"Olga has come back," said Sina.
"Oh! Sina, is that you?" asked Dubova from within, and the tone of her
voice suggested some sinister occurrence. Pale and agitated, she
appeared in the doorway.
"Where were you? I have been looking for you. Semenoff is dying!" she
said breathlessly.
"What!" exclaimed Sina, horror-struck.
"Yes, he is dying. He broke a blood-vessel. Anatole Pavlovitch says
that he's done for. They have taken him to the hospital. It was
dreadfully sudden. There We were, at the Raton's', having tea, and he
was so merry, arguing with Novikoff about something or other. Then he
suddenly began to cough, stood up, and staggered, and the blood spurted
out, on to the table-cloth, and into a little saucer of jam ... all
black, and clotted...."
"Does he know it himself?" asked Yourii with grim interest. He
instantly remembered the moonlit night, the sombre shadow, and the
weak, broken voice, saying, "You will be alive, and you'll pass my
grave, and stop, whilst I ..."
"Yes, he seems to know," replied Dubova, with a nervous movement of the
hands. "He looked at us all, and asked 'What is it?' And then he shook
from head to foot and said, 'Already!' ... Oh! isn't it awful?" "It's
too shocking!"
All were silent.
It was now quite dark, yet, though the sky was clear, to them it seemed
suddenly to have grown gloomy and sad.
"Death is a horrible thing!" said Yourii, turning pale.
Dubova sighed, and gazed into vacancy. Sina's chin trembled, and she
smiled helplessly. She could not feel so shocked as the others; young
as she was, and full of life, she could not fix her thoughts on death.
To her it was incredible, inconceivable that on a beautiful summer
evening, radiantly pleasant such as this, some one should have to
suffer and to die. It was natural, of course, but, for some reason or
other, to her it seemed wrong. She was ashamed to have such a feeling,
and strove to suppress it, endeavouring to appear sympathetic, an
effort which made her distress seem greater than that of her
companions.
"Oh! poor fellow! ... is he really...?"
Sina wanted to ask: "Is he really going to die very soon?" but the
words stuck in her throat, and she plied Dubova with fatuous and
incoherent questions.
"Anatole Pavlovitch says that he will die to-night or to-morrow
morning," replied Dubova, in a dull voice.
"Shall we go to him?" whispered Sina. "Or do you think that we had
better not? I don't know."