He had indeed known that something wonderful must come in Rome.
They brought him to the hotel, the physician came--two physicians. One did what one could. All attempts at reanimation were in vain. The doctors pronounced it heart failure. At two o'clock in the morning the two children of the deceased remained alone with the corpse.
XL.
On the third day after his death the burial took place, with great pomp and an immense crowd.
Only when one misses a dead man can one fully recognize his greatness, and to the artist world which assembled round Lensky's coffin in Rome it grew plain that they had buried a giant. At first the Russians would not consent that the body of their great man, who had so unspeakably loved his fatherland, should be confided to strange earth, but his children knew that he had wished to be buried near his wife in the strangers' cemetery at the foot of the Aventine, and they respected his last wishes.
Mascha's inner self was wholly shattered. Not only her husband, but also her mother-in-law, had come from Venice to be present at the funeral solemnities, to support, to console the broken young woman. She repelled every consolation.
In spite of her great physical exhaustion, she would not be prevented from accompanying the corpse to the edge of the grave. They were afraid that she would swoon when the body was lowered into the grave, but she stood up erect.
When the mourners returned from the burial to the hotel, the table was laid for them in the drawing-room. Sonia, who had been present in these sad times, and like a warm, mild sunbeam had assisted benevolently and unobtrusively, stood near the samovar. With loathing, Mascha turned away, and hurried to her room, where she shut herself in. She who had borne so much sadness and trouble without complaining, this time knew no bounds to her grief. Bärenburg, Nikolai, her mother-in-law--one after the other knocked at her door to say something loving to her, to console her. She admitted no one.
Stiff and erect, she sat there in the first chair she could find, deathly pale and tearless.