nida Ivanovna kept entering Aratoff's room; she did not worry him
with questions, she merely took a look at him, whispered, sighed, and
went out again.--But now he refused his dinner also.... Things were
getting quite too bad. The old woman went off to her friend, the medical
man of the police-district, in whom she had faith simply because he did
not drink and was married to a German woman. Aratoff was astonished when
she brought the man to him; but Platonida Ivanovna began so insistently
to entreat her Yashenka to permit Paramon Paramonitch (that was the
medical man's name) to examine him--come, now, just for her sake!--that
Aratoff consented. Paramon Paramonitch felt his pulse, looked at his
tongue, interrogated him after a fashion, and finally announced that it
was indispensably necessary to "auscultate" him. Aratoff was in such a
submissive frame of mind that he consented to this also. The doctor
delicately laid bare his breast, delicately tapped it, listened, smiled,
prescribed some drops and a potion, but chief of all, advised him to be
quiet, and refrain from violent emotions.

"You don't say so!" thought Aratoff.... "Well, brother, thou hast
bethought thyself too late!"

"What ails Yasha?" asked Platonida Ivanovna, as she handed Paramon
Paramonitch a three-ruble bank-note on the threshold. The district
doctor, who, like all contemporary doctors,--especially those of them
who wear a uniform,--was fond of showing off his learned terminology,
informed her that her nephew had all the dioptric symptoms of nervous
cardialgia, and that febris was present also.

"But speak more simply, dear little father," broke in Platonida
Ivanovna; "don't scare me with Latin; thou art not in an apothecary's
shop!"

"His heart is out of order," explained the doctor;--"well, and he has
fever also," ... and he repeated his advice with regard to repose and
moderation.

"But surely there is no danger?" sternly inquired Platonida Ivanovna, as
much as to say: "Look out and don't try your Latin on me again!"

"Not at present!"

The doctor went away, and Platonida Ivanovna took to grieving....
Nevertheless she sent to the apothecary for the medicine, which Aratoff
would not take, despite her entreaties. He even refused herb-tea.

"What makes you worry so, dear?" he said to her. "I assure you I am now
the most perfectly healthy and happy man in the whole world!"

Platonida Ivanovna merely shook her head. Toward evening he became
sli