Vera hastened homewards. She forgot the incident of her encounter with Napoleon; she took no notice of the hundreds of compliments, impudent observations and rude jests thrown at her by scores of French soldiers as she passed; Sasha Maximof was dead: this was her only thought; it absorbed her entire being; was it--she asked herself--really so all-important to her that this man was dead? She had not yet learned to love him; it must surely be a mere sentimental regret, this black heavy weight upon her heart; a sentimental regret that one who had once been nominally her fiancé had suddenly met his death; her heart had not received its death-wound--oh no! this was but a passing feeling of sympathy and sorrow; it would disappear; the shock of the sudden catastrophe had unnerved her. Nevertheless when Vera had lain for an hour upon her bed, assuring herself that after all this calamity was not really a disaster, for her, of the first magnitude, she suddenly realised that nothing in the world could have mattered more to her than the death of this man; and turning her face to the wall she wept as though her heart were indeed broken. CHAPTER XIX. Vera heard a banging at the front door--a sound which might have startled and even frightened her at another moment, but she was so full of her new grief that she scarcely noticed it; she felt as though nothing mattered; that she did not care what happened. Then old Michael, one of the two servants who had remained in the house when the rest left Moscow, knocked at her door and put his head into the room. "_Golôobushka moyá_," he said, "do not be frightened, a disaster has happened; the young Graf Maximof----" he paused; Vera laughed hysterically. "Yes, yes, go on; he has been shot--he is dead--they have brought his body; you may tell me all, Michael." "Oh, _liubeemaya_, not so bad as that; but he is hurt." "What do you say--he is not dead?" cried Vera; she sprang from the bed upon which she lay. "Is he dying, is he mortally wounded, tell me quickly, has Stepan gone for a doctor?" "But I did not say matters were so bad as that!" exclaimed old Michael, startled by her agitation. "The Count has, I think, been fighting--there is a rag bound round his wrist which is covered with blood and he is pale and faint, but----" "But is he not shot--I thought--stop, Michael--go down and say that I will come immediately--I am not quite ready--I think I have been dreaming--do not tell the Count what I have said." Old Michael went downstairs muttering and crossing himself. His beloved mistress could not be well if she dreamed in this fashion by daylight; what did it mean? Vera dashed water upon her eyes and smoothed her ruffled hair; she stood a moment before her ikon and prayed; her eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed; the expression of utter misery had left her face. She found Sasha sitting dejected and pale, his arm bound up with a cloth which, as Michael said, was soaked in blood.