Throughout the night she had wept, as in fancy she fondly kissed the
face of her dead lover. When morning came her heart was full of
hopeless love for Yourii, and of bitter hatred for Sanine. Her
accidental liaison with the last-named resembled a hideous dream. All
that Sanine had told her, and which at the moment she had believed, was
now revolting to her. She had fallen over a precipice; and rescue there
was none. When Sanine approached her she stared at him in horror and
disgust before turning abruptly away.

As her cold fingers slightly touched his hand held out in hearty
greeting, Sanine at once knew all that she thought and felt. Henceforth
they could only be as strangers to each other. 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. "A feeble sort of chap, and yet he
goes and shoots himself all in a moment, like that!"

"It's my belief," replied Sanine, "that three seconds before the pistol
went off he was uncertain whether to shoot himself or not. As he lived,
so he died."

"Ah! well," said the other, "at any rate, he's found a place for
himself."