And with that Suvaroff went out, slamming the door.
When Suvaroff got to his room he felt dizzy. He threw himself on the bed and lay for some time in a stupor. When he came to his senses again the first sound to greet him was the wail of his neighbor's accordion.
"What a fool I am!" he muttered. "Here I go bursting into this Italian's room for the purpose of asking him to quit his abominable noise, and I listen like a dumb sheep to _his_ bleatings, and so forget my errand!"
The noise continued, grew more insistent, became unbearable. Suvaroff covered his ears with a comforter. His head was throbbing so violently that even the ticking of a clock upon the table by his bed cut his senses like a two-edged sword. He rose, stumbling about with a feeling of indescribable weakness. What was the matter? Why did he feel so ill? His eyes burned, his legs seemed weighted, his throat was so dry that there was no comfort when he swallowed. All this he could have stood if it had not been for the fiendish noise which, he began to feel, was being played merely for his torture.
He put on his hat and stumbled down-stairs, out into the night. Crossing the street, he went at once to Bollo's Wine Shop. The hunchback was sitting on a garbage-can, almost at the entrance. At the sight of this misshapen figure, the irritating memory of the Italian and his impossible music recurred to Suvaroff. A sudden sinister cruelty came over him; he felt a wanton ruthlessness that the sight of ugliness sometimes engenders in natures sensitive to beauty. He went up to the hunchback and looked searchingly into the man's face. It was a strangely handsome face, and its incongruity struck Suvaroff. Had Nature been weary, or merely in a satirical mood, when she fashioned such a thing of horror?--for Suvaroff found that the handsome face seemed even more horrible than the twisted body, so sharp and violent was the contrast.
The hunchback returned Suvaroff's stare with almost insulting indifference, but there was something in the look that quickened the beating of Suvaroff's heart.
"You are waiting here," began Suvaroff, "for an Italian who lodges across the street. Would you like me to tell you where he may be found?"