| Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn | Александр Солженицын |
| Cancer Ward | Раковый корпус |
| Part One | ЧАСТЬ ПЕРВАЯ |
| 1. | 1 |
| No cancer whatsoever | Вообще не рак |
| On top of it all, the cancer wing was 'number thirteen'. | Раковый корпус носил и номер тринадцать. |
| Pavel Nikolayevich Rusanov had never been and could never be a superstitious person but his heart sank when they wrote 'Wing 13' down on his admission card. | Павел Николаевич Русанов никогда не был и не мог быть суеверен, но что-то опустилось в нём, когда в направлении ему написали: "тринадцатый корпус". |
| They should have had the ingenuity to give number thirteen to some kind of prosthetic or obstetric department. | Вот уж ума не хватило назвать тринадцатым какой-нибудь протечный или кишечный. |
| But this clinic was the only place where they could help him in the whole republic. | Однако во всей республике сейчас не могли ему помочь нигде, кроме этой клиники. |
| 'It isn't, it isn't cancer, is it, Doctor? | - Но ведь у меня - не рак, доктор? |
| I haven't got cancer?' Pavel Nikolayevich asked hopefully, lightly touching the malevolent tumour on the right side of his neck. It seemed to grow almost daily, and yet the tight skin on the outside was as white and inoffensive as ever. | У меня ведь - не рак? - с надеждой спрашивал Павел Николаевич, слегка потрагивая на правой стороне шеи свою злую опухоль, растущую почти по дням, а снаружи все так же обтянутую безобидной белой кожей. |
| 'Good heavens no, of course not.' Dr Dontsova soothed him, for the tenth time, as she filled in the pages of his case history in her bold handwriting. | - Да нет же, нет, конечно, - в десятый раз успокоила его доктор Донцова, размашистым почерком исписывая страницы в истории болезни. |
| Whenever she wrote, she put on her glasses with rectangular frames rounded at the edges, and she would whisk them off as soon as she had finished. | Когда она писала, она надевала очки -скруглённые четырёхугольные, как только прекращала писать - снимала их. |
| She was no longer a young woman; her face looked pale and utterly tired. | Она была уже немолода, и вид у неё был бледный, очень усталый. |
| It had happened at the outpatients' reception a few days ago. | Это было ещё на амбулаторном приёме, несколько дней назад. |
| Patients assigned to a cancer department, even as outpatients, found they could not sleep the next night. | Назначенные в раковый даже на амбулаторный приём, больные уже не спали ночь. |
| And Dontsova had ordered Pavel Nikolayevich to bed immediately. | А Павлу Николаевичу Донцова определила лечь и как можно быстрей. |
| Unforeseen and unprepared for, the disease had come upon him, a happy man with few cares, like a gale in the space of two weeks. But Pavel Nikolayevich was tormented, no less than by the disease itself, by having to enter the clinic as an ordinary patient, just like anyone else. He could hardly remember when last he had been in a public hospital, it was so long ago. |
