"C M Kornbluth - The Little Black Bag" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

There was wholesale condemnation of "Mike" but Dr. Hemingway took no part in it. He was nagged by
a vague feeling that there was something he would have to do. He reasoned: "I am a doctor, and a doctor
has got to have a little black bag. I ain't got a little black bag-so ain't I a doctor no more?" He decided
that this was absurd. He knew he was a doctor. So it must be the bag's fault for not being there. It was
no good, and he would get another one tomorrow from that dummy Al, at the clinic. Al could find things
good, but he was a dummy- never liked to talk sociable to you.

So the next day Dr. Hemingway remembered to get another little black bag from his keeper-another
little black bag with which he could perform tonsillectomies, appendectomies and the most difficult
confinements, and with which he could diagnose and cure his kind until the day when the supemormals
could bring themselves to cross that bridge. Al was kinda nasty about the missing little black bag, but Dr.
Hemingway didn't exactly remember what had happened, so no tracer was sent out, so- Old Dr. Full
awoke from the horrors of the night to the horrors of the day.

His gummy eyelashes pulled apart convulsively. He was propped against the corner of his room, and
something was making a little drumming noise. He felt very cold and cramped. As his eyes focused on his
lower body, he croaked out a laugh. The drumming noise was being made by his left heel, agitated by
fine tremors against the bare floor. It was going to be the D.T. 's again, he decided dispassionately. He
wiped his mouth with his bloody knuckles, and the fine tremor coarsened; the snaredrum beat became
louder and slower. He was getting a break this fine morning, he decided sardonically. You didn't get the
horrors until you had been tightened like a violin string, just to the breaking point. He had a reprieve, if a
reprieve into his old body with the blazing, endless headache just back of the eyes and the screaming
stillness in the joints were anything to be thankful for.

There was something or other about a kid, he thought vaguely. He was going to doctor some kid. His
eyes rested on a little black bag in the center of the room, and he forgot about the kid. "I could have
sworn," said Dr. Full, "I hocked that two years ago!" He hitched over and reached the bag, and then
realized it was some stranger's kit, arriving here he did not know how. He tentatively touched the lock
and it snapped open and lay flat, rows and rows of instruments and medications tucked into loops in its
four walls. It seemed vastly larger open than closed. He didn't see how it could possibly fold up into that
compact size again,




but decided it was some stunt of the instrument makers. Since his time-that made it worth more at the
hock shop, he thought with satisfaction.

Just for old times' sake, he let his eyes and fingers rove over the instruments before he snapped the bag
shut and headed for Uncle's. More than few were a little hard to recognize-exactly that is. You could see
the things with blades for cutting, the forceps for holding and pulling, the retractors for holding fast, the
needles and gut for suturing, the hypos-a fleeting thought crossed his mind that he could peddle the hypos
separately to drug addicts.

Let's go, he decided, and tried to fold up the case. It didn't fold until he happened to touch the lock, and
then it folded all at once into a little black bag. Sure have forged ahead, he thought, almost able to forget
that what he was primarily interested in was its pawn value.

With a definite objective, it was not too hard for him to get to his feet. He decided to go down the front