and crushed down. Neither
irony, nor energy, nor bold certainty of self was in it now. He
looked smaller than usual, and in the manner of bending his head
forward there was something of the vanquished. The soft folds at
which he stood surrounded him in such a way that he seemed
flattened and recalled definitely, like an insect in flight which
was trying to push through a narrow crack to escape before
something immense which was swooping down suddenly. He turned his
eyes toward Kranitski, recognized the man, and casting an
indifferent glance at him, gazed again in another direction at
the enormous something. He had no feeling of hatred, or contempt,
or offence. Kranitski on his part had none of those feelings
either. He thought that various tales and dramas represent mortal
enemies who, in moments like that, reach their hands to one
another and are reconciled. Pathos is not truthful! It has no
sufficient reason. What are men's quarrels or agreements in
presence of--this? He looked a little longer at the maiden
sleeping under the shower of white blossoms, and whispered:
"Death! yes, yes! death! eternal sleep!" then, with drooping
head, he went forth from that grotto, which was snow-white and
gleaming with lights. He was so broken that he dragged himself
out of it rather than walked.

Now, on the bench of the garden, Kranitski raised his face from
his palms and looked at the exchange. The porch with its broad
steps was empty, but Darvid's carriage was there yet, showing a
spot of gleaming sapphire in the sunny air, the horses stood in
trained fixedness, like statues cast from bronze. Kranitski's
lips were awry with distaste.

With a bitterness to which his mild nature came rarely, he
whispered:

"Labor! iron labor!"

With lips full of gall, not thinking now of straightening his
shoulders or giving his steps an appearance of elasticity, he
dragged along from street to street, halting sometimes for a
moment before the gates of the grandest houses. Each one of these
reminded him of something, of some brilliant or happy moment, of
some fragment of the past. This one he had entered while going to
one of the smaller or greater "stars of his existence;" out of
that one he had gone when taking the ailing Count Alfred to
Italy; through this one he had hurried daily to do some kindness
for Prince Zeno; that one brought to him the memory of a certain
ball, so brilliant that it bordered upon fairy-land. Now all
these gates an