Alone with him during those long terrible hours, my anguish and my terror constantly increased. At last I could endure it no longer and I telegraphed to Stahl:

“Come immediately.”

At dusk the following day Stahl arrived.

I had hoped to derive courage and consolation from his presence. But as soon as he stepped upon the threshold my heart turned faint within me. Thinner and more spectral than ever, with hair dishevelled and eyes sunken and dull, he looked dreamily at me, while a continual tremor shook his hands.

I greeted him timorously, and the touch of his chill, flaccid fingers made me shudder.

Bozevsky seemed glad to see him. Stretching out his wasted hand to him he said at once:

“Stahl, I want to move my head.”

Stahl seemed not to understand, and Bozevsky repeated: “I want to turn my head from one side to another.” “Why not?” said Stahl, sitting down beside the bed and lighting a cigarette. “Turn it by all means.”

It was growing late; outside it was already dark. I drew the curtains and turned on the lights. Bozevsky began very slowly to turn his head from side to side; at first very timorously with frightened eyes, then by degrees more daringly, from right to left and from left to right.

“Keep still, keep still, dearest,” I entreated, bending over him.

“Stahl said it would not hurt,” panted Bozevsky. “Did you not, Stahl?” Stahl made no reply. He was smoking, with his heavy eyes half closed. At the sight of him I was filled with loathing and fear.

“Have you dined?” I inquired of him after a long silence. He nodded and went on smoking.

I tried to coax Bozevsky to take an egg beaten up in milk, but he continued to turn his head from side to side and would touch nothing. Little by little the sounds in the hotel died away. The gipsy music which had been audible, faintly in the distance, ceased. Night crept upon us sinister and silent.

Presently Stahl roused himself and opened his eyes. He looked at me and then at Bozevsky, who lay in the circular shadow cast by the lamp shade, dozing with his mouth slightly open; he looked pitiful and grotesque in his collar of yellow gauze.

Stahl made a grimace; then his breath became short and hurried as on that night of the ball when he sat beside me in the sleigh. He was panting with a slight sibilant sound and with a quick nervous movement of his head.

“Stahl,” I whispered, leaning towards him and indicating Bozevsky, “tell me—how do you think he is?”

Stahl did not answer. He seemed not to have heard me, but to be absorbed in some mysterious physical suffering of his own.

“What is the matter, Stahl? What is the matter? You are frightening me.”

With a nervous twist of his lips intended for a smile Stahl got up and began to walk up and down the room. His breath was still short and hurried. He drew the air through his teeth like one who is enduring spasms of pain.

Then he began to talk to himself in a low voice. “I can wait,” he said under his breath. “I can wait a little longer. Yes—yes—yes, I can wait a little longer.”

Bozevsky had opened his eyes and was watching him. Horror held me motionless and shivers ran like icy water down my spine.

“Stahl, Stahl, what is the matter?” I said, and began to cry.

Stahl seemed not to hear me. He continued to walk up and down muttering to himself: “I can wait, I can wait. Just a little longer—a little longer—”

Bozevsky groaned. “Tell him to keep still,” he said, his gaze indicating Stahl.

I seized Stahl by the arm. “You must keep quiet,” I said. “Keep quiet at once.”

He turned to me a vacuous, bewildered face. I grasped his arm convulsively, clutching it with all my strength: “Keep still!”

Stahl sat down. “Right,” he said. “All right.”

He searched his pocket and drew out a small leather case.

Bozevsky moved and moaned. “I am thirsty,” he said. “Give me something to drink.”

I hurried to the bedside, and taking up a glass of sweetened water, I raised him on his pillow and held the glass to his lips. He drank eagerly. Then—horror!... horror! Even as he drank I perceived a spot of pale red color, wetting the gauze round his neck, oozing through it and spreading in an ever-widening stain. What—what could it be? It was the water he was drinking; he was not swallowing it ... it was trickling out through the wound in his neck. All the gauze was already wet—now the pillow as well.

“Stahl, Stahl!” I shrieked. “Look, look at this!”

Stahl, who seemed to have suddenly regained his senses, came quickly to the bedside. I had laid Bozevsky back on the pillow and he was looking at us with wide-open eyes.

“Yes,” said Stahl, contemplating him thoughtfully. “Yes.” Suddenly he turned to me. “Come here, come here. Why should I let you suffer?”

Then I saw that he had in his hand a small glass instrument—a morphia syringe. He seized my wrist as in a vice and with the other hand pushed back the loose sleeve of my gown.

“What are you going to do?” I gasped.

“Why, why should you suffer?” cried Stahl, holding me tightly by the arm.

“Are you killing me?” I cried.

“No, no. I shall not kill you. You will see.”

I let him take my arm and he pricked it with the needle of the syringe, afterwards pressing and rubbing the punctured spot with his finger. “Now you will see, now you will see,” he repeated over and over again with a vague stupefied smile. “Sit down there,” and he impelled me towards an armchair.

Bozevsky in his wet bandages on his wet pillow was watching us. I wanted to go to his assistance, to speak to him—but already a vague torpor was stealing over me, a feeling of gentle langour weighed upon my limbs. My tense and quivering nerves gradually relaxed. I felt as if I were submerged in a vague fluid serenity. Every anxious thought dissolved in a bland and blissful somnolence.... I could see Bozevsky move restlessly and again begin to turn his head from side to side. Sunk in the divine lassitude that held me, I watched his movements, glad that the sight of them gave me no pain.

I saw that Stahl had stretched himself on the couch and lay there with a vacant ecstatic smile on his lips.

All at once Bozevsky uttered a cry. I heard him, but I felt no inclination to answer. He struggled into a sitting position and looked at us both with wide, horrified eyes. He called us again and again. Then he began to weep. I could hear his weeping, but the beatific lethargy which engulfed me held me motionless. Perhaps I was even smiling, so free and so remote did I feel from all distress and suffering.

And now I saw Bozevsky with teeth clenched and hands curved like talons, madly clutching and tearing away the bandages from his neck.

He dragged and tore the gauze with quick frenzied movements, while from his lips came a succession of whimpering cries as of a dog imprisoned behind a door.

I smiled, I know I smiled, as I gazed at him from my armchair.

Stahl's eyes were shut; he was fast asleep.

Even when the wasted neck was stripped bare, those quick, frenzied movements still continued. What my eyes then saw I can never tell....

Thus died Alexis Bozevsky, the handsomest officer in the Imperial Guard.