We prepared to leave. Naumoff's despair was puerile and clamorous. I
entreated him to go back to Orel and wait for me there, and I promised
him that I would soon return to Russia and see him again. As for
Prilukoff, he awakened from his lethargy with the roar of a wounded wild
beast. "To Venice! You are going to Venice with that man? Is that how
you keep your vow?"
"I will keep it, I will keep it," I cried. "But I said--it--it should be
done within the year--this is only June--we can wait six months longer."
"By that time you will be his wife," snarled Prilukoff between clenched
teeth. "Unless it is done within the next three months you know it will
never be done at all. Go your way," he jeered, "do as you like! Play
fast and loose with fate as you have played fast and loose with me!" He
turned and gripped my wrist. "But you will escape neither of us. Fate
and I will overtake you, Marie Tarnowska, be it in Venice--or in hell!"
We left for the Lido.
And while, on the arm of my bethrothed, I wandered by the dancing
waters, and the golden hours showered their light upon us, in my dark
heart I prayed:
"God, give me strength and ruthlessness! God, who didst guide the hand
of Judith, fill my soul with violence and teach my hand to slay!"
* * * * *
Prilukoff followed us to Verona. Then he came after us to Venice, where
he took rooms in the same hotel, lurking in the corridors, shadowing us
in the streets, pursuing me day and night with his misery and jealousy.
Occasionally I saw him for a few moments alone, and then we would
whisper together about the deed that was to be done, speaking feverishly
in low quick tones like demented creatures. If I wavered, it was he who
reminded me ruthlessly of my child and of my vow; if he hesitated, it
was I who with the insensate perversity of madness urged him on towards
the crime.
One evening--ah, how well do I remember that radiant summer sunset
beneath which the lagoon lay like a fluid sheet of copper!--he met me on
the Lido. He was morose and gloomy. He took from his pocket a black
crumpled package. It was Elise's old satchel--the "white elephant,"
tattered, empty, dead.
With a vehement movement he flung it into the water. Where it fell the
sheet of copper shivered into a thousand splinters of red gold.
"Empty?" I asked in a low tone.
"Empty," he replied.
"And now, what will you do?"
He shrugged his shoulders. It was then that the idea came to him--the
execrable, the nefarious idea.
"Listen. As he"--with a movement of his head he indicated the absent
Kamarowsky--"is doomed--I suppose he is doomed, isn't he?" he interposed.