In the course of my life, when events tragic and inexorable have raised
their threatening billows above me and caught me in their crashing
downfall, sweeping me like a piece of frail wreckage towards
destruction, I have said to myself: "This is the tidal wave. Nothing
worse can follow. Nothing more terrible than this can come upon me."
But lo! behind that great wave of calamity another and still greater has
followed, and still another and another--fabulous waves of tragedy and
disaster.
Thus it was that when I left Prilukoff that evening I thought that the
tidal wave of my destiny had at last passed over me. Nothing more could
crush and overwhelm me; before me stretched only the limitless levels of
grief and remorse.
But it was not so. Another--the last--wave of disaster was rearing itself
like the fabulous wall of water of my childhood's recollections,
carrying me on its crest, crashing down with me to irremediable ruin, to
the fathomless abyss of crime.
That very night Tioka fell ill. Elise came hurriedly into my room to
call me. "Come at once, my lady. The young master is very ill. He is
delirious and keeps talking to himself."
I ran into the child's room. He was sitting up in bed, his wide eyes
glowing in his fevered face. Where and when had I once before seen him
like this?...
His mind was wandering, and he talked incessantly--about Tania whom he
had not seen or mentioned for the past two years, about his grandmother,
and the old dog Bear. Then suddenly he asked for a picture and for some
poetry. "Mama," he said, clinging to my neck, "say the poetry to me, the
poetry--"
"What poetry, oh, my darling, my darling?"
"The poetry about the picture. Say it. Say it." He began to cry and
tremble with his hot cheek close to mine.