One day—­it was at the end of June—­Dr. Hobotov went to see Andrey Yefimitch about something.  Not finding him at home, he proceeded to look for him in the yard; there he was told that the old doctor had gone to see the mental patients.  Going into the lodge and stopping in the entry, Hobotov heard the following conversation: 

“We shall never agree, and you will not succeed in converting me to your faith,” Ivan Dmitritch was saying irritably; “you are utterly ignorant of reality, and you have never known suffering, but have only like a leech fed beside the sufferings of others, while I have been in continual suffering from the day of my birth till to-day.  For that reason, I tell you frankly, I consider myself superior to you and more competent in every respect.  It’s not for you to teach me.”

“I have absolutely no ambition to convert you to my faith,” said Andrey Yefimitch gently, and with regret that the other refused to understand him.  “And that is not what matters, my friend; what matters is not that you have suffered and I have not.  Joy and suffering are passing; let us leave them, never mind them.  What matters is that you and I think; we see in each other people who are capable of thinking and reasoning, and that is a common bond between us however different our views.  If you knew, my friend, how sick I am of the universal senselessness, ineptitude, stupidity, and with what delight I always talk with you!  You are an intelligent man, and I enjoyed your company.”

Hobotov opened the door an inch and glanced into the ward; Ivan Dmitritch in his night-cap and the doctor Andrey Yefimitch were sitting side by side on the bed.  The madman was grimacing, twitching, and convulsively wrapping himself in his gown, while the doctor sat motionless with bowed head, and his face was red and look helpless and sorrowful.  Hobotov shrugged his shoulders, grinned, and glanced at Nikita.  Nikita shrugged his shoulders too.

Next day Hobotov went to the lodge, accompanied by the assistant.  Both stood in the entry and listened.

“I fancy our old man has gone clean off his chump!” said Hobotov as he came out of the lodge.

“Lord have mercy upon us sinners!” sighed the decorous Sergey Sergeyitch, scrupulously avoiding the puddles that he might not muddy his polished boots.  “I must own, honoured Yevgeny Fyodoritch, I have been expecting it for a long time.”

XII

After this Andrey Yefimitch began to notice a mysterious air in all around him.  The attendants, the nurses, and the patients looked at him inquisitively when they met him, and then whispered together.  The superintendent’s little daughter Masha, whom he liked to meet in the hospital garden, for some reason ran away from him now when he went up with a smile to stroke her on the head.  The postmaster no longer said, “Perfectly true,” as he listened to him, but in unaccountable confusion muttered,