The doctor sided with the visitor, admired his erudition, and was glad of the opportunity of becoming acquainted with him.

While they were engrossed in their subject the dawn appeared behind the wood on the opposite side of the road, and the birds woke up, but the arguers still kept on smoking and talking, talking and smoking, and the conversation might have gone on still longer, if a maidservant had not appeared at the door.

This servant was an orphan, who had had to take service to earn her living. She had first gone into a tradesman’s house, where one of his assistants seduced her, and she had had a child. The child died, and she entered the house of an official whose son⁠—a gymnasium student⁠—gave her no peace; and now she was under-housemaid in Nicholas Semyónovitch’s family, and considered herself fortunate because she was not pursued by her master’s lust, and had her wages paid regularly. She came to say that her mistress wanted the doctor and Nicholas Semyónovitch.