Tanya exchanged a troubled glance with her father, and said in a
guilty voice:

"You notice yourself that milk does you good."

"Yes, a great deal of good!" Kovrin laughed. "I congratulate you:
I have gained a pound in weight since Friday." He pressed his head
tightly in his hands and said miserably: "Why, why have you cured
me? Preparations of bromide, idleness, hot baths, supervision,
cowardly consternation at every mouthful, at every step--all this
will reduce me at last to idiocy. I went out of my mind, I had
megalomania; but then I was cheerful, confident, and even happy; I
was interesting and original. Now I have become more sensible and
stolid, but I am just like every one else: I am--mediocrity; I
am weary of life. . . . Oh, how cruelly you have treated me! . . .
I saw hallucinations, but what harm did that do to any one? I ask,
what harm did that do any one?"

"Goodness knows what you are saying!" sighed Yegor Semyonitch. "It's
positively wearisome to listen to it."

"Then don't listen."

The presence of other people, especially Yegor Semyonitch, irritated
Kovrin now; he answered him drily, coldly, and even rudely, never
looked at him but with irony and hatred, while Yegor Semyonitch was
overcome with confusion and cleared his throat guiltily, though he
was not conscious of any fault in himself. At a loss to understand
why their charming and affectionate relations had changed so abruptly,