Marie Tarnowska

“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!”