ot have
recourse to arguments of a still more unpleasant nature."

"What you say is quite true," observed General Epanchin; then, clasping
his hands behind his back, he returned to his place on the terrace
steps, where he yawned with an air of boredom.

"Come, sir, that will do; you weary me," said Lizabetha Prokofievna
suddenly to Evgenie Pavlovitch.

Hippolyte rose all at once, looking troubled and almost frightened.

"It is time for me to go," he said, glancing round in perplexity. "I
have detained you... I wanted to tell you everything... I thought you
all... for the last time... it was a whim..."

He evidently had sudden fits of returning animation, when he awoke
from his semi-delirium; then, recovering full self-possession for a
few moments, he would speak, in disconnected phrases which had perhaps
haunted him for a long while on his bed of suffering, during weary,
sleepless nights.

"Well, good-bye," he said abruptly. "You think it is easy for me to say
good-bye to you? Ha, ha!"

Feeling that his question was somewhat gauche, he smiled angrily. Then
as if vexed that he could not ever express what he really meant, he said
irritably, in a loud voice:

"Excellency, I have the honour of inviting you to my funeral; that is,
if you will deign to honour it with your presence. I invite you all,
gentlemen, as well as the general."

He burst out laughing again, but it was the laughter of a madman.
Lizabetha Prokofievna approached him anxiously and seized his arm.
He stared at her for a moment, still laughing, but soon his face grew
serious.

"Do you know that I came here to see those trees?" pointing to the
trees in the park. "It is not ridiculous, is it? Say that it is not
ridiculous!" he demanded urgently of Lizabetha Prokofievna. Then he
seemed to be plunged in thought. A moment later he raised his head, and
his eyes sought for someone. He was looking for Evgenie Pavlovitch, who
was close by on his right as before, but he had forgotten this, and
his eyes ranged over the assembled company. "Ah! you have not gone!" he
said, when he caught sight of him at last. "You kept on laughing just
now, because I thought of speaking to the people from the window for a
quarter of an hour. But I am not eighteen, you know; lying on that bed,
and looking out of that window, I have thought of all sorts of things
for such a long time that... a dead man has no age, you know. I was
saying that to myself only last week, when I wa