Page:Andreyev - The Little Angel (Knopf, 1916).djvu/223

Rh "There is no escape!" Mitrofan Krilov interpreted her restlessness. "You may jump, you may jump, my dove, and I'll make it still stronger."

And growing ever more and more inspired, forgetting his hunger, and the nasty weather, elated with his creative power, he began to simulate a spy as cleverly as if he were a real actor or as if he actually served in the secret police department. His body wriggled in fine serpentine twists and turns, his eyes beamed with treachery, and his right hand, lowered in his pocket, clutched the torn car ticket energetically, as if it were not a piece of paper, but a revolver loaded with six bullets, or a spy's notebook. And now he attracted the attention of other people as well as that of the girl. A stout, red-haired merchant, who occupied one-third of the platform, suddenly contracted his body imperceptibly, as though he had grown thin at once, and turned aside. A tall fellow, with a cape over his top coat, blinked his rabbit-like eyes as he stared at Krilov, and suddenly, pushing the girl aside, jumped off the car and disappeared among the carriages.

"Excellent!" Mitrofan Krilov praised himself, overjoyed with the hidden and spiteful delight of a choleric man. In renouncing his individuality, in the fact that he pretended he was such an odious creature as a spy, and that people feared and despised him—in all this there was something keen, something pleasantly alarming,