Free Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Page A

a distinguished one who had brought up hundreds of pupils. He waited until Ludmila Afanasyevna was quite close to his bed, then he adjusted his glasses and declared, “Comrade Dontsova, I shall be forced to inform the Ministry of Health of the way things are conducted at this clinic. And I shall have to telephone Comrade Ostapenko.”
    She did not tremble or go pale, but perhaps her complexion became a little more pasty. She made a strange movement with her shoulders, a circular movement as though her shoulders were tired and longed to be rid of the harness which held them.
    â€œIf you have good contacts in the Ministry of Health,” she agreed with him at once, “and if you’re in a position to telephone Comrade Ostapenko, I can think of several more things you might add. Shall I tell you what they are?”
    â€œThere is nothing that needs to be added. Your display of indifference is quite enough as it is. I have been in here for eighteen hours, and nobody is giving me treatment. And I am a…” (There was nothing more he could say to her. Surely she could supply the rest herself!)
    Everyone in the room was silent, staring at Rusanov. It was Gangart who was shocked, not Dontsova. Her lips tightened into a thin line. She frowned and knit her brows, as if she had seen something irrevocable take place and been powerless to avert it.
    Dontsova, her large frame towering over the seated Rusanov, did not even permit herself a frown. She made another circular movement of her shoulders and said in a quiet, conciliatory tone, “That’s why I’m here—to give you treatment.”
    â€œNo. It’s too late now.” Pavel Nikolayevich cut her short. “I’ve seen quite enough of the way things are done here, and I’m leaving. No one shows the slightest interest, nobody bothers to make a diagnosis!” There was an unintended tremble in his voice; he was really offended.
    â€œYou’ve had your diagnosis,” Dontsova said slowly, both bands gripping the foot of his bed, “and there’s nowhere else for you to go. No other hospital in the republic will take patients with your particular illness.”
    â€œBut you told me I don’t have cancer!… What is the diagnosis?”
    â€œGenerally speaking, we don’t have to tell our patients what’s wrong with them, but if it will make you feel any better, very well—it’s lymphoma.”
    â€œYou mean it’s not cancer?”
    â€œOf course it’s not.” Her face and voice bore no trace of the bitterness that naturally comes from a quarrel, for she could see clearly enough the fist-sized tumor under his jaw. Who could she feel bitter against? The tumor? “Nobody forced you to come here. You can discharge yourself whenever you like. But remember…” She hesitated. “People don’t only die of cancer.” It was like a friendly warning.
    â€œWhat’s this? Are you trying to frighten me?” Pavel Nikolayevich exclaimed. “Why are you doing it? That’s against the rules of professional etiquette.” He was still rattling away as hard as he could, but at the word “die” everything had suddenly frozen inside him. His voice was noticeably softer when he added, “You … you mean my condition is all that dangerous?”
    â€œOf course it will be if you keep moving from one hospital to another. Take off your scarf. Stand up, please.”
    He took off his scarf and stood up on the floor. Gently Dontsova began to feel the tumor and then the healthy side of the neck, comparing the two. She asked him to move his head back as far as it would go. (It wouldn’t go very far. The tumor immediately began to pull it back.) Next he had to bend it forward as far as possible, then twist it to the left and the right.
    So that was it! His head had apparently already lost practically all its freedom of movement, that amazing effortless