t submissively into the sledge.
He still understood the difference of numbers, but money had ceased
to have any value to him.

At home Klimov was met by his aunt and his sister Katya, a girl of
eighteen. When Katya greeted him she had a pencil and exercise book
in her hand, and he remembered that she was preparing for an
examination as a teacher. Gasping with fever, he walked aimlessly
through all the rooms without answering their questions or greetings,
and when he reached his bed he sank down on the pillow. The Finn,
the red cap, the lady with the white teeth, the smell of roast meat,
the flickering blurs, filled his consciousness, and by now he did
not know where he was and did not hear the agitated voices.

When he recovered consciousness he found himself in bed, undressed,
saw a bottle of water and Pavel, but it was no cooler, nor softer,
nor more comfortable for that. His arms and legs, as before, refused
to lie comfortably; his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, and
he heard the wheezing of the Finn's pipe. . . . A stalwart,
black-bearded doctor was busy doing something beside the bed,
brushing against Pavel with his broad back.

"It's all right, it's all right, young man," he muttered. "Excellent,
excellent . . . goo-od, goo-od . . . !"

The doctor called Klimov "young man," said "goo-od" instead of
"good" and "so-o" instead of "so."

"So-o . . . so-o . . . so-o," he murmured. "Goo-od, goo-od . . . !
Excellent, young man. You mustn't lose heart!"

The doctor's rapid, careless talk, his well-fed countenance, and
condescending "young man," irritated Klimov.

"Why do you call me 'young man'?" he moaned. "What familiarity!
Damn it all!"

And he was frightened by his own voice. The voice was so dried up,
so weak and peevish, that he would not have known it.

"Excellent, excellent!" muttered the doctor, not in the least
offended. . . . "You mustn't get angry, so-o, so-o, so-s. . . ."

And the time flew by at home with the same startling swiftness as
in the railway carriage. The daylight was continually being replaced
by the dusk of evening. The doctor seemed never to leave his bedside,
and he heard at every moment his "so-o, so-o, so-o." A continual
succession of people was incessantly crossing the bedroom. Among
them were: Pavel, the Finn, Captain Yaroshevitch, Lance-Corporal
Maximenko, the red cap, the lady with the white teeth, the doctor.
They were all talking and waving their arms, smoking and ea