Peter went to the door, but Iván Ilých dreaded being left alone. ‘How can I keep him here? Oh yes, my medicine.’ ‘Peter, give me my medicine.’ ‘Why not? Perhaps it may still do me some good.’ He took a spoonful and swallowed it. ‘No, it won’t help. It’s all tomfoolery, all deception,’ he decided as soon as he became aware of the familiar, sickly, hopeless taste. ‘No, I can’t believe in it any longer. But the pain, why this pain? If it would only cease just for a moment!’ And he moaned. Peter turned towards him. ‘It’s all right. Go and fetch me some tea.’
Peter went out. Left alone Iván Ilých groaned not so much with pain, terrible though that was, as from mental anguish. Always and for ever the same, always these endless days and nights. If only it would come quicker! If only
When Peter returned with the tea on a tray, Iván Ilých stared at him for a time in perplexity, not realizing who and what he was. Peter was disconcerted by that look and his embarrassment brought Iván Ilých to himself.
‘Oh, tea! All right, put it down. Only help me to wash and put on a clean shirt.’
And Iván Ilých began to wash. With pauses for rest, he washed his hands and then his face, cleaned his teeth, brushed his hair, and looked in the glass. He was terrified by what he saw, especially by the limp way in which his hair clung to his pallid forehead.
While his shirt was being changed he knew that he would be still more frightened at the sight of his body, so he avoided looking at it. Finally he was ready. He drew on a dressing-gown, wrapped himself in a plaid, and sat down in the armchair to take his tea. For a moment he felt refreshed, but as soon as he began to drink the tea he was again aware of the same taste, and the pain also returned. He finished it with an effort, and then lay down stretching out his legs, and dismissed Peter.
Always the same. Now a spark of hope flashes up, then a sea of despair rages, and always pain; always pain, always despair, and always the same. When alone he had a dreadful and distressing desire to call someone, but he knew beforehand that with others present it would be still worse. ‘Another dose of morphine – to lose consciousness. I will tell him, the doctor, that he must think of something else. It’s impossible, impossible, to go on like this.’
An hour and another pass like that. But now there is a ring at the door bell. Perhaps it’s the doctor? It is. He comes in fresh, hearty, plump, and cheerful, with that look on his face that seems to say: ‘There now, you’re in a panic about something, but we’ll arrange it all for you directly!’ The doctor knows this expression is out of place here, but he has put it on once for all and can’t take it off – like a man who has put on a frock-coat in the morning to pay a round of calls.
The doctor rubs his hands vigorously and reassuringly.
‘Brr! How cold it is! There’s such a sharp frost; just let me warm myself!’ he says, as if it were only a matter of waiting till he was warm, and then he would put everything right.
‘Well now, how are you?’
Iván Ilých feels that the doctor would like to say: ‘Well, how are our affairs?’ but that even he feels that this would not do, and says instead: ‘What sort of a night have you had?’
Iván Ilých looks at him as much as to say: ‘Are you really never ashamed of lying?’ But the doctor does not wish to understand this question, and Iván Ilých says: ‘Just as terrible as ever. The pain never leaves me and never subsides. If only something …’
‘Yes, you sick people are always like that.… There, now I think I am warm enough. Even Praskóvya Fëdorovna, who is so particular, could find no fault with my temperature. Well, now I can say good-morning,’ and the doctor presses his patient’s hand.
Then, dropping his former playfulness, he begins with a most serious face to examine the patient, feeling his pulse and taking his temperature, and then begins the sounding and auscultation.
Iván Ilých knows quite well and definitely that all this is nonsense and pure deception, but when the doctor, getting down on his knee, leans over him, putting his ear first higher then lower, and performs various gymnastic movements over him with a significant expression on his face, Iván Ilých submits to it all as he used to submit to the speeches of the lawyers, though he knew very well that they were all lying and why they were lying.
The doctor, kneeling on the sofa, is still sounding him when Praskóvya Fëdorovna’s silk dress rustles at the door and she is heard scolding Peter for not having let her know of the doctor’s arrival.
She comes in, kisses her husband, and at once proceeds to prove that she has been up a long time already, and only owing to a misunderstanding failed to be there when the doctor arrived.
