We drove quickly to the villa Hashim. I stopped for a moment on the terrace to pick some flowers. She did not wait for me, but opened the door herself. I had no servants; there was only a watchman, but he did not see us. When I came into the hall, hot and dark with its drawn blinds, and gave her the flowers, she kissed them; then, putting one arm round me, she kissed me. Her lips were dry from excitement, but her voice was clear. "But listen ... how shall we ... have you got anything?" she asked. At first I did not understand her; I was so overwhelmed by the first kiss, the first endearment, and I murmured: "What do you mean?" She shrank back. "What!" she said, almost sternly. "Did you imagine that I... that we can live after this? Have you anything to kill ourselves with?" I understood, and quickly showed her my revolver, loaded with five cartridges, which I always kept on me. She walked away quickly ahead of me from one room to the other. I followed her with that numbness of the senses with which a naked man on a sultry day walks out into the sea; I heard the rustle of her skirts. At last we were there; she threw off her cloak and began to untie the strings of her hat. Her hands were still trembling and in the half-light I again noticed something, pitiful and tired in her face.... But she died with firmness. At the last moment she was transformed; she kissed me, and moving her head back so as to see my face, she whispered to me such tender and moving words that I cannot repeat them. I wanted to go out and pick some flowers to strew on the death-bed. She would not let me; she was in a hurry and said: "No, no, you must not ... there are flowers here ... here are your flowers," and she kept on repeating: "And see, I beseech you by all that is sacred to you, kill me!" "Yes, and then I will kill myself," I said, without for a moment doubting my resolution. "Oh, I believe you, I believe you," she answered, already apparently half-unconscious.... A moment before her death she said very quietly and simply: "My God, this is unspeakable!" And again: "Where are the flowers you gave me? Kiss me--for the last time." She herself put the revolver to her head. I wanted to do it, but she stopped me: "No, that is not right; let me do it. Like this, my child.... And _afterwards_ make the sign of the cross over me and lay the flowers on my heart...." When I fired, she made a slight movement with her lips, and I fired again.... She lay quiet; in her dead face there was a kind of bitter happiness. Her hair was loose; the tortoise-shell comb lay on the floor. I staggered to my feet in order to put an end to myself. But the room, despite the blinds, was light; in the light and stillness which suddenly surrounded me, I saw clearly her face already pale.... And suddenly madness seized me; I rushed to the window, undid and threw open the shutters, began shouting and firing into the air.... The rest you know...."