“Under the present circumstances, I beg of you to leave us entirely to ourselves.” Kirsánof took her hand and led her from the room, almost by main force.
“I am really ashamed of her, Aleksandr,” said the sick man; “what a ridiculous part you are playing, to sit up all night with a man who is not sick enough to need it. But I am very grateful to you. I could not even persuade her to hire a nurse, when she was afraid to leave me alone; she would not trust me in anybody’s hands.”
“If I had not seen that it was impossible for her to be calm when you were in somebody else’s care, then, of course, I should not have disturbed my comfort. But now, I hope that she will get some sleep. I am a doctor, and I am your friend.”
In fact, Viéra Pavlovna, as soon as she touched her bed, fell sound asleep. Three sleepless nights in themselves would not have been so trying, and the worriment by itself would not have been so trying, but the worriment, together with the sleepless nights, without any rest in the daytime, was very dangerous; two or three days and nights more without sleep, and she would have been more seriously ill than her husband.
Kirsánof spent three nights more with the sick man, for it did not tire him much, because he slept very peacefully; only out of carefulness he locked the door, so that Viéra Pavlovna should not see his unconcern. She suspected that he slept instead of watching; she was calm, however, because he was a doctor, and there were no grounds for fear, were there? He himself knows whether he ought to sleep or not. She was ashamed that she could not have been calm before, so as not to have disturbed him; but now he paid no attention to her assurances, that she would sleep even though he were not there.
“You are to blame, Viéra Pavlovna, and, therefore, you must be punished; I do not trust you!”
But, in four days, it was perfectly obvious to her that the sick man was no longer sick; the proofs even to her skepticism were very clear; that very evening they were playing cards; Lopukhóf was half lying down, or was not even lying down at all, and he spoke in a very clear voice. Kirsánof could stop his somnolent watching, and announced that fact.
“Aleksandr Matvéitch, why have you entirely forgotten me—I mean me? You are always on good terms with Dmitri; he calls on you very often; but you have not called on us till this sickness—it seems to me for a half a year, it’s such a long time! and, don’t you remember, we used to be very good friends?”
“People change, Viéra Pavlovna. Then, again, I am working very hard, if I may say a word for myself. I call on scarcely anybody; I have no time; besides, I am lazy. You get so tired, being at the hospital and the medical school from nine o’clock till five, that you don’t feel it possible to go anywhere else, or make any change, except from your uniform into your smoking-jacket. Friendship is a good thing; but don’t get angry, if I say that a cigar on a sofa, in a smoking-jacket, is better still!”
And, in fact, Kirsánof had not called on the Lopukhófs for more than two years. The reader has not once noticed his name among the common guests, and among the frequent callers for a long time; he was the most infrequent of all.
VIII
The sapient reader—I explain myself only to the masculine reader; my lady reader has too much understanding to be bothered with guessing, and therefore I do not explain to her; I say this once and for all. There are also among my masculine readers not a few who are not stupid, and to this class of readers also, I do not need to make any explanation; but the majority of readers—and this number includes almost all literary men, and those who claim to be literary men—are sapient, and it is always agreeable for me to talk with such; and so the sapient reader says: “I understand how the affair is going to turn. A new romance is going to begin in Viéra Pavlovna’s life, and in this Kirsánof is going to play a part. I understand even more; Kirsánof fell in love with Viéra Pavlovna long ago, and that was the reason why he ceased to call on the Lopukhófs.” Oh, what penetration you have, my sapient readers! As soon as you are told anything, then you say, “I thought so,” and you plume yourself on your shrewdness. I bow before you, sapient reader!
And thus in Viéra Pavlovna’s life appears a new person, and it would be necessary to describe him, if he had not already been described. When I spoke about Lopukhóf, I had some difficulty in distinguishing between him and his intimate friend, and there was scarcely anything more that I could have said about him that I should not have to repeat about Kirsánof. And, in fact, everything that the (sapient) reader can learn from the following description of Kirsánof’s characteristics, will be a repetition of Lopukhóf’s characteristics. Lopukhóf was the son of a meshchanín, who was well to do for a man of his rank—that is, one who very often has meat in his shchi; Kirsánof was the son of a clerk in a provincial court—that is, a man who often has no meat in his shchi; or, in other words, not very often has meat in his shchi. Lopukhóf, in very early youth, almost from childhood, earned money for his own support; Kirsánof, after he reached the age of twelve, helped
