§8
One morning Nebába came to my room to tell me that he was going to Moscow for a few days, and he smiled with an air that was half shy and half sentimental. Then he added, with some confusion, “I shall not return alone.” “Do you mean that ...?” “Yes, I am going to be married,” he answered bashfully. I was astonished at the heroic courage of the woman who was willing to marry this good-hearted but monstrously ugly suitor. But a fortnight later I saw the bride at his house; she was eighteen and, if no beauty, pretty enough, with lively eyes; and then I thought him the hero.
Six weeks had not passed before I saw that things were going badly with my poor Orson. He was terribly depressed, corrected his proofs carelessly, never finished his article on “The Migration of Birds,” and could not fix his attention on anything; at times it seemed to me that his eyes were red and swollen. This state of things did not last long. One day as I was going home, I noticed a crowd of boys and shopkeepers running towards the churchyard. I walked after them.
Nebába’s body was lying near the church wall, and a rifle lay beside him. He had shot himself opposite the windows of his own house; the string with which he had pulled the trigger was still attached to his foot. The police-surgeon blandly assured the crowd that the deceased had suffered no pain; and the police prepared to carry his body to the station.
Nature is cruel to the individual. What dark forebodings filled the breast of this poor sufferer, before he made up his mind to use his piece of string and stop the pendulum which measured out nothing to him but insult and suffering? And why was it so? Because his father was consumptive or his mother dropsical? Likely enough. But what right have we to ask for reasons or for justice? What is it that we seek to call to account? Will the whirling hurricane of life answer our questions?