other, they had no great desire to become acquainted. However, so far, we know only this much: that it was natural on Viérotchka's part; she had not reached that stage of development that she had any desire of "defeating savages," or of "taming such a bear"; nay, she was still far from it; she was glad that she was left in peace; she was like a crushed and tortured man, who has the good fortune to fall in such a way that the broken arm is undisturbed and the pain in the side is not felt, and who fears to move lest the pain in all his joints should return. Why should she care to form new acquaintances, and especially with young men?
Yes, such is Viérotchka. Nu! but he? He is like a savage, to judge him by Feódor's description, and his head is full of books and anatomical preparations, such as fill the soul of a medical student with the keenest delight and furnish him the richest pabulum. Or perhaps Feódor misrepresented him?
II.
No, Feódor did not misrepresent him; Lopukhóf was in fact a student whose head was full of books—what books we shall learn from Marya Alekséyevna's bibliographical investigations—and with anatomical preparations; for unless a man fills his head with anatomical preparations, he cannot become a professor, and that was Lopukhóf's ambition. But, as we see, if we depend upon Feódor's descriptions of Viérotchka made for Lopukhóf's benefit, Lopukhóf did not learn very accurately about her, and for the same reason we must correct Feódor's description of his teacher if we would know Lopukhóf better.
As regarded pecuniary matters Lopukhóf belonged to that very small minority of special medical students who are not supported by government, and yet who just escape starvation and freezing.[1] How and in what way the great majority of them live is known, of course, only to God, not to mortals. But our story does not intend to deal with people who are in need of victuals, and therefore it will devote only two or three words to the period in Lopukhóf's life when he suffered such hardships.
And it was not very long that he was in such a condition,—only three years, and even less. Before he entered the medical school he had plenty of food. His father, a meshchanín
- ↑ "Nyé gólodayet i nyé khólodayet," a play upon words, as though he had said, "Know neither gold nor cold."
