Part Seven, Chapter XXXI; Death
She did not take her eyes from the wheels of the approaching second carriage.
And just at the moment when the midpoint between the two wheels came even with her, she threw the red bag aside and, drawing her head down between her shoulders, fell on her hands under the carriage, and with a light movement, as if preparing to get up again at once, sank to her knees.
And in that same instant she was horrified at what she was doing.
“Where am I? What am I doing? Why?”
She wanted to rise, to throw herself back, but something huge and implacable pushed at her head and dragged over her.
“Lord, forgive me for everything!” she said, feeling the impossibility of any struggle.
And the candle by the light of which she had been reading that book filled with anxieties, deceptions, grief and evil, flared up brighter than ever, lit up for her all that had once been in darkness, sputtered, grew dim...
...and went out for ever.
And just at the moment when the midpoint between the two wheels came even with her, she threw the red bag aside and, drawing her head down between her shoulders, fell on her hands under the carriage, and with a light movement, as if preparing to get up again at once, sank to her knees.
And in that same instant she was horrified at what she was doing.
“Where am I? What am I doing? Why?”
She wanted to rise, to throw herself back, but something huge and implacable pushed at her head and dragged over her.
“Lord, forgive me for everything!” she said, feeling the impossibility of any struggle.
And the candle by the light of which she had been reading that book filled with anxieties, deceptions, grief and evil, flared up brighter than ever, lit up for her all that had once been in darkness, sputtered, grew dim...
...and went out for ever.