Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - In Vain.djvu/219

Rh "Yosef!"

"Speak!"

"She knows nothing. I told her nothing."

Yosef's voice was dull and hoarse when he asked,—

"Why hast thou done me this injustice?"

"I thought that thou wouldst return to her."

Yosef twisted his hands till the fingers were cracking in their joints; Augustinovich's last words fell on him like red-hot coals. Return to her? That was to abandon Helena, and did not conscience itself defend Helena's cause? To return to Lula was to purchase the happiness of a lifetime, but to return to her was to dishonor Helena, to kill her, to become contemptible, to purchase contempt for himself. Oh, misfortune!

In Yosef's soul was taking place that devil's dance of a man with himself. Yosef was dancing with Yosef to the music of that orchestra of passion. Various thoughts, plans, methods, stormed in him; the battle raged along the whole line.

Augustinovich looked at his comrade with a face which was despairingly stupid, and he would have liked, as the saying is, to take himself by his own collar and throw himself out of doors.