She's a beauty. But she was
beautiful in another way then. At that moment she was beautiful because
she was noble, and I was a scoundrel; she in all the grandeur of her
generosity and sacrifice for her father, and I--a bug! And, scoundrel as I
was, she was altogether at my mercy, body and soul. She was hemmed in. I
tell you frankly, that thought, that venomous thought, so possessed my
heart that it almost swooned with suspense. It seemed as if there could be
no resisting it; as though I should act like a bug, like a venomous
spider, without a spark of pity. I could scarcely breathe. Understand, I
should have gone next day to ask for her hand, so that it might end
honorably, so to speak, and that nobody would or could know. For though
I'm a man of base desires, I'm honest. And at that very second some voice
seemed to whisper in my ear, 'But when you come to-morrow to make your
proposal, that girl won't even see you; she'll order her coachman to kick
you out of the yard. "Publish it through all the town," she would say,
"I'm not afraid of you." ' I looked at the young lady, my voice had not
deceived me. That is how it would be, not a doubt of it. I could see from
her face now that I should be turned out of the house. My spite was
roused. I longed to play her the nastiest swinish cad's trick: to look at
her with a sneer, and on the spot where she stood before me to stun her
with a tone of voice that only a shopman could use.

" 'Four thousand! What do you mean? I was joking. You've been counting
your chickens too easily, madam. Two hundred, if you like, with all my
heart. But four thousand is not a sum to throw away on such frivolity.
You've put yourself out to no purpose.'

"I should have lost the game, of course. She'd have run away. But it would
have been an infernal revenge. It would have been worth it all. I'd have
howled with regret all the rest of my life, only to have played that
trick. Would you believe it, it has never happened to me with any other
woman, not one, to look at her at such a moment with hatred. But, on my
oath, I looked at her for three seconds, or five perhaps, with fearful
hatred--that hate which is only a hair's-breadth from love, from the
maddest love!

"I went to the window, put my forehead against the frozen pane, and I
remember the ice burnt my forehead like fire. I did not keep her long,
don't be afraid. I turned round, went up to the table, opened the drawer
and took out a banknote for f