And what if they give me into custody? They won’t dare! They’ll be afraid of the scandal. And what if Zverkov is so contemptuous that he refuses to fight a duel? He is sure to; but in that case I’ll show them ... I will turn up at the posting station when he’s setting off tomorrow, I’ll catch him by the leg, I’ll pull off his coat when he gets into the carriage. I’ll get my teeth into his hand, I’ll bite him. “See what lengths you can drive a desperate man to!” He may hit me on the head and they may belabour me from behind. I will shout to the assembled multitude: “Look at this young puppy who is driving off to captivate the Circassian girls after letting me spit in his face!” Of course, after that everything will be over! The office will have vanished off the face of the earth. I shall be arrested, I shall be tried, I shall be dismissed from the service, thrown in prison, sent to Siberia. Never mind! In fifteen years when they let me out of prison I will trudge off to him, a beggar, in rags. I shall find him in some provincial town. He will be married and happy. He will have a grown-up daughter.... I shall say to him: “Look, monster, at my hollow cheeks and my rags! I’ve lost everything—my career, my happiness, art, science, _the woman I loved_, and all through you. Here are pistols. I have come to discharge my pistol and ... and I ... forgive you. Then I shall fire into the air and he will hear nothing more of me....” I was actually on the point of tears, though I knew perfectly well at that moment that all this was out of Pushkin’s _Silvio_ and Lermontov’s _Masquerade_. And all at once I felt horribly ashamed, so ashamed that I stopped the horse, got out of the sledge, and stood still in the snow in the middle of the street. The driver gazed at me, sighing and astonished. What was I to do? I could not go on there—it was evidently stupid, and I could not leave things as they were, because that would seem as though ... Heavens, how could I leave things! And after such insults! “No!” I cried, throwing myself into the sledge again. “It is ordained! It is fate! Drive on, drive on!” And in my impatience I punched the sledge-driver on the back of the neck. “What are you up to? What are you hitting me for?” the peasant shouted, but he whipped up his nag so that it began kicking. The wet snow was falling in big flakes; I unbuttoned myself, regardless of it. I forgot everything else, for I had finally decided on the slap, and felt with horror that it was going to happen _now, at once_, and that _no force could stop it_. The deserted street lamps gleamed sullenly in the snowy darkness like torches at a funeral. The snow drifted under my great-coat, under my coat, under my cravat, and melted there. I did not wrap myself up—all was lost, anyway.