This task, however, only exhausted him, and afterwards he was unable to make any other dispositions. When, at the arrival of morning, his intolerable suffering ceased, he said to Spasskii, "_My wife! call my wife!_" This farewell moment I dare not attempt to describe to you. He then asked for his children; they were asleep; but they went for them, and brought them half asleep as they were. He bent his eyes in silence upon each of them, laid his hand on their heads, made a sign of the cross over them, and then, with a gesture of the hand, sent them away. "_Who is there?_" he enquired of Spasskii and Danzas. They named me and Viazemskii. "_Call them in!_" said he in a feeble voice. I entered, took the cold hand which he held out to me, kissed it. I could not speak; he waved his hand, I retired; but he called me back. "_Tell the Emperor_," he said, "_that I am sorry to die; I would have been wholly his. Tell him that I wish him a long, long reign; that I wish him happiness in his son, happiness in his Russia._" These words he spoke feebly, interruptedly, but distinctly. He then bade farewell to Viazemskii. At this moment arrived the Count Vielhorskii, and went into his room; and he was thus the last person who pressed his hand in life. It was evident that he was hastening to his last earthly account, and listening, as it were, for the footstep of approaching death. Feeling his own pulse, he said to Spasskii, "_Death is coming._" When Turgenieff went up to him, he looked at him twice very earnestly, squeezed his hand, seemed as though he desired to say something, but waved his hand, and uttered the word "_Karamzin!_" Mademoiselle Karamzin was not in the house; but they instantly sent for her, and she arrived almost immediately. Their interview only lasted a moment; but when Katerina Andreevna was about to leave the bedside, he called her and said, "_Sign me with the cross_," and then kissed her hand. In the mean time, a dose of opium which had been given eased him a little; and they began to apply to his stomach emollient fomentations instead of the cold effusions. This was a relief to the sufferer; and he began, without a word of resistance, to perform the prescriptions of the doctors, which he had previously refused obstinately to do, being terrified by the idea of prolonging his tortures, and ardently desiring death to terminate them. But he now became as obedient as a child; he himself applied the compresses to his stomach, and assisted those who were busied around him. In short, he was now apparently a great deal better. In this state he was found by Dr Dahl, who came to him at two o'clock. "_I am in a bad way, my dear fellow_," said Pushkin, with a smile, to Dahl. But Dahl, who actually entertained more hopes than the other physicians, answered him, "We all hope; so you must not despair either." "_No_," he cried; "_I cannot live; I shall die. It seems that it must be so._" At this moment, his pulse was fuller and steadier.