A.P. Chekhov - The Doctor
IT was still in the drawing-room, so still that a house-fly that
had flown in from outside could be distinctly heard brushing
against the ceiling. Olga Ivanovna, the lady of the villa, was
standing by the window, looking out at the flower-beds and
thinking. Dr. Tsvyetkov, who was her doctor as well as an old
friend, and had been sent for to treat her son Misha, was
sitting in an easy chair and swinging his hat, which he held in
both hands, and he too was thinking. Except them, there was not
a soul in the drawing-room or in the adjoining rooms. The sun
had set, and the shades of evening began settling in the corners
under the furniture and on the cornices.
The silence was broken by Olga Ivanovna.
"No misfortune more terrible can be imagined," she said, without
turning from the window. "You know that life has no value for me
whatever apart from the boy."
"Yes, I know that," said the doctor.
"No value whatever," said Olga Ivanovna, and her voice quivered.
"He is everything to me. He is my joy, my happiness, my wealth.
And if, as you say, I cease to be a mother, if he . . . dies,
there will be nothing left of me but a shadow. I cannot survive
it."
Wringing her hands, Olga Ivanovna walked from one window to the
other and went on:
"When he was born, I wanted to send him away to the Foundling
Hospital, you remember that, but, my God, how can that time be
compared with now? Then I was vulgar, stupid, feather-headed,
but now I am a mother, do you understand? I am a mother, and
that's all I care to know. Between the present and the past
there is an impassable gulf."
Silence followed again. The doctor shifted his seat from the
chair to the sofa and impatiently playing with his hat, kept his
eyes fixed upon Olga Ivanovna. From his face it could be seen
that he wanted to speak, and was waiting for a fitting moment.
"You are silent, but still I do not give up hope," said the
lady, turning round. "Why are you silent?"
"I should be as glad of any hope as you, Olga, but there is
none," Tsvyetkov answered, "we must look the hideous truth in
the face. The boy has a tumour on the brain, and we must try to
prepare ourselves for his death, for such cases never recover."
"Nikolay, are you certain you are not mistaken?"
"Such questions lead to nothing. I am ready to answer as many as
you like, but it will make it no better for us."
Olga Ivanovna pressed her face into the window curtains, and
began weeping bitterly. The doctor got up and walked several
times up and down the drawing-room, then went to the weeping
woman, and lightly touched her arm. Judging from his uncertain
movements, from the expression of his gloomy face, which looked
dark in the dusk of the evening, he wanted to say something.
"Listen, Olga," he began. "Spare me a minute's attention; there
is something I must ask you. You can't attend to me now, though.
I'll come later, afterwards. . . ." He sat down again, and sank
into thought. The bitter, imploring weeping, like the weeping of
a little girl, continued. Without waiting for it to end,
Tsvyetkov heaved a sigh and walked out of the drawing-room. He
went into the nursery to Misha. The boy was lying on his back as
before, staring at one point as though he were listening. The
doctor sat down on his bed and felt his pulse.
"Misha, does your head ache?" he asked.
Misha answered, not at once: "Yes. I keep dreaming."
"What do you dream?"
"All sorts of things. . . ."
The doctor, who did not know how to talk with weeping women or
with children, stroked his burning head, and muttered:
"Never mind, poor boy, never mind. . . . One can't go through
life without illness. . . . Misha, who am I -- do you know me?"
Misha did not answer.
"Does your head ache very badly?"
"Ve-ery. I keep dreaming."
After examining him and putting a few questions to the maid who
was looking after the sick child, the doctor went slowly back to
the drawing-room. There it was by now dark, and Olga Ivanovna,
standing by the window, looked like a silhouette.
"Shall I light up?" asked Tsvyetkov.
No answer followed. The house-fly was still brushing against the
ceiling. Not a sound floated in from outside as though the whole
world, like the doctor, were thinking, and could not bring
itself to speak. Olga Ivanovna was not weeping now, but as
before, staring at the flower-bed in profound silence. When
Tsvyetkov went up to her, and through the twilight glanced at
her pale face, exhausted with grief, her expression was such as
he had seen before during her attacks of acute, stupefying, sick
headache.
"Nikolay Trofimitch!" she addressed him, "and what do you think
about a consultation?"
"Very good; I'll arrange it to-morrow."
From the doctor's tone it could be easily seen that he put
little faith in the benefit of a consultation. Olga Ivanovna
would have asked him something else, but her sobs prevented her.
Again she pressed her face into the window curtain. At that
moment, the strains of a band playing at the club floated in
distinctly. They could hear not only the wind instruments, but
even the violins and the flutes.
"If he is in pain, why is he silent?" asked Olga Ivanovna. "All
day long, not a sound, he never complains, and never cries. I
know God will take the poor boy from us because we have not
known how to prize him. Such a treasure!"
The band finished the march, and a minute later began playing a
lively waltz for the opening of the ball.
"Good God, can nothing really be done?" moaned Olga Ivanovna.
"Nikolay, you are a doctor and ought to know what to do! You
must understand that I can't bear the loss of him! I can't
survive it."
The doctor, who did not know how to talk to weeping women,
heaved a sigh, and paced slowly about the drawing-room. There
followed a succession of oppressive pauses interspersed with
weeping and the questions which lead to nothing. The band had
already played a quadrille, a polka, and another quadrille. It
got quite dark. In the adjoining room, the maid lighted the
lamp; and all the while the doctor kept his hat in his hands,
and seemed trying to say something. Several times Olga Ivanovna
went off to her son, sat by him for half an hour, and came back
again into the drawing-room; she was continually breaking into
tears and lamentations. The time dragged agonisingly, and it
seemed as though the evening had no end.
At midnight, when the band had played the cotillion and ceased
altogether, the doctor got ready to go.
"I will come again to-morrow," he said, pressing the mother's
cold hand. "You go to bed."
After putting on his greatcoat in the passage and picking up his
walking-stick, he stopped, thought a minute, and went back into
the drawing-room.
"I'll come to-morrow, Olga," he repeated in a quivering voice.
"Do you hear?"
She did not answer, and it seemed as though grief had robbed her
of all power of speech. In his greatcoat and with his stick
still in his hand, the doctor sat down beside her, and began in
a soft, tender half-whisper, which was utterly out of keeping
with his heavy, dignified figure:
"Olga! For the sake of your sorrow which I share. . . . Now,
when falsehood is criminal, I beseech you to tell me the truth.
You have always declared that the boy is my son. Is that the
truth?"
Olga Ivanovna was silent.
"You have been the one attachment in my life," the doctor went
on, "and you cannot imagine how deeply my feeling is wounded by
falsehood. . . . Come, I entreat you, Olga, for once in your
life, tell me the truth. . . . At these moments one cannot lie.
Tell me that Misha is not my son. I am waiting."
"He is."
Olga Ivanovna's face could not be seen, but in her voice the
doctor could hear hesitation. He sighed.
"Even at such moments you can bring yourself to tell a lie," he
said in his ordinary voice. "There is nothing sacred to you! Do
listen, do understand me. . . . You have been the one only
attachment in my life. Yes, you were depraved, vulgar, but I
have loved no one else but you in my life. That trivial love,
now that I am growing old, is the one solitary bright spot in my
memories. Why do you darken it with deception? What is it for?"
"I don't understand you."
"Oh my God!" cried Tsvyetkov. "You are lying, you understand
very well!" he cried more loudly, and he began pacing about the
drawing-room, angrily waving his stick. "Or have you forgotten?
Then I will remind you! A father's rights to the boy are equally
shared with me by Petrov and Kurovsky the lawyer, who still make
you an allowance for their son's education, just as I do! Yes,
indeed! I know all that quite well! I forgive your lying in the
past, what does it matter? But now when you have grown older, at
this moment when the boy is dying, your lying stifles me! How
sorry I am that I cannot speak, how sorry I am!"
The doctor unbuttoned his overcoat, and still pacing about,
said:
"Wretched woman! Even such moments have no effect on her! Even
now she lies as freely as nine years ago in the Hermitage
Restaurant! She is afraid if she tells me the truth I shall
leave off giving her money, she thinks that if she did not lie I
should not love the boy! You are lying! It's contemptible!"
The doctor rapped the floor with his stick, and cried:
"It's loathsome. Warped, corrupted creature! I must despise you,
and I ought to be ashamed of my feeling. Yes! Your lying has
stuck in my throat these nine years, I have endured it, but now
it's too much -- too much."
From the dark corner where Olga Ivanovna was sitting there came
the sound of weeping. The doctor ceased speaking and cleared his
throat. A silence followed. The doctor slowly buttoned up his
over-coat, and began looking for his hat which he had dropped as
he walked about.
"I lost my temper," he muttered, bending down to the floor. "I
quite lost sight of the fact that you cannot attend to me now. .
. . God knows what I have said. . . . Don't take any notice of
it, Olga."
He found his hat and went towards the dark corner.
"I have wounded you," he said in a soft, tender half-whisper,
"but once more I entreat you, tell me the truth; there should
not be lying between us. . . . I blurted it out, and now you
know that Petrov and Kurovsky are no secret to me. So now it is
easy for you to tell me the truth."
Olga Ivanovna thought a moment, and with perceptible hesitation,
said:
"Nikolay, I am not lying -- Misha is your child."
"My God," moaned the doctor, "then I will tell you something
more: I have kept your letter to Petrov in which you call him
Misha's father! Olga, I know the truth, but I want to hear it
from you! Do you hear?"
Olga Ivanovna made no reply, but went on weeping. After waiting
for an answer the doctor shrugged his shoulders and went out.
"I will come to-morrow," he called from the passage.
All the way home, as he sat in his carriage, he was shrugging
his shoulders and muttering:
"What a pity that I don't know how to speak! I haven't the gift
of persuading and convincing. It's evident she does not
understand me since she lies! It's evident! How can I make her
see? How?"
NOTES
Nikolay Trofimitch: a more formal way to address him
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