"Come, Pava, perform!" Ivan Petrovitch said to him.

Pava struck an attitude, flung up his arm, and said in a tragic
tone: "Unhappy woman, die!"

And every one roared with laughter.

"It's entertaining," thought Startsev, as he went out into the
street.

He went to a restaurant and drank some beer, then set off to walk
home to Dyalizh; he walked all the way singing:

"'Thy voice to me so languid and caressing. . . .'"

On going to bed, he felt not the slightest fatigue after the six
miles' walk. On the contrary, he felt as though he could with
pleasure have walked another twenty.

"Not badsome," he thought, and laughed as he fell asleep.

II

Startsev kept meaning to go to the Turkins' again, but there was a
great deal of work in the hospital, and he was unable to find free
time. In this way more than a year passed in work and solitude. But
one day a letter in a light blue envelope was brought him from the
town.

Vera Iosifovna had been suffering for some time from migraine, but