him, laughing very strangely.

"No, but you--"

"Directly, directly! Stand still a moment, I wish to look in your eyes;
don't speak--stand so--let me look at you! I am bidding farewell to
mankind."

He stood so for ten seconds, gazing at the prince, motionless, deadly
pale, his temples wet with perspiration; he held the prince's hand in a
strange grip, as though afraid to let him go.

"Hippolyte, Hippolyte, what is the matter with you?" cried Muishkin.

"Directly! There, that's enough. I'll lie down directly. I must drink to
the sun's health. I wish to--I insist upon it! Let go!"

He seized a glass from the table, broke away from the prince, and in a
moment had reached the terrace steps.

The prince made after him, but it so happened that at this moment
Evgenie Pavlovitch stretched out his hand to say good-night. The next
instant there was a general outcry, and then followed a few moments of
indescribable excitement.

Reaching the steps, Hippolyte had paused, holding the glass in his left
hand while he put his right hand into his coat pocket.

Keller insisted afterwards that he had held his right hand in his pocket
all the while, when he was speaking to the prince, and that he had held
the latter's shoulder with his left hand only. This circumstance, Keller
affirmed, had led him to feel some suspicion from the first. However
this may be, Keller ran after Hippolyte, but he was too late.

He caught sight of something flashing in Hippolyte's right hand, and
saw that it was a pistol. He rushed at him, but at that very instant
Hippolyte raised the pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger. There
followed a sharp metallic click, but no report.

When Keller seized the would-be suicide, the latter fell forward into
his arms, probably actually believing that he was shot. Keller had hold
of the pistol now. Hippolyte was immediately placed in a chair, while
the whole company thronged around excitedly, talking and asking each
other questions. Every one of them had heard the snap of the trigger,
and yet they saw a live and apparently unharmed man before them.

Hippolyte himself sat quite unconscious of what was going on, and gazed
around with a senseless expression.

Lebedeff and Colia came rushing up at this moment.

"What is it?" someone asked, breathlessly--"A misfire?"

"Perhaps it wasn't loaded," said several voices.

"It's loaded all right," said Keller, examining the pistol, "but--"

"What! did it miss f