"I went there, but I had taken flight," the doctor answered with gloomy jocoseness.
"Then you've taken a good constitutional?"
"Splendid!"
"Well, and how was the old woman? I hope it's not typhus?"
"Typhus it is not, but it's taking a bad turn."
"What a pity!" said Anna, and having thus paid the dues of civility to her domestic circle, she turned to her own friends.
"It would be a hard task, though, to construct a machine from your description, Anna Arkadyevna," Sviazhsky said jestingly.