She shook her head.
"Elise, what have you done to him?"
"I put chloral into everything--into everything," and Elise shuddered.
"Oh, Elise! What if he were to die?"
She made no answer.
"And if we were to be sent to prison?"
The bells were ringing joyfully in the limpid Easter dawn.
Elise closed her eyes, and her lips moved: "Dear God of Eastertide, give
us Thy blessing."
Tioka stopped crying to look at her. Then with an enchanting smile he
did as she had done. He closed his blue eyes, which were still full of
tears, and said: "Dear God of Eastertide, give us Thy blessing."
The days swung forward.
Prilukoff was the first to discover us. We had been hidden in Vienna, in
the little Hotel Victoria, less than a week, when one morning he stood
before our terror-stricken eyes.
He was derisive and sarcastic; but finding us alone--without Kamarowsky,
without Naumoff--the maleficent frenzy that possessed him at Orel seemed
to have vanished. He was soon quite genial and good-humored; he was once
more the Prilukoff we had known at Moscow, the trusty knight--Elise's
Lohengrin!
He did not speak of the past; he made no allusion to the chloral.
Neither did he ever recall his murderous purposes; and sometimes I
thought that I had dreamt it all. Cheerful and light-hearted, he took us
out for drives in carriages and motors, to the Prater, to the Brühl, to
the Semmering; he insisted upon our going with him to theaters, concerts
and cabarets.
And to pay for it all we had recourse to the black leather satchel. When
any money was required, we found it there. No accounts were kept.
Simply, and as a matter of course, we dipped into the lacerated body of
the white elephant and took what we needed.
I let myself drift with the tide; I gave no thought either to the future
or the past, but yielded myself passively to my fate like a straw afloat
on the water....
One day I saw in the newspapers that Kamarowsky was putting in motion
the police of every city in Europe in his efforts to find me. Then, on
Prilukoff's advice, I sent Elise to Neuchâtel to telegraph to him from
there in my name, in order to tranquilize him and mislead his inquiries.
No sooner was the name of Kamarowsky mentioned between us than Prilukoff
became sullen and gloomy again. He sulked and glowered at me, and passed
the whole day without speaking a word.
On this particular day we had taken a box at the _Theater An der Wien_,
having promised Tioka that he should hear "The Merry Widow." Long before
it was time to go, the little fellow was dressed and ready, jumping up
and down in front of the window.
"Let us make haste," he cried. "The carriage will be tired of waiting.
Let us make haste!"
Suddenly he uttered a shriek of joy. "Mother, mother, look! There is
Papa Paul! I can see him--he has just passed. Papa Paul!" he shouted with
all his might.
Prilukoff caught him by his little jacket and drew him roughly from the
window. Then he himself looked out.
"Sure enough," he said, shutting the window and looking at me with that
terrible crooked smile I had learned to dread. "It is Kamarowsky."
There was a moment's silence. Then he said: "And now I have had enough
of this. We will end it." Murder gleamed in his eyes.
I clasped Tioka in my arms--the child was quite sad and hurt by
Prilukoff's sudden rudeness--and as I kissed his soft curls I breathed
Elise's prayer: "Dear God of Eastertide, give us Thy blessing."
But alas! it was Easter no longer.
In spite of what had happened, we went to the theater that night. And
there, while the music swayed us in the undulating rhythm of the waltz,
and little Tioka gazed enraptured at the stage, Prilukoff, sitting
behind me in the shadow, formulated his plans for the crime.
"You have sworn it on your child, remember. If you break your oath, he
will be the sufferer."
Tioka turned to us with shrill laughter. "Oh, look, mama, how beautiful
it all is! Look at that fat policeman dancing."
"When Kamarowsky finds you here--" Prilukoff went on; but I interrupted
him.
"No, no. Let us leave Vienna at once."
"It is useless. He will find us all the same. You are too striking," he
added, "to pass unobserved." And with a cynical laugh he surveyed me
from head to foot. "He had better not find me with you. I shall remain
at the Hotel Victoria; but you and Tioka must go to the Bristol, and
when that man joins you, this is what you must do--"
His iniquitous suggestions floated on the buoyant waltz music like
carrion on the surface of a sparkling stream.