He ceased, out of breath.
'And my money... for my wife... after deducting.... Onesim here knows... whom I... what I owe.'
'We've sent for the doctor, Maksim,' said my neighbour; 'perhaps you may not die yet.'
He tried to open his eyes, and with an effort raised the lids.
'No, I'm dying. Here... here it is coming... here it.... Forgive me, lads, if in any way....'
'God will forgive you, Maksim Andreitch,' said the peasants thickly with one voice, and they took off their caps; 'do you forgive us!'
He suddenly shook his head despairingly, his breast heaved with a painful effort, and he fell back again.
'We can't let him lie here and die, though,' cried Ardalion Mihalitch; 'lads, give us the mat from the cart, and carry him to the hospital.'
Two men ran to the cart.
'I bought a horse... yesterday,' faltered the dying man, 'off Efim... Sitchovsky... paid earnest money... so the horse is mine.... Give it... to my wife....'
They began to move him on to the mat.... He trembled all over, like a wounded bird, and stiffened....
'He is dead,' muttered the peasants.
We mounted our horses in silence and rode away.
The death of poor Maksim set me musing. How wonderfully indeed the Russian peasant dies! The temper in which he meets his end cannot be called indifference or stolidity; he dies as though he were performing a solemn rite, coolly and simply.
A few years ago a peasant belonging to another neighbour of mine in the country got burnt in the drying shed, where the corn is put. (He would have remained there, but a passing pedlar pulled him out half-dead; he plunged into a tub of water, and with a run broke down the door of the burning outhouse.) I went to his hut to see him. It was dark, smoky, stifling, in the hut. I asked, 'Where is the sick man?' 'There, sir, on the stove,' the sorrowing peasant woman answered me in a sing-song voice. I went up; the peasant was lying covered with a sheepskin, breathing heavily. 'Well, how do you feel?' The injured man stirred on the stove; all over burns, within sight of death as he was, tried to rise. 'Lie still, lie still, lie still.... Well, how are you?' 'In a bad way, surely,' said he. 'Are you in pain?' No answer. 'Is there anything you want?'--No answer. 'Shouldn't I send you some tea, or anything.' 'There's no need.' I moved away from him and sat down on the bench. I sat there a quarter of an hour; I sat there half an hour--the silence of the tomb in the hut. In the corner behind the table under the holy pictures crouched a little girl of twelve years old, eating a piece of bread. Her mother threatened her every now and then. In the outer room there was coming and going, noise and talk: the brother's wife was chopping cabbage. 'Hey, Aksinya,' said the injured man at last. 'What?' 'Some kvas.'Aksinya gave him some kvas. Silence again. I asked in a whisper, 'Have they given him the sacrament?' 'Yes.' So, then, everything was in order: he was waiting for death, that was all. I could not bear it, and went away....
Again, I recall how I went one day to the hospital in the village of Krasnogorye to see the surgeon Kapiton, a friend of mine, and an enthusiastic sportsman.
This hospital consisted of what had once been the lodge of the manor-house; the lady of the manor had founded it herself; in other words, she ordered a blue board to be nailed up above the door with an inscription in white letters: 'Krasnogorye Hospital,' and had herself handed to Kapiton a red album to record the names of the patients in. On the first page of this album one of the toadying parasites of this Lady Bountiful had inscribed the following lines:
'Dans ces beaux lieux, ou regne l'allegresse Ce temple fut ouvert par la Beaute; De vos seigneurs admirez la tendresse Bons habitants de Krasnogorie!'
while another gentleman had written below:
'Et moi aussi j'aime la nature! JEAN KOBYLIATNIKOFF.'
The surgeon bought six beds at his own expense, and had set to work in a thankful spirit to heal God's people. Besides him, the staff consisted of two persons; an engraver, Pavel, liable to attacks of insanity, and a one-armed peasant woman, Melikitrisa, who performed the duties of cook. Both of them mixed the medicines and dried and infused herbs; they, too, controlled the patients when they were delirious. The insane engraver was sullen in appearance and sparing of words; at night he would sing a song about 'lovely Venus,' and would besiege every one he met with a request for permission to marry a girl called Malanya, who had long been dead. The one-armed peasant woman used to beat him and set him to look after the turkeys. Well, one day I was at Kapiton's. We had begun talking over our last day's shooting, when suddenly a cart drove into the yard, drawn by an exceptionally stout horse, such as are only found belonging to millers. In the cart sat a thick-set peasant, in a new greatcoat, with a beard streaked with grey. 'Hullo, Vassily Dmitritch,' Kapiton shouted from the window; 'please come in.... The miller of Liobovshin,' he whispered to me. The peasant climbed groaning out of the cart, came into the surgeon's room, and after looking for the holy pictures, crossed himself, bowing to them. 'Well, Vassily Dmitritch, any news?... But you must be ill; you don't look well.' 'Yes, Kapiton Timofeitch, there's something not right.' 'What's wrong with you?' 'Well, it was like this, Kapiton Timofeitch. Not long ago I bought some mill-stones in the town, so I took them home, and as I went to lift them out of the cart, I strained myself, or something; I'd a sort of rick in the loins, as though something had been torn away, and ever since I've been out of sorts. To-day I feel worse than ever.' 'Hm,' commented Kapiton, and he took a pinch of snuff; 'that's a rupture, no doubt. But is it long since this happened?' 'It's ten days now.' 'Ten days?' (The surgeon drew a long inward breath and shook his head.) 'Let me examine you.' 'Well, Vassily Dmitritch,' he pronounced at last, 'I am sorry for you, heartily sorry, but things aren't right with you at all; you're seriously ill; stay here with me; I will do everything I can, for my part, though I can't answer for anything.' 'So bad as that?' muttered the astounded peasant. 'Yes, Vassily Dmitritch, it is bad; if you'd come to me a day or two sooner, it would have been nothing much; I could have cured you in a trice; but now inflammation has set in; before we know where we are, there'll be mortification.' 'But it can't be, Kapiton Timofeitch.' 'I tell you it is so.' 'But how comes it?' (The surgeon shrugged his shoulders.) 'And I must die for a trifle like that?' 'I don't say that... only you must stop here.' The peasant pondered and pondered, his eyes fixed on the floor, then he glanced up at us, scratched his head, and picked up his cap. 'Where are you off to, Vassily Dmitritch?' 'Where? why, home to be sure, if it's so bad. I must put things to rights, if it's like that.' 'But you'll do yourself harm, Vassily Dmitritch; you will, really; I'm surprised how you managed to get here; you must stop.' 'No, brother, Kapiton Timofeitch, if I must die, I'll die at home; why die here? I've got a home, and the Lord knows how it will end.' 'No one can tell yet, Vassily Dmitritch, how it will end.... Of course, there is danger, considerable danger; there's no disputing that... but for that reason you ought to stay here.' (The peasant shook his head.) 'No, Kapiton Timofeitch, I won't stay... but perhaps you will prescribe me a medicine.' 'Medicine alone will be no good.' 'I won't stay, I tell you.' 'Well, as you like.... Mind you don't blame me for it afterwards.'
The surgeon tore a page out of the album, and, writing out a prescription, gave him some advice as to what he could do besides. The peasant took the sheet of paper, gave Kapiton half-a-rouble, went out of the room, and took his seat in the cart. 'Well, good-bye, Kapiton Timofeitch, don't remember evil against me, and remember my orphans, if anything....' 'Oh, do stay, Vassily!' The peasant simply shook his head, struck the horse with the reins, and drove out of the yard. The road was muddy and full of holes; the miller drove cautiously, without hurry, guiding his horse skilfully, and nodding to the acquaintances he met. Three days later he was dead.
The Russians, in general, meet death in a marvellous way. Many of the dead come back now to my memory. I recall you, my old friend, who left the university with no degree, Avenir Sorokoumov, noblest, best of men! I see once again your sickly, consumptive face, your lank brown tresses, your gentle smile, your ecstatic glance, your long limbs; I can hear your weak, caressing voice. You lived at a Great Russian landowner's, called Gur Krupyanikov, taught his children, Fofa and Zyozya, Russian grammar, geography, and history, patiently bore all the ponderous jokes of the said Gur, the coarse familiarities of the steward, the vulgar pranks of the spiteful urchins; with a bitter smile, but without repining, you complied with the caprices of their bored and exacting mother; but to make up for it all, what bliss, what peace was yours in the evening, after supper, when, free at last of all duties, you sat at the window pensively smoking a pipe, or greedily turned the pages of a greasy and mutilated number of some solid magazine, brought you from the town by the land-surveyor--just such another poor, homeless devil as yourself! How delighted you were then with any sort of poem or novel; how readily the tears started into your eyes; with what pleasure you laughed; what genuine love for others, what generous sympathy for everything good and noble, filled your pure youthful soul! One must tell the truth: you were not distinguished by excessive sharpness of wit; Nature had endowed you with neither memory nor industry; at the university you were regarded as one of the least
