Unconsciously defending their melancholy right to feed on their
sadness, they tried to impose their feelings on the girl.
"And now he's dead," announced Sofya, watching her carefully.
Sasha glanced around quickly, with a questioning look. She knit
her eyebrows and lowered her head. She was silent for a short time,
smoothing her hair with slow strokes of her hand.
"He's dead?" She again cast a searching glance into their faces.
"It's hard for me to reconcile myself to the idea."
"But it's a fact," said Nikolay with a smile.
Sasha arose, walked up and down the room, and suddenly stopping,
said in a strange voice:
"What does 'to die' signify? What died? Did my respect for Yegor
die? My love for him, a comrade? The memory of his mind's labor?
Did that labor die? Did all our impressions of him as of a hero
disappear without leaving a trace? Did all this die? This best in
him will never die out of me, I know. It seems to me we're in too
great a hurry to say of a man 'he's dead.' That's the reason we too
soon forget that a man never dies if we don't wish our impressions
of his manhood, his self-denying toil for the triumph of truth and
happiness to disappear.
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