Towards evening Mikhail Averyanitch came to see him. Without a word of greeting, the postmaster went up to him, took him by both hands, and said in an agitated voice:
"My dear friend, my dear friend, let me see that you believe in my sincere affection for you. Regard me as your friend!" And preventing Andréi Yéfimitch saying a word, he continued in extreme agitation: "You know that I love you for the culture and nobility of your mind. Listen to me, like a good man! The rules of their profession compel the doctors to hide the truth from you, but I, in soldier style, will tell it to you flatly. You are unwell! Excuse me, old friend, but that is the plain truth, and it has been noticed by everyone around you. Only this moment Doctor Yevgéniï Feódoritch said that for the benefit of your health you needed rest and recreation. It is entirely true! And things fit in admirably. In a few days I will take my leave, and go oft for change of air. Trove to me that you are my friend, and come with me. Come!"
"I feel very well," said Andréi Yéfimitch, after a moment's thought; "and I cannot go. Allow me to prove my friendship in some other way."
To go away without any good reason, without his books, without Dáryushka, without beer—suddenly to destroy the order of life observed for twenty years—when he first thought of it, the project seemed wild and fantastic. But he remembered the talk in the Town Hall, and the torments which he had suffered on the w ay home; and the idea of leaving for a short time a town where stupid men considered him mad, delighted him.
"But where do you intend to go?" he asked.
"To Moscow, to Petersburg, to Warsaw.... In Warsaw I spent some of the happiest days of my life. An astonishing city! Come!"
XIII
A week after this conversation, Andréi Yéfimitch received a formal proposal to take a rest, that is, to retire from his post, and he received the proposal with indifference. Still a week later, he and Mikhail Averyanitch were sitting in the post tarantass and driving to the railway station. The weather was cool and clear, the sky blue and transparent. The two hundred versts were traversed in two days and two nights. When they stopped at the post-houses and were given dirty glasses for tea, or were delayed over the horses, Mikhail Averyanitch grew purple, shook all over, and roared "Silence! Don't argue!"... And as they sat in the tarantass he talked incessantly of his travels in the Caucasus and in Poland. What adventures he had, what meetings! He spoke in a loud voice, and all the time made such astonished eyes that it might have been thought he was lying. As he told his stories he breathed in the doctor's face and laughed in his ear. All this incommoded the doctor and hindered his thinking and concentrating his mind.
For reasons of economy they travelled third-class, in a non-smoking carriage. Half of the passengers were clean. Mikhail Averyanitch struck up acquaintance with all, and as he shifted from seat to seat, announced in a loud voice that it was a mistake to travel on these tormenting railways. Nothing but rascals around! What a different thing to ride on horseback; in a single day you cover a hundred versts, and at the end feel wholesome and fresh. Yes, and we had been cursed with famines as the result of the draining of the Pinsky marshes! Everywhere nothing but disorder! Mikhail Averyanitch lost his temper, spoke loudly, and allowed no one else to say a word. His incessant chatter, broken only by loud laughter and expressive gesticulations, bored Andréi Yéfimitch.