'Yes,' I replied, 'of course. Besides, every trouble can be endured, and there is no position so terrible that there is no escape from it.' 'Do you think so?' said Radilov. 'Well, perhaps you are right. I recollect I lay once in the hospital in Turkey half dead; I had typhus fever. Well, our quarters were nothing to boast of--of course, in time of war--and we had to thank God for what we had! Suddenly they bring in more sick--where are they to put them? The doctor goes here and there--there is no room left. So he comes up to me and asks the attendant, "Is he alive?" He answers, "He was alive this morning." The doctor bends down, listens; I am breathing. The good man could not help saying, "Well, what an absurd constitution; the man's dying; he's certain to die, and he keeps hanging on, lingering, taking up space for nothing, and keeping out others." Well, I thought to myself, "So you are in a bad way, Mihal Mihalitch...." And, after all, I got well, and am alive till now, as you may see for yourself. You are right, to be sure.' 'In any case I am right,' I replied; 'even if you had died, you would just the same have escaped from your horrible position.' 'Of course, of course,' he added, with a violent blow of his fist on the table. 'One has only to come to a decision.... What is the use of being in a horrible position?... What is the good of delaying, lingering.' Olga rose quickly and went out into the garden. 'Well, Fedya, a dance!' cried Radilov. Fedya jumped up and walked about the room with that artificial and peculiar motion which is affected by the man who plays the part of a goat with a tame bear. He sang meanwhile, 'While at our Gates....' The rattle of a racing droshky sounded in the drive, and in a few minutes a tall, broad-shouldered and stoutly made man, the peasant proprietor, Ovsyanikov, came into the room. But Ovsyanikov is such a remarkable and original personage that, with the reader's permission, we will put off speaking about him till the next sketch. And now I will only add for myself that the next day I started off hunting at earliest dawn with Yermolaï, and returned home after the day's sport was over ... that a week later I went again to Radilov's, but did not find him or Olga at home, and within a fortnight I learned that he had suddenly disappeared, left his mother, and gone away somewhere with his sister-in-law. The whole province was excited, and talked about this event, and I only then completely understood the expression of Olga's face while Radilov was telling us his story. It was breathing, not with sympathetic suffering only: it was burning with jealousy. Before leaving the country I called on old Madame Radilov. I found her in the drawing-room; she was playing cards with Fyodor Miheitch. 'Have you news of your son?' I asked her at last. The old lady began to weep. I made no more inquiries about Radilov. VI THE PEASANT PROPRIETOR OVSYANIKOV