“You may judge,” he began again, “the hell that I was in. I could have torn the man to bits, and yet—and yet now I said to myself that to obey the Section and let Kakonzoff die would be doing a murder to gratify personal hate. Yet all the sides of the question tortured me. I asked the valet in the afternoon about the woman that had spoken to me. He shrugged his shoulders, and said she was only a peasant that the general was tired of, but that she would not leave him, although he beat her. He beat her!”
There were tears in my eyes at the intensity with which he spoke, but Dr. Polnitzski’s were dry. He clenched his strong hands as if he were crushing something. Then he shook himself as if he were awaking, and threw back his head with a bitter attempt at a laugh.
“Bah!” he exclaimed, with a shrug. “I have never talked like this in my life, but it is so many years since I talked at all that I have lost control of myself. I beg your pardon.”
He crossed the room, sat down by the fire, and began to fill his pipe.
“But, Dr. Polnitzski,” I protested eagerly, “I do not want to force your confidence, but you cannot stop such a story there.”
He looked at me a moment as if he would not go on. Then his face darkened.
“What could the end of such a story be?” he demanded. “Any end must be ruin and agony. Should I be moved by personal feelings to be false to everything I held sacred? Should I take my revenge at the price of professional honor? I said to myself that in time she might come to care for me, if this man were out of her life. Kindness could do so much with some women. But could I make such a choice?”
“No,” I said slowly, “you could not do that.”
“Could I restore him to life, then, and have him go on beating that poor girl and flinging her into the ditch at last?”