Stories Page 15

  Gusev’s thoughts break off, and instead of a pond, a big, eyeless bull’s head appears out of nowhere, and the horse and sleigh are no longer driving but are whirling in the black smoke. But all the same he is glad to have seen his family. Joy takes his breath away, gives him gooseflesh all over, quivers in his fingers.

  “God has granted me to see them!” he says in his sleep, but at once opens his eyes and feels for water in the darkness.

  He drinks and lies down, and again the sleigh is driving, then again the eyeless bull’s head, the smoke, the clouds … And so it goes till dawn.

  II

  First a blue circle outlines itself in the darkness—it is a round window; then Gusev gradually begins to distinguish the man on the cot next to his, Pavel Ivanych. This man sleeps in a sitting position, because when he lies down he suffocates. His face is gray, his nose long, sharp, his eyes, owing to his great emaciation, are enormous; his temples are sunken, his little beard is thin, the hair on his head is long … Looking into his face, it is hard to tell what he is socially: a gentleman, a merchant, or a peasant? Judging by his expression and his long hair, he seems to be an ascetic, a monastery novice, but when you listen to what he says—it turns out that he may not be a monk. Coughing, stuffiness, and his illness have exhausted him, he breathes heavily and moves his dry lips. Noticing Gusev looking at him, he turns his face to him and says:

  “I’m beginning to guess … Yes … Now I understand it all perfectly.”

  “What do you understand, Pavel Ivanych?”

  “Here’s what … I kept thinking it was strange that you gravely ill people, instead of staying in a quiet place, wound up on a ship, where the stuffiness, and the heat, and the tossing—everything, in short, threatens you with death, but now it’s all clear to me … Yes … Your doctors put you on a ship to get rid of you. They’re tired of bothering with you, with brutes … You don’t pay them anything, you’re a bother to them, and you ruin their statistics for them by dying—which means you’re brutes! And it’s not hard to get rid of you … For that it’s necessary, first, to have no conscience or brotherly love, and, second, to deceive the ship’s authorities. The first condition doesn’t count, in that respect we’re all artists, and the second always works if you have the knack. In a crowd of four hundred healthy soldiers and sailors, five sick men don’t stand out; so they herded you onto the ship, mixing you in with the healthy ones, counted you up quickly, and in the turmoil didn’t notice anything wrong, but when the ship got under way what did they see: paralytics and terminal consumptives lying around on deck …”

  Gusev does not understand Pavel Ivanych; thinking that he is being reprimanded, he says, to justify himself:

  “I lay on the deck because I had no strength. When they unloaded us from the barge onto the ship, I caught a bad chill.”

  “Outrageous!” Pavel Ivanych goes on. “Above all, they know perfectly well you won’t survive this long passage, and yet they put you here! Well, suppose you get as far as the Indian Ocean, but what then? It’s terrible to think … And this is their gratitude for loyal, blameless service!”

  Pavel Ivanych makes angry eyes, winces squeamishly, and gasps out:

  “There are some who ought to be thrashed in the newspapers till the feathers fly”

  The two sick soldiers and the sailor are awake and already playing cards. The sailor is half lying on a cot, the soldiers are sitting on the floor in the most uncomfortable positions. One soldier has his right arm in a sling and a whole bundle wrapped around his wrist, so he holds his cards under his right armpit or in the crook of his arm and plays with his left hand. The ship is tossing badly. It is impossible to stand up, or have tea, or take medicine.

  “You served as an orderly?” Pavel Ivanych asks Gusev.

  “Yes, sir, as an orderly.”

  “My God, my God!” says Pavel Ivanych, shaking his head ruefully. “To tear a man out of his native nest, drag him ten thousand miles away, then drive him to consumption, and … and all that for what, you may ask? To make him the orderly of some Captain Kopeikin or Midshipman Dyrka.1 Mighty logical!”

  “The work’s not hard, Pavel Ivanych! You get up in the morning, polish his boots, prepare the samovar, tidy his rooms, and then there’s nothing to do. The lieutenant draws his plans all day, and you can pray to God if you want, read books if you want, go out if you want. God grant everybody such a life.”

  “Yes, very good! The lieutenant draws his plans, and you sit in the kitchen all day, longing for your homeland … Plans … It’s a man’s life that counts, not plans! Life can’t be repeated, it must be cherished.”

  “That’s sure, Pavel Ivanych, a bad man’s cherished nowhere, not at home, not in the service, but if you live right, obey orders, then who has any need to offend you? The masters are educated people, they understand … In five years I was never once locked up, and I was beaten, if I remember right, no more than once …”

  “What for?”

  “For fighting. I’ve got a heavy fist, Pavel Ivanych. Four Chinks came into our yard, bringing firewood or something—I don’t remember. Well, I was feeling bored, so I roughed them up, gave one a bloody nose, curse him … The lieutenant saw it through the window, got angry, and cuffed me on the ear.”

  “You’re a foolish, pathetic man …” whispers Pavel Ivanych. “You don’t understand anything.”

  He is totally exhausted by the tossing and closes his eyes; his head gets thrown back, then falls on his chest. He tries several times to lie down, but nothing comes of it: suffocation prevents him.

  “And why did you beat the four Chinks?” he asks after a while.

  “Just like that. They came into the yard, and I beat them.”

  And silence ensues … The cardplayers play for a couple of hours, with passion and cursing, but the tossing wearies them, too; they abandon the cards and lie down. Again Gusev pictures the big pond, the factory, the village … Again the sleigh is driving, again Vanka laughs, and foolish Akulka has opened her coat and shows her legs: “Look, good people, my boots aren’t like Vanka’s, they’re new.”

  “She’s going on six and still has no sense!” Gusev says in his sleep. “Instead of sticking your legs up, you’d better bring your soldier uncle some water. I’ll give you a treat.”

  Here Andron, a flintlock on his shoulder, comes carrying a hare he has shot, and after him comes the decrepit Jew Isaichik and offers him a piece of soap in exchange for the hare; here is a black heifer in the front hall, here is Domna, sewing a shirt and weeping about something, and here again is the eyeless bull’s head, the black smoke …

  Someone overhead gives a loud shout, several sailors go running; it seems as if something bulky is being dragged across the deck or something has cracked. Again there is running. Has there been an accident? Gusev raises his head, listens, and sees: the two soldiers and the sailor are playing cards again; Pavel Ivanych is sitting and moving his lips. It is stifling, he does not have strength enough to breathe, he wants to drink, but the water is warm, disgusting … The tossing will not let up.

  Suddenly something strange happens to one of the cardplaying soldiers … He calls hearts diamonds, mixes up his score and drops his cards, then gives a frightened, stupid smile and gazes around at them all.

  “Just a minute, brothers …” he says and lies down on the floor.

  They are all perplexed. They call out to him, he does not answer.

  “Maybe you’re not well, Stepan? Eh?” asks the other soldier with his arm in a sling. “Maybe we should call the priest? Eh?”

  “Drink some water, Stepan …” says the sailor. “Here, brother, drink.”

  “Well, why shove the mug in his teeth?” Gusev says crossly. “Can’t you see, dunderhead?”

  “What?”

  “What!” Gusev repeats mockingly. “There’s no breath in him! He’s dead! That’s ‘what’ for you! Such senseless folk, Lord God! …”

  III

  There is no tossing, and Pavel Ivan
ych has cheered up. He is no longer angry. The look on his face is boastful, perky, and mocking. As if he wants to say: “Yes, now I’m going to tell you such a joke that you’ll split your sides with laughing.” The round window is open, and a soft breeze is blowing on Pavel Ivanych. Voices are heard, the splashing of oars in the water … Just under the window somebody is whining in a thin, disgusting little voice: it must be a Chinaman singing.

  “So we’re in harbor,” says Pavel Ivanych with a mocking smile. “Another month or so and we’ll be in Russia. Yes, my esteemed gentlemen soldiers. I’ll get to Odessa, and from there go straight to Kharkov. In Kharkov I have a friend who is a writer. I’ll go to him and say: ‘Well, brother, abandon for a bit your vile stories about female amours and the beauties of nature, and start exposing these two-legged scum … Here are some stories for you …’”

  He thinks about something for a moment, then says:

  “Do you know how I tricked them, Gusev?”

  “Who, Pavel Ivanych?”

  “Them … You see, there’s only first and third class on this ship, and the only ones allowed to travel third class are peasants—that is, boors. If you’re wearing a suit or look like a gentleman or a bourgeois, from a distance at least, then kindly travel first class. You dish up five hundred roubles, even if it kills you. ‘Why have you set up such rules?’ I ask. ‘Do you hope to raise the prestige of the Russian intelligentsia?’ ‘Not in the least. We won’t let you in there, because a decent man cannot travel third class: it’s much too nasty and vile.’ ‘Really, sir? Thank you for being so concerned for decent people. But in any case, whether it’s nasty or not there, I don’t have five hundred roubles. I haven’t robbed the treasury, haven’t exploited the racial minorities, haven’t engaged in smuggling or flogged anyone to death, so you decide: do I have the right to be installed in first class and, what’s more, to count myself among the Russian intelligentsia?’ But you can’t get them with logic … I had to resort to trickery. I dressed up in a peasant kaftan and big boots, put on a drunken, boorish mug, and went to the ticket agent: ‘Gimme a little ticket, Your Honor …’”

  “And what estate are you from?” asks the sailor.

  “Clerical. My father was an honest priest. He always told the truth in the faces of the great ones of the world, and for that he suffered a lot.”

  Pavel Ivanych is out of breath and tired of talking, but he goes on all the same:

  “Yes, I always tell the truth in people’s teeth … I’m not afraid of anybody or anything. In that sense there’s an enormous difference between me and you. You are ignorant, blind, downtrodden people, you don’t see anything, and what you do see you don’t understand … You’re told that the wind can snap its chain, that you are brutes, Pechenegs,2 and you believe it; you get it in the neck, and kiss the man’s hand; some animal in a raccoon coat robs you, then tosses you a fifteen-kopeck tip, and you say: ‘Allow me, sir, to kiss your hand.’ You’re pathetic people, pariahs … With me it’s different. I live consciously, I see everything, like an eagle or a hawk when it flies over the earth, and I understand everything. I am protest incarnate. When I see tyranny, I protest. When I see a bigot and hypocrite, I protest. When I see a triumphant pig, I protest. And I’m invincible, no Spanish inquisition can silence me. No … Cut out my tongue and I’ll protest with gestures. Wall me up in a cellar and I’ll shout so loud it will be heard a mile away, or I’ll starve myself to death, so there’ll be another fifty pounds on their black consciences. Kill me and I’ll come back as a ghost. My acquaintances all tell me: ‘You’re a most insufferable man, Pavel Ivanych!’ I’m proud of that reputation. I served for three years in the Far East and left a memory behind that will last a hundred years: I quarreled with everybody. My friends write me from Russia: ‘Don’t come back!’ But I will, I’ll come back just to spite them … Yes … That’s life, as I understand it. That’s what can be called life.”

  Gusev is not listening, he is looking out the window. A boat, all flooded with blinding, hot sunlight, is rocking on the transparent, soft turquoise water. Naked Chinamen are standing in it, holding up cages of canaries and shouting:

  “He sing! He sing!”

  Another boat knocks against this boat, a steam-launch passes by. And here is a third boat: in it sits a fat Chinaman, eating rice with chopsticks. The water ripples lazily, white seagulls fly lazily over it.

  “Be nice to give that fat one a punch …” thinks Gusev, gazing at the fat Chinaman and yawning.

  He dozes off, and it seems to him that the whole of nature is dozing. Time runs fast. The day passes imperceptibly, darkness comes imperceptibly … The ship is no longer standing still, but going on somewhere.

  IV

  Two days pass. Pavel Ivanych is not sitting now, but lying down; his eyes are closed, his nose seems to have grown sharper.

  “Pavel Ivanych!” Gusev calls to him. “Hey, Pavel Ivanych!”

  Pavel Ivanych opens his eyes and moves his lips.

  “Are you unwell?”

  “Not at all …” Pavel Ivanych gasps. “Not at all, on the contrary … I’m better … You see, I can lie down now … It’s eased off…”

  “Well, thank God, Pavel Ivanych.”

  “When I compare myself with you, I feel sorry for you … wretches. My lungs are good, and this is a stomach cough … I can endure hell, not just the Red Sea! Besides, I take a critical attitude both towards my sickness and towards medications. But you … you’re in the dark … It’s hard for you—very, very hard!”

  There is no tossing, it is calm, but on the other hand it is stifling and hot as a steambath; not only talking, but even listening is difficult. Gusev has put his arms around his knees, laid his head on them, and is thinking of his homeland. My God, in such stifling heat what a delight it is to think of snow and cold! You are riding in a sleigh; suddenly the horses get frightened by something and bolt … Heedless of roads, ditches, ravines, they race madly through the whole village, across the pond, past the factory, then over the fields … “Stop them!” factory workers and passersby shout at the top of their lungs. “Stop them!” But why stop them? Let the sharp, cold wind lash your face and nip at your hands, let the lumps of snow flung up by the horses’ hooves fall on your hat, on your neck behind the collar, on your chest, let the runners squeal and the harness and swingletree snap, devil take it all! And what a delight when the sleigh turns over and you go flying headlong into a snowdrift, your face right in the snow, and then you get up all white, icicles on your mustache; no hat, no mittens, your belt undone … People laugh, dogs bark …

  Pavel Ivanych half opens one eye, looks at Gusev with it, and asks softly:

  “Gusev, did your commander steal?”

  “Who knows, Pavel Ivanych! We don’t know, it doesn’t get to us.”

  And then a long time passes in silence. Gusev thinks, mutters, sips water every so often; it is hard for him to speak, hard for him to listen, and he is afraid someone may start talking to him. An hour passes, another, a third; evening comes, then night, but he does not notice it and goes on sitting and thinking about frost.

  He seems to hear somebody come into the sick bay, there are voices, but another five minutes pass and everything quiets down.

  “The Kingdom of Heaven and eternal rest to him,” says the soldier with his arm in a sling. “He was a restless man!”

  “What?” asks Gusev. “Who’s that?”

  “He died. They just took him topside.”

  “Well, so there,” Gusev mutters, yawning. “God rest his soul.”

  “What do you think, Gusev?” the soldier with the sling asks after some silence. “Will God rest his soul or not?”

  “Who do you mean?”

  “Pavel Ivanych.”

  “He will … he suffered long. And another thing, he was from the clerical estate, and priests have big families. They’ll pray for him.”

  The soldier with the sling sits down on Gusev’s cot and says in a low voice:

  �
�And you, Gusev, you’re not long for this world. You won’t make it to Russia.”

  “Was it the doctor or his assistant that told you?” asks Gusev.

  “It’s not that anyone says it, but you can see … You can see at once when a man’s going to die soon. You don’t eat, you don’t drink, you’ve grown so thin it’s frightening to look at you. Consumption, in short. I say it not to alarm you, but in case you may want to take communion and be anointed.3 And if you have any money, you should place it with a senior officer.”

  “I haven’t written home …” sighs Gusev. “I’ll die and they won’t know.”

  “They’ll know,” the sick sailor says in a bass voice. “When you die, they’ll record it in the ship’s log, in Odessa they’ll give an extract to the military commander, and he’ll send it to the local office or wherever …”

  Gusev feels eerie after such a conversation and begins to suffer from some sort of yearning. He drinks water—it’s not that; he leans to the round window and breathes the hot, humid air—it’s not that; he tries thinking about his homeland, about the frost—it’s not that … In the end it seems to him that if he spends another minute in the sick bay, he will surely suffocate.

  “It’s bad, brothers …” he says. “I’m going topside. Take me topside, for Christ’s sake!”

  “All right,” the soldier with the sling consents. “You won’t make it, I’ll carry you. Hold on to my neck.”

  Gusev puts his arm around the soldier’s neck, the soldier grasps him with his good arm and carries him topside. Discharged soldiers and sailors are lying asleep on deck; there are so many of them that it is hard to pick your way.

  “Stand on your feet,” the soldier with the sling says softly. “Follow me slowly, hold on to my shirt …”

  It is dark. There are no lights on deck, nor on the masts, nor on the surrounding sea. Right at the bow the man on watch stands motionless, like a statue, and it looks as if he, too, is asleep. As if the ship has been left to its own will and is going wherever it likes.