ademy, but that his father, a surgeon and doctor of medicine,
jeered at him and declared point-blank that he would disown him if
he became a priest. How far this is true I don't know, but Andrey
Yefimitch himself has more than once confessed that he has never
had a natural bent for medicine or science in general.

However that may have been, when he finished his studies in the
medical faculty he did not enter the priesthood. He showed no special
devoutness, and was no more like a priest at the beginning of his
medical career than he is now.

His exterior is heavy--coarse like a peasant's, his face, his
beard, his flat hair, and his coarse, clumsy figure, suggest an
overfed, intemperate, and harsh innkeeper on the highroad. His face
is surly-looking and covered with blue veins, his eyes are little
and his nose is red. With his height and broad shoulders he has
huge hands and feet; one would think that a blow from his fist would
knock the life out of anyone, but his step is soft, and his walk
is cautious and insinuating; when he meets anyone in a narrow passage
he is always the first to stop and make way, and to say, not in a
bass, as one would expect, but in a high, soft tenor: "I beg your
pardon!" He has a little swelling on his neck which prevents him
from wearing stiff starched collars, and so he always goes about
in soft linen or cotton shirts. Altogether he does not dress like
a doctor. He wears the same suit for ten years, and the new clothes,
which he usually buys at a Jewish shop, look as shabby and crumpled
on him as his old ones; he sees patients and dines and pays visits
all in the same coat; but this is not due to niggardliness, but to
complete carelessness about his appearance.

When Andrey Yefimitch came to the town to take up his duties the
"institution founded to the glory of God" was in a terrible condition.
One could hardly breathe for the stench in the wards, in the passages,
and in the courtyards of the hospital. The hospital servants, the
nurses, and their children slept in the wards together with the
patients. They complained that there was no living for beetles,
bugs, and mice. The surgical wards were never free from erysipelas.
There were only two scalpels and not one thermometer in the whole
hospital; potatoes were kept in the baths. The superintendent, the
housekeeper, and the medical assistant robbed the patients, and of
the old doctor, Andrey Yefimitch's predecessor, people declared
that h