most in a fever was no more than the truth. He
wandered about the park for a long while, and at last came to himself in
a lonely avenue. He was vaguely conscious that he had already paced this
particular walk--from that large, dark tree to the bench at the other
end--about a hundred yards altogether--at least thirty times backwards
and forwards.

As to recollecting what he had been thinking of all that time, he could
not. He caught himself, however, indulging in one thought which made him
roar with laughter, though there was nothing really to laugh at in it;
but he felt that he must laugh, and go on laughing.

It struck him that the idea of the duel might not have occurred to
Keller alone, but that his lesson in the art of pistol-loading might
have been not altogether accidental! "Pooh! nonsense!" he said to
himself, struck by another thought, of a sudden. "Why, she was immensely
surprised to find me there on the verandah, and laughed and talked about
TEA! And yet she had this little note in her hand, therefore she must
have known that I was sitting there. So why was she surprised? Ha, ha,
ha!"

He pulled the note out and kissed it; then paused and reflected. "How
strange it all is! how strange!" he muttered, melancholy enough now. In
moments of great joy, he invariably felt a sensation of melancholy come
over him--he could not tell why.

He looked intently around him, and wondered why he had come here; he was
very tired, so he approached the bench and sat down on it. Around him
was profound silence; the music in the Vauxhall was over. The park
seemed quite empty, though it was not, in reality, later than half-past
eleven. It was a quiet, warm, clear night--a real Petersburg night of
early June; but in the dense avenue, where he was sitting, it was almost
pitch dark.

If anyone had come up at this moment and told him that he was in love,
passionately in love, he would have rejected the idea with astonishment,
and, perhaps, with irritation. And if anyone had added that Aglaya's
note was a love-letter, and that it contained an appointment to a
lover's rendezvous, he would have blushed with shame for the speaker,
and, probably, have challenged him to a duel.

All this would have been perfectly sincere on his part. He had never
for a moment entertained the idea of the possibility of this girl loving
him, or even of such a thing as himself falling in love with her. The
possibility of being loved himself, "a man like m