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:
"Well, give me my fifty thousand francs now!"
"Polina, again, again?" I was beginning.
"Or have you changed your mind? Ha-ha-ha! Perhaps you regret it now."
Twenty-five thousand florins, counted out the evening before, were lying on the table; I took the money and gave it to her.
"It's mine now, isn't it? That's so, isn't it? Isn't it?" she asked me, spitefully holding the money in her hand.
"Yes, it was always yours," I answered.
"WeU, there are your fifty thousand francs for you I"
With a swing of her arm she flung the money at me. It hit me a stinging blow in the face and the coins flew all over the table. After doing this Polina ran out of the room.
I know that at that njoment she was certainly not in her right mind, though I don't understand such temporary insanity. It is true that she is still ill, even now, a month later. What was the cause of her condition, and, above all, of this whim? Was it wounded pride? Despair at having brought herself to come to me? Had I shown any sign of priding myself on my happiness, and did I, like De Grieux, want to get rid of her by giving her fifty thousand francs? But that was not so; I know Siat, on my conscience. I believe that her vanity was partly responsible; her vanity prompted her to distrust and insult me, although all that, perhaps, was not clear, even to herself. In that case, of course, I was punished for De Grieux and was made responsible, though I was not much to blame. It is true
that all this was almost only dehrium; it is true, too, that I knew she was in delirium and , . . did not take that fact into consideration; perhaps she cannot forgive me for that now. Yes, but that is now; but then, then? Why, she was not in such a delirium and so ill then as to be utterly obhvious of what she was doing; when she came to me with De Grieux's letter she knew what she was doing.
I made haste to thrust all my notes and my heap of gold into the bed, covered it over and went out ten minutes after Polina. I made sure she would run home, and I thought I would slip into them on the sly, and in the hall ask the nurse how the young lady was. What was my astonishment when I learnt from nurse, whom I met on the stairs, that Polina had not yet returned home and that nurse was coming to me for her.
"She only just left my room about ten minutes ago; where can she have gone?"
Nurse looked at me reproachfully.
And meanwhile it had caused a regular scandal, which by now was all over the hotel. In the porter's room and at the ober-kellner's it was whispered that Fraiilein had run out of the hotel in the rain at six o'clock in the morning in the direction of the H6tel d'Angleteire. From what they said and hinted, I noticed that they all knew already that she had spent the night in my room. However, stories were being told of the whole family: it had become known all through the hotel that the General had gone out of his mind and was crying. The story was that Granny was his mother, who had come expressly from Russia to prevent her son's marriage with Mile, de Cominges, and was going to cut him out of her will if he disobeyed her, and, as he certainly would disobey her, the Countess had purposely thrown away all her money at roulette before his eyes, so that he should get nothing. "Diese Russen!" repeated the ober-kellner, shaking his head indignantly. The others laughed. The ober-kellne>r was making out his bill. My winning was known about already. Karl, my corridor attendant, was the first to congratulate me. But I had no thought for any of them. 1 rushed to the H6tel d'Angleterre.
It was early; Mr. Astley was seeing no one; learning that it was I, he came out into the corridor to me and stopped before me, turning his pewtery eyes upon me in silence, waiting to hear what I.should say. I inquired about Polina.
"She is ill," answered Mr. Astley, looking at me as fixedly as before.
no
"Then she really is with you?"
"Yes, she is."
"Then, what do you ... do you mean to keep her?"
"Yes."
"Mr. Astley, it will make a scandal; it's impossible. Besides, she is quite ill; perhaps you don't see it?"
"Oh, yes, I notice it, and I've just told you she is ill. If she had not been ill she would not have spent the night with you."
"Then you know that?"
"Yes, I know it. She came here yesterday and I would have taken her to a relation of mine, but as she was ill, she made a mistake and went to you."
"Fancy that! Well, I congratulate you, Mr. Astley. By the way, you've given me an idea: weren't you standing all night under our window? Miss Polina was making me open the window and look out all night to see whether you were standing under the window; she kept laughing about it."