Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/22

 "Do smoke, if you please," she said, in a magnanimous and at the same time crushed voice, and proceeded to busy herself with Sokolóv concerning the price of the lot. Peter Ivánovich heard, while starting to smoke, how she inquired very circumstantially about the different prices of the land and settled on the lot which she was going to take. Having finished about the lot, she also made her arrangements about the singers. Sokolóv went away.

"I do everything myself," she said to Peter Ivánovich, pushing aside the albums which were lying on the table, and, observing that the ashes were threatening the table, she without delay moved up the ash-tray to Peter Ivánovich, and said: "I consider it a bit of hypocrisy to assure people that my grief prevents me from attending to practical matters. On the contrary, if there is anything which can, not console, but distract me, it is the cares concerning him." She again drew out her handkerchief, as though getting ready to cry, and suddenly, as though overcoming herself, she shook herself, and began to speak calmly. "But I want to ask you about a certain matter."

Peter Ivánovich made a bow, without permitting the springs of the pouffe, which began to stir under him, to get away.

"The last three days he suffered terribly."

"Suffered terribly?" asked Peter Ivánovich.

"Oh, terribly! The last minutes, nay hours, he never stopped crying. It was unbearable. I cannot understand how I stood it; you could hear him three rooms off. Oh, what I have endured!"

"And was he really in his right mind?" asked Peter Ivánovich.

"Yes," she whispered, "to the last minute. He bade us good-bye within fifteen minutes of his death, and also asked us to take Volódya away."

The thought of the suffering of this man, whom he had