Yellow, shrivelled, with his head completely bald, and a narrow, grey
beard, he was sitting in nothing but a shirt, cut out expressly.... He
could not bear the pressure of the lightest garment. Abruptly he
extended to me his frightfully-thin hand, which looked as though it had
been gnawed away, with an effort whispered several incomprehensible
words--whether of welcome or of reproach, who knows? His exhausted chest
heaved; over the contracted pupils of his small, inflamed eyes two
scanty tears of martyrdom flowed down.
My heart sank within me.... I sat down on a chair beside him, and
involuntarily dropping my eyes in the presence of that horror and
deformity, I also put out my hand.
But it seemed to me that it was not his hand which grasped mine.
It seemed to me as though there were sitting between us a tall, quiet,
white woman. A long veil enveloped her from head to foot. Her deep, pale
eyes gazed nowhere; her pale, stern lips uttered no sound....
That woman joined our hands.... She reconciled us forever.
Yes.... It was Death who had reconciled us....
April, 1878.