Andrei Yefimych liked Ivan Dmitrich’s voice and his young, intelligent face with its grimaces. He wished to be kind to the young man and calm him down. He sat beside him on the bed, thought a little, and said:
“You ask, what is to be done? The best thing in your situation would be to run away from here. But, unfortunately, that is useless. You’ll be stopped. When society protects itself from criminals, the mentally ill, and generally inconvenient people, it is invincible. One thing is left for you: to rest with the thought that your being here is necessary.”
“Nobody needs it.”
“Since prisons and madhouses exist, someone must sit in them. If not you, then me; if not me, some third person. Wait till the distant future, when there will be no more prisons and madhouses; then there will be no bars on the windows, no hospital robes. Such a time is sure to come sooner or later.”
Ivan Dmitrich smiled mockingly.
“You’re joking,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Gentlemen like you and your helper Nikita don’t care about the future at all, but rest assured, my dear sir, that better times will come! My expressions may be banal, you may laugh, but the dawn of the new life will shine forth, truth will triumph, and—it will be our turn to celebrate! I won’t live to see it, I’ll croak, but somebody’s great-grandchildren will see it. I greet them with all my heart, and I rejoice, I rejoice for them! Forward! May God help you, my friends!”
Ivan Dmitrich, his eyes shining, got up and, stretching his arms towards the window, went on in an excited voice:
“From behind these bars I bless you! Long live the truth! I rejoice!”
“I see no special reason for rejoicing,” said Andrei Yefimych, who found Ivan Dmitrich’s gesture theatrical, but at the same time liked it very much. “There won’t be any prisons and madhouses, and truth, as you were pleased to put it, will triumph, but the essence of things will not change, the laws of nature will remain the same. People will get sick, grow old, and die, just as they do now. However magnificent the dawn that lights up your life, in the end you’ll still be nailed up in a coffin and thrown into a hole.”
“And immortality?”
“Oh, come now!”
“You don’t believe in it. Well, but I do. In Dostoevsky or Voltaire somebody says if there were no God, people would have invented him.12 And I deeply believe that if there is no immortality, sooner or later the great human mind will invent it.”
“Well said,” pronounced Andrei Yefimych, smiling with pleasure. “It’s good that you believe. With such faith one can live beautifully even bricked up in a wall. You must have received some education?”
“Yes, I studied at the university, but I didn’t finish.”
“You’re a thinking and perceptive man. You can find peace within yourself under any circumstances. Free and profound thought, which strives towards the comprehension of life, and a complete scorn for the foolish vanity of the world—man has never known anything higher than these two blessings. And you can possess them even if you live behind triple bars. Diogenes13 lived in a barrel, yet he was happier than all the kings of the earth.”
“Your Diogenes was a blockhead,” Ivan Dmitrich said sullenly. “What are you telling me about Diogenes and some sort of comprehension?” He suddenly became angry and jumped up. “I love life, I love it passionately! I have a persecution mania, a constant, tormenting fear, but there are moments when I’m seized by a thirst for life, and then I’m afraid of losing my mind. I want terribly to live, terribly!”
He paced about the ward in agitation and said in a lowered voice:
“When I dream, I’m visited by phantoms. People come to me, I hear voices, music, and it seems to me that I’m strolling in some forest, on the seashore, and I want so passionately to have cares, concerns … Tell me, what’s new there?” asked Ivan Dmitrich. “How are things?”
“Do you wish to know about the town or generally?”
“Well, first tell me about the town and then generally”
“How is it? In town, excruciatingly boring … There’s nobody to talk to, nobody to listen to. There are no new people. Though the young doctor Khobotov came recently.”
“He came while I was still there. A boor, or what?”
“Yes, an uncultivated man. It’s strange, you know… To all appearances, there is no intellectual stagnation in our capitals, there is movement—meaning that there must be real people there—but for some reason they always send us such people that you can’t stand the sight of them! A wretched town!”
“Yes, a wretched town!” Ivan Dmitrich said and laughed. “And how is it generally? What are they writing in the newspapers and magazines?”
It was already dark in the ward. The doctor got up and, standing, began to tell about what people were writing abroad and in Russia and what trends of thought could be observed at present. Ivan Dmitrich listened attentively and asked questions, but suddenly, as if recalling something terrible, clutched his head and lay down on the bed, his back to the doctor.
“What’s wrong?” asked Andrei Yefimych.
“You won’t hear another word from me!” Ivan Dmitrich said rudely. “Leave me alone!”
“But why?”
“Leave me alone, I tell you! What the devil do you want?”
Andrei Yefimych shrugged, sighed, and went out. Passing through the front hall, he said:
“How about cleaning up here, Nikita … It smells awful!”
“Yes, Your Honor!”
“What a nice young man!” thought Andrei Yefimych as he walked to his own quarters. “In all the time I’ve lived
