Just as he was, in his hat, fur coat, and felt boots, he lowered himself onto the bench; his companion, the coroner, sat down facing him.
“These hysterical and neurasthenic types are great egoists,” the doctor went on bitterly. “When a neurasthenic sleeps in the same room with you, he rustles his newspaper; when he dines with you, he makes a scene with his wife, not embarrassed by your presence; and when he decides to shoot himself, he goes and shoots himself in some village, in a zemstvo cottage, to cause more trouble for everybody. In all circumstances of life, these gentlemen think only of themselves. Only of themselves! That’s why the old folks dislike this ‘nervous age’ of ours so much.”
“The old folks dislike all sorts of things,” said the coroner, yawning. “Go and point out to these old folk the difference between former and present-day suicides. The former so-called respectable man shot himself because he’d embezzled government funds, the present-day one because he’s sick of life, in anguish … Which is better?”
“Sick of life, in anguish, but you must agree, he might have shot himself somewhere else than in a zemstvo cottage.”
“Such a dire thing,” the beadle began to say, “a dire thing—sheer punishment. Folks are very upset, Your Honor, it’s the third night they haven’t slept. The kids are crying. The cows need milking, but the women won’t go to the barn, they’re afraid … lest the master appear to them in the dark. Sure, they’re foolish women, but even some of the men are afraid. Once night comes, they won’t go past the cottage singly, but always in a bunch. And the witnesses, too …”
Dr. Starchenko, a middle-aged man with a dark beard and spectacles, and the coroner Lyzhin, blond, still young, who had finished his studies only two years before and looked more like a student than an official, sat silently, pondering. They were vexed at being late. They now had to wait till morning, stay there overnight, though it was not yet six, and they were faced with a long evening, then the long, dark night, boredom, uncomfortable beds, cockroaches, the morning cold; and, listening to the blizzard howling in the chimney and in the loft, they both thought how all this was unlike the life they would have wished for themselves and had once dreamed of, and how far they both were from their peers, who were now walking the well-lit city streets, heedless of the bad weather, or were about to go to the theater, or were sitting in their studies over a book. Oh, how dearly they would have paid now just to stroll down Nevsky Prospect, or Petrovka Street in Moscow, to hear some decent singing, to sit for an hour or two in a restaurant…
“Hoo-o-o!” sang the blizzard in the loft, and something outside slammed spitefully, probably the signboard on the zemstvo cottage. “Hoo-o-o!”
“Do as you like, but I have no wish to stay here,” Starchenko said, getting up. “It’s not six yet, too early for bed, I’ll go somewhere. Von Taunitz lives nearby, only a couple of miles from Syrnya. I’ll go to his place and spend the evening. Beadle, go and tell the coachman not to unharness. What about you?” he asked Lyzhin.
“I don’t know. I’ll go to bed, most likely.”
The doctor wrapped his coat around him and went out. One could hear him talking to the coachman and the little bells jingling on the chilled horses. He drove off.
“It’s not right for you to spend the night here, sir,” said the beadle. “Go to the other side. It’s not clean there, but for one night it won’t matter. I’ll fetch a samovar from the peasants and get it going, and after that I’ll pile up some hay for you, and you can sleep, Your Honor, with God’s help.”
A short time later the coroner was sitting in the black side, at a table, drinking tea, while the beadle Loshadin stood by the door and talked. He was an old man, over sixty, not tall, very thin, bent over, white-haired, a naive smile on his face, his eyes tearful, his lips constantly smacking as if he were sucking candy. He wore a short coat and felt boots, and never let the stick out of his hands. The coroner’s youth evidently aroused pity in him, and that may have been why he addressed him familiarly
“The headman, Fyodor Makarych, told me to report to him as soon as the police officer or coroner came,” he said. “So, in that case, I’ll have to go now … It’s three miles to town, there’s a blizzard, a terrible lot of snow has piled up, I may not make it before midnight. Listen to that howling.”
“I don’t need the headman,” said Lyzhin. “There’s nothing for him to do here.”
He gave the old man a curious glance and asked:
“Tell me, grandpa, how many years have you been going around as a beadle?”
“How many? Thirty years now. I started about five years after the freeing,2 so you can count it up. Since then I’ve gone around every day. People have holidays, and I go around. It’s Easter, the bells are ringing, Christ is risen, and I’m there with my bag. To the treasury, to the post office, to the police chief’s house, to a zemstvo member, to the tax inspector, to the council, to the gentry, to the peasants, to all Orthodox Christians. I carry packages, summonses, writs, letters, various forms, reports, and nowadays, my good sir, Your Honor, they’ve started having these forms for putting down numbers—yellow, white, red—and every landowner, or priest, or rich peasant has to report without fail some ten times a year on how much he sowed and reaped, how many bushels or sacks of rye, how much oats and hay, and what the weather was like, and what kinds of bugs there were. They can write whatever they want, of course, it’s just a formality, but I have to go and hand out the papers, and then go again and collect them. There’s no point, for instance, in gutting this gentleman here, you know yourself it’s useless, you’re just getting your hands dirty, but you took the trouble and came, Your Honor, because it’s a formality; there’s no help for it. For thirty years I’ve been going around on formalities. In summer it’s all right, warm, dry, but in winter or autumn it’s no good. I’ve drowned, frozen—everything’s happened. And bad people took my bag from me in the woods, and beat me up, and I was put on trial …”
“For what?”
“Swindling.”
“What kind of swindling?”
“The clerk Khrisanf Grigoryev sold somebody else’s lumber to a contractor—cheated him, that is. I was there when the deal was made, they sent me to the tavern for vodka; well, the clerk didn’t share with me, didn’t even offer me a glass, but since, poor as I am, I was seen as an unreliable, worthless man, we both went to trial; he was put in jail, but I, thank God, was justified in all my rights. They read some paper in court. And they were all in uniforms. There in the court. I’ll tell you what, Your Honor, for a man who’s not used to it, this work is a sheer disaster—God forbid—but for me it’s all right. My legs even hurt when I don’t walk. And it’s worse for me to stay home. In the office in my village it’s nothing but light the clerk’s fire, fetch the clerk’s water, polish the clerk’s boots.”
“And how much are you paid?” asked Lyzhin.
