Fate had in store for him and for me a much more appalling doom. He dragged his frightful death-agony through the interminable hours of a hundred days and a hundred nights. He was doomed to trail his torment from town to town, from surgeon to surgeon, from specialist to charlatan. One after another, they would unbandage the white and withered neck, probe the blue-edged wound, and then cover up again with yellow gauze the horrifying cavity; leaving us to return, heart-stricken and silent, to the luxurious hotels that housed our irremediable despair.
About that time I heard that Vassili had been released on bail. Later on he was acquitted by a jury in the distant city of Homel, on the ground of justifiable homicide.
Perhaps it was a just verdict. But for him whom he had struck down—and for me—what anguish, great Heavens! What lingering torture of heart-breaking days and nights.
Ah, those nights, those appalling nights! We dreaded them as one dreads some monstrous wild beast, lurking in wait to devour us. All day long we thought only of the night. As soon as twilight drew near Bozevsky, lying in his bed with his face towards the window, clutched my hand and would not let it go.
“I am afraid,” he would murmur. “I wish it were not night. If only it were not night!”
“Nonsense, dearest,” I would say, cheerfully. “It is quite early. It is still broad daylight. Everybody is moving about. The whole world is awake and out of doors.”
But night, furtive and grim, crouched in the shadowy room, lurked in dark corners, and then suddenly was upon us, black, silent, terrifying. Round us the world lay asleep, and we two were awake and alone with our terror.
Then began the never-ending question, ceaselessly repeated, reiterated throughout the entire night:
“What is the time?”
It was only nine o'clock. It was half-past nine.... Ten... Half-past ten... A quarter to eleven... Eleven o'clock... Five minutes past...