<And yet I betrayed the mine once.
Some Vasily Vlasovich Vlasenko was appointed from the 11th mine to ours. He was a “topsy-turvy chief”… The atmosphere in our division became unbearable. I remembered involuntarily that the chief of the surgery department in TsBL Victor Alekseevich Kuznetsov came to our mine last summer. He promised some interesting and meaningful work, so I decided: I’ll try once again.>
«Last time they cut gas gangrene with this knife,» I said cutting rye «free» bread.
«And now let us spread pate with it,» replied doctor Ludwig, my pupil/
He was a very gifted young German from the Crimea, a very capable surgeon. So he reasoned,
«I am a doctor. But ... I am German and imprisoned because of my father arrested in '37. I have no chance in a big city. So I must be like a county doctor of old times: a surgeon, a physician, an infectious disease specialist, a pediatrician, a dentist, an oculist – all in one. And I can all of that. My weak point is ear, nose, throat. Here I got a great manual. But it is in French. Please, Euphrosiniya Antonovna, would you teach me French?
And he had done it! Every night he came to the dressing room. Without any textbook. Without any grammar guide and, worst of all, without a dictionary. Directly from the manual. I read and translated word for word. Explained the spelling. Then he read. Compiled a dictionary. And got through. Even superbly. However… He was not destined to being a doctor outside. So he went back to school working as an electrician. And made a power engineer.