Marie Tarnowska

“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?”