20 files changed, 30529 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/43058-8.txt b/old/43058-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d8236e4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8030 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Marie Tarnowska, by Annie Vivanti
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Marie Tarnowska
+
+
+Author: Annie Vivanti
+
+
+
+Release Date: June 29, 2013  [eBook #43058]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIE TARNOWSKA***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Carlo Traverso, Barbara Magni, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images
+generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original visual illustrations
+      and two audio-illustrations.
+      See 43058-h.htm or 43058-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43058/43058-h/43058-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43058/43058-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      https://archive.org/details/marietarnowskawi00vivauoft
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: MARIE NICOLAEVNA TARNOWSKA]
+
+
+MARIE TARNOWSKA
+
+by
+
+A. VIVANTI CHARTRES
+
+With an Introductory Letter by Professor L. M. Bossi
+of the University of Genoa
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Published by The Century Co.
+New York      MCMXV
+
+Copyright, 1915, by
+The Century Co.
+
+Published, October, 1915
+All rights reserved
+
+
+
+
+PREFATORY NOTE
+
+
+On the morning of September 3rd, 1907, Count Paul Kamarowsky, a wealthy
+Russian nobleman, was fatally shot in his apartments on the Lido in
+Venice by an intimate friend, Nicolas Naumoff, son of the governor of
+Orel. The crime was at first believed to be political. The wounded man
+refused to make any statement against his assailant, whom he himself had
+assisted to escape from the balcony to a gondola in waiting below.
+
+Count Kamarowsky was taken to a hospital, and for three days his
+recovery seemed assured; but the chief surgeon, in a sudden mental
+collapse--he has since died in an insane asylum--ordered the stitches to
+be removed from the fast-healing wounds, and Count Kamarowsky died in
+great agony a few hours later. His last words were a message of love to
+his betrothed at Kieff, a beautiful Russian woman, Countess Marie
+Tarnowska.
+
+In her favor Count Kamarowsky had, shortly before his death, made a will
+and also insured his life for the sum of £20,000.
+
+A number of telegrams from this lady were found addressed to a Russian
+lawyer, Donat Prilukoff, who had been staying at the Hotel Danieli in
+Venice until the day of the murder. Both this man and the Countess
+Tarnowska were arrested.
+
+After a sensational trial they were found guilty of instigating the
+young Nicolas Naumoff to commit the murder. Countess Tarnowska was
+sentenced to eight years' imprisonment in the penitentiary of Trani;
+Prilukoff was condemned to ten years' penal servitude; while Naumoff
+himself was liberated in view of his having undergone two years'
+incarceration while awaiting his trial.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE AUTHOR
+
+
+_Signora:_
+
+_Not only as the medical expert for the defense at the trial of the
+Countess Tarnowska, but as one who has made it his life-work to
+investigate the relation in women between criminal impulse and morbid
+physical condition, I cannot but feel the keenest interest in this book,
+in which you set forth the problem of wide human interest presented by
+the case of the prisoner of Trani._
+
+_When first I suggested to you that you should write this book--which
+(apart from its interest as dealing with a_ cause célèbre _whose
+protagonists are still living and well known in European society) might
+bring into wider knowledge doctrines that modern physiologists and
+psychologists are endeavoring to diffuse--you reminded me that the
+medical elements of the problem could not in such a work be discussed or
+even clearly stated. This, of course, is true, and the significance of
+certain indications scattered through these pages will doubtless be lost
+upon those who are not familiar with such matters. Nevertheless, it was
+important that the book should be written, for if after her release
+and appropriate medical treatment the Countess Tarnowska is restored, as
+many of us confidently anticipate, to the complete sanity of moral
+well-being, your book in the light of that essential fact will have
+fulfilled a notable mission._
+
+_It will have helped to bring home to the general consciousness the
+knowledge, hitherto confined to the scientific few, that moral obliquity
+in women is in most cases due to pathological causes comparatively easy
+of diagnosis and of cure; that a woman-criminal may be morally redeemed
+by being physically healed; and that just as alcoholism, typhus, pyemia
+or other modes of toxic infection may result in delirium and
+irresponsibility, so certain forms of disease in women, by setting up a
+condition of persistent organic poisoning, may and very often do conduce
+to mental and moral aberration and consequent crime._
+
+_Your book, Signora, contains a truthful exposition of a group of
+psychic values with which physicians and psychopathists are concerned,
+and I believe that eventually it will promote the realization that even
+in the darkest regions of moral degradation it is possible for science
+to raise the torch of hope. Thus, though appealing for the moment to the
+interest of the general reader, it will ultimately constitute a
+significant document in the history of the evolution of pathological
+science._
+
+  [Illustration: Signature--Prof. L. M. Bossi]
+
+  Genoa,
+    January 12th, 1915.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE READER
+
+
+This book is not written to plead Marie Tarnowska's cause. The strange
+Russian woman whose hand slew no man, but whose beauty drove those who
+loved her to commit murder for her sake, will soon have ended her eight
+years' captivity and will come forth into the world once more.
+
+I have not sought in any way to minimize her guilt, or attenuate her
+responsibility for the sin and death that followed in her train. Though
+she must be held blameless for the boy Peter Tarnowsky's tragic fate and
+even for Dr. Stahl's suicide, yet Bozevsky's death, Naumoff's downfall
+and the murder of Count Kamarowsky will forever be laid at her door.
+
+I have tried to convey to the cool, sober mind of the Anglo-Saxon
+reader--to whom much of this amazing story of passion and crime may
+appear almost incredible--that sequence of tragic events which brought
+Marie Nicolaevna to her ruin.
+
+Weighted by a heritage of disease (her mother was a neurasthenic invalid
+and two of her aunts are even now confined in an insane asylum in
+Russia), she was married when still on the threshold of girlhood and
+swept into the maëlstrom of a wild life--a frenzied, almost hallucinated,
+existence such as is led by a certain section of the Russian
+aristocracy, whom self-indulgence drives to depths of degeneracy hardly
+to be realized by the outside world.
+
+With the birth of her child, Tania, Marie Tarnowska's fragile health
+broke down completely, and the few years preceding the tragedy which led
+to her arrest were spent traveling through Europe in a feverish quest of
+health or at least of oblivion of her sufferings. According to such
+medical authorities as Redlich, Fenomenof, Rhein, Bossi, and many other
+eminent gynecologists and alienists, she is, and has been for some years
+past, suffering from a slow form of blood poisoning which affects the
+nervous centers and the brain, and which--as I myself had a painful
+opportunity of witnessing when I saw her in prison--causes periodic
+cataleptic seizures that imperil her life.
+
+It was by one of her medical advisers, Professor Luigi Bossi, of the
+University of Genoa, that the idea of this book was first given to me.
+
+"I was called as an expert for the defense at the Venice trial," said
+the Professor, "and I was grieved and indignant at the heavy sentence
+inflicted upon this unhappy woman. Marie Tarnowska is not delinquent,
+but diseased; not a criminal, but an invalid; and her case, like that of
+many other female transgressors, is one for the surgeon's skill and the
+physician's compassionate care, not for the ruthless hand of the law.
+Indeed," the illustrious Professor continued, "it is becoming more and
+more a recognized fact that many cases of criminality in woman have a
+physical, not a moral origin. By her very mission--maternity--woman is
+consecrated to pain; and whereas by nature she is a creature of
+gentleness and goodness, the effect of physical suffering, of ailments
+often unconfessed--nay, often unrealized by herself--is to transform her
+into a virago, a hypochondriac, or a criminal. Then our duty is to cure
+her, not to punish her.
+
+"It may be merely a question," he explained, "of a slight surgical
+intervention; sometimes even brief medical treatment is sufficient to
+save a woman's life and reason. The wider knowledge of this simple
+scientific fact in the social life of our time would redeem and
+rehabilitate thousands of unfortunate women who people the prisons and
+the madhouses of the world.
+
+"As for the unhappy Countess Tarnowska," added Professor Bossi, "the
+Venetian tribunal refused to regard her as a suffering human being, but
+flung her out of society like some venomous reptile. Read these notes
+that she wrote in prison," he said, placing in my hand a book of almost
+illegible memoranda. "If they touch your heart, then do a deed of
+justice and generosity. Go to the penitentiary of Trani, see the
+prisoner yourself, and give her story to the world. So will you perform
+an act of humanity and beneficence by helping to diffuse a scientific
+truth in favor, not of this one woman alone, but of all women."
+
+After glancing through the strange human document he had given me I
+decided to do what he asked; for, indeed, from those poor, incoherent
+pages there seemed to rise the eternal cry of suffering womanhood--the
+anguished cry of those that perpetuate the gift of life--which no
+sister-soul can hear unmoved.
+
+Thus it was that my mind was first directed to the theme of this book
+and that I undertook the task--fraught with almost insuperable
+difficulties--of breaking down official prohibitions and reaching the
+Russian captive in her distant Italian prison.
+
+And now that I have been brought face to face with that strange and
+mournful figure, now that I have heard her story from her own pale lips,
+I am moved by the puissant impulse of art, which takes no heed of
+learned theory or ethical code, to narrate in these pages the profound
+impression made upon me by that tragic personality, by the story of that
+broken life.
+
+I have endeavored to do so with faithfulness, exaggerating nothing,
+coloring nothing, extenuating nothing. It will be for the pontiffs of
+science and morals to achieve the more complex task of drawing
+conclusions and establishing theories that may one day diminish
+injustice and suffering in the world.
+
+                                                A. VIVANTI CHARTRES.
+
+
+
+
+  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                  _Facing page_
+
+  MARIE NICOLAEVNA TARNOWSKA                 _Frontispiece_
+  A PAGE FROM MARIE TARNOWSKA'S NOTE-BOOK                     6
+  COUNT O'ROURKE                                             20
+  COUNT PAUL KAMAROWSKY                                     180
+  I STEPPED OUT UPON THE BALCONY                            194
+  UNDER ARREST                                              268
+  IN THE PRISON CELL                                        292
+  THE PENITENTIARY AT TRANI                                 300
+
+
+
+
+MARIE TARNOWSKA
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+    _Ed or, che Dio mi tolga la memoria._
+
+                          CONTESSA LARA.
+
+
+The verdant landscape of Tuscany swung past the train that carried me
+southward. The looped vineyards--like slim, green dancers holding
+hands--fled backwards as we passed, and the rays of the March sun pursued
+us, beating hotly through the open windows on the dusty red velvet
+cushions of the carriage.
+
+Soon the train was throbbing and panting out of Pisa, and the barefooted
+children of the Roman Campagna stood to gaze after us, with eyes soft
+and wild under their sullen hair.
+
+Since leaving the station of Genoa I had seen nothing of the fleeting
+springtide landscape; my gaze and thoughts were riveted on the pages of
+a copy-book which lay open on my knee--a simple school copy-book with
+innocent blue-lined sheets originally intended to contain the carefully
+labored scrawls of some childish hand. A blue ornamental flourish decked
+the front; and under the printed title, "Program of Lessons," the words
+"History," "Geography," "Arithmetic," were followed by a series of blank
+spaces for the hours to be filled in. Alas, for the tragic pupil to whom
+this book belonged, in what school of horror had she learned the lesson
+traced on these pages by her slim, white hand--the fair patrician hand
+which had known the weight of many jewels, the thrill of many caresses,
+and was now held fast in the merciless grip of captivity.
+
+I turned the page: before me lay a flow of pale penciled words in a
+sloping handwriting. At every turn the flourish of some strange
+seignorial name met my eye: long Russian names of prince, of lover or of
+murderer. On every page was the convulsion of death or the paroxysm of
+passion; wine and morphia, chloral and cocaine surged across the pallid
+sheets, like the wash of a nightmare sea.
+
+From the midst of those turbid billows--like some ineffable modern
+Aphrodite--rose the pale figure of Marie Nicolaevna Tarnowska.
+
+
+The first words--traced by her trembling hand in the prison at Venice--are
+almost childish in their simplicity.
+
+"When I was eight years old, I fell ill with measles and almost lost my
+eyesight. I wore blue spectacles. I was very happy. My mother loved me
+very much; so did my father. So did the servants. Everybody loved me
+very much."
+
+I pause in my reading, loth to proceed. I wish I could stop here with
+the little girl whom every one loved and who gazed out through her blue
+spectacles at a rose-colored world.
+
+Ah! Marie Nicolaevna, had your luminous eyes remained for all time
+hidden behind those dim blue glasses, no one to-day would raise his
+voice in execration of you, nor call anathema upon your fair bowed head.
+
+But when the little Russian countess was twelve years old an oculist
+from Kieff ordered that her eyes should be uncovered, and "Mura," as her
+parents fondly called her, looked out upon the world with those clear
+light eyes that were one day to penetrate the darkest depths of crime.
+
+I continue to read without stopping. The serried pages, scrawled
+feverishly and hurriedly in the cells of La Giudecca in defiance of
+prison rules, are in thin handwriting, with names and dates harshly
+underlined; but here and there whole sentences are struck out, as if the
+writer's memory wavered, or her feelings altered as she wrote.
+
+Immediately, on the very first page, the bold figure of young Vassili
+Tarnowsky confronts us: the radiant, temerarious lover, who came to woo
+her in her marveling adolescence.
+
+"His voice thrilled the heart like the tones of a violoncello; in his
+eyes were the lights of heaven, in his smile all the promises of love. I
+was already seventeen years old, and wise beyond my years. But,
+sagacious as I thought myself, I could never believe anything that was
+told me against Vassili. My eyes saw nothing but his beauty. On the
+twelfth day of April I ran away from home with him; and we were married
+in a little church far away on the desolate steppes. I never thought
+that life could hold such joy."
+
+  [Illustration: A PAGE FROM MARIE TARNOWSKA'S NOTE-BOOK]
+
+But on the very next page we come face to face with the astounding list
+of Vassili's perfidies: a musical enumeration of feminine names which
+rings the knell of his child-wife's happiness. "I never thought," writes
+Marie Tarnowska simply, "that life could hold such sorrow."
+
+Further on there are gaps and incoherences; here and there a passing
+efflorescence of literary phrase, or a sudden lapse into curt narrative,
+as if a wave of apathy had suddenly submerged the tragic heroine and
+left in her place only a passive narrator of fearful events. Now and
+then even a note of strident humor is struck, more poignant, more
+painful than pathos.
+
+Ever and anon there appears throughout the funereal story--as if smiling
+out through the window of a charnel-house--the innocent face of a child:
+Tioka. He is all bright curls and laughter. Unaware of the carnage that
+surrounds him, he runs with light, quick feet through pools of blood to
+nestle in the gentle maternal breast which for him is all purity and
+tenderness.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I read on and on the writing trembles and wavers, as if the hand and
+the heart of the writer wearied of their task. With a sudden break the
+sad story closes, unfinished, incomplete.
+
+"If I could tell of the tears I have shed, if I could describe the
+anguish I have suffered, I am sure that pity would be shown to me.
+Surely if the world knew of my torment and my sufferings--"
+
+Nothing more. Thus abruptly the tragic manuscript ends.
+
+The train slackens speed, falters, shivers--stops. I am at Trani; at the
+furthermost end of Italy; almost beyond civilization; almost out of the
+world.
+
+Soon I shall see before me the woman I have come so far to seek: the
+woman who never gave the gift of love without the gift of death.
+
+
+The high white walls of the penitentiary glared down in the blazing
+southern sun. The languid Adriatic trailed its blue silken waters past
+the barred windows. I raised the heavy knocker; it fell from my hand
+with a reverberating clang, and the massive prison-door opened slowly
+before me.
+
+The Mother Superior and two gentle-looking Sisters fluttered--black and
+white and timid as swallows--across the sunlit courtyard. They were
+expecting me.
+
+"She whom you seek is in the chapel," said the Mother Superior, in a low
+voice. "I will call her!" She left us. The two Sisters accompanied me up
+a broad stone staircase to a small waiting-room. Then they stood quietly
+beside me; and when I looked at them, they smiled.
+
+In the silence that followed I could hear women's voices singing in the
+prison chapel, simple, untutored voices, clear and shrill:
+
+    "Kyrie eleison
+    Christe eleison..."
+
+and the low notes of the organ rolled beneath the treble voices, full
+and deep;
+
+    "Mater purissima
+    Mater inviolata..."
+
+"Number 315--that is the Countess Marie," said one of the two Sisters,
+"plays the organ for the other prisoners. She plays every day at noon
+and evensong."
+
+"And at four o'clock in the morning," added the other Sister.
+
+(How far, how far away, Marie Nicolaevna, are the passionate days of
+Moscow, the glowing, unslept nights of Venice!)
+
+    "Rosa mystica
+    Stella matutina..."
+
+Suddenly the music ceased and we stood waiting in the hot, white
+silence. Then the door opened, and on the threshold stood Marie
+Tarnowska--the murderess, the devastating spirit, the Erinnys.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Tall and motionless in her fearful striped dress she stood, gazing at me
+with proud clear eyes; her brow was calm and imperious under the
+humiliating prisoner's coif, and her long hands--those delicate hands
+whose caresses have driven men to commit murder for her sake--hung
+loosely at her side. Her mouth, curving and disdainful, trembled
+slightly.
+
+"Signora," I began. Her lips wavered into a faint smile as with a quick
+downward sweep of her eyelashes she indicated her dress of shame.
+
+"Signora," I repeated, "I have come here neither out of compassion nor
+curiosity."
+
+She was silent, waiting for me to proceed. The three nuns had seated
+themselves quietly near the wall, with eyes cast down and meek hands
+folded in their laps.
+
+"I have come," I continued, "to vindicate my sisters in your eyes. I
+know you think that all women are ruthless and unkind."
+
+Another smile, fleeting, vivid and intelligent, lit up her eyes. Then
+the narrow face closed and darkened again.
+
+"For two years," I proceeded, "I have been haunted by the thought that
+you, shut in this place, must be saying to yourself that all men are
+base and all women pitiless. As to the men--I cannot say. But I wish you
+to know that not all women are without pity."
+
+She was silent a few moments. Then in a weak voice she spoke:
+
+"In the name of how many women do you bring this message to me?"
+
+I smiled in my turn. "There are four of us," I said, cheerfully. "Two
+Englishwomen, a Norwegian, who is deaf and dumb--and myself. The deaf and
+dumb one," I added, "is really very intelligent."
+
+Marie Tarnowska laughed! It was a low, sudden trill of laughter, and she
+herself seemed startled at the unaccustomed sound. The Sisters turned to
+look at her with an air of gentle amazement.
+
+But in my eyes Marie Tarnowska had ceased to be the murderess, the
+Erinnys. Through the criminal in her dress of shame I had caught a
+glimpse of the little girl in the blue spectacles, the happy little girl
+who felt that every one loved her. That lonely, tremulous trill of
+laughter astray on the tragic lips stirred me to the depths; and sudden
+tears filled my eyes.
+
+Marie Tarnowska saw this, and turned pale. Then she sat down,
+unconsciously assuming the same chastened attitude as the Sisters, her
+hands submissively folded, her dark lashes cast down over her long light
+eyes. For some time there was silence.
+
+"I have read your notes," I said at last.
+
+"My notes? I do not remember writing them." Suddenly her voice sounded
+harsh and her glance flashed at me keen as a blade of steel.
+
+"You wrote them in the prison at Venice, in pencil, in a child's
+exercise book."
+
+"It may be so." Marie Tarnowska breathed a long sigh. "That was a time
+of dreams," she said, raising her stricken eyes to mine. "I sometimes
+dream that this is all a dream. I think I must have fallen asleep one
+day when I was a little child, at home in Otrada--perhaps in our garden
+on the swing. I used often to fall asleep on that creaky old swing,
+reading a book, or looking at the sky. Perhaps I shall wake up soon, and
+find that none of all these dreadful things are true." She fingered the
+broad brown-and-white stripes of her prison-garb and gazed round the
+dreary room. Then her eyes strayed from the whitewashed walls, bare
+except for a large ebony crucifix, to the narrow iron-barred window, and
+back to the Sisters sitting along the wall like a triptych of
+Renunciation, with folded hands and lips moving silently in their
+habitual prayer. "Yes, I shall wake up soon and find myself in our old
+garden again. My mother will come down the path and across the lawn,
+with her little white shawl on her head; she will call me: 'Mura! Mura!
+Where are you? Come, child, it is time for tea; and Vassili is asking
+for you.' Then I shall jump from the swing and run to her and hide my
+face on her breast. 'Mother, if you knew what a dream I have had--a
+terrible dream, all about deaths and murders! I thought I had married
+Vassili, and he was unkind to me--as if Vassili could be unkind!--and I
+was locked in a prison in Italy--imagine, mother, to be imprisoned in
+Italy, where people only go for their honeymoon!' And mother will kiss
+me and laugh at the crazy dream as we go across the lawn together,
+happily, arm in arm."
+
+I found no word to say, though her eyes seemed to question me; and her
+fragile voice spoke again: "Surely, this cannot all be true? It cannot
+be true that they are all dead. My mother? And little Peter? And
+Bozevsky? And Stahl? And Kamarowsky? Why, it is like--like 'Hamlet.'" She
+broke into strident laughter. "Do you remember how they all die in
+'Hamlet'? One here, one there, one in the stream, one behind the
+curtain, drowned, stabbed, strangled--" Suddenly she was silent, looking
+straight before her with startled eyes.
+
+"Poor Mura!" I murmured, and lightly touched her hand.
+
+At the sound of the tender Russian appellative she turned to me quickly.
+Then she began speaking under her breath in hurried whispers.
+
+"Who told you my name? Who are you? Are you my sister Olga? Do you
+remember the merry-go-round at the school-feast in Kieff? How we cried
+when it swung us round and round and round and would not stop? I seem to
+be still on the merry-go-round, rushing along, hastening, hurrying with
+the loud music pealing in my head."
+
+The Mother Superior rose and approached her. "Hush," she spoke in
+soothing tones. "You will soon be quiet and at rest."
+
+But Marie Tarnowska paid no heed. Her eyes were still fixed on mine with
+a despairing gaze. "Wake me, wake me!" she cried. "And let me tell you
+my dream."
+
+And during those long mild April days she told it to me as follows.
+
+Where shall I begin? Wait, let me think--ah, yes! Where I fell asleep
+that day in the garden, on the swing. I remember it was a hot day even
+in Otrada; almost as hot as it is here. And it was my birthday; I was
+sixteen years old. My mother herself, with great solemnity, in the
+presence of my father and sisters, had twisted up my long curling hair
+and pinned it in great waves and coils on the top of my head. There were
+to be no more long plaits hanging down my back!
+
+"Your childhood is over, Mura," said my mother. "At sixteen one has to
+look and behave like a grown-up young lady."
+
+"That is exactly what I am, mother dear," I replied with great
+self-assurance.
+
+My mother smiled and sighed and kissed me. "You are such a child--such a
+child still, my little snowdrop," she said, and her eyes were tender and
+anxious.
+
+But I ran gaily out into the garden, feeling very proud of my red-gold
+helmet of curls. I sprang fearlessly on the swing, tossing my head from
+side to side, delighted to feel the back of my neck cool and uncovered
+to the breeze. What would Vassili say to see me like this! But soon the
+hairpins felt heavy; they pulled a hair or two here, and a hair or two
+there, and hurt me. I stopped the swing, and with my head bent forward I
+quickly drew all the hairpins out and threw them on the ground.
+
+The heavy coils of hair loosened, untwisted like a glittering snake, and
+fell all about me like a cloak of gold. I leaped upon the swing again
+and, standing, swung myself in wide flights through the clear air. What
+joy it was! As I flew forward my hair streamed out behind me like a
+flag, and in the backward sweep it floated all about my head in a
+whirling canopy of light.
+
+I laughed and sang out loud to myself. How delightful was the world! How
+blissful to be alive and in the sunshine!
+
+Suddenly Vassili appeared at the end of the path with my cousin, Prince
+Troubetzkoi. They were coming towards me arm in arm, smoking cigarettes
+and gazing at me. I felt shy of my loosened hair; I should have liked to
+jump down and run away, but the swing was flying too high and I could
+not stop it.
+
+The two men looked at me with strange intent eyes, as no one had ever
+looked at me before. I felt a hot blush rise to my cheeks like a flame.
+Obeying a sudden, overmastering impulse I let go the ropes and covered
+my face with my hands. I heard a cry--did it come from me?--then
+everything whirled round me.... For an instant I saw the gravel path
+rise straight in front of me as if to strike me on the forehead. I threw
+myself back, something seemed to crash into the nape of my neck--and I
+remember no more.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+I see the ensuing days as through a vague blue mist. I see myself
+reclining in an armchair, and my mother sitting beside me with her
+crochet-work. She is crocheting something of yellow wool. It is strange
+how the sight of that yellow wool hurts and repels me, but I cannot find
+words in which to express it, I seem unable to speak; and mother
+crochets on calmly, with quick white hands. I am conscious of a dull
+pain in the nape of my neck. Then I see Vassili come in; he is carrying
+an enormous cage in his hand; and Olga follows him, laughing and
+radiant. "Here he is! here he is!" cries Vassili triumphantly, putting
+the cage down beside me; and in it, to my horror, I see a parrot, a huge
+gray and scarlet creature, twisting a hard black tongue round and round
+as he clambers about the cage. I cry out in terror: "Why--why do they
+bring me things that frighten me?" And I burst into tears. Every one
+gazes at me in amazement; my mother bends tenderly over me: "But, my own
+darling, yesterday you said you wanted to have a parrot. Vassili has
+been all the way to Moscow to buy it for you."
+
+"No, no! it is not true! I never said I wanted a parrot! Take it away!
+It frightens me. And so does the yellow wool." I hear myself weeping
+loudly; then everything is blotted out and vanishes--parrot, Vassili,
+yellow wool, Olga--nothing remains but my mother's sad and anxious face
+bending above me, dim and constant as the light of a lamp in a shadowy
+chapel.
+
+
+When I was able to come down to breakfast for the first time, my father
+stood waiting for me, straight and solemn at the foot of the great
+staircase. He gave me his arm with much ceremony and led me to my place,
+where flowers lay in fragrant heaps round my plate. Every one embraced
+and complimented me and I was very happy.
+
+"I feel as if I were a princess!" I cried, clapping my hands; and they
+all laughed except my father, who answered gravely:
+
+"If it is your wish, you may become one. Prince Ivan has asked for your
+hand."
+
+"Ivan? Ivan Troubetzkoi?" All the gladness went out of my heart.
+
+"Yes. And so has Katerinowitch," exclaimed Olga, with a bitter smile;
+and I noticed that she looked pale and sad.
+
+"Both Ivan and Katerinowitch? How extraordinary!" Then glancing at my
+mother, whose eyes were fixed upon her plate, I added jestingly, "Is
+that all? No one else?"
+
+My pleasantry fell flat, for no one answered, and I saw my father
+knitting his brows. But my mother lifted her eyes for an instant and
+looked at me. In the blue light of that dear gaze I read my happiness!
+
+But Olga was speaking. "Yes," she said, "there is some one else. Vassili
+Tarnowsky has asked to marry you." And she added, with a touch of
+bitterness: "I wonder what has possessed all three of them!"
+
+Vassili! Vassili! Vassili! The name rang like a clarion in my ears. I
+should be Vassili's wife! I should be the Countess Tarnowska--the
+happiest woman in all this happy world. Every other girl on earth--poor
+luckless girls who could not marry Vassili--would envy me. On his arm I
+should pass proudly and serenely through life, rejoicing in his beauty,
+protected by his strength. Sheltered on his breast the storms would pass
+over my head, nor could sorrow ever touch me.
+
+  [Illustration: COUNT O'ROURKE]
+
+"I trust that your choice will fall on Troubetzkoi," said my father.
+
+"Or on Vassili," cried Olga quickly.
+
+I jumped up and embraced her. "It shall not be Katerinowitch, that I
+promise," I whispered, kissing the little pink ear that nestled under
+her fair curls. "He is to be for you!"
+
+Time was to fulfil this prophecy.
+
+As I went round the table, and passed my mother--poor little nervous
+mother!--I laid my hand on her arm. I noticed that she was trembling all
+over. Then I summoned up courage and approached my father.
+
+"Father, dear, if you want your little Mura to be happy, you must let
+her marry Vassili."
+
+"Never," cried my father, striking the table with his fist. The soul of
+the ancient O'Rourke--a demoniacal Irish ancestor of ours whose memory
+always struck terror to our souls--had awakened in him. I saw Olga and my
+mother turn pale. Nevertheless I laughed and kissed him again. "If I do
+not marry Vassili, I shall die! And please, father, do not be the
+Terrible O'Rourke, for you are frightening mother!"
+
+But papa, dominated by the atavistic influence of the O'Rourke, grew
+even more terrible; and mother was greatly frightened. She sat white and
+rigid, with scarcely fluttering breath; suddenly in her transparent eyes
+the pupils floated upward like two misty pale-blue half-moons; she was
+in the throes of one of her dreaded epileptic seizures.
+
+Then they were all around her, helping her, loosening her dress, fanning
+her; while I stood aside trembling and woebegone, and the pains in the
+nape of my neck racked me anew.
+
+I said to myself that my father was hard and wicked, that I should marry
+Vassili and carry mother off with me, ever so far away!
+
+As for papa, he should only be allowed to see us once a year. At
+Christmas.
+
+I have married Vassili.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+I pretended to be seized with such convulsions that my poor dear mother,
+being at her wits' end, at last allowed me to run away with him.
+
+Do I say "I pretended"? I am not sure that that is correct. At first the
+convulsions were certainly a mere pretense. I would say to myself: "Now
+I shall make myself have convulsions." But as soon as I had begun I
+could not stop. After I had voluntarily gnashed my teeth they seemed to
+become locked as in a vice; my fists that I had purposely clenched would
+not reopen. My nails dug into the palms of my hands, and I could see the
+blood flowing down my wrists without being able to unclasp or relax my
+fingers.
+
+Doctor Orlof, summoned in haste from Kieff, shook his head gravely.
+
+"There are indications of epilepsy, due to the fall from the swing."
+
+"No, no, no!" I cried. "Not the swing! It is because of Vassili!"
+
+My mother trembled and wept.
+
+How cruel we are in our childhood! How we torture the mothers that adore
+us, even though we love them with all our hearts. And oh! the tragedy of
+not understanding this until it is too late, when we can never, never
+ask for their forgiveness, nor console them or atone to them again.
+
+
+I married Vassili.
+
+My father, more the Terrible O'Rourke than ever, at once refused to have
+anything to do with me. He denied me his kiss and his forgiveness. I was
+very unhappy.
+
+"Oh, don't bother your head about that tiresome old man," said Vassili,
+much annoyed by my tears.
+
+As for my mother, she could only entreat Vassili to be kind and gentle
+with me.
+
+"Take care of her, Vassili," she implored. "I have given her to you lest
+she should die of a broken heart: but she is really too young to be any
+one's wife--she is but a child! I do not know whether you understand me.
+Remember she is not yet a woman. She is a child."
+
+"Yes, yes, yes," said Vassili, without paying much attention. "That's
+all right. I shall tweak her nose if she is naughty."
+
+"And if I am good?" I asked, lifting ecstatic eyes to his handsome
+nonchalant face.
+
+"If you are good you shall have sweets and kisses!" and he laughed,
+showing all his white teeth.
+
+"Promise me, Vassili, that you will always sing my favorite song: 'Oh
+distant steppes, oh savage plains,' to me, and to no one else."
+
+"To you and to no one else," said Vassili with mock solemnity. "Come
+then, Marie Tarnowska!" and he drew my arm under his, patting my hand on
+which the new nuptial ring shone in all its brightness.
+
+"_Marie Tarnowska!_" What a beautiful name! I could have wished the
+whole world to know that name; I could have wished that every one seeing
+me should say: "Behold, behold Marie Tarnowska, happiest and most
+blessed among women."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+On my wedding night, in the hotel at Kharkoff, I summoned the
+chambermaid. She knocked and entered. She was a pert, pretty creature,
+and after surveying me from head to foot she threw a rapid glance at
+Vassili. He was seated in an armchair, lighting a cigarette.
+
+"What is your name?" he asked the girl.
+
+"Rosalia, at your service, sir," she replied.
+
+"Very good, Rosalia," said my husband. "This evening we shall do without
+you. Possibly in a day or two I may wish to see you again."
+
+The girl laughed, made a slight curtsey, and went out, closing the door
+behind her.
+
+"But who is going to do my hair?" I asked, feeling very much out of
+countenance and shy at remaining alone with him.
+
+"Never mind about your hair," said Vassili. "Don't be so tedious. You're
+a little bore." And he kissed me.
+
+Then he sat down and smoked his cigarette, watching me out of narrowed
+eyelids as I wandered about the room in great trepidation and
+embarrassment. I was about to kneel down by the bedside to say my
+prayers, when he suddenly grasped my wrist and held it tightly.
+
+"What are you doing now?" he inquired.
+
+"I am going to say my prayers," I replied.
+
+"Don't bother about your prayers," he said. "Try not to be such an awful
+little bore. Really you are quite insufferable."
+
+But I would not have missed my prayers for the world. At home prayers
+had always been a matter of great importance. Olga and I used to say
+them aloud in unison morning and evening. And now that Olga was far away
+I must say them alone. I buried my face in my hands and said them
+devoutly, with all my heart.
+
+They were, I admit, numerous and long; and they were in many languages,
+for every nurse or governess that came to us in Otrada had taught us new
+ones; and Olga and I were afraid to leave any out, lest God should be
+offended; we were also rather doubtful as to which language He
+understood the best.
+
+I had just come to an English prayer--
+
+    Now I lay me down to sleep
+    I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep.
+    If I should die before I wake...
+
+(Here Olga and I used always to interpolate a short prayer of our own
+invention: "Please, dear God, do not on any account let us die to-night.
+Amen.")--when Vassili interrupted me.
+
+"Haven't you finished?" he cried, putting his arm round my neck. "You
+are very tiresome. You bore me to extinction."
+
+"You bore me!" That was the perpetual refrain of all his days. I always
+bored him. Perhaps it was not surprising. At seventeen one is not always
+clever and entertaining, especially outside the family circle. At home I
+had always been considered rather witty and intelligent, but to Vassili
+I was never anything but "a dreadful bore."
+
+When I caught sight of him pinching Rosalia's cheek and I burst into
+tears: "You are a fearful bore," he said crossly. If I noticed the scent
+of musk or patchouli on his coat and ventured to question him about
+it--"You are an insufferable little bore," would be all the answer I got.
+When he went out (taking the music of "My Savage Plains" with him) and
+stayed away all night, on his return next morning I sobbed out my
+anguish on his breast. "I must say you bore me to death," he yawned.
+
+And one day I heard that he had had a child by a German baroness.
+
+At the sight of my paroxysm of despair he grew angry. "What does it
+matter to you, silly creature, since you have not got one yourself?" he
+exclaimed. "Wearisome little bore that you are; you can't even have a
+child."
+
+I was aghast. What--what did he mean? Why could I not--?
+
+"No! no!" he shouted, with his handsome mouth rounded and open like
+those of the stone cherubs on the walls of his castle, "you will never
+have any children. You are not a woman. Your mother herself said so."
+And the look which he flashed across my frail body cut me like a sword.
+
+I fell fainting to the ground.
+
+Then he became alarmed. He called everybody. He summoned the whole staff
+of the hotel. He sent for all the ladies he knew in Kharkoff (and they
+were many) imploring them all to save me, to recall me to life. When I
+came to myself the room was filled with women: there was Rosalia, and
+two Hungarian girls from the adjoining apartment, and there was also the
+German baroness, and little Julia Terlezkaja, the latest and fairest of
+my husband's conquests. All these graceful creatures were bending over
+my couch, while Vassili on his knees with his head buried in the
+coverlet was sobbing: "Save her! She is dead! I have killed her!"
+
+I put out my hand and touched his hair.
+
+"I am alive," I said softly; and he threw himself upon me and kissed me.
+The women stood round us in a semi-circle, gay and graceful as the
+figures on a Gobelin tapestry.
+
+"I love you," Vassili was exclaiming; "I love you just as you are. I
+should hate you to be like everybody else." And in French he added,
+looking at Madame Terlezkaja: "C'est très rigolo d'avoir une femme qui
+n'est pas une femme."
+
+I hid my face in the pillow, and wept; while the fair Terlezkaja, who
+seemed to be the kindest of them all, bent over and consoled me.
+
+"Pay no heed to him," she whispered. "I think he has been drinking a
+little."
+
+The door opened. A doctor, who had been sent for by the manager of the
+hotel, entered with a resolute authoritative air. At the sight of him
+the women disappeared like a flight of startled sparrows. Of course they
+took Vassili with them.
+
+To the good old doctor I confided the secret which Vassili had disclosed
+to me and which was burning my heart.
+
+"I want to have a child, a little child of my own!" I cried.
+
+"Of course. Of course. So you shall," said the old doctor, with a
+soothing smile. "There is no reason why you should not. You are a little
+anemic, that is all."
+
+He scribbled some prescriptions on his tablets.
+
+"There. You will take all that. And you will go to Franzensbad. Within a
+year you will be asking me to act as godpapa."
+
+I took all he prescribed. But I did not go to Franzensbad. Vassili
+wanted to go to Petersburg, so, of course, it was to Petersburg we went.
+
+The very first evening we were there a number of his friends came to
+call on him.
+
+I remember, among the rest, a certain German Grand Duke, who, after
+showing me an infinite amount of attention, drew Vassili aside and spoke
+to him in undertones. I heard him mention the name of a famous
+restaurant and the words: "A jolly supper-party to-night--some
+ravishingly pretty tziganes...." There followed names of men and women
+whom I did not know, and my husband laughed loudly.
+
+Then the Grand Duke turned to me, and bowing deeply and ceremoniously
+kissed my hand.
+
+For an instant a frenzied impulse came over me to clutch that
+well-groomed head and cry: "Wicked man! Why are you trying to lure my
+husband from me?" But social conventions prevailed over this elementary
+instinct, and when the Grand Duke raised his patrician head he found me
+all amiability and smiles.
+
+"She is indeed a bewitching creature!" I heard him mutter to Vassili.
+"Looks just like one of Botticelli's diaphanous angels. Well then, at
+eleven o'clock to-night, at the 'Hermitage.'"
+
+Promptly at a quarter to eleven Vassili, sleek, trim and immaculate,
+kissed my cheek gaily and went out.
+
+I was alone. Alone in the great drawing-room, gorgeous with lights and
+mirrors and gilded decorations. What was the good of being a bewitching
+creature? What was the good of looking like one of Botticelli's
+diaphanous angels?...
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+I rang for my maid, Katja, a good creature, ugly beyond words--and gladly
+chosen by me on that account--and I told her that she was to undress me
+for I was going to bed. While she was unfastening my dress I could hear
+her muttering: "If it were me, I should not go to bed. If it were me, I
+should put on my diamonds and my scarlet chiffon gown; I should take a
+good bottle of vitriol in my pocket, and go and see what they were up
+to."
+
+"Katja, what are you mumbling? Do you mean to say that you--that you
+think I ought to go--?"
+
+"Of course," she cried, and her small squinting eyes shot forth, to the
+right and left, fierce, divergent flashes of indignation. "Why should my
+lady not go?"
+
+Why should I not, indeed? Had I not the right--nay, the duty--to follow
+Vassili? Had I not most solemnly promised so to do, in the little church
+on the steppes a year ago? "_Follow him!_" With what tremulous joy had I
+repeated after the priest those two words of tenacity and submission.
+Had they no application to the Hermitage restaurant?
+
+"Perhaps I might venture to go," I murmured, "but, Katja, do not other
+women always have rouge and powder to put on when they go out? I have
+nothing."
+
+"Nothing but your eighteen years, madame," replied Katja.
+
+She dressed me in the low-necked scarlet chiffon gown. She drew on my
+flame-colored stockings, and my crimson shoes. On my head she placed the
+diamond and ruby tiara, and about my shoulders she wound a red and gold
+scarf which looked like a snake of fire.
+
+"Alas, Katja!" I sighed as I looked at myself in the mirror; "what would
+my mother say if she were to see me like this? What do I look like?"
+
+"You look like a lighted torch," said Katja.
+
+I made her come with me in the troika, which sped swiftly and silently
+through the dim snow-covered streets. I was shaking with fear at the
+thought of Vassili. Katja was mumbling some prayers.
+
+We drew up at the brilliant entrance of the restaurant.
+
+"Oh, heavens, Katja! What will my husband say?"
+
+"He will say that you are beautiful."
+
+How did I ever venture across that threshold of dazzling light? How was
+I able to ascend the red-carpeted stairs, preceded and followed by bows
+and smiles and whispers? At the head of the wide staircase, in front of
+a double-paneled door of white and gold, I paused with beating heart,
+almost unable to breathe. I could hear the gipsy-music inside, and
+women's voices and men's laughter and the tinkling of glasses.
+
+An impassive head-waiter stood before me, calmly awaiting my orders.
+
+"Tell"--I stammered--"tell--" as I thought of Vassili my courage failed
+me--"tell his Highness the Grand Duke that I wish to see him."
+
+Then I clung to the balustrade and waited. As the door opened and was
+quickly closed again, there came forth a puff of heat and sound which
+enwrapped me like a flame.
+
+Almost immediately the door opened again and the Grand Duke appeared
+upon the threshold, his countenance still elated by recent laughter. He
+stared at me in astonishment, without recognition. "What--what can I do
+for you?" he asked. Then his eyes widened in limitless astonishment.
+"Upon my word! It is the Botticelli angel!"
+
+I said "Yes," and felt inclined to weep.
+
+"Come in, come in!" he cried eagerly, taking me by the arm and leading
+me to the door.
+
+A waiter threw it wide open. I had a dazzling vision of a table
+resplendent with crystal, silver, and flowers, and the bare jeweled
+shoulders of women.
+
+"Tarnowsky!" called the Grand Duke from the threshold. "Fortunate among
+men! Behold--the most glorious of your conquests!"
+
+Vassili had started to his feet and was looking at me with amazed and
+incredulous eyes. There was a deep silence. I felt as if I should die.
+Vassili came up to me. He took me brusquely by the hand, crushing my
+fingers in his iron clasp. "You are mad!" he said. Then he looked at me
+from head to foot--not with the gaze of a husband, nor yet with that of a
+lover, but with the cold curious scrutiny of the perfect connoisseur.
+
+"Come," he said at last, drawing me towards the others who were in a
+riot of laughter. "I have always told my friends that you were a
+chilling, lily-white flake of snow. You are not!" And he laughed. "You
+are a blazing little firebrand! Come in!"
+
+
+Thenceforward my husband would always have me with him. My untutored
+adolescence was trailed from revelry to revelry, from banquet to orgy;
+my innocence swept into the maelstrom of a licentious life. I was forced
+to look into the depths of every depravity; to my lips was proffered
+every chalice of shame.
+
+Oh, if as I stood trembling on the confines of maidenhood, some strong
+and tender hand had drawn me into safety, should not I have been like
+other women, those happy women who walk with lofty brows in the
+sunshine, august and ruthless in their purity?
+
+But, alas! when with tardy and reluctant step I issued forth from my
+long childhood, a thousand cruel hands were thrust out to push me
+towards the abyss.
+
+Oh, white pathway of innocence which knows no return! Oh, tenuous light
+of purity which, once quenched, kindles no more! Did I not grieve and
+mourn for you when I lost you before my twentieth year? Sadly,
+enviously, like some poor exile, I saw other girls of my age passing in
+blithe security by the side of their mothers, blushing at an eager word
+or at a daring glance. Alas! I felt that I was unworthy to kiss the hem
+of their skirts.
+
+
+But bliss was to be vouchsafed to me. Redeeming and triumphant there
+came to me at last the Angel of Maternity. With proud humility I bore
+the little human flower fluttering in my breast. At every throb of life
+I felt myself swooning with joy--with the ineffable joy of my reconquered
+purity.
+
+My mother was with me, and in the tender haven of her arms I found
+shelter for my meek and boundless ecstasy.
+
+How is it possible, I asked myself, that there are women who dread this
+perfect happiness, who weep and suffer through these months fraught with
+rapturous two-fold life?
+
+For me, I felt like a flowering plant in springtime, impelled by some
+potent influence towards its perfect blossoming. The whole of that
+blissful period seemed a sublime ascent to unalloyed felicity;
+everything enchanted me, from the awed and tremulous waiting to the
+final crowning consummation.
+
+When at last the fragile infant--my son!--lay in my arms, he seemed to me
+sufficient to fill my entire life. I nursed him into ever-growing wonder
+and beauty. Day by day he seemed fairer, more entrancing, like a
+delicate flower in some fantastic lunar legend.
+
+Oh, the wee groping hands against my face! The wilful little caprices,
+the cries like those of an angry dove! And the dimples on the elbows;
+the droll battle with the little cap always awry, and the joyous
+impatience of the tiny kicking feet!
+
+Each day my mother and I invented new names for him--names of little
+flowers, names of little animals, nonsense-names made up of sweet
+senseless sounds.
+
+I had no thought, I had no desire. Pale and pure I sat enthroned in the
+milk-white paradise of maternity.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Soon after that my thoughts are adrift, my recollections grow confused.
+I see my mother with my baby in her arms, and myself in traveling
+attire, with my arms twined about them, weeping, despairing, refusing to
+leave them and set out on a journey of Vassili's planning. But Vassili
+grows impatient. Vassili grows angry. He is tired of playing the papa,
+tired of seeing me no longer a little "firebrand," but calm as a young
+Madonna in the beatific purity of motherhood.
+
+Vassili has taken it into his head that he wants to study singing. He
+has made up his mind to go to Italy, to Milan, to study scales and
+exercises; and I must go with him.
+
+"But our baby, Vassili, our little Tioka! We must take our baby with
+us!"
+
+No. Vassili does not want babies. He does not want to be bothered or
+hindered. "We are carting about eight trunks as it is!" he says,
+cynically.
+
+And so we start for Italy--Italy, the yearned-for goal of all my girlish
+dreams.
+
+At Milan Vassili sings. I seem always to see him with his handsome mouth
+open, singing scales and arpeggios. But a slow poison is creeping
+through my blood and I fall ill, ill with typhoid fever.
+
+Again my thoughts go adrift and my recollections are confused. They
+dance in grotesque and hideous visions through my brain. I see livid
+hallucinated faces peering at me, towers and mountains tottering above
+me, undefined horrors all about me, and in the midst of them all I see
+Vassili--singing! He sings scales and arpeggios with his rounded open
+mouth. Now I can see a white spider--no, two white spiders--running about
+on a scarlet coverlet.... They are my hands. They frighten me. And
+Vassili is singing.
+
+"Vassili, why are you singing? Don't sing! Don't sing!"
+
+"No, darling, I am not singing. You only imagine it. You are ill; you
+are feverish. Calm yourself."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Vassili, where is my baby?"
+
+"At home in Kieff, with grandmama. Dear grandmama is taking such good
+care of him!"
+
+"And why are we not with him? Where are we?"
+
+"We are at Pegli, darling."
+
+"Why? Why? Where is Pegli? What are we doing at Pegli?"
+
+"Come now, dearest; you know--we came to Italy because I wanted to sing--"
+
+"Ah, you see! You wanted to sing! Why do you want to sing when the baby
+is crying? The baby is so helpless. Why did you take me away from him?
+You sing, you sing so loud that I cannot hear my baby crying. Don't
+sing!"
+
+But even as I speak I see that Vassili has his round mouth open again
+and he sings and sings, and the white spiders run over the scarlet
+counterpane and come close to my face--and the white spiders are my
+hands. I shriek and shriek to have them taken away. But the baby is
+crying and Vassili is singing and no one hears me.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then I drop down to the bottom of a deep well. I feel myself falling,
+falling, until with a great shock I touch the bottom. And there I lie
+motionless in the dark.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+When I open my eyes there is a great deal of light; the windows are
+open, the sun is pouring in; I know that outside there is the sea.
+Beside my bed sits a doctor with a gray beard, feeling my pulse. Under
+the light intermittent pressure of his fingers my pulse seems to grow
+quieter; I can see the doctor's head giving little nods as he counts the
+beats.
+
+"Sixty-five. Excellent, excellent!" The doctor pats my hand gently and
+encouragingly. "That is first-rate. We are quite well again."
+
+Then I hear some one weeping softly, and I know it is my mother. I try
+to turn and smile at her, but my head will not move. It is like a ball
+of lead sunk in the pillow. Immediately afterwards--or have years
+passed?--I hear some one say: "Here is the Professor!" And again the same
+doctor with the gray beard comes in and smiles at me.
+
+Before sitting down beside the bed he turns to my mother: "Has she not
+yet asked about her child?" My mother shakes her head and presses her
+handkerchief to her eyes. Then the doctor sits down beside my bed and
+strokes my forehead and speaks to me.
+
+He speaks about a baby. He repeats a name over and over again--perhaps it
+is Tioka. Tioka? Who is Tioka? I watch his beard moving up and down, and
+do not know what he is saying. The ball of lead on my pillow rolls from
+side to side with a dull and heavy ache.
+
+My mother weeps bitterly: "Oh, doctor, do not let her die!"
+
+The white spiders are there again, running over the coverlet. And I fall
+once more, down, down, down, to the bottom of the well.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+For how many months was I ill? I do not know. Vassili, restless and
+idle, "carted" me and my medicines and my sufferings from Pegli to
+Genoa, from Genoa to Florence. He seemed to have forgotten that we had a
+home; he seemed to have forgotten that we had a child.
+
+Our rooms at the hotel in Florence were bright with sunshine and with
+the frivolous gaiety of a graceful trio of Russian ladies--the Princess
+Dubinskaja, her sister Vera Vojatschek, and the fair-haired Olga
+Kralberg, who came to see us every day. But I felt lost and lonely, as
+if astray in the world. My mother had returned to Russia, and my vacant
+and aching heart invoked Vassili, who, alas! was never by my side.
+
+"You must win him back," said Olga Kralberg to me one day--she, whose
+fate it was on a not distant day to commit suicide for his sake. "Every
+man, especially if he is a husband, has--after some time--to be won back
+again."
+
+"That is sooner said than done," I replied despondently. "To win a man
+is easy enough. But to win him back--"
+
+"There are various ways of doing it," she said. "Have you tried being
+very affectionate?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," said I.
+
+"How did it answer?"
+
+"He was bored to death."
+
+"Have you tried being cool and distant? Being, so to speak, a stranger
+to him?"
+
+"Yes, I have."
+
+"And he?"
+
+"He never even noticed that I was being a stranger to him. He was as
+happy and good-tempered as ever."
+
+Olga shook her head dejectedly. "Have you tried being hysterical?" she
+asked after a while.
+
+I hesitated. "I think so," I said at last. "But I do not quite know what
+you mean."
+
+"Well," explained Olga sententiously, "with some men, who cannot bear
+healthy normal women, hysteria is a great success. Of course, it must be
+esthetic hysteria--you must try to preserve the plastic line through it
+all," and Olga sketched with her thumb a vague painter's gesture in the
+air. "For example, you deluge yourself in strange perfumes. You trail
+about the house in weird clinging gowns. You faint away at the sight of
+certain shades of color--"
+
+"What an absurd idea!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Not at all. Not in the least," said Olga. "On the contrary, it is very
+modern, very piquant to swoon away every time you see a certain shade
+of--of mauve, for instance."
+
+"But what if I don't see it?"
+
+"Silly! You _must_ see it. Give orders to a shop to send you ten yards
+of mauve silk. Open the parcel in your husband's presence. Then--then you
+totter; you fall down--but mind," added Olga, "that you fall in a
+graceful, impressionist attitude. Like this." And Olga illustrated her
+meaning in what appeared to me a very foolish posture.
+
+"I think it ridiculous," I said to her. And she was deeply offended.
+
+"Good-by," she said, pinning her hat on briskly and spitefully.
+
+"No, no! Don't go away. Do not desert me," I implored. "Try to suggest
+something else."
+
+Olga was mollified. After reflecting a few moments she remarked.
+
+"Have you tried being a ray of sunshine to him?"
+
+I lost patience with her. "What do you mean by a 'ray of sunshine'? You
+seem to be swayed by stock phrases, such as one reads in novels."
+
+This time Olga was not offended. She explained that in order to be a ray
+of sunshine in a man's life, one must appear before him gay, sparkling
+and radiant at all hours of the day.
+
+"Always dress in the lightest of colors. Put a ribbon in your hair. When
+you hear his footsteps, run to meet him and throw your arms round his
+neck. When he goes out, toss a flower to him from the window. When he
+seems dull or silent, take your guitar and sing to him."
+
+"You know I don't play the guitar," I said pettishly.
+
+"That does not matter. What really counts is the singing. The atmosphere
+that surrounds him should be bright with unstudied gaiety. He ought to
+live, so to speak, in a whirlwind of sunshine!"
+
+"Well, I will try," I sighed, without much conviction.
+
+I did try.
+
+I dressed in the lightest of colors and I pinned a ribbon in my hair.
+When I heard his footstep, I ran to meet him and threw my arms round his
+neck.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked. "And what on earth have you got on your
+head? You look like a barmaid."
+
+To the best of my powers I was a whirlwind of sunshine; and as soon as I
+saw that he was dull and silent (and this occurred almost immediately) I
+said to myself that the moment was come for me to sing to him.
+
+I sat down at the piano. I have not much ear, but a fine strong voice,
+even if not always quite in tune.
+
+At the second bar Vassili got up, took his hat and left the house. I
+threw a flower to him from the window.
+
+He did not come back for three days.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+When I talked it over with Olga, she was very sympathetic.
+
+"I know," she mused, "that these things sometimes succeed and sometimes
+do not. Men are not all alike." Then she added: "But there is one sure
+way of winning them back. It is an old method, but infallible."
+
+"What is it?" I asked skeptically.
+
+"By making them jealous. It is vulgar, it is _rococo_, it causes no end
+of trouble. But it is infallible."
+
+We reviewed the names of all the men who could possibly be employed to
+arouse Vassili's jealousy. We could think of no one. I was surrounded by
+nothing but women.
+
+"It is past belief," said Olga, surveying me from head to foot, "that
+there should be no one willing to--"
+
+I shook my head moodily. "No one on earth."
+
+Olga grasped my wrist. "Stay! I have an idea. We will get some one who
+is not on earth. Some one who is dead. It will be much simpler. I
+remember there was an idea of that kind in an unsuccessful play I saw a
+year or two ago. What we need is a dead man--recently dead, if possible,
+and, if possible, young. If he has committed suicide, so much the
+better."
+
+"What on earth do you want with a dead man?" I asked, shuddering.
+
+"Why! can't you see? We will say that he died for your sake!" cried
+Olga, "that he killed himself on your account. We will have a telegram
+sent to us by some one in Russia. We will get them to telegraph to you:
+'I die for your sake. Am killing myself. Farewell!'"
+
+"But who is to sign it?"
+
+"Oh, somebody or other," said Olga vaguely. "Or we could have it signed
+with an imaginary name, if you prefer it. That would enable us to
+dispense with the corpse."
+
+"I most certainly prefer that," I remarked. "But, frankly, I can't see--"
+
+"What can't you see? Don't you see the effect upon Vassili of the news
+that a man has killed himself for your sake? Don't you see the new
+irresistible attraction which you will then exercise over him? Surely
+you know what strange subtle charm emanates from the 'fatal woman'--the
+woman whose lethal beauty--"
+
+"Very well, very well," I said, slightly encouraged. "Let us have the
+telegram written and sent to me."
+
+We spent the rest of the afternoon composing it.
+
+
+Three days later Vassili entered the drawing-room where Olga and I were
+having tea; he held a telegram in his hand; his face was of a ghastly
+pallor.
+
+"He's got it," whispered Olga hysterically, pinching my arm.
+
+"Mura," said Vassili; "a horrible thing has happened. Horrible!" His
+white lips trembled as he uttered the incoherent words:
+
+"Dead--he is dead--he has killed himself--"
+
+He was unable to go on. His voice broke in a sob.
+
+I sprang to my feet. "Who, Vassili? Who?"
+
+Olga thought the moment had arrived for putting things in the proper
+light. She turned to me with a significant glance, and grasped my hand.
+
+"Ah! It is the man who loved you!" she exclaimed. "And this--this is what
+you dreaded!"
+
+"What! What!" shouted Vassili, clutching her arm and pushing her roughly
+aside. Then he turned upon me and seized me by the shoulder. "You--you
+knew of this? You dreaded this?"
+
+I stood trembling, struck dumb with terror. I could hear the futile and
+bewildered explanations of Olga:
+
+"Why, surely," she was saying with an insensate smile, "it is a thing
+that might happen to anybody. It is not her fault if people love her to
+distraction."
+
+But Vassili was crushing my wrist. "My brother--he loved you?" he gasped.
+
+"_Your brother?_ Your brother--little Peter?" I stammered.
+
+"Yes, yes! Peter," shouted Vassili. "My brother! What have you to do
+with his death?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing." I groaned. "I swear it--nothing!"
+
+And Olga, realizing at last that she stood in the presence of a genuine
+tragedy and not of the jest we had plotted, darted forward and caught
+his arm.
+
+"Vassili, you are mistaken. She knows nothing about it; nothing
+whatever. We had planned a joke to play on you, and we thought--" She
+pursued her agitated and incoherent explanations.
+
+Vassili looked from one to the other of us, scanning our faces, hardly
+hearing what Olga was saying. Suddenly he seemed to understand, and
+loosening his hold on my arm he fell upon the couch and buried his face
+in his hands.
+
+The telegram had dropped on the carpet. Olga picked it up and read it;
+then she handed it to me:
+
+      _Peter hanged himself last night. Come at once._
+
+                                                          TARNOWSKY.
+
+We left for Kieff the same evening. Throughout the entire journey
+Vassili never spoke. I sat mournful and silent opposite him and thought
+of my brother-in-law, Peter. Not of the pale youth, already corrupted by
+absinthe and women, whom we had left at Kieff a few months before, but
+of the child Peter, in his short velvet suit and lace collar, whom I had
+loved so dearly in the days of my girlhood--little Peter who used to run
+to meet me in the sun-splashed avenues of the Villa Tarnowsky, trotting
+up with his little bare legs and serious face, stopping to be kissed and
+then trotting hurriedly off again, the nape of his neck showing fair and
+plump beneath the upturned brim of his sailor-hat.
+
+How well I remember that sailor-hat! The black ribbon round the crown
+bore, between two anchors, the word, "_Implacable_"; and from under that
+fierce device the round and gentle countenance of little Peter gazed
+mildly out into the world.
+
+Little Peter's legs were always cold. He was brought up in English
+fashion, with short socks even in the depths of winter. From afar you
+could see little Peter's chilly bare legs, crimson against a background
+of snow. Sometimes, rubbing his knees, he would say to me: "I wish God
+had made me of fur, instead of--of leather, like this." And again he
+would remark: "I don't like being alive. Not that I want to die; but I
+wish I had never begun."
+
+And now little Peter had finished. Little Peter lay solemn and
+magnificent in the _chambre ardente_ where his dead ancestors had lain
+solemn and magnificent before him. "Implacable" indeed he lay, unmoved
+by the tears of his mother and father; his lofty brow was marble; his
+fair eyelashes lowered over his quenched and upturned eyes.
+
+When I thought of him thus I felt afraid.
+
+And it seemed strange to be afraid of little Peter.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+After we had crossed the Russian frontier another thought--a thought that
+filled me with unspeakable happiness--put all others to flight: my child!
+I should see my child again! All our relations would certainly be
+assembled at the Tarnowskys' house, so I should find my parents and my
+little Tioka there too. The image of the living child soon displaced the
+tragic memory of the dead youth. As the train sped towards Kieff my
+fever of gladness and impatience increased. Yes, to-morrow would be poor
+Peter's funeral, but this very evening I should clasp little Tioka in my
+arms!
+
+Raising my eyes, I saw that Vassili was looking at me with a scowl. "I
+have been watching you for some time," he said. "Heartless creature that
+you are, to laugh--to laugh in the face of death."
+
+"I was thinking of Tioka," I stammered. Vassili did not reply. But in
+the depths of my heart joy sang and whispered like a hidden fountain.
+
+Thus, inwardly rejoicing, did I enter the house of death and hasten to
+the dark-red room--the very scene of Peter's suicide--in which they had
+placed my baby's cradle; thus, while others mourned with prayers and
+tears in the gloomy death-chamber, I ran across the sun-filled garden
+holding my infant to my breast. I hid myself with him in the orchard and
+laughed and laughed aloud, as I kissed his starry eyes and his tiny,
+flower-like mouth.
+
+
+But Death, the Black Visitor, had entered my life. Little Peter had
+shown him the way, had opened the door to him.
+
+From that day forward the dread Intruder never forsook my threshold.
+
+Death, lurking at my door in terrifying silence, stretched out his hand
+at intervals and clutched some one belonging to me. Generally it was
+with a swift gesture--a fell disease or a pistol-shot--that he struck down
+and flung into the darkness those I loved.
+
+But towards me Death comes with a slower, more deliberate tread. For
+years, ever since the birth of my little daughter Tania,--my white
+rosebud born midst the snows of a dreary winter in Kieff--I have felt
+Death creeping towards me, slow, insidious, inexorable, holding in his
+hand a knot of serpents, each of which will fasten its poisoned fangs
+upon me. Disease, the venomous snake, will hide in my bosom and thrust
+its way through my veins. The heavy snake of Grief will coil round my
+heart and crush me in its spirals. Insanity will glide into my brain and
+nest there. Then--last but not least horrible--the little glass viper, the
+syringe of Pravaz, whose fang is a hollow needle, will draw me into the
+thraldom of its virulent grip. It will spurt its venom into my blood.
+The bland balm of coca, the milky juice of the poppy, will flow into my
+veins, soothing, assuaging, lulling me into sleep and forgetfulness--only
+to waken me in renewed agony of suffering to a renewed bite of the
+envenomed fang. For the only antidote to the poison of narcotics is the
+narcotic itself, the only alleviation to the tearing agony of the poison
+generated by morphia is morphia again. And so the fatal sequence swings
+on forever, in ever-widening circles of torment....
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+             _From Alexis Bozevsky to Stepan Nebrasoff._
+
+                                                  KIEFF, _Thursday_.
+
+  DEAR STEPAN, MY GOOD FRIEND,--
+
+      I am here in the house of your cousin, Dr. Stahl, who seems to
+      have grown longer and leaner than ever. He is a mere shadow.
+      It is here that your letter reaches me. You tell me to write
+      to you about myself. To-day, the 15th of October, 1903, I am
+      twenty-four years old. What gift will Destiny give me for my
+      birthday? Love? Wealth? A hero's death?
+
+      Your cousin Stahl, in his cavernous voice that seems to come
+      echoing up from underground, says that the gift of Destiny is
+      precisely these four-and-twenty years of mine! Perhaps he is
+      right. I feel them eddying in my blood like four-and-twenty
+      cyclones.
+
+      The world is a whirlwind of youth.
+
+      Kaufmann this morning lent me his sorrel stallion--the finest
+      horse in the Empire--and I had a gallop along the bastions. All
+      the women looked at me. In a phaeton I saw the brazen and
+      beautiful Princess Theodora, blonde and torrid as a Mexican
+      landscape. She was resplendent in amethyst and heliotrope, her
+      red locks flaming to the sun; no one but a princess would
+      permit herself to display such a riot of violent colors.
+
+      Soon afterwards I saw Vera Voroklizkaja, reclining in her
+      carriage, aloof and severe as a vestal virgin; her glossy
+      black tresses parted over her brow enclosed the narrow oval of
+      her face like soft black wings. Beside her sat little Miriam
+      Grey, clothed in her youthfulness as in an armor of roses. The
+      beauty of all these women courses through my blood like sun
+      and wine.
+
+      Upon my word life is an excellent institution.
+
+      And you--what are you doing?
+
+                                        Ever yours,
+
+                                                          BOZEVSKY.
+
+                           _The next day._
+
+  STEPAN, STEPAN, STEPAN!--
+
+      I am in love! Madly, sublimely, tragically in love! This
+      morning I went to the parade-ground as in a dream; I found
+      myself speaking to the colonel in a gentle winning voice that
+      was perfectly ludicrous. When I drilled my company I could
+      hear myself giving the words of command in an imploring tone
+      which I still blush to remember. I am obsessed, hallucinated;
+      there floats before my eyes a slender, ethereal creature, with
+      red lips that never smile, and hair that looks like a cataract
+      of champagne.
+
+      Stahl introduced me to her yesterday, here at his house.
+      "Come," he said, taking me by the arm. "You are going to make
+      the acquaintance of a superior being, soft of voice and sad of
+      countenance, who bears the gentle name of Marie."
+
+      "Let me off," I replied skeptically. "Sad and superior beings
+      are not to my liking."
+
+      "You will like this one," said Stahl.
+
+      "I know I shan't," I replied curtly. I saw Stahl's eye warn
+      me, and, turning, found myself face to face with the subject
+      of our conversation, a tall, flower-like vision, with
+      translucent eyes and a mystic inscrutable face.
+
+      I knew she had overheard me, and as I bowed low before her,
+      she said: "That you should like me is of no importance. What
+      really matters is that I should be pleased with you."
+
+      Her beauty and the scornful levity of her words struck me
+      strangely. "Madame," and I was surprised to feel that I spoke
+      with sincerity, "to please you will be henceforward the
+      highest aim of my desire."
+
+      She looked at me a moment; then she spoke quietly: "You have
+      attained your aim."
+
+      She turned and left me. I stood thunderstruck by the brief and
+      daring reply and by the flash of that clear gaze. She had
+      spoken the words without a smile.
+
+      She did not address me during the rest of the evening. When
+      she left, she barely glanced at me and vouchsafed neither
+      smile nor greeting.
+
+      Just for an instant she raised her black-fringed eyes and
+      gazed at me; then her lashes fell; and it was as if a light
+      had been blown out.
+
+      I am in love with her! Madly, divinely, desperately in love.
+      Ah, Stepan, love--what an ecstasy and what a disaster!
+
+                                                      Your BOZEVSKY.
+
+It was Dr. Stahl, the "Satanic Stahl," who got these letters from his
+cousin Stepan Nebrasoff, and showed them to me. They bewildered and
+troubled me. What? Was I really so attractive and so perturbing in the
+eyes of the gallant young Pole--the handsomest officer in the Imperial
+Guard? I repeated to myself his disquieting epithets: "flower-like,"
+"ethereal," "inscrutable"; and in my room at night when I loosened my
+hair, I wondered: "Does it really look like a cataract of champagne?"
+When I went out I never smiled, even when I felt inclined to do so,
+since my gravity had seemed so charming to him.
+
+Night and day he followed me like a shadow--or rather, should I say, like
+a blaze of light. In whatever direction I turned I was sure to encounter
+his radiant smile and his flashing glance. His passion encompassed me; I
+felt like Brunnhilde surrounded by a sea of flame. I was elated yet
+terrified.
+
+One evening at dinner I made up my mind to speak to Vassili about it.
+
+"Vassili," I said falteringly, "I think we ought to go away for a time."
+
+"Away? Where to?" asked my husband.
+
+"Anywhere--anywhere away from Kieff."
+
+"Why?"
+
+I felt myself turning pale! "I am afraid," I stammered, "I am
+afraid--that Bozevsky--"
+
+"Well?" asked Vassili serenely, pouring some vodka into his champagne
+and drinking it.
+
+"I am afraid that Bozevsky is falling in love with me."
+
+"And who would not fall in love with you, dushka?" laughed Vassili. "As
+for Bozevsky, may the wolves eat him."
+
+And dinner being over, he lit his cigar and went out.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+I go sadly upstairs to the nursery where Tioka and Tania, like blonde
+seraphs, lie asleep.
+
+A dim lamp hangs between the two white cots and illumines their favorite
+picture--an artless painting of the Virgin Mary, holding in her youthful
+arms the infant Jesus with a count's coronet on His head.
+
+I kneel down beside the two little beds and weep.
+
+Aunt Sonia, rectilinear and asexual in her gray flannel dressing-gown,
+comes in softly and bends over me.
+
+"You must trust in Providence," she says, raising towards the ceiling
+her long virginal face. "And take a little camomile tea. That always
+does one good."
+
+I obey her meekly and gratefully. It comforts me to think that a day
+will come when I also shall be like Aunt Sonia; when I also shall be
+content to wear gray flannel dressing-gowns and turn in my sorrows to
+Providence and to camomile tea.
+
+And I wish that that day of peace were near.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+So we stayed on in Kieff and Bozevsky came to see us every day. He
+brought me flowers--wonderful orchids the color of amethyst, tenuous
+contorted blossoms that looked as if they had bloomed in some garden of
+dreams. He brought me books; books of nebulous German poetry; Spanish
+plays by Echegaray all heroism and fire; and disquieting, neurotic
+French novels. Then he brought me English books which filled me with
+pleasant surprise. How far removed from our Slav souls were those limpid
+Anglo-Saxon minds! How child-like and simple was their wit, how bland
+and practical their outlook on life. That was the literature I liked
+best of all; perhaps because it was so different from everything in
+myself. I felt that I was a strange, ambiguous, complicated creature
+compared with those candid elemental natures.
+
+Bozevsky liked to find me reading. He would arrive in the
+evening--usually after Vassili had gone out, alone or with friends--and
+enter the drawing-room with bright and cheerful greeting. He always
+smiled when he found me with one of his books in my hand, sitting beside
+Aunt Sonia placidly knitting in her armchair.
+
+"I like your thoughts to be far away from here," he would say, kissing
+my hand. "I like to know that your soul is far from the frivolous
+society you live in, far from the petty preoccupations, the compliments
+and the flattery which surround you. Let me read with you; let me join
+you in the purer realm of fancy, far away from the world." And he would
+sit down beside me, with an air of protecting fraternal affection.
+
+One evening he found me nervous and agitated.
+
+"What has happened?" he asked.
+
+"I have been reading a ghastly book," I told him with a shudder. "The
+story of a mysterious plant, a sort of huge octopus that feeds on human
+flesh--"
+
+"Ugh!" laughed Bozevsky, "how gruesome!" and he bent his sunny head over
+the page.
+
+"Just imagine," I continued, "its branches are long moving tentacles,
+its thick leaves are quite black and hard; they glitter and move like
+living scorpions...."
+
+"Horrid, horrid," said Bozevsky with his shining smile as he took the
+book out of my hand. "Forget the scorpions. To-night I shall read you
+some Italian poetry. I want you to make friends with Carducci."
+
+He opened a plainly bound volume at random, and read to me.
+
+    "_Oh favolosi prati d'Eliseo_..."
+
+I forgot the tree of scorpions. I forgot Bozevsky. I forgot Aunt Sonia
+and the world. The unknown poet had wrapped my spirit in his giant wings
+and was bearing me far away.
+
+It was about this time that Vassili took me to Moscow. There, one
+evening, our friends the Maximoffs brought a stranger to see us. They
+introduced him as an estimable Moscow lawyer of high repute. I was
+surrounded by other friends and I greeted him absently, without hearing
+his name. I remember casually noticing that he was neither young nor
+old, neither ugly nor handsome. His wife, a timid, fair-haired woman,
+was with him.
+
+At Vassili's suggestion we all went to the "Strelna," a famous
+night-restaurant. I remember that there was a great deal of laughter at
+the grotesque jokes which Vassili and Maximoff and also the estimable
+lawyer played on the pretty dark-faced tziganes.
+
+I noticed that the lawyer's wife did not laugh. She passed her hand
+across her wistful Madonna-like brow, and listened only to the music.
+
+Like her I felt out of tune with the merriment around me. My thoughts
+wandered back to the silent drawing-room at Kieff: I thought of Aunt
+Sonia and her peaceful knitting, of Bozevsky and the books he had
+brought me. I seemed to hear his voice saying, "Ugh! a tree of
+scorpions"--and at that very instant something cold and claw-like
+clutched my bare shoulder. I uttered a piercing shriek, which seemed to
+turn every one--including myself--cold with terror. But it was only the
+estimable lawyer, who, having drunk rather too much, had playfully
+climbed upon the sofa behind me and, to save himself from falling off,
+had laid his hand upon my shoulder.
+
+"What on earth has happened?" exclaimed Vassili. "What made you scream
+like that?"
+
+"I don't know," I stammered, taken aback, "I thought--I thought it was a
+scorpion!"
+
+Every one laughed and for the rest of the evening the lawyer was
+nicknamed "the Scorpion." Perhaps this name added to the unreasoning
+fear I felt of him, or perhaps I was merely nervous, but he seemed to be
+always close behind me, and during the whole of that evening I kept on
+turning round, with little shivers running down my spine, to see what he
+was doing.
+
+Suddenly he had disappeared. Vassili laughed loudly. "Hullo! Where's the
+Scorpion?" And amidst the laughter of the guests he set himself to count
+the flippant tziganes one by one to see if any were missing. But they
+were all there--and I was glad for the sake of the Scorpion's poor little
+Madonna-wife.
+
+It was three in the morning when we went back to our sleighs. It was
+very cold; the clear deep-blue sky was powdered with stars. Assisted by
+Maximoff I was about to step into the sleigh, when, with another cry, I
+drew back; my foot had touched something soft and shapeless that was
+lying huddled up beneath the rug.
+
+"What is the matter now?" cried Vassili. "Another scorpion?"
+
+No, it was the same one. It was the estimable lawyer very drunk and fast
+asleep at the bottom of the sleigh.
+
+On our way back to the hotel, driving through the keen night air, I
+asked Vassili:
+
+"Who was that man?"
+
+"What man?" said Vassili, who sat opposite to us and was pressing the
+small feet of Maximoff's wife.
+
+"You know--the man who frightened me."
+
+"Oh, the Scorpion?" laughed Vassili. "That was Donat Prilukoff."
+
+When we returned to Kieff I told Bozevsky the adventure of our evening
+at the Strelna, and described the Scorpion to him with as much humor as
+I could. But Bozevsky did not laugh. My absence had embittered and
+exasperated him. He no longer sat beside me with an air of protective
+fraternal affection. He would not speak of literature or poetry any
+more. He spent entire evenings making mute scenes of jealousy and
+despair, while dear Aunt Sonia, instinctively feeling the atmosphere
+around her charged with electricity, dropped many stitches in her
+knitting and became sour and irritable.
+
+"My child, this must not go on any longer. Either Alexis Bozevsky must
+be forbidden the house or we ourselves must go away. I cannot understand
+how Vassili--" Her honest cheeks kindled with indignation. "Enough. I
+shall speak to him about it myself."
+
+She did so: and Vassili, with his usual brief comment that we all bored
+him to death, expressed the hope that wild beasts might devour Bozevsky,
+and ordered us to pack up and leave for the country at once.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+So we all left for the country--to the great delight of Aunt Sonia and
+the children.
+
+Let my mind linger for an instant on those springtide days--the last for
+me, though I did not know it, of unalloyed serenity. The children and I
+used to rise at dawn and go into the vast garden all a-shimmer with dew.
+On the glittering lawn, among the flower-beds, down the shady avenues of
+the park the two little elfin figures flitted before me, calling to me,
+eluding me, darting to and fro like twin will-o'-the-wisps; then turned
+and ran towards me with wind-light steps and gilt locks afloat, to
+shelter in my outstretched arms. Oh! my children, my little boy and
+girl, when you remember your mother I pray that God may lead your
+memories back to those clear morning hours, and may the rest be blotted
+out and dark.
+
+Vassili was inexpressibly bored with rural solitude and sought new means
+of diversion. His latest fad was target-shooting. He filled the house
+with rifles and revolvers and invited every one in the neighboring
+country houses to take part in shooting matches in our grounds. From
+morning to night, in the garden, in the courtyard, even from the windows
+of the house, there was a ceaseless crackling of firearms.
+
+One afternoon when the house was filled with guests, Dr. Stahl and
+Bozevsky arrived in their troika from the neighboring castle of the
+Grigorievskys, where they had been staying. To my astonishment, Vassili
+received them jubilantly and embraced them both. He had quite forgotten
+the reasons which had led to our departure from Kieff.
+
+Bozevsky came to greet me at once, and for the rest of the day never
+left my side. He enveloped me in a whirlwind of ecstatic tenderness. His
+infatuation, which he sought neither to conceal nor to control,
+disquieted me deeply.
+
+I noticed that his friend Dr. Stahl watched us continually. I had not
+seen the doctor for many months, and he struck me as strangely altered.
+His very light eyes, in which the pupils were contracted until they
+seemed mere pin-points, followed me continuously.
+
+"Doctor," I said to him, "what strange eyes you have! Just like the eyes
+of a cat when it looks at the sun!"
+
+"I do not look at the sun," he answered slowly, speaking with great
+stress. "I look into an abyss, the abyss of annihilation and oblivion.
+Some day, if ever you are irremediably unhappy, come to me and I will
+open to you, also, the doors of my unearthly paradise--of this chasm of
+deadly joy which engulfs me."
+
+"Shame on you, Stahl! How dare you suggest such a thing!" exclaimed
+Bozevsky, casting a look almost of hatred upon the morphinomaniac. "Why
+must you and your kind always seek to drag others down into your own
+gehenna?"
+
+Stahl sighed. "It is terrible, I know. But it is a characteristic of our
+malady."
+
+I listened without comprehending. I did not then know of Stahl's
+enslavement to the drug. "What are you speaking of? What malady? I do
+not understand."
+
+"It is better not to understand," murmured Bozevsky with knitted brows.
+"Stahl is distraught; he is ill. Pay no attention to him. And never
+follow either his advice nor his example. But pray," he added, "do not
+worry your head over anything we have said; the shooting match will soon
+begin. I think your husband is looking for you."
+
+But Vassili was far from troubling himself about me. He was rushing to
+and fro setting up rows of bottles that were to serve as targets, and
+distributing guns and cartridges to all our guests. Then he hurried
+towards us. "There," he said to Dr. Stahl and to Bozevsky, giving them
+each a Flobert rifle, "these are for you."
+
+"And what about the Countess?" asked Stahl in his hollow voice. "Is she
+not going to compete in the shooting?"
+
+"Oh, no!" I exclaimed. "I am much too frightened."
+
+"Nonsense!" cried Vassili, pushing a gun into my unwilling hands. "Of
+course you must shoot with the rest. And I warn you that if you are not
+brave I shall play William Tell with an apple on your head!" He passed
+on laughing, with Madame Grigorievskaja armed with a Browning by his
+side.
+
+I was not at all brave; I held the rifle at arm's length, trembling with
+fear lest it should explode by itself. Stahl was amused by my terror,
+while Bozevsky sought to encourage and comfort me.
+
+"Poor timid birdling," he murmured, "do not be frightened. See, I will
+teach you. It is done like this"--and he lifted the gun to my shoulder,
+placed my hands in position, and with his glowing face quite close to
+mine, showed me how I was to take aim. What with my terror of the gun
+and the fragrance of his fair hair near my cheek I felt quite dizzy.
+
+"There, that's it. Now press the trigger."
+
+"No! no! Don't say that! don't let me!" I screamed, incoherent with
+terror while Stahl and Bozevsky laughed.
+
+Vassili from a distance caught sight of me: "Bravo, Mura!" he cried.
+"That's right. Go on. Shoot!"
+
+"No! no!" I cried with my eyes shut and standing rigid in the position
+in which Bozevsky had placed me, for I dared not move a muscle.
+
+Vassili called impatiently: "What on earth are you waiting for?"
+
+Still motionless, I gasped:
+
+"Perhaps--I might dare--if some one were to cover my ears."
+
+Amidst great amusement Bozevsky came behind me and placed his two hands
+over my ears.
+
+"Come now!" cried Stahl. "Do not be frightened."
+
+"Mind you hit the third bottle," shouted Vassili from the distance.
+
+Bozevsky standing behind me was clasping my head as though in a vice and
+whispering into my hair: "Darling, darling, darling! I love you."
+
+"Don't," I cried, almost in tears under the stress of different
+emotions, "and don't hold my ears so tight."
+
+The warm clasp relaxed at once.
+
+"Oh, no, no!" I cried. "I can hear everything. I don't want to hear--,"
+but even as I spoke the gun went off. I felt a blow near my shoulder,
+and thought I was wounded; but it was only the recoil of the weapon.
+
+Everybody was laughing and applauding.
+
+"What have I killed?" I asked, cautiously opening my eyes.
+
+"The third bottle!" cried Vassili, and he was so delighted with my
+exploit that he ran up and embraced me. But the pistol he was holding in
+his hand and Bozevsky's glance of jealous wrath filled me afresh with
+twofold terror.
+
+The afternoon passed as if in a dream. Vassili became very much excited
+and drank a great deal of vodka. Then Madame Grigorievskaja, who had
+once visited the United States, concocted strange American drinks which
+we had never tasted before--cocktails, mint-juleps, pousse-cafés and
+gin-slings. They were much approved of by every one.
+
+I remember vaguely that half way through the afternoon some one let down
+my hair and set me among the shattered bottles with an apple on my head.
+I seem to see Vassili standing in front of me with a rifle and taking
+aim at me while the others utter cries of protest. Suddenly Bozevsky
+snatches the weapon from my husband's hands, and there is a brief
+struggle between them. Soon they are laughing again, and shaking
+hands--then Bozevsky joins me among the shattered bottles, and stands in
+front of me; he is so tall that I can see nothing but his broad
+shoulders and his fair hair. And Vassili is shooting--the bullets whirr
+over my head and all around me, but I have no sense of fear; Bozevsky
+stands before me, straight and motionless as a rampart.
+
+We go in to dinner; gipsy musicians arrive and play for us. Late at
+night when the garden is quite dark we go out again to the targets;
+instead of the bottles Vassili has ordered a row of lighted candles to
+be set up, and we are to extinguish them with our shots without knocking
+them down. There is much noise around me; Vassili is dancing a
+tarantelle with Ivan Grigorievsky on the lawn. Dr. Stahl and Bozevsky
+are always by my side. I keep on shooting at the candles, but they spin
+round before my confused eyes like catharine-wheels; and Stahl laughs,
+and Bozevsky sighs, and the gipsies play....
+
+Suddenly Tioka's nurse comes hurriedly down the pathway towards me.
+
+"May I speak to your ladyship for a moment?"
+
+"Yes, Elise. What is it?"
+
+"Master Tioka cannot go to sleep. He says you have forgotten to bid him
+good-night."
+
+I put down my rifle and follow the straight small figure of Elise
+Perrier through the garden. I hasten after her into the house and
+upstairs to the nursery.
+
+Little Tania is already fast asleep, with scarlet lips parted and silken
+hair scattered on her pillow. But Tioka is sitting up in his cot
+awaiting me. His bright soft eyes wander over my face, my hair, my
+dress; his innocent gaze seems to pierce me like a fiery sword. He holds
+out his arms to me and I hide my flushed face on his childish breast.
+
+"Good-night, mother dear," he whispers, kissing me and patting my face
+with his small hand. Then he adds, with a funny little sniff at my
+cheeks and hair: "You smell of many things--of perfume and powder and
+cigarettes and wine...."
+
+This sequence of gay words on the childish lips strikes at my heart like
+so many daggers.
+
+"Hush, darling," I whisper, taking refuge in those frail arms as in a
+haven of safety. "Forgive--forgive your mother."
+
+But he does not know what there is to forgive; and he laughs and yawns
+and then nestles down in his pillow, still holding tightly to my hand.
+
+"Must you go away?" he sighs, in a sleepy, endearing voice.
+
+"No, darling, no. I will stay with you."
+
+"Then tell me the poetry about the Virgin Mary coming down to see us in
+the night."
+
+Holding my child's hand in my own, I begin softly:
+
+    "When little children sleep, the Virgin Mary
+    Steps with white feet upon the crescent moon..."
+
+But already Tioka is in the land of dreams.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+The whole party of guests stayed at our house that night. Even one of
+the gipsy musicians was found next morning asleep on the sofa in the
+library.
+
+No one came down to breakfast. Only Bozevsky got up early and went for a
+gallop on the hills.
+
+I awoke at eight o'clock and rang the bell. Elise Perrier came in and
+opened the windows. The fresh April breeze blew in and the chirrup of
+the nests greeted me.
+
+"Elise, is the morning fine? Can the mountains be seen?"
+
+"Yes, my lady."
+
+"Elise, when you see the mountains do you not feel homesick for
+Switzerland?"
+
+"Yes, my lady." And Elise stooped down to set out my slippers and to
+hide the flush that rose to her face.
+
+"I am homesick, too, Elise. I am homesick I hardly know for
+what--homesick for solitude and peace."
+
+She made no reply.
+
+"Should I find them in your Switzerland, do you think?"
+
+Elise Perrier shakes her head and answers in a low tone: "No, my lady.
+Swiss homesickness and Russian homesickness are different."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"We Swiss are homesick for--how shall I say?--for the outside things we
+are far away from ... homesick for mountains and pine-trees and
+villages. But Russians are homesick for what they miss in their own
+hearts."
+
+"You are right, Elise."
+
+Tioka in his nightdress followed by Tania sucking the head of her
+favorite rubber doll have run gaily in and embrace me.
+
+"Are we going to Switzerland?" cries Tioka, who has overheard what we
+were saying. "How nice! When do we start?"
+
+"How nice! When do we start?" says Tania, who always echoes everything
+her brother says.
+
+"I like to be always going away," adds Tioka.
+
+And Tania repeats, "I like to be always going away."
+
+I marvel at finding in these two children of mine, my own unrest already
+stirring, like a butterfly poised with quivering wings on the dawning
+flower of their souls.
+
+I went down alone into the garden and entered the grove, where the
+sunshine only penetrates with mild rays of almost lunar whiteness. The
+grass under my feet was studded with periwinkles, their prim, pert faces
+lifted to the sky; tenuous ferns unfolded their embroidered scrolls, and
+masses of gentle wild violets, conscious of their pallor and their
+scentlessness, drooped shyly in the shade.
+
+In the branches overhead wild hidden birds tried their new springtide
+voices in soft modulations and trills, or in long-drawn contralto notes
+of liquescent sweetness. Thus April spoke to me in gentle voices. With a
+sudden overwhelming longing to be nearer to the very soul of spring, I
+knelt on the grass and buried my face in the cool leaves and blossoms,
+bidding my heart be pure and cool as they.
+
+On my homeward way I passed the targets. The servants had put everything
+in order--pistols, rifles and cartridges; and a fresh row of bottles
+seemed to await with glassy eye the shots of the amateur marksmen. With
+a deep sense of humiliation I remembered the feverish agitations of the
+previous day, and once more I said to myself: "Henceforward may my life
+be serene and pure."
+
+A gay voice rang out close behind me, and startled me from my reverie.
+
+"Lady Marie, good morrow!" It was Bozevsky, who, clicking his spurred
+heels together, saluted me with a radiant smile. His morning canter
+seemed to have given him an added touch of beauty and of daring; his
+fair hair gleamed in the sunshine, his smile was reckless and
+resplendent.
+
+I bowed without speaking and attempted to pursue my way to the house,
+but he took my hand and detained me.
+
+"Why go in? Everybody is still asleep. Come now," he urged, with a frank
+engaging smile, "stay here for awhile and practise at the targets."
+
+So saying he chose a rifle and loaded it. Then he held it out to me. I
+took it from him and put it to my shoulder. I aimed carefully and was
+about to press the trigger when suddenly Bozevsky, with a lightning
+movement, put out his hand and pressed his palm against the muzzle of my
+gun.
+
+"Wait!" he cried, with a wild, extravagant laugh. "Wait a moment! Before
+you press the trigger I want you to say--'Alexis, I love you!'"
+
+"You are mad!" I exclaimed. "Take away your hand!"
+
+"No. First you must say--'Alexis, I love you.'"
+
+I felt a hot flush rise to my brow. "Take away your hand!" I repeated
+and looked steadily at him.
+
+He did not move.
+
+"Take it away, I implore you!"
+
+Still he never moved, and I could see that hand stopping the muzzle of
+my gun--a long, slender hand with fingers separate and outstretched, and
+I felt almost as if I were under the influence of some hallucination. It
+was not only _his_ hand that I saw--I seemed in a kind of frenzy to see
+the hands of all men outstretched before me, ready to grasp me, to crush
+me, to beat me down. Doubtless a wave of madness swept over me; a
+convulsive spasm shook my wrist--and the gun went off. I saw the long,
+lithe hand drop like some wounded creature.
+
+With a cry I let the rifle fall, and covered my face. But Bozevsky had
+sprung upon me, and with his other hand seized both mine and pressed
+them down. He was as white as death. "You little tigress," he gasped.
+Then, as I was about to cry out again, he covered my mouth with his
+shattered hand, and I felt the blood gush over my face.
+
+What distant heritage of madness broke upon us at that moment? What
+primitive frenzy lashed us together in a fierce embrace? I cannot tell.
+All I know is that from that hour I was his--tamed, vanquished, broken in
+spirit, and yet glad. He was the first, the last, the only lover of my
+devastated youth, and by his side the brief springtime of my happiness
+flowered and died. When the fearful death that was so soon to lay him
+low came upon him, when I saw him fall at my feet shot by Vassili--my
+reason gave way. The rest of my life lies behind me like a somber
+nightmare landscape, through which I wander, groping in the dark,
+stumbling forward on my way to perdition....
+
+Yet sometimes I dream that it is all not true, that he still lives, that
+one day the door of my cell will open, and the lover of my youth appear
+to me again. I shall see him standing on the threshold, a halo of
+sunshine lighting his fair hair, like some young martyr-saint come to
+deliver me from my bondage. The hand I wounded will be filled with
+roses, and his clear voice will call me by my name.
+
+Then rising from this gloomy prison bench I shall move to meet him.
+Shame and crime and captivity will fall away from me like a dark and
+worn-out cloak.
+
+Free and fair as in those distant April days in which he loved me, with
+white, winged footsteps I shall follow him.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+Suddenly, almost from one day to another, Vassili grew jealous. When I
+had adored him he had neglected and forsaken me. Now that he feared to
+lose me he was inconsolable.
+
+"You and Tioka are very much alike," I said to him one day when we were
+all at luncheon.
+
+"Do you think so?" said Vassili, patting his little son's fair head and
+contemplating the small face, which at that moment was making a terrible
+grimace over its food. "What makes you say so?"
+
+"You shall see." I leaned over to the child. "Tioka, my darling, won't
+you eat your nice dinner?"
+
+"No!" said Tioka with great decision.
+
+"Come, now, darling, eat your nice soup," and I held a spoonful to his
+lips.
+
+"No," said Tioka, turning his face away.
+
+"Why not, dear? Don't you like it?"
+
+"No. It's nasty."
+
+"Well, then," I said, putting down the spoon, "we will give it to the
+farmer's little boy."
+
+"No! no!" cried Tioka, and he quickly devoured the soup in large
+spoonfuls.
+
+Vassili laughed. "He is quite right. His soup is not for the farmer's
+little boy. To each one his own soup, isn't that so, Tioka!"
+
+"No," said Tioka.
+
+"Why 'no'? You should say 'yes.'"
+
+"No," declared Tioka doggedly. "This is my 'no' day."
+
+"Your _what_?" exclaimed his father.
+
+"My day for saying 'no,'" announced Tioka with great decision.
+
+His father was much amused. "I also shall have my 'no' days," he
+declared. "And I shall begin at once. To-day, Mura, we shall receive no
+visitors."
+
+"But, Vassili," I protested, "we must see the Grigorievskys; we have
+invited them to dinner."
+
+"No," said my husband.
+
+"And Semenzoff. And Bozevsky."
+
+"No," he repeated.
+
+"Do you really mean that we are not to receive them?"
+
+"No," he reiterated. "This is my 'no' day." And the reception for that
+evening was actually put off. The jest seemed highly entertaining to
+Vassili. I heard him laughing to himself as he went downstairs; and in
+the days that followed he frequently repeated it.
+
+Shortly afterwards he took us all back to Kieff and there he had many
+"no" days. In particular he would not let Bozevsky visit us; and more
+than a month passed without my seeing him.
+
+At last it happened that the Stahls invited us to a ball, and Vassili,
+who chanced to be in a good temper, accepted. I knew I should meet
+Bozevsky there, and at the mere thought of seeing him again I trembled
+with joy and fear.
+
+Elise Perrier dressed me in a filmy gossamer gown of soft opalescent
+tints, and fastened round my neck the famous O'Rourke pearls--those
+pearls which, according to family traditions, had once decorated the
+slender neck of Mary Stuart.
+
+As Vassili put me into the troika he was all kindness and amiability; he
+wrapped me closely in the furs, and then took his seat beside me,
+muffling himself up to his nose in the bearskins. The horses started and
+we were off like the wind.
+
+During the drive tender and kindly feelings towards Vassili filled my
+heart. I said to myself that perhaps he was after all not wholly to
+blame for his faults and follies. He, too, was so young; perhaps if I
+had been less of a child at the time of my marriage I should have known
+how to make him love me more. And, after all, were we not still in time
+to reshape our lives? What if we were to go far away from Kieff, far
+from St. Petersburg, and try to take up the thread of our broken idyll
+again? My hand sought his. He grasped it and held it warmly clasped
+under the rug without turning towards me; I could see his eyes shining
+under his fur cap as he gazed straight before him, while we sped over
+the silent snow. During that drive, from the bottom of my heart, I
+forgave him all his transgressions and silently craved forgiveness for
+mine. Already I seemed to see myself with him and the children and Aunt
+Sonia happily secluded in some smiling rose-clad mansion in Italy. He
+would take up the study of his music again, perhaps he would compose, as
+he had often spoken of doing--while I, seated at his feet, would read the
+Italian poets that I loved, raising my eyes now and then to contemplate
+the motionless blue wave of the distant Apennines....
+
+But the troika had stopped, and Vassili sprang out upon the snow.
+Through the illuminated windows the tzigane music poured forth its waves
+of sensuous melody--and alas! the rhythmic swing of it swept away, as in
+a whirlwind, the peaceful dreams of Italy, of the rose-clad mansion and
+the Italian poets.
+
+While the servants were taking our cloaks and snowshoes from us I
+whispered hurriedly to Vassili: "Dearest, be good to-night. Do not drink
+much."
+
+"Why not? What a strange idea!" he said; and we passed into the
+overheated, overlighted rooms.
+
+At the far end of the ballroom some thirty tziganes, women and men, in
+their picturesque costumes were making music. The men played and the
+women sang. The dancing couples whirled round in the scent-laden air.
+
+Doctor Stahl's wife, a kindly German woman, received us with amiable
+smiles; Stahl himself greeted us with excited effusiveness. He was quite
+pale with two red spots on the summit of his cheeks. I was struck anew
+by his strange air of intoxication, for I knew he never touched wine.
+Immediately, from the end of the room Bozevsky came hastening to meet
+us, superb in his full uniform--blue tunic and scarlet belt.
+
+"Hail _Fata Morgana_!" he cried. "Give me this dance," and he put his
+arm round my waist. But I drew back.
+
+"Alas, Prince Charming, I dare not."
+
+He turned pale; then he bowed, twirled on his heels and moved away. He
+did not come near me again until late in the evening. I saw him
+surrounded by women, who danced with him, smiling into his face,
+floating with languid grace in his arms.
+
+I shrank into a corner of the vast room where tall plants and flowers
+screened me from the dancers.
+
+"Why, what are you doing hidden here?" cried Stahl, coming up to me. His
+pupils were narrower than ever and his breath came and went in short
+gasps. He bent over me and scanned my face. "What are your thoughts,
+Countess Marie?"
+
+"I have no thoughts," I replied sadly.
+
+"Then I will give you one," said he laughing; "a blithe and comforting
+thought--think that a hundred years hence we shall all be dead!"
+
+"True," I answered, and a wave of unspeakable melancholy invaded my
+soul. "We may, perhaps, be dead even fifty years hence."
+
+"Or thirty," laughed Stahl.
+
+"Or twenty," I sighed, in even deeper despondency.
+
+"Oh, no," said Stahl. "Twenty years hence you will still be a charming
+matron getting on towards middle-age." And, as some one was calling him,
+he turned away and left me.
+
+His words sank into my heart, heavy and searing as molten lead. How
+short, how short was life! How the years flew past! How brief were the
+wings of youth and happiness! I raised my eyes--doubtless they were full
+of sadness--and I saw that Bozevsky at the far end of the room was
+looking at me. Several brilliantly attired women were laughing and
+talking to him, but abruptly, without excuse or explanation, he left
+them and crossed the room to where I sat.
+
+The tziganes were playing a wild, nerve-thrilling czarda. Without a word
+Bozevsky put his arm round me and drew me into the dance.
+
+The music went faster and faster, wilder and ever more wild.
+
+Light as air I swung round in Bozevsky's arm. I could have wished to
+dance thus forever--dance, dance to the very brink of life and, still
+dancing, to plunge over into the abyss of death.
+
+As we whirled round I perceived that Vassili was watching us. He was
+drinking champagne with vodka in it and was laughing loudly while he
+spoke to Stahl; but his eyes never left me as I swept round the ballroom
+with Bozevsky. His gaze alarmed me. I was dizzy and out of breath, but I
+did not dare to stop dancing for fear of Vassili. I danced and danced,
+breathless and distraught; I felt my heart beating furiously, pulsing
+with the mad rapidity, the battering throb of a motor-cycle at full
+speed--and still I danced and danced on, while the ballroom, the guests,
+the tziganes spun round and round before my blurred eyes....
+
+Vassili's gaze still followed me.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Suddenly my strength failed me. The room seemed to be paved with water;
+the floor yielded and undulated under my feet; the motor-cycle pulsing
+in my breast stopped dead. Then I felt Bozevsky's arm sustain me as I
+fell forward on his breast. Everything whirled, darkened--vanished.
+
+When I opened my eyes I was seated near the window; the dancers crowded
+round me. Stahl was bending over me with a small shining instrument in
+his hand. It was a hypodermic syringe.
+
+I shrank back in terror. "No, no!" I cried.
+
+Seeing that I had recovered my senses Vassili, who stood behind me, laid
+an iron hand on my bare shoulder.
+
+"Come," he said in a hoarse and brutal voice. "Come at once."
+
+"Where to?" I rose trembling to my feet. I still felt dizzy and weak,
+and scarcely knew where I was.
+
+"Home," said Vassili, bending over me with a terrible look. His face was
+so close to mine that I could feel his breath upon me, hot and laden
+with that subtle sweetish exhalation of ether that vodka leaves behind
+it. "The dance is over," he muttered. "It is over, it is over." I
+noticed his clenched fists; and I was afraid. A deep silence had fallen
+on the entire room. "Come!" he repeated in a tone that made me quake.
+
+I shrank back in terror. Then Vassili put out his hand and seized my
+pearl necklace; it broke in his grasp. The milky gems fell to the ground
+and rolled away in all directions; the guests, both men and women,
+stooped down to search for them and pick them up.
+
+But now Bozevsky had taken a step forward, and stood, haughty and
+aggressive, in front of Vassili. He uttered a brief word in a low voice.
+
+Vassili turned upon him with livid countenance. "Insolent scoundrel!" he
+cried, wildly searching his pockets for a weapon; then in a frenzy he
+turned on the awe-stricken assembly: "Go away, everybody!" he shouted.
+"Stahl, turn out the lights. We are going to have a game of blind man's
+buff, the Uhlan and I. A game of blind man's buff in the dark! Quick,
+Stahl, give us a couple of revolvers. Send all these people away and
+turn out the lights."
+
+He was beside himself with vodka and with wrath.
+
+Bozevsky still faced him, calm and unmoved. "Why should it be in the
+dark, Count Tarnowsky? Why not in the light of day--at ten paces?"
+
+"No!" roared Vassili. "I'll kill you in the dark, evil beast that you
+are. I'll slaughter you like a wild beast in the dark!"
+
+I never knew how we succeeded in getting him out into the troika, but at
+last the feat was accomplished, and he drove off with Madame
+Grigorievska and Semenzoff, the only two people who had any influence
+over him. I followed in another sleigh, alone with Dr. Stahl, who during
+the entire drive panted and shivered beside me, as if in the throes of
+some fierce physical agony.
+
+Through the starry calm of the night, while the sleighs glided silently
+over the snow, we could hear Vassili's strident and drunken voice still
+roaring: "Blind man's buff with the officer! Ha, ha, ha! In the
+dark--bing bang. Blind man's buff!"
+
+
+The scandal in Kieff was enormous. The whole town spoke of nothing else.
+All the women sided with Vassili, and all the men with me. As for
+Vassili, he cared nothing for the opinion of either. He came and went
+with lowering brows, never speaking either to me or to the children.
+
+I was unspeakably frightened and unhappy. At last, one evening, unable
+to endure the strain of his silence any longer, and praying God to give
+me courage, I went tremblingly and knocked at his study door.
+
+He said "Come in," and I entered.
+
+He was standing by the window, smoking, and he turned upon me a cold
+vindictive eye.
+
+"Vassili"--my voice trembled--"Vassili, don't be angry with me any more.
+Forgive me. I did not mean to offend you. I did not mean--" I burst into
+tears.
+
+He seemed somewhat moved and held out his hand to me without speaking.
+
+I grasped it eagerly. He continued to smoke and look out of the window,
+while I stood awkwardly beside him, holding his hand and not knowing
+what to say.
+
+Perhaps my silence pleased him, for soon I felt him press my trembling
+fingers more closely. Looking timidly up into his face I saw that his
+lips were quivering.
+
+"Vassili," I whispered.
+
+He turned to me abruptly. "Let us go away," he said, "Mura, let us go
+away!"
+
+"Where?" I asked, overcome with sudden fear.
+
+"Far away from here, far away from Russia. I cannot live in this
+accursed country any longer." And Vassili let go my hand in order to
+clench his fists.
+
+"I had thought of it, too," I said unsteadily. And in a low voice I told
+him my thoughts of the rose-clad house in Italy, my dreams of an azure
+exile in that beauteous land, alone with him and the children.
+
+"Mura! Mura!" he said, taking my face between his hands and gazing
+deeply into my eyes. "Tell me--is it not too late?"
+
+Was it too late?
+
+In my soul my unlawful passion for Bozevsky rose like a giant wave,
+towered over me, enveloped and submerged me. Then--then to the eyes of my
+spirit there came the vision of my children, of a flower-filled Italian
+garden, of peace reconquered and deliverance from evil. "No, Vassili,
+no. It is not too late!"
+
+With a sigh I lay my cheek against his shoulder and bowed my face upon
+his breast.
+
+Before our departure from Russia, in order not to leave ill-feeling or
+evil talk behind us, it was decided that Vassili and Bozevsky should
+meet and be reconciled.
+
+The Stahls and Grigorievskys gladly undertook to organize an afternoon
+reception at which we were to take leave of all our friends and
+acquaintances. After that there would be a theater party at the opera,
+and, finally, the more intimate of our friends were to be the guests of
+Bozevsky himself at a supper at the Grand Hotel. There we were to say
+farewell to one another for many years, perhaps forever.
+
+In spite of the burning desire which drew me towards Bozevsky, I had
+honorably kept my part of the agreement and had refused to see him for
+even an instant before the appointed day.
+
+Vassili took the necessary steps to get our passports and every
+preparation was made for our final departure from Russia.
+
+And now the eve of our journey had come--the afternoon reception was
+over; and this was the fatal evening which was to mark the supreme and
+ultimate hour of my happiness.
+
+Satins and jewels decked my aching heart; flowers garlanded my ringleted
+hair; I wanted Alexis to see me for the last time looking my fairest. I
+longed to remain forever in his memory a loved and radiant vision.
+
+"You are dazzlingly beautiful," said my cousin Vera to me, as soon as I
+entered the room, surveying me from top to toe. "I can quite understand
+why every one is crazy about you."
+
+I was immediately surrounded by all our most intimate friends, who
+lamented in every key our resolve to leave Russia.
+
+"Without you, Kieff will be empty. It will be like a ring which has lost
+its brightest gem."
+
+I smiled and sighed, feeling both gratified and mournful.
+
+Who would have thought that after this evening all those who now
+surrounded me with flattering words would pass me by without a greeting,
+would turn from me as from some vile and tainted creature?
+
+Bozevsky, pallid and stern, came to me, and bowed low as he kissed my
+hand.
+
+"_Ave! Ave ... Maria!_" he said. Then he raised his eyes and looked at
+me long and fixedly. Despair was so clearly written on his countenance,
+that I felt afraid lest Vassili should notice it; Alexis read the fear
+in my eyes, and laughed. "Do you know what I believe?" he said.
+
+I looked at him without understanding.
+
+"I believe," he continued in scornful tones, "that I am in a trap."
+
+"A trap? What do you mean?" I gazed questioningly into his face.
+
+"Yes, yes, a trap," said he with a cynical laugh. Then in a tone that
+seemed in keeping with the frivolous atmosphere that surrounded us:
+
+"Countess," he continued, "has it ever happened to you to go wrong in
+some well-known quotation? To begin, for instance, with one author, and
+to end with another?"
+
+"I do not understand," I stammered, perplexed by the strangeness of his
+manner. "What--what do you mean?"
+
+Vassili was approaching, and Alexis with a scornful laugh raised his
+voice slightly as he spoke. "Because to-night," he said, "a misquotation
+of that kind keeps ringing through my brain. "_Ave, Maria!... Morituri
+te salutant!_"
+
+Vassili stood beside us and heard the words with a puzzled smile.
+
+"_Morituri?_" he said, holding out his hand to Bozevsky with a frank and
+friendly gesture. "_Morituri?_ Indeed I hope not."
+
+Bozevsky took his hand and looked him in the face. Vassili returned his
+gaze; then, with an impulsive gesture, in true Russian fashion, my
+husband bent forward and kissed him on both cheeks.
+
+No! no, it was not a trap! From the depths of my broken heart, from my
+inmost consciousness, there springs up this protest on behalf of him who
+on that fatal evening wrecked my life. I know that it was an impulse of
+his fervent heart that impelled Vassili to open his arms to the man whom
+an hour before he had hated--and whom an hour later he slew.
+
+No; it was not a trap.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+Doubtless that evening I was beautiful. During the supper party at the
+Grand Hotel I felt that I diffused around me an atmosphere of more
+subtle intoxication than the music or the wines. Placed between Vassili
+and Stahl I laughed and laughed in a fever of rapturous gaiety. I was
+excited and overwrought.
+
+Bozevsky sat facing me. As I glanced at his proud, passionate face, I
+said in my heart: "To-morrow you will see him no more. But this evening
+he is here; you see him, pale for the love of you, thrilled by your
+presence. Do not think of to-morrow. To-morrow is far away!"
+
+So I laughed and laughed while the rhythmic charm of waltzes played on
+muted strings wrought upon my senses, swaying me towards an unreal
+world, a world of transcendent passion and incomparable joys.
+
+Stahl, seated at my right hand, was flushed and elated, but still drew
+the hurried sibilant breaths I had so often noticed in him. Vassili
+seemed to have fallen in love with me anew. He murmured rapturous words
+into my ear. "To-morrow you shall be mine, mine only, out of reach of
+all others, beyond the sight and the desire of all these people--whose
+necks I should like to wring." And he drank his Clicquot looking at me
+with kindling eyes.
+
+"Vassili," I whispered imploringly, "do not drink any more."
+
+"Don't you wish me to?" he asked, turning to me with his glass of
+champagne in his hand. "Don't you wish it? Well--there!" He flung the
+glass full of blonde wine behind him over his shoulder. The thin crystal
+chalice was shattered into a thousand pieces.
+
+"What are you doing, Vassili? What are you doing?" cried Grigorievsky.
+"Are you playing the King of Thule?"
+
+"Precisely," laughed Vassili. "Was he not the paragon of all lovers, who
+chose to die of thirst in order to follow his adored one to the grave?"
+
+And somewhat uncertainly he quoted:
+
+    "Then did he fling his chalice
+    Into the surging main,
+    He watched it sink and vanish--
+      And never drank again."
+
+"Here's to the King of Thule!" cried one of the guests. And they all
+drank Vassili's health.
+
+Bozevsky had sprung to his feet; his eyes gleamed strangely. "You may be
+the King of Thule, Tarnowsky," he cried in a mocking tone, "but I am the
+knight Olaf. You know the legend?" His clear insolent eyes surveyed the
+guests provocatively. "Olaf--you remember--was condemned to death for
+daring to love the king's daughter. He was at his last banquet. 'Take
+heed, Olaf,' said the king. 'The headsman stands at the door!' 'Let him
+stay there, sire, while I bid farewell to life in a last toast!' And
+standing up--just as I stand here--he raised his glass, as I raise mine:
+
+    "I drink to the earth, I drink to the sky,
+      I drink to the sea and the shore;
+    I drink to the days that I have seen,
+      And the days I shall see no more;
+    I drink to the King who has sentenced me,
+      And the Headsman at the door.
+
+    "I bless the joys that I have had
+      And the joys that I have missed;
+    I bless the eyes that have smiled on me
+      And the lips that I have kissed!"
+
+Here Bozevsky turned and looked straight at me:
+
+    "To _thy_ red lips that I have kissed
+    I raise this cup of wine,
+    I bless thy radiant loveliness
+      That made my life divine,
+    And I bless the hour that brings me death
+      For the hour that thou wert mine!"
+
+He uttered these words in a loud voice, with his daring eyes fixed
+steadily on mine; then he raised his glass and drained it.
+
+Vassili had sprung to his feet. But instantly Stahl was beside him,
+speaking rapidly, while Grigorievsky exclaimed:
+
+"The sleighs are waiting. It is time to go home!"
+
+Amid nervous and hurried farewells the perilous moment passed and the
+danger was averted. We all hastened to our sleighs; my cousin Vera and
+Madame Grigorievska were beside me; Stahl and Grigorievsky had each with
+an air of easy friendliness taken my husband by the arm.
+
+"Good-by! Good-by! _Bon voyage!_ Good-by!" The last farewells had been
+exchanged. The impatient horses were shaking their bells in the icy
+night air. Vera had already taken her place in the sleigh, and I was
+about to step in beside her, when I saw Bozevsky striding rapidly
+towards me. He passed in front of my husband, who was standing near the
+second sleigh with Stahl and Grigorievsky, and came straight to me. He
+stretched out his hand with a gesture of despair.
+
+"So it is all over--all over!" he said. "And this is good-by!"
+
+His voice broke, and he bent his fair head over my hand, crushing my
+fingers in his feverish clasp.
+
+At that instant the report of a shot rang out, followed by a mad
+outburst of laughter from Vassili. I saw the horses of the sleigh plunge
+and rear.
+
+Bozevsky, still clasping my hand, wrenched himself upright; a convulsive
+shiver passed through him, and his head jerked backwards with a strange,
+wooden movement like that of a broken doll--then with a shrill burst of
+laughter which showed all his teeth, he fell forward at my feet.
+
+With a cry I bent over him, and I felt a splash of blood on my face. It
+spurted forth like the jet of a fountain from the side of his neck. Once
+again my hands, my dress were covered with his blood--I thought I was in
+a dream. Every one had come rushing up. Now they raised him. I saw Stahl
+snatch a white scarf from some one's shoulders and wind it round and
+round the wounded neck, and immediately a dark stain appeared on the
+scarf and slowly widened.
+
+Supported by Stahl, Bozevsky stared about him with haggard eyes, until
+his gaze met mine.
+
+A quiver passed over his face. "I bless the hour--" he gasped. Then a
+gush of blood came from his mouth, and he was silent.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+Bozevsky was carried to his room and the manager and servants of the
+Grand Hotel thronged in murmuring consternation round his door. A
+Swedish doctor, staying at the hotel, was summoned in haste. He appeared
+in his dressing-gown, and with Stahl's assistance carefully dressed and
+bound up the deep double wound caused by the bullet, which had passed
+through the left side of Bozevsky's neck and come out beneath his chin.
+
+Trembling and weeping I followed the sinister procession, and with
+Cousin Vera and Madame Stahl entered Bozevsky's room. Now I stood,
+silently praying, at the foot of the bed. Bozevsky sunken in his pillow,
+with his eyes closed and his head and neck in bandages, looked as if he
+were already dead.
+
+He suddenly opened his eyes, and his gaze wandered slowly from side to
+side until it rested on me. He moved his lips as if to speak, and I
+hastened to his pillow and bent over him.
+
+He whispered, "Stay here."
+
+"Yes," I said, and sat down beside him, taking his moist, chill hand
+between my own.
+
+He repeated weakly: "Stay here. Do not go away."
+
+The Swedish doctor was washing his hands and talking in a low voice to
+Stahl. He turned to me and said:
+
+"You must try not to agitate him. Do not let him speak or move his
+head." Then he went out into the corridor with Stahl.
+
+Mrs. Stahl and Vera sat mute and terror-stricken in a corner. I watched
+Bozevsky, with a deep, dull ache racking my heart. He seemed to be
+falling asleep. I felt his hand relax in mine and his short breathing
+became calmer and more regular.
+
+But Stahl came in again, and Bozevsky opened his eyes.
+
+Stahl approached the bedside and stood for a long while looking down at
+his friend. Then he turned to me. "A nurse is coming," he said. "I will
+take you ladies home and then come back and pass the night with him."
+
+Take me home! How could I return home? How could I endure to meet
+Vassili again? At the mere thought of seeing him, who with a treacherous
+shot from behind had shattered this young existence, hatred and terror
+flamed up within me. No! I would not return home. Never again would I
+touch the hand of Vassili Tarnowsky.
+
+While these thoughts traversed my mind, some one knocked at the door. It
+was the nurse. Vera and Madame Grigorievska, after questioning me with
+their eyes, got up softly; then, with a glance of pity at Bozevsky, they
+went on tiptoe out of the room.
+
+At the door Stahl beckoned to me to come. But I shook my head. As if he
+knew what was passing Bozevsky opened his eyes again.
+
+"Stay here," he whispered. Then he put his hand to the bandage round his
+neck. "If you leave me I will tear it all off." He made a gesture as if
+he would do so.
+
+"I shall not leave you," I whispered bending over him. "I shall never
+leave you again."
+
+I kept my word.
+
+
+Later I learned that Vassili had given himself up to the authorities,
+and that my grief-stricken mother had come to fetch our children and had
+taken them with her to Otrada. To her and to my father they were the
+source of much melancholy joy.
+
+Thus did the old garden of my youth open again its shadowy pathways and
+flowery lawns to the unconscious but already sorrow-touched childhood of
+little Tioka and Tania--those tragic children whose father was in prison
+and whose mother, far away from them, watched and suffered by the
+sinister death-bed of a stranger. To me the two innocent, angelic
+figures often came in my dreams; and I cried out to them with bitterest
+tears: "Oh, my own children, my two loved ones, forgive your mother that
+she does not forsake one who is dying for her sake. This very night,
+perhaps, or to-morrow--soon, soon, alas!--his life will end. And with a
+broken heart your mother will return to you."
+
+
+But Bozevsky did not die that night. Nor the following day. Nor the day
+after.
+
+Fate had in store for him and for me a much more appalling doom. He
+dragged his frightful death-agony through the interminable hours of a
+hundred days and a hundred nights. He was doomed to trail his torment
+from town to town, from surgeon to surgeon, from specialist to
+charlatan. One after another, they would unbandage the white and
+withered neck, probe the blue-edged wound, and then cover up again with
+yellow gauze the horrifying cavity; leaving us to return, heart-stricken
+and silent, to the luxurious hotels that housed our irremediable
+despair.
+
+About that time I heard that Vassili had been released on bail. Later on
+he was acquitted by a jury in the distant city of Homel, on the ground
+of justifiable homicide.
+
+Perhaps it was a just verdict. But for him whom he had struck down--and
+for me--what anguish, great Heavens! What lingering torture of
+heart-breaking days and nights.
+
+Ah, those nights, those appalling nights! We dreaded them as one dreads
+some monstrous wild beast, lurking in wait to devour us. All day long we
+thought only of the night. As soon as twilight drew near Bozevsky, lying
+in his bed with his face towards the window, clutched my hand and would
+not let it go.
+
+"I am afraid," he would murmur. "I wish it were not night. If only it
+were not night!"
+
+"Nonsense, dearest," I would say, cheerfully. "It is quite early. It is
+still broad daylight. Everybody is moving about. The whole world is
+awake and out of doors."
+
+But night, furtive and grim, crouched in the shadowy room, lurked in
+dark corners, and then suddenly was upon us, black, silent, terrifying.
+Round us the world lay asleep, and we two were awake and alone with our
+terror.
+
+Then began the never-ending question, ceaselessly repeated, reiterated
+throughout the entire night:
+
+"_What is the time?_"
+
+It was only nine o'clock. It was half-past nine.... Ten... Half-past
+ten... A quarter to eleven... Eleven o'clock... Five minutes past...
+
+As soon as it was dawn, at about four o'clock, Bozevsky grew calm.
+Silence fell, and he slept.
+
+
+The last station of our calvary was at Yalta, in the Crimea. We had gone
+there with a last up-flaming of hope. There were doctors there whom we
+had not yet consulted. There was Ivanoff and the world-famed Bobros.
+
+"Continue the same treatment," said the one.
+
+"You must try never to move your head," said the other.
+
+That was all.
+
+And to our other tortures was added the martyrdom of complete
+immobility.
+
+"I want to turn my head," Bozevsky would say in the night.
+
+"No, dearest, no. I implore you--"
+
+"I must. I must turn it from one side to the other. If I stay like this
+any longer I shall go mad!"
+
+Then, with infinite precautions, with eyes staring and terror-filled,
+like one who yields to an overwhelming temptation or performs some deed
+of insane daring, Bozevsky would turn his sad face slowly round, and let
+his cheek sink into the pillow.
+
+His fair curls encircled with flaxen gaiety his spent and desolate face.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+Alone with him during those long terrible hours, my anguish and my
+terror constantly increased. At last I could endure it no longer and I
+telegraphed to Stahl:
+
+"Come immediately."
+
+At dusk the following day Stahl arrived.
+
+I had hoped to derive courage and consolation from his presence. But as
+soon as he stepped upon the threshold my heart turned faint within me.
+Thinner and more spectral than ever, with hair dishevelled and eyes
+sunken and dull, he looked dreamily at me, while a continual tremor
+shook his hands.
+
+I greeted him timorously, and the touch of his chill, flaccid fingers
+made me shudder.
+
+Bozevsky seemed glad to see him. Stretching out his wasted hand to him
+he said at once:
+
+"Stahl, I want to move my head."
+
+Stahl seemed not to understand, and Bozevsky repeated: "I want to turn
+my head from one side to another."
+
+"Why not?" said Stahl, sitting down beside the bed and lighting a
+cigarette. "Turn it by all means."
+
+It was growing late; outside it was already dark. I drew the curtains
+and turned on the lights. Bozevsky began very slowly to turn his head
+from side to side; at first very timorously with frightened eyes, then
+by degrees more daringly, from right to left and from left to right.
+
+"Keep still, keep still, dearest," I entreated, bending over him.
+
+"Stahl said it would not hurt," panted Bozevsky. "Did you not, Stahl?"
+Stahl made no reply. He was smoking, with his heavy eyes half closed. At
+the sight of him I was filled with loathing and fear.
+
+"Have you dined?" I inquired of him after a long silence. He nodded and
+went on smoking.
+
+I tried to coax Bozevsky to take an egg beaten up in milk, but he
+continued to turn his head from side to side and would touch nothing.
+Little by little the sounds in the hotel died away. The gipsy music
+which had been audible, faintly in the distance, ceased. Night crept
+upon us sinister and silent.
+
+Presently Stahl roused himself and opened his eyes. He looked at me and
+then at Bozevsky, who lay in the circular shadow cast by the lamp shade,
+dozing with his mouth slightly open; he looked pitiful and grotesque in
+his collar of yellow gauze.
+
+Stahl made a grimace; then his breath became short and hurried as on
+that night of the ball when he sat beside me in the sleigh. He was
+panting with a slight sibilant sound and with a quick nervous movement
+of his head.
+
+"Stahl," I whispered, leaning towards him and indicating Bozevsky, "tell
+me--how do you think he is?"
+
+Stahl did not answer. He seemed not to have heard me, but to be absorbed
+in some mysterious physical suffering of his own.
+
+"What is the matter, Stahl? What is the matter? You are frightening me."
+
+With a nervous twist of his lips intended for a smile Stahl got up and
+began to walk up and down the room. His breath was still short and
+hurried. He drew the air through his teeth like one who is enduring
+spasms of pain.
+
+Then he began to talk to himself in a low voice. "I can wait," he said
+under his breath. "I can wait a little longer. Yes--yes--yes, I can wait a
+little longer."
+
+Bozevsky had opened his eyes and was watching him.
+
+Horror held me motionless and shivers ran like icy water down my spine.
+
+"Stahl, Stahl, what is the matter?" I said, and began to cry.
+
+Stahl seemed not to hear me. He continued to walk up and down muttering
+to himself: "I can wait, I can wait. Just a little longer--a little
+longer--"
+
+Bozevsky groaned. "Tell him to keep still," he said, his gaze indicating
+Stahl.
+
+I seized Stahl by the arm. "You must keep quiet," I said. "Keep quiet at
+once."
+
+He turned to me a vacuous, bewildered face. I grasped his arm
+convulsively, clutching it with all my strength: "Keep still!"
+
+Stahl sat down. "Right," he said. "All right."
+
+He searched his pocket and drew out a small leather case.
+
+Bozevsky moved and moaned. "I am thirsty," he said. "Give me something
+to drink."
+
+I hurried to the bedside, and taking up a glass of sweetened water, I
+raised him on his pillow and held the glass to his lips. He drank
+eagerly. Then--horror!... horror! Even as he drank I perceived a spot of
+pale red color, wetting the gauze round his neck, oozing through it and
+spreading in an ever-widening stain. What--what could it be? It was the
+water he was drinking; he was not swallowing it ... it was trickling out
+through the wound in his neck. All the gauze was already wet--now the
+pillow as well.
+
+"Stahl, Stahl!" I shrieked. "Look, look at this!"
+
+Stahl, who seemed to have suddenly regained his senses, came quickly to
+the bedside. I had laid Bozevsky back on the pillow and he was looking
+at us with wide-open eyes.
+
+"Yes," said Stahl, contemplating him thoughtfully. "Yes." Suddenly he
+turned to me. "Come here, come here. Why should I let you suffer?"
+
+Then I saw that he had in his hand a small glass instrument--a morphia
+syringe. He seized my wrist as in a vice and with the other hand pushed
+back the loose sleeve of my gown.
+
+"What are you going to do?" I gasped.
+
+"Why, why should you suffer?" cried Stahl, holding me tightly by the
+arm.
+
+"Are you killing me?" I cried.
+
+"No, no. I shall not kill you. You will see."
+
+I let him take my arm and he pricked it with the needle of the syringe,
+afterwards pressing and rubbing the punctured spot with his finger.
+
+"Now you will see, now you will see," he repeated over and over again
+with a vague stupefied smile. "Sit down there," and he impelled me
+towards an armchair.
+
+Bozevsky in his wet bandages on his wet pillow was watching us. I wanted
+to go to his assistance, to speak to him--but already a vague torpor was
+stealing over me, a feeling of gentle langour weighed upon my limbs. My
+tense and quivering nerves gradually relaxed. I felt as if I were
+submerged in a vague fluid serenity. Every anxious thought dissolved in
+a bland and blissful somnolence.... I could see Bozevsky move restlessly
+and again begin to turn his head from side to side. Sunk in the divine
+lassitude that held me, I watched his movements, glad that the sight of
+them gave me no pain.
+
+I saw that Stahl had stretched himself on the couch and lay there with a
+vacant ecstatic smile on his lips.
+
+All at once Bozevsky uttered a cry. I heard him, but I felt no
+inclination to answer. He struggled into a sitting position and looked
+at us both with wide, horrified eyes. He called us again and again. Then
+he began to weep. I could hear his weeping, but the beatific lethargy
+which engulfed me held me motionless. Perhaps I was even smiling, so
+free and so remote did I feel from all distress and suffering.
+
+And now I saw Bozevsky with teeth clenched and hands curved like talons,
+madly clutching and tearing away the bandages from his neck.
+
+He dragged and tore the gauze with quick frenzied movements, while from
+his lips came a succession of whimpering cries as of a dog imprisoned
+behind a door.
+
+I smiled, I know I smiled, as I gazed at him from my armchair.
+
+Stahl's eyes were shut; he was fast asleep.
+
+Even when the wasted neck was stripped bare, those quick, frenzied
+movements still continued. What my eyes then saw I can never tell....
+
+
+Thus died Alexis Bozevsky, the handsomest officer in the Imperial Guard.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+After that all is dark. A blood-red abyss seems to open in my memory
+wherein everything is submerged--even my reason.
+
+My reason! I have felt it totter and fall, like something detached and
+apart from myself; and I know that it has sunk into the grave that
+covers Alexis Bozevsky.
+
+Vaguely, from my distant childhood, a memory rises up and confronts me.
+
+I am in a school. I know not where. It is sunset, and I am at play,
+happy and alone, in the midst of a lawn; the daisies in the grass are
+already closed and rose-tipped, blushing in their sleep. Some one calls
+my name, and raising my eyes I see the small eager face of my playmate
+Tatiana peering out of an oval window in an old turret, where none of us
+are ever allowed to go. "Mura! Mura! Come quickly," she cries. "The
+turret is full of swallows!"
+
+"Full of swallows!" I can still recall the ecstasy of joy with which
+those three words filled me. I ran to the entrance of the old tower and
+helter-skeltered up the dark and narrow staircase; then, pushing aside a
+mildewed door, I found myself with Tatiana in a gloomy loft, and yes,
+yes! it was full of swallows!
+
+They flew hither and thither, darting over our heads, brushing our
+faces, making us shriek with delight. We managed to catch any number of
+them. Many were even lying on the ground. Tatiana filled her apron with
+the fluttering creatures, while I held some in my handkerchief and some
+in my hands. Then we ran downstairs into the dining-hall: "Look, look!
+we have caught a lot of swallows!" I can still see the girls crowding
+round us, and the face of the mistress bending forward with an
+incredulous smile; I see her shrink back, horrified and pale, with a cry
+of disgust: "Mercy upon us! They are all bats!"
+
+Even now the recollection of the shrieks we uttered as we flung them
+from us makes my flesh creep; even now I seem to feel the slippery
+smoothness of those cold membranes gliding through my fingers and near
+my cheeks....
+
+To what end does this childish recollection enter into the dark tragedy
+of my life? This--that when I mount into the closed turret of my mind in
+quest of winged thoughts and soaring fancies, alas! there glide through
+my brain only the monstrous spirits of madness, the black bats of
+hypochandria....
+
+I remember little or nothing of those somber days in Yalta. I can
+vaguely recollect Stahl telling me over and over again in answer to my
+delirious cries for Bozevsky: "He is dead! He is dead! He is dead!" And
+as I could not and would not believe him, he took me in a closed
+carriage through many streets; then into a low building and through
+echoing stone passages into a large bare room--a dissecting room!
+
+The horror of it seals my lips.
+
+Still more vaguely do I recollect the death of Stahl himself. I know
+that one evening he shot himself through the heart, and was carried to
+the hospital. I know that he sent me the following words traced in
+tremulous handwriting on a torn piece of paper: "Mura! I have only half
+an hour to live. Come to me, I implore you. Come!"
+
+I did not go to him. The terrible lessons he had taught me were bearing
+fruit; all I did when brought face to face with some new calamity was to
+take injection after injection of morphia; and thus I sank down again
+into the twilight world of unreality in which, during that entire
+period, I moved like one in a dream.
+
+I seemed to be living under water, in a perpetual dimness--a fluid,
+undulating dusk.
+
+No sooner did I find myself rising to the surface of consciousness, and
+the noisy harshness of life confronted me again, than my trembling hands
+sought the case that hid the little glass viper of oblivion--the
+hypodermic syringe of Pravaz.
+
+Over the tremulous flame of a candle I heated the phial of whitish
+powder and watched it gradually dissolve into a clear crystalline liquid
+that the hollow needle thirstily drank up: then I bared my arm and
+thrust the steel point aslant into my flesh. Soothing and benumbing the
+morphia coursed through my veins; and I sank once more into the
+well-known beatific lethargy, the undulating dusk of unreality and
+sleep....
+
+But one day a call thrilled through the enveloping cloud and reached my
+heart: it was the call of motherhood. Tioka! Tania! Where were my
+children? Why, why were my arms empty when these two helpless and
+beloved creatures were mine?
+
+Horrified at myself and at the dream-like apathy in which I had strayed
+so long, I tore myself from the degrading captivity of narcotics and
+with trembling steps tottered towards the threshold of life once more.
+
+With dazed eyes I beheld the altered world around me.
+
+How everything had changed! I was no longer the Countess Tarnowska,
+flattered, envied and beloved. The women who had formerly been my
+friends turned their eyes away from me, while on the other hand men
+stared at me boldly in a way they had never dared to look at me before.
+Vassili--the frivolous, light-hearted Vassili--shut his door upon me, and
+secluded himself in grim and formidable silence as in the walls of a
+fortress. Vainly did I beat upon it with weak hands, vainly did I pray
+for pity. Inexorable and inaccessible he remained, locked in his scorn
+and his resentment. Nor ever have the gates of his home or of his heart
+opened to me again.
+
+I took refuge with my children at Otrada.
+
+My parents received us in sorrow and humiliation. Themselves too broken
+in spirit to offer me any consolation, they moved silently through the
+stately mansion, blushing for me before the servants, hiding me from the
+eyes of their friends.
+
+Even my children hung their heads and crept about on tiptoe, mute and
+abashed without knowing why.
+
+One day Tania, my little Tania, was snatched from my arms. Vassili took
+her from me, nor did I ever see her again.
+
+I had gone out, I remember, sad and alone, into the wintry park. By my
+side trotted Bear, my father's faithful setter, who every now and then
+thrust his moist and affectionate nose into my hand. In my thoughts I
+was trying to face what the future might have in store for me.
+
+"When my little Tioka grows up," I said to myself, "I know, alas! that I
+shall lose him. He will want to live with his father: he will look
+forward to entering upon life under happy and propitious auspices. Yes,
+Tioka will leave me, I know. But my little girl will stay with me. Tania
+will be my very own. She will grow up, fair and gentle, by my side; I
+shall forget my sorrows in her clinging love; I shall live my life over
+again in hers. I shall be renewed, in strength and purity, in my
+daughter's stainless youth."
+
+As I thus reflected I saw my mother running to meet me, her gray head
+bare in the icy wind; she was weeping bitterly. Tania was gone! Vassili
+had taken her away!
+
+Notwithstanding all my tears and prayers it was never vouchsafed to me
+to see my little girl again.
+
+But when the day came in which they sought to tear my son from me as
+well, I fought like a maddened creature, vowing that no human power
+should take him from me while I lived. I fled with him from Otrada--I
+fled I knew not and cared not whither, clasping in my arms my tender
+fair-haired prey, watching over him in terror, guarding him with fervent
+prayers. I fled, hunted onward by the restlessness that was in my own
+blood, pursued by the bats of madness in my brain.
+
+Thus began my aimless wanderings that were to lead me so far astray.
+
+Alone with little Tioka and the humble Elise Perrier, I took to the
+highways of the world.
+
+How helpless and terrified we were, all three of us! It was like living
+in a melancholy fairy tale; it was like the story of the babes lost in
+the wood. Sometimes, in the midst of a street in some great unknown
+city, little Tioka would stop and say: "Mother, let us find some one who
+knows us, and ask them where we are to go and what we are to do."
+
+"No, no! Nobody must know us, Tioka."
+
+Then Tioka would begin to cry. "I feel as if we were lost, as if we were
+lost!..." And I knew not how to comfort him.
+
+One day--we were at Moscow, I remember--there appeared to me for the first
+time that lean and threatening wolf which is called--_Poverty_. Poverty!
+I had never seen it at close range before. I almost thought it did not
+really exist. I knew, to be sure, that there were people in the world
+who were in need of money; but those were the people whom we gave
+charity to; that was all.
+
+Poverty? What had poverty to do with us?
+
+During all my life I had never given a thought to money.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+"Elise, I cannot bear to see myself in this ugly black dress any longer.
+Write to Schanz and tell him to send me some new gowns. I want a dark
+green tailor-made costume, and a pearl-gray voile."
+
+"Yes, my lady. But, begging your ladyship's pardon, Schanz says that he
+would like to be paid."
+
+"Well, let us pay him then."
+
+"Yes, my lady. But, begging your ladyship's pardon, his bill is
+twenty-five thousand rubles."
+
+"Well, let him have them."
+
+"I am sorry, my lady, but we have not got twenty-five thousand rubles."
+
+It was true. We had not got twenty-five thousand rubles.
+
+"Elise, Tioka wants to be amused. He would like a toy railway."
+
+"Yes, my lady."
+
+"Mind," cried Tioka, "it must be like the one we saw yesterday, with all
+those stations and canals, and a Brooklyn bridge."
+
+"Yes, Master Tioka."
+
+"Well, Elise, what are you waiting for?"
+
+"Begging your ladyship's pardon, it costs eighty rubles."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"We have not got them."
+
+True enough; we had not got eighty rubles.
+
+"Elise, I have no more perfumes. Go and get me a bottle of Coty's
+Origant."
+
+"Yes, my lady. But--"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"It costs twelve rubles."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"We have not got them."
+
+And indeed we had not got twelve rubles.
+
+I thought it very sad not to have twenty-five thousand rubles, nor even
+twelve rubles, when I required them.
+
+I resolved to telegraph to my mother.
+
+Feeling sad and perplexed, I went to the telegraph office and sat down
+at a table to write my message:
+
+"Mother, dear, we are unhappy and forlorn; Tioka and I want to come home
+and stay with you always. Please send us at once--"
+
+I was meditating on what sum to mention, when I felt the touch of a hand
+upon my shoulder. Startled, I turned, and raised my eyes. Before me
+stood a man--dark, rather tall, with a brown mustache and pendulous
+cheeks. Surely I knew him! Where had I seen that face before? Suddenly
+there flashed into my mind the recollection of a crowded, brilliantly
+lighted restaurant. I saw Vassili, amid much laughter, counting the
+dark-eyed tziganes to see if one of them were missing--_Prilukoff!_ "The
+Scorpion!" It was he who stood before me.
+
+"Countess Tarnowska! Who would have dreamt of finding you here!" he
+exclaimed. "What are you doing in Moscow?"
+
+"I--I do not know," I stammered. I had in fact not infrequently asked
+myself what I was doing in Moscow.
+
+"I have heard of all your misfortunes," he said, lowering his voice, and
+gazing at me sympathetically. "I have read the papers and heard all the
+fuss. Come now, come," he added, "you must not weep. Let us go and have
+tea at the Métropole; there we can talk together." And he took me
+familiarly by the arm.
+
+I drew back. "I wanted to telegraph--," I began.
+
+"Telegraph? To whom?" inquired Prilukoff with an authoritative air.
+
+"To my mother."
+
+"Why? What do you want to telegraph to her for?"
+
+I flushed. "I--I have no money--" I stammered.
+
+"Well, I have," said Prilukoff, and he drew me out of the office.
+
+At the top of the steps he stopped and looked me in the face. "What a
+fortunate meeting!" he said. "Our lucky star must have brought it
+about." With these words his brown eyes looked straight into mine. "Our
+lucky star!" he repeated.
+
+Merciful heaven, why did not a whisper, not a breath of warning come to
+me then? Why did no tremor in my soul admonish me, no heavenly
+inspiration hold me back? Nothing, nothing checked the smile upon my
+lips, nor the words in which I gaily answered him:
+
+"Our lucky star! So be it." And I took his arm.
+
+The die of my destiny was cast. I went out on my way to destruction and
+ruin.
+
+
+There were many people and much music in the Métropole when we entered.
+
+It is strange to think how all the memorable and significant hours of my
+life are associated in my mind with the entrancing rhythm of
+dance-music, with the lilting tunes of waltz, mazurka and polonaise.
+
+All the tragedies, all the extravagances that convulsed my existence
+bloomed up like tragic modern flowers in the hothouse of some
+fashionable restaurant, under the feverish breath of a tzigane
+orchestra.
+
+So great became the power of this obsession over me, that no sooner did
+I enter a restaurant where there were people, and lights, and the music
+of stringed instruments, than I straightway felt as if I had lost my
+senses. Under the influence of such an atmosphere all my thoughts
+assumed disordered and extravagant forms. The tones of the violins
+excited and electrified me; as the bows swept the quivering strings I
+also quivered and vibrated, shaken with indescribable perturbation. The
+waves of sound seemed to envelop me in a turbid vortex of sentiment and
+sensibility.
+
+Ah, if there had been more silence in my life, more shade, more
+seclusion! It is not within the safe walls of the home, not at one's own
+peaceful and inviolate hearth that perversity stirs to life and
+catastrophe is born.
+
+Oh! Tania, my only daughter, if the wishes of your sorrowful mother
+could but reach you and her prayers for you be granted, they would
+encompass with shade and silence your young and virginal heart.
+
+And I--ah, if I could but go back to the white vacant land of childhood,
+I would kneel down and entreat from heaven naught else but shade and
+silence in my life....
+
+But in the Café Métropole the blazing lights were lit, the orchestra was
+swinging its unhallowed censer of waltz-music through the perfumed air
+and the Scorpion was sitting before me drinking his tea and laughing.
+
+"Do you remember how much afraid you were of me at the Strelna, when I
+jumped from the divan and touched your shoulder? And afterwards--when you
+found me asleep at the bottom of the sleigh?"
+
+Yes, I remembered.
+
+"And now you are no longer afraid of me?"
+
+No. Now I was no longer afraid of him.
+
+Fate, the Fury, standing behind me, must have laughed as with her
+nebulous hand she covered my smiling eyes.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+What charmed and delighted me most in the Scorpion was a pet phrase of
+his that he was constantly using: "_Leave that to me!_"
+
+He said it every minute, a hundred times a day. Occasionally there might
+be a slight variation; he might say, "Don't trouble your head about
+that"; or "Never mind, I'll see to it." But as a rule it was the brief
+enchanting sentence: "Leave that to me."
+
+I cannot possibly describe the sense of utter relief and comfort with
+which those few words inspired me. I felt unburdened, as it were,
+exonerated, set free from every responsibility, from every anxiety,
+almost from every thought. It was as if Prilukoff had said of my very
+soul, "Leave it to me," so complete was my sense of tranquil
+relinquishment.
+
+In truth I had never given much thought to the practical side of life.
+No sense of responsibility had ever weighed upon my narrow shoulders;
+there had always been so many people around me to give me advice, to
+direct me, to think and to act on my behalf!
+
+When I had suddenly found myself alone in the world with Tioka and Elise
+I had felt more frightened and more helpless than they. But now, here
+once more was some one ready to direct me, ready to think and act and
+decide for me. Occasionally, realizing my position, I exclaimed
+anxiously: "Dear me, what shall I do about money?"
+
+Prilukoff would answer briefly: "Leave that to me."
+
+"But how shall I pay my bills?"
+
+"Leave your bills to me."
+
+"And how shall I prevent Vassili from robbing me of Tioka!"
+
+"Don't bother about Tioka. Leave him to me."
+
+"And, oh dear! I wish I could be divorced from Vassili."
+
+"You shall be divorced; I shall see to it."
+
+"But what will my mother say?"
+
+"Leave your mother to me."
+
+There seemed to be nothing in the world that could not be left to the
+omniscient and all-sufficing care of Donat Prilukoff. I was deeply moved
+and grateful.
+
+"How shall I ever be able to thank you?"
+
+"Leave the thanking to me," said Prilukoff.
+
+For a long time, indeed, he seemed neither to desire nor expect any
+gratitude. He looked after my interests, my divorce, my parents, my son,
+my maid, my debts, and my health. But he asked for no thanks; all he
+required was that I should be docile and content.
+
+It was a period of respite. Soon I forgot that I had ever thought of him
+as a Scorpion or an octopus. Indeed, he was to my eyes a strange and
+delightful mixture of knight errant, of guardian saint, of
+commissionaire and hero.
+
+I did not feel then that every favor, every counsel I asked of him, was
+but another link in the subtle chain that bound me to him.
+
+Soon I was unable to do anything without asking for his opinion and his
+assistance. Tioka, Elise and I grew accustomed to see him arrive with
+his masterful air and brisk greeting every afternoon; then every
+morning; then every evening as well. We never went out without him; no
+letter was received or written without its being given to him to read.
+
+If Tioka broke a toy, if Elise was overcharged in an account, if I
+received an anonymous letter, it was immediately referred to Prilukoff.
+He put everything into his pocket, saying: "Leave that to me."
+
+And, true to his word, he mended the toys, he adjusted the accounts, he
+discovered and punished my anonymous slanderers. He was astute,
+deliberate and intelligent.
+
+I felt convinced that he was also kind and generous and good.
+
+Who can say that in those days he was not so? The dreadful Prilukoff,
+assassin and blackmailer, who turned against me, livid with wrath, in
+the court-room at Venice, was he--could he be?--the same Prilukoff who, in
+those far-off days, mended little Tioka's playthings? Who was so anxious
+if he saw me looking pale? Of whom Elise, clasping her work-worn hands,
+used to say: "When he appears he seems to me like Lohengrin!"
+
+Lohengrin! How bitterly I smile, remembering all that ensued. And yet--I
+cannot believe it. I cannot understand it. Which of those two beings--the
+maleficent demon or the chivalrous knight--was the real Prilukoff?
+
+Perhaps, when these sinister years of prison and sorrow are past that
+cancel in their flight so many things, and shed light upon so many
+others, some day he may cross my path again. Shall I then not discern in
+his faded, grief-stricken face the strong and compassionate Lohengrin of
+long ago?...
+
+Meanwhile I drifted on, submissive to my fate.
+
+Only two things perturbed me. One was the fear lest Tioka should be
+taken from me--an anguish that was with me day and night. The other was a
+torturing secret, which I confided to no one. It was--how shall I say
+it?--my terror of closed doors!
+
+Every time I found myself alone in front of a closed door, I did not
+dare to open it. I had the fixed, frightful idea that behind the door I
+should see--Bozevsky! I had the irremovable conviction that he was
+standing, motionless and expectant, behind every door that confronted
+me. All the doors of our apartment had to be kept wide open. If it ever
+happened that I found myself alone in a room of which the door was
+closed, instead of opening it I rang the bell, I called, I cried for
+help; and if it chanced that every one was out, or no one heard me, I
+stood riveted to the spot, rigid with fear, staring at the terrifying
+mystery of that closed door before me. Perchance, with a great effort of
+will, holding my breath while the beads of cold perspiration started on
+my brow, I ventured to put out my hand towards the handle--but in an
+instant I found myself pushing the door to again, leaning desperately
+with all my strength against the frail barrier which concealed--oh, I
+knew it did!--Bozevsky, standing upright and terrible, with the yellow
+gauze round his neck.
+
+This notion, horrible as it was in the daytime, became an unbearable
+fear after nightfall. Tioka went upstairs to bed, accompanied by Elise,
+at about eight o'clock. Twice it happened that, when they were both
+asleep, a draught caught the open door of the drawing-room in which I
+was sitting, and shut it. With chattering teeth, and shivers running
+over me like chilly water, I remained there, motionless, through all the
+hours of the night, knowing that Bozevsky was there, separated from me
+only by that slender wooden partition.
+
+In the morning Elise found me lying on the floor in a faint.
+
+One day Elise was summoned to Neuchâtel. Her father was at the point of
+death, and wished to give his last embrace and blessing to his only
+daughter. It was five o'clock in the afternoon when the telegram for
+Elise arrived; at eight o'clock, distracted and weeping, she was in the
+train.
+
+Tioka and I, who had accompanied her to the station, returned homeward
+feeling sad and lonely. We felt doubly lonely that day, as Donat
+Prilukoff had been obliged to leave Moscow on account of a lawsuit, and
+was not to return until the following evening.
+
+We had, it is true, another serving-woman, a cook; but she left us every
+evening to go and sleep at her own home.
+
+We entered our dark and silent apartment nervously. I hastily turned on
+all the lights and then carried Tioka, who was cross and already half
+asleep, up the inner staircase leading to our bedrooms.
+
+I undressed him and put him to bed, tucking him up warmly and
+comfortably.
+
+"Oh, dear," he sighed, rubbing his eyes; "do you think the wolves will
+come and eat me if I don't say my prayers to-night?"
+
+"No, no, dearest. I will say them for you. Go to sleep."
+
+I kissed him and turned out the light; then I went downstairs to get a
+book from the library, intending to return to my room at once. I felt
+nervous and restless. I was afraid I should not be able to sleep.
+
+How did it happen? Perhaps it was an instant's forgetfulness that caused
+me to draw the door of the library after me. It closed with a heavy
+thud. The long, dark-red curtain turned on its rod and fell in front of
+the doorway.
+
+I was imprisoned!
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+I should never dare to leave that room.
+
+Suddenly I thought that Tioka might call me. But between him and me,
+standing outside on the threshold of that draped door, was there not the
+man whom I had seen die in Yalta? Horrifying memory! For a long time I
+did not venture to stir. I turned my head and looked behind me, then
+fixed my eyes afresh on the red curtain. Suddenly I thought I heard a
+cry.
+
+Yes; it was Tioka calling me, Tioka all alone upstairs, who was
+frightened too, frightened even as I was. With shivers swathing me from
+head to foot as with an icy sheet, I listened to those cries which every
+moment grew shriller and wilder. Then, in answer to him, I screamed too.
+
+Oh, those shrieks ringing through the empty house--shrieks which only
+that silent ghost behind the door could hear!
+
+Suddenly another thrill ran through me; the electric bell had sounded.
+Some one was ringing at our door; some one was coming to save us. Tioka
+still screamed, and the bell continued to ring. I could also hear blows
+on the door and then a voice--Prilukoff's voice--calling: "It is I. Open
+the door!"
+
+With a sob of mingled terror and joy I thrust back the curtain and flung
+open the dreaded door. Stumbling blindly through the passage I reached
+the hall door and drew back the latch. Prilukoff stood on the threshold;
+he was pale as death.
+
+"What has happened?" he cried. "What is the matter?" And he gripped my
+arm.
+
+I was sobbing with joy and relief. "Tioka, Tioka!" I called out. "Don't
+cry any more. Donat has come! We are here, we are near you!"
+
+Tioka's cries ceased at once.
+
+But Prilukoff still held me fast. "What has happened!" he asked,
+clenching his teeth.
+
+"I was afraid, I was afraid--" I gasped.
+
+"Of whom?"
+
+A fresh outburst of tears shook me. "Of the dead," I sobbed.
+
+"Leave the dead to me," said Prilukoff.
+
+He entered and shut the door.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus, unconscious and unwilling, I descended yet another step down the
+ladder of infamy.
+
+Shrinking and reluctant I trailed my white garments into defilement,
+sinking with every step deeper into the mire which was soon to engulf
+me; the mire which was to reach my proud heart, my pearl-encircled
+throat, my exalted brow on which nobility had set its seal in vain.
+
+It was about that time, I remember, that Delphinus, a renowned
+fortune-teller, came to Moscow. One morning, having nothing else to do,
+I went with the smiling, skeptical Elise to consult him in his luxurious
+apartments.
+
+He took both my hands and gazed for a long time at a crystal ball which
+was before him. Then he said: "Woman, your life is a tragedy."
+
+I smiled, incredulous yet disturbed. "Pray say rather a comedy, if you
+can."
+
+He shook his head. "A tragedy," he repeated gloomily. Then he uttered
+several commonplaces which might apply to any other woman as well as to
+me. Finally, with knitted brows, he looked still more closely into the
+crystal. "Two men," he said, speaking slowly, "have yet to enter into
+your life. One will bring salvation, the other ruin. Choose the one, and
+you will attain happiness; choose the other and you will perish."
+
+He paused. "You will choose the other," he said, and released my hand.
+
+I got up, smiling. "Oh, no, indeed! Now that I have been forewarned--"
+
+"You will choose the other," he repeated oracularly. "It is your
+destiny."
+
+Although I am not really superstitious, this curt, obscure prediction
+impressed me strangely.
+
+"I shall beware of whom I meet," I said to myself; and indeed, every
+time a man spoke to me, even casually, I wondered: could this be the
+One?--or the Other?
+
+But days and months passed, and I made no new acquaintances.
+
+Prilukoff kept me jealously secluded, and little Tioka absorbed my every
+hour. Apart from these two I saw no one at all.
+
+It was by mere chance that one day I met a former acquaintance.
+
+I had taken Tioka for a walk in the park when we saw a gentleman and a
+child sitting on a bench in the shade. They were both dressed in deep
+mourning, and they looked sad and disconsolate. The little boy was
+leaning his fair head on his father's arm, watching him as, with an air
+of melancholy abstraction, he traced hieroglyphics in the gravel with
+his stick. On hearing us approach the man in mourning raised his head
+and looked at us.
+
+I recognized him at once. It was Count Paul Kamarowsky, the husband of
+one of my dearest friends, who lived at Dresden, and whom I had not seen
+for nearly two years.
+
+He recognized me, too, and started to his feet with eager face, while
+the little boy looked at us diffidently, still holding to his father's
+sleeve.
+
+"Countess Tarnowska!" he exclaimed, holding out both his hands.
+
+I laid my hand in his; as he clasped it between his black-gloved fingers
+a slight shiver ran through me. I turned to the pale little child beside
+him who was still glancing up at me timidly. "Is this Grania?"
+
+"Yes. It is Grania," said Count Kamarowsky. Then he perceived my
+questioning glance at his mourning. "Poor Emilia--" he began, but his
+voice broke.
+
+"Poor Emilia?" Was it possible that my little school friend of long ago,
+the fair-haired, laughter-loving Lily should now be "poor Emilia," to be
+spoken of in solemn, mournful tones? I could hardly believe it. I seemed
+to see her still, bending over her 'cello with her fair curls tumbling
+over her face as she played her favorite Popper tarantelle.... I could
+see her laughing with mischievous eyes agleam behind her flaxen locks,
+like dark stars seen through a golden cloud. And here, clad in mourning
+for her, her husband and child stood before me.
+
+Great tenderness and pity filled my heart.
+
+Tioka had gone close to Grania, and the two children were looking at
+each other with that expression of simple gravity which is so far
+removed from the conventional smile with which grown-up people greet
+each other for the first time. Their gaze was serious, thoughtful and
+interrogative.
+
+"Do you like pelicans?" Tioka inquired suddenly.
+
+"No," said Grania.
+
+"Neither do I," said Tioka; and there was a long silence.
+
+"Do you like ducks?" asked Tioka.
+
+"Yes," replied Grania.
+
+"So do I," said Tioka; and their friendship was sealed.
+
+Count Kamarowsky and I were less prompt in discovering a community of
+tastes such as that which so quickly linked our two children together.
+This grave silent man in his widower's garb was almost a stranger to me.
+As we parted he asked permission to call. But on the following day a
+telegram from my father summoned me to Otrada. My mother was ill and
+desired my presence.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+It was a hurried departure and an anxious journey. We arrived late in
+the evening at my father's house. He came to meet us at the gate, tall
+and solemn, his white hair stirred by the wind. He kissed me without
+speaking and laid his hand on Tioka's head.
+
+"Mother--?" I scarcely dared to inquire.
+
+"Better. She is better. She has improved greatly since she knew you were
+coming."
+
+Tioka had hurriedly kissed his grandfather's hand, and now was hastening
+up the great staircase to see his grandmother, to whom he was
+passionately attached. Soon his rippling laughter and his nimble
+footsteps could be heard all over the house, and my mother said that the
+happiness of it had well-nigh cured her.
+
+It was scarcely daybreak next morning when Tioka came to call me to go
+down with him into the garden.
+
+The great garden at Otrada--the garden of my girlhood--glowed in all its
+summer splendor, and Tioka ran before me with cries of joy at everything
+he saw.
+
+"Look at the water! Look at the little bridge! Did you play here when
+you were little? Were you ever really little?" He looked at me
+doubtfully. "I mean really quite little--like Tania."
+
+The mention of his sister's name was like a blow to my heart. But Tioka
+was already flying across the lawn.
+
+"Oh," he cried. "There's the swing! I had forgotten there was a swing!
+Hurrah!"
+
+"Hush, hush, dearest," I warned; "don't disturb grandmama who is ill."
+
+He swung backwards and forwards, careless and handsome, shaking his
+blond hair in the wind.
+
+"Grandmama cannot hear me; she is fast asleep still. And besides she is
+not ill any more now that we are here; otherwise grandpapa would not
+have gone to Kieff to-day." Tioka jumped down from the swing and raised
+his face to me with adorable seriousness. "Tell me, mother, when one is
+ill with nervousness doesn't that mean that you want something you
+haven't got? Then if you get it you are well again, aren't you?
+Grandmama wanted us. We came. And now she is cured." After a pause he
+went on: "I think I am ill with nervousness too. I am nervous for a bowl
+of goldfish; and for a hunting dog like that one," he added, indicating
+a large setter lying stretched in the sun with his muzzle on his paws.
+
+"Why, that is Bear!" I cried, "our old Bear." I bent down to caress him.
+"Dear Bear, good Bear! Don't you recognize me?"
+
+Bear raised his languid, blood-shot eyes, but did not stir.
+
+"How sad he looks," I said, touching his muzzle to see whether his nose
+was hot. "Perhaps he is ill."
+
+"Perhaps he is nervous, too," said Tioka. "Very likely he is nervous
+because he wants a bone." And the child broke into a peal of shrill,
+merry laughter.
+
+In an instant the great dog had turned and leaped upon him. Snarling and
+growling he tore at his clothes, covering his shoulders and breast with
+blood-stained foam.
+
+Tioka fell shrieking to the ground. I flung myself upon the frenzied
+animal, seizing him by the collar, by the ears, and striving to drag him
+back; but with hoarse growls and snappish barks the dog kept biting and
+tearing the child's garments as he lay prostrate and inert on the
+gravel. With one hand I clutched the neck of the dog, while with the
+other I picked up a stone and beat him on the head with it until the
+blood ran.
+
+With a roar like that of a tiger, the animal turned and sprang upon me.
+
+I felt the sting of his fang as it bit into my arm, and I struck his
+nose with the stone which was already covered with blood. With a cry of
+pain that had almost a human sound, the dog released his hold, turned
+and went off.
+
+I saw him trotting away along the path, surly and dreadful, with his
+tail hanging down and his wounded head showing red in the sunshine.
+
+I picked up the moaning, sobbing Tioka and ran with him to the house.
+
+"Don't cry! don't cry, my darling," I implored him, myself in tears.
+"Don't let poor grandmama hear you! It will kill her." And Tioka tried
+his best to cry more softly. We crossed the courtyard to the servants'
+entrance, and I ran into the kitchen where the servants came thronging
+round us in alarm.
+
+"The dog--," I panted, "the dog has bitten us--do you think it will give
+us hydrophobia?" With a groan I dropped little Tioka into a chair; he
+was a pitiable sight in his torn and bloodstained garments.
+
+The women and the two moujiks wrung their hands. "Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!
+What shall we do? With the master at Kieff and the Countess ill in bed!"
+
+The cook had filled a basin with boiling water and was laving Tioka's
+wounds, while he screamed with the redoubled pain.
+
+I knew it was necessary to do something instantly. But what? I
+remembered having read in the life of the three Brontë sisters that one
+of those heroic girls had been bitten by a mad dog, and that she
+herself, without disturbing her sister, who was ill with consumption,
+had heated an iron red-hot and had cauterized her own wounds.
+
+"Put an iron in the fire!" I said, pointing with trembling hand to the
+poker.
+
+The dismayed women did so, and I bared my arm and little Tioka's
+lacerated shoulder.
+
+But when I had the terrible instrument with its glowing point in my
+hand, my courage failed. Tioka was shrieking with terror like a poor
+little maddened creature, and the women were on their knees, weeping and
+praying.
+
+Alas, I am not a heroine; I threw away the red-hot iron; we bound up the
+wounds--which, after they had been washed, looked insignificant and
+harmless enough--and determined to go to Kieff at once and consult a
+doctor. We went upstairs on tip-toe to my mother's room. She was still
+sleeping quietly, with her small, pinched face sunk in the pillow.
+
+We did not venture to wake her and tell her our terrifying story. We
+left orders with the servants that they were to say my father had
+summoned us to meet him in Kieff; and we started.
+
+All the way I watched Tioka with the deepest anxiety. I also probed my
+own feelings intently, wondering whether I felt any desire to bark. I
+cannot say that I did. Also, during the entire journey, I kept on
+showing Tioka glasses of water, but he did not seem to feel any the
+worse for them; nor did I. This comforted us a little.
+
+As soon as we reached Kieff I telegraphed to Prilukoff:
+
+"_Both of us bitten by mad dog. What shall we do?_"
+
+He replied: "_All right. Leave it to me._"
+
+And, indeed, he arrived immediately and took us to Doctor Fritkof, who
+gave us injections of antirabic serum for three weeks. It made us feel
+very ill. Every minute I asked Tioka: "Do you feel inclined to bite any
+one?"
+
+He invariably replied in the affirmative, which made me very miserable.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+Although Tioka and I both recovered, this alarming incident had its
+consequences on my life. It caused me to leave my old home, and from the
+moment of that departure I never saw my dear mother again.
+
+With the passing of her mild and tender presence all that still was pure
+and holy vanished out of my life.
+
+I was already on the brink of perdition. Freed from the restraint of
+that gentle hand, whose light touch even from afar had still controlled
+my heart, I plunged forward to destruction.
+
+
+The inheritance was divided, and my share was dissipated I know not how.
+I returned to Moscow, and found myself ever more and more in need of
+money.
+
+I lived luxuriously, I dressed gorgeously, and traveled from one place
+to another--yet I had nothing of my own except an income of four thousand
+rubles a year, which were scarcely paid to me before they were swallowed
+up in the gulf of my debts. I asked Prilukoff for money, and he gave it
+to me.
+
+But there came a day when, on my asking him for five thousand rubles, he
+turned upon me abruptly.
+
+"I have not got them," he said. "At least," he added, "not unless I
+steal them."
+
+"How dreadful," I exclaimed in terror. "How can you say such a thing?"
+Then I laughed, feeling sure that he had spoken in jest.
+
+"Get them from Kamarowsky," said Prilukoff, curtly.
+
+I started with indignation. From Kamarowsky! Never, never, as long as I
+lived. I had seen him frequently during the last few days; he and his
+charming little son, Grania, still in their deep mourning and with pale,
+sad faces, used to come and see me, and talk to me with many tears about
+their dear one who was gone. It would have been horrible, it would have
+been indecorous, to ask Kamarowsky for money.
+
+"I did not say you were to ask him for it," retorted Prilukoff.
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Telephone and invite him to dine with you to-morrow."
+
+"Well? And then?"
+
+"Then we shall see."
+
+As he insisted I complied reluctantly.
+
+Kamarowsky accepted the invitation with touching gratitude, and a large
+basket of roses preceded his arrival.
+
+Prilukoff, who was still hanging about in my boudoir, but declared that
+he would not stay to dinner, sniffed the roses with a cynical smile:
+
+"Flowers! Flowers! Nothing but flowers! _Nous allons changer tout
+cela._"
+
+The door bell rang, announcing the arrival of my visitor.
+
+"What am I to do with him now he is here?" I asked Prilukoff uneasily.
+"What shall I say?"
+
+"Do nothing and say nothing. And mind you don't open any letter in his
+presence."
+
+"Any letter?" I asked, in bewilderment. "What letter?"
+
+"I tell you not to open any. That is enough." With this obscure
+injunction Prilukoff urged me towards the drawing-room, and I went in to
+receive my guest.
+
+Count Kamarowsky, while inspiring me with the deepest pity, frequently
+irritated and annoyed me. His grief for his lost Emilia was doubtless
+deep and sincere; but sometimes when I tried to console him I seemed to
+read in his tear-filled eyes an emotion that was not all sorrow, and in
+the clasp of his hand I perceived a fervor that spoke of something more
+than gratitude. I felt hurt for the sake of my poor friend, Lily, so
+lately laid to her rest; and I shrank from him with feelings akin to
+anger and aversion.
+
+Yet, when I saw him moving away, pale in his deep mourning, leading his
+sad little child by the hand, my heart was touched and I would call them
+back to me and try to comfort them both. The child clung to me with
+passionate affection, while his father seemed loth ever to leave my
+side.
+
+Conversation between us always soared in the highest regions of ethereal
+and spiritual things; our talk was all on abstract subjects, dwelling
+especially on the immortality of the soul, the abode of the departed,
+the probabilities of reunion in the world beyond. The commonplace
+everyday prose of life was so far removed from our intercourse that I
+felt shy of having asked him to dinner. To eat in the presence of so
+much sorrow seemed indecorous and out of keeping. Nevertheless, as I had
+invited him to dine I could not but seat myself opposite him at the
+flower-decked, fruit-laden table.
+
+A man-servant, lent to me for the occasion by Prilukoff, handed the
+zakusta and the vodka; and soon in the mellow atmosphere of the little
+dining-room, under the gentle luster of the pink-shaded lamps, a rare
+smile blossomed timidly now and then out of the gloom of our melancholy
+conversation.
+
+We had scarcely finished taking our coffee when, to my astonishment,
+Prilukoff was announced. He entered with rapid step, holding a large
+sealed envelope in his hand. For a moment he seemed disconcerted at
+finding that I was not alone, and looked as if he would hide the letter
+behind his back. Then, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, as if
+acquiescing in the unavoidable presence of a stranger, he handed me the
+envelope with a deep bow.
+
+"What is it?" I asked in surprise.
+
+Prilukoff glanced somewhat uneasily at my guest, then he bent forward
+and said in a low voice--yet not so low that the other could not hear
+what he said:
+
+"This morning, Countess, you did me the honor of confiding to me the
+fact that you needed ten thousand rubles. I shall be most grateful and
+honored if you will accept that sum from me." So saying, he placed the
+envelope in my hand. Then with a brief salutation to Count Kamarowsky
+and another profound bow to me, he pleaded haste and withdrew.
+
+A flush had mounted to the Count's temples.
+
+"Who was that?" he asked in a harsh voice.
+
+I mentioned Prilukoff's name, and Kamarowsky with knitted eyebrows
+exclaimed: "You must have very confidential relations with him, if he
+permits himself to give you ten thousand rubles."
+
+"Oh, no--no," I stammered. "He is--he is only lending them to me. I shall
+pay them back, of course--"
+
+Kamarowsky had risen from his chair. He took both my hands and pressed
+them to his breast.
+
+"How wrong of you! How wrong! Why did you not ask me? Have you no
+confidence in me? How can you accept assistance from a stranger when I
+am here--I, who am so devoted to you?"
+
+I know not why I burst into tears. A sense of shame and degradation
+overcame me. In a moment his arms were round me.
+
+"Dearest, sweetest, do not cry. I know you must feel humiliated at
+accepting money from that man, who may afterwards make all kinds of
+claims upon you. Return the money to him, I implore you, and accept it
+from me."
+
+I could not answer for my tears.
+
+"Promise me that you will give it back," Kamarowsky went on, clasping me
+closer to him. "If you refuse me this favor I shall go away and you
+shall never see me again. For the sake of our Emilia--for the sake of
+little Grania--accept it from me. And let me be your friend from now on
+and forever."
+
+It took a long time to reconcile me to the sense of my own debasement.
+
+He wrote out a check to me for ten thousand rubles and put it into my
+hands. He closed my fingers forcibly over it, pressing them closely and
+thanking me in a moved voice.
+
+Then he went away, and I was left alone with the check and Prilukoff's
+sealed envelope.
+
+I had wanted five thousand rubles and here I was with twenty thousand
+before me!
+
+Poor, good Kamarowsky! And poor, dear, kind Prilukoff!
+
+"I do not see why I should really return this to Prilukoff!" I said to
+myself.
+
+I broke the seals and opened the envelope that he had presented to me
+with so much solemnity. Petrified with astonishment I gazed at its
+contents. Then I laughed softly.
+
+"On the whole, I think I _will_ return it," I said, and laid the
+envelope aside.
+
+It was full of old newspaper cuttings!
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+_Facilis descensus Averni._
+
+My downfall was rapid and irretrievable.
+
+I soon became familiar with expedients and intrigues, I trod the
+tortuous paths that lead down into the valley of dishonor. For the
+outside world I might still appear a person of distinction, I might
+still call myself the Countess Tarnowska, but I had ceased to be that
+simple, ordinary, peerless being--an honest woman. I seemed to be
+surrounded by that peculiar atmosphere which envelops the adventuress as
+in an invisible mist--that imperceptible emanation by which persons of
+repute are instinctively repelled, and which draws within its ambit the
+idler and adventurer, the depredator and outcast of society.
+
+I had accepted money to which I had no claim. From this want of dignity
+to the want of rectitude how brief is the step! Between indiscretion and
+transgression how uncertain is the boundary! And suddenly there comes a
+day when one awakes to find oneself--a criminal!
+
+Ah, then we stop short in horror. We look back and see the abyss, the
+impassable gulf that henceforward separates us from the distant, candid
+summits of innocence. How has it been possible for us to travel along
+that vertiginous road which knows no return? What evil spirits have
+bandaged our eyes, have placed for our feet bridges and stepping stones
+so that almost without noticing it we have crossed ravines and
+precipices which never in this life we may traverse again? We can but go
+forward and downward: we can turn back no more.
+
+Not at this period did I realize the irrevocable character of the fate I
+had chosen. Rather did I seem to perceive a new life opening out before
+me, leading me back once more to rectitude and honor, a return to that
+peaceful, conventional existence so often scorned by those who lead it,
+so bitterly regretted and desired by those who have forfeited and
+forsaken it.
+
+Prilukoff still held me bound to him by the triple bonds of gratitude,
+of affection and of complicity. But Count Kamarowsky was swaying me
+towards a brighter and securer future. My marriage with Vassili, so long
+merely an empty and nominal tie, was about to be dissolved by a decree
+from the Holy Synod, and Kamarowsky implored me to marry him. His
+sadness and the loneliness of his little son moved me deeply; the
+thought of bringing light and joy into their lives was unspeakably sweet
+to me, while for my part I rejoiced to think that by the side of a
+worthy and honorable man I might take my place in the world once more,
+rehabilitated and redeemed. With Prilukoff, as I could see, downfall and
+ruin were imminent. He had left Moscow for a few days; but he would
+return, and alas! he would resume his dominion over me. I knew that with
+him the ultimate plunge into dishonor was inevitable.
+
+And so with bitter tears of repentance, clasping the two fair heads of
+Tioka and Grania to my breast, I vowed to Heaven that I would be to them
+both a tender and a faithful mother, worthy of the lofty duty that by
+Divine grace was to be once more assigned to me.
+
+Count Kamarowsky's gratitude and joy were boundless.
+
+"You are giving back life to me," he said, his kind eyes shining with
+emotion. "I do not feel worthy of so much happiness."
+
+"Don't, don't!" I said, turning away my face and flushing deeply at the
+thought of my recent unprincipled life. "It is I, I who am unworthy--"
+
+But Kamarowsky interrupted me.
+
+"Hush, Marie, hush. I know that you have suffered much and that you have
+been led astray. But let the dead past bury the past. All I ask of you
+is the pure white page of the future."
+
+"You are generous, you are kind," I said, and tears burned in my eyes.
+"But let me tell you, let me tell you all--"
+
+"Mura," he said, calling me by the tender pet-name of my childhood, "do
+not raise impassable barriers between us. What I have no knowledge of
+does not exist so far as I am concerned. The unknown is but a shadow;
+and I am not afraid of shadows. But if to that shadow you give a living
+shape and a name, it will rise between you and me, and I shall not be
+able to clasp you in my arms until I have destroyed it. Speak if you
+must. But, for our happiness, it were far better for you to keep
+silence--and to forget."
+
+"Ah, you are right! Let there be no more sorrow, no more tragedies
+around me. Take me away from Moscow, away from all who know me. I will
+keep silence, and forget."
+
+Our departure from Moscow was like a flight. I left a letter for
+Prilukoff, entreating him to forgive and forget me, begging him not to
+debar me from taking my way again towards safety and rehabilitation. I
+expressed to him my sympathy, my gratitude and regret; and I implored
+him in the name of all that he still held dear or sacred to return to
+his family and to his career, to the lofty and straightforward course of
+honor from which I, unhappy creature that I was, had unwittingly,
+unwillingly turned him aside.
+
+Kamarowsky took us to the Riviera--from the snows of the north to the
+fragrant orange-groves of Nice and Hyères. The tinkling of sleighs
+gliding through the blue-cold streets of Moscow still seemed to ring in
+my ears when, lo! the lazy, sun-warm silence of the south enwrapped my
+senses in its languorous sweetness. The two children, dazed with the
+heat and the blueness around them, stood in amazement, with hands
+clasped and mouths open, at the sight of the golden oranges and the huge
+foliage of cacti and aloes, thinking that by some wonder-working charm
+they had been carried into fairyland.
+
+The distant sails, aslant on the radiant indigo of the sea, looked like
+white butterflies poised on a stupendous flower of lapis lazuli....
+
+For three brief days I thought that fate had not overtaken me, and that
+my sins would not find me out.
+
+My sins! As in the old German fable the children are led into the depths
+of a forest, and left there to be lost and forgotten--even so did I think
+that my sins would be lost and forgotten, even so did I think that they
+would never issue again from the shade in which I had hidden them.
+
+Smiling, I moved forward to meet the future, exalted by the affection of
+an honorable man, purified by the love of two innocent children.
+
+And I said in my heart: "Fate is pitiful and God has shown mercy. He has
+suspended His judgment and has allowed me one last chance. I shall not
+be found wanting; I shall be worthy of His clemency."
+
+Then lo! at a turning in my pathway, the forgotten avengers stand before
+me; my sins, like spectral furies, have found me out!
+
+We were finishing dinner on the terrace of the Bellevue at Hyères, my
+betrothed and I. The children had said good night, had kissed and
+embraced us and run off, chattering and twittering with Elise, to their
+rooms. Kamarowsky had just lit a cigarette, and was leaning over to me
+with a word of tenderness, when I perceived immediately behind him at a
+neighboring table--a face, a grinning, fiendish face.
+
+My heart bounded. It was the Scorpion!
+
+Why was it that name that first rushed to my mind? Why was my primitive
+sense of fear and repulsion renewed at the sight of him?
+
+Ah, that man staring and grimacing at me over Kamarowsky's shoulder was
+not the friend, the lover, the knight of the heroic Saga whom I had
+known and trusted in my days of desolation; no, he was the terrifying
+and truculent monster of the octopus story; he was the Scorpion who
+years ago had filled my soul with dread.
+
+When had he come? How long had he been sitting at that table, watching
+my garrulous gladness, my timorous, reawakened happiness?
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+I glanced at him apprehensively; I tried to greet him, but he made no
+return to my timid salute. He was smiling with a crooked mouth, his arms
+crossed before him on the table. He was mocking at Kamarowsky and at me,
+and my terror seemed greatly to amuse him.
+
+I rose nervously, wishing to retire, but Kamarowsky detained me.
+
+"What is troubling you, dearest?" he asked, noticing my frightened eyes.
+And he turned to see what was behind him.
+
+I trembled in prevision of a stormy scene. But the Count did not
+recognize Prilukoff; he had only seen him once for a few moments that
+evening in my drawing-room when he had brought me the mysterious sealed
+envelope. Now Donat had his hat on his head; and besides, with that
+sinister smirk distorting his face I scarcely recognized him myself.
+
+As soon as we rose from the table, Prilukoff did the same, and passing
+in front of us entered the hotel before we did. I trembled, while
+Kamarowsky with his arm in mine led me, talking placidly and
+affectionately, towards the entrance of the hotel. Doubtless he intended
+to accompany me to my sitting-room. But what if we found Prilukoff
+there?
+
+It was Elise Perrier who saved me. As we stepped out of the lift I saw
+her coming quickly down the corridor to meet us.
+
+"If you please, madame," she stammered, "there is a lady--a visitor"--her
+lips were white as she uttered the falsehood--"who wishes to see madame.
+She is waiting here, in the sitting-room, and she would like to--to see
+your ladyship alone."
+
+"Who is it?" asked the Count.
+
+"I think it is the--that relation of madame's"--Elise was going red and
+white by turns--"that relation from--from Otrada."
+
+"Ah, I know," I stammered breathlessly. "Aunt Sonia, perhaps." Then
+turning to Kamarowsky: "Will you wait for me downstairs in the
+reading-room?"
+
+"Very well. Don't be long." And Count Kamarowsky turned on his heel and
+left us.
+
+I went rapidly on in front of Elise, who, humiliated by the falsehood
+she had told, hung her head in shame both for herself and for me; and I
+entered my sitting-room.
+
+On the couch, smoking a cigarette, sat Prilukoff. He did not rise when I
+entered. He sat there smoking and looking at me with that curious
+crooked smile. A great fear clutched my heart.
+
+"Donat," I stammered, "why did you not let me know you had arrived?"
+
+He made no answer; but he laughed loudly and coarsely, and my fear of
+him increased.
+
+"Did you receive my letter? Are you cross with me?"
+
+"Cross?" he shouted, leaping to his feet, his eyes glaring like those of
+a madman. "Cross? No, I am not cross." I recoiled from him in terror,
+but he followed me, pushing his distorted face close to mine. "You ruin
+a man, you drive him to perdition, and then you inquire whether he is
+cross. You take an honorable man in your little talons, you turn and
+twist him round your fingers, you mold him and transform him and turn
+him into a coward, a rogue, and a thief; then you throw him aside like a
+dirty rag--and you ask him if he is cross! Ha, ha!" And he laughed in my
+face; he was ghastly to look at, livid in hue, with a swollen vein drawn
+like a cord across his forehead.
+
+I burst into tears. "Why--why do you say that?" I sobbed.
+
+"Why do I say that?" stormed Prilukoff. "Why? Because I had a wife and I
+betrayed her for you; I had two children and I forsook them for you; I
+had a career and I lost it for you; I was a man of honor and I have
+turned thief for you."
+
+"Oh, no, no!" I stammered, terrified.
+
+"What? No? No?" he exclaimed, and with trembling hands he searched his
+breast-pocket and drew from it a bulky roll of banknotes. "No? This I
+stole--and this--and this--and this--because you, vampire that you are,
+needed money."
+
+"But I never told you to steal--"
+
+"No, indeed; you never told me to steal. And where was I to get the
+money from? Where? Where?" So saying, he flung the banknotes in my face
+and they fell all over and around me. "You did not tell me to steal, no.
+But you wanted money, money, money. And now you have got it. Take it,
+take it, take it!"
+
+I sobbed despairingly. "Oh, no, no, Donat! Have pity!"
+
+"I have had pity," he shouted. "I have always had pity--nothing but pity.
+You were ill and miserable and alone, and I left my home in order to
+stay with you. You wept, and I comforted you. You had no money, and I
+stole it for you. How could I have more pity?" He was himself in tears.
+"And now, because I am degraded and a criminal on your account, you
+leave me, you fling me aside and you marry an honest man. And I may go
+to perdition or to penal servitude."
+
+"Do not speak like that, I implore you."
+
+"Ah, but Countess Tarnowska, if I go to penal servitude, so shall you. I
+swear it. I am a thief and may become a murderer; but if I go to prison,
+you go too." He collapsed upon the sofa and hid his face in his hands.
+
+As I stood looking down upon him I saw as in a vision the somber road to
+ruin that this man had traversed for my sake, and I fell on my knees at
+his feet.
+
+"Donat! Donat! Do not despair. Forgive me, forgive me! Go back, and
+return the money you have taken; go back and become an honest man
+again!"
+
+He raised a haggard face in which his wild, bloodshot eyes seemed almost
+phosphorescent.
+
+"There is no going back. By this time all Moscow knows that I have
+absconded, and carried off with me the money that was confided to my
+care."
+
+"But if you go back at once and return it?"
+
+"I am ruined all the same. I am utterly lost and undone. Who would ever
+place their trust in me again? Who would ever rely upon my honor? No, I
+am a criminal, and every one knows it. The brand of infamy is not to be
+cancelled by a flash of tardy remorse. I am done for. I am a thief, and
+that is all there is about it."
+
+A thief! I had never seen a thief. In my imagination thieves were all
+slouching, unkempt roughs, with caps on their heads, and colored
+handkerchiefs tied round their throats. And here was this gentleman in
+evening dress--this gentleman who had been introduced to me as a
+celebrated and impeccable lawyer, who had been my lover, and Tioka's
+friend, and Elise's Lohengrin--and he was a thief!
+
+I could not believe it.
+
+At that moment a voice was heard outside. It was one of the bell-boys of
+the hotel; he was passing through the corridor calling: "Forty-seven!
+Number forty-seven."
+
+Prilukoff started. "Forty-seven? That is the number of my room. Who can
+be asking for me? Who can know that I am here?"
+
+In his eyes there was already the look of the fugitive, the startled
+flash of fear and defiance of the hunted quarry.
+
+I looked round me at all the banknotes scattered on the carpet, and I
+felt myself turn cold. "Hide them, hide them," I whispered, wringing my
+hands.
+
+"Hide them yourself!" he answered scornfully.
+
+I heard footsteps in the corridor. They drew near. They stopped. Some
+one knocked at the door. Terror choked my throat and made my knees
+totter.
+
+I stooped in haste to pick up all the money while Prilukoff still looked
+at me without moving. I held it out to him in a great heap of crumpled
+paper. But still he did not stir.
+
+Again the knocking was repeated. Who could it be? Kamarowsky? The
+police? I opened a desk and flung the bundle of banknotes into it.
+
+Then I said, "Come in."
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+It was only a saucy little page-boy in red uniform.
+
+"If you please, Count Kamarowsky sends word that he is waiting for you."
+
+"Say that I shall be down directly."
+
+"No," contradicted Prilukoff; "send word that you are not going down."
+
+"But then he will come here."
+
+"You will say that you cannot receive him."
+
+And that was what took place. And not on that evening only. Prilukoff
+installed himself, during long days and evenings, in my apartments, and
+refused to go away. Very often he did not even allow me to go out of the
+room.
+
+Then came Count Kamarowsky knocking at the door.
+
+"No! no! You cannot come in!" cried Elise Perrier, pale and trembling,
+leaning against the locked door.
+
+"But why? Why? What has happened?"
+
+"Nothing has happened. Madame is not feeling well," Elise would reply,
+in quavering tones.
+
+"But that is all the more reason why I should see her," protested the
+Count. "I must see her!"
+
+"It is impossible!" And Elise, whom fear rendered well-nigh voiceless,
+would roll towards me her round, despairing eyes.
+
+Then the Count would speak to me through the closed door, entreating and
+arguing; and every time he used a tender expression Prilukoff, who held
+me fast, pinched my arm.
+
+"Mura, Mura, let me in. Let me see you for a moment. You know how I love
+you (pinch); it is cruel to lock me out as if I were a stranger. If you
+are ill let me take care of you, with all my tenderness (pinch), with
+all my love (pinch)--"
+
+In feeble accents I would reply: "Forgive me--I shall soon be better--do
+not trouble about me."
+
+"But what is the matter? Why do you not want to see me? Do you not love
+me any more?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I love--(pinch). Please, please go away. I shall come down as
+soon as I can."
+
+Then I could hear his slowly retreating footsteps, while Prilukoff
+glared at me and, on general principles, pinched my arm again.
+
+It was with the greatest difficulty that I could conceal Prilukoff's
+presence from little Tioka.
+
+One day the child caught sight of him seated on the terrace, and, with a
+wild cry of delight, started to run towards him. I caught him in my
+arms. "No, darling, no! That is not Prilukoff. It is some one very much
+like him; but it is not our friend."
+
+And as the man, with scowling countenance, was gazing out at the sea,
+and paid no heed to us, Tioka believed me, and, with a little sigh of
+regret, ran in search of his playmate Grania.
+
+The life Prilukoff led me in this grotesque and unbearable situation is
+impossible to describe. My days were passed in an agony of terror. When
+I dined with Kamarowsky, Prilukoff invariably took a seat at the next
+table, and I might almost say that it was he who regulated our
+conversation. If any subject were raised that was distasteful to him--my
+approaching marriage to Kamarowsky, for instance, or some tender
+reminiscence which my betrothed loved to recall--Prilukoff, at the
+adjoining table, made savage gestures which terrified me and attracted
+the attention of all the other guests. He would shake his fists at me,
+glare at me with terrible eyes, and, if I pretended not to notice him,
+he upset the cruet-stand or dropped his knife and fork noisily to
+attract my attention. He would stare at the unconscious, slightly bald
+head of Kamarowsky, and imitate his gestures with a demoniacal grin.
+
+The guests of the hotel thought him insane, and he certainly behaved as
+if he were. I myself have often thought: "Surely he is a madman!" when I
+came upon him suddenly, hidden behind the curtains in my sitting-room,
+or crouching in a dark corner, or lying on my bed smoking cigarettes. I
+felt that my nerves and my reason were giving way.
+
+"What do you want of me, you cruel man?" I sobbed. "What am I to do? Do
+you wish me to tell everything to Kamarowsky? To break off the marriage
+and return to Moscow with you?"
+
+"We cannot return to Moscow, and you know it," growled Prilukoff.
+
+"Somewhere else, then. Anywhere! I will go wherever you like, I will do
+whatever you like. Anything, anything, rather than endure this torture
+any longer."
+
+"For the present we stay here," declared Prilukoff, who seemed to enjoy
+my anguish. "And as for the future," he added, rolling his terrible
+eyes, "you can leave that to me."
+
+Sometimes he forbade me to go out with Kamarowsky. At other times he
+followed us in the streets, torturing me behind the unconscious back of
+my betrothed, who marveled and grieved at my extraordinary and
+frequently absurd behavior.
+
+Early one morning, as I looked out of my window, I saw Kamarowsky
+standing on the terrace, gazing thoughtfully out at the sea. I ran down
+to him. We were alone. "Paul," I whispered hurriedly, "let us go away
+from here; let us leave quietly, to-day, without saying a word to any
+one."
+
+He laughed. "What a romantic idea! Do you not like this place? Are you
+not happy here?"
+
+"No, Paul, no! There is some one spying upon me."
+
+"Spying upon you?" he repeated, greatly astonished. "Is that the reason
+of your strange behavior?"
+
+"Yes, yes, but do not ask me any more questions."
+
+"Who is it? I must know who it is."
+
+"No, Paul. I will tell you later on. Hush!"
+
+"You are a fanciful creature," he said, laughing and patting my cheek.
+
+  [Illustration: COUNT PAUL KAMAROWSKY]
+
+I felt hurt at his calm acceptance of what I had told him, and wondered
+that he did not insist upon knowing more. I reflected in my folly that
+if he really loved me he ought to have been less satisfied and secure. I
+did not understand--alas! I never understood--his guileless and noble
+trust in me. The insensate and exacting passion of others who until now
+had dominated my life had spoiled me for all normal affection.
+Hypersensitive and overwrought, I myself suffered unless I caused
+suffering to those I loved; nor did I ever feel sure of their love
+unless they doubted mine.
+
+    The love that varies not from day to day,
+    A tranquil love, unruffled and serene--
+
+was not the love I knew. My storm-tossed heart did not recognize it.
+Neither on that day nor ever could I bring myself to believe that Paul
+Kamarowsky really loved me.
+
+During those few moments that we were alone together on the terrace, we
+arranged that I should start with Tioka and Elise that very evening,
+during the dinner hour, leaving all our trunks behind us for my
+betrothed to see to after we had left. He could join us three days later
+in Vienna, and then we should all proceed to Orel, where important
+affairs claimed his presence.
+
+Half-way through dinner, as had been arranged (and as usual Prilukoff
+sat at a table next to ours), Elise entered the dining-room timidly and
+came to our table.
+
+"I beg your ladyship's pardon. Master Tioka is outside and wishes to say
+good-night."
+
+"Bring Master Tioka in," I said, trying to speak naturally and raising
+my voice a little so that Prilukoff should hear.
+
+"I am sorry, my lady, but he refuses to come," and Elise hung her head
+as she spoke these words; the treason we were perpetrating on Lohengrin
+grieved her even more than the tortures that Lohengrin had inflicted
+upon me.
+
+"Pray excuse me a moment," I said to Count Kamarowsky, and rose from the
+table. "I shall be back at once."
+
+No sooner was I outside the dining-room than Elise threw my traveling
+cloak round me. A motor-car was throbbing at the door, and in it with
+beaming face sat Tioka surrounded by our hand-bags and dressing-cases,
+shawls and hats.
+
+"What are we doing?" he cried gleefully. "Are we running away?"
+
+"Yes, darling," and I clasped him to my heart, as I sank into the seat
+beside him. The motor was already gliding through the twilight roads
+towards Cannes.
+
+"But why? Why are we running away? Have we stolen something?"
+
+At those words my heart stopped beating. I suddenly remembered
+Prilukoff's ill-gotten banknotes.
+
+"Elise!" I gasped; "in the desk in my sitting-room--there was some
+money."
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"What did you do with it?"
+
+"It is quite safe, madame. I have taken it."
+
+"_You have taken it!_"
+
+"Yes, madame. Here it is." And with satisfied hand Elise patted a black
+leather satchel that lay in her lap.
+
+With a sob I hid my face in my hands.
+
+Indeed, we had stolen something!
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+As soon as we reached the frontier I telegraphed to Prilukoff. I wanted
+to send Elise back to Hyères with the money, but she refused to leave
+me.
+
+"What if Mr. Prilukoff were to kill me," she cried. "Then what would
+your ladyship and poor little Master Tioka do, all alone in the world?"
+
+"But my good Elise, why on earth should Mr. Prilukoff kill you?"
+
+"I don't know," sighed Elise. "But he has become so strange of late--"
+and after a pause, she added, under her breath: "We have all become very
+strange."
+
+It was true. I could not but admit it. We were "very strange." We were
+not at all like other people. The people that we met on our journeys and
+in hotels, for instance, all took an interest in external things--in the
+surrounding landscape, or in works of art and monuments and cathedrals.
+As for us, we never spoke about monuments. We never entered a cathedral.
+We took no interest whatever in anything beyond our own dolorous souls.
+We were even as those who travel with an invalid, watching him only,
+caring for and thinking of nothing else. The invalid I traveled with was
+my own sick soul.
+
+The least peculiar among us was Count Kamarowsky. Yet even he, I fancy,
+was not quite like other people. His was not a strong nature, like that
+of some men I had known. Perhaps the Slav blood is responsible for much
+that is abnormal and unconventional. Surely we are from the inmost
+depths of our nature strangely removed from the Teutonic, the
+Anglo-Saxon and even the Latin races, and our thoughts and actions must
+frequently appear to them singular and incomprehensible.
+
+As for Paul Kamarowsky, his dread of suffering was so great that he
+preferred to know nothing that might cause him distress. In fear lest he
+should see aught that might displease him, he chose to shut his eyes to
+facts and truths, preferring voluntarily to tread the easy paths of a
+fool's paradise. I longed to open my heart to him, to unburden my
+travailed soul and clear my sullied conscience by a full confession; I
+was ready to abide by the result, even if it meant the loss of my last
+chance of rehabilitation, even should I forfeit thereby all hope of
+marriage with a man of honor, rank and repute. But he closed my lips; he
+sealed my heart; he firmly avoided all confidences and disclosures.
+
+"Mura," he said, "my life and yours have been too full of errors and of
+sorrow. Do not embitter this, our hour of joy. The past is buried; let
+it rest. Do not drag what is dead to the light of day again."
+
+I bowed my head in silence. But in the depths of my conscience I knew
+that my past had been buried alive.
+
+
+Not in my spirit alone did I suffer agonies at this period; my frail
+body was racked with disease and my sufferings were continuous and
+intense. Day by day I felt my strength decline, I saw myself wax thinner
+and paler; rarely indeed did an hour pass that I could count free from
+pain. The deep-seated ill that since the birth of my little daughter
+Tania had struck its fiery roots into my inmost being now bore its toxic
+fruits, slowly diffusing its poison through my veins. Sometimes the
+pangs I suffered were so acute that I cried out in anguish, while beads
+of cold perspiration started to my brow. But as a rule I was tortured by
+a deep, dull, perpetual ache, a sense of utter weakness and weariness
+that stifled all hope in me and all desire to live.
+
+Oh, daughters of Eve, my purer and stronger sisters, women who have not
+transgressed--you whose hatred and scorn have overwhelmed me, you whose
+white hands have been so quick to throw the wounding stone--you alone can
+comprehend the agony that racked my frame, the flaming sword that
+pierced me, the sacred ill of womanhood that girt my body as with a sash
+of fire. You who in such dark hours can shelter your sufferings in the
+protecting shadow of your home, you who can seek refuge in a husband's
+tenderness and hide your stricken brow upon a faithful breast, can you
+not summon one throb of sorrow to your womanly hearts, one gleam of pity
+to your gentle eyes, when you think of the tortures I dragged from hotel
+to hotel, seeking to conceal my martyrdom from the inquisitive or
+indifferent gaze of strangers, not daring to confide in the man who
+loved me but who yet was almost a stranger?...
+
+Who can describe the minor and yet genuine torment of the tight garments
+cramping the aching body; the weight of the ornate head-dress on the
+throbbing brow; the irony of rouge and cosmetics on the ashen cheeks;
+and the nauseating distaste for the rich viands that one pretends to
+enjoy while the noise of voices and music pierces your brain, and the
+glaring electric lights stab your aching eyes like a hundred
+knife-thrusts?
+
+How often, on returning from some brilliant banquet to the silence and
+solitude of a desolate hotel bedroom, have I wept aloud with vain
+longing for one great joy denied to me, one supreme privilege of a happy
+woman: that of being weary, ill, and miserable--and yet loved all the
+same! How keenly have I envied some women I have known--women who were
+not beautiful, not brilliant and not young, but by whose sick-bed in
+their hour of pain a husband watched in tenderness and pity, faithful
+throughout the years, throughout the changes that time brings, faithful
+to the sad and pallid woman who had the right to lay her faded cheek
+upon his breast.
+
+None, none of those who vowed they loved me, would have loved me thus!
+Not Vassili, not Bozevsky, not Stahl, not Kamarowsky. Prilukoff perhaps?
+Who knows?
+
+But Prilukoff was a thief, a fugitive, a criminal; and day and night I
+prayed that he might not cross my path again.
+
+He had not replied to my agitated telegram informing him that Elise had
+unwittingly taken the money away. Nor did he, as I thought he would,
+join us in Vienna where we stayed several days, expecting yet dreading
+his arrival.
+
+We were at a loss to know what to do with his stolen money. We did not
+dare to send it to him at Hyères, where I knew he had been staying under
+an assumed name and in constant terror of discovery. We did not dare to
+leave it in our rooms at the hotel. Elise carried it about with her day
+and night in the hated black leather satchel, which had become to us a
+nightmare, an incubus, an obsession. With a bitter smile I recalled the
+story of the English hunters in India who succeeded in capturing that
+most precious and sacred among all animals: a white elephant. And having
+captured it they knew not what to do with it. They trailed it after them
+across land and sea--ponderous, slow, magnificent; and nobody wanted it,
+and nobody knew what to do with it nor how to get rid of it. Prilukoff's
+stolen money was indeed a white elephant for us.
+
+Kamarowsky with his little son had joined us in Vienna, bringing all our
+luggage with him. He was as boisterous as a schoolboy out for a holiday.
+
+"There are no spies here, are there, Mura?" he laughed, kissing my cheek
+loudly. "No spies to drive us away!"
+
+Again I was hurt that he should thus make light of the mysteries of my
+existence. Should he not have demanded an explanation of my flight from
+Hyères? Should he not have insisted upon knowing who had followed me
+there? What love was this that could voluntarily blindfold itself and
+evade all explanations?
+
+Not this, not this was the love I had dreamed of and hoped for, the
+steadfast refuge for my wavering spirit, the longed-for haven for my
+storm-tossed soul.
+
+
+We proceeded almost immediately to Orel. At this period I possessed no
+money at all of my own; what little I had had when I left Moscow had
+been spent; but not for a moment did I entertain the thought of touching
+Prilukoff's ill-gotten wealth. Paul Kamarowsky insisted upon providing
+all our traveling and hotel expenses; but it was embarrassing to be
+unable to tip a servant or to pay for even the smallest trifle that
+Tioka or I might want.
+
+I made up my mind to lay frankly before my betrothed my deplorable
+financial situation. And I did so on the journey to Orel. He seemed much
+amused at my confession; and the fact of our utter dependence upon him
+seemed to afford him the greatest pleasure.
+
+He filled my purse with gold, and made me promise that I would always
+ask him for anything I might need or desire.
+
+How well I remember our arrival at Orel! It was a radiant afternoon in
+October. Count Kamarowsky accompanied us to our hotel, where
+flower-filled apartments awaited us; then he left us at once to go in
+search of a young friend of his, the son of the Governor of Orel, who
+had promised to see to our passports as soon as we arrived.
+
+I was alone in our drawing-room when Elise knocked at the door.
+
+"The children would like to go out; they say they feel cramped from the
+journey," she said. "If madame allows, I will take them into the park;
+it is just opposite the hotel," she added.
+
+"Certainly, Elise."
+
+A moment later Tioka and Grania, ready to go out, came running to
+embrace me, and behind them Elise reappeared.
+
+"If madame permits," she said in a low voice, "I might perhaps leave
+'_it_' here?"
+
+"It" was the black leather satchel--our white elephant.
+
+"Yes, yes; leave it," I said.
+
+And she carried it into my bedroom and placed it on the dressing-table.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+I stepped out upon the balcony and watched the children cross the sunlit
+square; they turned and waved their hands to me; then I saw them enter
+the park and scamper down the shady avenue, the faithful Elise trotting
+quickly in their wake.
+
+I remained on the balcony wrapped in peaceful thoughts, glad to feel the
+warmth of the autumn sun on my shoulders and the coolness of the autumn
+breeze on my cheeks. A wave of thankfulness came over me; repentance for
+all my past doubts and transgressions flooded my heart.
+
+How could I ever have doubted Paul Kamarowsky's love? Was not the
+absolute faith he reposed in me--the blind unquestioning faith that in my
+folly I had often resented--was it not after all the highest homage that
+a noble heart could bestow? Henceforth the aim of my life should be to
+render myself worthy of his trust and love. In utter gratitude and
+devotion my heart went out to him who was about to place in my keeping
+the honor of his unsullied name, and the care of his motherless child. I
+clasped my hands and breathed a fervent prayer to Heaven, a prayer that
+I might deserve the happiness that was in store for me.
+
+A slight sound startled me from my reverie. It was Kamarowsky who,
+having returned and not finding me in the drawing-room, had knocked at
+my bedroom door. Receiving no reply he entered. I left the balcony, and
+closing the window after me, stepped into the room.
+
+Kamarowsky was standing in front of the dressing-table holding the black
+leather satchel in his hand.
+
+"What is this?" he asked casually. "Is it yours?"
+
+The pitiless light from the window struck me full in the face, and I
+felt that I was turning pale. "No--no--" I stammered. "It is not mine."
+
+"I thought not," he said, turning it round and round. "I did not
+remember seeing it. We had better send it down to the bureau of the
+hotel." And he stepped forward to touch the bell.
+
+"No, no!" I cried, "it belongs to Elise."
+
+"Why does Elise leave her things in your room?" Then noticing my pallor
+and agitation he exclaimed: "Why, dearest? What is wrong with you? You
+look quite white."
+
+  [Illustration: I STEPPED OUT UPON THE BALCONY.]
+
+"It is nothing, nothing," I said, attempting to smile; and I sat down
+with my back to the light. I was trembling from head to foot.
+
+He bent over me with tender solicitude. "Are you feeling ill?"
+
+"Slightly--it will pass--it is nothing. The fatigue of the journey
+perhaps," and I caressed the kind face that bent over me full of
+affectionate concern.
+
+He turned and rang the bell.
+
+A waiter appeared. "Bring some brandy," ordered Kamarowsky. "Make haste.
+The lady is not well."
+
+The waiter returned promptly and placed the tray on the table; as he was
+about to leave the room Count Kamarowsky, who was pouring out the
+brandy, said to him: "Wait a moment, you can take that satchel upstairs
+to the maid's apartment."
+
+I sprang to my feet. "No--leave it," I cried, taking it from the waiter's
+hand. The man bowed and left the room.
+
+Kamarowsky seemed astonished at my behavior. "What is the matter?" he
+asked. "Why are you so agitated?"
+
+"I am not--I am not agitated at all," I stammered, trying to control my
+features, and holding the odious white elephant in my trembling hands.
+
+"What on earth is in that bag?" asked the Count.
+
+"Nothing--nothing," I said, with a vacuous, senseless smile.
+
+"Come, now! It is full of papers," laughed Kamarowsky, putting out his
+hand and pressing the satchel between his fingers. "Confess, what are
+they? Love-letters?"
+
+I contrived to answer his jest with a smile: "You have guessed right," I
+said.
+
+"They are Elise's, I hope--not yours!" he added, half smiling and half
+distrustful.
+
+I laughed. "Elise's, of course;" and with a deep sigh of relief I sank
+upon a chair, feeling that the danger was past. But my heart had not yet
+resumed its normal pulsation when the door opened and the unwitting
+Elise appeared on the threshold.
+
+"We have returned, my lady, and the children have gone upstairs."
+
+Kamarowsky jestingly took the satchel from my hand and dangled it in the
+air.
+
+"Ah, Elise! What have we got in here?"
+
+Elise rolled her eyes wildly, and a scarlet blush mounted to her face;
+Elise's blushes were always painful to see; now her face was of a deep
+damask hue.
+
+The Count laughed. "So this is where you keep your love-letters, is it?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir," exclaimed Elise, blushing till her eyes were filled with
+tears.
+
+"What? Is this satchel not yours?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir!--I mean--yes, sir," stuttered Elise.
+
+Kamarowsky looked at her, and then at me. Seeing the expression of our
+faces the laughter faded from his lips.
+
+"Come, Elise; tell me whose it is, and what it contains."
+
+I attempted to make a sign to her, but the tall, broad figure of Count
+Kamarowsky stood between us.
+
+I rose with a sigh of despair, acquiescing in my fate. Now--let happen
+what may.
+
+"What letters are they?" insisted Kamarowsky.
+
+I heard the hapless Elise floundering in the quicksands of falsehood;
+finally she let herself drift--a helpless wreck on the rock of truth.
+
+"It is not letters, it is money," she said at last.
+
+"Money? Money of yours?"
+
+"No."
+
+There was a brief silence. Then Kamarowsky said: "I do not believe you.
+I wish to see what it contains."
+
+No one answered him.
+
+"Where is the key?"
+
+Again there was silence.
+
+I heard a slight jingling sound; Kamarowsky was searching in his pockets
+for a penknife. Then he said to Elise: "You can go."
+
+Elise went slowly and reluctantly from the room. Then I heard a faint
+tearing and crackling: Kamarowsky had cut through the leather of the
+satchel. Now the rustling of banknotes told me that he was smoothing
+them out on the table, and counting them.
+
+A few moments passed.
+
+"Thirty-five thousand rubles," said Paul Kamarowsky slowly. "I cannot
+understand why you should have told me you were penniless." There was an
+icy coldness in his voice such as I had never heard before.
+
+"The money is not mine," I said, in trembling tones.
+
+"Whose is it?"
+
+How was I to answer him? Could I betray Prilukoff? And, with him,
+myself? I decided to tell what was, intrinsically, the truth.
+
+"I do not know whom it belongs to."
+
+Once more there was silence. I wondered what he would do? Would he
+insult me? Would he raise his voice in bitter accusation and reproof?
+
+No. The silence remained unbroken. Kamarowsky left the room without a
+word.
+
+Ah! I was still in the grip of the octopus; its tentacles bound and
+crushed me still. Even from afar Prilukoff guided my destinies, drove my
+frail barque into storm and disaster.
+
+With trembling hands I gathered up the scattered banknotes and thrust
+them back into the execrated leather bag. Ah, if only I could have freed
+myself from this nightmare burden, if only I could have returned the
+money to Prilukoff! But how? Where to? At the Bellevue, in Hyères, he
+had called himself Zeiler. But now where was he? Under what name was he
+hiding? How could I, without warning, send him such a sum of money?
+Where could I write to him?
+
+No; fate had doomed me to wander through the world carrying with me the
+hated money in Elise's abominable satchel! At the bitterness of this
+thought I dropped my face in my hands and wept.
+
+I did not hear any one knock at the door; nor did I hear the door open.
+When, still shaken with sobs, I raised my tear-stained face, I beheld
+standing on the threshold a stranger--a slender, fair-haired youth. He
+was gazing at me with compassionate eyes, full of confusion at having
+found me in tears.
+
+"Pardon me," he said, and his voice was soft and musical.
+
+"Whom do you want?"
+
+"I was looking for Count Kamarowsky," he replied. "He has invited me to
+dine with him." There was a pause. "My name is Nicolas Naumoff."
+
+"My name is Marie Tarnowska." And I gave him my hand.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+Count Kamarowsky came in shortly afterwards. He was gloomy and morose;
+but on seeing his friend, whom he had that morning invited to dine with
+us, he made a heroic effort to keep up an appearance of good temper and
+hospitality.
+
+But his grief and anger were only too apparent. He sat beside me at
+table without speaking to me, nor did he ever turn his eyes in my
+direction.
+
+Our guest seemed distressed and amazed at his behavior, and--doubtless
+remembering my recent tears--he gazed at me with his light-brown eyes
+eloquent of sympathy and compassion.
+
+Once or twice I addressed a remark to Kamarowsky, but he scarcely
+answered me and I felt myself flushing and paling with humiliation.
+
+Silence fell upon us at last. Painful and embarrassing as I felt it to
+be, I yet could find no word to say. A violent headache racked my
+temples, and I had to bite my lips to keep myself from bursting into
+tears.
+
+Suddenly I got up and went into my room. With trembling hand I sought in
+my dressing-case for a bottle of cocaine, which for nearly a year I had
+not touched. I lifted it to my lips and sipped the exhilarating poison.
+Then I returned to the table.
+
+Kamarowsky was sitting grim and silent with bent head and lowering brow,
+but the young stranger raised his golden eyes under their long fair
+lashes, and fixed them upon me as if to give me comfort. After a few
+moments, in order to break the well-nigh unbearable silence, he spoke to
+me in his low and gentle voice.
+
+"I hear that Delphinus, the famous crystal gazer, has arrived in Orel.
+You ought to get him to tell you your fortune."
+
+"Is that so?" I said, smiling; and even as I spoke the prediction of
+that strange soothsayer flashed into my memory. I seemed to hear again
+the brief, prophetic words: "_Two men are yet to enter into your life.
+One will be your salvation--the other your ruin._"
+
+Two men! I glanced around me, startled and amazed. Two men were here;
+one on each side of me. Was the prophecy coming true? Were these the two
+men he had spoken of? Were the One and the Other sitting beside me now?
+
+In my mind I could still hear the fortune-teller's nasal, dreamy accent:
+
+"You will chose--the Other. It is your destiny."
+
+Overcome by a feeling of timorous superstition, I looked at my two table
+companions, of whom One, perhaps, might represent my destruction, the
+Other my last hope of happiness.
+
+At my right hand sat Kamarowsky, sullen and sinister in his grief and
+anger against me; on my left the young unknown, with radiant face and
+gold-bright eyes that smiled at me. A flash of intuition seemed to
+illuminate my spirit; here was salvation! Nicolas Naumoff! This unknown
+youth, in whose eyes I had read such complete and instant devotion--it
+was he whom fate had sent to lead me back to joy.
+
+Looking back to that hour I realize that it was the rhapsodical delirium
+of cocaine that whipped my brain into senseless aberration; but at the
+time I implicitly believed that by a miracle of divination I had rent
+the veil of the future, and could discern with inspired gaze the distant
+sweep of the years to come.
+
+I saw Kamarowsky--somber, dark, with bent head--as the very incarnation of
+sorrow and misfortune; and, to make assurance twice sure, was it not he
+whom I had chosen? And had not the diviner foretold me that he whom I
+chose would be the one to lead me to destruction?
+
+But I might still draw back, I might still trick the Fates and escape
+from my predestined doom. With the blind impulse of the hunted quarry
+seeking a refuge, I turned an imploring gaze on the young unknown; he
+read despair in my eyes, and his own responded with a flash of
+comprehension; he leaned toward me, and, as if in the throe of some
+instant emotion, I saw him thrill from head to foot like a tense string.
+At this immediate response of his nerves to mine, I also felt a tremor
+stir me, as the water of a lake is stirred by a gust of wind. What evil
+spirit possessed me? Was I ill? Was I demented? I cannot tell. I know
+that my soul pledged itself to him at that moment; and I know that he
+understood me.
+
+Thus, in my attempt to escape it, the tragic prophecy was to be
+fulfilled.
+
+When Nicolas Naumoff got up to take his leave I knew that he would
+return, that I should see him again, and this thought intoxicated me
+with such delight that even Kamarowsky, in spite of his anger and his
+suspicions, was swept away by the radiance and rapture of my joyfulness.
+I was then--well may I say it now!--at the zenith of my youthful beauty,
+notwithstanding, or perhaps by reason of the disease that burned within
+me like a consuming lamp; a constant fever lit my transparent flesh into
+delicate rose flushes, and blazed like lighted sapphires in my
+translucent eyes.
+
+I was no sooner alone with him than, seeing me thus aflame with radiant
+happiness, Kamarowsky rose and came towards me with outstretched hands.
+
+"Marie, I love you, I love you! I will trust you utterly. I want to know
+nothing that you do not wish to tell me." And he bowed his head over my
+hands and kissed them.
+
+But my wild thoughts went out to the unknown youth with the golden eyes
+who had left us, he through whom salvation was to come to me; and every
+fiber yearned for his presence. A sudden wave of almost physical
+repulsion for Paul Kamarowsky overcame me and I started away from his
+touch. "Leave me," I cried, "leave me. Let me go away." And I tried to
+go past him to my room.
+
+But he stopped me, amazed and unbelieving. "Why, dearest, why? What is
+the matter?"
+
+"It is over," I murmured incoherently, "leave me. I do not wish to speak
+to you any more. I do not wish to marry you. I want to go away and never
+see you again."
+
+"Mura! you are dreaming, you are out of your mind! What have I done that
+you should speak to me like this?"
+
+His bewilderment and despair only irritated me the more. "You will drag
+me to ruin and misfortune. I was told so; and I know, I feel that it is
+true."
+
+"You were told so?" gasped Paul. "What are you saying? Mura, come to
+your senses. Who has put such preposterous notions into your head?"
+
+Notwithstanding my dazed and drugged state of mind, I felt that to tell
+him about the fortune-teller would neither convince nor impress him; he
+would probably laugh, and try to coax or scold me back to my senses. So
+I wrapped myself in an obstinate and mysterious silence.
+
+The unhappy man was perplexed and distressed.
+
+"Who has poisoned your mind against me, Mura? Think, think a moment; who
+in all the world could love you more than I do? Who could protect you
+and care for you better than I can, poor helpless creature that you
+are?"
+
+But I was possessed by the blind obstinacy of madness. _Quem Deus vult
+perdere, prius dementat._ My destiny was coming upon me at the very time
+I thought to evade it.
+
+"Let me be!" My hands twisted themselves from his grasp. "I will not see
+you again! I will not!"
+
+"But I will," cried Kamarowsky, clasping my wrist in an iron grip, and
+his long, languorous eyes opened wide and flamed into mine. "Do you
+think that because I am kind and patient you can play fast and loose
+with me? No indeed, no indeed; you have promised to be mine, and I shall
+make you keep your word."
+
+Never had I seen him like this nor dreamed that he could be so fierce
+and resolute. I felt dizzy and bewildered. I felt the bats of madness
+flying in my brain. I raised my eyes with a scornful smile to his: how
+could he keep me against my will?
+
+As if he had divined my thought he bent forward with his passionate face
+close to mine. "Do not think you can escape me," he said. "Do not
+imagine it for a moment. Mura, I know you well. You need to be mastered,
+and I shall master you. As long as I live, remember--as long as I live
+you shall not escape me."
+
+These words seemed to pierce my dizzy brain like red-hot needles. "As
+long as he lives I shall not escape him. _As long as he lives--!_"
+
+I raised my eyes and looked at him; then I drooped my lashes--and smiled.
+
+The subtle cunning of madness stirred within me.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+Paul Kamarowsky appeared not to notice it. He continued to speak
+agitatedly, holding my unwilling hand in his.
+
+"I know, Mura, that you have done many unworthy things in the course of
+your life; I know that you are not what I would have you be; but my pity
+for your misfortunes is far greater than my resentment at your faults. I
+know that you are ill; I know that you have had none but rakes and
+reprobates around you; it shall be my duty to strengthen you and uphold
+you with my love. I will help you, Mura, whether you wish it or not; I
+will save you in spite of yourself."
+
+Ah, miserable creature that I was, why did I not throw myself upon his
+mercy and confide my doubts and my despair to his generous heart? Why
+did I not surrender my poor sick soul to his keeping? This was indeed
+the last time that salvation opened its haven to my shipwrecked soul;
+but I knew it not, and like a boat adrift in the darkness I swept on
+towards the storm.
+
+He continued to speak. "If I have not wanted to know about your past, it
+has not been from cowardice nor from the fear of any man; but from
+distrust of my own heart, Mura, for fear lest my love for you should
+wane. Whereas it is my duty and my mission to love you, Marie
+Nicolaevna, to love and save you from your own weakness and the iniquity
+of the world. You are still so young--hardly less of a child than little
+Tioka--notwithstanding the storms of passion and sin that have passed
+over your head. All you need is to live among right-minded people who
+will love you. I shall love you, Mura; and my mother, gentle soul that
+she is, will take you to her heart; and so will my sisters. Then when
+you find yourself surrounded by such pure, kind and simple affections,
+you, too, will become simple, kind and pure again."
+
+His voice broke. "We shall be so happy; and Tioka and Grania will be
+happy; and so will your good old father. He shall come and live with us.
+How is it you never think of your father, Mura? The generous,
+broken-hearted old man in that desolate house of Otrada?"
+
+Hot tears rushed to my eyes. My father! My stately father, with his
+venerable white hair, and his proud blue eyes--the "terrible O'Rourke,"
+living in that deserted house, widowed, desolate and alone. There was no
+one to coax him out of his grief or his anger; no arms went round his
+neck, no laughing voices cried to him: "Father, don't be the terrible
+O'Rourke!" I covered my face with my hands.
+
+Kamarowsky bent over me. "Is it not wickedness, Mura, to throw away
+one's life as you do? To rush from place to place, from emotion to
+emotion, from misery to despair? Is it not more than wickedness--is it
+not madness?"
+
+"Madness!" As if the word had rent a veil before my eyes, I looked my
+calamity full in the face. Yes, it was madness; it was the hereditary
+curse of my mother's people. I was like my mother's two wild-faced,
+frenzied sisters, whom we used to run away from and laugh at when we
+were children, Olga and I.... Madness! In my delicate blue veins it had
+taken root again, and now its monstrous flower opened its crashing
+petals in my brain. I was mad, there was no doubt of it and no help for
+it. _I was mad._
+
+I spoke the words softly to myself, and the very sound of them made me
+laugh. It amused me to think that no one knew my thoughts. I felt like a
+naughty little girl hiding in a dark cupboard while everybody is looking
+for her. The dark cupboard was my mind, and I had discovered madness
+there.
+
+Undoubtedly I was bereft of reason; and my mother's sisters, now for so
+many years entombed in an asylum at Warsaw, were assuredly not more mad
+than I. The thought of this, also, made me laugh. I whispered to myself:
+"I am cleverer than they. I am as mad as they are, but no one shall ever
+know it!"
+
+I have no other explanation to give, no other justification. I was
+demented, and I knew it. Sometimes in the night I started up wide awake,
+and the horror of the thought that I was alone with myself--with myself
+who was mad!--froze me into a statue of ice. As soon as I could stir a
+limb I would creep from my bed, steal out into the silent corridors of
+the hotel, and run with chattering teeth along the red-carpeted passages
+between the long double rows of boots, which to my eyes appeared like
+little monsters crouching at the thresholds; then up the great
+staircase, turning round every moment to look behind me, until I reached
+the fourth floor and the room of Elise and the children.
+
+Softly I would tap at the door, and call:--"Elise!"
+
+"Yes, madame." Elise Perrier always answered immediately, as if she
+never slept.
+
+"Elise, I want you."
+
+"Yes, madame, I shall come at once," and I could hear her rising from
+her bed.
+
+Then I ran back through the silent corridors, and when I passed Count
+Kamarowsky's door I trembled and shuddered and felt constrained to stop.
+I looked at his yellow boots--square and placid, with their mouths open
+and their tongues hanging out--and I experienced a wild sensation of fear
+and loathing for him and for them.
+
+I made a grimace at those hateful boots and hurried away to shut myself
+in my room and await Elise.
+
+She would come in, pale and tidy in her red woolen dressing-gown, with a
+little cap on her head. She sat down quietly by my bedside and held my
+hand. Sometimes she read aloud to me; sometimes she repeated Swiss poems
+and ballads that she remembered from her schooldays; and I soon grew
+calm again as I listened to her quiet voice and felt the clasp of her
+small roughened hand on mine.
+
+
+Gradually a sort of frenzied fear of Kamarowsky took possession of me. I
+was obsessed continuously with the idea that I must escape from him at
+all costs, or die. My every fiber shrank at the slightest touch of his
+hand. I longed never to see him again. I longed to know that the world
+held him no more. It was a blind instinctive frenzy that I endured
+without reasoning about it. My constant and only preoccupation was to
+fly from him who spelt ruin, and to cling to Naumoff, my deliverer.
+
+"Nicolas Naumoff! Nicolas Naumoff!" I repeated his name all day long
+like a kind of exorcism against Kamarowsky; sometimes I felt as if I
+were stifled, as if I must hold my breath until he was near.
+
+On his side, Naumoff, who frequently came to see us, was reserved and
+shy, and did not venture to believe in what nevertheless he could not
+but read in my eyes. Knowing nothing of my insensate notion about the
+diviner's prophecy, and having no conception that to my fancy he was a
+rescuer sent to me by Providence, he thought I was making fun of him; or
+at other times he believed my predilection for him was merely the
+caprice of a frivolous creature accustomed to gratify every passing
+whim. So he held back, aggrieved and mistrustful.
+
+And the more he held back the more was I impelled to pursue him, to hold
+and to vanquish him. The passionate gravity of his youthful face
+delighted me; I was thirsty for the unknown recesses of his soul as for
+a spring filled with mysterious sweetness. His voice perturbed me; his
+silence lashed my nerves; I lived in a perpetual quiver of rhapsodic
+sensibility.
+
+I was in this frame of mind when Kamarowsky resolved to invite all his
+friends in Orel to a banquet in order to announce to them our imminent
+marriage.
+
+At this banquet Naumoff also was present. Doubtless he already knew the
+announcement that his friend was going to make, yet when the Count rose
+to speak and laid his hand with a placid air of ownership upon mine, I
+saw Nicolas Naumoff turn pale. I watched with deep emotion the color
+slowly receding from his face; in its pallor his youthful countenance
+appeared to me still more beautiful; he looked indeed like the supreme
+deliverer--the angel of death.
+
+I did not comprehend a word of Paul Kamarowsky's speech; I know that
+when it was ended he turned to me and placed a magnificent diamond ring
+upon my finger, and every one applauded and cheered.
+
+Then the guests rose in turn to congratulate Kamarowsky, and to kiss my
+hand and wish me joy; and I know that I smiled and thanked them.
+
+Naumoff alone had not left his place, but in the gay chatter and stir
+that surrounded us no one noticed it. He soon went away; he disappeared
+without taking leave of any one.
+
+Toasts and speeches followed. The waiters came and went, carrying fruits
+and wines and sometimes leaving the large double doors of our
+dining-room open behind them.
+
+Suddenly as I raised my eyes I saw a man standing on the threshold and
+gazing in at us.
+
+It was Prilukoff.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+
+In truth I do not know whether I felt dismayed or glad. It was as if I
+were in a dream.
+
+Since I had begun to take cocaine again, that twilight sensation of
+unreality had descended anew like a misty veil upon all my perceptions.
+
+I could not distinguish facts from illusions. Prilukoff had immediately
+disappeared--or had I only fancied that I saw him?
+
+Trembling a little, I rose from my place, and while many of the guests
+were still talking and laughing with their host I excused myself on the
+plea of fatigue. They toasted me a last time, and Kamarowsky kissed me
+ceremoniously before them all.
+
+With cheeks and heart aflame I hurried to my apartments, glad to think
+that I should find them dark and silent. My temples were throbbing, the
+coronet of diamonds--a gift of Kamarowsky's--weighed heavy on my brow, and
+my eyes seemed to be pierced with red-hot needles.
+
+I opened the door of my sitting-room, where a lamp, turned low,
+glimmered like a star veiled in red vapor. Behind it I could see yawning
+blackly the open door leading to my bedroom, which was in complete
+darkness.
+
+I had a strange feeling that I was not alone. Some one was in the
+room--some one whom I could not discern was near to me.
+
+Yes, a footstep approached; a strong arm encircled me. Nicolas Naumoff's
+voice spoke in thrilling accents: "Marie! Marie! My heart is breaking."
+
+With a sigh of infinite weariness merging into a sense of infinite
+repose I laid my head against his breast. I longed to die. I felt as if
+I had nothing more to ask for, nothing more to desire.
+
+But the anguish that was passing from my soul seemed to have entered
+into his.
+
+"You must not marry that man! You must not, you shall not!" He gripped
+my shoulders as if he would crush them. "Tell me, tell me that you do
+not love him."
+
+At that instant on the black background of my bedroom there appeared a
+form--Prilukoff! Erect in the doorway he stood watching us. Naumoff had
+his back to him, but across his shoulder I looked Prilukoff in the face,
+only a few steps from me.
+
+My heart stood still. What would he do?
+
+Knowing as I did his ungovernable frenzies of jealousy, his madness, his
+recklessness, I wondered whether he would leap forward and spring at
+Naumoff's throat? Would there be blows and groans and a death-struggle
+in my tranquil, shadowy room? Would there be a turmoil and a scandal,
+during which the bond of infamy that tied me to Prilukoff would be
+revealed to Naumoff? Revealed to Kamarowsky and to the world?
+
+The fear of tragedy and disgrace kept me stark and terror-stricken,
+rooted to the spot. Then I saw Prilukoff move. Slowly he raised his
+right arm. His right hand clutched something which I could not see.
+Suddenly--incredible sight!--I saw him open his mouth wide; and never,
+never have I seen anything more grotesque and terrifying than that
+figure in the darkness with mouth gaping wide....
+
+But still his right arm moved, rising slowly and relentlessly until it
+was on a level with that terrible open mouth. What did the hand hold?
+Did I not see a gleam of polished metal?
+
+I tried to scream, but no sound issued from my parched throat. I could
+see the whites of his staring upturned eyes, and the hand now motionless
+just in front of the open mouth--
+
+From my throat came a hoarse whisper: "Don't, for heaven's sake! Wait--"
+
+Naumoff, in amazement at these words which he believed to be addressed
+to himself, relaxed his hold. "What is it?" he whispered. "Is any one
+there?"
+
+Step by step I drew back from him, with my fascinated eyes still fixed
+upon Prilukoff, who stood motionless as a statue in the same dreadful
+attitude.
+
+"Is any one there?" repeated Naumoff.
+
+"Yes. Don't move." The words formed themselves soundlessly on my lips,
+but Naumoff understood them and obeyed. He neither turned nor moved.
+
+"Stand as you are," I breathed; "do not stir." And I glided snake-like
+from him.
+
+Then with the quickness of lightning I darted upon Prilukoff, thrusting
+him back into the dark bedroom, clutching him by the wrist, and covering
+his rapid breathing with my hand. The carpet deadened our footsteps.
+With my elbow I pushed the door and, as it closed behind me, I turned
+and shot the bolt. I was locked in my room with Prilukoff.
+
+"Hush, hush!" I whispered, my lips almost touching his face. "I implore
+you, I implore you! Do not betray me. Do not let them hear you."
+
+Through his closed and stifled lips there issued hideous, incoherent
+words of vituperation.
+
+"Hush! hush! hush!" I pressed my hand still tighter to his lips.
+"Forgive me! Spare me! I am yours, yours only! Donat, forgive me and
+keep silence!"
+
+"Mine, mine only," breathed Prilukoff, hoarsely; "you swear it!"
+
+"Yes! oh, yes!"
+
+I could hear Naumoff trying the handle on the other side of the door.
+
+"Marie! Marie! What are you doing? Why have you run away?"
+
+Prilukoff's right hand was still uplifted, and now he held it close to
+his temple. As I clutched that hand I could also feel the cold contact
+with the steel of a revolver.
+
+"Do you swear that you will be mine forever?"
+
+I murmured something inarticulate. Naumoff was calling under his breath:
+"Marie! Marie! Open the door."
+
+Prilukoff raised his voice slightly. "Swear to me that you loathe that
+man and the other; swear that if I murdered them both you would still be
+mine."
+
+"Yes, yes. Speak softly!"
+
+"Swear it! Swear that they shall both die, that you will help me to rid
+the world of them. Swear it." I could feel his hand tenser against his
+temple, I could feel the first finger crooking itself over the trigger.
+"Unless you swear," hissed Prilukoff, "I shall shoot myself here, this
+instant."
+
+I did so. He repeated the words softly with me: "_I swear--that--they
+shall die._" And something within me kept saying: "I am dreaming all
+this."
+
+"That is not enough!" breathed Prilukoff. "Swear it on the life of
+Tioka."
+
+My parched lips opened, but the iniquitous words would not pass my
+throat.
+
+Then Prilukoff pushed me from him and the fingers of his right hand
+moved. I heard a slight clicking sound. I threw myself forward.
+
+"I swear it--"
+
+And I swore it on the life of Tioka.
+
+Prilukoff's hand dropped to his side; he seemed to reel slightly, and
+staggering backwards leaned against the foot of my bed.
+
+Naumoff on the other side of the door was growing impatient. He shook
+the handle.
+
+I bent over to Prilukoff. "Are you going to betray me? If I open this
+door, will you show yourself?"
+
+He laughed derisively. "Go along, go along," he muttered. And I opened
+the door.
+
+"Why did you run away?" asked Naumoff, taking my hand.
+
+I closed the door behind me. I felt no more fear of Prilukoff. I felt no
+more fear of any one or anything. My heart seemed turned to stone. And
+as I stood thus, some one else knocked at the outside door. It was
+Kamarowsky.
+
+And the door was not locked! I turned quickly and blew out the lamp.
+
+But Naumoff had taken a rapid step forward, and turned the key in the
+lock. Then he stood still, leaning against the door.
+
+Kamarowsky outside heard him; and thinking it was I, murmured softly:
+"Good-night! Good-night, my darling!"
+
+Then I was seized with a convulsive fit of laughter. I laughed and
+laughed, shaken from head to foot by a wild paroxysm of mirth. I could
+not leave off laughing. I laughed until the laughter became a spasm
+which racked and agonized me; my teeth chattered, I trembled and quaked;
+and still the hysterical laughter continued, shaking my entire frame as
+an aspen is shaken by a brutal hand. I laughed and laughed, trying to
+laugh softly in order that those three men standing in the dark should
+not hear me.
+
+The thought of the three men motionless behind the doors made me laugh
+more than ever. Tears ran down my face, my head felt as if it would
+burst asunder. And still I rocked in the throes of frantic laughter
+until body and soul seemed to be shattered and rent....
+
+I staggered and sank to the floor.
+
+Naumoff bent over me. I felt his icy hands passing over my face. Then we
+remained quite silent in the dark.
+
+Slowly, reluctantly Kamarowsky's footsteps had passed away down the
+corridor....
+
+I mustered strength enough to whisper to Naumoff: "Go--send Elise to
+me--quickly!"
+
+Naumoff obeyed.
+
+
+Yes, Nicolas Naumoff--submissive soul!--has always obeyed.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+
+I was ill in bed for a long time. I lay supine and motionless,
+feeling--as once, long before--as if I were lying at the bottom of a well.
+In the distance, far above me, life and the world went whirling on; but
+nothing in me or of me stirred, except that at every pulse-beat my
+life-blood seemed to be gently, inexorably ebbing away. The doctors bent
+over me with anxious faces; on my body I felt the burning weight of ice;
+my arteries contracted under the grip of ergot and chloride of iron.
+Still slowly and inexorably I glided, as on a smooth and shallow river,
+towards death.
+
+Tioka and Grania had been sent to stay with friends in Kharkov.
+
+Naumoff came every day to ask for news, and sent me flowers; but he was
+never allowed to see me. Kamarowsky had permission to come into my room
+for ten minutes every morning, but he was not allowed to speak to me.
+
+Prilukoff, locked in my rooms, watched over me night and day.
+
+Nobody knew of his existence, for no one was allowed to enter my
+apartment. How and when he slept and took his meals I do not know.
+Perhaps Elise looked after that. He undoubtedly grew thinner, more
+haggard and spectral every day with sleeplessness, fasting and anxiety.
+
+Night and day he sat at my bedside watching me. Sometimes, as I lay
+prostrate with closed eyes, I said to myself that I must open them and
+look at him; but so great seemed the effort of raising my heavy eyelids,
+that frequently hours passed and I could not do so. When at last I
+lifted my leaden lashes, I saw him, always sitting motionless beside me
+with his gaze fixed on my face. With renewed effort I faintly contracted
+the muscles of my face and attempted to smile at him. Then, worn out
+with fatigue, I dropped my heavy lids and my soul floated away again
+towards unconsciousness....
+
+When I began to get better I noticed to my amazement that Prilukoff
+talked to himself all the time. Perhaps he had done so from the first,
+but then I was too weak to understand or even to hear him. Now that a
+little strength was coming back to me each day, I could hear and
+comprehend the words he uttered; it was a succession of imprecations, of
+incoherent and disconnected maledictions hurled against Naumoff and
+Kamarowsky, who as he thought had snatched my heart from him, and would
+be the ruin and the death of me. I could hear him murmuring:
+
+"They must be got rid of; we have sworn it. They must die."
+
+Towards evening his meager face grew red as if with fever, and his
+mutterings increased, became more rapid and excited. He would bend over
+me with his nightmare face as I lay weak and helpless on my pillows.
+
+"They are outside there, in the corridor, both of them. I can hear them
+walking up and down, whispering together--talking about you. But they are
+doomed, are they not? Irrevocably doomed. You have sworn it. Tell me
+that it is so."
+
+I faltered "Yes," hoping to silence him, but he never ceased his uncanny
+mutterings; and the idea of murder completely possessed his disordered
+brain. Elise, moving like a little frightened ghost through the locked
+and darkened rooms, frequently attempted to come to my aid.
+
+"Go away; leave her alone," she would say to Prilukoff. "Do you want her
+to fall ill again? Why don't you go to sleep? Why don't you eat? Why
+don't you go out?"
+
+But Prilukoff stared at her with vacant eyes, then went into the
+dining-room and drank some vodka, and soon he was bending over me again.
+
+"Mind, I am not going to do it alone," he whispered, "so that afterwards
+you would be afraid and horrified of me. No, no. You shall help me. You
+shall attend to one, and I to the other."
+
+By degrees, as strength returned to me and dispelled the torpor that had
+numbed my brain, I understood Prilukoff's ravings, and was aghast at
+them. Absorbed in his monstrous dream, he delighted in planning all the
+details of the double crime.
+
+"What I want is to be alone with the man I saw holding you in his arms
+the other evening." He ground his teeth. "As for your betrothed, you
+shall give him a dose of curare or atropine. An exquisite wedding cup
+for the bridegroom!"
+
+Then I burst into tears of terror and weakness, while the indignant
+Elise, hastening to my aid, would grasp Prilukoff's arm and compel him
+to leave me. He would sit gloomily in a corner, or go into the adjoining
+room, but a little while afterwards he was there again, raving as
+before.
+
+"Elise," I whispered to her one evening, "I am afraid, I am terribly
+afraid of him."
+
+"Shall I tell some one about it? Shall I tell Monsieur the Count?"
+exclaimed Elise.
+
+"No, no," I cried.
+
+"Might I--might I tell Monsieur Naumoff?"
+
+I hesitated; but when I recalled those golden eyes that turned to me
+filled with such trust and adoration I shook my head. "No, tell no one,
+Elise, tell no one." And I hid my face in the pillows.
+
+At last a day came when I was able to be up for an hour, and it was no
+longer possible to prevent Kamarowsky from coming to see me. Prilukoff
+refused to go away; I could not get him to stir from my room. At last,
+having compelled me to repeat the abominable vow, having forced me to
+invoke once more the seraphic image of little Tioka as tutelar genius of
+a monstrous crime, he went away, passing through my dressing-room to an
+outer passage at the back of the hotel.
+
+Elise dressed me and placed me in an armchair near the window, where I
+reclined, trembling and weak. Then I sent word to Count Kamarowsky that
+I would see him.
+
+He came in full of emotion and joy. "At last, at last you are better,"
+he cried, his kind eyes alight with pleasure. "But how pale you are, how
+dreadfully pale." And bending over me, he kissed my hair with infinite
+tenderness.
+
+As I saw him standing before me, smiling and well, the murderous ravings
+of Prilukoff and my own iniquitous vow seemed but a figment of my morbid
+fancy, a half-forgotten illusion of my delirium, dissolving and fading
+away like a dark dream at daylight.
+
+Kamarowsky held my hand tightly clasped in his, as if he were half
+afraid I might vanish from him. "What a poor little blue-white hand!" he
+said. "You have become quite transparent, Mura; I think I can look right
+through you and see your soul, trembling and flickering like a little
+flame!"
+
+I smiled at him. All my morbid fear and dislike of him, even as all my
+sudden insensate infatuation for Naumoff, was spent. Nothing remained of
+the storm my soul and senses had passed through but a limitless weakness
+and languor. I yearned to rest, to sleep, to sink out of life and be no
+more....
+
+A few moments later they announced Naumoff, who had brought me some
+roses. I was neither glad nor sorry to see him. Punctually when an hour
+had elapsed Elise Perrier sent my visitors away and put me to bed again.
+
+I fell asleep almost immediately.
+
+When I reopened my eyes, twilight filled my room with shadows and there
+was Prilukoff, sitting beside my bed, talking to himself about murder,
+revenge and poison.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+
+Every day my fear of Prilukoff increased. I had only one thought--to
+escape from him, to go far away where he could never find me; better
+still, to hide with Tioka and Elise in some distant spot, where neither
+this terrible maniac nor yet Naumoff, nor even Kamarowsky, could ever
+reach me.
+
+I thought of Otrada, my home. But how could my unhappy father protect me
+against the loving persistence of Kamarowsky, against Naumoff's
+passionate daring, or Prilukoff's diabolic designs?
+
+In the rare moments when I was alone with Elise, we talked it over. In
+trembling whispers, glancing constantly round lest the Scorpion should
+be on the watch, we concerted the manner of our flight.
+
+We made a thousand different plans, all equally extravagant and
+impracticable. In our luxurious hotel rooms we were imprisoned like mice
+in a trap. We never opened a door without finding a maid awaiting our
+orders, or a zealous and obsequious waiter bowing to us, or Kamarowsky
+asking for news, or Naumoff waiting with a bunch of flowers in his hand.
+
+We closed the door, and found ourselves shut up with Prilukoff,
+ferocious and maniacal, who glowered at us with the eye of a tiger.
+
+A thousand times in my weakness and despair I was on the point of
+throwing the door wide open and calling for help--calling Kamarowsky and
+Naumoff, and crying to them: "Look! a man is shut up in here. For days
+and days he has been torturing and threatening me. The man is a criminal
+and a thief, and he has been my lover. Save me from him!"
+
+But then I pictured to myself the scene of violence that would follow,
+the room echoing with revolver shots; and at the mere thought of it, in
+my weak and exhausted state, I fell into long fainting fits from which
+Elise had the greatest difficulty in reviving me.
+
+One morning Elise had an idea: "Let us confide in the doctor."
+
+I agreed. But the thought agitated me so that when the doctor came he
+found me trembling, with a rapid, irregular pulse and panting breath.
+
+"Doctor--" I began.
+
+"Ah, but this is bad, very bad. What is the meaning of all this
+agitation? Did you sit up too long? If you are not a better patient, I
+shall have to complain of you to my friend Paul."
+
+His friend Paul! True. He was a friend, an intimate friend, of
+Kamarowsky's. How could I ever have had the idea that he would keep our
+secret, that he would not betray my intended flight? It was a crazy
+notion of Elise's. I cast a significant glance at her, and was silent.
+
+He prescribed bromides and recommended absolute rest of body and mind.
+Scarcely was he gone when to my astonishment the long curtain that hung
+in front of an alcove where Elise kept my dresses moved slightly. Then
+they parted, and Prilukoff appeared.
+
+Ah! he had not gone out as he had pretended when the doctor had been
+announced! He had hidden himself. What if I had spoken?
+
+My fear of him turned to frenzy: I thought him endowed with supernatural
+powers. My room seemed to be filled with innumerable Prilukoffs peering
+out at me from every corner. I clung to Elise. "We must go away, we must
+go away to-morrow," I whispered. "Do you understand?"
+
+"Yes, madame," was Elise's firm and humble reply.
+
+"Send to fetch little Tioka; send for him at once."
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+Later, while she was dressing me, she stooped to draw on my
+stocking--Prilukoff was reading in the adjoining room--and she murmured:
+
+"We have no money to travel with."
+
+"You must ask Count Kamarowsky for some; he will give you all we want,"
+I whispered.
+
+"Not without asking what it is for. We shall need a great deal."
+
+"Oh, Elise, think, think of something," I sighed, and felt myself
+turning faint.
+
+"What are you two mumbling and plotting?" growled Prilukoff's voice from
+the adjoining room.
+
+We were silent.
+
+Tenderly and anxiously assisted by Kamarowsky and Elise I went down to
+the terrace that day, and spent the afternoon reclining on a couch in
+the mild spring sunshine, with eyes closed and every limb relaxed. I
+thought of our impending flight. Kamarowsky, seated beside me, kept
+silence, thinking I was asleep.
+
+Shortly afterwards I heard Tioka's quick little footsteps running across
+the terrace towards us. Kamarowsky doubtless warned him to keep very
+quiet, for I heard him stepping nearer on tip-toe, and without a word he
+clambered on to Kamarowsky's knee and laid his fair head confidingly
+against his shoulder.
+
+Beneath my drooping lashes, I gazed at them, and thought of the hideous
+plot that was weaving itself round this kind and generous man, who all
+unknowing pressed forward towards treachery and death; and I thought of
+the iniquitous oath which had placed a circlet of blood round that fair
+childish head.
+
+With a sob I raised myself and stretched out my arms to them both.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was eleven o'clock on the following night. Elise put out the lights
+and prepared the bromide and water on my little table. Prilukoff was
+rambling backwards and forwards between bedroom and drawing-room,
+smoking a cigarette.
+
+"Elise," I whispered. "Are we ready?"
+
+Elise nodded.
+
+"Elise, when? When is it to be?"
+
+"Hush, madame. Later on, towards morning; as soon"--with her head she
+indicated Prilukoff--"as soon as he is asleep."
+
+"But he never sleeps, Elise!"
+
+Elise looked at me. "He will sleep to-night," she said; and there was an
+icy hardness in her tone that I had never heard before.
+
+"Why will he sleep? How can you know?"
+
+Before she could answer, Prilukoff reappeared in the doorway. He had a
+glass of vodka in his hand.
+
+"This accursed throat!" he said, throwing his cigarette away and putting
+his hand to his neck. "Everything I swallow burns and scratches me." He
+coughed and cleared his throat. "You can go, Elise. I shall see to
+anything your mistress needs."
+
+Elise did not reply. With a hard, pinched face she poured the water into
+my glass and dropped two little bromide tablets into it. Then with her
+back turned to Prilukoff she fixed her eyes upon me and moved her lips:
+"_Do not drink._" She formulated the words clearly but without sound. I
+stared at her in bewilderment, and she made the movement with her lips
+again: "_Do not drink anything._" Then seeing that, notwithstanding my
+astonishment, I had understood her, she said respectfully: "Good night,
+madame," and left the room.
+
+She went out by the bath-room door, of which she always kept the key.
+
+Prilukoff dropped into an armchair and yawned. "This accursed throat,"
+he repeated.
+
+He poured out a glass of water from the crystal carafe on my table and
+swallowed it at a gulp. Then he coughed violently.
+
+"The devil!" he exclaimed. "This too! It tastes like some beastly
+concoction of--of chloral." He coughed and yawned again. Then he leaned
+his head against my bed. A few moments later he started up.
+
+"The devil!" he repeated, rising to his feet. I saw him go to the little
+table on which Elise every evening left some coffee ready on a spirit
+lamp; he lit it, and I dreamily watched the thin blue waverings of the
+flame. While the coffee was heating Prilukoff constantly cleared his
+throat, with the same murmured oath. Now he poured the smoking coffee
+into a cup and sipped it. "By all the infernal powers--" he cried, and
+turned suddenly to look at me.
+
+I did not dare to shut my eyes, much as I should have liked to do so. He
+came up to my bed and bending over me looked me in the face. Then he
+touched my shoulder.
+
+"See here!"
+
+I drooped my eyelids drowsily. "Yes, dear! What is it?"
+
+"Just taste this coffee," and he pushed the cup against my lips.
+
+I sat up and with a smile took the cup from his hands.
+
+"It burns," I said, barely touching it with my lips and making a little
+grimace.
+
+"Drink it!" he roared in a terrible voice, though his eyes were half
+shut as if he could not keep awake.
+
+I took a sip of the coffee: it scraped my throat like a rake. I thought
+of Elise and understood. For a moment the idea flashed through my brain
+to say that I found nothing the matter with it. Then I changed my mind.
+
+"Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "What have they put in this coffee? It
+tastes like poison!"
+
+Prilukoff bent still closer over me.
+
+"If you had said it was all right, I should have strangled you."
+
+My teeth chattered, partly through the taste of the chloral, partly
+through my fear of Prilukoff.
+
+"Have you drunk much of it?" I gasped. "You ought to call for help."
+
+But Prilukoff had sunk into an armchair, and already, with his head
+rolled back and his mouth open, he slept.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+
+How did we three hapless, terrified creatures manage to escape from the
+hotel that night?
+
+Tioka, wakened out of his sleep at three o'clock, kept on whimpering.
+
+"Where are we going? I am afraid. I want Papa Paul! Call Papa Paul."
+
+As we descended the dark staircase a night porter, dozing in the hall,
+started up and came towards us, blinking and yawning. When he caught
+sight of Elise, laden with shawls and medicine bottles--which constituted
+all our luggage--he seemed greatly astonished.
+
+For a moment no one spoke. Then: "I am feeling ill," I said. "We are
+going to the doctor. Please call a carriage for me."
+
+"But excuse me, madame," stammered the man. "Had I not better telephone
+to the doctor to come to the hotel?" His eyes wandered suspiciously from
+me to the lachrymose Tioka, and from Tioka to Elise and her burdens.
+
+"Open the door," said Elise authoritatively, "and call a carriage, at
+once."
+
+The man shook his head.
+
+Then I saw Elise gather all the shawls into a heap on her left arm, as
+with her right hand she searched for something under her cloak. She drew
+out a crumpled piece of paper, and with a gesture of solemn deliberation
+she proffered it to the man. It was a banknote of a hundred rubles.
+
+The man took the note, stared at it, and turned it round and round in
+his fingers. Then he raised his eyes and gazed in stupefaction at Elise.
+
+"Open that door and call a carriage," commanded Elise, in a thin voice.
+
+The man obeyed. As the large door swung back we could see that it was
+nearly dawn; the sound of distant church bells came to us across the
+clear, keen air. Elise raised her hand to her forehead and made the sign
+of the cross.... She had plundered the white elephant!
+
+Oh, Elise Perrier, not least among my great pangs of remorse is the
+thought that I have dragged you down into my own dishonor. For me and
+through me, your honest hard-working hand and your innocent soul were
+stained with guilt.
+
+While we stood waiting for the man to return, I thought I heard a door
+open and close overhead.
+
+I started. "Could it be Prilukoff?" I gasped to Elise.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Elise, what have you done to him?"
+
+"I put chloral into everything--into everything," and Elise shuddered.
+
+"Oh, Elise! What if he were to die?"
+
+She made no answer.
+
+"And if we were to be sent to prison?"
+
+The bells were ringing joyfully in the limpid Easter dawn.
+
+Elise closed her eyes, and her lips moved: "Dear God of Eastertide, give
+us Thy blessing."
+
+Tioka stopped crying to look at her. Then with an enchanting smile he
+did as she had done. He closed his blue eyes, which were still full of
+tears, and said: "Dear God of Eastertide, give us Thy blessing."
+
+
+The days swung forward.
+
+Prilukoff was the first to discover us. We had been hidden in Vienna, in
+the little Hotel Victoria, less than a week, when one morning he stood
+before our terror-stricken eyes.
+
+He was derisive and sarcastic; but finding us alone--without Kamarowsky,
+without Naumoff--the maleficent frenzy that possessed him at Orel seemed
+to have vanished. He was soon quite genial and good-humored; he was once
+more the Prilukoff we had known at Moscow, the trusty knight--Elise's
+Lohengrin!
+
+He did not speak of the past; he made no allusion to the chloral.
+Neither did he ever recall his murderous purposes; and sometimes I
+thought that I had dreamt it all. Cheerful and light-hearted, he took us
+out for drives in carriages and motors, to the Prater, to the Brühl, to
+the Semmering; he insisted upon our going with him to theaters, concerts
+and cabarets.
+
+And to pay for it all we had recourse to the black leather satchel. When
+any money was required, we found it there. No accounts were kept.
+Simply, and as a matter of course, we dipped into the lacerated body of
+the white elephant and took what we needed.
+
+I let myself drift with the tide; I gave no thought either to the future
+or the past, but yielded myself passively to my fate like a straw afloat
+on the water....
+
+One day I saw in the newspapers that Kamarowsky was putting in motion
+the police of every city in Europe in his efforts to find me. Then, on
+Prilukoff's advice, I sent Elise to Neuchâtel to telegraph to him from
+there in my name, in order to tranquilize him and mislead his inquiries.
+
+No sooner was the name of Kamarowsky mentioned between us than Prilukoff
+became sullen and gloomy again. He sulked and glowered at me, and passed
+the whole day without speaking a word.
+
+On this particular day we had taken a box at the _Theater An der Wien_,
+having promised Tioka that he should hear "The Merry Widow." Long before
+it was time to go, the little fellow was dressed and ready, jumping up
+and down in front of the window.
+
+"Let us make haste," he cried. "The carriage will be tired of waiting.
+Let us make haste!"
+
+Suddenly he uttered a shriek of joy. "Mother, mother, look! There is
+Papa Paul! I can see him--he has just passed. Papa Paul!" he shouted with
+all his might.
+
+Prilukoff caught him by his little jacket and drew him roughly from the
+window. Then he himself looked out.
+
+"Sure enough," he said, shutting the window and looking at me with that
+terrible crooked smile I had learned to dread. "It is Kamarowsky."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Then he said: "And now I have had enough
+of this. We will end it." Murder gleamed in his eyes.
+
+I clasped Tioka in my arms--the child was quite sad and hurt by
+Prilukoff's sudden rudeness--and as I kissed his soft curls I breathed
+Elise's prayer: "Dear God of Eastertide, give us Thy blessing."
+
+But alas! it was Easter no longer.
+
+In spite of what had happened, we went to the theater that night. And
+there, while the music swayed us in the undulating rhythm of the waltz,
+and little Tioka gazed enraptured at the stage, Prilukoff, sitting
+behind me in the shadow, formulated his plans for the crime.
+
+"You have sworn it on your child, remember. If you break your oath, he
+will be the sufferer."
+
+Tioka turned to us with shrill laughter. "Oh, look, mama, how beautiful
+it all is! Look at that fat policeman dancing."
+
+"When Kamarowsky finds you here--" Prilukoff went on; but I interrupted
+him.
+
+"No, no. Let us leave Vienna at once."
+
+"It is useless. He will find us all the same. You are too striking," he
+added, "to pass unobserved." And with a cynical laugh he surveyed me
+from head to foot. "He had better not find me with you. I shall remain
+at the Hotel Victoria; but you and Tioka must go to the Bristol, and
+when that man joins you, this is what you must do--"
+
+His iniquitous suggestions floated on the buoyant waltz music like
+carrion on the surface of a sparkling stream.
+
+I shuddered in horror. "No, no," I murmured. "Have pity! No ... no!"
+
+Oh! that music of Lehar's, that every one knows and every one whistles,
+and that is played by every organ at every street-corner--what monstrous
+secrets does it murmur to my heart!
+
+    _Ich gehe zu Maxim,_
+    _Da bin ich sehr intim..._
+
+The joyous verses ring in my ears like the shrieks of maleficent Furies,
+scourging me with nefarious counsels and diabolic commands....
+
+And while little Tioka laughs and claps his hands, I, his mother, sink
+ever deeper and deeper into the gulf of despair; and crime, like a sea
+of mire, closes its corrupt waves over my head.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+
+Everything came about as Prilukoff had foreseen. Kamarowsky found me the
+following evening alone with Tioka at the Bristol Hotel. He overwhelmed
+me with reproaches and with endearments.
+
+I maintained a mysterious silence, which he interpreted merely as the
+caprice of a spoiled child; nor did he take umbrage at it. He was too
+happy at having found me to care to quarrel either with the Fates or
+with me. All he said was: "Marie, I shall not leave you again." And the
+promise sounded almost like a threat.
+
+For some time Prilukoff gave no sign. I might have thought he had
+forgotten me. He had fixed a definitive space of time: ten days.
+
+On the eighth day he sent me a note, telling me to come to the Hotel
+Victoria that evening at nine o'clock. He would then provide we with
+what was needful. I was not to fail--or he would come himself.
+
+I dined with Paul Kamarowsky as usual; then, pleading a headache, I
+retired to my room at eight o'clock.
+
+Half an hour later a closed carriage was conveying me to the Hotel
+Victoria.
+
+From Prilukoff's hands I received a syringe, two tiny bottles, and a box
+filled with globules of curare, nitrate of amyl and chloroform. From his
+set gray lips I received instructions how to use these things. His teeth
+were chattering as well as my own; his hands were ice-cold and his eyes
+distraught.
+
+Then I fell on my knees at his feet. I implored him with all the
+strength of desperation to forego his abominable purpose. I reminded him
+of his past, of his unsullied youth, of the kind and generous love that
+had at first bound him to me; with tears streaming down my face I clung
+to his knees and swore to him eternal gratitude, eternal devotion, if
+only he would not stain my soul with crime, if only he would not ruin
+himself forever with so dark and vile a deed.
+
+I beat my forehead against his feet, entreating of him death for myself,
+but pity, pity for a generous, chivalrous man whose only wish was to
+protect and save me.
+
+What heaven-inspired words were granted me that I was able to move him?
+I cannot tell; but suddenly a great shudder went through him and
+agonized sobs shook his frame. He bent down and raised me. Then he sank
+into an armchair and wept aloud with uplifted face, a terrible spectacle
+of anguish and desolation.
+
+I also wept, kneeling beside him, kissing his hands, thanking him,
+blessing him.
+
+"Donat, dearest, do not weep! It has been all a dream--a fearful dream.
+We were ill--we were poor demented creatures. God will not remember it--He
+will cancel and forgive everything. Let us thank Him, Donat, for not
+permitting us to do harm to any one. Let us begin life all over again--a
+new, honorable life."
+
+"Ah, no," groaned Prilukoff. "I am a criminal. I have stolen!"
+
+"Never mind, never mind. You will give it all back. I will help you to
+give it all back. We must be prepared to face suffering and humiliation,
+but we shall atone; we shall take up our lives again, and retrieve and
+redeem the past."
+
+Even while I spoke I resolved that I would confess everything to
+Kamarowsky, and this thought filled me with joy. I would reveal to him
+the darkest recesses of my soul; I would confess the iniquitous
+treachery plotted against him, my every act of baseness and of shame. He
+would drive me from him in loathing, he would tread me under foot like
+some poisonous thing, but I would bow my head beneath his wrath and his
+disdain. I would go far away and live the rest of my life in humility
+and penitence. I would perhaps link my fate with that of Prilukoff, the
+degraded outcast ... yes, my penance should be to stay forever with him
+who inspired me now with so much horror and fear....
+
+Carried away by an ecstasy of feeling, we knelt down in that paltry
+hotel-room and thanked God for having opened our eyes, for having
+touched our hearts, for having saved us. Then praying aloud: "_Lord, let
+not our sins be counted against us_..." we broke the syringe and the
+phials of poison into a thousand fragments. Prilukoff tore the flesh of
+his hands as he snapped the hollow steel needle, which thrust itself
+into his palm like some fierce, living thing. "_Blot out our
+transgressions and remember not our iniquities_..." We trampled on the
+globules of amyl and chloroform, setting free the lethal vapors, which
+turned us giddy. Intoxicated with them and with our own emotions we fell
+once more on our knees, praying with uplifted hands: "_Deliver us from
+our sins_ ... _of Thy mercy save us_ ... _save us_..."
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+
+I remember that once in our childhood we were by the sea--I cannot tell
+in what country we were, nor what sea it was--and our English governess
+took us out one morning on the beach to see a tidal wave.
+
+"What is a tidal wave, Miss Williams?" we inquired.
+
+"Two or three immense waves which only come once a year," replied the
+sibylline Miss Williams. "Now keep quiet and look."
+
+We kept quiet and looked. And presently we thought we could see a huge
+wave, larger than all the others, coming towards us from the horizon.
+
+"Look! Look there! It is the tidal wave!"
+
+"No," said Miss Williams. "That is not it."
+
+And, indeed, presently there appeared a wave which was greater still--it
+reared its crest, towered aloft, and fell.
+
+"That was it! That was it!"
+
+But still farther away, on the line of the horizon, a mighty wave--a
+veritable wall of water--was approaching, formidable, gigantic,
+fabulous....
+
+That was the "tidal wave."
+
+In the course of my life, when events tragic and inexorable have raised
+their threatening billows above me and caught me in their crashing
+downfall, sweeping me like a piece of frail wreckage towards
+destruction, I have said to myself: "This is the tidal wave. Nothing
+worse can follow. Nothing more terrible than this can come upon me."
+
+But lo! behind that great wave of calamity another and still greater has
+followed, and still another and another--fabulous waves of tragedy and
+disaster.
+
+Thus it was that when I left Prilukoff that evening I thought that the
+tidal wave of my destiny had at last passed over me. Nothing more could
+crush and overwhelm me; before me stretched only the limitless levels of
+grief and remorse.
+
+But it was not so. Another--the last--wave of disaster was rearing itself
+like the fabulous wall of water of my childhood's recollections,
+carrying me on its crest, crashing down with me to irremediable ruin, to
+the fathomless abyss of crime.
+
+
+That very night Tioka fell ill. Elise came hurriedly into my room to
+call me. "Come at once, my lady. The young master is very ill. He is
+delirious and keeps talking to himself."
+
+I ran into the child's room. He was sitting up in bed, his wide eyes
+glowing in his fevered face. Where and when had I once before seen him
+like this?...
+
+His mind was wandering, and he talked incessantly--about Tania whom he
+had not seen or mentioned for the past two years, about his grandmother,
+and the old dog Bear. Then suddenly he asked for a picture and for some
+poetry. "Mama," he said, clinging to my neck, "say the poetry to me, the
+poetry--"
+
+"What poetry, oh, my darling, my darling?"
+
+"The poetry about the picture. Say it. Say it." He began to cry and
+tremble with his hot cheek close to mine.
+
+I racked my brain for a poem:
+
+    "This is the miller who lives in the mill,
+    The mill beside the river, oh!..."
+
+"No, no, no!" cried the child. "Not that!"
+
+I tried again:
+
+    "Brown-eyed Peter is going for a soldier;
+    Going for a soldier with his little turn-up nose..."
+
+"No, no, no!" shrieked Tioka despairingly. "Tania, Tania--the moon--the
+picture. Say it quickly!"
+
+A lightning flash seemed to tear the clouds of oblivion from my brain
+and illuminate the past. I was once more in Vassili's country house ...
+once more I entered the dim white nursery where my children, like two
+blonde seraphs, lay asleep.... A lamp hanging between the two little
+cots lit up an artless picture hanging on the wall--a rippling-haired
+Madonna standing in a star-lit sky, holding in her youthful arms the
+infant Jesus with a count's coronet on His head.
+
+Crying softly as I cradled my son's fair head upon my breast, I began:
+
+    "When little children sleep, the Virgin Mary
+    Steps with white feet upon the crescent moon...."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tioka grew worse. With glittering eyes and thin red cheeks he cried all
+day long that he wanted Grania--that he wanted Tania. But Grania had been
+sent away hurriedly for fear of infection--Count Kamarowsky's sister had
+come and taken him away--and Tania, alas! the gentle little Tania, far
+away in the castle of the Tarnowskys, had doubtless long since forgotten
+her brother Tioka and her heart-broken mother as well.
+
+The doctors shook their heads gravely as they stood by the tumbled cot
+in which the little boy tossed and moaned ceaselessly: "A train--a train
+is running over my head. Take it away! It hurts me, it hurts me..." And
+as they looked into his throat, which was dark red, almost purple in
+hue, they murmured: "Diphtheria? Scarlet fever?" Then they went away,
+conversing in low tones, leaving me beside myself with grief and terror.
+
+Kamarowsky watched with me night and day. Sometimes he fell asleep; and
+when I saw him sleeping, the old, unreasoning hatred for him stirred in
+my heart again.
+
+Prilukoff had left the Hotel Victoria, and had taken a room at the
+Bristol to be near us. Occasionally I saw him for a moment standing
+mournful and depressed outside my door. We looked at each other with
+anguish-stricken eyes, but we scarcely ever spoke. I had no thought for
+anything but Tioka.
+
+One night--the fourth since he had been taken ill--the child, who had been
+dozing for a few moments, awoke coughing and choking.
+
+"Mother, mother!" he gasped, fixing his large frightened eyes upon me.
+"Why do you let me die?" Then he closed his eyes again.
+
+I stood as if turned to stone. It was true. It was I, I who was letting
+him die. That idea had already flitted through my brain, but I had never
+dared to formulate the awful thought. As soon as he had fallen ill I had
+said to myself: "This is retribution. Did I not vow on Tioka's life?..."
+
+I saw myself again at the theater on the evening of "The Merry Widow,"
+and Prilukoff pointing to the child's angel head and whispering: "If you
+break your word, it is he who will pay for it."
+
+Yes; Tioka was paying for it. He was paying for the iniquitous vow that
+had been wrung from me that night at Orel when the three men pursued me
+in the darkness. With his revolver pressed against his temple Prilukoff
+had bidden me: "Swear!" Ah, why had I not let his fate overtake him? Why
+had he not pulled the trigger and fallen dead at my feet? Naumoff would
+have rushed in, and Kamarowsky would have broken in the door, and the
+whole of the triple treachery and fraud and dishonor would have been
+revealed; but, at least, I should have been free--free to take my child
+and wander with him through the wide spaces of the world. Whereas,
+coward that I had been, the fear of disgrace had vanquished me, and the
+threat of ignominy and death had dragged the inhuman vow from my
+lips.... And now Tioka was paying for it.
+
+The fierce primitive instinct of maternity awoke within me. Weakened by
+illness and wakefulness, my spirit lost itself again in the dark
+labyrinth of superstition. My frantic gaze passed from Tioka--lying wan
+and wasted on his pillows, gasping like a little dying bird--to
+Kamarowsky stretched out in an armchair, with his flaccid hands hanging
+at his sides and the corners of his mouth relaxed in sleep. I looked at
+him; I seemed to see him for the first time--this man to save whose life
+I was sacrificing my own child's. Yes, Tioka was dying in order that
+this stranger, this outsider, this enemy might live.
+
+When I turned towards Tioka again I saw that his eyes were open and
+fixed upon me. I fell on my knees beside him and whispered wildly:
+"Darling, darling, I will not let you die. No, my soul, my own, I will
+save you. You shall get well again and run out and play in the
+sunshine.... The other one shall die--but not you, not you! Now you will
+get well immediately. Are you not better already, my love, my own? Are
+you not better already?"
+
+And my boy, cradled in my arms, smiled faintly as my soft wild whispers
+lulled him to sleep.
+
+This idea now took possession of my brain, to the exclusion of all
+others. I thought and dreamed of nothing else. Tioka had scarlet fever
+and the fluctuations in his illness seemed to depend solely upon me.
+When I told myself that I was firmly, irrevocably resolved to compass
+the death of Kamarowsky, the child's fever seemed to abate, his throat
+was less inflamed, the pains in his head diminished. But if, as I grew
+calmer and clung to hope again, I hesitated in my ruthless purpose, lo!
+the fever seized him anew, the rushing trains went thundering over his
+temples, and his tender throat swelled until he could hardly draw his
+breath.
+
+Prilukoff followed the oscillations of my distracted spirit with weary
+resignation; he was benumbed and apathetic, without mind and without
+will. When in the fixity of my mania I insisted upon the necessity of
+the crime, he would answer languidly: "Oh, no. Leave it alone. Let
+things be."
+
+Then I grew more and more frenzied, weeping and tearing my hair.
+
+"Can you not understand that Tioka is dying? Tioka, my little Tioka is
+dying! And it is we who are killing him."
+
+"No, no," sighed Prilukoff. "Let things alone."
+
+Tioka grew worse.
+
+A day came when he could not see me or hear me--when he lay quite still
+with scarcely flickering breath. Then I rose as one in a dream. I went
+to Prilukoff's room.
+
+He sat listlessly by the window, smoking. I seized him by the arm.
+
+"Donat Prilukoff, I renew my oath. Paul Kamarowsky shall die within this
+year!"
+
+"All right, all right!" grumbled Prilukoff, wearied to exhaustion by my
+constant changes of mood. "Let us finish him once for all, and have done
+with it."
+
+I gasped. "Where? When? Is it _you_ who will--"
+
+Prilukoff raised his long, languid eyes. "Whatever you like," he said.
+Then he added in a spent voice: "I am very tired."
+
+And it was I who urged him, who pushed him on, who hurried him to think
+out and shape our plans. He was languid and inert. Sometimes he would
+look dully at me and say: "What a terrible woman you are." But I thought
+only of Tioka, and my eager and murderous frenzy increased.
+
+And behold! Tioka got better. This chance coincidence assumed in my
+diseased brain the character of a direct answer from heaven. The
+sacrifice had been accepted!
+
+A year later, when I stood before the judges who were to sentence me, no
+word of this delusion passed my lips. Demented though I was, I knew
+myself to be demented; I knew that this idea of a barter with heaven was
+an insensate idea; and yet, by some fallacy of my hallucinated brain, I
+believed--do I not even now believe it?--that my vow had been heard, that
+my word must be kept, that one life must be bought with the other.
+
+Even so, better, far better would it have been to let my child's white
+soul flutter heavenwards, than to retain it with my blood-stained hand.
+
+But at that time my one thought was to save him, even though for his
+life, not one, but a thousand others had been immolated.
+
+The day came when I was able to carry him in my arms from his cot to an
+easy chair beside the window. What a joy was that brief transit! His
+frail arms were round my neck and his head lay on my shoulder. With
+slow, lingering steps I went, loth to leave him out of my embrace.
+
+A sweet Italian verse came light and fragrant into my memory:
+
+    I thought I bore a flower within my arms...
+
+It was Prilukoff who reminded me with a cynical smile that the vow
+included also Nicolas Naumoff.
+
+Nicolas Naumoff! I had almost forgotten him. Nicolas Naumoff! Must he,
+this distant and forgotten stranger, also die?
+
+I cannot tell which of us it was who conceived the idea of making use of
+him as our instrument--of destroying him by making him a weapon of
+destruction, of murdering him by making him a murderer.
+
+The idea may have been mine. I feared that I could not rely upon the
+languid, listless Prilukoff. Yes; it must have been I who devised this
+method of propitiating the avenging Fates, and averting from us the
+imminent Nemesis.
+
+"A good idea," said Prilukoff wearily. "Let Naumoff do it." And he
+lighted a cigarette.
+
+I gazed at him, aquiver with superstitious dread. "Do you think that
+then Naumoff need not die? Do you think that"--I hesitated--"_that_ will
+be enough?..."
+
+Prilukoff turned and looked at me as if aghast. Then he nodded his head
+and the fearful, crooked smile distorted his countenance.
+
+"Yes," he said. "I think that will be enough."
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+
+To what end should I narrate anew the terrible story which is known to
+all? Must I dip again into the soilure and abomination of that awful
+time? How dare I tell of the luring telegrams sent to the distant
+Naumoff, my guileless and impassioned lover, and of the joy and
+gratitude with which he hastened to me? How describe the slow, insidious
+poisoning of his mind against Kamarowsky, the hatred subtly instilled in
+him against that unconscious, kindly man? And the lies, the slanders,
+the ambiguous disclosures of pretended outrages inflicted upon me, of
+insults and injuries I feigned to have suffered at Kamarowsky's
+hands?...
+
+Naumoff believed it all. His astonishment and indignation knew no
+bounds. What? Kamarowsky, whom he had always thought the most chivalrous
+and considerate of men, was a despicable, worthless coward? Well,
+Naumoff would challenge him; he would fight a duel to the death with him
+who had been his best friend.
+
+But not that, not that was what I wanted.
+
+Tioka recovered. Taller, thinner and paler, he came out once more into
+the sunshine, leaning on my arm, enraptured at everything, greeting
+every ray of light and every winged or flowering thing as if it were a
+new acquaintance.
+
+Not for an instant did I suffer my mind to waver. God, the terrible God
+of my disordered fancy, had accepted the compact, and it was now for me
+to carry it out.
+
+As soon as Tioka was well enough to travel, I sent him to Russia to some
+of our relations. While I was discharging my debt for his life, he must
+be far away.
+
+Then began the ghastly game, the sinister comedy with the three puppets,
+whose strings I held in my fragile hands. I had to tranquilize and
+disarm Kamarowsky; to kindle and fan the murderous fury of Prilukoff;
+and above all to enchain and infatuate Naumoff, so as to impel him to
+the crime.
+
+Ah, every art that Lilith, daughter of Eve and of the Serpent, has
+bequeathed to woman, every insidious perversity and subtle wile did I
+bring into play to charm and enamor this youthful dreamer. With every
+incitement did I lure and tempt him; with every witchery did I entangle
+him in the meshes of my perversity and in the whirlwind of my golden
+hair.
+
+I was indeed the modern Circe, weaving her evil spell. I was fervent and
+temerarious, full of exotic anomalies, eccentric, unexpected.... I
+delighted in causing him both pleasure and suffering in a thousand
+unnatural and outrageous ways; I cut my initials in his arm with the
+triangular blade of a dagger; I pressed my lighted cigarette upon his
+hand; I assumed all the absurdities, perversities and puerilities with
+which since time immemorial woman has decoyed and beguiled man, who,
+after all, is essentially a simple-minded and ingenuous being.
+
+Nicolas Naumoff was dazed and fascinated by all this strange hysteria
+and subtlety. He believed himself to be the hero of a fabulous
+passion--the incomparable conqueror of a wondrous and portentous love.
+
+There were times when I myself was carried away by this play of my own
+invention. Now and then I lost sight of the grim purpose of this process
+of seduction; I rejoiced in my own coquetries, and myself burned in the
+flame I had deliberately kindled.
+
+One evening as he knelt before me, pressing my cool hands against his
+fevered forehead, I bent over him with a smile.
+
+"Why do you love me so much?" I asked. "Tell me. Tell me the truth."
+
+He answered me gravely in a deep voice, enumerating the reasons on my
+fingers as he held them in his own.
+
+"I love you because you are beautiful and terrible. Because you have
+that white, subtle face, and that mouth that is like a greedy rose, and
+those long, cruel eyes ... I love you because you are different from all
+others, better or worse than all, more intelligent and more passionate
+than all." He was silent for a moment. "And also because you have forced
+me to love you."
+
+Yes. I had forced him to love me. And now he was what I wanted him to
+be--an instrument ready to my hand: a fierce and docile instrument of
+death, a submissive and murderous weapon.
+
+
+June crept warmly up from the south, and murmured of blue waters and
+dancing sunlight.
+
+"Mura, let us go to Venice," said Paul Kamarowsky one afternoon as he
+sat beside me on the balcony; "let us pass these last three months of
+waiting at the Lido. If needs be, I can take you back to Russia later
+on, to complete the few formalities that must precede our marriage."
+
+"To Venice?" I said faintly.
+
+Paul Kamarowsky smiled.
+
+    "_Ti guardo e palpito, Venezia mia,_"
+
+he quoted under his breath. And bending forward, he kissed my trembling
+lips.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+
+We prepared to leave. Naumoff's despair was puerile and clamorous. I
+entreated him to go back to Orel and wait for me there, and I promised
+him that I would soon return to Russia and see him again. As for
+Prilukoff, he awakened from his lethargy with the roar of a wounded wild
+beast. "To Venice! You are going to Venice with that man? Is that how
+you keep your vow?"
+
+"I will keep it, I will keep it," I cried. "But I said--it--it should be
+done within the year--this is only June--we can wait six months longer."
+
+"By that time you will be his wife," snarled Prilukoff between clenched
+teeth. "Unless it is done within the next three months you know it will
+never be done at all. Go your way," he jeered, "do as you like! Play
+fast and loose with fate as you have played fast and loose with me!" He
+turned and gripped my wrist. "But you will escape neither of us. Fate
+and I will overtake you, Marie Tarnowska, be it in Venice--or in hell!"
+
+We left for the Lido.
+
+And while, on the arm of my bethrothed, I wandered by the dancing
+waters, and the golden hours showered their light upon us, in my dark
+heart I prayed:
+
+"God, give me strength and ruthlessness! God, who didst guide the hand
+of Judith, fill my soul with violence and teach my hand to slay!"
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Prilukoff followed us to Verona. Then he came after us to Venice, where
+he took rooms in the same hotel, lurking in the corridors, shadowing us
+in the streets, pursuing me day and night with his misery and jealousy.
+Occasionally I saw him for a few moments alone, and then we would
+whisper together about the deed that was to be done, speaking feverishly
+in low quick tones like demented creatures. If I wavered, it was he who
+reminded me ruthlessly of my child and of my vow; if he hesitated, it
+was I who with the insensate perversity of madness urged him on towards
+the crime.
+
+One evening--ah, how well do I remember that radiant summer sunset
+beneath which the lagoon lay like a fluid sheet of copper!--he met me on
+the Lido. He was morose and gloomy. He took from his pocket a black
+crumpled package. It was Elise's old satchel--the "white elephant,"
+tattered, empty, dead.
+
+With a vehement movement he flung it into the water. Where it fell the
+sheet of copper shivered into a thousand splinters of red gold.
+
+"Empty?" I asked in a low tone.
+
+"Empty," he replied.
+
+"And now, what will you do?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. It was then that the idea came to him--the
+execrable, the nefarious idea.
+
+"Listen. As he"--with a movement of his head he indicated the absent
+Kamarowsky--"is doomed--I suppose he is doomed, isn't he?" he interposed.
+
+I assented in a barely audible whisper: "Yes."
+
+"Well, his--his disappearance may as well be of some use. Do you not
+think so?"
+
+Seeing the look of horror which I turned upon him, he continued: "For
+goodness' sake don't let us behave like romantic fools. We are not a
+pair of poetic assassins in a play, are we?"
+
+  [Illustration: UNDER ARREST]
+
+Gradually, by subtle pleading and plausible argument, he led my weak
+brain to view the idea with less horror. He assured me that we had not
+only the right but almost the duty to commit this enormity. According to
+him, it was not a shameful and disgraceful deed. No; it was a just,
+reasonable, logical thing to do.
+
+"Of course, it is not as if we were getting rid of a man simply in order
+to plunder him of his money. No, indeed. That would be vile, that would
+be abominable. But, given the necessity--the irrevocableness--of his fate,
+why should we not see to it that his death may at least be of some use
+to some one? Not to ourselves, remember. The money you get from him
+shall be used to serve a just purpose--to redress a wrong. We shall make
+restitution to those I have despoiled. I will pay back what I took from
+my clients to the very last farthing. And anything that is left over
+shall be given in charity to the poor. What do you say to that? We shall
+keep nothing for ourselves--nothing. Do you agree?"
+
+He went on to recall that among the clients he had defrauded was a widow
+with four little children; the thought of her, he said, had always
+worried him. It was good to think that she would recover every penny.
+
+The advocate in him awoke, eloquent and convincing, until he ended by
+assuring me that we should be performing a meritorious deed.
+
+Indignant at first, then uncertain, then reluctant, I was finally
+persuaded. Soon I heard myself repeating after him: "It will be a
+meritorious deed."
+
+Ah, if such beings as evil spirits exist, with what laughter must they
+have listened to our talk in that exquisite evening hour.
+
+It was Prilukoff who thought out the details and settled the plan.
+
+"You must get him to insure his life."
+
+"How can I?" I cried feebly and tearfully. "How can one possibly suggest
+such a thing?"
+
+"Leave that to me," said Prilukoff, reverting to his Moscow manner.
+
+Next day he showed me a letter written by himself in a disguised hand.
+
+"Open this letter when he is present, and when he insists on seeing it,
+show it to him ... reluctantly!"
+
+"But what if he does not insist?"
+
+"You must make him insist," said Prilukoff.
+
+
+The letter was brought to me in Kamarowsky's presence, and when he saw
+me turning scarlet and then pale as I opened it, he insisted on seeing
+what it contained.
+
+I showed it to him ... reluctantly.
+
+The letter was in Prilukoff's handwriting, but was signed "Ivan
+Troubetzkoi." The prince (whom I scarcely remembered, and whom I had not
+seen for more than six years) begged me to marry him, and as proof of
+his devotion offered to make a will in my favor and, in addition, to
+insure his life for half a million francs.
+
+Paul Kamarowsky was aghast.
+
+"Is everybody trying to steal you away from me, Mura?" he exclaimed
+brokenly; then he sat down on the sofa with his head in his hands. I
+gazed at him, feeling as if I should die with sorrow and remorse.
+
+For a long time he did not speak. Then he drew me to him.
+
+"Dear one, do not heed the offers of other people. No one, whether he be
+prince or moujik, can love you more than I do. No one will do more for
+you than I am willing to do. I, also, am ready to make a will in your
+favor; I, also, will insure my life for half a million francs."
+
+"No, no," I cried, crushed with misery and shame.
+
+"Oh, yes, I will. It shall be done immediately. To-day."
+
+
+And it was done.
+
+
+"You see?" cried Prilukoff triumphantly, "I am not quite a fool yet, am
+I? Hush now, don't cry. Remember that it is not for ourselves, but to
+make an honorable act of restitution."
+
+"But a hundred thousand francs would have been enough for that," I
+sobbed.
+
+"The other four hundred thousand we shall give to the poor," said
+Prilukoff. "It will be a meritorious deed."
+
+
+
+
+XL
+
+
+I remember that when I was a child I was taken to a fair and given a
+ride on a switchback railway. I was scarcely seated in the car, with the
+straps round my waist and the giddy track before me, than I cried to get
+out again. But the car was already moving forward, slowly gliding down
+the first incline.
+
+I screamed, writhing against the straps, "Stop! stop! I want to get out.
+I want to go back!" But now the car was rushing giddily, in leaps and
+bounds, down one slope and up another, whirling over bridges and gulfs,
+dashing down the precipitous declivity with ever-increasing speed.
+
+
+Even thus had I embarked, almost without realizing it, upon the rapid
+slope of crime. Impelled by my own madness, I had started on the
+vertiginous course to perdition, and now I plunged downwards, rolling,
+leaping, rushing into the darkness, without possibility of pause or
+return.
+
+
+It was Kamarowsky himself who begged me to leave Venice for Kieff, where
+some formalities still remained to be accomplished before our impending
+marriage. He offered to accompany me, but I declined. He resigned
+himself, therefore, though with reluctance, to allowing me to start
+alone with Elise.
+
+"Now," said Prilukoff, on the eve of my departure--and the transversal
+vein stood out like whipcord on his forehead--"let there be no more
+backing out and putting off. You will see Naumoff in Russia; send him
+straight back here. I'm sick of this business; let us get it over."
+
+I bowed my head and wept.
+
+Kamarowsky took me to the railway station, where I found the compartment
+he had reserved for me already filled with flowers. I thanked him with
+trembling lips.
+
+"In three weeks, my love," he said, "you will be back again, and then I
+shall not part from you any more." He kissed me and stepped down upon
+the platform, where he stood gazing up at me with smiling eyes. Many
+people stood near, watching us. I leaned out of the carriage window, and
+as I looked at him I kept repeating to myself: "This is the last time I
+shall see him! The last time!"
+
+It seemed strange and incongruous to see him there, with his usual
+aspect, making ordinary gestures and uttering commonplace remarks.
+Knowing as I did that he stood on the threshold of death, I wondered
+that he had not a more staid and solemn demeanor, slower, graver
+gestures and memorable words.
+
+Whereas he was saying, with a smile: "Mind you don't lose your purse;
+and remember to look after your luggage at the Customs. You will have
+the dining-car at Bozen." And then, looking about him: "Would you like
+some newspapers?" He hurried away after the newsvendor, and then counted
+his change and argued about a coin which he thought was counterfeit. He
+came back to my carriage door, handed me the newspapers, and with his
+handkerchief dried his forehead and the inside of his hat.
+
+"Fearfully hot," he said, looking up at me with a friendly laugh.
+
+All this seemed terribly out of keeping with the tragic situation of
+which, all unconsciously, he was the hero. I tried to say something
+tender and affectionate to him, but my agitation stifled me.
+
+"Mind you are good," he said, still smiling, and he threw a glance at
+some officers in the compartment next to mine.
+
+I heard the doors being shut and the guard calling out "_Partenza!_" My
+heart began to beat wildly. I felt as if once again I were strapped in
+the car on the switchback railway. I wanted to get out, to stop, to turn
+back. A whistle sounded and a gong was struck.
+
+"Well, Mura, _au revoir_," cried Kamarowsky, stretching up his hand to
+me. "A happy journey and all blessings."
+
+I leaned out as far as I could--the bar across the window hindered me,
+but I managed to touch his outstretched hand with the tips of my
+fingers.
+
+A spasm caught my throat. "Paul, Paul!" I gasped. "Oh, God, forgive me!"
+A shrill whistle drowned my voice as the train moved slowly forward.
+
+He must have seen the anguish in my face, for he cried anxiously:
+
+"What? What did you say?" Now he was running beside the train, which was
+beginning to go faster.
+
+I repeated my cry: "Forgive me! Forgive me!" and stretched out my arms
+to him from the window.
+
+He shook his head to show that he had not understood. The train was
+throbbing and hastening.
+
+He ran faster beside it. "What--what is it? What did you say?" But the
+train was gaining speed, and he was obliged to stop. He stood there,
+erect and solitary, at the extreme end of the platform, following with
+perplexed and questioning gaze the train that was carrying me away.
+
+It is thus always that I see him in my memory--a solitary figure, gazing
+at me with perplexed and wondering eyes.
+
+Surely it is thus, thus wondering and perplexed, that he must have
+looked in the face of death and treachery, on that summer morning when
+he was struck down by the hand of his friend.
+
+The switchback plunges downward in its mad race to the abyss--the end is
+near.
+
+At Kieff, as arranged, I meet Naumoff.
+
+I sob out my despair to him. Paul Kamarowsky must die. I give no reason,
+I explain nothing; I repeat unceasingly the three words: "He must die,"
+until there seem to be no other words in the world--until the universe
+seems to ring with those three words: "He must die!"
+
+Naumoff recoils from me, pale-faced and horrified. Then I drive him from
+me, crying: "Go, you are a coward. Let me never see you again!"
+
+"But why should he die?" cries Naumoff. "What has the poor man done to
+you?"
+
+Ah, what, indeed, has the poor man done?
+
+Ramblingly, incoherently, I try to explain to Naumoff; I tell him of
+Tioka and his illness, of my vow.... He listens amazed, without
+comprehending.
+
+"But Mura, Mura! This is delirium, this is madness. You are ill, you are
+out of your mind. How can such an insensate idea possess you? How can
+you imagine that God would demand such an iniquity?"
+
+Then I rack my brain for arguments that will convince him. I invent all
+manner of falsehoods; I repeat the tale of insults and outrages that I
+have endured at the hands of Kamarowsky; I accuse him of violence and
+brutality ... and even as I tell these mad stories they seem to myself
+to be true. I am thrilled by my own words; I tremble, I weep
+convulsively; and Naumoff, ever more pale, ever more bewildered, does
+not know what to believe.
+
+Continually, a dozen times a day, blind to all caution, reckless of all
+consequences, I send telegrams to Prilukoff--the telegrams that
+afterwards were found, and led to our arrest--"Berta refuses."
+(Prilukoff, I know not for what reason, had nicknamed Naumoff "Berta.")
+Then again: "Berta will do it." And again: "Berta irresolute. What am I
+to do?"
+
+Then seized by sudden panic: "Wait! Do no harm to any one. Advise me.
+Help me. I am going mad."
+
+Prilukoff telegraphs back his usual set phrase: "Leave it to me." And he
+forthwith proceeds to send me a number of telegrams, all of which
+contain a series of insults and taunts addressed both to Naumoff and to
+myself. He signs them "Paul Kamarowsky." Naumoff reads them in
+amazement, then in anger; finally he, too, becomes possessed of the idea
+of crime, obsessed by the frenzy of murder.
+
+How can I tell the terrible story further?... The gust of madness caught
+us in its whirlwind, dashing us round like leaves blown in a storm.
+
+One evening--it was a pale, clear twilight at the close of August--I
+sprang suddenly to my feet, and winding a black veil round my hair, I
+ran from my rooms and down the wide shallow flights of the hotel
+staircase. There were large mirrors on every landing. As I descended I
+saw at every turn a woman coming to meet me, a tall, spectral creature
+with a black veil tied round a white, desolate face ... her light, wild
+eyes filled me with fear, and I hurried forward to reach the hall, where
+I heard voices and music.
+
+Standing beside the piano in the vast lounge, two young girls were
+singing; they were English girls, and they sang, with shy, cool voices,
+a duet of Mendelssohn:
+
+  [Illustration: Fair Springtime bids the bluebells ring
+  Sweet chimes o'er vale and lea]
+
+Some distance away, listening to them with tranquil contentment on their
+peaceful faces, sat their parents--the father, a stern, stately old man
+with kindly eyes; the mother, gentle and serene, wearing the white lace
+cap of renunciation on her smooth gray hair. As I passed them with
+faltering step the mother turned and looked at me. What did she read in
+my face that wakened such a look of tenderness and pity in hers?... She
+smiled at me, and that smile seemed to stop my heart, so guileless was
+it, so maternal and so kind.
+
+For an instant a wild thought possessed me: to stop, to fall upon my
+knees before this gentle, unknown woman and implore her help.
+
+What if I cried out to her: "Help me, have pity upon me! I am an
+unhappy creature whom the Fates pursue.... I am distraught, I am
+demented--to-morrow I shall have murder on my soul. Keep me near you ...
+save me! Unless you help me I am lost...."
+
+But the Furies that pursued me laughed aloud and lashed me forward.
+
+And now Nicolas Naumoff, who had noticed my flight, came running down
+the staircase to follow me....
+
+I crossed the hall rapidly and went out into the dusk.
+
+  [Illustration: All in this merry morn of Spring,
+  Come out and dance with me.]
+
+
+
+
+XLI
+
+
+Through the twilight streets I hastened, and Naumoff followed, calling
+me by my name; but I did not answer him. Through the long Road of the
+Cross I hurried silently, and out through the Golden Gate, and on, down
+dusty solitary streets, past the Church of All Saints, until at last I
+stood before the cemetery where my mother is laid to rest.
+
+"Where are we going?" asked Naumoff. "Why have you come here?"
+
+But without answering him I threw a ruble to the gatekeeper and entered
+the silent pathways of the churchyard.
+
+The sky was still light in the west, but the paths were gloomy in the
+shadow of willow and cypress trees. Hastening on between the double rows
+of flower-decked graves, and the monuments that gleamed whitely in the
+twilight, I reached my mother's tomb. I knelt and kissed the great
+marble cross that stands so heavily above her frail brow. And the
+thought of her lying there, so desolate and alone, abandoned to the
+rains and the winds and the darkness of long dreadful nights, struck
+terror to my heart.
+
+"Speak to me, mother," I whispered to her. "Tell me what I am to do. You
+who know all--all about the vow and little Tioka, and the terrible things
+that are in my life--tell me, mother, must Paul Kamarowsky die?"
+
+My mother did not answer.
+
+"Tell me, tell me, mother! Is he to die?" My mother was silent. But the
+evening breeze passed over the delicate flowers, the lilies and
+campanulas which cover her grave; and they all nodded their heads,
+saying: "Yes, yes, yes."
+
+"Did you see?" I whispered to Naumoff.
+
+But he only looked at me with bewildered eyes. And I drew him away. "We
+must go quickly," I said.
+
+Now it was growing dark. I hastened along the winding narrow pathways
+until in a deserted corner I found what I was seeking: a neglected grave
+marked by a gray stone bearing a name and a date.
+
+As I gazed at that mound of earth, on which a long-since withered wreath
+spoke of forgetfulness, a wave of desolation swept over my heart. How
+sad and empty and useless was everything! Life and hope and love and
+desire--all empty, all unavailing....
+
+"Who is buried here?" asked Naumoff under his breath. He bent forward
+and read the name aloud: "_Vladimir Stahl._"
+
+Something stirred. Perhaps it was only the dry leaves of the withered
+wreath, but I was afraid--afraid that I should see Stahl suddenly move
+and rise up, covered with mold, to answer to his name.
+
+"Vladimir Stahl..." whispered Naumoff again, raising his haggard boyish
+face and gazing at me, "Mura, Mura, I see you encompassed by the dead."
+
+Doubtless he meant the tombs which spread around me in a livid
+semicircle; but to me it seemed that he could discern standing behind me
+all my dead--my mother and Stahl, and Bozevsky and little Peter.... I
+uttered a scream as I looked fearfully behind me.
+
+"Why do you scream?" gasped Naumoff; and he also turned and looked
+round. Then he pointed to the grave in front of us. "Who was this?" he
+asked in a low voice. "Did he love you?" His eyes flickered strangely.
+There was horror and lust and frenzy in the gaze he fixed upon me.
+
+I was silent.
+
+"Did he love you? Did he love you?" He pressed closer to me, with parted
+lips and quickening breath.
+
+Then I bent towards him, and a thrill such as I have never felt passed
+through me. "Swear--on the dead--that you will kill that man."
+
+"I swear it," he gasped. "Terrible woman that you are, I swear it."
+
+"Go," I whispered. "Go ... at once." But he sprang towards me and
+fastened his lips upon mine.
+
+Amid all the horrors that haunt my memory, all the spectral visions
+which drift darkly through the labyrinth of my life, that frenzied
+embrace among the tombs in the crepuscular cemetery, still rises before
+me--a ghost of darkness and of shame.
+
+He turned and left me. I heard his footsteps running along the gravel
+path, I saw his tall shadowy figure vanish in the gloom.... He was gone.
+
+I was alone in the nocturnal churchyard, alone by Stahl's desolate
+grave.
+
+"Nicolas Naumoff!" I cried. But no one answered me, and fear ran into my
+heart with thudding steps.
+
+I hurried forward, down the narrow path bordered with tombs and turned
+to the right, down another wider avenue among other endless rows of the
+dead.... Where was I? In which direction lay the gate?... I turned and
+ran back. I must find Stahl's grave again, and then go to the left
+through the unconsecrated burial-ground of those who had died by their
+own hand.... With shuddering breath I stumbled forward, but nowhere
+could I find the dreary field of the unshriven dead. Tall sepulchers and
+mausoleums loomed dimly on either side of me, limitless rows of
+tombstones and statues ... but Stahl's low, dreary mound was nowhere to
+be seen. Stay--behind the willows on the right, was that not the white
+cross standing on my mother's grave?... To reach it quickly I left the
+pathway and ran diagonally across the burial ground trampling the graves
+in my haste to reach that large cross shimmering in the gloom.... No, it
+was not my mother's grave. But further on, and further, other crosses
+glimmered and beckoned--and I ran on, crazed and terror-stricken,
+stumbling over mounds and hillocks, tripping in iron railings, trampling
+over flowers and wreaths ... until I fell in the darkness and lay
+unconscious and silent amid the silent and unconscious dead.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+A breath of soft morning air awoke me. I opened my eyes. Elise was
+bending over me with pale and anxious face. The room--my bedroom--whirled
+and swam before my dizzy sight.
+
+"Elise!"...
+
+Elise Perrier clasped her hands. "Thank God!" she murmured. "I feared
+you would never wake again." Her face worked strangely, and she burst
+into tears.
+
+"Elise--what has happened? What is to-day?" Before she could answer,
+another question sprang to my lips: "Where is Naumoff?"
+
+"He has left, my lady," whispered Elise in awestruck tones.
+
+"Left?" A long silence held us. "Left? Where has he gone?"
+
+Elise looked down at me with blanched and quivering countenance.
+
+"To Venice," she said in low tones.
+
+I started up. "To Venice?" To Venice! My memory darted to and fro like a
+child playing hide and seek. "Elise! Elise! Elise!" I stretched out my
+hands like one sinking and drowning in the darkness. Elise wept. I
+watched the strange faces that Elise always made when she wept: funny,
+pitiful grimaces with puckered brow and chin.
+
+"To Venice." My memory flickers like a feeble light, then blazes into
+sudden flames that sear my soul with fire. "Elise! He must be stopped.
+He must not reach Venice! Elise, stop him, stop him--!"
+
+"It is impossible, my lady."
+
+Yes, it is impossible.
+
+
+(_By this time the train which is carrying Naumoff on his mission of
+death has passed Warsaw and is hastening towards Brünn; hastening, ever
+hastening through the dawning hours and the noonday sunshine, hastening
+on into the twilight--and at dusk it rumbles and pants into the station
+at Vienna_.)
+
+
+I fall fainting back upon my pillows, and all through the day and the
+night I dream that I am speeding after the rushing train, catching up
+with it and losing it again, sweeping through the air, tearing along the
+unending rails, reaching it at last, and being struck down and crushed
+under its rolling wheels.
+
+Day dawns once more.
+
+"Elise, Elise, bring Naumoff back. Telegraph to him. Elise, for heaven's
+sake, bring him back!"
+
+"It is hopeless, my lady."
+
+Yes, it is hopeless.
+
+
+(_At this hour the train is hurrying from Bozen to Verona, from Verona
+to Vicenza, from Vicenza to Padua._)
+
+
+Night falls on my despair.
+
+
+"Elise, Elise! Where are you? What is the time?"
+
+"It is nearly dawn, my lady."
+
+"Elise, what day is this?"
+
+"It is the third day of September."
+
+The third day of September!
+
+"Elise," I scream suddenly, "Elise! Telegraph to Kamarowsky. Warn
+him.... Quickly, oh, quickly! Why, why did we not do so before?"
+
+"Hush, my lady, hush! You were delirious; you could only rave and weep."
+
+"Elise, Elise, telegraph to Kamarowsky...."
+
+"It is too late, my lady."
+
+Yes, it is too late.
+
+
+(_At this very hour of dawn the train has reached Venice. Nicolas
+Naumoff is hastening from the Riva degli Schiavoni, across the empty
+piazza and the deserted streets. He hails a gondola. "Campo Santa Maria
+del Giglio!"_
+
+_And the gondola, with soft plash of oar, glides slowly towards the
+doomed sleeper._
+
+_What dreams may the angel of rest have sent to him for the last time?
+Perhaps the tender vision of little Grania has gladdened him, while
+silent and inexorable in the closed gondola the youth with the golden
+eyes steals towards him through the mazes of the clear canals._
+
+"_Santa Maria del Giglio._"
+
+_Nicolas Naumoff springs from the gondola, crosses the empty Campo and
+reaches the house. He ascends the steps quickly, knocks, enters--and
+closes the door behind him._)
+
+
+Yes, it is too late.
+
+I hear myself shrieking with laughter as I fall back on my pillows. Soon
+I am surrounded by strangers who hold me down, who thrust opiates
+between my lips, who lay soothing hands and cooling compresses on my
+brow. Then I know nothing more.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Elise Perrier's terrified face surges out of the darkness: she is
+speaking quickly, she is bending over me, imploring and urging.... What
+does she say? She weeps despairingly, and ever through her tears she
+speaks, urging and imploring.
+
+Finally, in her thin arms, she drags me from my bed; she dresses me; she
+wraps a cloak about me, and hurries backwards and forwards with
+traveling-bags and satchels. Now we are in a carriage--no, we are in a
+train. Elise Perrier sits opposite me, with ashen face and her hands in
+gray cotton gloves tightly folded. Her lips move. She is praying.
+
+Suddenly I struggle to my feet: "_Paul!_..."
+
+As I scream the name Elise springs upon me, covering my mouth with her
+cotton glove, pressing my head to her breast. "Silence! hush, hush, for
+the love of heaven! They will hear you. Hush!"
+
+"Is he dead, Elise, is he dead?"
+
+"No, no, he is not dead," gasps Elise in a toneless whisper, "he is not
+dead. We are going to him. He is wounded ... he has been telegraphing to
+you for three days, begging you to come. And you would not move, you
+would not understand...." Elise is crying again.
+
+But perfect peace has descended into my soul. Paul is not dead. He
+lives! he lives! Nothing else matters but this--he lives.
+
+The train still rushes along, beating rhythmic time to many tunes that
+are in my head; I gaze out of the window, at the whirling landscape that
+swings past like a giant chess-board, at the telegraph wires that dip,
+and then ascend slowly and dip again. Hours pass or days pass.... And
+the train stops.
+
+Elise is hurriedly collecting cloaks and satchels.
+
+"Where are we, Elise? Are we in Venice?"
+
+"Not yet; not yet. We are in Vienna."
+
+As I step from the train, two men whom I do not know approach me. One of
+them asks me if I am the Countess Tarnowska. He has not taken his hat
+off, and I do not deign to reply.
+
+As I am about to pass him he lays his hand on my arm. The other man also
+comes forward, and, one on each side, they conduct me along the
+platform. I notice many people stopping to look at me.
+
+Nothing seems to matter. I do not remember why we are in Vienna, nor
+whither we are bound. I notice that it is a bright, hot day, and I feel
+that I am walking in a dream.... I find myself thinking of Vassili; I
+wish he would come, and send these men away and take me home. I shall be
+glad when I am at home with Vassili and the children and Aunt Sonia....
+Safely at home!
+
+  [Illustration: IN THE PRISON CELL]
+
+Then I remember--I have no home. I am a forsaken, demented creature whom
+Vassili cares for no longer. But where am I going? I am going to Paul
+Kamarowsky, who lives and loves me!... Again I weep with joy and
+thankfulness at the thought that Kamarowsky lives.
+
+Now I am in a carriage driving through the streets of Vienna; and the
+two strange men are still with me. They are taking me to a hotel. We
+arrive. I pass through a large doorway and along some passages. Then I
+notice that it is not a hotel. It is a vast, bare room with wooden
+benches round the wall. Some men in uniform stand at the door, and I
+notice that they do not salute me when I enter.
+
+Neither does an elderly man who is sitting at the desk rise or come to
+meet me. He looks at me steadily and asks me many questions; but I pay
+no heed to him. The windows are open; I can hear the sound of a piano
+very far away; somebody is practising a romance by Chaminade that I used
+to play at Otrada.... How sad a piano sounds when played by an unseen
+hand in the silence of a sunlit street!
+
+The man at the desk speaks in German to the uniformed men; they take my
+golden wristbag from me, and conduct me out of the bare room down a long
+passage. As I go slowly forward between the two men I notice that from
+the far end of the passage a group of people are coming towards us. In
+the center of the group walks a man, handcuffed and wearing his hat
+crookedly at the back of his head, as if placed there by some other hand
+than his own. _It is Prilukoff!_
+
+He sees me. A wave of livid pallor overspreads his face. Then he bends
+forward towards me and makes a movement with his lips, pressing them
+tightly together and shaking his head; he is trying to make me
+understand something. As they notice this the men at my side grasp my
+arm and make me turn quickly down another corridor. But I hear
+Prilukoff's voice shouting after me. He utters a Russian word: "Molci!"
+(Be silent).
+
+The men thrust me rudely into an empty cell. I sit down on a bench fixed
+in a corner under the small, barred window and lean my head against the
+wall. I feel neither unhappy nor afraid; only weary, unspeakably weary;
+and almost at once I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. Never since I
+was a child at Otrada have I known such perfect rest--such utter oblivion
+poured upon such limitless weariness.
+
+Suddenly my door is opened abruptly and one of the men enters; he takes
+me by the arm, and conducts me back to the large, bare room, where the
+elderly official still sits at his desk. And there, standing before him,
+I see Elise. She is weeping bitterly. I see her making those comical
+grimaces which always accompany her tears, as in Italy cheerful music
+accompanies a child's funeral. My mind--like a frightened bat that has
+flown into a room and darts hither and thither--flutters and plunges
+wildly through all my past life. I think of my mother, of little Peter,
+and of Bozevsky; I remember a pink dress I once wore here in Vienna, at
+a reception of the Russian Embassy.... I think of little Tioka and his
+days for saying "No." ... How far, how far away it all is! What a gulf
+of guilt and sorrow have my tottering footsteps traversed since then....
+But now--now I will climb tremblingly, devoutly, the steep road that
+leads back to safety; humbled to my knees I will pour out my thanks. For
+Paul Kamarowsky is saved; he lives and will recover!
+
+The man at my side is dragging me roughly forward. The elderly official
+at the desk has beckoned to me, and as I stand before him in a line with
+Elise he reads aloud from a sheet of foolscap. Suddenly I hear the
+words: "Complicity in the murder of Count Paul Kamarowsky...."
+
+The murder? _The murder!_
+
+Two of the uniformed men hold my arms.
+
+"But," I try to say, with chattering teeth, "Count Kamarowsky lives ...
+he will recover."
+
+The man replies, "Count Kamarowsky is dead."
+
+I laugh out loud. The car on the switchback rushes, whirls,
+plunges--falls with me to destruction.
+
+
+
+
+XLII
+
+    Like a dream within a dream.--POE.
+
+
+It was in the prison infirmary that I first heard the details of what
+had passed in the Villa Santa Maria del Giglio, on that fatal morning of
+August the 3rd. As the nursing sister sat beside me, renewing from time
+to time the cold bandages placed on my throbbing forehead, she told me
+in low tones the mournful and tragic story. I listened as if I were
+listening in a dream to the story of a dream.
+
+"When (she said) at early morning the Venetian servant-girl heard a
+knock at the door she went to open it, and a pale youth stepped quickly
+across the threshold. He asked for Count Kamarowsky, and bade the girl
+tell him that Nicolas Naumoff, of Orel, had arrived and desired to see
+him. The girl went to her master's door and knocked. He was awake and
+had risen. On hearing her message, he hurried out to meet his friend,
+for he loved him like a brother--"
+
+("Ah, sister, I know, I know! He loved him like a brother!")
+
+"When he saw Naumoff come in he went forward to meet him with open arms.
+The young man raised his hand and fired five shots point blank into his
+body. The Count fell to the ground; but even then he stretched out his
+arms to the young man and said: 'My friend, why have you done this to
+me? In what way have I ever harmed you?' The young man, with a cry as if
+he had awakened from a dream, flung himself on the ground at his feet.
+Then the wounded man showed him the balcony from which he might escape,
+and with fast-ebbing breath forgave him and bade him farewell."
+
+("Oh, sister, sister, with fast-ebbing breath he forgave him and bade
+him farewell!")
+
+"He was carried to the hospital, and the doctors wanted to give him
+chloroform while they probed the gaping, deep-seated wounds; but he
+would not take it. 'Do what you have to do without sending me to sleep,'
+he said. 'I shall have plenty of time to sleep--afterwards.' The doctors
+groped for the bullets in the lacerated flesh, and stitched up the five,
+deep-seated wounds.... When it was over he asked for you."
+
+("Sister, sister, he asked for me!")
+
+"He begged that you might be summoned quickly, and many telegrams were
+sent, but you neither came nor replied."
+
+("I neither came nor replied!")
+
+"On the third day he was better. He spoke to those around him, and again
+he asked for you, and hoped that you would come. In the hospital he was
+in the hands of an old and very famous surgeon; but alas! as Fate would
+have it--"
+
+("What? what? As Fate would have it--?")
+
+"As Fate would have it, the mind of this old and celebrated surgeon
+suddenly gave way. None knew that anything was amiss, as he stood that
+day at the bedside of the sufferer whom his skill had saved. He spoke to
+his assistants in the same calm, authoritative voice as usual, but he
+ordered that _the stitches should be taken out of the five wounds that
+were just beginning to heal_. Those around him recoiled in amazement.
+They were thunderstruck. But he repeated the disastrous order in the
+voice of one who is accustomed to command and to save lives that are in
+peril. Then--"
+
+("What then? What then?")
+
+"Then the assistants, doubting their own wisdom, but not that of the man
+who had been their master, obeyed, and reopened the five deep-seated
+wounds which were just beginning to heal. And again, as Fate would have
+it--"
+
+(Ah, Fate! The ghoul, the vampire Fate! She who has pursued me since my
+birth! She who has caught us and crushed us all in her torturing grip,
+splintering us like frail glass bubbles in her hand! Now she had entered
+the sick room of Paul Kamarowsky, had brooded over his bedside, and in
+fiendish pleasantry had scourged the old surgeon's brain with madness,
+whipping it to frenzy as a child whips a top, guiding his hand to tear
+the injured body and reopen the fast-healing wounds.)
+
+"As Fate would have it, the old surgeon gave other and still more
+dreadful orders. Ah, holy Virgin! how shall the horror be told?... When
+the bewildered assistants, aghast at what they had done, laid the
+sufferer back on his pillows, the slaying had been accomplished."
+
+("The slaying had been accomplished!")
+
+"With his last breath he called upon your name."
+
+("With his last breath he called upon my name!")
+
+  [Illustration: THE PENITENTIARY AT TRANI]
+
+
+
+
+XLIII
+
+        E son quasi a l'estremo.
+    Luce degli anni miei, dove se' gita?
+
+                              CARDUCCI.
+
+
+If I were to be asked to name the darkest hour of my dark life, well do
+I know which of all my gloomy memories would raise its spectral face.
+
+Not the terror-haunted hours of madness and crime, not the
+anguish-stricken nights passed at the bedside of those I loved, not my
+own life-struggles with the monsters of disease and dementia, tearing at
+the very roots of my life--no, the darkest hour of my life was that
+glorious summer morning in Venice, when I was brought from the prison of
+La Giudecca to attend my trial at the Criminal Court. The sun flung a
+sparkling net of diamonds athwart the blue waters of the lagoon, and the
+gondola bore me with peaceful splash of oar over the dancing waters. The
+gondolier steadied the swaying skiff at the wave-kissed steps, and I
+rose, drawing my veil about me, to disembark.
+
+As I placed my foot on the steps--how often before, in happier days, had
+I thus stepped from my gondola, greeted and smiled upon by the kindly
+Venetian idlers!--I lifted my eyes. A crowd had assembled at the top of
+the steps and thronged the piazza. They stood in serried ranks, menacing
+and silent, leaving a narrow pathway for me to pass. I faltered and
+would have stepped back, but the carabinieri at my side held my arms and
+impelled me forward. At that moment some one in the crowd--a
+woman--laughed. As if that sound had shattered the spell that held them
+mute, the mob broke into a tumult of noise, a storm of hisses and cries,
+shrieks and jeers, hootings and maledictions, while, rising above it and
+more cruel than all, was the laughter, the strident, mocking laughter
+that accompanied my every step and gesture.
+
+And there, tall and motionless in the midst of the laughing, hissing,
+shrieking mob, stood my father, his white hair stirring in the breeze,
+his eyes--the proud blue O'Rourke eyes--fixed upon me.
+
+
+Oh, father, father whose heart I have broken, in that hour I paid the
+wages of my sin. Not these dark years of imprisonment, not the mantle of
+ignominy that clothes me with eternal defilement, not the gloomy
+solitude in which I see the gradual fading of my youth, not the horror
+of the past, nor the hopelessness of the future--not these are the
+deadliest of my punishments; but the memory of your white hair in the
+crowd that hissed its hatred, and laughed its contempt of your daughter,
+and the jeers that greeted you, and the rude hands that jostled you when
+you stepped forward and laid your hand in blessing on my degraded head.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Marie Tarnowska is silent. Her story is told.
+
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE
+
+
+The verdant landscape of Central Italy swings past the train that
+carries me homeward. The looped vines--like slim green dancers holding
+hands--speed backwards as we pass. Far behind me lies the white prison of
+Trani; and the memory of Marie Tarnowska and of her sins and woes drifts
+away from me, like some shipwrecked barque, storm-tossed and sinking,
+that I have gazed upon, powerless to help.
+
+The long summer day is drawing to its close; above the Apennines where
+the sky is lightest the new moon floats like a little boat of amber on
+an opal sea. Like a fragment of a dream the song returns to my memory,
+the childish song of which I have never heard and shall never hear more
+than the first two lines:
+
+    When little children sleep, the Virgin Mary
+    Steps with white feet upon the crescent moon...
+
+As the train carries me homeward, back to the joys of life and love and
+freedom, back to the welcome of friends and the safety of a sheltered
+hearth, I think once more of her whom I have left in the gloom of her
+prison cell.
+
+Soon, very soon, the hour of her release will strike, and the iron doors
+that have guarded her will open wide to let her pass.
+
+What then, what then, Marie Tarnowska?
+
+Who will await you at the prison gate? Surely Grief, Scorn, and Hatred
+will be there. But by your side I seem to see a guardian spirit,
+shielding your drooping head with outstretched wings. It is the sister
+of lost Innocence--Repentance; and in her wake comes the blind singer,
+Hope.
+
+
+
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note
+
+Original spelling, even where inconsistent, and punctuation have been
+preserved.
+
+Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIE TARNOWSKA***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 43058-8.txt or 43058-8.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/3/0/5/43058
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/43058-8.zip b/old/43058-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1eb9ccc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-8.zip
diff --git a/old/43058-h.zip b/old/43058-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1458114
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-h.zip
diff --git a/old/43058-h/43058-h.htm b/old/43058-h/43058-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e593622
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-h/43058-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,14469 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
+"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Marie Tarnowska, by Annie Vivanti</title>
+ <style type="text/css">
+body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+
+p {margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: 0em; line-height: 1.2;}
+.blockquote {margin: 1.5em 5%; font-size: 95%;}
+p.indl {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%;}
+p.indr {text-align: right; margin-right: 5%;}
+.center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0;}
+
+div.titlepage {text-align: center; margin: 2em 5%; padding-bottom: 2em; page-break-before: always; page-break-after: always;}
+div.verso {text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; font-size: 95%;}
+div.somm {page-break-before: always; padding-top: 3em;}
+div.chapter {page-break-before: always; padding-top: 3em;}
+div.chapter h2 {page-break-before: avoid;}
+
+h1,h2 {text-align: center; font-style: normal;
+font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.5;}
+h1 {font-size: 200%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 0;}
+h2 {font-size: 140%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 2em;}
+h2.left {text-align: left; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+
+hr {width: 70%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;}
+hr.tiny {width: 10%;}
+hr.tbs {width: 20%; margin: 1em auto; visibility: hidden;}
+
+.pagenum  {position: absolute; right: 5%; font-style: normal;
+  font-weight: normal; font-size: 65%; text-align: right; color: #999999;
+  background-color: #ffffff; clear: left;}
+
+.spaced4 {margin-left: 4em;}
+.spaced1 {margin-left: 1.5em;}
+.spacer6 {margin-right: 6em;}
+
+.pad4 {margin-top: 4em;}
+.pad2 {margin-top: 2em;}
+
+.dots {text-align: center; letter-spacing: 1em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-size: 120%;}
+
+.small {font-size: 85%;}
+.large {font-size: 115%;}
+.x-large {font-size: 130%;}
+.xx-large {font-size: 150%;}
+.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+table {margin: auto;}
+#loi {width: 80%; line-height: 1em; margin-top: 2em;}
+#loi td {text-align: left; vertical-align: top; margin-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;}
+#loi td.pag {text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;}
+
+#coverpage {text-align: center; margin: 3em auto;}
+.figcenter {text-align: center; margin: 1em auto;}
+.caption {text-align: center; font-size: 85%; text-indent: 0; margin: 0.25em 0;}
+
+@media handheld, print
+{
+  .listen-music {display: none;}
+}
+
+.tnote {background-color: #F5F5DC; color: #000; padding: 1em 1em 2em 1em;
+  margin: 3em 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 90%; page-break-before: always;}
+.tntitle {text-align: center; text-indent: 0; padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;}
+.tnote p {padding: 0 1em;}
+
+.poem {text-align: left; font-size: 95%; margin: 1.5em 10%}
+.stanza {margin: 1em auto;}
+.poem p {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+.poem p.i2 {text-indent: -1em;}
+.poem p.i6 {text-indent: 6em;}
+
+h1.pg { font-weight: bold;
+line-height: 1;
+font-size: 190%;
+margin-top: 0em; }
+    hr.full { width: 100%;
+              margin-top: 3em;
+              margin-bottom: 0em;
+              margin-left: auto;
+              margin-right: auto;
+              height: 4px;
+              border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */
+              border-style: solid;
+              border-color: #000000;
+              clear: both; }
+    </style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Marie Tarnowska, by Annie Vivanti</h1>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a
+href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></p>
+<p>Title: Marie Tarnowska</p>
+<p>Author: Annie Vivanti</p>
+<p>Release Date: June 29, 2013  [eBook #43058]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIE TARNOWSKA***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4 class="center">E-text prepared by Carlo Traverso, Barbara Magni,<br />
+    and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br />
+    from page images generously made available by<br />
+    Internet Archive<br />
+    (<a href="http://archive.org">http://archive.org</a>)</h4>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10">
+  <tr>
+    <td valign="top">
+      Note:
+    </td>
+    <td>
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      <a href="https://archive.org/details/marietarnowskawi00vivauoft">
+      https://archive.org/details/marietarnowskawi00vivauoft</a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a id="fmarie"></a>
+  <img src="images/marie.jpg"
+  alt="" />
+<p class="caption">MARIE NICOLAEVNA TARNOWSKA</p>
+</div>
+
+<div id="coverpage">
+  <img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Copertina" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="titlepage">
+<h1>
+MARIE TARNOWSKA
+</h1>
+
+<p class="xx-large">
+By A. VIVANTI CHARTRES
+</p>
+
+<p class="x-large">
+WITH AN INTRODUCTORY LETTER<br />
+BY PROFESSOR L. M. BOSSI OF THE<br />
+UNIVERSITY OF GENOA
+</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="pad4 large">
+PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO.<br />
+NEW YORK      <span class="spaced4">MCMXV</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="verso">
+<p>
+Copyright, 1915, by<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Century Co.</span>
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tiny" />
+
+<p>
+<i>Published, October, 1915<br />
+All rights reserved</i>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_v"></a>[v]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2 class="left">
+PREFATORY NOTE
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+On the morning of September 3rd, 1907, Count
+Paul Kamarowsky, a wealthy Russian nobleman,
+was fatally shot in his apartments on the Lido in
+Venice by an intimate friend, Nicolas Naumoff,
+son of the governor of Orel. The crime was at
+first believed to be political. The wounded man
+refused to make any statement against his assailant,
+whom he himself had assisted to escape from
+the balcony to a gondola in waiting below.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Count Kamarowsky was taken to a hospital, and
+for three days his recovery seemed assured; but
+the chief surgeon, in a sudden mental collapse—he
+has since died in an insane asylum—ordered
+the stitches to be removed from the fast-healing
+wounds, and Count Kamarowsky died in great
+agony a few hours later. His last words were a
+message of love to his betrothed at Kieff, a beautiful
+Russian woman, Countess Marie Tarnowska.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In her favor Count Kamarowsky had, shortly
+before his death, made a will and also insured his
+life for the sum of £20,000.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A number of telegrams from this lady were
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vi"></a>[vi]</span>
+found addressed to a Russian lawyer, Donat
+Prilukoff, who had been staying at the Hotel
+Danieli in Venice until the day of the murder.
+Both this man and the Countess Tarnowska were
+arrested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a sensational trial they were found guilty
+of instigating the young Nicolas Naumoff to
+commit the murder. Countess Tarnowska was
+sentenced to eight years' imprisonment in the
+penitentiary of Trani; Prilukoff was condemned
+to ten years' penal servitude; while Naumoff himself
+was liberated in view of his having undergone
+two years' incarceration while awaiting his trial.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vii"></a>[vii]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2 class="left">
+TO THE AUTHOR
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+<i>Signora:</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Not only as the medical expert for the defense at
+the trial of the Countess Tarnowska, but as one
+who has made it his life-work to investigate the
+relation in women between criminal impulse and
+morbid physical condition, I cannot but feel the
+keenest interest in this book, in which you set forth
+the problem of wide human interest presented by
+the case of the prisoner of Trani.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>When first I suggested to you that you should
+write this book—which (apart from its interest as
+dealing with a</i> cause célèbre <i>whose protagonists
+are still living and well known in European society)
+might bring into wider knowledge doctrines
+that modern physiologists and psychologists are
+endeavoring to diffuse—you reminded me that the
+medical elements of the problem could not in such
+a work be discussed or even clearly stated. This,
+of course, is true, and the significance of certain
+indications scattered through these pages will
+doubtless be lost upon those who are not familiar
+with such matters. Nevertheless, it was important
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_viii"></a>[viii]</span>
+that the book should be written, for if after her
+release and appropriate medical treatment the
+Countess Tarnowska is restored, as many of us
+confidently anticipate, to the complete sanity of
+moral well-being, your book in the light of that essential
+fact will have fulfilled a notable mission.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>It will have helped to bring home to the general
+consciousness the knowledge, hitherto confined to
+the scientific few, that moral obliquity in women is
+in most cases due to pathological causes comparatively
+easy of diagnosis and of cure; that a woman-criminal
+may be morally redeemed by being
+physically healed; and that just as alcoholism,
+typhus, pyemia or other modes of toxic infection
+may result in delirium and irresponsibility, so certain
+forms of disease in women, by setting up a
+condition of persistent organic poisoning, may and
+very often do conduce to mental and moral aberration
+and consequent crime.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Your book, Signora, contains a truthful exposition
+of a group of psychic values with which physicians
+and psychopathists are concerned, and I
+believe that eventually it will promote the realization
+that even in the darkest regions of moral
+degradation it is possible for science to raise the
+torch of hope. Thus, though appealing for the
+moment to the interest of the general reader, it will
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ix"></a>[ix]</span>
+ultimately constitute a significant document in the
+history of the evolution of pathological science.</i>
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a id="fbossi"></a>
+  <img src="images/bossi.jpg"
+  alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="small">
+Genoa,<br />
+  <span class="spaced1">January 12th, 1915.</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_x"></a>[x]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2 class="left">
+TO THE READER
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+This book is not written to plead Marie Tarnowska's
+cause. The strange Russian woman
+whose hand slew no man, but whose beauty drove
+those who loved her to commit murder for her
+sake, will soon have ended her eight years' captivity
+and will come forth into the world once more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have not sought in any way to minimize her
+guilt, or attenuate her responsibility for the sin
+and death that followed in her train. Though she
+must be held blameless for the boy Peter Tarnowsky's
+tragic fate and even for Dr. Stahl's suicide,
+yet Bozevsky's death, Naumoff's downfall
+and the murder of Count Kamarowsky will forever
+be laid at her door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have tried to convey to the cool, sober mind
+of the Anglo-Saxon reader—to whom much of this
+amazing story of passion and crime may appear
+almost incredible—that sequence of tragic events
+which brought Marie Nicolaevna to her ruin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Weighted by a heritage of disease (her mother
+was a neurasthenic invalid and two of her aunts
+are even now confined in an insane asylum in
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xi"></a>[xi]</span>
+Russia), she was married when still on the threshold
+of girlhood and swept into the maëlstrom of a
+wild life—a frenzied, almost hallucinated, existence
+such as is led by a certain section of the
+Russian aristocracy, whom self-indulgence drives
+to depths of degeneracy hardly to be realized by
+the outside world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the birth of her child, Tania, Marie Tarnowska's
+fragile health broke down completely,
+and the few years preceding the tragedy which led
+to her arrest were spent traveling through Europe
+in a feverish quest of health or at least of oblivion
+of her sufferings. According to such medical authorities
+as Redlich, Fenomenof, Rhein, Bossi, and
+many other eminent gynecologists and alienists,
+she is, and has been for some years past, suffering
+from a slow form of blood poisoning which affects
+the nervous centers and the brain, and which—as
+I myself had a painful opportunity of witnessing
+when I saw her in prison—causes periodic cataleptic
+seizures that imperil her life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was by one of her medical advisers, Professor
+Luigi Bossi, of the University of Genoa, that the
+idea of this book was first given to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was called as an expert for the defense at
+the Venice trial,� said the Professor, “and I was
+grieved and indignant at the heavy sentence inflicted
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xii"></a>[xii]</span>
+upon this unhappy woman. Marie Tarnowska
+is not delinquent, but diseased; not a
+criminal, but an invalid; and her case, like that of
+many other female transgressors, is one for the
+surgeon's skill and the physician's compassionate
+care, not for the ruthless hand of the law. Indeed,�
+the illustrious Professor continued, “it is
+becoming more and more a recognized fact that
+many cases of criminality in woman have a physical,
+not a moral origin. By her very mission—maternity—woman
+is consecrated to pain; and
+whereas by nature she is a creature of gentleness
+and goodness, the effect of physical suffering, of
+ailments often unconfessed—nay, often unrealized
+by herself—is to transform her into a virago, a
+hypochondriac, or a criminal. Then our duty is
+to cure her, not to punish her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It may be merely a question,� he explained,
+“of a slight surgical intervention; sometimes even
+brief medical treatment is sufficient to save a
+woman's life and reason. The wider knowledge
+of this simple scientific fact in the social life of our
+time would redeem and rehabilitate thousands of
+unfortunate women who people the prisons and
+the madhouses of the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“As for the unhappy Countess Tarnowska,�
+added Professor Bossi, “the Venetian tribunal refused
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xiii"></a>[xiii]</span>
+to regard her as a suffering human being,
+but flung her out of society like some venomous
+reptile. Read these notes that she wrote in
+prison,� he said, placing in my hand a book of
+almost illegible memoranda. “If they touch your
+heart, then do a deed of justice and generosity.
+Go to the penitentiary of Trani, see the prisoner
+yourself, and give her story to the world. So will
+you perform an act of humanity and beneficence
+by helping to diffuse a scientific truth in favor,
+not of this one woman alone, but of all women.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After glancing through the strange human document
+he had given me I decided to do what he
+asked; for, indeed, from those poor, incoherent
+pages there seemed to rise the eternal cry of suffering
+womanhood—the anguished cry of those
+that perpetuate the gift of life—which no sister-soul
+can hear unmoved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus it was that my mind was first directed to
+the theme of this book and that I undertook the
+task—fraught with almost insuperable difficulties—of
+breaking down official prohibitions and reaching
+the Russian captive in her distant Italian
+prison.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now that I have been brought face to face
+with that strange and mournful figure, now that
+I have heard her story from her own pale lips, I
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xiv"></a>[xiv]</span>
+am moved by the puissant impulse of art, which
+takes no heed of learned theory or ethical code,
+to narrate in these pages the profound impression
+made upon me by that tragic personality, by the
+story of that broken life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have endeavored to do so with faithfulness,
+exaggerating nothing, coloring nothing, extenuating
+nothing. It will be for the pontiffs of science
+and morals to achieve the more complex task of
+drawing conclusions and establishing theories that
+may one day diminish injustice and suffering in
+the world.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indr">
+<span class="smcap">A. Vivanti Chartres.</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xv"></a>[xv]</span>
+</p>
+
+<div class="somm">
+<p class="center x-large">
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+</p>
+
+<table id="loi" summary="">
+ <tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td> <td class="pag"><i>Facing page</i></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td>MARIE NICOLAEVNA TARNOWSKA</td> <td class="pag"><a href="#fmarie"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td>A PAGE FROM MARIE TARNOWSKA'S NOTE-BOOK</td> <td class="pag"><a href="#f6">6</a></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td>COUNT O'ROURKE</td> <td class="pag"><a href="#f20">20</a></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td>COUNT PAUL KAMAROWSKY</td> <td class="pag"><a href="#f180">180</a></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td>I STEPPED OUT UPON THE BALCONY</td> <td class="pag"><a href="#f194">194</a></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td>UNDER ARREST</td> <td class="pag"><a href="#f268">268</a></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td>IN THE PRISON CELL</td> <td class="pag"><a href="#f292">292</a></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td>THE PENITENTIARY AT TRANI</td> <td class="pag"><a href="#f300">300</a></td>
+ </tr>
+</table>
+<hr />
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="center xx-large">
+MARIE TARNOWSKA
+</p>
+
+<h2 class="pad2">
+I
+</h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p><i>Ed or, che Dio mi tolga la memoria.</i></p>
+<p class="i6">                      <span class="smcap">Contessa Lara.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+The verdant landscape of Tuscany swung past
+the train that carried me southward. The looped
+vineyards—like slim, green dancers holding hands—fled
+backwards as we passed, and the rays of
+the March sun pursued us, beating hotly through
+the open windows on the dusty red velvet cushions
+of the carriage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon the train was throbbing and panting out
+of Pisa, and the barefooted children of the Roman
+Campagna stood to gaze after us, with eyes soft
+and wild under their sullen hair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Since leaving the station of Genoa I had seen
+nothing of the fleeting springtide landscape; my
+gaze and thoughts were riveted on the pages of
+a copy-book which lay open on my knee—a
+simple school copy-book with innocent blue-lined
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span>
+sheets originally intended to contain the carefully
+labored scrawls of some childish hand. A blue
+ornamental flourish decked the front; and under
+the printed title, “Program of Lessons,� the
+words “History,� “Geography,� “Arithmetic,�
+were followed by a series of blank spaces for the
+hours to be filled in. Alas, for the tragic pupil to
+whom this book belonged, in what school of horror
+had she learned the lesson traced on these
+pages by her slim, white hand—the fair patrician
+hand which had known the weight of many jewels,
+the thrill of many caresses, and was now held fast
+in the merciless grip of captivity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I turned the page: before me lay a flow of pale
+penciled words in a sloping handwriting. At
+every turn the flourish of some strange seignorial
+name met my eye: long Russian names of prince,
+of lover or of murderer. On every page was the
+convulsion of death or the paroxysm of passion;
+wine and morphia, chloral and cocaine surged
+across the pallid sheets, like the wash of a nightmare
+sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the midst of those turbid billows—like
+some ineffable modern Aphrodite—rose the pale
+figure of Marie Nicolaevna Tarnowska.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+The first words—traced by her trembling hand
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span>
+in the prison at Venice—are almost childish in
+their simplicity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When I was eight years old, I fell ill with
+measles and almost lost my eyesight. I wore blue
+spectacles. I was very happy. My mother loved
+me very much; so did my father. So did the servants.
+Everybody loved me very much.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I pause in my reading, loth to proceed. I wish
+I could stop here with the little girl whom every
+one loved and who gazed out through her blue
+spectacles at a rose-colored world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah! Marie Nicolaevna, had your luminous eyes
+remained for all time hidden behind those dim
+blue glasses, no one to-day would raise his voice
+in execration of you, nor call anathema upon your
+fair bowed head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But when the little Russian countess was twelve
+years old an oculist from Kieff ordered that her
+eyes should be uncovered, and “Mura,� as her
+parents fondly called her, looked out upon the
+world with those clear light eyes that were one
+day to penetrate the darkest depths of crime.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I continue to read without stopping. The serried
+pages, scrawled feverishly and hurriedly in
+the cells of La Giudecca in defiance of prison rules,
+are in thin handwriting, with names and dates
+harshly underlined; but here and there whole
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span>
+sentences are struck out, as if the writer's memory
+wavered, or her feelings altered as she
+wrote.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Immediately, on the very first page, the bold
+figure of young Vassili Tarnowsky confronts us:
+the radiant, temerarious lover, who came to woo
+her in her marveling adolescence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“His voice thrilled the heart like the tones of
+a violoncello; in his eyes were the lights of heaven,
+in his smile all the promises of love. I was already
+seventeen years old, and wise beyond my
+years. But, sagacious as I thought myself, I could
+never believe anything that was told me against
+Vassili. My eyes saw nothing but his beauty. On
+the twelfth day of April I ran away from home
+with him; and we were married in a little church
+far away on the desolate steppes. I never thought
+that life could hold such joy.�
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a id="f6"></a>
+  <img src="images/6.jpg"
+  alt="" />
+<p class="caption">A PAGE FROM MARIE TARNOWSKA'S NOTE-BOOK</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+But on the very next page we come face to face
+with the astounding list of Vassili's perfidies: a
+musical enumeration of feminine names which
+rings the knell of his child-wife's happiness. “I
+never thought,� writes Marie Tarnowska simply,
+“that life could hold such sorrow.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Further on there are gaps and incoherences;
+here and there a passing efflorescence of literary
+phrase, or a sudden lapse into curt narrative, as
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span>
+if a wave of apathy had suddenly submerged the
+tragic heroine and left in her place only a passive
+narrator of fearful events. Now and then even
+a note of strident humor is struck, more poignant,
+more painful than pathos.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ever and anon there appears throughout the
+funereal story—as if smiling out through the window
+of a charnel-house—the innocent face of a
+child: Tioka. He is all bright curls and laughter.
+Unaware of the carnage that surrounds him, he
+runs with light, quick feet through pools of blood
+to nestle in the gentle maternal breast which for
+him is all purity and tenderness.
+</p>
+
+<p class="dots">········</p>
+
+<p>
+As I read on and on the writing trembles and
+wavers, as if the hand and the heart of the writer
+wearied of their task. With a sudden break the
+sad story closes, unfinished, incomplete.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I could tell of the tears I have shed, if I
+could describe the anguish I have suffered, I am
+sure that pity would be shown to me. Surely if
+the world knew of my torment and my sufferings—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nothing more. Thus abruptly the tragic manuscript
+ends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The train slackens speed, falters, shivers—stops.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span>
+I am at Trani; at the furthermost end of
+Italy; almost beyond civilization; almost out of
+the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon I shall see before me the woman I have
+come so far to seek: the woman who never gave
+the gift of love without the gift of death.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+The high white walls of the penitentiary glared
+down in the blazing southern sun. The languid
+Adriatic trailed its blue silken waters past the
+barred windows. I raised the heavy knocker; it
+fell from my hand with a reverberating clang,
+and the massive prison-door opened slowly before
+me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Mother Superior and two gentle-looking
+Sisters fluttered—black and white and timid as
+swallows—across the sunlit courtyard. They
+were expecting me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She whom you seek is in the chapel,� said the
+Mother Superior, in a low voice. “I will call
+her!� She left us. The two Sisters accompanied
+me up a broad stone staircase to a small
+waiting-room. Then they stood quietly beside
+me; and when I looked at them, they smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the silence that followed I could hear
+women's voices singing in the prison chapel, simple,
+untutored voices, clear and shrill:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span>
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p>“Kyrie eleison</p>
+<p>Christe eleison...�</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+and the low notes of the organ rolled beneath the
+treble voices, full and deep;
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p>“Mater purissima</p>
+<p>Mater inviolata...�</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+“Number 315—that is the Countess Marie,�
+said one of the two Sisters, “plays the organ for
+the other prisoners. She plays every day at noon
+and evensong.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And at four o'clock in the morning,� added
+the other Sister.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(How far, how far away, Marie Nicolaevna, are
+the passionate days of Moscow, the glowing, unslept
+nights of Venice!)
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p>“Rosa mystica</p>
+<p>Stella matutina...�</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly the music ceased and we stood waiting
+in the hot, white silence. Then the door opened,
+and on the threshold stood Marie Tarnowska—the
+murderess, the devastating spirit, the Erinnys.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+II
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+Tall and motionless in her fearful striped dress
+she stood, gazing at me with proud clear eyes;
+her brow was calm and imperious under the humiliating
+prisoner's coif, and her long hands—those
+delicate hands whose caresses have driven
+men to commit murder for her sake—hung loosely
+at her side. Her mouth, curving and disdainful,
+trembled slightly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Signora,� I began. Her lips wavered into a
+faint smile as with a quick downward sweep of her
+eyelashes she indicated her dress of shame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Signora,� I repeated, “I have come here
+neither out of compassion nor curiosity.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was silent, waiting for me to proceed. The
+three nuns had seated themselves quietly near the
+wall, with eyes cast down and meek hands folded
+in their laps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have come,� I continued, “to vindicate my
+sisters in your eyes. I know you think that all
+women are ruthless and unkind.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another smile, fleeting, vivid and intelligent, lit
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span>
+up her eyes. Then the narrow face closed and
+darkened again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For two years,� I proceeded, “I have been
+haunted by the thought that you, shut in this
+place, must be saying to yourself that all men are
+base and all women pitiless. As to the men—I
+cannot say. But I wish you to know that not all
+women are without pity.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was silent a few moments. Then in a weak
+voice she spoke:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In the name of how many women do you bring
+this message to me?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I smiled in my turn. “There are four of us,�
+I said, cheerfully. “Two Englishwomen, a Norwegian,
+who is deaf and dumb—and myself. The
+deaf and dumb one,� I added, “is really very intelligent.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Marie Tarnowska laughed! It was a low, sudden
+trill of laughter, and she herself seemed
+startled at the unaccustomed sound. The Sisters
+turned to look at her with an air of gentle amazement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But in my eyes Marie Tarnowska had ceased to
+be the murderess, the Erinnys. Through the
+criminal in her dress of shame I had caught a
+glimpse of the little girl in the blue spectacles, the
+happy little girl who felt that every one loved her.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span>
+That lonely, tremulous trill of laughter astray on
+the tragic lips stirred me to the depths; and sudden
+tears filled my eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Marie Tarnowska saw this, and turned pale.
+Then she sat down, unconsciously assuming the
+same chastened attitude as the Sisters, her hands
+submissively folded, her dark lashes cast down
+over her long light eyes. For some time there
+was silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have read your notes,� I said at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My notes? I do not remember writing them.�
+Suddenly her voice sounded harsh and her glance
+flashed at me keen as a blade of steel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You wrote them in the prison at Venice, in
+pencil, in a child's exercise book.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It may be so.� Marie Tarnowska breathed
+a long sigh. “That was a time of dreams,� she
+said, raising her stricken eyes to mine. “I sometimes
+dream that this is all a dream. I think I
+must have fallen asleep one day when I was a
+little child, at home in Otrada—perhaps in our
+garden on the swing. I used often to fall asleep
+on that creaky old swing, reading a book, or looking
+at the sky. Perhaps I shall wake up soon,
+and find that none of all these dreadful things are
+true.� She fingered the broad brown-and-white
+stripes of her prison-garb and gazed round the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span>
+dreary room. Then her eyes strayed from the
+whitewashed walls, bare except for a large ebony
+crucifix, to the narrow iron-barred window, and
+back to the Sisters sitting along the wall like a
+triptych of Renunciation, with folded hands and
+lips moving silently in their habitual prayer.
+“Yes, I shall wake up soon and find myself in our
+old garden again. My mother will come down
+the path and across the lawn, with her little white
+shawl on her head; she will call me: 'Mura!
+Mura! Where are you? Come, child, it is time
+for tea; and Vassili is asking for you.' Then I
+shall jump from the swing and run to her and
+hide my face on her breast. 'Mother, if you knew
+what a dream I have had—a terrible dream, all
+about deaths and murders! I thought I had married
+Vassili, and he was unkind to me—as if Vassili
+could be unkind!—and I was locked in a prison
+in Italy—imagine, mother, to be imprisoned in
+Italy, where people only go for their honeymoon!'
+And mother will kiss me and laugh at the crazy
+dream as we go across the lawn together, happily,
+arm in arm.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I found no word to say, though her eyes seemed
+to question me; and her fragile voice spoke again:
+“Surely, this cannot all be true? It cannot be
+true that they are all dead. My mother? And
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span>
+little Peter? And Bozevsky? And Stahl? And
+Kamarowsky? Why, it is like—like 'Hamlet.'�
+She broke into strident laughter. “Do you remember
+how they all die in 'Hamlet'? One here,
+one there, one in the stream, one behind the curtain,
+drowned, stabbed, strangled—� Suddenly
+she was silent, looking straight before her with
+startled eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Poor Mura!� I murmured, and lightly touched
+her hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the sound of the tender Russian appellative
+she turned to me quickly. Then she began speaking
+under her breath in hurried whispers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who told you my name? Who are you? Are
+you my sister Olga? Do you remember the
+merry-go-round at the school-feast in Kieff? How
+we cried when it swung us round and round and
+round and would not stop? I seem to be still on
+the merry-go-round, rushing along, hastening,
+hurrying with the loud music pealing in my head.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Mother Superior rose and approached her.
+“Hush,� she spoke in soothing tones. “You will
+soon be quiet and at rest.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Marie Tarnowska paid no heed. Her eyes
+were still fixed on mine with a despairing gaze.
+“Wake me, wake me!� she cried. “And let me
+tell you my dream.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span>
+And during those long mild April days she told
+it to me as follows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Where shall I begin? Wait, let me think—ah,
+yes! Where I fell asleep that day in the garden,
+on the swing. I remember it was a hot day even
+in Otrada; almost as hot as it is here. And it
+was my birthday; I was sixteen years old. My
+mother herself, with great solemnity, in the presence
+of my father and sisters, had twisted up my
+long curling hair and pinned it in great waves and
+coils on the top of my head. There were to be no
+more long plaits hanging down my back!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your childhood is over, Mura,� said my
+mother. “At sixteen one has to look and behave
+like a grown-up young lady.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is exactly what I am, mother dear,� I replied
+with great self-assurance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My mother smiled and sighed and kissed me.
+“You are such a child—such a child still, my little
+snowdrop,� she said, and her eyes were tender
+and anxious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I ran gaily out into the garden, feeling very
+proud of my red-gold helmet of curls. I sprang
+fearlessly on the swing, tossing my head from side
+to side, delighted to feel the back of my neck cool
+and uncovered to the breeze. What would Vassili
+say to see me like this! But soon the hairpins
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span>
+felt heavy; they pulled a hair or two here,
+and a hair or two there, and hurt me. I stopped
+the swing, and with my head bent forward I
+quickly drew all the hairpins out and threw them
+on the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The heavy coils of hair loosened, untwisted like
+a glittering snake, and fell all about me like a cloak
+of gold. I leaped upon the swing again and,
+standing, swung myself in wide flights through
+the clear air. What joy it was! As I flew forward
+my hair streamed out behind me like a flag,
+and in the backward sweep it floated all about my
+head in a whirling canopy of light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I laughed and sang out loud to myself. How delightful
+was the world! How blissful to be alive
+and in the sunshine!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly Vassili appeared at the end of the path
+with my cousin, Prince Troubetzkoi. They were
+coming towards me arm in arm, smoking cigarettes
+and gazing at me. I felt shy of my loosened
+hair; I should have liked to jump down and run
+away, but the swing was flying too high and I could
+not stop it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two men looked at me with strange intent
+eyes, as no one had ever looked at me before. I
+felt a hot blush rise to my cheeks like a flame.
+Obeying a sudden, overmastering impulse I let go
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span>
+the ropes and covered my face with my hands.
+I heard a cry—did it come from me?—then everything
+whirled round me.... For an instant I saw
+the gravel path rise straight in front of me as if
+to strike me on the forehead. I threw myself
+back, something seemed to crash into the nape of
+my neck—and I remember no more.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+III
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+I see the ensuing days as through a vague blue
+mist. I see myself reclining in an armchair, and
+my mother sitting beside me with her crochet-work.
+She is crocheting something of yellow
+wool. It is strange how the sight of that yellow
+wool hurts and repels me, but I cannot find words
+in which to express it, I seem unable to speak;
+and mother crochets on calmly, with quick white
+hands. I am conscious of a dull pain in the nape
+of my neck. Then I see Vassili come in; he is
+carrying an enormous cage in his hand; and Olga
+follows him, laughing and radiant. “Here he is!
+here he is!� cries Vassili triumphantly, putting
+the cage down beside me; and in it, to my horror,
+I see a parrot, a huge gray and scarlet creature,
+twisting a hard black tongue round and round as
+he clambers about the cage. I cry out in terror:
+“Why—why do they bring me things that frighten
+me?� And I burst into tears. Every one gazes
+at me in amazement; my mother bends tenderly
+over me: “But, my own darling, yesterday you
+said you wanted to have a parrot. Vassili has
+been all the way to Moscow to buy it for you.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span>
+“No, no! it is not true! I never said I wanted
+a parrot! Take it away! It frightens me. And
+so does the yellow wool.� I hear myself weeping
+loudly; then everything is blotted out and vanishes—parrot,
+Vassili, yellow wool, Olga—nothing remains
+but my mother's sad and anxious face bending
+above me, dim and constant as the light of a
+lamp in a shadowy chapel.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+When I was able to come down to breakfast for
+the first time, my father stood waiting for me,
+straight and solemn at the foot of the great staircase.
+He gave me his arm with much ceremony
+and led me to my place, where flowers lay in fragrant
+heaps round my plate. Every one embraced
+and complimented me and I was very happy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I feel as if I were a princess!� I cried, clapping
+my hands; and they all laughed except my
+father, who answered gravely:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If it is your wish, you may become one. Prince
+Ivan has asked for your hand.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ivan? Ivan Troubetzkoi?� All the gladness
+went out of my heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. And so has Katerinowitch,� exclaimed
+Olga, with a bitter smile; and I noticed that she
+looked pale and sad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Both Ivan and Katerinowitch? How extraordinary!�
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span>
+Then glancing at my mother, whose
+eyes were fixed upon her plate, I added jestingly,
+“Is that all? No one else?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My pleasantry fell flat, for no one answered, and
+I saw my father knitting his brows. But my
+mother lifted her eyes for an instant and looked
+at me. In the blue light of that dear gaze I read
+my happiness!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Olga was speaking. “Yes,� she said,
+“there is some one else. Vassili Tarnowsky has
+asked to marry you.� And she added, with a
+touch of bitterness: “I wonder what has possessed
+all three of them!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vassili! Vassili! Vassili! The name rang
+like a clarion in my ears. I should be Vassili's
+wife! I should be the Countess Tarnowska—the
+happiest woman in all this happy world. Every
+other girl on earth—poor luckless girls who could
+not marry Vassili—would envy me. On his arm
+I should pass proudly and serenely through life,
+rejoicing in his beauty, protected by his strength.
+Sheltered on his breast the storms would pass over
+my head, nor could sorrow ever touch me.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a id="f20"></a>
+  <img src="images/20.jpg"
+  alt="" />
+<p class="caption">COUNT O'ROURKE</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+“I trust that your choice will fall on Troubetzkoi,�
+said my father.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Or on Vassili,� cried Olga quickly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I jumped up and embraced her. “It shall not
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span>
+be Katerinowitch, that I promise,� I whispered,
+kissing the little pink ear that nestled under her
+fair curls. “He is to be for you!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Time was to fulfil this prophecy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I went round the table, and passed my mother—poor
+little nervous mother!—I laid my hand on
+her arm. I noticed that she was trembling all
+over. Then I summoned up courage and approached
+my father.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Father, dear, if you want your little Mura to
+be happy, you must let her marry Vassili.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never,� cried my father, striking the table
+with his fist. The soul of the ancient O'Rourke—a
+demoniacal Irish ancestor of ours whose memory
+always struck terror to our souls—had awakened
+in him. I saw Olga and my mother turn
+pale. Nevertheless I laughed and kissed him
+again. “If I do not marry Vassili, I shall die!
+And please, father, do not be the Terrible
+O'Rourke, for you are frightening mother!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But papa, dominated by the atavistic influence
+of the O'Rourke, grew even more terrible; and
+mother was greatly frightened. She sat white and
+rigid, with scarcely fluttering breath; suddenly in
+her transparent eyes the pupils floated upward
+like two misty pale-blue half-moons; she was in
+the throes of one of her dreaded epileptic seizures.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span>
+Then they were all around her, helping her,
+loosening her dress, fanning her; while I stood
+aside trembling and woebegone, and the pains in
+the nape of my neck racked me anew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I said to myself that my father was hard and
+wicked, that I should marry Vassili and carry
+mother off with me, ever so far away!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for papa, he should only be allowed to see us
+once a year. At Christmas.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have married Vassili.
+</p>
+
+<p class="dots">········</p>
+
+<p>
+I pretended to be seized with such convulsions
+that my poor dear mother, being at her wits' end,
+at last allowed me to run away with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Do I say “I pretended�? I am not sure that
+that is correct. At first the convulsions were certainly
+a mere pretense. I would say to myself:
+“Now I shall make myself have convulsions.� But
+as soon as I had begun I could not stop. After I
+had voluntarily gnashed my teeth they seemed to
+become locked as in a vice; my fists that I had
+purposely clenched would not reopen. My nails
+dug into the palms of my hands, and I could see
+the blood flowing down my wrists without being
+able to unclasp or relax my fingers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Doctor Orlof, summoned in haste from Kieff,
+shook his head gravely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span>
+“There are indications of epilepsy, due to the
+fall from the swing.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no, no!� I cried. “Not the swing! It is
+because of Vassili!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My mother trembled and wept.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How cruel we are in our childhood! How we
+torture the mothers that adore us, even though
+we love them with all our hearts. And oh! the
+tragedy of not understanding this until it is too
+late, when we can never, never ask for their forgiveness,
+nor console them or atone to them
+again.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+I married Vassili.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My father, more the Terrible O'Rourke than
+ever, at once refused to have anything to do with
+me. He denied me his kiss and his forgiveness.
+I was very unhappy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, don't bother your head about that tiresome
+old man,� said Vassili, much annoyed by my
+tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for my mother, she could only entreat Vassili
+to be kind and gentle with me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Take care of her, Vassili,� she implored. “I
+have given her to you lest she should die of a
+broken heart: but she is really too young to be
+any one's wife—she is but a child! I do not know
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span>
+whether you understand me. Remember she is
+not yet a woman. She is a child.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, yes, yes,� said Vassili, without paying
+much attention. “That's all right. I shall tweak
+her nose if she is naughty.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And if I am good?� I asked, lifting ecstatic
+eyes to his handsome nonchalant face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you are good you shall have sweets and
+kisses!� and he laughed, showing all his white
+teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Promise me, Vassili, that you will always sing
+my favorite song: 'Oh distant steppes, oh savage
+plains,' to me, and to no one else.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To you and to no one else,� said Vassili with
+mock solemnity. “Come then, Marie Tarnowska!�
+and he drew my arm under his, patting my
+hand on which the new nuptial ring shone in all
+its brightness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Marie Tarnowska!</i>� What a beautiful name!
+I could have wished the whole world to know that
+name; I could have wished that every one seeing
+me should say: “Behold, behold Marie Tarnowska,
+happiest and most blessed among women.�
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+IV
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+On my wedding night, in the hotel at Kharkoff,
+I summoned the chambermaid. She knocked and
+entered. She was a pert, pretty creature, and
+after surveying me from head to foot she threw
+a rapid glance at Vassili. He was seated in an
+armchair, lighting a cigarette.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is your name?� he asked the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Rosalia, at your service, sir,� she replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very good, Rosalia,� said my husband. “This
+evening we shall do without you. Possibly in a
+day or two I may wish to see you again.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl laughed, made a slight curtsey, and
+went out, closing the door behind her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But who is going to do my hair?� I asked,
+feeling very much out of countenance and shy at
+remaining alone with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never mind about your hair,� said Vassili.
+“Don't be so tedious. You're a little bore.� And
+he kissed me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he sat down and smoked his cigarette,
+watching me out of narrowed eyelids as I wandered
+about the room in great trepidation and embarrassment.
+I was about to kneel down by the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span>
+bedside to say my prayers, when he suddenly
+grasped my wrist and held it tightly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What are you doing now?� he inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am going to say my prayers,� I replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don't bother about your prayers,� he said.
+“Try not to be such an awful little bore. Really
+you are quite insufferable.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I would not have missed my prayers for
+the world. At home prayers had always been a
+matter of great importance. Olga and I used to
+say them aloud in unison morning and evening.
+And now that Olga was far away I must say them
+alone. I buried my face in my hands and said
+them devoutly, with all my heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were, I admit, numerous and long; and
+they were in many languages, for every nurse or
+governess that came to us in Otrada had taught
+us new ones; and Olga and I were afraid to leave
+any out, lest God should be offended; we were also
+rather doubtful as to which language He understood
+the best.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had just come to an English prayer—
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p>Now I lay me down to sleep</p>
+<p>I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep.</p>
+<p>If I should die before I wake...</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+(Here Olga and I used always to interpolate a
+short prayer of our own invention: “Please, dear
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span>
+God, do not on any account let us die to-night.
+Amen.�)—when Vassili interrupted me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Haven't you finished?� he cried, putting his
+arm round my neck. “You are very tiresome.
+You bore me to extinction.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You bore me!� That was the perpetual refrain
+of all his days. I always bored him. Perhaps
+it was not surprising. At seventeen one is
+not always clever and entertaining, especially outside
+the family circle. At home I had always been
+considered rather witty and intelligent, but to
+Vassili I was never anything but “a dreadful
+bore.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I caught sight of him pinching Rosalia's
+cheek and I burst into tears: “You are a fearful
+bore,� he said crossly. If I noticed the scent of
+musk or patchouli on his coat and ventured to
+question him about it—“You are an insufferable
+little bore,� would be all the answer I got. When
+he went out (taking the music of “My Savage
+Plains� with him) and stayed away all night, on
+his return next morning I sobbed out my anguish
+on his breast. “I must say you bore me to death,�
+he yawned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And one day I heard that he had had a child by
+a German baroness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the sight of my paroxysm of despair he grew
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span>
+angry. “What does it matter to you, silly
+creature, since you have not got one yourself?�
+he exclaimed. “Wearisome little bore that you
+are; you can't even have a child.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was aghast. What—what did he mean?
+Why could I not—?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No! no!� he shouted, with his handsome mouth
+rounded and open like those of the stone cherubs
+on the walls of his castle, “you will never have
+any children. You are not a woman. Your
+mother herself said so.� And the look which he
+flashed across my frail body cut me like a sword.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I fell fainting to the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he became alarmed. He called everybody.
+He summoned the whole staff of the hotel. He
+sent for all the ladies he knew in Kharkoff (and
+they were many) imploring them all to save me,
+to recall me to life. When I came to myself the
+room was filled with women: there was Rosalia,
+and two Hungarian girls from the adjoining
+apartment, and there was also the German
+baroness, and little Julia Terlezkaja, the latest and
+fairest of my husband's conquests. All these
+graceful creatures were bending over my couch,
+while Vassili on his knees with his head buried
+in the coverlet was sobbing: “Save her! She is
+dead! I have killed her!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span>
+I put out my hand and touched his hair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am alive,� I said softly; and he threw himself
+upon me and kissed me. The women stood
+round us in a semi-circle, gay and graceful as the
+figures on a Gobelin tapestry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I love you,� Vassili was exclaiming; “I love
+you just as you are. I should hate you to be like
+everybody else.� And in French he added, looking
+at Madame Terlezkaja: “C'est très rigolo
+d'avoir une femme qui n'est pas une femme.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I hid my face in the pillow, and wept; while
+the fair Terlezkaja, who seemed to be the kindest
+of them all, bent over and consoled me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pay no heed to him,� she whispered. “I
+think he has been drinking a little.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door opened. A doctor, who had been sent
+for by the manager of the hotel, entered with a
+resolute authoritative air. At the sight of him the
+women disappeared like a flight of startled sparrows.
+Of course they took Vassili with them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To the good old doctor I confided the secret
+which Vassili had disclosed to me and which was
+burning my heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want to have a child, a little child of my
+own!� I cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course. Of course. So you shall,� said
+the old doctor, with a soothing smile. “There is
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span>
+no reason why you should not. You are a little
+anemic, that is all.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He scribbled some prescriptions on his tablets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There. You will take all that. And you will
+go to Franzensbad. Within a year you will be
+asking me to act as godpapa.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I took all he prescribed. But I did not go to
+Franzensbad. Vassili wanted to go to Petersburg,
+so, of course, it was to Petersburg we went.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The very first evening we were there a number
+of his friends came to call on him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I remember, among the rest, a certain German
+Grand Duke, who, after showing me an infinite
+amount of attention, drew Vassili aside and spoke
+to him in undertones. I heard him mention the
+name of a famous restaurant and the words: “A
+jolly supper-party to-night—some ravishingly
+pretty tziganes....� There followed names of
+men and women whom I did not know, and my
+husband laughed loudly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the Grand Duke turned to me, and bowing
+deeply and ceremoniously kissed my hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For an instant a frenzied impulse came over
+me to clutch that well-groomed head and cry:
+“Wicked man! Why are you trying to lure my
+husband from me?� But social conventions prevailed
+over this elementary instinct, and when the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span>
+Grand Duke raised his patrician head he found
+me all amiability and smiles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She is indeed a bewitching creature!� I
+heard him mutter to Vassili. “Looks just like
+one of Botticelli's diaphanous angels. Well then,
+at eleven o'clock to-night, at the 'Hermitage.'�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Promptly at a quarter to eleven Vassili, sleek,
+trim and immaculate, kissed my cheek gaily and
+went out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was alone. Alone in the great drawing-room,
+gorgeous with lights and mirrors and gilded
+decorations. What was the good of being a bewitching
+creature? What was the good of looking
+like one of Botticelli's diaphanous angels?...
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+V
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+I rang for my maid, Katja, a good creature, ugly
+beyond words—and gladly chosen by me on that
+account—and I told her that she was to undress
+me for I was going to bed. While she was unfastening
+my dress I could hear her muttering: “If
+it were me, I should not go to bed. If it were me,
+I should put on my diamonds and my scarlet chiffon
+gown; I should take a good bottle of vitriol in
+my pocket, and go and see what they were up to.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Katja, what are you mumbling? Do you mean
+to say that you—that you think I ought to go—?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course,� she cried, and her small squinting
+eyes shot forth, to the right and left, fierce, divergent
+flashes of indignation. “Why should my
+lady not go?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Why should I not, indeed? Had I not the right—nay,
+the duty—to follow Vassili? Had I not
+most solemnly promised so to do, in the little
+church on the steppes a year ago? “<i>Follow
+him!</i>� With what tremulous joy had I repeated
+after the priest those two words of tenacity and
+submission. Had they no application to the
+Hermitage restaurant?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span>
+“Perhaps I might venture to go,� I murmured,
+“but, Katja, do not other women always have
+rouge and powder to put on when they go out? I
+have nothing.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing but your eighteen years, madame,� replied
+Katja.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She dressed me in the low-necked scarlet chiffon
+gown. She drew on my flame-colored stockings,
+and my crimson shoes. On my head she placed the
+diamond and ruby tiara, and about my shoulders
+she wound a red and gold scarf which looked like
+a snake of fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Alas, Katja!� I sighed as I looked at myself
+in the mirror; “what would my mother say if she
+were to see me like this? What do I look like?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You look like a lighted torch,� said Katja.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I made her come with me in the troika, which
+sped swiftly and silently through the dim snow-covered
+streets. I was shaking with fear at the
+thought of Vassili. Katja was mumbling some
+prayers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We drew up at the brilliant entrance of the restaurant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, heavens, Katja! What will my husband
+say?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He will say that you are beautiful.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How did I ever venture across that threshold of
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span>
+dazzling light? How was I able to ascend the red-carpeted
+stairs, preceded and followed by bows
+and smiles and whispers? At the head of the wide
+staircase, in front of a double-paneled door of
+white and gold, I paused with beating heart, almost
+unable to breathe. I could hear the gipsy-music
+inside, and women's voices and men's laughter
+and the tinkling of glasses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An impassive head-waiter stood before me,
+calmly awaiting my orders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell�—I stammered—“tell—� as I thought of
+Vassili my courage failed me—“tell his Highness
+the Grand Duke that I wish to see him.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I clung to the balustrade and waited. As
+the door opened and was quickly closed again,
+there came forth a puff of heat and sound which
+enwrapped me like a flame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Almost immediately the door opened again and
+the Grand Duke appeared upon the threshold, his
+countenance still elated by recent laughter. He
+stared at me in astonishment, without recognition.
+“What—what can I do for you?� he asked. Then
+his eyes widened in limitless astonishment.
+“Upon my word! It is the Botticelli angel!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I said “Yes,� and felt inclined to weep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come in, come in!� he cried eagerly, taking me
+by the arm and leading me to the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span>
+A waiter threw it wide open. I had a dazzling
+vision of a table resplendent with crystal, silver,
+and flowers, and the bare jeweled shoulders of
+women.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tarnowsky!� called the Grand Duke from the
+threshold. “Fortunate among men! Behold—the
+most glorious of your conquests!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vassili had started to his feet and was looking
+at me with amazed and incredulous eyes. There
+was a deep silence. I felt as if I should die. Vassili
+came up to me. He took me brusquely by the
+hand, crushing my fingers in his iron clasp. “You
+are mad!� he said. Then he looked at me from
+head to foot—not with the gaze of a husband, nor
+yet with that of a lover, but with the cold curious
+scrutiny of the perfect connoisseur.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come,� he said at last, drawing me towards
+the others who were in a riot of laughter. “I
+have always told my friends that you were a chilling,
+lily-white flake of snow. You are not!� And
+he laughed. “You are a blazing little firebrand!
+Come in!�
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+Thenceforward my husband would always have
+me with him. My untutored adolescence was
+trailed from revelry to revelry, from banquet to
+orgy; my innocence swept into the maelstrom of a
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span>
+licentious life. I was forced to look into the
+depths of every depravity; to my lips was proffered
+every chalice of shame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Oh, if as I stood trembling on the confines of
+maidenhood, some strong and tender hand had
+drawn me into safety, should not I have been like
+other women, those happy women who walk with
+lofty brows in the sunshine, august and ruthless in
+their purity?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, alas! when with tardy and reluctant step I
+issued forth from my long childhood, a thousand
+cruel hands were thrust out to push me towards
+the abyss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Oh, white pathway of innocence which knows no
+return! Oh, tenuous light of purity which, once
+quenched, kindles no more! Did I not grieve and
+mourn for you when I lost you before my twentieth
+year? Sadly, enviously, like some poor exile, I
+saw other girls of my age passing in blithe security
+by the side of their mothers, blushing at an eager
+word or at a daring glance. Alas! I felt that I
+was unworthy to kiss the hem of their skirts.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+But bliss was to be vouchsafed to me. Redeeming
+and triumphant there came to me at last the
+Angel of Maternity. With proud humility I bore
+the little human flower fluttering in my breast.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span>
+At every throb of life I felt myself swooning with
+joy—with the ineffable joy of my reconquered
+purity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My mother was with me, and in the tender haven
+of her arms I found shelter for my meek and
+boundless ecstasy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How is it possible, I asked myself, that there
+are women who dread this perfect happiness, who
+weep and suffer through these months fraught
+with rapturous two-fold life?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For me, I felt like a flowering plant in springtime,
+impelled by some potent influence towards
+its perfect blossoming. The whole of that blissful
+period seemed a sublime ascent to unalloyed felicity;
+everything enchanted me, from the awed and
+tremulous waiting to the final crowning consummation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When at last the fragile infant—my son!—lay
+in my arms, he seemed to me sufficient to fill my
+entire life. I nursed him into ever-growing wonder
+and beauty. Day by day he seemed fairer,
+more entrancing, like a delicate flower in some
+fantastic lunar legend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Oh, the wee groping hands against my face!
+The wilful little caprices, the cries like those of
+an angry dove! And the dimples on the elbows;
+the droll battle with the little cap always awry,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span>
+and the joyous impatience of the tiny kicking feet!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Each day my mother and I invented new names
+for him—names of little flowers, names of little
+animals, nonsense-names made up of sweet senseless
+sounds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had no thought, I had no desire. Pale and
+pure I sat enthroned in the milk-white paradise
+of maternity.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+VI
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+Soon after that my thoughts are adrift, my recollections
+grow confused. I see my mother with
+my baby in her arms, and myself in traveling attire,
+with my arms twined about them, weeping,
+despairing, refusing to leave them and set out on
+a journey of Vassili's planning. But Vassili
+grows impatient. Vassili grows angry. He is
+tired of playing the papa, tired of seeing me no
+longer a little “firebrand,� but calm as a young
+Madonna in the beatific purity of motherhood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vassili has taken it into his head that he wants
+to study singing. He has made up his mind to
+go to Italy, to Milan, to study scales and exercises;
+and I must go with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But our baby, Vassili, our little Tioka! We
+must take our baby with us!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No. Vassili does not want babies. He does
+not want to be bothered or hindered. “We are
+carting about eight trunks as it is!� he says,
+cynically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so we start for Italy—Italy, the yearned-for
+goal of all my girlish dreams.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At Milan Vassili sings. I seem always to see
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span>
+him with his handsome mouth open, singing scales
+and arpeggios. But a slow poison is creeping
+through my blood and I fall ill, ill with typhoid
+fever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again my thoughts go adrift and my recollections
+are confused. They dance in grotesque and
+hideous visions through my brain. I see livid
+hallucinated faces peering at me, towers and
+mountains tottering above me, undefined horrors
+all about me, and in the midst of them all I see
+Vassili—singing! He sings scales and arpeggios
+with his rounded open mouth. Now I can see a
+white spider—no, two white spiders—running
+about on a scarlet coverlet.... They are my
+hands. They frighten me. And Vassili is singing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Vassili, why are you singing? Don't sing!
+Don't sing!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, darling, I am not singing. You only
+imagine it. You are ill; you are feverish. Calm
+yourself.�
+</p>
+
+<p class="dots">········</p>
+
+<p>
+“Vassili, where is my baby?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At home in Kieff, with grandmama. Dear
+grandmama is taking such good care of him!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And why are we not with him? Where are
+we?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span>
+“We are at Pegli, darling.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why? Why? Where is Pegli? What are
+we doing at Pegli?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come now, dearest; you know—we came to
+Italy because I wanted to sing—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, you see! You wanted to sing! Why do
+you want to sing when the baby is crying? The
+baby is so helpless. Why did you take me away
+from him? You sing, you sing so loud that I cannot
+hear my baby crying. Don't sing!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But even as I speak I see that Vassili has his
+round mouth open again and he sings and sings,
+and the white spiders run over the scarlet counterpane
+and come close to my face—and the white
+spiders are my hands. I shriek and shriek to
+have them taken away. But the baby is crying
+and Vassili is singing and no one hears me.
+</p>
+
+<p class="dots">········</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I drop down to the bottom of a deep well.
+I feel myself falling, falling, until with a great
+shock I touch the bottom. And there I lie motionless
+in the dark.
+</p>
+
+<p class="dots">········</p>
+
+<p>
+When I open my eyes there is a great deal of
+light; the windows are open, the sun is pouring
+in; I know that outside there is the sea. Beside
+my bed sits a doctor with a gray beard, feeling
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span>
+my pulse. Under the light intermittent pressure
+of his fingers my pulse seems to grow quieter; I
+can see the doctor's head giving little nods as he
+counts the beats.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sixty-five. Excellent, excellent!� The doctor
+pats my hand gently and encouragingly.
+“That is first-rate. We are quite well again.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I hear some one weeping softly, and I
+know it is my mother. I try to turn and smile
+at her, but my head will not move. It is like a
+ball of lead sunk in the pillow. Immediately
+afterwards—or have years passed?—I hear some
+one say: “Here is the Professor!� And again
+the same doctor with the gray beard comes in and
+smiles at me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before sitting down beside the bed he turns to
+my mother: “Has she not yet asked about her
+child?� My mother shakes her head and presses
+her handkerchief to her eyes. Then the doctor
+sits down beside my bed and strokes my forehead
+and speaks to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He speaks about a baby. He repeats a name
+over and over again—perhaps it is Tioka. Tioka?
+Who is Tioka? I watch his beard moving up and
+down, and do not know what he is saying. The
+ball of lead on my pillow rolls from side to side
+with a dull and heavy ache.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span>
+My mother weeps bitterly: “Oh, doctor, do not
+let her die!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The white spiders are there again, running over
+the coverlet. And I fall once more, down, down,
+down, to the bottom of the well.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+VII
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+For how many months was I ill? I do not
+know. Vassili, restless and idle, “carted� me
+and my medicines and my sufferings from Pegli
+to Genoa, from Genoa to Florence. He seemed
+to have forgotten that we had a home; he seemed
+to have forgotten that we had a child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our rooms at the hotel in Florence were bright
+with sunshine and with the frivolous gaiety of
+a graceful trio of Russian ladies—the Princess
+Dubinskaja, her sister Vera Vojatschek, and the
+fair-haired Olga Kralberg, who came to see us
+every day. But I felt lost and lonely, as if astray
+in the world. My mother had returned to Russia,
+and my vacant and aching heart invoked Vassili,
+who, alas! was never by my side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must win him back,� said Olga Kralberg
+to me one day—she, whose fate it was on a not
+distant day to commit suicide for his sake.
+“Every man, especially if he is a husband, has—after
+some time—to be won back again.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is sooner said than done,� I replied
+despondently. “To win a man is easy enough.
+But to win him back—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span>
+“There are various ways of doing it,� she said.
+“Have you tried being very affectionate?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, indeed,� said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How did it answer?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He was bored to death.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you tried being cool and distant? Being,
+so to speak, a stranger to him?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I have.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And he?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He never even noticed that I was being a
+stranger to him. He was as happy and good-tempered
+as ever.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga shook her head dejectedly. “Have you
+tried being hysterical?� she asked after a while.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I hesitated. “I think so,� I said at last. “But
+I do not quite know what you mean.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,� explained Olga sententiously, “with
+some men, who cannot bear healthy normal
+women, hysteria is a great success. Of course, it
+must be esthetic hysteria—you must try to preserve
+the plastic line through it all,� and Olga
+sketched with her thumb a vague painter's gesture
+in the air. “For example, you deluge yourself
+in strange perfumes. You trail about the house
+in weird clinging gowns. You faint away at the
+sight of certain shades of color—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What an absurd idea!� I exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span>
+“Not at all. Not in the least,� said Olga.
+“On the contrary, it is very modern, very piquant
+to swoon away every time you see a certain shade
+of—of mauve, for instance.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But what if I don't see it?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Silly! You <i>must</i> see it. Give orders to a
+shop to send you ten yards of mauve silk. Open
+the parcel in your husband's presence. Then—then
+you totter; you fall down—but mind,� added
+Olga, “that you fall in a graceful, impressionist
+attitude. Like this.� And Olga illustrated her
+meaning in what appeared to me a very foolish
+posture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think it ridiculous,� I said to her. And she
+was deeply offended.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good-by,� she said, pinning her hat on briskly
+and spitefully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no! Don't go away. Do not desert me,�
+I implored. “Try to suggest something else.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga was mollified. After reflecting a few moments
+she remarked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you tried being a ray of sunshine to
+him?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I lost patience with her. “What do you mean
+by a 'ray of sunshine'? You seem to be swayed
+by stock phrases, such as one reads in novels.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This time Olga was not offended. She explained
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span>
+that in order to be a ray of sunshine in a
+man's life, one must appear before him gay,
+sparkling and radiant at all hours of the day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Always dress in the lightest of colors. Put
+a ribbon in your hair. When you hear his footsteps,
+run to meet him and throw your arms round
+his neck. When he goes out, toss a flower to him
+from the window. When he seems dull or silent,
+take your guitar and sing to him.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know I don't play the guitar,� I said
+pettishly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That does not matter. What really counts is
+the singing. The atmosphere that surrounds him
+should be bright with unstudied gaiety. He ought
+to live, so to speak, in a whirlwind of sunshine!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I will try,� I sighed, without much conviction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I did try.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I dressed in the lightest of colors and I pinned
+a ribbon in my hair. When I heard his footstep,
+I ran to meet him and threw my arms round his
+neck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is the matter?� he asked. “And what
+on earth have you got on your head? You look
+like a barmaid.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To the best of my powers I was a whirlwind of
+sunshine; and as soon as I saw that he was dull
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span>
+and silent (and this occurred almost immediately)
+I said to myself that the moment was come for me
+to sing to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I sat down at the piano. I have not much ear,
+but a fine strong voice, even if not always quite
+in tune.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the second bar Vassili got up, took his hat
+and left the house. I threw a flower to him from
+the window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did not come back for three days.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+VIII
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+When I talked it over with Olga, she was very
+sympathetic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know,� she mused, “that these things sometimes
+succeed and sometimes do not. Men are not
+all alike.� Then she added: “But there is one
+sure way of winning them back. It is an old
+method, but infallible.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is it?� I asked skeptically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“By making them jealous. It is vulgar, it is
+<i>rococo</i>, it causes no end of trouble. But it is infallible.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We reviewed the names of all the men who could
+possibly be employed to arouse Vassili's jealousy.
+We could think of no one. I was surrounded by
+nothing but women.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is past belief,� said Olga, surveying me
+from head to foot, “that there should be no one
+willing to—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I shook my head moodily. “No one on earth.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga grasped my wrist. “Stay! I have an
+idea. We will get some one who is not on earth.
+Some one who is dead. It will be much simpler.
+I remember there was an idea of that kind in
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span>
+an unsuccessful play I saw a year or two ago.
+What we need is a dead man—recently dead, if
+possible, and, if possible, young. If he has committed
+suicide, so much the better.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What on earth do you want with a dead man?�
+I asked, shuddering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why! can't you see? We will say that he died
+for your sake!� cried Olga, “that he killed himself
+on your account. We will have a telegram
+sent to us by some one in Russia. We will get
+them to telegraph to you: 'I die for your sake.
+Am killing myself. Farewell!'�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But who is to sign it?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, somebody or other,� said Olga vaguely.
+“Or we could have it signed with an imaginary
+name, if you prefer it. That would enable us to
+dispense with the corpse.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I most certainly prefer that,� I remarked.
+“But, frankly, I can't see—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What can't you see? Don't you see the effect
+upon Vassili of the news that a man has killed
+himself for your sake? Don't you see the new
+irresistible attraction which you will then exercise
+over him? Surely you know what strange subtle
+charm emanates from the 'fatal woman'—the
+woman whose lethal beauty—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very well, very well,� I said, slightly encouraged.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span>
+“Let us have the telegram written and sent
+to me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We spent the rest of the afternoon composing it.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+Three days later Vassili entered the drawing-room
+where Olga and I were having tea; he held
+a telegram in his hand; his face was of a ghastly
+pallor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He's got it,� whispered Olga hysterically,
+pinching my arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mura,� said Vassili; “a horrible thing has
+happened. Horrible!� His white lips trembled
+as he uttered the incoherent words:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dead—he is dead—he has killed himself—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was unable to go on. His voice broke in
+a sob.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I sprang to my feet. “Who, Vassili? Who?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga thought the moment had arrived for putting
+things in the proper light. She turned to me
+with a significant glance, and grasped my hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah! It is the man who loved you!� she exclaimed.
+“And this—this is what you dreaded!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What! What!� shouted Vassili, clutching
+her arm and pushing her roughly aside. Then
+he turned upon me and seized me by the shoulder.
+“You—you knew of this? You dreaded this?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stood trembling, struck dumb with terror. I
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span>
+could hear the futile and bewildered explanations
+of Olga:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, surely,� she was saying with an insensate
+smile, “it is a thing that might happen to
+anybody. It is not her fault if people love her
+to distraction.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Vassili was crushing my wrist. “My
+brother—he loved you?� he gasped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Your brother?</i> Your brother—little Peter?�
+I stammered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, yes! Peter,� shouted Vassili. “My
+brother! What have you to do with his death?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing, nothing.� I groaned. “I swear it—nothing!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Olga, realizing at last that she stood in the
+presence of a genuine tragedy and not of the jest
+we had plotted, darted forward and caught his
+arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Vassili, you are mistaken. She knows nothing
+about it; nothing whatever. We had planned a
+joke to play on you, and we thought—� She
+pursued her agitated and incoherent explanations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vassili looked from one to the other of us, scanning
+our faces, hardly hearing what Olga was saying.
+Suddenly he seemed to understand, and
+loosening his hold on my arm he fell upon the
+couch and buried his face in his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span>
+The telegram had dropped on the carpet. Olga
+picked it up and read it; then she handed it to me:
+</p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p>
+<i>Peter hanged himself last night. Come at once.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indr">
+<span class="smcap">Tarnowsky.</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+We left for Kieff the same evening. Throughout
+the entire journey Vassili never spoke. I sat
+mournful and silent opposite him and thought of
+my brother-in-law, Peter. Not of the pale youth,
+already corrupted by absinthe and women, whom
+we had left at Kieff a few months before, but of
+the child Peter, in his short velvet suit and lace
+collar, whom I had loved so dearly in the days of
+my girlhood—little Peter who used to run to meet
+me in the sun-splashed avenues of the Villa Tarnowsky,
+trotting up with his little bare legs and
+serious face, stopping to be kissed and then trotting
+hurriedly off again, the nape of his neck showing
+fair and plump beneath the upturned brim of
+his sailor-hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How well I remember that sailor-hat! The
+black ribbon round the crown bore, between two
+anchors, the word, “<i>Implacable</i>�; and from under
+that fierce device the round and gentle countenance
+of little Peter gazed mildly out into the
+world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Little Peter's legs were always cold. He was
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span>
+brought up in English fashion, with short socks
+even in the depths of winter. From afar you
+could see little Peter's chilly bare legs, crimson
+against a background of snow. Sometimes, rubbing
+his knees, he would say to me: “I wish God
+had made me of fur, instead of—of leather, like
+this.� And again he would remark: “I don't
+like being alive. Not that I want to die; but I
+wish I had never begun.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now little Peter had finished. Little Peter
+lay solemn and magnificent in the <i>chambre ardente</i>
+where his dead ancestors had lain solemn and
+magnificent before him. “Implacable� indeed
+he lay, unmoved by the tears of his mother and
+father; his lofty brow was marble; his fair eyelashes
+lowered over his quenched and upturned
+eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I thought of him thus I felt afraid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And it seemed strange to be afraid of little
+Peter.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+IX
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+After we had crossed the Russian frontier
+another thought—a thought that filled me with
+unspeakable happiness—put all others to flight:
+my child! I should see my child again! All our
+relations would certainly be assembled at the
+Tarnowskys' house, so I should find my parents
+and my little Tioka there too. The image of the
+living child soon displaced the tragic memory of
+the dead youth. As the train sped towards Kieff
+my fever of gladness and impatience increased.
+Yes, to-morrow would be poor Peter's funeral, but
+this very evening I should clasp little Tioka in
+my arms!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Raising my eyes, I saw that Vassili was looking
+at me with a scowl. “I have been watching you
+for some time,� he said. “Heartless creature
+that you are, to laugh—to laugh in the face of
+death.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was thinking of Tioka,� I stammered.
+Vassili did not reply. But in the depths of my
+heart joy sang and whispered like a hidden
+fountain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span>
+Thus, inwardly rejoicing, did I enter the house
+of death and hasten to the dark-red room—the
+very scene of Peter's suicide—in which they had
+placed my baby's cradle; thus, while others
+mourned with prayers and tears in the gloomy
+death-chamber, I ran across the sun-filled garden
+holding my infant to my breast. I hid myself
+with him in the orchard and laughed and laughed
+aloud, as I kissed his starry eyes and his tiny,
+flower-like mouth.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+But Death, the Black Visitor, had entered my
+life. Little Peter had shown him the way, had
+opened the door to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From that day forward the dread Intruder
+never forsook my threshold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Death, lurking at my door in terrifying silence,
+stretched out his hand at intervals and clutched
+some one belonging to me. Generally it was with
+a swift gesture—a fell disease or a pistol-shot—that
+he struck down and flung into the darkness
+those I loved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But towards me Death comes with a slower,
+more deliberate tread. For years, ever since the
+birth of my little daughter Tania,—my white rosebud
+born midst the snows of a dreary winter in
+Kieff—I have felt Death creeping towards me,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span>
+slow, insidious, inexorable, holding in his hand a
+knot of serpents, each of which will fasten its
+poisoned fangs upon me. Disease, the venomous
+snake, will hide in my bosom and thrust its way
+through my veins. The heavy snake of Grief will
+coil round my heart and crush me in its spirals.
+Insanity will glide into my brain and nest there.
+Then—last but not least horrible—the little glass
+viper, the syringe of Pravaz, whose fang is a hollow
+needle, will draw me into the thraldom of its
+virulent grip. It will spurt its venom into my
+blood. The bland balm of coca, the milky juice of
+the poppy, will flow into my veins, soothing,
+assuaging, lulling me into sleep and forgetfulness—only
+to waken me in renewed agony of suffering
+to a renewed bite of the envenomed fang. For the
+only antidote to the poison of narcotics is the
+narcotic itself, the only alleviation to the tearing
+agony of the poison generated by morphia is morphia
+again. And so the fatal sequence swings on
+forever, in ever-widening circles of torment....
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+X
+</h2>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>From Alexis Bozevsky to Stepan Nebrasoff.</i>
+</p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p class="indr">
+<span class="smcap">Kieff</span>, <i>Thursday</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indl">
+<span class="smcap">Dear Stepan, my good Friend,</span>—
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I am here in the house of your cousin, Dr. Stahl, who
+seems to have grown longer and leaner than ever. He is a
+mere shadow. It is here that your letter reaches me. You tell
+me to write to you about myself. To-day, the 15th of October,
+1903, I am twenty-four years old. What gift will Destiny
+give me for my birthday? Love? Wealth? A hero's death?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Your cousin Stahl, in his cavernous voice that seems to come
+echoing up from underground, says that the gift of Destiny
+is precisely these four-and-twenty years of mine! Perhaps he
+is right. I feel them eddying in my blood like four-and-twenty
+cyclones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The world is a whirlwind of youth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kaufmann this morning lent me his sorrel stallion—the
+finest horse in the Empire—and I had a gallop along the
+bastions. All the women looked at me. In a phaeton I saw
+the brazen and beautiful Princess Theodora, blonde and torrid
+as a Mexican landscape. She was resplendent in amethyst
+and heliotrope, her red locks flaming to the sun; no one but a
+princess would permit herself to display such a riot of violent
+colors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon afterwards I saw Vera Voroklizkaja, reclining in her
+carriage, aloof and severe as a vestal virgin; her glossy black
+tresses parted over her brow enclosed the narrow oval of her
+face like soft black wings. Beside her sat little Miriam Grey,
+clothed in her youthfulness as in an armor of roses. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span>
+beauty of all these women courses through my blood like sun
+and wine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon my word life is an excellent institution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And you—what are you doing?
+</p>
+
+<p class="indr">
+<span class="spacer6">Ever yours,</span>
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Bozevsky.</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>The next day.</i>
+</p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p class="indl">
+<span class="smcap">Stepan, Stepan, Stepan!</span>—
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I am in love! Madly, sublimely, tragically in love! This
+morning I went to the parade-ground as in a dream; I found
+myself speaking to the colonel in a gentle winning voice that
+was perfectly ludicrous. When I drilled my company I could
+hear myself giving the words of command in an imploring
+tone which I still blush to remember. I am obsessed, hallucinated;
+there floats before my eyes a slender, ethereal creature,
+with red lips that never smile, and hair that looks like a cataract
+of champagne.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stahl introduced me to her yesterday, here at his house.
+“Come,� he said, taking me by the arm. “You are going to
+make the acquaintance of a superior being, soft of voice and
+sad of countenance, who bears the gentle name of Marie.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let me off,� I replied skeptically. “Sad and superior beings
+are not to my liking.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You will like this one,� said Stahl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know I shan't,� I replied curtly. I saw Stahl's eye warn
+me, and, turning, found myself face to face with the subject of
+our conversation, a tall, flower-like vision, with translucent
+eyes and a mystic inscrutable face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I knew she had overheard me, and as I bowed low before her,
+she said: “That you should like me is of no importance.
+What really matters is that I should be pleased with you.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her beauty and the scornful levity of her words struck me
+strangely. “Madame,� and I was surprised to feel that I spoke
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span>
+with sincerity, “to please you will be henceforward the highest
+aim of my desire.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at me a moment; then she spoke quietly: “You
+have attained your aim.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned and left me. I stood thunderstruck by the brief
+and daring reply and by the flash of that clear gaze. She
+had spoken the words without a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did not address me during the rest of the evening.
+When she left, she barely glanced at me and vouchsafed neither
+smile nor greeting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just for an instant she raised her black-fringed eyes and
+gazed at me; then her lashes fell; and it was as if a light had
+been blown out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I am in love with her! Madly, divinely, desperately in love.
+Ah, Stepan, love—what an ecstasy and what a disaster!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indr">
+Your <span class="smcap">Bozevsky</span>.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+It was Dr. Stahl, the “Satanic Stahl,� who got
+these letters from his cousin Stepan Nebrasoff,
+and showed them to me. They bewildered and
+troubled me. What? Was I really so attractive
+and so perturbing in the eyes of the gallant young
+Pole—the handsomest officer in the Imperial
+Guard? I repeated to myself his disquieting epithets:
+“flower-like,� “ethereal,� “inscrutable�;
+and in my room at night when I loosened my hair,
+I wondered: “Does it really look like a cataract
+of champagne?� When I went out I never smiled,
+even when I felt inclined to do so, since my gravity
+had seemed so charming to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Night and day he followed me like a shadow—or
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span>
+rather, should I say, like a blaze of light. In
+whatever direction I turned I was sure to encounter
+his radiant smile and his flashing glance.
+His passion encompassed me; I felt like Brunnhilde
+surrounded by a sea of flame. I was elated
+yet terrified.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One evening at dinner I made up my mind to
+speak to Vassili about it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Vassili,� I said falteringly, “I think we ought
+to go away for a time.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Away? Where to?� asked my husband.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Anywhere—anywhere away from Kieff.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I felt myself turning pale! “I am afraid,� I
+stammered, “I am afraid—that Bozevsky—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well?� asked Vassili serenely, pouring some
+vodka into his champagne and drinking it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am afraid that Bozevsky is falling in love
+with me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And who would not fall in love with you,
+dushka?� laughed Vassili. “As for Bozevsky,
+may the wolves eat him.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And dinner being over, he lit his cigar and went
+out.
+</p>
+
+<p class="dots">········</p>
+
+<p>
+I go sadly upstairs to the nursery where Tioka
+and Tania, like blonde seraphs, lie asleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span>
+A dim lamp hangs between the two white cots
+and illumines their favorite picture—an artless
+painting of the Virgin Mary, holding in her youthful
+arms the infant Jesus with a count's coronet
+on His head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I kneel down beside the two little beds and
+weep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aunt Sonia, rectilinear and asexual in her gray
+flannel dressing-gown, comes in softly and bends
+over me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must trust in Providence,� she says, raising
+towards the ceiling her long virginal face.
+“And take a little camomile tea. That always
+does one good.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I obey her meekly and gratefully. It comforts
+me to think that a day will come when I also shall
+be like Aunt Sonia; when I also shall be content
+to wear gray flannel dressing-gowns and turn in
+my sorrows to Providence and to camomile tea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And I wish that that day of peace were near.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XI
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+So we stayed on in Kieff and Bozevsky came
+to see us every day. He brought me flowers—wonderful
+orchids the color of amethyst, tenuous
+contorted blossoms that looked as if they had
+bloomed in some garden of dreams. He brought
+me books; books of nebulous German poetry;
+Spanish plays by Echegaray all heroism and fire;
+and disquieting, neurotic French novels. Then he
+brought me English books which filled me with
+pleasant surprise. How far removed from our
+Slav souls were those limpid Anglo-Saxon minds!
+How child-like and simple was their wit, how
+bland and practical their outlook on life. That
+was the literature I liked best of all; perhaps because
+it was so different from everything in myself.
+I felt that I was a strange, ambiguous,
+complicated creature compared with those candid
+elemental natures.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bozevsky liked to find me reading. He would
+arrive in the evening—usually after Vassili had
+gone out, alone or with friends—and enter
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span>
+the drawing-room with bright and cheerful greeting.
+He always smiled when he found me with
+one of his books in my hand, sitting beside Aunt
+Sonia placidly knitting in her armchair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I like your thoughts to be far away from here,�
+he would say, kissing my hand. “I like to know
+that your soul is far from the frivolous society
+you live in, far from the petty preoccupations,
+the compliments and the flattery which surround
+you. Let me read with you; let me join you
+in the purer realm of fancy, far away from the
+world.� And he would sit down beside me, with
+an air of protecting fraternal affection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One evening he found me nervous and agitated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What has happened?� he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have been reading a ghastly book,� I told
+him with a shudder. “The story of a mysterious
+plant, a sort of huge octopus that feeds on human
+flesh—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ugh!� laughed Bozevsky, “how gruesome!�
+and he bent his sunny head over the page.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just imagine,� I continued, “its branches are
+long moving tentacles, its thick leaves are quite
+black and hard; they glitter and move like living
+scorpions....�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Horrid, horrid,� said Bozevsky with his shining
+smile as he took the book out of my hand.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span>
+“Forget the scorpions. To-night I shall read
+you some Italian poetry. I want you to make
+friends with Carducci.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He opened a plainly bound volume at random,
+and read to me.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p>“<i>Oh favolosi prati d'Eliseo</i>...�</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+I forgot the tree of scorpions. I forgot Bozevsky.
+I forgot Aunt Sonia and the world. The
+unknown poet had wrapped my spirit in his giant
+wings and was bearing me far away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was about this time that Vassili took me to
+Moscow. There, one evening, our friends the
+Maximoffs brought a stranger to see us. They
+introduced him as an estimable Moscow lawyer
+of high repute. I was surrounded by other
+friends and I greeted him absently, without hearing
+his name. I remember casually noticing that
+he was neither young nor old, neither ugly nor
+handsome. His wife, a timid, fair-haired woman,
+was with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At Vassili's suggestion we all went to the
+“Strelna,� a famous night-restaurant. I remember
+that there was a great deal of laughter
+at the grotesque jokes which Vassili and Maximoff
+and also the estimable lawyer played on the pretty
+dark-faced tziganes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span>
+I noticed that the lawyer's wife did not laugh.
+She passed her hand across her wistful Madonna-like
+brow, and listened only to the music.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Like her I felt out of tune with the merriment
+around me. My thoughts wandered back to the
+silent drawing-room at Kieff: I thought of Aunt
+Sonia and her peaceful knitting, of Bozevsky and
+the books he had brought me. I seemed to hear
+his voice saying, “Ugh! a tree of scorpions�—and
+at that very instant something cold and claw-like
+clutched my bare shoulder. I uttered a
+piercing shriek, which seemed to turn every one—including
+myself—cold with terror. But it was
+only the estimable lawyer, who, having drunk
+rather too much, had playfully climbed upon the
+sofa behind me and, to save himself from falling
+off, had laid his hand upon my shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What on earth has happened?� exclaimed
+Vassili. “What made you scream like that?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don't know,� I stammered, taken aback, “I
+thought—I thought it was a scorpion!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every one laughed and for the rest of the evening
+the lawyer was nicknamed “the Scorpion.�
+Perhaps this name added to the unreasoning fear
+I felt of him, or perhaps I was merely nervous,
+but he seemed to be always close behind me, and
+during the whole of that evening I kept on turning
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span>
+round, with little shivers running down my
+spine, to see what he was doing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly he had disappeared. Vassili laughed
+loudly. “Hullo! Where's the Scorpion?� And
+amidst the laughter of the guests he set himself
+to count the flippant tziganes one by one to see
+if any were missing. But they were all there—and
+I was glad for the sake of the Scorpion's poor
+little Madonna-wife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was three in the morning when we went back
+to our sleighs. It was very cold; the clear deep-blue
+sky was powdered with stars. Assisted by
+Maximoff I was about to step into the sleigh,
+when, with another cry, I drew back; my foot had
+touched something soft and shapeless that was
+lying huddled up beneath the rug.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is the matter now?� cried Vassili.
+“Another scorpion?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No, it was the same one. It was the estimable
+lawyer very drunk and fast asleep at the bottom
+of the sleigh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On our way back to the hotel, driving through
+the keen night air, I asked Vassili:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who was that man?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What man?� said Vassili, who sat opposite
+to us and was pressing the small feet of Maximoff's
+wife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span>
+“You know—the man who frightened me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, the Scorpion?� laughed Vassili. “That
+was Donat Prilukoff.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When we returned to Kieff I told Bozevsky the
+adventure of our evening at the Strelna, and described
+the Scorpion to him with as much humor
+as I could. But Bozevsky did not laugh. My
+absence had embittered and exasperated him.
+He no longer sat beside me with an air of protective
+fraternal affection. He would not speak of
+literature or poetry any more. He spent entire
+evenings making mute scenes of jealousy and
+despair, while dear Aunt Sonia, instinctively
+feeling the atmosphere around her charged with
+electricity, dropped many stitches in her knitting
+and became sour and irritable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My child, this must not go on any longer.
+Either Alexis Bozevsky must be forbidden the
+house or we ourselves must go away. I cannot
+understand how Vassili—� Her honest cheeks
+kindled with indignation. “Enough. I shall
+speak to him about it myself.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did so: and Vassili, with his usual brief
+comment that we all bored him to death, expressed
+the hope that wild beasts might devour Bozevsky,
+and ordered us to pack up and leave for the
+country at once.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XII
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+So we all left for the country—to the great
+delight of Aunt Sonia and the children.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let my mind linger for an instant on those
+springtide days—the last for me, though I did not
+know it, of unalloyed serenity. The children and
+I used to rise at dawn and go into the vast garden
+all a-shimmer with dew. On the glittering lawn,
+among the flower-beds, down the shady avenues
+of the park the two little elfin figures flitted before
+me, calling to me, eluding me, darting to and fro
+like twin will-o'-the-wisps; then turned and ran
+towards me with wind-light steps and gilt locks
+afloat, to shelter in my outstretched arms. Oh!
+my children, my little boy and girl, when you remember
+your mother I pray that God may lead
+your memories back to those clear morning hours,
+and may the rest be blotted out and dark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vassili was inexpressibly bored with rural solitude
+and sought new means of diversion. His
+latest fad was target-shooting. He filled the
+house with rifles and revolvers and invited every
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span>
+one in the neighboring country houses to take
+part in shooting matches in our grounds. From
+morning to night, in the garden, in the courtyard,
+even from the windows of the house, there was a
+ceaseless crackling of firearms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One afternoon when the house was filled with
+guests, Dr. Stahl and Bozevsky arrived in their
+troika from the neighboring castle of the
+Grigorievskys, where they had been staying. To
+my astonishment, Vassili received them jubilantly
+and embraced them both. He had quite forgotten
+the reasons which had led to our departure from
+Kieff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bozevsky came to greet me at once, and for
+the rest of the day never left my side. He enveloped
+me in a whirlwind of ecstatic tenderness.
+His infatuation, which he sought neither to conceal
+nor to control, disquieted me deeply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I noticed that his friend Dr. Stahl watched us
+continually. I had not seen the doctor for many
+months, and he struck me as strangely altered.
+His very light eyes, in which the pupils were
+contracted until they seemed mere pin-points,
+followed me continuously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Doctor,� I said to him, “what strange eyes
+you have! Just like the eyes of a cat when it
+looks at the sun!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span>
+“I do not look at the sun,� he answered slowly,
+speaking with great stress. “I look into an abyss,
+the abyss of annihilation and oblivion. Some day,
+if ever you are irremediably unhappy, come to
+me and I will open to you, also, the doors of my
+unearthly paradise—of this chasm of deadly joy
+which engulfs me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shame on you, Stahl! How dare you suggest
+such a thing!� exclaimed Bozevsky, casting a look
+almost of hatred upon the morphinomaniac.
+“Why must you and your kind always seek to
+drag others down into your own gehenna?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stahl sighed. “It is terrible, I know. But it
+is a characteristic of our malady.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I listened without comprehending. I did not
+then know of Stahl's enslavement to the drug.
+“What are you speaking of? What malady? I
+do not understand.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is better not to understand,� murmured
+Bozevsky with knitted brows. “Stahl is distraught;
+he is ill. Pay no attention to him. And
+never follow either his advice nor his example.
+But pray,� he added, “do not worry your head
+over anything we have said; the shooting match
+will soon begin. I think your husband is looking
+for you.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Vassili was far from troubling himself about
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span>
+me. He was rushing to and fro setting up rows
+of bottles that were to serve as targets, and distributing
+guns and cartridges to all our guests.
+Then he hurried towards us. “There,� he said
+to Dr. Stahl and to Bozevsky, giving them each a
+Flobert rifle, “these are for you.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And what about the Countess?� asked Stahl
+in his hollow voice. “Is she not going to compete
+in the shooting?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, no!� I exclaimed. “I am much too frightened.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nonsense!� cried Vassili, pushing a gun into
+my unwilling hands. “Of course you must shoot
+with the rest. And I warn you that if you are
+not brave I shall play William Tell with an apple
+on your head!� He passed on laughing, with
+Madame Grigorievskaja armed with a Browning
+by his side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was not at all brave; I held the rifle at arm's
+length, trembling with fear lest it should explode
+by itself. Stahl was amused by my terror, while
+Bozevsky sought to encourage and comfort me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Poor timid birdling,� he murmured, “do not
+be frightened. See, I will teach you. It is done
+like this�—and he lifted the gun to my shoulder,
+placed my hands in position, and with his glowing
+face quite close to mine, showed me how I was to
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span>
+take aim. What with my terror of the gun and
+the fragrance of his fair hair near my cheek I felt
+quite dizzy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There, that's it. Now press the trigger.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No! no! Don't say that! don't let me!� I
+screamed, incoherent with terror while Stahl and
+Bozevsky laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vassili from a distance caught sight of me:
+“Bravo, Mura!� he cried. “That's right. Go
+on. Shoot!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No! no!� I cried with my eyes shut and
+standing rigid in the position in which Bozevsky
+had placed me, for I dared not move a muscle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vassili called impatiently: “What on earth
+are you waiting for?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still motionless, I gasped:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perhaps—I might dare—if some one were to
+cover my ears.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amidst great amusement Bozevsky came behind
+me and placed his two hands over my ears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come now!� cried Stahl. “Do not be frightened.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mind you hit the third bottle,� shouted Vassili
+from the distance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bozevsky standing behind me was clasping my
+head as though in a vice and whispering into my
+hair: “Darling, darling, darling! I love you.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span>
+“Don't,� I cried, almost in tears under the
+stress of different emotions, “and don't hold my
+ears so tight.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The warm clasp relaxed at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, no, no!� I cried. “I can hear everything.
+I don't want to hear—,� but even as I spoke the
+gun went off. I felt a blow near my shoulder, and
+thought I was wounded; but it was only the recoil
+of the weapon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Everybody was laughing and applauding.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What have I killed?� I asked, cautiously
+opening my eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The third bottle!� cried Vassili, and he was
+so delighted with my exploit that he ran up and
+embraced me. But the pistol he was holding in
+his hand and Bozevsky's glance of jealous wrath
+filled me afresh with twofold terror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The afternoon passed as if in a dream. Vassili
+became very much excited and drank a great deal
+of vodka. Then Madame Grigorievskaja, who
+had once visited the United States, concocted
+strange American drinks which we had never
+tasted before—cocktails, mint-juleps, pousse-cafés
+and gin-slings. They were much approved of by
+every one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I remember vaguely that half way through the
+afternoon some one let down my hair and set me
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span>
+among the shattered bottles with an apple on my
+head. I seem to see Vassili standing in front of
+me with a rifle and taking aim at me while the
+others utter cries of protest. Suddenly Bozevsky
+snatches the weapon from my husband's hands,
+and there is a brief struggle between them. Soon
+they are laughing again, and shaking hands—then
+Bozevsky joins me among the shattered bottles,
+and stands in front of me; he is so tall that I can
+see nothing but his broad shoulders and his fair
+hair. And Vassili is shooting—the bullets whirr
+over my head and all around me, but I have no
+sense of fear; Bozevsky stands before me, straight
+and motionless as a rampart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We go in to dinner; gipsy musicians arrive and
+play for us. Late at night when the garden is
+quite dark we go out again to the targets; instead
+of the bottles Vassili has ordered a row of lighted
+candles to be set up, and we are to extinguish them
+with our shots without knocking them down.
+There is much noise around me; Vassili is dancing
+a tarantelle with Ivan Grigorievsky on the lawn.
+Dr. Stahl and Bozevsky are always by my side.
+I keep on shooting at the candles, but they spin
+round before my confused eyes like catharine-wheels;
+and Stahl laughs, and Bozevsky sighs, and
+the gipsies play....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span>
+Suddenly Tioka's nurse comes hurriedly down
+the pathway towards me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“May I speak to your ladyship for a moment?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, Elise. What is it?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Master Tioka cannot go to sleep. He says
+you have forgotten to bid him good-night.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I put down my rifle and follow the straight small
+figure of Elise Perrier through the garden. I
+hasten after her into the house and upstairs to the
+nursery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Little Tania is already fast asleep, with scarlet
+lips parted and silken hair scattered on her pillow.
+But Tioka is sitting up in his cot awaiting me.
+His bright soft eyes wander over my face, my
+hair, my dress; his innocent gaze seems to pierce
+me like a fiery sword. He holds out his arms to
+me and I hide my flushed face on his childish
+breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good-night, mother dear,� he whispers, kissing
+me and patting my face with his small hand.
+Then he adds, with a funny little sniff at my cheeks
+and hair: “You smell of many things—of perfume
+and powder and cigarettes and wine....�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This sequence of gay words on the childish lips
+strikes at my heart like so many daggers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush, darling,� I whisper, taking refuge in
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span>
+those frail arms as in a haven of safety. “Forgive—forgive
+your mother.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he does not know what there is to forgive;
+and he laughs and yawns and then nestles down
+in his pillow, still holding tightly to my hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Must you go away?� he sighs, in a sleepy, endearing
+voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, darling, no. I will stay with you.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then tell me the poetry about the Virgin
+Mary coming down to see us in the night.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Holding my child's hand in my own, I begin
+softly:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p>“When little children sleep, the Virgin Mary</p>
+<p>Steps with white feet upon the crescent moon...�</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+But already Tioka is in the land of dreams.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XIII
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+The whole party of guests stayed at our house
+that night. Even one of the gipsy musicians was
+found next morning asleep on the sofa in the
+library.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No one came down to breakfast. Only Bozevsky
+got up early and went for a gallop on the hills.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I awoke at eight o'clock and rang the bell.
+Elise Perrier came in and opened the windows.
+The fresh April breeze blew in and the chirrup of
+the nests greeted me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elise, is the morning fine? Can the mountains
+be seen?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, my lady.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elise, when you see the mountains do you not
+feel homesick for Switzerland?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, my lady.� And Elise stooped down to
+set out my slippers and to hide the flush that rose
+to her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am homesick, too, Elise. I am homesick I
+hardly know for what—homesick for solitude and
+peace.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She made no reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span>
+“Should I find them in your Switzerland, do
+you think?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elise Perrier shakes her head and answers in
+a low tone: “No, my lady. Swiss homesickness
+and Russian homesickness are different.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In what way?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We Swiss are homesick for—how shall I say?—for
+the outside things we are far away from
+... homesick for mountains and pine-trees and
+villages. But Russians are homesick for what
+they miss in their own hearts.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are right, Elise.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tioka in his nightdress followed by Tania
+sucking the head of her favorite rubber doll have
+run gaily in and embrace me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are we going to Switzerland?� cries Tioka,
+who has overheard what we were saying. “How
+nice! When do we start?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How nice! When do we start?� says Tania,
+who always echoes everything her brother says.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I like to be always going away,� adds Tioka.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Tania repeats, “I like to be always going
+away.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I marvel at finding in these two children of mine,
+my own unrest already stirring, like a butterfly
+poised with quivering wings on the dawning
+flower of their souls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span>
+I went down alone into the garden and entered
+the grove, where the sunshine only penetrates
+with mild rays of almost lunar whiteness. The
+grass under my feet was studded with periwinkles,
+their prim, pert faces lifted to the sky; tenuous
+ferns unfolded their embroidered scrolls, and
+masses of gentle wild violets, conscious of their
+pallor and their scentlessness, drooped shyly in
+the shade.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the branches overhead wild hidden birds tried
+their new springtide voices in soft modulations
+and trills, or in long-drawn contralto notes of
+liquescent sweetness. Thus April spoke to me
+in gentle voices. With a sudden overwhelming
+longing to be nearer to the very soul of spring, I
+knelt on the grass and buried my face in the cool
+leaves and blossoms, bidding my heart be pure
+and cool as they.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On my homeward way I passed the targets.
+The servants had put everything in order—pistols,
+rifles and cartridges; and a fresh row of bottles
+seemed to await with glassy eye the shots of the
+amateur marksmen. With a deep sense of humiliation
+I remembered the feverish agitations of
+the previous day, and once more I said to myself:
+“Henceforward may my life be serene and
+pure.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span>
+A gay voice rang out close behind me, and
+startled me from my reverie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Lady Marie, good morrow!� It was Bozevsky,
+who, clicking his spurred heels together,
+saluted me with a radiant smile. His morning
+canter seemed to have given him an added touch
+of beauty and of daring; his fair hair gleamed in
+the sunshine, his smile was reckless and resplendent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I bowed without speaking and attempted to
+pursue my way to the house, but he took my hand
+and detained me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why go in? Everybody is still asleep.
+Come now,� he urged, with a frank engaging
+smile, “stay here for awhile and practise at the
+targets.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So saying he chose a rifle and loaded it. Then
+he held it out to me. I took it from him and put
+it to my shoulder. I aimed carefully and was
+about to press the trigger when suddenly Bozevsky,
+with a lightning movement, put out his hand
+and pressed his palm against the muzzle of my
+gun.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait!� he cried, with a wild, extravagant
+laugh. “Wait a moment! Before you press
+the trigger I want you to say—'Alexis, I love
+you!'�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span>
+“You are mad!� I exclaimed. “Take away
+your hand!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. First you must say—'Alexis, I love
+you.'�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I felt a hot flush rise to my brow. “Take away
+your hand!� I repeated and looked steadily at
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did not move.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Take it away, I implore you!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still he never moved, and I could see that hand
+stopping the muzzle of my gun—a long, slender
+hand with fingers separate and outstretched, and
+I felt almost as if I were under the influence of
+some hallucination. It was not only <i>his</i> hand that
+I saw—I seemed in a kind of frenzy to see the
+hands of all men outstretched before me, ready
+to grasp me, to crush me, to beat me down. Doubtless
+a wave of madness swept over me; a convulsive
+spasm shook my wrist—and the gun went
+off. I saw the long, lithe hand drop like some
+wounded creature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a cry I let the rifle fall, and covered my
+face. But Bozevsky had sprung upon me, and
+with his other hand seized both mine and pressed
+them down. He was as white as death. “You
+little tigress,� he gasped. Then, as I was about
+to cry out again, he covered my mouth with his
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span>
+shattered hand, and I felt the blood gush over my
+face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What distant heritage of madness broke upon
+us at that moment? What primitive frenzy
+lashed us together in a fierce embrace? I cannot
+tell. All I know is that from that hour I was his—tamed,
+vanquished, broken in spirit, and yet
+glad. He was the first, the last, the only lover
+of my devastated youth, and by his side the brief
+springtime of my happiness flowered and died.
+When the fearful death that was so soon to lay
+him low came upon him, when I saw him fall
+at my feet shot by Vassili—my reason gave way.
+The rest of my life lies behind me like a somber
+nightmare landscape, through which I wander,
+groping in the dark, stumbling forward on my way
+to perdition....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet sometimes I dream that it is all not true,
+that he still lives, that one day the door of my
+cell will open, and the lover of my youth appear
+to me again. I shall see him standing on the
+threshold, a halo of sunshine lighting his fair hair,
+like some young martyr-saint come to deliver me
+from my bondage. The hand I wounded will be
+filled with roses, and his clear voice will call me by
+my name.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then rising from this gloomy prison bench I
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span>
+shall move to meet him. Shame and crime and
+captivity will fall away from me like a dark and
+worn-out cloak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Free and fair as in those distant April days in
+which he loved me, with white, winged footsteps
+I shall follow him.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XIV
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly, almost from one day to another,
+Vassili grew jealous. When I had adored him
+he had neglected and forsaken me. Now that he
+feared to lose me he was inconsolable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You and Tioka are very much alike,� I said
+to him one day when we were all at luncheon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you think so?� said Vassili, patting his
+little son's fair head and contemplating the small
+face, which at that moment was making a terrible
+grimace over its food. “What makes you say
+so?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You shall see.� I leaned over to the child.
+“Tioka, my darling, won't you eat your nice dinner?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No!� said Tioka with great decision.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come, now, darling, eat your nice soup,� and
+I held a spoonful to his lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,� said Tioka, turning his face away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why not, dear? Don't you like it?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. It's nasty.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, then,� I said, putting down the spoon,
+“we will give it to the farmer's little boy.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span>
+“No! no!� cried Tioka, and he quickly devoured
+the soup in large spoonfuls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vassili laughed. “He is quite right. His
+soup is not for the farmer's little boy. To each
+one his own soup, isn't that so, Tioka!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,� said Tioka.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why 'no'? You should say 'yes.'�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,� declared Tioka doggedly. “This is my
+'no' day.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your <i>what</i>?� exclaimed his father.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My day for saying 'no,'� announced Tioka
+with great decision.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His father was much amused. “I also shall
+have my 'no' days,� he declared. “And I shall
+begin at once. To-day, Mura, we shall receive
+no visitors.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But, Vassili,� I protested, “we must see the
+Grigorievskys; we have invited them to dinner.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,� said my husband.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And Semenzoff. And Bozevsky.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,� he repeated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you really mean that we are not to receive
+them?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,� he reiterated. “This is my 'no' day.�
+And the reception for that evening was actually
+put off. The jest seemed highly entertaining to
+Vassili. I heard him laughing to himself as he
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span>
+went downstairs; and in the days that followed
+he frequently repeated it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shortly afterwards he took us all back to Kieff
+and there he had many “no� days. In particular
+he would not let Bozevsky visit us; and more than
+a month passed without my seeing him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last it happened that the Stahls invited us
+to a ball, and Vassili, who chanced to be in a good
+temper, accepted. I knew I should meet Bozevsky
+there, and at the mere thought of seeing him
+again I trembled with joy and fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elise Perrier dressed me in a filmy gossamer
+gown of soft opalescent tints, and fastened
+round my neck the famous O'Rourke pearls—those
+pearls which, according to family traditions,
+had once decorated the slender neck of Mary
+Stuart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Vassili put me into the troika he was all
+kindness and amiability; he wrapped me closely
+in the furs, and then took his seat beside me,
+muffling himself up to his nose in the bearskins.
+The horses started and we were off like the
+wind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the drive tender and kindly feelings
+towards Vassili filled my heart. I said to myself
+that perhaps he was after all not wholly to
+blame for his faults and follies. He, too, was
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>[88]</span>
+so young; perhaps if I had been less of a child
+at the time of my marriage I should have known
+how to make him love me more. And, after all,
+were we not still in time to reshape our lives?
+What if we were to go far away from Kieff, far
+from St. Petersburg, and try to take up the thread
+of our broken idyll again? My hand sought his.
+He grasped it and held it warmly clasped under
+the rug without turning towards me; I could
+see his eyes shining under his fur cap as he gazed
+straight before him, while we sped over the silent
+snow. During that drive, from the bottom of
+my heart, I forgave him all his transgressions
+and silently craved forgiveness for mine. Already
+I seemed to see myself with him and the children
+and Aunt Sonia happily secluded in some smiling
+rose-clad mansion in Italy. He would take up
+the study of his music again, perhaps he would
+compose, as he had often spoken of doing—while
+I, seated at his feet, would read the Italian poets
+that I loved, raising my eyes now and then to contemplate
+the motionless blue wave of the distant
+Apennines....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the troika had stopped, and Vassili sprang
+out upon the snow. Through the illuminated
+windows the tzigane music poured forth its waves
+of sensuous melody—and alas! the rhythmic
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span>
+swing of it swept away, as in a whirlwind, the
+peaceful dreams of Italy, of the rose-clad mansion
+and the Italian poets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While the servants were taking our cloaks and
+snowshoes from us I whispered hurriedly to
+Vassili: “Dearest, be good to-night. Do not
+drink much.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why not? What a strange idea!� he said;
+and we passed into the overheated, overlighted
+rooms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the far end of the ballroom some thirty
+tziganes, women and men, in their picturesque
+costumes were making music. The men played
+and the women sang. The dancing couples
+whirled round in the scent-laden air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Doctor Stahl's wife, a kindly German woman,
+received us with amiable smiles; Stahl himself
+greeted us with excited effusiveness. He was
+quite pale with two red spots on the summit of
+his cheeks. I was struck anew by his strange
+air of intoxication, for I knew he never touched
+wine. Immediately, from the end of the room
+Bozevsky came hastening to meet us, superb in
+his full uniform—blue tunic and scarlet belt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hail <i>Fata Morgana</i>!� he cried. “Give me
+this dance,� and he put his arm round my waist.
+But I drew back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span>
+“Alas, Prince Charming, I dare not.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He turned pale; then he bowed, twirled on his
+heels and moved away. He did not come near me
+again until late in the evening. I saw him surrounded
+by women, who danced with him, smiling
+into his face, floating with languid grace in his arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I shrank into a corner of the vast room where
+tall plants and flowers screened me from the
+dancers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, what are you doing hidden here?� cried
+Stahl, coming up to me. His pupils were narrower
+than ever and his breath came and went
+in short gasps. He bent over me and scanned
+my face. “What are your thoughts, Countess
+Marie?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have no thoughts,� I replied sadly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then I will give you one,� said he laughing;
+“a blithe and comforting thought—think that a
+hundred years hence we shall all be dead!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“True,� I answered, and a wave of unspeakable
+melancholy invaded my soul. “We may, perhaps,
+be dead even fifty years hence.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Or thirty,� laughed Stahl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Or twenty,� I sighed, in even deeper despondency.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, no,� said Stahl. “Twenty years hence
+you will still be a charming matron getting on
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span>
+towards middle-age.� And, as some one was calling
+him, he turned away and left me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His words sank into my heart, heavy and searing
+as molten lead. How short, how short was life!
+How the years flew past! How brief were the
+wings of youth and happiness! I raised my eyes—doubtless
+they were full of sadness—and I
+saw that Bozevsky at the far end of the room
+was looking at me. Several brilliantly attired
+women were laughing and talking to him, but abruptly,
+without excuse or explanation, he left them
+and crossed the room to where I sat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The tziganes were playing a wild, nerve-thrilling
+czarda. Without a word Bozevsky put his
+arm round me and drew me into the dance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The music went faster and faster, wilder and
+ever more wild.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Light as air I swung round in Bozevsky's arm.
+I could have wished to dance thus forever—dance,
+dance to the very brink of life and, still dancing,
+to plunge over into the abyss of death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we whirled round I perceived that Vassili
+was watching us. He was drinking champagne
+with vodka in it and was laughing loudly while
+he spoke to Stahl; but his eyes never left me as
+I swept round the ballroom with Bozevsky. His
+gaze alarmed me. I was dizzy and out of breath,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span>
+but I did not dare to stop dancing for fear of
+Vassili. I danced and danced, breathless and
+distraught; I felt my heart beating furiously, pulsing
+with the mad rapidity, the battering throb of
+a motor-cycle at full speed—and still I danced
+and danced on, while the ballroom, the guests,
+the tziganes spun round and round before my
+blurred eyes....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vassili's gaze still followed me.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XV
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly my strength failed me. The room
+seemed to be paved with water; the floor yielded
+and undulated under my feet; the motor-cycle
+pulsing in my breast stopped dead. Then I felt
+Bozevsky's arm sustain me as I fell forward
+on his breast. Everything whirled, darkened—vanished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I opened my eyes I was seated near the
+window; the dancers crowded round me. Stahl
+was bending over me with a small shining instrument
+in his hand. It was a hypodermic syringe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I shrank back in terror. “No, no!� I cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Seeing that I had recovered my senses Vassili,
+who stood behind me, laid an iron hand on my
+bare shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come,� he said in a hoarse and brutal voice.
+“Come at once.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where to?� I rose trembling to my feet. I
+still felt dizzy and weak, and scarcely knew where
+I was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Home,� said Vassili, bending over me with a
+terrible look. His face was so close to mine that
+I could feel his breath upon me, hot and laden
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span>
+with that subtle sweetish exhalation of ether that
+vodka leaves behind it. “The dance is over,� he
+muttered. “It is over, it is over.� I noticed his
+clenched fists; and I was afraid. A deep silence
+had fallen on the entire room. “Come!� he repeated
+in a tone that made me quake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I shrank back in terror. Then Vassili put out
+his hand and seized my pearl necklace; it broke
+in his grasp. The milky gems fell to the ground
+and rolled away in all directions; the guests, both
+men and women, stooped down to search for them
+and pick them up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But now Bozevsky had taken a step forward,
+and stood, haughty and aggressive, in front of
+Vassili. He uttered a brief word in a low
+voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vassili turned upon him with livid countenance.
+“Insolent scoundrel!� he cried, wildly searching
+his pockets for a weapon; then in a frenzy he
+turned on the awe-stricken assembly: “Go away,
+everybody!� he shouted. “Stahl, turn out the
+lights. We are going to have a game of blind
+man's buff, the Uhlan and I. A game of blind
+man's buff in the dark! Quick, Stahl, give us a
+couple of revolvers. Send all these people away
+and turn out the lights.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span>
+He was beside himself with vodka and with
+wrath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bozevsky still faced him, calm and unmoved.
+“Why should it be in the dark, Count Tarnowsky?
+Why not in the light of day—at ten
+paces?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No!� roared Vassili. “I'll kill you in the
+dark, evil beast that you are. I'll slaughter you
+like a wild beast in the dark!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I never knew how we succeeded in getting him
+out into the troika, but at last the feat was accomplished,
+and he drove off with Madame Grigorievska
+and Semenzoff, the only two people who
+had any influence over him. I followed in another
+sleigh, alone with Dr. Stahl, who during the entire
+drive panted and shivered beside me, as if in the
+throes of some fierce physical agony.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through the starry calm of the night, while the
+sleighs glided silently over the snow, we could
+hear Vassili's strident and drunken voice still
+roaring: “Blind man's buff with the officer!
+Ha, ha, ha! In the dark—bing bang. Blind
+man's buff!�
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+The scandal in Kieff was enormous. The whole
+town spoke of nothing else. All the women sided
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span>
+with Vassili, and all the men with me. As for
+Vassili, he cared nothing for the opinion of either.
+He came and went with lowering brows, never
+speaking either to me or to the children.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was unspeakably frightened and unhappy.
+At last, one evening, unable to endure the strain
+of his silence any longer, and praying God to give
+me courage, I went tremblingly and knocked at
+his study door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He said “Come in,� and I entered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was standing by the window, smoking, and
+he turned upon me a cold vindictive eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Vassili�—my voice trembled—“Vassili, don't
+be angry with me any more. Forgive me. I did
+not mean to offend you. I did not mean—� I
+burst into tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He seemed somewhat moved and held out his
+hand to me without speaking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I grasped it eagerly. He continued to smoke
+and look out of the window, while I stood awkwardly
+beside him, holding his hand and not knowing
+what to say.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps my silence pleased him, for soon I felt
+him press my trembling fingers more closely.
+Looking timidly up into his face I saw that his
+lips were quivering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Vassili,� I whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span>
+He turned to me abruptly. “Let us go away,�
+he said, “Mura, let us go away!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where?� I asked, overcome with sudden fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Far away from here, far away from Russia.
+I cannot live in this accursed country any longer.�
+And Vassili let go my hand in order to clench his
+fists.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I had thought of it, too,� I said unsteadily.
+And in a low voice I told him my thoughts of the
+rose-clad house in Italy, my dreams of an azure
+exile in that beauteous land, alone with him and
+the children.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mura! Mura!� he said, taking my face
+between his hands and gazing deeply into my eyes.
+“Tell me—is it not too late?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Was it too late?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In my soul my unlawful passion for Bozevsky
+rose like a giant wave, towered over me, enveloped
+and submerged me. Then—then to the eyes of
+my spirit there came the vision of my children,
+of a flower-filled Italian garden, of peace reconquered
+and deliverance from evil. “No, Vassili,
+no. It is not too late!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a sigh I lay my cheek against his shoulder
+and bowed my face upon his breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before our departure from Russia, in order not
+to leave ill-feeling or evil talk behind us, it was
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span>
+decided that Vassili and Bozevsky should meet
+and be reconciled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Stahls and Grigorievskys gladly undertook
+to organize an afternoon reception at which we
+were to take leave of all our friends and acquaintances.
+After that there would be a theater party
+at the opera, and, finally, the more intimate of
+our friends were to be the guests of Bozevsky
+himself at a supper at the Grand Hotel. There
+we were to say farewell to one another for many
+years, perhaps forever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In spite of the burning desire which drew me
+towards Bozevsky, I had honorably kept my part
+of the agreement and had refused to see him for
+even an instant before the appointed day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vassili took the necessary steps to get our passports
+and every preparation was made for our
+final departure from Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now the eve of our journey had come—the
+afternoon reception was over; and this was the
+fatal evening which was to mark the supreme and
+ultimate hour of my happiness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Satins and jewels decked my aching heart;
+flowers garlanded my ringleted hair; I wanted
+Alexis to see me for the last time looking my
+fairest. I longed to remain forever in his memory
+a loved and radiant vision.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span>
+“You are dazzlingly beautiful,� said my cousin
+Vera to me, as soon as I entered the room, surveying
+me from top to toe. “I can quite understand
+why every one is crazy about you.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was immediately surrounded by all our most
+intimate friends, who lamented in every key our
+resolve to leave Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Without you, Kieff will be empty. It will be
+like a ring which has lost its brightest gem.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I smiled and sighed, feeling both gratified and
+mournful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Who would have thought that after this evening
+all those who now surrounded me with flattering
+words would pass me by without a greeting, would
+turn from me as from some vile and tainted creature?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bozevsky, pallid and stern, came to me, and
+bowed low as he kissed my hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Ave! Ave ... Maria!</i>� he said. Then he
+raised his eyes and looked at me long and fixedly.
+Despair was so clearly written on his countenance,
+that I felt afraid lest Vassili should notice it;
+Alexis read the fear in my eyes, and laughed.
+“Do you know what I believe?� he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I looked at him without understanding.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I believe,� he continued in scornful tones,
+“that I am in a trap.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a>[100]</span>
+“A trap? What do you mean?� I gazed
+questioningly into his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, yes, a trap,� said he with a cynical laugh.
+Then in a tone that seemed in keeping with the
+frivolous atmosphere that surrounded us:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Countess,� he continued, “has it ever happened
+to you to go wrong in some well-known quotation?
+To begin, for instance, with one author,
+and to end with another?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I do not understand,� I stammered, perplexed
+by the strangeness of his manner. “What—what
+do you mean?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vassili was approaching, and Alexis with a
+scornful laugh raised his voice slightly as he spoke.
+“Because to-night,� he said, “a misquotation of
+that kind keeps ringing through my brain. “<i>Ave,
+Maria!... Morituri te salutant!</i>�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vassili stood beside us and heard the words with
+a puzzled smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Morituri?</i>� he said, holding out his hand to
+Bozevsky with a frank and friendly gesture.
+“<i>Morituri?</i> Indeed I hope not.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bozevsky took his hand and looked him in the
+face. Vassili returned his gaze; then, with an
+impulsive gesture, in true Russian fashion, my
+husband bent forward and kissed him on both
+cheeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101"></a>[101]</span>
+No! no, it was not a trap! From the depths
+of my broken heart, from my inmost consciousness,
+there springs up this protest on behalf of
+him who on that fatal evening wrecked my life.
+I know that it was an impulse of his fervent heart
+that impelled Vassili to open his arms to the man
+whom an hour before he had hated—and whom an
+hour later he slew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No; it was not a trap.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XVI
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+Doubtless that evening I was beautiful. During
+the supper party at the Grand Hotel I felt
+that I diffused around me an atmosphere of more
+subtle intoxication than the music or the wines.
+Placed between Vassili and Stahl I laughed and
+laughed in a fever of rapturous gaiety. I was excited
+and overwrought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bozevsky sat facing me. As I glanced at his
+proud, passionate face, I said in my heart: “To-morrow
+you will see him no more. But this
+evening he is here; you see him, pale for the love
+of you, thrilled by your presence. Do not think
+of to-morrow. To-morrow is far away!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So I laughed and laughed while the rhythmic
+charm of waltzes played on muted strings wrought
+upon my senses, swaying me towards an unreal
+world, a world of transcendent passion and incomparable
+joys.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stahl, seated at my right hand, was flushed and
+elated, but still drew the hurried sibilant breaths
+I had so often noticed in him. Vassili seemed to
+have fallen in love with me anew. He murmured
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103"></a>[103]</span>
+rapturous words into my ear. “To-morrow you
+shall be mine, mine only, out of reach of all others,
+beyond the sight and the desire of all these people—whose
+necks I should like to wring.� And he
+drank his Clicquot looking at me with kindling
+eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Vassili,� I whispered imploringly, “do not
+drink any more.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don't you wish me to?� he asked, turning
+to me with his glass of champagne in his hand.
+“Don't you wish it? Well—there!� He flung
+the glass full of blonde wine behind him over his
+shoulder. The thin crystal chalice was shattered
+into a thousand pieces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What are you doing, Vassili? What are you
+doing?� cried Grigorievsky. “Are you playing
+the King of Thule?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Precisely,� laughed Vassili. “Was he not the
+paragon of all lovers, who chose to die of thirst
+in order to follow his adored one to the grave?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And somewhat uncertainly he quoted:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p>“Then did he fling his chalice</p>
+<p>Into the surging main,</p>
+<p>He watched it sink and vanish—</p>
+<p class="i2">  And never drank again.�</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+“Here's to the King of Thule!� cried one of
+the guests. And they all drank Vassili's health.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104"></a>[104]</span>
+Bozevsky had sprung to his feet; his eyes
+gleamed strangely. “You may be the King of
+Thule, Tarnowsky,� he cried in a mocking tone,
+“but I am the knight Olaf. You know the
+legend?� His clear insolent eyes surveyed the
+guests provocatively. “Olaf—you remember—was
+condemned to death for daring to love the
+king's daughter. He was at his last banquet.
+'Take heed, Olaf,' said the king. 'The headsman
+stands at the door!' 'Let him stay there, sire,
+while I bid farewell to life in a last toast!' And
+standing up—just as I stand here—he raised his
+glass, as I raise mine:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>“I drink to the earth, I drink to the sky,</p>
+<p class="i2">  I drink to the sea and the shore;</p>
+<p>I drink to the days that I have seen,</p>
+<p class="i2">  And the days I shall see no more;</p>
+<p>I drink to the King who has sentenced me,</p>
+<p class="i2">  And the Headsman at the door.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>“I bless the joys that I have had</p>
+<p class="i2">  And the joys that I have missed;</p>
+<p>I bless the eyes that have smiled on me</p>
+<p class="i2">  And the lips that I have kissed!�</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+Here Bozevsky turned and looked straight at
+me:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p>“To <i>thy</i> red lips that I have kissed</p>
+<p>I raise this cup of wine,</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105"></a>[105]</span></p>
+<p>I bless thy radiant loveliness</p>
+<p class="i2">  That made my life divine,</p>
+<p>And I bless the hour that brings me death</p>
+<p class="i2">  For the hour that thou wert mine!�</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+He uttered these words in a loud voice, with
+his daring eyes fixed steadily on mine; then he
+raised his glass and drained it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vassili had sprung to his feet. But instantly
+Stahl was beside him, speaking rapidly, while
+Grigorievsky exclaimed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The sleighs are waiting. It is time to go
+home!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amid nervous and hurried farewells the perilous
+moment passed and the danger was averted. We
+all hastened to our sleighs; my cousin Vera and
+Madame Grigorievska were beside me; Stahl and
+Grigorievsky had each with an air of easy friendliness
+taken my husband by the arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good-by! Good-by! <i>Bon voyage!</i> Good-by!�
+The last farewells had been exchanged.
+The impatient horses were shaking their bells in
+the icy night air. Vera had already taken her
+place in the sleigh, and I was about to step in beside
+her, when I saw Bozevsky striding rapidly
+towards me. He passed in front of my husband,
+who was standing near the second sleigh with
+Stahl and Grigorievsky, and came straight to me.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span>
+He stretched out his hand with a gesture of
+despair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So it is all over—all over!� he said. “And
+this is good-by!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His voice broke, and he bent his fair head over
+my hand, crushing my fingers in his feverish
+clasp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that instant the report of a shot rang out,
+followed by a mad outburst of laughter from
+Vassili. I saw the horses of the sleigh plunge
+and rear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bozevsky, still clasping my hand, wrenched himself
+upright; a convulsive shiver passed through
+him, and his head jerked backwards with a strange,
+wooden movement like that of a broken doll—then
+with a shrill burst of laughter which showed all
+his teeth, he fell forward at my feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a cry I bent over him, and I felt a splash
+of blood on my face. It spurted forth like the
+jet of a fountain from the side of his neck. Once
+again my hands, my dress were covered with his
+blood—I thought I was in a dream. Every one
+had come rushing up. Now they raised him. I
+saw Stahl snatch a white scarf from some one's
+shoulders and wind it round and round the
+wounded neck, and immediately a dark stain appeared
+on the scarf and slowly widened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107"></a>[107]</span>
+Supported by Stahl, Bozevsky stared about him
+with haggard eyes, until his gaze met mine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A quiver passed over his face. “I bless the
+hour—� he gasped. Then a gush of blood came
+from his mouth, and he was silent.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XVII
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+Bozevsky was carried to his room and the
+manager and servants of the Grand Hotel
+thronged in murmuring consternation round his
+door. A Swedish doctor, staying at the hotel, was
+summoned in haste. He appeared in his dressing-gown,
+and with Stahl's assistance carefully
+dressed and bound up the deep double wound
+caused by the bullet, which had passed through
+the left side of Bozevsky's neck and come out beneath
+his chin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Trembling and weeping I followed the sinister
+procession, and with Cousin Vera and Madame
+Stahl entered Bozevsky's room. Now I stood,
+silently praying, at the foot of the bed. Bozevsky
+sunken in his pillow, with his eyes closed and his
+head and neck in bandages, looked as if he were
+already dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He suddenly opened his eyes, and his gaze
+wandered slowly from side to side until it rested
+on me. He moved his lips as if to speak, and I
+hastened to his pillow and bent over him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He whispered, “Stay here.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a>[109]</span>
+“Yes,� I said, and sat down beside him, taking
+his moist, chill hand between my own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He repeated weakly: “Stay here. Do not go
+away.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Swedish doctor was washing his hands and
+talking in a low voice to Stahl. He turned to me
+and said:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must try not to agitate him. Do not let
+him speak or move his head.� Then he went out
+into the corridor with Stahl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Stahl and Vera sat mute and terror-stricken
+in a corner. I watched Bozevsky, with
+a deep, dull ache racking my heart. He seemed
+to be falling asleep. I felt his hand relax in mine
+and his short breathing became calmer and more
+regular.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Stahl came in again, and Bozevsky opened
+his eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stahl approached the bedside and stood for a
+long while looking down at his friend. Then he
+turned to me. “A nurse is coming,� he said. “I
+will take you ladies home and then come back and
+pass the night with him.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Take me home! How could I return home?
+How could I endure to meet Vassili again? At
+the mere thought of seeing him, who with a
+treacherous shot from behind had shattered this
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110"></a>[110]</span>
+young existence, hatred and terror flamed up
+within me. No! I would not return home.
+Never again would I touch the hand of Vassili
+Tarnowsky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While these thoughts traversed my mind, some
+one knocked at the door. It was the nurse. Vera
+and Madame Grigorievska, after questioning me
+with their eyes, got up softly; then, with a glance
+of pity at Bozevsky, they went on tiptoe out of the
+room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the door Stahl beckoned to me to come. But
+I shook my head. As if he knew what was passing
+Bozevsky opened his eyes again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stay here,� he whispered. Then he put his
+hand to the bandage round his neck. “If you
+leave me I will tear it all off.� He made a gesture
+as if he would do so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I shall not leave you,� I whispered bending
+over him. “I shall never leave you again.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I kept my word.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+Later I learned that Vassili had given himself
+up to the authorities, and that my grief-stricken
+mother had come to fetch our children and had
+taken them with her to Otrada. To her and to
+my father they were the source of much melancholy
+joy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111"></a>[111]</span>
+Thus did the old garden of my youth open
+again its shadowy pathways and flowery lawns
+to the unconscious but already sorrow-touched
+childhood of little Tioka and Tania—those tragic
+children whose father was in prison and whose
+mother, far away from them, watched and suffered
+by the sinister death-bed of a stranger. To me
+the two innocent, angelic figures often came in
+my dreams; and I cried out to them with bitterest
+tears: “Oh, my own children, my two loved ones,
+forgive your mother that she does not forsake one
+who is dying for her sake. This very night, perhaps,
+or to-morrow—soon, soon, alas!—his life will
+end. And with a broken heart your mother will
+return to you.�
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+But Bozevsky did not die that night. Nor the
+following day. Nor the day after.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fate had in store for him and for me a much
+more appalling doom. He dragged his frightful
+death-agony through the interminable hours of a
+hundred days and a hundred nights. He was
+doomed to trail his torment from town to town,
+from surgeon to surgeon, from specialist to charlatan.
+One after another, they would unbandage
+the white and withered neck, probe the blue-edged
+wound, and then cover up again with yellow gauze
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112"></a>[112]</span>
+the horrifying cavity; leaving us to return, heart-stricken
+and silent, to the luxurious hotels that
+housed our irremediable despair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About that time I heard that Vassili had been
+released on bail. Later on he was acquitted by
+a jury in the distant city of Homel, on the ground
+of justifiable homicide.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps it was a just verdict. But for him
+whom he had struck down—and for me—what anguish,
+great Heavens! What lingering torture of
+heart-breaking days and nights.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah, those nights, those appalling nights! We
+dreaded them as one dreads some monstrous wild
+beast, lurking in wait to devour us. All day long
+we thought only of the night. As soon as twilight
+drew near Bozevsky, lying in his bed with his face
+towards the window, clutched my hand and would
+not let it go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am afraid,� he would murmur. “I wish it
+were not night. If only it were not night!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nonsense, dearest,� I would say, cheerfully.
+“It is quite early. It is still broad daylight.
+Everybody is moving about. The whole world is
+awake and out of doors.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But night, furtive and grim, crouched in the
+shadowy room, lurked in dark corners, and then
+suddenly was upon us, black, silent, terrifying.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span>
+Round us the world lay asleep, and we two were
+awake and alone with our terror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then began the never-ending question, ceaselessly
+repeated, reiterated throughout the entire
+night:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>What is the time?</i>�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was only nine o'clock. It was half-past nine....
+Ten... Half-past ten... A quarter to
+eleven... Eleven o'clock... Five minutes
+past...
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as it was dawn, at about four o'clock,
+Bozevsky grew calm. Silence fell, and he slept.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+The last station of our calvary was at Yalta,
+in the Crimea. We had gone there with a last
+up-flaming of hope. There were doctors there
+whom we had not yet consulted. There was
+Ivanoff and the world-famed Bobros.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Continue the same treatment,� said the one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must try never to move your head,� said
+the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And to our other tortures was added the martyrdom
+of complete immobility.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want to turn my head,� Bozevsky would say
+in the night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, dearest, no. I implore you—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114"></a>[114]</span>
+“I must. I must turn it from one side to the
+other. If I stay like this any longer I shall go
+mad!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, with infinite precautions, with eyes staring
+and terror-filled, like one who yields to an overwhelming
+temptation or performs some deed of
+insane daring, Bozevsky would turn his sad face
+slowly round, and let his cheek sink into the pillow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His fair curls encircled with flaxen gaiety his
+spent and desolate face.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115"></a>[115]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XVIII
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+Alone with him during those long terrible
+hours, my anguish and my terror constantly increased.
+At last I could endure it no longer and
+I telegraphed to Stahl:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come immediately.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At dusk the following day Stahl arrived.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had hoped to derive courage and consolation
+from his presence. But as soon as he stepped
+upon the threshold my heart turned faint within
+me. Thinner and more spectral than ever, with
+hair dishevelled and eyes sunken and dull, he
+looked dreamily at me, while a continual tremor
+shook his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I greeted him timorously, and the touch of his
+chill, flaccid fingers made me shudder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bozevsky seemed glad to see him. Stretching
+out his wasted hand to him he said at once:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stahl, I want to move my head.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stahl seemed not to understand, and Bozevsky
+repeated: “I want to turn my head from one side
+to another.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116"></a>[116]</span>
+“Why not?� said Stahl, sitting down beside the
+bed and lighting a cigarette. “Turn it by all
+means.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was growing late; outside it was already dark.
+I drew the curtains and turned on the lights.
+Bozevsky began very slowly to turn his head from
+side to side; at first very timorously with frightened
+eyes, then by degrees more daringly, from
+right to left and from left to right.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Keep still, keep still, dearest,� I entreated,
+bending over him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stahl said it would not hurt,� panted Bozevsky.
+“Did you not, Stahl?� Stahl made no
+reply. He was smoking, with his heavy eyes half
+closed. At the sight of him I was filled with loathing
+and fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you dined?� I inquired of him after a
+long silence. He nodded and went on smoking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I tried to coax Bozevsky to take an egg beaten
+up in milk, but he continued to turn his head from
+side to side and would touch nothing. Little by
+little the sounds in the hotel died away. The gipsy
+music which had been audible, faintly in the distance,
+ceased. Night crept upon us sinister and
+silent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently Stahl roused himself and opened his
+eyes. He looked at me and then at Bozevsky, who
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117"></a>[117]</span>
+lay in the circular shadow cast by the lamp shade,
+dozing with his mouth slightly open; he looked
+pitiful and grotesque in his collar of yellow gauze.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stahl made a grimace; then his breath became
+short and hurried as on that night of the ball when
+he sat beside me in the sleigh. He was panting
+with a slight sibilant sound and with a quick nervous
+movement of his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stahl,� I whispered, leaning towards him and
+indicating Bozevsky, “tell me—how do you think
+he is?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stahl did not answer. He seemed not to have
+heard me, but to be absorbed in some mysterious
+physical suffering of his own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is the matter, Stahl? What is the matter?
+You are frightening me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a nervous twist of his lips intended for a
+smile Stahl got up and began to walk up and down
+the room. His breath was still short and hurried.
+He drew the air through his teeth like one who is
+enduring spasms of pain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he began to talk to himself in a low voice.
+“I can wait,� he said under his breath. “I can
+wait a little longer. Yes—yes—yes, I can wait a
+little longer.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bozevsky had opened his eyes and was watching
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118"></a>[118]</span>
+Horror held me motionless and shivers ran like
+icy water down my spine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stahl, Stahl, what is the matter?� I said, and
+began to cry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stahl seemed not to hear me. He continued
+to walk up and down muttering to himself: “I
+can wait, I can wait. Just a little longer—a little
+longer—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bozevsky groaned. “Tell him to keep still,� he
+said, his gaze indicating Stahl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I seized Stahl by the arm. “You must keep
+quiet,� I said. “Keep quiet at once.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He turned to me a vacuous, bewildered face.
+I grasped his arm convulsively, clutching it with
+all my strength: “Keep still!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stahl sat down. “Right,� he said. “All
+right.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He searched his pocket and drew out a small
+leather case.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bozevsky moved and moaned. “I am thirsty,�
+he said. “Give me something to drink.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I hurried to the bedside, and taking up a glass
+of sweetened water, I raised him on his pillow
+and held the glass to his lips. He drank eagerly.
+Then—horror!... horror! Even as he drank I
+perceived a spot of pale red color, wetting the
+gauze round his neck, oozing through it and
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span>
+spreading in an ever-widening stain. What—what
+could it be? It was the water he was drinking;
+he was not swallowing it ... it was trickling
+out through the wound in his neck. All the gauze
+was already wet—now the pillow as well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stahl, Stahl!� I shrieked. “Look, look at
+this!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stahl, who seemed to have suddenly regained
+his senses, came quickly to the bedside. I had laid
+Bozevsky back on the pillow and he was looking
+at us with wide-open eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,� said Stahl, contemplating him thoughtfully.
+“Yes.� Suddenly he turned to me.
+“Come here, come here. Why should I let you
+suffer?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I saw that he had in his hand a small glass
+instrument—a morphia syringe. He seized my
+wrist as in a vice and with the other hand pushed
+back the loose sleeve of my gown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What are you going to do?� I gasped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, why should you suffer?� cried Stahl,
+holding me tightly by the arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you killing me?� I cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no. I shall not kill you. You will see.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I let him take my arm and he pricked it with
+the needle of the syringe, afterwards pressing and
+rubbing the punctured spot with his finger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120"></a>[120]</span>
+“Now you will see, now you will see,� he repeated
+over and over again with a vague stupefied
+smile. “Sit down there,� and he impelled me towards
+an armchair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bozevsky in his wet bandages on his wet pillow
+was watching us. I wanted to go to his assistance,
+to speak to him—but already a vague torpor was
+stealing over me, a feeling of gentle langour
+weighed upon my limbs. My tense and quivering
+nerves gradually relaxed. I felt as if I were submerged
+in a vague fluid serenity. Every anxious
+thought dissolved in a bland and blissful somnolence....
+I could see Bozevsky move restlessly
+and again begin to turn his head from side to side.
+Sunk in the divine lassitude that held me, I
+watched his movements, glad that the sight of them
+gave me no pain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I saw that Stahl had stretched himself on the
+couch and lay there with a vacant ecstatic smile
+on his lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All at once Bozevsky uttered a cry. I heard
+him, but I felt no inclination to answer. He
+struggled into a sitting position and looked at us
+both with wide, horrified eyes. He called us again
+and again. Then he began to weep. I could hear
+his weeping, but the beatific lethargy which engulfed
+me held me motionless. Perhaps I was
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span>
+even smiling, so free and so remote did I feel from
+all distress and suffering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now I saw Bozevsky with teeth clenched
+and hands curved like talons, madly clutching and
+tearing away the bandages from his neck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He dragged and tore the gauze with quick
+frenzied movements, while from his lips came a
+succession of whimpering cries as of a dog imprisoned
+behind a door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I smiled, I know I smiled, as I gazed at him
+from my armchair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stahl's eyes were shut; he was fast asleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even when the wasted neck was stripped bare,
+those quick, frenzied movements still continued.
+What my eyes then saw I can never tell....
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+Thus died Alexis Bozevsky, the handsomest
+officer in the Imperial Guard.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122"></a>[122]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XIX
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+After that all is dark. A blood-red abyss
+seems to open in my memory wherein everything
+is submerged—even my reason.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My reason! I have felt it totter and fall, like
+something detached and apart from myself; and
+I know that it has sunk into the grave that covers
+Alexis Bozevsky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vaguely, from my distant childhood, a memory
+rises up and confronts me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I am in a school. I know not where. It is
+sunset, and I am at play, happy and alone, in the
+midst of a lawn; the daisies in the grass are
+already closed and rose-tipped, blushing in their
+sleep. Some one calls my name, and raising my
+eyes I see the small eager face of my playmate
+Tatiana peering out of an oval window in an old
+turret, where none of us are ever allowed to
+go. “Mura! Mura! Come quickly,� she cries.
+“The turret is full of swallows!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Full of swallows!� I can still recall the
+ecstasy of joy with which those three words filled
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123"></a>[123]</span>
+me. I ran to the entrance of the old tower and
+helter-skeltered up the dark and narrow staircase;
+then, pushing aside a mildewed door, I found
+myself with Tatiana in a gloomy loft, and yes, yes!
+it was full of swallows!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They flew hither and thither, darting over our
+heads, brushing our faces, making us shriek with
+delight. We managed to catch any number of
+them. Many were even lying on the ground.
+Tatiana filled her apron with the fluttering creatures,
+while I held some in my handkerchief and
+some in my hands. Then we ran downstairs into
+the dining-hall: “Look, look! we have caught a
+lot of swallows!� I can still see the girls crowding
+round us, and the face of the mistress bending
+forward with an incredulous smile; I see her
+shrink back, horrified and pale, with a cry of disgust:
+“Mercy upon us! They are all bats!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even now the recollection of the shrieks we uttered
+as we flung them from us makes my flesh
+creep; even now I seem to feel the slippery smoothness
+of those cold membranes gliding through my
+fingers and near my cheeks....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To what end does this childish recollection enter
+into the dark tragedy of my life? This—that
+when I mount into the closed turret of my mind
+in quest of winged thoughts and soaring fancies,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124"></a>[124]</span>
+alas! there glide through my brain only the
+monstrous spirits of madness, the black bats of
+hypochandria....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I remember little or nothing of those somber
+days in Yalta. I can vaguely recollect Stahl telling
+me over and over again in answer to my delirious
+cries for Bozevsky: “He is dead! He is
+dead! He is dead!� And as I could not and
+would not believe him, he took me in a closed carriage
+through many streets; then into a low building
+and through echoing stone passages into a
+large bare room—a dissecting room!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The horror of it seals my lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still more vaguely do I recollect the death of
+Stahl himself. I know that one evening he shot
+himself through the heart, and was carried to the
+hospital. I know that he sent me the following
+words traced in tremulous handwriting on a torn
+piece of paper: “Mura! I have only half an hour
+to live. Come to me, I implore you. Come!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I did not go to him. The terrible lessons he
+had taught me were bearing fruit; all I did when
+brought face to face with some new calamity was
+to take injection after injection of morphia; and
+thus I sank down again into the twilight world of
+unreality in which, during that entire period, I
+moved like one in a dream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125"></a>[125]</span>
+I seemed to be living under water, in a perpetual
+dimness—a fluid, undulating dusk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No sooner did I find myself rising to the surface
+of consciousness, and the noisy harshness of life
+confronted me again, than my trembling hands
+sought the case that hid the little glass viper of
+oblivion—the hypodermic syringe of Pravaz.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Over the tremulous flame of a candle I heated
+the phial of whitish powder and watched it
+gradually dissolve into a clear crystalline liquid
+that the hollow needle thirstily drank up: then
+I bared my arm and thrust the steel point aslant
+into my flesh. Soothing and benumbing the morphia
+coursed through my veins; and I sank once
+more into the well-known beatific lethargy, the undulating
+dusk of unreality and sleep....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But one day a call thrilled through the enveloping
+cloud and reached my heart: it was the call of
+motherhood. Tioka! Tania! Where were my
+children? Why, why were my arms empty when
+these two helpless and beloved creatures were
+mine?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Horrified at myself and at the dream-like apathy
+in which I had strayed so long, I tore myself from
+the degrading captivity of narcotics and with
+trembling steps tottered towards the threshold of
+life once more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126"></a>[126]</span>
+With dazed eyes I beheld the altered world
+around me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How everything had changed! I was no longer
+the Countess Tarnowska, flattered, envied and
+beloved. The women who had formerly been my
+friends turned their eyes away from me, while on
+the other hand men stared at me boldly in a way
+they had never dared to look at me before.
+Vassili—the frivolous, light-hearted Vassili—shut
+his door upon me, and secluded himself in grim
+and formidable silence as in the walls of a fortress.
+Vainly did I beat upon it with weak hands, vainly
+did I pray for pity. Inexorable and inaccessible
+he remained, locked in his scorn and his resentment.
+Nor ever have the gates of his home or of
+his heart opened to me again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I took refuge with my children at Otrada.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My parents received us in sorrow and humiliation.
+Themselves too broken in spirit to offer
+me any consolation, they moved silently through
+the stately mansion, blushing for me before the
+servants, hiding me from the eyes of their
+friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even my children hung their heads and crept
+about on tiptoe, mute and abashed without knowing
+why.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day Tania, my little Tania, was snatched
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127"></a>[127]</span>
+from my arms. Vassili took her from me, nor did
+I ever see her again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had gone out, I remember, sad and alone, into
+the wintry park. By my side trotted Bear, my
+father's faithful setter, who every now and then
+thrust his moist and affectionate nose into my
+hand. In my thoughts I was trying to face what
+the future might have in store for me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When my little Tioka grows up,� I said to
+myself, “I know, alas! that I shall lose him. He
+will want to live with his father: he will look forward
+to entering upon life under happy and propitious
+auspices. Yes, Tioka will leave me, I know.
+But my little girl will stay with me. Tania will
+be my very own. She will grow up, fair and
+gentle, by my side; I shall forget my sorrows in
+her clinging love; I shall live my life over again
+in hers. I shall be renewed, in strength and
+purity, in my daughter's stainless youth.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I thus reflected I saw my mother running to
+meet me, her gray head bare in the icy wind; she
+was weeping bitterly. Tania was gone! Vassili
+had taken her away!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Notwithstanding all my tears and prayers it was
+never vouchsafed to me to see my little girl again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But when the day came in which they sought
+to tear my son from me as well, I fought like a
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128"></a>[128]</span>
+maddened creature, vowing that no human power
+should take him from me while I lived. I fled with
+him from Otrada—I fled I knew not and cared
+not whither, clasping in my arms my tender fair-haired
+prey, watching over him in terror, guarding
+him with fervent prayers. I fled, hunted onward
+by the restlessness that was in my own blood,
+pursued by the bats of madness in my brain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus began my aimless wanderings that were
+to lead me so far astray.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alone with little Tioka and the humble Elise
+Perrier, I took to the highways of the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How helpless and terrified we were, all three of
+us! It was like living in a melancholy fairy tale;
+it was like the story of the babes lost in the wood.
+Sometimes, in the midst of a street in some great
+unknown city, little Tioka would stop and say:
+“Mother, let us find some one who knows us, and
+ask them where we are to go and what we are to
+do.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no! Nobody must know us, Tioka.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Tioka would begin to cry. “I feel as if
+we were lost, as if we were lost!...� And I
+knew not how to comfort him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day—we were at Moscow, I remember—there
+appeared to me for the first time that lean
+and threatening wolf which is called—<i>Poverty</i>.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a>[129]</span>
+Poverty! I had never seen it at close range before.
+I almost thought it did not really exist. I
+knew, to be sure, that there were people in the
+world who were in need of money; but those were
+the people whom we gave charity to; that was all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Poverty? What had poverty to do with us?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During all my life I had never given a thought
+to money.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130"></a>[130]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XX
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+“Elise, I cannot bear to see myself in this ugly
+black dress any longer. Write to Schanz and tell
+him to send me some new gowns. I want a dark
+green tailor-made costume, and a pearl-gray
+voile.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, my lady. But, begging your ladyship's
+pardon, Schanz says that he would like to be paid.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, let us pay him then.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, my lady. But, begging your ladyship's
+pardon, his bill is twenty-five thousand rubles.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, let him have them.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am sorry, my lady, but we have not got
+twenty-five thousand rubles.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was true. We had not got twenty-five thousand
+rubles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elise, Tioka wants to be amused. He would
+like a toy railway.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, my lady.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mind,� cried Tioka, “it must be like the one
+we saw yesterday, with all those stations and
+canals, and a Brooklyn bridge.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, Master Tioka.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span>
+“Well, Elise, what are you waiting for?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Begging your ladyship's pardon, it costs eighty
+rubles.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We have not got them.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+True enough; we had not got eighty rubles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elise, I have no more perfumes. Go and get
+me a bottle of Coty's Origant.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, my lady. But—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But what?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It costs twelve rubles.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We have not got them.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And indeed we had not got twelve rubles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I thought it very sad not to have twenty-five
+thousand rubles, nor even twelve rubles, when I
+required them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I resolved to telegraph to my mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Feeling sad and perplexed, I went to the telegraph
+office and sat down at a table to write my
+message:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother, dear, we are unhappy and forlorn;
+Tioka and I want to come home and stay with you
+always. Please send us at once—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was meditating on what sum to mention, when
+I felt the touch of a hand upon my shoulder.
+Startled, I turned, and raised my eyes. Before
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span>
+me stood a man—dark, rather tall, with a brown
+mustache and pendulous cheeks. Surely I knew
+him! Where had I seen that face before? Suddenly
+there flashed into my mind the recollection
+of a crowded, brilliantly lighted restaurant. I
+saw Vassili, amid much laughter, counting the
+dark-eyed tziganes to see if one of them were missing—<i>Prilukoff!</i>
+“The Scorpion!� It was he
+who stood before me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Countess Tarnowska! Who would have
+dreamt of finding you here!� he exclaimed.
+“What are you doing in Moscow?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I—I do not know,� I stammered. I had in
+fact not infrequently asked myself what I was doing
+in Moscow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have heard of all your misfortunes,� he said,
+lowering his voice, and gazing at me sympathetically.
+“I have read the papers and heard all the
+fuss. Come now, come,� he added, “you must
+not weep. Let us go and have tea at the Métropole;
+there we can talk together.� And he took
+me familiarly by the arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I drew back. “I wanted to telegraph—,� I
+began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Telegraph? To whom?� inquired Prilukoff
+with an authoritative air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To my mother.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>[133]</span>
+“Why? What do you want to telegraph to her
+for?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I flushed. “I—I have no money—� I stammered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I have,� said Prilukoff, and he drew me
+out of the office.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the top of the steps he stopped and looked
+me in the face. “What a fortunate meeting!�
+he said. “Our lucky star must have brought it
+about.� With these words his brown eyes looked
+straight into mine. “Our lucky star!� he repeated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Merciful heaven, why did not a whisper, not a
+breath of warning come to me then? Why did
+no tremor in my soul admonish me, no heavenly
+inspiration hold me back? Nothing, nothing
+checked the smile upon my lips, nor the words in
+which I gaily answered him:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Our lucky star! So be it.� And I took his
+arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The die of my destiny was cast. I went out on
+my way to destruction and ruin.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+There were many people and much music in the
+Métropole when we entered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is strange to think how all the memorable
+and significant hours of my life are associated in
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134"></a>[134]</span>
+my mind with the entrancing rhythm of dance-music,
+with the lilting tunes of waltz, mazurka and
+polonaise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the tragedies, all the extravagances that convulsed
+my existence bloomed up like tragic modern
+flowers in the hothouse of some fashionable restaurant,
+under the feverish breath of a tzigane
+orchestra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So great became the power of this obsession
+over me, that no sooner did I enter a restaurant
+where there were people, and lights, and the music
+of stringed instruments, than I straightway felt
+as if I had lost my senses. Under the influence
+of such an atmosphere all my thoughts assumed
+disordered and extravagant forms. The tones
+of the violins excited and electrified me; as the
+bows swept the quivering strings I also quivered
+and vibrated, shaken with indescribable perturbation.
+The waves of sound seemed to envelop
+me in a turbid vortex of sentiment and sensibility.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah, if there had been more silence in my life,
+more shade, more seclusion! It is not within the
+safe walls of the home, not at one's own peaceful
+and inviolate hearth that perversity stirs to
+life and catastrophe is born.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Oh! Tania, my only daughter, if the wishes of
+your sorrowful mother could but reach you and her
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a>[135]</span>
+prayers for you be granted, they would encompass
+with shade and silence your young and virginal
+heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And I—ah, if I could but go back to the white
+vacant land of childhood, I would kneel down and
+entreat from heaven naught else but shade and
+silence in my life....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But in the Café Métropole the blazing lights
+were lit, the orchestra was swinging its unhallowed
+censer of waltz-music through the perfumed air
+and the Scorpion was sitting before me drinking
+his tea and laughing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you remember how much afraid you were
+of me at the Strelna, when I jumped from the divan
+and touched your shoulder? And afterwards—when
+you found me asleep at the bottom of the
+sleigh?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yes, I remembered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And now you are no longer afraid of me?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No. Now I was no longer afraid of him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fate, the Fury, standing behind me, must have
+laughed as with her nebulous hand she covered my
+smiling eyes.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136"></a>[136]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXI
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+What charmed and delighted me most in the
+Scorpion was a pet phrase of his that he was constantly
+using: “<i>Leave that to me!</i>�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He said it every minute, a hundred times a day.
+Occasionally there might be a slight variation; he
+might say, “Don't trouble your head about that�;
+or “Never mind, I'll see to it.� But as a rule it
+was the brief enchanting sentence: “Leave that
+to me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I cannot possibly describe the sense of utter relief
+and comfort with which those few words inspired
+me. I felt unburdened, as it were, exonerated,
+set free from every responsibility, from
+every anxiety, almost from every thought. It was
+as if Prilukoff had said of my very soul, “Leave it
+to me,� so complete was my sense of tranquil relinquishment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In truth I had never given much thought to the
+practical side of life. No sense of responsibility
+had ever weighed upon my narrow shoulders;
+there had always been so many people around me
+to give me advice, to direct me, to think and to
+act on my behalf!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137"></a>[137]</span>
+When I had suddenly found myself alone in the
+world with Tioka and Elise I had felt more frightened
+and more helpless than they. But now, here
+once more was some one ready to direct me, ready
+to think and act and decide for me. Occasionally,
+realizing my position, I exclaimed anxiously:
+“Dear me, what shall I do about money?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff would answer briefly: “Leave that
+to me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But how shall I pay my bills?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Leave your bills to me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And how shall I prevent Vassili from robbing
+me of Tioka!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don't bother about Tioka. Leave him to me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And, oh dear! I wish I could be divorced from
+Vassili.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You shall be divorced; I shall see to it.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But what will my mother say?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Leave your mother to me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There seemed to be nothing in the world that
+could not be left to the omniscient and all-sufficing
+care of Donat Prilukoff. I was deeply moved and
+grateful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How shall I ever be able to thank you?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Leave the thanking to me,� said Prilukoff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a long time, indeed, he seemed neither to
+desire nor expect any gratitude. He looked after
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138"></a>[138]</span>
+my interests, my divorce, my parents, my son, my
+maid, my debts, and my health. But he asked for
+no thanks; all he required was that I should be
+docile and content.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a period of respite. Soon I forgot that
+I had ever thought of him as a Scorpion or an
+octopus. Indeed, he was to my eyes a strange and
+delightful mixture of knight errant, of guardian
+saint, of commissionaire and hero.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I did not feel then that every favor, every
+counsel I asked of him, was but another link in
+the subtle chain that bound me to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon I was unable to do anything without asking
+for his opinion and his assistance. Tioka,
+Elise and I grew accustomed to see him arrive with
+his masterful air and brisk greeting every afternoon;
+then every morning; then every evening as
+well. We never went out without him; no letter
+was received or written without its being given to
+him to read.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If Tioka broke a toy, if Elise was overcharged
+in an account, if I received an anonymous letter,
+it was immediately referred to Prilukoff. He put
+everything into his pocket, saying: “Leave that
+to me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And, true to his word, he mended the toys, he
+adjusted the accounts, he discovered and punished
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a>[139]</span>
+my anonymous slanderers. He was astute, deliberate
+and intelligent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I felt convinced that he was also kind and generous
+and good.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Who can say that in those days he was not so?
+The dreadful Prilukoff, assassin and blackmailer,
+who turned against me, livid with wrath, in the
+court-room at Venice, was he—could he be?—the
+same Prilukoff who, in those far-off days, mended
+little Tioka's playthings? Who was so anxious if
+he saw me looking pale? Of whom Elise, clasping
+her work-worn hands, used to say: “When he appears
+he seems to me like Lohengrin!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lohengrin! How bitterly I smile, remembering
+all that ensued. And yet—I cannot believe it. I
+cannot understand it. Which of those two beings—the
+maleficent demon or the chivalrous knight—was
+the real Prilukoff?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps, when these sinister years of prison
+and sorrow are past that cancel in their flight so
+many things, and shed light upon so many others,
+some day he may cross my path again. Shall I
+then not discern in his faded, grief-stricken face
+the strong and compassionate Lohengrin of long
+ago?...
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile I drifted on, submissive to my fate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Only two things perturbed me. One was the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140"></a>[140]</span>
+fear lest Tioka should be taken from me—an anguish
+that was with me day and night. The other
+was a torturing secret, which I confided to no one.
+It was—how shall I say it?—my terror of closed
+doors!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every time I found myself alone in front of a
+closed door, I did not dare to open it. I had the
+fixed, frightful idea that behind the door I should
+see—Bozevsky! I had the irremovable conviction
+that he was standing, motionless and expectant,
+behind every door that confronted me. All the
+doors of our apartment had to be kept wide open.
+If it ever happened that I found myself alone in
+a room of which the door was closed, instead of
+opening it I rang the bell, I called, I cried for help;
+and if it chanced that every one was out, or no one
+heard me, I stood riveted to the spot, rigid with
+fear, staring at the terrifying mystery of that
+closed door before me. Perchance, with a great
+effort of will, holding my breath while the beads
+of cold perspiration started on my brow, I ventured
+to put out my hand towards the handle—but
+in an instant I found myself pushing the door to
+again, leaning desperately with all my strength
+against the frail barrier which concealed—oh, I
+knew it did!—Bozevsky, standing upright and
+terrible, with the yellow gauze round his neck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141"></a>[141]</span>
+This notion, horrible as it was in the daytime,
+became an unbearable fear after nightfall. Tioka
+went upstairs to bed, accompanied by Elise, at
+about eight o'clock. Twice it happened that, when
+they were both asleep, a draught caught the open
+door of the drawing-room in which I was sitting,
+and shut it. With chattering teeth, and shivers
+running over me like chilly water, I remained
+there, motionless, through all the hours of the
+night, knowing that Bozevsky was there, separated
+from me only by that slender wooden partition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the morning Elise found me lying on the floor
+in a faint.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day Elise was summoned to Neuchâtel.
+Her father was at the point of death, and wished
+to give his last embrace and blessing to his only
+daughter. It was five o'clock in the afternoon
+when the telegram for Elise arrived; at eight
+o'clock, distracted and weeping, she was in the
+train.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tioka and I, who had accompanied her to the
+station, returned homeward feeling sad and lonely.
+We felt doubly lonely that day, as Donat Prilukoff
+had been obliged to leave Moscow on account of
+a lawsuit, and was not to return until the following
+evening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had, it is true, another serving-woman, a
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142"></a>[142]</span>
+cook; but she left us every evening to go and sleep
+at her own home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We entered our dark and silent apartment nervously.
+I hastily turned on all the lights and then
+carried Tioka, who was cross and already half
+asleep, up the inner staircase leading to our bedrooms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I undressed him and put him to bed, tucking
+him up warmly and comfortably.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, dear,� he sighed, rubbing his eyes; “do
+you think the wolves will come and eat me if I
+don't say my prayers to-night?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no, dearest. I will say them for you. Go
+to sleep.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I kissed him and turned out the light; then I
+went downstairs to get a book from the library,
+intending to return to my room at once. I felt
+nervous and restless. I was afraid I should not
+be able to sleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How did it happen? Perhaps it was an instant's
+forgetfulness that caused me to draw the
+door of the library after me. It closed with a
+heavy thud. The long, dark-red curtain turned on
+its rod and fell in front of the doorway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was imprisoned!
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143"></a>[143]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXII
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+I should never dare to leave that room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly I thought that Tioka might call me.
+But between him and me, standing outside on the
+threshold of that draped door, was there not the
+man whom I had seen die in Yalta? Horrifying
+memory! For a long time I did not venture to
+stir. I turned my head and looked behind me,
+then fixed my eyes afresh on the red curtain. Suddenly
+I thought I heard a cry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yes; it was Tioka calling me, Tioka all alone
+upstairs, who was frightened too, frightened even
+as I was. With shivers swathing me from head
+to foot as with an icy sheet, I listened to those
+cries which every moment grew shriller and wilder.
+Then, in answer to him, I screamed too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Oh, those shrieks ringing through the empty
+house—shrieks which only that silent ghost behind
+the door could hear!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly another thrill ran through me; the
+electric bell had sounded. Some one was ringing
+at our door; some one was coming to save us.
+Tioka still screamed, and the bell continued to ring.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144"></a>[144]</span>
+I could also hear blows on the door and then a
+voice—Prilukoff's voice—calling: “It is I.
+Open the door!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a sob of mingled terror and joy I thrust
+back the curtain and flung open the dreaded door.
+Stumbling blindly through the passage I reached
+the hall door and drew back the latch. Prilukoff
+stood on the threshold; he was pale as death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What has happened?� he cried. “What is
+the matter?� And he gripped my arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was sobbing with joy and relief. “Tioka,
+Tioka!� I called out. “Don't cry any more.
+Donat has come! We are here, we are near you!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tioka's cries ceased at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Prilukoff still held me fast. “What has
+happened!� he asked, clenching his teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was afraid, I was afraid—� I gasped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of whom?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A fresh outburst of tears shook me. “Of the
+dead,� I sobbed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Leave the dead to me,� said Prilukoff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He entered and shut the door.
+</p>
+
+<p class="dots">········</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus, unconscious and unwilling, I descended yet
+another step down the ladder of infamy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shrinking and reluctant I trailed my white garments
+into defilement, sinking with every step
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145"></a>[145]</span>
+deeper into the mire which was soon to engulf me;
+the mire which was to reach my proud heart, my
+pearl-encircled throat, my exalted brow on which
+nobility had set its seal in vain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was about that time, I remember, that Delphinus,
+a renowned fortune-teller, came to Moscow.
+One morning, having nothing else to do, I went
+with the smiling, skeptical Elise to consult him in
+his luxurious apartments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took both my hands and gazed for a long
+time at a crystal ball which was before him. Then
+he said: “Woman, your life is a tragedy.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I smiled, incredulous yet disturbed. “Pray say
+rather a comedy, if you can.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shook his head. “A tragedy,� he repeated
+gloomily. Then he uttered several commonplaces
+which might apply to any other woman as well
+as to me. Finally, with knitted brows, he looked
+still more closely into the crystal. “Two men,�
+he said, speaking slowly, “have yet to enter into
+your life. One will bring salvation, the other ruin.
+Choose the one, and you will attain happiness;
+choose the other and you will perish.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused. “You will choose the other,� he
+said, and released my hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I got up, smiling. “Oh, no, indeed! Now that
+I have been forewarned—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146"></a>[146]</span>
+“You will choose the other,� he repeated oracularly.
+“It is your destiny.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Although I am not really superstitious, this
+curt, obscure prediction impressed me strangely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I shall beware of whom I meet,� I said to myself;
+and indeed, every time a man spoke to me,
+even casually, I wondered: could this be the One?—or
+the Other?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But days and months passed, and I made no
+new acquaintances.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff kept me jealously secluded, and little
+Tioka absorbed my every hour. Apart from these
+two I saw no one at all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was by mere chance that one day I met a
+former acquaintance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had taken Tioka for a walk in the park when
+we saw a gentleman and a child sitting on a
+bench in the shade. They were both dressed in
+deep mourning, and they looked sad and disconsolate.
+The little boy was leaning his fair head
+on his father's arm, watching him as, with an air
+of melancholy abstraction, he traced hieroglyphics
+in the gravel with his stick. On hearing us approach
+the man in mourning raised his head and
+looked at us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I recognized him at once. It was Count Paul
+Kamarowsky, the husband of one of my dearest
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147"></a>[147]</span>
+friends, who lived at Dresden, and whom I had not
+seen for nearly two years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He recognized me, too, and started to his
+feet with eager face, while the little boy looked
+at us diffidently, still holding to his father's
+sleeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Countess Tarnowska!� he exclaimed, holding
+out both his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I laid my hand in his; as he clasped it between
+his black-gloved fingers a slight shiver ran through
+me. I turned to the pale little child beside him
+who was still glancing up at me timidly. “Is this
+Grania?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. It is Grania,� said Count Kamarowsky.
+Then he perceived my questioning glance at his
+mourning. “Poor Emilia—� he began, but his
+voice broke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Poor Emilia?� Was it possible that my little
+school friend of long ago, the fair-haired, laughter-loving
+Lily should now be “poor Emilia,� to
+be spoken of in solemn, mournful tones? I could
+hardly believe it. I seemed to see her still, bending
+over her 'cello with her fair curls tumbling
+over her face as she played her favorite Popper
+tarantelle.... I could see her laughing with mischievous
+eyes agleam behind her flaxen locks, like
+dark stars seen through a golden cloud. And
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148"></a>[148]</span>
+here, clad in mourning for her, her husband and
+child stood before me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Great tenderness and pity filled my heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tioka had gone close to Grania, and the two
+children were looking at each other with that expression
+of simple gravity which is so far removed
+from the conventional smile with which grown-up
+people greet each other for the first time. Their
+gaze was serious, thoughtful and interrogative.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you like pelicans?� Tioka inquired suddenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,� said Grania.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Neither do I,� said Tioka; and there was a
+long silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you like ducks?� asked Tioka.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,� replied Grania.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So do I,� said Tioka; and their friendship was
+sealed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Count Kamarowsky and I were less prompt in
+discovering a community of tastes such as that
+which so quickly linked our two children together.
+This grave silent man in his widower's garb was
+almost a stranger to me. As we parted he asked
+permission to call. But on the following day a
+telegram from my father summoned me to Otrada.
+My mother was ill and desired my presence.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149"></a>[149]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXIII
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+It was a hurried departure and an anxious
+journey. We arrived late in the evening at my
+father's house. He came to meet us at the gate,
+tall and solemn, his white hair stirred by the wind.
+He kissed me without speaking and laid his hand
+on Tioka's head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother—?� I scarcely dared to inquire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Better. She is better. She has improved
+greatly since she knew you were coming.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tioka had hurriedly kissed his grandfather's
+hand, and now was hastening up the great staircase
+to see his grandmother, to whom he was passionately
+attached. Soon his rippling laughter
+and his nimble footsteps could be heard all over
+the house, and my mother said that the happiness
+of it had well-nigh cured her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was scarcely daybreak next morning when
+Tioka came to call me to go down with him into
+the garden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great garden at Otrada—the garden of my
+girlhood—glowed in all its summer splendor, and
+Tioka ran before me with cries of joy at everything
+he saw.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150"></a>[150]</span>
+“Look at the water! Look at the little bridge!
+Did you play here when you were little? Were
+you ever really little?� He looked at me doubtfully.
+“I mean really quite little—like Tania.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mention of his sister's name was like a blow
+to my heart. But Tioka was already flying across
+the lawn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh,� he cried. “There's the swing! I had
+forgotten there was a swing! Hurrah!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush, hush, dearest,� I warned; “don't disturb
+grandmama who is ill.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He swung backwards and forwards, careless
+and handsome, shaking his blond hair in the wind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Grandmama cannot hear me; she is fast
+asleep still. And besides she is not ill any more
+now that we are here; otherwise grandpapa would
+not have gone to Kieff to-day.� Tioka jumped
+down from the swing and raised his face to me
+with adorable seriousness. “Tell me, mother,
+when one is ill with nervousness doesn't that
+mean that you want something you haven't got?
+Then if you get it you are well again, aren't you?
+Grandmama wanted us. We came. And now she
+is cured.� After a pause he went on: “I think
+I am ill with nervousness too. I am nervous for a
+bowl of goldfish; and for a hunting dog like that
+one,� he added, indicating a large setter lying
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151"></a>[151]</span>
+stretched in the sun with his muzzle on his
+paws.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, that is Bear!� I cried, “our old Bear.�
+I bent down to caress him. “Dear Bear, good
+Bear! Don't you recognize me?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bear raised his languid, blood-shot eyes, but did
+not stir.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How sad he looks,� I said, touching his muzzle
+to see whether his nose was hot. “Perhaps he is
+ill.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perhaps he is nervous, too,� said Tioka.
+“Very likely he is nervous because he wants a
+bone.� And the child broke into a peal of shrill,
+merry laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In an instant the great dog had turned and
+leaped upon him. Snarling and growling he tore
+at his clothes, covering his shoulders and breast
+with blood-stained foam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tioka fell shrieking to the ground. I flung myself
+upon the frenzied animal, seizing him by the
+collar, by the ears, and striving to drag him back;
+but with hoarse growls and snappish barks the
+dog kept biting and tearing the child's garments
+as he lay prostrate and inert on the gravel. With
+one hand I clutched the neck of the dog, while with
+the other I picked up a stone and beat him on the
+head with it until the blood ran.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a>[152]</span>
+With a roar like that of a tiger, the animal
+turned and sprang upon me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I felt the sting of his fang as it bit into my arm,
+and I struck his nose with the stone which was
+already covered with blood. With a cry of pain
+that had almost a human sound, the dog released
+his hold, turned and went off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I saw him trotting away along the path,
+surly and dreadful, with his tail hanging down
+and his wounded head showing red in the
+sunshine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I picked up the moaning, sobbing Tioka and ran
+with him to the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don't cry! don't cry, my darling,� I implored
+him, myself in tears. “Don't let poor grandmama
+hear you! It will kill her.� And Tioka
+tried his best to cry more softly. We crossed the
+courtyard to the servants' entrance, and I ran into
+the kitchen where the servants came thronging
+round us in alarm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The dog—,� I panted, “the dog has bitten us—do
+you think it will give us hydrophobia?�
+With a groan I dropped little Tioka into a chair;
+he was a pitiable sight in his torn and bloodstained
+garments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The women and the two moujiks wrung their
+hands. “Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! What shall we
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153"></a>[153]</span>
+do? With the master at Kieff and the Countess
+ill in bed!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cook had filled a basin with boiling water
+and was laving Tioka's wounds, while he screamed
+with the redoubled pain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I knew it was necessary to do something instantly.
+But what? I remembered having read
+in the life of the three Brontë sisters that one of
+those heroic girls had been bitten by a mad dog,
+and that she herself, without disturbing her sister,
+who was ill with consumption, had heated an iron
+red-hot and had cauterized her own wounds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Put an iron in the fire!� I said, pointing with
+trembling hand to the poker.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The dismayed women did so, and I bared my
+arm and little Tioka's lacerated shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But when I had the terrible instrument with
+its glowing point in my hand, my courage failed.
+Tioka was shrieking with terror like a poor little
+maddened creature, and the women were on their
+knees, weeping and praying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alas, I am not a heroine; I threw away the red-hot
+iron; we bound up the wounds—which, after
+they had been washed, looked insignificant and
+harmless enough—and determined to go to Kieff
+at once and consult a doctor. We went upstairs on
+tip-toe to my mother's room. She was still sleeping
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154"></a>[154]</span>
+quietly, with her small, pinched face sunk in
+the pillow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We did not venture to wake her and tell her our
+terrifying story. We left orders with the servants
+that they were to say my father had summoned us
+to meet him in Kieff; and we started.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the way I watched Tioka with the deepest
+anxiety. I also probed my own feelings intently,
+wondering whether I felt any desire to bark. I
+cannot say that I did. Also, during the entire
+journey, I kept on showing Tioka glasses of water,
+but he did not seem to feel any the worse for them;
+nor did I. This comforted us a little.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as we reached Kieff I telegraphed to
+Prilukoff:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Both of us bitten by mad dog. What shall we
+do?</i>�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He replied: “<i>All right. Leave it to me.</i>�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And, indeed, he arrived immediately and took
+us to Doctor Fritkof, who gave us injections of
+antirabic serum for three weeks. It made us feel
+very ill. Every minute I asked Tioka: “Do you
+feel inclined to bite any one?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He invariably replied in the affirmative, which
+made me very miserable.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155"></a>[155]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXIV
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+Although Tioka and I both recovered, this
+alarming incident had its consequences on my life.
+It caused me to leave my old home, and from the
+moment of that departure I never saw my dear
+mother again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the passing of her mild and tender presence
+all that still was pure and holy vanished out
+of my life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was already on the brink of perdition. Freed
+from the restraint of that gentle hand, whose light
+touch even from afar had still controlled my heart,
+I plunged forward to destruction.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+The inheritance was divided, and my share was
+dissipated I know not how. I returned to Moscow,
+and found myself ever more and more in need
+of money.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I lived luxuriously, I dressed gorgeously, and
+traveled from one place to another—yet I had
+nothing of my own except an income of four thousand
+rubles a year, which were scarcely paid to me
+before they were swallowed up in the gulf of my
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156"></a>[156]</span>
+debts. I asked Prilukoff for money, and he gave
+it to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But there came a day when, on my asking him
+for five thousand rubles, he turned upon me
+abruptly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have not got them,� he said. “At least,�
+he added, “not unless I steal them.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How dreadful,� I exclaimed in terror. “How
+can you say such a thing?� Then I laughed, feeling
+sure that he had spoken in jest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Get them from Kamarowsky,� said Prilukoff,
+curtly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I started with indignation. From Kamarowsky!
+Never, never, as long as I lived. I had
+seen him frequently during the last few days;
+he and his charming little son, Grania, still in their
+deep mourning and with pale, sad faces, used to
+come and see me, and talk to me with many tears
+about their dear one who was gone. It would
+have been horrible, it would have been indecorous,
+to ask Kamarowsky for money.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I did not say you were to ask him for it,� retorted
+Prilukoff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What then?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Telephone and invite him to dine with you
+to-morrow.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well? And then?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157"></a>[157]</span>
+“Then we shall see.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he insisted I complied reluctantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kamarowsky accepted the invitation with touching
+gratitude, and a large basket of roses preceded
+his arrival.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff, who was still hanging about in my
+boudoir, but declared that he would not stay to
+dinner, sniffed the roses with a cynical smile:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Flowers! Flowers! Nothing but flowers!
+<i>Nous allons changer tout cela.</i>�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door bell rang, announcing the arrival of
+my visitor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What am I to do with him now he is here?�
+I asked Prilukoff uneasily. “What shall I
+say?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do nothing and say nothing. And mind you
+don't open any letter in his presence.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Any letter?� I asked, in bewilderment.
+“What letter?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I tell you not to open any. That is enough.�
+With this obscure injunction Prilukoff urged me
+towards the drawing-room, and I went in to receive
+my guest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Count Kamarowsky, while inspiring me with the
+deepest pity, frequently irritated and annoyed me.
+His grief for his lost Emilia was doubtless deep
+and sincere; but sometimes when I tried to console
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158"></a>[158]</span>
+him I seemed to read in his tear-filled eyes an emotion
+that was not all sorrow, and in the clasp of
+his hand I perceived a fervor that spoke of something
+more than gratitude. I felt hurt for the
+sake of my poor friend, Lily, so lately laid to her
+rest; and I shrank from him with feelings akin to
+anger and aversion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet, when I saw him moving away, pale in his
+deep mourning, leading his sad little child by the
+hand, my heart was touched and I would call them
+back to me and try to comfort them both. The
+child clung to me with passionate affection, while
+his father seemed loth ever to leave my side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Conversation between us always soared in the
+highest regions of ethereal and spiritual things;
+our talk was all on abstract subjects, dwelling
+especially on the immortality of the soul, the abode
+of the departed, the probabilities of reunion in the
+world beyond. The commonplace everyday prose
+of life was so far removed from our intercourse
+that I felt shy of having asked him to dinner. To
+eat in the presence of so much sorrow seemed indecorous
+and out of keeping. Nevertheless, as I
+had invited him to dine I could not but seat myself
+opposite him at the flower-decked, fruit-laden
+table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A man-servant, lent to me for the occasion by
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159"></a>[159]</span>
+Prilukoff, handed the zakusta and the vodka; and
+soon in the mellow atmosphere of the little dining-room,
+under the gentle luster of the pink-shaded
+lamps, a rare smile blossomed timidly now and
+then out of the gloom of our melancholy conversation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had scarcely finished taking our coffee when,
+to my astonishment, Prilukoff was announced.
+He entered with rapid step, holding a large sealed
+envelope in his hand. For a moment he seemed
+disconcerted at finding that I was not alone, and
+looked as if he would hide the letter behind his
+back. Then, with a slight shrug of the shoulders,
+as if acquiescing in the unavoidable presence of a
+stranger, he handed me the envelope with a deep
+bow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is it?� I asked in surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff glanced somewhat uneasily at my
+guest, then he bent forward and said in a low voice—yet
+not so low that the other could not hear what
+he said:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This morning, Countess, you did me the honor
+of confiding to me the fact that you needed ten
+thousand rubles. I shall be most grateful and
+honored if you will accept that sum from me.�
+So saying, he placed the envelope in my hand.
+Then with a brief salutation to Count Kamarowsky
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160"></a>[160]</span>
+and another profound bow to me, he
+pleaded haste and withdrew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A flush had mounted to the Count's temples.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who was that?� he asked in a harsh voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I mentioned Prilukoff's name, and Kamarowsky
+with knitted eyebrows exclaimed: “You must
+have very confidential relations with him, if he
+permits himself to give you ten thousand rubles.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, no—no,� I stammered. “He is—he is
+only lending them to me. I shall pay them back,
+of course—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kamarowsky had risen from his chair. He
+took both my hands and pressed them to his breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How wrong of you! How wrong! Why did
+you not ask me? Have you no confidence in me?
+How can you accept assistance from a stranger
+when I am here—I, who am so devoted to you?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I know not why I burst into tears. A sense of
+shame and degradation overcame me. In a moment
+his arms were round me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dearest, sweetest, do not cry. I know you
+must feel humiliated at accepting money from that
+man, who may afterwards make all kinds of claims
+upon you. Return the money to him, I implore
+you, and accept it from me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could not answer for my tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Promise me that you will give it back,� Kamarowsky
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a>[161]</span>
+went on, clasping me closer to him. “If
+you refuse me this favor I shall go away and you
+shall never see me again. For the sake of our
+Emilia—for the sake of little Grania—accept it
+from me. And let me be your friend from now
+on and forever.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It took a long time to reconcile me to the sense
+of my own debasement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He wrote out a check to me for ten thousand
+rubles and put it into my hands. He closed my
+fingers forcibly over it, pressing them closely and
+thanking me in a moved voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he went away, and I was left alone with
+the check and Prilukoff's sealed envelope.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had wanted five thousand rubles and here I
+was with twenty thousand before me!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Poor, good Kamarowsky! And poor, dear,
+kind Prilukoff!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I do not see why I should really return this
+to Prilukoff!� I said to myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I broke the seals and opened the envelope that
+he had presented to me with so much solemnity.
+Petrified with astonishment I gazed at its contents.
+Then I laughed softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“On the whole, I think I <i>will</i> return it,� I said,
+and laid the envelope aside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was full of old newspaper cuttings!
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162"></a>[162]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXV
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+<i>Facilis descensus Averni.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My downfall was rapid and irretrievable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I soon became familiar with expedients and
+intrigues, I trod the tortuous paths that lead down
+into the valley of dishonor. For the outside
+world I might still appear a person of distinction,
+I might still call myself the Countess Tarnowska,
+but I had ceased to be that simple, ordinary, peerless
+being—an honest woman. I seemed to be
+surrounded by that peculiar atmosphere which
+envelops the adventuress as in an invisible mist—that
+imperceptible emanation by which persons of
+repute are instinctively repelled, and which draws
+within its ambit the idler and adventurer, the
+depredator and outcast of society.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had accepted money to which I had no claim.
+From this want of dignity to the want of rectitude
+how brief is the step! Between indiscretion and
+transgression how uncertain is the boundary!
+And suddenly there comes a day when one awakes
+to find oneself—a criminal!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah, then we stop short in horror. We look back
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163"></a>[163]</span>
+and see the abyss, the impassable gulf that henceforward
+separates us from the distant, candid
+summits of innocence. How has it been possible
+for us to travel along that vertiginous road which
+knows no return? What evil spirits have bandaged
+our eyes, have placed for our feet bridges and
+stepping stones so that almost without noticing it
+we have crossed ravines and precipices which
+never in this life we may traverse again? We can
+but go forward and downward: we can turn back
+no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not at this period did I realize the irrevocable
+character of the fate I had chosen. Rather did I
+seem to perceive a new life opening out before me,
+leading me back once more to rectitude and honor,
+a return to that peaceful, conventional existence
+so often scorned by those who lead it, so bitterly
+regretted and desired by those who have forfeited
+and forsaken it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff still held me bound to him by the triple
+bonds of gratitude, of affection and of complicity.
+But Count Kamarowsky was swaying me towards
+a brighter and securer future. My marriage with
+Vassili, so long merely an empty and nominal tie,
+was about to be dissolved by a decree from the
+Holy Synod, and Kamarowsky implored me to
+marry him. His sadness and the loneliness of his
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164"></a>[164]</span>
+little son moved me deeply; the thought of bringing
+light and joy into their lives was unspeakably
+sweet to me, while for my part I rejoiced to think
+that by the side of a worthy and honorable man
+I might take my place in the world once more, rehabilitated
+and redeemed. With Prilukoff, as I
+could see, downfall and ruin were imminent. He
+had left Moscow for a few days; but he would return,
+and alas! he would resume his dominion over
+me. I knew that with him the ultimate plunge into
+dishonor was inevitable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so with bitter tears of repentance, clasping
+the two fair heads of Tioka and Grania to my
+breast, I vowed to Heaven that I would be to them
+both a tender and a faithful mother, worthy of the
+lofty duty that by Divine grace was to be once
+more assigned to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Count Kamarowsky's gratitude and joy were
+boundless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are giving back life to me,� he said, his
+kind eyes shining with emotion. “I do not feel
+worthy of so much happiness.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don't, don't!� I said, turning away my face
+and flushing deeply at the thought of my recent
+unprincipled life. “It is I, I who am unworthy—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Kamarowsky interrupted me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush, Marie, hush. I know that you have suffered
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165"></a>[165]</span>
+much and that you have been led astray.
+But let the dead past bury the past. All I ask of
+you is the pure white page of the future.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are generous, you are kind,� I said, and
+tears burned in my eyes. “But let me tell you,
+let me tell you all—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mura,� he said, calling me by the tender pet-name
+of my childhood, “do not raise impassable
+barriers between us. What I have no knowledge
+of does not exist so far as I am concerned. The
+unknown is but a shadow; and I am not afraid
+of shadows. But if to that shadow you give a
+living shape and a name, it will rise between you
+and me, and I shall not be able to clasp you in my
+arms until I have destroyed it. Speak if you
+must. But, for our happiness, it were far better
+for you to keep silence—and to forget.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, you are right! Let there be no more
+sorrow, no more tragedies around me. Take me
+away from Moscow, away from all who know me.
+I will keep silence, and forget.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our departure from Moscow was like a flight.
+I left a letter for Prilukoff, entreating him to forgive
+and forget me, begging him not to debar me
+from taking my way again towards safety and
+rehabilitation. I expressed to him my sympathy,
+my gratitude and regret; and I implored him in
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166"></a>[166]</span>
+the name of all that he still held dear or sacred
+to return to his family and to his career, to the
+lofty and straightforward course of honor from
+which I, unhappy creature that I was, had unwittingly,
+unwillingly turned him aside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kamarowsky took us to the Riviera—from the
+snows of the north to the fragrant orange-groves
+of Nice and Hyères. The tinkling of sleighs gliding
+through the blue-cold streets of Moscow still
+seemed to ring in my ears when, lo! the lazy, sun-warm
+silence of the south enwrapped my senses
+in its languorous sweetness. The two children,
+dazed with the heat and the blueness around them,
+stood in amazement, with hands clasped and
+mouths open, at the sight of the golden oranges
+and the huge foliage of cacti and aloes, thinking
+that by some wonder-working charm they had been
+carried into fairyland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The distant sails, aslant on the radiant indigo
+of the sea, looked like white butterflies poised on
+a stupendous flower of lapis lazuli....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For three brief days I thought that fate had not
+overtaken me, and that my sins would not find me
+out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My sins! As in the old German fable the children
+are led into the depths of a forest, and left
+there to be lost and forgotten—even so did I think
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167"></a>[167]</span>
+that my sins would be lost and forgotten, even so
+did I think that they would never issue again from
+the shade in which I had hidden them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Smiling, I moved forward to meet the future,
+exalted by the affection of an honorable man,
+purified by the love of two innocent children.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And I said in my heart: “Fate is pitiful and
+God has shown mercy. He has suspended His
+judgment and has allowed me one last chance. I
+shall not be found wanting; I shall be worthy of
+His clemency.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then lo! at a turning in my pathway, the forgotten
+avengers stand before me; my sins, like
+spectral furies, have found me out!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were finishing dinner on the terrace of the
+Bellevue at Hyères, my betrothed and I. The
+children had said good night, had kissed and embraced
+us and run off, chattering and twittering
+with Elise, to their rooms. Kamarowsky had just
+lit a cigarette, and was leaning over to me with a
+word of tenderness, when I perceived immediately
+behind him at a neighboring table—a face, a grinning,
+fiendish face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My heart bounded. It was the Scorpion!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Why was it that name that first rushed to my
+mind? Why was my primitive sense of fear and
+repulsion renewed at the sight of him?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168"></a>[168]</span>
+Ah, that man staring and grimacing at me over
+Kamarowsky's shoulder was not the friend, the
+lover, the knight of the heroic Saga whom I had
+known and trusted in my days of desolation; no,
+he was the terrifying and truculent monster of the
+octopus story; he was the Scorpion who years ago
+had filled my soul with dread.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When had he come? How long had he been
+sitting at that table, watching my garrulous gladness,
+my timorous, reawakened happiness?
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169"></a>[169]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXVI
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+I glanced at him apprehensively; I tried to
+greet him, but he made no return to my timid salute.
+He was smiling with a crooked mouth, his
+arms crossed before him on the table. He was
+mocking at Kamarowsky and at me, and my terror
+seemed greatly to amuse him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I rose nervously, wishing to retire, but Kamarowsky
+detained me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is troubling you, dearest?� he asked,
+noticing my frightened eyes. And he turned to
+see what was behind him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I trembled in prevision of a stormy scene. But
+the Count did not recognize Prilukoff; he had only
+seen him once for a few moments that evening in
+my drawing-room when he had brought me the
+mysterious sealed envelope. Now Donat had his
+hat on his head; and besides, with that sinister
+smirk distorting his face I scarcely recognized him
+myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as we rose from the table, Prilukoff did
+the same, and passing in front of us entered the
+hotel before we did. I trembled, while Kamarowsky
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170"></a>[170]</span>
+with his arm in mine led me, talking
+placidly and affectionately, towards the entrance
+of the hotel. Doubtless he intended to accompany
+me to my sitting-room. But what if we found
+Prilukoff there?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Elise Perrier who saved me. As we
+stepped out of the lift I saw her coming quickly
+down the corridor to meet us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you please, madame,� she stammered,
+“there is a lady—a visitor�—her lips were white
+as she uttered the falsehood—“who wishes to see
+madame. She is waiting here, in the sitting-room,
+and she would like to—to see your ladyship alone.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who is it?� asked the Count.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think it is the—that relation of madame's�—Elise
+was going red and white by turns—“that
+relation from—from Otrada.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, I know,� I stammered breathlessly.
+“Aunt Sonia, perhaps.� Then turning to Kamarowsky:
+“Will you wait for me downstairs in
+the reading-room?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very well. Don't be long.� And Count
+Kamarowsky turned on his heel and left us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I went rapidly on in front of Elise, who, humiliated
+by the falsehood she had told, hung her
+head in shame both for herself and for me; and
+I entered my sitting-room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171"></a>[171]</span>
+On the couch, smoking a cigarette, sat Prilukoff.
+He did not rise when I entered. He sat there
+smoking and looking at me with that curious
+crooked smile. A great fear clutched my heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Donat,� I stammered, “why did you not let
+me know you had arrived?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He made no answer; but he laughed loudly and
+coarsely, and my fear of him increased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you receive my letter? Are you cross
+with me?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Cross?� he shouted, leaping to his feet, his
+eyes glaring like those of a madman. “Cross?
+No, I am not cross.� I recoiled from him in terror,
+but he followed me, pushing his distorted face
+close to mine. “You ruin a man, you drive him
+to perdition, and then you inquire whether he is
+cross. You take an honorable man in your little
+talons, you turn and twist him round your fingers,
+you mold him and transform him and turn him
+into a coward, a rogue, and a thief; then you throw
+him aside like a dirty rag—and you ask him if he
+is cross! Ha, ha!� And he laughed in my face;
+he was ghastly to look at, livid in hue, with a swollen
+vein drawn like a cord across his forehead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I burst into tears. “Why—why do you say
+that?� I sobbed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why do I say that?� stormed Prilukoff.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172"></a>[172]</span>
+“Why? Because I had a wife and I betrayed her
+for you; I had two children and I forsook them
+for you; I had a career and I lost it for you; I was
+a man of honor and I have turned thief for you.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, no, no!� I stammered, terrified.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What? No? No?� he exclaimed, and with
+trembling hands he searched his breast-pocket and
+drew from it a bulky roll of banknotes. “No?
+This I stole—and this—and this—and this—because
+you, vampire that you are, needed money.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I never told you to steal—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, indeed; you never told me to steal. And
+where was I to get the money from? Where?
+Where?� So saying, he flung the banknotes in
+my face and they fell all over and around me.
+“You did not tell me to steal, no. But you wanted
+money, money, money. And now you have got it.
+Take it, take it, take it!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I sobbed despairingly. “Oh, no, no, Donat!
+Have pity!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have had pity,� he shouted. “I have always
+had pity—nothing but pity. You were ill and
+miserable and alone, and I left my home in order
+to stay with you. You wept, and I comforted you.
+You had no money, and I stole it for you. How
+could I have more pity?� He was himself in
+tears. “And now, because I am degraded and a
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173"></a>[173]</span>
+criminal on your account, you leave me, you fling
+me aside and you marry an honest man. And I
+may go to perdition or to penal servitude.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do not speak like that, I implore you.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, but Countess Tarnowska, if I go to penal
+servitude, so shall you. I swear it. I am a thief
+and may become a murderer; but if I go to
+prison, you go too.� He collapsed upon the sofa
+and hid his face in his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I stood looking down upon him I saw as
+in a vision the somber road to ruin that this man
+had traversed for my sake, and I fell on my knees
+at his feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Donat! Donat! Do not despair. Forgive
+me, forgive me! Go back, and return the money
+you have taken; go back and become an honest
+man again!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He raised a haggard face in which his wild,
+bloodshot eyes seemed almost phosphorescent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is no going back. By this time all Moscow
+knows that I have absconded, and carried off
+with me the money that was confided to my care.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But if you go back at once and return it?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am ruined all the same. I am utterly lost
+and undone. Who would ever place their trust
+in me again? Who would ever rely upon my
+honor? No, I am a criminal, and every one knows
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174"></a>[174]</span>
+it. The brand of infamy is not to be cancelled by
+a flash of tardy remorse. I am done for. I am a
+thief, and that is all there is about it.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A thief! I had never seen a thief. In my
+imagination thieves were all slouching, unkempt
+roughs, with caps on their heads, and colored
+handkerchiefs tied round their throats. And
+here was this gentleman in evening dress—this
+gentleman who had been introduced to me as a
+celebrated and impeccable lawyer, who had been
+my lover, and Tioka's friend, and Elise's Lohengrin—and
+he was a thief!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could not believe it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that moment a voice was heard outside. It
+was one of the bell-boys of the hotel; he was passing
+through the corridor calling: “Forty-seven!
+Number forty-seven.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff started. “Forty-seven? That is the
+number of my room. Who can be asking for me?
+Who can know that I am here?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In his eyes there was already the look of the
+fugitive, the startled flash of fear and defiance of
+the hunted quarry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I looked round me at all the banknotes scattered
+on the carpet, and I felt myself turn cold. “Hide
+them, hide them,� I whispered, wringing my
+hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175"></a>[175]</span>
+“Hide them yourself!� he answered scornfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I heard footsteps in the corridor. They drew
+near. They stopped. Some one knocked at the
+door. Terror choked my throat and made my
+knees totter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stooped in haste to pick up all the money
+while Prilukoff still looked at me without moving.
+I held it out to him in a great heap of crumpled
+paper. But still he did not stir.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again the knocking was repeated. Who could
+it be? Kamarowsky? The police? I opened a
+desk and flung the bundle of banknotes into it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I said, “Come in.�
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176"></a>[176]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXVII
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+It was only a saucy little page-boy in red
+uniform.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you please, Count Kamarowsky sends word
+that he is waiting for you.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say that I shall be down directly.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,� contradicted Prilukoff; “send word that
+you are not going down.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But then he will come here.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You will say that you cannot receive him.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And that was what took place. And not on that
+evening only. Prilukoff installed himself, during
+long days and evenings, in my apartments, and
+refused to go away. Very often he did not even
+allow me to go out of the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then came Count Kamarowsky knocking at the
+door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No! no! You cannot come in!� cried Elise
+Perrier, pale and trembling, leaning against the
+locked door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But why? Why? What has happened?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing has happened. Madame is not feeling
+well,� Elise would reply, in quavering tones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But that is all the more reason why I should
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177"></a>[177]</span>
+see her,� protested the Count. “I must see her!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is impossible!� And Elise, whom fear rendered
+well-nigh voiceless, would roll towards me
+her round, despairing eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the Count would speak to me through the
+closed door, entreating and arguing; and every
+time he used a tender expression Prilukoff, who
+held me fast, pinched my arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mura, Mura, let me in. Let me see you for
+a moment. You know how I love you (pinch);
+it is cruel to lock me out as if I were a stranger.
+If you are ill let me take care of you, with all my
+tenderness (pinch), with all my love (pinch)—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In feeble accents I would reply: “Forgive me—I
+shall soon be better—do not trouble about me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But what is the matter? Why do you not
+want to see me? Do you not love me any more?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, yes, I love—(pinch). Please, please go
+away. I shall come down as soon as I can.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I could hear his slowly retreating footsteps,
+while Prilukoff glared at me and, on general
+principles, pinched my arm again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was with the greatest difficulty that I could
+conceal Prilukoff's presence from little Tioka.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day the child caught sight of him seated on
+the terrace, and, with a wild cry of delight, started
+to run towards him. I caught him in my arms.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178"></a>[178]</span>
+“No, darling, no! That is not Prilukoff. It is
+some one very much like him; but it is not our
+friend.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And as the man, with scowling countenance,
+was gazing out at the sea, and paid no heed to us,
+Tioka believed me, and, with a little sigh of regret,
+ran in search of his playmate Grania.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The life Prilukoff led me in this grotesque and
+unbearable situation is impossible to describe.
+My days were passed in an agony of terror.
+When I dined with Kamarowsky, Prilukoff invariably
+took a seat at the next table, and I might
+almost say that it was he who regulated our conversation.
+If any subject were raised that was
+distasteful to him—my approaching marriage to
+Kamarowsky, for instance, or some tender reminiscence
+which my betrothed loved to recall—Prilukoff,
+at the adjoining table, made savage
+gestures which terrified me and attracted the attention
+of all the other guests. He would shake
+his fists at me, glare at me with terrible eyes, and,
+if I pretended not to notice him, he upset the cruet-stand
+or dropped his knife and fork noisily to
+attract my attention. He would stare at the unconscious,
+slightly bald head of Kamarowsky, and
+imitate his gestures with a demoniacal grin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guests of the hotel thought him insane, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179"></a>[179]</span>
+he certainly behaved as if he were. I myself have
+often thought: “Surely he is a madman!� when
+I came upon him suddenly, hidden behind the curtains
+in my sitting-room, or crouching in a dark
+corner, or lying on my bed smoking cigarettes. I
+felt that my nerves and my reason were giving
+way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you want of me, you cruel man?�
+I sobbed. “What am I to do? Do you wish me
+to tell everything to Kamarowsky? To break off
+the marriage and return to Moscow with you?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We cannot return to Moscow, and you know
+it,� growled Prilukoff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Somewhere else, then. Anywhere! I will go
+wherever you like, I will do whatever you like.
+Anything, anything, rather than endure this torture
+any longer.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For the present we stay here,� declared Prilukoff,
+who seemed to enjoy my anguish. “And as
+for the future,� he added, rolling his terrible eyes,
+“you can leave that to me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes he forbade me to go out with Kamarowsky.
+At other times he followed us in the
+streets, torturing me behind the unconscious back
+of my betrothed, who marveled and grieved at my
+extraordinary and frequently absurd behavior.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Early one morning, as I looked out of my window,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180"></a>[180]</span>
+I saw Kamarowsky standing on the terrace,
+gazing thoughtfully out at the sea. I ran down
+to him. We were alone. “Paul,� I whispered
+hurriedly, “let us go away from here; let us leave
+quietly, to-day, without saying a word to any one.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He laughed. “What a romantic idea! Do you
+not like this place? Are you not happy here?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, Paul, no! There is some one spying upon
+me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Spying upon you?� he repeated, greatly
+astonished. “Is that the reason of your strange
+behavior?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, yes, but do not ask me any more questions.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who is it? I must know who it is.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, Paul. I will tell you later on. Hush!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are a fanciful creature,� he said, laughing
+and patting my cheek.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a id="f180"></a>
+  <img src="images/180.jpg"
+  alt="" />
+<p class="caption">COUNT PAUL KAMAROWSKY</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+I felt hurt at his calm acceptance of what I had
+told him, and wondered that he did not insist upon
+knowing more. I reflected in my folly that if he
+really loved me he ought to have been less satisfied
+and secure. I did not understand—alas! I never
+understood—his guileless and noble trust in me.
+The insensate and exacting passion of others who
+until now had dominated my life had spoiled me
+for all normal affection. Hypersensitive and
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181"></a>[181]</span>
+overwrought, I myself suffered unless I caused
+suffering to those I loved; nor did I ever feel sure
+of their love unless they doubted mine.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p>The love that varies not from day to day,</p>
+<p>A tranquil love, unruffled and serene—</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+was not the love I knew. My storm-tossed heart
+did not recognize it. Neither on that day nor ever
+could I bring myself to believe that Paul Kamarowsky
+really loved me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During those few moments that we were alone
+together on the terrace, we arranged that I should
+start with Tioka and Elise that very evening, during
+the dinner hour, leaving all our trunks behind
+us for my betrothed to see to after we had left.
+He could join us three days later in Vienna, and
+then we should all proceed to Orel, where important
+affairs claimed his presence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Half-way through dinner, as had been arranged
+(and as usual Prilukoff sat at a table next to ours),
+Elise entered the dining-room timidly and came to
+our table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I beg your ladyship's pardon. Master Tioka is
+outside and wishes to say good-night.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bring Master Tioka in,� I said, trying to
+speak naturally and raising my voice a little so
+that Prilukoff should hear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182"></a>[182]</span>
+“I am sorry, my lady, but he refuses to come,�
+and Elise hung her head as she spoke these words;
+the treason we were perpetrating on Lohengrin
+grieved her even more than the tortures that
+Lohengrin had inflicted upon me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pray excuse me a moment,� I said to Count
+Kamarowsky, and rose from the table. “I shall
+be back at once.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No sooner was I outside the dining-room than
+Elise threw my traveling cloak round me. A
+motor-car was throbbing at the door, and in it
+with beaming face sat Tioka surrounded by our
+hand-bags and dressing-cases, shawls and hats.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What are we doing?� he cried gleefully.
+“Are we running away?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, darling,� and I clasped him to my heart,
+as I sank into the seat beside him. The motor
+was already gliding through the twilight roads towards
+Cannes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But why? Why are we running away? Have
+we stolen something?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At those words my heart stopped beating. I
+suddenly remembered Prilukoff's ill-gotten banknotes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elise!� I gasped; “in the desk in my sitting-room—there
+was some money.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, madame.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183"></a>[183]</span>
+“What did you do with it?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is quite safe, madame. I have taken it.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>You have taken it!</i>�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, madame. Here it is.� And with satisfied
+hand Elise patted a black leather satchel that
+lay in her lap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a sob I hid my face in my hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indeed, we had stolen something!
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184"></a>[184]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXVIII
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+As soon as we reached the frontier I telegraphed
+to Prilukoff. I wanted to send Elise back to
+Hyères with the money, but she refused to leave
+me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What if Mr. Prilukoff were to kill me,� she
+cried. “Then what would your ladyship and poor
+little Master Tioka do, all alone in the world?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But my good Elise, why on earth should Mr.
+Prilukoff kill you?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don't know,� sighed Elise. “But he has
+become so strange of late—� and after a pause,
+she added, under her breath: “We have all become
+very strange.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was true. I could not but admit it. We were
+“very strange.� We were not at all like other
+people. The people that we met on our journeys
+and in hotels, for instance, all took an interest in
+external things—in the surrounding landscape, or
+in works of art and monuments and cathedrals.
+As for us, we never spoke about monuments. We
+never entered a cathedral. We took no interest
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185"></a>[185]</span>
+whatever in anything beyond our own dolorous
+souls. We were even as those who travel with
+an invalid, watching him only, caring for and
+thinking of nothing else. The invalid I traveled
+with was my own sick soul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The least peculiar among us was Count Kamarowsky.
+Yet even he, I fancy, was not quite like
+other people. His was not a strong nature, like
+that of some men I had known. Perhaps the
+Slav blood is responsible for much that is abnormal
+and unconventional. Surely we are from the
+inmost depths of our nature strangely removed
+from the Teutonic, the Anglo-Saxon and even the
+Latin races, and our thoughts and actions must
+frequently appear to them singular and incomprehensible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for Paul Kamarowsky, his dread of suffering
+was so great that he preferred to know nothing
+that might cause him distress. In fear lest he
+should see aught that might displease him, he
+chose to shut his eyes to facts and truths, preferring
+voluntarily to tread the easy paths of a
+fool's paradise. I longed to open my heart to
+him, to unburden my travailed soul and clear my
+sullied conscience by a full confession; I was
+ready to abide by the result, even if it meant the
+loss of my last chance of rehabilitation, even
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186"></a>[186]</span>
+should I forfeit thereby all hope of marriage with
+a man of honor, rank and repute. But he closed
+my lips; he sealed my heart; he firmly avoided
+all confidences and disclosures.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mura,� he said, “my life and yours have been
+too full of errors and of sorrow. Do not embitter
+this, our hour of joy. The past is buried; let it
+rest. Do not drag what is dead to the light of
+day again.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I bowed my head in silence. But in the depths
+of my conscience I knew that my past had been
+buried alive.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+Not in my spirit alone did I suffer agonies at
+this period; my frail body was racked with
+disease and my sufferings were continuous and
+intense. Day by day I felt my strength decline,
+I saw myself wax thinner and paler; rarely indeed
+did an hour pass that I could count free
+from pain. The deep-seated ill that since the
+birth of my little daughter Tania had struck its
+fiery roots into my inmost being now bore its toxic
+fruits, slowly diffusing its poison through my
+veins. Sometimes the pangs I suffered were so
+acute that I cried out in anguish, while beads of
+cold perspiration started to my brow. But as a
+rule I was tortured by a deep, dull, perpetual ache,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187"></a>[187]</span>
+a sense of utter weakness and weariness that
+stifled all hope in me and all desire to live.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Oh, daughters of Eve, my purer and stronger
+sisters, women who have not transgressed—you
+whose hatred and scorn have overwhelmed me,
+you whose white hands have been so quick to
+throw the wounding stone—you alone can comprehend
+the agony that racked my frame, the
+flaming sword that pierced me, the sacred ill of
+womanhood that girt my body as with a sash of
+fire. You who in such dark hours can shelter
+your sufferings in the protecting shadow of your
+home, you who can seek refuge in a husband's
+tenderness and hide your stricken brow upon a
+faithful breast, can you not summon one throb of
+sorrow to your womanly hearts, one gleam of pity
+to your gentle eyes, when you think of the tortures
+I dragged from hotel to hotel, seeking to
+conceal my martyrdom from the inquisitive or
+indifferent gaze of strangers, not daring to confide
+in the man who loved me but who yet was almost
+a stranger?...
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Who can describe the minor and yet genuine
+torment of the tight garments cramping the aching
+body; the weight of the ornate head-dress on
+the throbbing brow; the irony of rouge and
+cosmetics on the ashen cheeks; and the nauseating
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188"></a>[188]</span>
+distaste for the rich viands that one pretends
+to enjoy while the noise of voices and music
+pierces your brain, and the glaring electric lights
+stab your aching eyes like a hundred knife-thrusts?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How often, on returning from some brilliant
+banquet to the silence and solitude of a desolate
+hotel bedroom, have I wept aloud with vain
+longing for one great joy denied to me, one
+supreme privilege of a happy woman: that of being
+weary, ill, and miserable—and yet loved all
+the same! How keenly have I envied some women
+I have known—women who were not beautiful, not
+brilliant and not young, but by whose sick-bed in
+their hour of pain a husband watched in tenderness
+and pity, faithful throughout the years,
+throughout the changes that time brings, faithful
+to the sad and pallid woman who had the right to
+lay her faded cheek upon his breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+None, none of those who vowed they loved me,
+would have loved me thus! Not Vassili, not
+Bozevsky, not Stahl, not Kamarowsky. Prilukoff
+perhaps? Who knows?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Prilukoff was a thief, a fugitive, a criminal;
+and day and night I prayed that he might not
+cross my path again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had not replied to my agitated telegram
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189"></a>[189]</span>
+informing him that Elise had unwittingly taken
+the money away. Nor did he, as I thought he
+would, join us in Vienna where we stayed several
+days, expecting yet dreading his arrival.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were at a loss to know what to do with his
+stolen money. We did not dare to send it to him
+at Hyères, where I knew he had been staying
+under an assumed name and in constant terror
+of discovery. We did not dare to leave it in our
+rooms at the hotel. Elise carried it about with her
+day and night in the hated black leather satchel,
+which had become to us a nightmare, an incubus,
+an obsession. With a bitter smile I recalled the
+story of the English hunters in India who succeeded
+in capturing that most precious and sacred
+among all animals: a white elephant. And having
+captured it they knew not what to do with it.
+They trailed it after them across land and sea—ponderous,
+slow, magnificent; and nobody wanted
+it, and nobody knew what to do with it nor how
+to get rid of it. Prilukoff's stolen money was indeed
+a white elephant for us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kamarowsky with his little son had joined us
+in Vienna, bringing all our luggage with him. He
+was as boisterous as a schoolboy out for a holiday.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There are no spies here, are there, Mura?�
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190"></a>[190]</span>
+he laughed, kissing my cheek loudly. “No spies
+to drive us away!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again I was hurt that he should thus make light
+of the mysteries of my existence. Should he not
+have demanded an explanation of my flight from
+Hyères? Should he not have insisted upon knowing
+who had followed me there? What love was
+this that could voluntarily blindfold itself and
+evade all explanations?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not this, not this was the love I had dreamed
+of and hoped for, the steadfast refuge for my
+wavering spirit, the longed-for haven for my
+storm-tossed soul.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+We proceeded almost immediately to Orel.
+At this period I possessed no money at all of my
+own; what little I had had when I left Moscow
+had been spent; but not for a moment did I entertain
+the thought of touching Prilukoff's ill-gotten
+wealth. Paul Kamarowsky insisted upon
+providing all our traveling and hotel expenses;
+but it was embarrassing to be unable to tip a servant
+or to pay for even the smallest trifle that
+Tioka or I might want.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I made up my mind to lay frankly before my
+betrothed my deplorable financial situation. And
+I did so on the journey to Orel. He seemed much
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191"></a>[191]</span>
+amused at my confession; and the fact of our utter
+dependence upon him seemed to afford him the
+greatest pleasure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He filled my purse with gold, and made me
+promise that I would always ask him for anything
+I might need or desire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How well I remember our arrival at Orel! It
+was a radiant afternoon in October. Count Kamarowsky
+accompanied us to our hotel, where flower-filled
+apartments awaited us; then he left us at
+once to go in search of a young friend of his, the
+son of the Governor of Orel, who had promised to
+see to our passports as soon as we arrived.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was alone in our drawing-room when Elise
+knocked at the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The children would like to go out; they say
+they feel cramped from the journey,� she said.
+“If madame allows, I will take them into the park;
+it is just opposite the hotel,� she added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Certainly, Elise.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A moment later Tioka and Grania, ready to go
+out, came running to embrace me, and behind them
+Elise reappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If madame permits,� she said in a low voice,
+“I might perhaps leave '<i>it</i>' here?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It� was the black leather satchel—our white
+elephant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192"></a>[192]</span>
+“Yes, yes; leave it,� I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And she carried it into my bedroom and placed
+it on the dressing-table.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193"></a>[193]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXIX
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+I stepped out upon the balcony and watched
+the children cross the sunlit square; they turned
+and waved their hands to me; then I saw them
+enter the park and scamper down the shady avenue,
+the faithful Elise trotting quickly in their
+wake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I remained on the balcony wrapped in peaceful
+thoughts, glad to feel the warmth of the autumn
+sun on my shoulders and the coolness of the
+autumn breeze on my cheeks. A wave of thankfulness
+came over me; repentance for all my past
+doubts and transgressions flooded my heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How could I ever have doubted Paul Kamarowsky's
+love? Was not the absolute faith he reposed
+in me—the blind unquestioning faith that in my
+folly I had often resented—was it not after all the
+highest homage that a noble heart could bestow?
+Henceforth the aim of my life should be to render
+myself worthy of his trust and love. In utter
+gratitude and devotion my heart went out to him
+who was about to place in my keeping the honor of
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194"></a>[194]</span>
+his unsullied name, and the care of his motherless
+child. I clasped my hands and breathed a fervent
+prayer to Heaven, a prayer that I might deserve
+the happiness that was in store for me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A slight sound startled me from my reverie.
+It was Kamarowsky who, having returned and
+not finding me in the drawing-room, had knocked
+at my bedroom door. Receiving no reply he entered.
+I left the balcony, and closing the window
+after me, stepped into the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kamarowsky was standing in front of the dressing-table
+holding the black leather satchel in his
+hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is this?� he asked casually. “Is it
+yours?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pitiless light from the window struck me
+full in the face, and I felt that I was turning pale.
+“No—no—� I stammered. “It is not mine.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought not,� he said, turning it round and
+round. “I did not remember seeing it. We had
+better send it down to the bureau of the hotel.�
+And he stepped forward to touch the bell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no!� I cried, “it belongs to Elise.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why does Elise leave her things in your
+room?� Then noticing my pallor and agitation
+he exclaimed: “Why, dearest? What is wrong
+with you? You look quite white.�
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a id="f194"></a>
+  <img src="images/194.jpg"
+  alt="" />
+<p class="caption">I STEPPED OUT UPON THE BALCONY</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195"></a>[195]</span>
+“It is nothing, nothing,� I said, attempting to
+smile; and I sat down with my back to the light.
+I was trembling from head to foot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He bent over me with tender solicitude. “Are
+you feeling ill?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Slightly—it will pass—it is nothing. The
+fatigue of the journey perhaps,� and I caressed
+the kind face that bent over me full of affectionate
+concern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He turned and rang the bell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A waiter appeared. “Bring some brandy,�
+ordered Kamarowsky. “Make haste. The lady
+is not well.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The waiter returned promptly and placed the
+tray on the table; as he was about to leave the
+room Count Kamarowsky, who was pouring out
+the brandy, said to him: “Wait a moment, you
+can take that satchel upstairs to the maid's apartment.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I sprang to my feet. “No—leave it,� I cried,
+taking it from the waiter's hand. The man bowed
+and left the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kamarowsky seemed astonished at my behavior.
+“What is the matter?� he asked. “Why are you
+so agitated?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am not—I am not agitated at all,� I
+stammered, trying to control my features, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196"></a>[196]</span>
+holding the odious white elephant in my trembling
+hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What on earth is in that bag?� asked the
+Count.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing—nothing,� I said, with a vacuous,
+senseless smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come, now! It is full of papers,� laughed
+Kamarowsky, putting out his hand and pressing
+the satchel between his fingers. “Confess, what
+are they? Love-letters?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I contrived to answer his jest with a smile:
+“You have guessed right,� I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They are Elise's, I hope—not yours!� he
+added, half smiling and half distrustful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I laughed. “Elise's, of course;� and with a
+deep sigh of relief I sank upon a chair, feeling
+that the danger was past. But my heart had not
+yet resumed its normal pulsation when the door
+opened and the unwitting Elise appeared on the
+threshold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We have returned, my lady, and the children
+have gone upstairs.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kamarowsky jestingly took the satchel from my
+hand and dangled it in the air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, Elise! What have we got in here?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elise rolled her eyes wildly, and a scarlet blush
+mounted to her face; Elise's blushes were always
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197"></a>[197]</span>
+painful to see; now her face was of a deep damask
+hue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Count laughed. “So this is where you keep
+your love-letters, is it?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, no, sir,� exclaimed Elise, blushing till her
+eyes were filled with tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What? Is this satchel not yours?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, no, sir!—I mean—yes, sir,� stuttered
+Elise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kamarowsky looked at her, and then at me.
+Seeing the expression of our faces the laughter
+faded from his lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come, Elise; tell me whose it is, and what it
+contains.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I attempted to make a sign to her, but the tall,
+broad figure of Count Kamarowsky stood between
+us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I rose with a sigh of despair, acquiescing in my
+fate. Now—let happen what may.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What letters are they?� insisted Kamarowsky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I heard the hapless Elise floundering in the
+quicksands of falsehood; finally she let herself
+drift—a helpless wreck on the rock of
+truth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is not letters, it is money,� she said at
+last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198"></a>[198]</span>
+“Money? Money of yours?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a brief silence. Then Kamarowsky
+said: “I do not believe you. I wish to see what
+it contains.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No one answered him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where is the key?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again there was silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I heard a slight jingling sound; Kamarowsky
+was searching in his pockets for a penknife. Then
+he said to Elise: “You can go.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elise went slowly and reluctantly from the room.
+Then I heard a faint tearing and crackling:
+Kamarowsky had cut through the leather of the
+satchel. Now the rustling of banknotes told me
+that he was smoothing them out on the table, and
+counting them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few moments passed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thirty-five thousand rubles,� said Paul Kamarowsky
+slowly. “I cannot understand why you
+should have told me you were penniless.� There
+was an icy coldness in his voice such as I had never
+heard before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The money is not mine,� I said, in trembling
+tones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Whose is it?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How was I to answer him? Could I betray
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199"></a>[199]</span>
+Prilukoff? And, with him, myself? I decided to
+tell what was, intrinsically, the truth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I do not know whom it belongs to.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once more there was silence. I wondered what
+he would do? Would he insult me? Would he
+raise his voice in bitter accusation and reproof?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No. The silence remained unbroken. Kamarowsky
+left the room without a word.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah! I was still in the grip of the octopus; its
+tentacles bound and crushed me still. Even from
+afar Prilukoff guided my destinies, drove my frail
+barque into storm and disaster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With trembling hands I gathered up the scattered
+banknotes and thrust them back into the execrated
+leather bag. Ah, if only I could have freed
+myself from this nightmare burden, if only I could
+have returned the money to Prilukoff! But how?
+Where to? At the Bellevue, in Hyères, he had
+called himself Zeiler. But now where was he?
+Under what name was he hiding? How could I,
+without warning, send him such a sum of money?
+Where could I write to him?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No; fate had doomed me to wander through the
+world carrying with me the hated money in Elise's
+abominable satchel! At the bitterness of this
+thought I dropped my face in my hands and wept.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I did not hear any one knock at the door; nor
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200"></a>[200]</span>
+did I hear the door open. When, still shaken with
+sobs, I raised my tear-stained face, I beheld standing
+on the threshold a stranger—a slender, fair-haired
+youth. He was gazing at me with compassionate
+eyes, full of confusion at having found
+me in tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pardon me,� he said, and his voice was soft
+and musical.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Whom do you want?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was looking for Count Kamarowsky,� he
+replied. “He has invited me to dine with him.�
+There was a pause. “My name is Nicolas Naumoff.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My name is Marie Tarnowska.� And I gave
+him my hand.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201"></a>[201]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXX
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+Count Kamarowsky came in shortly afterwards.
+He was gloomy and morose; but on seeing his
+friend, whom he had that morning invited to dine
+with us, he made a heroic effort to keep up an appearance
+of good temper and hospitality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But his grief and anger were only too apparent.
+He sat beside me at table without speaking
+to me, nor did he ever turn his eyes in my direction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our guest seemed distressed and amazed at his
+behavior, and—doubtless remembering my recent
+tears—he gazed at me with his light-brown eyes
+eloquent of sympathy and compassion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once or twice I addressed a remark to Kamarowsky,
+but he scarcely answered me and I felt
+myself flushing and paling with humiliation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Silence fell upon us at last. Painful and embarrassing
+as I felt it to be, I yet could find
+no word to say. A violent headache racked my
+temples, and I had to bite my lips to keep myself
+from bursting into tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202"></a>[202]</span>
+Suddenly I got up and went into my room.
+With trembling hand I sought in my dressing-case
+for a bottle of cocaine, which for nearly a year I
+had not touched. I lifted it to my lips and sipped
+the exhilarating poison. Then I returned to the
+table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kamarowsky was sitting grim and silent with
+bent head and lowering brow, but the young
+stranger raised his golden eyes under their long
+fair lashes, and fixed them upon me as if to give
+me comfort. After a few moments, in order to
+break the well-nigh unbearable silence, he spoke
+to me in his low and gentle voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hear that Delphinus, the famous crystal
+gazer, has arrived in Orel. You ought to get him
+to tell you your fortune.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that so?� I said, smiling; and even as I
+spoke the prediction of that strange soothsayer
+flashed into my memory. I seemed to hear again
+the brief, prophetic words: “<i>Two men are yet to
+enter into your life. One will be your salvation—the
+other your ruin.</i>�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two men! I glanced around me, startled and
+amazed. Two men were here; one on each side
+of me. Was the prophecy coming true? Were
+these the two men he had spoken of? Were the
+One and the Other sitting beside me now?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203"></a>[203]</span>
+In my mind I could still hear the fortune-teller's
+nasal, dreamy accent:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You will chose—the Other. It is your destiny.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Overcome by a feeling of timorous superstition,
+I looked at my two table companions, of whom
+One, perhaps, might represent my destruction, the
+Other my last hope of happiness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At my right hand sat Kamarowsky, sullen and
+sinister in his grief and anger against me; on my
+left the young unknown, with radiant face and
+gold-bright eyes that smiled at me. A flash of intuition
+seemed to illuminate my spirit; here was
+salvation! Nicolas Naumoff! This unknown
+youth, in whose eyes I had read such complete and
+instant devotion—it was he whom fate had sent
+to lead me back to joy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Looking back to that hour I realize that it was
+the rhapsodical delirium of cocaine that whipped
+my brain into senseless aberration; but at the time
+I implicitly believed that by a miracle of divination
+I had rent the veil of the future, and could
+discern with inspired gaze the distant sweep of
+the years to come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I saw Kamarowsky—somber, dark, with bent
+head—as the very incarnation of sorrow and misfortune;
+and, to make assurance twice sure, was it
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204"></a>[204]</span>
+not he whom I had chosen? And had not the
+diviner foretold me that he whom I chose would
+be the one to lead me to destruction?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I might still draw back, I might still trick
+the Fates and escape from my predestined doom.
+With the blind impulse of the hunted quarry seeking
+a refuge, I turned an imploring gaze on the
+young unknown; he read despair in my eyes, and
+his own responded with a flash of comprehension;
+he leaned toward me, and, as if in the throe of
+some instant emotion, I saw him thrill from head
+to foot like a tense string. At this immediate response
+of his nerves to mine, I also felt a tremor
+stir me, as the water of a lake is stirred by a gust
+of wind. What evil spirit possessed me? Was
+I ill? Was I demented? I cannot tell. I know
+that my soul pledged itself to him at that moment;
+and I know that he understood me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus, in my attempt to escape it, the tragic
+prophecy was to be fulfilled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Nicolas Naumoff got up to take his leave
+I knew that he would return, that I should see
+him again, and this thought intoxicated me with
+such delight that even Kamarowsky, in spite of his
+anger and his suspicions, was swept away by the
+radiance and rapture of my joyfulness. I was
+then—well may I say it now!—at the zenith of my
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205"></a>[205]</span>
+youthful beauty, notwithstanding, or perhaps by
+reason of the disease that burned within me like a
+consuming lamp; a constant fever lit my transparent
+flesh into delicate rose flushes, and blazed
+like lighted sapphires in my translucent eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was no sooner alone with him than, seeing me
+thus aflame with radiant happiness, Kamarowsky
+rose and came towards me with outstretched
+hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Marie, I love you, I love you! I will trust
+you utterly. I want to know nothing that you
+do not wish to tell me.� And he bowed his head
+over my hands and kissed them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But my wild thoughts went out to the unknown
+youth with the golden eyes who had left us, he
+through whom salvation was to come to me; and
+every fiber yearned for his presence. A sudden
+wave of almost physical repulsion for Paul Kamarowsky
+overcame me and I started away from his
+touch. “Leave me,� I cried, “leave me. Let me
+go away.� And I tried to go past him to my
+room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he stopped me, amazed and unbelieving.
+“Why, dearest, why? What is the matter?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is over,� I murmured incoherently, “leave
+me. I do not wish to speak to you any more.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206"></a>[206]</span>
+I do not wish to marry you. I want to go away
+and never see you again.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mura! you are dreaming, you are out of your
+mind! What have I done that you should speak
+to me like this?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His bewilderment and despair only irritated me
+the more. “You will drag me to ruin and misfortune.
+I was told so; and I know, I feel that
+it is true.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You were told so?� gasped Paul. “What are
+you saying? Mura, come to your senses. Who
+has put such preposterous notions into your
+head?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Notwithstanding my dazed and drugged state
+of mind, I felt that to tell him about the fortune-teller
+would neither convince nor impress him;
+he would probably laugh, and try to coax or scold
+me back to my senses. So I wrapped myself in an
+obstinate and mysterious silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The unhappy man was perplexed and distressed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who has poisoned your mind against me,
+Mura? Think, think a moment; who in all the
+world could love you more than I do? Who could
+protect you and care for you better than I can,
+poor helpless creature that you are?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I was possessed by the blind obstinacy of
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207"></a>[207]</span>
+madness. <i>Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.</i>
+My destiny was coming upon me at the
+very time I thought to evade it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let me be!� My hands twisted themselves
+from his grasp. “I will not see you again! I
+will not!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I will,� cried Kamarowsky, clasping my
+wrist in an iron grip, and his long, languorous eyes
+opened wide and flamed into mine. “Do you
+think that because I am kind and patient you can
+play fast and loose with me? No indeed, no indeed;
+you have promised to be mine, and I shall
+make you keep your word.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Never had I seen him like this nor dreamed that
+he could be so fierce and resolute. I felt dizzy
+and bewildered. I felt the bats of madness flying
+in my brain. I raised my eyes with a scornful
+smile to his: how could he keep me against my
+will?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As if he had divined my thought he bent forward
+with his passionate face close to mine. “Do
+not think you can escape me,� he said. “Do not
+imagine it for a moment. Mura, I know you well.
+You need to be mastered, and I shall master you.
+As long as I live, remember—as long as I live you
+shall not escape me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These words seemed to pierce my dizzy brain
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208"></a>[208]</span>
+like red-hot needles. “As long as he lives I shall
+not escape him. <i>As long as he lives—!</i>�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I raised my eyes and looked at him; then I
+drooped my lashes—and smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The subtle cunning of madness stirred within
+me.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209"></a>[209]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXXI
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+Paul Kamarowsky appeared not to notice it.
+He continued to speak agitatedly, holding my unwilling
+hand in his.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know, Mura, that you have done many unworthy
+things in the course of your life; I know
+that you are not what I would have you be; but
+my pity for your misfortunes is far greater than
+my resentment at your faults. I know that you
+are ill; I know that you have had none but rakes
+and reprobates around you; it shall be my duty
+to strengthen you and uphold you with my love.
+I will help you, Mura, whether you wish it or not;
+I will save you in spite of yourself.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah, miserable creature that I was, why did I
+not throw myself upon his mercy and confide my
+doubts and my despair to his generous heart?
+Why did I not surrender my poor sick soul to his
+keeping? This was indeed the last time that salvation
+opened its haven to my shipwrecked soul; but
+I knew it not, and like a boat adrift in the darkness
+I swept on towards the storm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He continued to speak. “If I have not wanted
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210"></a>[210]</span>
+to know about your past, it has not been from
+cowardice nor from the fear of any man; but from
+distrust of my own heart, Mura, for fear lest my
+love for you should wane. Whereas it is my duty
+and my mission to love you, Marie Nicolaevna, to
+love and save you from your own weakness and
+the iniquity of the world. You are still so young—hardly
+less of a child than little Tioka—notwithstanding
+the storms of passion and sin that have
+passed over your head. All you need is to live
+among right-minded people who will love you. I
+shall love you, Mura; and my mother, gentle soul
+that she is, will take you to her heart; and so will
+my sisters. Then when you find yourself surrounded
+by such pure, kind and simple affections,
+you, too, will become simple, kind and pure again.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His voice broke. “We shall be so happy; and
+Tioka and Grania will be happy; and so will your
+good old father. He shall come and live with us.
+How is it you never think of your father, Mura?
+The generous, broken-hearted old man in that desolate
+house of Otrada?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hot tears rushed to my eyes. My father!
+My stately father, with his venerable white hair,
+and his proud blue eyes—the “terrible O'Rourke,�
+living in that deserted house, widowed, desolate
+and alone. There was no one to coax him out of
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211"></a>[211]</span>
+his grief or his anger; no arms went round his
+neck, no laughing voices cried to him: “Father,
+don't be the terrible O'Rourke!� I covered my
+face with my hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kamarowsky bent over me. “Is it not wickedness,
+Mura, to throw away one's life as you do?
+To rush from place to place, from emotion to emotion,
+from misery to despair? Is it not more than
+wickedness—is it not madness?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Madness!� As if the word had rent a veil
+before my eyes, I looked my calamity full in the
+face. Yes, it was madness; it was the hereditary
+curse of my mother's people. I was like my
+mother's two wild-faced, frenzied sisters, whom
+we used to run away from and laugh at when we
+were children, Olga and I.... Madness! In my
+delicate blue veins it had taken root again, and
+now its monstrous flower opened its crashing
+petals in my brain. I was mad, there was no doubt
+of it and no help for it. <i>I was mad.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I spoke the words softly to myself, and the very
+sound of them made me laugh. It amused me to
+think that no one knew my thoughts. I felt like
+a naughty little girl hiding in a dark cupboard
+while everybody is looking for her. The dark cupboard
+was my mind, and I had discovered madness
+there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212"></a>[212]</span>
+Undoubtedly I was bereft of reason; and my
+mother's sisters, now for so many years entombed
+in an asylum at Warsaw, were assuredly not more
+mad than I. The thought of this, also, made me
+laugh. I whispered to myself: “I am cleverer
+than they. I am as mad as they are, but no one
+shall ever know it!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have no other explanation to give, no other
+justification. I was demented, and I knew it.
+Sometimes in the night I started up wide awake,
+and the horror of the thought that I was alone
+with myself—with myself who was mad!—froze
+me into a statue of ice. As soon as I could stir a
+limb I would creep from my bed, steal out into the
+silent corridors of the hotel, and run with chattering
+teeth along the red-carpeted passages between
+the long double rows of boots, which to my eyes
+appeared like little monsters crouching at the
+thresholds; then up the great staircase, turning
+round every moment to look behind me, until I
+reached the fourth floor and the room of Elise and
+the children.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Softly I would tap at the door, and call:—“Elise!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, madame.� Elise Perrier always answered
+immediately, as if she never slept.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elise, I want you.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_213"></a>[213]</span>
+“Yes, madame, I shall come at once,� and I
+could hear her rising from her bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I ran back through the silent corridors,
+and when I passed Count Kamarowsky's door I
+trembled and shuddered and felt constrained to
+stop. I looked at his yellow boots—square and
+placid, with their mouths open and their tongues
+hanging out—and I experienced a wild sensation
+of fear and loathing for him and for them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I made a grimace at those hateful boots and
+hurried away to shut myself in my room and await
+Elise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She would come in, pale and tidy in her red
+woolen dressing-gown, with a little cap on her
+head. She sat down quietly by my bedside and
+held my hand. Sometimes she read aloud to me;
+sometimes she repeated Swiss poems and ballads
+that she remembered from her schooldays; and
+I soon grew calm again as I listened to her quiet
+voice and felt the clasp of her small roughened
+hand on mine.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+Gradually a sort of frenzied fear of Kamarowsky
+took possession of me. I was obsessed continuously
+with the idea that I must escape from
+him at all costs, or die. My every fiber shrank
+at the slightest touch of his hand. I longed never
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_214"></a>[214]</span>
+to see him again. I longed to know that the world
+held him no more. It was a blind instinctive
+frenzy that I endured without reasoning about it.
+My constant and only preoccupation was to fly
+from him who spelt ruin, and to cling to Naumoff,
+my deliverer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nicolas Naumoff! Nicolas Naumoff!� I repeated
+his name all day long like a kind of exorcism
+against Kamarowsky; sometimes I felt as if
+I were stifled, as if I must hold my breath until he
+was near.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On his side, Naumoff, who frequently came to
+see us, was reserved and shy, and did not venture
+to believe in what nevertheless he could not but
+read in my eyes. Knowing nothing of my insensate
+notion about the diviner's prophecy, and having
+no conception that to my fancy he was a rescuer
+sent to me by Providence, he thought I was
+making fun of him; or at other times he believed
+my predilection for him was merely the caprice of
+a frivolous creature accustomed to gratify every
+passing whim. So he held back, aggrieved and
+mistrustful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the more he held back the more was I impelled
+to pursue him, to hold and to vanquish him.
+The passionate gravity of his youthful face delighted
+me; I was thirsty for the unknown recesses
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_215"></a>[215]</span>
+of his soul as for a spring filled with mysterious
+sweetness. His voice perturbed me; his silence
+lashed my nerves; I lived in a perpetual quiver
+of rhapsodic sensibility.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was in this frame of mind when Kamarowsky
+resolved to invite all his friends in Orel to a banquet
+in order to announce to them our imminent
+marriage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this banquet Naumoff also was present.
+Doubtless he already knew the announcement
+that his friend was going to make, yet when the
+Count rose to speak and laid his hand with a
+placid air of ownership upon mine, I saw Nicolas
+Naumoff turn pale. I watched with deep emotion
+the color slowly receding from his face; in its pallor
+his youthful countenance appeared to me still
+more beautiful; he looked indeed like the supreme
+deliverer—the angel of death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I did not comprehend a word of Paul Kamarowsky's
+speech; I know that when it was ended
+he turned to me and placed a magnificent diamond
+ring upon my finger, and every one applauded and
+cheered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the guests rose in turn to congratulate
+Kamarowsky, and to kiss my hand and wish me
+joy; and I know that I smiled and thanked them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Naumoff alone had not left his place, but in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_216"></a>[216]</span>
+gay chatter and stir that surrounded us no one
+noticed it. He soon went away; he disappeared
+without taking leave of any one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Toasts and speeches followed. The waiters
+came and went, carrying fruits and wines and
+sometimes leaving the large double doors of our
+dining-room open behind them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly as I raised my eyes I saw a man standing
+on the threshold and gazing in at us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Prilukoff.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_217"></a>[217]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXXII
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+In truth I do not know whether I felt dismayed
+or glad. It was as if I were in a dream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Since I had begun to take cocaine again, that
+twilight sensation of unreality had descended anew
+like a misty veil upon all my perceptions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could not distinguish facts from illusions.
+Prilukoff had immediately disappeared—or had I
+only fancied that I saw him?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Trembling a little, I rose from my place, and
+while many of the guests were still talking and
+laughing with their host I excused myself on the
+plea of fatigue. They toasted me a last time, and
+Kamarowsky kissed me ceremoniously before them
+all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With cheeks and heart aflame I hurried to my
+apartments, glad to think that I should find them
+dark and silent. My temples were throbbing, the
+coronet of diamonds—a gift of Kamarowsky's—weighed
+heavy on my brow, and my eyes seemed
+to be pierced with red-hot needles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I opened the door of my sitting-room, where a
+lamp, turned low, glimmered like a star veiled in
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218"></a>[218]</span>
+red vapor. Behind it I could see yawning blackly
+the open door leading to my bedroom, which was
+in complete darkness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had a strange feeling that I was not alone.
+Some one was in the room—some one whom I
+could not discern was near to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yes, a footstep approached; a strong arm encircled
+me. Nicolas Naumoff's voice spoke in
+thrilling accents: “Marie! Marie! My heart is
+breaking.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a sigh of infinite weariness merging into
+a sense of infinite repose I laid my head against
+his breast. I longed to die. I felt as if I had
+nothing more to ask for, nothing more to desire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the anguish that was passing from my soul
+seemed to have entered into his.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must not marry that man! You must not,
+you shall not!� He gripped my shoulders as if
+he would crush them. “Tell me, tell me that you
+do not love him.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that instant on the black background of my
+bedroom there appeared a form—Prilukoff!
+Erect in the doorway he stood watching us.
+Naumoff had his back to him, but across his
+shoulder I looked Prilukoff in the face, only a few
+steps from me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My heart stood still. What would he do?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_219"></a>[219]</span>
+Knowing as I did his ungovernable frenzies of
+jealousy, his madness, his recklessness, I wondered
+whether he would leap forward and spring
+at Naumoff's throat? Would there be blows and
+groans and a death-struggle in my tranquil,
+shadowy room? Would there be a turmoil and
+a scandal, during which the bond of infamy
+that tied me to Prilukoff would be revealed to
+Naumoff? Revealed to Kamarowsky and to the
+world?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fear of tragedy and disgrace kept me stark
+and terror-stricken, rooted to the spot. Then I
+saw Prilukoff move. Slowly he raised his right
+arm. His right hand clutched something which I
+could not see. Suddenly—incredible sight!—I
+saw him open his mouth wide; and never, never
+have I seen anything more grotesque and terrifying
+than that figure in the darkness with mouth
+gaping wide....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But still his right arm moved, rising slowly and
+relentlessly until it was on a level with that terrible
+open mouth. What did the hand hold? Did I not
+see a gleam of polished metal?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I tried to scream, but no sound issued from my
+parched throat. I could see the whites of his staring
+upturned eyes, and the hand now motionless
+just in front of the open mouth—
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220"></a>[220]</span>
+From my throat came a hoarse whisper: “Don't,
+for heaven's sake! Wait—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Naumoff, in amazement at these words which
+he believed to be addressed to himself, relaxed his
+hold. “What is it?� he whispered. “Is any one
+there?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Step by step I drew back from him, with my
+fascinated eyes still fixed upon Prilukoff, who
+stood motionless as a statue in the same dreadful
+attitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is any one there?� repeated Naumoff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. Don't move.� The words formed
+themselves soundlessly on my lips, but Naumoff
+understood them and obeyed. He neither turned
+nor moved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stand as you are,� I breathed; “do not stir.�
+And I glided snake-like from him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then with the quickness of lightning I darted
+upon Prilukoff, thrusting him back into the dark
+bedroom, clutching him by the wrist, and covering
+his rapid breathing with my hand. The carpet
+deadened our footsteps. With my elbow I pushed
+the door and, as it closed behind me, I turned
+and shot the bolt. I was locked in my room with
+Prilukoff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush, hush!� I whispered, my lips almost
+touching his face. “I implore you, I implore
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_221"></a>[221]</span>
+you! Do not betray me. Do not let them hear
+you.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through his closed and stifled lips there issued
+hideous, incoherent words of vituperation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush! hush! hush!� I pressed my hand still
+tighter to his lips. “Forgive me! Spare me! I
+am yours, yours only! Donat, forgive me and
+keep silence!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mine, mine only,� breathed Prilukoff,
+hoarsely; “you swear it!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes! oh, yes!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could hear Naumoff trying the handle on the
+other side of the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Marie! Marie! What are you doing? Why
+have you run away?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff's right hand was still uplifted, and now
+he held it close to his temple. As I clutched that
+hand I could also feel the cold contact with the
+steel of a revolver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you swear that you will be mine forever?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I murmured something inarticulate. Naumoff
+was calling under his breath: “Marie! Marie!
+Open the door.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff raised his voice slightly. “Swear to
+me that you loathe that man and the other; swear
+that if I murdered them both you would still be
+mine.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_222"></a>[222]</span>
+“Yes, yes. Speak softly!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Swear it! Swear that they shall both die, that
+you will help me to rid the world of them. Swear
+it.� I could feel his hand tenser against his
+temple, I could feel the first finger crooking itself
+over the trigger. “Unless you swear,� hissed
+Prilukoff, “I shall shoot myself here, this
+instant.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I did so. He repeated the words softly with
+me: “<i>I swear—that—they shall die.</i>� And
+something within me kept saying: “I am dreaming
+all this.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is not enough!� breathed Prilukoff.
+“Swear it on the life of Tioka.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My parched lips opened, but the iniquitous words
+would not pass my throat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Prilukoff pushed me from him and the
+fingers of his right hand moved. I heard a slight
+clicking sound. I threw myself forward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I swear it—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And I swore it on the life of Tioka.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff's hand dropped to his side; he seemed
+to reel slightly, and staggering backwards leaned
+against the foot of my bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Naumoff on the other side of the door was growing
+impatient. He shook the handle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I bent over to Prilukoff. “Are you going to
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_223"></a>[223]</span>
+betray me? If I open this door, will you show
+yourself?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He laughed derisively. “Go along, go along,�
+he muttered. And I opened the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why did you run away?� asked Naumoff, taking
+my hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I closed the door behind me. I felt no more fear
+of Prilukoff. I felt no more fear of any one or
+anything. My heart seemed turned to stone.
+And as I stood thus, some one else knocked at the
+outside door. It was Kamarowsky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the door was not locked! I turned quickly
+and blew out the lamp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Naumoff had taken a rapid step forward,
+and turned the key in the lock. Then he stood
+still, leaning against the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kamarowsky outside heard him; and thinking
+it was I, murmured softly: “Good-night! Good-night,
+my darling!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I was seized with a convulsive fit of
+laughter. I laughed and laughed, shaken from
+head to foot by a wild paroxysm of mirth. I could
+not leave off laughing. I laughed until the laughter
+became a spasm which racked and agonized me;
+my teeth chattered, I trembled and quaked; and
+still the hysterical laughter continued, shaking my
+entire frame as an aspen is shaken by a brutal
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_224"></a>[224]</span>
+hand. I laughed and laughed, trying to laugh
+softly in order that those three men standing in
+the dark should not hear me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The thought of the three men motionless behind
+the doors made me laugh more than ever.
+Tears ran down my face, my head felt as if it
+would burst asunder. And still I rocked in the
+throes of frantic laughter until body and soul
+seemed to be shattered and rent....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I staggered and sank to the floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Naumoff bent over me. I felt his icy hands
+passing over my face. Then we remained quite
+silent in the dark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Slowly, reluctantly Kamarowsky's footsteps had
+passed away down the corridor....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I mustered strength enough to whisper to Naumoff:
+“Go—send Elise to me—quickly!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Naumoff obeyed.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+Yes, Nicolas Naumoff—submissive soul!—has
+always obeyed.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_225"></a>[225]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXXIII
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+I was ill in bed for a long time. I lay supine
+and motionless, feeling—as once, long before—as
+if I were lying at the bottom of a well. In the
+distance, far above me, life and the world went
+whirling on; but nothing in me or of me stirred,
+except that at every pulse-beat my life-blood
+seemed to be gently, inexorably ebbing away. The
+doctors bent over me with anxious faces; on my
+body I felt the burning weight of ice; my arteries
+contracted under the grip of ergot and chloride of
+iron. Still slowly and inexorably I glided, as on
+a smooth and shallow river, towards death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tioka and Grania had been sent to stay with
+friends in Kharkov.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Naumoff came every day to ask for news, and
+sent me flowers; but he was never allowed to see
+me. Kamarowsky had permission to come into
+my room for ten minutes every morning, but he
+was not allowed to speak to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff, locked in my rooms, watched over me
+night and day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nobody knew of his existence, for no one was
+allowed to enter my apartment. How and when
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_226"></a>[226]</span>
+he slept and took his meals I do not know. Perhaps
+Elise looked after that. He undoubtedly
+grew thinner, more haggard and spectral every
+day with sleeplessness, fasting and anxiety.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Night and day he sat at my bedside watching
+me. Sometimes, as I lay prostrate with closed
+eyes, I said to myself that I must open them and
+look at him; but so great seemed the effort of raising
+my heavy eyelids, that frequently hours passed
+and I could not do so. When at last I lifted my
+leaden lashes, I saw him, always sitting motionless
+beside me with his gaze fixed on my face. With
+renewed effort I faintly contracted the muscles of
+my face and attempted to smile at him. Then,
+worn out with fatigue, I dropped my heavy lids and
+my soul floated away again towards unconsciousness....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I began to get better I noticed to my
+amazement that Prilukoff talked to himself all the
+time. Perhaps he had done so from the first, but
+then I was too weak to understand or even to hear
+him. Now that a little strength was coming back
+to me each day, I could hear and comprehend the
+words he uttered; it was a succession of imprecations,
+of incoherent and disconnected maledictions
+hurled against Naumoff and Kamarowsky, who as
+he thought had snatched my heart from him, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_227"></a>[227]</span>
+would be the ruin and the death of me. I could
+hear him murmuring:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They must be got rid of; we have sworn it.
+They must die.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Towards evening his meager face grew red as if
+with fever, and his mutterings increased, became
+more rapid and excited. He would bend over me
+with his nightmare face as I lay weak and helpless
+on my pillows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They are outside there, in the corridor, both
+of them. I can hear them walking up and down,
+whispering together—talking about you. But they
+are doomed, are they not? Irrevocably doomed.
+You have sworn it. Tell me that it is so.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I faltered “Yes,� hoping to silence him, but he
+never ceased his uncanny mutterings; and the idea
+of murder completely possessed his disordered
+brain. Elise, moving like a little frightened ghost
+through the locked and darkened rooms, frequently
+attempted to come to my aid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go away; leave her alone,� she would say to
+Prilukoff. “Do you want her to fall ill again?
+Why don't you go to sleep? Why don't you eat?
+Why don't you go out?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Prilukoff stared at her with vacant eyes,
+then went into the dining-room and drank some
+vodka, and soon he was bending over me again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_228"></a>[228]</span>
+“Mind, I am not going to do it alone,� he whispered,
+“so that afterwards you would be afraid
+and horrified of me. No, no. You shall help me.
+You shall attend to one, and I to the other.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By degrees, as strength returned to me and dispelled
+the torpor that had numbed my brain, I
+understood Prilukoff's ravings, and was aghast at
+them. Absorbed in his monstrous dream, he delighted
+in planning all the details of the double
+crime.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What I want is to be alone with the man I saw
+holding you in his arms the other evening.� He
+ground his teeth. “As for your betrothed, you
+shall give him a dose of curare or atropine. An
+exquisite wedding cup for the bridegroom!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I burst into tears of terror and weakness,
+while the indignant Elise, hastening to my aid,
+would grasp Prilukoff's arm and compel him to
+leave me. He would sit gloomily in a corner, or
+go into the adjoining room, but a little while
+afterwards he was there again, raving as before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elise,� I whispered to her one evening, “I am
+afraid, I am terribly afraid of him.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shall I tell some one about it? Shall I tell
+Monsieur the Count?� exclaimed Elise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no,� I cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Might I—might I tell Monsieur Naumoff?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_229"></a>[229]</span>
+I hesitated; but when I recalled those golden
+eyes that turned to me filled with such trust and
+adoration I shook my head. “No, tell no one,
+Elise, tell no one.� And I hid my face in the
+pillows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last a day came when I was able to be up for
+an hour, and it was no longer possible to prevent
+Kamarowsky from coming to see me. Prilukoff
+refused to go away; I could not get him to stir
+from my room. At last, having compelled me
+to repeat the abominable vow, having forced me
+to invoke once more the seraphic image of little
+Tioka as tutelar genius of a monstrous crime, he
+went away, passing through my dressing-room to
+an outer passage at the back of the hotel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elise dressed me and placed me in an armchair
+near the window, where I reclined, trembling and
+weak. Then I sent word to Count Kamarowsky
+that I would see him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He came in full of emotion and joy. “At last,
+at last you are better,� he cried, his kind eyes
+alight with pleasure. “But how pale you are, how
+dreadfully pale.� And bending over me, he kissed
+my hair with infinite tenderness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I saw him standing before me, smiling and
+well, the murderous ravings of Prilukoff and my
+own iniquitous vow seemed but a figment of
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_230"></a>[230]</span>
+my morbid fancy, a half-forgotten illusion of my
+delirium, dissolving and fading away like a dark
+dream at daylight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kamarowsky held my hand tightly clasped in
+his, as if he were half afraid I might vanish from
+him. “What a poor little blue-white hand!� he
+said. “You have become quite transparent,
+Mura; I think I can look right through you and
+see your soul, trembling and flickering like a little
+flame!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I smiled at him. All my morbid fear and dislike
+of him, even as all my sudden insensate
+infatuation for Naumoff, was spent. Nothing
+remained of the storm my soul and senses had
+passed through but a limitless weakness and
+languor. I yearned to rest, to sleep, to sink out
+of life and be no more....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few moments later they announced Naumoff,
+who had brought me some roses. I was neither
+glad nor sorry to see him. Punctually when an
+hour had elapsed Elise Perrier sent my visitors
+away and put me to bed again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I fell asleep almost immediately.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I reopened my eyes, twilight filled my
+room with shadows and there was Prilukoff,
+sitting beside my bed, talking to himself about
+murder, revenge and poison.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_231"></a>[231]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXXIV
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+Every day my fear of Prilukoff increased. I
+had only one thought—to escape from him, to go
+far away where he could never find me; better still,
+to hide with Tioka and Elise in some distant spot,
+where neither this terrible maniac nor yet Naumoff,
+nor even Kamarowsky, could ever reach me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I thought of Otrada, my home. But how could
+my unhappy father protect me against the loving
+persistence of Kamarowsky, against Naumoff's
+passionate daring, or Prilukoff's diabolic designs?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the rare moments when I was alone with
+Elise, we talked it over. In trembling whispers,
+glancing constantly round lest the Scorpion should
+be on the watch, we concerted the manner of our
+flight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We made a thousand different plans, all equally
+extravagant and impracticable. In our luxurious
+hotel rooms we were imprisoned like mice in a
+trap. We never opened a door without finding
+a maid awaiting our orders, or a zealous and obsequious
+waiter bowing to us, or Kamarowsky
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_232"></a>[232]</span>
+asking for news, or Naumoff waiting with a
+bunch of flowers in his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We closed the door, and found ourselves shut
+up with Prilukoff, ferocious and maniacal, who
+glowered at us with the eye of a tiger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A thousand times in my weakness and despair
+I was on the point of throwing the door wide open
+and calling for help—calling Kamarowsky and
+Naumoff, and crying to them: “Look! a man is
+shut up in here. For days and days he has been
+torturing and threatening me. The man is a criminal
+and a thief, and he has been my lover. Save
+me from him!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But then I pictured to myself the scene of violence
+that would follow, the room echoing with revolver
+shots; and at the mere thought of it, in my
+weak and exhausted state, I fell into long fainting
+fits from which Elise had the greatest difficulty in
+reviving me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One morning Elise had an idea: “Let us confide
+in the doctor.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I agreed. But the thought agitated me so
+that when the doctor came he found me trembling,
+with a rapid, irregular pulse and panting
+breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Doctor—� I began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, but this is bad, very bad. What is the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_233"></a>[233]</span>
+meaning of all this agitation? Did you sit up too
+long? If you are not a better patient, I shall have
+to complain of you to my friend Paul.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His friend Paul! True. He was a friend, an
+intimate friend, of Kamarowsky's. How could
+I ever have had the idea that he would keep our
+secret, that he would not betray my intended
+flight? It was a crazy notion of Elise's. I cast
+a significant glance at her, and was silent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He prescribed bromides and recommended absolute
+rest of body and mind. Scarcely was he gone
+when to my astonishment the long curtain that
+hung in front of an alcove where Elise kept my
+dresses moved slightly. Then they parted, and
+Prilukoff appeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah! he had not gone out as he had pretended
+when the doctor had been announced! He had
+hidden himself. What if I had spoken?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My fear of him turned to frenzy: I thought him
+endowed with supernatural powers. My room
+seemed to be filled with innumerable Prilukoffs
+peering out at me from every corner. I clung to
+Elise. “We must go away, we must go away
+to-morrow,� I whispered. “Do you understand?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, madame,� was Elise's firm and humble
+reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_234"></a>[234]</span>
+“Send to fetch little Tioka; send for him at
+once.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, madame.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Later, while she was dressing me, she stooped
+to draw on my stocking—Prilukoff was reading in
+the adjoining room—and she murmured:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We have no money to travel with.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must ask Count Kamarowsky for some;
+he will give you all we want,� I whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not without asking what it is for. We shall
+need a great deal.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Elise, think, think of something,� I sighed,
+and felt myself turning faint.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What are you two mumbling and plotting?�
+growled Prilukoff's voice from the adjoining
+room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were silent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tenderly and anxiously assisted by Kamarowsky
+and Elise I went down to the terrace that
+day, and spent the afternoon reclining on a couch
+in the mild spring sunshine, with eyes closed and
+every limb relaxed. I thought of our impending
+flight. Kamarowsky, seated beside me, kept silence,
+thinking I was asleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shortly afterwards I heard Tioka's quick little
+footsteps running across the terrace towards us.
+Kamarowsky doubtless warned him to keep very
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_235"></a>[235]</span>
+quiet, for I heard him stepping nearer on tip-toe,
+and without a word he clambered on to Kamarowsky's
+knee and laid his fair head confidingly
+against his shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beneath my drooping lashes, I gazed at them,
+and thought of the hideous plot that was weaving
+itself round this kind and generous man, who all
+unknowing pressed forward towards treachery
+and death; and I thought of the iniquitous oath
+which had placed a circlet of blood round that fair
+childish head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a sob I raised myself and stretched out my
+arms to them both.
+</p>
+
+<p class="dots">········</p>
+
+<p>
+It was eleven o'clock on the following night.
+Elise put out the lights and prepared the bromide
+and water on my little table. Prilukoff
+was rambling backwards and forwards between
+bedroom and drawing-room, smoking a cigarette.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elise,� I whispered. “Are we ready?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elise nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elise, when? When is it to be?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush, madame. Later on, towards morning;
+as soon�—with her head she indicated Prilukoff—“as
+soon as he is asleep.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But he never sleeps, Elise!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_236"></a>[236]</span>
+Elise looked at me. “He will sleep to-night,�
+she said; and there was an icy hardness in her
+tone that I had never heard before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why will he sleep? How can you know?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before she could answer, Prilukoff reappeared
+in the doorway. He had a glass of vodka in his
+hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This accursed throat!� he said, throwing his
+cigarette away and putting his hand to his neck.
+“Everything I swallow burns and scratches me.�
+He coughed and cleared his throat. “You can go,
+Elise. I shall see to anything your mistress
+needs.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elise did not reply. With a hard, pinched face
+she poured the water into my glass and dropped
+two little bromide tablets into it. Then with her
+back turned to Prilukoff she fixed her eyes upon
+me and moved her lips: “<i>Do not drink.</i>� She
+formulated the words clearly but without sound.
+I stared at her in bewilderment, and she made the
+movement with her lips again: “<i>Do not drink
+anything.</i>� Then seeing that, notwithstanding
+my astonishment, I had understood her, she said
+respectfully: “Good night, madame,� and left
+the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went out by the bath-room door, of which
+she always kept the key.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_237"></a>[237]</span>
+Prilukoff dropped into an armchair and yawned.
+“This accursed throat,� he repeated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He poured out a glass of water from the crystal
+carafe on my table and swallowed it at a gulp.
+Then he coughed violently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The devil!� he exclaimed. “This too! It
+tastes like some beastly concoction of—of chloral.�
+He coughed and yawned again. Then he leaned
+his head against my bed. A few moments later
+he started up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The devil!� he repeated, rising to his feet. I
+saw him go to the little table on which Elise every
+evening left some coffee ready on a spirit lamp;
+he lit it, and I dreamily watched the thin blue
+waverings of the flame. While the coffee was
+heating Prilukoff constantly cleared his throat,
+with the same murmured oath. Now he poured
+the smoking coffee into a cup and sipped it. “By
+all the infernal powers—� he cried, and turned
+suddenly to look at me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I did not dare to shut my eyes, much as I should
+have liked to do so. He came up to my bed and
+bending over me looked me in the face. Then he
+touched my shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“See here!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I drooped my eyelids drowsily. “Yes, dear!
+What is it?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_238"></a>[238]</span>
+“Just taste this coffee,� and he pushed the cup
+against my lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I sat up and with a smile took the cup from his
+hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It burns,� I said, barely touching it with my
+lips and making a little grimace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Drink it!� he roared in a terrible voice,
+though his eyes were half shut as if he could not
+keep awake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I took a sip of the coffee: it scraped my throat
+like a rake. I thought of Elise and understood.
+For a moment the idea flashed through my brain
+to say that I found nothing the matter with it.
+Then I changed my mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good heavens!� I exclaimed. “What have
+they put in this coffee? It tastes like poison!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff bent still closer over me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you had said it was all right, I should have
+strangled you.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My teeth chattered, partly through the taste of
+the chloral, partly through my fear of Prilukoff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you drunk much of it?� I gasped.
+“You ought to call for help.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Prilukoff had sunk into an armchair, and
+already, with his head rolled back and his mouth
+open, he slept.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_239"></a>[239]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXXV
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+How did we three hapless, terrified creatures
+manage to escape from the hotel that night?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tioka, wakened out of his sleep at three o'clock,
+kept on whimpering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where are we going? I am afraid. I want
+Papa Paul! Call Papa Paul.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we descended the dark staircase a night
+porter, dozing in the hall, started up and came towards
+us, blinking and yawning. When he caught
+sight of Elise, laden with shawls and medicine
+bottles—which constituted all our luggage—he
+seemed greatly astonished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a moment no one spoke. Then: “I am
+feeling ill,� I said. “We are going to the doctor.
+Please call a carriage for me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But excuse me, madame,� stammered the man.
+“Had I not better telephone to the doctor to come
+to the hotel?� His eyes wandered suspiciously
+from me to the lachrymose Tioka, and from Tioka
+to Elise and her burdens.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Open the door,� said Elise authoritatively,
+“and call a carriage, at once.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_240"></a>[240]</span>
+Then I saw Elise gather all the shawls into a
+heap on her left arm, as with her right hand she
+searched for something under her cloak. She
+drew out a crumpled piece of paper, and with a
+gesture of solemn deliberation she proffered it to
+the man. It was a banknote of a hundred rubles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man took the note, stared at it, and turned
+it round and round in his fingers. Then he raised
+his eyes and gazed in stupefaction at Elise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Open that door and call a carriage,� commanded
+Elise, in a thin voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man obeyed. As the large door swung back
+we could see that it was nearly dawn; the sound
+of distant church bells came to us across the clear,
+keen air. Elise raised her hand to her forehead
+and made the sign of the cross.... She had
+plundered the white elephant!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Oh, Elise Perrier, not least among my great
+pangs of remorse is the thought that I have
+dragged you down into my own dishonor. For
+me and through me, your honest hard-working
+hand and your innocent soul were stained with
+guilt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While we stood waiting for the man to return,
+I thought I heard a door open and close overhead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I started. “Could it be Prilukoff?� I gasped
+to Elise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_241"></a>[241]</span>
+She shook her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elise, what have you done to him?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I put chloral into everything—into everything,�
+and Elise shuddered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Elise! What if he were to die?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She made no answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And if we were to be sent to prison?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The bells were ringing joyfully in the limpid
+Easter dawn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elise closed her eyes, and her lips moved:
+“Dear God of Eastertide, give us Thy blessing.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tioka stopped crying to look at her. Then with
+an enchanting smile he did as she had done. He
+closed his blue eyes, which were still full of tears,
+and said: “Dear God of Eastertide, give us Thy
+blessing.�
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+The days swung forward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff was the first to discover us. We had
+been hidden in Vienna, in the little Hotel Victoria,
+less than a week, when one morning he stood before
+our terror-stricken eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was derisive and sarcastic; but finding us
+alone—without Kamarowsky, without Naumoff—the
+maleficent frenzy that possessed him at Orel
+seemed to have vanished. He was soon quite
+genial and good-humored; he was once more the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_242"></a>[242]</span>
+Prilukoff we had known at Moscow, the trusty
+knight—Elise's Lohengrin!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did not speak of the past; he made no allusion
+to the chloral. Neither did he ever recall his
+murderous purposes; and sometimes I thought
+that I had dreamt it all. Cheerful and light-hearted,
+he took us out for drives in carriages and
+motors, to the Prater, to the Brühl, to the Semmering;
+he insisted upon our going with him to
+theaters, concerts and cabarets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And to pay for it all we had recourse to the
+black leather satchel. When any money was required,
+we found it there. No accounts were kept.
+Simply, and as a matter of course, we dipped into
+the lacerated body of the white elephant and took
+what we needed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I let myself drift with the tide; I gave no
+thought either to the future or the past, but
+yielded myself passively to my fate like a straw
+afloat on the water....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day I saw in the newspapers that Kamarowsky
+was putting in motion the police of every
+city in Europe in his efforts to find me. Then,
+on Prilukoff's advice, I sent Elise to Neuchâtel to
+telegraph to him from there in my name, in order
+to tranquilize him and mislead his inquiries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No sooner was the name of Kamarowsky mentioned
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_243"></a>[243]</span>
+between us than Prilukoff became sullen
+and gloomy again. He sulked and glowered at
+me, and passed the whole day without speaking a
+word.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On this particular day we had taken a box at
+the <i>Theater An der Wien</i>, having promised Tioka
+that he should hear “The Merry Widow.� Long
+before it was time to go, the little fellow was
+dressed and ready, jumping up and down in front
+of the window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let us make haste,� he cried. “The carriage
+will be tired of waiting. Let us make haste!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly he uttered a shriek of joy. “Mother,
+mother, look! There is Papa Paul! I can see
+him—he has just passed. Papa Paul!� he
+shouted with all his might.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff caught him by his little jacket and
+drew him roughly from the window. Then he
+himself looked out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure enough,� he said, shutting the window
+and looking at me with that terrible crooked smile
+I had learned to dread. “It is Kamarowsky.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a moment's silence. Then he said:
+“And now I have had enough of this. We will
+end it.� Murder gleamed in his eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I clasped Tioka in my arms—the child was quite
+sad and hurt by Prilukoff's sudden rudeness—and
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_244"></a>[244]</span>
+as I kissed his soft curls I breathed Elise's prayer:
+“Dear God of Eastertide, give us Thy blessing.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But alas! it was Easter no longer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In spite of what had happened, we went to the
+theater that night. And there, while the music
+swayed us in the undulating rhythm of the waltz,
+and little Tioka gazed enraptured at the stage,
+Prilukoff, sitting behind me in the shadow, formulated
+his plans for the crime.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have sworn it on your child, remember.
+If you break your oath, he will be the sufferer.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tioka turned to us with shrill laughter. “Oh,
+look, mama, how beautiful it all is! Look at that
+fat policeman dancing.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When Kamarowsky finds you here—� Prilukoff
+went on; but I interrupted him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no. Let us leave Vienna at once.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is useless. He will find us all the same.
+You are too striking,� he added, “to pass unobserved.�
+And with a cynical laugh he surveyed
+me from head to foot. “He had better not find
+me with you. I shall remain at the Hotel Victoria;
+but you and Tioka must go to the Bristol,
+and when that man joins you, this is what you
+must do—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His iniquitous suggestions floated on the buoyant
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_245"></a>[245]</span>
+waltz music like carrion on the surface of a
+sparkling stream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I shuddered in horror. “No, no,� I murmured.
+“Have pity! No ... no!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Oh! that music of Lehar's, that every one knows
+and every one whistles, and that is played by every
+organ at every street-corner—what monstrous
+secrets does it murmur to my heart!
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p><i>Ich gehe zu Maxim,</i></p>
+<p><i>Da bin ich sehr intim...</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+The joyous verses ring in my ears like the
+shrieks of maleficent Furies, scourging me with
+nefarious counsels and diabolic commands....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And while little Tioka laughs and claps his
+hands, I, his mother, sink ever deeper and deeper
+into the gulf of despair; and crime, like a sea of
+mire, closes its corrupt waves over my head.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_246"></a>[246]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXXVI
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+Everything came about as Prilukoff had foreseen.
+Kamarowsky found me the following evening
+alone with Tioka at the Bristol Hotel. He
+overwhelmed me with reproaches and with endearments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I maintained a mysterious silence, which he interpreted
+merely as the caprice of a spoiled child;
+nor did he take umbrage at it. He was too happy
+at having found me to care to quarrel either with
+the Fates or with me. All he said was: “Marie,
+I shall not leave you again.� And the promise
+sounded almost like a threat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For some time Prilukoff gave no sign. I might
+have thought he had forgotten me. He had fixed
+a definitive space of time: ten days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the eighth day he sent me a note, telling me
+to come to the Hotel Victoria that evening at nine
+o'clock. He would then provide we with what was
+needful. I was not to fail—or he would come himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I dined with Paul Kamarowsky as usual; then,
+pleading a headache, I retired to my room at eight
+o'clock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_247"></a>[247]</span>
+Half an hour later a closed carriage was conveying
+me to the Hotel Victoria.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From Prilukoff's hands I received a syringe,
+two tiny bottles, and a box filled with globules of
+curare, nitrate of amyl and chloroform. From
+his set gray lips I received instructions how to use
+these things. His teeth were chattering as well
+as my own; his hands were ice-cold and his eyes
+distraught.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I fell on my knees at his feet. I implored
+him with all the strength of desperation to forego
+his abominable purpose. I reminded him of his
+past, of his unsullied youth, of the kind and generous
+love that had at first bound him to me; with
+tears streaming down my face I clung to his knees
+and swore to him eternal gratitude, eternal devotion,
+if only he would not stain my soul with crime,
+if only he would not ruin himself forever with so
+dark and vile a deed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I beat my forehead against his feet, entreating
+of him death for myself, but pity, pity for a generous,
+chivalrous man whose only wish was to
+protect and save me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What heaven-inspired words were granted me
+that I was able to move him? I cannot tell; but
+suddenly a great shudder went through him and
+agonized sobs shook his frame. He bent down
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_248"></a>[248]</span>
+and raised me. Then he sank into an armchair
+and wept aloud with uplifted face, a terrible spectacle
+of anguish and desolation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I also wept, kneeling beside him, kissing his
+hands, thanking him, blessing him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Donat, dearest, do not weep! It has been all
+a dream—a fearful dream. We were ill—we were
+poor demented creatures. God will not remember
+it—He will cancel and forgive everything. Let us
+thank Him, Donat, for not permitting us to do
+harm to any one. Let us begin life all over again—a
+new, honorable life.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, no,� groaned Prilukoff. “I am a criminal.
+I have stolen!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never mind, never mind. You will give it
+all back. I will help you to give it all back. We
+must be prepared to face suffering and humiliation,
+but we shall atone; we shall take up our lives
+again, and retrieve and redeem the past.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even while I spoke I resolved that I would confess
+everything to Kamarowsky, and this thought
+filled me with joy. I would reveal to him the darkest
+recesses of my soul; I would confess the
+iniquitous treachery plotted against him, my every
+act of baseness and of shame. He would drive me
+from him in loathing, he would tread me under
+foot like some poisonous thing, but I would bow
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_249"></a>[249]</span>
+my head beneath his wrath and his disdain. I
+would go far away and live the rest of my life in
+humility and penitence. I would perhaps link my
+fate with that of Prilukoff, the degraded outcast
+... yes, my penance should be to stay forever
+with him who inspired me now with so much horror
+and fear....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Carried away by an ecstasy of feeling, we knelt
+down in that paltry hotel-room and thanked God
+for having opened our eyes, for having touched
+our hearts, for having saved us. Then praying
+aloud: “<i>Lord, let not our sins be counted against
+us</i>...� we broke the syringe and the phials of
+poison into a thousand fragments. Prilukoff tore
+the flesh of his hands as he snapped the hollow
+steel needle, which thrust itself into his palm like
+some fierce, living thing. “<i>Blot out our transgressions
+and remember not our iniquities</i>...�
+We trampled on the globules of amyl and chloroform,
+setting free the lethal vapors, which turned
+us giddy. Intoxicated with them and with our
+own emotions we fell once more on our knees,
+praying with uplifted hands: “<i>Deliver us from
+our sins</i> ... <i>of Thy mercy save us</i> ... <i>save
+us</i>...�
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_250"></a>[250]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXXVII
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+I remember that once in our childhood we were
+by the sea—I cannot tell in what country we were,
+nor what sea it was—and our English governess
+took us out one morning on the beach to see a
+tidal wave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is a tidal wave, Miss Williams?� we
+inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Two or three immense waves which only come
+once a year,� replied the sibylline Miss Williams.
+“Now keep quiet and look.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We kept quiet and looked. And presently we
+thought we could see a huge wave, larger than all
+the others, coming towards us from the horizon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look! Look there! It is the tidal wave!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,� said Miss Williams. “That is not it.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And, indeed, presently there appeared a wave
+which was greater still—it reared its crest, towered
+aloft, and fell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That was it! That was it!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But still farther away, on the line of the horizon,
+a mighty wave—a veritable wall of water—was
+approaching, formidable, gigantic, fabulous....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was the “tidal wave.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_251"></a>[251]</span>
+In the course of my life, when events tragic and
+inexorable have raised their threatening billows
+above me and caught me in their crashing downfall,
+sweeping me like a piece of frail wreckage
+towards destruction, I have said to myself:
+“This is the tidal wave. Nothing worse can follow.
+Nothing more terrible than this can come
+upon me.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But lo! behind that great wave of calamity
+another and still greater has followed, and still
+another and another—fabulous waves of tragedy
+and disaster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus it was that when I left Prilukoff that evening
+I thought that the tidal wave of my destiny
+had at last passed over me. Nothing more could
+crush and overwhelm me; before me stretched only
+the limitless levels of grief and remorse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it was not so. Another—the last—wave of
+disaster was rearing itself like the fabulous wall
+of water of my childhood's recollections, carrying
+me on its crest, crashing down with me to irremediable
+ruin, to the fathomless abyss of crime.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+That very night Tioka fell ill. Elise came hurriedly
+into my room to call me. “Come at once,
+my lady. The young master is very ill. He is
+delirious and keeps talking to himself.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_252"></a>[252]</span>
+I ran into the child's room. He was sitting up
+in bed, his wide eyes glowing in his fevered face.
+Where and when had I once before seen him like
+this?...
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His mind was wandering, and he talked incessantly—about
+Tania whom he had not seen or
+mentioned for the past two years, about his grandmother,
+and the old dog Bear. Then suddenly
+he asked for a picture and for some poetry.
+“Mama,� he said, clinging to my neck, “say the
+poetry to me, the poetry—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What poetry, oh, my darling, my darling?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The poetry about the picture. Say it. Say
+it.� He began to cry and tremble with his hot
+cheek close to mine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I racked my brain for a poem:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p>“This is the miller who lives in the mill,</p>
+<p>The mill beside the river, oh!...�</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+“No, no, no!� cried the child. “Not that!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I tried again:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p>“Brown-eyed Peter is going for a soldier;</p>
+<p>Going for a soldier with his little turn-up nose...�</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+“No, no, no!� shrieked Tioka despairingly.
+“Tania, Tania—the moon—the picture. Say it
+quickly!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A lightning flash seemed to tear the clouds of
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_253"></a>[253]</span>
+oblivion from my brain and illuminate the past.
+I was once more in Vassili's country house ...
+once more I entered the dim white nursery where
+my children, like two blonde seraphs, lay asleep....
+A lamp hanging between the two little cots
+lit up an artless picture hanging on the wall—a
+rippling-haired Madonna standing in a star-lit
+sky, holding in her youthful arms the infant Jesus
+with a count's coronet on His head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Crying softly as I cradled my son's fair head
+upon my breast, I began:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p>“When little children sleep, the Virgin Mary</p>
+<p>Steps with white feet upon the crescent moon....�</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="dots">········</p>
+
+<p>
+Tioka grew worse. With glittering eyes and
+thin red cheeks he cried all day long that he
+wanted Grania—that he wanted Tania. But
+Grania had been sent away hurriedly for fear of
+infection—Count Kamarowsky's sister had come
+and taken him away—and Tania, alas! the gentle
+little Tania, far away in the castle of the Tarnowskys,
+had doubtless long since forgotten her
+brother Tioka and her heart-broken mother as
+well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The doctors shook their heads gravely as they
+stood by the tumbled cot in which the little boy
+tossed and moaned ceaselessly: “A train—a
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_254"></a>[254]</span>
+train is running over my head. Take it away!
+It hurts me, it hurts me...� And as they
+looked into his throat, which was dark red, almost
+purple in hue, they murmured: “Diphtheria?
+Scarlet fever?� Then they went away, conversing
+in low tones, leaving me beside myself with
+grief and terror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kamarowsky watched with me night and day.
+Sometimes he fell asleep; and when I saw him
+sleeping, the old, unreasoning hatred for him
+stirred in my heart again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff had left the Hotel Victoria, and had
+taken a room at the Bristol to be near us. Occasionally
+I saw him for a moment standing mournful
+and depressed outside my door. We looked
+at each other with anguish-stricken eyes, but we
+scarcely ever spoke. I had no thought for anything
+but Tioka.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One night—the fourth since he had been taken
+ill—the child, who had been dozing for a few moments,
+awoke coughing and choking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother, mother!� he gasped, fixing his large
+frightened eyes upon me. “Why do you let me
+die?� Then he closed his eyes again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stood as if turned to stone. It was true. It
+was I, I who was letting him die. That idea had
+already flitted through my brain, but I had never
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_255"></a>[255]</span>
+dared to formulate the awful thought. As soon
+as he had fallen ill I had said to myself: “This
+is retribution. Did I not vow on Tioka's
+life?...�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I saw myself again at the theater on the evening
+of “The Merry Widow,� and Prilukoff pointing
+to the child's angel head and whispering: “If
+you break your word, it is he who will pay for it.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yes; Tioka was paying for it. He was paying
+for the iniquitous vow that had been wrung from
+me that night at Orel when the three men pursued
+me in the darkness. With his revolver pressed
+against his temple Prilukoff had bidden me:
+“Swear!� Ah, why had I not let his fate overtake
+him? Why had he not pulled the trigger and
+fallen dead at my feet? Naumoff would have
+rushed in, and Kamarowsky would have broken in
+the door, and the whole of the triple treachery and
+fraud and dishonor would have been revealed; but,
+at least, I should have been free—free to take my
+child and wander with him through the wide spaces
+of the world. Whereas, coward that I had been,
+the fear of disgrace had vanquished me, and the
+threat of ignominy and death had dragged the inhuman
+vow from my lips.... And now Tioka
+was paying for it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fierce primitive instinct of maternity awoke
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_256"></a>[256]</span>
+within me. Weakened by illness and wakefulness,
+my spirit lost itself again in the dark labyrinth of
+superstition. My frantic gaze passed from Tioka—lying
+wan and wasted on his pillows, gasping
+like a little dying bird—to Kamarowsky stretched
+out in an armchair, with his flaccid hands hanging
+at his sides and the corners of his mouth relaxed in
+sleep. I looked at him; I seemed to see him for
+the first time—this man to save whose life I was
+sacrificing my own child's. Yes, Tioka was dying
+in order that this stranger, this outsider, this
+enemy might live.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I turned towards Tioka again I saw that
+his eyes were open and fixed upon me. I fell on
+my knees beside him and whispered wildly:
+“Darling, darling, I will not let you die. No, my
+soul, my own, I will save you. You shall get well
+again and run out and play in the sunshine....
+The other one shall die—but not you, not you!
+Now you will get well immediately. Are you not
+better already, my love, my own? Are you not
+better already?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And my boy, cradled in my arms, smiled faintly
+as my soft wild whispers lulled him to sleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This idea now took possession of my brain,
+to the exclusion of all others. I thought and
+dreamed of nothing else. Tioka had scarlet fever
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_257"></a>[257]</span>
+and the fluctuations in his illness seemed to depend
+solely upon me. When I told myself that
+I was firmly, irrevocably resolved to compass the
+death of Kamarowsky, the child's fever seemed to
+abate, his throat was less inflamed, the pains in his
+head diminished. But if, as I grew calmer and
+clung to hope again, I hesitated in my ruthless
+purpose, lo! the fever seized him anew, the rushing
+trains went thundering over his temples, and
+his tender throat swelled until he could hardly
+draw his breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff followed the oscillations of my distracted
+spirit with weary resignation; he was benumbed
+and apathetic, without mind and without
+will. When in the fixity of my mania I insisted
+upon the necessity of the crime, he would answer
+languidly: “Oh, no. Leave it alone. Let things
+be.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I grew more and more frenzied, weeping
+and tearing my hair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can you not understand that Tioka is dying?
+Tioka, my little Tioka is dying! And it is we who
+are killing him.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no,� sighed Prilukoff. “Let things
+alone.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tioka grew worse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A day came when he could not see me or hear
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_258"></a>[258]</span>
+me—when he lay quite still with scarcely flickering
+breath. Then I rose as one in a dream. I went
+to Prilukoff's room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat listlessly by the window, smoking. I
+seized him by the arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Donat Prilukoff, I renew my oath. Paul
+Kamarowsky shall die within this year!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right, all right!� grumbled Prilukoff,
+wearied to exhaustion by my constant changes of
+mood. “Let us finish him once for all, and have
+done with it.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I gasped. “Where? When? Is it <i>you</i> who
+will—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff raised his long, languid eyes. “Whatever
+you like,� he said. Then he added in a spent
+voice: “I am very tired.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And it was I who urged him, who pushed him
+on, who hurried him to think out and shape our
+plans. He was languid and inert. Sometimes he
+would look dully at me and say: “What a terrible
+woman you are.� But I thought only of
+Tioka, and my eager and murderous frenzy increased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And behold! Tioka got better. This chance
+coincidence assumed in my diseased brain the
+character of a direct answer from heaven. The
+sacrifice had been accepted!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_259"></a>[259]</span>
+A year later, when I stood before the judges
+who were to sentence me, no word of this delusion
+passed my lips. Demented though I was, I knew
+myself to be demented; I knew that this idea of a
+barter with heaven was an insensate idea; and
+yet, by some fallacy of my hallucinated brain, I
+believed—do I not even now believe it?—that my
+vow had been heard, that my word must be kept,
+that one life must be bought with the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even so, better, far better would it have been to
+let my child's white soul flutter heavenwards, than
+to retain it with my blood-stained hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But at that time my one thought was to save
+him, even though for his life, not one, but a thousand
+others had been immolated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The day came when I was able to carry him in
+my arms from his cot to an easy chair beside the
+window. What a joy was that brief transit! His
+frail arms were round my neck and his head lay
+on my shoulder. With slow, lingering steps I
+went, loth to leave him out of my embrace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A sweet Italian verse came light and fragrant
+into my memory:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p>I thought I bore a flower within my arms...</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+It was Prilukoff who reminded me with a cynical
+smile that the vow included also Nicolas Naumoff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_260"></a>[260]</span>
+Nicolas Naumoff! I had almost forgotten him.
+Nicolas Naumoff! Must he, this distant and forgotten
+stranger, also die?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I cannot tell which of us it was who conceived
+the idea of making use of him as our instrument—of
+destroying him by making him a weapon of
+destruction, of murdering him by making him a
+murderer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The idea may have been mine. I feared that
+I could not rely upon the languid, listless Prilukoff.
+Yes; it must have been I who devised this method
+of propitiating the avenging Fates, and averting
+from us the imminent Nemesis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A good idea,� said Prilukoff wearily. “Let
+Naumoff do it.� And he lighted a cigarette.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I gazed at him, aquiver with superstitious dread.
+“Do you think that then Naumoff need not die?
+Do you think that�—I hesitated—“<i>that</i> will be
+enough?...�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff turned and looked at me as if aghast.
+Then he nodded his head and the fearful, crooked
+smile distorted his countenance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,� he said. “I think that will be enough.�
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_261"></a>[261]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXXVIII
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+To what end should I narrate anew the terrible
+story which is known to all? Must I dip again
+into the soilure and abomination of that awful
+time? How dare I tell of the luring telegrams
+sent to the distant Naumoff, my guileless and impassioned
+lover, and of the joy and gratitude with
+which he hastened to me? How describe the slow,
+insidious poisoning of his mind against Kamarowsky,
+the hatred subtly instilled in him against
+that unconscious, kindly man? And the lies, the
+slanders, the ambiguous disclosures of pretended
+outrages inflicted upon me, of insults and injuries
+I feigned to have suffered at Kamarowsky's
+hands?...
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Naumoff believed it all. His astonishment and
+indignation knew no bounds. What? Kamarowsky,
+whom he had always thought the most
+chivalrous and considerate of men, was a despicable,
+worthless coward? Well, Naumoff would
+challenge him; he would fight a duel to the death
+with him who had been his best friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But not that, not that was what I wanted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_262"></a>[262]</span>
+Tioka recovered. Taller, thinner and paler, he
+came out once more into the sunshine, leaning
+on my arm, enraptured at everything, greeting
+every ray of light and every winged or
+flowering thing as if it were a new acquaintance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not for an instant did I suffer my mind to
+waver. God, the terrible God of my disordered
+fancy, had accepted the compact, and it was now
+for me to carry it out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as Tioka was well enough to travel, I
+sent him to Russia to some of our relations.
+While I was discharging my debt for his life, he
+must be far away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then began the ghastly game, the sinister
+comedy with the three puppets, whose strings I
+held in my fragile hands. I had to tranquilize
+and disarm Kamarowsky; to kindle and fan the
+murderous fury of Prilukoff; and above all to enchain
+and infatuate Naumoff, so as to impel him
+to the crime.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah, every art that Lilith, daughter of Eve and
+of the Serpent, has bequeathed to woman, every
+insidious perversity and subtle wile did I bring
+into play to charm and enamor this youthful
+dreamer. With every incitement did I lure and
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_263"></a>[263]</span>
+tempt him; with every witchery did I entangle
+him in the meshes of my perversity and in the
+whirlwind of my golden hair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was indeed the modern Circe, weaving her
+evil spell. I was fervent and temerarious, full of
+exotic anomalies, eccentric, unexpected.... I delighted
+in causing him both pleasure and suffering
+in a thousand unnatural and outrageous ways; I
+cut my initials in his arm with the triangular blade
+of a dagger; I pressed my lighted cigarette upon
+his hand; I assumed all the absurdities, perversities
+and puerilities with which since time immemorial
+woman has decoyed and beguiled man,
+who, after all, is essentially a simple-minded and
+ingenuous being.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nicolas Naumoff was dazed and fascinated by
+all this strange hysteria and subtlety. He believed
+himself to be the hero of a fabulous passion—the
+incomparable conqueror of a wondrous and
+portentous love.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were times when I myself was carried
+away by this play of my own invention. Now and
+then I lost sight of the grim purpose of this process
+of seduction; I rejoiced in my own coquetries,
+and myself burned in the flame I had deliberately
+kindled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_264"></a>[264]</span>
+One evening as he knelt before me, pressing my
+cool hands against his fevered forehead, I bent
+over him with a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why do you love me so much?� I asked.
+“Tell me. Tell me the truth.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He answered me gravely in a deep voice,
+enumerating the reasons on my fingers as he held
+them in his own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I love you because you are beautiful and terrible.
+Because you have that white, subtle face,
+and that mouth that is like a greedy rose, and
+those long, cruel eyes ... I love you because you
+are different from all others, better or worse than
+all, more intelligent and more passionate than all.�
+He was silent for a moment. “And also because
+you have forced me to love you.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yes. I had forced him to love me. And now
+he was what I wanted him to be—an instrument
+ready to my hand: a fierce and docile instrument
+of death, a submissive and murderous weapon.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+June crept warmly up from the south, and murmured
+of blue waters and dancing sunlight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mura, let us go to Venice,� said Paul Kamarowsky
+one afternoon as he sat beside me on the
+balcony; “let us pass these last three months of
+waiting at the Lido. If needs be, I can take you
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_265"></a>[265]</span>
+back to Russia later on, to complete the few formalities
+that must precede our marriage.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To Venice?� I said faintly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Paul Kamarowsky smiled.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p>“<i>Ti guardo e palpito, Venezia mia,</i>“</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+he quoted under his breath. And bending forward,
+he kissed my trembling lips.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_266"></a>[266]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XXXIX
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+We prepared to leave. Naumoff's despair was
+puerile and clamorous. I entreated him to go
+back to Orel and wait for me there, and I promised
+him that I would soon return to Russia and see
+him again. As for Prilukoff, he awakened from
+his lethargy with the roar of a wounded wild beast.
+“To Venice! You are going to Venice with that
+man? Is that how you keep your vow?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will keep it, I will keep it,� I cried. “But
+I said—it—it should be done within the year—this
+is only June—we can wait six months longer.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“By that time you will be his wife,� snarled
+Prilukoff between clenched teeth. “Unless it is
+done within the next three months you know it
+will never be done at all. Go your way,� he
+jeered, “do as you like! Play fast and loose with
+fate as you have played fast and loose with me!�
+He turned and gripped my wrist. “But you will
+escape neither of us. Fate and I will overtake
+you, Marie Tarnowska, be it in Venice—or in
+hell!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_267"></a>[267]</span>
+We left for the Lido.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And while, on the arm of my bethrothed, I
+wandered by the dancing waters, and the golden
+hours showered their light upon us, in my dark
+heart I prayed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“God, give me strength and ruthlessness! God,
+who didst guide the hand of Judith, fill my soul
+with violence and teach my hand to slay!�
+</p>
+
+<p class="dots">········</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff followed us to Verona. Then he came
+after us to Venice, where he took rooms in the
+same hotel, lurking in the corridors, shadowing us
+in the streets, pursuing me day and night with
+his misery and jealousy. Occasionally I saw him
+for a few moments alone, and then we would
+whisper together about the deed that was to be
+done, speaking feverishly in low quick tones like
+demented creatures. If I wavered, it was he who
+reminded me ruthlessly of my child and of my
+vow; if he hesitated, it was I who with the insensate
+perversity of madness urged him on towards
+the crime.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One evening—ah, how well do I remember that
+radiant summer sunset beneath which the lagoon
+lay like a fluid sheet of copper!—he met me on
+the Lido. He was morose and gloomy. He took
+from his pocket a black crumpled package. It was
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_268"></a>[268]</span>
+Elise's old satchel—the “white elephant,� tattered,
+empty, dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a vehement movement he flung it into the
+water. Where it fell the sheet of copper shivered
+into a thousand splinters of red gold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Empty?� I asked in a low tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Empty,� he replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And now, what will you do?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shrugged his shoulders. It was then that
+the idea came to him—the execrable, the nefarious
+idea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Listen. As he�—with a movement of his
+head he indicated the absent Kamarowsky—“is
+doomed—I suppose he is doomed, isn't he?� he
+interposed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I assented in a barely audible whisper: “Yes.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, his—his disappearance may as well be
+of some use. Do you not think so?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Seeing the look of horror which I turned upon
+him, he continued: “For goodness' sake don't
+let us behave like romantic fools. We are not a
+pair of poetic assassins in a play, are we?�
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a id="f268"></a>
+  <img src="images/268.jpg"
+  alt="" />
+<p class="caption">UNDER ARREST</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+Gradually, by subtle pleading and plausible
+argument, he led my weak brain to view the idea
+with less horror. He assured me that we had not
+only the right but almost the duty to commit this
+enormity. According to him, it was not a shameful
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_269"></a>[269]</span>
+and disgraceful deed. No; it was a just,
+reasonable, logical thing to do.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course, it is not as if we were getting rid
+of a man simply in order to plunder him of his
+money. No, indeed. That would be vile, that
+would be abominable. But, given the necessity—the
+irrevocableness—of his fate, why should
+we not see to it that his death may at least be
+of some use to some one? Not to ourselves, remember.
+The money you get from him shall be
+used to serve a just purpose—to redress a wrong.
+We shall make restitution to those I have despoiled.
+I will pay back what I took from my
+clients to the very last farthing. And anything
+that is left over shall be given in charity to the
+poor. What do you say to that? We shall keep
+nothing for ourselves—nothing. Do you agree?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went on to recall that among the clients he
+had defrauded was a widow with four little children;
+the thought of her, he said, had always
+worried him. It was good to think that she
+would recover every penny.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The advocate in him awoke, eloquent and convincing,
+until he ended by assuring me that we
+should be performing a meritorious deed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indignant at first, then uncertain, then reluctant,
+I was finally persuaded. Soon I heard myself
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_270"></a>[270]</span>
+repeating after him: “It will be a meritorious
+deed.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah, if such beings as evil spirits exist, with what
+laughter must they have listened to our talk in that
+exquisite evening hour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Prilukoff who thought out the details and
+settled the plan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must get him to insure his life.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How can I?� I cried feebly and tearfully.
+“How can one possibly suggest such a thing?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Leave that to me,� said Prilukoff, reverting
+to his Moscow manner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next day he showed me a letter written by himself
+in a disguised hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Open this letter when he is present, and when
+he insists on seeing it, show it to him ... reluctantly!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But what if he does not insist?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must make him insist,� said Prilukoff.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+The letter was brought to me in Kamarowsky's
+presence, and when he saw me turning scarlet and
+then pale as I opened it, he insisted on seeing what
+it contained.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I showed it to him ... reluctantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The letter was in Prilukoff's handwriting, but
+was signed “Ivan Troubetzkoi.� The prince
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_271"></a>[271]</span>
+(whom I scarcely remembered, and whom I had
+not seen for more than six years) begged me to
+marry him, and as proof of his devotion offered
+to make a will in my favor and, in addition, to
+insure his life for half a million francs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Paul Kamarowsky was aghast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is everybody trying to steal you away from
+me, Mura?� he exclaimed brokenly; then he sat
+down on the sofa with his head in his hands. I
+gazed at him, feeling as if I should die with sorrow
+and remorse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a long time he did not speak. Then he
+drew me to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dear one, do not heed the offers of other
+people. No one, whether he be prince or moujik,
+can love you more than I do. No one will do
+more for you than I am willing to do. I, also, am
+ready to make a will in your favor; I, also, will
+insure my life for half a million francs.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no,� I cried, crushed with misery and
+shame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, yes, I will. It shall be done immediately.
+To-day.�
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+And it was done.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+“You see?� cried Prilukoff triumphantly, “I
+am not quite a fool yet, am I? Hush now, don't
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_272"></a>[272]</span>
+cry. Remember that it is not for ourselves, but
+to make an honorable act of restitution.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But a hundred thousand francs would have
+been enough for that,� I sobbed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The other four hundred thousand we shall give
+to the poor,� said Prilukoff. “It will be a meritorious
+deed.�
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_273"></a>[273]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XL
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+I remember that when I was a child I was taken
+to a fair and given a ride on a switchback railway.
+I was scarcely seated in the car, with the straps
+round my waist and the giddy track before me,
+than I cried to get out again. But the car was
+already moving forward, slowly gliding down the
+first incline.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I screamed, writhing against the straps, “Stop!
+stop! I want to get out. I want to go back!�
+But now the car was rushing giddily, in leaps and
+bounds, down one slope and up another, whirling
+over bridges and gulfs, dashing down the precipitous
+declivity with ever-increasing speed.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+Even thus had I embarked, almost without
+realizing it, upon the rapid slope of crime. Impelled
+by my own madness, I had started on the
+vertiginous course to perdition, and now I plunged
+downwards, rolling, leaping, rushing into the darkness,
+without possibility of pause or return.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+It was Kamarowsky himself who begged me
+to leave Venice for Kieff, where some formalities
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_274"></a>[274]</span>
+still remained to be accomplished before our impending
+marriage. He offered to accompany me,
+but I declined. He resigned himself, therefore,
+though with reluctance, to allowing me to start
+alone with Elise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now,� said Prilukoff, on the eve of my departure—and
+the transversal vein stood out like
+whipcord on his forehead—“let there be no more
+backing out and putting off. You will see Naumoff
+in Russia; send him straight back here. I'm
+sick of this business; let us get it over.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I bowed my head and wept.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kamarowsky took me to the railway station,
+where I found the compartment he had reserved
+for me already filled with flowers. I thanked him
+with trembling lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In three weeks, my love,� he said, “you will
+be back again, and then I shall not part from you
+any more.� He kissed me and stepped down upon
+the platform, where he stood gazing up at me with
+smiling eyes. Many people stood near, watching
+us. I leaned out of the carriage window, and
+as I looked at him I kept repeating to myself:
+“This is the last time I shall see him! The last
+time!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed strange and incongruous to see him
+there, with his usual aspect, making ordinary gestures
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_275"></a>[275]</span>
+and uttering commonplace remarks. Knowing
+as I did that he stood on the threshold of death,
+I wondered that he had not a more staid and
+solemn demeanor, slower, graver gestures and
+memorable words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whereas he was saying, with a smile: “Mind
+you don't lose your purse; and remember to look
+after your luggage at the Customs. You will have
+the dining-car at Bozen.� And then, looking
+about him: “Would you like some newspapers?�
+He hurried away after the newsvendor, and then
+counted his change and argued about a coin which
+he thought was counterfeit. He came back to my
+carriage door, handed me the newspapers, and
+with his handkerchief dried his forehead and the
+inside of his hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Fearfully hot,� he said, looking up at me with
+a friendly laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this seemed terribly out of keeping with the
+tragic situation of which, all unconsciously, he was
+the hero. I tried to say something tender and
+affectionate to him, but my agitation stifled me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mind you are good,� he said, still smiling, and
+he threw a glance at some officers in the compartment
+next to mine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I heard the doors being shut and the guard calling
+out “<i>Partenza!</i>� My heart began to beat
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_276"></a>[276]</span>
+wildly. I felt as if once again I were strapped
+in the car on the switchback railway. I wanted
+to get out, to stop, to turn back. A whistle
+sounded and a gong was struck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, Mura, <i>au revoir</i>,� cried Kamarowsky,
+stretching up his hand to me. “A happy journey
+and all blessings.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I leaned out as far as I could—the bar across
+the window hindered me, but I managed to touch
+his outstretched hand with the tips of my fingers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A spasm caught my throat. “Paul, Paul!� I
+gasped. “Oh, God, forgive me!� A shrill
+whistle drowned my voice as the train moved
+slowly forward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He must have seen the anguish in my face, for
+he cried anxiously:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What? What did you say?� Now he was
+running beside the train, which was beginning to
+go faster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I repeated my cry: “Forgive me! Forgive
+me!� and stretched out my arms to him from the
+window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shook his head to show that he had not understood.
+The train was throbbing and hastening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He ran faster beside it. “What—what is it?
+What did you say?� But the train was gaining
+speed, and he was obliged to stop. He stood there,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_277"></a>[277]</span>
+erect and solitary, at the extreme end of the platform,
+following with perplexed and questioning
+gaze the train that was carrying me away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is thus always that I see him in my memory—a
+solitary figure, gazing at me with perplexed
+and wondering eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Surely it is thus, thus wondering and perplexed,
+that he must have looked in the face of death and
+treachery, on that summer morning when he was
+struck down by the hand of his friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The switchback plunges downward in its mad
+race to the abyss—the end is near.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At Kieff, as arranged, I meet Naumoff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I sob out my despair to him. Paul Kamarowsky
+must die. I give no reason, I explain nothing;
+I repeat unceasingly the three words: “He
+must die,� until there seem to be no other words
+in the world—until the universe seems to ring
+with those three words: “He must die!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Naumoff recoils from me, pale-faced and horrified.
+Then I drive him from me, crying: “Go,
+you are a coward. Let me never see you
+again!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But why should he die?� cries Naumoff.
+“What has the poor man done to you?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah, what, indeed, has the poor man done?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ramblingly, incoherently, I try to explain to
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_278"></a>[278]</span>
+Naumoff; I tell him of Tioka and his illness, of
+my vow.... He listens amazed, without comprehending.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But Mura, Mura! This is delirium, this is
+madness. You are ill, you are out of your mind.
+How can such an insensate idea possess you?
+How can you imagine that God would demand such
+an iniquity?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I rack my brain for arguments that will
+convince him. I invent all manner of falsehoods;
+I repeat the tale of insults and outrages that I have
+endured at the hands of Kamarowsky; I accuse
+him of violence and brutality ... and even as I
+tell these mad stories they seem to myself to be
+true. I am thrilled by my own words; I tremble,
+I weep convulsively; and Naumoff, ever more pale,
+ever more bewildered, does not know what to believe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Continually, a dozen times a day, blind to all
+caution, reckless of all consequences, I send telegrams
+to Prilukoff—the telegrams that afterwards
+were found, and led to our arrest—“Berta refuses.�
+(Prilukoff, I know not for what reason,
+had nicknamed Naumoff “Berta.�) Then again:
+“Berta will do it.� And again: “Berta irresolute.
+What am I to do?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then seized by sudden panic: “Wait! Do no
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_279"></a>[279]</span>
+harm to any one. Advise me. Help me. I am
+going mad.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prilukoff telegraphs back his usual set phrase:
+“Leave it to me.� And he forthwith proceeds to
+send me a number of telegrams, all of which contain
+a series of insults and taunts addressed both
+to Naumoff and to myself. He signs them “Paul
+Kamarowsky.� Naumoff reads them in amazement,
+then in anger; finally he, too, becomes possessed
+of the idea of crime, obsessed by the frenzy
+of murder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How can I tell the terrible story further?...
+The gust of madness caught us in its whirlwind,
+dashing us round like leaves blown in a storm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One evening—it was a pale, clear twilight at the
+close of August—I sprang suddenly to my feet,
+and winding a black veil round my hair, I ran from
+my rooms and down the wide shallow flights of the
+hotel staircase. There were large mirrors on
+every landing. As I descended I saw at every
+turn a woman coming to meet me, a tall, spectral
+creature with a black veil tied round a white, desolate
+face ... her light, wild eyes filled me with
+fear, and I hurried forward to reach the hall,
+where I heard voices and music.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Standing beside the piano in the vast lounge,
+two young girls were singing; they were English
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_280"></a>[280]</span>
+girls, and they sang, with shy, cool voices, a duet
+of Mendelssohn:
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a id="f280"></a>
+  <img src="images/280.jpg"
+  alt="" />
+<p class="caption">Fair Springtime bids the bluebells ring Sweet chimes o'er vale and lea</p>
+<div class="listen-music">
+[<a href="music/music_1.mid">Listen</a>]
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+Some distance away, listening to them with
+tranquil contentment on their peaceful faces,
+sat their parents—the father, a stern, stately old
+man with kindly eyes; the mother, gentle and
+serene, wearing the white lace cap of renunciation
+on her smooth gray hair. As I passed them with
+faltering step the mother turned and looked at me.
+What did she read in my face that wakened such
+a look of tenderness and pity in hers?... She
+smiled at me, and that smile seemed to stop my
+heart, so guileless was it, so maternal and so kind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For an instant a wild thought possessed me: to
+stop, to fall upon my knees before this gentle, unknown
+woman and implore her help.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What if I cried out to her: “Help me, have
+pity upon me! I am an unhappy creature whom
+the Fates pursue.... I am distraught, I am demented—to-morrow
+I shall have murder on my
+soul. Keep me near you ... save me! Unless
+you help me I am lost....�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_281"></a>[281]</span>
+But the Furies that pursued me laughed aloud
+and lashed me forward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now Nicolas Naumoff, who had noticed my
+flight, came running down the staircase to follow
+me....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I crossed the hall rapidly and went out into the
+dusk.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a id="f281"></a>
+  <img src="images/281.jpg"
+  alt="" />
+<p class="caption">All in this merry morn of Spring, Come out and dance with me.</p>
+<div class="listen-music">
+[<a href="music/music_2.mid">Listen</a>]
+</div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_282"></a>[282]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XLI
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+Through the twilight streets I hastened, and
+Naumoff followed, calling me by my name; but I
+did not answer him. Through the long Road of
+the Cross I hurried silently, and out through the
+Golden Gate, and on, down dusty solitary streets,
+past the Church of All Saints, until at last I stood
+before the cemetery where my mother is laid to
+rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where are we going?� asked Naumoff.
+“Why have you come here?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But without answering him I threw a ruble to
+the gatekeeper and entered the silent pathways of
+the churchyard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sky was still light in the west, but the paths
+were gloomy in the shadow of willow and cypress
+trees. Hastening on between the double rows of
+flower-decked graves, and the monuments that
+gleamed whitely in the twilight, I reached my
+mother's tomb. I knelt and kissed the great
+marble cross that stands so heavily above her frail
+brow. And the thought of her lying there, so desolate
+and alone, abandoned to the rains and the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_283"></a>[283]</span>
+winds and the darkness of long dreadful nights,
+struck terror to my heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Speak to me, mother,� I whispered to her.
+“Tell me what I am to do. You who know all—all
+about the vow and little Tioka, and the terrible
+things that are in my life—tell me, mother,
+must Paul Kamarowsky die?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My mother did not answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell me, tell me, mother! Is he to die?� My
+mother was silent. But the evening breeze passed
+over the delicate flowers, the lilies and campanulas
+which cover her grave; and they all nodded their
+heads, saying: “Yes, yes, yes.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you see?� I whispered to Naumoff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he only looked at me with bewildered eyes.
+And I drew him away. “We must go quickly,�
+I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now it was growing dark. I hastened along the
+winding narrow pathways until in a deserted corner
+I found what I was seeking: a neglected grave
+marked by a gray stone bearing a name and a date.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I gazed at that mound of earth, on which a
+long-since withered wreath spoke of forgetfulness,
+a wave of desolation swept over my heart. How
+sad and empty and useless was everything! Life
+and hope and love and desire—all empty, all unavailing....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_284"></a>[284]</span>
+“Who is buried here?� asked Naumoff under
+his breath. He bent forward and read the name
+aloud: “<i>Vladimir Stahl.</i>�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Something stirred. Perhaps it was only the dry
+leaves of the withered wreath, but I was afraid—afraid
+that I should see Stahl suddenly move
+and rise up, covered with mold, to answer to his
+name.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Vladimir Stahl...� whispered Naumoff
+again, raising his haggard boyish face and gazing
+at me, “Mura, Mura, I see you encompassed by the
+dead.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Doubtless he meant the tombs which spread
+around me in a livid semicircle; but to me it seemed
+that he could discern standing behind me all my
+dead—my mother and Stahl, and Bozevsky and
+little Peter.... I uttered a scream as I looked
+fearfully behind me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why do you scream?� gasped Naumoff; and
+he also turned and looked round. Then he pointed
+to the grave in front of us. “Who was this?�
+he asked in a low voice. “Did he love you?�
+His eyes flickered strangely. There was horror
+and lust and frenzy in the gaze he fixed upon
+me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was silent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did he love you? Did he love you?� He
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_285"></a>[285]</span>
+pressed closer to me, with parted lips and quickening
+breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I bent towards him, and a thrill such as I
+have never felt passed through me. “Swear—on
+the dead—that you will kill that man.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I swear it,� he gasped. “Terrible woman that
+you are, I swear it.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go,� I whispered. “Go ... at once.� But
+he sprang towards me and fastened his lips upon
+mine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amid all the horrors that haunt my memory,
+all the spectral visions which drift darkly through
+the labyrinth of my life, that frenzied embrace
+among the tombs in the crepuscular cemetery, still
+rises before me—a ghost of darkness and of shame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He turned and left me. I heard his footsteps
+running along the gravel path, I saw his tall
+shadowy figure vanish in the gloom.... He was
+gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was alone in the nocturnal churchyard, alone
+by Stahl's desolate grave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nicolas Naumoff!� I cried. But no one answered
+me, and fear ran into my heart with thudding
+steps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I hurried forward, down the narrow path
+bordered with tombs and turned to the right,
+down another wider avenue among other endless
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_286"></a>[286]</span>
+rows of the dead.... Where was I? In which
+direction lay the gate?... I turned and ran
+back. I must find Stahl's grave again, and then
+go to the left through the unconsecrated burial-ground
+of those who had died by their own hand....
+With shuddering breath I stumbled forward,
+but nowhere could I find the dreary field of the
+unshriven dead. Tall sepulchers and mausoleums
+loomed dimly on either side of me, limitless rows
+of tombstones and statues ... but Stahl's low,
+dreary mound was nowhere to be seen. Stay—behind
+the willows on the right, was that not the
+white cross standing on my mother's grave?...
+To reach it quickly I left the pathway and ran
+diagonally across the burial ground trampling the
+graves in my haste to reach that large cross shimmering
+in the gloom.... No, it was not my
+mother's grave. But further on, and further,
+other crosses glimmered and beckoned—and I ran
+on, crazed and terror-stricken, stumbling over
+mounds and hillocks, tripping in iron railings,
+trampling over flowers and wreaths ... until I
+fell in the darkness and lay unconscious and silent
+amid the silent and unconscious dead.
+</p>
+
+<p class="dots">········</p>
+
+<p>
+A breath of soft morning air awoke me. I
+opened my eyes. Elise was bending over me with
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_287"></a>[287]</span>
+pale and anxious face. The room—my bedroom—whirled
+and swam before my dizzy sight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elise!�...
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elise Perrier clasped her hands. “Thank
+God!� she murmured. “I feared you would
+never wake again.� Her face worked strangely,
+and she burst into tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elise—what has happened? What is to-day?�
+Before she could answer, another question sprang
+to my lips: “Where is Naumoff?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He has left, my lady,� whispered Elise in
+awestruck tones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Left?� A long silence held us. “Left?
+Where has he gone?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elise looked down at me with blanched and
+quivering countenance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To Venice,� she said in low tones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I started up. “To Venice?� To Venice! My
+memory darted to and fro like a child playing hide
+and seek. “Elise! Elise! Elise!� I stretched
+out my hands like one sinking and drowning in the
+darkness. Elise wept. I watched the strange
+faces that Elise always made when she wept:
+funny, pitiful grimaces with puckered brow and
+chin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To Venice.� My memory flickers like a feeble
+light, then blazes into sudden flames that sear my
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_288"></a>[288]</span>
+soul with fire. “Elise! He must be stopped. He
+must not reach Venice! Elise, stop him, stop
+him—!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is impossible, my lady.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yes, it is impossible.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+(<i>By this time the train which is carrying Naumoff
+on his mission of death has passed Warsaw
+and is hastening towards Brünn; hastening, ever
+hastening through the dawning hours and the
+noonday sunshine, hastening on into the twilight—and
+at dusk it rumbles and pants into the station
+at Vienna</i>.)
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+I fall fainting back upon my pillows, and all
+through the day and the night I dream that I am
+speeding after the rushing train, catching up with
+it and losing it again, sweeping through the air,
+tearing along the unending rails, reaching it at
+last, and being struck down and crushed under its
+rolling wheels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Day dawns once more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elise, Elise, bring Naumoff back. Telegraph
+to him. Elise, for heaven's sake, bring him
+back!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is hopeless, my lady.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yes, it is hopeless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_289"></a>[289]</span>
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+(<i>At this hour the train is hurrying from Bozen
+to Verona, from Verona to Vicenza, from Vicenza
+to Padua.</i>)
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+Night falls on my despair.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+“Elise, Elise! Where are you? What is the
+time?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is nearly dawn, my lady.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elise, what day is this?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is the third day of September.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The third day of September!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elise,� I scream suddenly, “Elise! Telegraph
+to Kamarowsky. Warn him.... Quickly,
+oh, quickly! Why, why did we not do so before?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush, my lady, hush! You were delirious;
+you could only rave and weep.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elise, Elise, telegraph to Kamarowsky....�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is too late, my lady.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yes, it is too late.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+(<i>At this very hour of dawn the train has reached
+Venice. Nicolas Naumoff is hastening from the
+Riva degli Schiavoni, across the empty piazza
+and the deserted streets. He hails a gondola.
+“Campo Santa Maria del Giglio!�</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>And the gondola, with soft plash of oar, glides
+slowly towards the doomed sleeper.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_290"></a>[290]</span>
+<i>What dreams may the angel of rest have sent to
+him for the last time? Perhaps the tender vision
+of little Grania has gladdened him, while silent and
+inexorable in the closed gondola the youth with the
+golden eyes steals towards him through the mazes
+of the clear canals.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Santa Maria del Giglio.</i>�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Nicolas Naumoff springs from the gondola,
+crosses the empty Campo and reaches the house.
+He ascends the steps quickly, knocks, enters—and
+closes the door behind him.</i>)
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+Yes, it is too late.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I hear myself shrieking with laughter as I fall
+back on my pillows. Soon I am surrounded by
+strangers who hold me down, who thrust opiates
+between my lips, who lay soothing hands and cooling
+compresses on my brow. Then I know nothing
+more.
+</p>
+
+<p class="dots">········</p>
+
+<p>
+Elise Perrier's terrified face surges out of the
+darkness: she is speaking quickly, she is bending
+over me, imploring and urging.... What does
+she say? She weeps despairingly, and ever
+through her tears she speaks, urging and imploring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finally, in her thin arms, she drags me from my
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_291"></a>[291]</span>
+bed; she dresses me; she wraps a cloak about me,
+and hurries backwards and forwards with traveling-bags
+and satchels. Now we are in a carriage—no,
+we are in a train. Elise Perrier sits opposite
+me, with ashen face and her hands in gray
+cotton gloves tightly folded. Her lips move. She
+is praying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly I struggle to my feet: “<i>Paul!</i>...�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I scream the name Elise springs upon me,
+covering my mouth with her cotton glove, pressing
+my head to her breast. “Silence! hush, hush,
+for the love of heaven! They will hear you.
+Hush!�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is he dead, Elise, is he dead?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no, he is not dead,� gasps Elise in a toneless
+whisper, “he is not dead. We are going to
+him. He is wounded ... he has been telegraphing
+to you for three days, begging you to come.
+And you would not move, you would not understand....�
+Elise is crying again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But perfect peace has descended into my soul.
+Paul is not dead. He lives! he lives! Nothing
+else matters but this—he lives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The train still rushes along, beating rhythmic
+time to many tunes that are in my head; I gaze
+out of the window, at the whirling landscape that
+swings past like a giant chess-board, at the telegraph
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_292"></a>[292]</span>
+wires that dip, and then ascend slowly and
+dip again. Hours pass or days pass.... And
+the train stops.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elise is hurriedly collecting cloaks and satchels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where are we, Elise? Are we in Venice?�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not yet; not yet. We are in Vienna.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I step from the train, two men whom I do
+not know approach me. One of them asks me if
+I am the Countess Tarnowska. He has not taken
+his hat off, and I do not deign to reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I am about to pass him he lays his hand on
+my arm. The other man also comes forward, and,
+one on each side, they conduct me along the platform.
+I notice many people stopping to look at
+me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nothing seems to matter. I do not remember
+why we are in Vienna, nor whither we are bound.
+I notice that it is a bright, hot day, and I feel that
+I am walking in a dream.... I find myself thinking
+of Vassili; I wish he would come, and send
+these men away and take me home. I shall be
+glad when I am at home with Vassili and the children
+and Aunt Sonia.... Safely at home!
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a id="f292"></a>
+  <img src="images/292.jpg"
+  alt="" />
+<p class="caption">IN THE PRISON CELL</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+Then I remember—I have no home. I am a forsaken,
+demented creature whom Vassili cares for
+no longer. But where am I going? I am going
+to Paul Kamarowsky, who lives and loves me!...
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_293"></a>[293]</span>
+Again I weep with joy and thankfulness at the
+thought that Kamarowsky lives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now I am in a carriage driving through the
+streets of Vienna; and the two strange men are
+still with me. They are taking me to a hotel.
+We arrive. I pass through a large doorway and
+along some passages. Then I notice that it is not
+a hotel. It is a vast, bare room with wooden
+benches round the wall. Some men in uniform
+stand at the door, and I notice that they do not
+salute me when I enter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neither does an elderly man who is sitting at
+the desk rise or come to meet me. He looks at
+me steadily and asks me many questions; but I
+pay no heed to him. The windows are open; I can
+hear the sound of a piano very far away; somebody
+is practising a romance by Chaminade that I
+used to play at Otrada.... How sad a piano
+sounds when played by an unseen hand in the
+silence of a sunlit street!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man at the desk speaks in German to the
+uniformed men; they take my golden wristbag
+from me, and conduct me out of the bare room
+down a long passage. As I go slowly forward
+between the two men I notice that from the far
+end of the passage a group of people are coming
+towards us. In the center of the group walks a
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_294"></a>[294]</span>
+man, handcuffed and wearing his hat crookedly at
+the back of his head, as if placed there by some
+other hand than his own. <i>It is Prilukoff!</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sees me. A wave of livid pallor overspreads
+his face. Then he bends forward towards me and
+makes a movement with his lips, pressing them
+tightly together and shaking his head; he is trying
+to make me understand something. As they
+notice this the men at my side grasp my arm and
+make me turn quickly down another corridor. But
+I hear Prilukoff's voice shouting after me. He
+utters a Russian word: “Molci!� (Be silent).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The men thrust me rudely into an empty cell.
+I sit down on a bench fixed in a corner under the
+small, barred window and lean my head against
+the wall. I feel neither unhappy nor afraid; only
+weary, unspeakably weary; and almost at once I
+fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. Never since I
+was a child at Otrada have I known such perfect
+rest—such utter oblivion poured upon such limitless
+weariness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly my door is opened abruptly and one
+of the men enters; he takes me by the arm, and
+conducts me back to the large, bare room, where
+the elderly official still sits at his desk. And
+there, standing before him, I see Elise. She is
+weeping bitterly. I see her making those comical
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_295"></a>[295]</span>
+grimaces which always accompany her tears, as in
+Italy cheerful music accompanies a child's funeral.
+My mind—like a frightened bat that has flown into
+a room and darts hither and thither—flutters and
+plunges wildly through all my past life. I think
+of my mother, of little Peter, and of Bozevsky; I
+remember a pink dress I once wore here in Vienna,
+at a reception of the Russian Embassy.... I
+think of little Tioka and his days for saying
+“No.� ... How far, how far away it all is!
+What a gulf of guilt and sorrow have my tottering
+footsteps traversed since then.... But now—now
+I will climb tremblingly, devoutly, the steep
+road that leads back to safety; humbled to my
+knees I will pour out my thanks. For Paul Kamarowsky
+is saved; he lives and will recover!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man at my side is dragging me roughly
+forward. The elderly official at the desk has beckoned
+to me, and as I stand before him in a line
+with Elise he reads aloud from a sheet of foolscap.
+Suddenly I hear the words: “Complicity in the
+murder of Count Paul Kamarowsky....�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The murder? <i>The murder!</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two of the uniformed men hold my arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But,� I try to say, with chattering teeth,
+“Count Kamarowsky lives ... he will recover.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man replies, “Count Kamarowsky is dead.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_296"></a>[296]</span>
+I laugh out loud. The car on the switchback
+rushes, whirls, plunges—falls with me to destruction.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_297"></a>[297]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XLII
+</h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p>Like a dream within a dream.—<span class="smcap">Poe.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+It was in the prison infirmary that I first heard
+the details of what had passed in the Villa Santa
+Maria del Giglio, on that fatal morning of August
+the 3rd. As the nursing sister sat beside me,
+renewing from time to time the cold bandages
+placed on my throbbing forehead, she told me in
+low tones the mournful and tragic story. I listened
+as if I were listening in a dream to the story
+of a dream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When (she said) at early morning the Venetian
+servant-girl heard a knock at the door she
+went to open it, and a pale youth stepped quickly
+across the threshold. He asked for Count Kamarowsky,
+and bade the girl tell him that Nicolas
+Naumoff, of Orel, had arrived and desired to see
+him. The girl went to her master's door and
+knocked. He was awake and had risen. On hearing
+her message, he hurried out to meet his friend,
+for he loved him like a brother—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_298"></a>[298]</span>
+(“Ah, sister, I know, I know! He loved him
+like a brother!�)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When he saw Naumoff come in he went forward
+to meet him with open arms. The young
+man raised his hand and fired five shots point blank
+into his body. The Count fell to the ground; but
+even then he stretched out his arms to the young
+man and said: 'My friend, why have you done
+this to me? In what way have I ever harmed
+you?' The young man, with a cry as if he had
+awakened from a dream, flung himself on the
+ground at his feet. Then the wounded man
+showed him the balcony from which he might
+escape, and with fast-ebbing breath forgave him
+and bade him farewell.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(“Oh, sister, sister, with fast-ebbing breath he
+forgave him and bade him farewell!�)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He was carried to the hospital, and the doctors
+wanted to give him chloroform while they probed
+the gaping, deep-seated wounds; but he would not
+take it. 'Do what you have to do without sending
+me to sleep,' he said. 'I shall have plenty of time
+to sleep—afterwards.' The doctors groped for
+the bullets in the lacerated flesh, and stitched up
+the five, deep-seated wounds.... When it was
+over he asked for you.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(“Sister, sister, he asked for me!�)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_299"></a>[299]</span>
+“He begged that you might be summoned
+quickly, and many telegrams were sent, but you
+neither came nor replied.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(“I neither came nor replied!�)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“On the third day he was better. He spoke
+to those around him, and again he asked for you,
+and hoped that you would come. In the hospital
+he was in the hands of an old and very famous
+surgeon; but alas! as Fate would have it—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(“What? what? As Fate would have it—?�)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“As Fate would have it, the mind of this old
+and celebrated surgeon suddenly gave way. None
+knew that anything was amiss, as he stood that
+day at the bedside of the sufferer whom his skill
+had saved. He spoke to his assistants in the same
+calm, authoritative voice as usual, but he ordered
+that <i>the stitches should be taken out of the five
+wounds that were just beginning to heal</i>. Those
+around him recoiled in amazement. They were
+thunderstruck. But he repeated the disastrous
+order in the voice of one who is accustomed to
+command and to save lives that are in peril.
+Then—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(“What then? What then?�)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then the assistants, doubting their own wisdom,
+but not that of the man who had been their
+master, obeyed, and reopened the five deep-seated
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_300"></a>[300]</span>
+wounds which were just beginning to heal. And
+again, as Fate would have it—�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(Ah, Fate! The ghoul, the vampire Fate!
+She who has pursued me since my birth! She who
+has caught us and crushed us all in her torturing
+grip, splintering us like frail glass bubbles in her
+hand! Now she had entered the sick room of
+Paul Kamarowsky, had brooded over his bedside,
+and in fiendish pleasantry had scourged the old
+surgeon's brain with madness, whipping it to
+frenzy as a child whips a top, guiding his hand to
+tear the injured body and reopen the fast-healing
+wounds.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“As Fate would have it, the old surgeon gave
+other and still more dreadful orders. Ah, holy
+Virgin! how shall the horror be told?... When
+the bewildered assistants, aghast at what they had
+done, laid the sufferer back on his pillows, the slaying
+had been accomplished.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(“The slaying had been accomplished!�)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“With his last breath he called upon your
+name.�
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(“With his last breath he called upon my
+name!�)
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a id="f300"></a>
+  <img src="images/300.jpg"
+  alt="" />
+<p class="caption">THE PENITENTIARY AT TRANI</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_301"></a>[301]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+XLIII
+</h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="i2">    E son quasi a l'estremo.</p>
+<p>Luce degli anni miei, dove se' gita?</p>
+<p class="i6">                          <span class="smcap">Carducci.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+If I were to be asked to name the darkest hour
+of my dark life, well do I know which of all my
+gloomy memories would raise its spectral face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not the terror-haunted hours of madness and
+crime, not the anguish-stricken nights passed at
+the bedside of those I loved, not my own life-struggles
+with the monsters of disease and dementia,
+tearing at the very roots of my life—no,
+the darkest hour of my life was that glorious summer
+morning in Venice, when I was brought from
+the prison of La Giudecca to attend my trial at the
+Criminal Court. The sun flung a sparkling net of
+diamonds athwart the blue waters of the lagoon,
+and the gondola bore me with peaceful splash
+of oar over the dancing waters. The gondolier
+steadied the swaying skiff at the wave-kissed steps,
+and I rose, drawing my veil about me, to disembark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I placed my foot on the steps—how often before,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_302"></a>[302]</span>
+in happier days, had I thus stepped from my
+gondola, greeted and smiled upon by the kindly
+Venetian idlers!—I lifted my eyes. A crowd had
+assembled at the top of the steps and thronged the
+piazza. They stood in serried ranks, menacing
+and silent, leaving a narrow pathway for me to
+pass. I faltered and would have stepped back, but
+the carabinieri at my side held my arms and impelled
+me forward. At that moment some one in
+the crowd—a woman—laughed. As if that sound
+had shattered the spell that held them mute, the
+mob broke into a tumult of noise, a storm of hisses
+and cries, shrieks and jeers, hootings and maledictions,
+while, rising above it and more cruel than
+all, was the laughter, the strident, mocking laughter
+that accompanied my every step and gesture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And there, tall and motionless in the midst of
+the laughing, hissing, shrieking mob, stood my
+father, his white hair stirring in the breeze, his
+eyes—the proud blue O'Rourke eyes—fixed upon
+me.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="tbs" />
+
+<p>
+Oh, father, father whose heart I have broken,
+in that hour I paid the wages of my sin. Not these
+dark years of imprisonment, not the mantle of
+ignominy that clothes me with eternal defilement,
+not the gloomy solitude in which I see the gradual
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_303"></a>[303]</span>
+fading of my youth, not the horror of the past, nor
+the hopelessness of the future—not these are the
+deadliest of my punishments; but the memory of
+your white hair in the crowd that hissed its hatred,
+and laughed its contempt of your daughter, and
+the jeers that greeted you, and the rude hands that
+jostled you when you stepped forward and laid
+your hand in blessing on my degraded head.
+</p>
+
+<p class="dots">········</p>
+
+<p>
+Marie Tarnowska is silent. Her story is told.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_304"></a>[304]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+EPILOGUE
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+The verdant landscape of Central Italy swings
+past the train that carries me homeward. The
+looped vines—like slim green dancers holding
+hands—speed backwards as we pass. Far behind
+me lies the white prison of Trani; and the memory
+of Marie Tarnowska and of her sins and woes
+drifts away from me, like some shipwrecked
+barque, storm-tossed and sinking, that I have
+gazed upon, powerless to help.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The long summer day is drawing to its close;
+above the Apennines where the sky is lightest the
+new moon floats like a little boat of amber on an
+opal sea. Like a fragment of a dream the song
+returns to my memory, the childish song of which
+I have never heard and shall never hear more than
+the first two lines:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p>When little children sleep, the Virgin Mary</p>
+<p>Steps with white feet upon the crescent moon...</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+As the train carries me homeward, back to the
+joys of life and love and freedom, back to the
+welcome of friends and the safety of a sheltered
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_305"></a>[305]</span>
+hearth, I think once more of her whom I have left
+in the gloom of her prison cell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon, very soon, the hour of her release will
+strike, and the iron doors that have guarded her
+will open wide to let her pass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What then, what then, Marie Tarnowska?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Who will await you at the prison gate? Surely
+Grief, Scorn, and Hatred will be there. But by
+your side I seem to see a guardian spirit, shielding
+your drooping head with outstretched wings. It
+is the sister of lost Innocence—Repentance; and in
+her wake comes the blind singer, Hope.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="tnote">
+<p class="tntitle">
+Transcriber's Note
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Original spelling, even where inconsistent, and punctuation have
+been preserved.</p>
+<p>Minor typographical errors have been corrected
+without note.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIE TARNOWSKA***</p>
+<p>******* This file should be named 43058-h.txt or 43058-h.zip *******</p>
+<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br />
+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/3/0/5/43058">http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/0/5/43058</a></p>
+<p>
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.</p>
+
+<p>
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+</p>
+
+<h2>*** START: FULL LICENSE ***<br />
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE<br />
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</h2>
+
+<p>To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license">www.gutenberg.org/license</a>.</p>
+
+<h3>Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works</h3>
+
+<p>1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.</p>
+
+<p>1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.</p>
+
+<p>1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.</p>
+
+<p>1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.</p>
+
+<p>1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:</p>
+
+<p>1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:</p>
+
+<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a
+href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></p>
+
+<p>1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.</p>
+
+<p>1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.</p>
+
+<p>1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.</p>
+
+<p>1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.</p>
+
+<p>1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.</p>
+
+<p>1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.</p>
+
+<p>1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."</li>
+
+<li>You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.</li>
+
+<li>You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.</li>
+
+<li>You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.</p>
+
+<p>1.F.</p>
+
+<p>1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.</p>
+
+<p>1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.</p>
+
+<p>1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.</p>
+
+<p>1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.</p>
+
+<p>1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.</p>
+
+<p>1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.</p>
+
+<h3>Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm</h3>
+
+<p>Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.</p>
+
+<p>Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and
+the Foundation information page at <a
+href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></p>
+
+<h3>Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation</h3>
+
+<p>The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.</p>
+
+<p>The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at <a
+href="http://www.gutenberg.org/contact">www.gutenberg.org/contact</a></p>
+
+<p>For additional contact information:<br />
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby<br />
+     Chief Executive and Director<br />
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org</p>
+
+<h3>Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation</h3>
+
+<p>Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.</p>
+
+<p>The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit <a
+href="http://www.gutenberg.org/donate">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a></p>
+
+<p>While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.</p>
+
+<p>International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.</p>
+
+<p>Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  <a
+href="http://www.gutenberg.org/donate">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a></p>
+
+<h3>Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.</h3>
+
+<p>Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.</p>
+
+<p>Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.</p>
+
+<p>Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></p>
+
+<p>This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.</p>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/old/43058-h/images/180.jpg b/old/43058-h/images/180.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..31b7a7b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-h/images/180.jpg
diff --git a/old/43058-h/images/194.jpg b/old/43058-h/images/194.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..022a214
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-h/images/194.jpg
diff --git a/old/43058-h/images/20.jpg b/old/43058-h/images/20.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fb5479e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-h/images/20.jpg
diff --git a/old/43058-h/images/268.jpg b/old/43058-h/images/268.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0c52304
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-h/images/268.jpg
diff --git a/old/43058-h/images/280.jpg b/old/43058-h/images/280.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3dc8faf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-h/images/280.jpg
diff --git a/old/43058-h/images/281.jpg b/old/43058-h/images/281.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4ecf6f8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-h/images/281.jpg
diff --git a/old/43058-h/images/292.jpg b/old/43058-h/images/292.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2282c86
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-h/images/292.jpg
diff --git a/old/43058-h/images/300.jpg b/old/43058-h/images/300.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..58cf4c3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-h/images/300.jpg
diff --git a/old/43058-h/images/6.jpg b/old/43058-h/images/6.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9f78506
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-h/images/6.jpg
diff --git a/old/43058-h/images/bossi.jpg b/old/43058-h/images/bossi.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..81ddab7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-h/images/bossi.jpg
diff --git a/old/43058-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/43058-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0265252
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/old/43058-h/images/marie.jpg b/old/43058-h/images/marie.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c08ef71
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-h/images/marie.jpg
diff --git a/old/43058-h/music/music_1.mid b/old/43058-h/music/music_1.mid
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..88a2201
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-h/music/music_1.mid
diff --git a/old/43058-h/music/music_2.mid b/old/43058-h/music/music_2.mid
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5f9d547
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058-h/music/music_2.mid
diff --git a/old/43058.txt b/old/43058.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..79ae87b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8030 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Marie Tarnowska, by Annie Vivanti
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Marie Tarnowska
+
+
+Author: Annie Vivanti
+
+
+
+Release Date: June 29, 2013  [eBook #43058]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIE TARNOWSKA***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Carlo Traverso, Barbara Magni, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images
+generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original visual illustrations
+      and two audio-illustrations.
+      See 43058-h.htm or 43058-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43058/43058-h/43058-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43058/43058-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      https://archive.org/details/marietarnowskawi00vivauoft
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: MARIE NICOLAEVNA TARNOWSKA]
+
+
+MARIE TARNOWSKA
+
+by
+
+A. VIVANTI CHARTRES
+
+With an Introductory Letter by Professor L. M. Bossi
+of the University of Genoa
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Published by The Century Co.
+New York      MCMXV
+
+Copyright, 1915, by
+The Century Co.
+
+Published, October, 1915
+All rights reserved
+
+
+
+
+PREFATORY NOTE
+
+
+On the morning of September 3rd, 1907, Count Paul Kamarowsky, a wealthy
+Russian nobleman, was fatally shot in his apartments on the Lido in
+Venice by an intimate friend, Nicolas Naumoff, son of the governor of
+Orel. The crime was at first believed to be political. The wounded man
+refused to make any statement against his assailant, whom he himself had
+assisted to escape from the balcony to a gondola in waiting below.
+
+Count Kamarowsky was taken to a hospital, and for three days his
+recovery seemed assured; but the chief surgeon, in a sudden mental
+collapse--he has since died in an insane asylum--ordered the stitches to
+be removed from the fast-healing wounds, and Count Kamarowsky died in
+great agony a few hours later. His last words were a message of love to
+his betrothed at Kieff, a beautiful Russian woman, Countess Marie
+Tarnowska.
+
+In her favor Count Kamarowsky had, shortly before his death, made a will
+and also insured his life for the sum of L20,000.
+
+A number of telegrams from this lady were found addressed to a Russian
+lawyer, Donat Prilukoff, who had been staying at the Hotel Danieli in
+Venice until the day of the murder. Both this man and the Countess
+Tarnowska were arrested.
+
+After a sensational trial they were found guilty of instigating the
+young Nicolas Naumoff to commit the murder. Countess Tarnowska was
+sentenced to eight years' imprisonment in the penitentiary of Trani;
+Prilukoff was condemned to ten years' penal servitude; while Naumoff
+himself was liberated in view of his having undergone two years'
+incarceration while awaiting his trial.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE AUTHOR
+
+
+_Signora:_
+
+_Not only as the medical expert for the defense at the trial of the
+Countess Tarnowska, but as one who has made it his life-work to
+investigate the relation in women between criminal impulse and morbid
+physical condition, I cannot but feel the keenest interest in this book,
+in which you set forth the problem of wide human interest presented by
+the case of the prisoner of Trani._
+
+_When first I suggested to you that you should write this book--which
+(apart from its interest as dealing with a_ cause celebre _whose
+protagonists are still living and well known in European society) might
+bring into wider knowledge doctrines that modern physiologists and
+psychologists are endeavoring to diffuse--you reminded me that the
+medical elements of the problem could not in such a work be discussed or
+even clearly stated. This, of course, is true, and the significance of
+certain indications scattered through these pages will doubtless be lost
+upon those who are not familiar with such matters. Nevertheless, it was
+important that the book should be written, for if after her release
+and appropriate medical treatment the Countess Tarnowska is restored, as
+many of us confidently anticipate, to the complete sanity of moral
+well-being, your book in the light of that essential fact will have
+fulfilled a notable mission._
+
+_It will have helped to bring home to the general consciousness the
+knowledge, hitherto confined to the scientific few, that moral obliquity
+in women is in most cases due to pathological causes comparatively easy
+of diagnosis and of cure; that a woman-criminal may be morally redeemed
+by being physically healed; and that just as alcoholism, typhus, pyemia
+or other modes of toxic infection may result in delirium and
+irresponsibility, so certain forms of disease in women, by setting up a
+condition of persistent organic poisoning, may and very often do conduce
+to mental and moral aberration and consequent crime._
+
+_Your book, Signora, contains a truthful exposition of a group of
+psychic values with which physicians and psychopathists are concerned,
+and I believe that eventually it will promote the realization that even
+in the darkest regions of moral degradation it is possible for science
+to raise the torch of hope. Thus, though appealing for the moment to the
+interest of the general reader, it will ultimately constitute a
+significant document in the history of the evolution of pathological
+science._
+
+  [Illustration: Signature--Prof. L. M. Bossi]
+
+  Genoa,
+    January 12th, 1915.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE READER
+
+
+This book is not written to plead Marie Tarnowska's cause. The strange
+Russian woman whose hand slew no man, but whose beauty drove those who
+loved her to commit murder for her sake, will soon have ended her eight
+years' captivity and will come forth into the world once more.
+
+I have not sought in any way to minimize her guilt, or attenuate her
+responsibility for the sin and death that followed in her train. Though
+she must be held blameless for the boy Peter Tarnowsky's tragic fate and
+even for Dr. Stahl's suicide, yet Bozevsky's death, Naumoff's downfall
+and the murder of Count Kamarowsky will forever be laid at her door.
+
+I have tried to convey to the cool, sober mind of the Anglo-Saxon
+reader--to whom much of this amazing story of passion and crime may
+appear almost incredible--that sequence of tragic events which brought
+Marie Nicolaevna to her ruin.
+
+Weighted by a heritage of disease (her mother was a neurasthenic invalid
+and two of her aunts are even now confined in an insane asylum in
+Russia), she was married when still on the threshold of girlhood and
+swept into the maelstrom of a wild life--a frenzied, almost hallucinated,
+existence such as is led by a certain section of the Russian
+aristocracy, whom self-indulgence drives to depths of degeneracy hardly
+to be realized by the outside world.
+
+With the birth of her child, Tania, Marie Tarnowska's fragile health
+broke down completely, and the few years preceding the tragedy which led
+to her arrest were spent traveling through Europe in a feverish quest of
+health or at least of oblivion of her sufferings. According to such
+medical authorities as Redlich, Fenomenof, Rhein, Bossi, and many other
+eminent gynecologists and alienists, she is, and has been for some years
+past, suffering from a slow form of blood poisoning which affects the
+nervous centers and the brain, and which--as I myself had a painful
+opportunity of witnessing when I saw her in prison--causes periodic
+cataleptic seizures that imperil her life.
+
+It was by one of her medical advisers, Professor Luigi Bossi, of the
+University of Genoa, that the idea of this book was first given to me.
+
+"I was called as an expert for the defense at the Venice trial," said
+the Professor, "and I was grieved and indignant at the heavy sentence
+inflicted upon this unhappy woman. Marie Tarnowska is not delinquent,
+but diseased; not a criminal, but an invalid; and her case, like that of
+many other female transgressors, is one for the surgeon's skill and the
+physician's compassionate care, not for the ruthless hand of the law.
+Indeed," the illustrious Professor continued, "it is becoming more and
+more a recognized fact that many cases of criminality in woman have a
+physical, not a moral origin. By her very mission--maternity--woman is
+consecrated to pain; and whereas by nature she is a creature of
+gentleness and goodness, the effect of physical suffering, of ailments
+often unconfessed--nay, often unrealized by herself--is to transform her
+into a virago, a hypochondriac, or a criminal. Then our duty is to cure
+her, not to punish her.
+
+"It may be merely a question," he explained, "of a slight surgical
+intervention; sometimes even brief medical treatment is sufficient to
+save a woman's life and reason. The wider knowledge of this simple
+scientific fact in the social life of our time would redeem and
+rehabilitate thousands of unfortunate women who people the prisons and
+the madhouses of the world.
+
+"As for the unhappy Countess Tarnowska," added Professor Bossi, "the
+Venetian tribunal refused to regard her as a suffering human being, but
+flung her out of society like some venomous reptile. Read these notes
+that she wrote in prison," he said, placing in my hand a book of almost
+illegible memoranda. "If they touch your heart, then do a deed of
+justice and generosity. Go to the penitentiary of Trani, see the
+prisoner yourself, and give her story to the world. So will you perform
+an act of humanity and beneficence by helping to diffuse a scientific
+truth in favor, not of this one woman alone, but of all women."
+
+After glancing through the strange human document he had given me I
+decided to do what he asked; for, indeed, from those poor, incoherent
+pages there seemed to rise the eternal cry of suffering womanhood--the
+anguished cry of those that perpetuate the gift of life--which no
+sister-soul can hear unmoved.
+
+Thus it was that my mind was first directed to the theme of this book
+and that I undertook the task--fraught with almost insuperable
+difficulties--of breaking down official prohibitions and reaching the
+Russian captive in her distant Italian prison.
+
+And now that I have been brought face to face with that strange and
+mournful figure, now that I have heard her story from her own pale lips,
+I am moved by the puissant impulse of art, which takes no heed of
+learned theory or ethical code, to narrate in these pages the profound
+impression made upon me by that tragic personality, by the story of that
+broken life.
+
+I have endeavored to do so with faithfulness, exaggerating nothing,
+coloring nothing, extenuating nothing. It will be for the pontiffs of
+science and morals to achieve the more complex task of drawing
+conclusions and establishing theories that may one day diminish
+injustice and suffering in the world.
+
+                                                A. VIVANTI CHARTRES.
+
+
+
+
+  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                  _Facing page_
+
+  MARIE NICOLAEVNA TARNOWSKA                 _Frontispiece_
+  A PAGE FROM MARIE TARNOWSKA'S NOTE-BOOK                     6
+  COUNT O'ROURKE                                             20
+  COUNT PAUL KAMAROWSKY                                     180
+  I STEPPED OUT UPON THE BALCONY                            194
+  UNDER ARREST                                              268
+  IN THE PRISON CELL                                        292
+  THE PENITENTIARY AT TRANI                                 300
+
+
+
+
+MARIE TARNOWSKA
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+    _Ed or, che Dio mi tolga la memoria._
+
+                          CONTESSA LARA.
+
+
+The verdant landscape of Tuscany swung past the train that carried me
+southward. The looped vineyards--like slim, green dancers holding
+hands--fled backwards as we passed, and the rays of the March sun pursued
+us, beating hotly through the open windows on the dusty red velvet
+cushions of the carriage.
+
+Soon the train was throbbing and panting out of Pisa, and the barefooted
+children of the Roman Campagna stood to gaze after us, with eyes soft
+and wild under their sullen hair.
+
+Since leaving the station of Genoa I had seen nothing of the fleeting
+springtide landscape; my gaze and thoughts were riveted on the pages of
+a copy-book which lay open on my knee--a simple school copy-book with
+innocent blue-lined sheets originally intended to contain the carefully
+labored scrawls of some childish hand. A blue ornamental flourish decked
+the front; and under the printed title, "Program of Lessons," the words
+"History," "Geography," "Arithmetic," were followed by a series of blank
+spaces for the hours to be filled in. Alas, for the tragic pupil to whom
+this book belonged, in what school of horror had she learned the lesson
+traced on these pages by her slim, white hand--the fair patrician hand
+which had known the weight of many jewels, the thrill of many caresses,
+and was now held fast in the merciless grip of captivity.
+
+I turned the page: before me lay a flow of pale penciled words in a
+sloping handwriting. At every turn the flourish of some strange
+seignorial name met my eye: long Russian names of prince, of lover or of
+murderer. On every page was the convulsion of death or the paroxysm of
+passion; wine and morphia, chloral and cocaine surged across the pallid
+sheets, like the wash of a nightmare sea.
+
+From the midst of those turbid billows--like some ineffable modern
+Aphrodite--rose the pale figure of Marie Nicolaevna Tarnowska.
+
+
+The first words--traced by her trembling hand in the prison at Venice--are
+almost childish in their simplicity.
+
+"When I was eight years old, I fell ill with measles and almost lost my
+eyesight. I wore blue spectacles. I was very happy. My mother loved me
+very much; so did my father. So did the servants. Everybody loved me
+very much."
+
+I pause in my reading, loth to proceed. I wish I could stop here with
+the little girl whom every one loved and who gazed out through her blue
+spectacles at a rose-colored world.
+
+Ah! Marie Nicolaevna, had your luminous eyes remained for all time
+hidden behind those dim blue glasses, no one to-day would raise his
+voice in execration of you, nor call anathema upon your fair bowed head.
+
+But when the little Russian countess was twelve years old an oculist
+from Kieff ordered that her eyes should be uncovered, and "Mura," as her
+parents fondly called her, looked out upon the world with those clear
+light eyes that were one day to penetrate the darkest depths of crime.
+
+I continue to read without stopping. The serried pages, scrawled
+feverishly and hurriedly in the cells of La Giudecca in defiance of
+prison rules, are in thin handwriting, with names and dates harshly
+underlined; but here and there whole sentences are struck out, as if the
+writer's memory wavered, or her feelings altered as she wrote.
+
+Immediately, on the very first page, the bold figure of young Vassili
+Tarnowsky confronts us: the radiant, temerarious lover, who came to woo
+her in her marveling adolescence.
+
+"His voice thrilled the heart like the tones of a violoncello; in his
+eyes were the lights of heaven, in his smile all the promises of love. I
+was already seventeen years old, and wise beyond my years. But,
+sagacious as I thought myself, I could never believe anything that was
+told me against Vassili. My eyes saw nothing but his beauty. On the
+twelfth day of April I ran away from home with him; and we were married
+in a little church far away on the desolate steppes. I never thought
+that life could hold such joy."
+
+  [Illustration: A PAGE FROM MARIE TARNOWSKA'S NOTE-BOOK]
+
+But on the very next page we come face to face with the astounding list
+of Vassili's perfidies: a musical enumeration of feminine names which
+rings the knell of his child-wife's happiness. "I never thought," writes
+Marie Tarnowska simply, "that life could hold such sorrow."
+
+Further on there are gaps and incoherences; here and there a passing
+efflorescence of literary phrase, or a sudden lapse into curt narrative,
+as if a wave of apathy had suddenly submerged the tragic heroine and
+left in her place only a passive narrator of fearful events. Now and
+then even a note of strident humor is struck, more poignant, more
+painful than pathos.
+
+Ever and anon there appears throughout the funereal story--as if smiling
+out through the window of a charnel-house--the innocent face of a child:
+Tioka. He is all bright curls and laughter. Unaware of the carnage that
+surrounds him, he runs with light, quick feet through pools of blood to
+nestle in the gentle maternal breast which for him is all purity and
+tenderness.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I read on and on the writing trembles and wavers, as if the hand and
+the heart of the writer wearied of their task. With a sudden break the
+sad story closes, unfinished, incomplete.
+
+"If I could tell of the tears I have shed, if I could describe the
+anguish I have suffered, I am sure that pity would be shown to me.
+Surely if the world knew of my torment and my sufferings--"
+
+Nothing more. Thus abruptly the tragic manuscript ends.
+
+The train slackens speed, falters, shivers--stops. I am at Trani; at the
+furthermost end of Italy; almost beyond civilization; almost out of the
+world.
+
+Soon I shall see before me the woman I have come so far to seek: the
+woman who never gave the gift of love without the gift of death.
+
+
+The high white walls of the penitentiary glared down in the blazing
+southern sun. The languid Adriatic trailed its blue silken waters past
+the barred windows. I raised the heavy knocker; it fell from my hand
+with a reverberating clang, and the massive prison-door opened slowly
+before me.
+
+The Mother Superior and two gentle-looking Sisters fluttered--black and
+white and timid as swallows--across the sunlit courtyard. They were
+expecting me.
+
+"She whom you seek is in the chapel," said the Mother Superior, in a low
+voice. "I will call her!" She left us. The two Sisters accompanied me up
+a broad stone staircase to a small waiting-room. Then they stood quietly
+beside me; and when I looked at them, they smiled.
+
+In the silence that followed I could hear women's voices singing in the
+prison chapel, simple, untutored voices, clear and shrill:
+
+    "Kyrie eleison
+    Christe eleison..."
+
+and the low notes of the organ rolled beneath the treble voices, full
+and deep;
+
+    "Mater purissima
+    Mater inviolata..."
+
+"Number 315--that is the Countess Marie," said one of the two Sisters,
+"plays the organ for the other prisoners. She plays every day at noon
+and evensong."
+
+"And at four o'clock in the morning," added the other Sister.
+
+(How far, how far away, Marie Nicolaevna, are the passionate days of
+Moscow, the glowing, unslept nights of Venice!)
+
+    "Rosa mystica
+    Stella matutina..."
+
+Suddenly the music ceased and we stood waiting in the hot, white
+silence. Then the door opened, and on the threshold stood Marie
+Tarnowska--the murderess, the devastating spirit, the Erinnys.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Tall and motionless in her fearful striped dress she stood, gazing at me
+with proud clear eyes; her brow was calm and imperious under the
+humiliating prisoner's coif, and her long hands--those delicate hands
+whose caresses have driven men to commit murder for her sake--hung
+loosely at her side. Her mouth, curving and disdainful, trembled
+slightly.
+
+"Signora," I began. Her lips wavered into a faint smile as with a quick
+downward sweep of her eyelashes she indicated her dress of shame.
+
+"Signora," I repeated, "I have come here neither out of compassion nor
+curiosity."
+
+She was silent, waiting for me to proceed. The three nuns had seated
+themselves quietly near the wall, with eyes cast down and meek hands
+folded in their laps.
+
+"I have come," I continued, "to vindicate my sisters in your eyes. I
+know you think that all women are ruthless and unkind."
+
+Another smile, fleeting, vivid and intelligent, lit up her eyes. Then
+the narrow face closed and darkened again.
+
+"For two years," I proceeded, "I have been haunted by the thought that
+you, shut in this place, must be saying to yourself that all men are
+base and all women pitiless. As to the men--I cannot say. But I wish you
+to know that not all women are without pity."
+
+She was silent a few moments. Then in a weak voice she spoke:
+
+"In the name of how many women do you bring this message to me?"
+
+I smiled in my turn. "There are four of us," I said, cheerfully. "Two
+Englishwomen, a Norwegian, who is deaf and dumb--and myself. The deaf and
+dumb one," I added, "is really very intelligent."
+
+Marie Tarnowska laughed! It was a low, sudden trill of laughter, and she
+herself seemed startled at the unaccustomed sound. The Sisters turned to
+look at her with an air of gentle amazement.
+
+But in my eyes Marie Tarnowska had ceased to be the murderess, the
+Erinnys. Through the criminal in her dress of shame I had caught a
+glimpse of the little girl in the blue spectacles, the happy little girl
+who felt that every one loved her. That lonely, tremulous trill of
+laughter astray on the tragic lips stirred me to the depths; and sudden
+tears filled my eyes.
+
+Marie Tarnowska saw this, and turned pale. Then she sat down,
+unconsciously assuming the same chastened attitude as the Sisters, her
+hands submissively folded, her dark lashes cast down over her long light
+eyes. For some time there was silence.
+
+"I have read your notes," I said at last.
+
+"My notes? I do not remember writing them." Suddenly her voice sounded
+harsh and her glance flashed at me keen as a blade of steel.
+
+"You wrote them in the prison at Venice, in pencil, in a child's
+exercise book."
+
+"It may be so." Marie Tarnowska breathed a long sigh. "That was a time
+of dreams," she said, raising her stricken eyes to mine. "I sometimes
+dream that this is all a dream. I think I must have fallen asleep one
+day when I was a little child, at home in Otrada--perhaps in our garden
+on the swing. I used often to fall asleep on that creaky old swing,
+reading a book, or looking at the sky. Perhaps I shall wake up soon, and
+find that none of all these dreadful things are true." She fingered the
+broad brown-and-white stripes of her prison-garb and gazed round the
+dreary room. Then her eyes strayed from the whitewashed walls, bare
+except for a large ebony crucifix, to the narrow iron-barred window, and
+back to the Sisters sitting along the wall like a triptych of
+Renunciation, with folded hands and lips moving silently in their
+habitual prayer. "Yes, I shall wake up soon and find myself in our old
+garden again. My mother will come down the path and across the lawn,
+with her little white shawl on her head; she will call me: 'Mura! Mura!
+Where are you? Come, child, it is time for tea; and Vassili is asking
+for you.' Then I shall jump from the swing and run to her and hide my
+face on her breast. 'Mother, if you knew what a dream I have had--a
+terrible dream, all about deaths and murders! I thought I had married
+Vassili, and he was unkind to me--as if Vassili could be unkind!--and I
+was locked in a prison in Italy--imagine, mother, to be imprisoned in
+Italy, where people only go for their honeymoon!' And mother will kiss
+me and laugh at the crazy dream as we go across the lawn together,
+happily, arm in arm."
+
+I found no word to say, though her eyes seemed to question me; and her
+fragile voice spoke again: "Surely, this cannot all be true? It cannot
+be true that they are all dead. My mother? And little Peter? And
+Bozevsky? And Stahl? And Kamarowsky? Why, it is like--like 'Hamlet.'" She
+broke into strident laughter. "Do you remember how they all die in
+'Hamlet'? One here, one there, one in the stream, one behind the
+curtain, drowned, stabbed, strangled--" Suddenly she was silent, looking
+straight before her with startled eyes.
+
+"Poor Mura!" I murmured, and lightly touched her hand.
+
+At the sound of the tender Russian appellative she turned to me quickly.
+Then she began speaking under her breath in hurried whispers.
+
+"Who told you my name? Who are you? Are you my sister Olga? Do you
+remember the merry-go-round at the school-feast in Kieff? How we cried
+when it swung us round and round and round and would not stop? I seem to
+be still on the merry-go-round, rushing along, hastening, hurrying with
+the loud music pealing in my head."
+
+The Mother Superior rose and approached her. "Hush," she spoke in
+soothing tones. "You will soon be quiet and at rest."
+
+But Marie Tarnowska paid no heed. Her eyes were still fixed on mine with
+a despairing gaze. "Wake me, wake me!" she cried. "And let me tell you
+my dream."
+
+And during those long mild April days she told it to me as follows.
+
+Where shall I begin? Wait, let me think--ah, yes! Where I fell asleep
+that day in the garden, on the swing. I remember it was a hot day even
+in Otrada; almost as hot as it is here. And it was my birthday; I was
+sixteen years old. My mother herself, with great solemnity, in the
+presence of my father and sisters, had twisted up my long curling hair
+and pinned it in great waves and coils on the top of my head. There were
+to be no more long plaits hanging down my back!
+
+"Your childhood is over, Mura," said my mother. "At sixteen one has to
+look and behave like a grown-up young lady."
+
+"That is exactly what I am, mother dear," I replied with great
+self-assurance.
+
+My mother smiled and sighed and kissed me. "You are such a child--such a
+child still, my little snowdrop," she said, and her eyes were tender and
+anxious.
+
+But I ran gaily out into the garden, feeling very proud of my red-gold
+helmet of curls. I sprang fearlessly on the swing, tossing my head from
+side to side, delighted to feel the back of my neck cool and uncovered
+to the breeze. What would Vassili say to see me like this! But soon the
+hairpins felt heavy; they pulled a hair or two here, and a hair or two
+there, and hurt me. I stopped the swing, and with my head bent forward I
+quickly drew all the hairpins out and threw them on the ground.
+
+The heavy coils of hair loosened, untwisted like a glittering snake, and
+fell all about me like a cloak of gold. I leaped upon the swing again
+and, standing, swung myself in wide flights through the clear air. What
+joy it was! As I flew forward my hair streamed out behind me like a
+flag, and in the backward sweep it floated all about my head in a
+whirling canopy of light.
+
+I laughed and sang out loud to myself. How delightful was the world! How
+blissful to be alive and in the sunshine!
+
+Suddenly Vassili appeared at the end of the path with my cousin, Prince
+Troubetzkoi. They were coming towards me arm in arm, smoking cigarettes
+and gazing at me. I felt shy of my loosened hair; I should have liked to
+jump down and run away, but the swing was flying too high and I could
+not stop it.
+
+The two men looked at me with strange intent eyes, as no one had ever
+looked at me before. I felt a hot blush rise to my cheeks like a flame.
+Obeying a sudden, overmastering impulse I let go the ropes and covered
+my face with my hands. I heard a cry--did it come from me?--then
+everything whirled round me.... For an instant I saw the gravel path
+rise straight in front of me as if to strike me on the forehead. I threw
+myself back, something seemed to crash into the nape of my neck--and I
+remember no more.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+I see the ensuing days as through a vague blue mist. I see myself
+reclining in an armchair, and my mother sitting beside me with her
+crochet-work. She is crocheting something of yellow wool. It is strange
+how the sight of that yellow wool hurts and repels me, but I cannot find
+words in which to express it, I seem unable to speak; and mother
+crochets on calmly, with quick white hands. I am conscious of a dull
+pain in the nape of my neck. Then I see Vassili come in; he is carrying
+an enormous cage in his hand; and Olga follows him, laughing and
+radiant. "Here he is! here he is!" cries Vassili triumphantly, putting
+the cage down beside me; and in it, to my horror, I see a parrot, a huge
+gray and scarlet creature, twisting a hard black tongue round and round
+as he clambers about the cage. I cry out in terror: "Why--why do they
+bring me things that frighten me?" And I burst into tears. Every one
+gazes at me in amazement; my mother bends tenderly over me: "But, my own
+darling, yesterday you said you wanted to have a parrot. Vassili has
+been all the way to Moscow to buy it for you."
+
+"No, no! it is not true! I never said I wanted a parrot! Take it away!
+It frightens me. And so does the yellow wool." I hear myself weeping
+loudly; then everything is blotted out and vanishes--parrot, Vassili,
+yellow wool, Olga--nothing remains but my mother's sad and anxious face
+bending above me, dim and constant as the light of a lamp in a shadowy
+chapel.
+
+
+When I was able to come down to breakfast for the first time, my father
+stood waiting for me, straight and solemn at the foot of the great
+staircase. He gave me his arm with much ceremony and led me to my place,
+where flowers lay in fragrant heaps round my plate. Every one embraced
+and complimented me and I was very happy.
+
+"I feel as if I were a princess!" I cried, clapping my hands; and they
+all laughed except my father, who answered gravely:
+
+"If it is your wish, you may become one. Prince Ivan has asked for your
+hand."
+
+"Ivan? Ivan Troubetzkoi?" All the gladness went out of my heart.
+
+"Yes. And so has Katerinowitch," exclaimed Olga, with a bitter smile;
+and I noticed that she looked pale and sad.
+
+"Both Ivan and Katerinowitch? How extraordinary!" Then glancing at my
+mother, whose eyes were fixed upon her plate, I added jestingly, "Is
+that all? No one else?"
+
+My pleasantry fell flat, for no one answered, and I saw my father
+knitting his brows. But my mother lifted her eyes for an instant and
+looked at me. In the blue light of that dear gaze I read my happiness!
+
+But Olga was speaking. "Yes," she said, "there is some one else. Vassili
+Tarnowsky has asked to marry you." And she added, with a touch of
+bitterness: "I wonder what has possessed all three of them!"
+
+Vassili! Vassili! Vassili! The name rang like a clarion in my ears. I
+should be Vassili's wife! I should be the Countess Tarnowska--the
+happiest woman in all this happy world. Every other girl on earth--poor
+luckless girls who could not marry Vassili--would envy me. On his arm I
+should pass proudly and serenely through life, rejoicing in his beauty,
+protected by his strength. Sheltered on his breast the storms would pass
+over my head, nor could sorrow ever touch me.
+
+  [Illustration: COUNT O'ROURKE]
+
+"I trust that your choice will fall on Troubetzkoi," said my father.
+
+"Or on Vassili," cried Olga quickly.
+
+I jumped up and embraced her. "It shall not be Katerinowitch, that I
+promise," I whispered, kissing the little pink ear that nestled under
+her fair curls. "He is to be for you!"
+
+Time was to fulfil this prophecy.
+
+As I went round the table, and passed my mother--poor little nervous
+mother!--I laid my hand on her arm. I noticed that she was trembling all
+over. Then I summoned up courage and approached my father.
+
+"Father, dear, if you want your little Mura to be happy, you must let
+her marry Vassili."
+
+"Never," cried my father, striking the table with his fist. The soul of
+the ancient O'Rourke--a demoniacal Irish ancestor of ours whose memory
+always struck terror to our souls--had awakened in him. I saw Olga and my
+mother turn pale. Nevertheless I laughed and kissed him again. "If I do
+not marry Vassili, I shall die! And please, father, do not be the
+Terrible O'Rourke, for you are frightening mother!"
+
+But papa, dominated by the atavistic influence of the O'Rourke, grew
+even more terrible; and mother was greatly frightened. She sat white and
+rigid, with scarcely fluttering breath; suddenly in her transparent eyes
+the pupils floated upward like two misty pale-blue half-moons; she was
+in the throes of one of her dreaded epileptic seizures.
+
+Then they were all around her, helping her, loosening her dress, fanning
+her; while I stood aside trembling and woebegone, and the pains in the
+nape of my neck racked me anew.
+
+I said to myself that my father was hard and wicked, that I should marry
+Vassili and carry mother off with me, ever so far away!
+
+As for papa, he should only be allowed to see us once a year. At
+Christmas.
+
+I have married Vassili.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+I pretended to be seized with such convulsions that my poor dear mother,
+being at her wits' end, at last allowed me to run away with him.
+
+Do I say "I pretended"? I am not sure that that is correct. At first the
+convulsions were certainly a mere pretense. I would say to myself: "Now
+I shall make myself have convulsions." But as soon as I had begun I
+could not stop. After I had voluntarily gnashed my teeth they seemed to
+become locked as in a vice; my fists that I had purposely clenched would
+not reopen. My nails dug into the palms of my hands, and I could see the
+blood flowing down my wrists without being able to unclasp or relax my
+fingers.
+
+Doctor Orlof, summoned in haste from Kieff, shook his head gravely.
+
+"There are indications of epilepsy, due to the fall from the swing."
+
+"No, no, no!" I cried. "Not the swing! It is because of Vassili!"
+
+My mother trembled and wept.
+
+How cruel we are in our childhood! How we torture the mothers that adore
+us, even though we love them with all our hearts. And oh! the tragedy of
+not understanding this until it is too late, when we can never, never
+ask for their forgiveness, nor console them or atone to them again.
+
+
+I married Vassili.
+
+My father, more the Terrible O'Rourke than ever, at once refused to have
+anything to do with me. He denied me his kiss and his forgiveness. I was
+very unhappy.
+
+"Oh, don't bother your head about that tiresome old man," said Vassili,
+much annoyed by my tears.
+
+As for my mother, she could only entreat Vassili to be kind and gentle
+with me.
+
+"Take care of her, Vassili," she implored. "I have given her to you lest
+she should die of a broken heart: but she is really too young to be any
+one's wife--she is but a child! I do not know whether you understand me.
+Remember she is not yet a woman. She is a child."
+
+"Yes, yes, yes," said Vassili, without paying much attention. "That's
+all right. I shall tweak her nose if she is naughty."
+
+"And if I am good?" I asked, lifting ecstatic eyes to his handsome
+nonchalant face.
+
+"If you are good you shall have sweets and kisses!" and he laughed,
+showing all his white teeth.
+
+"Promise me, Vassili, that you will always sing my favorite song: 'Oh
+distant steppes, oh savage plains,' to me, and to no one else."
+
+"To you and to no one else," said Vassili with mock solemnity. "Come
+then, Marie Tarnowska!" and he drew my arm under his, patting my hand on
+which the new nuptial ring shone in all its brightness.
+
+"_Marie Tarnowska!_" What a beautiful name! I could have wished the
+whole world to know that name; I could have wished that every one seeing
+me should say: "Behold, behold Marie Tarnowska, happiest and most
+blessed among women."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+On my wedding night, in the hotel at Kharkoff, I summoned the
+chambermaid. She knocked and entered. She was a pert, pretty creature,
+and after surveying me from head to foot she threw a rapid glance at
+Vassili. He was seated in an armchair, lighting a cigarette.
+
+"What is your name?" he asked the girl.
+
+"Rosalia, at your service, sir," she replied.
+
+"Very good, Rosalia," said my husband. "This evening we shall do without
+you. Possibly in a day or two I may wish to see you again."
+
+The girl laughed, made a slight curtsey, and went out, closing the door
+behind her.
+
+"But who is going to do my hair?" I asked, feeling very much out of
+countenance and shy at remaining alone with him.
+
+"Never mind about your hair," said Vassili. "Don't be so tedious. You're
+a little bore." And he kissed me.
+
+Then he sat down and smoked his cigarette, watching me out of narrowed
+eyelids as I wandered about the room in great trepidation and
+embarrassment. I was about to kneel down by the bedside to say my
+prayers, when he suddenly grasped my wrist and held it tightly.
+
+"What are you doing now?" he inquired.
+
+"I am going to say my prayers," I replied.
+
+"Don't bother about your prayers," he said. "Try not to be such an awful
+little bore. Really you are quite insufferable."
+
+But I would not have missed my prayers for the world. At home prayers
+had always been a matter of great importance. Olga and I used to say
+them aloud in unison morning and evening. And now that Olga was far away
+I must say them alone. I buried my face in my hands and said them
+devoutly, with all my heart.
+
+They were, I admit, numerous and long; and they were in many languages,
+for every nurse or governess that came to us in Otrada had taught us new
+ones; and Olga and I were afraid to leave any out, lest God should be
+offended; we were also rather doubtful as to which language He
+understood the best.
+
+I had just come to an English prayer--
+
+    Now I lay me down to sleep
+    I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep.
+    If I should die before I wake...
+
+(Here Olga and I used always to interpolate a short prayer of our own
+invention: "Please, dear God, do not on any account let us die to-night.
+Amen.")--when Vassili interrupted me.
+
+"Haven't you finished?" he cried, putting his arm round my neck. "You
+are very tiresome. You bore me to extinction."
+
+"You bore me!" That was the perpetual refrain of all his days. I always
+bored him. Perhaps it was not surprising. At seventeen one is not always
+clever and entertaining, especially outside the family circle. At home I
+had always been considered rather witty and intelligent, but to Vassili
+I was never anything but "a dreadful bore."
+
+When I caught sight of him pinching Rosalia's cheek and I burst into
+tears: "You are a fearful bore," he said crossly. If I noticed the scent
+of musk or patchouli on his coat and ventured to question him about
+it--"You are an insufferable little bore," would be all the answer I got.
+When he went out (taking the music of "My Savage Plains" with him) and
+stayed away all night, on his return next morning I sobbed out my
+anguish on his breast. "I must say you bore me to death," he yawned.
+
+And one day I heard that he had had a child by a German baroness.
+
+At the sight of my paroxysm of despair he grew angry. "What does it
+matter to you, silly creature, since you have not got one yourself?" he
+exclaimed. "Wearisome little bore that you are; you can't even have a
+child."
+
+I was aghast. What--what did he mean? Why could I not--?
+
+"No! no!" he shouted, with his handsome mouth rounded and open like
+those of the stone cherubs on the walls of his castle, "you will never
+have any children. You are not a woman. Your mother herself said so."
+And the look which he flashed across my frail body cut me like a sword.
+
+I fell fainting to the ground.
+
+Then he became alarmed. He called everybody. He summoned the whole staff
+of the hotel. He sent for all the ladies he knew in Kharkoff (and they
+were many) imploring them all to save me, to recall me to life. When I
+came to myself the room was filled with women: there was Rosalia, and
+two Hungarian girls from the adjoining apartment, and there was also the
+German baroness, and little Julia Terlezkaja, the latest and fairest of
+my husband's conquests. All these graceful creatures were bending over
+my couch, while Vassili on his knees with his head buried in the
+coverlet was sobbing: "Save her! She is dead! I have killed her!"
+
+I put out my hand and touched his hair.
+
+"I am alive," I said softly; and he threw himself upon me and kissed me.
+The women stood round us in a semi-circle, gay and graceful as the
+figures on a Gobelin tapestry.
+
+"I love you," Vassili was exclaiming; "I love you just as you are. I
+should hate you to be like everybody else." And in French he added,
+looking at Madame Terlezkaja: "C'est tres rigolo d'avoir une femme qui
+n'est pas une femme."
+
+I hid my face in the pillow, and wept; while the fair Terlezkaja, who
+seemed to be the kindest of them all, bent over and consoled me.
+
+"Pay no heed to him," she whispered. "I think he has been drinking a
+little."
+
+The door opened. A doctor, who had been sent for by the manager of the
+hotel, entered with a resolute authoritative air. At the sight of him
+the women disappeared like a flight of startled sparrows. Of course they
+took Vassili with them.
+
+To the good old doctor I confided the secret which Vassili had disclosed
+to me and which was burning my heart.
+
+"I want to have a child, a little child of my own!" I cried.
+
+"Of course. Of course. So you shall," said the old doctor, with a
+soothing smile. "There is no reason why you should not. You are a little
+anemic, that is all."
+
+He scribbled some prescriptions on his tablets.
+
+"There. You will take all that. And you will go to Franzensbad. Within a
+year you will be asking me to act as godpapa."
+
+I took all he prescribed. But I did not go to Franzensbad. Vassili
+wanted to go to Petersburg, so, of course, it was to Petersburg we went.
+
+The very first evening we were there a number of his friends came to
+call on him.
+
+I remember, among the rest, a certain German Grand Duke, who, after
+showing me an infinite amount of attention, drew Vassili aside and spoke
+to him in undertones. I heard him mention the name of a famous
+restaurant and the words: "A jolly supper-party to-night--some
+ravishingly pretty tziganes...." There followed names of men and women
+whom I did not know, and my husband laughed loudly.
+
+Then the Grand Duke turned to me, and bowing deeply and ceremoniously
+kissed my hand.
+
+For an instant a frenzied impulse came over me to clutch that
+well-groomed head and cry: "Wicked man! Why are you trying to lure my
+husband from me?" But social conventions prevailed over this elementary
+instinct, and when the Grand Duke raised his patrician head he found me
+all amiability and smiles.
+
+"She is indeed a bewitching creature!" I heard him mutter to Vassili.
+"Looks just like one of Botticelli's diaphanous angels. Well then, at
+eleven o'clock to-night, at the 'Hermitage.'"
+
+Promptly at a quarter to eleven Vassili, sleek, trim and immaculate,
+kissed my cheek gaily and went out.
+
+I was alone. Alone in the great drawing-room, gorgeous with lights and
+mirrors and gilded decorations. What was the good of being a bewitching
+creature? What was the good of looking like one of Botticelli's
+diaphanous angels?...
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+I rang for my maid, Katja, a good creature, ugly beyond words--and gladly
+chosen by me on that account--and I told her that she was to undress me
+for I was going to bed. While she was unfastening my dress I could hear
+her muttering: "If it were me, I should not go to bed. If it were me, I
+should put on my diamonds and my scarlet chiffon gown; I should take a
+good bottle of vitriol in my pocket, and go and see what they were up
+to."
+
+"Katja, what are you mumbling? Do you mean to say that you--that you
+think I ought to go--?"
+
+"Of course," she cried, and her small squinting eyes shot forth, to the
+right and left, fierce, divergent flashes of indignation. "Why should my
+lady not go?"
+
+Why should I not, indeed? Had I not the right--nay, the duty--to follow
+Vassili? Had I not most solemnly promised so to do, in the little church
+on the steppes a year ago? "_Follow him!_" With what tremulous joy had I
+repeated after the priest those two words of tenacity and submission.
+Had they no application to the Hermitage restaurant?
+
+"Perhaps I might venture to go," I murmured, "but, Katja, do not other
+women always have rouge and powder to put on when they go out? I have
+nothing."
+
+"Nothing but your eighteen years, madame," replied Katja.
+
+She dressed me in the low-necked scarlet chiffon gown. She drew on my
+flame-colored stockings, and my crimson shoes. On my head she placed the
+diamond and ruby tiara, and about my shoulders she wound a red and gold
+scarf which looked like a snake of fire.
+
+"Alas, Katja!" I sighed as I looked at myself in the mirror; "what would
+my mother say if she were to see me like this? What do I look like?"
+
+"You look like a lighted torch," said Katja.
+
+I made her come with me in the troika, which sped swiftly and silently
+through the dim snow-covered streets. I was shaking with fear at the
+thought of Vassili. Katja was mumbling some prayers.
+
+We drew up at the brilliant entrance of the restaurant.
+
+"Oh, heavens, Katja! What will my husband say?"
+
+"He will say that you are beautiful."
+
+How did I ever venture across that threshold of dazzling light? How was
+I able to ascend the red-carpeted stairs, preceded and followed by bows
+and smiles and whispers? At the head of the wide staircase, in front of
+a double-paneled door of white and gold, I paused with beating heart,
+almost unable to breathe. I could hear the gipsy-music inside, and
+women's voices and men's laughter and the tinkling of glasses.
+
+An impassive head-waiter stood before me, calmly awaiting my orders.
+
+"Tell"--I stammered--"tell--" as I thought of Vassili my courage failed
+me--"tell his Highness the Grand Duke that I wish to see him."
+
+Then I clung to the balustrade and waited. As the door opened and was
+quickly closed again, there came forth a puff of heat and sound which
+enwrapped me like a flame.
+
+Almost immediately the door opened again and the Grand Duke appeared
+upon the threshold, his countenance still elated by recent laughter. He
+stared at me in astonishment, without recognition. "What--what can I do
+for you?" he asked. Then his eyes widened in limitless astonishment.
+"Upon my word! It is the Botticelli angel!"
+
+I said "Yes," and felt inclined to weep.
+
+"Come in, come in!" he cried eagerly, taking me by the arm and leading
+me to the door.
+
+A waiter threw it wide open. I had a dazzling vision of a table
+resplendent with crystal, silver, and flowers, and the bare jeweled
+shoulders of women.
+
+"Tarnowsky!" called the Grand Duke from the threshold. "Fortunate among
+men! Behold--the most glorious of your conquests!"
+
+Vassili had started to his feet and was looking at me with amazed and
+incredulous eyes. There was a deep silence. I felt as if I should die.
+Vassili came up to me. He took me brusquely by the hand, crushing my
+fingers in his iron clasp. "You are mad!" he said. Then he looked at me
+from head to foot--not with the gaze of a husband, nor yet with that of a
+lover, but with the cold curious scrutiny of the perfect connoisseur.
+
+"Come," he said at last, drawing me towards the others who were in a
+riot of laughter. "I have always told my friends that you were a
+chilling, lily-white flake of snow. You are not!" And he laughed. "You
+are a blazing little firebrand! Come in!"
+
+
+Thenceforward my husband would always have me with him. My untutored
+adolescence was trailed from revelry to revelry, from banquet to orgy;
+my innocence swept into the maelstrom of a licentious life. I was forced
+to look into the depths of every depravity; to my lips was proffered
+every chalice of shame.
+
+Oh, if as I stood trembling on the confines of maidenhood, some strong
+and tender hand had drawn me into safety, should not I have been like
+other women, those happy women who walk with lofty brows in the
+sunshine, august and ruthless in their purity?
+
+But, alas! when with tardy and reluctant step I issued forth from my
+long childhood, a thousand cruel hands were thrust out to push me
+towards the abyss.
+
+Oh, white pathway of innocence which knows no return! Oh, tenuous light
+of purity which, once quenched, kindles no more! Did I not grieve and
+mourn for you when I lost you before my twentieth year? Sadly,
+enviously, like some poor exile, I saw other girls of my age passing in
+blithe security by the side of their mothers, blushing at an eager word
+or at a daring glance. Alas! I felt that I was unworthy to kiss the hem
+of their skirts.
+
+
+But bliss was to be vouchsafed to me. Redeeming and triumphant there
+came to me at last the Angel of Maternity. With proud humility I bore
+the little human flower fluttering in my breast. At every throb of life
+I felt myself swooning with joy--with the ineffable joy of my reconquered
+purity.
+
+My mother was with me, and in the tender haven of her arms I found
+shelter for my meek and boundless ecstasy.
+
+How is it possible, I asked myself, that there are women who dread this
+perfect happiness, who weep and suffer through these months fraught with
+rapturous two-fold life?
+
+For me, I felt like a flowering plant in springtime, impelled by some
+potent influence towards its perfect blossoming. The whole of that
+blissful period seemed a sublime ascent to unalloyed felicity;
+everything enchanted me, from the awed and tremulous waiting to the
+final crowning consummation.
+
+When at last the fragile infant--my son!--lay in my arms, he seemed to me
+sufficient to fill my entire life. I nursed him into ever-growing wonder
+and beauty. Day by day he seemed fairer, more entrancing, like a
+delicate flower in some fantastic lunar legend.
+
+Oh, the wee groping hands against my face! The wilful little caprices,
+the cries like those of an angry dove! And the dimples on the elbows;
+the droll battle with the little cap always awry, and the joyous
+impatience of the tiny kicking feet!
+
+Each day my mother and I invented new names for him--names of little
+flowers, names of little animals, nonsense-names made up of sweet
+senseless sounds.
+
+I had no thought, I had no desire. Pale and pure I sat enthroned in the
+milk-white paradise of maternity.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Soon after that my thoughts are adrift, my recollections grow confused.
+I see my mother with my baby in her arms, and myself in traveling
+attire, with my arms twined about them, weeping, despairing, refusing to
+leave them and set out on a journey of Vassili's planning. But Vassili
+grows impatient. Vassili grows angry. He is tired of playing the papa,
+tired of seeing me no longer a little "firebrand," but calm as a young
+Madonna in the beatific purity of motherhood.
+
+Vassili has taken it into his head that he wants to study singing. He
+has made up his mind to go to Italy, to Milan, to study scales and
+exercises; and I must go with him.
+
+"But our baby, Vassili, our little Tioka! We must take our baby with
+us!"
+
+No. Vassili does not want babies. He does not want to be bothered or
+hindered. "We are carting about eight trunks as it is!" he says,
+cynically.
+
+And so we start for Italy--Italy, the yearned-for goal of all my girlish
+dreams.
+
+At Milan Vassili sings. I seem always to see him with his handsome mouth
+open, singing scales and arpeggios. But a slow poison is creeping
+through my blood and I fall ill, ill with typhoid fever.
+
+Again my thoughts go adrift and my recollections are confused. They
+dance in grotesque and hideous visions through my brain. I see livid
+hallucinated faces peering at me, towers and mountains tottering above
+me, undefined horrors all about me, and in the midst of them all I see
+Vassili--singing! He sings scales and arpeggios with his rounded open
+mouth. Now I can see a white spider--no, two white spiders--running about
+on a scarlet coverlet.... They are my hands. They frighten me. And
+Vassili is singing.
+
+"Vassili, why are you singing? Don't sing! Don't sing!"
+
+"No, darling, I am not singing. You only imagine it. You are ill; you
+are feverish. Calm yourself."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Vassili, where is my baby?"
+
+"At home in Kieff, with grandmama. Dear grandmama is taking such good
+care of him!"
+
+"And why are we not with him? Where are we?"
+
+"We are at Pegli, darling."
+
+"Why? Why? Where is Pegli? What are we doing at Pegli?"
+
+"Come now, dearest; you know--we came to Italy because I wanted to sing--"
+
+"Ah, you see! You wanted to sing! Why do you want to sing when the baby
+is crying? The baby is so helpless. Why did you take me away from him?
+You sing, you sing so loud that I cannot hear my baby crying. Don't
+sing!"
+
+But even as I speak I see that Vassili has his round mouth open again
+and he sings and sings, and the white spiders run over the scarlet
+counterpane and come close to my face--and the white spiders are my
+hands. I shriek and shriek to have them taken away. But the baby is
+crying and Vassili is singing and no one hears me.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then I drop down to the bottom of a deep well. I feel myself falling,
+falling, until with a great shock I touch the bottom. And there I lie
+motionless in the dark.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+When I open my eyes there is a great deal of light; the windows are
+open, the sun is pouring in; I know that outside there is the sea.
+Beside my bed sits a doctor with a gray beard, feeling my pulse. Under
+the light intermittent pressure of his fingers my pulse seems to grow
+quieter; I can see the doctor's head giving little nods as he counts the
+beats.
+
+"Sixty-five. Excellent, excellent!" The doctor pats my hand gently and
+encouragingly. "That is first-rate. We are quite well again."
+
+Then I hear some one weeping softly, and I know it is my mother. I try
+to turn and smile at her, but my head will not move. It is like a ball
+of lead sunk in the pillow. Immediately afterwards--or have years
+passed?--I hear some one say: "Here is the Professor!" And again the same
+doctor with the gray beard comes in and smiles at me.
+
+Before sitting down beside the bed he turns to my mother: "Has she not
+yet asked about her child?" My mother shakes her head and presses her
+handkerchief to her eyes. Then the doctor sits down beside my bed and
+strokes my forehead and speaks to me.
+
+He speaks about a baby. He repeats a name over and over again--perhaps it
+is Tioka. Tioka? Who is Tioka? I watch his beard moving up and down, and
+do not know what he is saying. The ball of lead on my pillow rolls from
+side to side with a dull and heavy ache.
+
+My mother weeps bitterly: "Oh, doctor, do not let her die!"
+
+The white spiders are there again, running over the coverlet. And I fall
+once more, down, down, down, to the bottom of the well.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+For how many months was I ill? I do not know. Vassili, restless and
+idle, "carted" me and my medicines and my sufferings from Pegli to
+Genoa, from Genoa to Florence. He seemed to have forgotten that we had a
+home; he seemed to have forgotten that we had a child.
+
+Our rooms at the hotel in Florence were bright with sunshine and with
+the frivolous gaiety of a graceful trio of Russian ladies--the Princess
+Dubinskaja, her sister Vera Vojatschek, and the fair-haired Olga
+Kralberg, who came to see us every day. But I felt lost and lonely, as
+if astray in the world. My mother had returned to Russia, and my vacant
+and aching heart invoked Vassili, who, alas! was never by my side.
+
+"You must win him back," said Olga Kralberg to me one day--she, whose
+fate it was on a not distant day to commit suicide for his sake. "Every
+man, especially if he is a husband, has--after some time--to be won back
+again."
+
+"That is sooner said than done," I replied despondently. "To win a man
+is easy enough. But to win him back--"
+
+"There are various ways of doing it," she said. "Have you tried being
+very affectionate?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," said I.
+
+"How did it answer?"
+
+"He was bored to death."
+
+"Have you tried being cool and distant? Being, so to speak, a stranger
+to him?"
+
+"Yes, I have."
+
+"And he?"
+
+"He never even noticed that I was being a stranger to him. He was as
+happy and good-tempered as ever."
+
+Olga shook her head dejectedly. "Have you tried being hysterical?" she
+asked after a while.
+
+I hesitated. "I think so," I said at last. "But I do not quite know what
+you mean."
+
+"Well," explained Olga sententiously, "with some men, who cannot bear
+healthy normal women, hysteria is a great success. Of course, it must be
+esthetic hysteria--you must try to preserve the plastic line through it
+all," and Olga sketched with her thumb a vague painter's gesture in the
+air. "For example, you deluge yourself in strange perfumes. You trail
+about the house in weird clinging gowns. You faint away at the sight of
+certain shades of color--"
+
+"What an absurd idea!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Not at all. Not in the least," said Olga. "On the contrary, it is very
+modern, very piquant to swoon away every time you see a certain shade
+of--of mauve, for instance."
+
+"But what if I don't see it?"
+
+"Silly! You _must_ see it. Give orders to a shop to send you ten yards
+of mauve silk. Open the parcel in your husband's presence. Then--then you
+totter; you fall down--but mind," added Olga, "that you fall in a
+graceful, impressionist attitude. Like this." And Olga illustrated her
+meaning in what appeared to me a very foolish posture.
+
+"I think it ridiculous," I said to her. And she was deeply offended.
+
+"Good-by," she said, pinning her hat on briskly and spitefully.
+
+"No, no! Don't go away. Do not desert me," I implored. "Try to suggest
+something else."
+
+Olga was mollified. After reflecting a few moments she remarked.
+
+"Have you tried being a ray of sunshine to him?"
+
+I lost patience with her. "What do you mean by a 'ray of sunshine'? You
+seem to be swayed by stock phrases, such as one reads in novels."
+
+This time Olga was not offended. She explained that in order to be a ray
+of sunshine in a man's life, one must appear before him gay, sparkling
+and radiant at all hours of the day.
+
+"Always dress in the lightest of colors. Put a ribbon in your hair. When
+you hear his footsteps, run to meet him and throw your arms round his
+neck. When he goes out, toss a flower to him from the window. When he
+seems dull or silent, take your guitar and sing to him."
+
+"You know I don't play the guitar," I said pettishly.
+
+"That does not matter. What really counts is the singing. The atmosphere
+that surrounds him should be bright with unstudied gaiety. He ought to
+live, so to speak, in a whirlwind of sunshine!"
+
+"Well, I will try," I sighed, without much conviction.
+
+I did try.
+
+I dressed in the lightest of colors and I pinned a ribbon in my hair.
+When I heard his footstep, I ran to meet him and threw my arms round his
+neck.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked. "And what on earth have you got on your
+head? You look like a barmaid."
+
+To the best of my powers I was a whirlwind of sunshine; and as soon as I
+saw that he was dull and silent (and this occurred almost immediately) I
+said to myself that the moment was come for me to sing to him.
+
+I sat down at the piano. I have not much ear, but a fine strong voice,
+even if not always quite in tune.
+
+At the second bar Vassili got up, took his hat and left the house. I
+threw a flower to him from the window.
+
+He did not come back for three days.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+When I talked it over with Olga, she was very sympathetic.
+
+"I know," she mused, "that these things sometimes succeed and sometimes
+do not. Men are not all alike." Then she added: "But there is one sure
+way of winning them back. It is an old method, but infallible."
+
+"What is it?" I asked skeptically.
+
+"By making them jealous. It is vulgar, it is _rococo_, it causes no end
+of trouble. But it is infallible."
+
+We reviewed the names of all the men who could possibly be employed to
+arouse Vassili's jealousy. We could think of no one. I was surrounded by
+nothing but women.
+
+"It is past belief," said Olga, surveying me from head to foot, "that
+there should be no one willing to--"
+
+I shook my head moodily. "No one on earth."
+
+Olga grasped my wrist. "Stay! I have an idea. We will get some one who
+is not on earth. Some one who is dead. It will be much simpler. I
+remember there was an idea of that kind in an unsuccessful play I saw a
+year or two ago. What we need is a dead man--recently dead, if possible,
+and, if possible, young. If he has committed suicide, so much the
+better."
+
+"What on earth do you want with a dead man?" I asked, shuddering.
+
+"Why! can't you see? We will say that he died for your sake!" cried
+Olga, "that he killed himself on your account. We will have a telegram
+sent to us by some one in Russia. We will get them to telegraph to you:
+'I die for your sake. Am killing myself. Farewell!'"
+
+"But who is to sign it?"
+
+"Oh, somebody or other," said Olga vaguely. "Or we could have it signed
+with an imaginary name, if you prefer it. That would enable us to
+dispense with the corpse."
+
+"I most certainly prefer that," I remarked. "But, frankly, I can't see--"
+
+"What can't you see? Don't you see the effect upon Vassili of the news
+that a man has killed himself for your sake? Don't you see the new
+irresistible attraction which you will then exercise over him? Surely
+you know what strange subtle charm emanates from the 'fatal woman'--the
+woman whose lethal beauty--"
+
+"Very well, very well," I said, slightly encouraged. "Let us have the
+telegram written and sent to me."
+
+We spent the rest of the afternoon composing it.
+
+
+Three days later Vassili entered the drawing-room where Olga and I were
+having tea; he held a telegram in his hand; his face was of a ghastly
+pallor.
+
+"He's got it," whispered Olga hysterically, pinching my arm.
+
+"Mura," said Vassili; "a horrible thing has happened. Horrible!" His
+white lips trembled as he uttered the incoherent words:
+
+"Dead--he is dead--he has killed himself--"
+
+He was unable to go on. His voice broke in a sob.
+
+I sprang to my feet. "Who, Vassili? Who?"
+
+Olga thought the moment had arrived for putting things in the proper
+light. She turned to me with a significant glance, and grasped my hand.
+
+"Ah! It is the man who loved you!" she exclaimed. "And this--this is what
+you dreaded!"
+
+"What! What!" shouted Vassili, clutching her arm and pushing her roughly
+aside. Then he turned upon me and seized me by the shoulder. "You--you
+knew of this? You dreaded this?"
+
+I stood trembling, struck dumb with terror. I could hear the futile and
+bewildered explanations of Olga:
+
+"Why, surely," she was saying with an insensate smile, "it is a thing
+that might happen to anybody. It is not her fault if people love her to
+distraction."
+
+But Vassili was crushing my wrist. "My brother--he loved you?" he gasped.
+
+"_Your brother?_ Your brother--little Peter?" I stammered.
+
+"Yes, yes! Peter," shouted Vassili. "My brother! What have you to do
+with his death?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing." I groaned. "I swear it--nothing!"
+
+And Olga, realizing at last that she stood in the presence of a genuine
+tragedy and not of the jest we had plotted, darted forward and caught
+his arm.
+
+"Vassili, you are mistaken. She knows nothing about it; nothing
+whatever. We had planned a joke to play on you, and we thought--" She
+pursued her agitated and incoherent explanations.
+
+Vassili looked from one to the other of us, scanning our faces, hardly
+hearing what Olga was saying. Suddenly he seemed to understand, and
+loosening his hold on my arm he fell upon the couch and buried his face
+in his hands.
+
+The telegram had dropped on the carpet. Olga picked it up and read it;
+then she handed it to me:
+
+      _Peter hanged himself last night. Come at once._
+
+                                                          TARNOWSKY.
+
+We left for Kieff the same evening. Throughout the entire journey
+Vassili never spoke. I sat mournful and silent opposite him and thought
+of my brother-in-law, Peter. Not of the pale youth, already corrupted by
+absinthe and women, whom we had left at Kieff a few months before, but
+of the child Peter, in his short velvet suit and lace collar, whom I had
+loved so dearly in the days of my girlhood--little Peter who used to run
+to meet me in the sun-splashed avenues of the Villa Tarnowsky, trotting
+up with his little bare legs and serious face, stopping to be kissed and
+then trotting hurriedly off again, the nape of his neck showing fair and
+plump beneath the upturned brim of his sailor-hat.
+
+How well I remember that sailor-hat! The black ribbon round the crown
+bore, between two anchors, the word, "_Implacable_"; and from under that
+fierce device the round and gentle countenance of little Peter gazed
+mildly out into the world.
+
+Little Peter's legs were always cold. He was brought up in English
+fashion, with short socks even in the depths of winter. From afar you
+could see little Peter's chilly bare legs, crimson against a background
+of snow. Sometimes, rubbing his knees, he would say to me: "I wish God
+had made me of fur, instead of--of leather, like this." And again he
+would remark: "I don't like being alive. Not that I want to die; but I
+wish I had never begun."
+
+And now little Peter had finished. Little Peter lay solemn and
+magnificent in the _chambre ardente_ where his dead ancestors had lain
+solemn and magnificent before him. "Implacable" indeed he lay, unmoved
+by the tears of his mother and father; his lofty brow was marble; his
+fair eyelashes lowered over his quenched and upturned eyes.
+
+When I thought of him thus I felt afraid.
+
+And it seemed strange to be afraid of little Peter.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+After we had crossed the Russian frontier another thought--a thought that
+filled me with unspeakable happiness--put all others to flight: my child!
+I should see my child again! All our relations would certainly be
+assembled at the Tarnowskys' house, so I should find my parents and my
+little Tioka there too. The image of the living child soon displaced the
+tragic memory of the dead youth. As the train sped towards Kieff my
+fever of gladness and impatience increased. Yes, to-morrow would be poor
+Peter's funeral, but this very evening I should clasp little Tioka in my
+arms!
+
+Raising my eyes, I saw that Vassili was looking at me with a scowl. "I
+have been watching you for some time," he said. "Heartless creature that
+you are, to laugh--to laugh in the face of death."
+
+"I was thinking of Tioka," I stammered. Vassili did not reply. But in
+the depths of my heart joy sang and whispered like a hidden fountain.
+
+Thus, inwardly rejoicing, did I enter the house of death and hasten to
+the dark-red room--the very scene of Peter's suicide--in which they had
+placed my baby's cradle; thus, while others mourned with prayers and
+tears in the gloomy death-chamber, I ran across the sun-filled garden
+holding my infant to my breast. I hid myself with him in the orchard and
+laughed and laughed aloud, as I kissed his starry eyes and his tiny,
+flower-like mouth.
+
+
+But Death, the Black Visitor, had entered my life. Little Peter had
+shown him the way, had opened the door to him.
+
+From that day forward the dread Intruder never forsook my threshold.
+
+Death, lurking at my door in terrifying silence, stretched out his hand
+at intervals and clutched some one belonging to me. Generally it was
+with a swift gesture--a fell disease or a pistol-shot--that he struck down
+and flung into the darkness those I loved.
+
+But towards me Death comes with a slower, more deliberate tread. For
+years, ever since the birth of my little daughter Tania,--my white
+rosebud born midst the snows of a dreary winter in Kieff--I have felt
+Death creeping towards me, slow, insidious, inexorable, holding in his
+hand a knot of serpents, each of which will fasten its poisoned fangs
+upon me. Disease, the venomous snake, will hide in my bosom and thrust
+its way through my veins. The heavy snake of Grief will coil round my
+heart and crush me in its spirals. Insanity will glide into my brain and
+nest there. Then--last but not least horrible--the little glass viper, the
+syringe of Pravaz, whose fang is a hollow needle, will draw me into the
+thraldom of its virulent grip. It will spurt its venom into my blood.
+The bland balm of coca, the milky juice of the poppy, will flow into my
+veins, soothing, assuaging, lulling me into sleep and forgetfulness--only
+to waken me in renewed agony of suffering to a renewed bite of the
+envenomed fang. For the only antidote to the poison of narcotics is the
+narcotic itself, the only alleviation to the tearing agony of the poison
+generated by morphia is morphia again. And so the fatal sequence swings
+on forever, in ever-widening circles of torment....
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+             _From Alexis Bozevsky to Stepan Nebrasoff._
+
+                                                  KIEFF, _Thursday_.
+
+  DEAR STEPAN, MY GOOD FRIEND,--
+
+      I am here in the house of your cousin, Dr. Stahl, who seems to
+      have grown longer and leaner than ever. He is a mere shadow.
+      It is here that your letter reaches me. You tell me to write
+      to you about myself. To-day, the 15th of October, 1903, I am
+      twenty-four years old. What gift will Destiny give me for my
+      birthday? Love? Wealth? A hero's death?
+
+      Your cousin Stahl, in his cavernous voice that seems to come
+      echoing up from underground, says that the gift of Destiny is
+      precisely these four-and-twenty years of mine! Perhaps he is
+      right. I feel them eddying in my blood like four-and-twenty
+      cyclones.
+
+      The world is a whirlwind of youth.
+
+      Kaufmann this morning lent me his sorrel stallion--the finest
+      horse in the Empire--and I had a gallop along the bastions. All
+      the women looked at me. In a phaeton I saw the brazen and
+      beautiful Princess Theodora, blonde and torrid as a Mexican
+      landscape. She was resplendent in amethyst and heliotrope, her
+      red locks flaming to the sun; no one but a princess would
+      permit herself to display such a riot of violent colors.
+
+      Soon afterwards I saw Vera Voroklizkaja, reclining in her
+      carriage, aloof and severe as a vestal virgin; her glossy
+      black tresses parted over her brow enclosed the narrow oval of
+      her face like soft black wings. Beside her sat little Miriam
+      Grey, clothed in her youthfulness as in an armor of roses. The
+      beauty of all these women courses through my blood like sun
+      and wine.
+
+      Upon my word life is an excellent institution.
+
+      And you--what are you doing?
+
+                                        Ever yours,
+
+                                                          BOZEVSKY.
+
+                           _The next day._
+
+  STEPAN, STEPAN, STEPAN!--
+
+      I am in love! Madly, sublimely, tragically in love! This
+      morning I went to the parade-ground as in a dream; I found
+      myself speaking to the colonel in a gentle winning voice that
+      was perfectly ludicrous. When I drilled my company I could
+      hear myself giving the words of command in an imploring tone
+      which I still blush to remember. I am obsessed, hallucinated;
+      there floats before my eyes a slender, ethereal creature, with
+      red lips that never smile, and hair that looks like a cataract
+      of champagne.
+
+      Stahl introduced me to her yesterday, here at his house.
+      "Come," he said, taking me by the arm. "You are going to make
+      the acquaintance of a superior being, soft of voice and sad of
+      countenance, who bears the gentle name of Marie."
+
+      "Let me off," I replied skeptically. "Sad and superior beings
+      are not to my liking."
+
+      "You will like this one," said Stahl.
+
+      "I know I shan't," I replied curtly. I saw Stahl's eye warn
+      me, and, turning, found myself face to face with the subject
+      of our conversation, a tall, flower-like vision, with
+      translucent eyes and a mystic inscrutable face.
+
+      I knew she had overheard me, and as I bowed low before her,
+      she said: "That you should like me is of no importance. What
+      really matters is that I should be pleased with you."
+
+      Her beauty and the scornful levity of her words struck me
+      strangely. "Madame," and I was surprised to feel that I spoke
+      with sincerity, "to please you will be henceforward the
+      highest aim of my desire."
+
+      She looked at me a moment; then she spoke quietly: "You have
+      attained your aim."
+
+      She turned and left me. I stood thunderstruck by the brief and
+      daring reply and by the flash of that clear gaze. She had
+      spoken the words without a smile.
+
+      She did not address me during the rest of the evening. When
+      she left, she barely glanced at me and vouchsafed neither
+      smile nor greeting.
+
+      Just for an instant she raised her black-fringed eyes and
+      gazed at me; then her lashes fell; and it was as if a light
+      had been blown out.
+
+      I am in love with her! Madly, divinely, desperately in love.
+      Ah, Stepan, love--what an ecstasy and what a disaster!
+
+                                                      Your BOZEVSKY.
+
+It was Dr. Stahl, the "Satanic Stahl," who got these letters from his
+cousin Stepan Nebrasoff, and showed them to me. They bewildered and
+troubled me. What? Was I really so attractive and so perturbing in the
+eyes of the gallant young Pole--the handsomest officer in the Imperial
+Guard? I repeated to myself his disquieting epithets: "flower-like,"
+"ethereal," "inscrutable"; and in my room at night when I loosened my
+hair, I wondered: "Does it really look like a cataract of champagne?"
+When I went out I never smiled, even when I felt inclined to do so,
+since my gravity had seemed so charming to him.
+
+Night and day he followed me like a shadow--or rather, should I say, like
+a blaze of light. In whatever direction I turned I was sure to encounter
+his radiant smile and his flashing glance. His passion encompassed me; I
+felt like Brunnhilde surrounded by a sea of flame. I was elated yet
+terrified.
+
+One evening at dinner I made up my mind to speak to Vassili about it.
+
+"Vassili," I said falteringly, "I think we ought to go away for a time."
+
+"Away? Where to?" asked my husband.
+
+"Anywhere--anywhere away from Kieff."
+
+"Why?"
+
+I felt myself turning pale! "I am afraid," I stammered, "I am
+afraid--that Bozevsky--"
+
+"Well?" asked Vassili serenely, pouring some vodka into his champagne
+and drinking it.
+
+"I am afraid that Bozevsky is falling in love with me."
+
+"And who would not fall in love with you, dushka?" laughed Vassili. "As
+for Bozevsky, may the wolves eat him."
+
+And dinner being over, he lit his cigar and went out.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+I go sadly upstairs to the nursery where Tioka and Tania, like blonde
+seraphs, lie asleep.
+
+A dim lamp hangs between the two white cots and illumines their favorite
+picture--an artless painting of the Virgin Mary, holding in her youthful
+arms the infant Jesus with a count's coronet on His head.
+
+I kneel down beside the two little beds and weep.
+
+Aunt Sonia, rectilinear and asexual in her gray flannel dressing-gown,
+comes in softly and bends over me.
+
+"You must trust in Providence," she says, raising towards the ceiling
+her long virginal face. "And take a little camomile tea. That always
+does one good."
+
+I obey her meekly and gratefully. It comforts me to think that a day
+will come when I also shall be like Aunt Sonia; when I also shall be
+content to wear gray flannel dressing-gowns and turn in my sorrows to
+Providence and to camomile tea.
+
+And I wish that that day of peace were near.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+So we stayed on in Kieff and Bozevsky came to see us every day. He
+brought me flowers--wonderful orchids the color of amethyst, tenuous
+contorted blossoms that looked as if they had bloomed in some garden of
+dreams. He brought me books; books of nebulous German poetry; Spanish
+plays by Echegaray all heroism and fire; and disquieting, neurotic
+French novels. Then he brought me English books which filled me with
+pleasant surprise. How far removed from our Slav souls were those limpid
+Anglo-Saxon minds! How child-like and simple was their wit, how bland
+and practical their outlook on life. That was the literature I liked
+best of all; perhaps because it was so different from everything in
+myself. I felt that I was a strange, ambiguous, complicated creature
+compared with those candid elemental natures.
+
+Bozevsky liked to find me reading. He would arrive in the
+evening--usually after Vassili had gone out, alone or with friends--and
+enter the drawing-room with bright and cheerful greeting. He always
+smiled when he found me with one of his books in my hand, sitting beside
+Aunt Sonia placidly knitting in her armchair.
+
+"I like your thoughts to be far away from here," he would say, kissing
+my hand. "I like to know that your soul is far from the frivolous
+society you live in, far from the petty preoccupations, the compliments
+and the flattery which surround you. Let me read with you; let me join
+you in the purer realm of fancy, far away from the world." And he would
+sit down beside me, with an air of protecting fraternal affection.
+
+One evening he found me nervous and agitated.
+
+"What has happened?" he asked.
+
+"I have been reading a ghastly book," I told him with a shudder. "The
+story of a mysterious plant, a sort of huge octopus that feeds on human
+flesh--"
+
+"Ugh!" laughed Bozevsky, "how gruesome!" and he bent his sunny head over
+the page.
+
+"Just imagine," I continued, "its branches are long moving tentacles,
+its thick leaves are quite black and hard; they glitter and move like
+living scorpions...."
+
+"Horrid, horrid," said Bozevsky with his shining smile as he took the
+book out of my hand. "Forget the scorpions. To-night I shall read you
+some Italian poetry. I want you to make friends with Carducci."
+
+He opened a plainly bound volume at random, and read to me.
+
+    "_Oh favolosi prati d'Eliseo_..."
+
+I forgot the tree of scorpions. I forgot Bozevsky. I forgot Aunt Sonia
+and the world. The unknown poet had wrapped my spirit in his giant wings
+and was bearing me far away.
+
+It was about this time that Vassili took me to Moscow. There, one
+evening, our friends the Maximoffs brought a stranger to see us. They
+introduced him as an estimable Moscow lawyer of high repute. I was
+surrounded by other friends and I greeted him absently, without hearing
+his name. I remember casually noticing that he was neither young nor
+old, neither ugly nor handsome. His wife, a timid, fair-haired woman,
+was with him.
+
+At Vassili's suggestion we all went to the "Strelna," a famous
+night-restaurant. I remember that there was a great deal of laughter at
+the grotesque jokes which Vassili and Maximoff and also the estimable
+lawyer played on the pretty dark-faced tziganes.
+
+I noticed that the lawyer's wife did not laugh. She passed her hand
+across her wistful Madonna-like brow, and listened only to the music.
+
+Like her I felt out of tune with the merriment around me. My thoughts
+wandered back to the silent drawing-room at Kieff: I thought of Aunt
+Sonia and her peaceful knitting, of Bozevsky and the books he had
+brought me. I seemed to hear his voice saying, "Ugh! a tree of
+scorpions"--and at that very instant something cold and claw-like
+clutched my bare shoulder. I uttered a piercing shriek, which seemed to
+turn every one--including myself--cold with terror. But it was only the
+estimable lawyer, who, having drunk rather too much, had playfully
+climbed upon the sofa behind me and, to save himself from falling off,
+had laid his hand upon my shoulder.
+
+"What on earth has happened?" exclaimed Vassili. "What made you scream
+like that?"
+
+"I don't know," I stammered, taken aback, "I thought--I thought it was a
+scorpion!"
+
+Every one laughed and for the rest of the evening the lawyer was
+nicknamed "the Scorpion." Perhaps this name added to the unreasoning
+fear I felt of him, or perhaps I was merely nervous, but he seemed to be
+always close behind me, and during the whole of that evening I kept on
+turning round, with little shivers running down my spine, to see what he
+was doing.
+
+Suddenly he had disappeared. Vassili laughed loudly. "Hullo! Where's the
+Scorpion?" And amidst the laughter of the guests he set himself to count
+the flippant tziganes one by one to see if any were missing. But they
+were all there--and I was glad for the sake of the Scorpion's poor little
+Madonna-wife.
+
+It was three in the morning when we went back to our sleighs. It was
+very cold; the clear deep-blue sky was powdered with stars. Assisted by
+Maximoff I was about to step into the sleigh, when, with another cry, I
+drew back; my foot had touched something soft and shapeless that was
+lying huddled up beneath the rug.
+
+"What is the matter now?" cried Vassili. "Another scorpion?"
+
+No, it was the same one. It was the estimable lawyer very drunk and fast
+asleep at the bottom of the sleigh.
+
+On our way back to the hotel, driving through the keen night air, I
+asked Vassili:
+
+"Who was that man?"
+
+"What man?" said Vassili, who sat opposite to us and was pressing the
+small feet of Maximoff's wife.
+
+"You know--the man who frightened me."
+
+"Oh, the Scorpion?" laughed Vassili. "That was Donat Prilukoff."
+
+When we returned to Kieff I told Bozevsky the adventure of our evening
+at the Strelna, and described the Scorpion to him with as much humor as
+I could. But Bozevsky did not laugh. My absence had embittered and
+exasperated him. He no longer sat beside me with an air of protective
+fraternal affection. He would not speak of literature or poetry any
+more. He spent entire evenings making mute scenes of jealousy and
+despair, while dear Aunt Sonia, instinctively feeling the atmosphere
+around her charged with electricity, dropped many stitches in her
+knitting and became sour and irritable.
+
+"My child, this must not go on any longer. Either Alexis Bozevsky must
+be forbidden the house or we ourselves must go away. I cannot understand
+how Vassili--" Her honest cheeks kindled with indignation. "Enough. I
+shall speak to him about it myself."
+
+She did so: and Vassili, with his usual brief comment that we all bored
+him to death, expressed the hope that wild beasts might devour Bozevsky,
+and ordered us to pack up and leave for the country at once.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+So we all left for the country--to the great delight of Aunt Sonia and
+the children.
+
+Let my mind linger for an instant on those springtide days--the last for
+me, though I did not know it, of unalloyed serenity. The children and I
+used to rise at dawn and go into the vast garden all a-shimmer with dew.
+On the glittering lawn, among the flower-beds, down the shady avenues of
+the park the two little elfin figures flitted before me, calling to me,
+eluding me, darting to and fro like twin will-o'-the-wisps; then turned
+and ran towards me with wind-light steps and gilt locks afloat, to
+shelter in my outstretched arms. Oh! my children, my little boy and
+girl, when you remember your mother I pray that God may lead your
+memories back to those clear morning hours, and may the rest be blotted
+out and dark.
+
+Vassili was inexpressibly bored with rural solitude and sought new means
+of diversion. His latest fad was target-shooting. He filled the house
+with rifles and revolvers and invited every one in the neighboring
+country houses to take part in shooting matches in our grounds. From
+morning to night, in the garden, in the courtyard, even from the windows
+of the house, there was a ceaseless crackling of firearms.
+
+One afternoon when the house was filled with guests, Dr. Stahl and
+Bozevsky arrived in their troika from the neighboring castle of the
+Grigorievskys, where they had been staying. To my astonishment, Vassili
+received them jubilantly and embraced them both. He had quite forgotten
+the reasons which had led to our departure from Kieff.
+
+Bozevsky came to greet me at once, and for the rest of the day never
+left my side. He enveloped me in a whirlwind of ecstatic tenderness. His
+infatuation, which he sought neither to conceal nor to control,
+disquieted me deeply.
+
+I noticed that his friend Dr. Stahl watched us continually. I had not
+seen the doctor for many months, and he struck me as strangely altered.
+His very light eyes, in which the pupils were contracted until they
+seemed mere pin-points, followed me continuously.
+
+"Doctor," I said to him, "what strange eyes you have! Just like the eyes
+of a cat when it looks at the sun!"
+
+"I do not look at the sun," he answered slowly, speaking with great
+stress. "I look into an abyss, the abyss of annihilation and oblivion.
+Some day, if ever you are irremediably unhappy, come to me and I will
+open to you, also, the doors of my unearthly paradise--of this chasm of
+deadly joy which engulfs me."
+
+"Shame on you, Stahl! How dare you suggest such a thing!" exclaimed
+Bozevsky, casting a look almost of hatred upon the morphinomaniac. "Why
+must you and your kind always seek to drag others down into your own
+gehenna?"
+
+Stahl sighed. "It is terrible, I know. But it is a characteristic of our
+malady."
+
+I listened without comprehending. I did not then know of Stahl's
+enslavement to the drug. "What are you speaking of? What malady? I do
+not understand."
+
+"It is better not to understand," murmured Bozevsky with knitted brows.
+"Stahl is distraught; he is ill. Pay no attention to him. And never
+follow either his advice nor his example. But pray," he added, "do not
+worry your head over anything we have said; the shooting match will soon
+begin. I think your husband is looking for you."
+
+But Vassili was far from troubling himself about me. He was rushing to
+and fro setting up rows of bottles that were to serve as targets, and
+distributing guns and cartridges to all our guests. Then he hurried
+towards us. "There," he said to Dr. Stahl and to Bozevsky, giving them
+each a Flobert rifle, "these are for you."
+
+"And what about the Countess?" asked Stahl in his hollow voice. "Is she
+not going to compete in the shooting?"
+
+"Oh, no!" I exclaimed. "I am much too frightened."
+
+"Nonsense!" cried Vassili, pushing a gun into my unwilling hands. "Of
+course you must shoot with the rest. And I warn you that if you are not
+brave I shall play William Tell with an apple on your head!" He passed
+on laughing, with Madame Grigorievskaja armed with a Browning by his
+side.
+
+I was not at all brave; I held the rifle at arm's length, trembling with
+fear lest it should explode by itself. Stahl was amused by my terror,
+while Bozevsky sought to encourage and comfort me.
+
+"Poor timid birdling," he murmured, "do not be frightened. See, I will
+teach you. It is done like this"--and he lifted the gun to my shoulder,
+placed my hands in position, and with his glowing face quite close to
+mine, showed me how I was to take aim. What with my terror of the gun
+and the fragrance of his fair hair near my cheek I felt quite dizzy.
+
+"There, that's it. Now press the trigger."
+
+"No! no! Don't say that! don't let me!" I screamed, incoherent with
+terror while Stahl and Bozevsky laughed.
+
+Vassili from a distance caught sight of me: "Bravo, Mura!" he cried.
+"That's right. Go on. Shoot!"
+
+"No! no!" I cried with my eyes shut and standing rigid in the position
+in which Bozevsky had placed me, for I dared not move a muscle.
+
+Vassili called impatiently: "What on earth are you waiting for?"
+
+Still motionless, I gasped:
+
+"Perhaps--I might dare--if some one were to cover my ears."
+
+Amidst great amusement Bozevsky came behind me and placed his two hands
+over my ears.
+
+"Come now!" cried Stahl. "Do not be frightened."
+
+"Mind you hit the third bottle," shouted Vassili from the distance.
+
+Bozevsky standing behind me was clasping my head as though in a vice and
+whispering into my hair: "Darling, darling, darling! I love you."
+
+"Don't," I cried, almost in tears under the stress of different
+emotions, "and don't hold my ears so tight."
+
+The warm clasp relaxed at once.
+
+"Oh, no, no!" I cried. "I can hear everything. I don't want to hear--,"
+but even as I spoke the gun went off. I felt a blow near my shoulder,
+and thought I was wounded; but it was only the recoil of the weapon.
+
+Everybody was laughing and applauding.
+
+"What have I killed?" I asked, cautiously opening my eyes.
+
+"The third bottle!" cried Vassili, and he was so delighted with my
+exploit that he ran up and embraced me. But the pistol he was holding in
+his hand and Bozevsky's glance of jealous wrath filled me afresh with
+twofold terror.
+
+The afternoon passed as if in a dream. Vassili became very much excited
+and drank a great deal of vodka. Then Madame Grigorievskaja, who had
+once visited the United States, concocted strange American drinks which
+we had never tasted before--cocktails, mint-juleps, pousse-cafes and
+gin-slings. They were much approved of by every one.
+
+I remember vaguely that half way through the afternoon some one let down
+my hair and set me among the shattered bottles with an apple on my head.
+I seem to see Vassili standing in front of me with a rifle and taking
+aim at me while the others utter cries of protest. Suddenly Bozevsky
+snatches the weapon from my husband's hands, and there is a brief
+struggle between them. Soon they are laughing again, and shaking
+hands--then Bozevsky joins me among the shattered bottles, and stands in
+front of me; he is so tall that I can see nothing but his broad
+shoulders and his fair hair. And Vassili is shooting--the bullets whirr
+over my head and all around me, but I have no sense of fear; Bozevsky
+stands before me, straight and motionless as a rampart.
+
+We go in to dinner; gipsy musicians arrive and play for us. Late at
+night when the garden is quite dark we go out again to the targets;
+instead of the bottles Vassili has ordered a row of lighted candles to
+be set up, and we are to extinguish them with our shots without knocking
+them down. There is much noise around me; Vassili is dancing a
+tarantelle with Ivan Grigorievsky on the lawn. Dr. Stahl and Bozevsky
+are always by my side. I keep on shooting at the candles, but they spin
+round before my confused eyes like catharine-wheels; and Stahl laughs,
+and Bozevsky sighs, and the gipsies play....
+
+Suddenly Tioka's nurse comes hurriedly down the pathway towards me.
+
+"May I speak to your ladyship for a moment?"
+
+"Yes, Elise. What is it?"
+
+"Master Tioka cannot go to sleep. He says you have forgotten to bid him
+good-night."
+
+I put down my rifle and follow the straight small figure of Elise
+Perrier through the garden. I hasten after her into the house and
+upstairs to the nursery.
+
+Little Tania is already fast asleep, with scarlet lips parted and silken
+hair scattered on her pillow. But Tioka is sitting up in his cot
+awaiting me. His bright soft eyes wander over my face, my hair, my
+dress; his innocent gaze seems to pierce me like a fiery sword. He holds
+out his arms to me and I hide my flushed face on his childish breast.
+
+"Good-night, mother dear," he whispers, kissing me and patting my face
+with his small hand. Then he adds, with a funny little sniff at my
+cheeks and hair: "You smell of many things--of perfume and powder and
+cigarettes and wine...."
+
+This sequence of gay words on the childish lips strikes at my heart like
+so many daggers.
+
+"Hush, darling," I whisper, taking refuge in those frail arms as in a
+haven of safety. "Forgive--forgive your mother."
+
+But he does not know what there is to forgive; and he laughs and yawns
+and then nestles down in his pillow, still holding tightly to my hand.
+
+"Must you go away?" he sighs, in a sleepy, endearing voice.
+
+"No, darling, no. I will stay with you."
+
+"Then tell me the poetry about the Virgin Mary coming down to see us in
+the night."
+
+Holding my child's hand in my own, I begin softly:
+
+    "When little children sleep, the Virgin Mary
+    Steps with white feet upon the crescent moon..."
+
+But already Tioka is in the land of dreams.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+The whole party of guests stayed at our house that night. Even one of
+the gipsy musicians was found next morning asleep on the sofa in the
+library.
+
+No one came down to breakfast. Only Bozevsky got up early and went for a
+gallop on the hills.
+
+I awoke at eight o'clock and rang the bell. Elise Perrier came in and
+opened the windows. The fresh April breeze blew in and the chirrup of
+the nests greeted me.
+
+"Elise, is the morning fine? Can the mountains be seen?"
+
+"Yes, my lady."
+
+"Elise, when you see the mountains do you not feel homesick for
+Switzerland?"
+
+"Yes, my lady." And Elise stooped down to set out my slippers and to
+hide the flush that rose to her face.
+
+"I am homesick, too, Elise. I am homesick I hardly know for
+what--homesick for solitude and peace."
+
+She made no reply.
+
+"Should I find them in your Switzerland, do you think?"
+
+Elise Perrier shakes her head and answers in a low tone: "No, my lady.
+Swiss homesickness and Russian homesickness are different."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"We Swiss are homesick for--how shall I say?--for the outside things we
+are far away from ... homesick for mountains and pine-trees and
+villages. But Russians are homesick for what they miss in their own
+hearts."
+
+"You are right, Elise."
+
+Tioka in his nightdress followed by Tania sucking the head of her
+favorite rubber doll have run gaily in and embrace me.
+
+"Are we going to Switzerland?" cries Tioka, who has overheard what we
+were saying. "How nice! When do we start?"
+
+"How nice! When do we start?" says Tania, who always echoes everything
+her brother says.
+
+"I like to be always going away," adds Tioka.
+
+And Tania repeats, "I like to be always going away."
+
+I marvel at finding in these two children of mine, my own unrest already
+stirring, like a butterfly poised with quivering wings on the dawning
+flower of their souls.
+
+I went down alone into the garden and entered the grove, where the
+sunshine only penetrates with mild rays of almost lunar whiteness. The
+grass under my feet was studded with periwinkles, their prim, pert faces
+lifted to the sky; tenuous ferns unfolded their embroidered scrolls, and
+masses of gentle wild violets, conscious of their pallor and their
+scentlessness, drooped shyly in the shade.
+
+In the branches overhead wild hidden birds tried their new springtide
+voices in soft modulations and trills, or in long-drawn contralto notes
+of liquescent sweetness. Thus April spoke to me in gentle voices. With a
+sudden overwhelming longing to be nearer to the very soul of spring, I
+knelt on the grass and buried my face in the cool leaves and blossoms,
+bidding my heart be pure and cool as they.
+
+On my homeward way I passed the targets. The servants had put everything
+in order--pistols, rifles and cartridges; and a fresh row of bottles
+seemed to await with glassy eye the shots of the amateur marksmen. With
+a deep sense of humiliation I remembered the feverish agitations of the
+previous day, and once more I said to myself: "Henceforward may my life
+be serene and pure."
+
+A gay voice rang out close behind me, and startled me from my reverie.
+
+"Lady Marie, good morrow!" It was Bozevsky, who, clicking his spurred
+heels together, saluted me with a radiant smile. His morning canter
+seemed to have given him an added touch of beauty and of daring; his
+fair hair gleamed in the sunshine, his smile was reckless and
+resplendent.
+
+I bowed without speaking and attempted to pursue my way to the house,
+but he took my hand and detained me.
+
+"Why go in? Everybody is still asleep. Come now," he urged, with a frank
+engaging smile, "stay here for awhile and practise at the targets."
+
+So saying he chose a rifle and loaded it. Then he held it out to me. I
+took it from him and put it to my shoulder. I aimed carefully and was
+about to press the trigger when suddenly Bozevsky, with a lightning
+movement, put out his hand and pressed his palm against the muzzle of my
+gun.
+
+"Wait!" he cried, with a wild, extravagant laugh. "Wait a moment! Before
+you press the trigger I want you to say--'Alexis, I love you!'"
+
+"You are mad!" I exclaimed. "Take away your hand!"
+
+"No. First you must say--'Alexis, I love you.'"
+
+I felt a hot flush rise to my brow. "Take away your hand!" I repeated
+and looked steadily at him.
+
+He did not move.
+
+"Take it away, I implore you!"
+
+Still he never moved, and I could see that hand stopping the muzzle of
+my gun--a long, slender hand with fingers separate and outstretched, and
+I felt almost as if I were under the influence of some hallucination. It
+was not only _his_ hand that I saw--I seemed in a kind of frenzy to see
+the hands of all men outstretched before me, ready to grasp me, to crush
+me, to beat me down. Doubtless a wave of madness swept over me; a
+convulsive spasm shook my wrist--and the gun went off. I saw the long,
+lithe hand drop like some wounded creature.
+
+With a cry I let the rifle fall, and covered my face. But Bozevsky had
+sprung upon me, and with his other hand seized both mine and pressed
+them down. He was as white as death. "You little tigress," he gasped.
+Then, as I was about to cry out again, he covered my mouth with his
+shattered hand, and I felt the blood gush over my face.
+
+What distant heritage of madness broke upon us at that moment? What
+primitive frenzy lashed us together in a fierce embrace? I cannot tell.
+All I know is that from that hour I was his--tamed, vanquished, broken in
+spirit, and yet glad. He was the first, the last, the only lover of my
+devastated youth, and by his side the brief springtime of my happiness
+flowered and died. When the fearful death that was so soon to lay him
+low came upon him, when I saw him fall at my feet shot by Vassili--my
+reason gave way. The rest of my life lies behind me like a somber
+nightmare landscape, through which I wander, groping in the dark,
+stumbling forward on my way to perdition....
+
+Yet sometimes I dream that it is all not true, that he still lives, that
+one day the door of my cell will open, and the lover of my youth appear
+to me again. I shall see him standing on the threshold, a halo of
+sunshine lighting his fair hair, like some young martyr-saint come to
+deliver me from my bondage. The hand I wounded will be filled with
+roses, and his clear voice will call me by my name.
+
+Then rising from this gloomy prison bench I shall move to meet him.
+Shame and crime and captivity will fall away from me like a dark and
+worn-out cloak.
+
+Free and fair as in those distant April days in which he loved me, with
+white, winged footsteps I shall follow him.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+Suddenly, almost from one day to another, Vassili grew jealous. When I
+had adored him he had neglected and forsaken me. Now that he feared to
+lose me he was inconsolable.
+
+"You and Tioka are very much alike," I said to him one day when we were
+all at luncheon.
+
+"Do you think so?" said Vassili, patting his little son's fair head and
+contemplating the small face, which at that moment was making a terrible
+grimace over its food. "What makes you say so?"
+
+"You shall see." I leaned over to the child. "Tioka, my darling, won't
+you eat your nice dinner?"
+
+"No!" said Tioka with great decision.
+
+"Come, now, darling, eat your nice soup," and I held a spoonful to his
+lips.
+
+"No," said Tioka, turning his face away.
+
+"Why not, dear? Don't you like it?"
+
+"No. It's nasty."
+
+"Well, then," I said, putting down the spoon, "we will give it to the
+farmer's little boy."
+
+"No! no!" cried Tioka, and he quickly devoured the soup in large
+spoonfuls.
+
+Vassili laughed. "He is quite right. His soup is not for the farmer's
+little boy. To each one his own soup, isn't that so, Tioka!"
+
+"No," said Tioka.
+
+"Why 'no'? You should say 'yes.'"
+
+"No," declared Tioka doggedly. "This is my 'no' day."
+
+"Your _what_?" exclaimed his father.
+
+"My day for saying 'no,'" announced Tioka with great decision.
+
+His father was much amused. "I also shall have my 'no' days," he
+declared. "And I shall begin at once. To-day, Mura, we shall receive no
+visitors."
+
+"But, Vassili," I protested, "we must see the Grigorievskys; we have
+invited them to dinner."
+
+"No," said my husband.
+
+"And Semenzoff. And Bozevsky."
+
+"No," he repeated.
+
+"Do you really mean that we are not to receive them?"
+
+"No," he reiterated. "This is my 'no' day." And the reception for that
+evening was actually put off. The jest seemed highly entertaining to
+Vassili. I heard him laughing to himself as he went downstairs; and in
+the days that followed he frequently repeated it.
+
+Shortly afterwards he took us all back to Kieff and there he had many
+"no" days. In particular he would not let Bozevsky visit us; and more
+than a month passed without my seeing him.
+
+At last it happened that the Stahls invited us to a ball, and Vassili,
+who chanced to be in a good temper, accepted. I knew I should meet
+Bozevsky there, and at the mere thought of seeing him again I trembled
+with joy and fear.
+
+Elise Perrier dressed me in a filmy gossamer gown of soft opalescent
+tints, and fastened round my neck the famous O'Rourke pearls--those
+pearls which, according to family traditions, had once decorated the
+slender neck of Mary Stuart.
+
+As Vassili put me into the troika he was all kindness and amiability; he
+wrapped me closely in the furs, and then took his seat beside me,
+muffling himself up to his nose in the bearskins. The horses started and
+we were off like the wind.
+
+During the drive tender and kindly feelings towards Vassili filled my
+heart. I said to myself that perhaps he was after all not wholly to
+blame for his faults and follies. He, too, was so young; perhaps if I
+had been less of a child at the time of my marriage I should have known
+how to make him love me more. And, after all, were we not still in time
+to reshape our lives? What if we were to go far away from Kieff, far
+from St. Petersburg, and try to take up the thread of our broken idyll
+again? My hand sought his. He grasped it and held it warmly clasped
+under the rug without turning towards me; I could see his eyes shining
+under his fur cap as he gazed straight before him, while we sped over
+the silent snow. During that drive, from the bottom of my heart, I
+forgave him all his transgressions and silently craved forgiveness for
+mine. Already I seemed to see myself with him and the children and Aunt
+Sonia happily secluded in some smiling rose-clad mansion in Italy. He
+would take up the study of his music again, perhaps he would compose, as
+he had often spoken of doing--while I, seated at his feet, would read the
+Italian poets that I loved, raising my eyes now and then to contemplate
+the motionless blue wave of the distant Apennines....
+
+But the troika had stopped, and Vassili sprang out upon the snow.
+Through the illuminated windows the tzigane music poured forth its waves
+of sensuous melody--and alas! the rhythmic swing of it swept away, as in
+a whirlwind, the peaceful dreams of Italy, of the rose-clad mansion and
+the Italian poets.
+
+While the servants were taking our cloaks and snowshoes from us I
+whispered hurriedly to Vassili: "Dearest, be good to-night. Do not drink
+much."
+
+"Why not? What a strange idea!" he said; and we passed into the
+overheated, overlighted rooms.
+
+At the far end of the ballroom some thirty tziganes, women and men, in
+their picturesque costumes were making music. The men played and the
+women sang. The dancing couples whirled round in the scent-laden air.
+
+Doctor Stahl's wife, a kindly German woman, received us with amiable
+smiles; Stahl himself greeted us with excited effusiveness. He was quite
+pale with two red spots on the summit of his cheeks. I was struck anew
+by his strange air of intoxication, for I knew he never touched wine.
+Immediately, from the end of the room Bozevsky came hastening to meet
+us, superb in his full uniform--blue tunic and scarlet belt.
+
+"Hail _Fata Morgana_!" he cried. "Give me this dance," and he put his
+arm round my waist. But I drew back.
+
+"Alas, Prince Charming, I dare not."
+
+He turned pale; then he bowed, twirled on his heels and moved away. He
+did not come near me again until late in the evening. I saw him
+surrounded by women, who danced with him, smiling into his face,
+floating with languid grace in his arms.
+
+I shrank into a corner of the vast room where tall plants and flowers
+screened me from the dancers.
+
+"Why, what are you doing hidden here?" cried Stahl, coming up to me. His
+pupils were narrower than ever and his breath came and went in short
+gasps. He bent over me and scanned my face. "What are your thoughts,
+Countess Marie?"
+
+"I have no thoughts," I replied sadly.
+
+"Then I will give you one," said he laughing; "a blithe and comforting
+thought--think that a hundred years hence we shall all be dead!"
+
+"True," I answered, and a wave of unspeakable melancholy invaded my
+soul. "We may, perhaps, be dead even fifty years hence."
+
+"Or thirty," laughed Stahl.
+
+"Or twenty," I sighed, in even deeper despondency.
+
+"Oh, no," said Stahl. "Twenty years hence you will still be a charming
+matron getting on towards middle-age." And, as some one was calling him,
+he turned away and left me.
+
+His words sank into my heart, heavy and searing as molten lead. How
+short, how short was life! How the years flew past! How brief were the
+wings of youth and happiness! I raised my eyes--doubtless they were full
+of sadness--and I saw that Bozevsky at the far end of the room was
+looking at me. Several brilliantly attired women were laughing and
+talking to him, but abruptly, without excuse or explanation, he left
+them and crossed the room to where I sat.
+
+The tziganes were playing a wild, nerve-thrilling czarda. Without a word
+Bozevsky put his arm round me and drew me into the dance.
+
+The music went faster and faster, wilder and ever more wild.
+
+Light as air I swung round in Bozevsky's arm. I could have wished to
+dance thus forever--dance, dance to the very brink of life and, still
+dancing, to plunge over into the abyss of death.
+
+As we whirled round I perceived that Vassili was watching us. He was
+drinking champagne with vodka in it and was laughing loudly while he
+spoke to Stahl; but his eyes never left me as I swept round the ballroom
+with Bozevsky. His gaze alarmed me. I was dizzy and out of breath, but I
+did not dare to stop dancing for fear of Vassili. I danced and danced,
+breathless and distraught; I felt my heart beating furiously, pulsing
+with the mad rapidity, the battering throb of a motor-cycle at full
+speed--and still I danced and danced on, while the ballroom, the guests,
+the tziganes spun round and round before my blurred eyes....
+
+Vassili's gaze still followed me.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Suddenly my strength failed me. The room seemed to be paved with water;
+the floor yielded and undulated under my feet; the motor-cycle pulsing
+in my breast stopped dead. Then I felt Bozevsky's arm sustain me as I
+fell forward on his breast. Everything whirled, darkened--vanished.
+
+When I opened my eyes I was seated near the window; the dancers crowded
+round me. Stahl was bending over me with a small shining instrument in
+his hand. It was a hypodermic syringe.
+
+I shrank back in terror. "No, no!" I cried.
+
+Seeing that I had recovered my senses Vassili, who stood behind me, laid
+an iron hand on my bare shoulder.
+
+"Come," he said in a hoarse and brutal voice. "Come at once."
+
+"Where to?" I rose trembling to my feet. I still felt dizzy and weak,
+and scarcely knew where I was.
+
+"Home," said Vassili, bending over me with a terrible look. His face was
+so close to mine that I could feel his breath upon me, hot and laden
+with that subtle sweetish exhalation of ether that vodka leaves behind
+it. "The dance is over," he muttered. "It is over, it is over." I
+noticed his clenched fists; and I was afraid. A deep silence had fallen
+on the entire room. "Come!" he repeated in a tone that made me quake.
+
+I shrank back in terror. Then Vassili put out his hand and seized my
+pearl necklace; it broke in his grasp. The milky gems fell to the ground
+and rolled away in all directions; the guests, both men and women,
+stooped down to search for them and pick them up.
+
+But now Bozevsky had taken a step forward, and stood, haughty and
+aggressive, in front of Vassili. He uttered a brief word in a low voice.
+
+Vassili turned upon him with livid countenance. "Insolent scoundrel!" he
+cried, wildly searching his pockets for a weapon; then in a frenzy he
+turned on the awe-stricken assembly: "Go away, everybody!" he shouted.
+"Stahl, turn out the lights. We are going to have a game of blind man's
+buff, the Uhlan and I. A game of blind man's buff in the dark! Quick,
+Stahl, give us a couple of revolvers. Send all these people away and
+turn out the lights."
+
+He was beside himself with vodka and with wrath.
+
+Bozevsky still faced him, calm and unmoved. "Why should it be in the
+dark, Count Tarnowsky? Why not in the light of day--at ten paces?"
+
+"No!" roared Vassili. "I'll kill you in the dark, evil beast that you
+are. I'll slaughter you like a wild beast in the dark!"
+
+I never knew how we succeeded in getting him out into the troika, but at
+last the feat was accomplished, and he drove off with Madame
+Grigorievska and Semenzoff, the only two people who had any influence
+over him. I followed in another sleigh, alone with Dr. Stahl, who during
+the entire drive panted and shivered beside me, as if in the throes of
+some fierce physical agony.
+
+Through the starry calm of the night, while the sleighs glided silently
+over the snow, we could hear Vassili's strident and drunken voice still
+roaring: "Blind man's buff with the officer! Ha, ha, ha! In the
+dark--bing bang. Blind man's buff!"
+
+
+The scandal in Kieff was enormous. The whole town spoke of nothing else.
+All the women sided with Vassili, and all the men with me. As for
+Vassili, he cared nothing for the opinion of either. He came and went
+with lowering brows, never speaking either to me or to the children.
+
+I was unspeakably frightened and unhappy. At last, one evening, unable
+to endure the strain of his silence any longer, and praying God to give
+me courage, I went tremblingly and knocked at his study door.
+
+He said "Come in," and I entered.
+
+He was standing by the window, smoking, and he turned upon me a cold
+vindictive eye.
+
+"Vassili"--my voice trembled--"Vassili, don't be angry with me any more.
+Forgive me. I did not mean to offend you. I did not mean--" I burst into
+tears.
+
+He seemed somewhat moved and held out his hand to me without speaking.
+
+I grasped it eagerly. He continued to smoke and look out of the window,
+while I stood awkwardly beside him, holding his hand and not knowing
+what to say.
+
+Perhaps my silence pleased him, for soon I felt him press my trembling
+fingers more closely. Looking timidly up into his face I saw that his
+lips were quivering.
+
+"Vassili," I whispered.
+
+He turned to me abruptly. "Let us go away," he said, "Mura, let us go
+away!"
+
+"Where?" I asked, overcome with sudden fear.
+
+"Far away from here, far away from Russia. I cannot live in this
+accursed country any longer." And Vassili let go my hand in order to
+clench his fists.
+
+"I had thought of it, too," I said unsteadily. And in a low voice I told
+him my thoughts of the rose-clad house in Italy, my dreams of an azure
+exile in that beauteous land, alone with him and the children.
+
+"Mura! Mura!" he said, taking my face between his hands and gazing
+deeply into my eyes. "Tell me--is it not too late?"
+
+Was it too late?
+
+In my soul my unlawful passion for Bozevsky rose like a giant wave,
+towered over me, enveloped and submerged me. Then--then to the eyes of my
+spirit there came the vision of my children, of a flower-filled Italian
+garden, of peace reconquered and deliverance from evil. "No, Vassili,
+no. It is not too late!"
+
+With a sigh I lay my cheek against his shoulder and bowed my face upon
+his breast.
+
+Before our departure from Russia, in order not to leave ill-feeling or
+evil talk behind us, it was decided that Vassili and Bozevsky should
+meet and be reconciled.
+
+The Stahls and Grigorievskys gladly undertook to organize an afternoon
+reception at which we were to take leave of all our friends and
+acquaintances. After that there would be a theater party at the opera,
+and, finally, the more intimate of our friends were to be the guests of
+Bozevsky himself at a supper at the Grand Hotel. There we were to say
+farewell to one another for many years, perhaps forever.
+
+In spite of the burning desire which drew me towards Bozevsky, I had
+honorably kept my part of the agreement and had refused to see him for
+even an instant before the appointed day.
+
+Vassili took the necessary steps to get our passports and every
+preparation was made for our final departure from Russia.
+
+And now the eve of our journey had come--the afternoon reception was
+over; and this was the fatal evening which was to mark the supreme and
+ultimate hour of my happiness.
+
+Satins and jewels decked my aching heart; flowers garlanded my ringleted
+hair; I wanted Alexis to see me for the last time looking my fairest. I
+longed to remain forever in his memory a loved and radiant vision.
+
+"You are dazzlingly beautiful," said my cousin Vera to me, as soon as I
+entered the room, surveying me from top to toe. "I can quite understand
+why every one is crazy about you."
+
+I was immediately surrounded by all our most intimate friends, who
+lamented in every key our resolve to leave Russia.
+
+"Without you, Kieff will be empty. It will be like a ring which has lost
+its brightest gem."
+
+I smiled and sighed, feeling both gratified and mournful.
+
+Who would have thought that after this evening all those who now
+surrounded me with flattering words would pass me by without a greeting,
+would turn from me as from some vile and tainted creature?
+
+Bozevsky, pallid and stern, came to me, and bowed low as he kissed my
+hand.
+
+"_Ave! Ave ... Maria!_" he said. Then he raised his eyes and looked at
+me long and fixedly. Despair was so clearly written on his countenance,
+that I felt afraid lest Vassili should notice it; Alexis read the fear
+in my eyes, and laughed. "Do you know what I believe?" he said.
+
+I looked at him without understanding.
+
+"I believe," he continued in scornful tones, "that I am in a trap."
+
+"A trap? What do you mean?" I gazed questioningly into his face.
+
+"Yes, yes, a trap," said he with a cynical laugh. Then in a tone that
+seemed in keeping with the frivolous atmosphere that surrounded us:
+
+"Countess," he continued, "has it ever happened to you to go wrong in
+some well-known quotation? To begin, for instance, with one author, and
+to end with another?"
+
+"I do not understand," I stammered, perplexed by the strangeness of his
+manner. "What--what do you mean?"
+
+Vassili was approaching, and Alexis with a scornful laugh raised his
+voice slightly as he spoke. "Because to-night," he said, "a misquotation
+of that kind keeps ringing through my brain. "_Ave, Maria!... Morituri
+te salutant!_"
+
+Vassili stood beside us and heard the words with a puzzled smile.
+
+"_Morituri?_" he said, holding out his hand to Bozevsky with a frank and
+friendly gesture. "_Morituri?_ Indeed I hope not."
+
+Bozevsky took his hand and looked him in the face. Vassili returned his
+gaze; then, with an impulsive gesture, in true Russian fashion, my
+husband bent forward and kissed him on both cheeks.
+
+No! no, it was not a trap! From the depths of my broken heart, from my
+inmost consciousness, there springs up this protest on behalf of him who
+on that fatal evening wrecked my life. I know that it was an impulse of
+his fervent heart that impelled Vassili to open his arms to the man whom
+an hour before he had hated--and whom an hour later he slew.
+
+No; it was not a trap.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+Doubtless that evening I was beautiful. During the supper party at the
+Grand Hotel I felt that I diffused around me an atmosphere of more
+subtle intoxication than the music or the wines. Placed between Vassili
+and Stahl I laughed and laughed in a fever of rapturous gaiety. I was
+excited and overwrought.
+
+Bozevsky sat facing me. As I glanced at his proud, passionate face, I
+said in my heart: "To-morrow you will see him no more. But this evening
+he is here; you see him, pale for the love of you, thrilled by your
+presence. Do not think of to-morrow. To-morrow is far away!"
+
+So I laughed and laughed while the rhythmic charm of waltzes played on
+muted strings wrought upon my senses, swaying me towards an unreal
+world, a world of transcendent passion and incomparable joys.
+
+Stahl, seated at my right hand, was flushed and elated, but still drew
+the hurried sibilant breaths I had so often noticed in him. Vassili
+seemed to have fallen in love with me anew. He murmured rapturous words
+into my ear. "To-morrow you shall be mine, mine only, out of reach of
+all others, beyond the sight and the desire of all these people--whose
+necks I should like to wring." And he drank his Clicquot looking at me
+with kindling eyes.
+
+"Vassili," I whispered imploringly, "do not drink any more."
+
+"Don't you wish me to?" he asked, turning to me with his glass of
+champagne in his hand. "Don't you wish it? Well--there!" He flung the
+glass full of blonde wine behind him over his shoulder. The thin crystal
+chalice was shattered into a thousand pieces.
+
+"What are you doing, Vassili? What are you doing?" cried Grigorievsky.
+"Are you playing the King of Thule?"
+
+"Precisely," laughed Vassili. "Was he not the paragon of all lovers, who
+chose to die of thirst in order to follow his adored one to the grave?"
+
+And somewhat uncertainly he quoted:
+
+    "Then did he fling his chalice
+    Into the surging main,
+    He watched it sink and vanish--
+      And never drank again."
+
+"Here's to the King of Thule!" cried one of the guests. And they all
+drank Vassili's health.
+
+Bozevsky had sprung to his feet; his eyes gleamed strangely. "You may be
+the King of Thule, Tarnowsky," he cried in a mocking tone, "but I am the
+knight Olaf. You know the legend?" His clear insolent eyes surveyed the
+guests provocatively. "Olaf--you remember--was condemned to death for
+daring to love the king's daughter. He was at his last banquet. 'Take
+heed, Olaf,' said the king. 'The headsman stands at the door!' 'Let him
+stay there, sire, while I bid farewell to life in a last toast!' And
+standing up--just as I stand here--he raised his glass, as I raise mine:
+
+    "I drink to the earth, I drink to the sky,
+      I drink to the sea and the shore;
+    I drink to the days that I have seen,
+      And the days I shall see no more;
+    I drink to the King who has sentenced me,
+      And the Headsman at the door.
+
+    "I bless the joys that I have had
+      And the joys that I have missed;
+    I bless the eyes that have smiled on me
+      And the lips that I have kissed!"
+
+Here Bozevsky turned and looked straight at me:
+
+    "To _thy_ red lips that I have kissed
+    I raise this cup of wine,
+    I bless thy radiant loveliness
+      That made my life divine,
+    And I bless the hour that brings me death
+      For the hour that thou wert mine!"
+
+He uttered these words in a loud voice, with his daring eyes fixed
+steadily on mine; then he raised his glass and drained it.
+
+Vassili had sprung to his feet. But instantly Stahl was beside him,
+speaking rapidly, while Grigorievsky exclaimed:
+
+"The sleighs are waiting. It is time to go home!"
+
+Amid nervous and hurried farewells the perilous moment passed and the
+danger was averted. We all hastened to our sleighs; my cousin Vera and
+Madame Grigorievska were beside me; Stahl and Grigorievsky had each with
+an air of easy friendliness taken my husband by the arm.
+
+"Good-by! Good-by! _Bon voyage!_ Good-by!" The last farewells had been
+exchanged. The impatient horses were shaking their bells in the icy
+night air. Vera had already taken her place in the sleigh, and I was
+about to step in beside her, when I saw Bozevsky striding rapidly
+towards me. He passed in front of my husband, who was standing near the
+second sleigh with Stahl and Grigorievsky, and came straight to me. He
+stretched out his hand with a gesture of despair.
+
+"So it is all over--all over!" he said. "And this is good-by!"
+
+His voice broke, and he bent his fair head over my hand, crushing my
+fingers in his feverish clasp.
+
+At that instant the report of a shot rang out, followed by a mad
+outburst of laughter from Vassili. I saw the horses of the sleigh plunge
+and rear.
+
+Bozevsky, still clasping my hand, wrenched himself upright; a convulsive
+shiver passed through him, and his head jerked backwards with a strange,
+wooden movement like that of a broken doll--then with a shrill burst of
+laughter which showed all his teeth, he fell forward at my feet.
+
+With a cry I bent over him, and I felt a splash of blood on my face. It
+spurted forth like the jet of a fountain from the side of his neck. Once
+again my hands, my dress were covered with his blood--I thought I was in
+a dream. Every one had come rushing up. Now they raised him. I saw Stahl
+snatch a white scarf from some one's shoulders and wind it round and
+round the wounded neck, and immediately a dark stain appeared on the
+scarf and slowly widened.
+
+Supported by Stahl, Bozevsky stared about him with haggard eyes, until
+his gaze met mine.
+
+A quiver passed over his face. "I bless the hour--" he gasped. Then a
+gush of blood came from his mouth, and he was silent.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+Bozevsky was carried to his room and the manager and servants of the
+Grand Hotel thronged in murmuring consternation round his door. A
+Swedish doctor, staying at the hotel, was summoned in haste. He appeared
+in his dressing-gown, and with Stahl's assistance carefully dressed and
+bound up the deep double wound caused by the bullet, which had passed
+through the left side of Bozevsky's neck and come out beneath his chin.
+
+Trembling and weeping I followed the sinister procession, and with
+Cousin Vera and Madame Stahl entered Bozevsky's room. Now I stood,
+silently praying, at the foot of the bed. Bozevsky sunken in his pillow,
+with his eyes closed and his head and neck in bandages, looked as if he
+were already dead.
+
+He suddenly opened his eyes, and his gaze wandered slowly from side to
+side until it rested on me. He moved his lips as if to speak, and I
+hastened to his pillow and bent over him.
+
+He whispered, "Stay here."
+
+"Yes," I said, and sat down beside him, taking his moist, chill hand
+between my own.
+
+He repeated weakly: "Stay here. Do not go away."
+
+The Swedish doctor was washing his hands and talking in a low voice to
+Stahl. He turned to me and said:
+
+"You must try not to agitate him. Do not let him speak or move his
+head." Then he went out into the corridor with Stahl.
+
+Mrs. Stahl and Vera sat mute and terror-stricken in a corner. I watched
+Bozevsky, with a deep, dull ache racking my heart. He seemed to be
+falling asleep. I felt his hand relax in mine and his short breathing
+became calmer and more regular.
+
+But Stahl came in again, and Bozevsky opened his eyes.
+
+Stahl approached the bedside and stood for a long while looking down at
+his friend. Then he turned to me. "A nurse is coming," he said. "I will
+take you ladies home and then come back and pass the night with him."
+
+Take me home! How could I return home? How could I endure to meet
+Vassili again? At the mere thought of seeing him, who with a treacherous
+shot from behind had shattered this young existence, hatred and terror
+flamed up within me. No! I would not return home. Never again would I
+touch the hand of Vassili Tarnowsky.
+
+While these thoughts traversed my mind, some one knocked at the door. It
+was the nurse. Vera and Madame Grigorievska, after questioning me with
+their eyes, got up softly; then, with a glance of pity at Bozevsky, they
+went on tiptoe out of the room.
+
+At the door Stahl beckoned to me to come. But I shook my head. As if he
+knew what was passing Bozevsky opened his eyes again.
+
+"Stay here," he whispered. Then he put his hand to the bandage round his
+neck. "If you leave me I will tear it all off." He made a gesture as if
+he would do so.
+
+"I shall not leave you," I whispered bending over him. "I shall never
+leave you again."
+
+I kept my word.
+
+
+Later I learned that Vassili had given himself up to the authorities,
+and that my grief-stricken mother had come to fetch our children and had
+taken them with her to Otrada. To her and to my father they were the
+source of much melancholy joy.
+
+Thus did the old garden of my youth open again its shadowy pathways and
+flowery lawns to the unconscious but already sorrow-touched childhood of
+little Tioka and Tania--those tragic children whose father was in prison
+and whose mother, far away from them, watched and suffered by the
+sinister death-bed of a stranger. To me the two innocent, angelic
+figures often came in my dreams; and I cried out to them with bitterest
+tears: "Oh, my own children, my two loved ones, forgive your mother that
+she does not forsake one who is dying for her sake. This very night,
+perhaps, or to-morrow--soon, soon, alas!--his life will end. And with a
+broken heart your mother will return to you."
+
+
+But Bozevsky did not die that night. Nor the following day. Nor the day
+after.
+
+Fate had in store for him and for me a much more appalling doom. He
+dragged his frightful death-agony through the interminable hours of a
+hundred days and a hundred nights. He was doomed to trail his torment
+from town to town, from surgeon to surgeon, from specialist to
+charlatan. One after another, they would unbandage the white and
+withered neck, probe the blue-edged wound, and then cover up again with
+yellow gauze the horrifying cavity; leaving us to return, heart-stricken
+and silent, to the luxurious hotels that housed our irremediable
+despair.
+
+About that time I heard that Vassili had been released on bail. Later on
+he was acquitted by a jury in the distant city of Homel, on the ground
+of justifiable homicide.
+
+Perhaps it was a just verdict. But for him whom he had struck down--and
+for me--what anguish, great Heavens! What lingering torture of
+heart-breaking days and nights.
+
+Ah, those nights, those appalling nights! We dreaded them as one dreads
+some monstrous wild beast, lurking in wait to devour us. All day long we
+thought only of the night. As soon as twilight drew near Bozevsky, lying
+in his bed with his face towards the window, clutched my hand and would
+not let it go.
+
+"I am afraid," he would murmur. "I wish it were not night. If only it
+were not night!"
+
+"Nonsense, dearest," I would say, cheerfully. "It is quite early. It is
+still broad daylight. Everybody is moving about. The whole world is
+awake and out of doors."
+
+But night, furtive and grim, crouched in the shadowy room, lurked in
+dark corners, and then suddenly was upon us, black, silent, terrifying.
+Round us the world lay asleep, and we two were awake and alone with our
+terror.
+
+Then began the never-ending question, ceaselessly repeated, reiterated
+throughout the entire night:
+
+"_What is the time?_"
+
+It was only nine o'clock. It was half-past nine.... Ten... Half-past
+ten... A quarter to eleven... Eleven o'clock... Five minutes past...
+
+As soon as it was dawn, at about four o'clock, Bozevsky grew calm.
+Silence fell, and he slept.
+
+
+The last station of our calvary was at Yalta, in the Crimea. We had gone
+there with a last up-flaming of hope. There were doctors there whom we
+had not yet consulted. There was Ivanoff and the world-famed Bobros.
+
+"Continue the same treatment," said the one.
+
+"You must try never to move your head," said the other.
+
+That was all.
+
+And to our other tortures was added the martyrdom of complete
+immobility.
+
+"I want to turn my head," Bozevsky would say in the night.
+
+"No, dearest, no. I implore you--"
+
+"I must. I must turn it from one side to the other. If I stay like this
+any longer I shall go mad!"
+
+Then, with infinite precautions, with eyes staring and terror-filled,
+like one who yields to an overwhelming temptation or performs some deed
+of insane daring, Bozevsky would turn his sad face slowly round, and let
+his cheek sink into the pillow.
+
+His fair curls encircled with flaxen gaiety his spent and desolate face.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+Alone with him during those long terrible hours, my anguish and my
+terror constantly increased. At last I could endure it no longer and I
+telegraphed to Stahl:
+
+"Come immediately."
+
+At dusk the following day Stahl arrived.
+
+I had hoped to derive courage and consolation from his presence. But as
+soon as he stepped upon the threshold my heart turned faint within me.
+Thinner and more spectral than ever, with hair dishevelled and eyes
+sunken and dull, he looked dreamily at me, while a continual tremor
+shook his hands.
+
+I greeted him timorously, and the touch of his chill, flaccid fingers
+made me shudder.
+
+Bozevsky seemed glad to see him. Stretching out his wasted hand to him
+he said at once:
+
+"Stahl, I want to move my head."
+
+Stahl seemed not to understand, and Bozevsky repeated: "I want to turn
+my head from one side to another."
+
+"Why not?" said Stahl, sitting down beside the bed and lighting a
+cigarette. "Turn it by all means."
+
+It was growing late; outside it was already dark. I drew the curtains
+and turned on the lights. Bozevsky began very slowly to turn his head
+from side to side; at first very timorously with frightened eyes, then
+by degrees more daringly, from right to left and from left to right.
+
+"Keep still, keep still, dearest," I entreated, bending over him.
+
+"Stahl said it would not hurt," panted Bozevsky. "Did you not, Stahl?"
+Stahl made no reply. He was smoking, with his heavy eyes half closed. At
+the sight of him I was filled with loathing and fear.
+
+"Have you dined?" I inquired of him after a long silence. He nodded and
+went on smoking.
+
+I tried to coax Bozevsky to take an egg beaten up in milk, but he
+continued to turn his head from side to side and would touch nothing.
+Little by little the sounds in the hotel died away. The gipsy music
+which had been audible, faintly in the distance, ceased. Night crept
+upon us sinister and silent.
+
+Presently Stahl roused himself and opened his eyes. He looked at me and
+then at Bozevsky, who lay in the circular shadow cast by the lamp shade,
+dozing with his mouth slightly open; he looked pitiful and grotesque in
+his collar of yellow gauze.
+
+Stahl made a grimace; then his breath became short and hurried as on
+that night of the ball when he sat beside me in the sleigh. He was
+panting with a slight sibilant sound and with a quick nervous movement
+of his head.
+
+"Stahl," I whispered, leaning towards him and indicating Bozevsky, "tell
+me--how do you think he is?"
+
+Stahl did not answer. He seemed not to have heard me, but to be absorbed
+in some mysterious physical suffering of his own.
+
+"What is the matter, Stahl? What is the matter? You are frightening me."
+
+With a nervous twist of his lips intended for a smile Stahl got up and
+began to walk up and down the room. His breath was still short and
+hurried. He drew the air through his teeth like one who is enduring
+spasms of pain.
+
+Then he began to talk to himself in a low voice. "I can wait," he said
+under his breath. "I can wait a little longer. Yes--yes--yes, I can wait a
+little longer."
+
+Bozevsky had opened his eyes and was watching him.
+
+Horror held me motionless and shivers ran like icy water down my spine.
+
+"Stahl, Stahl, what is the matter?" I said, and began to cry.
+
+Stahl seemed not to hear me. He continued to walk up and down muttering
+to himself: "I can wait, I can wait. Just a little longer--a little
+longer--"
+
+Bozevsky groaned. "Tell him to keep still," he said, his gaze indicating
+Stahl.
+
+I seized Stahl by the arm. "You must keep quiet," I said. "Keep quiet at
+once."
+
+He turned to me a vacuous, bewildered face. I grasped his arm
+convulsively, clutching it with all my strength: "Keep still!"
+
+Stahl sat down. "Right," he said. "All right."
+
+He searched his pocket and drew out a small leather case.
+
+Bozevsky moved and moaned. "I am thirsty," he said. "Give me something
+to drink."
+
+I hurried to the bedside, and taking up a glass of sweetened water, I
+raised him on his pillow and held the glass to his lips. He drank
+eagerly. Then--horror!... horror! Even as he drank I perceived a spot of
+pale red color, wetting the gauze round his neck, oozing through it and
+spreading in an ever-widening stain. What--what could it be? It was the
+water he was drinking; he was not swallowing it ... it was trickling out
+through the wound in his neck. All the gauze was already wet--now the
+pillow as well.
+
+"Stahl, Stahl!" I shrieked. "Look, look at this!"
+
+Stahl, who seemed to have suddenly regained his senses, came quickly to
+the bedside. I had laid Bozevsky back on the pillow and he was looking
+at us with wide-open eyes.
+
+"Yes," said Stahl, contemplating him thoughtfully. "Yes." Suddenly he
+turned to me. "Come here, come here. Why should I let you suffer?"
+
+Then I saw that he had in his hand a small glass instrument--a morphia
+syringe. He seized my wrist as in a vice and with the other hand pushed
+back the loose sleeve of my gown.
+
+"What are you going to do?" I gasped.
+
+"Why, why should you suffer?" cried Stahl, holding me tightly by the
+arm.
+
+"Are you killing me?" I cried.
+
+"No, no. I shall not kill you. You will see."
+
+I let him take my arm and he pricked it with the needle of the syringe,
+afterwards pressing and rubbing the punctured spot with his finger.
+
+"Now you will see, now you will see," he repeated over and over again
+with a vague stupefied smile. "Sit down there," and he impelled me
+towards an armchair.
+
+Bozevsky in his wet bandages on his wet pillow was watching us. I wanted
+to go to his assistance, to speak to him--but already a vague torpor was
+stealing over me, a feeling of gentle langour weighed upon my limbs. My
+tense and quivering nerves gradually relaxed. I felt as if I were
+submerged in a vague fluid serenity. Every anxious thought dissolved in
+a bland and blissful somnolence.... I could see Bozevsky move restlessly
+and again begin to turn his head from side to side. Sunk in the divine
+lassitude that held me, I watched his movements, glad that the sight of
+them gave me no pain.
+
+I saw that Stahl had stretched himself on the couch and lay there with a
+vacant ecstatic smile on his lips.
+
+All at once Bozevsky uttered a cry. I heard him, but I felt no
+inclination to answer. He struggled into a sitting position and looked
+at us both with wide, horrified eyes. He called us again and again. Then
+he began to weep. I could hear his weeping, but the beatific lethargy
+which engulfed me held me motionless. Perhaps I was even smiling, so
+free and so remote did I feel from all distress and suffering.
+
+And now I saw Bozevsky with teeth clenched and hands curved like talons,
+madly clutching and tearing away the bandages from his neck.
+
+He dragged and tore the gauze with quick frenzied movements, while from
+his lips came a succession of whimpering cries as of a dog imprisoned
+behind a door.
+
+I smiled, I know I smiled, as I gazed at him from my armchair.
+
+Stahl's eyes were shut; he was fast asleep.
+
+Even when the wasted neck was stripped bare, those quick, frenzied
+movements still continued. What my eyes then saw I can never tell....
+
+
+Thus died Alexis Bozevsky, the handsomest officer in the Imperial Guard.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+After that all is dark. A blood-red abyss seems to open in my memory
+wherein everything is submerged--even my reason.
+
+My reason! I have felt it totter and fall, like something detached and
+apart from myself; and I know that it has sunk into the grave that
+covers Alexis Bozevsky.
+
+Vaguely, from my distant childhood, a memory rises up and confronts me.
+
+I am in a school. I know not where. It is sunset, and I am at play,
+happy and alone, in the midst of a lawn; the daisies in the grass are
+already closed and rose-tipped, blushing in their sleep. Some one calls
+my name, and raising my eyes I see the small eager face of my playmate
+Tatiana peering out of an oval window in an old turret, where none of us
+are ever allowed to go. "Mura! Mura! Come quickly," she cries. "The
+turret is full of swallows!"
+
+"Full of swallows!" I can still recall the ecstasy of joy with which
+those three words filled me. I ran to the entrance of the old tower and
+helter-skeltered up the dark and narrow staircase; then, pushing aside a
+mildewed door, I found myself with Tatiana in a gloomy loft, and yes,
+yes! it was full of swallows!
+
+They flew hither and thither, darting over our heads, brushing our
+faces, making us shriek with delight. We managed to catch any number of
+them. Many were even lying on the ground. Tatiana filled her apron with
+the fluttering creatures, while I held some in my handkerchief and some
+in my hands. Then we ran downstairs into the dining-hall: "Look, look!
+we have caught a lot of swallows!" I can still see the girls crowding
+round us, and the face of the mistress bending forward with an
+incredulous smile; I see her shrink back, horrified and pale, with a cry
+of disgust: "Mercy upon us! They are all bats!"
+
+Even now the recollection of the shrieks we uttered as we flung them
+from us makes my flesh creep; even now I seem to feel the slippery
+smoothness of those cold membranes gliding through my fingers and near
+my cheeks....
+
+To what end does this childish recollection enter into the dark tragedy
+of my life? This--that when I mount into the closed turret of my mind in
+quest of winged thoughts and soaring fancies, alas! there glide through
+my brain only the monstrous spirits of madness, the black bats of
+hypochandria....
+
+I remember little or nothing of those somber days in Yalta. I can
+vaguely recollect Stahl telling me over and over again in answer to my
+delirious cries for Bozevsky: "He is dead! He is dead! He is dead!" And
+as I could not and would not believe him, he took me in a closed
+carriage through many streets; then into a low building and through
+echoing stone passages into a large bare room--a dissecting room!
+
+The horror of it seals my lips.
+
+Still more vaguely do I recollect the death of Stahl himself. I know
+that one evening he shot himself through the heart, and was carried to
+the hospital. I know that he sent me the following words traced in
+tremulous handwriting on a torn piece of paper: "Mura! I have only half
+an hour to live. Come to me, I implore you. Come!"
+
+I did not go to him. The terrible lessons he had taught me were bearing
+fruit; all I did when brought face to face with some new calamity was to
+take injection after injection of morphia; and thus I sank down again
+into the twilight world of unreality in which, during that entire
+period, I moved like one in a dream.
+
+I seemed to be living under water, in a perpetual dimness--a fluid,
+undulating dusk.
+
+No sooner did I find myself rising to the surface of consciousness, and
+the noisy harshness of life confronted me again, than my trembling hands
+sought the case that hid the little glass viper of oblivion--the
+hypodermic syringe of Pravaz.
+
+Over the tremulous flame of a candle I heated the phial of whitish
+powder and watched it gradually dissolve into a clear crystalline liquid
+that the hollow needle thirstily drank up: then I bared my arm and
+thrust the steel point aslant into my flesh. Soothing and benumbing the
+morphia coursed through my veins; and I sank once more into the
+well-known beatific lethargy, the undulating dusk of unreality and
+sleep....
+
+But one day a call thrilled through the enveloping cloud and reached my
+heart: it was the call of motherhood. Tioka! Tania! Where were my
+children? Why, why were my arms empty when these two helpless and
+beloved creatures were mine?
+
+Horrified at myself and at the dream-like apathy in which I had strayed
+so long, I tore myself from the degrading captivity of narcotics and
+with trembling steps tottered towards the threshold of life once more.
+
+With dazed eyes I beheld the altered world around me.
+
+How everything had changed! I was no longer the Countess Tarnowska,
+flattered, envied and beloved. The women who had formerly been my
+friends turned their eyes away from me, while on the other hand men
+stared at me boldly in a way they had never dared to look at me before.
+Vassili--the frivolous, light-hearted Vassili--shut his door upon me, and
+secluded himself in grim and formidable silence as in the walls of a
+fortress. Vainly did I beat upon it with weak hands, vainly did I pray
+for pity. Inexorable and inaccessible he remained, locked in his scorn
+and his resentment. Nor ever have the gates of his home or of his heart
+opened to me again.
+
+I took refuge with my children at Otrada.
+
+My parents received us in sorrow and humiliation. Themselves too broken
+in spirit to offer me any consolation, they moved silently through the
+stately mansion, blushing for me before the servants, hiding me from the
+eyes of their friends.
+
+Even my children hung their heads and crept about on tiptoe, mute and
+abashed without knowing why.
+
+One day Tania, my little Tania, was snatched from my arms. Vassili took
+her from me, nor did I ever see her again.
+
+I had gone out, I remember, sad and alone, into the wintry park. By my
+side trotted Bear, my father's faithful setter, who every now and then
+thrust his moist and affectionate nose into my hand. In my thoughts I
+was trying to face what the future might have in store for me.
+
+"When my little Tioka grows up," I said to myself, "I know, alas! that I
+shall lose him. He will want to live with his father: he will look
+forward to entering upon life under happy and propitious auspices. Yes,
+Tioka will leave me, I know. But my little girl will stay with me. Tania
+will be my very own. She will grow up, fair and gentle, by my side; I
+shall forget my sorrows in her clinging love; I shall live my life over
+again in hers. I shall be renewed, in strength and purity, in my
+daughter's stainless youth."
+
+As I thus reflected I saw my mother running to meet me, her gray head
+bare in the icy wind; she was weeping bitterly. Tania was gone! Vassili
+had taken her away!
+
+Notwithstanding all my tears and prayers it was never vouchsafed to me
+to see my little girl again.
+
+But when the day came in which they sought to tear my son from me as
+well, I fought like a maddened creature, vowing that no human power
+should take him from me while I lived. I fled with him from Otrada--I
+fled I knew not and cared not whither, clasping in my arms my tender
+fair-haired prey, watching over him in terror, guarding him with fervent
+prayers. I fled, hunted onward by the restlessness that was in my own
+blood, pursued by the bats of madness in my brain.
+
+Thus began my aimless wanderings that were to lead me so far astray.
+
+Alone with little Tioka and the humble Elise Perrier, I took to the
+highways of the world.
+
+How helpless and terrified we were, all three of us! It was like living
+in a melancholy fairy tale; it was like the story of the babes lost in
+the wood. Sometimes, in the midst of a street in some great unknown
+city, little Tioka would stop and say: "Mother, let us find some one who
+knows us, and ask them where we are to go and what we are to do."
+
+"No, no! Nobody must know us, Tioka."
+
+Then Tioka would begin to cry. "I feel as if we were lost, as if we were
+lost!..." And I knew not how to comfort him.
+
+One day--we were at Moscow, I remember--there appeared to me for the first
+time that lean and threatening wolf which is called--_Poverty_. Poverty!
+I had never seen it at close range before. I almost thought it did not
+really exist. I knew, to be sure, that there were people in the world
+who were in need of money; but those were the people whom we gave
+charity to; that was all.
+
+Poverty? What had poverty to do with us?
+
+During all my life I had never given a thought to money.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+"Elise, I cannot bear to see myself in this ugly black dress any longer.
+Write to Schanz and tell him to send me some new gowns. I want a dark
+green tailor-made costume, and a pearl-gray voile."
+
+"Yes, my lady. But, begging your ladyship's pardon, Schanz says that he
+would like to be paid."
+
+"Well, let us pay him then."
+
+"Yes, my lady. But, begging your ladyship's pardon, his bill is
+twenty-five thousand rubles."
+
+"Well, let him have them."
+
+"I am sorry, my lady, but we have not got twenty-five thousand rubles."
+
+It was true. We had not got twenty-five thousand rubles.
+
+"Elise, Tioka wants to be amused. He would like a toy railway."
+
+"Yes, my lady."
+
+"Mind," cried Tioka, "it must be like the one we saw yesterday, with all
+those stations and canals, and a Brooklyn bridge."
+
+"Yes, Master Tioka."
+
+"Well, Elise, what are you waiting for?"
+
+"Begging your ladyship's pardon, it costs eighty rubles."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"We have not got them."
+
+True enough; we had not got eighty rubles.
+
+"Elise, I have no more perfumes. Go and get me a bottle of Coty's
+Origant."
+
+"Yes, my lady. But--"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"It costs twelve rubles."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"We have not got them."
+
+And indeed we had not got twelve rubles.
+
+I thought it very sad not to have twenty-five thousand rubles, nor even
+twelve rubles, when I required them.
+
+I resolved to telegraph to my mother.
+
+Feeling sad and perplexed, I went to the telegraph office and sat down
+at a table to write my message:
+
+"Mother, dear, we are unhappy and forlorn; Tioka and I want to come home
+and stay with you always. Please send us at once--"
+
+I was meditating on what sum to mention, when I felt the touch of a hand
+upon my shoulder. Startled, I turned, and raised my eyes. Before me
+stood a man--dark, rather tall, with a brown mustache and pendulous
+cheeks. Surely I knew him! Where had I seen that face before? Suddenly
+there flashed into my mind the recollection of a crowded, brilliantly
+lighted restaurant. I saw Vassili, amid much laughter, counting the
+dark-eyed tziganes to see if one of them were missing--_Prilukoff!_ "The
+Scorpion!" It was he who stood before me.
+
+"Countess Tarnowska! Who would have dreamt of finding you here!" he
+exclaimed. "What are you doing in Moscow?"
+
+"I--I do not know," I stammered. I had in fact not infrequently asked
+myself what I was doing in Moscow.
+
+"I have heard of all your misfortunes," he said, lowering his voice, and
+gazing at me sympathetically. "I have read the papers and heard all the
+fuss. Come now, come," he added, "you must not weep. Let us go and have
+tea at the Metropole; there we can talk together." And he took me
+familiarly by the arm.
+
+I drew back. "I wanted to telegraph--," I began.
+
+"Telegraph? To whom?" inquired Prilukoff with an authoritative air.
+
+"To my mother."
+
+"Why? What do you want to telegraph to her for?"
+
+I flushed. "I--I have no money--" I stammered.
+
+"Well, I have," said Prilukoff, and he drew me out of the office.
+
+At the top of the steps he stopped and looked me in the face. "What a
+fortunate meeting!" he said. "Our lucky star must have brought it
+about." With these words his brown eyes looked straight into mine. "Our
+lucky star!" he repeated.
+
+Merciful heaven, why did not a whisper, not a breath of warning come to
+me then? Why did no tremor in my soul admonish me, no heavenly
+inspiration hold me back? Nothing, nothing checked the smile upon my
+lips, nor the words in which I gaily answered him:
+
+"Our lucky star! So be it." And I took his arm.
+
+The die of my destiny was cast. I went out on my way to destruction and
+ruin.
+
+
+There were many people and much music in the Metropole when we entered.
+
+It is strange to think how all the memorable and significant hours of my
+life are associated in my mind with the entrancing rhythm of
+dance-music, with the lilting tunes of waltz, mazurka and polonaise.
+
+All the tragedies, all the extravagances that convulsed my existence
+bloomed up like tragic modern flowers in the hothouse of some
+fashionable restaurant, under the feverish breath of a tzigane
+orchestra.
+
+So great became the power of this obsession over me, that no sooner did
+I enter a restaurant where there were people, and lights, and the music
+of stringed instruments, than I straightway felt as if I had lost my
+senses. Under the influence of such an atmosphere all my thoughts
+assumed disordered and extravagant forms. The tones of the violins
+excited and electrified me; as the bows swept the quivering strings I
+also quivered and vibrated, shaken with indescribable perturbation. The
+waves of sound seemed to envelop me in a turbid vortex of sentiment and
+sensibility.
+
+Ah, if there had been more silence in my life, more shade, more
+seclusion! It is not within the safe walls of the home, not at one's own
+peaceful and inviolate hearth that perversity stirs to life and
+catastrophe is born.
+
+Oh! Tania, my only daughter, if the wishes of your sorrowful mother
+could but reach you and her prayers for you be granted, they would
+encompass with shade and silence your young and virginal heart.
+
+And I--ah, if I could but go back to the white vacant land of childhood,
+I would kneel down and entreat from heaven naught else but shade and
+silence in my life....
+
+But in the Cafe Metropole the blazing lights were lit, the orchestra was
+swinging its unhallowed censer of waltz-music through the perfumed air
+and the Scorpion was sitting before me drinking his tea and laughing.
+
+"Do you remember how much afraid you were of me at the Strelna, when I
+jumped from the divan and touched your shoulder? And afterwards--when you
+found me asleep at the bottom of the sleigh?"
+
+Yes, I remembered.
+
+"And now you are no longer afraid of me?"
+
+No. Now I was no longer afraid of him.
+
+Fate, the Fury, standing behind me, must have laughed as with her
+nebulous hand she covered my smiling eyes.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+What charmed and delighted me most in the Scorpion was a pet phrase of
+his that he was constantly using: "_Leave that to me!_"
+
+He said it every minute, a hundred times a day. Occasionally there might
+be a slight variation; he might say, "Don't trouble your head about
+that"; or "Never mind, I'll see to it." But as a rule it was the brief
+enchanting sentence: "Leave that to me."
+
+I cannot possibly describe the sense of utter relief and comfort with
+which those few words inspired me. I felt unburdened, as it were,
+exonerated, set free from every responsibility, from every anxiety,
+almost from every thought. It was as if Prilukoff had said of my very
+soul, "Leave it to me," so complete was my sense of tranquil
+relinquishment.
+
+In truth I had never given much thought to the practical side of life.
+No sense of responsibility had ever weighed upon my narrow shoulders;
+there had always been so many people around me to give me advice, to
+direct me, to think and to act on my behalf!
+
+When I had suddenly found myself alone in the world with Tioka and Elise
+I had felt more frightened and more helpless than they. But now, here
+once more was some one ready to direct me, ready to think and act and
+decide for me. Occasionally, realizing my position, I exclaimed
+anxiously: "Dear me, what shall I do about money?"
+
+Prilukoff would answer briefly: "Leave that to me."
+
+"But how shall I pay my bills?"
+
+"Leave your bills to me."
+
+"And how shall I prevent Vassili from robbing me of Tioka!"
+
+"Don't bother about Tioka. Leave him to me."
+
+"And, oh dear! I wish I could be divorced from Vassili."
+
+"You shall be divorced; I shall see to it."
+
+"But what will my mother say?"
+
+"Leave your mother to me."
+
+There seemed to be nothing in the world that could not be left to the
+omniscient and all-sufficing care of Donat Prilukoff. I was deeply moved
+and grateful.
+
+"How shall I ever be able to thank you?"
+
+"Leave the thanking to me," said Prilukoff.
+
+For a long time, indeed, he seemed neither to desire nor expect any
+gratitude. He looked after my interests, my divorce, my parents, my son,
+my maid, my debts, and my health. But he asked for no thanks; all he
+required was that I should be docile and content.
+
+It was a period of respite. Soon I forgot that I had ever thought of him
+as a Scorpion or an octopus. Indeed, he was to my eyes a strange and
+delightful mixture of knight errant, of guardian saint, of
+commissionaire and hero.
+
+I did not feel then that every favor, every counsel I asked of him, was
+but another link in the subtle chain that bound me to him.
+
+Soon I was unable to do anything without asking for his opinion and his
+assistance. Tioka, Elise and I grew accustomed to see him arrive with
+his masterful air and brisk greeting every afternoon; then every
+morning; then every evening as well. We never went out without him; no
+letter was received or written without its being given to him to read.
+
+If Tioka broke a toy, if Elise was overcharged in an account, if I
+received an anonymous letter, it was immediately referred to Prilukoff.
+He put everything into his pocket, saying: "Leave that to me."
+
+And, true to his word, he mended the toys, he adjusted the accounts, he
+discovered and punished my anonymous slanderers. He was astute,
+deliberate and intelligent.
+
+I felt convinced that he was also kind and generous and good.
+
+Who can say that in those days he was not so? The dreadful Prilukoff,
+assassin and blackmailer, who turned against me, livid with wrath, in
+the court-room at Venice, was he--could he be?--the same Prilukoff who, in
+those far-off days, mended little Tioka's playthings? Who was so anxious
+if he saw me looking pale? Of whom Elise, clasping her work-worn hands,
+used to say: "When he appears he seems to me like Lohengrin!"
+
+Lohengrin! How bitterly I smile, remembering all that ensued. And yet--I
+cannot believe it. I cannot understand it. Which of those two beings--the
+maleficent demon or the chivalrous knight--was the real Prilukoff?
+
+Perhaps, when these sinister years of prison and sorrow are past that
+cancel in their flight so many things, and shed light upon so many
+others, some day he may cross my path again. Shall I then not discern in
+his faded, grief-stricken face the strong and compassionate Lohengrin of
+long ago?...
+
+Meanwhile I drifted on, submissive to my fate.
+
+Only two things perturbed me. One was the fear lest Tioka should be
+taken from me--an anguish that was with me day and night. The other was a
+torturing secret, which I confided to no one. It was--how shall I say
+it?--my terror of closed doors!
+
+Every time I found myself alone in front of a closed door, I did not
+dare to open it. I had the fixed, frightful idea that behind the door I
+should see--Bozevsky! I had the irremovable conviction that he was
+standing, motionless and expectant, behind every door that confronted
+me. All the doors of our apartment had to be kept wide open. If it ever
+happened that I found myself alone in a room of which the door was
+closed, instead of opening it I rang the bell, I called, I cried for
+help; and if it chanced that every one was out, or no one heard me, I
+stood riveted to the spot, rigid with fear, staring at the terrifying
+mystery of that closed door before me. Perchance, with a great effort of
+will, holding my breath while the beads of cold perspiration started on
+my brow, I ventured to put out my hand towards the handle--but in an
+instant I found myself pushing the door to again, leaning desperately
+with all my strength against the frail barrier which concealed--oh, I
+knew it did!--Bozevsky, standing upright and terrible, with the yellow
+gauze round his neck.
+
+This notion, horrible as it was in the daytime, became an unbearable
+fear after nightfall. Tioka went upstairs to bed, accompanied by Elise,
+at about eight o'clock. Twice it happened that, when they were both
+asleep, a draught caught the open door of the drawing-room in which I
+was sitting, and shut it. With chattering teeth, and shivers running
+over me like chilly water, I remained there, motionless, through all the
+hours of the night, knowing that Bozevsky was there, separated from me
+only by that slender wooden partition.
+
+In the morning Elise found me lying on the floor in a faint.
+
+One day Elise was summoned to Neuchatel. Her father was at the point of
+death, and wished to give his last embrace and blessing to his only
+daughter. It was five o'clock in the afternoon when the telegram for
+Elise arrived; at eight o'clock, distracted and weeping, she was in the
+train.
+
+Tioka and I, who had accompanied her to the station, returned homeward
+feeling sad and lonely. We felt doubly lonely that day, as Donat
+Prilukoff had been obliged to leave Moscow on account of a lawsuit, and
+was not to return until the following evening.
+
+We had, it is true, another serving-woman, a cook; but she left us every
+evening to go and sleep at her own home.
+
+We entered our dark and silent apartment nervously. I hastily turned on
+all the lights and then carried Tioka, who was cross and already half
+asleep, up the inner staircase leading to our bedrooms.
+
+I undressed him and put him to bed, tucking him up warmly and
+comfortably.
+
+"Oh, dear," he sighed, rubbing his eyes; "do you think the wolves will
+come and eat me if I don't say my prayers to-night?"
+
+"No, no, dearest. I will say them for you. Go to sleep."
+
+I kissed him and turned out the light; then I went downstairs to get a
+book from the library, intending to return to my room at once. I felt
+nervous and restless. I was afraid I should not be able to sleep.
+
+How did it happen? Perhaps it was an instant's forgetfulness that caused
+me to draw the door of the library after me. It closed with a heavy
+thud. The long, dark-red curtain turned on its rod and fell in front of
+the doorway.
+
+I was imprisoned!
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+I should never dare to leave that room.
+
+Suddenly I thought that Tioka might call me. But between him and me,
+standing outside on the threshold of that draped door, was there not the
+man whom I had seen die in Yalta? Horrifying memory! For a long time I
+did not venture to stir. I turned my head and looked behind me, then
+fixed my eyes afresh on the red curtain. Suddenly I thought I heard a
+cry.
+
+Yes; it was Tioka calling me, Tioka all alone upstairs, who was
+frightened too, frightened even as I was. With shivers swathing me from
+head to foot as with an icy sheet, I listened to those cries which every
+moment grew shriller and wilder. Then, in answer to him, I screamed too.
+
+Oh, those shrieks ringing through the empty house--shrieks which only
+that silent ghost behind the door could hear!
+
+Suddenly another thrill ran through me; the electric bell had sounded.
+Some one was ringing at our door; some one was coming to save us. Tioka
+still screamed, and the bell continued to ring. I could also hear blows
+on the door and then a voice--Prilukoff's voice--calling: "It is I. Open
+the door!"
+
+With a sob of mingled terror and joy I thrust back the curtain and flung
+open the dreaded door. Stumbling blindly through the passage I reached
+the hall door and drew back the latch. Prilukoff stood on the threshold;
+he was pale as death.
+
+"What has happened?" he cried. "What is the matter?" And he gripped my
+arm.
+
+I was sobbing with joy and relief. "Tioka, Tioka!" I called out. "Don't
+cry any more. Donat has come! We are here, we are near you!"
+
+Tioka's cries ceased at once.
+
+But Prilukoff still held me fast. "What has happened!" he asked,
+clenching his teeth.
+
+"I was afraid, I was afraid--" I gasped.
+
+"Of whom?"
+
+A fresh outburst of tears shook me. "Of the dead," I sobbed.
+
+"Leave the dead to me," said Prilukoff.
+
+He entered and shut the door.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus, unconscious and unwilling, I descended yet another step down the
+ladder of infamy.
+
+Shrinking and reluctant I trailed my white garments into defilement,
+sinking with every step deeper into the mire which was soon to engulf
+me; the mire which was to reach my proud heart, my pearl-encircled
+throat, my exalted brow on which nobility had set its seal in vain.
+
+It was about that time, I remember, that Delphinus, a renowned
+fortune-teller, came to Moscow. One morning, having nothing else to do,
+I went with the smiling, skeptical Elise to consult him in his luxurious
+apartments.
+
+He took both my hands and gazed for a long time at a crystal ball which
+was before him. Then he said: "Woman, your life is a tragedy."
+
+I smiled, incredulous yet disturbed. "Pray say rather a comedy, if you
+can."
+
+He shook his head. "A tragedy," he repeated gloomily. Then he uttered
+several commonplaces which might apply to any other woman as well as to
+me. Finally, with knitted brows, he looked still more closely into the
+crystal. "Two men," he said, speaking slowly, "have yet to enter into
+your life. One will bring salvation, the other ruin. Choose the one, and
+you will attain happiness; choose the other and you will perish."
+
+He paused. "You will choose the other," he said, and released my hand.
+
+I got up, smiling. "Oh, no, indeed! Now that I have been forewarned--"
+
+"You will choose the other," he repeated oracularly. "It is your
+destiny."
+
+Although I am not really superstitious, this curt, obscure prediction
+impressed me strangely.
+
+"I shall beware of whom I meet," I said to myself; and indeed, every
+time a man spoke to me, even casually, I wondered: could this be the
+One?--or the Other?
+
+But days and months passed, and I made no new acquaintances.
+
+Prilukoff kept me jealously secluded, and little Tioka absorbed my every
+hour. Apart from these two I saw no one at all.
+
+It was by mere chance that one day I met a former acquaintance.
+
+I had taken Tioka for a walk in the park when we saw a gentleman and a
+child sitting on a bench in the shade. They were both dressed in deep
+mourning, and they looked sad and disconsolate. The little boy was
+leaning his fair head on his father's arm, watching him as, with an air
+of melancholy abstraction, he traced hieroglyphics in the gravel with
+his stick. On hearing us approach the man in mourning raised his head
+and looked at us.
+
+I recognized him at once. It was Count Paul Kamarowsky, the husband of
+one of my dearest friends, who lived at Dresden, and whom I had not seen
+for nearly two years.
+
+He recognized me, too, and started to his feet with eager face, while
+the little boy looked at us diffidently, still holding to his father's
+sleeve.
+
+"Countess Tarnowska!" he exclaimed, holding out both his hands.
+
+I laid my hand in his; as he clasped it between his black-gloved fingers
+a slight shiver ran through me. I turned to the pale little child beside
+him who was still glancing up at me timidly. "Is this Grania?"
+
+"Yes. It is Grania," said Count Kamarowsky. Then he perceived my
+questioning glance at his mourning. "Poor Emilia--" he began, but his
+voice broke.
+
+"Poor Emilia?" Was it possible that my little school friend of long ago,
+the fair-haired, laughter-loving Lily should now be "poor Emilia," to be
+spoken of in solemn, mournful tones? I could hardly believe it. I seemed
+to see her still, bending over her 'cello with her fair curls tumbling
+over her face as she played her favorite Popper tarantelle.... I could
+see her laughing with mischievous eyes agleam behind her flaxen locks,
+like dark stars seen through a golden cloud. And here, clad in mourning
+for her, her husband and child stood before me.
+
+Great tenderness and pity filled my heart.
+
+Tioka had gone close to Grania, and the two children were looking at
+each other with that expression of simple gravity which is so far
+removed from the conventional smile with which grown-up people greet
+each other for the first time. Their gaze was serious, thoughtful and
+interrogative.
+
+"Do you like pelicans?" Tioka inquired suddenly.
+
+"No," said Grania.
+
+"Neither do I," said Tioka; and there was a long silence.
+
+"Do you like ducks?" asked Tioka.
+
+"Yes," replied Grania.
+
+"So do I," said Tioka; and their friendship was sealed.
+
+Count Kamarowsky and I were less prompt in discovering a community of
+tastes such as that which so quickly linked our two children together.
+This grave silent man in his widower's garb was almost a stranger to me.
+As we parted he asked permission to call. But on the following day a
+telegram from my father summoned me to Otrada. My mother was ill and
+desired my presence.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+It was a hurried departure and an anxious journey. We arrived late in
+the evening at my father's house. He came to meet us at the gate, tall
+and solemn, his white hair stirred by the wind. He kissed me without
+speaking and laid his hand on Tioka's head.
+
+"Mother--?" I scarcely dared to inquire.
+
+"Better. She is better. She has improved greatly since she knew you were
+coming."
+
+Tioka had hurriedly kissed his grandfather's hand, and now was hastening
+up the great staircase to see his grandmother, to whom he was
+passionately attached. Soon his rippling laughter and his nimble
+footsteps could be heard all over the house, and my mother said that the
+happiness of it had well-nigh cured her.
+
+It was scarcely daybreak next morning when Tioka came to call me to go
+down with him into the garden.
+
+The great garden at Otrada--the garden of my girlhood--glowed in all its
+summer splendor, and Tioka ran before me with cries of joy at everything
+he saw.
+
+"Look at the water! Look at the little bridge! Did you play here when
+you were little? Were you ever really little?" He looked at me
+doubtfully. "I mean really quite little--like Tania."
+
+The mention of his sister's name was like a blow to my heart. But Tioka
+was already flying across the lawn.
+
+"Oh," he cried. "There's the swing! I had forgotten there was a swing!
+Hurrah!"
+
+"Hush, hush, dearest," I warned; "don't disturb grandmama who is ill."
+
+He swung backwards and forwards, careless and handsome, shaking his
+blond hair in the wind.
+
+"Grandmama cannot hear me; she is fast asleep still. And besides she is
+not ill any more now that we are here; otherwise grandpapa would not
+have gone to Kieff to-day." Tioka jumped down from the swing and raised
+his face to me with adorable seriousness. "Tell me, mother, when one is
+ill with nervousness doesn't that mean that you want something you
+haven't got? Then if you get it you are well again, aren't you?
+Grandmama wanted us. We came. And now she is cured." After a pause he
+went on: "I think I am ill with nervousness too. I am nervous for a bowl
+of goldfish; and for a hunting dog like that one," he added, indicating
+a large setter lying stretched in the sun with his muzzle on his paws.
+
+"Why, that is Bear!" I cried, "our old Bear." I bent down to caress him.
+"Dear Bear, good Bear! Don't you recognize me?"
+
+Bear raised his languid, blood-shot eyes, but did not stir.
+
+"How sad he looks," I said, touching his muzzle to see whether his nose
+was hot. "Perhaps he is ill."
+
+"Perhaps he is nervous, too," said Tioka. "Very likely he is nervous
+because he wants a bone." And the child broke into a peal of shrill,
+merry laughter.
+
+In an instant the great dog had turned and leaped upon him. Snarling and
+growling he tore at his clothes, covering his shoulders and breast with
+blood-stained foam.
+
+Tioka fell shrieking to the ground. I flung myself upon the frenzied
+animal, seizing him by the collar, by the ears, and striving to drag him
+back; but with hoarse growls and snappish barks the dog kept biting and
+tearing the child's garments as he lay prostrate and inert on the
+gravel. With one hand I clutched the neck of the dog, while with the
+other I picked up a stone and beat him on the head with it until the
+blood ran.
+
+With a roar like that of a tiger, the animal turned and sprang upon me.
+
+I felt the sting of his fang as it bit into my arm, and I struck his
+nose with the stone which was already covered with blood. With a cry of
+pain that had almost a human sound, the dog released his hold, turned
+and went off.
+
+I saw him trotting away along the path, surly and dreadful, with his
+tail hanging down and his wounded head showing red in the sunshine.
+
+I picked up the moaning, sobbing Tioka and ran with him to the house.
+
+"Don't cry! don't cry, my darling," I implored him, myself in tears.
+"Don't let poor grandmama hear you! It will kill her." And Tioka tried
+his best to cry more softly. We crossed the courtyard to the servants'
+entrance, and I ran into the kitchen where the servants came thronging
+round us in alarm.
+
+"The dog--," I panted, "the dog has bitten us--do you think it will give
+us hydrophobia?" With a groan I dropped little Tioka into a chair; he
+was a pitiable sight in his torn and bloodstained garments.
+
+The women and the two moujiks wrung their hands. "Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!
+What shall we do? With the master at Kieff and the Countess ill in bed!"
+
+The cook had filled a basin with boiling water and was laving Tioka's
+wounds, while he screamed with the redoubled pain.
+
+I knew it was necessary to do something instantly. But what? I
+remembered having read in the life of the three Bronte sisters that one
+of those heroic girls had been bitten by a mad dog, and that she
+herself, without disturbing her sister, who was ill with consumption,
+had heated an iron red-hot and had cauterized her own wounds.
+
+"Put an iron in the fire!" I said, pointing with trembling hand to the
+poker.
+
+The dismayed women did so, and I bared my arm and little Tioka's
+lacerated shoulder.
+
+But when I had the terrible instrument with its glowing point in my
+hand, my courage failed. Tioka was shrieking with terror like a poor
+little maddened creature, and the women were on their knees, weeping and
+praying.
+
+Alas, I am not a heroine; I threw away the red-hot iron; we bound up the
+wounds--which, after they had been washed, looked insignificant and
+harmless enough--and determined to go to Kieff at once and consult a
+doctor. We went upstairs on tip-toe to my mother's room. She was still
+sleeping quietly, with her small, pinched face sunk in the pillow.
+
+We did not venture to wake her and tell her our terrifying story. We
+left orders with the servants that they were to say my father had
+summoned us to meet him in Kieff; and we started.
+
+All the way I watched Tioka with the deepest anxiety. I also probed my
+own feelings intently, wondering whether I felt any desire to bark. I
+cannot say that I did. Also, during the entire journey, I kept on
+showing Tioka glasses of water, but he did not seem to feel any the
+worse for them; nor did I. This comforted us a little.
+
+As soon as we reached Kieff I telegraphed to Prilukoff:
+
+"_Both of us bitten by mad dog. What shall we do?_"
+
+He replied: "_All right. Leave it to me._"
+
+And, indeed, he arrived immediately and took us to Doctor Fritkof, who
+gave us injections of antirabic serum for three weeks. It made us feel
+very ill. Every minute I asked Tioka: "Do you feel inclined to bite any
+one?"
+
+He invariably replied in the affirmative, which made me very miserable.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+Although Tioka and I both recovered, this alarming incident had its
+consequences on my life. It caused me to leave my old home, and from the
+moment of that departure I never saw my dear mother again.
+
+With the passing of her mild and tender presence all that still was pure
+and holy vanished out of my life.
+
+I was already on the brink of perdition. Freed from the restraint of
+that gentle hand, whose light touch even from afar had still controlled
+my heart, I plunged forward to destruction.
+
+
+The inheritance was divided, and my share was dissipated I know not how.
+I returned to Moscow, and found myself ever more and more in need of
+money.
+
+I lived luxuriously, I dressed gorgeously, and traveled from one place
+to another--yet I had nothing of my own except an income of four thousand
+rubles a year, which were scarcely paid to me before they were swallowed
+up in the gulf of my debts. I asked Prilukoff for money, and he gave it
+to me.
+
+But there came a day when, on my asking him for five thousand rubles, he
+turned upon me abruptly.
+
+"I have not got them," he said. "At least," he added, "not unless I
+steal them."
+
+"How dreadful," I exclaimed in terror. "How can you say such a thing?"
+Then I laughed, feeling sure that he had spoken in jest.
+
+"Get them from Kamarowsky," said Prilukoff, curtly.
+
+I started with indignation. From Kamarowsky! Never, never, as long as I
+lived. I had seen him frequently during the last few days; he and his
+charming little son, Grania, still in their deep mourning and with pale,
+sad faces, used to come and see me, and talk to me with many tears about
+their dear one who was gone. It would have been horrible, it would have
+been indecorous, to ask Kamarowsky for money.
+
+"I did not say you were to ask him for it," retorted Prilukoff.
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Telephone and invite him to dine with you to-morrow."
+
+"Well? And then?"
+
+"Then we shall see."
+
+As he insisted I complied reluctantly.
+
+Kamarowsky accepted the invitation with touching gratitude, and a large
+basket of roses preceded his arrival.
+
+Prilukoff, who was still hanging about in my boudoir, but declared that
+he would not stay to dinner, sniffed the roses with a cynical smile:
+
+"Flowers! Flowers! Nothing but flowers! _Nous allons changer tout
+cela._"
+
+The door bell rang, announcing the arrival of my visitor.
+
+"What am I to do with him now he is here?" I asked Prilukoff uneasily.
+"What shall I say?"
+
+"Do nothing and say nothing. And mind you don't open any letter in his
+presence."
+
+"Any letter?" I asked, in bewilderment. "What letter?"
+
+"I tell you not to open any. That is enough." With this obscure
+injunction Prilukoff urged me towards the drawing-room, and I went in to
+receive my guest.
+
+Count Kamarowsky, while inspiring me with the deepest pity, frequently
+irritated and annoyed me. His grief for his lost Emilia was doubtless
+deep and sincere; but sometimes when I tried to console him I seemed to
+read in his tear-filled eyes an emotion that was not all sorrow, and in
+the clasp of his hand I perceived a fervor that spoke of something more
+than gratitude. I felt hurt for the sake of my poor friend, Lily, so
+lately laid to her rest; and I shrank from him with feelings akin to
+anger and aversion.
+
+Yet, when I saw him moving away, pale in his deep mourning, leading his
+sad little child by the hand, my heart was touched and I would call them
+back to me and try to comfort them both. The child clung to me with
+passionate affection, while his father seemed loth ever to leave my
+side.
+
+Conversation between us always soared in the highest regions of ethereal
+and spiritual things; our talk was all on abstract subjects, dwelling
+especially on the immortality of the soul, the abode of the departed,
+the probabilities of reunion in the world beyond. The commonplace
+everyday prose of life was so far removed from our intercourse that I
+felt shy of having asked him to dinner. To eat in the presence of so
+much sorrow seemed indecorous and out of keeping. Nevertheless, as I had
+invited him to dine I could not but seat myself opposite him at the
+flower-decked, fruit-laden table.
+
+A man-servant, lent to me for the occasion by Prilukoff, handed the
+zakusta and the vodka; and soon in the mellow atmosphere of the little
+dining-room, under the gentle luster of the pink-shaded lamps, a rare
+smile blossomed timidly now and then out of the gloom of our melancholy
+conversation.
+
+We had scarcely finished taking our coffee when, to my astonishment,
+Prilukoff was announced. He entered with rapid step, holding a large
+sealed envelope in his hand. For a moment he seemed disconcerted at
+finding that I was not alone, and looked as if he would hide the letter
+behind his back. Then, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, as if
+acquiescing in the unavoidable presence of a stranger, he handed me the
+envelope with a deep bow.
+
+"What is it?" I asked in surprise.
+
+Prilukoff glanced somewhat uneasily at my guest, then he bent forward
+and said in a low voice--yet not so low that the other could not hear
+what he said:
+
+"This morning, Countess, you did me the honor of confiding to me the
+fact that you needed ten thousand rubles. I shall be most grateful and
+honored if you will accept that sum from me." So saying, he placed the
+envelope in my hand. Then with a brief salutation to Count Kamarowsky
+and another profound bow to me, he pleaded haste and withdrew.
+
+A flush had mounted to the Count's temples.
+
+"Who was that?" he asked in a harsh voice.
+
+I mentioned Prilukoff's name, and Kamarowsky with knitted eyebrows
+exclaimed: "You must have very confidential relations with him, if he
+permits himself to give you ten thousand rubles."
+
+"Oh, no--no," I stammered. "He is--he is only lending them to me. I shall
+pay them back, of course--"
+
+Kamarowsky had risen from his chair. He took both my hands and pressed
+them to his breast.
+
+"How wrong of you! How wrong! Why did you not ask me? Have you no
+confidence in me? How can you accept assistance from a stranger when I
+am here--I, who am so devoted to you?"
+
+I know not why I burst into tears. A sense of shame and degradation
+overcame me. In a moment his arms were round me.
+
+"Dearest, sweetest, do not cry. I know you must feel humiliated at
+accepting money from that man, who may afterwards make all kinds of
+claims upon you. Return the money to him, I implore you, and accept it
+from me."
+
+I could not answer for my tears.
+
+"Promise me that you will give it back," Kamarowsky went on, clasping me
+closer to him. "If you refuse me this favor I shall go away and you
+shall never see me again. For the sake of our Emilia--for the sake of
+little Grania--accept it from me. And let me be your friend from now on
+and forever."
+
+It took a long time to reconcile me to the sense of my own debasement.
+
+He wrote out a check to me for ten thousand rubles and put it into my
+hands. He closed my fingers forcibly over it, pressing them closely and
+thanking me in a moved voice.
+
+Then he went away, and I was left alone with the check and Prilukoff's
+sealed envelope.
+
+I had wanted five thousand rubles and here I was with twenty thousand
+before me!
+
+Poor, good Kamarowsky! And poor, dear, kind Prilukoff!
+
+"I do not see why I should really return this to Prilukoff!" I said to
+myself.
+
+I broke the seals and opened the envelope that he had presented to me
+with so much solemnity. Petrified with astonishment I gazed at its
+contents. Then I laughed softly.
+
+"On the whole, I think I _will_ return it," I said, and laid the
+envelope aside.
+
+It was full of old newspaper cuttings!
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+_Facilis descensus Averni._
+
+My downfall was rapid and irretrievable.
+
+I soon became familiar with expedients and intrigues, I trod the
+tortuous paths that lead down into the valley of dishonor. For the
+outside world I might still appear a person of distinction, I might
+still call myself the Countess Tarnowska, but I had ceased to be that
+simple, ordinary, peerless being--an honest woman. I seemed to be
+surrounded by that peculiar atmosphere which envelops the adventuress as
+in an invisible mist--that imperceptible emanation by which persons of
+repute are instinctively repelled, and which draws within its ambit the
+idler and adventurer, the depredator and outcast of society.
+
+I had accepted money to which I had no claim. From this want of dignity
+to the want of rectitude how brief is the step! Between indiscretion and
+transgression how uncertain is the boundary! And suddenly there comes a
+day when one awakes to find oneself--a criminal!
+
+Ah, then we stop short in horror. We look back and see the abyss, the
+impassable gulf that henceforward separates us from the distant, candid
+summits of innocence. How has it been possible for us to travel along
+that vertiginous road which knows no return? What evil spirits have
+bandaged our eyes, have placed for our feet bridges and stepping stones
+so that almost without noticing it we have crossed ravines and
+precipices which never in this life we may traverse again? We can but go
+forward and downward: we can turn back no more.
+
+Not at this period did I realize the irrevocable character of the fate I
+had chosen. Rather did I seem to perceive a new life opening out before
+me, leading me back once more to rectitude and honor, a return to that
+peaceful, conventional existence so often scorned by those who lead it,
+so bitterly regretted and desired by those who have forfeited and
+forsaken it.
+
+Prilukoff still held me bound to him by the triple bonds of gratitude,
+of affection and of complicity. But Count Kamarowsky was swaying me
+towards a brighter and securer future. My marriage with Vassili, so long
+merely an empty and nominal tie, was about to be dissolved by a decree
+from the Holy Synod, and Kamarowsky implored me to marry him. His
+sadness and the loneliness of his little son moved me deeply; the
+thought of bringing light and joy into their lives was unspeakably sweet
+to me, while for my part I rejoiced to think that by the side of a
+worthy and honorable man I might take my place in the world once more,
+rehabilitated and redeemed. With Prilukoff, as I could see, downfall and
+ruin were imminent. He had left Moscow for a few days; but he would
+return, and alas! he would resume his dominion over me. I knew that with
+him the ultimate plunge into dishonor was inevitable.
+
+And so with bitter tears of repentance, clasping the two fair heads of
+Tioka and Grania to my breast, I vowed to Heaven that I would be to them
+both a tender and a faithful mother, worthy of the lofty duty that by
+Divine grace was to be once more assigned to me.
+
+Count Kamarowsky's gratitude and joy were boundless.
+
+"You are giving back life to me," he said, his kind eyes shining with
+emotion. "I do not feel worthy of so much happiness."
+
+"Don't, don't!" I said, turning away my face and flushing deeply at the
+thought of my recent unprincipled life. "It is I, I who am unworthy--"
+
+But Kamarowsky interrupted me.
+
+"Hush, Marie, hush. I know that you have suffered much and that you have
+been led astray. But let the dead past bury the past. All I ask of you
+is the pure white page of the future."
+
+"You are generous, you are kind," I said, and tears burned in my eyes.
+"But let me tell you, let me tell you all--"
+
+"Mura," he said, calling me by the tender pet-name of my childhood, "do
+not raise impassable barriers between us. What I have no knowledge of
+does not exist so far as I am concerned. The unknown is but a shadow;
+and I am not afraid of shadows. But if to that shadow you give a living
+shape and a name, it will rise between you and me, and I shall not be
+able to clasp you in my arms until I have destroyed it. Speak if you
+must. But, for our happiness, it were far better for you to keep
+silence--and to forget."
+
+"Ah, you are right! Let there be no more sorrow, no more tragedies
+around me. Take me away from Moscow, away from all who know me. I will
+keep silence, and forget."
+
+Our departure from Moscow was like a flight. I left a letter for
+Prilukoff, entreating him to forgive and forget me, begging him not to
+debar me from taking my way again towards safety and rehabilitation. I
+expressed to him my sympathy, my gratitude and regret; and I implored
+him in the name of all that he still held dear or sacred to return to
+his family and to his career, to the lofty and straightforward course of
+honor from which I, unhappy creature that I was, had unwittingly,
+unwillingly turned him aside.
+
+Kamarowsky took us to the Riviera--from the snows of the north to the
+fragrant orange-groves of Nice and Hyeres. The tinkling of sleighs
+gliding through the blue-cold streets of Moscow still seemed to ring in
+my ears when, lo! the lazy, sun-warm silence of the south enwrapped my
+senses in its languorous sweetness. The two children, dazed with the
+heat and the blueness around them, stood in amazement, with hands
+clasped and mouths open, at the sight of the golden oranges and the huge
+foliage of cacti and aloes, thinking that by some wonder-working charm
+they had been carried into fairyland.
+
+The distant sails, aslant on the radiant indigo of the sea, looked like
+white butterflies poised on a stupendous flower of lapis lazuli....
+
+For three brief days I thought that fate had not overtaken me, and that
+my sins would not find me out.
+
+My sins! As in the old German fable the children are led into the depths
+of a forest, and left there to be lost and forgotten--even so did I think
+that my sins would be lost and forgotten, even so did I think that they
+would never issue again from the shade in which I had hidden them.
+
+Smiling, I moved forward to meet the future, exalted by the affection of
+an honorable man, purified by the love of two innocent children.
+
+And I said in my heart: "Fate is pitiful and God has shown mercy. He has
+suspended His judgment and has allowed me one last chance. I shall not
+be found wanting; I shall be worthy of His clemency."
+
+Then lo! at a turning in my pathway, the forgotten avengers stand before
+me; my sins, like spectral furies, have found me out!
+
+We were finishing dinner on the terrace of the Bellevue at Hyeres, my
+betrothed and I. The children had said good night, had kissed and
+embraced us and run off, chattering and twittering with Elise, to their
+rooms. Kamarowsky had just lit a cigarette, and was leaning over to me
+with a word of tenderness, when I perceived immediately behind him at a
+neighboring table--a face, a grinning, fiendish face.
+
+My heart bounded. It was the Scorpion!
+
+Why was it that name that first rushed to my mind? Why was my primitive
+sense of fear and repulsion renewed at the sight of him?
+
+Ah, that man staring and grimacing at me over Kamarowsky's shoulder was
+not the friend, the lover, the knight of the heroic Saga whom I had
+known and trusted in my days of desolation; no, he was the terrifying
+and truculent monster of the octopus story; he was the Scorpion who
+years ago had filled my soul with dread.
+
+When had he come? How long had he been sitting at that table, watching
+my garrulous gladness, my timorous, reawakened happiness?
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+I glanced at him apprehensively; I tried to greet him, but he made no
+return to my timid salute. He was smiling with a crooked mouth, his arms
+crossed before him on the table. He was mocking at Kamarowsky and at me,
+and my terror seemed greatly to amuse him.
+
+I rose nervously, wishing to retire, but Kamarowsky detained me.
+
+"What is troubling you, dearest?" he asked, noticing my frightened eyes.
+And he turned to see what was behind him.
+
+I trembled in prevision of a stormy scene. But the Count did not
+recognize Prilukoff; he had only seen him once for a few moments that
+evening in my drawing-room when he had brought me the mysterious sealed
+envelope. Now Donat had his hat on his head; and besides, with that
+sinister smirk distorting his face I scarcely recognized him myself.
+
+As soon as we rose from the table, Prilukoff did the same, and passing
+in front of us entered the hotel before we did. I trembled, while
+Kamarowsky with his arm in mine led me, talking placidly and
+affectionately, towards the entrance of the hotel. Doubtless he intended
+to accompany me to my sitting-room. But what if we found Prilukoff
+there?
+
+It was Elise Perrier who saved me. As we stepped out of the lift I saw
+her coming quickly down the corridor to meet us.
+
+"If you please, madame," she stammered, "there is a lady--a visitor"--her
+lips were white as she uttered the falsehood--"who wishes to see madame.
+She is waiting here, in the sitting-room, and she would like to--to see
+your ladyship alone."
+
+"Who is it?" asked the Count.
+
+"I think it is the--that relation of madame's"--Elise was going red and
+white by turns--"that relation from--from Otrada."
+
+"Ah, I know," I stammered breathlessly. "Aunt Sonia, perhaps." Then
+turning to Kamarowsky: "Will you wait for me downstairs in the
+reading-room?"
+
+"Very well. Don't be long." And Count Kamarowsky turned on his heel and
+left us.
+
+I went rapidly on in front of Elise, who, humiliated by the falsehood
+she had told, hung her head in shame both for herself and for me; and I
+entered my sitting-room.
+
+On the couch, smoking a cigarette, sat Prilukoff. He did not rise when I
+entered. He sat there smoking and looking at me with that curious
+crooked smile. A great fear clutched my heart.
+
+"Donat," I stammered, "why did you not let me know you had arrived?"
+
+He made no answer; but he laughed loudly and coarsely, and my fear of
+him increased.
+
+"Did you receive my letter? Are you cross with me?"
+
+"Cross?" he shouted, leaping to his feet, his eyes glaring like those of
+a madman. "Cross? No, I am not cross." I recoiled from him in terror,
+but he followed me, pushing his distorted face close to mine. "You ruin
+a man, you drive him to perdition, and then you inquire whether he is
+cross. You take an honorable man in your little talons, you turn and
+twist him round your fingers, you mold him and transform him and turn
+him into a coward, a rogue, and a thief; then you throw him aside like a
+dirty rag--and you ask him if he is cross! Ha, ha!" And he laughed in my
+face; he was ghastly to look at, livid in hue, with a swollen vein drawn
+like a cord across his forehead.
+
+I burst into tears. "Why--why do you say that?" I sobbed.
+
+"Why do I say that?" stormed Prilukoff. "Why? Because I had a wife and I
+betrayed her for you; I had two children and I forsook them for you; I
+had a career and I lost it for you; I was a man of honor and I have
+turned thief for you."
+
+"Oh, no, no!" I stammered, terrified.
+
+"What? No? No?" he exclaimed, and with trembling hands he searched his
+breast-pocket and drew from it a bulky roll of banknotes. "No? This I
+stole--and this--and this--and this--because you, vampire that you are,
+needed money."
+
+"But I never told you to steal--"
+
+"No, indeed; you never told me to steal. And where was I to get the
+money from? Where? Where?" So saying, he flung the banknotes in my face
+and they fell all over and around me. "You did not tell me to steal, no.
+But you wanted money, money, money. And now you have got it. Take it,
+take it, take it!"
+
+I sobbed despairingly. "Oh, no, no, Donat! Have pity!"
+
+"I have had pity," he shouted. "I have always had pity--nothing but pity.
+You were ill and miserable and alone, and I left my home in order to
+stay with you. You wept, and I comforted you. You had no money, and I
+stole it for you. How could I have more pity?" He was himself in tears.
+"And now, because I am degraded and a criminal on your account, you
+leave me, you fling me aside and you marry an honest man. And I may go
+to perdition or to penal servitude."
+
+"Do not speak like that, I implore you."
+
+"Ah, but Countess Tarnowska, if I go to penal servitude, so shall you. I
+swear it. I am a thief and may become a murderer; but if I go to prison,
+you go too." He collapsed upon the sofa and hid his face in his hands.
+
+As I stood looking down upon him I saw as in a vision the somber road to
+ruin that this man had traversed for my sake, and I fell on my knees at
+his feet.
+
+"Donat! Donat! Do not despair. Forgive me, forgive me! Go back, and
+return the money you have taken; go back and become an honest man
+again!"
+
+He raised a haggard face in which his wild, bloodshot eyes seemed almost
+phosphorescent.
+
+"There is no going back. By this time all Moscow knows that I have
+absconded, and carried off with me the money that was confided to my
+care."
+
+"But if you go back at once and return it?"
+
+"I am ruined all the same. I am utterly lost and undone. Who would ever
+place their trust in me again? Who would ever rely upon my honor? No, I
+am a criminal, and every one knows it. The brand of infamy is not to be
+cancelled by a flash of tardy remorse. I am done for. I am a thief, and
+that is all there is about it."
+
+A thief! I had never seen a thief. In my imagination thieves were all
+slouching, unkempt roughs, with caps on their heads, and colored
+handkerchiefs tied round their throats. And here was this gentleman in
+evening dress--this gentleman who had been introduced to me as a
+celebrated and impeccable lawyer, who had been my lover, and Tioka's
+friend, and Elise's Lohengrin--and he was a thief!
+
+I could not believe it.
+
+At that moment a voice was heard outside. It was one of the bell-boys of
+the hotel; he was passing through the corridor calling: "Forty-seven!
+Number forty-seven."
+
+Prilukoff started. "Forty-seven? That is the number of my room. Who can
+be asking for me? Who can know that I am here?"
+
+In his eyes there was already the look of the fugitive, the startled
+flash of fear and defiance of the hunted quarry.
+
+I looked round me at all the banknotes scattered on the carpet, and I
+felt myself turn cold. "Hide them, hide them," I whispered, wringing my
+hands.
+
+"Hide them yourself!" he answered scornfully.
+
+I heard footsteps in the corridor. They drew near. They stopped. Some
+one knocked at the door. Terror choked my throat and made my knees
+totter.
+
+I stooped in haste to pick up all the money while Prilukoff still looked
+at me without moving. I held it out to him in a great heap of crumpled
+paper. But still he did not stir.
+
+Again the knocking was repeated. Who could it be? Kamarowsky? The
+police? I opened a desk and flung the bundle of banknotes into it.
+
+Then I said, "Come in."
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+It was only a saucy little page-boy in red uniform.
+
+"If you please, Count Kamarowsky sends word that he is waiting for you."
+
+"Say that I shall be down directly."
+
+"No," contradicted Prilukoff; "send word that you are not going down."
+
+"But then he will come here."
+
+"You will say that you cannot receive him."
+
+And that was what took place. And not on that evening only. Prilukoff
+installed himself, during long days and evenings, in my apartments, and
+refused to go away. Very often he did not even allow me to go out of the
+room.
+
+Then came Count Kamarowsky knocking at the door.
+
+"No! no! You cannot come in!" cried Elise Perrier, pale and trembling,
+leaning against the locked door.
+
+"But why? Why? What has happened?"
+
+"Nothing has happened. Madame is not feeling well," Elise would reply,
+in quavering tones.
+
+"But that is all the more reason why I should see her," protested the
+Count. "I must see her!"
+
+"It is impossible!" And Elise, whom fear rendered well-nigh voiceless,
+would roll towards me her round, despairing eyes.
+
+Then the Count would speak to me through the closed door, entreating and
+arguing; and every time he used a tender expression Prilukoff, who held
+me fast, pinched my arm.
+
+"Mura, Mura, let me in. Let me see you for a moment. You know how I love
+you (pinch); it is cruel to lock me out as if I were a stranger. If you
+are ill let me take care of you, with all my tenderness (pinch), with
+all my love (pinch)--"
+
+In feeble accents I would reply: "Forgive me--I shall soon be better--do
+not trouble about me."
+
+"But what is the matter? Why do you not want to see me? Do you not love
+me any more?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I love--(pinch). Please, please go away. I shall come down as
+soon as I can."
+
+Then I could hear his slowly retreating footsteps, while Prilukoff
+glared at me and, on general principles, pinched my arm again.
+
+It was with the greatest difficulty that I could conceal Prilukoff's
+presence from little Tioka.
+
+One day the child caught sight of him seated on the terrace, and, with a
+wild cry of delight, started to run towards him. I caught him in my
+arms. "No, darling, no! That is not Prilukoff. It is some one very much
+like him; but it is not our friend."
+
+And as the man, with scowling countenance, was gazing out at the sea,
+and paid no heed to us, Tioka believed me, and, with a little sigh of
+regret, ran in search of his playmate Grania.
+
+The life Prilukoff led me in this grotesque and unbearable situation is
+impossible to describe. My days were passed in an agony of terror. When
+I dined with Kamarowsky, Prilukoff invariably took a seat at the next
+table, and I might almost say that it was he who regulated our
+conversation. If any subject were raised that was distasteful to him--my
+approaching marriage to Kamarowsky, for instance, or some tender
+reminiscence which my betrothed loved to recall--Prilukoff, at the
+adjoining table, made savage gestures which terrified me and attracted
+the attention of all the other guests. He would shake his fists at me,
+glare at me with terrible eyes, and, if I pretended not to notice him,
+he upset the cruet-stand or dropped his knife and fork noisily to
+attract my attention. He would stare at the unconscious, slightly bald
+head of Kamarowsky, and imitate his gestures with a demoniacal grin.
+
+The guests of the hotel thought him insane, and he certainly behaved as
+if he were. I myself have often thought: "Surely he is a madman!" when I
+came upon him suddenly, hidden behind the curtains in my sitting-room,
+or crouching in a dark corner, or lying on my bed smoking cigarettes. I
+felt that my nerves and my reason were giving way.
+
+"What do you want of me, you cruel man?" I sobbed. "What am I to do? Do
+you wish me to tell everything to Kamarowsky? To break off the marriage
+and return to Moscow with you?"
+
+"We cannot return to Moscow, and you know it," growled Prilukoff.
+
+"Somewhere else, then. Anywhere! I will go wherever you like, I will do
+whatever you like. Anything, anything, rather than endure this torture
+any longer."
+
+"For the present we stay here," declared Prilukoff, who seemed to enjoy
+my anguish. "And as for the future," he added, rolling his terrible
+eyes, "you can leave that to me."
+
+Sometimes he forbade me to go out with Kamarowsky. At other times he
+followed us in the streets, torturing me behind the unconscious back of
+my betrothed, who marveled and grieved at my extraordinary and
+frequently absurd behavior.
+
+Early one morning, as I looked out of my window, I saw Kamarowsky
+standing on the terrace, gazing thoughtfully out at the sea. I ran down
+to him. We were alone. "Paul," I whispered hurriedly, "let us go away
+from here; let us leave quietly, to-day, without saying a word to any
+one."
+
+He laughed. "What a romantic idea! Do you not like this place? Are you
+not happy here?"
+
+"No, Paul, no! There is some one spying upon me."
+
+"Spying upon you?" he repeated, greatly astonished. "Is that the reason
+of your strange behavior?"
+
+"Yes, yes, but do not ask me any more questions."
+
+"Who is it? I must know who it is."
+
+"No, Paul. I will tell you later on. Hush!"
+
+"You are a fanciful creature," he said, laughing and patting my cheek.
+
+  [Illustration: COUNT PAUL KAMAROWSKY]
+
+I felt hurt at his calm acceptance of what I had told him, and wondered
+that he did not insist upon knowing more. I reflected in my folly that
+if he really loved me he ought to have been less satisfied and secure. I
+did not understand--alas! I never understood--his guileless and noble
+trust in me. The insensate and exacting passion of others who until now
+had dominated my life had spoiled me for all normal affection.
+Hypersensitive and overwrought, I myself suffered unless I caused
+suffering to those I loved; nor did I ever feel sure of their love
+unless they doubted mine.
+
+    The love that varies not from day to day,
+    A tranquil love, unruffled and serene--
+
+was not the love I knew. My storm-tossed heart did not recognize it.
+Neither on that day nor ever could I bring myself to believe that Paul
+Kamarowsky really loved me.
+
+During those few moments that we were alone together on the terrace, we
+arranged that I should start with Tioka and Elise that very evening,
+during the dinner hour, leaving all our trunks behind us for my
+betrothed to see to after we had left. He could join us three days later
+in Vienna, and then we should all proceed to Orel, where important
+affairs claimed his presence.
+
+Half-way through dinner, as had been arranged (and as usual Prilukoff
+sat at a table next to ours), Elise entered the dining-room timidly and
+came to our table.
+
+"I beg your ladyship's pardon. Master Tioka is outside and wishes to say
+good-night."
+
+"Bring Master Tioka in," I said, trying to speak naturally and raising
+my voice a little so that Prilukoff should hear.
+
+"I am sorry, my lady, but he refuses to come," and Elise hung her head
+as she spoke these words; the treason we were perpetrating on Lohengrin
+grieved her even more than the tortures that Lohengrin had inflicted
+upon me.
+
+"Pray excuse me a moment," I said to Count Kamarowsky, and rose from the
+table. "I shall be back at once."
+
+No sooner was I outside the dining-room than Elise threw my traveling
+cloak round me. A motor-car was throbbing at the door, and in it with
+beaming face sat Tioka surrounded by our hand-bags and dressing-cases,
+shawls and hats.
+
+"What are we doing?" he cried gleefully. "Are we running away?"
+
+"Yes, darling," and I clasped him to my heart, as I sank into the seat
+beside him. The motor was already gliding through the twilight roads
+towards Cannes.
+
+"But why? Why are we running away? Have we stolen something?"
+
+At those words my heart stopped beating. I suddenly remembered
+Prilukoff's ill-gotten banknotes.
+
+"Elise!" I gasped; "in the desk in my sitting-room--there was some
+money."
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"What did you do with it?"
+
+"It is quite safe, madame. I have taken it."
+
+"_You have taken it!_"
+
+"Yes, madame. Here it is." And with satisfied hand Elise patted a black
+leather satchel that lay in her lap.
+
+With a sob I hid my face in my hands.
+
+Indeed, we had stolen something!
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+As soon as we reached the frontier I telegraphed to Prilukoff. I wanted
+to send Elise back to Hyeres with the money, but she refused to leave
+me.
+
+"What if Mr. Prilukoff were to kill me," she cried. "Then what would
+your ladyship and poor little Master Tioka do, all alone in the world?"
+
+"But my good Elise, why on earth should Mr. Prilukoff kill you?"
+
+"I don't know," sighed Elise. "But he has become so strange of late--"
+and after a pause, she added, under her breath: "We have all become very
+strange."
+
+It was true. I could not but admit it. We were "very strange." We were
+not at all like other people. The people that we met on our journeys and
+in hotels, for instance, all took an interest in external things--in the
+surrounding landscape, or in works of art and monuments and cathedrals.
+As for us, we never spoke about monuments. We never entered a cathedral.
+We took no interest whatever in anything beyond our own dolorous souls.
+We were even as those who travel with an invalid, watching him only,
+caring for and thinking of nothing else. The invalid I traveled with was
+my own sick soul.
+
+The least peculiar among us was Count Kamarowsky. Yet even he, I fancy,
+was not quite like other people. His was not a strong nature, like that
+of some men I had known. Perhaps the Slav blood is responsible for much
+that is abnormal and unconventional. Surely we are from the inmost
+depths of our nature strangely removed from the Teutonic, the
+Anglo-Saxon and even the Latin races, and our thoughts and actions must
+frequently appear to them singular and incomprehensible.
+
+As for Paul Kamarowsky, his dread of suffering was so great that he
+preferred to know nothing that might cause him distress. In fear lest he
+should see aught that might displease him, he chose to shut his eyes to
+facts and truths, preferring voluntarily to tread the easy paths of a
+fool's paradise. I longed to open my heart to him, to unburden my
+travailed soul and clear my sullied conscience by a full confession; I
+was ready to abide by the result, even if it meant the loss of my last
+chance of rehabilitation, even should I forfeit thereby all hope of
+marriage with a man of honor, rank and repute. But he closed my lips; he
+sealed my heart; he firmly avoided all confidences and disclosures.
+
+"Mura," he said, "my life and yours have been too full of errors and of
+sorrow. Do not embitter this, our hour of joy. The past is buried; let
+it rest. Do not drag what is dead to the light of day again."
+
+I bowed my head in silence. But in the depths of my conscience I knew
+that my past had been buried alive.
+
+
+Not in my spirit alone did I suffer agonies at this period; my frail
+body was racked with disease and my sufferings were continuous and
+intense. Day by day I felt my strength decline, I saw myself wax thinner
+and paler; rarely indeed did an hour pass that I could count free from
+pain. The deep-seated ill that since the birth of my little daughter
+Tania had struck its fiery roots into my inmost being now bore its toxic
+fruits, slowly diffusing its poison through my veins. Sometimes the
+pangs I suffered were so acute that I cried out in anguish, while beads
+of cold perspiration started to my brow. But as a rule I was tortured by
+a deep, dull, perpetual ache, a sense of utter weakness and weariness
+that stifled all hope in me and all desire to live.
+
+Oh, daughters of Eve, my purer and stronger sisters, women who have not
+transgressed--you whose hatred and scorn have overwhelmed me, you whose
+white hands have been so quick to throw the wounding stone--you alone can
+comprehend the agony that racked my frame, the flaming sword that
+pierced me, the sacred ill of womanhood that girt my body as with a sash
+of fire. You who in such dark hours can shelter your sufferings in the
+protecting shadow of your home, you who can seek refuge in a husband's
+tenderness and hide your stricken brow upon a faithful breast, can you
+not summon one throb of sorrow to your womanly hearts, one gleam of pity
+to your gentle eyes, when you think of the tortures I dragged from hotel
+to hotel, seeking to conceal my martyrdom from the inquisitive or
+indifferent gaze of strangers, not daring to confide in the man who
+loved me but who yet was almost a stranger?...
+
+Who can describe the minor and yet genuine torment of the tight garments
+cramping the aching body; the weight of the ornate head-dress on the
+throbbing brow; the irony of rouge and cosmetics on the ashen cheeks;
+and the nauseating distaste for the rich viands that one pretends to
+enjoy while the noise of voices and music pierces your brain, and the
+glaring electric lights stab your aching eyes like a hundred
+knife-thrusts?
+
+How often, on returning from some brilliant banquet to the silence and
+solitude of a desolate hotel bedroom, have I wept aloud with vain
+longing for one great joy denied to me, one supreme privilege of a happy
+woman: that of being weary, ill, and miserable--and yet loved all the
+same! How keenly have I envied some women I have known--women who were
+not beautiful, not brilliant and not young, but by whose sick-bed in
+their hour of pain a husband watched in tenderness and pity, faithful
+throughout the years, throughout the changes that time brings, faithful
+to the sad and pallid woman who had the right to lay her faded cheek
+upon his breast.
+
+None, none of those who vowed they loved me, would have loved me thus!
+Not Vassili, not Bozevsky, not Stahl, not Kamarowsky. Prilukoff perhaps?
+Who knows?
+
+But Prilukoff was a thief, a fugitive, a criminal; and day and night I
+prayed that he might not cross my path again.
+
+He had not replied to my agitated telegram informing him that Elise had
+unwittingly taken the money away. Nor did he, as I thought he would,
+join us in Vienna where we stayed several days, expecting yet dreading
+his arrival.
+
+We were at a loss to know what to do with his stolen money. We did not
+dare to send it to him at Hyeres, where I knew he had been staying under
+an assumed name and in constant terror of discovery. We did not dare to
+leave it in our rooms at the hotel. Elise carried it about with her day
+and night in the hated black leather satchel, which had become to us a
+nightmare, an incubus, an obsession. With a bitter smile I recalled the
+story of the English hunters in India who succeeded in capturing that
+most precious and sacred among all animals: a white elephant. And having
+captured it they knew not what to do with it. They trailed it after them
+across land and sea--ponderous, slow, magnificent; and nobody wanted it,
+and nobody knew what to do with it nor how to get rid of it. Prilukoff's
+stolen money was indeed a white elephant for us.
+
+Kamarowsky with his little son had joined us in Vienna, bringing all our
+luggage with him. He was as boisterous as a schoolboy out for a holiday.
+
+"There are no spies here, are there, Mura?" he laughed, kissing my cheek
+loudly. "No spies to drive us away!"
+
+Again I was hurt that he should thus make light of the mysteries of my
+existence. Should he not have demanded an explanation of my flight from
+Hyeres? Should he not have insisted upon knowing who had followed me
+there? What love was this that could voluntarily blindfold itself and
+evade all explanations?
+
+Not this, not this was the love I had dreamed of and hoped for, the
+steadfast refuge for my wavering spirit, the longed-for haven for my
+storm-tossed soul.
+
+
+We proceeded almost immediately to Orel. At this period I possessed no
+money at all of my own; what little I had had when I left Moscow had
+been spent; but not for a moment did I entertain the thought of touching
+Prilukoff's ill-gotten wealth. Paul Kamarowsky insisted upon providing
+all our traveling and hotel expenses; but it was embarrassing to be
+unable to tip a servant or to pay for even the smallest trifle that
+Tioka or I might want.
+
+I made up my mind to lay frankly before my betrothed my deplorable
+financial situation. And I did so on the journey to Orel. He seemed much
+amused at my confession; and the fact of our utter dependence upon him
+seemed to afford him the greatest pleasure.
+
+He filled my purse with gold, and made me promise that I would always
+ask him for anything I might need or desire.
+
+How well I remember our arrival at Orel! It was a radiant afternoon in
+October. Count Kamarowsky accompanied us to our hotel, where
+flower-filled apartments awaited us; then he left us at once to go in
+search of a young friend of his, the son of the Governor of Orel, who
+had promised to see to our passports as soon as we arrived.
+
+I was alone in our drawing-room when Elise knocked at the door.
+
+"The children would like to go out; they say they feel cramped from the
+journey," she said. "If madame allows, I will take them into the park;
+it is just opposite the hotel," she added.
+
+"Certainly, Elise."
+
+A moment later Tioka and Grania, ready to go out, came running to
+embrace me, and behind them Elise reappeared.
+
+"If madame permits," she said in a low voice, "I might perhaps leave
+'_it_' here?"
+
+"It" was the black leather satchel--our white elephant.
+
+"Yes, yes; leave it," I said.
+
+And she carried it into my bedroom and placed it on the dressing-table.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+I stepped out upon the balcony and watched the children cross the sunlit
+square; they turned and waved their hands to me; then I saw them enter
+the park and scamper down the shady avenue, the faithful Elise trotting
+quickly in their wake.
+
+I remained on the balcony wrapped in peaceful thoughts, glad to feel the
+warmth of the autumn sun on my shoulders and the coolness of the autumn
+breeze on my cheeks. A wave of thankfulness came over me; repentance for
+all my past doubts and transgressions flooded my heart.
+
+How could I ever have doubted Paul Kamarowsky's love? Was not the
+absolute faith he reposed in me--the blind unquestioning faith that in my
+folly I had often resented--was it not after all the highest homage that
+a noble heart could bestow? Henceforth the aim of my life should be to
+render myself worthy of his trust and love. In utter gratitude and
+devotion my heart went out to him who was about to place in my keeping
+the honor of his unsullied name, and the care of his motherless child. I
+clasped my hands and breathed a fervent prayer to Heaven, a prayer that
+I might deserve the happiness that was in store for me.
+
+A slight sound startled me from my reverie. It was Kamarowsky who,
+having returned and not finding me in the drawing-room, had knocked at
+my bedroom door. Receiving no reply he entered. I left the balcony, and
+closing the window after me, stepped into the room.
+
+Kamarowsky was standing in front of the dressing-table holding the black
+leather satchel in his hand.
+
+"What is this?" he asked casually. "Is it yours?"
+
+The pitiless light from the window struck me full in the face, and I
+felt that I was turning pale. "No--no--" I stammered. "It is not mine."
+
+"I thought not," he said, turning it round and round. "I did not
+remember seeing it. We had better send it down to the bureau of the
+hotel." And he stepped forward to touch the bell.
+
+"No, no!" I cried, "it belongs to Elise."
+
+"Why does Elise leave her things in your room?" Then noticing my pallor
+and agitation he exclaimed: "Why, dearest? What is wrong with you? You
+look quite white."
+
+  [Illustration: I STEPPED OUT UPON THE BALCONY.]
+
+"It is nothing, nothing," I said, attempting to smile; and I sat down
+with my back to the light. I was trembling from head to foot.
+
+He bent over me with tender solicitude. "Are you feeling ill?"
+
+"Slightly--it will pass--it is nothing. The fatigue of the journey
+perhaps," and I caressed the kind face that bent over me full of
+affectionate concern.
+
+He turned and rang the bell.
+
+A waiter appeared. "Bring some brandy," ordered Kamarowsky. "Make haste.
+The lady is not well."
+
+The waiter returned promptly and placed the tray on the table; as he was
+about to leave the room Count Kamarowsky, who was pouring out the
+brandy, said to him: "Wait a moment, you can take that satchel upstairs
+to the maid's apartment."
+
+I sprang to my feet. "No--leave it," I cried, taking it from the waiter's
+hand. The man bowed and left the room.
+
+Kamarowsky seemed astonished at my behavior. "What is the matter?" he
+asked. "Why are you so agitated?"
+
+"I am not--I am not agitated at all," I stammered, trying to control my
+features, and holding the odious white elephant in my trembling hands.
+
+"What on earth is in that bag?" asked the Count.
+
+"Nothing--nothing," I said, with a vacuous, senseless smile.
+
+"Come, now! It is full of papers," laughed Kamarowsky, putting out his
+hand and pressing the satchel between his fingers. "Confess, what are
+they? Love-letters?"
+
+I contrived to answer his jest with a smile: "You have guessed right," I
+said.
+
+"They are Elise's, I hope--not yours!" he added, half smiling and half
+distrustful.
+
+I laughed. "Elise's, of course;" and with a deep sigh of relief I sank
+upon a chair, feeling that the danger was past. But my heart had not yet
+resumed its normal pulsation when the door opened and the unwitting
+Elise appeared on the threshold.
+
+"We have returned, my lady, and the children have gone upstairs."
+
+Kamarowsky jestingly took the satchel from my hand and dangled it in the
+air.
+
+"Ah, Elise! What have we got in here?"
+
+Elise rolled her eyes wildly, and a scarlet blush mounted to her face;
+Elise's blushes were always painful to see; now her face was of a deep
+damask hue.
+
+The Count laughed. "So this is where you keep your love-letters, is it?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir," exclaimed Elise, blushing till her eyes were filled with
+tears.
+
+"What? Is this satchel not yours?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir!--I mean--yes, sir," stuttered Elise.
+
+Kamarowsky looked at her, and then at me. Seeing the expression of our
+faces the laughter faded from his lips.
+
+"Come, Elise; tell me whose it is, and what it contains."
+
+I attempted to make a sign to her, but the tall, broad figure of Count
+Kamarowsky stood between us.
+
+I rose with a sigh of despair, acquiescing in my fate. Now--let happen
+what may.
+
+"What letters are they?" insisted Kamarowsky.
+
+I heard the hapless Elise floundering in the quicksands of falsehood;
+finally she let herself drift--a helpless wreck on the rock of truth.
+
+"It is not letters, it is money," she said at last.
+
+"Money? Money of yours?"
+
+"No."
+
+There was a brief silence. Then Kamarowsky said: "I do not believe you.
+I wish to see what it contains."
+
+No one answered him.
+
+"Where is the key?"
+
+Again there was silence.
+
+I heard a slight jingling sound; Kamarowsky was searching in his pockets
+for a penknife. Then he said to Elise: "You can go."
+
+Elise went slowly and reluctantly from the room. Then I heard a faint
+tearing and crackling: Kamarowsky had cut through the leather of the
+satchel. Now the rustling of banknotes told me that he was smoothing
+them out on the table, and counting them.
+
+A few moments passed.
+
+"Thirty-five thousand rubles," said Paul Kamarowsky slowly. "I cannot
+understand why you should have told me you were penniless." There was an
+icy coldness in his voice such as I had never heard before.
+
+"The money is not mine," I said, in trembling tones.
+
+"Whose is it?"
+
+How was I to answer him? Could I betray Prilukoff? And, with him,
+myself? I decided to tell what was, intrinsically, the truth.
+
+"I do not know whom it belongs to."
+
+Once more there was silence. I wondered what he would do? Would he
+insult me? Would he raise his voice in bitter accusation and reproof?
+
+No. The silence remained unbroken. Kamarowsky left the room without a
+word.
+
+Ah! I was still in the grip of the octopus; its tentacles bound and
+crushed me still. Even from afar Prilukoff guided my destinies, drove my
+frail barque into storm and disaster.
+
+With trembling hands I gathered up the scattered banknotes and thrust
+them back into the execrated leather bag. Ah, if only I could have freed
+myself from this nightmare burden, if only I could have returned the
+money to Prilukoff! But how? Where to? At the Bellevue, in Hyeres, he
+had called himself Zeiler. But now where was he? Under what name was he
+hiding? How could I, without warning, send him such a sum of money?
+Where could I write to him?
+
+No; fate had doomed me to wander through the world carrying with me the
+hated money in Elise's abominable satchel! At the bitterness of this
+thought I dropped my face in my hands and wept.
+
+I did not hear any one knock at the door; nor did I hear the door open.
+When, still shaken with sobs, I raised my tear-stained face, I beheld
+standing on the threshold a stranger--a slender, fair-haired youth. He
+was gazing at me with compassionate eyes, full of confusion at having
+found me in tears.
+
+"Pardon me," he said, and his voice was soft and musical.
+
+"Whom do you want?"
+
+"I was looking for Count Kamarowsky," he replied. "He has invited me to
+dine with him." There was a pause. "My name is Nicolas Naumoff."
+
+"My name is Marie Tarnowska." And I gave him my hand.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+Count Kamarowsky came in shortly afterwards. He was gloomy and morose;
+but on seeing his friend, whom he had that morning invited to dine with
+us, he made a heroic effort to keep up an appearance of good temper and
+hospitality.
+
+But his grief and anger were only too apparent. He sat beside me at
+table without speaking to me, nor did he ever turn his eyes in my
+direction.
+
+Our guest seemed distressed and amazed at his behavior, and--doubtless
+remembering my recent tears--he gazed at me with his light-brown eyes
+eloquent of sympathy and compassion.
+
+Once or twice I addressed a remark to Kamarowsky, but he scarcely
+answered me and I felt myself flushing and paling with humiliation.
+
+Silence fell upon us at last. Painful and embarrassing as I felt it to
+be, I yet could find no word to say. A violent headache racked my
+temples, and I had to bite my lips to keep myself from bursting into
+tears.
+
+Suddenly I got up and went into my room. With trembling hand I sought in
+my dressing-case for a bottle of cocaine, which for nearly a year I had
+not touched. I lifted it to my lips and sipped the exhilarating poison.
+Then I returned to the table.
+
+Kamarowsky was sitting grim and silent with bent head and lowering brow,
+but the young stranger raised his golden eyes under their long fair
+lashes, and fixed them upon me as if to give me comfort. After a few
+moments, in order to break the well-nigh unbearable silence, he spoke to
+me in his low and gentle voice.
+
+"I hear that Delphinus, the famous crystal gazer, has arrived in Orel.
+You ought to get him to tell you your fortune."
+
+"Is that so?" I said, smiling; and even as I spoke the prediction of
+that strange soothsayer flashed into my memory. I seemed to hear again
+the brief, prophetic words: "_Two men are yet to enter into your life.
+One will be your salvation--the other your ruin._"
+
+Two men! I glanced around me, startled and amazed. Two men were here;
+one on each side of me. Was the prophecy coming true? Were these the two
+men he had spoken of? Were the One and the Other sitting beside me now?
+
+In my mind I could still hear the fortune-teller's nasal, dreamy accent:
+
+"You will chose--the Other. It is your destiny."
+
+Overcome by a feeling of timorous superstition, I looked at my two table
+companions, of whom One, perhaps, might represent my destruction, the
+Other my last hope of happiness.
+
+At my right hand sat Kamarowsky, sullen and sinister in his grief and
+anger against me; on my left the young unknown, with radiant face and
+gold-bright eyes that smiled at me. A flash of intuition seemed to
+illuminate my spirit; here was salvation! Nicolas Naumoff! This unknown
+youth, in whose eyes I had read such complete and instant devotion--it
+was he whom fate had sent to lead me back to joy.
+
+Looking back to that hour I realize that it was the rhapsodical delirium
+of cocaine that whipped my brain into senseless aberration; but at the
+time I implicitly believed that by a miracle of divination I had rent
+the veil of the future, and could discern with inspired gaze the distant
+sweep of the years to come.
+
+I saw Kamarowsky--somber, dark, with bent head--as the very incarnation of
+sorrow and misfortune; and, to make assurance twice sure, was it not he
+whom I had chosen? And had not the diviner foretold me that he whom I
+chose would be the one to lead me to destruction?
+
+But I might still draw back, I might still trick the Fates and escape
+from my predestined doom. With the blind impulse of the hunted quarry
+seeking a refuge, I turned an imploring gaze on the young unknown; he
+read despair in my eyes, and his own responded with a flash of
+comprehension; he leaned toward me, and, as if in the throe of some
+instant emotion, I saw him thrill from head to foot like a tense string.
+At this immediate response of his nerves to mine, I also felt a tremor
+stir me, as the water of a lake is stirred by a gust of wind. What evil
+spirit possessed me? Was I ill? Was I demented? I cannot tell. I know
+that my soul pledged itself to him at that moment; and I know that he
+understood me.
+
+Thus, in my attempt to escape it, the tragic prophecy was to be
+fulfilled.
+
+When Nicolas Naumoff got up to take his leave I knew that he would
+return, that I should see him again, and this thought intoxicated me
+with such delight that even Kamarowsky, in spite of his anger and his
+suspicions, was swept away by the radiance and rapture of my joyfulness.
+I was then--well may I say it now!--at the zenith of my youthful beauty,
+notwithstanding, or perhaps by reason of the disease that burned within
+me like a consuming lamp; a constant fever lit my transparent flesh into
+delicate rose flushes, and blazed like lighted sapphires in my
+translucent eyes.
+
+I was no sooner alone with him than, seeing me thus aflame with radiant
+happiness, Kamarowsky rose and came towards me with outstretched hands.
+
+"Marie, I love you, I love you! I will trust you utterly. I want to know
+nothing that you do not wish to tell me." And he bowed his head over my
+hands and kissed them.
+
+But my wild thoughts went out to the unknown youth with the golden eyes
+who had left us, he through whom salvation was to come to me; and every
+fiber yearned for his presence. A sudden wave of almost physical
+repulsion for Paul Kamarowsky overcame me and I started away from his
+touch. "Leave me," I cried, "leave me. Let me go away." And I tried to
+go past him to my room.
+
+But he stopped me, amazed and unbelieving. "Why, dearest, why? What is
+the matter?"
+
+"It is over," I murmured incoherently, "leave me. I do not wish to speak
+to you any more. I do not wish to marry you. I want to go away and never
+see you again."
+
+"Mura! you are dreaming, you are out of your mind! What have I done that
+you should speak to me like this?"
+
+His bewilderment and despair only irritated me the more. "You will drag
+me to ruin and misfortune. I was told so; and I know, I feel that it is
+true."
+
+"You were told so?" gasped Paul. "What are you saying? Mura, come to
+your senses. Who has put such preposterous notions into your head?"
+
+Notwithstanding my dazed and drugged state of mind, I felt that to tell
+him about the fortune-teller would neither convince nor impress him; he
+would probably laugh, and try to coax or scold me back to my senses. So
+I wrapped myself in an obstinate and mysterious silence.
+
+The unhappy man was perplexed and distressed.
+
+"Who has poisoned your mind against me, Mura? Think, think a moment; who
+in all the world could love you more than I do? Who could protect you
+and care for you better than I can, poor helpless creature that you
+are?"
+
+But I was possessed by the blind obstinacy of madness. _Quem Deus vult
+perdere, prius dementat._ My destiny was coming upon me at the very time
+I thought to evade it.
+
+"Let me be!" My hands twisted themselves from his grasp. "I will not see
+you again! I will not!"
+
+"But I will," cried Kamarowsky, clasping my wrist in an iron grip, and
+his long, languorous eyes opened wide and flamed into mine. "Do you
+think that because I am kind and patient you can play fast and loose
+with me? No indeed, no indeed; you have promised to be mine, and I shall
+make you keep your word."
+
+Never had I seen him like this nor dreamed that he could be so fierce
+and resolute. I felt dizzy and bewildered. I felt the bats of madness
+flying in my brain. I raised my eyes with a scornful smile to his: how
+could he keep me against my will?
+
+As if he had divined my thought he bent forward with his passionate face
+close to mine. "Do not think you can escape me," he said. "Do not
+imagine it for a moment. Mura, I know you well. You need to be mastered,
+and I shall master you. As long as I live, remember--as long as I live
+you shall not escape me."
+
+These words seemed to pierce my dizzy brain like red-hot needles. "As
+long as he lives I shall not escape him. _As long as he lives--!_"
+
+I raised my eyes and looked at him; then I drooped my lashes--and smiled.
+
+The subtle cunning of madness stirred within me.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+Paul Kamarowsky appeared not to notice it. He continued to speak
+agitatedly, holding my unwilling hand in his.
+
+"I know, Mura, that you have done many unworthy things in the course of
+your life; I know that you are not what I would have you be; but my pity
+for your misfortunes is far greater than my resentment at your faults. I
+know that you are ill; I know that you have had none but rakes and
+reprobates around you; it shall be my duty to strengthen you and uphold
+you with my love. I will help you, Mura, whether you wish it or not; I
+will save you in spite of yourself."
+
+Ah, miserable creature that I was, why did I not throw myself upon his
+mercy and confide my doubts and my despair to his generous heart? Why
+did I not surrender my poor sick soul to his keeping? This was indeed
+the last time that salvation opened its haven to my shipwrecked soul;
+but I knew it not, and like a boat adrift in the darkness I swept on
+towards the storm.
+
+He continued to speak. "If I have not wanted to know about your past, it
+has not been from cowardice nor from the fear of any man; but from
+distrust of my own heart, Mura, for fear lest my love for you should
+wane. Whereas it is my duty and my mission to love you, Marie
+Nicolaevna, to love and save you from your own weakness and the iniquity
+of the world. You are still so young--hardly less of a child than little
+Tioka--notwithstanding the storms of passion and sin that have passed
+over your head. All you need is to live among right-minded people who
+will love you. I shall love you, Mura; and my mother, gentle soul that
+she is, will take you to her heart; and so will my sisters. Then when
+you find yourself surrounded by such pure, kind and simple affections,
+you, too, will become simple, kind and pure again."
+
+His voice broke. "We shall be so happy; and Tioka and Grania will be
+happy; and so will your good old father. He shall come and live with us.
+How is it you never think of your father, Mura? The generous,
+broken-hearted old man in that desolate house of Otrada?"
+
+Hot tears rushed to my eyes. My father! My stately father, with his
+venerable white hair, and his proud blue eyes--the "terrible O'Rourke,"
+living in that deserted house, widowed, desolate and alone. There was no
+one to coax him out of his grief or his anger; no arms went round his
+neck, no laughing voices cried to him: "Father, don't be the terrible
+O'Rourke!" I covered my face with my hands.
+
+Kamarowsky bent over me. "Is it not wickedness, Mura, to throw away
+one's life as you do? To rush from place to place, from emotion to
+emotion, from misery to despair? Is it not more than wickedness--is it
+not madness?"
+
+"Madness!" As if the word had rent a veil before my eyes, I looked my
+calamity full in the face. Yes, it was madness; it was the hereditary
+curse of my mother's people. I was like my mother's two wild-faced,
+frenzied sisters, whom we used to run away from and laugh at when we
+were children, Olga and I.... Madness! In my delicate blue veins it had
+taken root again, and now its monstrous flower opened its crashing
+petals in my brain. I was mad, there was no doubt of it and no help for
+it. _I was mad._
+
+I spoke the words softly to myself, and the very sound of them made me
+laugh. It amused me to think that no one knew my thoughts. I felt like a
+naughty little girl hiding in a dark cupboard while everybody is looking
+for her. The dark cupboard was my mind, and I had discovered madness
+there.
+
+Undoubtedly I was bereft of reason; and my mother's sisters, now for so
+many years entombed in an asylum at Warsaw, were assuredly not more mad
+than I. The thought of this, also, made me laugh. I whispered to myself:
+"I am cleverer than they. I am as mad as they are, but no one shall ever
+know it!"
+
+I have no other explanation to give, no other justification. I was
+demented, and I knew it. Sometimes in the night I started up wide awake,
+and the horror of the thought that I was alone with myself--with myself
+who was mad!--froze me into a statue of ice. As soon as I could stir a
+limb I would creep from my bed, steal out into the silent corridors of
+the hotel, and run with chattering teeth along the red-carpeted passages
+between the long double rows of boots, which to my eyes appeared like
+little monsters crouching at the thresholds; then up the great
+staircase, turning round every moment to look behind me, until I reached
+the fourth floor and the room of Elise and the children.
+
+Softly I would tap at the door, and call:--"Elise!"
+
+"Yes, madame." Elise Perrier always answered immediately, as if she
+never slept.
+
+"Elise, I want you."
+
+"Yes, madame, I shall come at once," and I could hear her rising from
+her bed.
+
+Then I ran back through the silent corridors, and when I passed Count
+Kamarowsky's door I trembled and shuddered and felt constrained to stop.
+I looked at his yellow boots--square and placid, with their mouths open
+and their tongues hanging out--and I experienced a wild sensation of fear
+and loathing for him and for them.
+
+I made a grimace at those hateful boots and hurried away to shut myself
+in my room and await Elise.
+
+She would come in, pale and tidy in her red woolen dressing-gown, with a
+little cap on her head. She sat down quietly by my bedside and held my
+hand. Sometimes she read aloud to me; sometimes she repeated Swiss poems
+and ballads that she remembered from her schooldays; and I soon grew
+calm again as I listened to her quiet voice and felt the clasp of her
+small roughened hand on mine.
+
+
+Gradually a sort of frenzied fear of Kamarowsky took possession of me. I
+was obsessed continuously with the idea that I must escape from him at
+all costs, or die. My every fiber shrank at the slightest touch of his
+hand. I longed never to see him again. I longed to know that the world
+held him no more. It was a blind instinctive frenzy that I endured
+without reasoning about it. My constant and only preoccupation was to
+fly from him who spelt ruin, and to cling to Naumoff, my deliverer.
+
+"Nicolas Naumoff! Nicolas Naumoff!" I repeated his name all day long
+like a kind of exorcism against Kamarowsky; sometimes I felt as if I
+were stifled, as if I must hold my breath until he was near.
+
+On his side, Naumoff, who frequently came to see us, was reserved and
+shy, and did not venture to believe in what nevertheless he could not
+but read in my eyes. Knowing nothing of my insensate notion about the
+diviner's prophecy, and having no conception that to my fancy he was a
+rescuer sent to me by Providence, he thought I was making fun of him; or
+at other times he believed my predilection for him was merely the
+caprice of a frivolous creature accustomed to gratify every passing
+whim. So he held back, aggrieved and mistrustful.
+
+And the more he held back the more was I impelled to pursue him, to hold
+and to vanquish him. The passionate gravity of his youthful face
+delighted me; I was thirsty for the unknown recesses of his soul as for
+a spring filled with mysterious sweetness. His voice perturbed me; his
+silence lashed my nerves; I lived in a perpetual quiver of rhapsodic
+sensibility.
+
+I was in this frame of mind when Kamarowsky resolved to invite all his
+friends in Orel to a banquet in order to announce to them our imminent
+marriage.
+
+At this banquet Naumoff also was present. Doubtless he already knew the
+announcement that his friend was going to make, yet when the Count rose
+to speak and laid his hand with a placid air of ownership upon mine, I
+saw Nicolas Naumoff turn pale. I watched with deep emotion the color
+slowly receding from his face; in its pallor his youthful countenance
+appeared to me still more beautiful; he looked indeed like the supreme
+deliverer--the angel of death.
+
+I did not comprehend a word of Paul Kamarowsky's speech; I know that
+when it was ended he turned to me and placed a magnificent diamond ring
+upon my finger, and every one applauded and cheered.
+
+Then the guests rose in turn to congratulate Kamarowsky, and to kiss my
+hand and wish me joy; and I know that I smiled and thanked them.
+
+Naumoff alone had not left his place, but in the gay chatter and stir
+that surrounded us no one noticed it. He soon went away; he disappeared
+without taking leave of any one.
+
+Toasts and speeches followed. The waiters came and went, carrying fruits
+and wines and sometimes leaving the large double doors of our
+dining-room open behind them.
+
+Suddenly as I raised my eyes I saw a man standing on the threshold and
+gazing in at us.
+
+It was Prilukoff.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+
+In truth I do not know whether I felt dismayed or glad. It was as if I
+were in a dream.
+
+Since I had begun to take cocaine again, that twilight sensation of
+unreality had descended anew like a misty veil upon all my perceptions.
+
+I could not distinguish facts from illusions. Prilukoff had immediately
+disappeared--or had I only fancied that I saw him?
+
+Trembling a little, I rose from my place, and while many of the guests
+were still talking and laughing with their host I excused myself on the
+plea of fatigue. They toasted me a last time, and Kamarowsky kissed me
+ceremoniously before them all.
+
+With cheeks and heart aflame I hurried to my apartments, glad to think
+that I should find them dark and silent. My temples were throbbing, the
+coronet of diamonds--a gift of Kamarowsky's--weighed heavy on my brow, and
+my eyes seemed to be pierced with red-hot needles.
+
+I opened the door of my sitting-room, where a lamp, turned low,
+glimmered like a star veiled in red vapor. Behind it I could see yawning
+blackly the open door leading to my bedroom, which was in complete
+darkness.
+
+I had a strange feeling that I was not alone. Some one was in the
+room--some one whom I could not discern was near to me.
+
+Yes, a footstep approached; a strong arm encircled me. Nicolas Naumoff's
+voice spoke in thrilling accents: "Marie! Marie! My heart is breaking."
+
+With a sigh of infinite weariness merging into a sense of infinite
+repose I laid my head against his breast. I longed to die. I felt as if
+I had nothing more to ask for, nothing more to desire.
+
+But the anguish that was passing from my soul seemed to have entered
+into his.
+
+"You must not marry that man! You must not, you shall not!" He gripped
+my shoulders as if he would crush them. "Tell me, tell me that you do
+not love him."
+
+At that instant on the black background of my bedroom there appeared a
+form--Prilukoff! Erect in the doorway he stood watching us. Naumoff had
+his back to him, but across his shoulder I looked Prilukoff in the face,
+only a few steps from me.
+
+My heart stood still. What would he do?
+
+Knowing as I did his ungovernable frenzies of jealousy, his madness, his
+recklessness, I wondered whether he would leap forward and spring at
+Naumoff's throat? Would there be blows and groans and a death-struggle
+in my tranquil, shadowy room? Would there be a turmoil and a scandal,
+during which the bond of infamy that tied me to Prilukoff would be
+revealed to Naumoff? Revealed to Kamarowsky and to the world?
+
+The fear of tragedy and disgrace kept me stark and terror-stricken,
+rooted to the spot. Then I saw Prilukoff move. Slowly he raised his
+right arm. His right hand clutched something which I could not see.
+Suddenly--incredible sight!--I saw him open his mouth wide; and never,
+never have I seen anything more grotesque and terrifying than that
+figure in the darkness with mouth gaping wide....
+
+But still his right arm moved, rising slowly and relentlessly until it
+was on a level with that terrible open mouth. What did the hand hold?
+Did I not see a gleam of polished metal?
+
+I tried to scream, but no sound issued from my parched throat. I could
+see the whites of his staring upturned eyes, and the hand now motionless
+just in front of the open mouth--
+
+From my throat came a hoarse whisper: "Don't, for heaven's sake! Wait--"
+
+Naumoff, in amazement at these words which he believed to be addressed
+to himself, relaxed his hold. "What is it?" he whispered. "Is any one
+there?"
+
+Step by step I drew back from him, with my fascinated eyes still fixed
+upon Prilukoff, who stood motionless as a statue in the same dreadful
+attitude.
+
+"Is any one there?" repeated Naumoff.
+
+"Yes. Don't move." The words formed themselves soundlessly on my lips,
+but Naumoff understood them and obeyed. He neither turned nor moved.
+
+"Stand as you are," I breathed; "do not stir." And I glided snake-like
+from him.
+
+Then with the quickness of lightning I darted upon Prilukoff, thrusting
+him back into the dark bedroom, clutching him by the wrist, and covering
+his rapid breathing with my hand. The carpet deadened our footsteps.
+With my elbow I pushed the door and, as it closed behind me, I turned
+and shot the bolt. I was locked in my room with Prilukoff.
+
+"Hush, hush!" I whispered, my lips almost touching his face. "I implore
+you, I implore you! Do not betray me. Do not let them hear you."
+
+Through his closed and stifled lips there issued hideous, incoherent
+words of vituperation.
+
+"Hush! hush! hush!" I pressed my hand still tighter to his lips.
+"Forgive me! Spare me! I am yours, yours only! Donat, forgive me and
+keep silence!"
+
+"Mine, mine only," breathed Prilukoff, hoarsely; "you swear it!"
+
+"Yes! oh, yes!"
+
+I could hear Naumoff trying the handle on the other side of the door.
+
+"Marie! Marie! What are you doing? Why have you run away?"
+
+Prilukoff's right hand was still uplifted, and now he held it close to
+his temple. As I clutched that hand I could also feel the cold contact
+with the steel of a revolver.
+
+"Do you swear that you will be mine forever?"
+
+I murmured something inarticulate. Naumoff was calling under his breath:
+"Marie! Marie! Open the door."
+
+Prilukoff raised his voice slightly. "Swear to me that you loathe that
+man and the other; swear that if I murdered them both you would still be
+mine."
+
+"Yes, yes. Speak softly!"
+
+"Swear it! Swear that they shall both die, that you will help me to rid
+the world of them. Swear it." I could feel his hand tenser against his
+temple, I could feel the first finger crooking itself over the trigger.
+"Unless you swear," hissed Prilukoff, "I shall shoot myself here, this
+instant."
+
+I did so. He repeated the words softly with me: "_I swear--that--they
+shall die._" And something within me kept saying: "I am dreaming all
+this."
+
+"That is not enough!" breathed Prilukoff. "Swear it on the life of
+Tioka."
+
+My parched lips opened, but the iniquitous words would not pass my
+throat.
+
+Then Prilukoff pushed me from him and the fingers of his right hand
+moved. I heard a slight clicking sound. I threw myself forward.
+
+"I swear it--"
+
+And I swore it on the life of Tioka.
+
+Prilukoff's hand dropped to his side; he seemed to reel slightly, and
+staggering backwards leaned against the foot of my bed.
+
+Naumoff on the other side of the door was growing impatient. He shook
+the handle.
+
+I bent over to Prilukoff. "Are you going to betray me? If I open this
+door, will you show yourself?"
+
+He laughed derisively. "Go along, go along," he muttered. And I opened
+the door.
+
+"Why did you run away?" asked Naumoff, taking my hand.
+
+I closed the door behind me. I felt no more fear of Prilukoff. I felt no
+more fear of any one or anything. My heart seemed turned to stone. And
+as I stood thus, some one else knocked at the outside door. It was
+Kamarowsky.
+
+And the door was not locked! I turned quickly and blew out the lamp.
+
+But Naumoff had taken a rapid step forward, and turned the key in the
+lock. Then he stood still, leaning against the door.
+
+Kamarowsky outside heard him; and thinking it was I, murmured softly:
+"Good-night! Good-night, my darling!"
+
+Then I was seized with a convulsive fit of laughter. I laughed and
+laughed, shaken from head to foot by a wild paroxysm of mirth. I could
+not leave off laughing. I laughed until the laughter became a spasm
+which racked and agonized me; my teeth chattered, I trembled and quaked;
+and still the hysterical laughter continued, shaking my entire frame as
+an aspen is shaken by a brutal hand. I laughed and laughed, trying to
+laugh softly in order that those three men standing in the dark should
+not hear me.
+
+The thought of the three men motionless behind the doors made me laugh
+more than ever. Tears ran down my face, my head felt as if it would
+burst asunder. And still I rocked in the throes of frantic laughter
+until body and soul seemed to be shattered and rent....
+
+I staggered and sank to the floor.
+
+Naumoff bent over me. I felt his icy hands passing over my face. Then we
+remained quite silent in the dark.
+
+Slowly, reluctantly Kamarowsky's footsteps had passed away down the
+corridor....
+
+I mustered strength enough to whisper to Naumoff: "Go--send Elise to
+me--quickly!"
+
+Naumoff obeyed.
+
+
+Yes, Nicolas Naumoff--submissive soul!--has always obeyed.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+
+I was ill in bed for a long time. I lay supine and motionless,
+feeling--as once, long before--as if I were lying at the bottom of a well.
+In the distance, far above me, life and the world went whirling on; but
+nothing in me or of me stirred, except that at every pulse-beat my
+life-blood seemed to be gently, inexorably ebbing away. The doctors bent
+over me with anxious faces; on my body I felt the burning weight of ice;
+my arteries contracted under the grip of ergot and chloride of iron.
+Still slowly and inexorably I glided, as on a smooth and shallow river,
+towards death.
+
+Tioka and Grania had been sent to stay with friends in Kharkov.
+
+Naumoff came every day to ask for news, and sent me flowers; but he was
+never allowed to see me. Kamarowsky had permission to come into my room
+for ten minutes every morning, but he was not allowed to speak to me.
+
+Prilukoff, locked in my rooms, watched over me night and day.
+
+Nobody knew of his existence, for no one was allowed to enter my
+apartment. How and when he slept and took his meals I do not know.
+Perhaps Elise looked after that. He undoubtedly grew thinner, more
+haggard and spectral every day with sleeplessness, fasting and anxiety.
+
+Night and day he sat at my bedside watching me. Sometimes, as I lay
+prostrate with closed eyes, I said to myself that I must open them and
+look at him; but so great seemed the effort of raising my heavy eyelids,
+that frequently hours passed and I could not do so. When at last I
+lifted my leaden lashes, I saw him, always sitting motionless beside me
+with his gaze fixed on my face. With renewed effort I faintly contracted
+the muscles of my face and attempted to smile at him. Then, worn out
+with fatigue, I dropped my heavy lids and my soul floated away again
+towards unconsciousness....
+
+When I began to get better I noticed to my amazement that Prilukoff
+talked to himself all the time. Perhaps he had done so from the first,
+but then I was too weak to understand or even to hear him. Now that a
+little strength was coming back to me each day, I could hear and
+comprehend the words he uttered; it was a succession of imprecations, of
+incoherent and disconnected maledictions hurled against Naumoff and
+Kamarowsky, who as he thought had snatched my heart from him, and would
+be the ruin and the death of me. I could hear him murmuring:
+
+"They must be got rid of; we have sworn it. They must die."
+
+Towards evening his meager face grew red as if with fever, and his
+mutterings increased, became more rapid and excited. He would bend over
+me with his nightmare face as I lay weak and helpless on my pillows.
+
+"They are outside there, in the corridor, both of them. I can hear them
+walking up and down, whispering together--talking about you. But they are
+doomed, are they not? Irrevocably doomed. You have sworn it. Tell me
+that it is so."
+
+I faltered "Yes," hoping to silence him, but he never ceased his uncanny
+mutterings; and the idea of murder completely possessed his disordered
+brain. Elise, moving like a little frightened ghost through the locked
+and darkened rooms, frequently attempted to come to my aid.
+
+"Go away; leave her alone," she would say to Prilukoff. "Do you want her
+to fall ill again? Why don't you go to sleep? Why don't you eat? Why
+don't you go out?"
+
+But Prilukoff stared at her with vacant eyes, then went into the
+dining-room and drank some vodka, and soon he was bending over me again.
+
+"Mind, I am not going to do it alone," he whispered, "so that afterwards
+you would be afraid and horrified of me. No, no. You shall help me. You
+shall attend to one, and I to the other."
+
+By degrees, as strength returned to me and dispelled the torpor that had
+numbed my brain, I understood Prilukoff's ravings, and was aghast at
+them. Absorbed in his monstrous dream, he delighted in planning all the
+details of the double crime.
+
+"What I want is to be alone with the man I saw holding you in his arms
+the other evening." He ground his teeth. "As for your betrothed, you
+shall give him a dose of curare or atropine. An exquisite wedding cup
+for the bridegroom!"
+
+Then I burst into tears of terror and weakness, while the indignant
+Elise, hastening to my aid, would grasp Prilukoff's arm and compel him
+to leave me. He would sit gloomily in a corner, or go into the adjoining
+room, but a little while afterwards he was there again, raving as
+before.
+
+"Elise," I whispered to her one evening, "I am afraid, I am terribly
+afraid of him."
+
+"Shall I tell some one about it? Shall I tell Monsieur the Count?"
+exclaimed Elise.
+
+"No, no," I cried.
+
+"Might I--might I tell Monsieur Naumoff?"
+
+I hesitated; but when I recalled those golden eyes that turned to me
+filled with such trust and adoration I shook my head. "No, tell no one,
+Elise, tell no one." And I hid my face in the pillows.
+
+At last a day came when I was able to be up for an hour, and it was no
+longer possible to prevent Kamarowsky from coming to see me. Prilukoff
+refused to go away; I could not get him to stir from my room. At last,
+having compelled me to repeat the abominable vow, having forced me to
+invoke once more the seraphic image of little Tioka as tutelar genius of
+a monstrous crime, he went away, passing through my dressing-room to an
+outer passage at the back of the hotel.
+
+Elise dressed me and placed me in an armchair near the window, where I
+reclined, trembling and weak. Then I sent word to Count Kamarowsky that
+I would see him.
+
+He came in full of emotion and joy. "At last, at last you are better,"
+he cried, his kind eyes alight with pleasure. "But how pale you are, how
+dreadfully pale." And bending over me, he kissed my hair with infinite
+tenderness.
+
+As I saw him standing before me, smiling and well, the murderous ravings
+of Prilukoff and my own iniquitous vow seemed but a figment of my morbid
+fancy, a half-forgotten illusion of my delirium, dissolving and fading
+away like a dark dream at daylight.
+
+Kamarowsky held my hand tightly clasped in his, as if he were half
+afraid I might vanish from him. "What a poor little blue-white hand!" he
+said. "You have become quite transparent, Mura; I think I can look right
+through you and see your soul, trembling and flickering like a little
+flame!"
+
+I smiled at him. All my morbid fear and dislike of him, even as all my
+sudden insensate infatuation for Naumoff, was spent. Nothing remained of
+the storm my soul and senses had passed through but a limitless weakness
+and languor. I yearned to rest, to sleep, to sink out of life and be no
+more....
+
+A few moments later they announced Naumoff, who had brought me some
+roses. I was neither glad nor sorry to see him. Punctually when an hour
+had elapsed Elise Perrier sent my visitors away and put me to bed again.
+
+I fell asleep almost immediately.
+
+When I reopened my eyes, twilight filled my room with shadows and there
+was Prilukoff, sitting beside my bed, talking to himself about murder,
+revenge and poison.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+
+Every day my fear of Prilukoff increased. I had only one thought--to
+escape from him, to go far away where he could never find me; better
+still, to hide with Tioka and Elise in some distant spot, where neither
+this terrible maniac nor yet Naumoff, nor even Kamarowsky, could ever
+reach me.
+
+I thought of Otrada, my home. But how could my unhappy father protect me
+against the loving persistence of Kamarowsky, against Naumoff's
+passionate daring, or Prilukoff's diabolic designs?
+
+In the rare moments when I was alone with Elise, we talked it over. In
+trembling whispers, glancing constantly round lest the Scorpion should
+be on the watch, we concerted the manner of our flight.
+
+We made a thousand different plans, all equally extravagant and
+impracticable. In our luxurious hotel rooms we were imprisoned like mice
+in a trap. We never opened a door without finding a maid awaiting our
+orders, or a zealous and obsequious waiter bowing to us, or Kamarowsky
+asking for news, or Naumoff waiting with a bunch of flowers in his hand.
+
+We closed the door, and found ourselves shut up with Prilukoff,
+ferocious and maniacal, who glowered at us with the eye of a tiger.
+
+A thousand times in my weakness and despair I was on the point of
+throwing the door wide open and calling for help--calling Kamarowsky and
+Naumoff, and crying to them: "Look! a man is shut up in here. For days
+and days he has been torturing and threatening me. The man is a criminal
+and a thief, and he has been my lover. Save me from him!"
+
+But then I pictured to myself the scene of violence that would follow,
+the room echoing with revolver shots; and at the mere thought of it, in
+my weak and exhausted state, I fell into long fainting fits from which
+Elise had the greatest difficulty in reviving me.
+
+One morning Elise had an idea: "Let us confide in the doctor."
+
+I agreed. But the thought agitated me so that when the doctor came he
+found me trembling, with a rapid, irregular pulse and panting breath.
+
+"Doctor--" I began.
+
+"Ah, but this is bad, very bad. What is the meaning of all this
+agitation? Did you sit up too long? If you are not a better patient, I
+shall have to complain of you to my friend Paul."
+
+His friend Paul! True. He was a friend, an intimate friend, of
+Kamarowsky's. How could I ever have had the idea that he would keep our
+secret, that he would not betray my intended flight? It was a crazy
+notion of Elise's. I cast a significant glance at her, and was silent.
+
+He prescribed bromides and recommended absolute rest of body and mind.
+Scarcely was he gone when to my astonishment the long curtain that hung
+in front of an alcove where Elise kept my dresses moved slightly. Then
+they parted, and Prilukoff appeared.
+
+Ah! he had not gone out as he had pretended when the doctor had been
+announced! He had hidden himself. What if I had spoken?
+
+My fear of him turned to frenzy: I thought him endowed with supernatural
+powers. My room seemed to be filled with innumerable Prilukoffs peering
+out at me from every corner. I clung to Elise. "We must go away, we must
+go away to-morrow," I whispered. "Do you understand?"
+
+"Yes, madame," was Elise's firm and humble reply.
+
+"Send to fetch little Tioka; send for him at once."
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+Later, while she was dressing me, she stooped to draw on my
+stocking--Prilukoff was reading in the adjoining room--and she murmured:
+
+"We have no money to travel with."
+
+"You must ask Count Kamarowsky for some; he will give you all we want,"
+I whispered.
+
+"Not without asking what it is for. We shall need a great deal."
+
+"Oh, Elise, think, think of something," I sighed, and felt myself
+turning faint.
+
+"What are you two mumbling and plotting?" growled Prilukoff's voice from
+the adjoining room.
+
+We were silent.
+
+Tenderly and anxiously assisted by Kamarowsky and Elise I went down to
+the terrace that day, and spent the afternoon reclining on a couch in
+the mild spring sunshine, with eyes closed and every limb relaxed. I
+thought of our impending flight. Kamarowsky, seated beside me, kept
+silence, thinking I was asleep.
+
+Shortly afterwards I heard Tioka's quick little footsteps running across
+the terrace towards us. Kamarowsky doubtless warned him to keep very
+quiet, for I heard him stepping nearer on tip-toe, and without a word he
+clambered on to Kamarowsky's knee and laid his fair head confidingly
+against his shoulder.
+
+Beneath my drooping lashes, I gazed at them, and thought of the hideous
+plot that was weaving itself round this kind and generous man, who all
+unknowing pressed forward towards treachery and death; and I thought of
+the iniquitous oath which had placed a circlet of blood round that fair
+childish head.
+
+With a sob I raised myself and stretched out my arms to them both.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was eleven o'clock on the following night. Elise put out the lights
+and prepared the bromide and water on my little table. Prilukoff was
+rambling backwards and forwards between bedroom and drawing-room,
+smoking a cigarette.
+
+"Elise," I whispered. "Are we ready?"
+
+Elise nodded.
+
+"Elise, when? When is it to be?"
+
+"Hush, madame. Later on, towards morning; as soon"--with her head she
+indicated Prilukoff--"as soon as he is asleep."
+
+"But he never sleeps, Elise!"
+
+Elise looked at me. "He will sleep to-night," she said; and there was an
+icy hardness in her tone that I had never heard before.
+
+"Why will he sleep? How can you know?"
+
+Before she could answer, Prilukoff reappeared in the doorway. He had a
+glass of vodka in his hand.
+
+"This accursed throat!" he said, throwing his cigarette away and putting
+his hand to his neck. "Everything I swallow burns and scratches me." He
+coughed and cleared his throat. "You can go, Elise. I shall see to
+anything your mistress needs."
+
+Elise did not reply. With a hard, pinched face she poured the water into
+my glass and dropped two little bromide tablets into it. Then with her
+back turned to Prilukoff she fixed her eyes upon me and moved her lips:
+"_Do not drink._" She formulated the words clearly but without sound. I
+stared at her in bewilderment, and she made the movement with her lips
+again: "_Do not drink anything._" Then seeing that, notwithstanding my
+astonishment, I had understood her, she said respectfully: "Good night,
+madame," and left the room.
+
+She went out by the bath-room door, of which she always kept the key.
+
+Prilukoff dropped into an armchair and yawned. "This accursed throat,"
+he repeated.
+
+He poured out a glass of water from the crystal carafe on my table and
+swallowed it at a gulp. Then he coughed violently.
+
+"The devil!" he exclaimed. "This too! It tastes like some beastly
+concoction of--of chloral." He coughed and yawned again. Then he leaned
+his head against my bed. A few moments later he started up.
+
+"The devil!" he repeated, rising to his feet. I saw him go to the little
+table on which Elise every evening left some coffee ready on a spirit
+lamp; he lit it, and I dreamily watched the thin blue waverings of the
+flame. While the coffee was heating Prilukoff constantly cleared his
+throat, with the same murmured oath. Now he poured the smoking coffee
+into a cup and sipped it. "By all the infernal powers--" he cried, and
+turned suddenly to look at me.
+
+I did not dare to shut my eyes, much as I should have liked to do so. He
+came up to my bed and bending over me looked me in the face. Then he
+touched my shoulder.
+
+"See here!"
+
+I drooped my eyelids drowsily. "Yes, dear! What is it?"
+
+"Just taste this coffee," and he pushed the cup against my lips.
+
+I sat up and with a smile took the cup from his hands.
+
+"It burns," I said, barely touching it with my lips and making a little
+grimace.
+
+"Drink it!" he roared in a terrible voice, though his eyes were half
+shut as if he could not keep awake.
+
+I took a sip of the coffee: it scraped my throat like a rake. I thought
+of Elise and understood. For a moment the idea flashed through my brain
+to say that I found nothing the matter with it. Then I changed my mind.
+
+"Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "What have they put in this coffee? It
+tastes like poison!"
+
+Prilukoff bent still closer over me.
+
+"If you had said it was all right, I should have strangled you."
+
+My teeth chattered, partly through the taste of the chloral, partly
+through my fear of Prilukoff.
+
+"Have you drunk much of it?" I gasped. "You ought to call for help."
+
+But Prilukoff had sunk into an armchair, and already, with his head
+rolled back and his mouth open, he slept.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+
+How did we three hapless, terrified creatures manage to escape from the
+hotel that night?
+
+Tioka, wakened out of his sleep at three o'clock, kept on whimpering.
+
+"Where are we going? I am afraid. I want Papa Paul! Call Papa Paul."
+
+As we descended the dark staircase a night porter, dozing in the hall,
+started up and came towards us, blinking and yawning. When he caught
+sight of Elise, laden with shawls and medicine bottles--which constituted
+all our luggage--he seemed greatly astonished.
+
+For a moment no one spoke. Then: "I am feeling ill," I said. "We are
+going to the doctor. Please call a carriage for me."
+
+"But excuse me, madame," stammered the man. "Had I not better telephone
+to the doctor to come to the hotel?" His eyes wandered suspiciously from
+me to the lachrymose Tioka, and from Tioka to Elise and her burdens.
+
+"Open the door," said Elise authoritatively, "and call a carriage, at
+once."
+
+The man shook his head.
+
+Then I saw Elise gather all the shawls into a heap on her left arm, as
+with her right hand she searched for something under her cloak. She drew
+out a crumpled piece of paper, and with a gesture of solemn deliberation
+she proffered it to the man. It was a banknote of a hundred rubles.
+
+The man took the note, stared at it, and turned it round and round in
+his fingers. Then he raised his eyes and gazed in stupefaction at Elise.
+
+"Open that door and call a carriage," commanded Elise, in a thin voice.
+
+The man obeyed. As the large door swung back we could see that it was
+nearly dawn; the sound of distant church bells came to us across the
+clear, keen air. Elise raised her hand to her forehead and made the sign
+of the cross.... She had plundered the white elephant!
+
+Oh, Elise Perrier, not least among my great pangs of remorse is the
+thought that I have dragged you down into my own dishonor. For me and
+through me, your honest hard-working hand and your innocent soul were
+stained with guilt.
+
+While we stood waiting for the man to return, I thought I heard a door
+open and close overhead.
+
+I started. "Could it be Prilukoff?" I gasped to Elise.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Elise, what have you done to him?"
+
+"I put chloral into everything--into everything," and Elise shuddered.
+
+"Oh, Elise! What if he were to die?"
+
+She made no answer.
+
+"And if we were to be sent to prison?"
+
+The bells were ringing joyfully in the limpid Easter dawn.
+
+Elise closed her eyes, and her lips moved: "Dear God of Eastertide, give
+us Thy blessing."
+
+Tioka stopped crying to look at her. Then with an enchanting smile he
+did as she had done. He closed his blue eyes, which were still full of
+tears, and said: "Dear God of Eastertide, give us Thy blessing."
+
+
+The days swung forward.
+
+Prilukoff was the first to discover us. We had been hidden in Vienna, in
+the little Hotel Victoria, less than a week, when one morning he stood
+before our terror-stricken eyes.
+
+He was derisive and sarcastic; but finding us alone--without Kamarowsky,
+without Naumoff--the maleficent frenzy that possessed him at Orel seemed
+to have vanished. He was soon quite genial and good-humored; he was once
+more the Prilukoff we had known at Moscow, the trusty knight--Elise's
+Lohengrin!
+
+He did not speak of the past; he made no allusion to the chloral.
+Neither did he ever recall his murderous purposes; and sometimes I
+thought that I had dreamt it all. Cheerful and light-hearted, he took us
+out for drives in carriages and motors, to the Prater, to the Bruehl, to
+the Semmering; he insisted upon our going with him to theaters, concerts
+and cabarets.
+
+And to pay for it all we had recourse to the black leather satchel. When
+any money was required, we found it there. No accounts were kept.
+Simply, and as a matter of course, we dipped into the lacerated body of
+the white elephant and took what we needed.
+
+I let myself drift with the tide; I gave no thought either to the future
+or the past, but yielded myself passively to my fate like a straw afloat
+on the water....
+
+One day I saw in the newspapers that Kamarowsky was putting in motion
+the police of every city in Europe in his efforts to find me. Then, on
+Prilukoff's advice, I sent Elise to Neuchatel to telegraph to him from
+there in my name, in order to tranquilize him and mislead his inquiries.
+
+No sooner was the name of Kamarowsky mentioned between us than Prilukoff
+became sullen and gloomy again. He sulked and glowered at me, and passed
+the whole day without speaking a word.
+
+On this particular day we had taken a box at the _Theater An der Wien_,
+having promised Tioka that he should hear "The Merry Widow." Long before
+it was time to go, the little fellow was dressed and ready, jumping up
+and down in front of the window.
+
+"Let us make haste," he cried. "The carriage will be tired of waiting.
+Let us make haste!"
+
+Suddenly he uttered a shriek of joy. "Mother, mother, look! There is
+Papa Paul! I can see him--he has just passed. Papa Paul!" he shouted with
+all his might.
+
+Prilukoff caught him by his little jacket and drew him roughly from the
+window. Then he himself looked out.
+
+"Sure enough," he said, shutting the window and looking at me with that
+terrible crooked smile I had learned to dread. "It is Kamarowsky."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Then he said: "And now I have had enough
+of this. We will end it." Murder gleamed in his eyes.
+
+I clasped Tioka in my arms--the child was quite sad and hurt by
+Prilukoff's sudden rudeness--and as I kissed his soft curls I breathed
+Elise's prayer: "Dear God of Eastertide, give us Thy blessing."
+
+But alas! it was Easter no longer.
+
+In spite of what had happened, we went to the theater that night. And
+there, while the music swayed us in the undulating rhythm of the waltz,
+and little Tioka gazed enraptured at the stage, Prilukoff, sitting
+behind me in the shadow, formulated his plans for the crime.
+
+"You have sworn it on your child, remember. If you break your oath, he
+will be the sufferer."
+
+Tioka turned to us with shrill laughter. "Oh, look, mama, how beautiful
+it all is! Look at that fat policeman dancing."
+
+"When Kamarowsky finds you here--" Prilukoff went on; but I interrupted
+him.
+
+"No, no. Let us leave Vienna at once."
+
+"It is useless. He will find us all the same. You are too striking," he
+added, "to pass unobserved." And with a cynical laugh he surveyed me
+from head to foot. "He had better not find me with you. I shall remain
+at the Hotel Victoria; but you and Tioka must go to the Bristol, and
+when that man joins you, this is what you must do--"
+
+His iniquitous suggestions floated on the buoyant waltz music like
+carrion on the surface of a sparkling stream.
+
+I shuddered in horror. "No, no," I murmured. "Have pity! No ... no!"
+
+Oh! that music of Lehar's, that every one knows and every one whistles,
+and that is played by every organ at every street-corner--what monstrous
+secrets does it murmur to my heart!
+
+    _Ich gehe zu Maxim,_
+    _Da bin ich sehr intim..._
+
+The joyous verses ring in my ears like the shrieks of maleficent Furies,
+scourging me with nefarious counsels and diabolic commands....
+
+And while little Tioka laughs and claps his hands, I, his mother, sink
+ever deeper and deeper into the gulf of despair; and crime, like a sea
+of mire, closes its corrupt waves over my head.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+
+Everything came about as Prilukoff had foreseen. Kamarowsky found me the
+following evening alone with Tioka at the Bristol Hotel. He overwhelmed
+me with reproaches and with endearments.
+
+I maintained a mysterious silence, which he interpreted merely as the
+caprice of a spoiled child; nor did he take umbrage at it. He was too
+happy at having found me to care to quarrel either with the Fates or
+with me. All he said was: "Marie, I shall not leave you again." And the
+promise sounded almost like a threat.
+
+For some time Prilukoff gave no sign. I might have thought he had
+forgotten me. He had fixed a definitive space of time: ten days.
+
+On the eighth day he sent me a note, telling me to come to the Hotel
+Victoria that evening at nine o'clock. He would then provide we with
+what was needful. I was not to fail--or he would come himself.
+
+I dined with Paul Kamarowsky as usual; then, pleading a headache, I
+retired to my room at eight o'clock.
+
+Half an hour later a closed carriage was conveying me to the Hotel
+Victoria.
+
+From Prilukoff's hands I received a syringe, two tiny bottles, and a box
+filled with globules of curare, nitrate of amyl and chloroform. From his
+set gray lips I received instructions how to use these things. His teeth
+were chattering as well as my own; his hands were ice-cold and his eyes
+distraught.
+
+Then I fell on my knees at his feet. I implored him with all the
+strength of desperation to forego his abominable purpose. I reminded him
+of his past, of his unsullied youth, of the kind and generous love that
+had at first bound him to me; with tears streaming down my face I clung
+to his knees and swore to him eternal gratitude, eternal devotion, if
+only he would not stain my soul with crime, if only he would not ruin
+himself forever with so dark and vile a deed.
+
+I beat my forehead against his feet, entreating of him death for myself,
+but pity, pity for a generous, chivalrous man whose only wish was to
+protect and save me.
+
+What heaven-inspired words were granted me that I was able to move him?
+I cannot tell; but suddenly a great shudder went through him and
+agonized sobs shook his frame. He bent down and raised me. Then he sank
+into an armchair and wept aloud with uplifted face, a terrible spectacle
+of anguish and desolation.
+
+I also wept, kneeling beside him, kissing his hands, thanking him,
+blessing him.
+
+"Donat, dearest, do not weep! It has been all a dream--a fearful dream.
+We were ill--we were poor demented creatures. God will not remember it--He
+will cancel and forgive everything. Let us thank Him, Donat, for not
+permitting us to do harm to any one. Let us begin life all over again--a
+new, honorable life."
+
+"Ah, no," groaned Prilukoff. "I am a criminal. I have stolen!"
+
+"Never mind, never mind. You will give it all back. I will help you to
+give it all back. We must be prepared to face suffering and humiliation,
+but we shall atone; we shall take up our lives again, and retrieve and
+redeem the past."
+
+Even while I spoke I resolved that I would confess everything to
+Kamarowsky, and this thought filled me with joy. I would reveal to him
+the darkest recesses of my soul; I would confess the iniquitous
+treachery plotted against him, my every act of baseness and of shame. He
+would drive me from him in loathing, he would tread me under foot like
+some poisonous thing, but I would bow my head beneath his wrath and his
+disdain. I would go far away and live the rest of my life in humility
+and penitence. I would perhaps link my fate with that of Prilukoff, the
+degraded outcast ... yes, my penance should be to stay forever with him
+who inspired me now with so much horror and fear....
+
+Carried away by an ecstasy of feeling, we knelt down in that paltry
+hotel-room and thanked God for having opened our eyes, for having
+touched our hearts, for having saved us. Then praying aloud: "_Lord, let
+not our sins be counted against us_..." we broke the syringe and the
+phials of poison into a thousand fragments. Prilukoff tore the flesh of
+his hands as he snapped the hollow steel needle, which thrust itself
+into his palm like some fierce, living thing. "_Blot out our
+transgressions and remember not our iniquities_..." We trampled on the
+globules of amyl and chloroform, setting free the lethal vapors, which
+turned us giddy. Intoxicated with them and with our own emotions we fell
+once more on our knees, praying with uplifted hands: "_Deliver us from
+our sins_ ... _of Thy mercy save us_ ... _save us_..."
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+
+I remember that once in our childhood we were by the sea--I cannot tell
+in what country we were, nor what sea it was--and our English governess
+took us out one morning on the beach to see a tidal wave.
+
+"What is a tidal wave, Miss Williams?" we inquired.
+
+"Two or three immense waves which only come once a year," replied the
+sibylline Miss Williams. "Now keep quiet and look."
+
+We kept quiet and looked. And presently we thought we could see a huge
+wave, larger than all the others, coming towards us from the horizon.
+
+"Look! Look there! It is the tidal wave!"
+
+"No," said Miss Williams. "That is not it."
+
+And, indeed, presently there appeared a wave which was greater still--it
+reared its crest, towered aloft, and fell.
+
+"That was it! That was it!"
+
+But still farther away, on the line of the horizon, a mighty wave--a
+veritable wall of water--was approaching, formidable, gigantic,
+fabulous....
+
+That was the "tidal wave."
+
+In the course of my life, when events tragic and inexorable have raised
+their threatening billows above me and caught me in their crashing
+downfall, sweeping me like a piece of frail wreckage towards
+destruction, I have said to myself: "This is the tidal wave. Nothing
+worse can follow. Nothing more terrible than this can come upon me."
+
+But lo! behind that great wave of calamity another and still greater has
+followed, and still another and another--fabulous waves of tragedy and
+disaster.
+
+Thus it was that when I left Prilukoff that evening I thought that the
+tidal wave of my destiny had at last passed over me. Nothing more could
+crush and overwhelm me; before me stretched only the limitless levels of
+grief and remorse.
+
+But it was not so. Another--the last--wave of disaster was rearing itself
+like the fabulous wall of water of my childhood's recollections,
+carrying me on its crest, crashing down with me to irremediable ruin, to
+the fathomless abyss of crime.
+
+
+That very night Tioka fell ill. Elise came hurriedly into my room to
+call me. "Come at once, my lady. The young master is very ill. He is
+delirious and keeps talking to himself."
+
+I ran into the child's room. He was sitting up in bed, his wide eyes
+glowing in his fevered face. Where and when had I once before seen him
+like this?...
+
+His mind was wandering, and he talked incessantly--about Tania whom he
+had not seen or mentioned for the past two years, about his grandmother,
+and the old dog Bear. Then suddenly he asked for a picture and for some
+poetry. "Mama," he said, clinging to my neck, "say the poetry to me, the
+poetry--"
+
+"What poetry, oh, my darling, my darling?"
+
+"The poetry about the picture. Say it. Say it." He began to cry and
+tremble with his hot cheek close to mine.
+
+I racked my brain for a poem:
+
+    "This is the miller who lives in the mill,
+    The mill beside the river, oh!..."
+
+"No, no, no!" cried the child. "Not that!"
+
+I tried again:
+
+    "Brown-eyed Peter is going for a soldier;
+    Going for a soldier with his little turn-up nose..."
+
+"No, no, no!" shrieked Tioka despairingly. "Tania, Tania--the moon--the
+picture. Say it quickly!"
+
+A lightning flash seemed to tear the clouds of oblivion from my brain
+and illuminate the past. I was once more in Vassili's country house ...
+once more I entered the dim white nursery where my children, like two
+blonde seraphs, lay asleep.... A lamp hanging between the two little
+cots lit up an artless picture hanging on the wall--a rippling-haired
+Madonna standing in a star-lit sky, holding in her youthful arms the
+infant Jesus with a count's coronet on His head.
+
+Crying softly as I cradled my son's fair head upon my breast, I began:
+
+    "When little children sleep, the Virgin Mary
+    Steps with white feet upon the crescent moon...."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tioka grew worse. With glittering eyes and thin red cheeks he cried all
+day long that he wanted Grania--that he wanted Tania. But Grania had been
+sent away hurriedly for fear of infection--Count Kamarowsky's sister had
+come and taken him away--and Tania, alas! the gentle little Tania, far
+away in the castle of the Tarnowskys, had doubtless long since forgotten
+her brother Tioka and her heart-broken mother as well.
+
+The doctors shook their heads gravely as they stood by the tumbled cot
+in which the little boy tossed and moaned ceaselessly: "A train--a train
+is running over my head. Take it away! It hurts me, it hurts me..." And
+as they looked into his throat, which was dark red, almost purple in
+hue, they murmured: "Diphtheria? Scarlet fever?" Then they went away,
+conversing in low tones, leaving me beside myself with grief and terror.
+
+Kamarowsky watched with me night and day. Sometimes he fell asleep; and
+when I saw him sleeping, the old, unreasoning hatred for him stirred in
+my heart again.
+
+Prilukoff had left the Hotel Victoria, and had taken a room at the
+Bristol to be near us. Occasionally I saw him for a moment standing
+mournful and depressed outside my door. We looked at each other with
+anguish-stricken eyes, but we scarcely ever spoke. I had no thought for
+anything but Tioka.
+
+One night--the fourth since he had been taken ill--the child, who had been
+dozing for a few moments, awoke coughing and choking.
+
+"Mother, mother!" he gasped, fixing his large frightened eyes upon me.
+"Why do you let me die?" Then he closed his eyes again.
+
+I stood as if turned to stone. It was true. It was I, I who was letting
+him die. That idea had already flitted through my brain, but I had never
+dared to formulate the awful thought. As soon as he had fallen ill I had
+said to myself: "This is retribution. Did I not vow on Tioka's life?..."
+
+I saw myself again at the theater on the evening of "The Merry Widow,"
+and Prilukoff pointing to the child's angel head and whispering: "If you
+break your word, it is he who will pay for it."
+
+Yes; Tioka was paying for it. He was paying for the iniquitous vow that
+had been wrung from me that night at Orel when the three men pursued me
+in the darkness. With his revolver pressed against his temple Prilukoff
+had bidden me: "Swear!" Ah, why had I not let his fate overtake him? Why
+had he not pulled the trigger and fallen dead at my feet? Naumoff would
+have rushed in, and Kamarowsky would have broken in the door, and the
+whole of the triple treachery and fraud and dishonor would have been
+revealed; but, at least, I should have been free--free to take my child
+and wander with him through the wide spaces of the world. Whereas,
+coward that I had been, the fear of disgrace had vanquished me, and the
+threat of ignominy and death had dragged the inhuman vow from my
+lips.... And now Tioka was paying for it.
+
+The fierce primitive instinct of maternity awoke within me. Weakened by
+illness and wakefulness, my spirit lost itself again in the dark
+labyrinth of superstition. My frantic gaze passed from Tioka--lying wan
+and wasted on his pillows, gasping like a little dying bird--to
+Kamarowsky stretched out in an armchair, with his flaccid hands hanging
+at his sides and the corners of his mouth relaxed in sleep. I looked at
+him; I seemed to see him for the first time--this man to save whose life
+I was sacrificing my own child's. Yes, Tioka was dying in order that
+this stranger, this outsider, this enemy might live.
+
+When I turned towards Tioka again I saw that his eyes were open and
+fixed upon me. I fell on my knees beside him and whispered wildly:
+"Darling, darling, I will not let you die. No, my soul, my own, I will
+save you. You shall get well again and run out and play in the
+sunshine.... The other one shall die--but not you, not you! Now you will
+get well immediately. Are you not better already, my love, my own? Are
+you not better already?"
+
+And my boy, cradled in my arms, smiled faintly as my soft wild whispers
+lulled him to sleep.
+
+This idea now took possession of my brain, to the exclusion of all
+others. I thought and dreamed of nothing else. Tioka had scarlet fever
+and the fluctuations in his illness seemed to depend solely upon me.
+When I told myself that I was firmly, irrevocably resolved to compass
+the death of Kamarowsky, the child's fever seemed to abate, his throat
+was less inflamed, the pains in his head diminished. But if, as I grew
+calmer and clung to hope again, I hesitated in my ruthless purpose, lo!
+the fever seized him anew, the rushing trains went thundering over his
+temples, and his tender throat swelled until he could hardly draw his
+breath.
+
+Prilukoff followed the oscillations of my distracted spirit with weary
+resignation; he was benumbed and apathetic, without mind and without
+will. When in the fixity of my mania I insisted upon the necessity of
+the crime, he would answer languidly: "Oh, no. Leave it alone. Let
+things be."
+
+Then I grew more and more frenzied, weeping and tearing my hair.
+
+"Can you not understand that Tioka is dying? Tioka, my little Tioka is
+dying! And it is we who are killing him."
+
+"No, no," sighed Prilukoff. "Let things alone."
+
+Tioka grew worse.
+
+A day came when he could not see me or hear me--when he lay quite still
+with scarcely flickering breath. Then I rose as one in a dream. I went
+to Prilukoff's room.
+
+He sat listlessly by the window, smoking. I seized him by the arm.
+
+"Donat Prilukoff, I renew my oath. Paul Kamarowsky shall die within this
+year!"
+
+"All right, all right!" grumbled Prilukoff, wearied to exhaustion by my
+constant changes of mood. "Let us finish him once for all, and have done
+with it."
+
+I gasped. "Where? When? Is it _you_ who will--"
+
+Prilukoff raised his long, languid eyes. "Whatever you like," he said.
+Then he added in a spent voice: "I am very tired."
+
+And it was I who urged him, who pushed him on, who hurried him to think
+out and shape our plans. He was languid and inert. Sometimes he would
+look dully at me and say: "What a terrible woman you are." But I thought
+only of Tioka, and my eager and murderous frenzy increased.
+
+And behold! Tioka got better. This chance coincidence assumed in my
+diseased brain the character of a direct answer from heaven. The
+sacrifice had been accepted!
+
+A year later, when I stood before the judges who were to sentence me, no
+word of this delusion passed my lips. Demented though I was, I knew
+myself to be demented; I knew that this idea of a barter with heaven was
+an insensate idea; and yet, by some fallacy of my hallucinated brain, I
+believed--do I not even now believe it?--that my vow had been heard, that
+my word must be kept, that one life must be bought with the other.
+
+Even so, better, far better would it have been to let my child's white
+soul flutter heavenwards, than to retain it with my blood-stained hand.
+
+But at that time my one thought was to save him, even though for his
+life, not one, but a thousand others had been immolated.
+
+The day came when I was able to carry him in my arms from his cot to an
+easy chair beside the window. What a joy was that brief transit! His
+frail arms were round my neck and his head lay on my shoulder. With
+slow, lingering steps I went, loth to leave him out of my embrace.
+
+A sweet Italian verse came light and fragrant into my memory:
+
+    I thought I bore a flower within my arms...
+
+It was Prilukoff who reminded me with a cynical smile that the vow
+included also Nicolas Naumoff.
+
+Nicolas Naumoff! I had almost forgotten him. Nicolas Naumoff! Must he,
+this distant and forgotten stranger, also die?
+
+I cannot tell which of us it was who conceived the idea of making use of
+him as our instrument--of destroying him by making him a weapon of
+destruction, of murdering him by making him a murderer.
+
+The idea may have been mine. I feared that I could not rely upon the
+languid, listless Prilukoff. Yes; it must have been I who devised this
+method of propitiating the avenging Fates, and averting from us the
+imminent Nemesis.
+
+"A good idea," said Prilukoff wearily. "Let Naumoff do it." And he
+lighted a cigarette.
+
+I gazed at him, aquiver with superstitious dread. "Do you think that
+then Naumoff need not die? Do you think that"--I hesitated--"_that_ will
+be enough?..."
+
+Prilukoff turned and looked at me as if aghast. Then he nodded his head
+and the fearful, crooked smile distorted his countenance.
+
+"Yes," he said. "I think that will be enough."
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+
+To what end should I narrate anew the terrible story which is known to
+all? Must I dip again into the soilure and abomination of that awful
+time? How dare I tell of the luring telegrams sent to the distant
+Naumoff, my guileless and impassioned lover, and of the joy and
+gratitude with which he hastened to me? How describe the slow, insidious
+poisoning of his mind against Kamarowsky, the hatred subtly instilled in
+him against that unconscious, kindly man? And the lies, the slanders,
+the ambiguous disclosures of pretended outrages inflicted upon me, of
+insults and injuries I feigned to have suffered at Kamarowsky's
+hands?...
+
+Naumoff believed it all. His astonishment and indignation knew no
+bounds. What? Kamarowsky, whom he had always thought the most chivalrous
+and considerate of men, was a despicable, worthless coward? Well,
+Naumoff would challenge him; he would fight a duel to the death with him
+who had been his best friend.
+
+But not that, not that was what I wanted.
+
+Tioka recovered. Taller, thinner and paler, he came out once more into
+the sunshine, leaning on my arm, enraptured at everything, greeting
+every ray of light and every winged or flowering thing as if it were a
+new acquaintance.
+
+Not for an instant did I suffer my mind to waver. God, the terrible God
+of my disordered fancy, had accepted the compact, and it was now for me
+to carry it out.
+
+As soon as Tioka was well enough to travel, I sent him to Russia to some
+of our relations. While I was discharging my debt for his life, he must
+be far away.
+
+Then began the ghastly game, the sinister comedy with the three puppets,
+whose strings I held in my fragile hands. I had to tranquilize and
+disarm Kamarowsky; to kindle and fan the murderous fury of Prilukoff;
+and above all to enchain and infatuate Naumoff, so as to impel him to
+the crime.
+
+Ah, every art that Lilith, daughter of Eve and of the Serpent, has
+bequeathed to woman, every insidious perversity and subtle wile did I
+bring into play to charm and enamor this youthful dreamer. With every
+incitement did I lure and tempt him; with every witchery did I entangle
+him in the meshes of my perversity and in the whirlwind of my golden
+hair.
+
+I was indeed the modern Circe, weaving her evil spell. I was fervent and
+temerarious, full of exotic anomalies, eccentric, unexpected.... I
+delighted in causing him both pleasure and suffering in a thousand
+unnatural and outrageous ways; I cut my initials in his arm with the
+triangular blade of a dagger; I pressed my lighted cigarette upon his
+hand; I assumed all the absurdities, perversities and puerilities with
+which since time immemorial woman has decoyed and beguiled man, who,
+after all, is essentially a simple-minded and ingenuous being.
+
+Nicolas Naumoff was dazed and fascinated by all this strange hysteria
+and subtlety. He believed himself to be the hero of a fabulous
+passion--the incomparable conqueror of a wondrous and portentous love.
+
+There were times when I myself was carried away by this play of my own
+invention. Now and then I lost sight of the grim purpose of this process
+of seduction; I rejoiced in my own coquetries, and myself burned in the
+flame I had deliberately kindled.
+
+One evening as he knelt before me, pressing my cool hands against his
+fevered forehead, I bent over him with a smile.
+
+"Why do you love me so much?" I asked. "Tell me. Tell me the truth."
+
+He answered me gravely in a deep voice, enumerating the reasons on my
+fingers as he held them in his own.
+
+"I love you because you are beautiful and terrible. Because you have
+that white, subtle face, and that mouth that is like a greedy rose, and
+those long, cruel eyes ... I love you because you are different from all
+others, better or worse than all, more intelligent and more passionate
+than all." He was silent for a moment. "And also because you have forced
+me to love you."
+
+Yes. I had forced him to love me. And now he was what I wanted him to
+be--an instrument ready to my hand: a fierce and docile instrument of
+death, a submissive and murderous weapon.
+
+
+June crept warmly up from the south, and murmured of blue waters and
+dancing sunlight.
+
+"Mura, let us go to Venice," said Paul Kamarowsky one afternoon as he
+sat beside me on the balcony; "let us pass these last three months of
+waiting at the Lido. If needs be, I can take you back to Russia later
+on, to complete the few formalities that must precede our marriage."
+
+"To Venice?" I said faintly.
+
+Paul Kamarowsky smiled.
+
+    "_Ti guardo e palpito, Venezia mia,_"
+
+he quoted under his breath. And bending forward, he kissed my trembling
+lips.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+
+We prepared to leave. Naumoff's despair was puerile and clamorous. I
+entreated him to go back to Orel and wait for me there, and I promised
+him that I would soon return to Russia and see him again. As for
+Prilukoff, he awakened from his lethargy with the roar of a wounded wild
+beast. "To Venice! You are going to Venice with that man? Is that how
+you keep your vow?"
+
+"I will keep it, I will keep it," I cried. "But I said--it--it should be
+done within the year--this is only June--we can wait six months longer."
+
+"By that time you will be his wife," snarled Prilukoff between clenched
+teeth. "Unless it is done within the next three months you know it will
+never be done at all. Go your way," he jeered, "do as you like! Play
+fast and loose with fate as you have played fast and loose with me!" He
+turned and gripped my wrist. "But you will escape neither of us. Fate
+and I will overtake you, Marie Tarnowska, be it in Venice--or in hell!"
+
+We left for the Lido.
+
+And while, on the arm of my bethrothed, I wandered by the dancing
+waters, and the golden hours showered their light upon us, in my dark
+heart I prayed:
+
+"God, give me strength and ruthlessness! God, who didst guide the hand
+of Judith, fill my soul with violence and teach my hand to slay!"
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Prilukoff followed us to Verona. Then he came after us to Venice, where
+he took rooms in the same hotel, lurking in the corridors, shadowing us
+in the streets, pursuing me day and night with his misery and jealousy.
+Occasionally I saw him for a few moments alone, and then we would
+whisper together about the deed that was to be done, speaking feverishly
+in low quick tones like demented creatures. If I wavered, it was he who
+reminded me ruthlessly of my child and of my vow; if he hesitated, it
+was I who with the insensate perversity of madness urged him on towards
+the crime.
+
+One evening--ah, how well do I remember that radiant summer sunset
+beneath which the lagoon lay like a fluid sheet of copper!--he met me on
+the Lido. He was morose and gloomy. He took from his pocket a black
+crumpled package. It was Elise's old satchel--the "white elephant,"
+tattered, empty, dead.
+
+With a vehement movement he flung it into the water. Where it fell the
+sheet of copper shivered into a thousand splinters of red gold.
+
+"Empty?" I asked in a low tone.
+
+"Empty," he replied.
+
+"And now, what will you do?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. It was then that the idea came to him--the
+execrable, the nefarious idea.
+
+"Listen. As he"--with a movement of his head he indicated the absent
+Kamarowsky--"is doomed--I suppose he is doomed, isn't he?" he interposed.
+
+I assented in a barely audible whisper: "Yes."
+
+"Well, his--his disappearance may as well be of some use. Do you not
+think so?"
+
+Seeing the look of horror which I turned upon him, he continued: "For
+goodness' sake don't let us behave like romantic fools. We are not a
+pair of poetic assassins in a play, are we?"
+
+  [Illustration: UNDER ARREST]
+
+Gradually, by subtle pleading and plausible argument, he led my weak
+brain to view the idea with less horror. He assured me that we had not
+only the right but almost the duty to commit this enormity. According to
+him, it was not a shameful and disgraceful deed. No; it was a just,
+reasonable, logical thing to do.
+
+"Of course, it is not as if we were getting rid of a man simply in order
+to plunder him of his money. No, indeed. That would be vile, that would
+be abominable. But, given the necessity--the irrevocableness--of his fate,
+why should we not see to it that his death may at least be of some use
+to some one? Not to ourselves, remember. The money you get from him
+shall be used to serve a just purpose--to redress a wrong. We shall make
+restitution to those I have despoiled. I will pay back what I took from
+my clients to the very last farthing. And anything that is left over
+shall be given in charity to the poor. What do you say to that? We shall
+keep nothing for ourselves--nothing. Do you agree?"
+
+He went on to recall that among the clients he had defrauded was a widow
+with four little children; the thought of her, he said, had always
+worried him. It was good to think that she would recover every penny.
+
+The advocate in him awoke, eloquent and convincing, until he ended by
+assuring me that we should be performing a meritorious deed.
+
+Indignant at first, then uncertain, then reluctant, I was finally
+persuaded. Soon I heard myself repeating after him: "It will be a
+meritorious deed."
+
+Ah, if such beings as evil spirits exist, with what laughter must they
+have listened to our talk in that exquisite evening hour.
+
+It was Prilukoff who thought out the details and settled the plan.
+
+"You must get him to insure his life."
+
+"How can I?" I cried feebly and tearfully. "How can one possibly suggest
+such a thing?"
+
+"Leave that to me," said Prilukoff, reverting to his Moscow manner.
+
+Next day he showed me a letter written by himself in a disguised hand.
+
+"Open this letter when he is present, and when he insists on seeing it,
+show it to him ... reluctantly!"
+
+"But what if he does not insist?"
+
+"You must make him insist," said Prilukoff.
+
+
+The letter was brought to me in Kamarowsky's presence, and when he saw
+me turning scarlet and then pale as I opened it, he insisted on seeing
+what it contained.
+
+I showed it to him ... reluctantly.
+
+The letter was in Prilukoff's handwriting, but was signed "Ivan
+Troubetzkoi." The prince (whom I scarcely remembered, and whom I had not
+seen for more than six years) begged me to marry him, and as proof of
+his devotion offered to make a will in my favor and, in addition, to
+insure his life for half a million francs.
+
+Paul Kamarowsky was aghast.
+
+"Is everybody trying to steal you away from me, Mura?" he exclaimed
+brokenly; then he sat down on the sofa with his head in his hands. I
+gazed at him, feeling as if I should die with sorrow and remorse.
+
+For a long time he did not speak. Then he drew me to him.
+
+"Dear one, do not heed the offers of other people. No one, whether he be
+prince or moujik, can love you more than I do. No one will do more for
+you than I am willing to do. I, also, am ready to make a will in your
+favor; I, also, will insure my life for half a million francs."
+
+"No, no," I cried, crushed with misery and shame.
+
+"Oh, yes, I will. It shall be done immediately. To-day."
+
+
+And it was done.
+
+
+"You see?" cried Prilukoff triumphantly, "I am not quite a fool yet, am
+I? Hush now, don't cry. Remember that it is not for ourselves, but to
+make an honorable act of restitution."
+
+"But a hundred thousand francs would have been enough for that," I
+sobbed.
+
+"The other four hundred thousand we shall give to the poor," said
+Prilukoff. "It will be a meritorious deed."
+
+
+
+
+XL
+
+
+I remember that when I was a child I was taken to a fair and given a
+ride on a switchback railway. I was scarcely seated in the car, with the
+straps round my waist and the giddy track before me, than I cried to get
+out again. But the car was already moving forward, slowly gliding down
+the first incline.
+
+I screamed, writhing against the straps, "Stop! stop! I want to get out.
+I want to go back!" But now the car was rushing giddily, in leaps and
+bounds, down one slope and up another, whirling over bridges and gulfs,
+dashing down the precipitous declivity with ever-increasing speed.
+
+
+Even thus had I embarked, almost without realizing it, upon the rapid
+slope of crime. Impelled by my own madness, I had started on the
+vertiginous course to perdition, and now I plunged downwards, rolling,
+leaping, rushing into the darkness, without possibility of pause or
+return.
+
+
+It was Kamarowsky himself who begged me to leave Venice for Kieff, where
+some formalities still remained to be accomplished before our impending
+marriage. He offered to accompany me, but I declined. He resigned
+himself, therefore, though with reluctance, to allowing me to start
+alone with Elise.
+
+"Now," said Prilukoff, on the eve of my departure--and the transversal
+vein stood out like whipcord on his forehead--"let there be no more
+backing out and putting off. You will see Naumoff in Russia; send him
+straight back here. I'm sick of this business; let us get it over."
+
+I bowed my head and wept.
+
+Kamarowsky took me to the railway station, where I found the compartment
+he had reserved for me already filled with flowers. I thanked him with
+trembling lips.
+
+"In three weeks, my love," he said, "you will be back again, and then I
+shall not part from you any more." He kissed me and stepped down upon
+the platform, where he stood gazing up at me with smiling eyes. Many
+people stood near, watching us. I leaned out of the carriage window, and
+as I looked at him I kept repeating to myself: "This is the last time I
+shall see him! The last time!"
+
+It seemed strange and incongruous to see him there, with his usual
+aspect, making ordinary gestures and uttering commonplace remarks.
+Knowing as I did that he stood on the threshold of death, I wondered
+that he had not a more staid and solemn demeanor, slower, graver
+gestures and memorable words.
+
+Whereas he was saying, with a smile: "Mind you don't lose your purse;
+and remember to look after your luggage at the Customs. You will have
+the dining-car at Bozen." And then, looking about him: "Would you like
+some newspapers?" He hurried away after the newsvendor, and then counted
+his change and argued about a coin which he thought was counterfeit. He
+came back to my carriage door, handed me the newspapers, and with his
+handkerchief dried his forehead and the inside of his hat.
+
+"Fearfully hot," he said, looking up at me with a friendly laugh.
+
+All this seemed terribly out of keeping with the tragic situation of
+which, all unconsciously, he was the hero. I tried to say something
+tender and affectionate to him, but my agitation stifled me.
+
+"Mind you are good," he said, still smiling, and he threw a glance at
+some officers in the compartment next to mine.
+
+I heard the doors being shut and the guard calling out "_Partenza!_" My
+heart began to beat wildly. I felt as if once again I were strapped in
+the car on the switchback railway. I wanted to get out, to stop, to turn
+back. A whistle sounded and a gong was struck.
+
+"Well, Mura, _au revoir_," cried Kamarowsky, stretching up his hand to
+me. "A happy journey and all blessings."
+
+I leaned out as far as I could--the bar across the window hindered me,
+but I managed to touch his outstretched hand with the tips of my
+fingers.
+
+A spasm caught my throat. "Paul, Paul!" I gasped. "Oh, God, forgive me!"
+A shrill whistle drowned my voice as the train moved slowly forward.
+
+He must have seen the anguish in my face, for he cried anxiously:
+
+"What? What did you say?" Now he was running beside the train, which was
+beginning to go faster.
+
+I repeated my cry: "Forgive me! Forgive me!" and stretched out my arms
+to him from the window.
+
+He shook his head to show that he had not understood. The train was
+throbbing and hastening.
+
+He ran faster beside it. "What--what is it? What did you say?" But the
+train was gaining speed, and he was obliged to stop. He stood there,
+erect and solitary, at the extreme end of the platform, following with
+perplexed and questioning gaze the train that was carrying me away.
+
+It is thus always that I see him in my memory--a solitary figure, gazing
+at me with perplexed and wondering eyes.
+
+Surely it is thus, thus wondering and perplexed, that he must have
+looked in the face of death and treachery, on that summer morning when
+he was struck down by the hand of his friend.
+
+The switchback plunges downward in its mad race to the abyss--the end is
+near.
+
+At Kieff, as arranged, I meet Naumoff.
+
+I sob out my despair to him. Paul Kamarowsky must die. I give no reason,
+I explain nothing; I repeat unceasingly the three words: "He must die,"
+until there seem to be no other words in the world--until the universe
+seems to ring with those three words: "He must die!"
+
+Naumoff recoils from me, pale-faced and horrified. Then I drive him from
+me, crying: "Go, you are a coward. Let me never see you again!"
+
+"But why should he die?" cries Naumoff. "What has the poor man done to
+you?"
+
+Ah, what, indeed, has the poor man done?
+
+Ramblingly, incoherently, I try to explain to Naumoff; I tell him of
+Tioka and his illness, of my vow.... He listens amazed, without
+comprehending.
+
+"But Mura, Mura! This is delirium, this is madness. You are ill, you are
+out of your mind. How can such an insensate idea possess you? How can
+you imagine that God would demand such an iniquity?"
+
+Then I rack my brain for arguments that will convince him. I invent all
+manner of falsehoods; I repeat the tale of insults and outrages that I
+have endured at the hands of Kamarowsky; I accuse him of violence and
+brutality ... and even as I tell these mad stories they seem to myself
+to be true. I am thrilled by my own words; I tremble, I weep
+convulsively; and Naumoff, ever more pale, ever more bewildered, does
+not know what to believe.
+
+Continually, a dozen times a day, blind to all caution, reckless of all
+consequences, I send telegrams to Prilukoff--the telegrams that
+afterwards were found, and led to our arrest--"Berta refuses."
+(Prilukoff, I know not for what reason, had nicknamed Naumoff "Berta.")
+Then again: "Berta will do it." And again: "Berta irresolute. What am I
+to do?"
+
+Then seized by sudden panic: "Wait! Do no harm to any one. Advise me.
+Help me. I am going mad."
+
+Prilukoff telegraphs back his usual set phrase: "Leave it to me." And he
+forthwith proceeds to send me a number of telegrams, all of which
+contain a series of insults and taunts addressed both to Naumoff and to
+myself. He signs them "Paul Kamarowsky." Naumoff reads them in
+amazement, then in anger; finally he, too, becomes possessed of the idea
+of crime, obsessed by the frenzy of murder.
+
+How can I tell the terrible story further?... The gust of madness caught
+us in its whirlwind, dashing us round like leaves blown in a storm.
+
+One evening--it was a pale, clear twilight at the close of August--I
+sprang suddenly to my feet, and winding a black veil round my hair, I
+ran from my rooms and down the wide shallow flights of the hotel
+staircase. There were large mirrors on every landing. As I descended I
+saw at every turn a woman coming to meet me, a tall, spectral creature
+with a black veil tied round a white, desolate face ... her light, wild
+eyes filled me with fear, and I hurried forward to reach the hall, where
+I heard voices and music.
+
+Standing beside the piano in the vast lounge, two young girls were
+singing; they were English girls, and they sang, with shy, cool voices,
+a duet of Mendelssohn:
+
+  [Illustration: Fair Springtime bids the bluebells ring
+  Sweet chimes o'er vale and lea]
+
+Some distance away, listening to them with tranquil contentment on their
+peaceful faces, sat their parents--the father, a stern, stately old man
+with kindly eyes; the mother, gentle and serene, wearing the white lace
+cap of renunciation on her smooth gray hair. As I passed them with
+faltering step the mother turned and looked at me. What did she read in
+my face that wakened such a look of tenderness and pity in hers?... She
+smiled at me, and that smile seemed to stop my heart, so guileless was
+it, so maternal and so kind.
+
+For an instant a wild thought possessed me: to stop, to fall upon my
+knees before this gentle, unknown woman and implore her help.
+
+What if I cried out to her: "Help me, have pity upon me! I am an
+unhappy creature whom the Fates pursue.... I am distraught, I am
+demented--to-morrow I shall have murder on my soul. Keep me near you ...
+save me! Unless you help me I am lost...."
+
+But the Furies that pursued me laughed aloud and lashed me forward.
+
+And now Nicolas Naumoff, who had noticed my flight, came running down
+the staircase to follow me....
+
+I crossed the hall rapidly and went out into the dusk.
+
+  [Illustration: All in this merry morn of Spring,
+  Come out and dance with me.]
+
+
+
+
+XLI
+
+
+Through the twilight streets I hastened, and Naumoff followed, calling
+me by my name; but I did not answer him. Through the long Road of the
+Cross I hurried silently, and out through the Golden Gate, and on, down
+dusty solitary streets, past the Church of All Saints, until at last I
+stood before the cemetery where my mother is laid to rest.
+
+"Where are we going?" asked Naumoff. "Why have you come here?"
+
+But without answering him I threw a ruble to the gatekeeper and entered
+the silent pathways of the churchyard.
+
+The sky was still light in the west, but the paths were gloomy in the
+shadow of willow and cypress trees. Hastening on between the double rows
+of flower-decked graves, and the monuments that gleamed whitely in the
+twilight, I reached my mother's tomb. I knelt and kissed the great
+marble cross that stands so heavily above her frail brow. And the
+thought of her lying there, so desolate and alone, abandoned to the
+rains and the winds and the darkness of long dreadful nights, struck
+terror to my heart.
+
+"Speak to me, mother," I whispered to her. "Tell me what I am to do. You
+who know all--all about the vow and little Tioka, and the terrible things
+that are in my life--tell me, mother, must Paul Kamarowsky die?"
+
+My mother did not answer.
+
+"Tell me, tell me, mother! Is he to die?" My mother was silent. But the
+evening breeze passed over the delicate flowers, the lilies and
+campanulas which cover her grave; and they all nodded their heads,
+saying: "Yes, yes, yes."
+
+"Did you see?" I whispered to Naumoff.
+
+But he only looked at me with bewildered eyes. And I drew him away. "We
+must go quickly," I said.
+
+Now it was growing dark. I hastened along the winding narrow pathways
+until in a deserted corner I found what I was seeking: a neglected grave
+marked by a gray stone bearing a name and a date.
+
+As I gazed at that mound of earth, on which a long-since withered wreath
+spoke of forgetfulness, a wave of desolation swept over my heart. How
+sad and empty and useless was everything! Life and hope and love and
+desire--all empty, all unavailing....
+
+"Who is buried here?" asked Naumoff under his breath. He bent forward
+and read the name aloud: "_Vladimir Stahl._"
+
+Something stirred. Perhaps it was only the dry leaves of the withered
+wreath, but I was afraid--afraid that I should see Stahl suddenly move
+and rise up, covered with mold, to answer to his name.
+
+"Vladimir Stahl..." whispered Naumoff again, raising his haggard boyish
+face and gazing at me, "Mura, Mura, I see you encompassed by the dead."
+
+Doubtless he meant the tombs which spread around me in a livid
+semicircle; but to me it seemed that he could discern standing behind me
+all my dead--my mother and Stahl, and Bozevsky and little Peter.... I
+uttered a scream as I looked fearfully behind me.
+
+"Why do you scream?" gasped Naumoff; and he also turned and looked
+round. Then he pointed to the grave in front of us. "Who was this?" he
+asked in a low voice. "Did he love you?" His eyes flickered strangely.
+There was horror and lust and frenzy in the gaze he fixed upon me.
+
+I was silent.
+
+"Did he love you? Did he love you?" He pressed closer to me, with parted
+lips and quickening breath.
+
+Then I bent towards him, and a thrill such as I have never felt passed
+through me. "Swear--on the dead--that you will kill that man."
+
+"I swear it," he gasped. "Terrible woman that you are, I swear it."
+
+"Go," I whispered. "Go ... at once." But he sprang towards me and
+fastened his lips upon mine.
+
+Amid all the horrors that haunt my memory, all the spectral visions
+which drift darkly through the labyrinth of my life, that frenzied
+embrace among the tombs in the crepuscular cemetery, still rises before
+me--a ghost of darkness and of shame.
+
+He turned and left me. I heard his footsteps running along the gravel
+path, I saw his tall shadowy figure vanish in the gloom.... He was gone.
+
+I was alone in the nocturnal churchyard, alone by Stahl's desolate
+grave.
+
+"Nicolas Naumoff!" I cried. But no one answered me, and fear ran into my
+heart with thudding steps.
+
+I hurried forward, down the narrow path bordered with tombs and turned
+to the right, down another wider avenue among other endless rows of the
+dead.... Where was I? In which direction lay the gate?... I turned and
+ran back. I must find Stahl's grave again, and then go to the left
+through the unconsecrated burial-ground of those who had died by their
+own hand.... With shuddering breath I stumbled forward, but nowhere
+could I find the dreary field of the unshriven dead. Tall sepulchers and
+mausoleums loomed dimly on either side of me, limitless rows of
+tombstones and statues ... but Stahl's low, dreary mound was nowhere to
+be seen. Stay--behind the willows on the right, was that not the white
+cross standing on my mother's grave?... To reach it quickly I left the
+pathway and ran diagonally across the burial ground trampling the graves
+in my haste to reach that large cross shimmering in the gloom.... No, it
+was not my mother's grave. But further on, and further, other crosses
+glimmered and beckoned--and I ran on, crazed and terror-stricken,
+stumbling over mounds and hillocks, tripping in iron railings, trampling
+over flowers and wreaths ... until I fell in the darkness and lay
+unconscious and silent amid the silent and unconscious dead.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+A breath of soft morning air awoke me. I opened my eyes. Elise was
+bending over me with pale and anxious face. The room--my bedroom--whirled
+and swam before my dizzy sight.
+
+"Elise!"...
+
+Elise Perrier clasped her hands. "Thank God!" she murmured. "I feared
+you would never wake again." Her face worked strangely, and she burst
+into tears.
+
+"Elise--what has happened? What is to-day?" Before she could answer,
+another question sprang to my lips: "Where is Naumoff?"
+
+"He has left, my lady," whispered Elise in awestruck tones.
+
+"Left?" A long silence held us. "Left? Where has he gone?"
+
+Elise looked down at me with blanched and quivering countenance.
+
+"To Venice," she said in low tones.
+
+I started up. "To Venice?" To Venice! My memory darted to and fro like a
+child playing hide and seek. "Elise! Elise! Elise!" I stretched out my
+hands like one sinking and drowning in the darkness. Elise wept. I
+watched the strange faces that Elise always made when she wept: funny,
+pitiful grimaces with puckered brow and chin.
+
+"To Venice." My memory flickers like a feeble light, then blazes into
+sudden flames that sear my soul with fire. "Elise! He must be stopped.
+He must not reach Venice! Elise, stop him, stop him--!"
+
+"It is impossible, my lady."
+
+Yes, it is impossible.
+
+
+(_By this time the train which is carrying Naumoff on his mission of
+death has passed Warsaw and is hastening towards Bruenn; hastening, ever
+hastening through the dawning hours and the noonday sunshine, hastening
+on into the twilight--and at dusk it rumbles and pants into the station
+at Vienna_.)
+
+
+I fall fainting back upon my pillows, and all through the day and the
+night I dream that I am speeding after the rushing train, catching up
+with it and losing it again, sweeping through the air, tearing along the
+unending rails, reaching it at last, and being struck down and crushed
+under its rolling wheels.
+
+Day dawns once more.
+
+"Elise, Elise, bring Naumoff back. Telegraph to him. Elise, for heaven's
+sake, bring him back!"
+
+"It is hopeless, my lady."
+
+Yes, it is hopeless.
+
+
+(_At this hour the train is hurrying from Bozen to Verona, from Verona
+to Vicenza, from Vicenza to Padua._)
+
+
+Night falls on my despair.
+
+
+"Elise, Elise! Where are you? What is the time?"
+
+"It is nearly dawn, my lady."
+
+"Elise, what day is this?"
+
+"It is the third day of September."
+
+The third day of September!
+
+"Elise," I scream suddenly, "Elise! Telegraph to Kamarowsky. Warn
+him.... Quickly, oh, quickly! Why, why did we not do so before?"
+
+"Hush, my lady, hush! You were delirious; you could only rave and weep."
+
+"Elise, Elise, telegraph to Kamarowsky...."
+
+"It is too late, my lady."
+
+Yes, it is too late.
+
+
+(_At this very hour of dawn the train has reached Venice. Nicolas
+Naumoff is hastening from the Riva degli Schiavoni, across the empty
+piazza and the deserted streets. He hails a gondola. "Campo Santa Maria
+del Giglio!"_
+
+_And the gondola, with soft plash of oar, glides slowly towards the
+doomed sleeper._
+
+_What dreams may the angel of rest have sent to him for the last time?
+Perhaps the tender vision of little Grania has gladdened him, while
+silent and inexorable in the closed gondola the youth with the golden
+eyes steals towards him through the mazes of the clear canals._
+
+"_Santa Maria del Giglio._"
+
+_Nicolas Naumoff springs from the gondola, crosses the empty Campo and
+reaches the house. He ascends the steps quickly, knocks, enters--and
+closes the door behind him._)
+
+
+Yes, it is too late.
+
+I hear myself shrieking with laughter as I fall back on my pillows. Soon
+I am surrounded by strangers who hold me down, who thrust opiates
+between my lips, who lay soothing hands and cooling compresses on my
+brow. Then I know nothing more.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Elise Perrier's terrified face surges out of the darkness: she is
+speaking quickly, she is bending over me, imploring and urging.... What
+does she say? She weeps despairingly, and ever through her tears she
+speaks, urging and imploring.
+
+Finally, in her thin arms, she drags me from my bed; she dresses me; she
+wraps a cloak about me, and hurries backwards and forwards with
+traveling-bags and satchels. Now we are in a carriage--no, we are in a
+train. Elise Perrier sits opposite me, with ashen face and her hands in
+gray cotton gloves tightly folded. Her lips move. She is praying.
+
+Suddenly I struggle to my feet: "_Paul!_..."
+
+As I scream the name Elise springs upon me, covering my mouth with her
+cotton glove, pressing my head to her breast. "Silence! hush, hush, for
+the love of heaven! They will hear you. Hush!"
+
+"Is he dead, Elise, is he dead?"
+
+"No, no, he is not dead," gasps Elise in a toneless whisper, "he is not
+dead. We are going to him. He is wounded ... he has been telegraphing to
+you for three days, begging you to come. And you would not move, you
+would not understand...." Elise is crying again.
+
+But perfect peace has descended into my soul. Paul is not dead. He
+lives! he lives! Nothing else matters but this--he lives.
+
+The train still rushes along, beating rhythmic time to many tunes that
+are in my head; I gaze out of the window, at the whirling landscape that
+swings past like a giant chess-board, at the telegraph wires that dip,
+and then ascend slowly and dip again. Hours pass or days pass.... And
+the train stops.
+
+Elise is hurriedly collecting cloaks and satchels.
+
+"Where are we, Elise? Are we in Venice?"
+
+"Not yet; not yet. We are in Vienna."
+
+As I step from the train, two men whom I do not know approach me. One of
+them asks me if I am the Countess Tarnowska. He has not taken his hat
+off, and I do not deign to reply.
+
+As I am about to pass him he lays his hand on my arm. The other man also
+comes forward, and, one on each side, they conduct me along the
+platform. I notice many people stopping to look at me.
+
+Nothing seems to matter. I do not remember why we are in Vienna, nor
+whither we are bound. I notice that it is a bright, hot day, and I feel
+that I am walking in a dream.... I find myself thinking of Vassili; I
+wish he would come, and send these men away and take me home. I shall be
+glad when I am at home with Vassili and the children and Aunt Sonia....
+Safely at home!
+
+  [Illustration: IN THE PRISON CELL]
+
+Then I remember--I have no home. I am a forsaken, demented creature whom
+Vassili cares for no longer. But where am I going? I am going to Paul
+Kamarowsky, who lives and loves me!... Again I weep with joy and
+thankfulness at the thought that Kamarowsky lives.
+
+Now I am in a carriage driving through the streets of Vienna; and the
+two strange men are still with me. They are taking me to a hotel. We
+arrive. I pass through a large doorway and along some passages. Then I
+notice that it is not a hotel. It is a vast, bare room with wooden
+benches round the wall. Some men in uniform stand at the door, and I
+notice that they do not salute me when I enter.
+
+Neither does an elderly man who is sitting at the desk rise or come to
+meet me. He looks at me steadily and asks me many questions; but I pay
+no heed to him. The windows are open; I can hear the sound of a piano
+very far away; somebody is practising a romance by Chaminade that I used
+to play at Otrada.... How sad a piano sounds when played by an unseen
+hand in the silence of a sunlit street!
+
+The man at the desk speaks in German to the uniformed men; they take my
+golden wristbag from me, and conduct me out of the bare room down a long
+passage. As I go slowly forward between the two men I notice that from
+the far end of the passage a group of people are coming towards us. In
+the center of the group walks a man, handcuffed and wearing his hat
+crookedly at the back of his head, as if placed there by some other hand
+than his own. _It is Prilukoff!_
+
+He sees me. A wave of livid pallor overspreads his face. Then he bends
+forward towards me and makes a movement with his lips, pressing them
+tightly together and shaking his head; he is trying to make me
+understand something. As they notice this the men at my side grasp my
+arm and make me turn quickly down another corridor. But I hear
+Prilukoff's voice shouting after me. He utters a Russian word: "Molci!"
+(Be silent).
+
+The men thrust me rudely into an empty cell. I sit down on a bench fixed
+in a corner under the small, barred window and lean my head against the
+wall. I feel neither unhappy nor afraid; only weary, unspeakably weary;
+and almost at once I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. Never since I
+was a child at Otrada have I known such perfect rest--such utter oblivion
+poured upon such limitless weariness.
+
+Suddenly my door is opened abruptly and one of the men enters; he takes
+me by the arm, and conducts me back to the large, bare room, where the
+elderly official still sits at his desk. And there, standing before him,
+I see Elise. She is weeping bitterly. I see her making those comical
+grimaces which always accompany her tears, as in Italy cheerful music
+accompanies a child's funeral. My mind--like a frightened bat that has
+flown into a room and darts hither and thither--flutters and plunges
+wildly through all my past life. I think of my mother, of little Peter,
+and of Bozevsky; I remember a pink dress I once wore here in Vienna, at
+a reception of the Russian Embassy.... I think of little Tioka and his
+days for saying "No." ... How far, how far away it all is! What a gulf
+of guilt and sorrow have my tottering footsteps traversed since then....
+But now--now I will climb tremblingly, devoutly, the steep road that
+leads back to safety; humbled to my knees I will pour out my thanks. For
+Paul Kamarowsky is saved; he lives and will recover!
+
+The man at my side is dragging me roughly forward. The elderly official
+at the desk has beckoned to me, and as I stand before him in a line with
+Elise he reads aloud from a sheet of foolscap. Suddenly I hear the
+words: "Complicity in the murder of Count Paul Kamarowsky...."
+
+The murder? _The murder!_
+
+Two of the uniformed men hold my arms.
+
+"But," I try to say, with chattering teeth, "Count Kamarowsky lives ...
+he will recover."
+
+The man replies, "Count Kamarowsky is dead."
+
+I laugh out loud. The car on the switchback rushes, whirls,
+plunges--falls with me to destruction.
+
+
+
+
+XLII
+
+    Like a dream within a dream.--POE.
+
+
+It was in the prison infirmary that I first heard the details of what
+had passed in the Villa Santa Maria del Giglio, on that fatal morning of
+August the 3rd. As the nursing sister sat beside me, renewing from time
+to time the cold bandages placed on my throbbing forehead, she told me
+in low tones the mournful and tragic story. I listened as if I were
+listening in a dream to the story of a dream.
+
+"When (she said) at early morning the Venetian servant-girl heard a
+knock at the door she went to open it, and a pale youth stepped quickly
+across the threshold. He asked for Count Kamarowsky, and bade the girl
+tell him that Nicolas Naumoff, of Orel, had arrived and desired to see
+him. The girl went to her master's door and knocked. He was awake and
+had risen. On hearing her message, he hurried out to meet his friend,
+for he loved him like a brother--"
+
+("Ah, sister, I know, I know! He loved him like a brother!")
+
+"When he saw Naumoff come in he went forward to meet him with open arms.
+The young man raised his hand and fired five shots point blank into his
+body. The Count fell to the ground; but even then he stretched out his
+arms to the young man and said: 'My friend, why have you done this to
+me? In what way have I ever harmed you?' The young man, with a cry as if
+he had awakened from a dream, flung himself on the ground at his feet.
+Then the wounded man showed him the balcony from which he might escape,
+and with fast-ebbing breath forgave him and bade him farewell."
+
+("Oh, sister, sister, with fast-ebbing breath he forgave him and bade
+him farewell!")
+
+"He was carried to the hospital, and the doctors wanted to give him
+chloroform while they probed the gaping, deep-seated wounds; but he
+would not take it. 'Do what you have to do without sending me to sleep,'
+he said. 'I shall have plenty of time to sleep--afterwards.' The doctors
+groped for the bullets in the lacerated flesh, and stitched up the five,
+deep-seated wounds.... When it was over he asked for you."
+
+("Sister, sister, he asked for me!")
+
+"He begged that you might be summoned quickly, and many telegrams were
+sent, but you neither came nor replied."
+
+("I neither came nor replied!")
+
+"On the third day he was better. He spoke to those around him, and again
+he asked for you, and hoped that you would come. In the hospital he was
+in the hands of an old and very famous surgeon; but alas! as Fate would
+have it--"
+
+("What? what? As Fate would have it--?")
+
+"As Fate would have it, the mind of this old and celebrated surgeon
+suddenly gave way. None knew that anything was amiss, as he stood that
+day at the bedside of the sufferer whom his skill had saved. He spoke to
+his assistants in the same calm, authoritative voice as usual, but he
+ordered that _the stitches should be taken out of the five wounds that
+were just beginning to heal_. Those around him recoiled in amazement.
+They were thunderstruck. But he repeated the disastrous order in the
+voice of one who is accustomed to command and to save lives that are in
+peril. Then--"
+
+("What then? What then?")
+
+"Then the assistants, doubting their own wisdom, but not that of the man
+who had been their master, obeyed, and reopened the five deep-seated
+wounds which were just beginning to heal. And again, as Fate would have
+it--"
+
+(Ah, Fate! The ghoul, the vampire Fate! She who has pursued me since my
+birth! She who has caught us and crushed us all in her torturing grip,
+splintering us like frail glass bubbles in her hand! Now she had entered
+the sick room of Paul Kamarowsky, had brooded over his bedside, and in
+fiendish pleasantry had scourged the old surgeon's brain with madness,
+whipping it to frenzy as a child whips a top, guiding his hand to tear
+the injured body and reopen the fast-healing wounds.)
+
+"As Fate would have it, the old surgeon gave other and still more
+dreadful orders. Ah, holy Virgin! how shall the horror be told?... When
+the bewildered assistants, aghast at what they had done, laid the
+sufferer back on his pillows, the slaying had been accomplished."
+
+("The slaying had been accomplished!")
+
+"With his last breath he called upon your name."
+
+("With his last breath he called upon my name!")
+
+  [Illustration: THE PENITENTIARY AT TRANI]
+
+
+
+
+XLIII
+
+        E son quasi a l'estremo.
+    Luce degli anni miei, dove se' gita?
+
+                              CARDUCCI.
+
+
+If I were to be asked to name the darkest hour of my dark life, well do
+I know which of all my gloomy memories would raise its spectral face.
+
+Not the terror-haunted hours of madness and crime, not the
+anguish-stricken nights passed at the bedside of those I loved, not my
+own life-struggles with the monsters of disease and dementia, tearing at
+the very roots of my life--no, the darkest hour of my life was that
+glorious summer morning in Venice, when I was brought from the prison of
+La Giudecca to attend my trial at the Criminal Court. The sun flung a
+sparkling net of diamonds athwart the blue waters of the lagoon, and the
+gondola bore me with peaceful splash of oar over the dancing waters. The
+gondolier steadied the swaying skiff at the wave-kissed steps, and I
+rose, drawing my veil about me, to disembark.
+
+As I placed my foot on the steps--how often before, in happier days, had
+I thus stepped from my gondola, greeted and smiled upon by the kindly
+Venetian idlers!--I lifted my eyes. A crowd had assembled at the top of
+the steps and thronged the piazza. They stood in serried ranks, menacing
+and silent, leaving a narrow pathway for me to pass. I faltered and
+would have stepped back, but the carabinieri at my side held my arms and
+impelled me forward. At that moment some one in the crowd--a
+woman--laughed. As if that sound had shattered the spell that held them
+mute, the mob broke into a tumult of noise, a storm of hisses and cries,
+shrieks and jeers, hootings and maledictions, while, rising above it and
+more cruel than all, was the laughter, the strident, mocking laughter
+that accompanied my every step and gesture.
+
+And there, tall and motionless in the midst of the laughing, hissing,
+shrieking mob, stood my father, his white hair stirring in the breeze,
+his eyes--the proud blue O'Rourke eyes--fixed upon me.
+
+
+Oh, father, father whose heart I have broken, in that hour I paid the
+wages of my sin. Not these dark years of imprisonment, not the mantle of
+ignominy that clothes me with eternal defilement, not the gloomy
+solitude in which I see the gradual fading of my youth, not the horror
+of the past, nor the hopelessness of the future--not these are the
+deadliest of my punishments; but the memory of your white hair in the
+crowd that hissed its hatred, and laughed its contempt of your daughter,
+and the jeers that greeted you, and the rude hands that jostled you when
+you stepped forward and laid your hand in blessing on my degraded head.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Marie Tarnowska is silent. Her story is told.
+
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE
+
+
+The verdant landscape of Central Italy swings past the train that
+carries me homeward. The looped vines--like slim green dancers holding
+hands--speed backwards as we pass. Far behind me lies the white prison of
+Trani; and the memory of Marie Tarnowska and of her sins and woes drifts
+away from me, like some shipwrecked barque, storm-tossed and sinking,
+that I have gazed upon, powerless to help.
+
+The long summer day is drawing to its close; above the Apennines where
+the sky is lightest the new moon floats like a little boat of amber on
+an opal sea. Like a fragment of a dream the song returns to my memory,
+the childish song of which I have never heard and shall never hear more
+than the first two lines:
+
+    When little children sleep, the Virgin Mary
+    Steps with white feet upon the crescent moon...
+
+As the train carries me homeward, back to the joys of life and love and
+freedom, back to the welcome of friends and the safety of a sheltered
+hearth, I think once more of her whom I have left in the gloom of her
+prison cell.
+
+Soon, very soon, the hour of her release will strike, and the iron doors
+that have guarded her will open wide to let her pass.
+
+What then, what then, Marie Tarnowska?
+
+Who will await you at the prison gate? Surely Grief, Scorn, and Hatred
+will be there. But by your side I seem to see a guardian spirit,
+shielding your drooping head with outstretched wings. It is the sister
+of lost Innocence--Repentance; and in her wake comes the blind singer,
+Hope.
+
+
+
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note
+
+Original spelling, even where inconsistent, and punctuation have been
+preserved.
+
+Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIE TARNOWSKA***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 43058.txt or 43058.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/3/0/5/43058
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/43058.zip b/old/43058.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a039927
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/43058.zip