Page:The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhoff, 1908.pdf/116

 his bed and began to think. He thought of the doctor's promised sugar-candy, of his mother's face and voice, of the darkness in the cabin at home, of querulous Yegorovna, And he suddenly felt tedium and grief. But remembering that his mother would come in the morning, he smiled, and fell asleep.

He was awakened by a noise. Men walked in the adjoining ward and spoke in whispers. The dim gleam of nightlights and lamps showed three figures moving near Mikhailo's bed.

“Shall we take him on the mattress, or as he is?” asked one.

“As he is. There's no room for the mattress. Akh, he's dead at a bad hour, heaven rest his soul!”

Then—one of the figures taking Mikhailo's shoulders, another his feet—they lifted him, and the folds of his dressing-gown hung limply in the air. The third—it was the woman-like peasant—crossed himself; and all three, shuffling their feet, tripping in the folds of the dressing-gown, went out of the ward.

The sleeping man's chest whistled, and sang in different notes. Pashka heard it, looked in fright at the black windows, and jumped out of bed in panic.

“Mother!” he screamed.

And, without awaiting an answer, he rushed into the adjoining ward. The lamps and nightlights barely banished the gloom; the patients, agitated by Mikhailo's death, were sitting up in their beds. Grim,