Yesterday, for the first time since I have been here, a thing happened that frightened me. And I am sure it would have alarmed anybody.
I was strolling about in the twilight, when all of a sudden a frightful scream burst out from somewhere. I thought I saw Velitcho run out of the lodge and dash into the thicket.
When I reached the lodge, I saw Ossip standing with his eyes on the darkening jungle. When I asked him what had happened, he said that Velitcho had been in pursuit of a curlew. The next day Velitcho brought me one that he had killed.
It was a strange little creature with an immense beak as long as a dagger. But why had they made such a fuss over this poor little bird?
I laughed as I felt of its ash-colored plumage, but I knew my laugh rang false, and I haven't recovered from the shock yet.
I certainly am not as well as I ought to be, although I am eating like a wolf and Ossip is outdoing himself. In the morning, there is still a strange sort of torpor over me, and I can hardly drag myself out of bed, even when the sun beats on the window and I can hear the cracking of Velitcho's gun and the rattling of Ossip's pots and pans.
I have begun to notice a dull pain behind my left ear. When I look closely in the mirror, I can see a little wound back there, and the flesh is red all around it. It is scarcely more than a scratch, but it hurts me a good deal. . . .
Today, as I was beating the bush in the hope of scaring up a pigeon or a woodcock, I saw something move in the branches near me. It was a splendid cock pheasant, thrusting his delicate head out between two twigs. It was a wonderful chance. I fired, and the wounded bird struggled away with one wing drooping.
I rushed excitedly after him, and a long pursuit began. All of a sudden I stopped and let my prey escape me. I had heard someone. It was a hoarse, plaintive voice, speaking in a foreign tongue, words that sounded infinitely sad and almost like an entreaty.
I looked out from my bushes, and behind a massive wall of cypress and spruce I saw the outlines of a gloomy building. It was the tomb of the Duchess.
I was on forbidden ground.
Velitcho had given me a warning I was not likely to forget. I got out of there in a hurry, just in time to see this same Velitcho emerge from the wood, bare-headed and pale as death.
When I glanced at him in the evening, I noticed a long livid scar across his right cheek. It seemed that he was trying hard to keep me from seeing it.
It is nearly midnight. My two companions are throwing dice. All of a sudden my heart stops beating. Right beside the house, only a few steps away, I hear a curlew cry.
What a frightful noise the thing makes! It sounds as if the whole Saint-Guitton cemetery screamed in terror.
Velitcho has frozen into a statue, the leather dice box in his fingers. Ossip, with a muffled cry, runs to the dish in which the chur is heating. He fairly pushes the cup into my hands, and I can see that his hands are trembling.
Oh, how terrible I feel this morning! The red swollen wound behind my ear is larger. In the center, it is bleeding a little.
I'm sick—I'm sick.
