“I say, Mishutka, you know you are ill!” he said in a flutter. “Strike me dead, you are ill! You don’t look yourself!”

Shtchiptsov remained silent and stared disconsolately at the floor.

“You must have caught cold,” said Sigaev, taking him by the hand. “Oh, dear, how hot your hands are! What’s the trouble?”

“I wa-ant to go home,” muttered Shtchiptsov.

“But you are at home now, aren’t you?”

“No.⁠ ⁠… To Vyazma.⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, my, anywhere else! It would take you three years to get to your Vyazma.⁠ ⁠… What? do you want to go and see your daddy and mummy? I’ll be bound, they’ve kicked the bucket years ago, and you won’t find their graves.⁠ ⁠…”

“My ho-ome’s there.”

“Come, it’s no good giving way to the dismal dumps. These neurotic feelings are the limit, old man. You must get well, for you have to play Mitka in The Terrible Tsar tomorrow. There is nobody else to do it. Drink something hot and take some castor-oil? Have you got the money for some castor-oil? Or, stay, I’ll run and buy some.”

The comic man fumbled in his pockets, found a fifteen-kopeck piece, and ran to the chemist’s. A quarter of an hour later he came back.

“Come, drink it,” he said, holding the bottle to the “heavy father’s” mouth. “Drink it straight out of the bottle.⁠ ⁠… All at a go! That’s the way.⁠ ⁠… Now nibble at a clove that your very soul mayn’t stink of the filthy stuff.”

The comic man sat a little longer with his sick friend, then kissed him tenderly, and went away. Towards evening the jeune premier , Brama-Glinsky, ran in to see Shtchiptsov. The gifted actor was wearing a pair of prunella boots, had a glove on his left hand, was smoking a cigar, and even smelt of heliotrope, yet nevertheless he strongly suggested a traveller cast away in some land in which there were neither baths nor laundresses nor tailors.⁠ ⁠…

“I hear you are ill?” he said to Shtchiptsov, twirling round on his heel. “What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with you, really?⁠ ⁠…”

Shtchiptsov did not speak nor stir.

“Why don’t you speak? Do you feel giddy? Oh well, don’t talk, I won’t pester you⁠ ⁠… don’t talk.⁠ ⁠…”