Then--streets empty as if swept by a plague. I remember I stumbled over something disgustingly soft, yielding yet motionless. I bent down--a corpse. It was lying flat, the legs apart. The face.... I recognized the thick negro lips which even now seemed to sprinkle with laughter. His eyes, firmly screwed in, laughed into my face. One second.... I stepped over him and ran. I could no longer.... I had to have everything done as soon as possible, or else I felt I would break, I would break in two like an overloaded sail.... Luckily it was not more than twenty steps away; I already saw the sign with the golden letters: "The Bureau of Guardians." At the door I stopped for a moment to gulp down as much air as I could and stepped in. Inside, in the corridor stood an endless chain of numbers, holding small sheets of paper and heavy note-books. They moved slowly, advancing a step or two and stopping again. I began to be tossed about along the chain, my head was breaking to pieces; I pulled them by the sleeves, I implored them as a sick man implores to be given something that would even at the price of sharpest pain end everything, forever. A woman with a belt tightly clasped around her waist over the unif and with two distinctly protruding squatty hemispheres tossing about as if she had eyes on them, chuckled at me: "He has a belly-ache! Show him to the room second door to the right!" Everybody laughed, and because of that laughter something rose in my throat; I felt I should either scream or ... or.... Suddenly from behind some one touched my elbow. I turned around. Transparent wing-ears! But they were not pink as usual; they were purplish red; his Adam's apple was tossing about as though ready to tear the covering.... Quickly boring into me: "What are you here for?" I seized him. "Quickly! Please! Quickly! ... into your office.... I must tell everything ... right away.... I am glad that you.... It may be terrible that it should be you to whom.... But it is well, it is well...." He too, knew _her_; this made it even more tormenting for me. But perhaps he too, would tremble when he should hear.... And we would both be killing.... And I would not be alone at that, my supreme second.... The door closed with a slam. I remember a piece of paper was caught beneath the door and it rustled on the floor when the door closed. And then a strange airless silence covered us as if a glass bell were put over us. If only he had uttered a single, most insignificant word, no matter what, I should have told him everything at once. But he was silent. So keyed up that I heard a noise in my ears, I said without looking at him: "I think I always hated her from the very beginning.... I struggled.... Or, no, no, don't believe me; I could have but I did not want to save myself; I wanted to perish; this was dearer to me than anything else ... and even now, even this minute, when I know already everything.... Do you know that I was summoned to the Well-Doer?"