And he submitted and became different that day, mild and gentle. He did not groan, did not blame any one, praised everybody, and said to me: 'Thank you, _my friend_.' You understand what that meant between us. I told him I had heard how he coughed in the morning, but did not come to him from _fausse honte_ [false shame]. 'Needlessly,' said he--'it would have consoled me.' Suffering? He suffered; but it was not until a couple of days before his death that he once said: 'How terrible these nights without sleep are! Towards morning the cough chokes one, unendingly! And it hurts--God knows how! A couple more such nights--it's terrible!' Not once did he say plainly that he felt the approach of death. But he only did not _say_ it. On the day of his death he ordered a dressing-gown, and yet when I remarked that if he did not get better, Máshenka and I would not go to Switzerland, he replied: 'Do you really think I shall be better?' in such a tone that it was evident what he felt but for my sake did not say, and what I for his sake did not show; all the same, from the morning I knew what was coming, and was with him all the time. He died quite without suffering--externally, at all events. He breathed more and more slowly--and it was all over. The next day I went to him and feared to uncover his face. I thought it would show yet more suffering and be more terrible than during his illness; but you cannot imagine what a beautiful face it was, with his best, merry, calm expression. Yesterday he was buried here. At one time I thought of transporting him, and of telegraphing for you; but I reconsidered it. It is no use chafing the wound. I am sorry for you that the news will have reached you out hunting, amid distractions, and will not grip you as it does us. It is good for one. I now feel what I have often been told, that when one loses some one who was what he was to us, it becomes much easier to think of one's own death. On 13th October 1860 he notes in his Diary: It is nearly a month since Nicholas died. That event has torn me terribly from life. Again the question: Why? Already the departure draws near. Whither? Nowhere. I try to write, I force myself, but do not get on, because I cannot attach enough importance to the work to supply the necessary strength and patience. At the very time of the funeral the thought occurred to me to write a Materialist Gospel, a Life of Christ as a Materialist.