everyone that she was going mad with despair. Little Olga had been
taken away on the previous day by a friend of the general's, to
stay there "during this terrible time." That night Madame Nazimoff
did not go to bed at all; and, as befitted a devoted wife, did not
quit her husband's door. When the violent attack just before dawn
quieted down, she made an attempt to go in to him; but no sooner
did the sick man see her at the head of his couch, on which he had
at last been persuaded to lie, than strong displeasure was
expressed in his face, and, no longer able to speak, he made an
angry motion of his hand toward her, and groaned heavily. The
Sister of Mercy with great firmness asked the general's wife not to
trouble the sick man with her presence.

"And I am to put up with this. I am to submit to all this?"
thought Olga Vseslavovna, writhing with wrath. "To endure all this
from him, and after his death to suffer beggary? No, a thousand
times no! Better death than penury and such insults." And she
fell into gloomy thought.

That gesture of displeasure at the sight of his wife was the last
conscious act of Iuri Pavlovitch Nazimoff. At eight in the morning
he lost consciousness, in the midst of violent suffering, which
lasted until the end. By the early afternoon he was no more.

During the last hour of his agony his wife knelt beside his couch
without let or hindrance, and wept inconsolably. The formidable
aristocrat and millionaire was dead.

Everything went on along the usual lines. The customary stir and
unceremonious bustle, instead of cautious whispering, rose around