II

“No, no! It cannot be, it cannot!⁠ ⁠… Let me go!” Svetlogoúb’s mother shouted piercingly, struggling to free herself from the grasp of the schoolmaster⁠—her son’s friend⁠—and of the doctor, who were trying to keep her back.

Svetlogoúb’s mother was a nice-looking middle-aged woman, with grey curls and a star of wrinkles near each eye.

The schoolmaster, when he heard that the death-warrant was signed, wanted to prepare her gently for the terrible news; but he had hardly begun to speak about her son when, by the tone of his voice and his timid look, she guessed that what she dreaded had really happened. This took place in a small room in the best hotel in the town.