VII
The assistant and the nurse finished the work and Dr. Braudenhoff ordered them to leave. He was still sitting in the floor, crying. He then stood up and locked the surgery room. He didn’t stop crying until Stella woke up, screaming of pain again. But she saw the doctor crying, crying, and crying that she took pity on him. She suspected what had happened and suspected she had no hopes. She tried to not scream so loud to not make him worse and she couldn’t scream loud anymore because she was weak and her throat was inflamed. Dr. Braudenhoff went closer to her, crying. He sat beside her and begged:
"Please, forgive me. I couldn’t, I failed. I wish I could, but I can’t…"
She didn’t understand a word, but she shook her head affirmatively. She somewhat knew that he was begging pardon. Then the tears fell like two waterfalls from the doctor’s eyes. "She knows what I have done and she forgives me. Oh, Lord, please, save her. I never wanted anything in my life more than this. It’s beyond my powers. I failed badly. Take pity on her, if not on me, please. I deserve a doomed fate, but she doesn’t…" He prayed, he cried a lot.
After many time he stood up and decided to give a large amount of morphine to Stella to, at least, ease her pain. So he did and after a few minutes she was weeping in silence. He sat near her and put his hand on her head, caressing her little hair very softly. He stayed there many hours, staring at her, caressing her head and crying. She slept for some time and woke up later. She was feeling a little pain because the morphine could block almost all her pain.
But nothing could ease Dr. Braudenhoff´s pain. He was watching Stella becoming weaker and weaker in front of him. He didn’t stop crying since he has seen the extension of her wound. Stella took pity on him and reunited some strength to gently touch his face and comfort him. He started to cry bitterly. It was the first time that someone outside of his family cared about him so much. "She could have been my wife…" He realized how she was good. And he remembered well how she was beautiful. But he soon realized "And I threw it all away. I KILLED HER I will never forgive myself for this…" She whispered:
"Az én-m jó doktor" (something like "my good doctor").
He didn’t understand any word in Hungarian, but he could understand more or less the meaning, as she gave a little smile when she said this. But she was very weak and it was almost impossible to her to speak. Dr. Braudenhoff put his hand in her wound, to try to feel alterations, but everything seemed to be normal. Unfortunately it wasn’t and her death was a matter of time. He accidentally scratched his hand in her * and was ashamed of this, because he felt she would think he wanted to abuse her. But she didn’t say anything and felt comfortable to the touch. He left his hands there for some seconds more, but decided to remove them, because the hopes were completely lost and it would be more painful to believe something good could change.
One would be impressed how Stella could not be angry at the doctor. It is difficult to answer, but after seeing him crying for a whole day long because of her, she realized that he would never do that again, no matter what were the consequences of not doing that. She didn't have many hopes of being alive before and at least, before dying, she could see that even if all her people were exterminated, there would always be someone good to take pity on the others. She would die assured that, no matter what is the final result of the war; there would ever be good people in the world.
In a few hours, Stella’s condition was worse and she was losing her consciousness. She was suffering and Dr. Braudenhoff decided to give some medicine to make her sleep. He knew she was about to die, so he decided it would be better if she passed away sleeping. So he went to give the injection, but he hesitated some seconds and stared at her beautiful blue eyes. He knew that was the last time he would see her beautiful eyes. He, then, injected the medicine saying:
"Rest in peace, my angel."
She slept and he started to cry out loud. He was not ashamed to cry. He was ashamed of the monster he turned out to be. "She will die. MY ANGEL will die. I KILLED HER. Why this my God? Why this? Why did you let me do this? She was the last person who deserved to suffer. She loved me and I caused her death. God, please, take my life, not hers! She doesn’t deserve, she doesn’t deserve, angel. Sweet Stella. Why she can’t be well and marry me, like in the movies? Why not? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? I killed her, I killed her. I killed my love, my angel…" The only thing that remained to him was to beg to "The One who can do anything".
Her pulse slowed and after some hours her heart stopped beating. Dr. Braudenhoff lost all hopes. He was waiting for a miracle, but now he realized that there is no miracle. What is done is done. This was the hardest lesson he learned during his life. It is commonly the hardest lesson for a man to learn. He learned in such a horrible situation.
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