Kitabı oxu: «Трое в лодке, не считая собаки / Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)»

Иллюстрации М. М. Салтыкова

© Матвеев С. А., подготовка текста, комментарии, словарь

© ООО «Издательство АСТ»

Chapter I

There were four of us – George, and William Samuel Harris¹, and myself, and Montmorency². We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were – bad from a medical point of view, of course.

We were all feeling bad, and we were quite nervous about it. Harris said he had such a very bad headache that he hardly knew what he was doing. And then George said that he had a headache too. As for me, it was my liver that was out of order. I read about the various symptoms of a sick liver in a circular that offered liver-pills. I had them all.

It is a most extraordinary thing, but when I read a medicine advertisement I usually come to the conclusion that I am suffering from the disease that was described.

One day I went to the British Museum to read about hay fever³, I fancy I had it ⁴. I took the book, and read all I needed; and then I idly turned the leaves, and began to study diseases, generally. Immediately I understood that I had some fearful, devastating illness.

I sat for a while, frozen with horror; and then, in despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever⁵ – read the symptoms – discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it – wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus’s Dance ⁶ – found, as I expected, that I had that too, – and so started alphabetically. I had every malady they wrote about! The only malady I had not got was housemaid’s knee ⁷.

I felt rather hurt about this at first. Why hadn’t I got housemaid’s knee? After a while, however, I reflected that I had every other known malady in the pharmacology, and I grew less selfish, and determined to do without housemaid’s knee. There were no more diseases after zymosis⁸, so I concluded there was nothing else the matter with me ⁹.

I thought what an interesting case I must be from a medical point of view! Students would have no need to ‘walk the hospitals’, if they had me. I was a hospital in myself. All they need do would be to walk round me, and, after that, take their diploma.

Then I wondered how long I had to live. I tried to examine myself. I felt my pulse. I could not at first feel any pulse at all. Then, all of a sudden, it seemed to start off¹⁰. I pulled out my watch. I made it a hundred and forty-seven to the minute. I tried to feel my heart. I could not feel my heart. It had stopped beating. I could not feel or hear anything. I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck ¹¹.