What on earth will I do? What a fool I was! I should have refused this job. I really should. They should have found themselves another Leopold.’

Miserable, I paced up and down the twilit study. When I came up to the lamp I caught sight of the reflection of my pale face and of the light of the lamp in the window set against the boundless darkness of the fields.

‘I’m like Dmitry the Pretender—nothing but a sham,’ I thought stupidly and sat down at the table again.

I spent about two lonely hours of self-torment and only stopped when my nerves could no longer bear the horrors I had summoned up. Then I started to calm down and even to work out a plan of action.

‘Let’s see now … they tell me admissions are almost nil at the moment. They’re braking flax in the villages, the roads are impassable …’

‘That’s just when they will bring you a hernia,’ thundered a harsh voice in my mind, ‘because a man with a cold won’t make the effort over impassable roads but rest assured they’ll bring you a hernia, my dear doctor.’

There was something in what the voice said. I shuddered.

‘Be quiet,’ I said to it. ‘It won’t necessarily be a hernia. Stop being so neurotic. You can’t back out once you’ve begun.’

‘You said it!’ the voice answered spitefully.

‘All right then … I won’t take a step without my reference book … If I have to prescribe something I can think it over while I wash my hands and the reference book will be lying open on top of the patients’ register. I shall make out wholesome but simple prescriptions, say, sodium salicylate, 0.5 grammes in powder form three times a day.’

‘You might as well prescribe baking soda! Why don’t you just prescribe soda?’ the voice was blatantly making fun of me.

‘What’s soda got to do with it? I’ll also prescribe an infusion of ipecacuanha, 180 c.c. Or 200 c.c. if you don’t mind.’

And although no one was asking for ipecacuanha as I sat there alone by the lamp, I sheepishly turned the pages in the pharmacopoeia and checked ipecacuanha; meanwhile I automatically read in passing that there was a certain substance called ‘Insipin’ which is none other than ‘ethereal sulphate of quinine-diglycolic acid.’ Apparently it doesn’t taste of quinine! What is it for? And how is it prescribed? What is it, a powder? To hell with it!

‘That’s all very well, but what are you going to do about a hernia?’ The voice of Fear continued to pester me.

‘I’ll put them into a bath,’ I defended myself in exasperation, ‘and try to reduce it.’

‘What if it’s a strangulated one, old boy? Baths won’t be much use then, will they! A strangulated hernia!’ Fear chanted in a demoniac voice, ‘You’ll have to cut it out …!’

I gave in and all but burst into tears. I sent out a prayer to the darkness outside the window: please, anything but not a strangulated hernia.

Weariness then crooned:

‘Go to bed, unhappy physician. Sleep on it. Calm down and stop being neurotic. Look how still the dark is outside the window, the fields are cold and sleeping, there is no hernia. You can think about it in the morning. You’ll settle down … Sleep … drop that book of diagrams, you won’t make head or tail of it anyway … hernial orifice …’

I don’t remember him arriving. I only remember the bolt grating in the door, a shriek from Aksinya and a cart creaking out in the yard.

He was hatless, his sheepskin coat unbuttoned, his beard was dishevelled and there was a mad look in his eyes.

He crossed himself, fell on his knees and banged his forehead against the floor. This to me!

‘I’m a lost man,’ I thought wretchedly.

‘Now, now—what’s the matter?’ I muttered and pulled at his grey sleeve.

His face twisted and he started mumbling a breathless and incoherent answer:

‘Oh doctor, sir … sir … she’s all I’ve got, she’s all I’ve got, she’s all I’ve got,’ he burst out suddenly in a voice so young-sounding and powerful that the lampshade trembled. ‘Oh, sir, oh …’ He wrung his hands in misery and started knocking his forehead against the floorboards as if trying to smash them. ‘Why? Why am I being punished? What have I done to deserve God’s anger?’

‘What is it? What’s happened?’ I cried out, feeling the blood draining from my face.

He jumped to his feet, rushed towards me and whispered:

‘Anything you want, doctor, sir … I’ll give you money, take as much money as you want. As much as you want. We’ll pay you in food if you like. Only don’t let her die. Don’t let her die. Even if she’s to be a cripple, I don’t mind. I don’t mind!’ He shouted to the ceiling. ‘I’ve got enough to feed her, I can manage.’

I could see Aksinya’s pale face in the black rectangle of the door.