Martin Petrovitch begged pardon, sighed twice, and was silent. My mother once more referred to Kiev, the Optin desert, and Father Makary.… Harlov assented, said that ‘he must … he must … he would have to … his soul …’ and that was all. He did not regain his cheerfulness before he went away. From time to time he clenched and unclenched his fist, looked at his open hand, said that what he feared above everything was dying without repentance, from a stroke, and that he had made a vow to himself not to get angry, as anger vitiated his blood and drove it to his head.… Besides, he had now withdrawn from everything. What grounds could he have for getting angry? Let other people trouble themselves now and vitiate their blood! As he took leave of my mother he looked at her in a strange way, mournfully and questioningly … and suddenly, with a rapid movement, drew out of his pocket the volume of _The Worker’s Leisure-Hour_, and thrust it into my mother’s hand. ‘What’s that?’ she inquired. ‘Read … here,’ he said hurriedly, ‘where the corner’s turned down, about death. It seems to me, it’s terribly well said, but I can’t make it out at all. Can’t you explain it to me, my benefactress? I’ll come back again and you explain it me.’ With these words Martin Petrovitch went away. ‘He’s in a bad way, he’s in a bad way,’ observed my mother, directly he had disappeared through the doorway, and she set to work upon the _Leisure-Hour_. On the page turned down by Harlov were the following words: ‘Death is a grand and solemn work of nature. It is nothing else than that the spirit, inasmuch as it is lighter, finer, and infinitely more penetrating than those elements under whose sway it has been subject, nay, even than the force of electricity itself, so is chemically purified and striveth upward till what time it attaineth an equally spiritual abiding-place for itself …’ and so on. My mother read this passage through twice, and exclaiming, ‘Pooh!’ she flung the book away. Three days later, she received the news that her sister’s husband was dead, and set off to her sister’s country-seat, taking me with her. My mother proposed to spend a month with her, but she stayed on till late in the autumn, and it was only at the end of September that we returned to our own estate. XVI