LITMIR.BIZ

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and her stepmother had hurried up to embrace her.

      "Leave me!" Anna had cried, when she saw her. "I cannot bear to see you! You killed my father!"

      It was well that there were only servants in the ante-room. But the general's wife did not wish to risk another such scene, now that so many people were present. And besides she was extremely disturbed; the friends who had come to the funeral service had brought flowers; and the half-crazy princess, with the aid of two other ladies, had taken a fancy to decorate the coffin, and especially the head, with them. It is impossible to describe what Olga Vseslavovna suffered, as she watched all those hands moving about among the folds of the muslin, the frills, the covering, almost under the satin cushion even; a little more and she would have fainted in earnest.

      She had always boasted that she had strong nerves, and this was quite true; nevertheless, during these days, their strength was evidently giving way, as she could not get to sleep for a long time that night, and heaven only knows what fancies passed through her mind. It was almost morning before Olga Vseslavovna got to sleep, and even then it was not for long.

      She dreamed that she was descending endless stairs and dark corridors, with a heavy, shapeless burden on her shoulders. A bright, constantly-changing flame flickered before her; now red, now yellow, now green, it flitted before her from side to side. She knew that if she could reach it, the burden would fall from her. But the light seemed to be taunting her, now appearing, now disappearing, and suddenly going out altogether. And she found herself in the darkness, in a damp cellar, seemingly empty, but filled with something's invisible presence. What was it? She did not know. But this pervading something frightened her terribly, smothered her, pressing on her from all sides, depriving her of air. She was choking! Terror seized her at the thought that it … was Death! Must she die? Was it possible? But that brightly shining light had just promised her life, gayety, brilliance! She must hurry to overtake it. And she tried to run. But her feet would not obey her; she could not move.

      "Heaven! Heaven!" she cried, "but what is it? Whence has such a disaster come? What is holding me? Let me go, or I shall be smothered in this stench, under this intolerable burden!"

      Suddenly Iuri Pavlovitch walked past her. She immediately recognized him, and joyfully caught at his cloak. "Iuri! Forgive me! Help me!" she cried.

      Her husband stopped, looked sadly at her, and answered: "I would gladly help you, but you yourself hinder me. Let me go; I must fulfill your directions."

      At that moment she awoke. She was bathed in a cold perspiration, and clutched wildly at the coverlet with both hands. There was no one near her, but she clearly felt someone's presence, and was convinced that she had really seen her husband a moment before. In her ears resounded his words: "I must fulfill your directions!" Directions? What directions?

      She sprang up, and began to feel about over the carpet with her bare feet, looking for her slippers. A terrible thought had come into her mind. She felt that she must settle it at once. She must take the will, take it away from there! burn it! destroy it! She feverishly drew on her dressing gown, and threw a shawl over her shoulders.

      "Rita! Get up quick! Quick! Come!"

      The frightened maid rose, still half asleep, and rubbed her eyes, understanding nothing. Her mistress' ice-cold hands clutched her, and dragged her somewhere.

      "Ach lieber Gott … Gott in Himmel!" she muttered. "What has happened? What do you want?"

      "Hush! Come quick!" And Olga Vseslavovna, with a candle in her trembling hand, went forward, dragging the trembling Rita with her. She opened the door of her bedroom, and went out. All the doors were open en suite, and straight in front of her, in the center of the fourth, shone the coffin of her husband, covered with cloth of gold and lit up by the tall tapers standing round the bier.

      "What does it mean?" whispered the general's wife. "Why have they opened all the doors?"

      "I do not know … they were all closed last night," murmured the maid in reply, her teeth chattering with fear. She longed to ask her mistress whither they were going, and what for? She wanted to stop, and not enter the funeral chamber; but she was afraid to speak.

      They passed quickly through the rooms; at the door of the last the general's wife set her candle down on a chair, and halted for a moment. The loud snoring of the reader startled them both.

      "It is the deacon!" whispered the general's wife reassuringly. Rita had hardly strength to nod assent. All the same, the healthy snoring of a living man comforted her. Without moving from where she stood, the maid tremblingly drew her woolen shawl closer about her, trying to see the sofa on which the deacon lay.

      Knitting her brows, and biting her lips till they were sore, Olga Vseslavovna went forward determinedly to the bier. She thrust both hands under the flowers on the pillow. The frill was untouched. The satin of the cushion was there, but where was …? Her heart, that had been beating like a hammer, suddenly stopped and stood still. There was not a trace of the will!

      "Perhaps I have forgotten. Perhaps it was on the other side," thought Olga Vseslavovna, and went round to the left side of the coffin.

      No! It was not there, either! Where was it? Who could have taken it? Suddenly her heart failed her utterly, and she clutched at the edge of the coffin to keep herself from falling. It seemed to her that under the stiff, pallid, rigidly clasped hands of the dead general something gleamed white through the transparent muslin of the covering, something like a piece of paper.

      "Nonsense! Self-suggestion! It is impossible! Hallucination!" The thought flashed through her tortured brain. She forced herself to be calm, and to look again.

      Yes! She had not been mistaken. The white corner of a folded paper appeared clearly against the general's dark uniform. At the same moment a cold draught coming from somewhere set the tapers flickering. Shadows danced around the room, over the bier, across the dead man's face; and in the quick change of light and shadow it seemed to her that the rigid features became more living, that a mournful smile formed itself on the closed lips, that the tightly-shut eyelids quivered. A wild cry rang through the whole room. With a desperate shriek: "His eyes! He is looking at me!" the general's wife staggered forward and fell fainting to the floor, beside her husband's bier.

      V

      The deacon sprang from his sofa with a cry, and an answering cry came from the lips of the shivering Rita, as she fled from the room. Servants rushed in, rubbing their eyes, still half-asleep, questioning each other, running this way and that. The deacon, spurred by a feeling of guilt, was determined to conceal the fact that he was sleeping. "It was the lady!" he said. "She came in to pray; she told me to stop reading while she prayed. She knelt down. Then she prayed for a long time, and suddenly … suddenly she cried out, and fainted. Grief, brothers! It is terrible! To lose such a husband!" and he set them to work with restoratives, himself rubbing the fallen woman's chilly hands.

      The general's wife opened her eyes after a few minutes.

      Looking wildly round in bewilderment, she seemed to be wondering where she was and how she had come there. Suddenly she remembered.

      "The will! In his hands! Take it!" she cried, and fainted again. By this time the whole household was awake. Anna Iurievna had come in, full of astonishment at the sudden disturbance, but with the same feeling of deep quiet and peace still filling her heart and giving her features an expression of joy and calm. She heard the cry of the general's wife, and the words were recorded in her mind, though she did not at first give them any meaning.

      She set herself, with all the tenderness of a good woman, to minister to the other's need, sending her own maid for sal volatile, chafing the fainting woman's hands, and giving orders that a bed should be prepared for her in another room, further away from the bier. As she spoke, quietly, gravely, with authority, the turmoil gradually subsided. The frightened servants recovered themselves, and moved about with the orderly obedience they ordinarily showed; and the deacon, above all anxious to cover his negligence, began intoning the liturgy, lending an atmosphere of solemnity to the whole room.

      The servants, returning to announce that the bedroom was ready, were ordered by Anna Iurievna to lift the fainting woman with all care and gentleness, and she herself went with them to see the

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