Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/435



thing happened! When I left my room and walked through the familiar rooms, I again was stirred by the hope that nothing had happened, but the smell of the physician's nasty things, of the iodoform and carbolic acid, startled me. Yes, it has happened. Walking along the corridor, past the children's room, I saw Líza. She looked at me with frightened eyes. I thought that all five of the children were there, looking at me. I went up to the door, and the chambermaid opened it for me from within and went out. The first thing that my eyes fell upon was her light gray dress upon the chair, all black with gore. On our double bed—on my bed (it was easier to get at it)—she lay with uplifted knees. She lay in a very inclined position, on pillows, with her bodice unbuttoned. There was something placed over the wound. The room was filled with the heavy odour of iodoform. Nothing impressed me so much as her swollen face, with part of the nose and the lower part of the eyes blue and discoloured. This was the result of the blow with my elbow, when she tried to keep me back. There was no beauty whatever, and I saw only something abominable in her. I stopped at the threshold. 'Go up, go up to her,' her sister said to me. 'No doubt she wants to confess,' I thought, trying to be magnanimous. I walked over to her. She with difficulty raised her eyes, one of which was badly bruised, and she muttered with difficulty and hesitatingly:

"'You have accomplished it, you have killed me—'