different voice, thin and querulous. "If you knew how I dread dying....
Especially on such a bright, soft night as this," he continued
plaintively, turning to Yourii his ugly haggard face and glittering
eyes. "Everything lives, and I must die. To you that sounds a hackneyed
phrase, I feel certain. 'And I must die.' But it is not from a novel,
not taken from a work written with 'artistic truth of presentment.' I
really _am_ going to die, and to me the words do not seem hackneyed.
One day you will not think that they are, either. I am dying, dying,
and all is over!"

Semenoff coughed again.

"I often think that before long I shall be in utter darkness, buried in
the cold earth, my nose fallen in, and my hands rotting, and here in
the world all will be just as it is now, while I walk along alive. And
you'll be living, and breathing this air, and enjoying this moonlight,
and you'll go past my grave where I lie, hideous and corrupted. What do
you suppose I care for Bebel, or Tolstoi or a million other gibbering
apes?" These last words he uttered with sudden fury. Yourii was too
depressed to reply.

"Well, good-night!" said Semenoff faintly. "I must go in." Yourii
shook hands with him, feeling deep pity for him, hollow-chested, round-
shouldered, and with the crooked stick hanging from a button of his
overcoat. He would have liked to say something consoling that might
encourage hope, but he felt that this was impossible.

"Good-bye!" he said, sighing.

Semenoff raised his cap and opened the gate. The sound of his footsteps