Stories (24 page)

In the morning Ivan Dmitrich got out of bed in horror, with cold sweat on his brow, already quite convinced that he could be arrested at any moment. If yesterday’s oppressive thoughts
had not left him for so long, he thought, it meant there was a portion of truth in them. They could not, indeed, have come into his head without any reason.

A policeman unhurriedly passed by the windows: not for nothing. Here two men stopped near the house and stood silently. Why were they silent?

And painful days and nights began for Ivan Dmitrich. All who passed by his windows or entered the yard seemed like spies or sleuths to him. At noon the police chief usually drove down the street with his carriage and pair; he was coming to the police station from his outlying estate, but to Ivan Dmitrich it seemed each time that he was driving too fast and with some special expression: obviously he was hastening to announce that a very important criminal had appeared in town. Ivan Dmitrich jumped at each ring or knock at the gate; he suffered each time he met a new person at his landlady’s; when
he met policemen or gendarmes he smiled and began to whistle in order to appear indifferent. He did not sleep for whole nights, expecting to be arrested, but he snored loudly and sighed like a sleeping man, so that his landlady would think he was asleep; because if he did not sleep, it meant he was suffering from remorse—what evidence! Facts and logical sense insisted that all these fears were absurd and psychopathic, that, once one took a broader view, there was nothing especially terrible in arrest and prison—as long as his conscience was at ease; but the more sensible and logical his reasoni
ng was, the more intense and painful his inner anxiety became. It resembled the story of the recluse who wanted to clear a little spot for himself in a virgin forest; the more zealously he worked with the axe, the deeper and thicker the forest grew. Seeing in the end that it was useless, Ivan Dmitrich abandoned reasoning altogether and gave himself up entirely to fear and despair.

He began to seek solitude and avoid people. His work had disgusted him even before, but now it became unbearable to him. He
was afraid that someone might do him a bad turn, put a bribe in
his pocket surreptitiously and then expose him, or that he himself might make a mistake tantamount to forgery in some official papers, or lose someone else’s money Strangely, his thought had never before been so supple and inventive as now, when he invented thousands of different pretexts every day for seriously fearing for his freedom and honor. But, on the other hand, his interest in the external world, particularly in books, weakened considerably, and his memory began to fail him badly

In the spring, when the snow melted, two half-decayed corpses—of an old woman and a boy, with signs of violent death— were found in the ravine near the cemetery These corpses and the unknown murderers became the only talk of the town. To make sure that people would not think he killed them, Ivan Dmitrich went about the streets smiling, and, on meeting his acquaintances, turned pale, then blushed and began assuring them that there was no meaner crime than the murder of the weak and defenseless. But he soon wearied of this lie and, after some reflection, decided that in his situation the best thin
g would be—to hide in his landlady’s cellar. In that cellar he sat for a day, then a night, then another day, became very chilled, and, waiting till dark, made his way on the sly, like a thief, to his room. He stood till dawn in the middle of the room, motionless, listening. Early in the morning, before daybreak, some stovemakers came to his landlady’s. Ivan Dmitrich knew very well that they had come to reset the stove in the kitchen, but fear whispered to him that they were policemen disguised as stovemakers. He quietly left the apartment and, gripped by terror, ran down the street withou
t his hat and frock coat. Dogs chased after him, barking, a peasant shouted somewhere behind him, the wind whistled in his ears, and it seemed to Ivan Dmitrich that the violence of the whole world had gathered at his back and was pursuing him.

He was stopped, brought home, and the landlady went for the doctor. Dr. Andrei Yefimych, of whom we shall speak further on, prescribed cold compresses and laurel water, shook his head sadly, and left, telling the landlady that he would not come anymore
, because people should not be prevented from losing their minds. Since there was no money for expenses and medications at home, Ivan Dmitrich was soon sent to the hospital, where he was put in the ward for venereal patients. He did not sleep at night, fussed and
disturbed the patients, and soon, on orders from Andrei Yefimych, was transferred to Ward No. 6.

Within a year Ivan Dmitrich was completely forgotten in town, and his books, which the landlady dumped into a sleigh in the shed, were pilfered by street boys.

Ivan Dmitrich’s neighbor on the left, as I have already said, is the Jew Moiseika, and his neighbor on the right is a fat-swollen, nearly spherical peasant with a dumb, completely senseless face. He is an inert, gluttonous, and slovenly animal, who long ago lost the ability to think and feel. He constantly gives off a pungent, suffocating stench.

Nikita, who cleans up after him, beats him terribly, with all his might, not sparing his fists; and the terrible thing here is not that he is beaten—that one can get used to—but that this dumb animal does not respond to the beating either by sound or by movement, or by the expression of his eyes, but only rocks slightly like a heavy barrel.

The fifth and last inhabitant of Ward No. 6 is a tradesman who once worked as a sorter in the post office, a small, lean, blond fellow with a kind but somewhat sly face. Judging by his calm, intelligent eyes, which have a bright and cheerful look, he keeps his own counsel and has some very important and pleasant secret. He keeps something under his pillow or mattress that he does not show to anyone, not from fear that it might be taken away or stolen, but from bashfulness. Sometimes he goes to the window and, turning his back to his comrades, puts something on his chest and looks,
craning his neck; if anyone approaches him
at that moment, he gets embarrassed and tears the something off his chest. But his secret is not hard to guess.

“Congratulate me,” he often says to Ivan Dmitrich, “I’ve been recommended for the Stanislas, second degree, with star.
²
The second degree with star is only given to foreigners, but for some reason they want to make an exception in my case,” he smiles, shrugging his shoulders in perplexity. “I must confess, I really didn’t expect it!”

“I understand nothing about that,” Ivan Dmitrich says glumly.

“But do you know what I’ll get sooner or later?” the former sorter continues, narrowing his eyes slyly “I’m sure to get the Swedish ‘Polar Star.’
³
It’s a decoration worth soliciting for. A white cross and a black ribbon. Very beautiful.”

Probably nowhere else is life so monotonous as in this annex. In the morning the patients, except for the paralytic and the fat peasant, wash themselves from a big tub in the front hall, wiping themselves with the skirts of their robes; after that they have tea in tin mugs, which Nikita brings from the main building. Each of them gets one mug. At noon they eat pickled cabbage soup and kasha, and in the evening they have the kasha left over from dinner. In between they lie down, sleep, look out the windows, or pace up and down. And so it goes every day. Even the former sorter talks
about the same decorations.

New people are seldom seen in Ward No. 6. The doctor long ago stopped accepting new madmen, and there are not many in this world who enjoy visiting madhouses. Once every two months the barber, Semyon Lazarich, visits the annex. Of how he gives the madmen haircuts, and how Nikita helps him to do it, and what commotion among the patients each appearance of the drunken, grinning barber causes, we will not speak.

Apart from the barber, no one comes to the annex. The patients are condemned to see only Nikita day after day.

Recently, however, a rather strange rumor spread through the hospital.

The rumor went around that the doctor had started visiting Ward No. 6.

Strange rumor!

Dr. Andrei Yefimych Ragin is a remarkable man in his way. They say that he was very pious in his youth, was preparing for a clerical career, and that, on graduating from high school in 1863, he intended to enter a theological academy, but that his father, a doctor of medicine and a surgeon, supposedly mocked him venomously and said categorically that he would not consider him his son if he became a priest. How much truth there is to it I do not know, but Andrei Yefimych himself admitted more than once that he never
felt any vocation for medicine or generally for any particular science.

However that may be, having completed his studies in the medical faculty, he did not become a priest. He showed no devoutness, and resembled a clergyman as little at the start of his medical career as he does now.

His appearance is heavy, coarse, peasant-like; with his face, his beard, his lank hair and sturdy, clumsy build, he resembles a highway innkeeper, overfed, intemperate, and tough. His face is stern, covered with little blue veins, his eyes are small, his nose red. Tall and broad-shouldered, he has enormous hands and feet; it looks like one whack of his fist would be lights out. But he walks softly, and his gait is cautious and furtive; meeting you in a narrow corridor, he always stops first to make way, and says, not in
a bass but in a high, soft tenor: “Excuse me!” He has a small growth on his neck that prevents him from wearing stiff, starched collars, and therefore he always goes about in soft linen or cotton shirts. Generally, he does not dress in doctorly fashion. He goes about in the same suit for some ten years, and new clothes, which he usually buys in a Jewish shop, seem as worn and wrinkled on him as the old; he receives patients, eats dinner, and goes visiting in the same frock coat; but that is not from stinginess, but from a total disregard for his appearance.

When Andrei Yefimych came to take up his post in town, the “charitable institution” was in a terrible state. In the wards, the corridors, and the hospital yard, it was hard to breathe for the stench. The peasant caretakers, nurses, and their children slept in the wards along with the patients. People complained that there was no bearing with the cockroaches, bedbugs and mice. Erysipelas had installed itself permanently in the surgery section. There were only two scalpels and not a single thermometer in the entire hospital; the baths served for storing potatoes. The superintendent, the matron,
and the doctor’s assistant robbed the patients, and of the old doctor, Andrei Yefimych’s predecessor, it was said that he had secretly traded in hospital alcohol and had started a real harem for himself among the nurses and female patients. The townspeople were well aware of these disorders and even exaggerated them, but they viewed them calmly; some justified them by saying that only tradesmen and peasants stayed in the hospital, who could not be displeased, since they lived much worse at home than in the
hospital—no one was going to feed them on grouse! Others said in justification
that the town alone, without the help of the zemstvo,
⁴
was unable to maintain a good hospital; thank God they at least had a bad one. And the young zemstvo would not open a clinic either in town or near it, explaining that the town already had its own hospital.

Having inspected the hospital, Andrei Yefimych came to the conclusion that it was an immoral institution and highly detrimental to the health of the citizens. In his op
inion, the most intelligent thing that could be done would be to discharge the patients and close the place down. But for that he reckoned that his will alone was not enough and in any case it would be useless; when physical and moral uncleanness was driven out of one place, it went to another; one had to wait until it dispersed of itself. Besides, if people had opened the hospital and put up with it in their town, it meant they needed it; prejudice and all this everyday filth and muck are necessary, because in time they turn into something useful, as dung turns into black earth. There is nothing good
in the world that does not have some filth in its origin.

On taking over the post, Andrei Yefimych treated these disorders with apparent indifference. He merely asked the peasant caretakers and nurses not to sleep in the wards, and installed two cabinets with instruments. The superintendent, the matron, the assistant doctor, and the surgical erysipelas stayed where they were.

Andrei Yefimych is extremely fond of intelligence and honesty, but he lacks character and faith in his right to organize an intelligent and honest life around him. He is positively incapable of ordering, prohibiting, or insisting. It looks as if he has taken a vow never to raise his voice or speak in the imperative. To say “give” or “bring” is hard for him; when he wants to eat, he coughs irresolutely and says to his cook: “How about some tea?” or “How about some dinner?” But to tell the superintendent to stop stealing, or to dismiss him, or to abolish the useless, parasitic post altogether—
is completely beyond his strength. When Andrei Yefimych is deceived or flattered, or handed a false receipt to sign knowingly, he turns as red as a lobster and feels guilty, but all the same he signs the receipt; when the patients complain to him that they are hungry or that the nurses are rude, he gets embarrassed and mutters guiltily:

“All right, all right, I’ll look into it later … There’s probably some misunderstanding …”

At first Andrei Yefimych worked very assiduously. He received every day from morning till dinnertime, did surgery and even took up the practice of obstetrics. Ladies said of him that he was attentive and excellent at diagnosing illnesses, especially in children and women. But as time went on he became noticeably bored with the monotony and obvious uselessness of the work. Today you receive thirty patients, and tomorrow, lo and behold, thirty-five come pouring in, and the next day forty, and so it goes, day after day, year after year, and the town mortality rate does not go down, an
d the patients do not stop coming. To give serious aid to forty outpatients between morning and dinnertime was physically impossible, which meant, willy-nilly, that it was all a deceit. During the fiscal year twelve thousand outpatients were received, which meant, simply speaking, that twelve thousand people were deceived. To put the seriously ill in the hospital and care for them according to the rules of science was also impossible, because while there were rules, there was no science; and to abandon philosophy and follow the rules pedantically, as other doctors did, you first of all needed cleanline
ss and ventilation, not filth, and wholesome food, not soup made from stinking pickled cabbage, and good assistants, not thieves.