Chapter 43 - Page 2

served
Gorshkov could not remain still. He kept entering everyone's room
in turn (whether invited thither or not), and, seating himself
smilingly upon a chair, would sometimes say something, and
sometimes not utter a word, but get up and go out again. In the
naval officer's room he even took a pack of playing-cards into
his hand, and was thereupon invited to make a fourth in a game;
but after losing a few times, as well as making several blunders
in his play, he abandoned the pursuit. "No," said he, "that is
the sort of man that I am--that is all that I am good for," and
departed. Next, encountering myself in the corridor, he took my
hands in his, and gazed into my face with a rather curious air.
Then he pressed my hands again, and moved away still smiling,
smiling, but in an odd, weary sort of manner, much as a corpse
might smile. Meanwhile his wife was weeping for joy, and
everything in their room was decked in holiday guise. Presently
dinner was served, and after they had dined Gorshkov said to his
wife: "See now, dearest, I am going to rest a little while;" and
with that went to bed. Presently he called his little daughter to
his side, and, laying his hand upon the child's head, lay a long
while looking at her. Then he turned to his wife again, and asked
her: "What of Petinka? Where is our Petinka?" whereupon his wife
crossed herself, and replied: "Why, our Petinka is dead!" "Yes,
yes, I know--of course," said her husband. "Petinka is now in the
Kingdom of Heaven." This showed his wife that her husband was not
quite in his right senses--that the recent occurrence had upset
him; so she said: "My dearest, you must sleep awhile." "I will do
so," he replied, "--at once--I am rather--" And he turned over,
and lay silent for a time. Then again he turned round and tried
to say something, but his wife could not hear what it was. "What
do you say?" she inquired, but he made no reply. Then again she
waited a few moments until she thought to herself, "He has gone
to sleep," and departed to spend an hour with the landlady. At
the end of that hour she returned-- only to find that her husband
had not yet awoken, but was still lying motionless. "He is
sleeping very soundly," she reflected as she sat down and began
to work at something or other. Since then she has told us that
when half an hour or so had elapsed she fell into a reverie.
What she was thinking of she cannot remember, save that she had
forgotten altogether about her husband. Then she awoke with a
curious sort of sensation at her heart. The first thing that
struck her was the deathlike stillness of the room. Glancing at
the bed, she perceived her husband to be lying in the same
position as before. Thereupon she approached him, turned the