"What think you? Will the field of medicine bring him the fame which you have foretold?"

"Not the field of medicine alone—though in it, as elsewhere, he will become a leader."

"What field, then, Arkady Nikolaievitch?"

"I could not say. But in any case he will rise to fame."

"'He will rise to fame'!" The old man relapsed into a state of ecstatic contemplation.

Presently Anfisushka arrived with a large plate of raspberries and the message:

"Arina Vlasievna has sent me to say that breakfast is ready."

Vasili Ivanitch started from his reverie.

"Bring us also some nice cool plums," he said.

"I will, sir."