The Margin

Event

The Midnight Return to Zossima

Also known as how I came to you a second time, at midnight, I came back to you.

After deciding to confess, the mysterious visitor leaves Zossima and then comes back at midnight, saying he has forgotten something. He sits quietly, asks Zossima to remember the visit, embraces him, and goes out again. When he is dying, he tells Zossima that this return was a moment of murderous temptation, overcome before it became action.

VI-II. The Duel

Soon after this midnight visit the man makes his public confession and within a week dies of fever. The town that had followed him to the grave then turns on Zossima, blaming him as the cause of the dead man's self-disgrace and refusing to see him, until Zossima quietly leaves the town some months later.

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The Margin

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The Midnight Return to Zossima