he power to end my existence, although I do but give
back days that are already numbered. It is an insignificant gift, and my
revolt is equally insignificant.

"Final explanation: I die, not in the least because I am unable to
support these next three weeks. Oh no, I should find strength enough,
and if I wished it I could obtain consolation from the thought of the
injury that is done me. But I am not a French poet, and I do not desire
such consolation. And finally, nature has so limited my capacity for
work or activity of any kind, in allotting me but three weeks of time,
that suicide is about the only thing left that I can begin and end in
the time of my own free will.

"Perhaps then I am anxious to take advantage of my last chance of doing
something for myself. A protest is sometimes no small thing."

The explanation was finished; Hippolyte paused at last.

There is, in extreme cases, a final stage of cynical candour when a
nervous man, excited, and beside himself with emotion, will be afraid
of nothing and ready for any sort of scandal, nay, glad of it. The
extraordinary, almost unnatural, tension of the nerves which upheld
Hippolyte up to this point, had now arrived at this final stage. This
poor feeble boy of eighteen--exhausted by disease--looked for all the
world as weak and frail as a leaflet torn from its parent tree and
trembling in the breeze; but no sooner had his eye swept over his
audience, for the first time during the whole of the last hour, than the
most contemptuous, the most haughty expression of repugnance lighted
up his face. He defied them all, as it were. But his hearers were
indignant, too; they rose to their feet with annoyance. Fatigue,
the wine consumed, the strain of listening so long, all added to the
disagreeable impression which the reading had made upon them.

Suddenly Hippolyte jumped up as though he had been shot.

"The sun is rising," he cried, seeing the gilded tops of the trees, and
pointing to them as to a miracle. "See, it is rising now!"

"Well, what then? Did you suppose it wasn't going to rise?" asked
Ferdishenko.

"It's going to be atrociously hot again all day," said Gania, with an
air of annoyance, taking his hat. "A month of this... Are you coming
home, Ptitsin?" Hippolyte listened to this in amazement, almost
amounting to stupefaction. Suddenly he became deadly pale and shuddered.

"You manage your composure too awkwardly. I see you wish to insult me,"
he cried to