LITMIR.BIZ

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Vicentevitch. Take care of them, as a last service to me!” And he turned his face once more to the wall.

      “And now, leave me alone! The pain is less. Perhaps I shall go to sleep. Leave me!”

      “My friend! Permit me to remain near you,” the general’s wife began, bending tenderly over her husband.

      “Go!” he cried sharply. “Leave me in peace, I tell you!”

      She rose, trembling. The doctor hastily offered her his arm. She left the room, leaning heavily on him, and once more covering her face with her handkerchief, in tragic style.

      “Be calm, your excellency!” whispered the doctor sympathetically, only half conscious of what he was saying. “These rooms have been prepared for you. You also need to rest, after such a long journey.”

      “Oh, I am not thinking about myself. I am so sorry for him. Poor, poor, senseless creature. How much I have suffered at his hands. He was always so suspicious, so hard to get on with. And whims and fantasies without end. You know, doctor, I have sometimes even thought he was not in full possession of his faculties.”

      “Hm!” murmured the doctor, coughing in confusion.

      “Take this strange change of his will, for instance,” the general’s wife continued, not waiting for a clearer expression of sympathy. “Take his manner toward me. And for what reason?”

      “Yes, it is very sad,” murmured the doctor.

      “Tell me, doctor, does he expect his son and daughter?”

      “Only his daughter, Anna Iurievna. She promised to come, with her oldest children. A telegram came yesterday. We have been expecting her all day.”

      “What is the cause of this sudden tenderness? They have not seen each other for ten years. Does he expect her husband, too? His son-in-law, the pedagogue?” contemptuously asked the general’s wife.

      “No! How could he come? He could not leave his service. And his son, too, Peter Iurevitch, he cannot come at once. He is on duty, in Transcaspia. It is a long way.”

      “Yes, it is a long way!” assented the general’s wife, evidently busy with other thoughts. “But tell me, Edouard Vicentevitch, this new will, has it been written long?”

      “It was drawn up only to-day. The draft was prepared last week, but the general kept putting it off. But when his pains began this morning.…”

      “Is it the end? Is it dangerous?” interrupted Olga Vseslavovna.

      “Very—a very bad sign. When they began, Iuri Paylovitch sent at once for the lawyer. He was still here when you arrived.”

      “Yes. And the old will, which he made before, has been destroyed?”

      “I do not know for certain. But I think not. Oh, no, I forgot. The general was going to send a telegram.”

      “Yes? to send a telegram?”

      The general’s wife shrugged her shoulders, sadly shook her head, and added:

      “He is so changeable! so changeable! But I think it is all the same. According to law, only the last will is valid?”

      “Yes, without doubt; the last.”

      The general’s wife bowed her head.

      “What hurts me most,” she whispered, with a bitter smile, bending close to the young doctor, and leaning heavily on his arm, “what hurts me most, is not the money. I am not avaricious. But why should he take my child away from me? Why should he pass over her own mother, and intrust her to her half-sister? A woman whom I do not know, who has not distinguished herself by any services or good actions, so far as I know. I shall not submit. I shall contest the will. The law must support the right of the mother. What do you think, doctor?”

      The doctor hastily assented, though, to tell the truth, he was not thinking of anything at the moment, except the strange manner in which the general’s wife, while talking, pressed close to her companion.

      At that moment a bell rang, and the general’s loud voice was heard:

      “Doctor! Edouard Vicentevitch!”

      “Coming!” answered the doctor.

      And leaving Olga Vseslavovna at the threshold of her room, he ran quickly to the sick man.

      “A vigorous voice—for a dying man! He shouts as he used to at the manoeuvers!” thought the general’s wife.

      And her handsome face at once grew dark with the hate which stole over it. This was only a passing expression, however; it rapidly gave place to sorrow, when she saw the manservant coming from the sick man.

      “What is the matter with your master, Yakov? Is he worse?”

      “No, madam. God has been gracious. He told me to push the box nearer him, and ordered Edouard Vicentevitch to open it. He wants to send some telegram or other.”

      “Thank God, he is not worse. Yakov, I am going to send a telegram to the station myself, in a few minutes, by my coachman. You can give him the general’s telegram, too.”

      “Very well, madam.”

      “And another thing. I shall not go to bed. If there is any change in your master’s condition, Yakov, come and knock at my door at once. I beg of you, tell me the very moment anything happens. Here is something for you, Yakov;—you have grown thin, waiting upon your master!”

      “I thank you most humbly, your excellency. We must not grudge our exertions,” the man answered, putting a note of considerable value in his pocket.

      III

      Contrary to expectation, the night passed quietly enough. Emotion and weariness claimed their own; Olga Vseslavovna, in spite of all her efforts, fell into a sleep toward morning; and when she awoke, she started in dismay, noticing that the sun had already climbed high in the sky, and was pouring into her room.

      Her maid, a deft Viennese, who had remained with this accommodating mistress for five years, quieted her by telling her that the master was better, that he was still asleep, not having slept for the greater part of the night.

      “The doctor and Yakov were busy with him most of the night,” she explained. “They were sorting all sorts of papers; some of them they tied up, writing something on them; others they tore up, or threw into the fire. The grate is full of ashes. Yakov told me.”

      “And there were no more telegrams?”

      “No, madam, there were no more. Yakov and our Friedrich would have let me know at once; I was there in the anteroom; they both kept coming through on errands. But there were no more telegrams, except the two that were sent last night.”

      Olga Vseslavovna dressed, breakfasted, and went to her husband. But at the threshold of his room she was stopped by the direction of the sick man to admit no one without special permission except the doctor, or his eldest daughter, if she should come.

      “Tell Edouard Vicentevitch to come out to me,” ordered the general’s wife. The doctor was called, and in great confusion confirmed the general’s orders.

      “But perhaps he did not think that such an order could apply to me?” she said, astonished.

      The doctor apologized, but had to admit that it was she who was intended, and that his excellency had sent word to her excellency that she should not give herself the trouble of visiting him.

      “He is out of his mind,” declared the general’s wife quietly, but with conviction, shrugging her shoulders. “Why should he hate me so—for all my love to him, an old man, who might have been my father?”

      And Olga Vseslavovna once more took refuge in her pocket handkerchief, this time, instead of tears, giving vent to sobs of vexation.

      The doctor, always shy in the presence of women, stood with hanging head and downcast eyes, as though he were

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