Not far from the forest to which he was leading his horse there
stretched a small ravine, half overgrown with young oak bushes.
Tchertop-hanov went down into it.... Malek-Adel stumbled and almost fell
on him.
'So you would crush me, would you, you damned brute!' shouted
Tchertop-hanov, and, as though in self-defence, he pulled the pistol out
of his pocket. He no longer felt furious exasperation, but that special
numbness of the senses which they say comes over a man before the
perpetration of a crime. But his own voice terrified him--it sounded so
wild and strange under the cover of dark branches in the close, decaying
dampness of the forest ravine! Moreover, in response to his exclamation,
some great bird suddenly fluttered in a tree-top above his head...
Tchertop-hanov shuddered. He had, as it were, roused a witness to his
act--and where? In that silent place where he should not have met a
living creature....
'Away with you, devil, to the four winds of heaven!' he muttered, and
letting go Malek-Adel's rein, he gave him a violent blow on the shoulder
with the butt end of the pistol. Malek-Adel promptly turned back,
clambered out of the ravine... and ran away. But the thud of his hoofs
was not long audible. The rising wind confused and blended all sounds
together.
Tchertop-hanov too slowly clambered out of the ravine, reached the
forest, and made his way along the road homewards. He was ill at ease
with himself; the weight he had felt in his head and his heart had
spread over all his limbs; he walked angry, gloomy, dissatisfied,
hungry, as though some one had insulted him, snatched his prey, his food
from him....
The suicide, baffled in his intent, must know such sensations.
Suddenly something poked him behind between his shoulder blades. He
looked round.... Malek-Adel was standing in the middle of the road. He
had walked after his master; he touched him with his nose to announce
himself.
'Ah!' shouted Tchertop-hanov,' of yourself, of yourself you have come to
your death! So, there!'
In the twinkling of an eye he had snatched out his pistol, drawn the
trigger, turned the muzzle on Malek-Adel's brow, fired....
The poor horse sprung aside, rose on its haunches, bounded ten paces
away, and suddenly fell heavily, and gasped as it writhed upon the
ground....
Tchertop-hanov put his two hands over his ears and ran away. His knees
were shaking under him. His drunkenness and revenge and blind
self-confidence--all had flown at once. There was left nothing but a
sense of shame and loathing--and the consciousness, unmistakeable, that
this time he had put an end to himself too.