Hermann trembled like a tiger, as he waited for the appointed time to arrive.  At ten o’clock in the evening he was already in front of the Countess’s house.  The weather was terrible; the wind blew with great violence; the sleety snow fell in large flakes; the lamps emitted a feeble light, the streets were deserted; from time to time a sledge, drawn by a sorry-looking hack, passed by, on the look-out for a belated passenger.  Hermann was enveloped in a thick overcoat, and felt neither wind nor snow.

At last the Countess’s carriage drew up.  Hermann saw two footmen carry out in their arms the bent form of the old lady, wrapped in sable fur, and immediately behind her, clad in a warm mantle, and with her head ornamented with a wreath of fresh flowers, followed Lizaveta.  The door was closed.  The carriage rolled away heavily through the yielding snow.  The porter shut the street-door; the windows became dark.

Hermann began walking up and down near the deserted house; at length he stopped under a lamp, and glanced at his watch:  it was twenty minutes past eleven.  He remained standing under the lamp, his eyes fixed upon the watch, impatiently waiting for the remaining minutes to pass.  At half-past eleven precisely, Hermann ascended the steps of the house, and made his way into the brightly-illuminated vestibule.  The porter was not there.  Hermann hastily ascended the staircase, opened the door of the ante-room and saw a footman sitting asleep in an antique chair by the side of a lamp.  With a light firm step Hermann passed by him.  The drawing-room and dining-room were in darkness, but a feeble reflection penetrated thither from the lamp in the ante-room.

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 corners 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 Mesmer’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.