We found poor Maksim on the ground. The peasants were standing about him. We got off our horses. He hardly moaned at all; from time to time he opened his eyes wide, looked round, as it were, in astonishment, and bit his lips, fast turning blue.... The lower part of his face was twitching; his hair was matted on his brow; his breast heaved irregularly: he was dying. The light shade of a young lime-tree glided softly over his face. We bent down to him. He recognised Ardalion Mihalitch. 'Please sir,' he said to him, hardly articulately, 'send... for the priest... tell... the Lord... has punished me... arms, legs, all smashed... to-day's... Sunday... and I... I... see... didn't let the lads off... work.' He ceased, out of breath. 'And my money... for my wife... after deducting.... Onesim here knows... whom I... what I owe.' 'We've sent for the doctor, Maksim,' said my neighbour; 'perhaps you may not die yet.' He tried to open his eyes, and with an effort raised the lids. 'No, I'm dying. Here... here it is coming... here it.... Forgive me, lads, if in any way....' 'God will forgive you, Maksim Andreitch,' said the peasants thickly with one voice, and they took off their caps; 'do you forgive us!' He suddenly shook his head despairingly, his breast heaved with a painful effort, and he fell back again. 'We can't let him lie here and die, though,' cried Ardalion Mihalitch; 'lads, give us the mat from the cart, and carry him to the hospital.' Two men ran to the cart. 'I bought a horse... yesterday,' faltered the dying man, 'off Efim... Sitchovsky... paid earnest money... so the horse is mine.... Give it... to my wife....' They began to move him on to the mat.... He trembled all over, like a wounded bird, and stiffened.... 'He is dead,' muttered the peasants. We mounted our horses in silence and rode away. The death of poor Maksim set me musing. How wonderfully indeed the Russian peasant dies! The temper in which he meets his end cannot be called indifference or stolidity; he dies as though he were performing a solemn rite, coolly and simply.