"Be off, quick, and get some water!" he ordered Senka. Then he opened wide the door of the sick man's room, and stepped boldly across the threshold.
Through the mist, which seemed to have arisen before his eyes, Grigori saw poor Kisljakoff. The accordion-player, dressed in his best clothes, leant all of a heap against the table, pressing convulsively his body against the edge, which he held with both his hands. His feet, still wearing the patent leather boots, dangled helplessly on the damp floor.
"Who is there?" asked the sick man in a hollow, apathetic, changed voice.
Grigori moved a step nearer, treading carefully over the damp boards, and trying to speak in even cheerful tone of voice.
"It is!—brother Mitri Pawlow.... What's the matter with you, then? This is a queer sort of music you are making here! Did you have a drop too much yesterday?"
He looked at Kisljakoff with terrified curiosity, for he scarcely recognized him. The accordion-player's face had taken on it a drawn angular expression; the cheek-bones stood out sharply. The deep-sunk eyes, surrounded by black rings, looked unusually fixed and staring. The skin had turned the colour of a corpse in summer-time. Orloff felt he was looking into the leaden face of a dying man. Only the slow movement of the jaws showed that what was before him was still a living body.... For some time Kisljakoff stared with motionless, glassy eyes into Grigori's face; and this dying stare frightened Orloff. It seemed to him as if a damp, cold hand had seized him by the throat, and was slowly strangling him. And he felt within him the desire to leave as soon as possible this room, which used to be so pleasant and gay, but which now seemed unnaturally cold, and filled with such a horrible foul smell of decay and rottenness.
"Come now," said he, preparing to leave the room.
Suddenly a sort of change passed over the grey face of the accordion-player. The lips, which were tinged with a leaden-coloured shade, opened, and he said in a low monotonous voice—
"I—must—d—die."
These three words, uttered so apathetically, struck Orloff's head and heart like three dull strokes. He turned, as if stunned, towards the door, where he was met by Tschischik, hot and perspiring, who was returning with a bucket of water.