Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/77

Rh health station in Russia. When I saw him off at the Harbin station, he was in a sad state with his left hand quite inert, hanging cold and motionless at his side. Continual and piercing pain was his lot, clearly reflected in the thin and almost transparent face with its pale and parched lips. He was coughing and smiled in a rather shamed manner, as he said good-bye to me just before the train started.

"This is the end of my dreams!"

When I tried to calm and cheer him, he only shook his head and repeated:

"No, sir, this is the end! I am a cripple and there is only one help for me now, only one." He looked beyond me where he seemed to find the infinite, and added slowly: "Death, only death!"

He went away. For one short second I saw once more his pale face and then it disappeared. I never saw it again and I never shall, for I learned a year later that Kazik had died of consumption in a hospital, lonely and poor, because as a cripple he could find no work and had long ago used up his meagre savings.

Now, when on the great tapestry of memory the rather unusual character of Kazik stands out before me, I cannot really answer this question of how the accident in my car at Ho Lin actually occurred. While in hospital after the operation, Kazik averred that he struck the revolver by mistake, that it fell on the floor and went off. When I heard this, I recalled the pale, distorted face of Kazik before the accident and asked myself: "Was it not a suicide?" But Kazik took his secret with him to the grave.

It was not many weeks after the accident to Kazik that peace and happiness returned to the little home of the Samsonoffs. The young husband was gayer and more