This letter was an accidental occurrence, like so much that Peredonov did—he was like a corpse moved by external powers, and moved as if these powers had no desire to busy themselves with him for long: one would play with him and then cast him to another.
Soon the nedotikomka reappeared—for a long time it rolled around Peredonov as if it were on the end of a lasso, and kept mocking him. And it was now noiseless, and laughed only with a shaking of its body. The evil, shameless beast flared up with dimly golden sparks—it threatened and burned with an intolerable triumph. And the cat threatened Peredonov; its eyes gleamed and it mewed arrogantly and fiercely.
"Why are they so glad?" thought Peredonov dejectedly, and suddenly understood that the end was approaching, that the Princess was already here, close, quite close. Perhaps she was in this very pack of cards.
Yes, undoubtedly she was the queen of spades or the queen of hearts. Perhaps she was hiding in another pack, or in other cards, but he did not know what she looked like. The difficulty was that Peredonov had never seen her. It would be useless to ask Varvara—she would tell lies.
At last Peredonov thought he would burn the whole pack. Let them all burn! If they creep into the cards to his ruin, then it's their own fault.
Peredonov chose a time when Varvara was not at home. The stove in the parlour was alight—and he threw all the cards into the stove. With a crackling the marvellous pale red flowers opened out—they burned but were black at the edges. Peredonov looked in horror at these flaming blossoms.
The cards contracted, bent over and moved as if they were trying to escape from the stove.
Peredonov caught hold of the poker and began to beat the lighted cards with it. There was a shower of tiny bright sparks on all sides—and suddenly in a bright, wild riot of sparks the Princess rose out of the fire, a little ash-grey woman, bestrewn with small dying sparks; she wailed piercingly in her shrill voice and hissed and spit on the flames.
Peredonov fell backward. He cried out in horror. The darkness embraced him, tickled him, and laughed with a thousand jarring little noises.