ippolyte ippolytovich was a hundred years old less three months and some days. he had been a student in the moscow university with lermontov, and they had been drawn together in friendship through their mutual admiration of byron. in the "sixties,"—he was then close to his fiftieth birthday—he constantly conferred with the emperor alexander on liberative reforms, and pored over pisarev's writings in his own home.
it was only by the huge, skeleton frame over which stretched the parchment skin, that it could be seen he had once been a tall, big, broad-shouldered man; his large face was covered with yellowish-white hair that crept from the nose, the cheek-bones, the forehead and the ears, while the skull was completely bald; the eyes were white and discoloured; the hands and legs shrunken, and seemed as though emaciated by nature's own design.
there was a smell of wax in his room, and that peculiar fusty odour that pervades every old nobleman's home. it was a large, bare apartment containing only a massive mahogany writing-table, covered with a faded green cloth and bestrewn with a quantity of old- fashioned ornaments; there was also an armchair and a sofa.
the moulded ceiling, the greenish-white marbled walls, the dragon fire-place, the inlaid flooring of speckled birch, the window panes, rounded at the tops, curtainless and with frequent intersecting of their framework, all, had become tarnished and lustreless, covered over with all the colours of the rainbow. through the windows streamed the mellow golden rays of the autumn sun, resting on the table, a part of the sofa, and on the floor.
for many years the old man had ceased to sleep at night so as to sit up by day. it might truly be said that he slept almost the entire twenty-four hours, and also that he sat up during the whole of that time! he was always slumbering, lying with half-open, discoloured eyes on a large sofa tapestried in pig-skin of english make, and covered with a bear-skin rug. he lay there day and night, his right arm flung back behind his head. whenever, by day or night, he was called by his name—ippolyte ippolytovich, he would remain silent a moment collecting his wits, then answer:
"eh?"
he had no thoughts. all that took place round him, all that he had gone through in life, was meaningless to him now. it was all outlived, and he had nothing to think about. neither had he any feelings, for all his organs of receptivity had grown dulled.
at night mice could be heard; while through the empty, columned hall out of which his room opened, rats scurried, flopping about and tumbling down from the armchairs and tables. but the old man did not hear them.
