He looked at Kisljakoff with terrified curiosity, for he scarcely recognized him. The accordion-player's face had taken on it a drawn angular expression; the cheek-bones stood out sharply. The deep-sunk eyes, surrounded by black rings, looked unusually fixed and staring. The skin had turned the colour of a corpse in summer-time. Orloff felt he was looking into the leaden face of a dying man. Only the slow movement of the jaws showed that what was before him was still a living body.... For some time Kisljakoff stared with motionless, glassy eyes into Grigori's face; and this dying stare frightened Orloff. It seemed to him as if a damp, cold hand had seized him by the throat, and was slowly strangling him. And he felt within him the desire to leave as soon as possible this room, which used to be so pleasant and gay, but which now seemed unnaturally cold, and filled with such a horrible foul smell of decay and rottenness. "Come now," said he, preparing to leave the room. Suddenly a sort of change passed over the grey face of the accordion-player. The lips, which were tinged with a leaden-coloured shade, opened, and he said in a low monotonous voice-- "I--must--d--die." These three words, uttered so apathetically, struck Orloff's head and heart like three dull strokes. He turned, as if stunned, towards the door, where he was met by Tschischik, hot and perspiring, who was returning with a bucket of water. "Here's some water from Spridinoff's well!... They did not want to let me take it, the dogs!" He placed the bucket on the ground, disappeared quickly into a corner of the room, and re-appeared with a glass, which he handed to Orloff. Then he went on chattering-- "They said we had cholera here. Well, I said, what does that matter?... It will come to you, too--it's going all round the town. Then I got a box on the ear...." Orloff took the glass, filled it from the bucket, and drank it off in one draught In his ears still rang the words of the sick man-- "I--must--die." Tschischik wriggled about the room like an eel; he seemed to be quite in his element. "Give me water," moaned the accordion-player, leaning his trembling body forward on the table. Tschischik ran up to him and held a glass of water to his black, swelled lips. Grigori stood as if spell-bound or in a bad dream, leaning against the wall near the door. He heard how the sick man gulped down the water, and how Tschischik asked him if he should undress him and put him on the bed; and then he heard once more the voice of the painter's cook. He could see her fat face glancing with an expression of mingled fear and pity from one of the windows of the courtyard, as she said in a whining tone--"Mix two tablespoonfuls of soot with pine-juice and rum, and give it to him." Some one whom he could not see, but who stood behind her, recommended cucumber-pickle and aqua regia.