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And to think that almost in his last hour he thought of us!..." Fruit from the south.... I see Misha's dead hand pointing to us the way out of Petrograd. It is a warning, a cipher warning from the other side of the grave; one more inducement to leave this filthy place. I again hear that something is growing amongst the bolsheviki.
I don't wish to live I don't wish to live any longer in Russia!" And the spade made swifter progress than ever in Mísha's hands. "The devil knows the meaning of this!" thought the speculator: "he actually is burying himself." "Mikhaíl Andréitch," he began afresh, "listen; I really am guilty toward you; people did not represent you properly to me." Mísha went on digging.
Misha's signature to his letters was always accompanied by peculiar strokes, flourishes, and stops, and he made great use of marks of exclamation. And, though a certain benevolent aunt had entered into his impecunious position, and had sent him an inconsiderable sum, still he begged me to assist him in getting his equipment. I did what he asked, and for two years I heard nothing more of him.
People saw Mísha's work and ran to report about it to the speculator-owner. At first the speculator flew into a rage, and wanted to send for the police. "What hypocrisy!" he said.
Ten roubles. 'Good! And the officer had hardly uttered the word, when Misha and his horse were off into the ravine and crashing down over the stones. All were simply petrified.... A full minute passed, and they heard Misha's voice, dimly, as it were rising up out of the bowels of the earth: 'All right! fell on the sand ... but it was a long flight! Ten roubles you've lost!
I was about to remind him of his sworn promises, but Misha's frenzied look, his breaking voice, the convulsive tremor in his limbs, it was all so awful, that I made haste to get rid of him; I said that his clothes should be given him at once, and a cart got ready; and taking a note for twenty-five roubles out of a drawer, I laid it on the table.
Misha was silent, but it was evident that the thought of selling his native soil was distasteful to him. He seemed on the point of bursting into tears. "In my opinion," observed Rameyev, "the land needn't be sold. I shouldn't advise it. I wouldn't think of selling Misha's share until he came of age and I shouldn't advise you to sell yours either, Piotr."
Mísha's signature at the end of his letters was always accompanied by peculiar flourishes, lines and dots, and he used a great many exclamation-points. In that first letter Mísha informed me of a new "turn in his fortune."
"Then," I said, "we will go to Gurzoof, where our house is rotting without care". I succeeded in calming the poor girl, explaining with all of the eloquence that I had, that Misha's suicide and Mikhalovsky's accident in the lift had nothing in common, and that both deaths were not to be put in the same angle of view. Later she showed me a postal card from Misha, from Vyborg.
And on the following day he announced that he had not been able to sleep all night for rapture! In my house there was then living an aged aunt with her niece. They were both greatly agitated when they heard of Mísha's arrival; they did not understand how I could have invited him to my house! He bore a very bad reputation.
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