Stories (26 page)

“Well, so?” Andrei Yefimych asks himself, opening his eyes. “What of it? Antiseptics, and Koch, and Pasteur, but the essence of the matter hasn’t changed at all. The rates of sickness and mortality remain the same. Balls and performances are organized for the mad, but even so they’re not released. That means it’s all nonsense and vanity, and in essence there’s no difference between the best clinic in Vienna and my hospital.”

But sorrow and a feeling akin to envy interfere with his indifference. It must be from fatigue. His heavy head sinks onto the book, he puts his hands under his face to make it softer, and thinks:

“I serve a harmful cause, and I receive a salary from the people I deceive. I am dishonest. But by myself I’m nothing, I’m merely a particle of an inevitable social evil: all provincial officials are harmful and receive their salaries for nothing … So it is not I who am to blame for my dishonesty, but the times … If I had been born two hundred years later, I would be different.”

When it strikes three, he puts out the lamp and goes to the bedroom. He does not feel like sleeping.

About two years ago the zemstvo waxed generous and decided to allot three hundred roubles annually to subsidize the reinforcement of medical personnel in the town hospital, until such time as the
zemstvo hospital opened, and the town invited a district doctor, Evgeny Fyodorych Khobotov, to assist Andrei Yefimych. He is still a very young man—not yet thirty—tall, dark-haired, with broad cheekbones and small eyes; his ancestors probably belonged to a racial minority He arrived in town without a cent, with a small suitcase and a homely young woman whom he cal
ls his cook. This woman had a baby at the breast. Evgeny Fyodorych goes about in a peaked cap and high boots, and in winter wears a short jacket. He has become close with the assistant doctor, Sergei Sergeich, and with the treasurer, and for some reason calls the rest of the officials aristocrats and shuns them. There is only one book in his whole apartment:
Latest Prescriptions of the Vienna Clinic for 1881.
When he visits a patient, he always takes this book with him. In the evening, he plays billiards at the club, but he does not like cards. He has a great fondness for introducing into his c
onversation such words as “flim-flam,” “mantifolia with vinegar,” “you’re just blowing smoke,” and so on.

He comes to the hospital twice a week, makes the rounds of the wards, and receives patients. The total absence of antiseptics and the use of cupping glasses
¹¹
make him indignant, but he does not introduce any new rules for fear of insulting Andrei Yefimych. He considers his colleague Andrei Yefimych an old swindler, suspects him of having great means, and secretly envies him. He would gladly take over his post.

One spring evening at the end of March, when there was no more snow on the ground and the starlings were singing in the hospital garden, the doctor went outside to see his friend the postmaster to the gate. Just then the Jew Moiseika, returning from his hunt, came into the yard. He was hatless, had low galoshes on his bare feet, and was carrying a small bag of alms.

“Give me a little kopeck!” he addressed the doctor, shivering with cold and smiling.

Andrei Yefimych, who could never say no, gave him ten kopecks.

“This is so wrong,” he thought, looking at his bare legs and red, skinny ankles. “It’s wet out.”

And, moved by a feeling akin to both pity and squeamishness,
he followed the Jew to the annex, looking alternately at his bald spot and his ankles. As the doctor came in, Nikita jumped off the pile of rubbish and stood up straight.

“Hello, Nikita,” Andrei Yefimych said softly. “How about giving this Jew some boots, otherwise he’ll catch cold.”

“Yes, Your Honor! I’ll report it to the superintendent.”

“Please do. Ask him on my behalf. Tell him I asked for it.”

The door from the hall to the ward was open. Ivan Dmitrich, who lay in bed propped on one elbow, listened anxiously to the strange voice and suddenly recognized the doctor. He shook all over with wrath, jumped up, and, his face red and angry, his eyes popping, rushed to the middle of the room.

“The doctor has come!” he cried and burst into loud laughter. “At last! Gentlemen, I congratulate you, the doctor has bestowed a visit upon us! Cursed vermin!” he shrieked and stamped his foot in a frenzy such as had not been seen in the ward before. “Kill the vermin! No, killing’s not enough! Drown him in the outhouse!”

Andrei Yefimych, hearing that, peeked into the room and asked softly:

“What for?”

“What for?” cried Ivan Dmitrich, approaching him with a menacing look and convulsively wrapping his robe around him. “What for? Thief!” he said with disgust, pursing his lips as if he were about to spit. “Charlatan! Hangman!”

“Calm yourself,” said Andrei Yefimych, smiling guiltily. “I assure you, I’ve never stolen anything, and as for the rest, you are probably exaggerating greatly. I can see that you are ang
ry with me. Calm yourself, if you can, I beg you, and tell me coolheadedly: why are you angry?”

“And why do you keep me here?”

“Because you are ill.”

“Ill, yes. But dozens, hundreds, of madmen are walking around free, because in your ignorance you are unable to tell them from the sane. Why, then, must I and these unfortunates sit here for all of them, like scapegoats? In the moral respect, you, your assistant, the superintendent, and all your hospital scum are immeasurably lower than any of us, so why do we sit here and not you? Where’s the logic?”

“Logic and the moral respect have nothing to do with it. It all depends on chance. Those who have been put here, sit here, and
those who have not are walking around, that’s all. That I am a doctor and you are a mental patient has no morality or logic in it—it’s a matter of pure chance.”

“I don’t understand that gibberish …” Ivan Dmitrich said dully, and he sat down on his bed.

Moiseika, whom Nikita was embarrassed to search in the doctor’s presence, laid out his pieces of bread, scraps of paper, and little bones on the bed and, still shivering with cold, began saying something rapidly and melodiously in Hebrew. He probably imagined he had opened a shop.

“Release me!” said Ivan Dmitrich, and his voice trembled.

“I can’t.”

“But why not? Why not?”

“Because it’s not in my power. Consider, what good will it do you if I release you? Go now. The townspeople or the police will stop you and bring you back.”

“Yes, yes, it’s true …” said Ivan Dmitrich, and he rubbed his forehead. “It’s terrible! But what am I to do? What?”

Andrei Yefimych liked Ivan Dmitrich’s voice and his young, intelligent face with its grimaces. He wished to be kind to the young man and calm him down. He sat beside him on the bed, thought a little, and said:

“You ask, what is to be done? The best thing in your situation would be to run away from here. But, unfortunately, that is useless. You’ll be stopped. When society protects itself from criminals, the mentally ill, and generally inconvenient people, it is invincible. One thing is left for you: to rest with the thought that your being here is necessary.”

“Nobody needs it.”

“Since prisons and madhouses exist, someone must sit in them. If not you, then me; if not me, some third person. Wait till the distant future, when there will be no more prisons and madhouses; then there will be no bars on the windows, no hospital robes. Such a time is sure to come sooner or later.”

Ivan Dmitrich smiled mockingly.

“You’re joking,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Gentlemen like you and your helper Nikita don’t care about the future at all, but rest assured, my dear sir, that better times will come! My expressions may be banal, you may laugh, but the dawn of the new life will shine forth, truth will triumph, and—it will be our turn to
celebrate! I won’t live to see it, I’ll croak, but somebody’s great-grandchildren will see it. I greet them with al
l my heart, and I rejoice, I rejoice for them! Forward! May God help you, my friends!”

Ivan Dmitrich, his eyes shining, got up and, stretching his arms towards the window, went on in an excited voice:

“From behind these bars I bless you! Long live the truth! I rejoice!”

“I see no special reason for rejoicing,” said Andrei Yefimych, who found Ivan Dmitrich’s gesture theatrical, but at the same time liked it very much. “There won’t be any prisons and madhouses, and truth, as you were pleased to put it, will triumph, but the essence of things will not change, the laws of nature will remain the same. People will get sick, grow old, and die, just as they do now. However magnificent the dawn that lights up your life, in the end you’ll still be nailed up in a coffin and thrown into a hole.”

“And immortality?”

“Oh, come now!”

“You don’t believe in it. Well, but I do. In Dostoevsky or Voltaire somebody says if there were no God, people wou
ld have invented him.
¹²
And I deeply believe that if there is no immortality, sooner o
r later the great human mind will invent it.”

“Well said,” pronounced Andrei Yefimych, smiling with pleasure. “It’s good that you believe. With such faith one can live beautifully even bricked up in a wall. You must have received some education?”

“Yes, I studied at the university, but I didn’t finish.”

“You’re a thinking and perceptive man. You can find peace within yourself under any circumstances. Free and profound thought, which strives towards the comprehension of life, and a complete scorn for the foolish vanity of the world—ma
n has never known anything higher than these two blessings. And
you can possess them even if you live behind triple bars. Diogenes
¹³
lived in a barrel, yet he was happier than all the kings of the earth.”

“Your Diogenes was a blockhead,” Ivan Dmitrich said sullenly. “What are you telling me about Diogenes and some sort of comprehension?” He suddenly became angry and jumped up. “I love life, I love it passionately! I have a persecution mania, a constant, tormenting fear, but there are moments when I’m seized by a thirst for life, and then I’m afraid of losing my mind. I want terribly to live, terribly!”

He paced about the ward in agitation and said in a lowered voice:

“When I dream, I’m visited by phantoms. People come to me, I hear voices, music, and it seems to me that I’m strolling in some forest, on the seashore, and I want so passionately to have cares, concerns … Tell me, what’s new there?” asked Ivan Dmitrich. “How are things?”

“Do you wish to know about the town or generally?”

“Well, first tell me about the town and then generally”

“How is it? In town, excruciatingly boring … There’s nobody to talk to, nobody to listen to. There are no new people. Though the young doctor Khobotov came recently.”

“He came while I was still there. A boor, or what?”

“Yes, an uncultivated man. It’s strange, you know… To all appearances, there is no intellectual stagnation in our capitals, there is movement—meaning that there must be real people there—but for some reason they always send us such people that you can’t stand the sight of them! A wretched town!”

“Yes, a wretched town!” Ivan Dmitrich said and laughed. “And how is it generally? What are they writing in the newspapers and magazines?”

It was already dark in the ward. The doctor got up and, standing, began to tell about what people were writing abroad and in Russia and what trends of thought could be observed at present. Ivan Dmitrich listened attentively and asked questions, but suddenly, as if recalling something terrible, clutched his head and lay down on the bed, his back to the doctor.

“What’s wrong?” asked Andrei Yefimych.

“You won’t hear another word from me!” Ivan Dmitrich said rudely. “Leave me alone!”

“But why?”

“Leave me alone, I tell you! What the devil do you want?”

Andrei Yefimych shrugged, sighed, and went out. Passing through the front hall, he said:

“How about cleaning up here, Nikita … It smells awful!”

“Yes, Your Honor!”

“What a nice young man!” thought Andrei Yefimych as he walked to his own quarters. “In all the time I’ve lived here, it seems he’s the first with whom one can talk. He knows how to reason and is interested in precisely the right things.”

Reading and then lying in bed, he kept thinking about Ivan Dmitrich, and waking up the next morning, he remembered that he had made the acquaintance of an intelligent and interesting man yesterday and resolved to visit him again at the first opportunity

Ivan Dmitrich lay in the same posture as yesterday, his head clutched in his hands and his legs drawn up. His face could not be seen.

“Good day, my friend,” said Andrei Yefimych. “Are you asleep?”

“First of all, I’m not your friend,” Ivan Dmitrich said into the pillow, “and second, you’re troubling yourself in vain: you won’t get a single word out of me.”

“Strange …” Andrei Yefimych murmured in embarrassment. “Yesterday we talked so peaceably, but for some reason you suddenly became offended and broke off all at once … I probably expressed myself somehow awkwardly, or perhaps voiced a thought that doesn’t agree with your convictions …”

“Yes, I’ll believe you just like that!” said Ivan Dmitrich, rising a little and looking at the doctor mockingly and with alarm; his eyes were red. “You can do your spying and testing somewhere else, you’ve got no business here. I already understood yesterday why you came.”

“Strange fantasy!” smiled the doctor. “So you think I’m a spy?”

“Yes, I do … A spy or a doctor assigned to test me—it’s all the same.”

“Ah, really, what a … forgive me … what an odd man you are!”

The doctor sat down on a stool by the bed and shook his head reproachfully.

“But suppose you’re right,” he said. “Suppose I treacherously try to snatch at some word in order to betray you to the police. You’ll be arrested and then tried. But will it be worse for you in court or p
rison than it is here? And if you’re sent into exile or even to hard labor, is that worse than sitting in this annex? I suppose not … So what are you afraid of?”

These words obviously affected Ivan Dmitrich. He quietly sat up.