Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/409

 abandon myself to this feeling?' and immediately replied to myself that it was right, that this would frighten her, and so, instead of opposing myself to this rage, I began to fan it in myself and to take pleasure in its spreading more and more in me.

"'Get away, or I will kill you!' I shouted, walking up to her and grasping her arm. I consciously increased the intonations of rage in my voice, as I was saying this. I must have been terrible, because she was so intimidated that she did not have sufficient strength to leave, and only said: 'Vásya, what is the matter with you, what is the matter?'—'Get out!' I bellowed louder still. 'You will drive me to insanity. I will not answer for myself!'

"Having given the reins to my fury, I was intoxicated by it and wanted to do something unusual, which would show the highest degree of my fury. I just burned to strike and kill her, but I knew that this could not be, and so, to give full vent to my rage, I grabbed a paper-weight from the table and, crying once more, 'Get out!' I hurled it against the floor beyond her. I aimed purposely beyond her. Then she started to leave the room, but stopped at the door. And here, while she was able to see it (I did it that she should see it), I picked up a number of things from the table, candlesticks, the inkstand, and began to throw them on the floor, continuing to cry out: 'Get out! Go away! I will not answer for myself!' She went away, and I immediately stopped.

"An hour later the nurse came and informed me that my wife was in hysterics. I went to her: she was sobbing and laughing; she was unable to say a word, and continually shuddered with her whole body. There was no pretence there: she was really ill.

"Toward morning she quieted down, and we made up under the influence of that feeling which we called love.

"In the morning, when, after the pacification, I confessed to her that I was jealous of Trukhachévski, she was