iderably annoyed me,
but I bore it patiently, and afterwards received my reward, for during
my illness I found it very convenient to have an attendant within call.
And I must do Anton the justice to say that he served me well in his own
somnolent fashion. He seemed to have the faculty of hearing when asleep,
and generally appeared in my room before he had succeeded in getting his
eyes completely open.

Anton had never found time, during his long life, to form many opinions,
but he had somehow imbibed or inhaled a few convictions, all of a
decidedly conservative kind, and one of these was that feldshers were
useless and dangerous members of society. Again and again he had advised
me to have nothing to do with the one who visited me, and more than once
he recommended to me an old woman of the name of Masha, who lived in
a village a few miles off. Masha was what is known in Russia as a
znakharka--that is to say, a woman who is half witch, half medical
practitioner--the whole permeated with a strong leaven of knavery.
According to Anton, she could effect by means of herbs and charms every
possible cure short of raising from the dead, and even with regard to
this last operation he cautiously refrained from expressing an opinion.

The idea of being subjected to a course of herbs and charms by an old
woman who probably knew very little about the hidden properties of
either, did not seem to me inviting, and more than once I flatly
refused to have recourse to such unhallowed means. On due consideration,
however, I thought that a professional interview with the old witch
would be rather amusing, and then a brilliant idea occurred to me! I
would bring together the feldsher and the znakharka, who no doubt hated
each other with a Kilkenny-cat hatred, and let them fight out their
differences before me for the benefit of science and my own delectation.

The more I thought of my project, the more I congratulated myself on
having conceived such a scheme; but, alas! in this very imperfectly
organised world of ours brilliant ideas are seldom realised, and in this
case I was destined to be disappointed. Did the old woman's black art
warn her of approaching danger, or was she simply actuated by a feeling
of professional jealousy and considerations of professional etiquette?
To this question I can give no positive answer, but certain it is that
she could not be induced to pay me a visit, and I was thus balked of
my expected amusement. I su