The Undiscovered Chekhov

VILLAGE

DOCTORS

THE VILLAGE HOSPITAL. Morning.

As the doctor is absent, out hunting with the district police officer, his assistants Kuzma Egorov and Gleb Glebitch are seeing patients. There are about thirty of them. Kuzma Egorov is having a cup of chicory coffee in the reception room, waiting for the sick to sign in. Gleb Glebitch, who hasn’t bathed or combed his hair since the day he was born, is leaning with chest and stomach over the table, swearing and registering patients. Registration is set up like a census: the patients name, fathers name, family name, profession, place of residence, literate or illiterate, age—and then after the checkup, the diagnosis and the medicine issued.

“Damn this pen!” Gleb Glebitch shouts as he scrawls large ugly letters into the big book. “This is supposed to be ink? Its tar, not ink! The council never ceases to amaze me! They expect you to sign up patients, and then they give you two kopecks a year for ink! Next!”

A peasant with a bandaged face and baritone Mikhailo come in.

“Who are you?”

“Ivan Mikulov.”

“Huh? What? Speak Russian!”

“Ivan Mikulov.”

“Ivan Mikulov! I’m not talking to you! Get out! You! Your name!”

Mikhailo smiles.

“Like you don’t know my name!” he says.

“What’s so funny? Damn it! I’ve no time for jokes! Time is money, and these people come here to joke! Your name!”

“Like you don’t know my name! Are you out of your mind?”

“Of course I know your name, but I still have to ask! That’s the protocol... and no, I’m not mad, I don’t hit the bottle like you do. I don’t go in for heavy drinking, thank you very much! Name and father’s name!”

“If you’re so busy, why am I standing here talking to you when you already know all the answers? You’ve known me for five years... and now in the sixth you forget who I am?”

“I haven’t forgotten, it’s protocol! Do you understand? Or don’t you speak Russian? Protocol!”

“Well, if it is protocol, then, whatever! So write: Mikhai- lo Fedotitch Izmuchenko!”

“It’s not Izmuchenko, it’s Izmuchenkov.”

“Fine, Izmuchenkov... whatever, as long as I get cured. You can write Monkeyshine Ivanov for all I care.”

“Your profession.”

“Baritone.”

“Your age?”

“How the hell should I know? I wasn’t baptized, so I have no idea.”

“Forty?”

“Could be, but then again, who knows? Write down whatever you think best.”

Gleb Glebitch looks intently at Mikhailo and writes thir-ty-seven. Then, having given it more thought, he crosses out thirty-seven and writes forty-one.

“Literate?”

“Have you ever heard of a singer who can’t read? Use your brains!”

“In front of others you have to show me a little respect and refrain from shouting at me, do you hear? Next! Who are you, what’s your name?”

“Mikifor Pugolov, from Khaplov.”

“We don’t treat Khaplovites here. Next!”

“Please, have pity, Your Excellency! I had to walk twenty versts!”

“We don’t treat Khaplovites! Next! Who’s next! No smoking here!”

“I’m not smoking, Gleb Glebitch!”

“So what are you holding there?”

“It’s my cut-off finger, Gleb Glebitch!”

“I thought it was a cigar! We don’t treat Khaplovites!

Next!”

Gleb Glebitch finishes registering patients. Kuzma Egorov gulps down his coffee, and is ready to begin. Gleb Glebitch takes on the role of pharmacist and goes into the drug pantry, and Kuzma Egorov takes on the medical role and slips into an oilskin apron.

“Marya Zaplakskina!” Kuzma Egorov calls out from the book.

A little old woman comes in, wrinkled and hunched over as if crushed by fate. She crosses herself and bows with deference to the medicine man.

“Yes! Shut the door! What’s wrong with you?”

“My head, Mr. Doctor.”

“Your whole head, or just half of it?”

“My whole head, Mr. Doctor, the whole of it!”

“Don’t wrap your head up like that! Take that rag off!

Heads must always be cold, legs warm, and your body at middling climate! Any discomfort in the stomach?”

“Oh, lots of it!”

“So... Pull down your lower eyelid. Good, that’s enough. You’re anemic. I’ll give you some pills. Take ten of them morning, noon, and night.”

Kuzma Egorov sits down and writes out the prescription.

Three grams of Liquor ferri from the bottle by the window, as for the one on the shelf, Ivan Yakovlitch forbade us to dispense without his permission, ten pills three times a day for Marya Zaplakskina.

The little old woman asks what to take the pills with, bows, and leaves. Kuzma Egorov throws the prescription through a little window in the wall separating the drug pantry, and calls in the next patient.

“Timofei Stukotey!”

“Present!”

Stukotey walks in, thin and tall with a large head, from a distance resembling a knobbed walking stick.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“My heart, Kuzma Egorov.”

“Where?”

Stukotey points to his stomach.

“I see... how long have you felt this pain?”

“Since Holy Week... The other day I was walking and had to sit down more than ten times... I get chills, Kuzma Egorov... and then fever comes, Kuzma Egorov!”

“Hm... does anything else hurt?”

“To be honest with you, Kuzma Egorov, I hurt all over. But just cure my heart and don’t worry about the rest—I’ll get the old village women to cure that. I’d like you to give me some alcohol or something to stop the illness reaching my heart. These things just go up and up till they reach your heart, and when they get there, when they reach it... yes... then... uh... it snatches at your spine... and then your head feels like a stone... and then you cough!”

“Appetite?”

“None at all...”

Kuzma Egorov walks up to Stukotey and prods him, pressing his fist against his stomach.

“Did that hurt?”

“Oh... oh... uh... yes!”

“How about this?”

“Oooh... unbearable!”

Kuzma Egorov asks him a few more questions, thinks for a while, and then calls Gleb Glebitch. A consultation begins.

“Stick out your tongue!” Gleb Glebitch orders.

The patient opens his mouth wide and sticks out his tongue.

“Farther!”

“It can’t go any farther, Gleb Glebitch.”

“There is no such a thing as ‘can’t’ in this world!”

Gleb Glebitch looks at the patient intendy, thinks very hard, shrugs his shoulders, and walks out of the consultation room.

“It must be a catarrh!” he shouts from the drug pantry.

“We’ll give him some castor oil and some spirits of ammonia!” Kuzma Egorov shouts back. “Rub it over your stomach every morning and evening! Next!”

The patient leaves the room and goes to the pantry win-dow in the corridor. Gleb Glebitch pours a third of a teacup of castor oil and gives it to Stukotey. He drinks it slowly, purses his lips, closes his eyes, and rubs his fingers together as if asking for something to eat that will cover the taste.

“Here’s some alcohol for you!” Gleb Glebitch shouts, giving him a little bottle with ammonium chloride. “Rub this over your stomach with a rag every morning and evening. And bring back that bottle when you finish with it. Hey, don’t lean on that! Go away now!”

Father Grigori’s cook comes up to the window, grinning, holding her shawl over her mouth.

“How may I be of service?” Gleb Glebitch asks her.

“Lizaveta Grigoryevna sends her regards, Gleb Glebitch, and asks if she can have some mint pastilles.”

“That goes without saying! For magnificent individuals of the female sex I will do anything!”

Gleb Glebitch reaches up to the shelf with a stick, and half its contents come tumbling down into Pelageya’s apron.

“Tell her that Gleb Glebitch was bubbling over with enchantment as he handed you these pastilles. Did she receive my letter?”

“Yes, she got it and tore it up. Lizaveta Grigoryevna has no time for love.”

“The harlot! Tell her from me she’s a harlot!”

“Mikhailo Izmuchenkov!” Kuzma Egorov calls out. Baritone Mikhailo walks into the consulting room.

“Greetings, Mikhailo Fedotitch! What is wrong with you?”

“My throat, Kuzma Egorov! I came to you, as a matter of fact, so that you, to be perfectly honest with you, concerning my health, which... you see it’s not a question of pain as much as it is of loss... when I’m ill, I can’t sing, and the church conductor deducts forty kopecks for every mass. For yesterday’s evening service he knocked off a twenty-fiver, and today for the squire’s funeral the singers are getting three rubles—and me, as long as I’m sick, I get nothing. And, to be perfectly honest with you, as far as my throat is concerned it’s scratching and wheezing for all it’s worth—as if some kind of a cat were in there, its paws going... scratch... scratch!”

“Could it be from your drinking hot liquids?”

“Who knows where I got this illness from! But, to be per- fectly honest with you, I can certify that hot liquid affects tenors, never baritones. When a baritone drinks, Kuzma Egorov, his voice grows richer, more imposing... it’s a cold that usually affects baritones more.”

Gleb Glebitch sticks his head through the pantry window.

“What should I give the old woman?” he asks. “The Liquor ferri that was by the window is gone. I’ll give her the pills that are on the shelf.”

“No, no! Ivan Yakovlitch forbade us to hand those out! He’ll be furious!”

“So what am I supposed to give her?”

“Whatever!”

For Gleb Glebitch, “whatever” meant bicarbonate of soda.

“You shouldn’t be drinking hot liquids.”

“As it is, it’s been three days since I’ve had anything... my cold is so bad... the thing is, vodka increases a baritone’s hoarseness, but hoarseness deepens a baritone’s voice, Kuzma Egorov, which as you know is better... without vodka there is no music... what kind of a singer would I be if I didn’t drink vodka? I would not be a singer, but, to be perfectly honest with you, a joke!... If it were not for my profession I wouldn’t touch a drop of vodka. Vodka is Satan’s blood!”

“Fine! I’ll give you some powder that you can mix in a bottle and gargle with, once in the morning and once in the evening.”

“Can I swallow it, too?”

“Yes, you can.”

“Excellent. It would be bothersome if I couldn’t swallow it. You gargle and gargle... and then you have to spit it out— such a waste! Then there was another thing that, to be perfectly honest with you, I wanted to ask you... you see, I have a weak stomach, and so every month I let some blood and take some herbs. Can I, in my condition, enter into a lawful marriage?”

Kuzma Egorov thinks for a while, and then says:

“No, I would advise against it.”

“Oh, I’m so grateful to you! You are truly a great healer, Kuzma Egorov! Better than any doctor! By God, how many people owe their lives to you! Ooooh! More than you can count!”

Kuzma Egorov modestly lowers his eyes and boldly writes “Natri bicarbonici”—that is, bicarbonate of soda.