Malanya Pavlovna was in utter consternation, but she put the old man to bed, and sent for the priest.  Alexyei Sergyeitch made his confession, received the holy communion, took leave of the members of his household, and began to sink into a stupor.  Malanya Pavlovna was sitting beside his bed.

“Alexis!” she suddenly shrieked, “do not frighten me, do not close thy dear eyes!  Hast thou any pain?”

The old man looked at his wife.—­“No, I have no pain ... but I find it ... rather difficult ... difficult to breathe.”  Then, after a brief pause:—­“Malaniushka,” he said, “now life has galloped past—­but dost thou remember our wedding ... what a fine young couple we were?”

“We were, my beauty, Alexis my incomparable one!”

Again the old man remained silent for a space.

“And shall we meet again in the other world, Malaniushka?”

“I shall pray to God that we may, Alexis.”—­And the old woman burst into tears.

“Come, don’t cry, silly one; perchance the Lord God will make us young again there—­and we shall again be a fine young pair!”

“He will make us young, Alexis!”

“Everything is possible to Him, to the Lord,” remarked Alexyei Sergyeitch.—­“He is a worker of wonders!—­I presume He will make thee a clever woman also....  Come, my dear, I was jesting; give me thy hand to kiss.”

“And I will kiss thine.”

And the two old people kissed each other’s hands.

Alexyei Sergyeitch began to quiet down and sink into a comatose state.  Malanya Pavlovna gazed at him with emotion, brushing the tears from her eyelashes with the tip of her finger.  She sat thus for a couple of hours.

“Has he fallen asleep?” asked in a whisper the old woman who knew how to pray so tastily, peering out from behind Irinarkh, who was standing as motionless as a pillar at the door, and staring intently at his dying master.

“Yes,” replied Malanya Pavlovna, also in a whisper.  And suddenly Alexyei Sergyeitch opened his eyes.

“My faithful companion,” he stammered, “my respected spouse, I would like to bow myself to thy feet for all thy love and faithfulness—­but how am I to rise?  Let me at least sign thee with the cross.”

Malanya Pavlovna drew nearer, bent over....  But the hand which had been raised fell back powerless on the coverlet, and a few moments later Alexyei Sergyeitch ceased to be.

His daughters with their husbands only arrived in time for the funeral; neither one of them had any children.  Alexyei Sergyeitch had not discriminated against them in his will, although he had not referred to them on his death-bed.

“My heart is locked against them,” he had said to me one day.  Knowing his kind-heartedness, I was surprised at his words.—­It is a difficult matter to judge between parents and children.—­“A vast ravine begins with a tiny rift,” Alexyei Sergyeitch had said to me on another occasion, referring to the same subject.  “A wound an arshin long will heal over, but if you cut off so much as a nail, it will not grow again!”