for your sake, all but the thief, who broke the jaw of comrade Alex Alexandroff. Yes, I would have pardoned them to-night, because I am happy. Else they would have died with Sophia Kensky in the morning. . . . Do I not please you, that I put away this woman, who was my eyes and saw for me—all for your sake, my little pigeon, all for your sake I . . . Do you see a big man with one eye? He has half my misfortune, yet he sees a million times more than Boolba! That is the butcher Klreml—some day he shall see the Kreml[1]," he chuckled. . . . "Why do you not speak, my darling little mama? Are you thinking of the days when I was Boolba the slave? Na, na, stoi! Think of to-day, to-night, my little child of Jesus!"
There were times when she could have screamed, moments of madness when she longed to pick up one of the champagne bottles which littered the floor, and at intervals were thrown with a crash into a corner of the room, and strike him across that great brutal face. There were times when she was physically sick and the room spun round and round and she would have fallen but for the man's arm. But the hour she dreaded most of all came at last, when, one by one, with coarse jests at her expense,
- ↑ "Kreml" is literally Kremlin, one of the places of detention in Moscow.
