'"I would like that," answered my brother, "especially as I am wounded, and this Frenchman is a Surgeon-Major. He will dress my leg."
'"Surgeon-Major!" replied the burgomaster; "that is lucky, for we have here a good fellow in the village who had his arm broken this morning by a Frenchman. The Surgeon-Major will set his arm for him."
'We were taken into a very warm room, where there was a bed intended for the Cossack; but he refused it, and asked for some straw for himself, and some for me, which he had put to one side so as not to awaken suspicion. For brother Cossack they brought bread, lard, sauer-kraut, beer, and gin; potatoes and water for me. The burgomaster showed my brother a quantity of weapons in a corner of the room; they had belonged to the Frenchmen whom the peasants had disarmed that morning. There were pistols, carbines, five or six muskets, as well as cavalry swords and several packets of cartridges.
'While we were at our meal, a peasant with his arm in a sling entered the room, accompanied by a woman; it was the man with the broken arm. He came and sat down near me, so I decided to go in for bravado. I asked for linen bandages, and a little splint of pine-wood. The arm was broken clean between the wrist and the elbow. During the last five years, I had seen so many operations that I did not hesitate to set to work. There was no wound to be seen. I signed to a peasant to hold the sick man by the shoulders, and to the wife to hold his hand. Then I set, and pretty well, too, I think, the broken bone, just as I should have set a piece of wood. To begin with, I felt my way a little, while the devil of a fellow shouted and made villainous faces. Then I applied compresses, sprinkled with schnapps; afterwards four splints that I bound up with linen bandages. The man felt better, and told me I was a good fellow. His wife and the burgomaster complimented me, and I was able to breathe. They gave me a large glass of gin to reward me.
'But this was not all. The burgomaster gave me to understand I must go and see a woman who for the last few days had been suffering horribly; it was a case of a young woman in labour. They had been to Kowno for an accoucheur, but all was in such disorder because of the Russians and French that one could not be found.
'"As a general thing," he said, "it is a service the old women render, but it seems this is a complicated case."
'I tried to make the burgomaster understand that, having lost my surgical instruments, I could undertake no operation; that, moreover, I was no accoucheur—I understood nothing about it. But I couldn't make myself understood; they thought it was simply ill-will on my part. I was obliged to go. Conducted by two peasants and three women, I was led to the end of the village. I do not know if it was my having left such a warm room, but I was as cold as death. Finally we reached the place.
'I was taken into a room where I found three old women, just like the three Fates; they were round a young woman lying on a bed, who was shrieking every now and again a great deal louder than the man with the broken arm. One of the old women took me up to the sick woman, and a second lifted the coverlet. Imagine my embarrassment! Saying nothing, I looked at the three old crones, to gather from their looks what they wanted me to do. But they were waiting likewise, looking at me to see what I intended. The sick woman, too, had her eyes fixed upon me. Finally, I understood one of the old women to say I must find out whether the child still lived. I made up my mind, and placed my great paw, as cold as ice, on the patient. The touch made her leap up and utter a scream enough to make the house shake. This cry was followed by a second; the three old cronies seized her, and in less than five minutes all was over—a Prussian subject was born.
'Then, proud of my fresh cure, I rubbed my hands; and as I knew what was usual in my village under similar circumstances, the infant being bathed in warm water and wine, I ordered some to be brought in a basin. Afterwards I asked for some schnapps. They gave me a bottleful of it. I tasted it several times; then, taking a piece of linen which I wetted in the warm water, I sprinkled the schnapps upon it, and applied the compress to the patient, who was feeling extremely comfortable, and who thanked me, pressing my hand.
'I left, escorted by the two men who had brought me, and by two of the old duennas. I was reconducted before the burgomaster, and praised up to the skies. My Cossack brother had been in a fearful fright, but was delighted to see me again.