five in the
afternoon.

"Shall I be able to hold out? Shall I last so long?" sighed the sick
man, all day long. And the more he was disturbed in mind, the more
threatening were his attacks of pain. He passed a bad night. Toward
morning a violent attack, much worse than any that had gone before,
almost carried him away. He could hardly breathe, owing to the sharp
suffering. Hot baths for his hands and steam inhalations no longer had
any beneficial effect, though they had alleviated his pain hitherto.

The doctor, the Sister of Mercy, and the servant wore themselves out.
But still, as before, his wife alone was not admitted to him. She
raged with anger, trying, and not without success, to convince
everyone that she was going mad with despair. Little Olga had been
taken away on the previous day by a friend of the general's, to stay
there "during this terrible time." That night Madame Nazimoff did not
go to bed at all; and, as befitted a devoted wife, did not quit her
husband's door. When the violent attack just before dawn quieted down,
she made an attempt to go in to him; but no sooner did the sick man
see her at the head of his couch, on which he had at last been
persuaded to lie, than strong displeasure was expressed in his face,
and, no longer able to speak, he made an angry motion of his hand
toward her, and groaned heavily. The Sister of Mercy with great
firmness asked the general's wife not to trouble the sick man with her
presence.

"And I am to put up with this. I am to submit to all this?" thought
Olga Vseslavovna, writhing with wrath. "To endure all this from him,
and after his death to suffer beggary? No, a thousand times no! Better
death than penury and such insults." And she fell into gloomy thought.

That gesture of displeasure at the sight of his wife was the last
conscious act of Iuri Pavlovitch Nazimoff. At eight in the morning he
lost consciousness, in the midst of violent suffering, which lasted
until the end. By the early afternoon he was no more.

During the last hour of his agony his wife knelt beside his couch
without let or hindrance, and wept inconsolably. The formidable
aristocrat and millionaire was dead.

Everything went on along the usual lines. The customary stir and
unceremonious bustle, instead of cautious whispering, rose around the
dead body, in preparation for a fashionable funeral. No near relatives
were present except his wife, and she was confined to her room,
half-fainting, h