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it,’ said the woman in her comfortable, sing-song voice. ‘And God bless you for it … half the bottle when I got home and the other half when I went to bed. The pain just vanished …’
    I steadied myself against the gynaecological chair.
    â€˜What dose did I tell you?’ I croaked. ‘I told you five drops at a time … What have you done, woman? You’ve … you’ve …’
    â€˜I took it, I swear I did!’ the woman insisted, thinking I did not believe she had taken my belladonna.
    I seized both her ruddy cheeks and stared at her pupils. There as nothing wrong with them. They were rather beautiful and completely normal. Her pulse, too, was excellent. The woman exhibited no signs whatsoever of belladonna poisoning.
    â€˜It’s impossible!’ I said, then shouted: ‘Demyan Lukich!’
    Demyan Lukich in his white overall appeared from the passage leading to the dispensary.
    â€˜Just look what this beauty has done, Demyan Lukich! I don’t understand it.’
    The peasant woman looked round anxiously, realising that she had done something wrong. Demyan Lukich took the bottle, sniffed it, turned it round in his hands and said sternly:
    â€˜You, my dear, are lying. You didn’t take this medicine!’
    â€˜I swear …’ she began.
    â€˜Don’t try and fool us, woman,’ Demyan Lukich scolded, pursing his lips. ‘We can see through all your little tricks. Own up now—who did you give this medicine to?’
    The woman raised her thoroughly normal pupils towards the immaculately whitewashed ceiling and crossed herself.
    â€˜May I be …’
    â€˜Stop it,’ growled Demyan Lukich and turned to me: ‘This is what they do, doctor. A clever actress like this one here goes to the clinic, we prescribe her some medicine and she goes back home and shares it out among all the women in the village.’
    â€˜Oh, sir, how could you …’
    â€˜Shut up!’ the
feldsher
cut her off. ‘I’ve been here eight years and I know. Of course she’s been going round every farm and emptying the bottle a few drops at a time,’ he went on.
    â€˜Give me some more of those drops,’ the woman begged in a wheedling tone.
    â€˜No, we won’t,’ I replied as I wiped the sweat from my brow. ‘I’m not letting you have any more of
this
medicine. Is your stomach-ache better?’
    â€˜Like I said—just vanished!’
    â€˜Well, that’s good, anyway. I shall give you something else, which will also do you good.’ I prescribed the woman some valerian and she left, much disappointed.
    This was the incident we discussed sitting in the doctor’s quarters on my birthday, while outside the windows were draped with the black curtain of the snowstorm.
    â€˜Ah, yes,’ said Demyan Lukich, elegantly munching a sardine, ‘ah, yes: we’re used to that sort of thing here. Andyou, dear doctor, after all the time you’ve spent at university and in Moscow, are going to have to get used to a lot of things. We’re living at the back of beyond.’
    â€˜Yes, the back of beyond,’ came the response like an echo from Anna Nikolaevna.
    The snowstorm roared in the chimneys and brushed past the walls. The dark cast-iron of the stove gave off a purple glow. A blessing on the fire which warms medical folk stranded in the depths of the countryside!
    â€˜Have you heard about your predecessor Leopold Leopoldovich?’ enquired the
feldsher
, as he lit a cigarette, having first politely offered one to Anna Nikolaevna.
    â€˜He was a marvellous doctor!’ said Pelagea Ivanovna enthusiastically, her eyes gleaming as she stared into the life-giving fire. The imitation brilliants of her Sunday-best comb glinted in her black hair.
    â€˜Yes, he was a remarkable personality,’ the
feldsher
agreed. ‘The peasants literally worshipped him. He had