“Can you not understand that Tioka is dying? Tioka, my little Tioka is dying! And it is we who are killing him.”
“No, no,” sighed Prilukoff. “Let things alone.”
Tioka grew worse.
A day came when he could not see me or hear me—when he lay quite still with scarcely flickering breath. Then I rose as one in a dream. I went to Prilukoff's room.
He sat listlessly by the window, smoking. I seized him by the arm.
“Donat Prilukoff, I renew my oath. Paul Kamarowsky shall die within this year!”
“All right, all right!” grumbled Prilukoff, wearied to exhaustion by my constant changes of mood. “Let us finish him once for all, and have done with it.”
I gasped. “Where? When? Is it you who will—”
Prilukoff raised his long, languid eyes. “Whatever you like,” he said. Then he added in a spent voice: “I am very tired.”
And it was I who urged him, who pushed him on, who hurried him to think out and shape our plans. He was languid and inert. Sometimes he would look dully at me and say: “What a terrible woman you are.” But I thought only of Tioka, and my eager and murderous frenzy increased.