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Updated: June 8, 2025
They were going toward the long old house, which was called the castle more by courtesy than by right. "How long are you going to stay in Osterno?" asked Catrina at length. "About a fortnight; I cannot stay longer. I am going to be married." Catrina stopped dead. She stood for a moment looking at the ground with a sort of wonder in her eyes, not pleasant to see.
Whenever Osterno had cholera it sent it down the river to Thors, and so on to the Volga. Thors lay groaning under the scourge, and the Countess Lanovitch shut herself within her stone walls, shivering with fear, begging her daughter to return to Petersburg.
Foolishness and thirst are often found in the same head a cranium which, by the way, is exceptionally liable to be turned by knowledge or drink. If the drink at the kabak of Osterno was dangerous, the knowledge was no less so. "I tell you, little fathers," an orator was shouting, "that the day of the capitalist has gone.
We propose spending about an hour in the village, if you will kindly advise the starosta to be ready for us. As our time is limited, and we are much needed in Osterno, we shall have to deprive ourselves of the pleasure of calling at the castle. The prince sends kind remembrances, and proposes riding over to Thors to avail himself of your proffered hospitality in a day or two.
"I must go in five minutes," he said. "I have a few instructions to give you, to which I must beg your careful attention." He looked up, meeting Etta's somewhat sullen gaze with a smile of triumph. "It is essential," he went on, "that I be invited to Osterno. I do not want to stay there long; indeed, I do not care to. But I must see the place. I dare say you can compass the invitation, madame?"
He would have liked Etta to be favorably impressed with it, as any prejudice would naturally reflect upon Osterno, 140 miles across the steppe. But with a characteristic silent patience he made the necessary preparations for an immediate start. The night express from St. Petersburg had deposited them on the platform in the early morning. Steinmetz had preceded them.
The Moscow doctor was looked upon in Osterno and in many neighboring villages as second only to God. In fact, many of the peasants placed him before their Creator. They were stupid, vodka-soddened, hapless men. The Moscow doctor they could see for themselves.
These two men, locked in a small room in the middle of the castle of Osterno a room with no window, but which gained its light from the clear heaven by a shaft and a skylight on the roof locked in thus they had been engaged in the addition of an enormous mass of figures. Each sheet had been carefully annotated and added by Steinmetz, and as each was finished he handed it to his companion.
"It is too late for them to go now." The village, nestling beneath the grim protection of Osterno, was deserted and forlorn. All the doors were closed, the meagre curtains drawn. It was very cold. There was a sense of relief in this great frost; for when Nature puts forth her strength men are usually cowed thereby. At the castle all seemed to be in order.
He thought that Etta could manage to love him well, as she said she did, and yet take an interest in that which was in reality the object of his life. He intended to take the earliest opportunity of telling her all about the work he was endeavoring to carry out at Osterno, and the knowledge that he was withholding something from her was a constant burden to an upright and honest nature.
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