off, they were singularly, I may say, cultivated people...  Their father had been a learned man, an author; he died, of course, in poverty, but he had managed before he died to give his children an excellent education; he left a lot of books too.  Either because I looked after the invalid very carefully, or for some other reason; anyway, I can venture to say all the household loved me as if I were one of the family...  Meantime the roads were in a worse state than ever; all communications, so to say, were cut off completely; even medicine could with difficulty be got from the town...  The sick girl was not getting better...  Day after day, and day after day ... but ... here...” (The doctor made a brief pause.) “I declare I don’t know how to tell you."... (He again took snuff, coughed, and swallowed a little tea.) “I will tell you without beating about the bush.  My patient ... how should I say?...  Well she had fallen in love with me ... or, no, it was not that she was in love ... however ... really, how should one say?” (The doctor looked down and grew red.) “No,” he went on quickly, “in love, indeed!  A man should not over-estimate himself.  She was an educated girl, clever and well-read, and I had even forgotten my Latin, one may say, completely.  As to appearance” (the doctor looked himself over with a smile) “I am nothing to boast of there either.  But God Almighty did not make me a fool; I don’t take black for white; I know a thing or two; I could see very clearly, for instance that Aleksandra Andreyevna—­that was her name—­did not feel love for me, but had a friendly, so to say, inclination—­a respect or something for me.  Though she herself perhaps mistook this sentiment, anyway this was her attitude; you may form your own judgment of it.  But,” added the doctor, who had brought out all these disconnected sentences without taking breath, and with obvious embarrassment, “I seem to be wandering rather—­you won’t understand anything like this ...  There, with your leave, I will relate it all in order.”

He drank off a glass of tea, and began in a calmer voice.

“Well, then.  My patient kept getting worse and worse.  You are not a doctor, my good sir; you cannot understand what passes in a poor fellow’s heart, especially at first, when he begins to suspect that the disease is getting the upper hand of him.  What becomes of his belief in himself?  You suddenly grow so timid; it’s indescribable.  You fancy then that you have forgotten everything you knew, and that the patient has no faith in you, and that other people begin to notice how distracted you are, and tell you the symptoms with reluctance; that they are looking at you suspiciously, whispering...  Ah! it’s horrid!  There must be a remedy, you think, for this disease, if one could find it.  Isn’t this it?  You try—­no, that’s not it!  You don’t allow the medicine the necessary time to do good...  You clutch at one thing, then at another.  Sometimes you take up a book of medical prescriptions—­here it