Page:Andreyev - The Little Angel (Knopf, 1916).djvu/159

Rh would make uncertain strange motions—and this was death. But meanwhile he must need live, and that is such a serious task for a man who has neither money, health, nor will, that Khinyakov was seized with despair. He threw off his blanket, clasped his hands, and breathed out into the void such prolonged groans, that they seemed to proceed from a thousand suffering breasts, therefore was it that they were so full, brimming over with insupportable torture.

"Open, you devil!" cried Dunyasha from the other side of the door, pounding it with her fists. "Or I'll break the door down!"

Trembling with tottering steps, Khinyakov reached the door, opened it, and quickly lay down again, nay almost fell, on his bed. Dunyasha, already befrizzled and bepowdered, sat down at his side, shoving him against the wall, and, crossing her legs, said with an air of importance:

"I have brought you news. Katya expired yesterday?"

"What Katya?" asked Khinyakov, using his tongue clumsily and uncertainly, as though it did not belong to him.

"Come, now, you can't have forgotten!" laughed Dunyasha. "The Katya who used to live here. How can you have forgotten her, when she has been gone only a week?"

"Died?"

"Why, of course died, as all die." Dunyasha