What Is to Be Done?

more he has been living in one house, not in one, but in two different rooms; and that is proof that he is not poor. He has for a roommate another student as lucky as himself. His name is Kirsánof. They are the closest friends. Both of them were used from early life to push their own way, without depending upon others, and in other respects there was a great resemblance between them; so that if one were to meet either of them separately, they would both seem like people of the same character; and when they were seen together, it was observable that though both of them were very reliable and honest people, Lopukhóf was rather more reserved, while his chum was more effusive. So far, we have seen only Lopukhóf; Kirsánof will appear later on. Apart from Kirsánof it may be remarked in regard to Lopukhóf exactly the same thing that we shall have to remark about Kirsánof. For instance, Lopukhóf was at the present time occupied more than with anything else with the question how to establish his life after his graduation, which would occur now in a few months, and the same is true of Kirsánof; and both hid the same plan for the future.

Lopukhóf knew for a certainty that he was going to be a surgeon in one of the army hospitals of Petersburg, and this is looked upon as a great piece of good fortune; and that he was going to get a professorship in the medical school. He had no desire to practise.

It is a very peculiar thing that during the past ten years there has appeared among some of the best of the medical students a resolution not to practise medicine after graduation, though that is the only way by which a medical man can gain a livelihood; at the first opportunity they give up medicine for some of its subsidiary sciences⁠—physiology, chemistry, or something of the sort. And every one of these young men knows that if they practised until they were thirty years old, they might gain a reputation; at thirty-five, a competency for life; and at forty-five, wealth.

But they argue in a different way: You see, don’t you, that medicine is in such a state of infancy that one should not as yet try to cure, but to collect the materials; so that the doctors of the future may know how to cure. And here for the advantage of the well-beloved science⁠—they are great hands to curse medicine; but, nevertheless, they are devoting all their energies for its advantage⁠—they refuse riches, they refuse pleasure, for the sake of sitting in the hospitals, and they are making, don’t you know, observations that are interesting to science: they cut up frogs; they dissect a hundred subjects every year; and at the first chance they establish chemical laboratories. With what severity they follow out this lofty resolution depends, of course, on the way in which their domestic life is established. If it is not necessary for those dependent upon them, they do not even begin to practise, and they are willing to live almost in poverty; but if their domestic circumstances compel them to do so, they practise, but only just so long as it is necessary to, for their family; that is, on a very limited scale, and they cure only those people who are really sick, and who can really be cured by the present pitiful state of the science; that is, the sick who bring them no advantage at all. To this class Lopukhóf and Kirsánof belonged. They expected to graduate this year, and they have announced that they will take, or, as they say at the medical school, “do,” their examinations merely for the degree of M.D. They have both been hard at work on their medical theses, and they have made way with a huge quantity of frogs; both have adopted as a specialty the nervous system, and properly speaking they were working in cooperation; but for the formal dissertation the work was divided: one has gathered for his materials the facts that they both observed on one question, the other did the same thing for another.

However, it is now time to speak about Lopukhóf alone. There was a time when he drank too much; this happened when he was without tea, and sometimes even without boots. Such circumstances are extremely conducive to drinking, not only as regards willingness, but also possibility; to buy drink is cheaper than to buy food and clothes. But this habit of drinking arose from grief at intolerable poverty, and nothing more. Now, there was not to be found a man who led a sterner life, and not in regard to wine alone. In other days Lopukhóf had a good many love adventures: once, for example, it happened that he fell in love with a foreign ballet dancer. What was to be done? He thought the matter over, and went to call upon her.

“What do you want?”

“I was sent by Count So-and-so with a note.” His student’s uniform was easily mistaken by the servant to be that of a clerk or some officer’s denshchik.

“Give me the note. Will you wait for an answer?”

“The count told me to wait.” The servant returned in surprise.

“She bade me ask you in.”

“Here he is! here he is! This is the man who shouts so loud for me that I can distinguish his voice from the greenroom. How many times have you been carried off to the police station for such a demonstration in my honor?”

“Twice.”

“That isn’t much. Well, why are you here?”

“To see you!”

“Capital! What else?”

“I do not know. What would you like?”

“Well I know what I would like. I would like some breakfast. You see the things are on the table. Sit down with me.” Another plate was placed on the table. She laughed at him; he laughed at himself. “He is young, not bad looking, not stupid, and besides it’s