A strange desire to make haste dominated him, and he trembled violently in every limb. He felt conscious that nothing was going to happen, and yet he had a clear presentiment of approaching death; there was a buzzing in his ears from sheer terror.
With hands tucked under her white apron, the maidservant still stood motionless on the veranda, enjoying the soft autumnal air.
Like a thief, Yourii crept behind the oak-tree, so that no one should see him from the veranda, and with startling suddenness shot himself in the chest.
“Missed fire!” he thought with delight, longing to live, and dreading death. But above him he saw the topmost branches of the oak-tree against the azure sky, and the yellow cat that leapt away in alarm.
Uttering a shriek, the maid-servant rushed indoors. Immediately afterwards it seemed to Yourii as if he were surrounded by a huge crowd of people. Some one poured cold water on his head, and a yellow leaf stuck to his brow, much to his discomfort. He heard excited voices on all sides, and some one sobbing, and crying out: “Youra, Youra! Oh! why, why?”
“That’s Lialia!” thought Yourii. Opening his eyes wide, he began to struggle violently, as in a frenzy he screamed:
“Send for the doctor—quick!”
But to his horror he felt that all was over—that now nothing could save him. The dead leaves sticking to his brow felt heavier and heavier, crushing his brain. He stretched out his neck in a vain effort to see more clearly, but the leaves grew and grew, till they had covered everything; and what then happened to him Yourii never knew.
CHAPTER XLII.
Those who knew Yourii Svarogitsch, and those who did not, those who liked, as those who despised him, even those who had never thought about him were sorry, now that he was dead.