ch without that,
and she drank only hot water. And he understood why she had such a
strange, joyful face now, and he was overcome with dread.

As soon as it was morning he borrowed a horse from a neighbour and
took Marfa to the hospital. There were not many patients there, and
so he had not long to wait, only three hours. To his great satisfaction
the patients were not being received by the doctor, who was himself
ill, but by the assistant, Maxim Nikolaitch, an old man of whom
everyone in the town used to say that, though he drank and was
quarrelsome, he knew more than the doctor.

"I wish you good-day," said Yakov, leading his old woman into the
consulting room. "You must excuse us, Maxim Nikolaitch, we are
always troubling you with our trumpery affairs. Here you see my
better half is ailing, the partner of my life, as they say, excuse
the expression. . . ."

Knitting his grizzled brows and stroking his whiskers the assistant
began to examine the old woman, and she sat on a stool, a wasted,
bent figure with a sharp nose and open mouth, looking like a bird
that wants to drink.

"H------m . . . Ah! . . ." the assistant said slowly, and he heaved
a sigh. "Influenza and possibly fever. There's typhus in the town
now. Well, the old woman has lived her life, thank God. . . . How
old is she?"

"She'll be seventy in another year, Maxim Nikolaitch."

"Well, the old woman has lived her life, it's time to say good-bye."

"You are quite right in what you say, of course, Maxim Nikolaitch,"
said Yakov, smiling from politeness, "and we thank you feelingly
for your kindness, but allow me to say every insect wants to live."

"To be sure," said the assistant, in a tone which suggested that
it depended upon him whether the woman lived or died. "Well, then,
my good fellow, put a cold compress on her head, and give her these
powders twice a day, and so good-bye. Bonjour."

From the expression of his face Yakov saw that it was a bad case,
and that no sort of powders would be any help; it was clear to him
that Marfa would die very soon, if not to-day, to-morrow. He nudged
the assistant's elbow, winked at him, and said in a low voice:

"If you would just cup her, Maxim Nikolaitch."

"I have no time, I have no time, my good fellow. Take your old woman
and go in God's name. Goodbye."

"Be so gracious," Yakov besought him. "You know yourself that if,
let us say, it were her stomach or her inside that were bad, then
powders or dro