"Well?" continued Paul Petrovitch. "What think you? Shall we tell her at once?"
"No, we need not be in too much of a hurry," replied Nikolai Petrovitch. "As a matter of fact, you have been having a talk with her, have you not?"
"I have been having a talk with her? Quelle idée!"
"However, your first business is to recover. Thenichka will not run away, and in the meanwhile the affair must be carefully considered."
"Then you have decided upon it?"
"Certainly I have! And I thank you with all my heart. But I must leave you for a while now, for you ought to have some rest, and any excitement is bad for you. Matters can be discussed later. Go to sleep, dearest of brothers, and may God restore you to health!"
"Why did he thank me?" thought Paul Petrovitch to himself after Nikolai had gone." Does not the affair depend upon him alone, seeing that, after the marriage, I myself shall have to depart elsewhere—to Dresden or to Florence, and to abide there until I die?"
He bathed his forehead with eau-de-Cologne, and then closed his eyes. As he lay with his handsome, refined head resting on the pillow, he looked, in the clear light of the sun, like a corpse.
[1] Ann Radcliffe, née Ward (1764-1823), an English novelist who wrote The Mysteries of Udolpho and other tales, and travelled extensively.