The Second Hammer Horror Film Omnibus by John Burke

Author:John Burke [Burke, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Pan Books
Published: 1967-01-09T08:00:00+00:00

Rasputin–The Mad Monk

1

The inn was usually a warm, friendly place. Here men drank and talked and sang in order to forget, if only for a few hours, the grim eternity of the Siberian forests and wastelands outside. Sometimes, when they were fuddled with the raw spirit, they quarrelled; yet when the fighting was over they became friends again. There were too few human beings and too much that was icily inhuman in this land for men to make enemies of their fellows.

Tonight the usual babble of talk and argument was hushed. As the innkeeper and the doctor came slowly down the creaking, narrow staircase, all heads turned towards them. The innkeeper faltered. It was bad enough without them staring at him. Bad enough to see his wife writhing and twisting on the bed, and then lying as still as death—to shut it out, his customers ought to have been noisy and exuberant, they ought to have kept him so busy that he would not have time to think about anything else.

“Keep her warm,” the doctor was booming in that bluff, meaningless voice of his. Starvation, fever, and misery were commonplaces in his life. “If she recovers consciousness, give her a little brandy.”

“And if . . . if she doesn’t, Doctor?”

“Send for the priest.”

A murmur of sympathy ran round the room and died away. The customers got to their feet. The innkeeper wished that they would sit down and drink and pretend that everything was normal.

The doctor was pulling on his gloves. He took his time. He appeared to be waiting for something. The innkeeper watched the slow movements, the abstracted poking of fingers into the gloves, and then realized what was required of him.

“Oh, your fee, Doctor.”

The doctor shrugged. “Whatever you can afford.”

The innkeeper drew a few coins from his pocket. A few wretched kopecks, no more. But if he took money from behind the bar, there would be none left to buy food for the rest of them, or to replenish his stocks when the merchant came next month. He held out his palm.

The doctor looked at it without marked enthusiasm, then took the kopecks fastidiously and pocketed them.

“Business has not been good, then?”

“With my wife being so ill—”

“Quite, quite.”

The episode was closed. The doctor wanted to be away. He went to the door and waited for the innkeeper to hurry past him and open it. A drift of snow swirled in across the floor.

When the innkeeper turned back into the room, one of his friends stepped forward awkwardly. It was Dmitri, a burly great brute who was probably the inn’s most troublesome customer and yet at the same time a man of great heart.

“Anything we can do, Karl . . .”

But what could they do? They were not doctors; and even a doctor had shaken his head and gone away. They were not miracle workers.

Karl made his way back to the stairs. He nodded towards the bar.

“If you want serving, please just ring the bell and I will come down.

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