Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/25

 succumb to the dissolving influences, and was one of the first to leave the room. There was no one in the antechamber. Gerásim, the peasant of the buffet-room, leaped out from the room of the deceased man, and with his powerful hands rummaged among all the fur coats, in order to find the one which belonged to Peter Ivánovich and which he handed to him.

"Well, friend Gerásim?" said Peter Ivánovich, to be saying something. "Are you sorry?”

"It is God's will. We shall all of us be there," said Gerásim, displaying his white, solid peasant teeth; like a man in the heat of intense work, he opened the door in lively fashion, called the coachman, helped Peter Ivánovich in, and jumped back to the porch, as though considering what else he had to do.

It was especially pleasant for Peter Ivánovich to breathe the pure air, after the odour of incense, of the dead body, and of carbolic acid.

"Whither do you command me to drive you?” asked the coachman.

"It is not yet late,—I will make a call on Fédor Vasilevich."

And Peter Ivánovich departed. He indeed found them at the end of the first rubber, so that it was convenient for him to come in as the fifth.