and sorrowful. Hobotov shrugged his shoulders, grinned, and glanced
at Nikita. Nikita shrugged his shoulders too.

Next day Hobotov went to the lodge, accompanied by the assistant.
Both stood in the entry and listened.

"I fancy our old man has gone clean off his chump!" said Hobotov
as he came out of the lodge.

"Lord have mercy upon us sinners!" sighed the decorous Sergey
Sergeyitch, scrupulously avoiding the puddles that he might not
muddy his polished boots. "I must own, honoured Yevgeny Fyodoritch,
I have been expecting it for a long time."

XII

After this Andrey Yefimitch began to notice a mysterious air in all
around him. The attendants, the nurses, and the patients looked at
him inquisitively when they met him, and then whispered together.
The superintendent's little daughter Masha, whom he liked to meet
in the hospital garden, for some reason ran away from him now when
he went up with a smile to stroke her on the head. The postmaster
no longer said, "Perfectly true," as he listened to him, but in
unaccountable confusion muttered, "Yes, yes, yes . . ." and looked
at him with a grieved and thoughtful expression; for some reason
he took to advising his friend to give up vodka and beer, but as a
man of delicate feeling he did not say this directly, but hinted
it, telling him first about the commanding officer of his battalion,
an excellent man, and then about the priest of the regiment, a
capital fellow, both of whom drank and fell ill, but on giving up
drinking completely regained their health. On two or three occasions
Andrey Yefimitch was visited by his colleague Hobotov, who also
advised him to give up spirituous liquors, and for no apparent
reason recommended him to take bromide.

In August Andrey Yefimitch got a letter from the mayor of the town
asking him to come on very important business. On arriving at the
town hall at the time fixed, Andrey Yefimitch found there the
military commander, the superintendent of the district school, a
member of the town council, Hobotov, and a plump, fair gentleman
who was introduced to him as a doctor. This doctor, with a Polish
surname difficult to pronounce, lived at a pedigree stud-farm twenty
miles away, and was now on a visit to the town.

"There's something that concerns you," said the member of the town
council, addressing Andrey Yefimitch after they had all greeted one
another and sat down to the table. "Here Yevgeny Fyodoritch says
that there is not room