Page:Andreyev - A Dilemma (Brown, 1910).djvu/90

82 When I realized. . . at first I thought that Maria Vasilyevna had uttered this phrase, because it seemed as if there were a voice, and this voice appeared to be hers. Then I thought it was the voice of Alexis. Yes, Alexis, who was dead. Then I understood that it was my thought, and this was terrifying. Clutching my hair, I found myself somehow standing in the middle of the room. I mumbled:

"So that's how it is. All is ended. That which I feared has happened. I approached too closely to the border line, and now there is only one thing before me—madness."

When they came to arrest me, I appeared, according to their words, in an awful state—disheveled, in torn apparel, pale and terrible. But, oh, Lord! To live through such a night and not to go out of one's mind—does it not indicate the possession of an invincible brain? And, really, I only tore my attire and broke a mirror. Apropos, permit me to make a suggestion. If it ever falls to the lot of any of you to live through that