A Country Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov

Author:Mikhail Bulgakov [Bulgakov, Mikhail]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 978-1-61219-191-1
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2013-02-04T16:00:00+00:00

The fireman was standing half way up the staircase leading from the lower half of the curious two-storey layout of the doctor’s flat; I was at the top of the staircase, Aksinya at the bottom wearing a sheepskin jerkin.

‘Even if you gave me a gold medal,’ said the driver, ‘I wouldn’t make that journey again …’ He did not finish, but downed a glass of neat spirit at one gulp. Then wheezing horribly he turned to Aksinya and added, stretching his arms as wide as his build would allow: ‘Big as that, they were …’

‘Did she die? You couldn’t save her?’ Aksinya asked.

‘Yes, she died,’ I replied indifferently.

A quarter of an hour later all was silent. The light went out downstairs. I was alone upstairs. For some reason I gave a convulsive laugh, unbuttoned my shirt, then buttoned it up again, went to the bookcase and took out a manual of surgery, started to look up something about fractures of the base of the skull, threw the book aside.

When I had undressed and crept under the bedclothes, within half a minute a fit of shivering overcame me; then it stopped and warmth flooded all through my body.

‘Even if you gave me a gold medal …’ I mumbled as I began to doze. ‘I wouldn’t go again …’

‘You’ll go, you’ll go,’ said the blizzard in a mocking howl. It roared over the roof, then boomed in the chimney, flew out again, rustled past the window, vanished.

‘You’ll go, go, go, go,’ ticked the clock, but the sound was growing duller.

No more. Silence. Sleep.

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