Kreisler thrust his mouth forward amorously, his body in the attitude of the eighteenth-century gallant, as though Soltyk had been a woman.
The will broke out frantically from the midst of bandages and a bulk of suddenly accruing fury. Soltyk tore at himself first, writhing upright, a statue’s bronze softening, suddenly, with blood. He became white and red by turns. His blood, one heavy mass, hurtled about in him, up and down, like a sturgeon in a narrow tank.
All the pilules he had taken seemed acting sedatively against the wildness of his muscles. The bromium fought the blood.
His hands were electrified. Will was at last dashed all over him, an Arctic douche. The hands flew at Kreisler’s throat. His nails made six holes in the flesh and cut into the tendons beneath. Kreisler was hurled about. He was pumped backwards and forwards. His hands grabbed a mass of hair; as a man slipping on a precipice gets hold of a plant. Then they gripped along the coat-sleeves, connecting him with the engine he had just overcharged with fuel. A sallow white, he became puffed and exhausted.
“Acha—acha—” a noise, the beginning of a word, came from his mouth. He sank on his knees. A notion of endless violence filled him. “Tchun—tchun—tchun—tchun—tchun—tchun!” He fell on his back, and the convulsive arms came with him. The strangling sensation at his neck intensified.
Meanwhile a breath of absurd violence had smitten everywhere.
Staretsky had said:
“That crapule is beneath contempt! Pouah!—I refuse to act. Whatever induced us⸺”
Bitzenko had begun a discourse. Staretsky turned on him, shrieking, “Foute-moi la paix, imbécile!”