“There’s something the matter with me . . . something seems wrong,” she said.  “Lord have mercy on me!  Oh, I can’t breathe!”

Sasha knew that her mother would soon die; seeing now how suddenly her face looked drawn, she guessed that it was the end, and she was frightened.

“Mother, you mustn’t!” she began sobbing.  “You mustn’t.”

“Run to the kitchen; let them go for father.  I am very ill indeed.”

Sasha ran through all the rooms calling, but there were none of the servants in the house, and the only person she found was Lida asleep on a chest in the dining-room with her clothes on and without a pillow.  Sasha ran into the yard just as she was without her goloshes, and then into the street.  On a bench at the gate her nurse was sitting watching the tobogganing.  From beyond the river, where the tobogganing slope was, came the strains of a military band.

“Nurse, mother’s dying!” sobbed Sasha.  “You must go for father! . . .”

The nurse went upstairs, and, glancing at the sick woman, thrust a lighted wax candle into her hand.  Sasha rushed about in terror and besought some one to go for her father, then she put on a coat and a kerchief, and ran into the street.  From the servants she knew already that her father had another wife and two children with whom he lived in Bazarny Street.  She ran out of the gate and turned to the left, crying, and frightened of unknown people.  She soon began to sink into the snow and grew numb with cold.

She met an empty sledge, but she did not take it:  perhaps, she thought, the man would drive her out of town, rob her, and throw her into the cemetery (the servants had talked of such a case at tea).  She went on and on, sobbing and panting with exhaustion.  When she got into Bazarny Street, she inquired where M. Panaurov lived.  An unknown woman spent a long time directing her, and seeing that she did not understand, took her by the hand and led her to a house of one storey that stood back from the street.  The door stood open.  Sasha ran through the entry, along the corridor, and found herself at last in a warm, lighted room where her father was sitting by the samovar with a lady and two children.  But by now she was unable to utter a word, and could only sob.  Panaurov understood.

“Mother’s worse?” he asked.  “Tell me, child:  is mother worse?”

He was alarmed and sent for a sledge.

When they got home, Nina Fyodorovna was sitting propped up with pillows, with a candle in her hand.  Her face looked dark and her eyes were closed.  Crowding in the doorway stood the nurse, the cook, the housemaid, a peasant called Prokofy and a few persons of the humbler class, who were complete strangers.  The nurse was giving them orders in a whisper, and they did not understand.  Inside the room at the window stood Lida, with a pale and sleepy face, gazing severely at her mother.

Panaurov took the candle out of Nina Fyodorovna’s hand, and, frowning contemptuously, flung it on the chest of drawers.