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.'
'Really? No, I didn't stand under the window; but I was waiting in the corridor and walking round.'
'But she must be looked after, Mr. Astley.'
'Oh, yes, I've sent for the doctor, smd, if she dies, you will answer to me for her death.'
I was amazed.
'Upon my word, Mr. Astley, what do you want?'
'And is it true liat you won two hundred thousand thalers yesterday?'
'Only a hundred thouscind florins.'
'Weil, do you see, you had better go off to Paris this morning!'
'What for?'
'All Russians who have money go to Paris,' Mr. Astley explained, in a tone of voice as though he had read this in a book.
'What could I do now in Paris, in the summer? I love her, Mr. Astley, you know it yourself.'
'Really? I am convinced you don't. If you remain here you will certainly lose all you have won and you will have nothing left to go to Paris with. But, good-bye, I am perfectly certain you will go to Paris to-day.'
'Vety well, good-bye, only I shan't go to Paris. Think, Mr. Astley, what will be happening here? The General . . . and now this adventure with Miss Polina—why, that will be all over the town.'
'Yes, all over the town; I believe the General is not thinking about that: he has no thoughts to spare for that. Besides, Miss Polina has a perfect right to live where she likes. In regard to that family, one may say quite correctly that the family no longer exists.'
I walked away laughing at this Englishman's strange conviction that I was going to Paris. 'He wants to shoot me in a duel, though,' I thought, 'if Mile. Polina dies—what a complication 1' I swear I was sorry for Polina, but, strange to say, from the very moment when I reached the gambling tables the previous evening and began winning a pile of money, my love had retreated, so to speak, into the background. I say this now; but at the time I did not reaHse all this clearly. Can I really be a gambler? Can I really . . . have loved Polina so , strangely? No, I love her to this day. God is my witness! , And then, when I left Mr. Astley and went home, I was * genuinely miserable and blaming myself. But ... at this point a very strange and silly thing happened to me.
I was hurrying to see the General, when suddenly, not far from his rooms, a door was opened and someone called me. It was Madame la veuve Cominges, and she called me at the bidding of Mile. Blanche. I went in to see Mile. Blanche.
