away, at the very end of the world, there were great walls of stone and that the furious winds were chained to these walls. If the winds had not broken loose from their chains, how do you account for the fact that they fling themselves across the sea like maniacs, and struggle to escape like dogs? If they were not chained up, what became of them when the seas were calm?
For a long time Gusev pondered those massive rusty chains and the fish as big as mountains, and then he wearied of these things and instead he summoned up the memory of his village, that village to which he was returning after five years’ service in the Far East. He thought of an immense pool crusted with snow; on one side stood the potteries, which were the color of brick, with the high chimney and clouds of black smoke, and on the other side lay the village. Driving a sleigh, his brother Alexey emerged from the fifth courtyard from the end, his little son Vanka and his daughter Akulka sitting behind him, both of them wearing big felt boots. Alexey had been drinking, Vanka was laughing, and Akulka was bundled up so that it was impossible to see her face.
“Unless he’s careful, the children will be frozen stiff!” Gusev thought. “Oh Lord, put some sense in their heads so that they will honor their father and mother, and not be any wiser than their father and mother.…”
“They need new soles for their boots,” the sick sailor roared in his delirium. “Yes, they do!”
At this point Gusev’s thoughts broke off, and for no reason at all the pool gave place to the head of a huge bull without eyes, and the horse and sleigh were no longer going straight ahead, but were whirling round and round in clouds of black smoke. But he was delighted to have seen his own people. Joy made him catch his breath, shivers went up and down his spine, and his fingers tingled.
“Praise the Lord, for He has granted us to see each other,” he murmured feverishly, and then he opened his eyes and looked for water in the dark.
He drank some water and lay down, and once more he saw the sleigh gliding along, and once more he saw the head of the bull without eyes, and the smoke, and the clouds. And so it went on until the sun rose.
II
The first object to emerge through the darkness was a blue circle, the porthole; then little by little Gusev was able to make out the shape of the man in the next hammock, Pavel Ivanich. This man slept sitting up, as he felt suffocated lying down. He had a gray face, a long sharp nose, and eyes which seemed enormous because he was terribly emaciated; and his temples were sunken, his hair was long, and there were only a few small threads of beard. From his face no one could have told his social status, whether he was 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 no one hearing him talk would ever have regarded him as a monk. Worn out by coughing, illness, and suffocating heat, he breathed laboriously, his parched lips trembling. Seeing Gusev gazing at him, he turned his face towards him and said: “I’m beginning to guess.… Yes … I understand it perfectly now.…”
“What do you understand, Pavel Ivanich?”
“It’s like this.… It has always seemed strange to me. Here you are, terribly ill, and instead of being left in peace, you are taken on board a ship where it’s hot and the air’s stifling and the deck is always pitching and rolling, and in fact everything threatens you with death.… It’s all clear to me now.… Yes.… The doctors got you on the ship, to get rid of you. They were fed up with looking after you—you’re only cattle. You don’t pay them anything, you are a nuisance, and you spoil their statistics when you die. So, of course, you are cattle! And it’s no trouble to get rid of you. All that’s needed in the first place is to have no conscience or humanity, and in the second place the ship’s officers can be told lies. No need to worry about the first—we are artists in all that. As for the second, you can always do it with a little practice. In a crowd of four hundred healthy soldiers and sailors, no one notices half a dozen sick ones. Well, they got you on the ship, mixed you up with the healthy ones, made a quick count, and because there was a lot of confusion no one saw anything wrong in it, but when the ship sailed they discovered there were paralytics and sick people in the last stages of consumption lying about the deck.…”
Gusev did not understand a single word spoken by Pavel Ivanich, and thinking he was being reprimanded, he said in self-defense: “I was lying on deck only because I didn’t have the strength to stand. When we were being unloaded from the barge onto the ship, I caught a terrible chill.”
“It’s revolting,” Pavel Ivanich went on. “The worst of it is they knew perfectly well you couldn’t survive such a long journey, and yet they shove you on the ship! Let’s suppose you last out as far as the Indian Ocean, what happens then? It’s terrible to think about it.… And that’s all you get for your years of faithful service with never a bad mark against you.”
Pavel Ivanich’s eyes flashed anger, he frowned contemptuously, and gasped out: “There are people the newspapers really ought to tear apart, till the feathers are flying!”
The two sick soldiers and the sailor were awake, and already playing cards. The sailor was half reclining on his hammock, while the soldiers sat near him on the floor in uncomfortable attitudes. One soldier had his right arm in a sling, and his wrist was so heavily bandaged that it resembled a fur cap: he kept his cards under his right armpit or in the crook of his elbow while playing with his left hand. The ship was rolling heavily. It was impossible to stand upright or drink tea or take medicine.
“What were you—an officer’s servant?” Pavel Ivanich asked Gusev.
“That’s right. I was an officer’s orderly.”
“Dear God!” said Pavel Ivanich, and he shook his head mournfully. “You tear a man from his home, drag him out of his nest, send him ten thousand miles away, let him rot with consumption, and … You wonder why they do it!… Just to make him the servant of some Captain Kopeikin or Midshipman Dirka! It doesn’t make sense!”
“Being an officer’s servant isn’t hard work, Pavel Ivanich. You get up in the morning and clean the boots and get the samovar ready and sweep the rooms, and then there’s nothing more to do. The lieutenant spends his days drawing up plans, and if you like you can say your prayers or maybe read a book or maybe go out on the street. God grant everyone such a life!”
“That’s all very well. The lieutenant draws up his plans, while you spend the day sitting around the kitchen and longing for your own home.… Plans!… It’s not a question of plans, but of a human life! Life doesn’t come back again, and you have to treat it gently.”
“Of course, Pavel Ivanich, a bad man is never well treated, either at home or in the service, but if you live right and obey orders, who wants to do you harm? The officers are educated gentlemen, they understand.… In five years they never once put me in the can, and they only hit me once, so help me God!”
“What did they hit you for?”
“For fighting. I’ve got a pair of tough hands, Pavel Ivanich. Four Chinese came into our yard, they were bringing firewood or something—I don’t remember. Well, I was bored, and I beat them up, and the nose of one of them started to bleed.… The lieutenant watched it through a window, flew into a temper, and boxed my ears!”
