The Schoolmaster and other stories - Penn State University

The Schoolmaster & other storiesThe doctor’s chaise stopped by a well. The examiningmagistrate and the doctor drank some water, stretched,and waited for the coachman to finish watering thehorses.“Well, what did the lady die of?” asked the doctorwhen the chaise was rolling along the road again.“She died in a strange way. One fine day her husbandwent in to her and said that it wouldn’t be amiss to selltheir old coach before the spring and to buy somethingrather newer and lighter instead, and that it might beas well to change the left trace horse and to putBobtchinsky (that was the name of one of her husband’shorses) in the shafts.“His wife listened to him and said:“‘Do as you think best, but it makes no difference tome now. Before the summer I shall be in the cemetery.’“Her husband, of course, shrugged his shoulders andsmiled.“‘I am not joking,’ she said. ‘I tell you in earnest thatI shall soon be dead.’“‘What do you mean by soon?’“‘Directly after my confinement. I shall bear my childand die.’“The husband attached no significance to these words.He did not believe in presentiments of any sort, and heknew that ladies in an interesting condition are apt tobe fanciful and to give way to gloomy ideas generally. Aday later his wife spoke to him again of dying immediatelyafter her confinement, and then every day shespoke of it and he laughed and called her a silly woman,a fortune-teller, a crazy creature. Her approaching deathbecame an idée fixé with his wife. When her husbandwould not listen to her she would go into the kitchenand talk of her death to the nurse and the cook.“‘I haven’t long to live now, nurse,’ she would say. ‘Assoon as my confinement is over I shall die. I did notwant to die so early, but it seems it’s my fate.’“The nurse and the cook were in tears, of course. Sometimesthe priest’s wife or some lady from a neighbouringestate would come and see her and she would take themaside and open her soul to them, always harping on thesame subject, her approaching death. She spoke gravely28