“Oh, by the way,” she said to him suddenly, “is your plan getting on at all?”
Insarov was taken aback.
“What plan?” he said.
“Why, have you forgotten?” she rejoined, laughing in his face; he alone could tell the meaning of that happy laugh: “Your Bulgarian selections for Russian readers?”
“Quelle bourde!” muttered Nikolai Artemyevitch between his teeth.
Zoya sat down to the piano. Elena gave a just perceptible shrug of the shoulders, and with her eyes motioned Insarov to the door. Then she twice slowly touched the table with her finger, and looked at him. He understood that she was promising to see him in two days, and she gave him a quick smile when she saw he understood her. Insarov got up and began to take leave; he felt unwell. Kurnatovsky arrived. Nikolai Artemyevitch jumped up, raised his right hand higher than his head, and softly dropped it into the palm of the chief secretary. Insarov would have remained a few minutes longer, to have a look at his rival. Elena shook her head unseen; the host did not think it necessary to introduce them to one another, and Insarov departed, exchanging one last look with Elena. Shubin pondered and pondered, and threw himself into a fierce argument with Kurnatovsky on a legislative question, about which he had not a single idea.
Insarov did not sleep all night, and in the morning he felt very ill; he set to work, however, putting his papers into order and writing letters, but his head was heavy and confused. At dinner time he began to be in a fever; he could eat nothing. The fever grew rapidly worse towards evening; he had aching pains in all his limbs, and a terrible headache. Insarov lay down on the very little sofa on which Elena had lately sat; he thought: “It serves me right for going to that old rascal,” and he tried to sleep. … But the illness had by now complete mastery of him. His veins were throbbing violently, his blood was on fire, his thoughts were flying round like birds. He sank into forgetfulness. He lay like a man felled by a blow on his face, and suddenly, it seemed to him, someone was softly laughing and whispering over him: he opened his eyes with an effort, the light of the flaring candle smote him like a knife. … What was it? the old attorney was before him in an Oriental silk gown belted with a silk handkerchief, as he had seen him the evening before. … “Karolina Vogelmeier,” muttered his toothless mouth. Insarov stared, and the old man grew wide and thick and tall, he was no longer a man, he was a tree. … Insarov had to climb along its gnarled branches. He clung, and fell with his breast on a sharp stone, and Karolina Vogelmeier was sitting on her heels, looking like a pedlar-woman, and lisping: “Pies, pies, pies for sale;” and there were streams of blood and swords flashing incessantly. … Elena! And everything vanished in a crimson chaos.
XXV
“There’s someone here looks like a locksmith or something of the sort,” Bersenyev was informed the following evening by his servant, who was distinguished by a severe deportment and sceptical turn of mind towards his master; “he wants to see you.”
“Ask him in,” said Bersenyev.
The “locksmith” entered. Bersenyev recognised in him the tailor, the landlord of Insarov’s lodgings.
“What do you want?” he asked him.
“I came to your honour,” began the tailor, shifting from one foot to the other, and at times waving his right hand with his cuff clutched in his three last fingers. “Our lodger, seemingly, is very ill.”
“Insarov?”
“Yes, our lodger, to be sure; yesterday morning he was still on his legs, in the evening he asked for nothing but drink; the missis took him some water, and at night he began talking away; we could hear him through the partition-wall; and this morning he lies without a word like a log, and the fever he’s in, Lord have mercy on us! I thought, upon my word, he’ll die for sure; I ought to send word to the police station, I thought. For he’s so alone; but the missis said: ‘Go to that gentleman,’ she says, ‘at whose country place our lodger stayed; maybe he’ll tell you what to do, or come himself.’ So I’ve come to your honour, for we can’t, so to say—”
Bersenyev snatched up his cap, thrust a rouble into the tailor’s hand, and at once set off with him post haste to Insarov’s lodgings.
He found him lying on the sofa, unconscious and not undressed. His face was terribly changed. Bersenyev at once ordered the people of the house to undress him and put him to bed, while he rushed off himself and returned with a doctor. The doctor prescribed leeches, mustard-poultices, and calomel, and ordered him to be bled.
“Is he dangerously ill?” asked Bersenyev.
“Yes, very dangerously,” answered the doctor. “Severe inflammation of the lungs; peripneumonia fully developed, and the brain perhaps affected, but the patient is young. His very strength is something against him now. I was sent for too late; still we will do all that science dictates.”
The doctor was young himself, and still believed in science.
Bersenyev stayed the night. The people of the house seemed kind, and even prompt directly there was someone to tell them what was to be done. An assistant arrived, and began to carry out the medical
