special memoir. I shall not fail to hand it to you in person together with my essays on points of agricultural economy on which I have been busy here for the last year. I for my part consider it a duty to assure my auntie of the constancy of 'your sentiments,' as she says, to her. When I am honoured by receiving a favourable reply to my request from your Excellency, I shall take the liberty of coming to you with propitiatory offerings of dried raspberries and honey, and bearing several letters which my neighbours promise to furnish me with, dealing with their several needs, but not one from Zayeshaloflf, who died before the conclusion of his lawsuit."
EPILOGUE
Foxu ^years after Alexandr's return toJPetersburg, this was the position of the^pnhcTpal personages 6rthis~story.
One morning Pic4rlyanit£h_was walking up and down in his study. It was"noTonger the robust, stout, upright Piotr Ivanitch of former days, who always wore a uniformly calm expression, and moved with his head haughtily erect and unfaltering gait. Whether from age or the force of circumstances, he seemed to have grown feebler. His movements were not so vigorous, his glance was not so firm and self-confident. There were many silver hairs to be seen in his whiskers and his moustache. It was obvious that he had celebrated the fiftiejthjmmversary of his life. He walked a little bent It was specially curious to observe on the face of this passionless and tranquil man—as we have known him hitherto—a more than anxious, a harassed expression, even though it was manifest in a way characteristic of Piotr Ivanitch.
He seemed as though he were in perplexity. He took two steps, and suddenly stood still in the middle of the room, or hurriedly paced twice or thrice from one end of it to the other. It seemed as though he were struck by some unusual idea.
In the chair by the table sat a stout man of medium height, with a decoration on his breast, his coat tightly buttoned up, and his legs crossed. He needed only the gold-headed cane, the classical stick by which the reader has been used to recognise at once the doctor in romances
A COMMON STORY
and novels. Very likely this staff was suitable to a doctor, when, having nothing to do, he could take his walks abroad with it, and sit for whole hours with patients, console them, and unite in his person the several characters of apothecary, practical philosopher, friend of the family, &c. All this is very well where men live in peace and comfort, and are seldom ill, and where a doctor isiaQre a luxury than a necessity, /^ut Piotrlvanitch's flo ctonwas a Petersburg physiciaa ' He^iJTRTl kuuw what walking meant, though he ""Used "to prescribe exercise to his patients. He was a member of some committee, secretary of some other society, a professor, and physician to several public institutions, and invariably took part in every consultation ; he had too, an immense practice. He did not even take his glove off his left hand, he would not even have taken off the right hand one if he had not had to feel the pulse; he never unbuttoned his coat and scarcely sat down. The doctor in impatience had already more than once shifted his right leg over his left, and then again his left over his right. It was long ago time for him to be gone, but still Piotr Ivanitch said nothing. At last:
"What is to be done, doctor?" asked Piotr Ivanitch, suddenly coming to a standstill before him.
"Go to Kissingen," replied the doctor: "it's the one remedy. Your symptoms will recur more frequently."
" Ah, you keep on talking of me!" interposed Piotr Ivanitch. " I am asking you about my wife. I am over fifty, but she is in the very bloom ot her age ; she ought to live: and if she begins to waste away from me "
" You talk of wasting away already!" observed the doctor. " I only informed you of the danger for the future ;
so far there is nothing I only meant to say that her
health, or not her health, that she is not exactly in a normal condition."
" Isn't it all the same ? You made your observation superficially, and forgot it; but I have kept watch on her constantly since then, and every day I discern in her new disquieting changes. And for three months now I have known no peace of mind. How it was I didn't see it before I don't understand.^ My "duties and my business rob me of time and health, and now, perhaps, of even my wife 1"
/
A COMMON STORY 267
Again be fell to pacing up and down the room.
"You questioned her to-day?" he asked, after a pause.
"Yes; but s he has noticed nothing wrong i n herself. I supposed at firsi there was a physiological explanation: s he has had no children , but it seems it's not so. Perhaps the cause "is purely psychological."
" So much the worse !" remarked Piotr Ivanitch. . " But perhaps it's nothing at all. Suspicious symptoms there are absolutely none. It's only .... you have been living too long in this malarious climate. Go to the South : you will be freshened up, gain some new impressions, and see how things are then. Spend the summer at Kissingen, go through a course of the waters, and the autumn in Italy, and the winter in Paris. I assure you that the catarrh, the irritability, will be all over."
Piotr Ivanitch scarcely listened to him.
" A psychological cause," he said to himself, and shook his head.
" That's to say, do you see why I say a psychological cause?" said the doctor. "Another man, not knowing you, might suspect some anxiety of some kind in it ... . or if not anxiety, some unsatisfied desire .... some time there is something wanting, some lack .... I wanted to lead you to the idea."
" Something wanted—desires ?" interposed Piotr Ivanitch. " All her desires are satisfied. I know her tastes, her habits. But some lack—how ! You see our house, you know how we live."
" A splendid house, a capital house," said the doctor; " a marvellous cook, and what cigars ! But why has that friend of yours that lives in London .... left off sending you sherry ? Why is it that this year we do not see "
" Doctor, have I not been considerate with her ? " began Piotr Ivanitch, with a heat not usual to him* " I weighed, I thought, every step I took No; somewhere there was failure. And at what a time—with all my successes, in such a career ! Ah!"
With a gesture of the hand he resumed his pacing.
" Why are yo u_so upset?^" said the doctor. "There is. distin ctly noth ing "alarming. I repeat to you what I said on the first occasion f "that Tier constitution is not touched;
there are no consumptive symptoms. Anae mia, some lo ss of gflggaFTO fs a l l. "' ~^ - " ~
trine, truly !" said Piotr Ivanitch.
" Her ill-health is negative, not positive," pursued the doctor. "Do you suppose she is an exception? Look at all who are not natives living here. What do they look like ? Go away, go away from here. But if it's impossible to go, rouse her. Don't let her sit so much. Humour her; take her about; plenty of exercise for mind and body: both alike are in an unnatural lethargy. Of course, in time it may affect the lungs, or "
" Good-bye, doctor* I will go to her," said Piotr Ivanitch, and with rapid steps he strode to his wife's room. He stood still in the doorway, gently moved the portibre^ and turned an anxious gaze upon his wife.
What did the doctor observe that was peculiar in her? Every one meeting her for the first time would have seen in her a woman like many others in Petersburg. Pale, it is true, her eyes lacked lustre, her blouse hung in straight folds over her narrow shoulders and flat chest, her movements were slow, almost inert But are rosy cheeks,
bright eyes, and lively gestures characteristics of our
beauties? And as for grace of figure Neither
Phidias nor Praxitiles could have found here a Venus for their chisel.
No, one must not look for classical beauty in the fair
women of the North ; they are not statues; they fall into no
•antique pose, such as the beauty of the Greek women has
been immortalised in; nor have they the form which would