I ran up to my storey and rapidly opened the door. Polina was there, sitting on the sofa with her arms crossed, with .a lighted candle before her. She looked at me with amazement, and no doubt at that moment I must have looked rather strange. I stood before her and began flinging down all my piles of money on the table.
CHAPTER XV
I REMEMBER she fixed a very intent look on my face, but without even moving from her seat or changing her position.
"I've won two hundred thousand francs!" I cried, as I flung down the last roll of notes.
The huge bundles of notes and piles of gold filled up the whole table; I could not take my eyes off it. At moments I completely forgot Polina. At one moment I began arranging the heap of banknotes, folding them up together, at the next I began undoing the rolls of gold and heaping them up in one pile; then I abandoned it all and strode rapidly up and down the room, lost in thought, then went up to the table, counting the money again. Suddenly, as though coming to myself, I ran to the door and locked it with two turns of the key. Then I stood pondering before my Uttle portmanteau.
"Shall I put it in the portmanteau till to-morrow?" I said, suddenly remembering Polina and turning towards her.
She was still sitting in the same place without stirring, but watching me attentively. Her expression was somehow strange; I did not like that expression. I am not mistaken if I say that there was hatred in it.
I went up to her quickly.
"Polina, here are twenty-five thousand florins—that's fifty thousand francs—^more, in fact. Take it, throw it in his face to-morrow."
She did not answer me.
"If you like I will take you away early in the morning. Shall I?"
She suddenly burst out laughing. She laughed for a long time.
I looked at her with wonder and a mortified feeling. That laugh was very much like sarcastic laughter at my expense, which had always been so frequent at the times of my most passionate declarations.
At last she ceased laughing and frowned; she looked at me sternly from under her brows.
"I won't take your money," she declared contemptuously.
"How? What's this?" I cried. "Polina, why?"
"I won't take money for nothing."
"I offer it you as a friend; I offer you my life."
She looked at me with a long, penetrating look, as though she would pierce me through with it.
"You give too much," she said, with a laugh; "De Grieux's mistress is not worth fifty thousand francs."
"Polina, how can you talk to me hke that!" I cried, reproachfully. "Am I a De Grieux?"
"I hate you 1 Yes . . . yes! . . . I love you no more than De Grieux," she cried, her eyes suddenly flashing.
Then she suddenly covered her face with her hands and went into hysterics. I rushed to her.
I realised that something had happened to her while I was away. She seemed quite out of her mind.
"Buy me! Do you want to? Do you want to? For fifty thousand francs, like De Grieux?" broke from her with convulsive sobs.
I held her in my arms, kissed her hands, her feet, fell on my knees before her.
Her hysterics passed off. She put both hands on my shoulders, and looked at me intently; she seemed trying to read something in my face. She Ustened to me, but evidently did not heeir what I was saymg, to her. Some doubt and anxiety betrayed itself in her face. I was anxious about her; it seemed to me that her brain was giving way. Then she began softly drawing me to her; a trustful smile began stra5/ing over her face; but she suddenly pushed me away, and again fell to scanning me with a darkened look.
Suddenly she feU to embracing me.
"You love me, you love me, don't you?" she said. "Why, you . . . why, you . . . wanted to fight the Baron for my sake!"
And suddenly she burst out laughing—as though she had recalled something sweet and funny. She cried and laughed all at once. Well, what was I to do? I was in a fever myself. I remember she began sajdng something to me—^but I could scarcely understand anj^thing. It was a sort of delirium—a sort of babble-^as though she wanted to tell me something as rapidly as possible—a delirium which was interrupted from time to time with the merriest laughter, which at last frightened me. "No, no; you are sweet, sweet," she repeated. "You are my faithful one!" And again she put her hand on my shoulders, again she looked at me and repeated, "You love me . . . love me . . . will love me?" I could not take my eyes off her; I had never seen her before in such a mood of love and
tenderness; it is true this, of course, was delirium, but , . . noticing my passionate expression, she suddenly began smiling slyly; apropos of nothing she began suddenly talking of Mr. Astley.
She talked incessantly of Mr. Astley, however (she talked of him particularly when she had been trjdng to tell me of something that evening), but what she meant exactly I could not quite grasp; she seemed to be actually laughing at him. She repeated continually that he was waiting and that, did I know, he was certainly standing under the window?
"Yes, yes, under the window; come, open it: look out: look out: he certainly is here!" She pushed me to the window, but as soon as I made a movement to go she went off into p>eals of laughter and I remained with her, and she fell to embracing me.
"Shall we go away? shall we go away to-morrow?" The question suddenly came into her mind imeasily. "Well ..." (and she sank into thought). "Well, shall we overtake Granny; what do you think? I think we might overtake her at Berlin. What do you think she will say when she sees us? And Mr. Astley? . . . Well, he won't leap off the Schlangenberg—^what do you think?" (She burst out laughing.) "Come, listen, do you know where he is going next summer? He wants to go to the North Pole for scientific investigations, and he has adced me to go with him, ha-ha-ha I He says that we Russians can do nothing without Europeans and are incapable of anything. . . . But he is good-natured, too! Do you know he makes excuses for the General? He says that Blanche . . . that passion—oh, I don't know, I don't know," she repeated, as though she didn't know what she was talldng about. "They are poor—^how sorry I am for them, and Gnumy . . . Come, listen, listen, how could you kill De Grieux? And did you really imagine you could kill him? Oh, silly fellow! Can you really thiiik I would let you fight with De Grieux? Why, you did not even kill the Baron," she added, suddenly laughmg. "Oh, how funny you were then with the Baron. I looked at you both from the seat; and how unwiUing you were to go then, when I sent you. How I laughed then, how I laughed," she added, laughing.
And suddenly she kissed and embraced me again. Again she pressed her face to mine passionately and tenderly. I heard nothing and thought of nothing more. My head was in a whirl . . .
I think it was about seven o'clock in the morning when I woke up. The sun was shining into the room. Polina was sitting beside me and looking about her strangely, as though she were waiving from some darkness and trying to collect her thoughts. She, too, had only just woken up and was gazing, at the table and the money. My head ached and was heavy. I tried to take Polina by tiie hand: she pushed me away and jumped up from the sofa. The dawning day was overcast. Rain had fallen before sunrise. She went to the window, she opened it, put out her head and shoulders and with her face in her hands and her elbows on the window-sill, stayed for three minutes looking out without turning to me or hearing what I said to her. I wondered with dread what would happen now and how it would end. All at once she got up from the window, went up to the table and, looking at me with infinite hatred, with lips trembling with anger, she said to me: