Stories

He tries several times to lie down, but nothing comes of it: suffocation prevents him.

“And why did you beat the four Chinks?” he asks after a while.

“Just like that. They came into the yard, and I beat them.”

And silence ensues … The cardplayers play for a couple of hours, with passion and cursing, but the tossing wearies them, too; they abandon the cards and lie down. Again Gusev pictures the big pond, the factory, the village … Again the sleigh is driving, again Vanka laughs, and foolish Akulka has opened her coat and shows her legs: “Look, good people, my boots aren’t like Vanka’s, they’re new.”

“She’s going on six and still has no sense!” Gusev says in his sleep. “Instead of sticking your legs up, you’d better bring your soldier uncle some water. I’ll give you a treat.”

Here Andron, a flintlock on his shoulder, comes carrying a hare he has shot, and after him comes the decrepit Jew Isaichik and offers him a piece of soap in exchange for the hare; here is a black heifer in the front hall, here is Domna, sewing a shirt and weeping about something, and here again is the eyeless bull’s head, the black smoke …

Someone overhead gives a loud shout, several sailors go running; it seems as if something bulky is being dragged across the deck or something has cracked. Again there is running. Has there been an accident? Gusev raises his head, listens, and sees: the two soldiers and the sailor are playing cards again; Pavel Ivanych is sitting and moving his lips. It is stifling, he does not have strength enough to breathe, he wants to drink, but the water is warm, disgusting … The tossing will not let up.

Suddenly something strange happens to one of the cardplaying soldiers … He calls hearts diamonds, mixes up his score and drops his cards, then gives a frightened, stupid smile and gazes around at them all.

“Just a minute, brothers …” he says and lies down on the floor.

They are all perplexed. They call out to him, he does not answer.

“Maybe you’re not well, Stepan? Eh?” asks the other soldier with his arm in a sling. “Maybe we should call the priest? Eh?”

“Drink some water, Stepan …” says the sailor. “Here, brother, drink.”

“Well, why shove the mug in his teeth?” Gusev says crossly. “Can’t you see, dunderhead?”

“What?”

“What!” Gusev repeats mockingly. “There’s no breath in him! He’s dead! That’s ‘what’ for you! Such senseless folk, Lord God! …”

III

There is no tossing, and Pavel Ivanych has cheered up. He is no longer angry. The look on his face is boastful, perky, and mocking. As if he wants to say: “Yes, now I’m going to tell you such a joke that you’ll split your sides with laughing.” The round window is open, and a soft breeze is blowing on Pavel Ivanych. Voices are heard, the splashing of oars in the water … Just under the window somebody is whining in a thin, disgusting little voice: it must be a Chinaman singing.

“So we’re in harbor,” says Pavel Ivanych with a mocking smile. “Another month or so and we’ll be in Russia. Yes, my esteemed gentlemen soldiers. I’ll get to Odessa, and from there go straight to Kharkov. In Kharkov I have a friend who is a writer. I’ll go to him and say: ‘Well, brother, abandon for a bit your vile stories about female amours and the beauties of nature, and start exposing these two-legged scum … Here are some stories for you …’”

He thinks about something for a moment, then says:

“Do you know how I tricked them, Gusev?”

“Who, Pavel Ivanych?”

“Them … You see, there’s only first and third class on this ship, and the only ones allowed to travel third class are peasants—that is, boors. If you’re wearing a suit or look like a gentleman or a bourgeois, from a distance at least, then kindly travel first class. You dish up five hundred roubles, even if it kills you. ‘Why have you set up such rules?’ I ask. ‘Do you hope to raise the prestige of the Russian intelligentsia?’ ‘Not in the least. We won’t let you in there, because a decent man cannot travel third class: it’s much too nasty and vile.’ ‘Really, sir? Thank you for being so concerned for decent people. But in any case, whether it’s nasty or not there, I don’t have five hundred roubles. I haven’t robbed the treasury, haven’t exploited the racial minorities, haven’t engaged in smuggling or flogged anyone to death, so you decide: do I have the right to be installed in first class and, what’s more, to count myself among the Russian intelligentsia?’ But you can’t get them with logic … I had to resort to trickery. I dressed up in a peasant kaftan and big boots, put on a drunken, boorish mug, and went to the ticket agent: ‘Gimme a little ticket, Your Honor …’”

“And what estate are you from?” asks the sailor.

“Clerical. My father was an honest priest. He always told the truth in the faces of the great ones of the world, and for that he suffered a lot.”

Pavel Ivanych is out of breath and tired of talking, but he goes on all the same:

“Yes, I always tell the truth in people’s teeth … I’m not afraid of anybody or anything. In that sense there’s an enormous difference between me and you. You are ignorant, blind, downtrodden people, you don’t see anything, and what you do see you don’t understand … You’re told that the wind can snap its chain, that you are brutes, Pechenegs,² and you believe it; you get it in the neck, and kiss the man’s hand; some animal in a raccoon coat robs you, then tosses you a fifteen-kopeck tip, and you say: ‘Allow me, sir, to kiss your hand.’ You’re pathetic people, pariahs … With me it’s different. I live consciously, I see everything, like an eagle or a hawk when it flies over the earth, and I understand everything. I am protest incarnate. When I see tyranny, I protest. When I see a bigot and hypocrite, I protest. When I see a triumphant pig, I protest. And I’m invincible, no Spanish inquisition can silence me. No … Cut out my tongue and I’ll protest with gestures. Wall me up in a cellar and I’ll shout so loud it will be heard a mile away, or I’ll starve myself to death, so there’ll be another fifty pounds on their black consciences. Kill me and I’ll come back as a ghost. My acquaintances all tell me: ‘You’re a most insufferable man, Pavel Ivanych!’ I’m proud of that reputation. I served for three years in the Far East and left a memory behind that will last a hundred years: I quarreled with everybody. My friends write me from Russia: ‘Don’t come back!’ But I will, I’ll come back just to spite them … Yes … That’s life, as I understand it. That’s what can be called life.”

Gusev is not listening, he is looking out the window. A boat, all flooded with blinding, hot sunlight, is rocking on the transparent, soft turquoise water. Naked Chinamen are standing in it, holding up cages of canaries and shouting: