“I, the Preacher, was King!” He shouted out these last words, as in vehement anger and despair, and then looked round in alarm, fearing lest some one should have heard him. Then he took a sheet of paper and began to write.
“I here begin this document which will end with my decease.”
“Bah! how absurd it sounds!” he exclaimed as he pushed the paper from him with such violence that it fell to the floor.
“But that miserable little fellow, Soloveitchik, didn’t think it absurd that he could not understand the meaning of life!”
Yourii failed to perceive that he was taking as his model a man whom he had described as a miserable little fellow.
“Anyhow, sooner or later, my end will be like that. There is no other way out. Why is there not? Because…”
Yourii paused. He believed that he had got an exact reply to this question, yet the words he wanted could not be found. His brain was over-wrought, and his thoughts confused.
“It’s rubbish, all rubbish!” he exclaimed bitterly.
The lamp burned low, and its faint light illumined Yourii’s bowed head, as he leant across the table.
“Why didn’t I die when I was a boy and had inflammation of the lungs? I should now be happy, and at rest.”
“In that case I should not have seen or known all that now I know. That would have been just as dreadful.”
He went to the window and tried to open it, but the shutters were firmly fastened from the outside. By using a pencil, Yourii was able at last to unhook them, and with a creaking sound they swung back, admitting the cool, pure night air, Yourii looked up at the heavens and saw the roseate light of the dawn.
The morning was bright and clear. The seven stars of the Great Bear shone faintly, while large and lustrous in the crimson east flamed the morning star. A fresh breeze stirred the leaves, and dispersed the grey mists that floated above the lawn and veiled the smooth surface of the stream beside whose margin water-lilies and myosotis and white clover grew in abundance. The sky was flecked with little pink clouds, while here and there a last star trembled in the blue. All was so beautiful, so calm, as if the awestruck earth awaited the splendid approach of dawn.
Yourii at last went back to bed, but the garish daylight prevented him from getting sleep, as he lay there with aching brow and jaded eyes.