He repeated these words in a muffled voice as if they had burst from him with a painful effort. I felt his hand trembling, and even seemed to hear the rage boiling in his breast. My head sank lower and lower, and tears began to drip slowly out of my eyes upon the floor, but I still kept repeating almost inaudibly:
“No, I won’t tell; I’ll never, never tell.”
It was my father’s son speaking in me. He could never have succeeded in extorting an answer from me, no, not by the fiercest tortures. There welled up in my breast in response to his threats the almost unconscious feeling of injury that comes to an ill-used child, and a sort of burning love for those whose betrayal my father was demanding.
My father drew a deep breath. I shrank away still farther, and the bitter tears scalded my cheeks. I waited.
It would be hard for me to describe my sensations at that moment. I knew that his breast was seething with rage, and that at any moment my body might be struggling helplessly in his strong, delirious arms. What would he do to me? Would he hurl me from him? Would he crush me? But I did not seem to dread that now. I even loved the man in that moment of fear, but, at the same time, I felt instinctively that he was about to shatter this love with one mad effort, and that for ever and ever after I should carry the same little flame of hatred in my heart which I had seen gleaming in his eyes.
I had lost all sense of fear. Instead, there had begun to throb in my heart a feeling exasperating, bold, challenging; I seemed to be waiting, and longing for the catastrophe to come at last.
It would be better so—yes—better—better——
Once more my father sighed heavily. I was no longer looking at him. I only heard his sighs, long, deep, and convulsive, and I know not to this day whether he himself overcame the frenzy that possessed him or whether it failed to find an outlet owing to an unexpected occurrence. I only know that at that critical moment Tiburtsi suddenly shouted under the open window in his harsh voice:
“Hi, there, my poor little friend!”
“Tiburtsi is here!” flashed through my mind, but his coming made no other impression on me. I was all beside myself with suspense, and did not even heed the trembling of my father’s hand upon my shoulder, or realise that Tiburtsi’s appearance or any other external circumstance could come between my father and myself, or could avert that which I believed to be inevitable, and which I was awaiting with such a flood of passionate anger.