Part 36 (1/2)

The doctor looked round the bare, whitewashed room. He noticed the windows which did not sufficiently keep out the draught, the girl's shoes, shrivelled with having been wet through constantly, the piles of books lying on the table, the sofa and everywhere.

”Oh, you mad girl, you foolish girl!” he whispered, wringing his hands. In distress and alarm he examined her, and took her temperature with trembling hands.

”Typhus!” he murmured, turning pale. He pressed his hand to his throat to stifle the tears which were choking him like little b.a.l.l.s of cotton.

He knew that he could do nothing for her--that, in fact, nothing could be done for her. Suddenly he gave a bitter laugh when he remembered that he would be obliged to send the twenty miles to Obrzydlwek for the quinine and antipyrin he wanted.

From time to time Stanislawa opened her gla.s.sy, delirious eyes, and looked without seeing from beneath her long, curling eyelashes. He called her by the most endearing names, he raised her head, which the neck seemed hardly able to support, but all in vain.

He sat down idly on a stool and stared into the flame of the lamp.

Truly misfortune, like a deadly enemy, had dealt him a blow unawares from a blunt weapon. He felt as if he were being dragged helplessly into a dark, bottomless pit.

”What is to be done?” he whispered tremblingly.

The cold blast penetrated through a crack in the window like a phantom of evil omen. The doctor felt as if someone had touched him, as if there were a third person in the room besides himself and the patient.

He went into the kitchen and told the servant to fetch the Soltys immediately.

The old woman instantly drew on a pair of large boots, threw a handkerchief over her head, and disappeared with a comical hobble.

Shortly afterwards the Soltys appeared.

”Listen! Can you find me a man to ride to Obrzydlwek?”

”Now, doctor?... Impossible!... There's a blizzard; he'd be riding to his death. One wouldn't turn a dog out to-night.”

”I will pay--I will reward him well.”

The Soltys went out. Dr. Pawel pressed his temples, which were throbbing as though they would burst. He sat down on a barrel and reflected on something which happened long ago.

Footsteps approached. The Soltys brought in a farmer's boy in a tattered sheepskin which did not reach to his knees, sack trousers, torn boots, and with a red scarf round his neck.

”This boy?” the doctor asked.

”He says he will go--rash youngster! I can give him a horse. But wherever at this time of----”

”Listen! If you come back in six hours, you will get twenty-five ...

thirty roubles from me ... you will get what you like.... Do you hear?”

The boy looked at the doctor as if he meant to say something, but he refrained. He wiped his nose with his fingers, shuffled awkwardly, and waited.

The doctor went back to the school-teacher's bedroom. His hands were shaking, and went up to his temples automatically. He thought of a prescription, wrote it, scratched through what he had written, tore it up, and wrote a letter to the chemist instead, begging him to despatch a horseman to the town at once, to ask the doctor to send him some quinine. He bent over the sick girl and examined her afresh; then he went into the kitchen and handed the letter to the boy.

”My dear boy,” he said in a strange, unnatural voice, laying his hand on the lad's shoulder and slightly shaking him, ”ride as fast as the horse will go--never mind him getting winded.... Do you hear, my boy?”

The lad bowed to the ground and went out with the Soltys.

”Is it long since the teacher settled here with you in the village?”

Dr. Pawel asked the old woman who was cowering by the stove.

”It's about three winters.”

”Three winters! Did no one live here with her?”