'
The old man retired and left him alone before the fire--alone with his
heart, alone with his misery. Tortured by his inward agitation, he rose
and began to pace the room. He was haunted by a vision of Elena, and
each time he came as far as the window and turned, he fancied he saw her
and started violently. His nerves were in such an overstrung condition
that they only increased the disorder of his imagination. The
hallucination grew more distinct. He stood still and covered his face
with his hands for a moment to control his excitement, and then returned
to his seat by the fire.
This time another image rose before him--that of Elena's husband.
He knew him better now. That very evening in a box at the theatre, Elena
had introduced them to one another, and he had seized that opportunity
to examine him attentively in detail with the keenest curiosity, as
though he hoped to obtain some revelation, to draw some secret from him.
He could still hear the man's voice--a voice of very peculiar tone,
somewhat harsh and strident, with an interrogative inflection at the end
of each sentence. Again he saw those pale, pale eyes under the great
prominent forehead, eyes that at times assumed a hideous, glassy, dead
look, and at others lit up with an indefinable gleam that savoured of
madness. Those hands too, he saw--white and smooth and thickly covered
with sandy yellow down, and with something obscene in their every
movement; their way of raising the opera-glass, of unfolding a
handkerchief, of reclining on the cushion in front of the box or turning
over the pages of the libretto--hands instinct with vice.
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