me after dinner when Andrey Yefimitch
was lying on the sofa. It so happened that Hobotov arrived at the
same time with his bromide. Andrey Yefimitch got up heavily and sat
down, leaning both arms on the sofa.

"You have a much better colour to-day than you had yesterday, my
dear man," began Mihail Averyanitch. "Yes, you look jolly. Upon my
soul, you do!"

"It's high time you were well, dear colleague," said Hobotov,
yawning. "I'll be bound, you are sick of this bobbery."

"And we shall recover," said Mihail Averyanitch cheerfully. "We
shall live another hundred years! To be sure!"

"Not a hundred years, but another twenty," Hobotov said reassuringly.
"It's all right, all right, colleague; don't lose heart. . . . Don't
go piling it on!"

"We'll show what we can do," laughed Mihail Averyanitch, and he
slapped his friend on the knee. "We'll show them yet! Next summer,
please God, we shall be off to the Caucasus, and we will ride all
over it on horseback--trot, trot, trot! And when we are back from
the Caucasus I shouldn't wonder if we will all dance at the wedding."
Mihail Averyanitch gave a sly wink. "We'll marry you, my dear boy,
we'll marry you. . . ."

Andrey Yefimitch felt suddenly that the rising disgust had mounted
to his throat, his heart began beating violently.

"That's vulgar," he said, getting up quickly and walking away to
the window. "Don't you understand that you are talking vulgar
nonsense?"

He meant to go on softly and politely, but against his will he
suddenly clenched his fists and raised them above his head.

"Leave me alone," he shouted in a voice unlike his own, blushing
crimson and shaking all over. "Go away, both of you!"

Mihail Averyanitch and Hobotov got up and stared at him first with
amazement and then with alarm.

"Go away, both!" Andrey Yefimitch went on shouting. "Stupid people!
Foolish people! I don't want either your friendship or your medicines,
stupid man! Vulgar! Nasty!"

Hobotov and Mihail Averyanitch, looking at each other in bewilderment,
staggered to the door and went out. Andrey Yefimitch snatched up
the bottle of bromide and flung it after them; the bottle broke
with a crash on the door-frame.

"Go to the devil!" he shouted in a tearful voice, running out into
the passage. "To the devil!"

When his guests were gone Andrey Yefimitch lay down on the sofa,
trembling as though in a fever, and went on for a long while
repeating: "Stupid people! Foolish people!"