glad I am you've been seeing him!" said Sludin. "He's not
well, and I fancy.... Well, what do you think of him?"

"I'll tell you," said the doctor, beckoning over Sludin's head to
his coachman to bring the carriage round. "It's just this," said
the doctor, taking a finger of his kid glove in his white hands
and pulling it, "if you don't strain the strings, and then try to
break them, you'll find it a difficult job; but strain a string
to its very utmost, and the mere weight of one finger on the
strained string will snap it. And with his close assiduity, his
conscientious devotion to his work, he's strained to the utmost;
and there's some outside burden weighing on him, and not a light
one," concluded the doctor, raising his eyebrows significantly.
"Will you be at the races?" he added, as he sank into his seat in
the carriage.

"Yes, yes, to be sure; it does waste a lot of time," the doctor
responded vaguely to some reply of Sludin's he had not caught.

Directly after the doctor, who had taken up so much time, came
the celebrated traveler, and Alexey Alexandrovitch, by means of
the pamphlet he had only just finished reading and his previous
acquaintance with the subject, impressed the traveler by the
depth of his knowledge of the subject and the breadth and
enlightenment of his view of it.

At the same time as the traveler there was announced a provincial
marshal of nobility on a visit to Petersburg, with whom Alexey
Alexandrovitch had to have some conversation. After his
departure, he had to finish the daily routine of business with
his secretary, and then he still had to drive round to call on a
certain great personage on a matter of grave and serious import.
Alexey Alexandrovitch only just managed to be back by five
o'clock, his dinner-hour, and after dining with his secretary, he
invited him to drive with him to his country villa and to the
races.

Though he did not acknowledge it to himself, Alexey
Alexandrovitch always tried nowadays to secure the presence of a
third person in his interviews with his wife.

Chapter 27

Anna was upstairs, standing before the looking glass, and, with
Annushka's assistance, pinning the last ribbon on her gown when
she heard carriage wheels crunching the gravel at the entrance.

"It's too early for Betsy," she thought, and glancing out of the
window she caught sight of the carriage and the black hat of
Alexey Alexandrovitch, and the ears that she knew so well
s