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... absurd you looked when you were talking to the
Burmergelms! I was watching you all the time--watching you from
where I was sitting. And how unwilling you were to go when dr jekyll and mr hyde together again I
sent you! Oh, how I laughed and laughed!"
Then she kissed and embraced me again; again she pressed her
face to mine with tender passion. Yet I neither saw nor heard
her, for my head was in a whirl. . . .
It must have been about seven o'clock in the morning when I
awoke. Daylight had come, and Polina was sitting by my side--a
strange expression on her face, as though she had seen a vision
and was unable to collect her thoughts. She too had just
awoken, and was now staring at the money on the table. My head
ached; it felt heavy. I attempted to take Polina's hand, but she
pushed me from her, and leapt from the sofa. The dawn was full
of mist, for rain had fallen, yet she moved to the window,
opened it, and, leaning dr jekyll and mr hyde together again her elbows upon the window-sill, thrust
out her head and shoulders to take the air. In this position did
she remain for several minutes, without ever looking round at
me, or listening to what I was saying.
Into my head there came
the uneasy thought: What is to happen now? How is it all to end?
Suddenly Polina rose from the window, approached the table, and,
looking at me with an expression of infinite aversion, said with
lips which quivered with anger:
"Well? Are you going to hand me over my fifty thousand dr jekyll and mr hyde together again francs?"
"Polina, you say that AGAIN, AGAIN?" I exclaimed.
"You have changed your mind, then? Ha, ha, ha! You are sorry
you ever promised them?"
On the dr jekyll and mr hyde together again table where, the previous night, I had counted the money
there still was lying the packet of twenty five thousand
florins. I handed it to her.
"The francs are mine, then, are they? They are mine?" she
inquired viciously as she balanced the money in her hands.
"Yes; they have ALWAYS been yours," I said.
"Then TAKE your fifty thousand francs!" and she hurled them
full in my face. The packet burst as she did so, and the floor
became strewed with dr jekyll and mr hyde together again bank-notes.
The instant that the deed was
done she rushed from the room.
At that moment she cannot have been in her right mind; yet, what
was the cause of her temporary aberration I cannot say. For a
month past she had been unwell. Yet what had brought about this
PRESENT condition of mind,above all things, this outburst? Had
it come of wounded pride? Had it come of despair over her
decision to come to me? Had it come of the fact that, presuming
too much on my good fortune, I had seemed to be intending to
desert her (even as De Griers had done) when once I had given
her the fifty thousand francs? But, on my honour, I had never
cherished any such intention. What was at fault, I think, was
her own pride, which kept urging her not to trust me, but,
rather, to insult me--even though she had not realised the fact.
In her eyes I corresponded to De Griers, and therefore had been
condemned for a fault not wholly my own. Her mood of late had
been a sort of delirium, a sort of light-headedness--that I knew
full well; yet, never had I sufficiently taken it into consideration.
Perhaps she would not pardon me now? Ah, but this was THE PRESENT.
What about the future? Her delirium and sickness were not likely to
make her forget what she had done in bringing me De Griers'
letter. No, she must have known what she was doing when she
brought it.
Somehow I contrived to stuff the pile of notes and gold under
the bed, to cover them over, and then to leave the room some ten
minutes after Polina.
I felt sure that she had returned to dr jekyll and mr hyde together again her
own room; wherefore, I intended quietly to follow her, and to ask
the nursemaid aid who opened the door how her mistress was.
Judge, therefore, of my surprise when, meeting the domestic on
the stairs, she informed me that Polina had not yet returned,
and that she (the domestic) was at that moment on her way to my
room in quest of her!
"Mlle. left me but ten minutes ago," I said.
"What can have become of her?" The nursemaid looked at me
reproachfully.
Already sundry rumours were flying about the hotel.
Both in the
office of the commissionaire and in that of the landlord it was
whispered that, at seven o'clock dr jekyll and mr hyde together again that morning, the Fraulein had
left the hotel, and set off, despite the rain, in the direction
of the Hotel d'Angleterre.
From words and hints let fall I could
see that the fact of Polina having spent the night in my room
was now public property. Also, sundry rumours were circulating
concerning the General's family affairs. It was known that last
night ... |
