With his habitual control over his thoughts, though he thought
all this about his wife, he did not let his thoughts stray
further in regard to her.
That morning was a very full one for Alexey Alexandrovitch. The
evening before, Countess Lidia Ivanovna had sent him a pamphlet
by a celebrated traveler in China, who was staying in Petersburg,
and with it she enclosed a note begging him to see the traveler
himself, as he was an extremely interesting person from various
points of view, and likely to be useful. Alexey Alexandrovitch
had not had time to read the pamphlet through in the evening, and
finished it in the morning. Then people began arriving with
petitions, and there came the reports, interviews, appointments,
dismissals, apportionment of rewards, pensions, grants, notes,
the workaday round, as Alexey Alexandrovitch called it, that
always took up so much time. Then there was private business of
his own, a visit from the doctor and the steward who managed his
property. The steward did not take up much time. He simply gave
Alexey Alexandrovitch the money he needed together with a brief
statement of the position of his affairs, which was not
altogether satisfactory, as it had happened that during that
year, owing to increased expenses, more had been paid out than
usual, and there was a deficit. But the doctor, a celebrated
Petersburg doctor, who was an intimate acquaintance of Alexey
Alexandrovitch, took up a great deal of time. Alexey
Alexandrovitch had not expected him that day, and was surprised
at his visit, and still more so when the doctor questioned him
very carefully about his health, listened to his breathing, and
tapped at his liver. Alexey Alexandrovitch did not know that his
friend Lidia Ivanovna, noticing that he was not as well as usual
that year, had begged the doctor to go and examine him. "Do this
for my sake," the Countess Lidia Ivanovna had said to him.
"I will do it for the sake of Russia, countess," replied the
doctor.
"A priceless man!" said the Countess Lidia Ivanovna.
The doctor was extremely dissatisfied with Alexey Alexandrovitch.
He found the liver considerably enlarged, and the digestive
powers weakened, while the course of mineral waters had been
quite without effect. He prescribed more physical exercise as
far as possible, and as far as possible less mental strain, and
above all no worry--in other words, just what was as much out of
Alexey Alexandrovitch's power as abstaining from breathing. Then
he withdrew, leaving in Alexey Alexandrovitch an unpleasant sense
that something was wrong with him, and that there was no chance
of curing it.