Miss Edith emerged from the alcove, on tiptoe. She made me a sign to make no noise, and said, in a low voice:
"She is going to sleep."
And she went out, softly closing the door behind her.
The lamp burned with a tranquil and even light, suspended from the centre of the ceiling. Across a seat was thrown the amaranthine cloak; on another, the black satin corset, the corset that, at the Lilacs, Juliana had removed during my brief absence; across another chair, the gray gown, the same that she had worn with so much distinction in the beautiful forest of flowering lilacs. The sight of these objects upset me so that I felt a new desire to flee. But I walked toward the alcove, and drew aside the curtains. I saw the bed; I saw the dark spot on the pillow made by the hair, but not the face; I saw the form of the body huddled up beneath the covers. In my mind the brutal truth presented itself with the most ignoble reality. "She has been possessed by another." And a series of odious physical visions passed before the eyes of my soul, those eyes that I had not the power to close. And these were, not only the visions of the things accomplished, but also those that must necessarily take place. I was forced to see, with inexorable precision, what was about to happen to Juliana—my Dream! my Ideal!
Who could have imagined a more cruel punishment? And all was true, all was certain!
When the pain exceeds the strength, one instinctively seeks in doubt a momentary extenuation of the intolerable suffering; one thinks: "Perhaps I am mistaken, perhaps my misfortune is not such as it appears to be, perhaps this excess of pain is groundless?" And to prolong the respite, one's perplexed intelligence is applied to gain a more exact idea of the reality. But I, I had not a single moment of doubt, I had not a single moment of incertitude.
It is impossible for me to explain the phenomenon that developed in my consciousness, which had become extraordinarily lucid. It seemed that, spontaneously, by a secret process realized in the dark sphere of the inner being, all the unperceived symptoms that had connection with the horrible thing were coördinated to form a logical idea, complete, rational, definite, irrefutable; and now, that idea manifested itself all at once, surged up in my consciousness with the rapidity of a fragment of cork which, no longer retained at the bottom of water by hidden bonds, floats to the surface, there to remain, insubmersible. Every symptom, every proof, was there, in perfect order. No effort was needed to find them, to choose them, to group them. Insignificant and distant facts were illuminated by a new light; fragments of recent life regained their color. The unaccustomed aversion of Juliana for flowers, for odors, her strange agitations, her ill-dissimulated nauseas, her sudden pallors, that sort of continual preoccupation visible between her eyebrows, the great fatigue indicated by certain positions; and besides, the pages marked by the nail in the Russian book, the reproach of the old man to the Count Besoukhow, the supreme question of the little Princess Lisa, and that gesture with which Juliana had taken the book from my hands; and then the scenes at the Lilacs, the tears, the sobs, the ambiguous phrases, the sibylline smiles, the almost mournful ardors, the volubility of language, almost insane, the evocation of death—all these signs grouped themselves around my mother's words, were engraved in the centre of my soul.
My mother said: "It is impossible to be mistaken. Up to within two or three days ago, Juliana had denied it, or, at least, pretended that she was not certain.... Knowing how easily you are alarmed, she begged me to say nothing to you." The truth could not be more evident. Henceforth, everything was certain!
I entered the alcove and approached the bed. The curtains fell behind me; the light became feebler. Anxiety suspended my respiration, and all my blood stood still in my arteries, when I came to the bedside and bent over to see more closely Juliana's head, almost hidden by the sheet. I do not know what would have occurred, at this moment, had she raised her face and spoken.
Was she asleep? The forehead only, as far as the eyebrows, was visible.