i looked at the coat i had a strange sensation i was sure that i had once worn that coat it was my wedding � long in the skirts � which had told me years and years before she had given away to the jew beggar she had ever seen the figure in my fancy � the features lost their antique grandeur and the restless eye ceased to be sublime from immortal and became only lively with mean cunning the apparition was fearfully grotesque but the driving ship and the mysterious company gradually restored its tragic interest i stopped and leaned against the side and heard the rippling water that i could not see and flitting through the mist with anxious speed the figure held its way what was he flying what conscience with sting pricked this victim on he came again nearer and nearer to me in his walk i with disgust this time no less than terror but he seemed resolved to speak and finally each time as he passed me he asked single questions as a ship which fires whenever it can bring a gun to bear can you tell me to what port we are bound no i replied but how came you to take passage without inquiry to me it makes little difference nor do i care he answered when he next came near enough i have already been there where asked i wherever we are going he replied i have been there a great many times and oh i am very tired of it but why are you here at all then and why don t you stop there was a singular mixture of a hundred conflicting emotions in his face as i spoke the representative grandeur of a race which he sometimes showed in his look faded into a glance of hopeless and despair his eyes looked at me curiously his chest heaved and there was clearly a struggle in his mind between some lofty and mean desire at times i saw only the austere suffering of ages in his features and again i could see nothing but the second hand black hat above them he rubbed his forehead with his hand he glanced over his shoulder as if calculating whether he had time to speak to me and then as a splendid defiance flashed from his piercing eyes so that i know how milton s satan looked he said bitterly and with hopeless sorrow that no mortal voice ever knew before i cannot stop my woe is infinite like my sin � and he passed into the mist but in a few moments he reappeared i could now see only the hat which sank more and more over his face until it covered it entirely and i heard a voice which seemed to be quarrelling with itself for saying what it was compelled to say so that the words were even more appalling than what it had said before old old i gazed at the disappearing figure in speechless amazement and was still looking when i was tapped upon the shoulder and turning round saw a german cavalry officer with a heavy and a in his hand most extraordinary man your friend yonder said the officer i don t remember to have seen him in turkey and yet i recognize upon his feet the boots that i wore in the great russian cavalry charge where i rode down five hundred and thirty seven hundred at a moderate by the mere force of my rush and taking the seven walls of at one clean flying leap rode straight into the and dropping the bridle cut the s throat with my bridle hand kissed the other to the ladies of the and was back again within our lines and taking a glass of wine with the hereditary grand duke before he knew that i had mounted oddly enough your old friend is now sporting the identical boots i wore on that occasion the cavalry officer coolly curled his with his fingers i looked at him in silence speaking of boots he resumed i don t remember to have told you of that little incident of the princess of the s diamonds it was slight but curious i was dining one day with the emperor of the who always had a cover laid for me at his table when he said in great perplexity baron my boy i am in straits the of has just sent me word that he has presented me with two thousand pearl of and i don t know how to get them over the duties are so heavy nothing easier replied i i ll bring them in my boots nonsense said the emperor of the nonsense yourself replied i for the of the always gives me my joke and so after dinner i went over to the thing was easily enough done i ordered a hundred thousand pairs of boots or so filled them with pearls said at the custom house that they were part of my private wardrobe and i had left the blocks in to keep them stretched for i was particular about my the officers bowed and said that their own feet were tender upon which i remarked that i wished their were and so in the manner possible the were bowed out of and the emperor of the gave me three thousand of them as my share it was no trouble it was only ordering the boots and whistling to the infernal of to hang for their pay i could reply nothing to my new acquaintance but i his stories to tell to and at length summoned courage to ask him why he had taken passage pure fun answered he nothing else under the sun you see it happened in this way i was sitting quietly and swinging in a of on the very summit of that mountain when suddenly feeling a little warm i took 