Doctor Vladimir Paulitch arrived at the castle just in time to take care of Gilbert.The wound was wide and deep, and in consequence of the great heat which prevailed, it might easily have proved serious; fortunately, Doctor Vladimir was a skillful man, and under his care the wound was soon healed.He employed certain specifics, the uses of which were known only to himself, and which he took care to keep a secret from his patient.His medicine was as mysterious as his person.
Vladimir Paulitch was forty years of age; his face was striking but unattractive.His eyes had the color and the hard brightness of steel; his keen glances, subject to his will, often questioned, but never allowed themselves to be interrogated.Well made, slender, a slight and graceful figure, he had in his gait and movements a feline suppleness and stealthiness.He was slow, but easy of speech, and never animated; the tone of his voice was cold and veiled, and whatever the subject of conversation might be, he neither raised nor lowered it; no modulations; everyone of his sentences terminated in a little minor cadence, which fell sadly on the ear.He sometimes smiled in speaking, it is true, but it was a pale smile which did not light up his face.This smile signified simply: "I do not give you my best reason, and I defy you to divine it."One morning when Ivan had come by order of the doctor to dress Gilbert's wound, our friend questioned him as to the character and life of Vladimir Paulitch.Of the man Ivan knew nothing, and confined himself to extolling the genius of the physician; he expressed himself in regard to him in a mysterious tone.The imposing face of this impenetrable personage, the extraordinary power of his glance, his impassible gravity, the miraculous cures which he had wrought, it needed no more to convince the honest serf that Vladimir Paulitch dealt in magic and held communications with spirits; and he felt for his person a profound veneration mingled with superstitious terror.He told Gilbert that since the age of twenty-five, Vladimir had been directing a hospital and private asylum which Count Kostia had founded upon his estates, and that, thanks to him, these two establishments had not their equals in all Russia.