For the moment, Joseph stared, stupidly. Then, all at once, he was up and at Ivan, lurching forward upon him, clutching, impotently, at his throat, breathing gutturally, while he uttered inarticulate syllables in the tongue of a serf.
Ivan, even in his disgust at this revelation of the man's lowest self, his unquestionable bad blood, held him off, easily. In a moment or two, indeed, he had the half-drunken, wholly exhausted creature back in his chair, panting and helpless.
Even now, it seemed, Joseph could meet his eyes. A long look passed between them, and Ivan perceived that the painter had come enough to himself to try to analyze his position. He was, however, wholly unprepared when the fellow sprang at him again, this time with a wild shriek:
"Ah! You devil!—You devil!—It was you, you who have taken her from me!—My God!—You!"
"Kashkarin, listen!—Be silent.—You can't hurt me.—Listen!"
There was too much quiet mastery in that voice for disobedience. Joseph became suddenly quiet.
"I came here this afternoon to see what was to be done for you. When I arrived, Mademoiselle Patrovna was on the point of departure. She was well aware that you were being ruined through her; and so she left you. She told me she should be cared for.—There is some one else. I let her go, gladly, knowing it to be well for you. And now—"
The interruption this time was a burst of furious laughter, so loud, so fierce, that Ivan was appalled. Joseph, it seemed, had become a demon. When at last he spoke, it was only to repeat some of Ivan's words: "Aware she was ruining me!—Was!—Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!—And you believed it 'well' for me!—'Well!'—Ah-ha-ha-ha!—Thou hast wit, Ivan!"
Ivan's eyes, piercing the hideous mask that hid an agony, softened. He went impulsively forward, clasping Joseph's frail body in his own, strong arms. "Joseph, I do not mock you. I helped you once. You know that. Trust me again, then. You are not ruined. I have enough to pay your debts, ten times over. Leave the matter to me. Come to my house. There you shall rest, and wait for the strength that seems gone. With me it shall come back to you, the old beauty, the old power of art—"
Again was Joseph seized in the grasp of his haunting devils. Extricating himself violently from the kindly clasp, he turned away from Ivan and stood for a moment mute. When he again faced round, his face was all but irrecognizable. And through the tirade that followed, this demoniac look grew more and more horrible, till Ivan felt himself overwhelmed: as much by Joseph's appearance as by his words. For the moment, the man was beyond sanity. And from the depths of his bemired soul poured fragments of that understanding that still remained to him: