“H’m,” he said as though puzzled, “the very fact that you feel unwell shows you ought to apply to a doctor, not a chemist.”

“But I have been to the doctors already.  I could not ring them up.”

“H’m . . . you don’t regard us chemists as human beings, and disturb our rest even at four o’clock at night, though every dog, every cat, can rest in peace. . . .  You don’t try to understand anything, and to your thinking we are not people and our nerves are like cords.”

Strizhin listened to the chemist, heaved a sigh, and went home.

“So I am fated to die,” he thought.

And in his mouth was a burning and a taste of paraffin, there were twinges in his stomach, and a sound of boom, boom, boom in his ears.  Every moment it seemed to him that his end was near, that his heart was no longer beating.

Returning home he made haste to write:  “Let no one be blamed for my death,” then he said his prayers, lay down and pulled the bedclothes over his head.  He lay awake till morning expecting death, and all the time he kept fancying how his grave would be covered with fresh green grass and how the birds would twitter over it. . . .

And in the morning he was sitting on his bed, saying with a smile to Dashenka: 

“One who leads a steady and regular life, dear sister, is unaffected by any poison.  Take me, for example.  I have been on the verge of death.  I was dying and in agony, yet now I am all right.  There is only a burning in my mouth and a soreness in my throat, but I am all right all over, thank God. . . .  And why?  It’s because of my regular life.”

“No, it’s because it’s inferior paraffin!” sighed Dashenka, thinking of the household expenses and gazing into space.  “The man at the shop could not have given me the best quality, but that at three farthings.  I am a martyr, I am a miserable woman.  You monsters!  May you suffer the same, in the world to come, accursed Herods. . . .”

And she went on and on. . . .

THE ALBUM

KRATEROV, the titular councillor, as thin and slender as the Admiralty spire, stepped forward and, addressing Zhmyhov, said: 

“Your Excellency!  Moved and touched to the bottom of our hearts by the way you have ruled us during long years, and by your fatherly care. . . .”

“During the course of more than ten years. . .”  Zakusin prompted.

“During the course of more than ten years, we, your subordinates, on this so memorable for us . . . er . . . day, beg your Excellency to accept in token of our respect and profound gratitude this album with our portraits in it, and express our hope that for the duration of your distinguished life, that for long, long years to come, to your dying day you may not abandon us. . . .”

“With your fatherly guidance in the path of justice and progress. . .” added Zakusin, wiping from his brow the perspiration that had suddenly appeared on it; he was evidently longing to speak, and in all probability had a speech ready.  “And,” he wound up, “may your standard fly for long, long years in the career of genius, industry, and social self-consciousness.”