"But it is catching, Grischka!" screamed Matrona, horrified.
"What do you want to be doing there, man? Stay here!" cried the cook.
Grigori muttered a few curses, and began to dress himself hastily without washing, and went out just as he was into the yard.
Matrona caught hold of him by the shoulders to hold him back; he felt how her hand trembled, but he shook her off against her will.
"Get away, or something will happen!" he shouted out, pushing her back, and he strode out by the door.
The courtyard seemed empty and quiet.... Whilst Grigori walked towards the accordion-player's room a feeling of fear took possession of him; but this was followed by an immediate sense of satisfaction that he should be the only one in the house who had the courage to visit the sick man. This feeling increased when he noticed that the tailor's apprentices were watching him from the windows of the second-floor. In order to appear quite free from fear he whistled as he went along. At the door, however, of the accordion-player's room he met with a slight surprise. He was not the first to visit the sick man; Senka Tschischik was there before him. Senka was just sticking his nose through the crack of the door, and observing in his usual fashion, with intense curiosity, all that was going on in the room. He did not notice Orloff's approach till the latter took him by the ear.
"Just look, Uncle Grischka, how the cramps have got hold of him!" he whispered, lifting his dirty little face, which, under the impression of what he had just been witnessing, seemed more sharp-set than ever. "How parched and dried up he looks. By Jove! he looks like a dry cask!"
Orloff was quite overcome by the pestiferous atmosphere which was issuing from the room. He stood there silently, listening to Tschischik, whilst watching with one eye through the narrow crack of the partly open door.
"We ought, perhaps, to give him some water to drink, Uncle Grigori," said Tschischik.
Orloff glanced at the excited, nervous, trembling face of the child, and felt within himself the desire to help the sufferer.