第150页 / 共1294页

Later on, when he recalled that time and all that happened to him

during those days, minute by minute, point by point, he was

superstitiously impressed by one circumstance, which, though in

itself not very exceptional, always seemed to him afterwards the

predestined turning-point of his fate. He could never understand

and explain to himself why, when he was tired and worn out, when

it would have been more convenient for him to go home by the

shortest and most direct way, he had returned by the Hay Market

where he had no need to go. It was obviously and quite

unnecessarily out of his way, though not much so. It is true that

it happened to him dozens of times to return home without

noticing what streets he passed through.