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"Oh! it's Uncle Peter Ilitsch!" exclaimed Ivanoff gleefully. "Yes! that's he!" replied the figure, in a deep, resonant voice. Yourii remembered that Ivanoff's uncle was an old, drunken church chorister. He had a grey moustache like one of the soldiers at the time of Nicholas the First, and his shabby black coat had a most unpleasant smell. "Boum! Boum!"
As Yourii shut the door he heard Sanine saying to Ilitsch, "Of course you're not like children; they can't distinguish good from bad; they are simple and natural; and that is why they " Then the door was closed, and all was still. High in the heavens shone the moon, and the cool night-air touched Yourii's brow.
For a few moments there was complete silence, so that one could plainly hear a night-moth desperately beating against the window-pane. Peter Ilitsch shook his head mournfully, and his drink-besotted visage drooped towards the stained, dirty newspaper. Sanine smiled again. This perpetual smile irritated and yet fascinated Yourii. "What clear eyes he has!" thought he.
Soon the atmosphere of the little room grew hot and oppressive. Peter Ilitsch lighted a cigarette, and the air was filled with the bluish fumes of bad tobacco. The drink and the smoke and the heat made Yourii feel dizzy. Again he thought of Semenoff. "There's something dreadful about death," he said. "Why?" asked Peter Ilitsch. "Death? Ho! ho!! It's absolutely necessary. Death?
Ivanoff shook his head vaguely, and began to tell Ilitsch about Semenoff's last moments. It was now insufferably close in the room. Yourii watched Ivanoff, as his red lips sipped the vodka that shone in the lamplight. Everything seemed to be going round and round. "A a a a a!" whispered a voice in his ear, a strange small voice.
Let him who likes worry about it; as for me, I mean to live!" "Let us all have a drink on the strength of it!" suggested Ivanoff. "But you believe in God, don't you?" said Ilitsch, looking at Sanine with bleared eyes. "Nowadays nobody believes in anything not even in that which is easy of belief." Sanine laughed. "Yes, I believe in God.
Next morning Yourii rose late, feeling indisposed. His head ached, and he had a bad taste in his mouth. At first he could only recollect shouts, jingling glasses, and the waning light of lamps at dawn. Then he remembered how, stumbling and grunting, Schafroff and Peter Ilitsch had retired, while he and Ivanoff the latter pale with drink, but firm on his feet stood talking on the balcony.
Yourii glanced wistfully at him, and felt a sudden sympathy for the old man. Ivanoff now brought in bread, salted cucumbers, and glasses, which he placed on the table that was covered with a newspaper. Then, with a swift, scarcely perceptible movement, he uncorked the bottle, not a drop of its contents being spilt. "Very neat!" exclaimed Ilitsch approvingly.
He bit his lip, and joined Ivanoff who followed at some distance, shaking his smooth fair hair. "Hark at Peter Ilitsch!" said Sanine, "how he's forcing his voice!" A long way ahead, immediately behind the coffin, they were chanting a dirge, and Peter Ilitsch's long-drawn, quavering notes filled the air. "Funny thing, eh?" began Ivanoff.
He still felt somewhat ill at ease, and, to hide this, he began to examine the engravings attentively. "Do you like Vasnetzoff?" asked Ivanoff as, without waiting for an answer, he left the room to fetch a plate. Sanine told Peter Ilitsch that Semenoff was dead. "God rest his soul!" droned the latter. "Ah! well, it's all over for him now."
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