Her
beautiful face grew dark, distorted by horror and despair. Her hands
fell limply to her side as she sat down on the bed.
"What shall I do?" she said, as if thinking aloud. "Drown myself?"
"No, no! Don't talk like that!"
Lida looked hard at him.
"Do you know, Victor Sergejevitsch, I feel pretty sure that such a
thing would not displease you," she said.
In her eyes and in her pretty quivering mouth there was something so
sad, so pitiful, that Sarudine involuntarily turned away.
Lida rose. The thought, consoling at first, that she would find in him
her saviour with whom she would always live, now inspired her with
horror and loathing. She longed to shake her fist at him, to fling her
scorn in his face, to revenge herself on him for having humiliated her
thus. But she felt that at the very first words she would burst into
tears. A last spark of pride, all that remained of the handsome,
dashing Lida, deterred her. In a tone of such intense scorn that it
surprised herself as much as Sarudine, she hissed out,
"You brute!"
Then she rushed out of the room, tearing the lace trimming of her
sleeve which caught on the bolt of the door.
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