Elise closed her eyes, and her lips moved: “Dear God of Eastertide, give us Thy blessing.”
Tioka stopped crying to look at her. Then with an enchanting smile he did as she had done. He closed his blue eyes, which were still full of tears, and said: “Dear God of Eastertide, give us Thy blessing.”
The days swung forward.
Prilukoff was the first to discover us. We had been hidden in Vienna, in the little Hotel Victoria, less than a week, when one morning he stood before our terror-stricken eyes.
He was derisive and sarcastic; but finding us alone—without Kamarowsky, without Naumoff—the maleficent frenzy that possessed him at Orel seemed to have vanished. He was soon quite genial and good-humored; he was once more the Prilukoff we had known at Moscow, the trusty knight—Elise's Lohengrin!
He did not speak of the past; he made no allusion to the chloral. Neither did he ever recall his murderous purposes; and sometimes I thought that I had dreamt it all. Cheerful and light-hearted, he took us out for drives in carriages and motors, to the Prater, to the Brühl, to the Semmering; he insisted upon our going with him to theaters, concerts and cabarets.
And to pay for it all we had recourse to the black leather satchel. When any money was required, we found it there. No accounts were kept. Simply, and as a matter of course, we dipped into the lacerated body of the white elephant and took what we needed.
I let myself drift with the tide; I gave no thought either to the future or the past, but yielded myself passively to my fate like a straw afloat on the water....
One day I saw in the newspapers that Kamarowsky was putting in motion the police of every city in Europe in his efforts to find me. Then, on Prilukoff's advice, I sent Elise to Neuchâtel to telegraph to him from there in my name, in order to tranquilize him and mislead his inquiries.