The Cossacks by Leo Tolstoy Chapter 42 Page 7

‘Come, stop talking rubbish,’ said Olenin. ‘I’d better send a doctor from head-quarters.’

‘Rubbish!’ the old man said mockingly. ‘Fool, fool! Rubbish. You’ll send a doctor! — If yours cured people, Cossacks and Chechens would go to you for treatment, but as it is your officers and colonels send to the mountains for doctors. Yours are all humbugs, all humbugs.

Olenin did not answer. He agreed only too fully that all was humbug in the world in which he had lived and to which he was now returning.

‘How is Lukashka? You’ve been to see him?’ he asked.

‘He just lies as if he were dead. He does not eat nor drink. Vodka is the only thing his soul accepts. But as long as he drinks vodka it’s