I awoke at dawn. The rose-colored firmament looked into my eyes. Everything was beautiful, round. "O-90 is to come tonight. Surely I am healthy again." I smiled and fell asleep. The Morning Bell! I got up; everything looked different. Through the glass of the ceiling, through the walls, nothing could be seen but fog,--fog everywhere, strange clouds, becoming heavier and nearer; the boundary between earth and sky disappeared. Everything seemed to be floating and thawing and falling.... Not a thing to hold to. No houses to be seen; they all were dissolved in the fog like crystals of salt in water. On the sidewalks and inside the houses dark figures like suspended particles in a strange milky solution, were hanging, below, above,--up to the tenth floor. Everything seemed to be covered with smoke, as though a fire were somewhere raging noiselessly. At eleven-forty-five exactly (I looked at the clock particularly at that time to catch the figures, to save at least the figures) at eleven-forty-five, just before leaving, according to our Table of Hours, to go and occupy myself with physical labor, I dropped into my room for a moment. Suddenly the telephone rang. A voice,--a long needle slowly penetrating my heart: "Oh, you are at home? I am very glad! Wait for me at the corner. We shall go together.... Where? Well, you'll see." "You know perfectly well that I am going to work now." "You know perfectly well that you'll do as I say! _Au-revoir._ In two minutes!..." I stood at the corner. I had to wait to try to make clear to her that only the United State directs me, not she. "You'll do as I say!" How sure she is! One hears it in her voice. And what if...? Unifs, dull gray as if woven of damp fog would appear for a second at my side and then soundlessly redissolve. I was unable to turn my eyes away from the clock.... I seemed myself to have become that sharp, quivering hand which marked the seconds. Ten, eight minutes ... three ... two minutes to twelve.... Of course! I was late! Oh, how I hated her, yet I had to wait to prove that I.... A red line in the milky whiteness of the fog--like blood, like a wound made by a sharp knife--her lips. "I made you wait, I think? And now you are late for your work anyway?" "How...? Well, yes, it is too late now." I glanced at her lips in silence. All women are lips, lips only. Some are rosy lips, tense and round, a ring, a tender fence separating one from the world. But these! A second ago they were not here, and suddenly ... the slash of a knife! I seemed to see even the dripping sweet blood....