At the hour agreed upon I crossed the Rhine, and the first person I met on the bank was the same little boy who had found me in the morning. He seemed to be waiting for me. "From Mademoiselle Anna," he said to me, in a low voice, and he gave me another note.

Annouchka announced to me that she had changed the place of the rendezvous. She told me to meet her in an hour and a half—not at the chapel, but at Dame Louise's; I was to knock at the door, enter, and go up three flights.

"Again Yes?" asked the little boy.

"Yes," I replied, and walked along the river bank. I had not time enough to return to my house, and did not wish to wander about the streets.

Behind the walls of the town stretched a little garden, with a bowling-alley covered with a roof, and some tables for beer-drinkers. I entered it.

Several middle-aged Germans were bowling; the balls rolled noisily along; exclamations could be heard from time to time. A pretty little waiting-maid, her eyes swollen from crying, brought me a jug of beer; I looked her in the face, she turned away bruskly and withdrew.

"Yes, yes!" muttered a stout German with very red cheeks, who was seated near me; "our Hannchen is in great distress to-day; her sweetheart is drawn in the conscription." I looked at her at this moment; retiring into a corner, she was resting her cheek upon her hand, and great tears slowly rolled between her fingers. Some one asked for beer; she brought him a jug, and went back to her place. This grief reacted upon me, and I began to think of my rendezvous with sadness and uneasiness.

It was not with a light heart that I was going to this interview. I must not give myself up to the joys of a reciprocal love. Must keep to my word, fulfil a difficult duty. "It is not safe to play with fire." This expression, which Gaguine had used in speaking of his sister, pierced me like a sharp arrow to the bottom of my soul. Yet three days before, in that boat carried along by the stream, was I not tormented by a thirst for happiness? Now I could satisfy it, and I hesitated. I thrust back this happiness; it was my duty to do so; the unforeseen something which it presented frightened me. Annouchka herself, with her impulsive nature, her education, this girl strange and full of fascination, I confess it, frightened me.

I struggled a long time with these feelings. The moment fixed upon approached. "I can not marry her," at last I said to myself; "she will not know that I have loved her."

I arose, put a thaler into poor Hannchen's hand (she did not even thank me), and proceeded towards the house of Dame Louise.

The shades of night were already in the air, and above the dark street stretched a narrow band of sky, reddened by the setting sun. I gently tapped at the door; it was immediately opened.

I crossed the threshold and found myself in complete darkness.

"This way," said a cracked voice, "you are expected."

I groped along in the dark a few steps; a bony hand seized mine.

"Is it you, Dame Louise?" I asked.

"Yes!" answered the same voice, "it is I, my fine young man."

The old woman took me up a very steep staircase, and stopped upon the landing of the third story. I recognized then, by the faint glimmer from a little garret window, the wrinkled face of the burgomaster's widow. A sly and mawkish smile half opened her toothless mouth, and made her dull eyes glitter. She pointed out a door. I opened it with a convulsive movement, and slammed it after me.