What shall I think when I come to die,—­if I am then in a condition to think?

Shall I think what a bad use I have made of my life, how I have dozed it through, how I have not known how to relish its gifts?

“What?  Is this death already?  So soon?  Impossible!  Why, I have not succeeded in accomplishing anything yet....  I have only been preparing to act!”

Shall I recall the past, pause over the thought of the few bright moments I have lived through, over beloved images and faces?

Will my evil deeds present themselves before my memory, and will the corrosive grief of a belated repentance descend upon my soul?

Shall I think of what awaits me beyond the grave ... yes, and whether anything at all awaits me there?

No ... it seems to me that I shall try not to think, and shall compel my mind to busy itself with some nonsense or other, if only to divert my own attention from the menacing darkness which looms up black ahead.

In my presence one dying person kept complaining that they would not give him red-hot nuts to gnaw ... and only in the depths of his dimming eyes was there throbbing and palpitating something, like the wing of a bird wounded unto death....

August, 1879.

“HOW FAIR, HOW FRESH WERE THE ROSES”

Somewhere, some time, long, long ago, I read a poem.  I speedily forgot it ... but its first line lingered in my memory: 

“How fair, how fresh were the roses....”

It is winter now; the window-panes are coated with ice; in the warm chamber a single candle is burning.  I am sitting curled up in one corner; and in my brain there rings and rings: 

“How fair, how fresh were the roses....”

And I behold myself in front of the low window of a Russian house in the suburbs.  The summer evening is melting and merging into night, there is a scent of mignonette and linden-blossoms abroad in the warm air;—­and in the window, propped on a stiffened arm, and with her head bent on her shoulder, sits a young girl, gazing mutely and intently at the sky, as though watching for the appearance of the first stars.  How ingenuously inspired are the thoughtful eyes; how touchingly innocent are the parted, questioning lips; how evenly breathes her bosom, not yet fully developed and still unagitated by anything; how pure and tender are the lines of the young face!  I do not dare to address her, but how dear she is to me, how violently my heart beats!

“How fair, how fresh were the roses....”

And in the room everything grows darker and darker....  The candle which has burned low begins to flicker; white shadows waver across the low ceiling; the frost creaks and snarls beyond the wall—­and I seem to hear a tedious, senile whisper: 

“How fair, how fresh were the roses....”