But this was far from satisfying our Pole. With his right forefinger on the patient’s pulse and his left hand spread out on his breast, he kept on asking him again and again, “What kind of feeling is it?”
Theodoor, however, did not reply. By this time he was heaving and panting with excitement. His arms and hands were stretched out clutching convulsively at some phantom of his brain. His face wore a look of unutterable bliss which filled the bystanders at once with amazement and horror.
“Doctor, doctor!” muttered van Nerekool, “let us put an end to this. Look at him, look at him. It is disgusting!”
But the Pole would not give in.
“There is no danger, none whatever!” he cried; “we must go on now, we must go on!”
With the tough tenacity of the man of science bent upon fathoming some natural phenomenon, he eagerly watched Theodoor’s slightest movement. He was desperately anxious to make the patient speak out. “Grenits!” he cried, “Grenits, do you hear me; tell me, do you hear me?”
Then he forced up the eyelids, and with his finger sharply filliped his nose as he kept on crying, trembling with impatience: “Do you hear me, Grenits, do you hear?”
Grenits muttered a few incoherent words as he restlessly tossed about on the divan.
“Do you hear me?” persisted the doctor. “Tell me, can you understand?”
“Oh, yes, yes,” at length muttered Grenits, “do leave me alone!”