down his bald head and down his neck—he used to go off into vicious chuckles, and, stamping with his feet, order some one—his brothers probably—to be punished. 'Beat 'em!' he growled hoarsely, coughing and choking with laughter; 'flog 'em, don't spare 'em! beat, beat, beat the monsters, my oppressors! That's it! That's it!' On the day before his death he greatly alarmed and astonished Alexey Sergeitch. He came, pale and subdued, into his room, and, making him a low obeisance, first thanked him for his care and kindness, and then asked him to send for a priest, for death had come to him—he had seen death, and he must forgive every one and purify his soul. 'How did you see death?' muttered Alexey Sergeitch in bewilderment at hearing connected speech from him for the first time. 'In what shape? with a scythe?' 'No,' answered Prince L.; 'a simple old woman in a jacket, but with only one eye in her forehead, and that eye without an eyelid.' And the next day Prince L. actually did die, duly performing everything, and taking leave of every one in a rational and affecting manner. 'That's just how I shall die,' Alexey Sergeitch would sometimes observe. And, as a fact, something of the same sort did happen with him—but of that later.
But now let us go back to our story. Of the neighbours, as I have stated already, Alexey
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