: India, Dutch colony. A lady goes to a local doctor and dies. Tormented by conscience, the doctor does not let the husband of the lady find out the truth at the cost of his life.

In March 1912, in a Neapolitan port, a strange accident occurred while unloading an ocean boat. The true explanation for this case is contained in a story told by one passenger of the ship to another. The narration is conducted in the first person.

I studied in Germany, became a good doctor, worked in the Leipzig clinic, introduced a new injection into practice, about which much was written in medical journals of that time. In the hospital, I fell in love with a woman, imperious and impudent, who treated me coldly and arrogantly. Because of her, I wasted hospital money. A scandal erupted. My uncle made up for the shortage, but my career was over.

At this time, the Dutch government recruited doctors for the colonies and offered lifting. I signed a contract for ten years and received a lot of money. I sent half to my uncle, and the second half was lured out of me by a person in the port quarter, surprisingly similar to that woman from the hospital.

I left Europe without money and regrets. I was assigned to a dead post eight hours drive from the nearest town, surrounded by plantations and swamps.

Initially, I was engaged in scientific observations, collecting poisons and weapons of the natives. I alone, without assistants, had an operation for a vice president who broke his leg in a car accident. Seven years later, due to the heat and fever, I almost lost my human appearance. I had a special kind of tropical disease, a febrile impotent homesickness.

Once a young beautiful stranger came to my house. For the deal - a secret abortion and my immediate departure to Europe - she offered a large fee. I was stunned by her prudence. Perfectly confident in her power, she did not ask me, but appreciated and wanted to buy. I felt that she needed me and therefore hated me. I hated her for not wanting to ask when it came to life and death.

I was confused in my head by the desire to humiliate her. I said that for the money I will not do this. She should turn to me not as a tradesman, but as a person, then I will help her. She looked at me in amazement, laughed contemptuously at my face, and rushed to the door. My strength was broken. I rushed after her to beg her forgiveness, but did not have time - she left.

In the tropics everyone knows each other. I found out that she is the wife of a major businessman, very rich, from a good English family and lives in the main district of the city. Her husband spent five months in America and in the coming days should come to take her to Europe. I was tormented by the thought: she is pregnant for no more than two or three months. I was possessed by an obsession, a state of amok, "a fit of senseless, bloodthirsty monomania that cannot be compared with any other type of alcoholic intoxication." I could not find out the cause of this disease,

Just like “an obsessed amok rushes out of the house onto the street and runs, ... ... until they shoot him like a mad dog, or he collapses to the ground,” so I rushed after this woman, putting all my future at stake. Only three days remained to save her. I knew that I had to give her immediate help, and I could not talk to her - my frantic and absurd persecution scared her. I only wanted to help her, but she did not understand this.

I went to the vice president and asked me to be immediately transferred to the city. He said that we had to wait until they found a replacement for me, and invited him to see the governor. At the reception, I met her. She was afraid of some of my awkward antics and hated me for my ridiculous ardor.

I went into the tavern and got drunk, like a man who wants to forget everything, but I could not stupefy myself. I knew that this proud woman would not survive her humiliation in front of her husband and society, so I wrote her a letter asking her for forgiveness, begging her to trust me and promising to disappear from the colony at the same time. I wrote that I would wait until seven o’clock, and if I didn’t get an answer, I would shoot myself.

I waited as driven by amok - pointless, stupid, with insane, straightforward stubbornness. In the fourth hour I received a note: “Late! But wait at home. Maybe I'll call you again. ” Later, her servant came to me, whose face and gaze spoke of misfortune. We rushed to Chinatown, to a dirty little house. There, in a dark room, there was the smell of vodka and clotted blood, and she lay on a dirty mat, writhing from pain and intense heat. I immediately realized that she had let herself be crippled in order to avoid publicity.

She was mutilated and bleeding, and I had neither medicine nor pure water. I said that I need to go to the hospital, but she frantically got up and said: "No ... no ... better death ... so that no one would know ... Home ... home!".

I realized that she did not fight for life, but only for her secret and honor, and obeyed. My servant and I put her on a stretcher and carried her home through the darkness of the night. I knew you couldn’t help her. By morning, she woke up again, made me swear that no one would know anything, and died.

It was very difficult for me to explain to people why a healthy, full-bodied woman who had danced the day before at the governor’s ball died. Her reliable servant helped me a lot, who washed away the traces of blood from the floor and put everything in order. The decisiveness with which he acted restored my composure.

With great difficulty, I managed to persuade the city doctor to give a false conclusion about the cause of death - “heart paralysis”. I promised him to leave this week. Having escorted him, I collapsed to the floor by her very bed, as if driven by an amok at the end of my crazy run.

Soon the servant announced that they wanted to see her. Before me stood a young, fair-haired officer, very pale and embarrassed. That would be the father of her unbearable child. In front of the bed he fell to his knees. I picked it up, put it in a chair. He burst into tears and asked who was to blame for her death. I replied that fate was to blame. Even to him, I did not reveal secrets. He did not know that she was pregnant from him and wanted me to kill this child.

The next four days, I was hiding from this officer - her husband, who did not believe the official version, was looking for me. Then her lover bought for me, under a false name, a place on the ship so that I could escape. I made my way to the ship at night, unrecognized, and saw her coffin being lifted aboard - the husband was carrying her body to England. I stood and thought that in England they could perform an autopsy, but I will be able to keep her secret.

Italian newspapers wrote about what happened in Naples. That night, at a late hour, so as not to disturb the sad spectacle of passengers, a coffin with the remains of a noble lady from the Dutch colonies was lowered into the boat from the side of the boat. The sailors descended the rope ladder, and the husband of the deceased helped them. At that moment, something heavy collapsed from the upper deck and dragged the coffin, and the husband, and sailors into the water.

According to one version, it was some kind of madman who rushed down on the rope ladder. The sailors and husband of the deceased were saved, but the lead coffin went to the bottom, and he could not be found. At the same time, a short note appeared that the corpse of an unknown forty-year-old man washed ashore in the port. The note did not attract attention.