"Suvaroff! Suvaroff!" he would repeat over and over to himself, as if trying to recall the memory of some one whose precise outline had escaped him.
He caught a glimpse of his figure in the mirror of a shop-window. He went closer, staring for some moments at the face opposite him. There followed an infinitesimal fraction of time when his spirit deserted him as completely as if he were dead. When he recovered himself he had a sense that he was staring at the reflection of a stranger. He moved away, puzzled. Was he going mad? Then, suddenly, everything grew quite clear. He remembered the Italian, the accordion, the hunchback. Characters, circumstances, sequences--all stood out as sharply as the sky-line of a city in the glow of sunset.... He put his fingers to his pulse. Everything seemed normal; his skin was moist and cool. Yet last night he had been very ill. That was it! Last night he had been ill!
"What strange dreams people have when they are in a fever!" he exclaimed for the second time that day. He decided to go home. "I wonder, though," thought he, "whether the Italian is still playing that awful instrument?" Curiously enough, the idea did not disturb him in the least. "I shall teach him a Russian tune or two!" he decided, cheerfully. "Then, maybe his playing will be endurable."
When he came again to his lodgings he was surprised to find a knot of curious people on the opposite side of the street, and another before the entrance. He went up the stairs. His landlady came to meet him.
"Mr. Suvaroff," she began at once, "have you not heard what has happened? The man in the next room to you was found this morning--_dead_!"
He did not pretend to be surprised. "Well," he announced, brutally, "at least we shall have no more of dreadful music! How did he kill himself?"
The woman gave way to his advance with a movement of flattering confusion. "The knife was in his side," she answered. "In his side--toward the back."
He was mounting the second flight of stairs when his landlady again halted him. "Mr. Suvaroff," she ventured, "I hope you will not be angry! But his mother came early this morning. All day she has sat in your room, weeping. I cannot persuade her to go away. What am I to do?"