But, Stepan Trofimovitch, what are we to do though? Oughtn't we to let
some of your friends know, or perhaps your relations?"

But at that he was so dismayed that she was very sorry that she had
spoken of it again. Trembling and shaking, he besought her to fetch no
one, not to do anything. He kept insisting, "No one, no one! We'll be
alone, by ourselves, alone, _nous partirons ensemble._"

Another difficulty was that the people of the house too began to be
uneasy; they grumbled, and kept pestering Sofya Matveyevna. She paid
them and managed to let them see her money. This softened them for the
time, but the man insisted on seeing Stepan Trofimovitch's "papers."
The invalid pointed with a supercilious smile to his little bag. Sofya
Matveyevna found in it the certificate of his having resigned his post
at the university, or something of the kind, which had served him as
a passport all his life. The man persisted, and said that "he must be
taken somewhere, because their house wasn't a hospital, and if he were
to die there might be a bother. We should have no end of trouble." Sofya
Matveyevna tried to speak to him of the doctor, but it appeared that
sending to the town would cost so much that she had to give up all
idea of the doctor. She returned in distress to her invalid. Stepan
Trofimovitch was getting weaker and weaker.

"Now read me another passage.... About the pigs," he said suddenly.

"What?" asked Sofya Matveyevna, very much alarmed.

"About the pigs... that's there too... _ces cochons._ I remember the
devils entered into swine and they all were drowned. You must read me
that; I'll tell you why afterwards. I want to remember it word for word.
I want it word for word."

Sofya Matveyevna knew the gospel well and at once found the passage in
St. Luke which I have chosen as the motto of my record. I quote it here
again:

"'And there was there one herd of many swine feeding on the mountain;
and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them. And
he suffered them.

"'Then went the devils out of the man and entered into the swine;
and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were
choked.

"'When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and
told it in the city and in the country.

"'Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus and found
the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of
Jesus, clothed, a