The Towel with the Cock
If a person has never travelled by horse on deep country roads, then I have nothing to tell him about it: he simply will not understand. As for the one who has, I don’t want to remind him.
I’ll put it briefly: the forty versts separating the district town of Grachyovka from the Murye Hospital took my driver and me exactly one day to travel. And with a curious precision: at two o’clock in the afternoon on September 16, 1917, we were at the last small shop located on the border of that remarkable town of Grachyovka, and at five past two on September 17 of that same unforgettable year, I was standing on the worn, dying grass, soft from the September rain, in the courtyard of the Murye Hospital.
I was in this condition: my legs were stiff, so much so that I vaguely flipped through textbook pages right there in the yard, dully trying to remember—does a disease in which a person’s muscles stiffen actually exist, or did I imagine it in yesterday’s dream in the village of Grabilovka? What is its cursed name in Latin? Every one of those muscles ached with an intolerable pain, like a toothache. There’s no need to talk about my toes—they no longer moved in my boots, lying quietly, resembling wooden stumps. I confess that in a fit of cowardice, I whispered curses upon medicine and the application I had submitted to the university rector five years ago.
Above, the rain continued to fall as if through a sieve. My overcoat was swollen like a sponge. With the fingers of my right hand, I tried in vain to grasp the handle of my suitcase and finally spat onto the wet grass. My fingers could not grip anything, and again, filled with all the knowledge from interesting medical books, a disease came to mind—paralysis… “Paralysis,” I thought desperately, mentally, and God knows why, I said to myself.
“Y-you have to g-get used to travelling on your roads,” I spoke through wooden, blue lips, and for some reason stared angrily at the driver, although he was not really to blame for the road.
“Ah… comrade doctor,” the driver responded, also barely moving his lips under his light mustache, “I’ve been driving for fifteen years, and I still can’t get used to it.”
I shuddered, looked wistfully at the white, peeling two-story building, at the unwhitewashed log walls of the paramedic’s cottage, at my future residence—a very neat two-story house with mysterious, tomb-like windows, and let out a long sigh. And right then, a sweet phrase, instead of the Latin words, flashed dully in my senses, stupefied by the jolting and cold, sung by a full tenor with blue thighs: “…Hail to thee… o hallowed refuge…” Farewell, farewell for a long time, golden-red Bolshoi Theatre. Moscow, shop windows… oh, farewell.
“Next time I’ll wear a sheepskin coat…” I thought in desperate anger, tearing at the suitcase straps with stiff fingers. “Next time will be October already… I should wear two sheepskin coats. And I won’t travel to Grachyovka for at least a month, I just won’t… Just think… we had to spend the night! We covered twenty versts in the deathly darkness… night… we had to spend the night in Grabilovka… the teacher let us in… And we left at seven this morning… And you drive… good heavens… slower than a pedestrian. One wheel plops into a hole, the other lifts into the air, the suitcase crashes onto my feet… then onto its side, then the other, then nose first, then backwards. And above, it’s constantly drizzling, and my bones are freezing. Could I ever have believed that in the middle of dreary, damp September, a person could freeze in a field as if it were bitter winter?! But apparently, one can. And while you are dying a slow death, you see the same thing, always the same thing. To the right, a humped, gnawed field, to the left, a stunted copse, and near it, five or six gray, ragged huts. And it seems that there is not a single living soul in them. Silence, silence all around…”
The suitcase finally gave way. The driver leaned his belly against it and shoved it towards me. I tried to hold it upright by the strap, but my hand refused to work, and my swollen, detested companion, with its books and various junk, plopped right onto the grass, striking my legs. “Oh dear, Go—…” the driver began, startled, but I made no complaints—my legs were useless anyway.
“Hey, who’s here? Hey!” the driver shouted, flapping his hands like a rooster’s wings. “Hey, brought the doctor!” At that moment, faces appeared in the dark windowpanes of the paramedic’s cottage, clinging to them, the door slammed, and then I saw a man in a ragged coat and little boots hobble across the grass towards me. He respectfully and hurriedly removed his cap, ran up two steps to me, smiled shyly for some reason, and greeted me in a hoarse voice: “Hello, comrade doctor.” “Who are you?” I asked. “I’m Yegorych,” the man introduced himself, “the local watchman. We’ve been waiting and waiting for you…” And right then, he grabbed the suitcase, hoisted it onto his shoulder, and carried it off. I limped after him, unsuccessfully trying to reach into my trouser pocket for my wallet.
In essence, a person needs very little. And first of all, he needs fire. As I headed into the Murye wilderness, I recall having promised myself, back in Moscow, to maintain a solid demeanor. My youthful appearance poisoned my existence in the early stages. I had to introduce myself to everyone: “I am Doctor So-and-So.” And everyone inevitably raised their eyebrows and asked: “Really? I thought you were still a student.” “No, I graduated,” I replied gloomily, thinking: “I need to get glasses, that’s what.” But there was no need for glasses; my eyes were healthy, and their clarity had not yet been clouded by life experience. Unable to defend myself from the constant condescending and affectionate smiles with glasses, I tried to develop a special, respectable manner. I attempted to speak measuredly and weightily, restraining impulsive movements as much as possible, not running around as people who are twenty-three and have graduated from university run, but walking. All of this, as I now understand after many years, turned out very badly.
At this moment, I violated my unwritten code of conduct. I was sitting hunched up, sitting in my socks alone, and not in the office, but in the kitchen, and, like a fire-worshipper, I was inspiredly and passionately reaching towards the birch logs blazing in the stove. On my left hand, there was an inverted tub, and on it lay my boots, next to them a plucked, featherless rooster with a bloody neck, and next to the rooster, a pile of its multi-coloured feathers.
The fact is that even in a state of stiffening, I had already managed to perform a series of actions that life itself demanded. The sharp-nosed Aksinya, Yegorych’s wife, was confirmed by me in the position of my cook. Consequently, the rooster perished at her hands. I was supposed to eat it.
I had introduced myself to everyone. The paramedic was named Demyan Lukich, the midwives Pelageya Ivanovna and Anna Nikolayevna. I managed to tour the hospital and established with perfect clarity that the surgical instruments were abundant. At the same time, with the same clarity, I was forced to admit (to myself, of course) that the purpose of many of the sparkling, pristine instruments was utterly unknown to me. Not only had I never held them, but, I confess frankly, I had never even seen them. “Hmm,” I muttered very significantly, “you have lovely instruments, though. Hmm…” “Indeed, sir,” Demyan Lukich remarked sweetly, “all thanks to your predecessor, Leopold Leopoldovich. He operated from morning till night, you know.” At this, a cold sweat broke out on me, and I looked wistfully at the mirrored, gleaming cabinets.
Then we toured the empty wards, and I ascertained that they could easily accommodate forty people. “Leopold Leopoldovich sometimes had fifty patients lying here,” Demyan Lukich reassured me, while Anna Nikolayevna, a woman with a crown of graying hair, said for some reason: “Doctor, you are so young-looking… so young-looking… It’s quite astonishing. You look like a student.” “Oh, damn it,” I thought, “they must have agreed on this, honestly.” And I grumbled dryly through clenched teeth: “Hmm… No, I… that is, I… yes, young-looking…”
Then we went down to the pharmacy, and I immediately saw that only a mythical ‘bird’s milk’ was missing. The two darkish rooms smelled of herbs; everything imaginable stood on the shelves. There were even patented foreign remedies, and need I add that I had never heard of any of them. “Leopold Leopoldovich ordered them,” Pelageya Ivanovna reported proudly. “This Leopold was simply a genius,” I thought, and grew to respect the mysterious Leopold, who had left quiet Murye.
Besides fire, a person also needs to get settled. The rooster had long been eaten by me, a straw mattress had been stuffed for me by Yegorych and covered with a sheet, and the lamp was lit in the office, in my residence. I sat and gazed, as if enchanted, at the third achievement of the legendary Leopold: the cupboard was crammed with books. I counted nearly thirty volumes of surgery manuals alone, in Russian and German. And therapy! Wonderful atlases of skin diseases!
Evening was approaching, and I was settling in. “I am not to blame for anything,” I thought stubbornly and painfully. “I have a diploma; I have fifteen straight As. I warned them back in that big city that I wanted to be the second doctor. No. They smiled and said, ‘you’ll get used to it.’ Well, here’s ‘you’ll get used to it’ for you. What if they bring a hernia? Explain how I’m supposed to ‘get used to’ that? And especially, how will the patient with a hernia feel under my hands? Will he get used to the afterlife (a chill ran down my spine here)… And a purulent appendicitis? Ha! And diphtheritic croup in village children? When is a tracheotomy indicated? And even without a tracheotomy, I won’t be in a very good position… And… and… childbirth! I forgot about childbirth! Abnormal presentations. What will I do? Ah! What a thoughtless person I am! I should have refused this post. I should have. They would have found themselves another Leopold.”
In anguish and twilight, I paced the office. When I drew level with the lamp, I saw my pale face flash next to the lamp’s glow in the window, set against the infinite darkness of the fields. “I look like False Dmitry,” I suddenly thought foolishly, and sat down at the table again.
For about two hours, I tormented myself in solitude and carried it on until my nerves could no longer bear the fears I had created. Then I began to calm down and even form some plans. “Right… They say the number of patients is negligible right now. They’re processing flax in the villages, the roads are impassable… They will bring a hernia to you right now,” a harsh voice boomed in my mind, “because on impassable roads, a person with a cold (an easy illness) won’t come, but they’ll drag a hernia, rest assured, my dear colleague doctor.” The voice was not unintelligent, was it? I shivered. “Be quiet,” I said to the voice, “it doesn’t have to be a hernia. What is this neurasthenia. You committed yourself, don’t complain that you are incapable.” “If you call yourself a mushroom, get in the basket,” the voice replied maliciously. Right… I won’t part with the handbook… If I need to prescribe something, I can think it over while washing my hands. The handbook will lie open right on the patient record book. I will prescribe useful but not difficult prescriptions. Well, for example, Natrium salicylicum 0.5, one powder three times a day… “You can prescribe soda!” my inner interlocutor replied, clearly mocking me. What does soda have to do with it? I’ll even prescribe Infusum Ipecacuanhae… 180 or 200. Hold on. And right then, although no one demanded Ipecacuanha from me alone by the lamp, I weakly flipped through the prescription handbook, checked the Ipecacuanha, and mechanically read about some “Insipin” that exists in the world. It is nothing less than “quinine diglycolic acid sulfate”… Apparently, it doesn’t taste like quinine! But why is it used? And how should I prescribe it? Is it a powder? Damn it!
“Insipin is Insipin, but what about the hernia?” the fear-voice persistently demanded. “I’ll put him in a bath,” I defended myself furiously, “a bath. And try to reduce it.” “Strangulated, my angel! What the hell are baths for in this case! Strangulated,” the fear sang in a demonic voice. “You have to cut…” At this point, I gave up and nearly cried. And I sent a prayer into the darkness outside the window: anything but a strangulated hernia. And fatigue whispered: “Go to sleep, wretched Aesculapius. Get some rest, and we’ll see what tomorrow brings. Calm down, young neurasthenic. Look, the darkness outside the windows is peaceful, the freezing fields are asleep, there is no hernia. And we’ll see in the morning. You’ll get used to it… Sleep… Put down the atlas… You won’t figure out a thing right now anyway… The hernial ring…”
I did not even register how he flew in. I remember the bolt on the door rattled, Aksinya squeaked something. And a cart creaked outside the windows. He was hatless, in an unbuttoned sheepskin coat, with a matted beard, and mad eyes. He crossed himself, fell to his knees, and crashed his forehead onto the floor. This was for me. “I am doomed,” I thought despairingly. “What is it, what is it, what is it?” I muttered and pulled his gray sleeve. His face contorted, and he began to stammer disjointed words in reply. “Mister doctor… mister… the only one, the only one… the only one,” he suddenly shouted with a youthful clarity that made the lampshade tremble. “Oh, Lord… Oh…” He wrung his hands in anguish and crashed his forehead onto the floorboards again, as if he wanted to break it. “Why? Why this punishment?… How did we sin?” “What? What happened?!” I cried out, feeling my face grow cold. He jumped to his feet, darted forward, and whispered: “Mister doctor… anything you want… I’ll give you money… Take any money you want. Any you want. We will deliver food… Just don’t let her die. Just don’t let her die. If she remains crippled—let her. Let her!” he shouted at the ceiling. “We have enough to feed her. Enough.” Aksinya’s pale face hung in the black square of the doorway. Anguish coiled around my heart. “What?… What? Tell me!” I cried out painfully. He quieted down and whispered, as if sharing a secret, and his eyes became bottomless: “She got caught in the scutcher…” “In the scutcher… in the scutcher…” I repeated. “What is that?” “Flax, they were scutching flax… mister doctor…” Aksinya explained in a whisper. “The scutcher… it crushes the flax…” “This is it. This is the start. Oh, why did I come?” I thought in horror. “Who?” “My daughter,” he answered in a whisper, and then shouted: “Help!” And he fell down again, and his hair, cut in a bowl style, flew across his eyes…
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