Everything had turned out different from what he had anticipated. Out of vapidity and nonsense there had crept forth a chaos--savage, drunken, and hysterical, with a crumpled, distorted face.
He shrugged his shoulders, put away the useless revolver, and began pacing the room, up and down. The girl was crying.
To and fro again. The girl was crying. He stopped beside her, his hands in his pockets, to look at her.
There, under his eyes, face down, lay a woman sobbing frantically in an agony of unbearable sorrow, sobbing as one who looks suddenly back on a wasted life or a better life irretrievably lost. Her naked, finely tapering shoulder blades were heaving as though to heap fuel on the raging furnace within, and sinking as though to compress the tense anguish in her bosom.
The music had started afresh; a mazurka now. And the jingle of spurs could be heard. Some officers must have come.
Such tears he had never seen! He was disconcerted. He took his hands out of his pockets, and said gently:
She answered, but so faintly that he could not hear. He sat by her on the bed, bent his shorn head, and laid a hand on her shoulders; and his hand responded with a quiver to the trembling of those pitiable shoulders.
Then something distant, dull, soaked in tears:
»Wait--before you go ... over there ... some officers have arrived. They might see you ... My God--to think...!«
She sat up quickly on the bed, clasping her hands, eyes wide open staring into space in sudden fear. The terror lasted a moment, and then she again lay down and wept. Outside the spurs were jingling rhythmically, and the pianist with revived energy was conscientiously beating out a vigorous mazurka.
»Take a drink of water, Liuba, do I You really must ... please ...« he whispered as he bent over her. Her ear was covered with her hair, and fearing that she could not hear, he carefully brushed aside those dark curling locks, and discovered a hot little red shell of an ear.
»No, I don't want a drink. There's no need.... It's all over.«
She had quieted down by now. The sobbing stopped; one more long throe, and the shuddering shoulders were pathetically still; he was gently stroking her neck down to the lace of the chemise.
She said nothing, but heaved a long sigh and turned round, quickly glancing at him. Then she relaxed and sat up, looked up at him again, and rubbed his face and eyes with the plaits of her hair. She breathed another long sigh and quite gently and simply laid her head on his shoulder, and he as simply put an arm round her and drew her silently closer to him. His fingers touched her naked shoulder, but this no longer disturbed him. And thus they sat a long while without speaking, but with now and then a sigh, staring straight ahead of them into space with unseeing eyes.