The doctor had thought much about this in the last days, trying to revive the memories of his own lost years to the utmost of his powers. But it was hard. When he began to think of them he would grow tired. His broad-boned body grew heavy and he became sleepy, for in the twenty-three years that he had spent in the provincial town within the Pale, he had forgotten how to think. Once upon a time, like other students of his age, he had been an idealist. He would finish his studies, he then thought, and go to the people. He would establish himself in some out-of-the-way village, there to heal the peasants and their wives and teach the little boys to read and write, for many students talked of that at the time. But when Dr. Lazarovitch was graduated he did not go to any out-of-the-way village. He fell in love with Anna Isakovna, a daughter of Director Solomon. Solomon, an old, worked-out factory invalid, who had four daughters, was often visited by the Jewish students in Moscow. The girls played the piano, and the Director’s home was aristocratic. The lackey, an old Gentile, served at the table in gloves, though there was not much to serve. The gloved lackey and the piano-playing made a deep impression on Dr. Lazarovitch, and to his share fell the weakest and ugliest of the Director’s daughters, Anna. But as soon as he married the aristocrat he forgot all his ideals. He went with his wife, who began to ail shortly after the wedding, to a town in the Jewish Pale, where Director Solomon had many relatives and acquaintances. Here he began to build up a practice. This partly meant that even in the Pale one could do much, that ideals are necessary not only in the village, but also in the town. But soon the doctor became acquainted with the intellectuals of the town, with the druggist and the President of the Court, and spent most of his nights at the club, with them, playing cards. He tried to avoid being at home. He did not love his wife over much after she began to ail, but this did not prevent his having five children with her, two of which had been still-born; the other three had grown up almost without his knowledge, till his card-playing had been interrupted by the apostasy of Mikhail. * * * * *