“You and I have both enjoyed ourselves, Annetta ... We have drained the cup to the bottom and now, to use an expression of Pushkin’s, must shatter the goblet!” said Dilectorsky. “You do not repent, oh, my dear? ...”
“No, no! ...”
“Are you ready?”
“Yes!” whispered she and smiled.
“Then turn away to the wall and shut your eyes!”
“No, no, my dearest, I don’t want it so! ... I don’t want it! Come to me! There, so! Nearer, nearer.. Give me your eyes, I will be gazing into them. Give me your lips—I will be kissing you, while you... I am not afraid! ... Be braver! ... Kiss me harder! ...”
He killed her; and when he looked upon the horrible deed of his hands, he then suddenly felt a loathsome, abominable, abject fear. The half-naked body of Verka was still quivering on the bed. The legs of Dilectorsky gave in from horror; but the reason of a hypocrite, coward and blackguard kept vigil: he did still have spirit sufficient to stretch away at his side the skin over his ribs, and to shoot through it. And when he was falling, frantically crying out from pain, from fright, and from the thunder of the shot, the last convulsion was running through the body of Verka.
While two weeks after the death of Verka, the naive, sportful, meek, brawling Little White Manka perished as well. During one of the general, clamourous brawls, usual in the Yamkas, in an enormous affray, some one killed her, hitting her with a heavy empty bottle over the head. And the murderer remained undiscovered to the last.
So rapidly did events take place in the Yamkas, in the house of Emma Edwardovna; and well nigh not a one of its inmates escaped a bloody, foul or disgraceful doom.
The final, most grandiose, and at the same time most bloody calamity was the devastation committed on the Yamkas by soldiers.