“WHAT shall I write?” said Yegor, and he dipped his pen in the ink.
Vasilisa had not seen her daughter for four years. Her daughter Yefimya had gone after her wedding to Petersburg, had sent them two letters, and since then seemed to vanish out of their lives; there had been no sight nor sound of her. And whether the old woman were milking her cow at dawn, or heating her stove, or dozing at night, she was always thinking of one and the same thing—what was happening to Yefimya, whether she were alive out yonder. She ought to have sent a letter, but the old father could not write, and there was no one to write.
But now Christmas had come, and Vasilisa could not bear it any longer, and went to the tavern to Yegor, the brother of the innkeeper’s wife, who had sat in the tavern doing nothing ever since he came back from the army; people said that he could write letters very well if he were properly paid. Vasilisa talked to the cook at the tavern, then to the mistress of the house, then to Yegor himself. They agreed upon fifteen kopecks.
And now—it happened on the second day of the holidays, in the tavern kitchen—Yegor was sitting at the table, holding the pen in his hand. Vasilisa was standing before him, pondering with an expression of anxiety and woe on her face. Pyotr, her husband, a very thin old man with a brownish bald patch, had come with her; he stood looking straight before him like a blind man. On the stove a piece of pork was being braised in a saucepan; it was spurting and hissing, and seemed to be actually saying: “Flu-flu-flu.” It was stifling.
“What am I to write?” Yegor asked again.
“What?” asked Vasilisa, looking at him angrily and suspiciously. “Don’t worry me! You are not writing for nothing; no fear, you’ll be paid for it. Come, write: ‘To our dear son-in-law, Andrey Hrisanfitch, and to our only beloved daughter, Yefimya Petrovna, with our love we send a low bow and our parental blessing abiding for ever.’”
“Written; fire away.”
“‘And we wish them a happy Christmas; we are alive and well, and I wish you the same, please the Lord... the Heavenly King.’”
Vasilisa pondered and exchanged glances with the old man.
“‘And I wish you the same, please the Lord the Heavenly King,’” she repeated, beginning to cry.
She could say nothing more. And yet before, when she lay awake thinking at night, it had seemed to her that she could not get all she had to say into a dozen letters. Since the time when her daughter had gone away with her husband much water had flowed into the sea, the old people had lived feeling bereaved, and sighed heavily at night as though they had buried their daughter. And how many events had occurred in the village since then, how many marriages and deaths! How long the winters had been! How long the nights!
“It’s hot,” said Yegor, unbuttoning his waistcoat. “It must be seventy degrees. What more?” he asked.
The old people were silent.
“What does your son-in-law do in Petersburg?” asked Yegor.
“He was a soldier, my good friend,” the old man answered in a weak voice. “He left the service at the same time as you did. He was a soldier, and now, to be sure, he is at Petersburg at a hydropathic establishment. The doctor treats the sick with water. So he, to be sure, is house-porter at the doctor’s.”
“Here it is written down,” said the old woman, taking a letter out of her pocket. “We got it from Yefimya, goodness knows when. Maybe they are no longer in this world.”
Yegor thought a little and began writing rapidly:
“At the present time”—he wrote—“since your destiny through your own doing allotted you to the Military Career, we counsel you to look into the Code of Disciplinary Offences and Fundamental Laws of the War Office, and you will see in that law the Civilization of the Officials of the War Office.”
He wrote and kept reading aloud what was written, while Vasilisa considered what she ought to write: how great had been their want the year before, how their corn had not lasted even till Christmas, how they had to sell their cow. She ought to ask for money, ought to write that the old father was often ailing and would soon no doubt give up his soul to God... but how to express this in words? What must be said first and what afterwards?
“Take note,” Yegor went on writing, “in volume five of the Army Regulations soldier is a common noun and a proper one, a soldier of the first rank is called a general, and of the last a private....”
The old man stirred his lips and said softly:
“It would be all right to have a look at the grandchildren.”
“What grandchildren?” asked the old woman, and she looked angrily at him; “perhaps there are none.”
“Well, but perhaps there are. Who knows?”
“And thereby you can judge,” Yegor hurried on, “what is the enemy without and what is the enemy within. The foremost of our enemies within is Bacchus.” The pen squeaked, executing upon the paper flourishes like fish-hooks. Yegor hastened and read over every line several times. He sat on a stool sprawling his broad feet under the table, well-fed, bursting with health, with a coarse animal face and a red bull neck. He was vulgarity itself: coarse, conceited, invincible, proud of having been born and bred in a pot-house; and Vasilisa quite understood the vulgarity, but could not express it in words, and could only look angrily and suspiciously at Yegor. Her head was beginning to ache, and her thoughts were in confusion from the sound of his voice and his unintelligible words, from the heat and the stuffiness, and she said nothing and thought nothing, but simply waited for him to finish scribbling. But the old man looked with full confidence. He believed in his old woman who had brought him there, and in Yegor; and when he had mentioned the hydropathic establishment it could be seen that he believed in the establishment and the healing efficacy of water.
Having finished the letter, Yegor got up and read the whole of it through from the beginning. The old man did not understand, but he nodded his head trustfully.
“That’s all right; it is smooth...” he said. “God give you health. That’s all right....”
They laid on the table three five-kopeck pieces and went out of the tavern; the old man looked immovably straight before him as though he were blind, and perfect trustfulness was written on his face; but as Vasilisa came out of the tavern she waved angrily at the dog, and said angrily:
“Ugh, the plague.”
The old woman did not sleep all night; she was disturbed by thoughts, and at daybreak she got up, said her prayers, and went to the station to send off the letter.
It was between eight and nine miles to the station.
II
Dr. B. O. Mozelweiser’s hydropathic establishment worked on New Year’s Day exactly as on ordinary days; the only difference was that the porter, Andrey Hrisanfitch, had on a uniform with new braiding, his boots had an extra polish, and he greeted every visitor with “A Happy New Year to you!”
It was the morning; Andrey Hrisanfitch was standing at the door, reading the newspaper. Just at ten o’clock there arrived a general, one of the habitual visitors, and directly after him the postman; Andrey Hrisanfitch helped the general off with his great-coat, and said:
“A Happy New Year to your Excellency!”
“Thank you, my good fellow; the same to you.”
And at the top of the stairs the general asked, nodding towards the door (he asked the same question every day and always forgot the answer):
“And what is there in that room?”
“The massage room, your Excellency.”
When the general’s steps had died away Andrey Hrisanfitch looked at the post that had come, and found one addressed to himself. He tore it open, read several lines, then, looking at the newspaper, he walked without haste to his own room, which was downstairs close by at the end of the passage. His wife Yefimya was sitting on the bed, feeding her baby; another child, the eldest, was standing by, laying its curly head on her knee; a third was asleep on the bed.
Going into the room, Andrey gave his wife the letter and said:
“From the country, I suppose.”
Then he walked out again without taking his eyes from the paper. He could hear Yefimya with a shaking voice reading the first lines. She read them and could read no more; these lines were enough for her. She burst into tears, and hugging her eldest child, kissing him, she began saying—and it was hard to say whether she were laughing or crying:
“It’s from granny, from grandfather,” she said. “From the country.... The Heavenly Mother, Saints and Martyrs! The snow lies heaped up under the roofs now... the trees are as white as white. The boys slide on little sledges... and dear old bald grandfather is on the stove... and there is a little yellow dog.... My own darlings!”
Andrey Hrisanfitch, hearing this, recalled that his wife had on three or four occasions given him letters and asked him to send them to the country, but some important business had always prevented him; he had not sent them, and the letters somehow got lost.
“And little hares run about in the fields,” Yefimya went on chanting, kissing her boy and shedding tears. “Grandfather is kind and gentle; granny is good, too—kind-hearted. They are warm-hearted in the country, they are God-fearing... and there is a little church in the village; the peasants sing in the choir. Queen of Heaven, Holy Mother and Defender, take us away from here!”
Andrey Hrisanfitch returned to his room to smoke a little till there was another ring at the door, and Yefimya ceased speaking, subsided, and wiped her eyes, though her lips were still quivering. She was very much frightened of him—oh, how frightened of him! She trembled and was reduced to terror by the sound of his steps, by the look in his eyes, and dared not utter a word in his presence.
Andrey Hrisanfitch lighted a cigarette, but at that very moment there was a ring from upstairs. He put out his cigarette, and, assuming a very grave face, hastened to his front door.
The general was coming downstairs, fresh and rosy from his bath.
“And what is there in that room?” he asked, pointing to a door.
Andrey Hrisanfitch put his hands down swiftly to the seams of his trousers, and pronounced loudly:
“Charcot douche, your Excellency!”
IT was getting dark; it would soon be night.
Gusev, a discharged soldier, sat up in his hammock and said in an undertone:
“I say, Pavel Ivanitch. A soldier at Sutchan told me: while they were sailing a big fish came into collision with their ship and stove a hole in it.”
The nondescript individual whom he was addressing, and whom everyone in the ship’s hospital called Pavel Ivanitch, was silent, as though he had not heard.
And again a stillness followed... The wind frolicked with the rigging, the screw throbbed, the waves lashed, the hammocks creaked, but the ear had long ago become accustomed to these sounds, and it seemed that everything around was asleep and silent. It was dreary. The three invalids—two soldiers and a sailor—who had been playing cards all the day were asleep and talking in their dreams.
It seemed as though the ship were beginning to rock. The hammock slowly rose and fell under Gusev, as though it were heaving a sigh, and this was repeated once, twice, three times.... Something crashed on to the floor with a clang: it must have been a jug falling down.
“The wind has broken loose from its chain...” said Gusev, listening.
This time Pavel Ivanitch cleared his throat and answered irritably:
“One minute a vessel’s running into a fish, the next, the wind’s breaking loose from its chain. Is the wind a beast that it can break loose from its chain?”
“That’s how christened folk talk.”
“They are as ignorant as you are then. They say all sorts of things. One must keep a head on one’s shoulders and use one’s reason. You are a senseless creature.”
Pavel Ivanitch was subject to sea-sickness. When the sea was rough he was usually ill-humoured, and the merest trifle would make him irritable. And in Gusev’s opinion there was absolutely nothing to be vexed about. What was there strange or wonderful, for instance, in the fish or in the wind’s breaking loose from its chain? Suppose the fish were as big as a mountain and its back were as hard as a sturgeon: and in the same way, supposing that away yonder at the end of the world there stood great stone walls and the fierce winds were chained up to the walls... if they had not broken loose, why did they tear about all over the sea like maniacs, and struggle to escape like dogs? If they were not chained up, what did become of them when it was calm?
Gusev pondered for a long time about fishes as big as a mountain and stout, rusty chains, then he began to feel dull and thought of his native place to which he was returning after five years’ service in the East. He pictured an immense pond covered with snow.... On one side of the pond the red-brick building of the potteries with a tall chimney and clouds of black smoke; on the other side—a village.... His brother Alexey comes out in a sledge from the fifth yard from the end; behind him sits his little son Vanka in big felt over-boots, and his little girl Akulka, also in big felt boots. Alexey has been drinking, Vanka is laughing, Akulka’s face he could not see, she had muffled herself up.
“You never know, he’ll get the children frozen...” thought Gusev. “Lord send them sense and judgment that they may honour their father and mother and not be wiser than their parents.”
“They want re-soleing,” a delirious sailor says in a bass voice. “Yes, yes!”
Gusev’s thoughts break off, and instead of a pond there suddenly appears apropos of nothing a huge bull’s head without eyes, and the horse and sledge are not driving along, but are whirling round and round in a cloud of smoke. But still he was glad he had seen his own folks. He held his breath from delight, shudders ran all over him, and his fingers twitched.
“The Lord let us meet again,” he muttered feverishly, but he at once opened his eyes and sought in the darkness for water.
He drank and lay back, and again the sledge was moving, then again the bull’s head without eyes, smoke, clouds.... And so on till daybreak.
II
The first outline visible in the darkness was a blue circle—the little round window; then little by little Gusev could distinguish his neighbour in the next hammock, Pavel Ivanitch. The man slept sitting up, as he could not breathe lying down. His face was grey, his nose was long and sharp, his eyes looked huge from the terrible thinness of his face, his temples were sunken, his beard was skimpy, his hair was long.... Looking at him you could not make out of what class he was, whether he were a gentleman, a merchant, or a peasant. Judging from his expression and his long hair he might have been a hermit or a lay brother in a monastery—but if one listened to what he said it seemed that he could not be a monk. He was worn out by his cough and his illness and by the stifling heat, and breathed with difficulty, moving his parched lips. Noticing that Gusev was looking at him he turned his face towards him and said:
“I begin to guess.... Yes.... I understand it all perfectly now.”
“What do you understand, Pavel Ivanitch?”
“I’ll tell you.... It has always seemed to me strange that terribly ill as you are you should be here in a steamer where it is so hot and stifling and we are always being tossed up and down, where, in fact, everything threatens you with death; now it is all clear to me.... Yes.... Your doctors put you on the steamer to get rid of you. They get sick of looking after poor brutes like you.... You don’t pay them anything, they have a bother with you, and you damage their records with your deaths—so, of course, you are brutes! It’s not difficult to get rid of you.... All that is necessary is, in the first place, to have no conscience or humanity, and, secondly, to deceive the steamer authorities. The first condition need hardly be considered, in that respect we are artists; and one can always succeed in the second with a little practice. In a crowd of four hundred healthy soldiers and sailors half a dozen sick ones are not conspicuous; well, they drove you all on to the steamer, mixed you with the healthy ones, hurriedly counted you over, and in the confusion nothing amiss was noticed, and when the steamer had started they saw that there were paralytics and consumptives in the last stage lying about on the deck....”
Gusev did not understand Pavel Ivanitch; but supposing he was being blamed, he said in self-defence:
“I lay on the deck because I had not the strength to stand; when we were unloaded from the barge on to the ship I caught a fearful chill.”
“It’s revolting,” Pavel Ivanitch went on. “The worst of it is they know perfectly well that you can’t last out the long journey, and yet they put you here. Supposing you get as far as the Indian Ocean, what then? It’s horrible to think of it.... And that’s their gratitude for your faithful, irreproachable service!”
Pavel Ivanitch’s eyes looked angry; he frowned contemptuously and said, gasping:
“Those are the people who ought to be plucked in the newspapers till the feathers fly in all directions.”
The two sick soldiers and the sailor were awake and already playing cards. The sailor was half reclining in his hammock, the soldiers were sitting near him on the floor in the most uncomfortable attitudes. One of the soldiers had his right arm in a sling, and the hand was swathed up in a regular bundle so that he held his cards under his right arm or in the crook of his elbow while he played with the left. The ship was rolling heavily. They could not stand up, nor drink tea, nor take their medicines.
“Were you an officer’s servant?” Pavel Ivanitch asked Gusev.
“Yes, an officer’s servant.”
“My God, my God!” said Pavel Ivanitch, and he shook his head mournfully. “To tear a man out of his home, drag him twelve thousand miles away, then to drive him into consumption and... and what is it all for, one wonders? To turn him into a servant for some Captain Kopeikin or midshipman Dirka! How logical!”
“It’s not hard work, Pavel Ivanitch. You get up in the morning and clean the boots, get the samovar, sweep the rooms, and then you have nothing more to do. The lieutenant is all the day drawing plans, and if you like you can say your prayers, if you like you can read a book or go out into the street. God grant everyone such a life.”
“Yes, very nice, the lieutenant draws plans all the day and you sit in the kitchen and pine for home.... Plans indeed!... It is not plans that matter, but a human life. Life is not given twice, it must be treated mercifully.”
“Of course, Pavel Ivanitch, a bad man gets no mercy anywhere, neither at home nor in the army, but if you live as you ought and obey orders, who has any need to insult you? The officers are educated gentlemen, they understand.... In five years I was never once in prison, and I was never struck a blow, so help me God, but once.”
“What for?”
“For fighting. I have a heavy hand, Pavel Ivanitch. Four Chinamen came into our yard; they were bringing firewood or something, I don’t remember. Well, I was bored and I knocked them about a bit, one’s nose began bleeding, damn the fellow.... The lieutenant saw it through the little window, he was angry and gave me a box on the ear.”
“Foolish, pitiful man...” whispered Pavel Ivanitch. “You don’t understand anything.”
He was utterly exhausted by the tossing of the ship and closed his eyes; his head alternately fell back and dropped forward on his breast. Several times he tried to lie down but nothing came of it; his difficulty in breathing prevented it.
“And what did you hit the four Chinamen for?” he asked a little while afterwards.
“Oh, nothing. They came into the yard and I hit them.”
And a stillness followed.... The card-players had been playing for two hours with enthusiasm and loud abuse of one another, but the motion of the ship overcame them, too; they threw aside the cards and lay down. Again Gusev saw the big pond, the brick building, the village.... Again the sledge was coming along, again Vanka was laughing and Akulka, silly little thing, threw open her fur coat and stuck her feet out, as much as to say: “Look, good people, my snowboots are not like Vanka’s, they are new ones.”
“Five years old, and she has no sense yet,” Gusev muttered in delirium. “Instead of kicking your legs you had better come and get your soldier uncle a drink. I will give you something nice.”
Then Andron with a flintlock gun on his shoulder was carrying a hare he had killed, and he was followed by the decrepit old Jew Isaitchik, who offers to barter the hare for a piece of soap; then the black calf in the shed, then Domna sewing at a shirt and crying about something, and then again the bull’s head without eyes, black smoke....
Overhead someone gave a loud shout, several sailors ran by, they seemed to be dragging something bulky over the deck, something fell with a crash. Again they ran by.... Had something gone wrong? Gusev raised his head, listened, and saw that the two soldiers and the sailor were playing cards again; Pavel Ivanitch was sitting up moving his lips. It was stifling, one hadn’t strength to breathe, one was thirsty, the water was warm, disgusting. The ship heaved as much as ever.
Suddenly something strange happened to one of the soldiers playing cards.... He called hearts diamonds, got muddled in his score, and dropped his cards, then with a frightened, foolish smile looked round at all of them.
“I shan’t be a minute, mates, I’ll...” he said, and lay down on the floor.
Everybody was amazed. They called to him, he did not answer.
“Stephan, maybe you are feeling bad, eh?” the soldier with his arm in a sling asked him. “Perhaps we had better bring the priest, eh?”
“Have a drink of water, Stepan...” said the sailor. “Here, lad, drink.”
“Why are you knocking the jug against his teeth?” said Gusev angrily. “Don’t you see, turnip head?”
“What?”
“What?” Gusev repeated, mimicking him. “There is no breath in him, he is dead! That’s what! What nonsensical people, Lord have mercy on us...!”
III
The ship was not rocking and Pavel Ivanitch was more cheerful. He was no longer ill-humoured. His face had a boastful, defiant, mocking expression. He looked as though he wanted to say: “Yes, in a minute I will tell you something that will make you split your sides with laughing.” The little round window was open and a soft breeze was blowing on Pavel Ivanitch. There was a sound of voices, of the plash of oars in the water.... Just under the little window someone began droning in a high, unpleasant voice: no doubt it was a Chinaman singing.
“Here we are in the harbour,” said Pavel Ivanitch, smiling ironically. “Only another month and we shall be in Russia. Well, worthy gentlemen and warriors! I shall arrive at Odessa and from there go straight to Harkov. In Harkov I have a friend, a literary man. I shall go to him and say, ‘Come, old man, put aside your horrid subjects, ladies’ amours and the beauties of nature, and show up human depravity.’”
For a minute he pondered, then said:
“Gusev, do you know how I took them in?”
“Took in whom, Pavel Ivanitch?”
“Why, these fellows.... You know that on this steamer there is only a first-class and a third-class, and they only allow peasants—that is the rift-raft—to go in the third. If you have got on a reefer jacket and have the faintest resemblance to a gentleman or a bourgeois you must go first-class, if you please. You must fork out five hundred roubles if you die for it. Why, I ask, have you made such a rule? Do you want to raise the prestige of educated Russians thereby? Not a bit of it. We don’t let you go third-class simply because a decent person can’t go third-class; it is very horrible and disgusting. Yes, indeed. I am very grateful for such solicitude for decent people’s welfare. But in any case, whether it is nasty there or nice, five hundred roubles I haven’t got. I haven’t pilfered government money. I haven’t exploited the natives, I haven’t trafficked in contraband, I have flogged no one to death, so judge whether I have the right to travel first-class and even less to reckon myself of the educated class? But you won’t catch them with logic.... One has to resort to deception. I put on a workman’s coat and high boots, I assumed a drunken, servile mug and went to the agents: ‘Give us a little ticket, your honour,’ said I....”
“Why, what class do you belong to?” asked a sailor.
“Clerical. My father was an honest priest, he always told the great ones of the world the truth to their faces; and he had a great deal to put up with in consequence.”
Pavel Ivanitch was exhausted with talking and gasped for breath, but still went on:
“Yes, I always tell people the truth to their faces. I am not afraid of anyone or anything. There is a vast difference between me and all of you in that respect. You are in darkness, you are blind, crushed; you see nothing and what you do see you don’t understand.... You are told the wind breaks loose from its chain, that you are beasts, Petchenyegs, and you believe it; they punch you in the neck, you kiss their hands; some animal in a sable-lined coat robs you and then tips you fifteen kopecks and you: ‘Let me kiss your hand, sir.’ You are pariahs, pitiful people.... I am a different sort. My eyes are open, I see it all as clearly as a hawk or an eagle when it floats over the earth, and I understand it all. I am a living protest. I see irresponsible tyranny—I protest. I see cant and hypocrisy—I protest. I see swine triumphant—I protest. And I cannot be suppressed, no Spanish Inquisition can make me hold my tongue. No.... Cut out my tongue and I would protest in dumb show; shut me up in a cellar—I will shout from it to be heard half a mile away, or I will starve myself to death that they may have another weight on their black consciences. Kill me and I will haunt them with my ghost. All my acquaintances say to me: ‘You are a most insufferable person, Pavel Ivanitch.’ I am proud of such a reputation. I have served three years in the far East, and I shall be remembered there for a hundred years: I had rows with everyone. My friends write to me from Russia, ‘Don’t come back,’ but here I am going back to spite them... yes.... That is life as I understand it. That is what one can call life.”
Gusev was looking at the little window and was not listening. A boat was swaying on the transparent, soft, turquoise water all bathed in hot, dazzling sunshine. In it there were naked Chinamen holding up cages with canaries and calling out:
“It sings, it sings!”
Another boat knocked against the first; the steam cutter darted by. And then there came another boat with a fat Chinaman sitting in it, eating rice with little sticks.
Languidly the water heaved, languidly the white seagulls floated over it.
“I should like to give that fat fellow one in the neck,” thought Gusev, gazing at the stout Chinaman, with a yawn.
He dozed off, and it seemed to him that all nature was dozing, too. Time flew swiftly by; imperceptibly the day passed, imperceptibly the darkness came on.... The steamer was no longer standing still, but moving on further.
IV
Two days passed, Pavel Ivanitch lay down instead of sitting up; his eyes were closed, his nose seemed to have grown sharper.
“Pavel Ivanitch,” Gusev called to him. “Hey, Pavel Ivanitch.”
Pavel Ivanitch opened his eyes and moved his lips.
“Are you feeling bad?”
“No... it’s nothing...” answered Pavel Ivanitch, gasping. “Nothing; on the contrary—I am rather better.... You see I can lie down. I am a little easier....”
“Well, thank God for that, Pavel Ivanitch.”
“When I compare myself with you I am sorry for you... poor fellow. My lungs are all right, it is only a stomach cough.... I can stand hell, let alone the Red Sea. Besides I take a critical attitude to my illness and to the medicines they give me for it. While you... you are in darkness.... It’s hard for you, very, very hard!”
The ship was not rolling, it was calm, but as hot and stifling as a bath-house; it was not only hard to speak but even hard to listen. Gusev hugged his knees, laid his head on them and thought of his home. Good heavens, what a relief it was to think of snow and cold in that stifling heat! You drive in a sledge, all at once the horses take fright at something and bolt.... Regardless of the road, the ditches, the ravines, they dash like mad things, right through the village, over the pond by the pottery works, out across the open fields. “Hold on,” the pottery hands and the peasants shout, meeting them. “Hold on.” But why? Let the keen, cold wind beat in one’s face and bite one’s hands; let the lumps of snow, kicked up by the horses’ hoofs, fall on one’s cap, on one’s back, down one’s collar, on one’s chest; let the runners ring on the snow, and the traces and the sledge be smashed, deuce take them one and all! And how delightful when the sledge upsets and you go flying full tilt into a drift, face downwards in the snow, and then you get up white all over with icicles on your moustaches; no cap, no gloves, your belt undone.... People laugh, the dogs bark....
Pavel Ivanitch half opened one eye, looked at Gusev with it, and asked softly:
“Gusev, did your commanding officer steal?”
“Who can tell, Pavel Ivanitch! We can’t say, it didn’t reach us.”
And after that a long time passed in silence. Gusev brooded, muttered something in delirium, and kept drinking water; it was hard for him to talk and hard to listen, and he was afraid of being talked to. An hour passed, a second, a third; evening came on, then night, but he did not notice it. He still sat dreaming of the frost.
There was a sound as though someone came into the hospital, and voices were audible, but a few minutes passed and all was still again.
“The Kingdom of Heaven and eternal peace,” said the soldier with his arm in a sling. “He was an uncomfortable man.”
“What?” asked Gusev. “Who?”
“He is dead, they have just carried him up.”
“Oh, well,” muttered Gusev, yawning, “the Kingdom of Heaven be his.”
“What do you think?” the soldier with his arm in a sling asked Gusev. “Will he be in the Kingdom of Heaven or not?”
“Who is it you are talking about?”
“Pavel Ivanitch.”
“He will be... he suffered so long. And there is another thing, he belonged to the clergy, and the priests always have a lot of relations. Their prayers will save him.”
The soldier with the sling sat down on a hammock near Gusev and said in an undertone:
“And you, Gusev, are not long for this world. You will never get to Russia.”
“Did the doctor or his assistant say so?” asked Gusev.
“It isn’t that they said so, but one can see it.... One can see directly when a man’s going to die. You don’t eat, you don’t drink; it’s dreadful to see how thin you’ve got. It’s consumption, in fact. I say it, not to upset you, but because maybe you would like to have the sacrament and extreme unction. And if you have any money you had better give it to the senior officer.”
“I haven’t written home...” Gusev sighed. “I shall die and they won’t know.”
“They’ll hear of it,” the sick sailor brought out in a bass voice. “When you die they will put it down in theGazette,at Odessa they will send in a report to the commanding officer there and he will send it to the parish or somewhere....”
Gusev began to be uneasy after such a conversation and to feel a vague yearning. He drank water—it was not that; he dragged himself to the window and breathed the hot, moist air—it was not that; he tried to think of home, of the frost—it was not that.... At last it seemed to him one minute longer in the ward and he would certainly expire.
“It’s stifling, mates...” he said. “I’ll go on deck. Help me up, for Christ’s sake.”
“All right,” assented the soldier with the sling. “I’ll carry you, you can’t walk, hold on to my neck.”
Gusev put his arm round the soldier’s neck, the latter put his unhurt arm round him and carried him up. On the deck sailors and time-expired soldiers were lying asleep side by side; there were so many of them it was difficult to pass.
“Stand down,” the soldier with the sling said softly. “Follow me quietly, hold on to my shirt....”
It was dark. There was no light on deck, nor on the masts, nor anywhere on the sea around. At the furthest end of the ship the man on watch was standing perfectly still like a statue, and it looked as though he were asleep. It seemed as though the steamer were abandoned to itself and were going at its own will.
“Now they will throw Pavel Ivanitch into the sea,” said the soldier with the sling. “In a sack and then into the water.”
“Yes, that’s the rule.”
“But it’s better to lie at home in the earth. Anyway, your mother comes to the grave and weeps.”
“Of course.”
There was a smell of hay and of dung. There were oxen standing with drooping heads by the ship’s rail. One, two, three; eight of them! And there was a little horse. Gusev put out his hand to stroke it, but it shook its head, showed its teeth, and tried to bite his sleeve.
“Damned brute...” said Gusev angrily.
The two of them, he and the soldier, threaded their way to the head of the ship, then stood at the rail and looked up and down. Overhead deep sky, bright stars, peace and stillness, exactly as at home in the village, below darkness and disorder. The tall waves were resounding, no one could tell why. Whichever wave you looked at each one was trying to rise higher than all the rest and to chase and crush the next one; after it a third as fierce and hideous flew noisily, with a glint of light on its white crest.
The sea has no sense and no pity. If the steamer had been smaller and not made of thick iron, the waves would have crushed it to pieces without the slightest compunction, and would have devoured all the people in it with no distinction of saints or sinners. The steamer had the same cruel and meaningless expression. This monster with its huge beak was dashing onwards, cutting millions of waves in its path; it had no fear of the darkness nor the wind, nor of space, nor of solitude, caring for nothing, and if the ocean had its people, this monster would have crushed them, too, without distinction of saints or sinners.
“Where are we now?” asked Gusev.
“I don’t know. We must be in the ocean.”
“There is no sight of land...”
“No indeed! They say we shan’t see it for seven days.”
The two soldiers watched the white foam with the phosphorus light on it and were silent, thinking. Gusev was the first to break the silence.
“There is nothing to be afraid of,” he said, “only one is full of dread as though one were sitting in a dark forest; but if, for instance, they let a boat down on to the water this minute and an officer ordered me to go a hundred miles over the sea to catch fish, I’d go. Or, let’s say, if a Christian were to fall into the water this minute, I’d go in after him. A German or a Chinaman I wouldn’t save, but I’d go in after a Christian.”
“And are you afraid to die?”
“Yes. I am sorry for the folks at home. My brother at home, you know, isn’t steady; he drinks, he beats his wife for nothing, he does not honour his parents. Everything will go to ruin without me, and father and my old mother will be begging their bread, I shouldn’t wonder. But my legs won’t bear me, brother, and it’s hot here. Let’s go to sleep.”
V
Gusev went back to the ward and got into his hammock. He was again tormented by a vague craving, and he could not make out what he wanted. There was an oppression on his chest, a throbbing in his head, his mouth was so dry that it was difficult for him to move his tongue. He dozed, and murmured in his sleep, and, worn out with nightmares, his cough, and the stifling heat, towards morning he fell into a sound sleep. He dreamed that they were just taking the bread out of the oven in the barracks and he climbed into the stove and had a steam bath in it, lashing himself with a bunch of birch twigs. He slept for two days, and at midday on the third two sailors came down and carried him out.
He was sewn up in sailcloth and to make him heavier they put with him two iron weights. Sewn up in the sailcloth he looked like a carrot or a radish: broad at the head and narrow at the feet.... Before sunset they brought him up to the deck and put him on a plank; one end of the plank lay on the side of the ship, the other on a box, placed on a stool. Round him stood the soldiers and the officers with their caps off.
“Blessed be the Name of the Lord...” the priest began. “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.”
“Amen,” chanted three sailors.
The soldiers and the officers crossed themselves and looked away at the waves. It was strange that a man should be sewn up in sailcloth and should soon be flying into the sea. Was it possible that such a thing might happen to anyone?
The priest strewed earth upon Gusev and bowed down. They sang “Eternal Memory.”
The man on watch duty tilted up the end of the plank, Gusev slid off and flew head foremost, turned a somersault in the air and splashed into the sea. He was covered with foam and for a moment looked as though he were wrapped in lace, but the minute passed and he disappeared in the waves.
He went rapidly towards the bottom. Did he reach it? It was said to be three miles to the bottom. After sinking sixty or seventy feet, he began moving more and more slowly, swaying rhythmically, as though he were hesitating and, carried along by the current, moved more rapidly sideways than downwards.
Then he was met by a shoal of the fish called harbour pilots. Seeing the dark body the fish stopped as though petrified, and suddenly turned round and disappeared. In less than a minute they flew back swift as an arrow to Gusev, and began zig-zagging round him in the water.
After that another dark body appeared. It was a shark. It swam under Gusev with dignity and no show of interest, as though it did not notice him, and sank down upon its back, then it turned belly upwards, basking in the warm, transparent water and languidly opened its jaws with two rows of teeth. The harbour pilots are delighted, they stop to see what will come next. After playing a little with the body the shark nonchalantly puts its jaws under it, cautiously touches it with its teeth, and the sailcloth is rent its full length from head to foot; one of the weights falls out and frightens the harbour pilots, and striking the shark on the ribs goes rapidly to the bottom.
Overhead at this time the clouds are massed together on the side where the sun is setting; one cloud like a triumphal arch, another like a lion, a third like a pair of scissors.... From behind the clouds a broad, green shaft of light pierces through and stretches to the middle of the sky; a little later another, violet-coloured, lies beside it; next that, one of gold, then one rose-coloured.... The sky turns a soft lilac. Looking at this gorgeous, enchanted sky, at first the ocean scowls, but soon it, too, takes tender, joyous, passionate colours for which it is hard to find a name in human speech.