allotriophagical symptoms, a consequence of his ascetical mode of
living; nymphomania of old age; hypochondriacal fancies: all symptoms
that are frequently found together. To second his morbid intention of
changing his diet and habits would be sheer lunacy; nay, worse, it would
be actual murder. Yet first I must win his confidence as a physician, so
that he may trust me and take my advice. I embraced him, and thanked him
most heartily and tenderly for his kind intentions, which I should never
forget and should always feel grateful for; but I said, brilliant and
splendid as it was, I could not accept his proposition, I could not give
up the career I had entered, the profession I had embraced and which I
loved, and the independent and honoured position I was proud of. My
calling was everything to me--life, happiness, fortune, and ambition;
and to give up my profession in order to till my farm, to exchange my
study, laboratory, and dissecting-table for the petty cares and troubles
of a country squire and a county member, would be physical and mental
death to me.

The old man smiled. "You talk so because you cannot comprehend the
importance of the position you will fill as the lord of my Slavic
kingdom, because you cannot guess the amount of the wealth I offer you.
You shall know it, and you are the only person alive to whom I have ever
spoken, or shall ever speak about it. You think this old mansion looks
as dreary and rotten inside as out; but you are mistaken. This residence
of the so-called Slav King is a princely seat, and it hides treasures
that monarchs and potentates would be proud to possess. If any one of
the family calls on me, he finds me in my dingy little hole of a room,
which, with an old rotten table, broken chairs, mutilated chest of
drawers, and coarse bed with bear-skin coverlet, looks poor and
inhospitable enough, and my visitors are generally glad to escape into
the open air again, thinking that the whole house resembles this room in