"You laugh at the deceit of cheating clerks and faithless wives,"
he said, "but no clerk, no faithless wife has cheated as my fate
has cheated me! I have been deceived as no bank depositor, no duped
husband has ever been deceived! Only realise what an absurd fool I
have been made! Last year before your eyes I did not know what to
do with myself for happiness. And now before your eyes. . . ."

Vassilyev's head sank on the pillow and he laughed.

"Nothing more absurd and stupid than such a change could possibly
be imagined. Chapter one: spring, love, honeymoon . . . honey, in
fact; chapter two: looking for a job, the pawnshop, pallor, the
chemist's shop, and . . . to-morrow's splashing through the mud to
the graveyard."

He laughed again. I felt acutely uncomfortable and made up my mind
to go.

"I tell you what," I said, "you lie down, and I will go to the
chemist's."

He made no answer. I put on my great-coat and went out of his room.
As I crossed the passage I glanced at the coffin and Madame Mimotih
reading over it. I strained my eyes in vain, I could not recognise
in the swarthy, yellow face Zina, the lively, pretty _ingénue_ of
Luhatchev's company.

"_Sic transit_," I thought.