instance, even in the fish, or in the wind snapping its chain? Suppose the fish is as big as a mountain, and its back is as hard as a sturgeon’s; suppose, too, that at the world’s end there are thick stone walls, and the angry winds are chained to the walls … If they have not snapped their chains, why are they rushing about like crazy all over the sea and straining like dogs? If they do not get chained up, where do they go when it is still?
Gusev spends a long time thinking about fish as big as mountains and thick, rusty chains, then he gets bored and begins thinking about his homeland, to which he is now returning after serving for five years in the Far East. He pictures an enormous pond covered with snow … On one side of the pond, a porcelain factory the color of brick, with a tall smokestack and clouds of black smoke; on the other side, a village … Out of a yard, the fifth from the end, drives a sleigh with his brother Alexei in it; behind him sits his boy Vanka in big felt boots and the girl Akulka, also in felt boots. Alexei is tipsy, Vanka is laughing, and Akulka’s face cannot be seen—she is all wrapped up.
“Worse luck, he’ll get the kids chilled …” thinks Gusev. “Lord, send them good sense,” he whispers, “to honor their parents and not be cleverer than their mother and father …”
“You need new soles there,” the sick sailor mutters in a bass voice while he sleeps. “Aye-aye!”
Gusev’s thoughts break off, and instead of a pond, a big, eyeless bull’s head appears out of nowhere, and the horse and sleigh are no longer driving but are whirling in the black smoke. But all the same he is glad to have seen his family. Joy takes his breath away, gives him gooseflesh all over, quivers in his fingers.
“God has granted me to see them!” he says in his sleep, but at once opens his eyes and feels for water in the darkness.
He drinks and lies down, and again the sleigh is driving, then again the eyeless bull’s head, the smoke, the clouds … And so it goes till dawn.
II
First a blue circle outlines itself in the darkness—it is a round window; then Gusev gradually begins to distinguish the man on the cot next to his, Pavel Ivanych. This man sleeps in a sitting position, because when he lies down he suffocates. His face is gray, his nose long, sharp, his eyes, owing to his great emaciation, are enormous; his temples are sunken, his little beard is thin, the hair on his head is long … Looking into his face, it is hard to tell what he is socially: a gentleman, a merchant, or a peasant? Judging by his expression and his long hair, he seems to be an ascetic, a monastery novice, but when you listen to what he says—it turns out that he may not be a monk. Coughing, stuffiness, and his illness have exhausted him, he breathes heavily and moves his dry lips. Noticing Gusev looking at him, he turns his face to him and says:
“I’m beginning to guess … Yes … Now I understand it all perfectly.”
“What do you understand, Pavel Ivanych?”
“Here’s what … I kept thinking it was strange that you gravely ill people, instead of staying in a quiet place, wound up on a ship, where the stuffiness, and the heat, and the tossing—everything, in short, threatens you with death, but now it’s all clear to me … Yes … Your doctors put you on a ship to get rid of you. They’re tired of bothering with you, with brutes … You don’t pay them anything, you’re a bother to them, and you ruin their statistics for them by dying—which means you’re brutes! And it’s not hard to get rid of you … For that it’s necessary, first, to have no conscience or brotherly love, and, second, to deceive the ship’s authorities. The first condition doesn’t count, in that respect we’re all artists, and the second always works if you have the knack. In a crowd of four hundred healthy soldiers and sailors, five sick men don’t stand out; so they herded you onto the ship, mixing you in with the healthy ones, counted you up quickly, and in the turmoil didn’t notice anything wrong, but when the ship got under way what did they see: paralytics and terminal consumptives lying around on deck …”
Gusev does not understand Pavel Ivanych; thinking that he is being reprimanded, he says, to justify himself:
“I lay on the deck because I had no strength. When they unloaded us from the barge onto the ship, I caught a bad chill.”
“Outrageous!” Pavel Ivanych goes on. “Above all, they know perfectly well you won’t survive this long passage, and yet they put you here! Well, suppose you get as far as the Indian Ocean, but what then? It’s terrible to think … And this is their gratitude for loyal, blameless service!”
Pavel Ivanych makes angry eyes, winces squeamishly, and gasps out:
“There are some who ought to be thrashed in the newspapers till the feathers fly”
The two sick soldiers and the sailor are awake and already playing cards. The sailor is half lying on a cot, the soldiers are sitting on the floor in the most uncomfortable positions. One soldier has his right arm in a sling and a whole bundle wrapped around his wrist, so he holds his cards under his right armpit or in the crook of his arm and plays with his left hand. The ship is tossing badly. It is impossible to stand up, or have tea, or take medicine.
“You served as an orderly?” Pavel Ivanych asks Gusev.
“Yes, sir, as an orderly.”
“My God, my God!” says Pavel Ivanych, shaking his head ruefully. “To tear a man out of his native nest, drag him ten thousand miles away, then drive him to consumption, and … and all that for what, you may ask? To make him the orderly of some Captain Kopeikin or Midshipman Dyrka.1 Mighty logical!”
“The work’s not hard, Pavel Ivanych! You get up in the morning, polish his boots, prepare the samovar, tidy his rooms, and then there’s nothing to do. The lieutenant draws his plans all day, and you can pray to God if you want, read books if you want, go out if you want. God grant everybody such a life.”
“Yes, very good! The lieutenant draws his plans, and you sit in the kitchen all day, longing for your homeland … Plans … It’s a man’s life that counts, not plans! Life can’t be repeated, it must be cherished.”
“That’s sure, Pavel Ivanych, a bad man’s cherished nowhere, not at home, not in the service, but if you live right, obey orders, then who has any need to offend you? The masters are educated people, they understand … In five years I was never once locked up, and I was beaten, if I remember right, no more than once …”
“What for?”
“For fighting. I’ve got a heavy fist, Pavel Ivanych. Four Chinks came into our yard, bringing firewood or something—I don’t remember. Well, I was feeling bored, so I roughed them up, gave one a bloody nose, curse him … The lieutenant saw it through the window, got angry, and cuffed me on the ear.”
“You’re a foolish, pathetic man …” whispers Pavel Ivanych. “You don’t understand anything.”
He is totally exhausted by the tossing and closes his eyes; his head gets thrown back, then falls on his chest.
