XXXVII
The trap passed the fireman who stood sentinel at the entrance,29 drove into the yard of the police station, and stopped at one of the doors. In the yard several firemen with their sleeves tucked up were washing some kind of cart and talking loudly. When the trap stopped, several policemen surrounded it, and taking the lifeless body of the convict under the arms, took him out of the trap, which creaked under him. The policeman who had brought the body got down, shook his numbed arm, took off his cap, and crossed himself. The body was carried through the door and up the stairs. Nekhlúdoff followed. In the small, dirty room where the body was taken there stood four beds. On two of them sat a couple of sick men in dressing-gowns, one with a crooked mouth, whose neck was bandaged, the other one in consumption. Two of the beds were empty; the convict was laid on one of them. A little man, with glistening eyes and continually moving brows, with only his underclothes and stockings on, came up with quick, soft steps, looked at the convict and then at Nekhlúdoff, and burst into loud laughter. This was a madman who was being kept in the police hospital.
“They wish to frighten me, but no, they won’t succeed,” he said.
The policemen who carried the corpse were followed by a police officer and a medical assistant. The medical assistant came up to the body and touched the freckled hand, already growing cold, which, though still soft, was deadly pale. He held it for a moment, and then let it go. It fell lifelessly on the stomach of the dead man.
“He’s ready,” said the medical assistant, but, evidently to be quite in order, he undid the wet, brown shirt, and tossing back the curls from his ear, put it to the yellowish, broad, immovable chest of the convict. All were silent. The medical assistant raised himself again, shook his head, and touched with his fingers first one and then the other lid over the open, fixed blue eyes.
“I’m not frightened, I’m not frightened.” The madman kept repeating these words, and spitting in the direction of the medical assistant.
“Well?” asked the police officer.
“Well! He must be put into the mortuary.”
“Are you sure? Mind,” said the police officer.
“It’s time I should know,” said the medical assistant, drawing the shirt over the body’s chest. “However, I will send for Mathew Ivánovitch. Let him have a look. Petróv, call him,” and the medical assistant stepped away from the body.
“Take him to the mortuary,” said the police officer. “And then you must come into the office and sign,” he added to the convoy soldier, who had not left the convict for a moment.
“Yes, sir,” said the soldier.
The policemen lifted the body and carried it down again. Nekhlúdoff wished to follow, but the madman kept him back.
“You are not in the plot! Well, then, give me a cigarette,” he said. Nekhlúdoff got out his cigarette case and gave him one.
The madman, quickly moving his brows all the time, began relating how they tormented him by thought suggestion.
“Why, they are all against me, and torment and torture me through their mediums.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Nekhlúdoff, and without listening any further he left the room and went out into the yard, wishing to know where the body would be put.
The policemen with their burden had already crossed the yard, and were coming to the door of a cellar. Nekhlúdoff wished to go up to them, but the police officer stopped him.
“What do you want?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Then go away.”
Nekhlúdoff obeyed, and went back to his isvóstchik, who was dozing. He awoke him, and they drove back towards the railway station.
They had not made a hundred steps when they met a cart accompanied by a convoy soldier with a gun. On the cart lay another convict, who was already dead. The convict lay on his back in the cart, his shaved head, from which the pancake-shaped cap had slid over the black-bearded face down to the nose, shaking and thumping at every jolt. The driver, in his heavy boots, walked by the side of the cart, holding the reins; a policeman followed on foot. Nekhlúdoff touched his isvóstchik’s shoulder.
“Just look what they are doing,” said the isvóstchik, stopping his horse.
Nekhlúdoff got down and, following the cart, again passed the sentinel and entered the gate of the police station. By this time the firemen had finished washing the cart, and a tall, bony man, the chief of the fire brigade, with a coloured band round his cap, stood in their place, and, with his hands in his pockets, was severely looking at a fat-necked, well-fed, bay stallion that was being led up and down before him by a fireman. The stallion was lame on one of his fore feet, and the chief of the firemen was angrily saying something to a veterinary who stood by.
The police officer was also present. When he saw the cart he went up to the convoy soldier.
“Where did you bring him from?” he asked, shaking his head disapprovingly.
“From the Gorbátovskaya,” answered the policeman.
“A prisoner?” asked the chief of the fire brigade.
“Yes. It’s the second today.”
“Well, I must say they’ve got some queer arrangements. Though of course it’s a broiling day,” said the chief of the fire brigade; then, turning to the fireman who was leading the lame stallion, he shouted: “Put him into the corner stall. And as to you, you hound, I’ll teach you how to cripple horses which are worth more than you are, you scoundrel.”
The dead man was taken from the cart by the policemen just in the same way as the first had been, and carried upstairs into the hospital. Nekhlúdoff followed them as if he were hypnotised.
“What do you want?” asked one of the policemen. But Nekhlúdoff did not answer, and followed where
