At first all this appeared to him like a wild chaos, in which he could never feel at home, but which worked on him increasingly in a depressing, bewildering way. But after a few hours he was seized by the strong current of energy which flowed through everything. He pricked up his ears, and felt a burning desire to get into the swim, and learn how to do all these things that others were doing; joined with the feeling that he would be lighter-hearted and happier if he could be swept away in this whirlpool. "Corrosive sublimate!" shouted one of the doctors. "Some more hot water in the bath over there!" a thin little student with red eyes ordered. "Look here! What's your name?" "Orloff." "All right!... Just rub this patient's feet ... yes, that's right ... so.... I see you understand at once.... So--o ... not so hard! or you will rub his skin off!..." "Oh! how tired I am!" exclaimed another student, long-haired and pock-marked, whilst he was giving Orloff the necessary instructions. "They have brought in another patient!" some one exclaimed. "Orloff, just go and see!... Help them to bring him in." Grigori, full of zeal, followed out all the directions. He was covered with perspiration, there was a ringing in his ears, and a mist swam before his eyes. At times the consciousness of himself disappeared entirely under the mass of impressions which crowded in upon him at every moment. The dark-green rings round the glassy eyes of the patients, their leaden-coloured faces, their bones, which stood out from their bodies, their clammy, bad-smelling skins, the horrible convulsions of the half-dead bodies, all this oppressed his heart painfully, and produced a nausea which he had never experienced before. Once or twice he had caught a hurried glimpse of his wife in the corridor of the Infirmary; she seemed in these few hours to have grown thinner, and her white face wore a troubled look. "Well, how are you getting on?" he asked during one of these hurried encounters. She could only answer with a smile, and disappeared immediately. A thought struck Grischka, which he however kept to himself; was it really so necessary for him to have brought his wife with him into this hell? She might catch the infection and die.... The second time he met her he called out to her in a loud voice-- "Be sure and keep yourself clean; wash your hands very often, and take every care!" "Why do you say all that? What if I don't take care?" she asked, showing her little white teeth; and it seemed to him as if she were defying him. Her reply made him angry. "There she is," he thought, "joking even in such a place as this! What a parcel of fools these women-folk are!" He found however no further opportunity to give her recommendations. Matrona, having noticed the angry look on his face, hurried away to the women's side of the building.