re to prevent our going
in to look at the suicide. He was quite a young lad, not more than
nineteen. He must have been very good-looking, with thick fair hair,
with a regular oval face, and a fine, pure forehead. The body was
already stiff, and his white young face looked like marble. On the table
lay a note, in his handwriting, to the effect that no one was to blame
for his death, that he had killed himself because he had "squandered"
four hundred roubles. The word "squandered" was used in the letter; in
the four lines of his letter there were three mistakes in spelling. A
stout country gentleman, evidently a neighbour, who had been staying in
the hotel on some business of his own, was particularly distressed about
it. From his words it appeared that the boy had been sent by his family,
that is, a widowed mother, sisters, and aunts, from the country to the
town in order that, under the supervision of a female relation in the
town, he might purchase and take home with him various articles for the
trousseau of his eldest sister, who was going to be married. The family
had, with sighs of apprehension, entrusted him with the four hundred
roubles, the savings of ten years, and had sent him on his way with
exhortations, prayers, and signs of the cross. The boy had till then
been well-behaved and trustworthy. Arriving three days before at the
town, he had not gone to his relations, had put up at the hotel, and
gone straight to the club in the hope of finding in some back room a
"travelling banker," or at least some game of cards for money. But that
evening there was no "banker" there or gambling going on. Going back
to the hotel about midnight he asked for champagne, Havana cigars, and
ordered a supper of six or seven dishes. But the champagne made him
drunk, and the cigar made him sick, so that he did not touch the food
when it was brought to him, and went to bed almost unconscious. Waking
next morning as fresh as an apple, he went at once to the gipsies' camp,
which was in a suburb beyond the river, and of which he had heard the
day before at the club. He did not reappear at the hotel for two days.
At last, at five o'clock in the afternoon of the previous day, he had
returned drunk, had at once gone to bed, and had slept till ten o'clock
in the evening. On waking up he had asked for a cutlet, a bottle of
Chateau d'Yquem, and some grapes, paper, and ink, and his bill. No one
noticed anything special about him; he was quiet, ge