IX

Kovrin received a professorship at the University. The inaugural
address was fixed for the second of December, and a notice to that
effect was hung up in the corridor at the University. But on the
day appointed he informed the students' inspector, by telegram,
that he was prevented by illness from giving the lecture.

He had hæmorrhage from the throat. He was often spitting blood, but
it happened two or three times a month that there was a considerable
loss of blood, and then he grew extremely weak and sank into a
drowsy condition. This illness did not particularly frighten him,
as he knew that his mother had lived for ten years or longer suffering
from the same disease, and the doctors assured him that there was
no danger, and had only advised him to avoid excitement, to lead a
regular life, and to speak as little as possible.

In January again his lecture did not take place owing to the same
reason, and in February it was too late to begin the course. It had
to be postponed to the following year.

By now he was living not with Tanya, but with another woman, who
was two years older than he was, and who looked after him as though
he were a baby. He was in a calm and tranquil state of mind; he
readily gave in to her, and when Varvara Nikolaevna--that was the
name of his friend--decided to take him to the Crimea, he agreed,
though he had a presentiment that no good would come of the trip.

They reached Sevastopol in the evening and stopped at an hotel to
rest and go on the next day to Yalta. They were both exhausted by