B895 <=> B897 [BTG XLI The bokharian dervish, p. 896]

“’For several days, I thought quite cold-bloodedly and as a result categorically decided to do this.

“’On the last evening as I entered the room where I intended to actualize this decision of mine, I suddenly remembered that I had not taken a last look at her who was half the cause of the creation and formation of my life.

“’I remembered, namely, my own mother who was then still alive. And this recollection of her reversed everything within me.

“’I suddenly pictured to myself how she would suffer when she learned of my end, and moreover by such a means.

“’When I remembered her I pictured to myself, as if in reality, how she, my dear old mother, would break down in utter loneliness with resigned sighs and inconsolable sufferings, and from all this there arose in me such pity for her that the sobbing evoked by this pity almost choked me.

“’And it was only just then that I cognized with my whole Being what my mother meant to me and what an inextinguishable feeling towards her ought to exist in me.

“’From that time my mother became for me the source of my life.

“’Thereafter whenever it may have been, day or night, no sooner did I remember her dear face than I became animated with new strength, and the desire to live, and to do everything only that her life might flow agreeably for her, was renewed in me.

“’Thus it continued for ten years, until from one of those pitiless diseases she passed away and I was again left alone.

“’After her death my inner emptiness again began to weigh me down more and more, day by day.’

“At this point of his narrative, when the glance of the venerable Hadji-Asvatz-Troov happened to light upon the dervish Bogga-Eddin, he again jumped up from his place and, addressing him, said: