' and 'wait!' Rest, for me, the accursed? Wait, to
me, devil-ridden? I have descended, of my own free will, into hell. For
five months I have wallowed there. Art and my soul I sold for the dirt
they would buy. They are gone. Can you buy them back? or the decency,
honesty, cleanliness, _youth_, I pawned, for filth and more filth? I am
saturated with it. I reek with it. It embraces me with octopus arms.
Every kopeck, every rouble, has gone to tighten that embrace. It is not
to be loosened. I am hell-bound for eternity. And you speak to me of
_art_!

"Leave me, Ivan Gregoriev, to my own. You can never know me. I hate you
now. Irina has gone away. Having brought me to this, I disgust her!--Go
thou, then, clean body, clean hands, clean heart!--Ach! I
hate--hate--_hate_!

"And there sits my devil--clothed in the scarlet.--Look on her!
Look! Look, for the last time, before I pay her her wage of
destruction!--So!--There!--And there!--And there!"

It was the canvas containing his first portrait of Irina. Seizing a
palette-knife from a neighboring tray of brushes and paints, he stabbed
thrice into the canvas, ripping the picture, wickedly, from top to
bottom, from side to side.

"Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! You see her?--I damn her there as she has damned
me!--Now you have heard my love, Ivan Mikhailovitch! Now you know!--Go,
then, out at that door, carrying your knowledge of me into the wide
world.--Take care!--Take care!--It is not only pictures I can kill!--You
don't know me yet, I tell you.--Go, I command you! Go!--Go!"

Seizing Ivan's coat and cap from the chair on which they lay, Joseph
flung them into their owner's arms. Then for the last time the two faced
each other, the sane man gazing earnestly into the other's blazing eyes.
Evidently Ivan reached his decision in that look; for, without more ado,
he donned his fur garments, and then, without a word, left the room.

* * * * *

It was barely half-past eight o'clock next morning when Ivan remounted
the stairs leading to Joseph's rooms, expecting to find the madman sunk
in the sleep of exhaustion. He found the door unlocked, and the
room--empty. Joseph was gone:--out into Moscow, into the cruelty of the
frozen city, penniless, friendless, perhaps still mad! Nor did he ever
reappear, in any of his old haunts. Search proved fruitless. Irina had
done her work thoroughly. Every effort failed to bring the wanderer up
out of the dark unknown. Ivan, bit