"My God! what do you think it has been like since the beginning?" he
said. "Your silly prudish fears and airs. And still I loved you--madly
loved you. And since the night when I kissed your sweet lips you have
made me go through hell--cold and provoking and disdainful, and last
night when you defied me, then I determined you should belong to me by
force; and now it is only a question of time. No power in heaven or
earth can save you--Ah! if you had been different, how happy we might
have been! But it is too late; the devil has won, and soon I will do
what I please."
Tamara never stirred, and the strain of keeping the pistol to her head
made her wrist ache.
For a long time there was silence, and the great heat caused a mist to
swim before her eyes, and an overpowering drowsiness--Oh, heaven!--if
unconsciousness should come upon her!
Then the daylight faded quite, and the Prince got up and lit a small
oil lamp and set it on the shelf. He opened the stove and let the glow
from the door flood through the room.
Then he sat down again.
A benumbing agony crept over Tamara; her brain grew confused in the
hot, airless room. It seemed as if everything swam round her. All she
saw clearly were Gritzko's eyes.
There was a deathly silence, but for an occasional moan of the wind in
the pine trees. The drift of snow without showed white as it gradually
blocked the window.
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