“You cannot tell whether I work at home,”—I retorted not without arrogance, but also not without confusion.
“Much work you do! That’s not what you have in your head. Well, I will not dispute ... at your age, that is in the natural order of things. But your choice is far from a happy one. Can’t you see what sort of a house this is?”
“I do not understand you,”—I remarked.
“You don’t understand me? So much the worse for you. I regard it as my duty to warn you. Fellows like me, old bachelors, may sit here: what harm will it do us? We are a hardened lot. You can’t pierce our hide, but your skin is still tender; the air here is injurious for you,—believe me, you may become infected.”
“How so?”
“Because you may. Are you healthy now? Are you in a normal condition? Is what you are feeling useful to you, good for you?”
“But what am I feeling?”—said I;—and in my secret soul I admitted that the doctor was right.
“Eh, young man, young man,”—pursued the doctor, with an expression as though something extremely insulting to me were contained in those two words;—“there’s no use in your dissimulating, for what you have in your soul you still show in your face, thank God! But what’s the use of arguing? I would not come hither myself, if ...” (the doctor set his teeth) ... “if I were not such an eccentric fellow. Only this is what amazes me—how you, with your intelligence, can fail to see what is going on around you.”
“But what is going on?”—I interposed, pricking up my ears.
The doctor looked at me with a sort of sneering compassion.