arms, as before, felt cramped, his tongue clove
to his palate, and he could hear the chuckle of the Finn's pipe.... By
the bed, growing out of Pavel's broad back, a stout, black-bearded
doctor was bustling.

"All right, all right, my lad," he murmured. "Excellent, excellent....
Jist so, jist so...."

The doctor called Klimov "my lad." Instead of "just so," he said "jist
saow," and instead of "yes," "yies."

"Yies, yies, yies," he said. "Jist saow, jist saow.... Don't be
downhearted!"

The doctor's quick, careless way of speaking, his well-fed face, and the
condescending tone in which he said "my lad" exasperated Klimov.

"Why do you call me 'my lad'?" he moaned. "Why this familiarity, damn it
all?"

And he was frightened by the sound of his own voice. It was so dry,
weak, and hollow that he could hardly recognise it.

"Excellent, excellent," murmured the doctor, not at all offended. "Yies,
yies. You mustn't be cross."

And at home the time galloped away as alarmingly quickly as in the
train.... The light of day in his bedroom was every now and then changed
to the dim light of evening.... The doctor never seemed to leave the
bedside, and his "Yies, yies, yies," could be heard at every moment.
Through the room stretched an endless row of faces; Pavel, the Finn,
Captain Taroshevich, Sergeant Maximenko, the red cap, the lady with the
white teeth, the doctor. All of them talked, waved their hands, smoked,
ate. Once in broad daylight Klimov saw his regimental priest, Father
Alexander, in his stole and with the host in his hands, standing by the
bedside and muttering something with such a serious expression as Klimov
had never seen him wear before. The lieutenant remembered that Father
Alexander used to call all the Catholic officers Poles, and wishing to
make the priest laugh, he exclaimed:

"Father Taroshevich, the Poles have fled to the woods."

But Father Alexander, usually a gay, light-hearted man, did not laugh
and looked even more serious, and made the sign of the cross over
Klimov. At night, one after the other, there would come slowly creeping
in and out two shadows. They were his aunt and his sister. The shadow of
his sister would kneel down and pray; she would bow to the ikon, and her
grey shadow on the wall would bow, too, so that two shadows prayed to
God. And all the time there was a smell of roast meat and of the Finn's
pipe, but once Klimov could detect a distinct smell of incense. He
nearly vomite