Read Online A Country Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov - Free Book Online Page A

Against a background of groans and screams Anna Nikolaevna described to me how my predecessor, an experienced surgeon, had performed versions. I listened avidly to her, trying not to miss a single word. Those ten minutes told me more than everything I had read on obstetrics for my qualifying exams, in which I had actually passed the obstetrics paper ‘with distinction’. From her brief remarks, unfinished sentences and passing hints I learned the essentials which are not to be found in any textbooks. And by the time I had begun to dry the perfect whiteness and cleanliness of my hands with sterile gauze, I was seized with confidence and a firm and absolutely definite plan had formed in my mind. There was simply no need to bother any longer over whether it was to be a combined or bi-polar version.
    None of these learned words meant anything at that moment. Only one thing mattered: I had to put one hand inside, assist the version with the other hand from outside and without relying on books but on common sense, without which no doctor is any good, carefully but firmly bring one foot downwards and pull the baby after it.
    I had to be calm and cautious yet at the same time utterly decisive and unfaltering.
    â€˜Right, off you go,’ I instructed the
feldsher
as I began painting my fingers with iodine.
    At once Pelagea Ivanovna folded the woman’s arms and the
feldsher
clamped the mask over her agonised face. Chloroform slowly began to drip out of the dark yellow glass bottle, and the room started to fill with the sweet, nauseous odour. The expressions of the
feldsher
and midwives hardened with concentration, as though inspired …
    â€˜Haaa! Ah!’ The woman suddenly shrieked. For a few seconds she writhed convulsively, trying to force away the mask.
    â€˜Hold her!’
    Pelagea Ivanovna seized her by the arms and lay across her chest. The woman cried out a few more times, jerking her face away from the mask. Her movements slowed down, although she mumbled dully:
    â€˜Oh … let me go … ah …’
    She grew weaker and weaker. The white room was silent. The translucent drops continued to drip, drip, drip on to the white gauze.
    â€˜Pulse, Pelagea Ivanovna?’
    â€˜Firm.’
    Pelagea Ivanovna raised the woman’s arm and let it drop: as lifeless as a leather thong, it flopped on to the sheet. Removing the mask, the
feldsher
examined the pupil of her eye.
    â€˜She’s asleep.’
    A pool of blood. My arms covered in blood up to theelbows. Bloodstains on the sheets. Red clots and lumps of gauze. Pelagea Ivanovna shaking and slapping the baby, Aksinya rattling buckets as she poured water into basins.
    The baby was dipped alternately into cold and hot water. He did not make a sound, his head flopping lifelessly from side to side as though on a thread. Then suddenly there came a noise somewhere between a squeak and a sigh, followed by the first weak, hoarse cry.
    â€˜He’s alive … alive …’ mumbled Pelagea Ivanovna as she laid the baby on a pillow.
    And the mother was alive. Fortunately nothing had gone wrong. I felt her pulse. Yes, it was firm and steady; the
feldsher
gently shook her by the shoulder as he said:
    â€˜Wake up now, my dear.’
    The bloodstained sheets were thrown aside and the mother hastily covered with a clean one before the
feldsher
and Aksinya wheeled her away to the ward. The swaddled baby was borne away on his pillow, the brown, wrinkled little face staring out from its white wrapping as he cried ceaselessly in a thin, pathetic whimper.
    Water gushing from the taps of the sluice. Anna Nikolaevna coughed as she dragged hungrily at a cigarette.
    â€˜You did the version well, doctor. You seemed very confident.’
    Scrubbing furiously at my hands, I glanced sidelong at her: was she being sarcastic? But no, her expression was a sincere one of pride and satisfaction. My heart was brimming with joy. I glanced