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new appointment at Petropavlovsk, the capital of Kamchatka, a capital of four hundred inhabitants, all stylishly dressed in seal skin, on the dark and mysterious Bay of Avatcha. One knew this charming country, where you never see the sun, from hearsay, and could guess that this was not what one might call a promotion for Nevelsky. He had made Alzire swear that she would come and find him there as soon as possible. She had promised of course, the poor thing. What good would it have done to ruin the last moments of this unhappy man?
    During this time I had at my disposal quite a considerable sum of money, the result of a somewhat complicated financial operation. One of my friends from the penal colony – and in those circles there is often more respect given to one’s word than there is amongst people from other backgrounds – a fur exporter in civilian life, had asked me to recover a large loan which he had made to one of his colleagues in Vladivostok. I had to settle some payments to a bondholder in Dairen with this money, and then deposit the surplus in the State Bank in that city, after having deducted my own expenses, which goes without saying. I hadn’t been given a set time to complete this business, since Dairen wasn’t exactly next door. All this is to explain the favourable financial situation thanks to which we didn’t have too much difficulty, Alzire and me, in setting off on our way after having undergone the rather humiliating obligation of buying false papers.
    I shall pass over the details of all the adventures which filled our days in the course of the next eighteen months. At the end of it the money from the fur trader in Sakhalin was considerably less than it was when we started, which was understandable after so many ordeals, and we didn’t feel any shame in letting ourselves have a good time. While she was not what one might call an extravagant woman, Alzire was not averse to a bit of luxury. And I myself had learnt to appreciate it in her company. It is a taste which it is not always easy to satisfy, if on the one hand you don’t have any regular means of support, and on the other hand you experience all sorts of difficulty in finding any work.
    Discouraged by all these obstacles, I got to the stage of not looking for a job any more, and this was with a great deal of conviction, I must admit. For her part, Alzire had the tact not to bear a grudge against me as a result. We were still alive, in spite of everything. This was what was such a mystery, for me especially, a mystery which to be honest I never seriously bothered to examine closely. A strange sort of apathy increasingly took hold of me. I became indifferent to everything, everything except the fear of losing Alzire. I was ready for no matter what so that I wouldn’t have to leave her, except perhaps to work, since I had now made up my mind to accept the truth of it. I prefer not to dwell on the nature of these compromises which inevitably arise from this state of affairs. God knows if Alzire tried not to bother me with too much rough exposure to reality, with all the delicacy which she was capable of. But in the end it is nonetheless true that, however brief they may be, there are some things which have never done much to raise a man’s self-esteem. Such a situation might be unattractive, but I could perhaps have agreed to put up with it. The trouble was that I knew my self-esteem was low, and I could foresee, indeed it was my constant worry, that Alzire was beginning to get fed up with me. And it is not a good thing when the strength of your happiness depends only on what is left of the pity which a woman may have for you.
    What was most curious in all of this was that we still hadn’t had a proper talk about it. We would have to have gone back to the start of that extraordinary day when I could be seen wandering around the dockside at Fouzan. From that day, and that night, Alzire had never once ceased to