“Poor stupid fool,” said Pavel Ivanich. “You never understand anything.”
He was completely exhausted by the rolling of the ship, and closed his eyes, and sometimes his head fell back and sometimes it dropped on his chest. Several times he tried to lie down, but he never succeeded. His breathing was labored.
“Why did you beat up those four Chinese?”
“They came into the yard and so I beat them up—that’s all.”
Silence followed. The cardplayers went on playing for two hours with much eagerness and angry shouting, but the rolling of the ship was finally too much even for them; they threw their cards aside, and lay down. Once again Gusev saw the large pool, the potteries, and the village. Once again the sleigh made its way over the snow, and Vanka was laughing, and Akulka in the silliest way was throwing open her fur coat and kicking out her feet, as though she were saying: “Look, good people, at my new felt boots, not like Vanka’s old ones!”
“Soon she will be six years old, and she hasn’t any sense in her head,” Gusev murmured in his fever. “Instead of kicking out your feet, you would be spending your time better if you brought a drink to the old soldier who is your uncle, and then I’ll give you a present!”
And then came Andron with his flintlock over his shoulder, carrying a hare he had shot, with the crazy Jew Issaichik coming after him and offering a bar of soap for the hare; and then there was the black calf in the passageway, and Domna was sewing a shirt and crying about something, and there came once again the bull’s head without eyes, and the black smoke.…
Overhead someone gave a loud shout, and several sailors ran past, and there was a sound as though some heavy object was being dragged across the deck or something had burst open. Again the sailors ran past.… Had there been an accident? Gusev lifted his head, listened, and observed that the two soldiers and the sailor were playing cards again. Pavel Ivanich was sitting up and moving his lips. You were suffocating in the heat, you had no strength to breathe, you were thirsty, and the water was hot, disgusting. The ship was still rolling badly.
Suddenly something strange happened to one of the soldiers who was playing cards.… He called hearts diamonds, then he got muddled over the score, and then let the cards fall from his hands. He smiled a frightened, stupid smile, and gazed at the other cardplayers.
“I won’t be a moment, fellows,” he said, and lay down on the floor.
They were all astonished. They shouted at him, but he did not answer.
“Stepan, maybe you’re feeling ill, eh?” the soldier with his arm in a sling said. “Maybe we should get a priest, eh?”
“Drink some water, Stepan,” the sailor said. “Here, drink, brother!”
“Why do you have to knock the jug against his teeth?” Gusev exclaimed angrily. “Haven’t you got eyes, cabbagehead?”
“What’s that?”
“What’s that?” Gusev mimicked him. “There’s not a drop of breath left in him—he’s dead! That’s what! Lord God, how stupid can you get?”
III
The ship stopped rolling, and Pavel Ivanich grew more cheerful. He was no longer ill-tempered. His face wore a boastful, challenging, defiant look, as though he wanted to say: “Just a moment, I’ll tell you something to make you split your sides with laughing!” The little round porthole was open, and a gentle breeze was blowing on Pavel Ivanich. There came the sound of voices and the splashing of oars in the water.… Beneath the porthole someone was droning in an unpleasant, reedy voice; it was probably a Chinese singing.
“So here we are in the harbor,” Pavel Ivanich said with an ironical smile. “Only another month, and we’ll be in Russia.… I address myself to our distinguished civilians and military men! I reach Odessa, and then make a beeline for Kharkov. In Kharkov I have a friend, a man of letters. I’ll go up to him and say: ‘Come, brother, put aside those abominable subjects you write about, the loves of women and the beauties of nature, and show us the two-legged vermin. There’s a theme for you.…’ ”
He thought for a minute and then he said: “Gusev, do you know how I made a fool of them?”
“Made a fool of who, Pavel Ivanich?”
“Why, those people.… You know, there’s only a first and third class on this ship, and they only allow peasants in the third class—only the scum. If you’re wearing a coat and look from a distance like a gentleman or a bourgeois, then they make you travel first class. You have to put down five hundred rubles, even if it kills you. ‘Why make a rule like that?’ I ask them. ‘Do you want to raise the prestige of the Russian intellectuals?’ ‘Not on your life,’ they say. ‘We won’t let you, because a decent person won’t go into the third class—it’s too horrible and disgusting.’ ‘Sir, I congratulate you for being so considerate for the affairs of decent people. Besides, whether it is nice or horrible, I haven’t got the five hundred rubles. I haven’t looted the treasury, I haven’t exploited natives, I never smuggled contraband, or flogged anyone to death, so judge for yourselves whether I have the right to travel first class or even the right to count myself among the Russian intellectuals.’ But you can’t teach logic to these fellows. I had to play a trick on them. I put on a peasant’s coat and high-boots, and wore a drunken stupid expression, and went to the ticket agents and said: ‘Won’t you give me a little ticket, Your Excellencies?’ ”
“What class do you really belong to?” the sailor said.
“The ecclesiastical class. My father was an honest priest, and he always told the truth to the great ones of the world—threw it in their faces—and so we suffered a great deal.”
Pavel Ivanich was exhausted with talking. He went on, gasping for breath: “Yes, I always tell them the truth straight in their faces. I’m not afraid of anyone or anything. In this respect there is a vast difference between me and you. You people are in the dark, you are blind and beaten to the ground; you see nothing, and what you do see you fail to understand.… They tell you the wind breaks loose from its chains, that you are beasts, savages, and you believe it. Someone punches you in the neck—you kiss his hand! A reptile in a raccoon coat strips you of everything you possess, and then tosses you a penny for your pains, and you say: ‘Sir, let me kiss your hand.’ You are outcasts, poor pathetic wretches.… I am different. I live in full consciousness of my powers. I see everything, like a hawk or an eagle hovering over the earth, and I understand everything. I am protest incarnate. When I see tyranny, I protest. When I see cant and hypocrisy, I protest. When I see swine triumphant, I protest. I cannot be silenced: no Spanish Inquisition will make me hold my tongue. No! If you cut out my tongue, I will still protest—with gestures. Bury me in a cellar, and I will shout so loud they will hear me a mile away, or else I will starve myself to death, and thus hang another weight round their black consciences. Kill me, and my ghost will haunt them! All my acquaintances say: ‘You are a most insufferable fellow, Pavel Ivanich!’ I am proud of my reputation. For three years I served in the Far East, and I shall be remembered there for a hundred years because I quarreled with everyone.
