“You are a dead man,” said Sanine with inward apprehension, as he rose to go; “and for a dead man the best place is the grave. Good-bye.”
Soloveitchik apparently did not hear him, but sat there motionless. Sanine waited for a while and then slowly walked away. At the gate he stopped to listen, but could hear nothing. Soloveitchik’s figure looked blurred and indistinct in the darkness. Sanine, as if in response to a strange presentiment, said to himself:
“After all, it comes to the same thing whether he lives on like this or dies. If it’s not to-day, then it will be to-morrow.” He turned sharply round; the gate creaked on its hinges, and he found himself in the street.
On reaching the boulevard he heard, at a distance, some one running along and sobbing as if in great distress. Sanine stood still. Out of the gloom a figure emerged, and rapidly approached him. Again Sanine felt a sinister presentiment.
“What’s the matter?” he called out.
The figure stopped for a moment, and Sanine was confronted by a soldier whose dull face showed great distress.
“What has happened?” exclaimed Sanine.
The soldier murmured something and ran on, wailing as he went. As a phantom he vanished in the night.
“That was Sarudine’s servant,” thought Sanine, and then it flashed across him:
“Sarudine has shot himself!”