Ghosts

When it was finally confirmed that Egor Timofeevich Pomerantsev, the clerk of the provincial presence, really had gone mad, his distant relatives collected money among themselves and from wealthy people and placed him in a private psychiatric hospital. Although there were still about ten years left until full retirement, the management, being lenient toward his illness and his spotless twenty-five-year service, granted him a pension. And so he ended up well provided for until his death, since there was almost no hope for a cure. At the beginning of the illness, Egor Timofeevich’s wife—who had not lived with him for about fifteen years—discovered a claim to the pension and sent an advocate. But she was kept at bay, and the money remained with the patient…