One night, as he left the Doctors’ Club with his partner – a civil servant – he was unable to hold back any more and said:

‘If you only knew what an enchanting woman I met in Yalta!’

The civil servant climbed into his sledge and drove off. But then he suddenly turned round and called out:

‘Dmitry Dmitrich!’

‘What?’

‘You were right the other day – the sturgeon was off!’

This trite remark for some reason suddenly nettled Gurov, striking him as degrading and dirty. What barbarous manners, what faces! What meaningless nights, what dismal, unmemorable days! Frenetic card games, gluttony, constant conversations about the same old thing. Those pointless business affairs and perpetual conversations – always on the same theme – were commandeering the best part of his time, his best strength, so that in the end there remained only a limited, humdrum life, just trivial nonsense. And it was impossible to run away, to escape – one might as well be in a lunatic asylum or a convict squad!