ospital rabble, are immeasurably
inferior to every one of us morally; why then are we shut up and
you not? Where's the logic of it?"

"Morality and logic don't come in, it all depends on chance. If
anyone is shut up he has to stay, and if anyone is not shut up he
can walk about, that's all. There is neither morality nor logic in
my being a doctor and your being a mental patient, there is nothing
but idle chance."

"That twaddle I don't understand. . ." Ivan Dmitritch brought out
in a hollow voice, and he sat down on his bed.

Moiseika, whom Nikita did not venture to search in the presence of
the doctor, laid out on his bed pieces of bread, bits of paper, and
little bones, and, still shivering with cold, began rapidly in a
singsong voice saying something in Yiddish. He most likely imagined
that he had opened a shop.

"Let me out," said Ivan Dmitritch, and his voice quivered.

"I cannot."

"But why, why?"

"Because it is not in my power. Think, what use will it be to you
if I do let you out? Go. The townspeople or the police will detain
you or bring you back."

"Yes, yes, that's true," said Ivan Dmitritch, and he rubbed his
forehead. "It's awful! But what am I to do, what?"

Andrey Yefimitch liked Ivan Dmitritch's voice and his intelligent
young face with its grimaces. He longed to be kind to the young man
and soothe him; he sat down on the bed beside him, thought, and
said:

"You ask me what to do. The very best thing in your position would
be to run away. But, unhappily, that is useless. You would be taken
up. When society protects itself from the criminal, mentally deranged,
or otherwise inconvenient people, it is invincible. There is only
one thing left for you: to resign yourself to the thought that your
presence here is inevitable."

"It is no use to anyone."

"So long as prisons and madhouses exist someone must be shut up in
them. If not you, I. If not I, some third person. Wait till in the
distant future prisons and madhouses no longer exist, and there
will be neither bars on the windows nor hospital gowns. Of course,
that time will come sooner or later."

Ivan Dmitritch smiled ironically.

"You are jesting," he said, screwing up his eyes. "Such gentlemen
as you and your assistant Nikita have nothing to do with the future,
but you may be sure, sir, better days will come! I may express
myself cheaply, you may laugh, but the dawn of a new life is at
hand; truth and justice will triumph, and--our