From this rosy summer morn;
Come! the golden hours are fleeting.…’”
The blood rushed to Irene’s head.
“He is gay and happy!” she thought. “In whose arms has he gleaned this joy?”
And such an insufferable sense of insult and of irony conveyed itself to her mind through Gzhatski’s light-hearted greeting, that with a sudden impulse she seized the glass and swallowed the poison in one draught.
The door opened, and Gzhatski entered.
“Oh! you are quite ready!” he exclaimed. “Why didn’t you answer? There I stood, like a Spanish hidalgo, declaiming at your door! What is the matter? Why do you look so tragic?”
Irene looked at him in silence, and crossed her arms on her chest.
“I saw you come out from that room at dawn,” she said, in a low whisper and with, trembling lips.