Page 571 - the-idiot

fortnight to live.
‘But is it true that I have but a fortnight of life left to me? I
know I told some of my friends that Doctor B. had informed
me that this was the case; but I now confess that I lied; B.
has not even seen me. However, a week ago, I called in a
medical student, Kislorodoff, who is a Nationalist, an Athe-
ist, and a Nihilist, by conviction, and that is why I had him.
I needed a man who would tell me the bare truth without
any humbug or ceremony—and so he did—indeed, almost
with pleasure (which I thought was going a little too far).
‘Well, he plumped out that I had about a month left me;
it might be a little more, he said, under favourable circum-
stances, but it might also be considerably less. According to
his opinion I might die quite suddenly—tomorrow, for in-
stance—there had been such cases. Only a day or two since
a young lady at Colomna who suffered from consumption,
and was about on a par with myself in the march of the dis-
ease, was going out to market to buy provisions, when she
suddenly felt faint, lay down on the sofa, gasped once, and
died.
‘Kislorodoff told me all this with a sort of exaggerated
devilmay-care negligence, and as though he did me great
honour by talking to me so, because it showed that he con-
sidered me the same sort of exalted Nihilistic being as
himself, to whom death was a matter of no consequence
whatever, either way.
‘At all events, the fact remained—a month of life and no
more! That he is right in his estimation I am absolutely per-
suaded.

0 The Idiot