he right thing: they
all ended by doing the wrong. The fussy ones had fits of apathy, when
the poor irritable patients seemed to get a little better; the negligent
ones had paroxysms of attentiveness, when their invalids, accustomed to
loneliness and neglect, seemed to become rather worse by being worried.

To remonstrate with the caretakers would have been folly: for they were
well satisfied with their own methods.

To contrive their departure would have been an impossibility: for they
were firmly convinced that their presence was necessary to the welfare
of their charges. And then, too, judging from the way in which they
managed to amuse themselves, they liked being in Petershof, though they
never owned that to the invalids. On the contrary, it was the custom for
the caretakers to depreciate the place, and to deplore the necessity
which obliged them to continue there month after month. They were fond,
too, of talking about the sacrifices which they made, and the pleasures
which they willingly gave up in order to stay with their invalids. They
said this in the presence of their invalids. And if the latter had told
them by all means to pack up and go back to the pleasures which they
had renounced, they would have been astonished at the ingratitude which
could suggest the idea.

They were amusing characters, these caretakers. They were so thoroughly
unconscious of their own deficiencies. They might neglect their own
invalids, but they would look after other people's invalids, and play
the nurse most soothingly and prettily where there was no call and no
occasion. Then they would come and relate to their neglected dear ones
what they had been doing for others: and the dear ones would smile
quietly, and watch the buttons being stitched on for strangers, and the
cornflour which they could not, get nicely made for themselves, being
carefully prepared for other people's neglected dear ones.

Some of the dear ones were rather bitter. But there were many of a
higher order of intelligence, who seemed to realize that they had no
right to be ill, and that being ill, and therefore a burden on their
friends, they must make the best of everything, and be grateful for
what was given them, and patient when anything was withheld. Others of
a still higher order of understanding, attributed the eccentricities of
the caretakers to one cause alone: the Petershof air. They know it had
the invariable effect of getting into the head, and up