Count Kamarowsky came in shortly afterwards. He was gloomy and morose;
but on seeing his friend, whom he had that morning invited to dine with
us, he made a heroic effort to keep up an appearance of good temper and
hospitality.
But his grief and anger were only too apparent. He sat beside me at
table without speaking to me, nor did he ever turn his eyes in my
direction.
Our guest seemed distressed and amazed at his behavior, and--doubtless
remembering my recent tears--he gazed at me with his light-brown eyes
eloquent of sympathy and compassion.
Once or twice I addressed a remark to Kamarowsky, but he scarcely
answered me and I felt myself flushing and paling with humiliation.
Silence fell upon us at last. Painful and embarrassing as I felt it to
be, I yet could find no word to say. A violent headache racked my
temples, and I had to bite my lips to keep myself from bursting into
tears.
Suddenly I got up and went into my room. With trembling hand I sought in
my dressing-case for a bottle of cocaine, which for nearly a year I had
not touched. I lifted it to my lips and sipped the exhilarating poison.
Then I returned to the table.
Kamarowsky was sitting grim and silent with bent head and lowering brow,
but the young stranger raised his golden eyes under their long fair
lashes, and fixed them upon me as if to give me comfort. After a few
moments, in order to break the well-nigh unbearable silence, he spoke to
me in his low and gentle voice.
"I hear that Delphinus, the famous crystal gazer, has arrived in Orel.
You ought to get him to tell you your fortune."
"Is that so?" I said, smiling; and even as I spoke the prediction of
that strange soothsayer flashed into my memory. I seemed to hear again
the brief, prophetic words: "_Two men are yet to enter into your life.
One will be your salvation--the other your ruin._"
Two men! I glanced around me, startled and amazed. Two men were here;
one on each side of me. Was the prophecy coming true? Were these the two
men he had spoken of? Were the One and the Other sitting beside me now?
In my mind I could still hear the fortune-teller's nasal, dreamy accent:
"You will chose--the Other. It is your destiny."
Overcome by a feeling of timorous superstition, I looked at my two table
companions, of whom One, perhaps, might represent my destruction, the
Other my last hope of happiness.
At my right hand sat Kamarowsky, sullen and sinister in his grief and
anger against me; on my left the young unknown, with radiant face and
gold-bright eyes that smiled at me. A flash of intuition seemed to
illuminate my spirit; here was salvation! Nicolas Naumoff! This unknown
youth, in whose eyes I had read such complete and instant devotion--it
was he whom fate had sent to lead me back to joy.
Looking back to that hour I realize that it was the rhapsodical delirium
of cocaine that whipped my brain into senseless aberration; but at the
time I implicitly believed that by a miracle of divination I had rent
the veil of the future, and could discern with inspired gaze the distant
sweep of the years to come.
I saw Kamarowsky--somber, dark, with bent head--as the very incarnation of
sorrow and misfortune; and, to make assurance twice sure, was it not he
whom I had chosen? And had not the diviner foretold me that he whom I
chose would be the one to lead me to destruction?
But I might still draw back, I might still trick the Fates and escape
from my predestined doom. With the blind impulse of the hunted quarry
seeking a refuge, I turned an imploring gaze on the young unknown; he
read despair in my eyes, and his own responded with a flash of
comprehension; he leaned toward me, and, as if in the throe of some
instant emotion, I saw him thrill from head to foot like a tense string.
At this immediate response of his nerves to mine, I also felt a tremor
stir me, as the water of a lake is stirred by a gust of wind. What evil
spirit possessed me? Was I ill? Was I demented? I cannot tell. I know
that my soul pledged itself to him at that moment; and I know that he
understood me.
Thus, in my attempt to escape it, the tragic prophecy was to be
fulfilled.
When Nicolas Naumoff got up to take his leave I knew that he would
return, that I should see him again, and this thought intoxicated me
with such delight that even Kamarowsky, in spite of his anger and his
suspicions, was swept away by the radiance and rapture of my joyfulness.
I was then--well may I say it now!--at the zenith of my youthful beauty,
notwithstanding, or perhaps by reason of the disease that burned within
me like a consuming lamp; a constant fever lit my transparent flesh into
delicate rose flushes, and blazed like lighted sapphires in my
translucent eyes.
I was no sooner alone with him than, seeing me thus aflame with radiant
happiness, Kamarowsky rose and came towards me with outstretched hands.
"Marie, I love you, I love you! I will trust you utterly. I want to know
nothing that you do not wish to tell me." And he bowed his head over my
hands and kissed them.
But my wild thoughts went out to the unknown youth with the golden eyes
who had left us, he through whom salvation was to come to me; and every
fiber yearned for his presence. A sudden wave of almost physical
repulsion for Paul Kamarowsky overcame me and I started away from his
touch. "Leave me," I cried, "leave me. Let me go away." And I tried to
go past him to my room.
But he stopped me, amazed and unbelieving. "Why, dearest, why? What is
the matter?"
"It is over," I murmured incoherently, "leave me. I do not wish to speak
to you any more. I do not wish to marry you. I want to go away and never
see you again."
"Mura! you are dreaming, you are out of your mind! What have I done that
you should speak to me like this?"
His bewilderment and despair only irritated me the more. "You will drag
me to ruin and misfortune. I was told so; and I know, I feel that it is
true."
"You were told so?" gasped Paul. "What are you saying? Mura, come to
your senses. Who has put such preposterous notions into your head?"
Notwithstanding my dazed and drugged state of mind, I felt that to tell
him about the fortune-teller would neither convince nor impress him; he
would probably laugh, and try to coax or scold me back to my senses. So
I wrapped myself in an obstinate and mysterious silence.
The unhappy man was perplexed and distressed.
"Who has poisoned your mind against me, Mura? Think, think a moment; who
in all the world could love you more than I do? Who could protect you
and care for you better than I can, poor helpless creature that you
are?"
But I was possessed by the blind obstinacy of madness. _Quem Deus vult
perdere, prius dementat._ My destiny was coming upon me at the very time
I thought to evade it.
"Let me be!" My hands twisted themselves from his grasp. "I will not see
you again! I will not!"
"But I will," cried Kamarowsky, clasping my wrist in an iron grip, and
his long, languorous eyes opened wide and flamed into mine. "Do you
think that because I am kind and patient you can play fast and loose
with me? No indeed, no indeed; you have promised to be mine, and I shall
make you keep your word."
Never had I seen him like this nor dreamed that he could be so fierce
and resolute. I felt dizzy and bewildered. I felt the bats of madness
flying in my brain. I raised my eyes with a scornful smile to his: how
could he keep me against my will?
As if he had divined my thought he bent forward with his passionate face
close to mine. "Do not think you can escape me," he said. "Do not
imagine it for a moment. Mura, I know you well. You need to be mastered,
and I shall master you. As long as I live, remember--as long as I live
you shall not escape me."
These words seemed to pierce my dizzy brain like red-hot needles. "As
long as he lives I shall not escape him. _As long as he lives--!_"