to control himself in practice, too. In proof of which he presented him with the books bought with money which he had saved up during a long period of time.
I could not hdp laugWng and crying as I listened to the poor old man; so he knew how to Ue on occasion 1 The books were carried into Pokrovsky's room smd arranged on the shelves. Pokrovsky at once guessed the truth. The old man was invited to dinner. We were cdl so merry that day; after dinner we played forfeits and cards; Sasha was in wild spirits and I was hardly less so. Pokrovsky was attentive to me and kept seeking an opportunity to speak to me alone, but I would not let him. It was the happiest day of aU those four years of my life.
And now come sad, bitter memories, and I begin the story of my gloomy days. That is why, perhaps, my pen moves more slowly and seems to refuse to write more. That is why, perhaps, I have dwelt in memory with such eagerness and such love on the smallest details of my trivial existence in my happy dajre. Those days were so brief; they were followed by grief, black grief, and God only knows when it will end.
My troubles began witii the illness and death of Pokrovsky.
He fell ill about two months after the last incidents I have described here. He spent those two months in unceasing efforts to secure some means of subsistence, for he still had no settled position. Like all consumptives he clung up to the very last moment to the hope of a very long life. A post as a teacher turned up for him, but he had a great distaste for that calling. He could not take a place in a government office on account of his health. Besides, he would have had to wait a long ticne for the first instalment of his salary. In short, Pokrovsky met with nothing but disappointment on all sides and this tried his temper. His health was suffering, but he paid no attention to it. Autumn was coming on, every day he went out in his thin little overcoat to try and get work, to.beg and implore for a place, which was inwardly an agony to him; he used to get his feet wet and to be soaked through with the rain, and at last he took to his bed and never got up from it again. ... He died in the middle of autumn at the end of October.
I scarcely left his room during the whole time of his illness, I nursed him and looked after him. Often I did not sleep for nights together. He was frequently delirious and rarely quite himself; he talked of goodness knows what, of his post, of his books, of me, of his father . . . and it was then I heard a great deal about his circumstances of which I had not known
or even guessed before. When first he was ill, all of them looked at me somehow strangely; Aima Fyodorovna shook her head. But I looked them all straight in lie face and they did not blame me any more for my sympathy for Pokrovsky—at least my mother did not.
Sometimes Pokrovsky knew me, but this was seldom. He was cdmost all the time unconscious. Sometimes for whole nights together he would cany on long, long conversations with someone in obscure, indistinct words and his hoarse voice resounded with a hollow echo in his narrow room as in a cof&n; I used to feel terrified then. Especially on the last night he seemed in a frenzy; he suffered terribly, was in anguish; his moans wrung my heart. Everyone in the house was in alarm. Anna Fyodorovna kept praying that God would take him more quickly. They sent for the doctor. The doctor said that the patient would certainly die by the morning.
Old Pokrovsky spent the whole night in the passage at the door of his son's room; a rug of some sort was put down there for him. He kept coining into the room, it was dreadful to look at him. He was so crushed by sorrow that he seemed utterly senseless and without feehng. His head was shaking with terror. He was trembUng all over and kept whispering something, talking about something to himself. It seemed to me he was going out of his mind.
Just before dawn the old man, worn out with mental sufier-ing, fell asleep on his mat and slept like the dead. Between seven and eight his son began to die. I waked the father. Pokrovsky was fully conscious and said good-bye to us all. Strange! I could not cry, but my heart was torn to pieces.
But his last moments distressed and tortured me more than all. He kept asking for something at great length with his halting tongue and I could make out nothing from his words. My heart was lacerated I For a whole hour he was uneasy, kept grieving over something, trying to make some sign with his chill hcinds and then beginning pitifully to entreat me in his hoarse hoUow voice; but his words were discoimected sounds and agEun I could meike nothing of them. I brought everyone of the household to him, I gave him drink, but still he shook his head mournfully. At last I guessed what he wanted. He was begging me to draw up the window curtain and open the shutters. No doubt he wanted to look for the last time at the day, at God's Ught, at the sunshine. I drew back the curtain, but the dawning day was sad and melancholy as the poor fail-
ing life of the dying man. There was no sun. The clouds covered the sky with a shroud of mist; it was rainy, overcast, mournful. A fine rain was pattering on the window-panes and washing them with little rivulets of cold dirty water; it was dark and dingy. The pale daylight scarcely penetrated into the room and hardly rivalled the flickering flame of the little lamp lighted before the ikon. The djnng man glanced at me mournfully, mournfully and shook his head; a minute later he died.
Anna Fyodorovna herself made the arrangements for the funeral. A coffin of the cheapest kind was bought and a carter was hired. To defray these expenses Anna Fyodorovna seized all Pokrovsky's books and other belongings. The old man argued with her, made a noise, took away all the books he could from her, stuffed his pockets full of them, put them in his hat, wherever he could, went about with them all those three days, and did not part with them even when he had to go to church. During those three days he seemed as it were, stupefied, as though he did not know what he was doing, and he kept fussing about the coSin with a strange solicitude; at one moment he set straight the wreath on his dead son and at the next he lighted and took away candles. It was evident that his thoughts could not rest on anything. Neither mother nor Anna Fyodorovna was at the funeral service at the church. Mother was ill; Anna Fyodorovna had got ready to go, but she quarrelled with old Pokrovsky and stayed behind. I went alone with the old man. During tiie service a terror came upon me—as though a foreboding of the future. I could scarcely stand up in church.
At last the cofl&n was closed, nailed up, put in the cart and taken away. I foUowed it only to the end of the street. The man drove at a trot. The old man ran after him, weeping loudly, his lamentations quivering and broken by his haste. The poor old man lost his hat and did not stop to pick it up. His head was drenched by the rain and the wind was rising; the sleet lashed and stung his face. The old man seemed not to feel the cold and wet and ran wailing from one side of the cart to the other, the skirts of his old coat fluttering in the wind like wings. Books were sticking out from all his pockets; in his hands was a huge volume which he held tightly. The passers-by took off their caps and crossed themselves. Some stopped and stood gazing in wonder at the poor old man. The books kept falling out of his pockets into the mud. People stopped him and pointed to what he had lost, he picked them
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up and fell to racing after the cof6n again. At the coma: of the street an old beggar woman joined him to follow the cofiSn with him. The cart turned the comer at last and disappeared from my sight. I went home. I threw myself on mother's bosom in terrible distress. I pressed her tightly in my arms, I kissed her and burst into floods of tears, huddhng up to her fearfully as though trying to keep in my arms my last friend and not to give her up to death . . . but death was aheady hovering over poor mother. . . .
June II.
How grateful I am to you for our walk yesterday to the Island, Makar Alexyevitch! How fresh and lovely it is there, how leafy and green! It's so long since I saw green leaves— when I was ill I kept fancjring Aat I had to die emd that I certainly should die—judge what must have been my sensations yesterday, how I must have felt . . .
You must not be angry with me for having been so sad yesterday; I was very happy, very content, but in my very best moments I am always for some reason sad. As for my crying, that means nothing. I don't know myself why I am always crying. I feel ill and irritable; my sensations are due to illness. The pale cloudless sky, the sunset, the evoiing stillness—all that—I don't know—^but I was somehow in the mood yesterday to take a dreary and miserable view, of everything, so that my heart was too full and needed the reUef of tears. But why am I writing all this to you? It is hard to make all that clear to one's own heart and still harder to convey it to another. But you, perhaps, will understand me. Sadness and laughter both at once! How kind you are really, Makar Alexyevitch! You looked into my eyes yesterday as though to read in them what I was feeling and were delighted with my rapture. Whether it was a bush, an avenue, a piece of water— you were there standing before me showing its beauties and peeping into my eyes as though you were displaying your possessions to me. That proves that you have a kind heart, Makar Alexyevitch. It's for that that I love you. Well, goodbye. I'm ill again to-day; I got my feet wet yesterday and have caught cold. Fedora is ailing, too, so now we are both on the sick hst. Don't forget me. Come as often as you can.
