Repa took a ruble out of the box, and went to the secretary.
The secretary was a single man, so he had no separate housekeeping, but lived in the house of four tenements standing at the dam,—the so-called "brick house." There he had two rooms, with a separate entrance. In the first room there was nothing but some straw and a pair of gaiters; the second was both a reception and a sleeping room. There was a bed in it, almost never made up; on the bed two pillows without cases, from these pillows feathers were dropping continually; near by was a table, on it an inkstand, pens, chancery books, a few numbers of "Isabella of Spain," published by Pan Breslauer, two dirty collars of English make, a bottle of pomade, paper for cigarettes, and finally a candle in a tin candlestick, with a reddish wick and a fly drowned in the tallow close to the wick.
By the window hung a large looking-glass; opposite the window stood a bureau on which were the very exquisite toilet articles of the secretary,—jackets, vests of fabulous colors, cravats, gloves, patent-leather shoes, and even a cylinder hat which the lord secretary wore whenever he had to visit the district capital of Oslovitsi.
Besides this, at the moment of which we are writing, in an armchair near the bed rested the nankeen trousers of the lord secretary; the lord secretary himself was lying on the bed and reading a number of "Isabella of Spain," published by Pan Breslauer.
His position, not the position of Pan Breslauer, but the secretary, was dreadful, so dreadful, indeed, that one would need the style of Victor Hugo to describe it.
First of all, he feels a raging pain in his wound. That reading of "Isabella," which for him had been always the dearest pleasure and recreation, now increases, not only the pain, but the bitterness which torments him after that adventure with Kruchek. He has a slight fever, and is barely able to collect his thoughts. At times terrible visions come to him. He has just read how young Serrano arrived at the palace of the Escurial covered with wounds after a brilliant victory over the Carlists.
The youthful Isabella, pale with emotion, receives him. The muslin rises in waves above her bosom.
"General, thou art wounded!" says she with trembling voice to Serrano.
Here it seems to the unhappy Zolzik that he is really Serrano.
"Oi! oi! I am wounded!" repeated he, in a stifled voice. "Oh, queen, pardon! But may the most serene—"