have a brand in my breast. It must be kept covered with ashes;
when I can see it no more, I shall suffer less. It is my eyes that
make me suffer; if I were blind, I could return to Moscow."

Then in a harsher voice:

"I could easily destroy this likeness, but THE OTHER, I cannot kill
it, curses on me! it is the better portrait of the two. There is
her hair, her mouth, her smile. Ah, thank God, I have killed the
smile. The smile is no longer there. I have buried the smile.
But there is the mole in the corner of the mouth. I have kissed it
a thousand times; take away that mole, it hurts me. If that mole
were gone I should suffer less. Merciful Heaven! it is always
there. But I have buried the smile. The smile is no more. I have
buried it deep in a leaden coffin. It can't come. . . ."

Then suddenly changing his accent, and in a tragical, but bitter
voice, his eyes fixed upon the large rusty sword which he held in
his right hand, he muttered:

"The spot will not go away. The iron will not drink it. It was
not for this blood it thirsted. I shall find it in the other, it
will drink that. Ah! we shall see how it will drink it."

Upon this, he relapsed into silence and appeared to be thinking
deeply. Then raising his head, he cried in a voice so strong and
vibrating that the iron door trembled upon its hinges:

"Morlof, then it was not thou! Ah! my dear friend, I was
deceived. . . . Go, do not regret life. It is only the dream