A Country Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov Read Free Book Online

the right approach to them. They were always ready to lie down and be operated on by Liponty. They called him “Liponty Lipontyevich” instead of Leopold Leopoldovich. They had faith in him. And he knew how to talk to them. For instance, his friend Fyodor Kosoi from Dultsevo might come to his surgery. It’s like this Liponty Lipontych, he would say, my chest’s blocked up so it’s hard to draw breath. And besides that, there’s a sort of rasping in my throat …’
    â€˜Laryngitis,’ I muttered automatically, having fallen into the habit of lightning diagnosis.
    â€˜Quite right. “Well,” Liponty would say, “I’ll give you something for it which will put you right in a couple of days. There are some French mustard-plasters. Put oneon your back between your shoulder-blades, the other on your chest. Keep them on for ten minutes, then take them off. Off you go and do as you’re told!” ’
    â€˜So the man took his mustard-plasters and went. Two days later he was back at the surgery again.
    â€˜Â â€œWell, what’s the matter now?” Liponty asked.
    â€˜Kosoi said: “Well, you see, Liponty Lipontyevich, those mustard-plasters didn’t do any good.”
    â€˜Â â€œNonsense!” Liponty replied. “A French mustard-plaster
must
have done you some good. I suppose you never put it on, is that it?”
    â€˜Â â€œWhat do you mean—never put it on? It’s on still …”
    â€˜With that he turned round and there was the mustard-plaster sticking to the back of his sheepskin jerkin!’
    I burst into laughter, while Pelagea Ivanovna giggled and poked furiously at a log.
    â€˜If you’ll forgive me,’ I said, ‘I think you made that one up! It couldn’t have really happened!’
    â€˜Made it up? Made it up?’ the midwives shouted in chorus.
    â€˜I most certainly did not!’ the
feldsher
exclaimed bitterly. ‘Our life, in fact, is one long string of incidents like that … Why, things happen here which …’
    â€˜What about the sugar?’ Anna Nikolaevna exclaimed. ‘Tell him about the sugar, Pelagea Ivanovna!’
    Closing the stove door and lowering her eyes, Pelagea Ivanovna began:
    â€˜One day I went to a confinement at Dultsevo …’
    â€˜That place Dultsevo is notorious!’ the
feldsher
burst out, then apologised: ‘Sorry! Do go on, my dear.’
    â€˜Well, naturally I examined her,’ Pelagea Ivanovna went on, ‘and in the birth canal I felt something extraordinary … There were some kind of grains or small lumps … It turned out to be granulated sugar!’
    â€˜How’s that for a story!’ said Demyan Lukich triumphantly.
    â€˜Excuse me, but … I don’t understand …’
    â€˜That’s peasant women for you!’ answered Pelagea Ivanovna. ‘She’d been taught by the local wise-woman. She was having a difficult birth, she said, which meant that the baby didn’t want to come out into the light of day. She would have to entice it out, so the way to do it was to lure it out with something sweet!’
    â€˜Horrors!’ I exclaimed.
    â€˜When a woman’s in labour they give her hair to chew,’ said Anna Nikolaevna.
    â€˜What on earth for?’
    â€˜God alone knows. I’ve had three confinements where the wretched woman was lying there and spitting something out. Her mouth was full of hair or bristles. Apparently they believe it makes for an easier birth …’
    The midwives’ eyes sparkled as they recounted their experiences. We sat for long by the fire drinking tea, and I listened entranced. Pelagea Ivanovna described how whenever she had to bring an expectant mother from her village to the hospital, she always let her own sleigh travel behind the peasants’ sleigh, to prevent them from changing their minds on the way