Page:The Bet and Other Stories.djvu/101

Rh I light the lamp quickly and drink some water straight out of the decanter. Then I hurry to the window. The weather is magnificent. The air smells of hay and some delicious thing besides. I see the spikes of my garden fence, the sleepy starveling trees by the window, the road, the dark strip of forest. There is a calm and brilliant moon in the sky and not a single cloud. Serenity. Not a leaf stirs. To me it seems that everything is looking at me and listening for me to die.

Dread seizes me. I shut the window and run to the bed. I feel for my pulse. I cannot find it in my wrist; I seek it in my temples, my chin, my hand again. They are all cold and slippery with sweat. My breathing comes quicker and quicker; my body trembles, all my bowels are stirred, and my face and forehead feel as though a cobweb had settled on them.

What shall I do? Shall I call my family? No use. I do not know what my wife and Liza will do when they come in to me.

I hide my head under the pillow, shut my eyes and wait, wait. . . My spine is cold. It almost contracts within me. And I feel that death will approach me only from behind, very quietly.

"Kivi, kivi." A squeak sounds in the stillness of the night. I do not know whether it is in my heart or in the street.

God, how awful! I would drink some more water; but now I dread opening my eyes, and