er... But this is how it was: a lady, a widow, writes to me;
she says, 'My daughter is dying. Come, for God's sake!' she says, 'and
the horses have been sent for you.'... Well, that's all right. But she
was twenty miles from the town, and it was midnight out of doors, and
the roads in such a state, my word! And as she was poor herself, one
could not expect more than two silver rubles, and even that
problematic; and perhaps it might only be a matter of a roll of linen
and a sack of oatmeal in _payment_. However, duty, you know, before
everything: a fellow-creature may be dying. I hand over my cards at
once to Kalliopin, the member of the provincial commission, and return
home. I look; a wretched little trap was standing at the steps, with
peasant's horses, fat--too fat--and their coat as shaggy as felt; and
the coachman sitting with his cap off out of respect. Well, I think to
myself, 'It's clear, my friend, these patients aren't rolling in
riches.'... You smile; but I tell you, a poor man like me has to take
everything into consideration... If the coachman sits like a prince,
and doesn't touch his cap, and even sneers at you behind his beard,
and flicks his whip--then you may bet on six rubles. But this case, I
saw, had a very different air. However, I think there's no help for
it; duty before everything. I snatch up the most necessary drugs, and
set off. Will you believe it? I only just managed to get there at all.
The road was infernal: streams, snow, watercourses, and the dyke had
suddenly burst there--that was the worst of it! However, I arrived at
last. It was a little thatched house. There was a light in the
windows; that meant they expected me. I was met by an old lady, very
venerable, in a cap. 'Save her!' she says; 'she is dying.' I say,
'Pray don't distress yourself--Where is the invalid?' 'Come this way.'
I see a clean little room, a lamp in the corner; on the bed a girl of
twenty, unconscious. She was in a burning heat, and breathing
heavily--it was fever. There were two other girls, her sisters, scared
and in tears. 'Yesterday,' they tell me, 'she was perfectly well and
had a good appetite; this morning she complained of her head, and this
evening, suddenly, you see, like this.' I say again: 'Pray don't be
uneasy.' It's a doctor's duty, you know--and I went up to her and bled
her, told them to put on a mustard-plaster, and prescribed a mixture.
Meantime I looked at her; I looked at her, you know--there, by Go