Page:Garshin - A Red Flower (1911).djvu/11

Rh lifted high, he walked out of the office, and, almost running, veered to the right in the direction of the department indicated. His guides could hardly keep up with him.

"Ring the bell. I can't. You've tied my hands."

The doorkeeper opened the door and the travellers entered the hospital.

This was a large stone building, an old governmental structure. Two large chambers—one a dining-room, the other a general apartment for calm patients—a wide corridor with a glass door at one end facing the flower garden, and about twenty separate chambers occupied by the patients constituted the ground floor. Here also were fitted up two dark rooms—one lined with cushions, the other with boards—both of which were used for confining the violent, and a large vaulted chamber—a bath room. The upper floor was occupied by women. A discordant din, accompanied by groans and cries, came from there. The hospital was originally constructed for eighty souls, but as it served for several of the neighboring districts it really harbored about three hundred. Each of the little chambers contained four or five beds; during the winter the patients were not