Chapter 26

"At the station before the last, when the conductor came to take the
tickets, I took my baggage and went out on the car platform, and
the consciousness that the climax was near at hand only added to my
agitation. I was cold, my jaw trembled so that my teeth chattered.
Mechanically I left the station with the crowd, I took a tchik, and I
started. I looked at the few people passing in the streets and at the
dvorniks. I read the signs, without thinking of anything. After going
half a verst my feet began to feel cold, and I remembered that in the
car I had taken off my woollen socks, and had put them in my travelling
bag. Where had I put the bag? Was it with me? Yes, and the basket?

"I bethought myself that I had totally forgotten my baggage. I took out
my check, and then decided it was not worth while to return. I continued
on my way. In spite of all my efforts to remember, I cannot at this
moment make out why I was in such a hurry. I know only that I was
conscious that a serious and menacing event was approaching in my life.
It was a case of real auto-suggestion. Was it so serious because I
thought it so? Or had I a presentiment? I do not know. Perhaps, too,
after what has happened, all previous events have taken on a lugubrious
tint in my memory.

"I arrived at the steps. It was an hour past midnight. A few isvotchiks
were before the door, awaiting customers, attracted by the lighted
windows (the lighted windows were those of our parlor and reception
room). Without trying to account for this late illumination, I went up
the steps, always with the same expectation of something terrible, and
I rang. The servant, a good, industrious, and very stupid being, named
Gregor, opened the door. The first thing that leaped to my eyes in the
hall, on the hat-stand, among other garments, was an overcoat. I ought
to have been astonished, but I was not astonished. I expected it.
'That's it!' I said to myself.

"When I had asked Gregor who was there, and he had named
Troukhatchevsky, I inquired whether there were other visitors. He
answered: 'Nobody.' I remember the air with which he said that, with
a tone that was intended to give me pleasure, and dissipate my doubts.
'That's it! that's it!' I had the air of saying to myself. 'And the
children?'

"'Thank God, they are very well. They went to sleep long ago.'

"I scarcely breathed, and I could not keep my jaw from trembling.

"Then it was not as I thought. I had often before returned home with the
thought that a misfortune had awaited me, but had been mistaken, and
everything was going on as usual. But now things were not going on as
usual. All that I had imagined, all that I believed to be chimeras, all
really