She longed to quarrel with him. And he, on his part, felt an influx of ferocious wrath, a passionate longing to tear, lacerate, beat, and throw her out.
He grasped her arms still tighter. His eyes turned a greenish color, his teeth gave out a grating sound.
“Ai!” she cried. But he fell on his knees before her.
“Sweetest, dearest, my golden one, my sun, my joy! You are my—all; all my thoughts, all my feelings, everything is for you, from you, and—about you! Oh, I am rude; I am—a brute, but I love you! Without you there is no life for me; I will again sink to the bottom from which you raised me! Well, darling, well, my happiness, forgive me. You see I kiss your hands, your dress. Forgive!”
And on his bent knees this big, powerful man caught the tiny hands of the tiny woman and kissed them, kissed her dress, and wept.
When he lifted his head he suddenly caught her glance directed toward him, a strange, attentive glance. In this glance of her moist, black eyes there was no love, nor pity for him; nor even contempt, but something offensive, resembling curiosity, but more heartless than curiosity. It was the curiosity of a vivisectionist, the curiosity he exhibits when dissecting a live rabbit, or that of a naturalist when he sticks his pin through a rare beetle, and looks on at its contortions. He even now interested her—but only as something primitive, original: his sharp transitions from rudeness to tenderness, the strangeness of the declaration, the sudden fits of ferocious rage only to humble himself before her and to weep a moment later—all this was very interesting.
But Kostovsky’s mind was suddenly illuminated, as if by lightning: he understood all at once the real relation of Julia toward him, and felt that he had received a deadly wound at her hands, that she was only interested in him, but she had never loved him, could not love him; that she was a being from a world other than his—that he was a total stranger to her. The words died away in his heart. He grew silent, caught his hat, and without another glance at Julia rushed out of the room and the hotel.
Kostovsky found himself suddenly in a dirty dramshop, where his steps had almost unconsciously led him. He had not drunk for a long time, but now he felt a terrible necessity for the dramshop, the noise, the clinking of the glasses, and the smell of bad vodka.
He sat in a corner of the dramshop, alone, at a small table. Before him stood a large bottle of vodka and the noxious side-dishes peculiar to such resorts. The dirty table-cloth was stained with vodka and beer, and the kerosene hanging-lamp dimly lighted the room, filled with tipsy people. They were all bawling, drinking, and clinking their glasses; the pale-faced waiters ran around, serving the drinks, and in the adjoining room cracked the billiard-balls, and some one of the players, whenever he hit the ball, sang out in a merry tenor voice a popular song: “Wherever I go, or stroll, I see only Ju-li-a, only Ju-li-a.”
“Oh, the devil!” muttered Kostovsky, pouring out the tenth glass, and gloomily draining it. He was irritated because even here in the dramshop “she” was persecuting him. He had decided to “forget” her for evermore: he hated and despised her, and did not wish to remember her at all.