Everything had turned out different from what he had anticipated. Out of vapidity and nonsense there had crept forth a chaos—savage, drunken, and hysterical, with a crumpled, distorted face.
He shrugged his shoulders, put away the useless revolver, and began pacing the room, up and down. The girl was crying.
To and fro again. The girl was crying. He stopped beside her, his hands in his pockets, to look at her.
There, under his eyes, face down, lay a woman sobbing frantically in an agony of unbearable sorrow, sobbing as one who looks suddenly back on a wasted life or a better life irretrievably lost. Her naked, finely tapering shoulder blades were heaving as though to heap fuel on the raging furnace within, and sinking as though to compress the tense anguish in her bosom.
The music had started afresh; a mazurka now. And the jingle of spurs could be heard. Some officers must have come.
Such tears he had never seen! He was disconcerted. He took his hands out of his pockets, and said gently:
»Liuba!«
Still she sobbed.
»Liuba! What is the matter, Liuba?«
She answered, but so faintly that he could not hear. He sat by her on the bed, bent his shorn head, and laid a hand on her shoulders; and his hand responded with a quiver to the trembling of those pitiable shoulders.