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The following story is not the fruit of idle fiction. Everything I have described really happened in Kyiv about thirty years ago and is still sacred, to the smallest detail, preserved in the traditions of the family that will be discussed. I, for my part, only changed the names of some of the characters in this touching story and gave the oral story a written form.
- Grish, and Grish! Look, a piglet ... Laughing ... Yes. And he has something in his mouth! .. Look, look ... weed in his mouth, by God, weed! .. That's something!
And the two little boys, standing in front of the huge, solid glass window of the grocery store, began to laugh uncontrollably, pushing each other in the side with their elbows, but involuntarily dancing from the cruel cold. For more than five minutes they had stood in front of this magnificent exhibition, which excited their minds and stomachs in equal measure. Here, illuminated by the bright light of hanging lamps, towered whole mountains of strong red apples and oranges; regular pyramids of tangerines stood, tenderly gilded through the tissue paper wrapping them; stretched out on platters with ugly gaping mouths and bulging eyes, huge smoked and pickled fish; below, surrounded by garlands of sausages, there were juicy cut hams with a thick layer of pinkish fat ... Countless jars and boxes with salted, boiled and smoked snacks completed this spectacular picture, looking at which both boys for a minute forgot about the twelve-degree frost and about the important task entrusted on them as a mother, - an assignment that ended so unexpectedly and so deplorably.
The eldest boy was the first to break away from contemplation of the charming spectacle. He pulled his brother's sleeve and said sternly:
- Well, Volodya, let's go, let's go ... There's nothing here ...
At the same time, suppressing a heavy sigh (the eldest of them was only ten years old, and besides, both of them had not eaten anything since morning, except for empty cabbage soup) and throwing a last loving-greedy glance at the gastronomic exhibition, the boys hurriedly ran down the street. Sometimes, through the misted windows of some house, they saw a Christmas tree, which from afar seemed like a huge bunch of bright, shining spots, sometimes they even heard the sounds of a cheerful polka ... But they courageously drove away from themselves the tempting thought: to stop for a few seconds and stick an eye to the glass.
As the boys walked, the streets became less crowded and darker. Beautiful shops, shining Christmas trees, trotters rushing under their blue and red nets, the squeal of runners, the festive animation of the crowd, the cheerful rumble of shouts and conversations, the laughing faces of smart ladies flushed with frost - everything was left behind. Wastelands stretched out, crooked, narrow lanes, gloomy, unlit slopes ... At last they reached a rickety dilapidated house that stood apart; its bottom - the basement itself - was stone, and the top was wooden. Walking around the cramped, icy and dirty yard, which served as a natural garbage pit for all the residents, they went down to the basement, went through the common corridor in the darkness, found their door by feel and opened it.
For more than a year the Mertsalovs lived in this dungeon. Both boys had long since become accustomed to these smoky, damp-weeping walls, and to wet rags drying on a rope stretched across the room, and to this terrible smell of kerosene fumes, children's dirty laundry and rats - the real smell of poverty. But today, after everything they saw on the street, after this festive jubilation that they felt everywhere, their little children's hearts sank from acute, unchildish suffering. In the corner, on a dirty wide bed, lay a girl of about seven; her face burned, her breathing was short and difficult, her wide-open shining eyes stared intently and aimlessly. Next to the bed, in a cradle suspended from the ceiling, a baby was crying, grimacing, straining and choking. A tall, thin woman, with a haggard, tired face, as if blackened with grief, knelt beside the sick girl, straightening her pillow and at the same time not forgetting to push the rocking cradle with her elbow. When the boys entered and the white puffs of frosty air rushed into the basement after them, the woman turned her anxious face back.
- Well? What? she asked abruptly and impatiently.
The boys were silent. Only Grisha noisily wiped his nose with the sleeve of his overcoat, remade from an old wadded dressing gown.
- Did you take the letter? .. Grisha, I ask you, did you give the letter back?
- So what? What did you say to him?
Yes, just like you taught. Here, I say, is a letter from Mertsalov, from your former manager. And he scolded us: “Get out of here, you say… You bastards…”
– Yes, who is it? Who was talking to you?.. Speak plainly, Grisha!
- The porter was talking ... Who else? I told him: "Take, uncle, a letter, pass it on, and I'll wait for an answer here." And he says: “Well, he says, keep your pocket ... The master also has time to read your letters ...”
- Well, what about you?
- I told him everything, as you taught,: “There is, they say, nothing ... Mashutka is sick ... Dying ...” I say: “When dad finds a place, he will thank you, Savely Petrovich, by God, he will thank you.” Well, at this time, the bell will ring, how it will ring, and he tells us: “Get the hell out of here as soon as possible! So that your spirit is not here! .. ”And he even hit Volodya on the back of the head.
“And he’s on the back of my head,” said Volodya, who followed his brother’s story with attention, and scratched the back of his head.
The older boy suddenly began rummaging preoccupiedly in the deep pockets of his dressing gown. Finally pulling out a crumpled envelope, he laid it on the table and said:
Here it is, the letter...
The mother didn't ask any more questions. For a long time in the stuffy, dank room, only the frantic cry of the baby and the short, frequent breathing of Mashutka, more like uninterrupted monotonous groans, were heard. Suddenly the mother said, turning back:
- There is borscht there, left over from dinner ... Maybe we could eat? Only cold - there is nothing to warm up ...
At this time, someone's hesitant steps and the rustling of a hand searching for a door in the darkness were heard in the corridor. The mother and both boys, all three of them even pale with intense anticipation, turned in this direction.
Mertsalov entered. He was wearing a summer coat, a summer felt hat, and no galoshes. His hands were swollen and blue from the cold, his eyes sunken in, his cheeks stuck around his gums like a dead man's. He did not say a single word to his wife, she did not ask him a single question. They understood each other by the despair they read in each other's eyes.
In this terrible, fatal year, misfortune after misfortune persistently and ruthlessly rained down on Mertsalov and his family. First, he himself contracted typhoid fever, and all their meager savings went to his treatment. Then, when he recovered, he learned that his place, the modest position of a house manager for twenty-five rubles a month, was already occupied by another ... any household rags. And then the kids got sick. Three months ago, one girl died, now another is lying in a fever and unconscious. Elizaveta Ivanovna had to simultaneously take care of a sick girl, breastfeed a little one and go almost to the other end of the city to the house where she washed clothes every day.
All day today I was busy trying to squeeze out at least a few kopecks from somewhere for Mashutka's medicine through superhuman efforts. To this end, Mertsalov ran around almost half the city, begging and humiliating himself everywhere; Elizaveta Ivanovna went to her mistress, the children were sent with a letter to that gentleman, whose house Mertsalov used to manage ... But everyone tried to dissuade him either with festive chores, or lack of money ... Others, like, for example, the doorman of the former patron, simply drove petitioners from the porch .
For ten minutes no one could utter a word. Suddenly Mertsalov quickly got up from the chest on which he had been sitting up until now, and with a decisive movement pushed his tattered hat deeper onto his forehead.
- Where are you going? Elizaveta Ivanovna asked anxiously.
Mertsalov, who had already taken hold of the doorknob, turned around.
"It doesn't matter, sitting won't help," he answered hoarsely. - I'll go again ... At least I'll try to ask for alms.
Out on the street, he walked aimlessly forward. He didn't look for anything, didn't hope for anything. He has long gone through that burning time of poverty, when you dream of finding a wallet with money on the street or suddenly receiving an inheritance from an unknown second cousin. Now he was seized by an irresistible desire to run anywhere, to run without looking back, so as not to see the silent despair of a hungry family.
Beg for mercy? He has already tried this remedy twice today. But for the first time, some gentleman in a raccoon coat read him an instruction that he had to work, and not beg, and the second time, they promised to send him to the police.
Unbeknownst to himself, Mertsalov found himself in the center of the city, near the fence of a dense public garden. Since he had to go uphill all the time, he was out of breath and felt tired. Mechanically, he turned into a gate and, passing a long avenue of lindens covered with snow, sank down on a low garden bench.
It was quiet and solemn. The trees, shrouded in their white robes, slumbered in motionless majesty. Sometimes a piece of snow broke off from the top branch, and you could hear how it rustled, falling and clinging to other branches. The deep stillness and great calm that guarded the garden suddenly awakened in Mertsalov's tormented soul an unbearable thirst for the same calmness, the same silence.
"I wish I could lie down and fall asleep," he thought, "and forget about my wife, about the hungry children, about the sick Mashutka." Putting his hand under his waistcoat, Mertsalov felt for a rather thick rope that served as his belt. The thought of suicide was very clear in his head. But he was not horrified by this thought, did not shudder for a moment before the darkness of the unknown.
“Instead of dying slowly, isn’t it better to take a shorter path?” He was about to get up in order to fulfill his terrible intention, but at that time a creak of footsteps was heard at the end of the alley, distinctly resounding in the frosty air. Mertsalov turned in anger in that direction. Someone was walking down the alley. At first, the light of a flaring, then dying out cigar was visible. Then, little by little, Mertsalov could make out an old man of small stature, in a warm hat, fur coat and high galoshes. Coming abreast of the bench, the stranger suddenly turned sharply in the direction of Mertsalov and, lightly touching his hat, asked:
"Will you allow me to sit here?"
Mertsalov deliberately abruptly turned away from the stranger and moved to the edge of the bench. Five minutes passed in mutual silence, during which the stranger smoked a cigar and (Mertsalov sensed this) sideways watched his neighbor.
“What a glorious night,” said the stranger suddenly. “It’s cold…quiet.” What a charm - Russian winter!
“But I bought presents for the kids I know,” continued the stranger (he had several bundles in his hands). - Yes, I couldn’t resist on the way, I made a circle in order to go through the garden: it’s very good here.
Mertsalov was generally a meek and shy person, but at the last words of the stranger he was suddenly seized by a surge of desperate anger. With a sharp movement he turned towards the old man and shouted, absurdly waving his arms and panting:
- Gifts! .. Gifts! .. Gifts for the children I know! .. And I ... and with me, dear sir, at the present moment my children are dying of hunger at home ... Gifts! .. And my wife's milk was gone, and the baby didn’t eat… Gifts!..
Mertsalov expected that after these disorderly, angry cries the old man would get up and leave, but he was mistaken. The old man brought his smart, serious face with gray whiskers closer to him and said in a friendly but serious tone:
“Wait… don’t worry!” Tell me everything in order and as briefly as possible. Maybe together we can come up with something for you.
There was something so calm and inspiring confidence in the stranger's unusual face that Mertsalov immediately, without the slightest concealment, but terribly excited and in a hurry, conveyed his story. He spoke about his illness, about the loss of his place, about the death of a child, about all his misfortunes, up to this day. The stranger listened without interrupting him with a word, and only looked more inquisitively and intently into his eyes, as if wishing to penetrate into the very depths of this sore, indignant soul. Suddenly, with a quick, quite youthful movement, he jumped up from his seat and grabbed Mertsalov by the arm. Mertsalov involuntarily also stood up.
- Let's go! - said the stranger, pulling Mertsalov by the hand. - Let's go soon! .. Your happiness that you met with the doctor. Of course, I can't vouch for anything, but ... let's go!
Ten minutes later, Mertsalov and the doctor were already entering the basement. Elizaveta Ivanovna lay on the bed next to her sick daughter, her face buried in dirty, greasy pillows. The boys slurped borscht, sitting in the same places. Frightened by the long absence of their father and the immobility of their mother, they wept, smearing tears down their faces with dirty fists and spilling them profusely into a sooty cast-iron. Entering the room, the doctor threw off his overcoat and, remaining in an old-fashioned, rather shabby coat, went up to Elizaveta Ivanovna. She didn't even raise her head at his approach.
“Well, that’s enough, that’s enough, my dear,” the doctor spoke, affectionately stroking the woman on the back. - Get up! Show me your patient.
And just as recently in the garden, something tender and convincing sounding in his voice made Elizaveta Ivanovna instantly get out of bed and unquestioningly do everything that the doctor said. Two minutes later, Grishka was already lighting the stove with firewood, for which the wonderful doctor sent to the neighbors, Volodya was fanning the samovar with all his might, Elizaveta Ivanovna was wrapping Mashutka with a warming compress ... A little later, Mertsalov also appeared. For the three rubles received from the doctor, he managed to buy tea, sugar, rolls during this time and get hot food at the nearest tavern. The doctor was sitting at the table and writing something on a piece of paper, which he had torn out of his notebook. Having finished this lesson and depicting some kind of hook below instead of a signature, he got up, covered what was written with a tea saucer and said:
- Here with this piece of paper you will go to the pharmacy ... let's have a teaspoon in two hours. This will cause the baby to expectorate ... Continue the warming compress ... Besides, even if your daughter is better, in any case, invite Dr. Afrosimov tomorrow. He is a good doctor and a good person. I will warn him now. Then farewell, gentlemen! God grant that the coming year treats you a little more condescendingly than this one, and most importantly - never lose heart.
After shaking hands with Mertsalov and Elizaveta Ivanovna, who still had not recovered from his astonishment, and casually patting Volodya, who was gaping, on the cheek, the doctor quickly thrust his feet into deep galoshes and put on his overcoat. Mertsalov came to his senses only when the doctor was already in the corridor, and rushed after him.
Since it was impossible to make out anything in the darkness, Mertsalov shouted at random:
- Doctor! Doctor, wait!.. Tell me your name, doctor! May my children pray for you!
And he moved his hands in the air to catch the invisible doctor. But at this time, at the other end of the corridor, a calm old voice said:
- E! Here are some more trifles invented! .. Come back home soon!
When he returned, a surprise awaited him: under the tea saucer, along with the wonderful doctor's prescription, there were several large credit notes ...
On the same evening, Mertsalov also learned the name of his unexpected benefactor. On the pharmacy label, attached to the vial of medicine, it was written in the pharmacist's clear hand: "According to the prescription of Professor Pirogov."
I heard this story, and more than once, from the lips of Grigory Emelyanovich Mertsalov himself - the same Grishka who, on the Christmas Eve I described, shed tears into a smoky iron with an empty borscht. Now he occupies a fairly large, responsible post in one of the banks, reputed to be a model of honesty and responsiveness to the needs of poverty. And each time, finishing his story about the wonderful doctor, he adds in a voice trembling with hidden tears:
“From now on, it’s like a beneficent angel descended into our family. Everything has changed. In early January, my father found a place, Mashutka got on her feet, and my brother and I managed to get a place at the gymnasium at public expense. Just a miracle performed by this holy man. And we have seen our wonderful doctor only once since then - this is when he was transported dead to his own estate Cherry. And even then they didn’t see him, because that great, powerful and holy thing that lived and burned in the wonderful doctor during his lifetime died out irretrievably.
The following story is not the fruit of idle fiction. Everything I have described really happened in Kyiv about thirty years ago and is still sacred, to the smallest detail, preserved in the traditions of the family that will be discussed. I, for my part, only changed the names of some of the characters in this touching story and gave the oral story a written form.
- Grish, and Grish! Look, a piglet ... Laughing ... Yes. And he has something in his mouth! .. Look, look ... weed in his mouth, by God, weed! .. That's something!
And the two little boys, standing in front of the huge, solid glass window of the grocery store, began to laugh uncontrollably, pushing each other in the side with their elbows, but involuntarily dancing from the cruel cold. For more than five minutes they had stood in front of this magnificent exhibition, which excited their minds and stomachs in equal measure. Here, illuminated by the bright light of hanging lamps, towered whole mountains of strong red apples and oranges; regular pyramids of tangerines stood, tenderly gilded through the tissue paper wrapping them; stretched out on platters with ugly gaping mouths and bulging eyes, huge smoked and pickled fish; below, surrounded by garlands of sausages, there were juicy cut hams with a thick layer of pinkish fat ... Countless jars and boxes with salted, boiled and smoked snacks completed this spectacular picture, looking at which both boys for a minute forgot about the twelve-degree frost and about the important task entrusted on them as a mother, - an assignment that ended so unexpectedly and so deplorably.
The eldest boy was the first to break away from contemplation of the charming spectacle. He pulled his brother's sleeve and said sternly:
- Well, Volodya, let's go, let's go ... There's nothing here ...
At the same time, suppressing a heavy sigh (the eldest of them was only ten years old, and besides, both of them had not eaten anything since morning, except for empty cabbage soup) and throwing a last loving-greedy glance at the gastronomic exhibition, the boys hurriedly ran down the street. Sometimes, through the misted windows of some house, they saw a Christmas tree, which from afar seemed like a huge bunch of bright, shining spots, sometimes they even heard the sounds of a cheerful polka ... But they courageously drove away from themselves the tempting thought: to stop for a few seconds and stick an eye to the glass.
As the boys walked, the streets became less crowded and darker. Beautiful shops, shining Christmas trees, trotters rushing under their blue and red nets, the screech of runners, the festive animation of the crowd, the cheerful hum of shouts and conversations, the laughing faces of smart ladies flushed with frost - everything was left behind. Wastelands stretched out, crooked, narrow lanes, gloomy, unlit slopes ...
At last they reached a rickety ramshackle house that stood apart; its bottom - the actual cellar - was stone, and the top was wooden. Walking around the cramped, icy and dirty yard, which served as a natural garbage pit for all the residents, they went down to the basement, went through the common corridor in the darkness, found their door by feel and opened it.
For more than a year the Mertsalovs lived in this dungeon. Both boys had long since become accustomed to these smoky, damp-weeping walls, and to wet rags drying on a rope stretched across the room, and to this terrible smell of kerosene fumes, children's dirty laundry and rats - the real smell of poverty.
But today, after all that they saw on the street, after this festive jubilation that they felt everywhere, their little children's hearts sank from acute, unchildish suffering. In the corner, on a dirty wide bed, lay a girl of about seven; her face burned, her breathing was short and difficult, her wide-open shining eyes stared intently and aimlessly. Next to the bed, in a cradle suspended from the ceiling, a baby was crying, grimacing, straining and choking. A tall, thin woman, with a haggard, tired face, as if blackened with grief, was kneeling beside the sick girl, straightening her pillow and at the same time not forgetting to push the rocking cradle with her elbow. As the boys entered and the white puffs of frosty air rushed into the cellar behind them, the woman turned her anxious face back.
- Well? What? she asked abruptly and impatiently.
The boys were silent. Only Grisha noisily wiped his nose with the sleeve of his overcoat, remade from an old wadded dressing gown.
- Did you take the letter? .. Grisha, I ask you, did you give the letter back?
“I gave it away,” Grisha answered in a voice hoarse from the frost.
- So what? What did you say to him?
Yes, just like you taught. Here, I say, is a letter from Mertsalov, from your former manager. And he scolded us: “Get out of here, you say… You bastards…”
— Yes, who is it? Who was talking to you?.. Speak plainly, Grisha!
- The porter was talking ... Who else? I told him: "Take, uncle, a letter, pass it on, and I'll wait for an answer here." And he says: “Well, he says, keep your pocket ... The master also has time to read your letters ...”
- Well, what about you?
“I told him everything, as you taught, “There is, they say, nothing ... Mashutka is sick ... Dying ...” I say: “When dad finds a place, he will thank you, Savely Petrovich, by God, he will thank you.” Well, at this time, the bell will ring, how it will ring, and he tells us: “Get the hell out of here as soon as possible! So that your spirit is not here! .. ”And he even hit Volodya on the back of the head.
“And he hit me on the back of the head,” said Volodya, who followed his brother’s story with attention, and scratched the back of his head.
The older boy suddenly began rummaging preoccupiedly in the deep pockets of his dressing gown. Finally pulling out a crumpled envelope, he laid it on the table and said:
Here it is, the letter...
The mother didn't ask any more questions. For a long time in the stuffy, dank room, only the frantic cry of the baby and the short, frequent breathing of Mashutka, more like uninterrupted monotonous groans, were heard. Suddenly the mother said, turning back:
- There is borscht there, left over from dinner ... Maybe we could eat? Only cold - there is nothing to warm up ...
At this time, someone's uncertain steps and the rustling of a hand searching for a door in the darkness were heard in the corridor. The mother and both boys—all three of them even pale with intense anticipation—turned in this direction.
Mertsalov entered. He was wearing a summer coat, a summer felt hat, and no galoshes. His hands were swollen and blue from the cold, his eyes sunken in, his cheeks stuck around his gums like a dead man's. He did not say a single word to his wife, she did not ask him a single question. They understood each other by the despair they read in each other's eyes.
In this terrible, fatal year, misfortune after misfortune persistently and ruthlessly rained down on Mertsalov and his family. First, he himself contracted typhoid fever, and all their meager savings went to his treatment. Then, when he recovered, he learned that his place, the modest position of a house manager for twenty-five rubles a month, was already occupied by another ... any household rags. And then the kids got sick. Three months ago, one girl died, now another is lying in a fever and unconscious. Elizaveta Ivanovna had to simultaneously take care of a sick girl, breastfeed a little one and go almost to the other end of the city to the house where she washed clothes every day.
All day today I was busy trying to squeeze out at least a few kopecks from somewhere for Mashutka's medicine through superhuman efforts. To this end, Mertsalov ran around almost half the city, begging and humiliating himself everywhere; Elizaveta Ivanovna went to her mistress, the children were sent with a letter to that gentleman, whose house Mertsalov used to manage ... But everyone tried to dissuade him either with festive chores, or lack of money ... Others, like, for example, the doorman of the former patron, simply drove petitioners from the porch .
For ten minutes no one could utter a word. Suddenly Mertsalov quickly got up from the chest on which he had been sitting up until now, and with a decisive movement pushed his tattered hat deeper onto his forehead.
- Where are you going? asked Elizaveta Ivanovna anxiously.
Mertsalov, who had already taken hold of the doorknob, turned around.
“All the same, sitting will not help anything,” he answered hoarsely. “I’ll go again ... At least I’ll try to beg.”
Out on the street, he walked aimlessly forward. He didn't look for anything, didn't hope for anything. He has long gone through that burning time of poverty, when you dream of finding a wallet with money on the street or suddenly receiving an inheritance from an unknown second cousin. Now he was seized by an irresistible desire to run anywhere, to run without looking back, so as not to see the silent despair of a hungry family.
Beg for mercy? He has already tried this remedy twice today. But for the first time, some gentleman in a raccoon coat read him an instruction that he had to work, and not beg, and the second time they promised to send him to the police.
Unbeknownst to himself, Mertsalov found himself in the center of the city, near the fence of a dense public garden. Since he had to go uphill all the time, he was out of breath and felt tired. Mechanically, he turned into a gate and, passing a long avenue of lindens covered with snow, sank down on a low garden bench.
It was quiet and solemn. The trees, shrouded in their white robes, slumbered in motionless majesty. Sometimes a piece of snow broke off from the top branch, and you could hear how it rustled, falling and clinging to other branches. The deep stillness and great calm that guarded the garden suddenly awakened in Mertsalov's tormented soul an unbearable thirst for the same calmness, the same silence.
"I wish I could lie down and fall asleep," he thought, "and forget about my wife, about the hungry children, about the sick Mashutka." Putting his hand under his waistcoat, Mertsalov felt for a rather thick rope that served as his belt. The thought of suicide was very clear in his head. But he was not horrified by this thought, did not shudder for a moment before the darkness of the unknown.
“Instead of dying slowly, isn’t it better to take a shorter path?” He was about to get up in order to fulfill his terrible intention, but at that time a creak of footsteps was heard at the end of the alley, distinctly resounding in the frosty air. Mertsalov turned in anger in that direction. Someone was walking down the alley. At first, the light of a flashing, then an extinct cigar was visible. Then, little by little, Mertsalov could make out an old man of small stature, in a warm hat, fur coat and high galoshes. Coming abreast of the bench, the stranger suddenly turned sharply in the direction of Mertsalov and, lightly touching his hat, asked:
"Will you allow me to sit here?"
Mertsalov deliberately abruptly turned away from the stranger and moved to the edge of the bench. Five minutes passed in mutual silence, during which the stranger smoked a cigar and (Mertsalov sensed this) sideways watched his neighbor.
“What a glorious night,” the stranger suddenly spoke up. “It’s frosty ... quiet. What a charm - Russian winter!
His voice was soft, gentle, senile. Mertsalov was silent, not turning around.
“But I bought presents for the kids I know,” continued the stranger (he had several bundles in his hands).
Mertsalov was generally a meek and shy person, but at the last words of the stranger he was suddenly seized by a surge of desperate anger. With a sharp movement he turned towards the old man and shouted, absurdly waving his arms and panting:
- Gifts! .. Gifts! .. Gifts for the children I know! .. And I ... and with me, dear sir, at the present moment my children are dying of hunger at home ... Gifts! .. And my wife's milk was gone, and the baby didn’t eat… Gifts!..
Mertsalov expected that after these disorderly, angry cries the old man would get up and leave, but he was mistaken. The old man brought his smart, serious face with gray whiskers closer to him and said in a friendly but serious tone:
“Wait… don’t worry!” Tell me everything in order and as briefly as possible. Maybe together we can come up with something for you.
There was something so calm and inspiring confidence in the stranger's unusual face that Mertsalov immediately, without the slightest concealment, but terribly excited and in a hurry, conveyed his story. He spoke about his illness, about the loss of his place, about the death of a child, about all his misfortunes, up to this day.
The stranger listened without interrupting him with a word, and only looked more inquisitively and intently into his eyes, as if wishing to penetrate into the very depths of this sore, indignant soul. Suddenly, with a quick, quite youthful movement, he jumped up from his seat and grabbed Mertsalov by the arm. Mertsalov involuntarily also stood up.
- Let's go! - said the stranger, pulling Mertsalov by the hand. - Let's go quickly! .. Your happiness that you met with the doctor. Of course, I can't vouch for anything, but ... let's go!
Ten minutes later, Mertsalov and the doctor were already entering the basement. Elizaveta Ivanovna lay on the bed next to her sick daughter, her face buried in dirty, greasy pillows. The boys slurped borscht, sitting in the same places. Frightened by the long absence of their father and the immobility of their mother, they wept, smearing tears down their faces with dirty fists and spilling them profusely into a sooty cast-iron.
Entering the room, the doctor threw off his overcoat and, remaining in an old-fashioned, rather shabby coat, went up to Elizaveta Ivanovna. She didn't even raise her head at his approach.
“Well, that’s enough, that’s enough, my dear,” the doctor began, affectionately stroking the woman on the back. “Get up!” Show me your patient.
And just as recently in the garden, something tender and convincing sounding in his voice made Elizaveta Ivanovna instantly get out of bed and unquestioningly do everything that the doctor said. Two minutes later, Grishka was already lighting the stove with firewood, for which the wonderful doctor had sent to the neighbors, Volodya was fanning the samovar with all his might, Elizaveta Ivanovna was wrapping Mashutka in a warming compress... A little later, Mertsalov also appeared. For the three rubles received from the doctor, he managed to buy tea, sugar, rolls during this time and get hot food at the nearest tavern. The doctor was sitting at the table and writing something on a piece of paper, which he had torn out of his notebook. Having finished this lesson and depicting some kind of hook below, instead of a signature, he got up, covered what was written with a tea saucer and said:
- Here with this piece of paper you will go to the pharmacy ... let's have a teaspoon in two hours. This will cause the baby to expectorate ... Continue the warming compress ... Besides, even if your daughter is better, in any case, invite Dr. Afrosimov tomorrow. He is a good doctor and a good person. I will warn him now. Then farewell, gentlemen! God grant that the coming year treats you a little more condescendingly than this one, and most importantly, never lose heart.
After shaking hands with Mertsalov and Elizaveta Ivanovna, who still had not recovered from his astonishment, and casually patting Volodya, who was gaping, on the cheek, the doctor quickly thrust his feet into deep galoshes and put on his overcoat. Mertsalov came to his senses only when the doctor was already in the corridor, and rushed after him.
Since it was impossible to make out anything in the darkness, Mertsalov shouted at random:
- Doctor! Doctor, wait!.. Tell me your name, doctor! May my children pray for you!
And he moved his hands in the air to catch the invisible doctor. But at this time, at the other end of the corridor, a calm old voice said:
- E! Here are some more trifles invented! .. Come back home soon!
When he returned, a surprise awaited him: under the tea saucer, along with the wonderful doctor's prescription, there were several large credit notes ...
On the same evening, Mertsalov also learned the name of his unexpected benefactor. On the pharmacy label attached to the vial of medicine, in the clear hand of a pharmacist, was written: “As prescribed by Professor Pirogov».
I heard this story, and more than once, from the lips of Grigory Emelyanovich Mertsalov himself - the same Grishka who, on the Christmas Eve I described, shed tears into a smoky iron with empty borscht. Now he occupies a fairly large, responsible post in one of the banks, reputed to be a model of honesty and responsiveness to the needs of poverty. And each time, finishing his story about the wonderful doctor, he adds in a voice trembling with hidden tears:
“From now on, it’s like a beneficent angel descended into our family. Everything has changed. In early January, my father found a place, Mashutka got on her feet, and my brother and I managed to get a place at the gymnasium at public expense. Just a miracle performed by this holy man. And we have seen our wonderful doctor only once since then - this is when he was transported dead to his own estate Cherry. And even then they didn’t see him, because that great, powerful and holy thing that lived and burned in the wonderful doctor during his lifetime died out irretrievably.
A. I. Kuprin
Miraculous doctor
The following story is not the fruit of idle fiction. Everything I have described really happened in Kyiv about thirty years ago and is still sacred, to the smallest detail, preserved in the traditions of the family that will be discussed. I, for my part, only changed the names of some of the characters in this touching story and gave the oral story a written form.
- Grish, and Grish! Look, a piglet ... Laughing ... Yes. And he has something in his mouth! .. Look, look ... weed in his mouth, by God, weed! .. That's something!
And the two little boys, standing in front of the huge, solid glass window of the grocery store, began to laugh uncontrollably, pushing each other in the side with their elbows, but involuntarily dancing from the cruel cold. For more than five minutes they had stood in front of this magnificent exhibition, which excited their minds and stomachs in equal measure. Here, illuminated by the bright light of hanging lamps, towered whole mountains of strong red apples and oranges; regular pyramids of tangerines stood, tenderly gilded through the tissue paper wrapping them; stretched out on platters with ugly gaping mouths and bulging eyes, huge smoked and pickled fish; below, surrounded by garlands of sausages, there were juicy cut hams with a thick layer of pinkish fat ... Countless jars and boxes with salted, boiled and smoked snacks completed this spectacular picture, looking at which both boys for a minute forgot about the twelve-degree frost and about the important task entrusted on them as a mother, - an assignment that ended so unexpectedly and so deplorably.
The eldest boy was the first to break away from contemplation of the charming spectacle. He pulled his brother's sleeve and said sternly:
- Well, Volodya, let's go, let's go ... There's nothing here ...
At the same time, suppressing a heavy sigh (the eldest of them was only ten years old, and besides, both of them had not eaten anything since morning, except for empty cabbage soup) and throwing a last loving-greedy glance at the gastronomic exhibition, the boys hurriedly ran down the street. Sometimes, through the misted windows of some house, they saw a Christmas tree, which from afar seemed like a huge bunch of bright, shining spots, sometimes they even heard the sounds of a cheerful polka ... But they courageously drove away from themselves the tempting thought: to stop for a few seconds and stick an eye to the glass.
As the boys walked, the streets became less crowded and darker. Beautiful shops, shining Christmas trees, trotters rushing under their blue and red nets, the squeal of runners, the festive animation of the crowd, the cheerful rumble of shouts and conversations, the laughing faces of smart ladies flushed with frost - everything was left behind. Wastelands stretched out, crooked, narrow lanes, gloomy, unlit slopes ... At last they reached a rickety dilapidated house that stood apart; its bottom - the basement itself - was stone, and the top was wooden. Walking around the cramped, icy and dirty yard, which served as a natural garbage pit for all the residents, they went down to the basement, went through the common corridor in the darkness, found their door by feel and opened it.
For more than a year the Mertsalovs lived in this dungeon. Both boys had long since become accustomed to these smoky, damp-weeping walls, and to wet rags drying on a rope stretched across the room, and to this terrible smell of kerosene fumes, children's dirty laundry and rats - the real smell of poverty. But today, after everything they saw on the street, after this festive jubilation that they felt everywhere, their little children's hearts sank from acute, unchildish suffering. In the corner, on a dirty wide bed, lay a girl of about seven; her face burned, her breathing was short and difficult, her wide-open shining eyes stared intently and aimlessly. Next to the bed, in a cradle suspended from the ceiling, a baby was crying, grimacing, straining and choking. A tall, thin woman, with a haggard, tired face, as if blackened with grief, knelt beside the sick girl, straightening her pillow and at the same time not forgetting to push the rocking cradle with her elbow. When the boys entered and the white puffs of frosty air rushed into the basement after them, the woman turned her anxious face back.
- Well? What? she asked abruptly and impatiently.
The boys were silent. Only Grisha noisily wiped his nose with the sleeve of his overcoat, remade from an old wadded dressing gown.
- Did you take the letter? .. Grisha, I ask you, did you give the letter back?
- So what? What did you say to him?
Yes, just like you taught. Here, I say, is a letter from Mertsalov, from your former manager. And he scolded us: “Get out of here, you say… You bastards…”
– Yes, who is it? Who was talking to you?.. Speak plainly, Grisha!
- The porter was talking ... Who else? I told him: "Take, uncle, a letter, pass it on, and I'll wait for an answer here." And he says: “Well, he says, keep your pocket ... The master also has time to read your letters ...”
- Well, what about you?
- I told him everything, as you taught,: “There is, they say, nothing ... Mashutka is sick ... Dying ...” I say: “When dad finds a place, he will thank you, Savely Petrovich, by God, he will thank you.” Well, at this time, the bell will ring, how it will ring, and he tells us: “Get the hell out of here as soon as possible! So that your spirit is not here! .. ”And he even hit Volodya on the back of the head.
“And he’s on the back of my head,” said Volodya, who followed his brother’s story with attention, and scratched the back of his head.
The older boy suddenly began rummaging preoccupiedly in the deep pockets of his dressing gown. Finally pulling out a crumpled envelope, he laid it on the table and said:
Here it is, the letter...
The mother didn't ask any more questions. For a long time in the stuffy, dank room, only the frantic cry of the baby and the short, frequent breathing of Mashutka, more like uninterrupted monotonous groans, were heard. Suddenly the mother said, turning back:
- There is borscht there, left over from dinner ... Maybe we could eat? Only cold - there is nothing to warm up ...
At this time, someone's hesitant steps and the rustling of a hand searching for a door in the darkness were heard in the corridor. The mother and both boys, all three of them even pale with intense anticipation, turned in this direction.
Mertsalov entered. He was wearing a summer coat, a summer felt hat, and no galoshes. His hands were swollen and blue from the cold, his eyes sunken in, his cheeks stuck around his gums like a dead man's. He did not say a single word to his wife, she did not ask him a single question. They understood each other by the despair they read in each other's eyes.
In this terrible, fatal year, misfortune after misfortune persistently and ruthlessly rained down on Mertsalov and his family. First, he himself contracted typhoid fever, and all their meager savings went to his treatment. Then, when he recovered, he learned that his place, the modest position of a house manager for twenty-five rubles a month, was already occupied by another ... any household rags. And then the kids got sick. Three months ago, one girl died, now another is lying in a fever and unconscious. Elizaveta Ivanovna had to simultaneously take care of a sick girl, breastfeed a little one and go almost to the other end of the city to the house where she washed clothes every day.
Vinnitsa, Ukraine. The well-known Russian surgeon Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov lived and worked here in the Cherry estate for 20 years.
On December 25, 1897, the work of A.I. Kuprin "A wonderful doctor (true incident)", which begins with the lines: "The following story is not the fruit of idle fiction. Everything I have described really happened in Kyiv about thirty years ago…”, which immediately puts the reader in a serious mood: after all, we perceive real stories closer to our hearts and are more worried about the characters.
So, this story was told to Alexander Ivanovich by a familiar banker, who, by the way, is also one of the heroes of the book. The real basis of the story is no different from what the author portrayed.
“The Miraculous Doctor” is a work about the amazing philanthropy, about the mercy of a famous doctor who did not strive for fame, did not expect honors, but only selflessly provided assistance to those who needed it here and now.
Secondly, no one, except Pirogov, wanted to lend a helping hand to people in need, passers-by replaced the bright and pure message of Christmas with the pursuit of discounts, profitable goods and holiday foods. In this atmosphere, the manifestation of virtue is a miracle that can only be hoped for.
“The Miraculous Doctor” is a story, or to be more precise, a Christmas, or Christmas, story. By all the laws of the genre, the heroes of the work find themselves in a difficult life situation: troubles fall one after another, there is not enough money, which is why the characters even think about taking their own lives. Only a miracle can help them. This miracle is a chance meeting with a doctor who, in one evening, helps them overcome life's difficulties. The work “The Miraculous Doctor” has a bright ending: good triumphs over evil, the state of spiritual decline is replaced by hopes for a better life. However, this does not prevent us from attributing this work to a realistic direction, because everything that happened in it is pure truth.
The action of the story takes place on the eve of the holidays. Decorated Christmas trees peep out of the shop windows, there is an abundance of delicious food everywhere, laughter is heard on the streets, and the ear catches the cheerful conversations of people. But somewhere, very near, poverty, grief and despair reign. And all these human troubles on the bright holiday of the Nativity of Christ are illuminated by a miracle.
The whole work is built on contrasts. At the very beginning, two boys are standing in front of a bright shop window, a festive spirit is in the air. But when they go home, everything around becomes gloomy: old crumbling houses are everywhere, and their own dwelling is located in the basement. While people in the city are preparing for the holiday, the Mertsalovs do not know how to make ends meet just to survive. There is no talk of a holiday in their family. This sharp contrast allows the reader to feel the desperate situation in which the family found itself.
It is worth noting the contrast among the heroes of the work. The head of the family turns out to be a weak person who is no longer able to solve problems, but is ready to run away from them: he is thinking about suicide. Professor Pirogov, on the other hand, is presented to us as an incredibly strong, cheerful and positive hero who, with his kindness, saves the Mertsalov family.
In the story "The Wonderful Doctor" A.I. Kuprin tells about how human kindness and indifference to one's neighbor can change life. The action takes place approximately in the 60s of the 19th century in Kyiv. The atmosphere of magic and the approaching holiday reigns in the city. The work begins with the fact that two boys, Grisha and Volodya Mertsalov, happily stare at the shop window, joke and laugh. But it soon turns out that their family has big problems: they live in the basement, there is a catastrophic lack of money, their father was driven from work, their sister died six months ago, and now the second one, Mashutka, is very ill. Everyone is desperate and seems ready for the worst.
That evening, the father of the family goes to beg, but all attempts are in vain. He walks into a park, where he talks about the hard life of his family, and he begins to have suicidal thoughts. But fate turns out to be favorable, and in this very park, Mertsalov meets a man who is destined to change his life. They go home to an impoverished family, where the doctor examines Mashutka, prescribes the necessary medicines for her, and even leaves a large sum of money. He does not give a name, considering what he did as his duty. And only by the signature on the prescription the family learns that this doctor is the famous Professor Pirogov.
The story involves a small number of characters. In this work for A.I. Kuprin, the wonderful doctor himself, Alexander Ivanovich Pirogov, is important.
The main themes of the work are mercy, compassion and kindness. The Mertsalov family is doing everything possible to cope with the troubles that have piled up. And in a moment of despair, fate sends them a gift: Dr. Pirogov turns out to be a real magician who, with his indifference and sympathy, heals their crippled souls.
He does not stay in the park when Mertsalov loses his temper: being a man of incredible kindness, he listens to him and immediately does his best to help. We do not know how many such acts Professor Pirogov committed in his life. But you can be sure that in his heart lived a great love for people, indifference, which turned out to be a saving straw for an unfortunate family, which he extended at the most necessary moment.
AI Kuprin in this short story raises such universal problems as humanism and the loss of hope.
Professor Pirogov personifies philanthropy, humanism. The problems of strangers are not alien to him, and he takes the help of his neighbor for granted. He does not need gratitude for what he has done, he does not need glory: it is only important that people around him fight and not lose faith in the best. This becomes his main wish to the Mertsalov family: "... and most importantly - never lose heart." However, the entourage of the heroes, their acquaintances and colleagues, neighbors and just passers-by - all turned out to be indifferent witnesses of someone else's grief. They did not even think that someone's disaster concerns them, they did not want to show humanity, thinking that they were not authorized to correct social injustice. This is the problem: no one cares about what is happening around, except for one person.
Despair is also described in detail by the author. It poisons Mertsalov, deprives him of the will and strength to move on. Under the influence of sorrowful thoughts, he descends to a cowardly hope for death, while his family perishes from hunger. The feeling of hopelessness dulls all other feelings and enslaves a person who is able to feel sorry only for himself.
What is the main idea of A. I. Kuprin? The answer to this question lies precisely in the phrase that Pirogov says when leaving the Mertsalovs: never lose heart.
Even in the darkest times, one must hope, seek, and if there is no strength left at all, wait for a miracle. And it does happen. With the most ordinary people on one frosty, say, winter day: the hungry become full, the cold become warm, the sick recover. And these miracles are performed by people themselves with the kindness of their hearts - this is the main idea of the writer, who saw salvation from social cataclysms in simple mutual assistance.
This small work makes you think about how important it is to be indifferent to the people around us. In the hustle and bustle of days, we often forget that neighbors, acquaintances, compatriots are suffering somewhere very close by, somewhere poverty reigns and despair reigns. Entire families do not know how to earn their living and barely live to see their paycheck. Therefore, it is so important not to pass by and be able to support: with a kind word or deed.
Helping one person will not change the world, of course, but it will change one part of it, and the most important one for giving and not accepting help. The giver is enriched much more than the petitioner, because he receives spiritual satisfaction from what he has done.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!Miraculous doctor
A. Kuprin
"Wonderful Doctor"
(excerpt)
The following story is not the fruit of idle fiction. Everything I have described really happened in Kyiv about thirty years ago and is still sacredly preserved in the traditions of the family that will be discussed.
? ? ?
... For more than a year the Mertsalovs lived in this dungeon. The boys had grown accustomed to the smoky, damp-weeping walls, and to the wet rags drying on a rope stretched across the room, and to that terrible smell of kerosene fumes, children's dirty laundry and rats - the real smell of poverty. But today, after the festive jubilation that they saw on the street, their little children's hearts sank from acute, unchildish suffering.
In the corner, on a dirty wide bed, lay a girl of about seven; her face burned, her breathing was short and labored, her wide-open shining eyes stared aimlessly. Next to the bed, in a cradle suspended from the ceiling, a baby was crying, grimacing, straining and choking. A tall, thin woman with a haggard, tired face, as if blackened with grief, knelt beside the sick girl, straightening her pillow and at the same time not forgetting to push the rocking cradle with her elbow. As the boys entered and the white puffs of frosty air rushed into the cellar behind them, the woman turned her anxious face back.
- Well? What? she asked her sons curtly and impatiently.
The boys were silent.
- Did you take the letter? .. Grisha, I ask you: did you give the letter?
- I gave it away, - Grisha answered in a voice hoarse from the frost.
- So what? What did you say to him?
- Yes, just like you taught. Here, I say, is a letter from Mertsalov, from your former manager. And he scolded us: “Get out of here,” he says, from here ...
The mother didn't ask any more questions. For a long time in the stuffy, dank room, only the frantic cry of the baby and the short, frequent breathing of Mashutka, more like uninterrupted monotonous groans, were heard. Suddenly the mother said, turning back:
- There is borscht there, left over from dinner ... Maybe we could eat? Only cold, there is nothing to warm up ...
At this time, someone's uncertain steps and the rustling of a hand searching for a door in the darkness were heard in the corridor.
Mertsalov entered. He was wearing a summer coat, a summer felt hat, and no galoshes. His hands were swollen and blue from the cold, his eyes sunken in, his cheeks stuck around his gums like a dead man's. He didn't say a single word to his wife, she didn't ask a single question. They understood each other by the despair they read in each other's eyes.
In this terrible fateful year, misfortune after misfortune persistently and ruthlessly rained down on Mertsalov and his family. First, he himself contracted typhoid fever, and all their meager savings went to his treatment. Then, when he recovered, he learned that his place, the modest position of a house manager for twenty-five rubles a month, was already occupied by another ... A desperate, convulsive pursuit of odd jobs began, pledging and re-pledging things, selling all kinds of household rags. And then the kids got sick. Three months ago, one girl died, now another is lying in a fever and unconscious. Elizaveta Ivanovna had to simultaneously take care of a sick girl, breastfeed a little one and go almost to the other end of the city to the house where she washed clothes every day.
The whole day I was busy trying to squeeze out at least a few kopecks from somewhere for Mashutka's medicines by means of superhuman efforts. To this end, Mertsalov ran around almost half the city, begging and humiliating himself everywhere; Elizaveta Ivanovna went to her mistress; the children were sent with a letter to that gentleman, whose house Mertsalov used to manage ...
For ten minutes no one could utter a word. Suddenly Mertsalov quickly got up from the chest on which he had been sitting up until now, and with a decisive movement pushed his tattered hat deeper onto his forehead.
- Where are you going? asked Elizaveta Ivanovna anxiously.
Mertsalov, who had already taken hold of the doorknob, turned around.
"All the same, sitting won't help anything," he replied hoarsely. - I'll go again ... At least I'll try to ask for alms.
Out on the street, he walked aimlessly forward. He didn't look for anything, didn't hope for anything. He has long gone through that burning time of poverty, when you dream of finding a wallet with money on the street or suddenly receiving an inheritance from an unknown second cousin. Now he was possessed by an irresistible desire to run anywhere, to run without looking back, so as not to see the silent despair of a hungry family.
Unbeknownst to himself, Mertsalov found himself in the center of the city, near the fence of a dense public garden. Since he had to go uphill all the time, he was out of breath and felt tired. Mechanically, he turned into a gate and, passing a long avenue of lindens covered with snow, sank down on a low garden bench.
It was quiet and solemn. "I wish I could lie down and fall asleep," he thought, "and forget about my wife, about the hungry children, about the sick Mashutka." Putting his hand under his waistcoat, Mertsalov felt for a rather thick rope that served as his belt. The thought of suicide was very clear in his head. But he was not horrified by this thought, did not shudder for a moment before the darkness of the unknown. "Instead of dying slowly, isn't it better to take a shorter path?" He was about to get up in order to fulfill his terrible intention, but at that time a creak of footsteps was heard at the end of the alley, distinctly resounding in the frosty air. Mertsalov turned in anger in that direction. Someone was walking down the alley.
Coming level with the bench, the stranger suddenly turned abruptly towards Mertsalov and, lightly touching his cap, asked:
- Will you let me sit here?
- Mertsalov deliberately abruptly turned away from the stranger and moved to the edge of the bench. Five minutes passed in mutual silence.
“What a glorious night,” said the stranger suddenly. - Frosty ... quiet.
His voice was soft, gentle, senile. Mertsalov was silent.
“But I bought presents for the kids I know,” continued the stranger.
Mertsalov was a meek and shy man, but at the last words he was suddenly seized by a surge of desperate anger:
- Gifts! .. Familiar kids! And I ... and with me, dear sir, at the present moment my children are dying of hunger at home ... And my wife’s milk has disappeared, and the baby has not eaten all day ... Gifts!
Mertsalov expected that after these words the old man would rise and leave, but he was mistaken. The old man brought his intelligent, serious face close to him and said in a friendly but serious tone:
- Wait... Don't worry! Tell me everything in order.
In the unusual face of the stranger there was something very calm and inspiring confidence that Mertsalov immediately, without the slightest concealment, conveyed his story. The stranger listened without interrupting, only looked more inquisitively and intently into his eyes, as if wishing to penetrate into the very depths of this sore, indignant soul.
Suddenly, with a quick, quite youthful movement, he jumped up from his seat and grabbed Mertsalov by the arm.
- Let's go! - said the stranger, dragging Mertsalov by the hand. - Your happiness that you met with the doctor. Of course, I can't vouch for anything, but ... let's go!
... Entering the room, the doctor took off his coat and, remaining in an old-fashioned, rather shabby frock coat, went up to Elizaveta Ivanovna.
- Well, that's enough, that's enough, my dear, - the doctor spoke affectionately, - get up! Show me your patient.
And just as in the garden, something gentle and persuasive in his voice made Elizaveta Ivanovna rise in an instant. Two minutes later, Grishka was already lighting the stove with firewood, for which the wonderful doctor sent to the neighbors, Volodya was fanning the samovar. Mertsalov also appeared a little later. With the three rubles received from the doctor, he bought tea, sugar, rolls, got hot food from the nearest tavern. The doctor was writing something on a piece of paper. Having depicted some kind of hook below, he said:
- With this piece of paper you will go to the pharmacy. The medicine will cause the baby to expectorate. Keep doing the warm compress. Invite Dr. Afanasiev tomorrow. He is a good doctor and a good person. I will warn him. Then farewell, gentlemen! God grant that the coming year treats you a little more condescendingly than this one, and most importantly - never lose heart.
After shaking hands with Mertsalov, who had not recovered from his astonishment, the doctor quickly left. Mertsalov came to his senses only when the doctor was in the corridor:
- Doctor! Wait! Tell me your name, doctor! May my children pray for you!
- E! Here are some more trifles invented! .. Come back home soon!
On the same evening, Mertsalov also learned the name of his benefactor. On the pharmacy label attached to the vial of medicine, it was written: "According to the prescription of Professor Pirogov."
I heard this story from the lips of Grigory Emelyanovich Mertsalov himself - the same Grishka who, on the Christmas Eve I described, shed tears into a smoky iron with empty borscht. Now he occupies a major post, reputed to be a model of honesty and responsiveness to the needs of poverty. Finishing his story about the wonderful doctor, he added in a voice trembling with undisguised tears:
“From now on, it’s like a beneficent angel descended into our family. Everything has changed. At the beginning of January, my father found a place, my mother got on her feet, and my brother and I were able to get a place at the gymnasium at public expense. Our wonderful doctor has only been seen once since then - when he was transported dead to his own estate. And even then they didn’t see him, because that great, powerful and holy thing that lived and burned in this wonderful doctor during his lifetime died out irretrievably.
