Page:Stories from Garshin.djvu/41

28 stone floor, and was lighted by a single window in a corner; the walls and vaulted roof were painted dark red; two stone baths, like two oval pits filled with water, were sunk in the floor (which was black with dirt), with their rims on a level with it. A huge brass stove, with a cylindrical cauldron to heat the water, and a complete array of brass pipes and taps filled up the corner opposite the window. The whole place wore an appearance which seemed to a morbid imagination unusually gloomy and fantastic; and the dismal face of the bath-keeper, a fat, taciturn Oukrainian, still further strengthened the impression.

Thus, when the patient was taken into this terrible room to have a bath, and, in accordance with the system of treatment adopted by the head doctor of the asylum, a large blister was placed on the back of his neck, he was seized with horror and fury. Absurd fancies, one more monstrous than another, crowded through his brain. What was this? The inquisition? Some place of secret execution, where his enemies had resolved to make an end of him. Perhaps, hell itself. At last the idea came into his head that he was to be put to the question.

The attendants undressed him in spite of his desperate resistance. His disease had doubled his muscular strength, and he easily