And for the first time in her ten years of practice a doubt creeps into Marfa Petrovna’s mind. . . .  She summons the other patients, and while talking to them of their complaints notices what has hitherto slipped by her ears unnoticed.  The patients, every one of them as though they were in a conspiracy, first belaud her for their miraculous cure, go into raptures over her medical skill, and abuse allopath doctors, then when she is flushed with excitement, begin holding forth on their needs.  One asks for a bit of land to plough, another for wood, a third for permission to shoot in her forests, and so on.  She looks at the broad, benevolent countenance of Father Aristark who has revealed the truth to her, and a new truth begins gnawing at her heart.  An evil oppressive truth. . . .

The deceitfulness of man!

IN THE GRAVEYARD

“THE wind has got up, friends, and it is beginning to get dark.  Hadn’t we better take ourselves off before it gets worse?”

The wind was frolicking among the yellow leaves of the old birch trees, and a shower of thick drops fell upon us from the leaves.  One of our party slipped on the clayey soil, and clutched at a big grey cross to save himself from falling.

“Yegor Gryaznorukov, titular councillor and cavalier . .” he read.  “I knew that gentleman.  He was fond of his wife, he wore the Stanislav ribbon, and read nothing. . . .  His digestion worked well . . . . life was all right, wasn’t it?  One would have thought he had no reason to die, but alas! fate had its eye on him. . . .  The poor fellow fell a victim to his habits of observation.  On one occasion, when he was listening at a keyhole, he got such a bang on the head from the door that he sustained concussion of the brain (he had a brain), and died.  And here, under this tombstone, lies a man who from his cradle detested verses and epigrams. . . .  As though to mock him his whole tombstone is adorned with verses. . . .  There is someone coming!”

A man in a shabby overcoat, with a shaven, bluish-crimson countenance, overtook us.  He had a bottle under his arm and a parcel of sausage was sticking out of his pocket.

“Where is the grave of Mushkin, the actor?” he asked us in a husky voice.

We conducted him towards the grave of Mushkin, the actor, who had died two years before.

“You are a government clerk, I suppose?” we asked him.

“No, an actor.  Nowadays it is difficult to distinguish actors from clerks of the Consistory.  No doubt you have noticed that. . . .  That’s typical, but it’s not very flattering for the government clerk.”

It was with difficulty that we found the actor’s grave.  It had sunken, was overgrown with weeds, and had lost all appearance of a grave.  A cheap, little cross that had begun to rot, and was covered with green moss blackened by the frost, had an air of aged dejection and looked, as it were, ailing.