backwards, and remained motionless.

"Come, an end to this childish nonsense!" said Hermann, taking hold
of her hand. "I ask you for the last time: will you tell me the
names of your three cards, or will you not?"

The Countess made no reply. Hermann perceived that she was dead!


IV


Lizaveta Ivanovna was sitting in her room, still in her ball dress,
lost in deep thought. On returning home, she had hastily dismissed
the chambermaid, who very reluctantly came forward to assist her,
saying that she would undress herself, and with a trembling heart
had gone up to her own room, expecting to find Hermann there, but
yet hoping not to find him. At the first glance he was not there,
and she thanked her fate for having prevented him keeping the
appointment. She sat down without undressing, and began to call to
mind all the circumstances which in a short time had carried her so
far. It was not three weeks since the time when she had first seen
the young officer from the window--and yet she was already in
correspondence with him, and he had succeeded in inducing her to
grant him a nocturnal interview. She knew his name only through
his having written it at the bottom of some of his letters; she had
never spoken to him, had never heard his voice, and had never heard
him spoken of until that evening. But, strange to say, that very
evening at the ball, Tomsky, being piqued with the young Princess
Pauline N----, who, contrary to her usual custom, did not flirt