But the thoughts of Serafima Aleksandrovna were confused, and she could not quite grasp what was happening.
Fever was consuming Lelechka, and there were times when she lost consciousness and spoke in delirium. But when she returned to herself she bore her pain and her fatigue with gentle good nature; she smiled feebly at her mamochka, so that her mamochka should not see how much she suffered. Three days passed, torturing like a nightmare. Lelechka grew quite feeble. She did not know that she was dying.
She glanced at her mother with her dimmed eyes, and lisped in a scarcely audible, hoarse voice: “Tiu-tiu, mamochka! Make tiu-tiu, mamochka!”
Serafima Aleksandrovna hid her face behind the curtains near Lelechka’s bed. How tragic!
“Mamochka!” called Lelechka in an almost inaudible voice.
Lelechka’s mother bent over her, and Lelechka, her vision grown still more dim, saw her mother’s pale, despairing face for the last time.
“A white mamochka!” whispered Lelechka.
Mamochka’s white face became blurred, and everything grew dark before Lelechka. She caught the edge of the bed-cover feebly with her hands and whispered: “Tiu-tiu!”
Something rattled in her throat; Lelechka opened and again closed her rapidly paling lips, and died.
Serafima Aleksandrovna was in dumb despair as she left Lelechka, and went out of the room. She met her husband.