candle is lighted, and you are sitting by me, I don't even think
of the hour of death. Explain that change if you can! Am I better
off, or has my wife risen from the dead? Is it the influence of the
light on me, or the presence of an outsider?"

"The light certainly has an influence . . ." I muttered for the
sake of saying something. "The influence of light on the organism
. . . ."

"The influence of light. . . . We admit it! But you know men do
shoot themselves by candle-light! And it would be ignominious indeed
for the heroes of your novels if such a trifling thing as a candle
were to change the course of the drama so abruptly. All this nonsense
can be explained perhaps, but not by us. It's useless to ask questions
or give explanations of what one does not understand. . . ."

"Forgive me," I said, "but . . . judging by the expression of your
face, it seems to me that at this moment you . . . are posing."

"Yes," Vassilyev said, startled. "It's very possible! I am naturally
vain and fatuous. Well, explain it, if you believe in your power
of reading faces! Half an hour ago I shot myself, and just now I
am posing. . . . Explain that if you can."

These last words Vassilyev pronounced in a faint, failing voice.
He was exhausted, and sank into silence. A pause followed. I began
scrutinising his face. It was as pale as a dead man's. It seemed
as though life were almost extinct in him, and only the signs of
the suffering that the "vain and fatuous" man was feeling betrayed
that it was still alive. It was painful to look at that face, but