On a slip of paper with a hospital stamp, inside the envelope, was written in large characters:
"When you have an hour to spare, come and see me. I am in the Martinovski Hospital. "E. M."
The next morning I was sitting in a hospital ward on my stepfather's bed. It was a long bed, and his feet, in gray, worn socks, stuck out through the rails. His beautiful eyes, dully wandering over the yellow walls, rested on my face and on the small hands of a young girl who sat on a bench at the head of the bed. Her hands rested on the pillow, and my stepfather rubbed his cheek against them, his mouth hanging open. She was a plump girl, wearing a shiny, dark frock. The tears flowed slowly over her oval face; her wet blue eyes never moved from my stepfather's face, with its sharp bones, large, sharp-pointed nose, and dark mouth.
"The priest ought to be here," she whispered, "but he forbids it—he does not understand." And taking her hands from the pillow, she pressed them to her breast as if praying.
In a minute my stepfather came to himself, looked at the ceiling and frowned, as if he were trying to remember something. Then he stretched his lank hand toward me.
"You? Thank you. Here I am, you see. I feel to stupid."
The effort tired him; he closed his eyes. I stroked his long cold fingers with the blue nails. The girl asked softly:
"Evgen Vassilvich, introduce us, please!"
"You must know each other," he said, indicating her with his eyes. "A dear creature—"
He stopped speaking, his mouth opened wider and wider, and he suddenly shrieked out hoarsely, like a raven. Throwing herself on the bed, clutching at the blanket, waving her bare arms about, the girl also screamed, burying her head in the tossed pillow.