Iván Dmítritch's neighbour on the left, I have already said, was the
Jew Moséika; his neighbour on the right was a fat, almost globular
muzhik with a dull, meaningless face. This torpid, gluttonous, and
uncleanly animal had long lost all capacity for thought and feeling. He
exhaled a sharp, suffocating smell. When Nikita was obliged to attend
on him he used to beat him terribly, beat him with all his strength and
without regard for his own fists; and it was not this violence which
was so frightful--the terror of that was mitigated by custom--but the
fact that the stupefied animal made no answer to the blows either by
sound or movement or even by expression in his eyes, but merely rocked
from side to side like a heavy cask.
The fifth and last occupant of Ward No. 6 was a townsman who had served
once as a sorter in the Post Office. He was a little, thin, fair-headed
man, with a kindly, but somewhat cunning face. Judged by his clever,
tranquil eyes, which looked out on the world frankly and merrily, he
was the possessor of some valuable and pleasant secret. Under his
pillow and mattress he had something hidden which he refused to show to
anyone, not out of fear of losing it, but out of shame. Occasionally he
walked to the window, and turning his back upon his fellow-prisoners,
held something to his breast, and looked earnestly at it; but if anyone
approached he became confused and hid it away. But it was not hard to
guess his secret.
"Congratulate me!" he used to say to Iván Dmítritch. "I have been
decorated with the Stanislas of the second degree with a star. As
a rule the second degree with a star is given only to foreigners,
but for some reason they have made an exception in my case." And
then, shrugging his shoulders as if in doubt, he would add: "That is
something you never expected, you must admit."
"I understand nothing about it," answered Iván Dmítritch, gloomily.
"Do you know what I shall get sooner or later?" continued the
ex-sorter, winking slyly. "I shall certainly receive the Swedish Pole
Star. An order of that kind is worth trying for. A white cross and a
black ribbon. It is very handsome."
In no other place in the world, probably, is life so monotonous as
in the wing. In the morning the patients, with the exception of the
paralytic and the fat muzhik, wash themselves in a great bucket which
is placed in the hall, and dry themselves in the skirts of their
dressing-gowns. After this they drink tea out of tin mugs brought by
Nikita from the hospital. At midday they dine on _shtchi_ made with
sour cabbage, and porridge, and in the evening they sup on the porridge
left over from dinner. Between meals they lie down, sleep, look out of
the windows, and walk from corner to corner.
And so on every day. Even the ex-sorter talks always of the same
decorations.
Fresh faces are seldom seen in Ward No. 6. Years ago the doctor gave
orders that no fresh patients should be admitted, and in this world
people rarely visit lunatic asylums for pleasure.
But once every two months comes Semión Lazaritch the barber.
With Nikita's assistance, he cuts the patients hair; and on the
consternation of the victims every time they see his drunken, grinning
face, there is no need to dwell.
With this exception no one ever enters the ward. From day to day the
patients are condemned to see only Nikita. But at last a strange rumour
obtained circulation in the hospital. It was rumoured the doctor had
begun to pay visits to Ward No. 6.
V
It was indeed a strange rumour!
Doctor Andréi Yéfimitch Rágin was a remarkable man in his way. In early
youth, so they said, he was very pious, and intended to make a career
in the Church. But when in the year 1863 he finished his studies in
the gymnasium and prepared to enter the Ecclesiastical Academy, his
father, a surgeon and a doctor of medicine, poured ridicule on these
intentions, and declared categorically that if Andréi became a priest
he would disown him for ever. Whether this story is true or not it is
impossible to say, but it is certain that Andréi Yéfimitch more than
once admitted that he had never felt any vocation for medicine or,
indeed, for specialised sciences at all.
Certain it is, also, that he never became a priest, but completed a
course of study in the medical faculty of his university. He showed
no particular trace of godliness, and at the beginning of his medical
career was as little like a priest as at the end.
In appearance he was as heavy and rudely built as a peasant. His
bearded face, his straight hair, and his strong, awkward build recalled
some innkeeper on a main road--incontinent and stubborn. He was tall
and broad-shouldered, and had enormous feet, and hands with which, it
seemed, he could easily crush the life out of a man's body. Yet his
walk was noiseless, cautious, and insinuating; and when he met anyone
in a narrow passage he was always the first to step aside, and to
say--not as might be expected in a bass voice--in a soft, piping tenor:
"Excuse me!"
On his neck Andréi Yéfimitch had a small tumour which forbade his
wearing starched collars; he always wore a soft linen or print shirt.
Indeed, in no respect did he dress like a doctor; he wore the same suit
for ten years, and when he did buy new clothing--at a Jew's store--it
always looked as worn and crumpled as his old clothes. In one and
the same frock-coat he received his patients, dined, and attended
entertainments; and this not from penuriousness but from a genuine
contempt for appearances.
When Andréi Yéfimitch first came to the town to take up his duties
as physician to the hospital, that "charitable institution" was in a
state of inconceivable disorder. In the wards, in the corridors, and
even in the open air of the yard it was impossible to breathe owing
to the stench. The male attendants, the nurses and their children,
slept in the dormitories together with the patients. It was complained
that the hospital was becoming uninhabitable owing to the invasion of
beetles, bugs, and mice. In the surgical department there were only
two scalpels, nowhere was there a thermometer, and the baths were
used for storing potatoes in. The superintendent, the housekeeper,
and the feldscher robbed the sick, and of the former doctor, Andréi
Yéfimitch's predecessor, it was said that he sold the hospital spirits
secretly, and kept up a whole harem recruited from among the nurses and
female patients. In the town these scandals were well-known and even
exaggerated; but the townspeople were indifferent, and even excused
the abuses on the ground that the patients were all either petty
tradespeople or peasants who lived at home among conditions so much
worse that they had no right to complain; such gentry, they added, must
not expect to be fed on grouse! Others argued that as no small town had
sufficient resources to support a good hospital without subsidies from
the Zemstvo, they might thank God they had a bad one; and the Zemstvo
refused to open a hospital in the town on the ground that there was
already one.
When he inspected the hospital for the first time Andréi Yéfimitch
saw at once that the whole institution was hopelessly bad, and in the
highest degree dangerous to the health of the inmates. He concluded
that the best thing to do was to discharge the patients and to close
the hospital. But he knew that to effect this his wish alone was not
enough; and he reasoned that if the physical and moral uncleanliness
were driven from one place it would merely be transplanted to another;
it was necessary, in fact, to wait until it cleaned itself out. To
these considerations he added that if people opened a hospital and
tolerated its abuses they must have need of it; and, no doubt, such
abominations were necessary, and in the course of time would evolve
something useful, as good soil results from manuring. And, indeed, on
this earth there is nothing good that has not had evil germs in its
beginnings.
Having taken up his duties, therefore, Andréi Yéfimitch looked upon the
abuses with apparent indifference. He merely asked the servants and
nurses not to sleep in the wards, and bought two cases of instruments;
but he allowed the superintendent, the housekeeper, and the feldscher
to remain in their positions.
Andréi Yéfimitch was passionately enamoured of intellect and honesty,
but he had neither the character nor the confidence in his own powers
necessary to establish around himself an intelligent and honest life.
To command, to prohibit, to insist, he had never learned; It seemed
almost that he had sworn an oath never to raise his voice or to use
the imperative mood. ... Even to use the words "give" or "bring"
was difficult for him. When he felt hungry, he coughed irresolutely
and said to his cook, "Suppose I were to have a cup of tea," or "I
was thinking about dining." To tell the superintendent that he must
cease his robberies, to dismiss him, or to abolish altogether his
parasitical office he had not the strength. "When he was deceived or
flattered, or handed accounts for signature which he knew to have been
falsified, he would redden all over and feel guilty, yet sign the
accounts; and when the patients complained that they were hungry or had
been ill-treated by the nurses, he merely got confused, and stammered
guiltily:
"Very well, very well, I will investigate the matter. ... No doubt
there is some misunderstanding...."
At first Andréi Yéfimitch worked very zealously. He attended to
patients from morning until dinner-time, performed operations, and
even occupied himself with obstetrics. He gained a reputation for
exceptional skill in the treatment of women and children. But he soon
began visibly to weary of the monotony and uselessness of his work.
One day he would receive thirty patients, the next day the number had
grown to thirty-five, the next day to forty, and so on from day to day,
from year to year. Yet the death-rate in the town did not decrease, and
the number of patients never grew less. To give any real assistance
to forty patients in the few hours between morning and dinner-time
was physically impossible; in other words, he became an involuntary
deceiver. The twelve thousand persons received every year, he reasoned,
were therefore twelve thousand dupes. To place the serious cases in
the wards and treat them according to the rules of medical science was
impossible, because there were no rules and no science; whereas if
he left philosophy and followed the regulations pedantically as other
doctors did, he would still be in difficulty, for in the first place
were needed cleanliness and fresh air, and not filth; wholesome food,
and not _shtchi_ made of stinking sour cabbage; and honest assistants,
not thieves.
And, indeed, why hinder people dying, if death is the normal and lawful
end of us all? What does it matter whether some tradesman or petty
official lives, or does not live, an extra five years? We pretend to
see the object of medical science in its mitigation of suffering, but
we cannot but ask ourselves the question: Why should suffering be
mitigated? In the first place, we are told that suffering leads men
to perfection; and in the second, it is plain that if men were really
able to alleviate their sufferings with pills and potions, they would
abandon that religion and philosophy in which until now they had found
not only consolation, but even happiness. Pushkin suffered agonising
torment before his death; Heine lay for years in a state of paralysis.
Why, then, interfere with the sufferings of some mere Andréi Yéfimitch
or Matrena Savishin, whose lives are meaningless, and would be as
vacuous as the life of the amoeba if it were not for suffering?
Defeated by such arguments, Andréi Yéfimitch dropped his hands upon his
knees, and ceased his daily attendances at the hospital.