'So you would crush me, would you, you damned brute!' shouted Tchertop-hanov, and, as though in self-defence, he pulled the pistol out of his pocket. He no longer felt furious exasperation, but that special numbness of the senses which they say comes over a man before the perpetration of a crime. But his own voice terrified him--it sounded so wild and strange under the cover of dark branches in the close, decaying dampness of the forest ravine! Moreover, in response to his exclamation, some great bird suddenly fluttered in a tree-top above his head... Tchertop-hanov shuddered. He had, as it were, roused a witness to his act--and where? In that silent place where he should not have met a living creature.... 'Away with you, devil, to the four winds of heaven!' he muttered, and letting go Malek-Adel's rein, he gave him a violent blow on the shoulder with the butt end of the pistol. Malek-Adel promptly turned back, clambered out of the ravine... and ran away. But the thud of his hoofs was not long audible. The rising wind confused and blended all sounds together. Tchertop-hanov too slowly clambered out of the ravine, reached the forest, and made his way along the road homewards. He was ill at ease with himself; the weight he had felt in his head and his heart had spread over all his limbs; he walked angry, gloomy, dissatisfied, hungry, as though some one had insulted him, snatched his prey, his food from him.... The suicide, baffled in his intent, must know such sensations. Suddenly something poked him behind between his shoulder blades. He looked round.... Malek-Adel was standing in the middle of the road. He had walked after his master; he touched him with his nose to announce himself. 'Ah!' shouted Tchertop-hanov,' of yourself, of yourself you have come to your death! So, there!' In the twinkling of an eye he had snatched out his pistol, drawn the trigger, turned the muzzle on Malek-Adel's brow, fired.... The poor horse sprung aside, rose on its haunches, bounded ten paces away, and suddenly fell heavily, and gasped as it writhed upon the ground.... Tchertop-hanov put his two hands over his ears and ran away. His knees were shaking under him. His drunkenness and revenge and blind self-confidence--all had flown at once. There was left nothing but a sense of shame and loathing--and the consciousness, unmistakeable, that this time he had put an end to himself too. XVI Six weeks later, the groom Perfishka thought it his duty to stop the commissioner of police as he happened to be passing Bezsonovo. 'What do you want?' inquired the guardian of order. 'If you please, your excellency, come into our house,' answered the groom with a low bow. 'Panteley Eremyitch, I fancy, is about to die; so that I'm afraid of getting into trouble.' 'What? die?' queried the commissioner.