We closed the door, and found ourselves shut up with Prilukoff, ferocious and maniacal, who glowered at us with the eye of a tiger.
A thousand times in my weakness and despair I was on the point of throwing the door wide open and calling for help—calling Kamarowsky and Naumoff, and crying to them: “Look! a man is shut up in here. For days and days he has been torturing and threatening me. The man is a criminal and a thief, and he has been my lover. Save me from him!”
But then I pictured to myself the scene of violence that would follow, the room echoing with revolver shots; and at the mere thought of it, in my weak and exhausted state, I fell into long fainting fits from which Elise had the greatest difficulty in reviving me.
One morning Elise had an idea: “Let us confide in the doctor.”
I agreed. But the thought agitated me so that when the doctor came he found me trembling, with a rapid, irregular pulse and panting breath.
“Doctor—” I began.
“Ah, but this is bad, very bad. What is the meaning of all this agitation? Did you sit up too long? If you are not a better patient, I shall have to complain of you to my friend Paul.”
His friend Paul! True. He was a friend, an intimate friend, of Kamarowsky's. How could I ever have had the idea that he would keep our secret, that he would not betray my intended flight? It was a crazy notion of Elise's. I cast a significant glance at her, and was silent.
He prescribed bromides and recommended absolute rest of body and mind. Scarcely was he gone when to my astonishment the long curtain that hung in front of an alcove where Elise kept my dresses moved slightly. Then they parted, and Prilukoff appeared.
Ah! he had not gone out as he had pretended when the doctor had been announced! He had hidden himself. What if I had spoken?