Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/23

 known so closely, at first as a merry boy, as his schoolmate, and later, when he was grown, as his partner, suddenly terrified him, in spite of the disagreeable consciousness of his hypocrisy and of that of the woman. He again saw that brow and that nose which pressed against the lip, and he felt terribly for himself.

"Three days of frightful suffering, and death. Why, this may happen to me now, any minute," he thought, and for a moment he felt terribly. But immediately, he did not know himself how, the habitual thought occurred to him that this had happened to Iván Ilích, and not to him, and that this should not and could not happen to him; that if he thought in this manner, he submitted to a gloomy mood, which he ought not to do, as was evident from Schwarz's face. Having reflected thus, Peter Ivánovich calmed himself and interestedly inquired about the details of Iván Ilích's end, as though death was an accident which was peculiar to Iván Ilích but by no means to him.

After many details of the really terrible physical sufferings which Iván Ilích had endured (these details Peter Ivánovich learned only from the way these torments of Iván Ilích affected the nerves of Praskóvya Fédorovna), the widow apparently found it necessary to pass over to business.

"Oh, Peter Ivánovich, it is so hard, so terribly hard, so terribly hard!" and she started weeping again.

Peter Ivánovich sighed and waited for her to clear her nose. When she had done so, he said, "Believe me—" and she became again voluble and made a clear breast of what evidently was her chief business with him. This business consisted in questions as to how to obtain money from the government on the occasion of her husband's death. She made it appear as though she were asking Peter Ivánovich's advice in regard to the pension; but he saw that she knew down to the minutest details, what he did not