"I thank you," he said with an effort. "I had not expected this, and you have done a kind act in coming. So we meet once more, even as you foretold!"
"Has not Madame Anna Sergievna indeed been kind?" put in Vasili Ivanitch.
"Father, pray leave us," said Bazarov. "I know, Anna Sergievna, that you will excuse him. For at such a time as this——" And he nodded towards his weak, prostrate form.
Vasili Ivanitch left the room.
"A second time I thank you," continued Bazarov. "To have acted so is worthy of the Tsars. For they say that even the Sovereign visits a deathbed when requested."
"Evgenii Vasilitch, I hope that——"
"Let us speak plainly. My course is run. I am under the wheel, and we need not think of the future. Yet how curious it is that to each individual human being death, old though it is as an institution, comes as a novelty!... Nevertheless, it shall not make me quail: and then there will fall the curtain, and then—well, then they will write Fuit." There followed a feeble gesture. "But what did I want to say to you? That I have loved you? There was a time when the phrase 'I love' had for me no meaning; and now it will have less than ever, seeing that love is a form, and that my particular embodiment of it is fast lapsing towards dissolution. It Ah, how perfect you are! You stand there as beautiful as—-"
There passed over Anna Sergievna an involuntary shudder.
"Nay," he said. You need not be afraid. "But will you not sit down? Seat yourself near me, but not too near, for my malady is infectious."
She crossed the room with a rapid step, and seated herself beside the sofa on which he was lying.