As soon as it was morning he borrowed a horse from a neighbour and took Marfa to the hospital.  There were not many patients there, and so he had not long to wait, only three hours.  To his great satisfaction the patients were not being received by the doctor, who was himself ill, but by the assistant, Maxim Nikolaitch, an old man of whom everyone in the town used to say that, though he drank and was quarrelsome, he knew more than the doctor.

“I wish you good-day,” said Yakov, leading his old woman into the consulting room.  “You must excuse us, Maxim Nikolaitch, we are always troubling you with our trumpery affairs.  Here you see my better half is ailing, the partner of my life, as they say, excuse the expression. . . .”

Knitting his grizzled brows and stroking his whiskers the assistant began to examine the old woman, and she sat on a stool, a wasted, bent figure with a sharp nose and open mouth, looking like a bird that wants to drink.

“H------m . . .  Ah! . . .” the assistant said slowly, and he heaved
a sigh.  “Influenza and possibly fever.  There’s typhus in the town
now.  Well, the old woman has lived her life, thank God. . . .  How
old is she?”

“She’ll be seventy in another year, Maxim Nikolaitch.”

“Well, the old woman has lived her life, it’s time to say good-bye.”

“You are quite right in what you say, of course, Maxim Nikolaitch,” said Yakov, smiling from politeness, “and we thank you feelingly for your kindness, but allow me to say every insect wants to live.”

“To be sure,” said the assistant, in a tone which suggested that it depended upon him whether the woman lived or died.  “Well, then, my good fellow, put a cold compress on her head, and give her these powders twice a day, and so good-bye.  Bonjour.”

From the expression of his face Yakov saw that it was a bad case, and that no sort of powders would be any help; it was clear to him that Marfa would die very soon, if not to-day, to-morrow.  He nudged the assistant’s elbow, winked at him, and said in a low voice: 

“If you would just cup her, Maxim Nikolaitch.”

“I have no time, I have no time, my good fellow.  Take your old woman and go in God’s name.  Goodbye.”

“Be so gracious,” Yakov besought him.  “You know yourself that if, let us say, it were her stomach or her inside that were bad, then powders or drops, but you see she had got a chill!  In a chill the first thing is to let blood, Maxim Nikolaitch.”

But the assistant had already sent for the next patient, and a peasant woman came into the consulting room with a boy.

“Go along! go along,” he said to Yakov, frowning.  “It’s no use to —­”

“In that case put on leeches, anyway!  Make us pray for you for ever.”

The assistant flew into a rage and shouted: 

“You speak to me again!  You blockhead. . . .”

Yakov flew into a rage too, and he turned crimson all over, but he did not utter a word.  He took Marfa on his arm and led her out of the room.  Only when they were sitting in the cart he looked morosely and ironically at the hospital, and said: