The town had grown quiet in the night. The hunched old man in the black cloak was already on the move, tapping his stick and bending over with a grunt whenever its sharp point turned up a butt-end. An occasional car drove by, and even more rarely a night droshky would jolt by with a click of hooves. A drunk in a bowler hat was waiting for a tram on the corner, although the trams had stopped running at least two hours ago. A few prostitutes were strolling up and down, yawning and talking to shady loafers with upturned coat collars. One of the girls accosted Kolin and Gornotsvetov as they advanced almost at a run, but she turned away again at once after casting a professional glance at their pale, effeminate faces.
The dancers had undertaken to fetch a Russian doctor they knew to see Podtyagin, and indeed, after an hour and a half, they returned accompanied by a sleepy-looking gentleman with stiff, clean-shaven features. He stayed for half an hour, now and again making a sucking noise as though he had a hole in his tooth, and then left.
It was now very quiet in the unlighted room. There reigned that special, heavy, dull silence which always comes when several people are sitting in silence around a sick person. The night was now waning. Ganin’s profile, turned toward the bed, seemed carved out of pale blue stone; at the foot of the bed, in a vague armchair floating on the waves of the dawn, Klara sat looking fixedly in the same direction. Farther away, Gornotsvetov and Kolin huddled side by side on a little divan — and their faces were like two pale blobs.
The doctor was already going down the stairs behind the black figure of Frau Dorn, her bunch of keys chinking softly as she apologized for the lift being out of order. Reaching the bottom she opened the heavy front door and the doctor, raising his hat, departed into the bluish haze.
The old woman carefully locked the door, wrapped herself tighter in her black knitted shawl and went upstairs. The steps were lit by a cold yellow light. Her keys tinkling gently, she reached the landing. The light on the staircase went out.
In the lobby she met Ganin, who had come out of Podtyagin’s room, carefully pulling the door behind him.
‘The doctor has promised to come back in the morning,’ whispered the old woman. ‘How is he now — better?’
Ganin shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I think not, though. The way he is breathing — it’s a frightening sound.’
Lydia Nikolaevna sighed and timidly entered the room. With an identical movement Klara and the two dancers turned their palely glistening eyes toward her and then turned back again to stare at the bed. A breeze rattled the frame of the half-open window.
Ganin walked down the passage on tiptoe and went back to the room where the party had recently taken place. As he supposed, Alfyorov was still sitting at the table. His face seemed swollen and shone gray from the combination of the light of dawn and the theatrically shaded lamp. He was nodding, occasionally belching. On the watchglass in front of him gleamed a drop of vodka in which a mauve trace of indelible pencil was spreading. Only four hours to go.
Ganin sat down beside that drunken, drowsy creature and stared long at him, knitting his thick brows and propping his temple on his clenched fist, which stretched his skin and caused his eye to slant.
Alfyorov suddenly came to life and slowly turned to look at him.
‘Isn’t it time you were going to bed, my dear Aleksey Ivanovich,’ said Ganin distinctly.
‘No,’ Alfyorov pronounced with difficulty, and after some thought, as though solving a difficult problem, he repeated, ‘No.’
Ganin switched off the unnecessary light, took out his cigarette case and lit a cigarette. Whether from the cold of the pale dawn or from the whiff of tobacco, Alfyorov seemed to sober up a little.
He rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand, looked around and stretched out a fairly firm hand for a bottle.
Halfway to it his hand stopped, he shook his head, then with a slack smile said to Ganin, ‘Mustn’t have any more. Mary’s coming.’
After a while he shook Ganin’s arm. ‘Hey, you, what’s your name — Leb Lebovich — d’you hear — Mary —’
Ganin exhaled the smoke and stared hard into Alfyorov’s face. He took it all in at once: the wet, half-open mouth, the little dung-colored beard, the watery blinking eyes.
‘Listen, Leb Lebovich’ — Alfyorov swayed and grabbed him by the shoulder. ‘Right now I’m dead drunk, canned, tight as a drum. They made me drink, damn ’em — no, that’s not it — I wanted to tell you about the girl —’
‘You need a good sleep, Aleksey Ivanovich.’
