street on the other. This block was divided into a host of small
tenements, tenanted by all sorts of trades. People were swarming
in and out through the two doors. There were three or four
dvorniks* belonging to the house, but the young man, to his great
satisfaction, came across none of them, and, escaping notice as he
entered, mounted at once the stairs on the right hand. He had
already made acquaintance with this dark and narrow staircase, and
its obscurity was grateful to him; it was gloomy enough to hide him
from prying eyes. "If I feel so timid now, what will it be when I
come to put my plan into execution?" thought he, as he reached the
fourth floor. Here he found the passage blocked; some military
porters were removing the furniture from a tenement recently
occupied, as the young man knew, by a German official and his
family. "Thanks to the departure of this German, for some time to
come there will be no one on this landing but the old woman. It is
as well to know this, at any rate," thought he to himself, as he
rang the old woman's bell. It gave a faint sound, as if it were
made of tin instead of copper. In houses of this sort, the smaller
lodgings generally have such bells.


* Janitors.


He had forgotten this; the peculiar tinkling sound seemed to recall
something to his memory, for he gave a shiver--his nerves were very
weak. In another moment the door was opened part way, and the
occupant of the rooms stood examining her visitor through the
opening with evident suspicion, her small eyes glimmering through
the darkness like luminous points. But when she saw the people on