Page:The Bet and Other Stories.djvu/102

90 fear to raise my head. The terror is unaccountable, animal. I cannot understand why I am afraid. Is it because I want to live, or because a new and unknown pain awaits me?

Upstairs, above the ceiling, a moan, then a laugh. . . I listen. A little after steps sound on the staircase. Someone hurries down, then up again. In a minute steps sound downstairs again. Someone stops by my door and listens.

"Who's there?" I call.

The door opens. I open my eyes boldly and see my wife. Her face is pale and her eyes red with weeping.

"You're not asleep, Nicolai Stiepanovich?" she asks.

"What is it?"

"For God's sake go down to Liza. Something is wrong with her."

"Very well . . . with pleasure," I murmur, very glad that I am not alone. "Very well . . . immediately."

As I follow my wife I hear what she tells me, and from agitation understand not a word. Bright spots from her candle dance over the steps of the stairs; our long shadows tremble; my feet catch in the skirts of my dressing-gown. My breath goes, and it seems to me that someone is chasing me, trying to seize my back. "I shall die here on the staircase, this second," I think, "this second." But we have passed the staircase, the dark hall with the Italian window and we go into Liza's room. She sits