With a bound Gritzko leaped up, and seizing her in his arms carried her into the middle of the room. Then he paused a moment to exult in his triumph.
Her little head, with its soft brown hair from which the fur cap had fallen, lay helpless on his breast. The pathetic white face, with its childish curves and long eyelashes, resting on her cheek, made no movement. The faint, sweet scent of a great bunch of violets crushed in her belt came up to him.
And as he fiercely bent to kiss her white, unconscious lips, suddenly he drew back and all the savage exultation went out of him.
He gazed at her for a moment, and then carried her tenderly to the couch and laid her down. She never stirred. Was she dead? Oh, God!
In frightful anguish he put his ear to her heart; it did not seem to beat.
In wild fear he tore open her blouse and wrenched apart her fine underclothing, the better to listen. Yes, now through only the bare soft skin he heard a faint sound. Ah! saints in heaven! she was not dead.
Then he took off her boots and rubbed her cold little silk-stockinged feet, and her cold damp hands, and presently as he watched, it seemed as if some color came back to her cheeks, and at last she gave a sigh and moved her head without opening her eyes—and then he saw that she was not unconscious now, but sleeping.
Then the bounds of all his mad passion burst, and as he knelt beside the couch, great tears suffused his eyes and trickled down his cheeks.
"My Doushka! my love!" he whispered, brokenly. "Oh, God! and I would have hurt you!"
He rose quickly, and going to the window opened the ventilator at the top, picked up the pistol from the table and replaced it in his belt, and then he knelt once more beside Tamara, and with deepest reverence bent down and kissed her feet.