For a long time, indeed, he seemed neither to desire nor expect any gratitude. He looked after my interests, my divorce, my parents, my son, my maid, my debts, and my health. But he asked for no thanks; all he required was that I should be docile and content.
It was a period of respite. Soon I forgot that I had ever thought of him as a Scorpion or an octopus. Indeed, he was to my eyes a strange and delightful mixture of knight errant, of guardian saint, of commissionaire and hero.
I did not feel then that every favor, every counsel I asked of him, was but another link in the subtle chain that bound me to him.
Soon I was unable to do anything without asking for his opinion and his assistance. Tioka, Elise and I grew accustomed to see him arrive with his masterful air and brisk greeting every afternoon; then every morning; then every evening as well. We never went out without him; no letter was received or written without its being given to him to read.
If Tioka broke a toy, if Elise was overcharged in an account, if I received an anonymous letter, it was immediately referred to Prilukoff. He put everything into his pocket, saying: “Leave that to me.”
And, true to his word, he mended the toys, he adjusted the accounts, he discovered and punished my anonymous slanderers. He was astute, deliberate and intelligent.
I felt convinced that he was also kind and generous and good.
Who can say that in those days he was not so? The dreadful Prilukoff, assassin and blackmailer, who turned against me, livid with wrath, in the court-room at Venice, was he—could he be?—the same Prilukoff who, in those far-off days, mended little Tioka's playthings? Who was so anxious if he saw me looking pale? Of whom Elise, clasping her work-worn hands, used to say: “When he appears he seems to me like Lohengrin!”
Lohengrin! How bitterly I smile, remembering all that ensued. And yet—I cannot believe it. I cannot understand it. Which of those two beings—the maleficent demon or the chivalrous knight—was the real Prilukoff?
Perhaps, when these sinister years of prison and sorrow are past that cancel in their flight so many things, and shed light upon so many others, some day he may cross my path again. Shall I then not discern in his faded, grief-stricken face the strong and compassionate Lohengrin of long ago?...