Litvinov remained alone, and yet still could not come to himself. He recovered himself at last, went quickly to the boudoir door, uttered Irina’s name once, twice, three times.... He had already his hand on the lock.... From the hotel stairs rose the sound of Ratmirov’s sonorous voice. Litvinov pulled down his hat over his eyes, and went out on to the staircase. The elegant general was standing before the Swiss porter’s box and explaining to him in bad German that he wanted a hired carriage for the whole of the next day. On catching sight of Litvinov, he again lifted his hat unnaturally high, and again wished him ‘a very good-day’; he was obviously jeering at him, but Litvinov had no thoughts for that. He hardly responded to Ratmirov’s bow, and, making his way to his lodging, he stood still before his already packed and closed trunk. His head was turning round and his heart vibrating like a harp-string. What was to be done now? And could he have foreseen this? Yes, he had foreseen it, however unlikely it seemed. It had stunned him like a clap of thunder, yet he had foreseen it, though he had not courage even to acknowledge it. Besides he knew nothing now for certain. Everything was confusion and turmoil within him; he had lost the thread of his own thoughts. He remembered Moscow, he remembered how then too ‘it’ had come upon him like a sudden tempest. He was breathless; rapture, but a rapture comfortless and hopeless, oppressed and tore his heart. For nothing in the world would he have consented that the words uttered by Irina should not have actually been uttered by her.... But then? those words could not for all that change the resolution he had taken. As before, it did not waver; it stood firm like an anchor. Litvinov had lost the thread of his own thoughts ... yes; but his will still remained to him, and he disposed of himself as of another man dependent on him. He rang for the waiter, asked him for the bill, bespoke a place in the evening omnibus; designedly he cut himself off all paths of retreat. ‘If I die for it after!’ he declared, as he had in the previous sleepless night; that phrase seemed especially to his taste. ‘Then even if I die for it!’ he repeated, walking slowly up and down the room, and only at rare intervals, unconsciously, he shut his eyes and held his breath, while those words, those words of Irina’s forced their way into his soul, and set it aflame. ‘It seems you won’t love twice,’ he thought; ‘another life came to you, you let it come into yours--never to be rid of that poison to the end, you will never break those bonds! Yes; but what does that prove? Happiness?... Is it possible? You love her, granted ... and she ... she loves you....’