Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/426

 receipt,—get the luggage. Go!' He went along the corridor for his overcoat. Fearing lest he might scare them up, I went with him as far as his room and waited until he was dressed.

"In the drawing-room, beyond another room, was heard conversation and the sound of knives and plates. They were eating and had not heard the bell. 'If only it may turn out I am wrong!' I thought. Egór put on his Astrakhan fur overcoat and went out. I let him out and locked the door after him; I felt uneasy when I felt that I was left alone, and that I must act at once. I did not yet know how. I only knew that now everything was ended, that there could be no doubts in regard to her guilt, and that I would immediately punish her and break all my relations with her.

"Before this time I wavered and said to myself, 'Maybe this is not true, maybe I am mistaken,' but now there was nothing of that. Everything was irrevocably decided upon. Secretly from me, all alone with him in the night! This is a complete oblivion of everything! Or worse still: there is purposely such boldness and impudence in the crime in order that this boldness may serve as a token of innocence. Everything is clear,—no doubt is possible. I was afraid of this one thing that they would run away and concoct some new deception, thus depriving me of the palpable evidence and possibility of proof; therefore, in order to catch them at once, I went on tiptoe to the parlour, where they were sitting, not through the drawing-room, but through the corridor and the children's rooms.

"In the first room the boys were sleeping. In the second, the nurse moved and was about to awaken. Imagining what she would think if she found out everything, such a pity for myself overcame me at the thought that I was unable to repress tears and, in order not to wake the children, I ran on tiptoe into the corridor and