existence. All is desolate!

"Yes, Ammalát," he added; "I am tired of your ever-angry, lonely sea--of
your country peopled with diseases, and with men who are worse than all
maladies in the world. I am weary of the war itself, of invisible
enemies, of the service shared with unfriendly comrades. It is not
enough that they impeded me in my proceedings--they spoiled what I
ordered to be done--they found fault with what I intended, and
misrepresented what I had effected. I have served my sovereign with
truth and fidelity, my country and this region with disinterestedness; I
have renounced, a voluntary exile, all the conveniences of life, all the
charms of society; have condemned my intellect to torpidity, being
deprived of books; have buried my heart in solitude; have abandoned my
beloved; and what is my reward? When will that moment arrive, when I
throw myself into the arms of my bride; when I, wearied with service,
shall repose myself under my native cottage-roof, on the green shore of
the Dniéper; when a peaceful villager, and a tender father, surrounded
by my relations and my good peasants, I shall fear only the hail of
heaven for my harvests; fight only with wild-beasts? My heart yearns for
that hour. My leave of absence is in my pocket, my dismission is
promised me.... Oh, that I could fly to my bride!... And in five days I
shall for certain be in Geórgieffsk. Yet it seems as if the sands of
Libya, a sea of ice----as if the eternity of the grave itself, separated
us!"

Verkhóffsky was silent. Tears ran down his cheeks; his horse, feeling
the slackened rein, quickened his pace--and thus the pair alone,
advanced to some distance from the detachment.... It seemed as if
destiny itself surrendered the colonel into the hands of the assassin.