Malevsky laughed and turned his back on me. He, most likely, attached no great importance to what he had said to me, he had a reputation for mystifying, and was noted for his power of taking people in at masquerades, which was greatly augmented by the almost unconscious falsity in which his whole nature was steeped.
. . . He only wanted to tease me; but every word he uttered was a poison that ran through my veins. The blood rushed to my head. 'Ah! so that's it!' I said to myself; 'good! So there was reason for me to feel drawn into the garden! That shan't be so!' I cried aloud, and struck myself on the chest with my fist, though precisely what should not be so I could not have said. 'Whether Malevsky himself goes into the garden,' I thought (he was bragging, perhaps; he has insolence enough for that), 'or some one else (the fence of our garden was very low, and there was no difficulty in getting over it), anyway, if any one falls into my hands, it will be the worse for him! I don't advise any one to meet me! I will prove to all the world and to her, the traitress (I actually used the word 'traitress') that I can be revenged!'
I returned to my own room, took out of the writing-table an English knife I had recently bought, felt its sharp edge, and knitting my brows with an air of cold and concentrated
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