Short Fiction by Leo Tolstoy (book reader for pc TXT) 📕

“Well, Edward Ivanovitch,” said her husband, meeting the doctor and rubbing his hands, with a cheery smile. “I’ve ordered the case of wine to be brought in; what do you say to a bottle?”

“I shouldn’t say no,” answered the doctor.

“Well, how is she?” the husband asked with a sigh, lifting his eyebrows and dropping his voice.

“I have told you she can’t possibly get as far as Italy; if she reaches Moscow it will be a wonder, especially in this weather.”

“What are we to do! O my God! my God!” The husband put his hand over his eyes. “Put it here,” he added to the servant who brought in the case of wine.

“You should have kept her at home,” the doctor answered, shrugging his shoulders.

“But tell me, what could I do?” protested the husband. “I did everything I could, you know, to keep her. I talked to her of our pecuniary position, and of the children whom we should have to leave behind, and of my business⁠—she won’t hear a word of anything. She makes plans for her life abroad as though she were strong and well. And to tell her of her position would be her deathblow.”

“But she has that already, you ought to know it, Vassily Dmitritch. A person can’t live with no lungs, and the lungs can’t grow again. It’s distressing and terrible, but what’s one to do? My duty and yours is simply to see that her end should be as easy as possible. It’s the priest who is needed now.”

“O my God! But conceive my position, having to speak to her of the last sacrament. Come what will, I can’t tell her. You know how good she is.”

“You must try, all the same, to persuade her to wait till the roads are frozen,” said the doctor, shaking his head significantly, “or we may have a disaster on the road.”

“Aksyusha, hey, Aksyusha!” shrieked the overseer’s daughter, flinging a jacket over her head, and stamping on the dirty back steps of the station; “let’s go and have a look at the lady from Shirkin; they say she’s being taken abroad for her lungs. I’ve never seen what people look like in consumption.”

Aksyusha darted out at the doorway, and arm in arm they ran by the gate. Slackening their pace, they walked by the carriage, and peeped in at the lowered window. The sick woman turned her head towards them, but noticing their curiosity, she frowned and turned away.

“My gra-a-cious!” said the overseer’s daughter, turning her head away quickly. “Such a wonderful beauty as she was, and what does she look like now. Enough to frighten one, really. Did you see, did you see, Aksyusha?”

“Yes, she is thin!” Aksyusha assented. “Let’s go by and get another look at her, as though we were going to the well. She turned away before I’d seen her properly. I am sorry for her, Masha!”

“And the mud’s awful!” answered Masha, and both ran back to the gate.

“I’ve grown frightful, it seems,” thought the invalid. “Ah, to make haste, to make haste to get abroad, then I shall soon be better!”

“Well, how are you, my dear?” said her husband, still munching as he came up to the carriage.

“Always that invariable question,” thought the sick woman, “and he goes on eating too!”

“Just the same,” she muttered through her teeth.

“Do you know, my dear, I’m afraid the journey will be bad for you in this weather, and Edward Ivanovitch says so too. Hadn’t we better turn back?”

She kept wrathfully silent.

“The weather will change, and the roads perhaps will be hard, and that would make it better for you; and then we would all go together.”

“Excuse me. If I hadn’t listened to you long ago, I should be in Berlin by now and should be quite well.”

“That couldn’t be helped, my angel; it was out of the question, as you know! But now, if you would wait for a month, you would be ever so much better. I should have settled my business, and we could take the children.”

“The children are quite well, and I am not.”

“But consider, my dear, with this weather if you get worse on the road⁠ ⁠… there, at any rate, you’re at home.”

“And if I am at home?⁠ ⁠… To die at home?” the sick woman answered hotly. But the word die evidently terrified her; she bent an imploring, questioning look upon her husband. He dropped his eyes and did not speak. The sick woman’s mouth puckered all at once like a child’s, and tears dropped from her eyes. Her husband buried his face in his handkerchief, and walked away from the carriage without speaking.

“No, I am going,” said the sick woman, lifting her eyes towards heaven, and she fell to whispering disconnected words. “My God, what for?” she said, and the tears flowed more freely. For a long while she prayed fervently, but there was still the same pain and tightness on her chest. It was still as grey and cheerless in the sky, and in the fields, and along the road; and the same autumn mist, neither thicker nor clearer, hung over the mud of the road, the roofs of the huts, the carriage and the sheepskins of the drivers, who were greasing and harnessing a carriage, chatting together in their vigorous, merry voices.

The horses were put in the shafts; but the driver lingered. He went into the drivers’ hut. It was hot and stifling, dark and oppressive in the hut; there was a smell of human beings, baking bread, and cabbage, and sheepskins. There were several drivers in the room; the cook was busy at the stove; on the top of the stove lay a sick man wrapped in sheepskins.

“Uncle Fyodor! hey, Uncle Fyodor!” said the driver as he came into the room. He was a young fellow, in a sheepskin coat with a whip stuck in his belt, and he was addressing the sick man.

“What are you asking Fedya?” one of the drivers interposed. “They are