carry out in their arms the bent form of the old lady, wrapped in
sable fur, and immediately behind her, clad in a warm mantle, and
with her head ornamented with a wreath of fresh flowers, followed
Lizaveta. The door was closed. The carriage rolled heavily away
through the yielding snow. The porter shut the street door, the
windows became dark.

Hermann began walking up and down near the deserted house; at
length he stopped under a lamp, and glanced at his watch: it was
twenty minutes past eleven. He remained standing under the lamp,
his eyes fixed upon the watch impatiently waiting for the remaining
minutes to pass. At half-past eleven precisely Hermann ascended
the steps of the house and made his way into the brightly-
illuminated vestibule. The porter was not there. Hermann hastily
ascended the staircase, opened the door of the anteroom, and saw a
footman sitting asleep in an antique chair by the side of a lamp.
With a light, firm step Hermann passed by him. The drawing-room
and dining-room were in darkness, but a feeble reflection
penetrated thither from the lamp in the anteroom.

Hermann reached the Countess's bedroom. Before a shrine, which was
full of old images, a golden lamp was burning. Faded stuffed
chairs and divans with soft cushions stood in melancholy symmetry
around the room, the walls of which were hung with china silk. On
one side of the room hung two portraits painted in Paris by Madame
Lebrun. One of these represented a stout, red-faced man of about
forty years of age, in a bright green uniform, and with a star upon
his breast; the other--a beautiful young woman, with an aquiline
nose, forehead curls, and a rose in her powdered hair. In the
corner stood porcelain shepherds and shepherdesses, dining-room