Tchertop-hanov walked with long strides, not stopping nor looking round.
Malek-Adel--we will call him by that name to the end--followed him
meekly. It was a rather clear night; Tchertop-hanov could make out the
jagged outline of the forest, which formed a black mass in front of him.
When he got into the chill night air, he would certainly have thrown off
the intoxication of the vodka he had drunk, if it had not been for
another, stronger intoxication, which completely over-mastered him. His
head was heavy, his blood pulsed in thuds in his throat and ears, but he
went on steadily, and knew where he was going.
He had made up his mind to kill Malek-Adel; he had thought of nothing
else the whole day.... Now he had made up his mind!
He went out to do this thing not only calmly, but confidently,
unhesitatingly, as a man going about something from a sense of duty.
This 'job' seemed a very 'simple' thing to him; in making an end of the
impostor, he was quits with 'everyone' at once--he punished himself for
his stupidity, and made expiation to his real darling, and showed the
whole world (Tchertop-hanov worried himself a great deal about the
'whole world') that he was not to be trifled with.... And, above all, he
was making an end of himself too with the impostor--for what had he to
live for now? How all this took shape in his brain, and why, it seemed
to him so simple--it is not easy to explain, though not altogether
impossible; stung to the quick, solitary, without a human soul near to
him, without a halfpenny, and with his blood on fire with vodka, he was
in a state bordering on madness, and there is no doubt that even in the
absurdest freaks of mad people there is, to their eyes, a sort of logic,
and even justice. Of his justice Tchertop-hanov was, at any rate, fully
persuaded; he did not hesitate, he made haste to carry out sentence on
the guilty without giving himself any clear definition of whom he meant
by that term.... To tell the truth, he reflected very little on what he
was about to do. 'I must, I must make an end,' was what he kept stupidly
and severely repeating to himself; 'I must make an end!'
And the guiltless guilty one followed in a submissive trot behind his
back.... But there was no pity for him in Tchertop-hanov's heart.