed
to him; in it was the ring he had given the princess. She had drawn
lines in the shape of a cross over the sphinx and sent him word that
the solution of the enigma--was the cross.

This happened at the beginning of the year 1848, at the very time when
Nikolai Petrovitch came to Petersburg, after the loss of his wife.
Pavel Petrovitch had scarcely seen his brother since the latter had
settled in the country; the marriage of Nikolai Petrovitch had
coincided with the very first days of Pavel Petrovitch's acquaintance
with the princess. When he came back from abroad, he had gone to him
with the intention of staying a couple of months with him, in
sympathetic enjoyment of his happiness, but he had only succeeded in
standing a week of it. The difference in the positions of the two
brothers was too great. In 1848, this difference had grown less;
Nikolai Petrovitch had lost his wife, Pavel Petrovitch had lost his
memories; after the death of the princess he tried not to think of her.
But to Nikolai, there remained the sense of a well-spent life, his son
was growing up under his eyes; Pavel, on the contrary, a solitary
bachelor, was entering upon that indefinite twilight period of regrets
that are akin to hopes, and hopes that are akin to regrets, when youth
is over, while old age has not yet come.

This time was harder for Pavel Petrovitch than for another man; in
losing his past, he lost everything.

'I will not invite you to Maryino now,' Nikolai Petrovitch said to him
one day, (he had called his property by that name in honour of his
wife); 'you were dull there in my dear wife's time, and now I think you
would be bored to death.'

'I was stupid and fidgety then,' answered Pavel Petrovitch; 'since then
I have grown quieter, if not