The last sparks of rage and madness now died out in Agamalov’s eyes. Romashov drew a deep breath as if from a long swoon. His heart beat irregularly and quick, and his head was again heavy and feverishly hot.
“Let me go!” shrieked Biek-Agamalov once more in a fierce tone, and tried to release himself. Romashov felt he would no longer be able to keep his hold of him; but he had no further dread of his wrath. He said in a caressing brotherly tone, as he laid his hand on his comrade’s shoulder—
“Forgive me, Biek, but I know that a day will come when you will thank me for this.”
Biek-Agamalov with a loud snap stuck his sabre into its sheath.
“All right, confound you!” he screamed in an angry tone, in which, however, there was a note of shame and confusion. “We’ll settle this matter afterwards. But what right have you——?”
The valiant crowd in the yard now understood that all danger was over for the present. With loud, but not quite natural, peals of laughter, the lot now rushed into the room. But he now seemed extinguished, his strength exhausted, and there was something apathetic and ironically contemptuous about him.
Now Madame Schleyfer herself—a massive lady with a hard look, small dark pouches under her eyes, disappearing eyelashes, and great layers of fat on her neck and bosom—entered the room. She attacked first one and then the other of the officers; took tight hold of one by a button, of another by a sleeve, and howled to each of them who could stand and listen her everlasting song—
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, who will make good all this? Who will pay for the mirror, the furniture, the bottles, the girls?”
All this meanwhile was settled to the satisfaction of the authorities by the same mysterious “benefactor” who had provided for everything else in the course of this memorable excursion. The officers left the room in groups. Every one of them inhaled with delight the mild, pure air of the May night. Romashov felt all his being thrilled with a certain joyous agitation. It seemed to him as if all traces of the day’s orgies had vanished from his brain, as if a pair of innocent fresh lips had repurified and refreshed him by a soft kiss on his brow.
Biek-Agamalov came up to him, took his hand, and said—