interesting people were in general.

"So-o, so, so. . . Excellent, excellent! . . . Now we are well
again. . . . Goo-od, goo-od!" the doctor pattered.

The lieutenant listened and laughed joyously; he remembered the
Finn, the lady with the white teeth, the train, and he longed to
smoke, to eat.

"Doctor," he said, "tell them to give me a crust of rye bread and
salt, and . . . and sardines."

The doctor refused; Pavel did not obey the order, and did not go
for the bread. The lieutenant could not bear this and began crying
like a naughty child.

"Baby!" laughed the doctor. "Mammy, bye-bye!"

Klimov laughed, too, and when the doctor went away he fell into a
sound sleep. He woke up with the same joyfulness and sensation of
happiness. His aunt was sitting near the bed.

"Well, aunt," he said joyfully. "What has been the matter?"

"Spotted typhus."

"Really. But now I am well, quite well! Where is Katya?"

"She is not at home. I suppose she has gone somewhere from her
examination."

The old lady said this and looked at her stocking; her lips began
quivering, she turned away, and suddenly broke into sobs. Forgetting
the doctor's prohibition in her despair, she said:

"Ah, Katya, Katya! Our angel is gone! Is gone!"

She dropped her stocking and bent down to it, and as she did so her
cap fell off her head. Looking at her grey head and understanding
nothing, Klimov was frightened for Katya, and asked:

"Where is she, aunt?"

The old woman, who had forgotten Klimov and was thinking only of
her sorrow, said:

"She caught typhus from you, and is dead. She was buried the day
before yesterday."

This terrible, unexpected news was fully grasped by Klimov's
consciousness; but terrible and startling as it was, it could not
overcome the animal joy that filled the convalescent. He cried and
laughed, and soon began scolding because they would not let him
eat.

Only a week later when, leaning on Pavel, he went in his dressing-gown
to the window, looked at the overcast spring sky and listened to
the unpleasant clang of the old iron rails which were being carted
by, his heart ached, he burst into tears, and leaned his forehead
against the window-frame.

"How miserable I am!" he muttered. "My God, how miserable!"

And joy gave way to the boredom of everyday life and the feeling
of his irrevocable loss.

A MISFORTUNE

SOFYA PETROVNA, the wife of Lubyantsev the notary, a handsome young
woman of five-and-twenty,