Oh, yes!  I had wholly forgotten to say that Nurse Hripsime, though she could neither read nor write, was a skilful physician.  She laid the sick person on the grass, administered a sherbet, cured hemorrhoids and epilepsy; and especially with sick women was she successful.  Yes, to her skill I myself can bear witness.  About four years ago my child was taken ill in the dog-days, and for three years my wife had had a fever, so that she was very feeble.  The daughter of Arutin, the gold-worker, and the wife of Saak, the tile-maker, said to me:  “There is an excellent physician called Hripsime.  Send for her, and you will not regret it.”  To speak candidly, I have never found much brains in our doctor.  He turns round on his heels and scribbles out a great many prescriptions, but his skill is not worth a toadstool.

I sent for Hripsime, and, sure enough, not three days had passed before my wife’s fever had ceased and my children’s pain was allayed.  For three years, thank God, no sickness has visited my house.  Whether it can be laid to her skill and the lightness of her hand or to the medicine I know not.  I know well, however, that Nurse Hripsime is my family physician.  And what do I pay her?  Five rubles a year, no more and no less.  When she comes to us it is a holiday for my children, so sweetly does she speak to them and so well does she know how to win their hearts.  Indeed, if I were a sultan, she should be my vezir.

“How does the city stand in regard to sickness?” I asked her.

“Of that one would rather not speak,” answered Hripsime.  “Ten more such years and our whole city will become a hospital.  Heaven knows what kind of diseases they are!  Moreover, they are of a very peculiar kind, and often the people die very suddenly.  The bells fly in pieces almost from so much tolling, the grave-diggers’ shovels are blunt, and from the great demand for coffins the price of wood is risen.  What will become of us, I know not.”

“Is not, then, the cause of these diseases known to you?”

“Oh, that is clear enough,” answered Hripsime.  “It is a punishment for our sins.  What good deeds have we done that we should expect God’s mercy?  Thieves, counterfeiters, all these you find among us.  They snatch the last shirt from the poor man’s back, purloin trust moneys, church money:  in a word, there is no shameless deed we will not undertake for profit.  We need not wonder if God punishes us for it.  Yes, God acts justly, praised be his holy name!  Indeed, it would be marvellous if God let us go unpunished.”

Hripsime was not a little excited, and that was just what I wished.  When she once began she could no longer hold in:  her words gushed forth as from a spring, and the more she spoke the smoother her speech.

“Do you know?” I began again, “that I have been standing a long while before this deserted yard, and cannot recall whose house stood here, why they have pulled it down, and what has become of its inhabitants?  You are an aged woman, and have peeped into every corner of our city:  you must have something to tell about it.  If you have nothing important on hand, be kind enough to tell me what you know of the former residents of the vanished house.”