Still another year elapsed. I transferred my residence to Petersburg. Winter arrived; the masquerades began. One day, as I emerged at eleven o'clock at night from the house of a friend, I felt myself in such a gloomy frame of mind that I decided to betake myself to the masquerade in the Assembly of the Nobility.[22] For a long time I roamed about among the columns and past the mirrors with a discreetly-fatalistic expression on my countenance--with that expression which, so far as I have observed, makes its appearance in such cases on the faces of the most well-bred persons--why, the Lord only knows. For a long time I roamed about, now and then parrying with a jest the advances of divers shrill dominoes with suspicious lace and soiled gloves, and still more rarely addressing them. For a long time I surrendered my ears to the blare of the trumpets and the whining of the violins; at last, being pretty well bored, I was on the point of going home .... and .... and remained. I caught sight of a woman in a black domino, leaning against a column,--and no sooner had I caught sight of her than I stopped short, stepped up to her, and ... will the reader believe me?.... immediately recognised in her my Unknown. How I recognised her: whether by the glance which she abstractedly cast upon me through the oblong aperture in her mask, or by the wonderful outlines of her shoulders and arms, or by the peculiarly feminine stateliness of her whole form, or, in conclusion, by some secret voice which suddenly spoke in me,--I cannot say .... only, recognise her I did. With a quiver in my heart, I walked past her several times. She did not stir; in her attitude there was something so hopelessly sorrowful that, as I gazed at her, I involuntarily recalled two lines of a Spanish romance: Soy un cuadro de tristeza, Arrimado a la pared.[23] I stepped behind the column against which she was leaning, and bending my head down to her very ear, enunciated softly: "_Passa quei colli._"... She began to tremble all over, and turned swiftly round to me. Our eyes met at very short range, and I was able to observe how fright had dilated her pupils. Feebly extending one hand in perplexity, she gazed at me. "On May 6, 184*, in Sorrento, at ten o'clock in the evening, in della Croce Street,"--I said in a deliberate voice, without taking my eyes from her; "afterward, in Russia, in the *** Government, in the hamlet of Mikhaílovskoe, on June 22, 184*.".... I said all this in French. She recoiled a little, scanned me from head to foot with a look of amazement, and whispering, "_Venez_," swiftly left the room. I followed her. We walked on in silence. It is beyond my power to express what I felt as I walked side by side with her. It was as though a very beautiful dream had suddenly become reality ... as though the statue of Galatea had descended as a living woman from its pedestal in the sight of the swooning Pygmalion.... I could not believe it, I could hardly breathe.