“My visitor gone, I found myself alone. The storm seemed to be hemming me in on every side. Then suddenly I heard a cry, and hasty footsteps in the courtyard below. Above all I could hear loud shouts of ‘The factory is on fire!’ I remained cowering in a corner of my room, though every one else went running out of doors, until only I and my mother were left in the house. I knew that she was dying, since it was three days since she had left the bed on which she was fated to breathe her last. Yes, I knew it, accursed woman that I was! . . . Then there came the sound of another cry—this time just below my room; a feeble cry like that of some dreaming child. Then again silence. . . . I put out my candle. My blood felt as though it were frozen, and I hid my face in my hands, for I had not the courage to look out of my eyes. Suddenly there arose a clamour close at hand. The workmen were returning from the factory. Leaning far out of the window, I could see the form of my father being borne along on a stretcher—dead! Also I could hear the workmen saying to one another, ‘He tripped, and fell from a ladder into the white-hot cellar below. The Devil must have pushed him.’ . . . Throwing myself upon my bed, I lay there shuddering—lay there hardly knowing whom or what I was expecting. How long I remained in that condition I do not remember. I only remember that my nerves were in an agony of suspense, that my head was aching, and that the smoke from the burning factory was making my eyes smart. Indeed, the thought that perhaps I was going to die seemed to me pleasant rather than otherwise. Suddenly I felt myself lifted up by the shoulders, and saw (so far as the smoke would permit me) him, him, with his clothes singed and full of cinders!

“ ‘I have come to look for you, my fair one,’ he said. ‘Save me, for it is you who have wrought my ruin—it is you for whom I have lost my soul. How shall I ever atone for this accursed night? Suppose that we were to pray together?’ He laughed, did that man of dread! ‘Show me how I am to get out of the house and escape.’

“I took his arm, and led him along the passage (for I had the keys of all the doors) until we reached a dark cupboard, where I pointed out to him a window which gave upon the garden. Seizing me in his powerful arms, he leapt with me through the window, and for a long time we ran hand in hand, until we had reached a dense, dark forest. There he stopped a moment to listen.

“ ‘We are being pursued, Katerina,’ he said. ‘We are being pursued. But the hour of my death is not yet come. Embrace me, fair one, in honour of our happiness and eternal love.’