bedroom,
simply dropped down on to his knees before the holy pictures.

'Pray, Arina, pray for us!' he moaned; 'our son is dying.'

The doctor, the same district doctor who had had no caustic, arrived,
and after looking at the patient, advised them to persevere with a
cooling treatment, and at that point said a few words of the chance of
recovery.

'Have you ever chanced to see people in my state _not_ set off for
Elysium?' asked Bazarov, and suddenly snatching the leg of a heavy
table that stood near his sofa, he swung it round, and pushed it away.
'There's strength, there's strength,' he murmured; 'everything's here
still, and I must die!... An old man at least has time to be weaned
from life, but I ... Well, go and try to disprove death. Death will
disprove you, and that's all! Who's crying there?' he added, after a
short pause--'Mother? Poor thing! Whom will she feed now with her
exquisite beetroot-soup? You, Vassily Ivanovitch, whimpering too, I do
believe! Why, if Christianity's no help to you, be a philosopher, a
Stoic, or what not! Why, didn't you boast you were a philosopher?'

'Me a philosopher!' wailed Vassily Ivanovitch, while the tears fairly
streamed down his cheeks.

Bazarov got worse every hour; the progress of the disease was rapid, as
is usually the way in cases of surgical poisoning. He still had not
lost consciousness, and understood what was said to him; he was still
struggling. 'I don't want to lose my wits,' he muttered, clenching his
fists; 'what rot it all is!' And at once he would say, 'Come, take ten
from eight, what remains?' Vassily Ivanovitch wandered about like one
possessed, proposed first one remedy, then another, and ended by doing
nothing but cover up his son's feet. 'Try cold pack ... emetic ...
mustard plasters on the stomach ... bleeding,' he would murmur with an
effort. The doctor, whom he had entreated to remain, agreed with him,
ordered the patient lemonade to drink, and for himself asked for a pipe
and something 'warming and strengthening'--that's to say, brandy. Arina
Vlasyevna sat on a low stool near the door, and only went out from time
to time to pray. A few days before, a looking-glass had slipped out of
her hands and been broken, and this she had always considered an omen
of evil; even Anfisushka could say nothing to her. Timofeitch had gone
off to Madame Odintsov's.

The night passed badly for Bazarov.... He was in the agonies of high
fever. Towards morning he was