Another second passed—a second during which a whole world of feelings, thoughts, hopes, and memories flashed before his imagination.
“Whom will it kill—Mihaylof or me? Or both of us? And if it’s me, where? In the head? then I’m done for; and if in the leg, they’ll cut it off (I’ll certainly ask for chloroform), and I may survive it. But perhaps only Mihaylof will be killed; then I shall relate how we were going side by side, and how he was killed, and I was splashed with his blood. No, it’s nearer to me . . . it will be I.”
Then he remembered the twelve roubles he owed Mihaylof, remembered also a debt in Petersburg that should have been paid long ago, and the gipsy song he had sung that evening. The woman he loved rose in his imagination, wearing a cap with lilac ribbons; he recollected
