Margaret left her without understanding what was really passing in her mind. This strange passion for a man of the baron’s age and character seemed to her inexplicable, but she was so generous and so simple-hearted that she believed in it; while the truth was that Olga, seized with a sudden hatred for her betrothed husband, and disgust at her betrothal ring, was struggling against what she called her human weakness—was trying hard to quell the revolt of her heart, her mind, her whole being, so that she might consummate, without shrinking, her unhappy and dangerous conquest of a great name and a high social position.
During this scene the baron had been giving orders for the race and masquerade, as if he had expected to be present at them himself. But, having done this, he left his guests to make their preparations for the evening’s entertainment, and retired to his own room, worn out with fatigue and pain. In the meanwhile his horses, magnificently harnessed, and restrained with difficulty by the coachman, who pretended to be waiting for his master, were gayly prancing before his private door.
He was, in fact, shut up with his physician, a young man of larger attainments than experience, who, for a year past, had been attached exclusively to his service.
“Doctor,” said he, putting aside a dose which the young man offered him in a timid and apprehensive manner, “you are not treating me properly! More opium, I’ll venture!”
“Your lordship requires quieting medicines; your nervous system is in a state of extreme agitation.”
“By Jove! I know that perfectly well; but pray soothe without weakening me. Relieve me from this convulsive tremor, but do not deprive me of my strength.”
The sick man was demanding an impossibility, but the physician dared not tell him so.
“I am in hopes,” he said, “that this draught will quiet without enfeebling you.”
“Well, but will it act quickly? I want to sleep two or three hours, and then get up and attend to some business. Can you guarantee that I shall regain my usual command of my faculties in the course of the night?”
“Your lordship is driving me to despair! Do you propose to go to work again to-night after yesterday’s attack, and to-day’s? You cannot go on in that way.”