"And what am I to do with him?" Bugrov said when he had gone away. "I do have trouble with him! In the day he is always brooding and brooding. . . . And at night he moans. . . . He sleeps, but he sighs and moans in his sleep. . . . It is a sort of illness. . . . What am I to do with him, I can't think! He won't let us sleep. . . . I am afraid that he will go out of his mind. People think he is badly treated here. . . . In what way is he badly treated? He eats with us, and he drinks with us. . . . Only we won't give him money. If we were to give him any he would spend it on drink or waste it . . . . That's another trouble for me! Lord forgive me, a sinner!" They made me stay the night. When I woke next morning, Bugrov was giving some one a lecture in the adjoining room. . . . "Set a fool to say his prayers, and he will crack his skull on the floor! Why, who paints oars green! Do think, blockhead! Use your sense! Why don't you speak?" "I . . . I . . . made a mistake," said a husky tenor apologetically. The tenor belonged to Groholsky. Groholsky saw me to the station. "He is a despot, a tyrant," he kept whispering to me all the way. "He is a generous man, but a tyrant! Neither heart nor brain are developed in him. . . . He tortures me! If it were not for that noble woman, I should have gone away long ago. I am sorry to leave her. It's somehow easier to endure together." Groholsky heaved a sigh, and went on: "She is with child. . . . You notice it? It is really my child. . . . Mine. . . . She soon saw her mistake, and gave herself to me again. She cannot endure him. . . ." "You are a rag," I could not refrain from saying to Groholsky. "Yes, I am a man of weak character. . . . That is quite true. I was born so. Do you know how I came into the world? My late papa cruelly oppressed a certain little clerk--it was awful how he treated him! He poisoned his life. Well . . . and my late mama was tender-hearted. She came from the people, she was of the working class. . . . She took that little clerk to her heart from pity. . . . Well . . . and so I came into the world. . . . The son of the ill-treated clerk. How could I have a strong will? Where was I to get it from? But that's the second bell. . . . Good-bye. Come and see us again, but don't tell Ivan Petrovitch what I have said about him." I pressed Groholsky's hand, and got into the train. He bowed towards the carriage, and went to the water-barrel--I suppose he was thirsty! THE DOCTOR