"Come, Dimitri!" she exclaimed, "do walk a little faster. I am
horribly tired, and you will not hurry yourself in the least. We
shall never get home.... As for you, monsieur, your way lies over
there!"

She made a vague gesture in the direction of some dark vicolo,
pushed her husband the opposite way, and called to me, without even
turning her head.

"Adieu, Monsieur! We shall not go to Posilippo to-morrow, nor the
day after, either. I have a frightful headache!... Dimitri, you
are unendurable! will you not walk faster?"

I remained for the moment stupefied, vainly trying to think what I
could have done to offend Madame Trepof. I had also lost my way,
and seemed doomed to wander about all night. In order to ask my
way, I would have to see somebody; and it did not seem likely that
I should find a single human being who could understand me. In
my despair I entered a street at random--a street, or rather a
horrible alley that had the look of a murderous place. It proved
so in fact, for I had not been two minutes in it before I saw two
men fighting with knives. They were attacking each other more
fiercely with their tongues than with their weapons; and I
concluded from the nature of the abuse they were showering upon
each other that it was a love affair. I prudently made my way into
a side alley while those two good fellows were still much too busy
with their own affairs to think about mine. I wandered hopelessly
about for a while, and at last sat down, completely discouraged,
on a stone bench, inwardly cursing the strange caprices of Madame