Snow was falling as heavily as the day before; it was thawing.  Thrusting his hands into his sleeves, shuddering and frightened at the noises, at the trambells, and at the passers-by, Vassilyev walked along Sadovoy Street as far as Suharev Tower; then to the Red Gate; from there he turned off to Basmannya Street.  He went into a tavern and drank off a big glass of vodka, but that did not make him feel better.  When he reached Razgulya he turned to the right, and strode along side streets in which he had never been before in his life.  He reached the old bridge by which the Yauza runs gurgling, and from which one can see long rows of lights in the windows of the Red Barracks.  To distract his spiritual anguish by some new sensation or some other pain, Vassilyev, not knowing what to do, crying and shuddering, undid his greatcoat and jacket and exposed his bare chest to the wet snow and the wind.  But that did not lessen his suffering either.  Then he bent down over the rail of the bridge and looked down into the black, yeasty Yauza, and he longed to plunge down head foremost; not from loathing for life, not for the sake of suicide, but in order to bruise himself at least, and by one pain to ease the other.  But the black water, the darkness, the deserted banks covered with snow were terrifying.  He shivered and walked on.  He walked up and down by the Red Barracks, then turned back and went down to a copse, from the copse back to the bridge again.

“No, home, home!” he thought.  “At home I believe it’s better...”

And he went back.  When he reached home he pulled off his wet coat and cap, began pacing round the room, and went on pacing round and round without stopping till morning.

VII

When next morning the artist and the medical student went in to him, he was moving about the room with his shirt torn, biting his hands and moaning with pain.

“For God’s sake!” he sobbed when he saw his friends, “take me where you please, do what you can; but for God’s sake, save me quickly!  I shall kill myself!”

The artist turned pale and was helpless.  The medical student, too, almost shed tears, but considering that doctors ought to be cool and composed in every emergency said coldly: 

“It’s a nervous breakdown.  But it’s nothing.  Let us go at once to the doctor.”

“Wherever you like, only for God’s sake, make haste!”

“Don’t excite yourself.  You must try and control yourself.”

The artist and the medical student with trembling hands put Vassilyev’s coat and hat on and led him out into the street.

“Mihail Sergeyitch has been wanting to make your acquaintance for a long time,” the medical student said on the way.  “He is a very nice man and thoroughly good at his work.  He took his degree in 1882, and he has an immense practice already.  He treats students as though he were one himself.”