"No, mother; I do not care for anything. Good night."
I also kissed my mother's cheek, and I left hastily, without glancing at Juliana; I collected the little strength left me, and scarcely had I crossed the threshold than I began to run to my room, fearing to fall before I reached the door.
I threw myself on my bed face down. I was seized by that spasm which precedes great paroxysms of tears, when the suffocation of anguish is about to burst out, when the tension is about to be relaxed. But the spasm was protracted, and the tears did not come. It was horrible suffering. An enormous weight bore my members down, a weight that I felt, not at the surface, but within, as if my bones and muscles had become masses of lead. And my brain still thought on! And my consciousness still remained vigilant!
"No, I must not leave her. No, I must not agree to let her leave me thus. When my mother retires, she will kill herself—that is sure. Oh, the sound of her voice, when she expressed the desire to see Natalia!" A hallucination suddenly seized upon me. My mother left the chamber. Juliana sat up in bed, and listened intently. Then, certain at last of being alone, she took the bottle of morphine from the night table. She did not hesitate a second, but with a determined gesture emptied it at one gulp, covered herself again with the bedclothes, and lay on her back to await the end.... The imaginary vision of the cadaver acquired such an intensity that, like one demented, I arose. I made three or four turns in the room, hurt myself against the furniture, stumbled over the carpet, with terrified gestures. I opened a window.
The night was calm, filled with the monotonous and continuous croaking of frogs. The stars were twinkling. The Great Bear scintillated before me, very brightly. Time passed.
I remained for several minutes at the balcony, in contemplation, my eyes fixed on the great constellation that, to my troubled sight, seemed to come nearer. I did not really know what I expected. My mind wandered. I had a singular sensation of the space of that immense sky. Suddenly, during a sort of irresolute suspension, as if, in the depth of unconsciousness, some obscure effluvium had acted on my being, there spontaneously surged up in me the question that I had not as yet understood: "What have you done to me?" And the vision of the cadaver, for an instant forgotten, reappeared before my eyes.
My horror was such that, without knowing what I wished to do, I turned about, left the room precipitately, and directed my steps towards Juliana's room.
I met Miss Edith in the corridor.
"Where did you come from, Edith?" I asked.
I saw that my appearance stupefied her.