“So this is the part that has been allotted to you in Sergei’s life!” she hissed. “You are the ideal, the image of his mother, the statue of purity that stands on a pedestal surrounded by respect and homage! I am sick to death of this eternal respect! I want love—one month, one day, one hour of love! But no—love belongs only to such as Carmen; never will it fall to my lot! Oh! if this is so, if this is so, I do not want to live!”
A bitter resentment against God took possession of Irene’s soul. “What is the object of this mockery?” she groaned. “Thou knowest that if I had entered a convent I should have been an exemplary nun. Of what use was it to distract me from my purpose, and send me a hope of happiness, only to shatter it cruelly with a derisive laugh? As if I had not suffered enough without this! All my life has been nothing but suffering, nothing but pain. But to Thee, this seemed insufficient—there was still this last refinement of torture to apply! But who art Thou in the end, thou mighty torturer of men’s souls? Thou art no God, no just and generous Being, such as He whom my imagination had created. No—Thou art a vampire, sucking the blood of men’s hearts! But I will be even with Thee yet. I will prove myself the stronger of the two. I will kill myself, and so deprive Thee of the joy of torturing me.”
“Pull yourself together,” whispered reason. “Look at life more soberly. Your Sergei is not perhaps as depraved as it would seem. There was nothing to prevent his passing all his life in the company of beautiful Carmens, and yet you know how he has been struggling all the winter to win you. That was because he felt that only you could give him happiness. Cannot you, in return, struggle a little for him? Will you not try with the strength of your love to keep alight in him the divine spark that burns in every human soul? You are pure and virtuous, and therefore stronger than all the Carmens in the world. Victory belongs to you, and not to them!”
“No, no, no!” answered Irene. “I cannot, and will not—for I do not love him any more. He is repulsive to me. I loved a strong, honest, ideal man. What do I want with this pitiful wretch, who has not enough strength of mind to follow the dictates of his own conscience? Could I ever forget the look of that contemptible, cowardly figure, stealing guiltily along the passage after an iniquitous interview with his loathsome associate! His bright image in my heart is shattered for ever, never again can I look at him in the old way.”
The savage beast that Gzhatski had once mentioned to Irene had awakened in her, and growled and roared, its appetite roused and unsatisfied!…
“I will drown myself—throw myself from the rocks above the Monaco gardens!” she thought. But the idea of going out into the sunshine and facing the triumphant glory of Southern nature, caused her to frown nervously.
“They are all happy out there,” she muttered angrily. “Very well, they can be as happy as they like. It is all the same to me. I must do away with myself here, in this dark room.”
Her glance swept the walls in search of a nail, and returned to the table, arrested by a glass of pinkish water.
On arriving at Monte Carlo Irene had developed, on account of the strong sea air, a slight rash on her face. Having just at that time been very particular about her appearance, she had applied to a doctor, who had given her a lotion composed of a solution of sublimate, with the warning that it was a strong poison, for external application only. Irene had prepared the solution each evening, in readiness for use the following morning, and a glassful of it was now standing temptingly on her table. She approached. In her imagination she saw frightful tortures and frantic pains.