To what end should I narrate anew the terrible story which is known to
all? Must I dip again into the soilure and abomination of that awful
time? How dare I tell of the luring telegrams sent to the distant
Naumoff, my guileless and impassioned lover, and of the joy and
gratitude with which he hastened to me? How describe the slow, insidious
poisoning of his mind against Kamarowsky, the hatred subtly instilled in
him against that unconscious, kindly man? And the lies, the slanders,
the ambiguous disclosures of pretended outrages inflicted upon me, of
insults and injuries I feigned to have suffered at Kamarowsky's
hands?...
Naumoff believed it all. His astonishment and indignation knew no
bounds. What? Kamarowsky, whom he had always thought the most chivalrous
and considerate of men, was a despicable, worthless coward? Well,
Naumoff would challenge him; he would fight a duel to the death with him
who had been his best friend.
But not that, not that was what I wanted.
Tioka recovered. Taller, thinner and paler, he came out once more into
the sunshine, leaning on my arm, enraptured at everything, greeting
every ray of light and every winged or flowering thing as if it were a
new acquaintance.
Not for an instant did I suffer my mind to waver. God, the terrible God
of my disordered fancy, had accepted the compact, and it was now for me
to carry it out.
As soon as Tioka was well enough to travel, I sent him to Russia to some
of our relations. While I was discharging my debt for his life, he must
be far away.
Then began the ghastly game, the sinister comedy with the three puppets,
whose strings I held in my fragile hands. I had to tranquilize and
disarm Kamarowsky; to kindle and fan the murderous fury of Prilukoff;
and above all to enchain and infatuate Naumoff, so as to impel him to
the crime.
Ah, every art that Lilith, daughter of Eve and of the Serpent, has
bequeathed to woman, every insidious perversity and subtle wile did I
bring into play to charm and enamor this youthful dreamer. With every
incitement did I lure and tempt him; with every witchery did I entangle
him in the meshes of my perversity and in the whirlwind of my golden
hair.
I was indeed the modern Circe, weaving her evil spell. I was fervent and
temerarious, full of exotic anomalies, eccentric, unexpected.... I
delighted in causing him both pleasure and suffering in a thousand
unnatural and outrageous ways; I cut my initials in his arm with the
triangular blade of a dagger; I pressed my lighted cigarette upon his
hand; I assumed all the absurdities, perversities and puerilities with
which since time immemorial woman has decoyed and beguiled man, who,
after all, is essentially a simple-minded and ingenuous being.
Nicolas Naumoff was dazed and fascinated by all this strange hysteria
and subtlety. He believed himself to be the hero of a fabulous
passion--the incomparable conqueror of a wondrous and portentous love.
There were times when I myself was carried away by this play of my own
invention. Now and then I lost sight of the grim purpose of this process
of seduction; I rejoiced in my own coquetries, and myself burned in the
flame I had deliberately kindled.
One evening as he knelt before me, pressing my cool hands against his
fevered forehead, I bent over him with a smile.
"Why do you love me so much?" I asked. "Tell me. Tell me the truth."
He answered me gravely in a deep voice, enumerating the reasons on my
fingers as he held them in his own.
"I love you because you are beautiful and terrible. Because you have
that white, subtle face, and that mouth that is like a greedy rose, and
those long, cruel eyes ... I love you because you are different from all
others, better or worse than all, more intelligent and more passionate
than all." He was silent for a moment. "And also because you have forced
me to love you."
Yes. I had forced him to love me. And now he was what I wanted him to
be--an instrument ready to my hand: a fierce and docile instrument of
death, a submissive and murderous weapon.
June crept warmly up from the south, and murmured of blue waters and
dancing sunlight.
"Mura, let us go to Venice," said Paul Kamarowsky one afternoon as he
sat beside me on the balcony; "let us pass these last three months of
waiting at the Lido. If needs be, I can take you back to Russia later
on, to complete the few formalities that must precede our marriage."
"To Venice?" I said faintly.
Paul Kamarowsky smiled.
"_Ti guardo e palpito, Venezia mia,_"
he quoted under his breath. And bending forward, he kissed my trembling
lips.