A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail IUr'evich Lermontov [29]
“The delirium lifted toward morning. For an hour, she lay there motionless and pale, with such feebleness that it was barely possible to see her breathing. Then she seemed better, and she started talking—but what do you think she was on about? . . . This kind of thing only occurs to the dying! She had started lamenting the fact that she wasn’t a Christian, and that in the other world, her soul wouldn’t meet Pechorin’s, and that some other woman would become his companion in heaven. I had an idea to christen her before she died and I suggested it to her. She looked at me with indecision and couldn’t utter anything for a long while. Eventually, she responded saying she would die of the same faith with which she was born. A whole day passed in this way. How she changed over the course of that day! Her pale cheeks sank, her eyes grew larger and larger, her lips burned. She felt an inner heat, as though there was a piece of burning-hot iron in her breast.
“The next night fell; we didn’t close our eyes, didn’t leave her bedside. She was suffering terribly, moaning, and when the pain subsided, she would try to convince Grigory Alexandrovich that she was better, persuading him to get some sleep, she kissed his hand, she wouldn’t release it from her own. Before morning she began to feel the anguish of death, she started to toss around, dislodged her bandage, and she bled again. When they dressed the wound, she was calm for a minute and started asking Pechorin if he would kiss her. He got onto his knees by the bed, lifted her head a little from the pillow, and pressed his lips to her ever-colder lips. She threw her shaking arms tightly around his neck as though with this kiss she wanted to convey her soul to him . . . But she did well to die! What would have become of her if Grigory Alexandrovich had abandoned her? It would have happened sooner or later . . .
“The first half of the next day she was quiet, un-talking and obedient, as the doctor tortured her with poultices and mixtures.
“‘For pity’s sake!’ I said to him. ‘You said yourself that she would die for certain, so why all these medical preparations? ’
“‘It’s still better than nothing, Maxim Maximych,’ he responded, ‘for the sake of a peaceful conscience.’ A peaceful conscience!
“After midday, she started to be tormented by thirst. We opened the window, but it was hotter in the courtyard than in her room. We put pieces of ice by her bed but nothing was helping. I knew that this was an unbearable thirst—a sign of the approaching end—and told this to Pechorin. ‘Water! Water!’ she said with a hoarse voice, rising up slightly in her bed.
“He became as white as a sheet, grabbed a glass, poured water into it and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and started to recite a prayer, I don’t remember which . . . Yes, my dear sir, I have often seen people dying in hospitals and on battlefields—but it didn’t compare—didn’t compare! . . . And what’s more, I should confess, that there’s something that particularly saddens me: she didn’t once think of me before her death. And, it seems, I loved her like a father . . . God forgive her! . . . But, in actuality, it must be said: who am I that she should remember me before her death?
“As soon as she had taken a drink of water, she felt a certain ease, and after three minutes she perished. We put a mirror up to her lips—it was clear! . . . I led Pechorin straight out of the room, and we went to the fortress ramparts. For a long time we walked back and forth along the ramparts side by side, without saying a word, our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing in particular and I became vexed. In his place I would have died of grief. Eventually, he sat on the ground, in the shade, and started scratching something in the sand with a stick. I wanted to comfort him, and started to say something, mostly out of a sense of decency, you know. And he raised his head and burst out laughing