"That's a mercy," answered Lunev. "He really looked too terrible, and then he said such odd things! God be with him!" Jakov looked at him reproachfully, but said nothing. "Getting on?" asked Ilya. "Ye--es," answered Jakov with a sigh. "I mayn't even be ill as long as I want. Yesterday father was here again. He's bought another house. He says he's going to open another inn, and all that'll be on my head." Ilya wanted to speak of his own success, but something restrained him. The spring sun shone gaily through the windows and the yellow walls of the hospital seemed still more yellow. In the bright light, the paint showed many spots and gaps. Two patients were sitting on their beds, silently playing cards, quite absorbed in their game. A tall thin man, with his bandaged head bent down, walked noiselessly up and down the ward. All was quiet, save for an occasional smothered cough, and the shuffling of the patients' slippers as they walked in the corridor. Jakov's yellow face seemed lifeless and his dull eyes had a troubled expression. "Oh, I wish I were dead!" he said in his dry, creaking voice. "When I lie here I say to myself, 'it must be interesting to die.' Up there things are very different--so different, that no one has ever seen, no noise, everything is easy to understand and bright and clear." His voice sank lower, became more muffled. "There are kind angels there; they can explain everything to you, and answer all your questions--the angels----" He was silent and began to blink his eyes, watching the pale reflection of the sun rays play on the ceiling. "Do you know----?" began Lunev. Jakov interrupted him at once. "Haven't you seen Mashutka?" "N--No." "Ah! you--you ought to have gone to see her long ago." "I forgot. I can't remember everything." "You must remember with your heart." Lunev was embarrassed and said nothing. A little man on crutches wearing a moustache with pointed ends, hobbled in out of the corridor, and said in a hoarse, hissing voice to the tall man with the bandaged head: "Schurka has not come again, the rascal." Jakov looked at him, sighed and threw his head backwards and forwards on the pillow restlessly. "Nikita Jegarovitch will die, and he doesn't want to,--the surgeon told me, he must die, and I want to die, and I can't. I shall get well again and go behind the counter, and drink brandy and so I go down." His lips lengthened into a melancholy smile. "To endure this life, a man needs an iron body and an iron heart, and he must live like all the rest, without thinking, without conscience." Ilya detected in Jakov's words something hostile and cold, and his brow wrinkled. "And I'm a glass between stones," Jakov continued, "if I turn, there's a smash." "You grumble far too much," said Lunev carelessly. "And what about you?" asked Jakov. Ilya turned away and did not speak. Then observing that Jakov showed no signs of going on, he said thoughtfully: