Hermann reached the Countess’s bedroom.  Before a shrine, which was full of old images, a golden lamp was burning.  Faded stuffed chairs and divans with soft cushions stood in melancholy symmetry around the room, the walls of which were hung with china silk.  On one side of the room hung two portraits painted in Paris by Madame Lebrun.  One of these represented a stout, red-faced man of about forty years of age, in a bright green uniform, and with a star upon his breast; the other—­a beautiful young woman, with an aquiline nose, forehead curls, and a rose in her powdered hair.  In the corner stood porcelain shepherds and shepherdesses, dining-room clocks from the workshop of the celebrated Lefroy, bandboxes, roulettes, fans, and the various playthings for the amusement of ladies that were in vogue at the end of the last century, when Montgolfier’s balloons and Niesber’s magnetism were the rage.  Hermann stepped behind the screen.  At the back of it stood a little iron bedstead; on the right was the door which led to the cabinet; on the left, the other which led to the corridor.  He opened the latter, and saw the little winding staircase which led to the room of the poor companion.  But he retraced his steps and entered the dark cabinet.

The time passed slowly.  All was still.  The clock in the drawing-room struck twelve, the strokes echoed through the room one after the other, and everything was quiet again.  Hermann stood leaning against the cold stove.  He was calm, his heart beat regularly, like that of a man resolved upon a dangerous but inevitable undertaking.  One o’clock in the morning struck; then two, and he heard the distant noise of carriage-wheels.  An involuntary agitation took possession of him.  The carriage drew near and stopped.  He heard the sound of the carriage steps being let down.  All was bustle within the house.  The servants were running hither and thither, there was a confusion of voices, and the rooms were lit up.  Three antiquated chambermaids entered the bedroom, and they were shortly afterwards followed by the Countess, who, more dead than alive, sank into a Voltaire armchair.  Hermann peeped through a chink.  Lizaveta Ivanovna passed close by him, and he heard her hurried steps as she hastened up the little spiral staircase.  For a moment his heart was assailed by something like a pricking of conscience, but the emotion was only transitory, and his heart became petrified as before.

The Countess began to undress before her looking-glass.  Her rose-bedecked cap was taken off, and then her powdered wig was removed from off her white and closely cut hair.  Hairpins fell in showers around her.  Her yellow satin dress, brocaded with silver, fell down at her swollen feet.

Hermann was a witness of the repugnant mysteries of her toilette; at last the Countess was in her night-cap and dressing-gown, and in this costume, more suitable to her age, she appeared less hideous and deformed.