"I suspected this," muttered he, uneasily, "I foresaw it. That's the worst of it! Some wretched trifle like this might spoil it all. Yes, this hat is certainly too remarkable; it looks so ridiculous. I must get a cap to suit my rags; any old thing would be better than this horror. Hats like these are not worn; this one would be noticeable a _verst_[2] off; it would be remembered; people would think of it again some time after, and it might furnish a clew. I must attract as little attention as possible just now. Trifles become important, everything hinges on them." He had not far to go; he knew the exact distance between his lodging and present destination--just seven hundred and thirty paces. He had counted them when his plan only floated through his brain like a vague dream. At that time, he himself would not have believed it capable of realization; he merely dallied in fancy with a chimera which was both terrible and seductive. But a month had elapsed, and he had already begun to view it in a different light. Although he reproached himself throughout his soliloquies with irresolution and a want of energy, he had accustomed himself, little by little, and, indeed, in spite of himself, to consider the realization of his dream a possibility, though he doubted his own resolution. He was but just now rehearsing his enterprise, and his agitation was increasing at every step. His heart sank, and his limbs trembled nervously, as he came to an immense pile of building facing the canal on one side and the street on the other. This block was divided into a host of small tenements, tenanted by all sorts of trades. People were swarming in and out through the two doors. There were three or four _dvorniks_[3] belonging to the house, but the young man, to his great satisfaction, came across none of them, and, escaping notice as he entered, mounted at once the stairs on the right hand. He had already made acquaintance with this dark and narrow staircase, and its obscurity was grateful to him; it was gloomy enough to hide him from prying eyes. "If I feel so timid now, what will it be when I come to put my plan into execution?" thought he, as he reached the fourth floor. Here he found the passage blocked; some military porters were removing the furniture from a tenement recently occupied, as the young man knew, by a German official and his family. "Thanks to the departure of this German, for some time to come there will be no one on this landing but the old woman. It is as well to know this, at any rate," thought he to himself, as he rang the old woman's bell. It gave a faint sound, as if it were made of tin instead of copper. In houses of this sort, the smaller lodgings generally have such bells.