Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume X).djvu/281

Rh skin, and instantaneously exposed the deadly whiteness of skulls, with here and there the leaden shimmer of bare jaws and gums.

With horror I beheld the movements of those jaws and gums; the turning, the glistening in the light of the lamps and candles, of those lumpy bony balls, and the rolling in them of other smaller balls, the balls of the meaningless eyes.

I dared not touch my own face, dared not glance at myself in the glass.

And the skulls turned from side to side as before. . . . And with their former noise, peeping like little red rags out of the grinning teeth, rapid tongues lisped how marvellously, how inimitably the immortal. . . yes, immortal. . . singer had rendered that last trill!

April 1878.

. Why do you come crawling up to us? What do ye want? You're none of us. . .. Get along!