I don't know how I gained the confidence of my new
friend--anyway, with nothing to lead up to it, he told me a rather
curious incident; and here I will report his tale for the information
of the indulgent reader. I will try to tell it in the doctor's own
words.
"You don't happen to know," he began in a weak and quavering voice
(the common result of the use of unmixed Berezov snuff); "you don't
happen to know the judge here, Mylov, Pavel Lukich?... You don't know
him?... Well, it's all the same." (He cleared his throat and rubbed
his eyes.) "Well, you see, the thing happened, to tell you exactly
without mistake, in Lent, at the very time of the thaws. I was sitting
at his house--our judge's, you know--playing preference. Our judge is
a good fellow, and fond of playing preference. Suddenly" (the doctor
made frequent use of this word, suddenly) "they tell me, 'There's a
servant asking for you.' I say, 'What does he want?' They say, He has
brought a note--it must be from a patient.' 'Give me the note,' I say.
So it is from a patient--well and good--you understand--it's our bread
and butter... But this is how it was: a lady, a widow, writes to me;
she says, 'My daughter is dying.
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