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been counting your chickens too easily, madam. Two hun-
dred, if you like, with all my heart. But four thousand is not
a sum to throw away on such frivolity. You’ve put yourself
out to no purpose.’
‘I should have lost the game, of course. She’d have run
away. But it would have been an infernal revenge. It would
have been worth it all. I’d have howled with regret all the
rest of my life, only to have played that trick. Would you
believe it, it has never happened to me with any other wom-
an, not one, to look at her at such a moment with hatred.
But, on my oath, I looked at her for three seconds, or five
perhaps, with fearful hatred — that hate which is only a
hair’s-breadth from love, from the maddest love!
‘I went to the window, put my forehead against the frozen
pane, and I remember the ice burnt my forehead like fire. I
did not keep her long, don’t be afraid. I turned round, went
up to the table, opened the drawer and took out a banknote
for five thousand roubles (it was lying in a French diction-
ary). Then I showed it her in silence, folded it, handed it to
her, opened the door into the passage, and, stepping back,
made her a deep bow. a most respectful, a most impressive
bow, believe me! She shuddered all over, gazed at me for a
second, turned horribly pale-white as a sheet, in fact — and
all at once, not impetuously but softly, gently, bowed down
to my feet — not a boarding-school curtsey, but a Russian
bow, with her forehead to the floor. She jumped up and ran
away. I was wearing my sword. I drew it and nearly stabbed
myself with it on the spot; why, I don’t know. It would have
been frightfully stupid, of course. I suppose it was from de-