Page:Garshin - A Red Flower (1911).djvu/9



"In the name of His Imperial Highness, Emperor Peter the First, I have come to make an inspection of this insane asylum!"

These words were spoken in a loud, shrill, ringing voice. The secretary of the asylum, entering the name of the new inmate in a large, much-worn book which lay on an ink-soiled table, could not resist a smile. But the two young men who brought the patient felt little inclination to laugh. They could hardly stand upon their legs after having passed forty-eight hours without sleep, alone with the madman, whom they accompanied on the train. At the railroad station preceding the last his violence increased greatly, and, with the assistance of the conductors and a gendarme, a straight-jacket,