"Wilkie Collins - The New Magdalen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Collins Wilkie)

in the kitchen, and the greater part of them were asleep. Mercy took Grace
Roseberry's clothes from the corner in which they had been left to dry, and made
for the shed--a rough structure of wood, built out from the cottage wall. At the
front door she encountered a second sentinel, and showed her pass for the second
time. She spoke to this man, asking him if he understood French. He answered
that he understood a little. Mercy gave him a piece of money, and said: "I am
going to pack up my luggage in the shed. Be kind enough to see that nobody
disturbs me." The sentinel saluted, in token that he understood. Mercy
disappeared in the dark interior of the shed.
Left alone with Surgeon Wetzel, Horace noticed the strange old man still bending
intently over the English lady who had been killed by the shell.
"Anything remarkable," he asked, "in the manner of that poor creature's death?"
"Nothing to put in a newspaper," retorted the cynic, pursuing his investigations
as attentively as ever.
"Interesting to a doctor--eh?" said Horace.
"Yes. Interesting to a doctor," was the gruff reply.
Horace good-humoredly accepted the hint implied in those words. He quitted the
room by the door leading into the yard, and waited for the charming
Englishwoman, as he had been instructed, outside the cottage.
Left by himself, Ignatius Wetzel, after a first cautious look all round him,
opened the upper part of Grace's dress, and laid his left hand on her heart.
Taking a little steel instrument from his waistcoat pocket with the other hand,
he applied it carefully to the wound, raised a morsel of the broken and
depressed bone of the skull, and waited for the result. "Aha!" he cried,
addressing with a terrible gayety the senseless creature under his hands. "The
Frenchman says you are dead, my dear--does he? The Frenchman is a Quack! The
Frenchman is an Ass!" He lifted his head, and called into the kitchen. "Max!" A
sleepy young German, covered with a dresser's apron from his chin to his feet,
drew the curtain, and waited for his instructions. "Bring me my black bag," said
Ignatius Wetzel. Having given that order, he rubbed his hands cheerfully, and
shook himself like a dog. "Now I am quite happy," croaked the terrible old man,
with his fierce eyes leering sidelong at the bed. "My dear, dead Englishwoman, I
would not have missed this meeting with you for all the money I have in the
world. Ha! you infernal French Quack, you call it death, do you? I call it
suspended animation from pressure on the brain!"
Max appeared with the black bag.
Ignatius Wetzel selected two fearful instruments, bright and new, and hugged
them to his bosom. "My little boys," he said, tenderly, as if they were his
children; "my blessed little boys, come to work!" He turned to the assistant.
"Do you remember the battle of Solferino, Max--and the Austrian soldier I
operated on for a wound on the head?"
The assistant's sleepy eyes opened wide; he was evidently interested. "I
remember," he said. "I held the candle."
The master led the way to the bed.
"I am not satisfied with the result of that operation at Solferino," he said; "I
have wanted to try again ever since. It's true that I saved the man's life, but
I failed to give him back his reason along with it. It might have been something
wrong in the operation, or it might have been something wrong in the man.
Whichever it was, he will live and die mad. Now look here, my little Max, at
this dear young lady on the bed. She gives me just what I wanted; here is the