"The villain! He has been tormenting me these six months. It was he who took me to that fatal fair at Cabul; it was he who stole the diamond the Princess gave me; he is the sole cause of my journey, of the death of my Princess and of the javelin-wound of which I am dying in the prime of youth." "Make yourself easy," said Topaz. "You have never been to Cabul. There is no Princess of Cashmere; the Prince has but two sons, and they are now at school. You never had any diamond. The Princess cannot be dead since she never was born; and you are perfectly sound and well." "What! Is it not true that you became in turn an eagle, an elephant, an ass, a doctor, and a magpie, to protect me from ill?" "It is all a dream, sir. Our ideas are no more under our control when sleeping than when awake. The Almighty sent that string of ideas through your head, as it would seem, to give you some lesson which you may lay to heart." "You are making game of me," said Rustem. "How long have I been sleeping?" "Sir, you have only slept one hour." "Well, I cannot understand it," said Rustem. But perhaps he took the lesson to heart, and learnt to doubt whether all he wished for was right and good for him. Transcriber's Notes: In this text edition, carets (^) are used to denote superscript (e.g. S^t) and underscores (_) are used to denote italics (e.g. There were _people_ in that train). The original text contains some inconsistencies of hyphenation (e.g. "tea urn" vs. "tea-urn"); these have been retained. Page 14, added missing close quote to "NETTA AND UGHTRED HAD STROLLED OUT TOGETHER." Page 22, added missing open quote to "Fire! Fire!" Page 24, changed oe ligature to oe for Latin-1 compatibility (ligature is retained in HTML edition) in "About a second and a half is occupied in this manoeuvre." Page 26, changed typo "or" to "of" in "victim of the fire." Page 28, added missing period to "The wonderful rapidity, order, discipline, and exactness of the parts secure a most effective tableau." Page 29, added missing "s" to "buildings" in "public and private buildings and houses." Pages 41-48, rejoined broken image captions for readability (e.g. changed "_From a_] AGE 5. [_Painting._" to "_From a Painting._ AGE 5.") Page 47, added missing period to image caption: "AGE 19." Page 53, changed oe ligature to oe for Latin-1 compatibility (ligature is retained in HTML edition) in "But her manoeuvres were not yet at an end." Page 80, added missing open quote to image caption: "HEARD VOICES." Page 81, removed a stray quote after "What could a Venetian mirror have done more?" Page 83, added missing period after "in order to console me for my blindness" and removed duplicate "in" from "so foolish in the presence of a stranger." Page 91, corrected typo "Lisbeta" to "Lisabeta" in "Lisabeta Ivanovna was, in fact, a most unhappy creature." Page 99, corrected single quote to double quote after "Is not that his name?"