The major-domo alone scratched the back of his head and waved his hand in despair, as much as to say: "Well, I wash my hands of the matter! Perhaps the mistress will not get to know of it!" And never had the dumb man worked so zealously as on that day; he swept and scraped out the entire courtyard, he rooted up all the blades of grass to the very last one, with his own hand pulled up all the props in the garden-fence, with a view to making sure that they were sufficiently firm, and then hammered them in again,--in a word, he fussed and bustled about so, that even the mistress noticed his zeal. Twice in the course of the day Gerásim went stealthily to his captive; and when night came, he lay down to sleep in her company, in the little room, not in the hay-barn, and only at one o'clock did he go out to take a stroll with her in the fresh air. Having walked quite a long time with her in the courtyard, he was preparing to return, when suddenly a noise resounded outside the fence in the direction of the alley. Mumú pricked up her ears, began to growl, approached the fence, sniffed, and broke forth into a loud and piercing bark. Some drunken man or other had taken it into his head to nestle down there for the night. At that very moment, the mistress had just got to sleep after a prolonged "nervous excitement"; she always had these excited fits after too hearty a supper. The sudden barking woke her; her heart began to beat violently, and to collapse. "Maids, maids!"--she moaned.--"Maids!" The frightened maids flew to her bedroom. "Okh, okh, I'm dying!"--said she, throwing her hands apart in anguish.--"There 's that dog again, again!... Okh, send for the doctor! They want to kill me... The dog, the dog again! Okh!" And she flung back her head, which was intended to denote a swoon. They ran for the doctor, that is to say, for the household medical man, Kharitón. The whole art of this healer consisted in the fact that he wore boots with soft soles, understood how to feel the pulse delicately, slept fourteen hours out of the twenty-four, spent the rest of the time in sighing, and was incessantly treating the mistress to laurel drops. This healer immediately hastened to her, fumigated with burnt feathers, and when the mistress opened her eyes, immediately presented to her on a silver tray a wine-glass with the inevitable drops. The mistress took them, but immediately, with tearful eyes, began to complain of the dog, of Gavríla, of her lot, that she, a poor old woman, had been abandoned by every one, that no one had any pity on her, and that every one desired her death. In the meantime the unlucky Mumú continued to bark, while Gerásim strove in vain to call her away from the fence.