our views may be. If you knew, my friend, how tired I am of the general madness, giftlessness, obtuseness, and with what joy I talk with you each time! You’re an intelligent man, and I delight in you.”
Khobotov opened the door an inch and peeked into the room. Dr. Andrei Yefimych and Ivan Dmitrich in his nightcap were sitting side by side on the bed. The madman grimaced, twitched, and convulsively wrapped his robe around him, while the doctor sat motionless, his head bowed, his face red, helpless, and sad. Khobotov shrugged, grinned, and exchanged glances with Nikita. Nikita also shrugged.
The next day Khobotov came to the annex together with the assistant doctor. The two stood in the front hall and eavesdropped.
“It seems our grandpa’s gone completely loony,” said Khobotov, leaving the annex.
“God have mercy on us sinners!” sighed the beauteous Sergei Sergeich, carefully sidestepping the puddles to avoid muddying his brightly polished boots. “I confess, my esteemed Evgeny Fyodorych, I’ve long been expecting that!”
XII
After that Andrei Yefimych began to notice a certain mysteriousness around him. The peasants, the nurses, and the patients, when they met him, glanced at him inquisitively and then whispered. The little girl Masha, the superintendent’s daughter, whom he enjoyed meeting in the hospital garden, now, when he came up to her with a smile to pat her on the head, for some reason ran away from him. The postmaster, Mikhail Averyanych, listening to him, no longer said: “Quite right,” but muttered in inexplicable embarrassment: “Yes, yes, yes …” and looked at him wistfully and sadly. For some reason he began advising his friend to give up vodka and beer, but, being a delicate man, spoke not directly but in hints, telling now about a certain battalion commander, an excellent man, now about a regimental priest, a nice fellow, both of whom drank themselves sick, but when they stopped drinking became completely well. Two or three times Andrei Yefimych’s colleague Khobotov came to see him; he, too, advised him to give up alcohol and, for no apparent reason, recommended that he take potassium bromide.
In August Andrei Yefimych received a letter from the mayor with a request that he kindly come on a very important matter. Arriving at the town hall at the appointed time, Andrei Yefimych found there the military commander, the inspector of the district high school, a member of the town council, Khobotov, and yet another stout, blond gentleman, who was introduced to him as a doctor. This doctor, who had a Polish name that was very hard to pronounce, lived on a stud farm twenty miles away and was just passing through town.
“Here’s a little application along your lines, sir,” the member of the council addressed Andrei Yefimych, after they had all exchanged greetings and sat down at the table. “Evgeny Fyodorych says here that there’s not enough room for the dispensary in the main building, and that it ought to be transferred to one of the annexes. That’s all right, of course, the transfer is possible, but the main concern is that the annex will need renovation.”
“Yes, it won’t do without renovation,” Andrei Yefimych said, after some reflection. “If, for example, we decide to fit out the corner annex as a dispensary, we’ll need a minimum of five hundred roubles. An unproductive expense.”
A short silence ensued.
“I already had the honor of reporting ten years ago,” Andrei Yefimych went on in a low voice, “that this hospital in its present state is a luxury beyond the town’s means. It was built in the forties, but the means were different then. The town spends too much on unnecessary buildings and superfluous jobs. I think that with a different system it would be possible to run two model hospitals on the same money.”
“Then let’s set up a different system!” the member of the council said briskly.
“As I’ve already had the honor of reporting, the medical area should be transferred to the jurisdiction of the zemstvo.”
“Yes, transfer the money to the zemstvo, and let them steal it,” the blond doctor laughed.
“That’s just what they’ll do,” said the council member, and he also laughed.
Andrei Yefimych gave the blond doctor a dull and listless look and said:
“We must be fair.”
Another silence ensued. Tea was served. The military commander, very embarrassed for some reason, touched Andrei Yefimych’s hand across the table and said:
“You’ve quite forgotten us, doctor. You’re a monk, anyhow: you don’t play cards, you don’t like women. You’re bored with our sort.”
Everybody began talking about how boring it was for a decent man to live in this town. No theater, no music, and at the last club dance there were some twenty ladies and only two gentlemen. The young people do not dance but spend all their time crowding around the buffet or playing cards. Slowly and softly, without looking at anyone, Andrei Yefimych began to say how regrettable, how deeply regrettable, it was that the townspeople put their life’s energy, their hearts and minds, into playing cards or gossiping, and neither can nor wish to spend time in interesting conversation or reading, to enjoy the delights furnished by the mind. The mind alone is interesting and remarkable, while the rest is petty and base. Khobotov listened attentively to his colleague and suddenly asked:
“Andrei Yefimych, what is the date today?”
Having received an answer, he and the blond doctor, in the tone of examiners aware of their incompetence, began to ask Andrei Yefimych what day it was, how many days there were in a year, and whether it was true that a remarkable prophet was living in Ward No. 6.
In answer to the last question, Andrei Yefimych blushed and said:
“Yes, he’s ill, but he’s an interesting young man.”
They did not ask him any more questions.
As he was putting his coat on in the front hall, the military governor placed his hand on his shoulder and said with a sigh:
“It’s time we old men had a rest!”
On leaving the town hall, Andrei Yefimych realized that this had been a commission appointed to verify his mental abilities. He recalled the questions he had been asked, blushed, and now, for some reason, for the first time in his life felt bitterly sorry for medicine.
