"O woman of kind heart!" he whispered. "And to think that you are beside me once more! To think that you, so pure and fresh and young, are in this sorry room! Well, good-bye, and may you live long, and enjoy your time while you may. Of all things in this world long life is the most desirable: yet you can see for yourself what an ugly spectacle I, a half-crushed, but still wriggling, worm, am now become. There was a time when I used to say: 'I will do many things in life, and refuse to die before I have completed those tasks, for I am a giant': but now I have indeed a giant's task in hand—the task of dying as though death were nothing to me.... No matter. I am not going to put my tail between my legs."
He broke off, and groped for his tumbler. She handed it him without drawing off her glove. Her breath was coming in jerks.
"It will not be long before you will have forgotten me," he went on. "For a dead mortal is no companion for a living one. I daresay that my father will tell you what a man is being lost to Russia; but that is all rubbish. Nevertheless, do not undeceive him, for he is old, old. Rather, comfort him as you would comfort a child, and also be kind to my mother. Two such mortals as them you will not find in all your great world—no, not though you search for them with a candle by daylight.... Russia needs me, indeed! Evidently she does not need me. Whom, then, does she need? She needs shoemakers, tailors, butchers.... What does a butcher sell? He sells meat, does he not?... I think that I am wandering—I seem to see before me a forest...."
He pressed his hand to his forehead, and Anna Sergievna bent over him.
"Evgenii Vasilitch," she said, "I am here."
With a combined movement he took her hand and raised himself a little.
"Good-bye," he said with a sudden spasm of energy and a last flash of his eyes. "Good-bye.... I kissed you that time, did I not, when, when——?... Ah, breathe now upon the expiring lamp, that it may go out in peace."
She pressed her lips gently to his forehead.
"Enough," he murmured as he sank back upon the pillow. "Now let there come—darkness."
She left the room quietly.