I wake after midnight and suddenly leap out of bed. Somehow it seems to me that I am going to die immediately. I do not know why, for there is no single sensation in my body which points to a quick end; but a terror presses on my soul as though I had suddenly seen a huge, ill-boding fire in the sky.
I light the lamp quickly and drink some water straight out of the decanter. Then I hurry to the window. The weather is magnificent. The air smells of hay and some delicious thing besides. I see the spikes of my garden fence, the sleepy starveling trees by the window, the road, the dark strip of forest. There is a calm and brilliant moon in the sky and not a single cloud. Serenity. Not a leaf stirs. To me it seems that everything is looking at me and listening for me to die.
Dread seizes me. I shut the window and run to the bed, I feel for my pulse. I cannot find it in my wrist; I seek it in my temples, my chin, my hand again. They are all cold and slippery with sweat. My breathing comes quicker and quicker; my body trembles, all my bowels are stirred, and my face and forehead feel as though a cobweb had settled on them.
What shall I do? Shall I call my family? No use. I do not know what my wife and Liza will do when they come in to me.
I hide my head under the pillow, shut my eyes and wait, wait.... My spine is cold. It almost contracts within me. And I feel that death will approach me only from behind, very quietly.
"Kivi, kivi." A squeak sounds in the stillness of the night. I do not know whether it is in my heart or in the street.
God, how awful! I would drink some more water; but now I dread opening my eyes, and fear to raise my head. The terror is unaccountable, animal. I cannot understand why I am afraid. Is it because I want to live, or because a new and unknown pain awaits me?
Upstairs, above the ceiling, a moan, then a laugh ... I listen. A little after steps sound on the staircase. Someone hurries down, then up again. In a minute steps sound downstairs again. Someone stops by my door and listens.
The door opens. I open my eyes boldly and see my wife. Her face is pale and her eyes red with weeping.
"You're not asleep, Nicolai Stiepanovich?" she asks.
"For God's sake go down to Liza. Something is wrong with her."