"Doctor, doctor, save, oh, save me,
I am scared to death of dying!"
LVOFF. Hasn't Ivanoff come home yet?
LEBEDIEFF. Not yet. I have been waiting for him myself for over an hour.
LVOFF walks impatiently up and down.
LEBEDIEFF. How is Anna to-day?
LVOFF. Very ill.
LEBEDIEFF. [Sighing] May one go and pay one's respects to her?
LVOFF. No, please don't. She is asleep, I believe.
LEBEDIEFF. She is a lovely, charming woman. [Sighing] The day she fainted at our house, on Sasha's birthday, I saw that she had not much longer to live, poor thing. Let me see, why did she faint? When I ran up, she was lying on the floor, ashy white, with Nicholas on his knees beside her, and Sasha was standing by them in tears. Sasha and I went about almost crazy for a week after that.
SHABELSKI. [To LVOFF] Tell me, most honoured disciple of science, what scholar discovered that the frequent visits of a young doctor were beneficial to ladies suffering from affections of the chest? It is a remarkable discovery, remarkable! Would you call such treatment Allopathic or Homeopathic?