bare
feet were thrust into goloshes; in his hand he had a little bag of
coppers.

"Give me a kopeck!" he said to the doctor, smiling, and shivering
with cold. Andrey Yefimitch, who could never refuse anyone anything,
gave him a ten-kopeck piece.

"How bad that is!" he thought, looking at the Jew's bare feet with
their thin red ankles. "Why, it's wet."

And stirred by a feeling akin both to pity and disgust, he went
into the lodge behind the Jew, looking now at his bald head, now
at his ankles. As the doctor went in, Nikita jumped up from his
heap of litter and stood at attention.

"Good-day, Nikita," Andrey Yefimitch said mildly. "That Jew should
be provided with boots or something, he will catch cold."

"Certainly, your honour. I'll inform the superintendent."

"Please do; ask him in my name. Tell him that I asked."

The door into the ward was open. Ivan Dmitritch, lying propped on
his elbow on the bed, listened in alarm to the unfamiliar voice,
and suddenly recognized the doctor. He trembled all over with anger,
jumped up, and with a red and wrathful face, with his eyes starting
out of his head, ran out into the middle of the road.

"The doctor has come!" he shouted, and broke into a laugh. "At last!
Gentlemen, I congratulate you. The doctor is honouring us with a
visit! Cursed reptile!" he shrieked, and stamped in a frenzy such
as had never been seen in the ward before. "Kill the reptile! No,
killing's too good. Drown him in the midden-pit!"

Andrey Yefimitch, hearing this, looked into the ward from the entry
and asked gently: "What for?"

"What for?" shouted Ivan Dmitritch, going up to him with a menacing
air and convulsively wrapping himself in his dressing-gown. "What
for? Thief!" he said with a look of repulsion, moving his lips as
though he would spit at him. "Quack! hangman!"

"Calm yourself," said Andrey Yefimitch, smiling guiltily. "I assure
you I have never stolen anything; and as to the rest, most likely
you greatly exaggerate. I see you are angry with me. Calm yourself,
I beg, if you can, and tell me coolly what are you angry for?"

"What are you keeping me here for?"

"Because you are ill."

"Yes, I am ill. But you know dozens, hundreds of madmen are walking
about in freedom because your ignorance is incapable of distinguishing
them from the sane. Why am I and these poor wretches to be shut up
here like scapegoats for all the rest? You, your assistant, the
superintendent, and all your h