strange look came over Bazaroff's face.

"I won't refuse if that can be any comfort to you, but I'll wait a
little."

There was the sound of carriage wheels outside. Vassily Ivanovitch
rushed to the door. A lady in a black veil and a black mantle,
accompanied by a little German doctor in spectacles, got out of the
carriage.

"I am Madame Odintsov," said the lady. "Your son is still living? I have
a doctor with me."

"Benefactress!" cried Vassily Ivanovitch, snatching her hand and placing
it convulsively to his lips. "Still living; my Yevgeny is living, and
now he will be saved! Wife! wife!... An angel from heaven has come to
us."

But when the doctor came out from examining his patient he breathed the
news that there was no hope, and Vassily Ivanovitch conducted Madame
Odintsov to his son's room. As she looked at Bazaroff she felt simply
dismayed, with a sort of cold and suffocating dismay; the thought that
she would not have felt like that if she had really loved him flashed
instantaneously through her brain.

"Thanks," said Bazaroff from the bed. "I did not expect this. It's a
deed of mercy. So we have seen each other again as you promised.... I
loved you! there was no sense in that even before, and less than ever
now. Love is a form, and my own form is already breaking up."

Madame Odintsov gave an involuntary shudder.

"Noble-hearted!" he whispered. "Oh, how young and fresh and pure... in
this loathsome room! Well, good-bye.... I thought I wouldn't die; I'd
break down so many things. I wouldn't die; why should I? There were
problems to solve, and I was a giant! And now all the problem for the
giant is how to die decently.... My father will tell you what a man
Russia is losing.... That's nonsense, but don't contradict the old man.
Whatever toy will comfort a child... you know. And be kind to mother.
People like them are not to be found in your great world.... I was
needed by Russia.... No, it's clear I wasn't needed. And who is needed?"

Bazaroff put his hand to his brow. Madame Odintsov bent down to him.
"Yevgeny Vassilyvitch, I am here...." He at once took his hand away and
raised himself.

"Good-bye," he said, with a sudden force, and his eyes gleamed with
their last light. "Good-bye.... Listen.... You know I didn't kiss you
then.... Breathe on the dying lamp, and let it go out...."

She put her lips on his forehead.

"Enough!" he murmured, and dropped back on to the pillow. "Now...
darkness...."