Meanwhile we had reached the tavern, and Elisei ran on in front to
announce me. During the first years of our separation, Pasinkov and I
had written to each other pretty often, but his last letter had reached
me four years before, and since then I had heard nothing of him.

'Please come up, sir!' Elisei shouted to me from the staircase; 'Yakov
Ivanitch is very anxious to see you.'

I ran hurriedly up the tottering stairs, went into a dark little
room--and my heart sank.... On a narrow bed, under a fur cloak, pale as
a corpse, lay Pasinkov, and he was stretching out to me a bare, wasted
hand. I rushed up to him and embraced him passionately.

'Yasha!' I cried at last; 'what's wrong with you?'

'Nothing,' he answered in a faint voice; 'I'm a bit feeble. What chance
brought you here?'

I sat down on a chair beside Pasinkov's bed, and, never letting his
hands out of my hands, I began gazing into his face. I recognised the
features I loved; the expression of the eyes and the smile were
unchanged; but what a wreck illness had made of him!

He noticed the impression he was making on me.

'It's three days since I shaved,' he observed; 'and, to be sure, I've
not been combed and brushed, but except for that ... I'm not so bad.'

'Tell me, please, Yasha,' I began; 'what's this Elisei's been telling