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from the snack bar. Police. Protocol. A car. To the psychiatric clinic.' And
added: 'Blow your whistle!'
     In a quarter of an hour  an extremely astounded public, not only in the
restaurant but on the boulevard itself and in  the windows of houses looking
on to  the restaurant garden, saw  Pantelei,  the  doorman,  a policeman,  a
waiter  and the poet Riukhin  carry through the gates of Griboedov's a young
man  swaddled like a doll, dissolved in tears, who spat, aiming precisely at
Riukhin, and shouted for all the boulevard to hear:
     'YOU bastard! ... You bastard!...'
     A truck-driver with a spiteful face was starting his motor. Next to him
a coachman, rousing his horse, slapping  it  on the croup with violet reins,
shouted:
     'Have a run for your money! I've taken 'em to the psychics before!'
     Around  them the crowd buzzed, discussing the  unprecedented  event. In
short, there was a nasty, vile, tempting, swinish scandal, which  ended only
when the truck carried away from  the gates  of Griboedov's  the unfortunate
Ivan Nikolaevich, the policeman, Pantelei and Riukhin.

CHAPTER 6. Schizophrenia, as was Said

     It was half past one in the morning when a man with a pointed beard and
wearing  a  white  coat came  out  to  the  examining  room  of  the  famous
psychiatric clinic, built recently on the outskirts of Moscow by the bank of
the river. Three  orderlies had their eyes fastened on Ivan Nikolaevich, who
was sitting on a couch. The extremely agitated poet Riukhin was also  there.
The napkins with which Ivan Nikolaevich had been bed up lay in a pile on the
same couch. Ivan Nikolaevich's arms and legs were free.
     Seeing  the  entering man,  Riukhin  turned  pale,  coughed,  and  said
timidly:
     'Hello, Doctor.'
     The doctor bowed to Riukhin but,  as he bowed, looked not at him but at
Ivan Nikolaevich. The latter sat perfecdy motionless, with an angry face and

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