“I understand!” he spoke sadly, and pushed his chair close to her. “You wish to part with me; they say you have another--some one from the first row of the orchestra. Well, let us part. But why all this subterfuge and why quarrel? I do not wish that all this should end so badly--with a quarrel. I wish at least to keep the memory. But, Julia, know that all those--from the first row--despise you--humiliate you--love in you only the flesh. And I--Why I--l-o-v-e you, the devil take you, accursed one!” He grasped her arm above the elbow and shook her with his large paws. “Phui! How rude! He abuses me! Let me go! Let me go, I say; you will dislocate my arm! Ruffian!” She longed to quarrel with him. And he, on his part, felt an influx of ferocious wrath, a passionate longing to tear, lacerate, beat, and throw her out. He grasped her arms still tighter. His eyes turned a greenish color, his teeth gave out a grating sound. “Ai!” she cried. But he fell on his knees before her. “Sweetest, dearest, my golden one, my sun, my joy! You are my--all; all my thoughts, all my feelings, everything is for you, from you, and--about you! Oh, I am rude; I am--a brute, but I love you! Without you there is no life for me; I will again sink to the bottom from which you raised me! Well, darling, well, my happiness, forgive me. You see I kiss your hands, your dress. Forgive!” And on his bent knees this big, powerful man caught the tiny hands of the tiny woman and kissed them, kissed her dress, and wept. When he lifted his head he suddenly caught her glance directed toward him, a strange, attentive glance. In this glance of her moist, black eyes there was no love, nor pity for him; nor even contempt, but something offensive, resembling curiosity, but more heartless than curiosity. It was the curiosity of a vivisectionist, the curiosity he exhibits when dissecting a live rabbit, or that of a naturalist when he sticks his pin through a rare beetle, and looks on at its contortions. He even now interested her--but only as something primitive, original: his sharp transitions from rudeness to tenderness, the strangeness of the declaration, the sudden fits of ferocious rage only to humble himself before her and to weep a moment later--all this was very interesting. But Kostovsky’s mind was suddenly illuminated, as if by lightning: he understood all at once the real relation of Julia toward him, and felt that he had received a deadly wound at her hands, that she was only interested in him, but she had never loved him, could not love him; that she was a being from a world other than his--that he was a total stranger to her. The words died away in his heart. He grew silent, caught his hat, and without another glance at Julia rushed out of the room and the hotel.