Let us go to him.
Novikoff and the others are there."
As they walked in single file along the clean, bare passage, past big
white doors with black numbers on them, Riasantzeff said:
"A priest has been sent for. It's astonishing how quickly the end came.
I was amazed. But latterly he caught cold, you know, and that was what
did it. Here we are."
Riasantzeff opened a white door and went in, the others following in
awkward fashion as they pushed against each other on the threshold.
The room was clean and spacious. Four of the six beds in it were empty,
each one having its coarse grey coverlet folded neatly, and strangely
suggestive of a coffin. On the fifth bed sat a little wizened old man
in a dressing-gown, who glanced timidly at the newcomers; and on the
sixth bed, beneath a similar coarse coverlet, lay Semenoff. At his
side, in a bent posture, sat Novikoff, while Ivanoff and Schafroff
stood by the window. To all of them it seemed odd and painful to shake
hands in the presence of the dying man, yet not to do so seemed equally
embarrassing, as though by such omission they hinted that death was
near.
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