“Shall I call him back, or shall I not?”
His heart beat more irregularly. He rang; and the courier entered with quick, nervous footsteps.
“Has Iván Matvéitch gone?”
“No, your Excellency; he is in the office.”
The General’s heart now stopped, now beat quickly. He remembered the warnings of the doctor who had examined him a few days before.
“Above all,” the doctor had said, “if you begin to feel that you have a heart, stop working—divert your mind. There is nothing so bad as agitation. On no account allow yourself to be agitated.”
“Shall I call him, your Excellency?”
“No, it is not necessary,” answered the General. “Yes,” said he to himself, “nothing is so agitating as indecision. It is signed and done with. … ‘ Ein jeder macht sich sein Bett und muss d’rauf schlafen ’ ”: he repeated his favourite proverb. “Besides, it is not my business. I only fulfil the Supreme Will, and must stand above that kind of consideration,” he added, frowning to awaken in himself the cruelty which was not natural to him.
And here he remembered his last interview with the Tsar—how the latter had fixed his cold, icy look on him and had said: “I trust you! As in war you did not spare yourself, so you must act with the same firmness now in the fight with the ‘red ones,’ and must not allow yourself to be either deceived or frightened. … Goodbye!” Then the Tsar had embraced him, offering his shoulder to the General to kiss. The General recalled the words with which he had answered the Tsar: “My one desire is to give my life to serve my Emperor and my country!”