When Semenoff saw the blood, and felt the awful void around him and
within him; when they lifted him up, carried him away, laid him down,
and did all for him that throughout his life he had been in the habit
of doing, then he knew that he was going to die, and wondered why he
felt not the least fear of death.
Dubova had spoken of his terror because she herself was terrified,
assuming that, if the healthy dreaded death, the dying must dread it
far more. His pallor and his wild look, the result of loss of blood and
weakness, she took to be an expression of fear. But, in reality this
was not so. At all times, and especially since he knew that he had got
consumption, Semenoff had dreaded death. At the outset of his malady,
he was in a state of abject terror, much as that of a condemned man for
whom hope of a reprieve there was none. It almost seemed to him as if
from that moment the world no longer existed; all in it that formerly
he found fair, and pleasant, and gay had vanished. All around him was
dying, dying, and every moment, every second, might bring about
something fearful, unendurable, hideous as a black, yawning abyss. It
was as an abyss, huge, fathomless, and sombre as night, that Semenoff
imagined death. Wherever he went, whatever he did, this black gulf was
ever before him; in its impenetrable gloom all sounds, all colours, all
emotions were lost. Such a state of mind was appalling, yet it did not
last long; and, as the days went by, as Semenoff approached death, the
more remote and vague and incomprehensible did it seem to him.
Everything around him, sounds, colours, and emotions, now once more
regained their former value for him. The sun shone as brightly as ever;
folk went about their business as usual, and Semenoff himself had
important things, as also trivial ones, to do. Just as before, he rose
in the morning, washed with scrupulous care, and ate his midday meal,
finding food pleasant or unpleasant to his taste. As before, the sun
and the moon were a joy to him, and rain or damp an annoyance; as
before, he played billiards in the evening with Novikoff and others; as
before, he read books, some being interesting, and some both foolish
and dull. That all things remained unchanged was irritating, even
painful to him at first. Nature, his environment, and he himself, all
were the same; and he strove to alter this by compelling people to be
interested in him and in his death, to comprehend his appalling
position, to realize that all was at an end. When, however, he told his
acquaintances of this, he perceived that he ought not to have done so.
They appeared astonished at first, and then sceptical, professing to
doubt the accuracy of the doctor’s diagnosis. Finally, they endeavoured
to banish the unpleasant impression by abruptly changing the subject,
and Semenoff found himself talking with them about all sorts of things,
but never about death.
Then he sought to live in seclusion, to become absorbed in himself, and
in solitude to suffer, having full, steadfast consciousness of his
impending doom. Yet, as in his life and his daily surroundings, all
remained the same as formerly, it seemed absurd to imagine that it
could be otherwise, or that he, Semenoff, would no longer exist as at
the present. The thought of death, which at first had made so deep a
wound, grew less poignant; the soul oppressed found freedom. Moments of
complete forgetfulness became more and more frequent, and life once
again lay before him, rich in colour, in movement, in sound.
It was only at night-time, when alone, that he was haunted by the sense
of a black abyss. After he had put out the lamp, something devoid of
form or features rose up slowly above him in the gloom, and whispered,
“Sh … sh … sh!” without ceasing, while to this whispering another
voice, as from within him, made hideous answer. Then he felt that he
was gradually becoming part of this murmuring and this abysmal chaos.
His life in it seemed as a faint, flickering flame that might at any
moment fade for ever. Then he decided to keep a lamp burning in his
room throughout the night. In the light, the strange whisperings
ceased, the darkness vanished; nor had he the impression of being
poised above a yawning abyss, because light made him conscious of a
thousand trivial and ordinary details in his life; the chairs, the
light, the inkstand, his own feet, an unfinished letter, an _ikon_,
with its lamp that he had never lighted, boots that he had forgotten to
put outside the door, and many other everyday things that surrounded
him.
Yet, even then, he could hear whisperings that came from the corners of
the room which the light of the lamp did not reach, and again the black
gulf yawned to receive him. He was afraid to look into the darkness, or
even to think of it, for then, in a moment, dreadful gloom surrounded
him, veiling the lamp, hiding the world as with a cold, dense mist from
his view. It was this that tortured, that appalled him. He felt as if
he must cry like a child, or beat his head against the wall. But as the
days went past, and Semenoff drew nearer to death, he grew more used to
such impressions. They only became stronger and more awful if by a word
or a gesture, by the sight of a funeral or of a graveyard, he was
reminded that he, too, must die. Anxious to avoid such warnings, he
never went into any street that led to the cemetery, nor ever slept on
his back with hands folded across his breast.
He had two lives, as it were; his former life, ample and obvious, which
could not give a thought to death, but ignored it, being concerned
about its own affairs, while hoping to live on for ever, cost what it
might; and another life, mysterious, indefinite, obscure, that, as a
worm in an apple, secretly gnawed at the core of his former life,
poisoning it, making it insufferable.
It was owing to this double life that Semenoff, when at last he found
himself face to face with death and knew that his end was nigh, felt
scarcely any fear. “Already?” That is all he asked, in order to know
exactly what to expect.
When in the faces of those around him he read the answer to his
question, he merely wondered that the end should seem so simple, so
natural, like that of some heavy task, which had overtaxed his powers.
At the same time, by a new and strange inner consciousness he perceived
that it could not be otherwise, and that death was the normal result of
his enfeebled vitality. He only felt sorry that he would never see
anything again. As they took him in a _droschky_ to the hospital, he
gazed about him with wide-opened eyes, striving to note everything at a
glance, grieved that he could not firmly fix in his memory every little
detail of this world with its ample sky, its human beings, its verdure,
and its distant blue horizons. Equally dear, in fact, unspeakably
precious to him, were all the little things that he had never noticed,
as well as those which he had always found full of beauty and
importance; the heaven, dark and vast, with its golden stars, the
driver’s gaunt back, in its shabby smock; Novikoff’s troubled
countenance; the dusty road; houses with their lighted windows; the
dark trees that silently stayed behind; the jolting wheels; the soft
evening breeze—all that he could see, and hear, and feel.
Later on, in the hospital, his eyes wandered swiftly round the large
room, watching every movement, every figure intently until prevented by
physical pain which produced a sense of utter isolation. His
perceptions were now concentrated in his chest, the source of all his
suffering. Gradually, very gradually, he began to drift away from life.
When now he saw something, it seemed to him strange and meaningless.
The last fight between life and death had begun; it filled his whole
being; it created a new world, strange and lonely, a world of terror,
agony and despairing conflict. Now and again there were more lucid
moments; the pain ceased; his breathing was deeper and calmer, and
through the white veil sounds and shapes became more or less plain. But
all seemed faint and futile, as if they came from afar. He heard sounds
plainly, and then again they were inaudible; the figures moved
noiselessly as those in a cinematograph; familiar faces appeared
strange and he could not recollect them.
On the adjoining bed a man with a quaint, clean-shaven face was reading
aloud, but why he read, or to whom he read, Semenoff never troubled to
think. He distinctly heard that the parliamentary elections had been
postponed, and that an attempt had been made to assassinate a Grand
Duke, but the words were empty and meaningless; like bubbles, they
burst and vanished, leaving no trace. The man’s lips moved, his teeth
gleamed, his round eyes rolled, the paper rustled, and the lamp shone
from the ceiling round which large, black, fierce-looking flies
revolved. In Semenoff’s brain something seemed to flame upwards,
illuminating all that surrounded him. He was suddenly conscious that
all was now of no account to him, and that all the work and business in
the world could not add one single hour to his life; but that he must
die. Once more he sank down into the waves of black mist; again the
silent conflict began between two terrible and secret forces, the one
convulsively striving to destroy the other.
The second time that Semenoff regained consciousness was when he heard
weeping and chanting. This seemed to him utterly unnecessary, having no
sort of relation to all that was going on within him. For a moment,
however, it lighted up the flame in his brain, and Semenoff clearly
perceived the mock-mournful face of a man who was absolutely
uninteresting to him. That was the last sign of life. What followed was
for those living wholly beyond the pale of their thought or
comprehension.