"But whether by slaving like this, or what not, I don't know how it was: anyway I got ill. My feet and arms seemed paralyzed all at once; dark spots came on my body, and my teeth got all shaky, like keys in an organ. 'Take him off to the hospital,' they said. The doctor said it was scurvy. Whether or no, it was a fact I got worse and worse. At last one of the miners lying in the hospital, an old Brodiaga[3], said to me: 'Don't you pay any attention to them or to the doctor, for they'll cure you for the next world. Listen to good advice. Send someone to the taiga for toadstools, fill a bottle with them, and after it has been standing a certain time and has got strong, drink a wineglass of it with vodka every day.' I did just as he told me, and after a week I was quite fit again.
"Afterwards I saw the Brodiaga coming along. I thought: 'He'll expect to be treated.' So I stood treat for him. He said: 'Well, what did you think of it?'
"'I think it was a good trick, but I don't want to do it a second time.'
"'You're right,' he said. 'Have you ever seen the cook draw the veins out of the meat when he's getting the inspector's cutlets ready?'
"'Now, you see, if you stop here, they'll draw all the veins and all the strength out of you. You've saved a little money; go away from here, and don't look back.'
"I left the hospital, and went to get my 'time.' But it was a difficult business. 'Stop here,' they said to me, 'stop here, and we'll raise your wages.' And so on. But I didn't agree. 'Your money is good, but dear,' I answered. The inspector got very angry, and shouted, 'Ass!' And they counted it out to me: I had got a round sum of a thousand roubles, all but a hundred and fifty."
"Did you really drink that stuff, Maciej?"
"A-ah! It was the first medicine I ever took," he answered.
But the shoemaker, understanding my incredulity, set it aside by an excellent explanation:
"No fear! Even two bottles of toadstools wouldn't hurt a machine like that!"
"Am I a machine now? Why, you only see half of what I was!"
"Oh yes! I tell you, I wasn't like this. What do I look like now? A greyhound grown thin! Is this an arm?" And he untwisted his shirt sleeve and showed us an arm of which a leg might have been jealous. "Is this a leg?" Drawing his wide trousers tight, he looked piteously at his leg measuring over a yard round. "I usedn't to be like this," he ended with a sigh.