This brought great relief straightway; and while the melting snow flowed down in red streaks over his mustaches, he collected another handful and applied it again. Besides, he began to eat snow eagerly, and that also brought relief to him. After a time the immense weight which he felt on his head became so much lighter that he called to mind all that had happened. But at the first moment he felt neither rage, anger, nor despair; bodily pain had deadened all other feelings, and left but one wish,—the wish to save himself quickly.
Azya, when he had eaten a number of handfuls more of snow, began to look for his horse; the horse was not there; then he understood that if he did not wish to wait till his men came to look for him, he must go on foot. Supporting himself on the ground with his hands, he tried to rise, but howled from pain and sat down again.
He sat perhaps an hour, and again began to make efforts. This time he succeeded in so far that he rose, and, resting his shoulders against the cliff, was able to remain on his feet; but when he remembered that he must leave the support and make one step, then a second and a third in the empty expanse, a feeling of weakness and fear seized him so firmly that he almost sat down again.
Still he mastered himself, drew his sabre, leaned on it, and pushed forward; he succeeded. After some steps he felt that his body and feet were strong, that he had perfect command of them, only his head was, as it were, not his own, and like an enormous weight was swaying now to the right, now to the left, now to the front. He had a feeling also as if he were carrying that head, shaky and too heavy, with extraordinary care, and with extraordinary fear that he would drop it on the stones and break it.
At times, too, the head turned him around, as if it wished him to go in a circle. At times it became dark in his one eye; then he supported himself with both hands on the sabre. The dizziness of his head passed away gradually; but the pain increased always, and bored, as it were, into his forehead, into his eyes, into his whole head, till whining was forced from his breast. The echoes of the rocks repeated his groans, and he went forward in that desert, bloody, terrible, more like a vampire than a man.
It was growing dark when he heard the tramp of a horse in front.
It was the orderly coming for commands.
That evening Azya had strength to order pursuit; but immediately after he lay down on skins, and for three days could see no one except the Greek barber[25] who dressed his wounds, and Halim, who assisted the barber. Only on the fourth day did he regain his speech, and with it consciousness of what had happened.
Straightway his feverish thoughts followed Basia. He saw her fleeing among rocks and in wild places; she seemed to him a bird that was flying away forever; he saw her nearing Hreptyoff, saw her in the arms of her husband, and at that sight a pain carried him away which was more savage than his wound, and with the pain sorrow, and with the sorrow shame for the defeat which he had suffered.
“She has fled, she has fled!” repeated he, continually; and rage stifled him so that at times presence of mind seemed to be leaving him again.