Phantoms

“Once it had finally become clear that Egor Timofeyevich Pomerantsev, a clerk of the provincial office, really had gone mad, his distant relatives pooled money among themselves and with wealthy people, and had him admitted to a private psychiatric hospital. Although there were still about ten years left until full retirement, the authorities, showing leniency toward his illness and his twenty-five years of faultless service, granted him a pension; and so he was well provided for until his death, since there were almost no hopes for a cure. At the beginning of Egor Timofeyevich’s illness, his wife—whom he had not lived with for about fifteen years—discovered a claim to the pension and sent an attorney; but she was eventually kept at bay, and the money remained with the patient…”