"It's time, indeed it's time for you to recover, colleague," said Khobótoff, yawning. "You must be tired of the delay yourself."
"Never mind, we'll soon be all right," said Mikhail Averyanitch gaily. "Why, we'll live for another hundred years! Eh?"
"Perhaps not a hundred, but a safe twenty," said Khobótoff consolingly. "Don't worry, colleague, don't worry!"
"We'll let them see!" laughed Mikhail Averyanitch, slapping his friend on the knee. "We'll show how the trick is done! Next summer, with God's will, we'll fly away to the Caucasus, and gallop all over the country—trot, trot, trot! And when we come back from the Caucasus we'll dance at your wedding!"
Mikhail Averyanitch winked slyly. "We'll marry you, my friend, we'll find the bride!"
Andréi Yéfimitch felt that the crust had risen to his throat. His heart beat painfully.
"This is absurd," he said, rising suddenly and going over to the window. "Is it possible you don't understand that you are talking nonsense?"
He wished to speak to his visitors softly and politely, but could not restrain himself, and, against his own will, clenched his fists, and raised them threateningly above his head.
"Leave me!" he cried, in a voice which was not his own. His face was purple and he trembled all over. "Begone! Both of you! Go!"
Mikhail Averyanitch and Khobótoff rose, and looked at him, at first in astonishment, then in tenor. "Begone both of you!" continued Andréi Yéfimitch. "Stupid idiots! Fools! I want neither your friendship nor your medicines, idiots! This is base, it is abominable!"