The corners were
filled with palms, and there was the unmistakable odor in the air of
Russian cigarettes, and strange, dry scents that carried me back to
the bazaars of Vladivostock. Near the front windows was a grand
piano, and at the other end of the room a heavily carved screen of
some black wood, picked out with ivory. The screen was overhung with
a canopy of silken draperies, and formed a sort of alcove. In front
of the alcove was spread the white skin of a polar bear, and set on
that was one of those low, Turkish coffee-tables. It held a lighted
spirit-lamp and two gold coffee-cups. I had heard no movement from
above stairs, and it must have been fully three minutes that I stood
waiting, noting these details of the room and wondering at the delay,
and at the strange silence.
"And then, suddenly, as my eye grew more used to the half-light, I
saw, projecting from behind the screen, as though it were stretched
along the back of a divan, the hand of a man and the lower part of
his arm. I was as startled as though I had come across a footprint on
a deserted island. Evidently, the man had been sitting there since I
had come into the room, even since I had entered the house, and he
had heard the servant knocking upon the door.
Pages:
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270