‘‘But how are you going to live? You have nothing.’’
‘‘I’ll do translations or ... or open a little library...’
‘‘Don’t fantasize, my dear. You need money to start a library. Well, I’ll leave you now, and you calm down and think, and come to see me tomorrow all cheered up. That will be charming! Well, good-bye, my little angel. Let me kiss you.’’
Marya Konstantinovna kissed Nadezhda Fyodorovna on the forehead, made a cross over her, and quietly left. It was already growing dark, and Olga lit a light in the kitchen. Still weeping, Nadezhda Fyodorovna went to the bedroom and lay on the bed. She was in a high fever. She undressed lying down, crumpled her clothes towards her feet, and rolled up in a ball under the blanket. She was thirsty, and there was no one to give her a drink.
‘‘I’ll pay it back!’’ she said to herself, and in her delirium it seemed to her that she was sitting by some sick woman and in her recognized herself. ‘‘I’ll pay it back. It would be stupid to think it was for money that I... I’ll go away and send him money from Petersburg. First a hundred ... then a hundred ... and then another hundred...’
Laevsky came late at night.
‘‘First a hundred...’ Nadezhda Fyodorovna said to him, ‘‘then another hundred...’
‘‘You should take some quinine,’’ he said and thought: ‘‘Tomorrow is Wednesday, the steamer leaves, and I’m not going. That means I’ll have to live here till Saturday.’’
Nadezhda Fyodorovna got up on her knees in bed.
‘‘Did I say anything just now?’’ she asked, smiling and squinting because of the candle.
‘‘Nothing. We’ll have to send for the doctor tomorrow morning. Sleep.’’
He took a pillow and went to the door. Once he had finally decided to go away and abandon Nadezhda Fyodorovna, she had begun to arouse pity and a feeling of guilt in him; he was slightly ashamed in her presence, as in the presence of an old or ailing horse slated to be killed. He stopped in the doorway and turned to look at her.
‘‘I was annoyed at the picnic and said something rude to you. Forgive me, for God’s sake.’’
Having said this, he went to his study, lay down, and for a long time was unable to fall asleep.
The next morning, when Samoilenko, in full dress uniform with epaulettes and decorations on occasion of the feast day, was coming out of the bedroom after taking Nadezhda Fyodorovna’s pulse and examining her tongue, Laevsky, who was standing by the threshold, asked him worriedly:
‘‘Well, so? So?’’
His face expressed fear, extreme anxiety, and hope.
‘‘Calm down, it’s nothing dangerous,’’ said Samoilenko. ‘‘An ordinary fever.’’
‘‘I’m not asking about that,’’ Laevsky winced impatiently. ‘‘Did you get the money?’’
‘‘Forgive me, dear heart,’’ Samoilenko whispered, glancing back at the door and getting embarrassed. ‘‘For God’s sake, forgive me! Nobody has ready cash, and so far I’ve only collected by fives or tens—a hundred and ten roubles in all. Today I’ll talk with someone else. Be patient.’’
‘‘But Saturday’s the last day!’’ Laevsky whispered, trembling with impatience. ‘‘By all that’s holy, before Saturday! If I don’t leave on Saturday, I’ll need nothing ... nothing! I don’t understand how a doctor can have no money!’’
‘‘Thy will be done, O Lord,’’ Samoilenko whispered quickly and tensely, and something even squeaked in his throat, ‘‘they’ve taken everything I’ve got, I have seven thousand owing to me, and I’m roundly in debt. Is it my fault?’’
‘‘So you’ll get it by Saturday? Yes?’’
‘‘I’ll try.’’
‘‘I beg you, dear heart! So that the money will be in my hands Friday morning.’’
Samoilenko sat down and wrote a prescription for quinine in a solution of
XI
‘‘YOU LOOK AS though you’re coming to arrest me,’’ said von Koren, seeing Samoilenko coming into his room in full dress uniform.
‘‘I was passing by and thought: why don’t I pay a call on zoology?’’ said Samoilenko, sitting down by the big table the zoologist himself had knocked together out of simple planks. ‘‘Greetings, holy father!’’ he nodded to the deacon, who was sitting by the window copying something. ‘‘I’ll sit for a minute and then run home to give orders for dinner. It’s already time ... I’m not bothering you?’’
‘‘Not at all,’’ replied the zoologist, laying out scraps of paper covered with fine writing on the table. ‘‘We’re busy copying.’’
‘So... Oh, my God, my God ...’ sighed Samoilenko; he cautiously drew from the table a dusty book on which lay a dead, dry phalangid, and said: ‘‘However! Imagine some little green bug is going about his business and suddenly meets such an anathema on his way. I can picture how terrifying it is!’’
‘‘Yes, I suppose so.’’
‘‘It’s given venom to defend itself from enemies?’’
‘‘Yes, to defend itself and to attack.’’
‘‘So, so, so... And everything in nature, my dear hearts, is purposeful and explainable,’’ sighed Samoilenko. ‘‘Only here’s what I don’t understand. You’re a man of the greatest intelligence, explain it to me, please. There are these little beasts, you know, no bigger than a rat, pretty to look at but mean and immoral in the highest degree, let me tell you. Suppose such a beast is walking along through the forest; it sees a little bird, catches it, and eats it up.
