Yevsey heard the old man's low dejected exclamation:
"That woman is a dangerous creature! Yes, yes! She tries to find everything out, and makes you tell her whatever she wants."
Yevsey looked at him from a distance, and thought:
"I wish you were dead."
The days passed rapidly, fused in a jumbled mass, as if joy were lying in wait ahead. But every day grew more and more exciting.
CHAPTER VII
The old man became sulky and taciturn. He peered around strangely, suddenly burst into a passion, shouted, and howled dismally, like a sick dog. He constantly complained of a pain in his head and nausea. At meals he smelt of the food suspiciously, crumbled the bread into small pieces with his shaking fingers, and held the tea and brandy up to the light. His nightly scoldings of Rayisa, in which he threatened to bring ruin upon her, became more and more frequent. But she answered all his outcries with soft composure.
Yevsey's love for the woman waxed stronger, and his sad, embittered heart was filled with hatred of his master.
"Don't I understand what you're up to, you low-down woman?" raged the old man. "What does my sickness come from? What are you poisoning me with?"
"What are you saying? What are you saying?" exclaimed the woman, her calm voice quivering. "You are sick from old age."
"You lie! You lie!"
"And from fright besides."
"You miserable creature, keep quiet!"
"You suffer from the weight of years."
"You lie!"
"And it's time you thought of death."
"Aha! That's what you want! You lie! You hope in vain! I'm not the only one to know all about you. I told Dorimedont Lukin about you." He burst again into a loud tearful whine. "I know he's your paramour. It's he who talked you over into poisoning me. You think you'll have it easier with him, don't you? You won't, you won't!"
Once at night, during a similar scene, Rayisa left the old man's room with a candle in her hand, half dressed, white and voluptuous. She walked as in a dream, swaying from side to side and treading uncertainly with her bare feet. Her eyes were half closed, the fingers of her out-stretched right hand clawed the air convulsively. The little smoky red tongue of the candle inclined toward her breast, almost touching her shirt. It illuminated her lips parted in exhaustion and sickness, and set her teeth agleam.
After she had passed Yevsey without noticing him, he instinctively followed her to the door of the kitchen, where the sight that met his gaze numbed him with horror. The woman was holding a large kitchen knife in her hand, testing its sharp edge with her finger. She bent her head, and put her hand to her full neck near the ear, where she sought something with her long fingers. Then she drew a breath, and quietly returned the knife to the table. Her hands fell at her sides.
Yevsey clutched the doorpost. At the sound the woman started and turned.
"What do you want?" she demanded in an angry whisper.
Yevsey answered breathlessly.
"He'll die soon. Why are you doing that to yourself? Please don't do it. You mustn't."
"Hush!"
She put her hands on Yevsey as if for support, and walked back into the old man's room.
Soon the master became unable to leave his bed. His voice grew feeble, and frequently a rattle sounded in his throat. His face darkened, his weak neck failed to sustain his head, and the grey tuft on his chin stuck up oddly. The physician came every day. Each time Rayisa gave the sick man medicine, he groaned hoarsely:
"With poison, eh? Oh, oh, you wicked thing!"
"If you don't take it, I'll throw it away."
"No, no! Leave it! and to-morrow I'll call the police. I'll ask them what you are poisoning me with."
Yevsey stood at the door, sticking first his eye, then his ear to the chink. He was ready to cry out in amazement at Rayisa's patience. His pity for her rose in his breast more and more irrepressibly, and an ever keener desire for the death of the old man. It was difficult for him to breathe, as on a dry icy-cold day.
The bed creaked. Yevsey heard the thin sounds of a spoon knocking against glass.
"Mix it, mix it! You carrion!" mumbled the master.
Once he ordered Rayisa to carry him to the sofa. She picked him up in her arms as if he were a baby. His yellow head lay upon her rosy shoulder, and his dark, shrivelled feet dangled limply in the folds of her white skirt.
"God!" wailed the old man, lolling back on the broad sofa. "God, why hast Thou given over Thy servant into the hands of the wicked? Are my sins more grievous than their sins, O Lord? And can it be that the hour of my death is come?" He lost breath and his throat rattled. "Get away!" he went on in a wheezing voice. "You have poisoned one man – I saved you from hard labor, and now you are poisoning me – ugh, ugh, you lie!"
Rayisa slowly moved aside. Yevsey now could see his master's little dry body. His stomach rose and fell, his feet twitched, and his lips twisted spasmodically, as he opened and closed them, greedily gasping for air, and licked them with his thin tongue, at the same time displaying the black hollow of his mouth. His forehead and cheeks glistened with sweat, his little eyes, now looking large and deep, constantly followed Rayisa.
"And I have nobody, no one near me on earth, no true friend. Why, O Lord?" The voice of the old man wheezed and broke. "You wanton, swear before the ikon that you are not poisoning me."
Rayisa turned to the corner, and crossed herself.
"I don't believe you, I don't believe you," he muttered, clutching at the underwear on his breast and at the back of the sofa, and digging his nails into them.
"Drink your medicine. It will be better for you," Rayisa suddenly almost shrieked.
"It will be better," the old man repeated. "My dear, my only one, I will give you everything, my own Ray – "
He stretched his bony arm toward her and beckoned to her to draw near him, shaking his black fingers.
"Ah, I am sick of you, you detestable creature," Rayisa cried in a stifled voice; and snatching the pillow from under his head she flung it over the old man's face, threw herself upon it, and held his thin arms, which flashed in the air.
"You have made me sick of you," she cried again. "I can't stand you any more. Go to the devil! Go, go!"
Yevsey dropped to the floor. He heard the stifled rattle, the low squeak, the hollow blows; he understood that Rayisa was choking and squeezing the old man, and that his master kept beating his feet upon the sofa. He felt neither pity nor fear. He merely desired everything to be accomplished more quickly. So he covered his eyes and ears with his hands.
The pain of a blow caused by the opening of the door compelled him to jump to his feet. Before him stood Rayisa arranging her hair, which hung over her shoulders.
"Well, did you see it?" she asked gruffly. Her face was red, but now more calm. Her hands did not tremble.
"I did," replied Yevsey, nodding his head. He moved closer to Rayisa.
"Well, if you want to, you can inform the police."
She turned and walked into the room leaving the door open. Yevsey remained at the door, trying not to look at the sofa.
"Is he dead, quite dead?" he asked in a whisper.
"Yes," answered the woman distinctly.
Then Yevsey turned his head, and regarded the little body of his master with indifferent eyes. Flat and dry it lay upon the sofa as if glued there. He looked at the corpse, then at Rayisa, and breathed a sigh of relief.
In the corner near the bed the clock on the wall softly and irresolutely struck one and two. The woman started at each stroke. The last time she went up to the clock, and stopped the halting pendulum with an uncertain hand. Then she seated herself on the bed, putting her elbows on her knees and pressing her head in her hands. Her hair falling down,