XVII

Tyeglev's suicide did not surprise his comrades very much. I have told
you already that, according to their ideas, as a "fatal" man he was
bound to do something extraordinary, though perhaps they had not
expected that from him. In the letter to the colonel he asked him, in
the first place, to have the name of Ilya Tyeglev removed from the
list of officers, as he had died by his own act, adding that in his
cash-box there would be found more than sufficient money to pay his
debts,--and, secondly, to forward to the important personage at that
time commanding the whole corps of guards, an unsealed letter which
was in the same envelope. This second letter, of course, we all read;
some of us took a copy of it. Tyeglev had evidently taken pains over
the composition of this letter.

"You know, Your Excellency" (so I remember the letter began), "you are
so stern and severe over the slightest negligence in uniform when a
pale, trembling officer presents himself before you; and here am I now
going to meet our universal, righteous, incorruptible Judge, the
Supreme Being, the Being of infinitely greater consequence even than
Your Excellency, and I am going to meet him in undress, in my
great-coat, and even without a cravat round my neck."

Oh, what a painful and unpleasant impression that phrase made upon me,
with every word, every letter of it, carefully written in the dead
man's childish handwriting! Was it worth while, I asked myself, to
invent such rubbish at such a moment? But Tyeglev had evidently been
pleased with the phrase: he had made use in it of the accumulation of
epithets and amplifications _a la_ Marlinsky, at that time in
fashion. Further on he had alluded to destiny, to persecution, to his