Lunev stood with his back against a maple-tree, his head thrown back,
staring at the grave of the man he had murdered. He had pushed his
cap off his brow, and it was pressed against the tree by the back of
his head. His eyebrows were dark, his upper lip twitched, showing his
teeth; his hands were deep in his jacket pockets, and his feet braced
against the ground.
Poluektov's monument represented a coffin, and carved on it an open
book, and a skull and crossbones. Beside it in the same enclosure
was another smaller stone with an inscription that beneath it rested
Eupraxia Poluektov, twenty-two years old.
"The first wife," thought Lunev. The thought came from only a small
part of his brain, that remained free from the straining labour of his
memory. He was gripped by the recollections of Poluektov; the first
meeting, the murder, the feeling of the old man's saliva on his hands.
But while all this stirred to life in his memory, he felt no trouble,
no remorse, he looked at the gravestone with hate and bitterness and
deep ill-will; and under his breath, with hot anger in his heart, and a
real conviction of the truth of his words, he addressed the merchant:
"It's for you, damn you, that I ruined all my life, for you! You devil.
What life is it I lead, through you! I have smirched myself for ever
through you."
The words "for you" thumped in him like hammer strokes. He longed to
cry with all his might these words for every one to hear, and he could
hardly restrain the fierce desire. He pressed his teeth together till
they ached, and stared before him while the thought of his life took
hold of his soul like fire. Before him appeared the little, spiteful
face, and near it somehow the wicked, bald head of Strogany with the
red eyebrows, the self-satisfied face of Petrusha, the stupid Kirik,
the grey head of Ehrenov, snub-nosed and pig-eyed--a whole crowd of
familiar faces. There was a roaring in his ears, and it seemed as
though all these men surrounded him, pressed on him, crowded him
obstinately. He stepped away from the tree; his cap fell down behind
him; as he bent to pick it up, he could not help stealing a sidelong
glance at the money-changer's gravestone. He felt hot and sick, his
face was full of blood, his eyes were strained with the tenseness of
their gaze. With great difficulty he tore them away, walked straight up
to the enclosure, grasped the railings in his hands and trembling with
hate, spat on the grave; as he went away he stamped his feet on the
ground as though to free them from a pain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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