“But, as a matter of fact, he could stop, could he not?” observed Yaroslav Ilyitch; then he became dumb again.

Ordynov had been wrong in casting such ferocious looks at Yaroslav, for, in reality, the latter was the most open and upright of men. But Ordynov was in a difficult position, while, for his part, Yaroslav was suffering from a mad desire to burst into laughter. Indeed, he would certainly have done so had he been closeted only with Ordynov, his bosom friend; after which he would have seized his friend’s hand, and assured him, in all sincerity, that he felt for him a double measure of esteem—that he pardoned him, and that not for all the world would he blame his youthful indiscretions. However, under the circumstances, his extreme delicacy left him neither choice of attitude nor any means of withdrawing from the scene.

“You ask me if there is any way out of it?” resumed Murin, whose features had changed colour at Yaroslav’s ill-timed question. “Well, sir, this is what I, in my uncouth peasant fashion, desire to say to Monsieur Ordynov. You have read too many books, sir—you have become too clever. We Russian peasants have a proverb that a man grows wise but to grow mad.”

“Now, now!” put in Yaroslav Ilyitch, with a touch of severity in his tone.

“Thank you, but I wish to leave you,” replied Ordynov. “Thank you too for all your trouble, Yaroslav. Some day I will come and pay you a visit” (this last was said in response to a polite, but unsuccessful, effort on the part of Yaroslav to detain him). “Goodbye, good-bye!”

“Good-bye, your nobility,” said Murin. “Do not forget also to pay us peasants a visit.”

But Ordynov departed without so much as noticing these adieus. He felt absolutely demented, he felt absolutely overcome, dumbfounded. Indeed, he felt as though he were suffocating—as though a severe internal chill were pressing upon his chest. He would gladly have died that very instant. Soon his legs began to tremble so violently that he was forced to rest against some railings, where he paid no heed to the looks and questionings of the throng which began to gather around him.

Suddenly, amid the babel, he heard Murin’s voice, and, raising his head, saw the old man standing before him, his pale face so reflective and solemn that it no longer resembled the face of the man who, in Yaroslav Ilyitch’s rooms, had been indulging in bitter mockery. Ordynov rose, and Murin, taking him by the arm, led him out of the throng.

“You have still to fetch your luggage from my tenement,” he said with a covert glance at his companion. “Do not distress yourself, sir. You are still quite young. Why should you be distressed about anything?”

Ordynov said nothing.

“Perhaps you are offended, sir, and angry? Why so? Every one must look out for himself.”

“I do not know you,” retorted Ordynov, “nor have I any desire to pry into your secrets; but she—she——”