Denis Valentinovich Manturov Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian ...
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Varlam Shalamov
Shock therapy
* * *
Even at that fertile time, when Merzlyakov worked as a groom, and in a home-made kruporushka - a large can with a broken bottom in the manner of a sieve - it was possible to cook cereal for people from oats obtained for horses, cook porridge and use this bitter hot mess to drown out, calm hunger , even then he was thinking about one simple question. Large contiguous mainland horses received daily a portion of state-owned oats, twice as much as the squat and shaggy Yakut horses, although both carried equally little. The bastard-Percheron Grom was poured into the trough as much oats as would be enough for five "Yakuts". It was right, it was done everywhere, and this was not what tormented Merzlyakov. He did not understand why the human camp ration, this mysterious list of proteins, fats, vitamins and calories intended for absorption by prisoners and called the cauldron leaf, was compiled without taking into account the live weight of people at all. If they are treated like working animals, then in matters of diet, one must be more consistent, and not stick to some kind of arithmetic mean - bureaucratic fiction. This terrible average, at best, was beneficial only to undersized, and indeed, undersized reached later than others. Merzlyakov in his build was like a Percheron Thunder, and the pitiful three tablespoons of porridge for breakfast only increased the sucking pain in the stomach. But apart from the ration, the brigade worker could get almost nothing. All the most valuable things - butter, sugar, and meat - didn’t get into the cauldron in the amount recorded in the cauldron list. I saw Merzlyakov and more. Tall people were the first to die. No habit of hard work changed absolutely nothing here. The puny intellectual still held out longer than the giant Kaluga resident - a natural mole rat - if they were fed the same, in accordance with the camp ration. There was also little use in increasing the ration for the percentage of output, because the main painting remained the same, in no way designed for tall people. In order to eat better, it was necessary to work better, and in order to work better, it was necessary to eat better. Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians were the first to die everywhere. They were the first to reach, which always aroused the doctors' remarks: they say, this whole Baltic region is weaker than the Russian people. True, the native life of the Latvians and Estonians was further from the life of the camp than the life of the Russian peasant, and it was more difficult for them. But the main thing still was different: they were not less hardy, they were simply larger in stature.
A year and a half ago, it happened to Merzlyakov after scurvy, which quickly knocked down a newcomer, to work as a freelance orderly in a local hospital. There he saw that the choice of the dose of the medicine was done by weight. New drugs are being tested on rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, and the human dose is calculated in terms of body weight. Doses for children are less than doses for adults.
But the camp ration was not calculated on the basis of human body weight. This was the question, the wrong decision of which surprised and worried Merzlyakov. But before he was completely weakened, he miraculously managed to get a job as a groom - a place where he could steal oats from horses and fill his stomach with them. Merzlyakov already thought that he would spend the winter, and then God willing. But it didn't work out that way. The head of the horse base was dismissed for drunkenness, and a senior groom was appointed to his place - one of those who once taught Merzlyakov to handle a tin grinder. The head groom himself ate a lot of oats and knew perfectly how to do it. In an effort to prove himself to his superiors, he, no longer needing oatmeal, found and broke all the groats with his own hand. They began to fry, boil and eat oats in their natural form, completely equating their stomach to that of a horse. The new manager wrote a report to his superiors. Several grooms, including Merzlyakov, were on
end of introductory snippet
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| Shock therapy
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Even at that fertile time, when Merzlyakov worked as a groom, and in a home-made kruporushka - a large can with a broken bottom in the manner of a sieve - it was possible to cook cereal for people from oats obtained for horses, cook porridge and use this bitter hot mess to drown out, calm hunger , even then he was thinking about one simple question. Large contiguous mainland horses received daily a portion of state-owned oats, twice as much as the squat and shaggy Yakut horses, although both carried equally little. The bastard-Percheron Grom was poured into the trough as much oats as would be enough for five "Yakuts". It was right, it was done everywhere, and this was not what tormented Merzlyakov. He did not understand why the human camp ration, this mysterious list of proteins, fats, vitamins and calories intended for absorption by prisoners and called the cauldron leaf, was compiled without taking into account the live weight of people at all. If they are treated like working animals, then in matters of diet, one must be more consistent, and not stick to some kind of arithmetic mean - bureaucratic fiction. This terrible average, at best, was beneficial only to undersized, and indeed, undersized reached later than others. Merzlyakov in his build was like a Percheron Thunder, and the pitiful three tablespoons of porridge for breakfast only increased the sucking pain in the stomach. But apart from the ration, the brigade worker could get almost nothing. All the most valuable things - butter, sugar, and meat - didn’t get into the cauldron in the amount recorded in the cauldron list. I saw Merzlyakov and more. Tall people were the first to die. No habit of hard work changed absolutely nothing here. The puny intellectual still held out longer than the giant Kaluga resident - a natural mole rat - if they were fed the same, in accordance with the camp ration. There was also little use in increasing the ration for the percentage of output, because the main painting remained the same, in no way designed for tall people. In order to eat better, it was necessary to work better, and in order to work better, it was necessary to eat better. Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians were the first to die everywhere. They were the first to reach, which always aroused the doctors' remarks: they say, this whole Baltic region is weaker than the Russian people. True, the native life of the Latvians and Estonians was further from the life of the camp than the life of the Russian peasant, and it was more difficult for them. But the main thing still was different: they were not less hardy, they were simply larger in stature.
A year and a half ago, it happened to Merzlyakov after scurvy, which quickly knocked down the newcomer, to work as a freelance orderly in a local hospital. There he saw that the choice of the dose of the medicine was done by weight. New drugs are being tested in rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, and the human dose is calculated in terms of body weight.
Doses for children are less than doses for adults.
But the camp ration was not calculated on the basis of human body weight. This was the question, the wrong decision of which surprised and worried Merzlyakov. But before he was completely weakened, he miraculously managed to get a job as a groom - a place where he could steal oats from horses and fill his stomach with them. Merzlyakov already thought that he would spend the winter, and then God willing. But it didn't work out that way. The head of the horse base was dismissed for drunkenness, and a senior groom was appointed to his place - one of those who once taught Merzlyakov to handle a tin grinder. The head groom himself ate a lot of oats and knew perfectly how to do it. In an effort to prove himself to his superiors, he, no longer needing oatmeal, found and broke all the groats with his own hand. They began to fry, boil and eat oats in their natural form, completely equating their stomach to that of a horse. The new manager wrote a report to his superiors. Several grooms, including Merzlyakov, were put in a punishment cell for stealing oats and sent from the horse base to where they came from - to general work.
In general work, Merzlyakov soon realized that with ...
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Varlam Shalamov
Shock therapy
Even at that fertile time, when Merzlyakov worked as a groom, and in a home-made kruporushka - a large can with a broken bottom in the manner of a sieve - it was possible to cook cereal for people from oats obtained for horses, cook porridge and use this bitter hot mess to drown out, calm hunger , even then he was thinking about one simple question. Large contiguous mainland horses received daily a portion of state-owned oats, twice as much as the squat and shaggy Yakut horses, although both carried equally little. The bastard-Percheron Grom was poured into the trough as much oats as would be enough for five "Yakuts". It was right, it was done everywhere, and this was not what tormented Merzlyakov. He did not understand why the human camp ration, this mysterious list of proteins, fats, vitamins and calories intended for absorption by prisoners and called the cauldron leaf, was compiled without taking into account the live weight of people at all. If they are treated like working animals, then in matters of diet, one must be more consistent, and not stick to some kind of arithmetic mean - bureaucratic fiction. This terrible average, at best, was beneficial only to undersized, and indeed, undersized reached later than others. Merzlyakov in his build was like a Percheron Thunder, and the pitiful three tablespoons of porridge for breakfast only increased the sucking pain in the stomach. But apart from the ration, the brigade worker could get almost nothing. All the most valuable things - butter, sugar, and meat - didn’t get into the cauldron in the amount recorded in the cauldron list. I saw Merzlyakov and more. Tall people were the first to die. No habit of hard work changed absolutely nothing here. The puny intellectual still held out longer than the giant Kaluga resident - a natural mole rat - if they were fed the same, in accordance with the camp ration. There was also little use in increasing the ration for the percentage of output, because the main painting remained the same, in no way designed for tall people. In order to eat better, it was necessary to work better, and in order to work better, it was necessary to eat better. Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians were the first to die everywhere. They were the first to reach, which always aroused the doctors' remarks: they say, this whole Baltic region is weaker than the Russian people. True, the native life of the Latvians and Estonians was further from the life of the camp than the life of the Russian peasant, and it was more difficult for them. But the main thing still was different: they were not less hardy, they were simply larger in stature.
A year and a half ago, it happened to Merzlyakov after scurvy, which quickly knocked down the newcomer, to work as a freelance orderly in a local hospital. There he saw that the choice of the dose of the medicine was done by weight. New drugs are being tested in rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, and the human dose is calculated in terms of body weight. Doses for children are less than doses for adults.
But the camp ration was not calculated on the basis of human body weight. This was the question, the wrong decision of which surprised and worried Merzlyakov. But before he was completely weakened, he miraculously managed to get a job as a groom - a place where he could steal oats from horses and fill his stomach with them. Merzlyakov already thought that he would spend the winter, and then God willing. But it didn't work out that way. The head of the horse base was dismissed for drunkenness, and a senior groom was appointed to his place - one of those who once taught Merzlyakov to handle a tin grinder. The head groom himself ate a lot of oats and knew perfectly how to do it. In an effort to prove himself to his superiors, he, no longer needing oatmeal, found and broke all the groats with his own hand. They began to fry, boil and eat oats in their natural form, completely equating their stomach to that of a horse. The new manager wrote a report to his superiors. Several grooms, including Merzlyakov, were put in a punishment cell for stealing oats and sent from the horse base to where they came from - to general work.
In general work, Merzlyakov soon realized that death was near. He swayed under the weight of the logs that had to be dragged. The ten's manager, who disliked this lazy forehead ("forehead" means "tall" in the local language), every time put Merzlyakov "under the butt", forcing him to drag the butt, the thick end of the log. Once Merzlyakov fell down, could not get up right away from the snow and, suddenly making up his mind, refused to drag this damned log. It was already late, dark, the guards were in a hurry for political studies, the workers wanted to get to the barracks as soon as possible, before food, the foreman was late for the card battle that evening - Merzlyakov was to blame for the whole delay. And he was punished. He was beaten first by his own comrades, then by the foreman, by the guards. The log remained in the snow - instead of a log, they brought Merzlyakov to the camp. He was released from work and lay on a bunk. The lower back hurt. The paramedic smeared Merzlyakov's back with solid oil - there were no means for rubbing in the first-aid post for a long time. Merzlyakov was lying half bent all the time, persistently complaining of pain in his lower back. There was no pain for a long time, the broken rib healed very quickly, and Merzlyakov tried to delay the discharge to work at the cost of any lie. He was not discharged. Once they dressed him, put him on a stretcher, loaded him into the back of a car and, together with another patient, took him to the district hospital. The X-ray room was not there. Now it was necessary to think about everything seriously, and Merzlyakov thought about it. He lay there for several months, without unbending, was transported to the central hospital, where, of course, there was an X-ray room and where Merzlyakov was placed in the surgical department, in the wards of traumatic diseases, which, in the simplicity of their mental health, the patients called "dramatic" illnesses, without thinking about bitterness of this pun.
- Here's more of this, - said the surgeon, pointing to the history of Merzlyakov's illness, - we are transferring to you, Pyotr Ivanovich, there is nothing to treat him in the surgery.
- But you write in the diagnosis: ankylosis due to a spinal injury. What is it to me? - said the neurologist.
- Well, ankylosis, of course. What else can I write? After the beatings, things like that may not happen. Here I had a case at the "Gray" mine. The ten's manager beat a hard worker ...
- There is no time, Seryozha, to listen to me about your cases. I ask: why translate?
- I wrote: "For a survey on the subject of activation." Pull it with needles, activate it - and onto the steamer. Let him be a free man.
- But did you take the pictures? Violations should be visible without needles.
- I did. Here, if you please see. - The surgeon pointed a dark film negative on the gauze curtain. - The devil will understand in such a picture. Until there is good light, good current, our X-ray technicians will always give such turbidity.
- Truly dregs, - said Pyotr Ivanovich. - Well, so be it. - And he signed his last name on the case history, consent to transfer Merzlyakov to himself.
In the surgical department, noisy, stupid, overflowing with frostbites, dislocations, fractures, burns - the northern mines were not joking - in the department where some of the patients lay right on the floor of the wards and corridors, where one young, endlessly tired surgeon with four paramedics worked: all they slept for three or four hours a day - there they could not attentively deal with Merzlyakov. Merzlyakov realized that in the nervous department, where he was suddenly transferred, a real investigation would begin.
All his convict, desperate will has long been focused on one thing: not to straighten up. And he did not unbend. How the body wanted to straighten even for a second. But he recalled the mine, the cold breath-taking breath, the frozen, slippery stones of the gold mine glistening with frost, a bowl of soup, which he drank in one gulp at dinner without using an unnecessary spoon, the butts of the guards and the boots of the foremen - and he found the strength in himself not to straighten ... However, now it was already easier than the first weeks. He slept a little, afraid to straighten out in his sleep. He knew that the orderlies on duty had long been ordered to follow him in order to catch him in deception. And after the incrimination - and this, too, Merzlyakov knew - was sent to a penalty mine, but what should a penalty mine be if an ordinary one left such terrible memories with Merzlyakov?
The day after the transfer, Merzlyakov was taken to a doctor. The head of the department asked briefly about the onset of the disease, nodded his head sympathetically. He told, as it were, by the way, that even healthy muscles get used to it after months of unnatural position, and a person can make himself disabled. Then Pyotr Ivanovich proceeded to the examination. To questions when a needle was injected, when tapping with a rubber hammer, when pressed, Merzlyakov answered at random.
Pyotr Ivanovich spent more than half of his working time on exposing simulators. He understood, of course, the reasons that pushed the prisoners to simulate. Pyotr Ivanovich himself was recently a prisoner, and he was not surprised by the childish stubbornness of the simulators, or the frivolous primitiveness of their forgeries. Pyotr Ivanovich, a former associate professor of one of the Siberian institutes, himself laid down his scientific career in the same snow, where his patients saved their lives by deceiving him. It cannot be said that he did not feel sorry for people. But he was a doctor more than a man, he was a specialist above all. He was proud that a year of general work did not knock him out of a specialist doctor. He understood the task of exposing deceivers not at all from any high, national point of view, and not from the standpoint of morality. He saw in her, in this task, a worthy application of his knowledge, his psychological ability to set traps, into which hungry, half-mad, unhappy people should have fallen to the greater glory of science. In this battle between the doctor and the simulator, everything was on the side of the doctor - thousands of cunning medicines, and hundreds of textbooks, and rich equipment, and the help of a convoy, and a huge experience of a specialist, and on the side of the patient there was only horror before the world from which he came to the hospital. and where he was afraid to return. It was this horror that gave the prisoner the strength to fight. Unmasking yet another deceiver, Pyotr Ivanovich felt deep satisfaction: once again he receives a testimony from life that he good doctor that he did not lose his qualifications, but, on the contrary, perfected, polished it, in a word, what else can he ...
Even at that fertile time, when Merzlyakov worked as a groom, and in a home-made kruporushka - a large can with a broken bottom in the manner of a sieve - it was possible to cook cereal for people from oats obtained for horses, cook porridge and use this bitter hot mess to drown out, calm hunger , even then he was thinking about one simple question. Large contiguous mainland horses received daily a portion of state-owned oats, twice as much as the squat and shaggy Yakut horses, although both carried equally little. The bastard-Percheron Grom was poured into the trough as much oats as would be enough for five "Yakuts". It was right, it was done everywhere, and this was not what tormented Merzlyakov. He did not understand why the human camp ration, this mysterious list of proteins, fats, vitamins and calories intended for absorption by prisoners and called the cauldron leaf, was compiled without taking into account the live weight of people at all. If they are treated like working animals, then in matters of diet, one must be more consistent, and not stick to some kind of arithmetic mean - bureaucratic fiction. This terrible average, at best, was beneficial only to undersized, and indeed, undersized reached later than others. Merzlyakov in his build was like a Percheron Thunder, and the pitiful three tablespoons of porridge for breakfast only increased the sucking pain in the stomach. But apart from the ration, the brigade worker could get almost nothing. All the most valuable things - butter, sugar, and meat - didn’t get into the cauldron in the amount recorded in the cauldron list. I saw Merzlyakov and more. Tall people were the first to die. No habit of hard work changed absolutely nothing here. The puny intellectual still held out longer than the giant Kaluga resident - a natural mole rat - if they were fed the same, in accordance with the camp ration. There was also little use in increasing the ration for the percentage of output, because the main painting remained the same, in no way designed for tall people. In order to eat better, it was necessary to work better, and in order to work better, it was necessary to eat better. Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians were the first to die everywhere. They were the first to reach, which always aroused the doctors' remarks: they say, this whole Baltic region is weaker than the Russian people. True, the native life of the Latvians and Estonians was further from the life of the camp than the life of the Russian peasant, and it was more difficult for them. But the main thing still was different: they were not less hardy, they were simply larger in stature.
A year and a half ago, it happened to Merzlyakov after scurvy, which quickly knocked down the newcomer, to work as a freelance orderly in a local hospital. There he saw that the choice of the dose of the medicine was done by weight. New drugs are being tested in rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, and the human dose is calculated in terms of body weight. Doses for children are less than doses for adults.
But the camp ration was not calculated on the basis of human body weight. This was the question, the wrong decision of which surprised and worried Merzlyakov. But before he was completely weakened, he miraculously managed to get a job as a groom - a place where he could steal oats from horses and fill his stomach with them. Merzlyakov already thought that he would spend the winter, and then God willing. But it didn't work out that way. The head of the horse base was dismissed for drunkenness, and a senior groom was appointed to his place - one of those who once taught Merzlyakov to handle a tin grinder. The head groom himself ate a lot of oats and knew perfectly how to do it. In an effort to prove himself to his superiors, he, no longer needing oatmeal, found and broke all the groats with his own hand. They began to fry, boil and eat oats in their natural form, completely equating their stomach to that of a horse. The new manager wrote a report to his superiors. Several grooms, including Merzlyakov, were put in a punishment cell for stealing oats and sent from the horse base to where they came from - to general work.
In general work, Merzlyakov soon realized that death was near. He swayed under the weight of the logs that had to be dragged. The ten's manager, who disliked this lazy forehead ("forehead" means "tall" in the local language), every time put Merzlyakov "under the butt", forcing him to drag the butt, the thick end of the log. Once Merzlyakov fell down, could not get up right away from the snow and, suddenly making up his mind, refused to drag this damned log. It was already late, dark, the guards were in a hurry for political studies, the workers wanted to get to the barracks as soon as possible, before food, the foreman was late for the card battle that evening - Merzlyakov was to blame for the whole delay. And he was punished. He was beaten first by his own comrades, then by the foreman, by the guards. The log remained in the snow - instead of a log, they brought Merzlyakov to the camp. He was released from work and lay on a bunk. The lower back hurt. The paramedic smeared Merzlyakov's back with solid oil - there were no means for rubbing in the first-aid post for a long time. Merzlyakov was lying half bent all the time, persistently complaining of pain in his lower back. There was no pain for a long time, the broken rib healed very quickly, and Merzlyakov tried to delay the discharge to work at the cost of any lie. He was not discharged. Once they dressed him, put him on a stretcher, loaded him into the back of a car and, together with another patient, took him to the district hospital. The X-ray room was not there. Now it was necessary to think about everything seriously, and Merzlyakov thought about it. He lay there for several months, without unbending, was transported to the central hospital, where, of course, there was an X-ray room and where Merzlyakov was placed in the surgical department, in the wards of traumatic diseases, which, in the simplicity of their mental health, the patients called "dramatic" illnesses, without thinking about bitterness of this pun.
- Here's more of this, - said the surgeon, pointing to the history of Merzlyakov's illness, - we are transferring to you, Pyotr Ivanovich, there is nothing to treat him in the surgery.
- But you write in the diagnosis: ankylosis due to a spinal injury. What is it to me? - said the neurologist.
- Well, ankylosis, of course. What else can I write? After the beatings, things like that may not happen. Here I had a case at the "Gray" mine. The ten's manager beat a hard worker ...
- There is no time, Seryozha, to listen to me about your cases. I ask: why translate?
- I wrote: "For a survey on the subject of activation." Pull it with needles, activate it - and onto the steamer. Let him be a free man.
- But did you take the pictures? Violations should be visible without needles.
- I did. Here, if you please see. - The surgeon pointed a dark film negative on the gauze curtain. - The devil will understand in such a picture. Until there is good light, good current, our X-ray technicians will always give such turbidity.
- Truly dregs, - said Pyotr Ivanovich. - Well, so be it. - And he signed his last name on the case history, consent to transfer Merzlyakov to himself.
In the surgical department, noisy, stupid, overflowing with frostbites, dislocations, fractures, burns - the northern mines were not joking - in the department where some of the patients lay right on the floor of the wards and corridors, where one young, endlessly tired surgeon with four paramedics worked: all they slept for three or four hours a day - there they could not attentively deal with Merzlyakov. Merzlyakov realized that in the nervous department, where he was suddenly transferred, a real investigation would begin.
All his convict, desperate will has long been focused on one thing: not to straighten up. And he did not unbend. How the body wanted to straighten even for a second. But he recalled the mine, the cold breath-taking breath, the frozen, slippery stones of the gold mine glistening with frost, a bowl of soup, which he drank in one gulp at dinner without using an unnecessary spoon, the butts of the guards and the boots of the foremen - and he found the strength in himself not to straighten ... However, now it was already easier than the first weeks. He slept a little, afraid to straighten out in his sleep. He knew that the orderlies on duty had long been ordered to follow him in order to catch him in deception. And after the incrimination - and this, too, Merzlyakov knew - was sent to a penalty mine, but what should a penalty mine be if an ordinary one left such terrible memories with Merzlyakov?
The day after the transfer, Merzlyakov was taken to a doctor. The head of the department asked briefly about the onset of the disease, nodded his head sympathetically. He told, as it were, by the way, that even healthy muscles get used to it after months of unnatural position, and a person can make himself disabled. Then Pyotr Ivanovich proceeded to the examination. To questions when a needle was injected, when tapping with a rubber hammer, when pressed, Merzlyakov answered at random.
Pyotr Ivanovich spent more than half of his working time on exposing simulators. He understood, of course, the reasons that pushed the prisoners to simulate. Pyotr Ivanovich himself was recently a prisoner, and he was not surprised either by the childish stubbornness of the simulators, or by the frivolous primitiveness of their forgeries. Pyotr Ivanovich, a former associate professor of one of the Siberian institutes, himself laid down his scientific career in the same snow, where his patients saved their lives by deceiving him. It cannot be said that he did not feel sorry for people. But he was a doctor more than a man, he was a specialist above all. He was proud that a year of general work did not knock him out of a specialist doctor. He understood the task of exposing deceivers not at all from any high, national point of view, and not from the standpoint of morality. He saw in her, in this task, a worthy application of his knowledge, his psychological ability to set traps, into which hungry, half-mad, unhappy people should have fallen to the greater glory of science. In this battle between the doctor and the simulator, everything was on the side of the doctor - thousands of cunning medicines, and hundreds of textbooks, and rich equipment, and the help of a convoy, and a huge experience of a specialist, and on the side of the patient there was only horror before the world from which he came to the hospital. and where he was afraid to return. It was this horror that gave the prisoner the strength to fight. Unmasking another deceiver, Pyotr Ivanovich felt deep satisfaction: once again he receives a life certificate that he is a good doctor, that he has not lost his qualifications, but, on the contrary, honed it, polished it, in a word, what else can he ...
“These surgeons are fools,” he thought, lighting a cigarette after Merzlyakov left. - Topographic anatomy is unknown or forgotten, and reflexes have never been known. They are saved with one X-ray. And there is no picture - and they cannot confidently say even about a simple fracture. And how much style! - That Merzlyakov is a simulator is clear to Pyotr Ivanovich, of course. - Well, let it lie down for a week. For this week, we will collect all the analyzes so that everything is in shape. We will glue all the pieces of paper into the history of the disease. "
Pyotr Ivanovich smiled, anticipating the theatrical effect of a new exposure.
A week later, at the hospital, they assembled a stage on a steamer - the transfer of patients to the mainland. The protocols were written right there in the ward, and the chairman of the medical commission, who came from the department, personally looked through the patients who were prepared by the hospital for dispatch. His role was reduced to viewing documents, checking the proper execution - a personal examination of the patient took half a minute.
“On my lists,” said the surgeon, “there is a certain Merzlyakov. A year ago, the guards broke his spine. I would like to send it. He was recently transferred to the Nervous Department. Documents for shipment - now, prepared.
The chairman of the commission turned towards the neurologist.
- Bring Merzlyakov, - said Pyotr Ivanovich. The half-bent Merzlyakov was brought in. The chairman gave him a cursory glance.
“What a gorilla,” he said. - Yes, of course, there is nothing to keep such. And, taking the pen, he reached for the lists.
“I don’t give my signature,” said Pyotr Ivanovich in a loud and clear voice. “This is a simulator, and tomorrow I will have the honor to show it to you and the surgeon.
- Well, then let's leave, - the chairman said indifferently, putting down his pen. - And anyway, let's finish, it's too late.
“He’s a simulator, Seryozha,” said Pyotr Ivanovich, taking the surgeon's arm as they left the ward. The surgeon freed his hand.
“Maybe,” he said, wincing in disgust. - God grant you success in exposing. Have tons of fun.
The next day, Pyotr Ivanovich, at a meeting with the head of the hospital, reported on Merzlyakov in detail.
“I think,” he said in conclusion, “that we will carry out the exposure of Merzlyakov in two steps. The first will be Rausch anesthesia, which you have forgotten about, Sergei Fedorovich, - he said triumphantly, turning towards the surgeon. - It should have been done right away. And if the Rausch doesn’t give anything, then ... - Pyotr Ivanovich threw up his hands - then shock therapy. This is an interesting thing, I assure you.
- Isn't it too much? - said Alexandra Sergeevna, head of the largest department of the hospital - tuberculosis, a plump, overweight woman who had recently arrived from the mainland.
- Well, - said the head of the hospital, - such a bastard ... - He was a little shy in the presence of the ladies.
- Let's look at the results of the raush, - said Pyotr Ivanovich conciliatory.
Rausch anesthesia is a short-term deafening ether anesthesia. The patient falls asleep for fifteen to twenty minutes, and during this time the surgeon must have time to correct the dislocation, amputate a finger or open some painful abscess.
The authorities, dressed in white coats, surrounded the operating table in the dressing room, where they laid the obedient half-bent Merzlyakov. The orderlies took hold of the canvas tapes with which patients are usually tied to the operating table.
- Don't, don't! - Pyotr Ivanovich shouted, running up. “You don’t need ribbons.”
Merzlyakov's face was turned up. The surgeon put an anesthetic mask on him and took a bottle of ether in his hand.
- Begin, Seryozha!
Ether dripped.
- Breathe deeper, deeper, Merzlyakov! Count it out loud!
“Twenty-six, twenty-seven,” Merzlyakov counted in a lazy voice, and, suddenly cutting off the count, he said something, not immediately clear, fragmentary, sprinkled with obscene language.
Pyotr Ivanovich held in his hand Merzlyakov's left hand. After a few minutes, the hand weakened. Pyotr Ivanovich released her. A hand fell softly and deadly on the edge of the table. Pyotr Ivanovich slowly and solemnly straightened Merzlyakov's body. Everyone gasped.
“Now tie him up,” Pyotr Ivanovich said to the orderlies.
Merzlyakov opened his eyes and saw the hairy fist of the head of the hospital.
- Well, you reptile, - the chief wheezed. - Now you will go to court.
- Well done, Peter Ivanovich, well done! - repeated the chairman of the commission, slapping the neurologist on the shoulder. - But yesterday I was just going to give this gorilla free!
- Untie him! - commanded by Peter Ivanovich. - Get off the table!
Merzlyakov has not yet fully regained consciousness. His temples were pounding, his mouth was sickening, the sweet taste of ether. Merzlyakov still did not understand whether it was a dream or a reality, and, perhaps, he had such dreams more than once and before.
- Well, all of you to your mother! He shouted unexpectedly and bent down as before.
Broad-shouldered, bony, almost touching the floor with his long, thick fingers, with a dull look and tousled hair, he really looks like a gorilla. Merzlyakov left the dressing room. Pyotr Ivanovich was informed that the patient Merzlyakov was lying on the bed in his usual position. The doctor ordered to bring him to his office.
- You are exposed. Merzlyakov, - said the neurologist. - But I asked the chief. You will not be put on trial, you will not be sent to the penal mine, you will simply be discharged from the hospital, and you will return to your mine, to your old job. You are a hero, brother. He has been fooling our heads for a whole year.
“I don’t know anything,” said the gorilla without looking up.
- How you do not know? After all, you have just been straightened!
- Nobody unbend me.
- Well, my dear, - said the neurologist. - This is completely unnecessary. I wanted to be nice with you. And so - look, you yourself will ask to be discharged in a week.
"Well, what else will be there in a week," said Merzlyakov quietly. How was he to explain to the doctor that even an extra week, an extra day, an extra hour spent not in the mine, this is his, Merzlyakov's, happiness. If the doctor does not understand this himself, how to explain it to him? Merzlyakov was silent and looked at the floor.
Merzlyakov was taken away, and Pyotr Ivanovich went to the head of the hospital.
- So it is possible tomorrow, and not in a week, - said the chief, having listened to the proposal of Pyotr Ivanovich.
- I promised him a week, - said Pyotr Ivanovich, - the hospital will not become impoverished.
- Well, okay, - said the chief. - Let it be in a week. Just call me. Will you bind?
“You can't tie,” said the neuropathologist. - Dislocates an arm or leg. They will keep. - And, taking the medical history of Merzlyakov, the neuropathologist wrote "shock therapy" in the prescriptions column and put the date.
During shock therapy, a dose of camphor oil is injected into the patient's blood in an amount several times higher than the dose of the same drug, when it is administered by a subcutaneous injection to maintain the heart activity of seriously ill patients. Its action leads to a sudden attack, similar to an attack of violent madness or an epileptic seizure. Under the blow of camphor, the whole muscle activity, all the motor forces of a person. The muscles come into unprecedented tension, and the strength of the patient who has lost consciousness increases tenfold. The attack lasts a few minutes.
Several days passed, and Merzlyakov did not even think to unbend on his own. Morning came, recorded in the medical history, and Merzlyakov was brought to Pyotr Ivanovich. In the North, every entertainment is treasured - the doctor's office was full. Eight burly orderlies were lined up along the walls. There was a couch in the middle of the office.
“He’s not coming,” said Anna Ivanovna, the nurse on duty. - He said busy.
“Busy, busy,” repeated Pyotr Ivanovich. - It would be useful for him to see how I do his work for him.
Merzlyakov's sleeve was rolled up, and the paramedic anointed his hand with iodine. Taking in right hand syringe, the paramedic pierced the vein with a needle near the elbow. Dark blood gushed from the needle into the syringe. The paramedic pressed the plunger with a gentle motion of his thumb, and the yellow solution began to go into the vein.
- Pour in quickly! - said Pyotr Ivanovich. - And quickly step aside. And you, ”he said to the orderlies,“ keep him.
The huge body of Merzlyakov jumped up and beat in the hands of the orderlies. Eight people held him. He wheezed, thrashed, kicked, but the orderlies held him tight, and he began to subside.
“You can keep a tiger, a tiger like that,” shouted Pyotr Ivanovich in delight. - In Transbaikalia, tigers are caught like that with their hands. Pay attention, - he said to the head of the hospital, - how Gogol exaggerates. Remember the end of Taras Bulba? "Few not thirty people hung on his arms and legs." And this gorilla is bigger than Bulba. And only eight people.
“Yes, yes,” said the boss. He did not remember Gogol, but he liked the shock therapy extremely.
The next morning, Pyotr Ivanovich, during a round of patients, lingered at Merzlyakov's bed.
- Well, how, - he asked, - what is your decision?
“Write it out,” said Merzlyakov.
