Make a brilliant career, the famous relatives of both lovers in life could only admire such a lucky coincidence and similarity of characters. They zealously advised, each in his own way, to engage in scientific research, to pass immediately the candidate’s minimum, to enter the graduate school so that the circle of acquaintances would be expanded by the names of eminent professors and academicians:
“Do not stand still, but move forward in a spiral into the knowledge – the progress of humanity.”
What he did immediately, cherishing the hope of being perceived by her, as the most worthy of the citizens of a developed democratic society.
“Such happiness that you passed all the exams with excellence, I did not expect from you, my beloved,” she admired.
“At the top of me, too, all appreciated, but you’re my only…” he was embarrassed by his genius and truthfulness.
“Reality is our cradle,” his wife helped him to find himself after a rapid rise to the highest circles. They loved to travel with profit and much cheaper: he built houses and a school for street children, and she was content to calmly bear the load of cares, not burdening him with her problems, constantly studying, under his father’s leadership, life abroad.
“A good home friend would never stop us from being with you, instantly finding everything at once. I will join the Masons and Mormons. You will be my captive of a harem, a servant of a nun, a modest gray nun, a dancer ‘Moulin Rouge,’ a ballerina in the ‘Swan Lake’.”
She laughed in return, but did not renounce their main principle: to be always on the same side of the barricades. Wars, revolutions did not weaken, but strengthened the earthly attraction of Orpheus and Eurydice, Tristan and Isolde, Peter and Fevronia, Ruslan and Lyudmila. What served them was to take care only of the welfare of the people surrounding such respectable, sedate and prolific parents who managed to bring to the people of all their pupils and inmates. In retirement, they also led an ascetic lifestyle, always figuring in the center of friends and acquaintances. They were equal, they took an example of inimitable firmness, purposefulness. He never hurt, he watched his health. Once a year he went to a balneological or other Russian resort.
In a prestigious sanatorium, located in the resort area, where he had come once again with his twin brother, at a daily rate an ordinary housemaid had to iron out all the linen brought from the laundry and then spread out through the rooms.
“Yesterday came my own twin brother. I was moved to his room. He stopped here because we booked seats in this sanatorium beforehand, but could not buy tickets for one train because of the sciatica that I came here to treat” an elderly man set off into detailed reasoning and descriptions, took out of his pocket two old-fashioned branded boxes of medicines and showed an efficient maid.
“This is what the local head doctor prescribed to me after the examination: nimesulide, meloxicam. A former masseur – daghestanian man, I met him at the polyclinic, studied Tibetan medicine. He recommended vacuum therapy for me. But I prefer to be treated by folk methods. To do this, brought with me cups for massage techniques Ku Nye. Did you heard about such procedures?” the old man asked apologetically.
“No, I did not hear anything,” she answered with fright, looking up at the wise old man who had mastered, along with the ancient oriental methods of treatment, the doctors of Tibet, a complex of medicine using special cups.
“Would you like to get at least one procedure for free?” he asked sarcastically.
“I do not have time,” she answered calmly, turning her beautiful head toward him, and looked directly at the deep-set, expressive, light green eyes, under the thick, dense eyebrows and forehead, cut into even rows of wrinkles. “But I know that in the spa in our city they write down for an advertising campaign for a trial session.”
“Did you have time to recover before you arrived?”
“My back never hurts from work,” a modest, quiet maid with the manner of a nurse admitted kindly and carefully.
“I see that you are so strong and smart,” the old man got excited, grabbed the woman with one hand for the left bare arm, squeezed his muscles as if to measure the pressure, and immediately let go, but she did not pay any sharp attention to his sharp gesture.
“It’s our duty to take care of the cleanliness of the buildings.”
“I will be cured; we will return to our home, I will teach you the methods of massage. You’ll take care of my house at home and make good money with treatment sessions.”
“Thanks for the offer. I’ll think about it, “she said somehow deafly, to herself, shifting the ironed sheets from place to place.
“While the specialist will massage my back: cervicothoracic, humeral, vertebral-sacral parts using various oils. Burdock, for example. One session costs ten euros or seven hundred rubles. Vacuum therapy will improve my blood circulation at the site of exposure, remove chondroses. After several sessions, the pain syndrome will decrease.”
The maid showed her head in surprise.
“Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“No, I do not understand. We did not go to medicine at school,” turning again into the pose of the ironman, she said ironically.
“What do not you understand, dear, say?” he asked again, hoping for mutual trust.
“I remember that my mother used hot and cold compresses in turn to remove acute pain, especially at the initial stage of the disease, after laying the rails on the railway. I applied them to the site of back pain for twenty minutes every two to three hours. But this helped her a little. Then she enrolled in acupuncture through the brunt of her brother. I paid decent – a thousand rubles, but my brother did not allow her to visit the polyclinic often, he went to the hospital himself, and then went to Altai, as he said, to study moxa-therapy – heating up with cigars. He wrote in a letter that he cured not only his back, but also his legs. They were taken from him when walking. He worked on a tractor in the village. He caught a cold and almost died. No healer could help relieve tension and soreness. I remember my mother was walking, limping,” the maid told her family history of the disease bitterly.
“We need to think over your words. Do you love Mom’s brother?” the old man asked with a feeling of anger that the old man asked with a feeling of anger that he had been rejected.
“Grandfather, go, rest,” the maid advised sympathetically.
“I’ll go now. But you better don’t teach me anymore. I myself know that acupuncture is performed with the help of thin needles, which are introduced into the place of localization of pain. This is a long-known, well-proven method. Still there is a method of alternative medicine – apitherapy – treatment by bee stings. They use them for many diseases. For multiple sclerosis, including sciatica, but here in the sanatorium, there are no such procedures. But ‘moxa’ is a bad word.”
“Do not like it, do not say… And you probably have an apiary, if you all know so well about the disease?”
“I had an apiary, but I sold it. There is no one to mess around with the hives. It is necessary to clean them constantly and re-apply the solution for bait.”
“Really. It was easier to go to the bazaar and buy what you need at a reasonable price,” continued the thought of him the maid, who liked to drink tea with honey and gingerbread. She had an unbiased interest in a conversation with an experienced beekeeper and a respectable man.
“I’ll take your advice now. For example, do you know what the technique of neuromuscular relaxation is?”
The old man crouched gratefully at the chair that had been pushed up to her and relaxed.
“I think warming