‘But however did it come about? upon my word!…’
‘I’ll tell you how it happened. You know there always was a great deal of the absurd in my life. Do you remember my comical correspondence about getting my passport? Well, I was wounded in an absurd fashion too. And if you come to think of it, what self-respecting person in our enlightened century would permit himself to be wounded by an arrow? And not accidentally—observe—not at sports of any sort, but in a battle.’
‘But you still don’t tell me …’
‘All right, wait a minute,’ he interrupted. ‘You know that soon after you left Petersburg I was transferred to Novgorod. I was a good time at Novgorod, and I must own I was bored there, though even there I came across one creature….’ (He sighed.) … ‘But no matter about that now; two years ago I
