A Sportsman's Sketches, Volume 2 eBook

XIII

If anyone had looked at Tchertop-hanov then; if anyone could have been a witness of the sullen exasperation with which he drained glass after glass—­he would inevitably have felt an involuntary shudder of fear.  The night came on, the tallow candle burnt dimly on the table.  Tchertop-hanov ceased wandering from corner to corner; he sat all flushed, with dull eyes, which he dropped at one time on the floor, at another fixed obstinately on the dark window; he got up, poured out some vodka, drank it off, sat down again, again fixed his eyes on one point, and did not stir—­only his breathing grew quicker and his face still more flushed.  It seemed as though some resolution were ripening within him, which he was himself ashamed of, but which he was gradually getting used to; one single thought kept obstinately and undeviatingly moving up closer and closer, one single image stood out more and more distinctly, and under the burning weight of heavy drunkenness the angry irritation was replaced by a feeling of ferocity in his heart, and a vindictive smile appeared on his lips.

‘Yes, the time has come!’ he declared in a matter-of-fact, almost weary tone.  ‘I must get to work.’

He drank off the last glass of vodka, took from over his bed the pistol—­the very pistol from which he had shot at Masha—­loaded it, put some cartridges in his pocket—­to be ready for anything—­and went round to the stables.

The watchman ran up to him when he began to open the door, but he shouted to him:  ‘It’s I!  Are you blind?  Get out!’ The watchman moved a little aside.  ‘Get out and go to bed!’ Tchertop-hanov shouted at him again:  ’there’s nothing for you to guard here!  A mighty wonder, a treasure indeed to watch over!’ He went into the stable.  Malek-Adel... the spurious Malek-Adel, was lying on his litter.  Tchertop-hanov gave him a kick, saying, ‘Get up, you brute!’ Then he unhooked a halter from a nail, took off the horsecloth and flung it on the ground, and roughly turning the submissive horse round in the box, led it out into the courtyard, and from the yard into the open country, to the great amazement of the watchman, who could not make out at all where the master was going off to by night, leading an unharnessed horse.  He was, of course, afraid to question him, and only followed him with his eyes till he disappeared at the bend in the road leading to a neighbouring wood.

XIV

Tchertop-hanov walked with long strides, not stopping nor looking round.  Malek-Adel—­we will call him by that name to the end—­followed him meekly.  It was a rather clear night; Tchertop-hanov could make out the jagged outline of the forest, which formed a black mass in front of him.  When he got into the chill night air, he would certainly have thrown off the intoxication of the vodka he had drunk, if it had not been for another, stronger intoxication, which completely over-mastered him.  His head was heavy, his blood pulsed in thuds in his throat and ears, but he went on steadily, and knew where he was going.