One day Mihail Averyanitch came after dinner when Andrey Yefimitch
was lying on the sofa. It so happened that Hobotov arrived at the
same time with his bromide. Andrey Yefimitch got up heavily and sat
down, leaning both arms on the sofa.
"You have a much better colour to-day than you had yesterday, my
dear man," began Mihail Averyanitch. "Yes, you look jolly. Upon my
soul, you do!"
"It's high time you were well, dear colleague," said Hobotov,
yawning. "I'll be bound, you are sick of this bobbery."
"And we shall recover," said Mihail Averyanitch cheerfully. "We
shall live another hundred years! To be sure!"
"Not a hundred years, but another twenty," Hobotov said reassuringly.
"It's all right, all right, colleague; don't lose heart. . . . Don't
go piling it on!"
"We'll show what we can do," laughed Mihail Averyanitch, and he
slapped his friend on the knee. "We'll show them yet! Next summer,
please God, we shall be off to the Caucasus, and we will ride all
over it on horseback--trot, trot, trot! And when we are back from
the Caucasus I shouldn't wonder if we will all dance at the wedding."
Mihail Averyanitch gave a sly wink. "We'll marry you, my dear boy,
we'll marry you. . . ."
Andrey Yefimitch felt suddenly that the rising disgust had mounted
to his throat, his heart began beating violently.
"That's vulgar," he said, getting up quickly and walking away to
the window. "Don't you understand that you are talking vulgar
nonsense?"
He meant to go on softly and politely, but against his will he
suddenly clenched his fists and raised them above his head.
"Leave me alone," he shouted in a voice unlike his own, blushing
crimson and shaking all over. "Go away, both of you!"
Mihail Averyanitch and Hobotov got up and stared at him first with
amazement and then with alarm.
"Go away, both!" Andrey Yefimitch went on shouting. "Stupid people!
Foolish people! I don't want either your friendship or your medicines,
stupid man! Vulgar! Nasty!"
Hobotov and Mihail Averyanitch, looking at each other in bewilderment,
staggered to the door and went out. Andrey Yefimitch snatched up
the bottle of bromide and flung it after them; the bottle broke
with a crash on the door-frame.
"Go to the devil!" he shouted in a tearful voice, running out into
the passage. "To the devil!"
When his guests were gone Andrey Yefimitch lay down on the sofa,
trembling as though in a fever, and went on for a long while
repeating: "Stupid people! Foolish people!"
When he was calmer, what occurred to him first of all was the thought
that poor Mihail Averyanitch must be feeling fearfully ashamed and
depressed now, and that it was all dreadful. Nothing like this had
ever happened to him before. Where was his intelligence and his
tact? Where was his comprehension of things and his philosophical
indifference?
The doctor could not sleep all night for shame and vexation with
himself, and at ten o'clock next morning he went to the post office
and apologized to the postmaster.
"We won't think again of what has happened," Mihail Averyanitch,
greatly touched, said with a sigh, warmly pressing his hand. "Let
bygones be bygones. Lyubavkin," he suddenly shouted so loud that
all the postmen and other persons present started, "hand a chair;
and you wait," he shouted to a peasant woman who was stretching out
a registered letter to him through the grating. "Don't you see that
I am busy? We will not remember the past," he went on, affectionately
addressing Andrey Yefimitch; "sit down, I beg you, my dear fellow."
For a minute he stroked his knees in silence, and then said:
"I have never had a thought of taking offence. Illness is no joke,
I understand. Your attack frightened the doctor and me yesterday,
and we had a long talk about you afterwards. My dear friend, why
won't you treat your illness seriously? You can't go on like this
. . . . Excuse me speaking openly as a friend," whispered Mihail
Averyanitch. "You live in the most unfavourable surroundings, in a
crowd, in uncleanliness, no one to look after you, no money for
proper treatment. . . . My dear friend, the doctor and I implore
you with all our hearts, listen to our advice: go into the hospital!
There you will have wholesome food and attendance and treatment.
Though, between ourselves, Yevgeny Fyodoritch is _mauvais ton_, yet
he does understand his work, you can fully rely upon him. He has
promised me he will look after you."
Andrey Yefimitch was touched by the postmaster's genuine sympathy
and the tears which suddenly glittered on his cheeks.
"My honoured friend, don't believe it!" he whispered, laying his
hand on his heart; "don't believe them. It's all a sham. My illness
is only that in twenty years I have only found one intelligent man
in the whole town, and he is mad. I am not ill at all, it's simply
that I have got into an enchanted circle which there is no getting
out of. I don't care; I am ready for anything."
"Go into the hospital, my dear fellow."
"I don't care if it were into the pit."
"Give me your word, my dear man, that you will obey Yevgeny Fyodoritch
in everything."
"Certainly I will give you my word. But I repeat, my honoured friend,
I have got into an enchanted circle. Now everything, even the genuine
sympathy of my friends, leads to the same thing--to my ruin. I
am going to my ruin, and I have the manliness to recognize it."
"My dear fellow, you will recover."
"What's the use of saying that?" said Andrey Yefimitch, with
irritation. "There are few men who at the end of their lives do not
experience what I am experiencing now. When you are told that you
have something such as diseased kidneys or enlarged heart, and you
begin being treated for it, or are told you are mad or a
criminal--that is, in fact, when people suddenly turn their attention to
you--you may be sure you have got into an enchanted circle from
which you will not escape. You will try to escape and make things
worse. You had better give in, for no human efforts can save you.
So it seems to me."
Meanwhile the public was crowding at the grating. That he might not
be in their way, Andrey Yefimitch got up and began to take leave.
Mihail Averyanitch made him promise on his honour once more, and
escorted him to the outer door.
Towards evening on the same day Hobotov, in his sheepskin and his
high top-boots, suddenly made his appearance, and said to Andrey
Yefimitch in a tone as though nothing had happened the day before:
"I have come on business, colleague. I have come to ask you whether
you would not join me in a consultation. Eh?"
Thinking that Hobotov wanted to distract his mind with an outing,
or perhaps really to enable him to earn something, Andrey Yefimitch
put on his coat and hat, and went out with him into the street. He
was glad of the opportunity to smooth over his fault of the previous
day and to be reconciled, and in his heart thanked Hobotov, who did
not even allude to yesterday's scene and was evidently sparing him.
One would never have expected such delicacy from this uncultured
man.
"Where is your invalid?" asked Andrey Yefimitch.
"In the hospital. . . . I have long wanted to show him to you. A
very interesting case."
They went into the hospital yard, and going round the main building,
turned towards the lodge where the mental cases were kept, and all
this, for some reason, in silence. When they went into the lodge
Nikita as usual jumped up and stood at attention.
"One of the patients here has a lung complication." Hobotov said
in an undertone, going into the yard with Andrey Yefimitch. "You
wait here, I'll be back directly. I am going for a stethoscope."
And he went away.