"The man is dying, Prince Gregoriev. Only a miracle could help him now."
There was a moment's silence before Ivan said, very softly: "Let us go in."
The room was small, rather bare, but clean and well-warmed by the huge stove built into the wall, with half of it extending into the room beyond. A second nurse was sitting in a chair beside a small table which held medicines and the night-lamp. This man rose as his successor entered, and, at the door, a word or two was spoken between them. Ivan caught the phrase: "No change." Then he halted beside the iron bed and stood looking down on the motionless form of Joseph.
Joseph!—Joseph Kashkarin, this bearded, hollow-eyed, gray-lipped man, with the spots of scarlet flaming from his projecting cheekbones, and throwing the death-hue of the rest of the face into still more dreadful prominence? Joseph's, that clawlike hand, with the broken, stained and shapeless nails, which once had wielded a brush that created the laughing face of Irina Petrovna—the woman who had brought him down to death? A great shudder seized upon Ivan; and, for an instant, he was forced to turn away. Then the nurse brought him a chair; and he removed his coat and hat and seated himself beside the cot, his face resolutely straightened into an expressionless gravity. As he watched, the nurse administered a hypodermic of strychnia, and then bathed the burning face and hands with cool water. The task completed, the man turned to Ivan, saying, nonchalantly:
"The stimulant may pull him up, sir, for fifteen minutes, if you wish to speak to him. But he's failing. He'll hardly linger to see the sun."
In spite of himself Ivan betrayed something of the thrill that shot through him at these words. Till now he had scarcely realized that he was actually to watch a man start upon that dread passage which leads—none knoweth whither. He sat wrapped in solemn thought until, presently, the form beneath the blankets stirred, and Joseph began to cough:—a cough that shook and racked his emaciated frame as if it would tear flesh from bone. The nurse hurried to his side. But it was five minutes before the fit had ceased and the sick man, raised high upon his pillows, regained his breath and the strength to open his glittering eyes, which fell at once upon Ivan. For a moment they stared, dazedly. Then a distorted smile softened the line of the pallid lips:
"You!—Then they did send—and you came! I'm not dreaming?" He spoke in a whisper, as if to himself; but the words were distinct.
"No, Joseph, I am here.—Joseph, why did you wait?—Why did you not come to me, years ago?—I hunted so long! I never dreamed of leaving you longer than for that one night. I have prayed that—" He broke off, suddenly, remembering that excitement might bring on the cough again. And indeed Joseph's eyes were already closed once more.
Ivan waited, patiently, one, two, five minutes. Then the whisper came again: "That is a long time ago. But I remember why I didn't go to you: why I concealed myself. It was because I was ashamed.—We all wish to hide our dirty souls from every one—even from God, I suppose. Well, you had been really good to me; and you were my ideal: the ideal of my best self, and of my art. How could I go to you, when you must see the depths I had got to."
"But you are letting me see you now, and there is nothing dreadful in it," put in Ivan, gently.