Paul went to a cupboard and took from it an old fur coat, dragged at the seams, stained about the cuffs a dull brown—doctors know the color. Such stains have hanged a man before now, for they are the marks of blood. Paul put on this coat. He took a long, soft silken scarf such as Russians wear in winter, and wrapped it round his throat, quite concealing the lower part of his face. He crammed a fur cap down over his ears.
“Come,” he said.
Karl Steinmetz accompanied them downstairs, carrying a lamp in one hand. He closed the door behind them, but did not lock it. Then he went upstairs again to the quiet little room, where he sat down in a deep chair. He looked at the open door of the cupboard from which Paul Alexis had taken his simple disguise, with a large, tolerant humor.
“El Señor Don Quixote de la Mancha,” he said sleepily.
It is said that to a doctor nothing is shocking and nothing is disgusting. But doctors are, after all, only men of stomach like the rest of us, and it is to be presumed that what nauseates one will nauseate the other. When the starosta unceremoniously threw open the door of the miserable cabin belonging to Vasilli Tula, Paul gave a little gasp. The foul air pouring out of the noisome den was such that it seemed impossible that human lungs could assimilate it. This Vasilli Tula was a notorious drunkard, a discontent, a braggart. The Nihilist propaganda had in the early days of that mistaken mission reached him and unsettled his discontented mind. Misfortune seemed to pursue him. In higher grades of life than his there are men who, like Tula, make a profession of misfortune.
Paul stumbled down two steps. The cottage was dark. The starosta had apparently trodden on a chicken, which screamed shrilly and fluttered about in the dark with that complete abandon which belongs to chickens, sheep, and some women.
“Have you no light?” cried the starosta.
Paul retreated to the top step, where he had a short-lived struggle with a well-grown calf which had been living in the room with the family, and evinced a very creditable desire for fresh air.
“Yes, yes, we have a little petroleum,” said a voice. “But we have no matches.”
The starosta struck a light.
“I have brought the Moscow doctor to see you.”
“The Moscow doctor!” cried several voices. “S Bog om—s Bog om! God be with you!”
In the dim light the whole of the floor seemed to get up and shake itself. There were at least seven persons sleeping in the hut. Two of them did not get up. One was dead. The other was dying of cholera.
A heavily built man reached down from the top of the brick stove a cheap tin paraffin lamp, which he handed to the starosta. By the light of this Paul came again into the hut. The floor was filthy, as may be imagined, for beasts and human beings lived here together.
The man—Vasilli Tula—threw himself down on his knees, clawing at Paul’s coat with great unwashed hands, whining out a tale of sorrow and misfortune. In a moment they were all on their knees, clinging to him, crying to him for help: Tula himself, a wild-looking Slav of fifty or thereabouts; his wife, haggard, emaciated, horrible to look upon, for she was toothless and almost blind; two women and a loutish boy of sixteen.
Paul pushed his way, not unkindly, toward the corner where the two motionless forms lay half concealed by a mass of ragged sheepskin.
“Here,” he said, “this woman is dead. Take her out. When will you learn to be clean? This boy may live—with care. Bring the light closer, little mother. So, it is well. He will live. Come, don’t sit crying. Take all these rags out and burn them. All of you go out. It is a fine night. You are better in the cart-shed than here. Here, you, Tula, go round with the starosta to his store. He will give you clean blankets.”
They obeyed him blindly. Tula and one of the young women (his daughters) dragged the dead body, which was that of a very old woman, out into the night. The starosta had retired to the doorway when the lamp was lighted, his courage having failed him. The air was foul with the reek of smoke and filth and infection.
“Come, Vasilli Tula,” the village elder said, with suspicious eagerness. “Come with me, I will give you what the good doctor says. Though you owe me money, and you never try to pay me.”
But Tula was kissing and mumbling over the hem of Paul’s coat. Paul took no notice of him.
“We are starving, Excellency,” the man was saying. “I can get no work. I had to sell my horse in the winter, and I cannot plough my little piece of land. The Government will not help us. The Prince—curse him!—does nothing for us. He lives in Petersburg, where he spends all his money, and has food and wine more than he wants. The Count Stépan Lanovitch used to assist us—God be with him! But he has been sent to Siberia because he helped the peasants. He was like you; he was a great barin, a great noble, and yet he helped the peasants.”
Paul turned round sharply and shook the man off.
“Go,” he said, “with the starosta and get what I tell you. A great, strong fellow like you has no business on his knees to any man! I will not help you unless you help yourself. You are a lazy good-for-nothing. Get out!”
He pushed him out of the hut, and kicked after him a few rags of clothing which were lying about on the floor, all filthy and slimy.
“Good God!” muttered he under his breath, in English, “that a place like this
