“Mura, Mura, let me in. Let me see you for a moment. You know how I love you (pinch); it is cruel to lock me out as if I were a stranger. If you are ill let me take care of you, with all my tenderness (pinch), with all my love (pinch)—”
In feeble accents I would reply: “Forgive me—I shall soon be better—do not trouble about me.”
“But what is the matter? Why do you not want to see me? Do you not love me any more?”
“Oh, yes, I love—(pinch). Please, please go away. I shall come down as soon as I can.”
Then I could hear his slowly retreating footsteps, while Prilukoff glared at me and, on general principles, pinched my arm again.
It was with the greatest difficulty that I could conceal Prilukoff's presence from little Tioka.
One day the child caught sight of him seated on the terrace, and, with a wild cry of delight, started to run towards him. I caught him in my arms. “No, darling, no! That is not Prilukoff. It is some one very much like him; but it is not our friend.”
And as the man, with scowling countenance, was gazing out at the sea, and paid no heed to us, Tioka believed me, and, with a little sigh of regret, ran in search of his playmate Grania.
The life Prilukoff led me in this grotesque and unbearable situation is impossible to describe. My days were passed in an agony of terror. When I dined with Kamarowsky, Prilukoff invariably took a seat at the next table, and I might almost say that it was he who regulated our conversation. If any subject were raised that was distasteful to him—my approaching marriage to Kamarowsky, for instance, or some tender reminiscence which my betrothed loved to recall—Prilukoff, at the adjoining table, made savage gestures which terrified me and attracted the attention of all the other guests. He would shake his fists at me, glare at me with terrible eyes, and, if I pretended not to notice him, he upset the cruet-stand or dropped his knife and fork noisily to attract my attention. He would stare at the unconscious, slightly bald head of Kamarowsky, and imitate his gestures with a demoniacal grin.
The guests of the hotel thought him insane, and he certainly behaved as if he were. I myself have often thought: “Surely he is a madman!” when I came upon him suddenly, hidden behind the curtains in my sitting-room, or crouching in a dark corner, or lying on my bed smoking cigarettes. I felt that my nerves and my reason were giving way.