Svirski looked at Kresovich, who was lying on the bed with open, terrified eyes, and with lips pursed together, as if to whistle.
"The dead man considered himself an incurable," said the artist; "he mentioned that himself to me, and took his life very likely for that reason. He never entered the Casino."
Then he told all that he knew concerning Kresovich, and afterward left the money needed for a separate grave, and went out.
Along the road he recalled what Kresovich had said to him in Nice about microbes, as well as his answer to Vyadrovski, that he would enroll himself in the party of the "silent;" and he reached the conviction that the young student had really occupied himself for a long time with the project of taking his own life, and that the main cause of his act was the conviction that he was condemned to death in every case.
But he understood that there might be collateral causes, and among them his unhappy love for Pani Elzen, and the parting with her. These thoughts filled him with sadness. The corpse of Kresovich, with lips fixed as if for whistling, and with the terror before death in his eyes, did not leave the artist's mind. But he thought that no one would sink into that terrible night without dread, and that all life, in view of the inevitableness of death, is one immense, tragic absurdity; and he returned to Pani Elzen in great depression of spirit.
She drew a deep breath of relief when she learned that Kresovich had left no papers. She declared that she would send as much money as might be needed for his funeral; and only then did she speak of him with a certain regret. She strove in vain, however, to detain Svirski for a couple of hours. He answered that he was not himself that day, and must return home.
"Then we shall meet in the evening," said she, giving him her hand at parting. "I intended even to drop in at Nice and go with you."
"Where?" asked Svirski, with astonishment.
"Have you forgotten? To the 'Formidable.'"
"Ah! Are you going to that ball?"