"Ah! Well, in that case, to be sure, let them go. Only, those

German quacks are mischievous.... They ought to be persuaded....

Well, let them go then."

He glanced once more at his watch.

"Oh! time's up already," And he went to the door. The celebrated

doctor announced to the princess (a feeling of what was due from

him dictated his doing so) that he ought to see the patient once

more.

"What! another examination!" cried the mother, with horror.

"Oh, no, only a few details, princess."

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"Come this way."

And the mother, accompanied by the doctor, went into the drawing

room to Kitty. Wasted and flushed, with a peculiar glitter in

her eyes, left there by the agony of shame she had been put

through, Kitty stood in the middle of the room. When the doctor

came in she flushed crimson, and her eyes filled with tears. All

her illness and treatment struck her as a thing so stupid,

ludicrous even! Doctoring her seemed to her as absurd as

putting together the pieces of a broken vase. Her heart was

broken. Why would they try to cure her with pills and powders?

But she could not grieve her mother, especially as her mother

considered herself to blame.

"May I trouble you to sit down, princess?" the celebrated doctor

said to her.

He sat down with a smile, facing her, felt her pulse, and again

began asking her tiresome questions. She answered him, and all at

once got up, furious.

"Excuse me, doctor, but there is really no object in this. This

is the third time you've asked me the same thing."

The celebrated doctor did not take offense.

"Nervous irritability," he said to the princess, when Kitty had

left the room. "However, I had finished..."

And the doctor began scientifically explaining to the princess,

as an exceptionally intelligent woman, the condition of the young

princess, and concluded by insisting on the drinking of

the waters, which were certainly harmless. At the question:

Should they go abroad? the doctor plunged into deep meditation,

as though resolving a weighty problem. Finally his decision was

pronounced: they were to go abroad, but to put no faith in

foreign quacks, and to apply to him in any need.

It seemed as though some piece of good fortune had come to pass

after the doctor had gone. The mother was much more cheerful

when she went back to her daughter, and Kitty pretended to be

more cheerful. She had often, almost always, to be pretending

now.




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