ikita as usual jumped up and stood at attention.

"One of the patients here has a lung complication." Hobotov said
in an undertone, going into the yard with Andrey Yefimitch. "You
wait here, I'll be back directly. I am going for a stethoscope."

And he went away.

XVII

It was getting dusk. Ivan Dmitritch was lying on his bed with his
face thrust unto his pillow; the paralytic was sitting motionless,
crying quietly and moving his lips. The fat peasant and the former
sorter were asleep. It was quiet.

Andrey Yefimitch sat down on Ivan Dmitritch's bed and waited. But
half an hour passed, and instead of Hobotov, Nikita came into the
ward with a dressing-gown, some underlinen, and a pair of slippers
in a heap on his arm.

"Please change your things, your honour," he said softly. "Here is
your bed; come this way," he added, pointing to an empty bedstead
which had obviously recently been brought into the ward. "It's all
right; please God, you will recover."

Andrey Yefimitch understood it all. Without saying a word he crossed
to the bed to which Nikita pointed and sat down; seeing that Nikita
was standing waiting, he undressed entirely and he felt ashamed.
Then he put on the hospital clothes; the drawers were very short,
the shirt was long, and the dressing-gown smelt of smoked fish.

"Please God, you will recover," repeated Nikita, and he gathered
up Andrey Yefimitch's clothes into his arms, went out, and shut the
door after him.

"No matter . . ." thought Andrey Yefimitch, wrapping himself in his
dressing-gown in a shamefaced way and feeling that he looked like
a convict in his new costume. "It's no matter. . . . It does not
matter whether it's a dress-coat or a uniform or this dressing-gown."

But how about his watch? And the notebook that was in the side-pocket?
And his cigarettes? Where had Nikita taken his clothes? Now perhaps
to the day of his death he would not put on trousers, a waistcoat,
and high boots. It was all somehow strange and even incomprehensible
at first. Andrey Yefimitch was even now convinced that there was
no difference between his landlady's house and Ward No. 6, that
everything in this world was nonsense and vanity of vanities. And
yet his hands were trembling, his feet were cold, and he was filled
with dread at the thought that soon Ivan Dmitritch would get up and
see that he was in a dressing-gown. He got up and walked across the
room and sat down again.

Here he had been sitting alr