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

goes.’
    â€˜Diagnosed already!’ rang out triumphantly in my head.
    â€˜And the rest of the time you don’t feel anything?’
    â€˜My legs are a bit weak.’
    â€˜Aha. Undo your shirt, please. Hm … yes …’
    When I had finished examining the patient I was delighted by him. After all the incoherent women and frightened adolescents who twitched with horror at the touch of a metal spatula, after that morning’s affair of the belladonna, the miller was a sight for my sore, university-trained eyes.
    The miller talked sense. What was more, he turned out to be literate, and his every gesture was indicative of respect for the science to which I was devoted—medicine.
    â€˜Well, my dear fellow,’ I said as I tapped his broad, warm chest, ‘you have malaria. Recurrent fever … Right now we have a whole ward empty. I strongly advise you to come in for treatment. We can keep you under the necessary observation. I’ll start by treating you with powders, and then if that does no good, we’ll give you a few injections. Soon put you right. How about it, then?’
    â€˜Thank you very much, sir!’ the miller replied most politely. ‘Heard a lot about you. They’re all very satisfied. They say you do them all so much good. I’ll gladly have the injections—anything to be cured.’
    â€˜Ah, this man is a true ray of light in the darkness!’ Ithought as I sat down at the desk to write. So doing, my feeling was of such pleasure that it might not have been just any miller but my own brother come for a stay in my hospital.
    On one prescription form I wrote:
    â€˜Chinini mur. 0.5
D.T. dos. N10
S: Miller Khudov
1 dose in powder form at midnight.’
    And signed it with a flourish. On another form I wrote:
    â€˜Pelagea Ivanovna, please admit the miller and put him in Ward 2. He has malaria. Quinine in powder form as prescribed to be administered approx. 4 hours before the attack, i.e. at midnight. Here is an exception for you—a literate, intelligent miller!’
    When I was already in bed I received a note in reply from the hand of the grumpy, yawning Aksinya:
    â€˜Dear doctor, All done. Pel. Ivanovna L.’
    I went to sleep … and woke up.
    â€˜What is it? What? What is it, Aksinya?’ I mumbled. Aksinya was standing there, modestly covering herself with her dark-coloured skirt with white polka dots. A flickering wax candle lit up her sleepy, worried features.
    â€˜Marya has just come running over—Pelagea Ivanovna has given orders for you to be called at once.’
    â€˜What’s the matter?’
    â€˜She says the miller in Ward 2 is dying.’
    â€˜Wha-at? Dying? How can he be
dying
?’ For an instant, until I found my slippers, my bare feet felt the chill of the floor. I broke several matches and spent a long time poking them at the wick until it lit with a blue flame. The clock showed exactly six o’clock.
    â€˜What’s happened? Surely it is malaria and not something else? What on earth can be the matter with him? His pulse was excellent …’
    No more than five minutes later, with my socks inside out, unkempt, my jacket unbuttoned and wearing felt boots, I bounded across the courtyard, still pitch-dark, and ran to Ward 2.
    There on an unmade bed, beside a crumpled heap of bed-clothes, in the light of a small kerosene lamp sat the miller, wearing a hospital nightshirt. His red beard was dishevelled, and his eyes looked to me black and huge. He was swaying like a drunkard, staring about him in terror, breathing heavily …
    Marya, the nurse, gaped at his purpling face.
    Pelagea Ivanovna, her hair down and with her overall only half on, flew towards me.
    â€˜Doctor!’ she exclaimed in a hoarse voice. ‘I swear to you it wasn’t my fault! How was anyone to know? You made a point of telling me the man was intelligent.’
    â€˜What’s