His life passed thus. At eight in the morning he rose and took his
breakfast. After that he either sat in his study and read, or visited
the hospital. In the hospital in a narrow, dark corridor waited the
out-patients. With heavy boots clattering on the brick floor, servants
and nurses ran past them; emaciated patients in dressing-gowns
staggered by; and vessels of filth, and corpses were carried out. And
among them children cried and draughts blew. Andréi Yéfimitch knew
well that to the fevered, the consumptive, and the impressionable such
surroundings were torment; but what could he do? In the reception-room
he was met by the feldscher, Sergéi Sergéyitch, a little fat man,
with a beardless, well-washed, puffy face, and easy manners. Sergéi
Sergéyitch always wore clothes which resembled a senator's more than a
surgeon's; in the town he had a large practice, and believed that he
knew more than the doctor, who had no practice at all. In the corner
of the room hung a case of ikons with a heavy lamp in front; on the
walls were portraits of bishops, a view of Sviatogorsk Monastery, and
garlands of withered corn-flowers. Sergéi Sergéyitch was religious, and
the images had been placed in the room at his expense; every Sunday
by his command one of the patients read the acathistus, and when the
reading was concluded, Sergéi Sergéyitch went around the wards with a
censer and sprinkled them piously.
There were many patients and little time. The examination was therefore
limited to a few short questions, and to the distribution of such
simple remedies as castor-oil and ointments. Andréi Yéfimitch sat with
his head resting on his hands, lost in thought, and asked questions
mechanically; and Sérgei Sergéyitch sat beside him, and sometimes
interjected a word.
"We become ill and suffer deprivation," he would sometimes say, "only
because we pray too little to God."
In these hours Andréi Yéfimitch performed no operations; he had got out
of practice, and the sight of blood affected him unpleasantly. When he
had to open a child's mouth, to examine its throat for instance, if
the child cried and defended itself with its hands, the doctor's head
went round and tears came into his eyes. He made haste to prescribe
a remedy, and motioned to the mother to take it away as quickly as
possible.
He quickly wearied of the timidity of the patients, of their shiftless
ways, of the proximity of the pompous Sérgei Sergéyitch, of the
portraits on the walls, and of his own questions--questions which he
had asked without change for more than twenty years.
And he would sometimes leave the hospital after having examined five
or six patients, the remainder in his absence being treated by the
feldscher.
With the pleasant reflection that thank God he had no private practice
and no one to interfere with him, Andréi Yéfimitch on returning home
would sit at his study-table and begin to read. He read much, and
always with pleasure. Half his salary went on the purchase of books,
and of the six rooms in his flat three were crowded with books and old
newspapers. Above all things he loved history and philosophy; but of
medical publications he subscribed only to The Doctor, which he always
began to read at the end. Every day he read uninterruptedly for several
hours, and it never wearied him. He read, not quickly and eagerly as
Iván Dmítritch had read, but slowly, often stopping at passages which
pleased him or which he did not understand. Beside his books stood a
decanter of vodka, and a salted cucumber or soaked apple; and every
half-hour he poured himself out a glass of vodka, and drank it without
lifting his eyes from his book, and then--again without lifting his
eyes--took the cucumber and bit a piece off.
At three o'clock he would walk cautiously to the kitchen door, cough,
and say:
"Dáryushka, I was thinking of dining...."
After a bad and ill-served dinner, Andréi Yéfimitch walked about his
rooms, with his arms crossed on his chest, and thought. Sometimes the
kitchen door creaked, and the red, sleepy face of Dáryushka appeared.
"Andréi Yéfimitch, is it time for your beer?" she would ask
solicitously.
"No, not yet," he would answer. "I'll wait a little longer...."
In the evening came the postmaster, Mikhail Averyanitch, the only man
in the town whose society did not weary Andréi Yéfimitch. Mikhail
Averyanitch had once been a rich country gentleman and had served in
a cavalry regiment, but having ruined himself he took a position in
the Post Office to save himself from beggary in his old age. He hod
a brisk, wholesome appearance, magnificent grey whiskers, well-bred
manners, and a loud but pleasant voice. When visitors at the Post
Office protested, refused to agree with him, or began to argue, Mikhail
Averyanitch became purple, shook all over, and roared at the top of
his voice: "Silence!" so that the Post Office had the reputation of a
place of terror. Mikhail Averyanitch was fond of Andréi Yéfimitch and
respected his attainments and the nobility of his heart. But the other
townspeople he treated haughtily as inferiors.
"Well, here I am!" he would begin. "How are you, my dear?... But
perhaps I bore you? Eh?"
"On the contrary. I am delighted," answered the doctor. "I am always
glad to see you."
The friends would sit on the study sofa and smoke for a time silently.
"Dáryushka, suppose I were to have a little beer...." said Andréi
Yéfimitch.
The first bottle was drunk in silence. The doctor was lost in thought,
while Mikhail Averyanitch had the gay and active expression of a man
who has something very interesting to relate. The conversation was
always begun by the doctor.
"What a pity!" he would say, slowly and quietly, looking away from
his friend--he never looked anyone in the face. "What a pity, my
dear Mikhail Averyanitch, what a pity it is that there is not a soul
in this town who cares to engage in an intellectual or interesting
conversation! It is a great deprivation for us. Even the so-called
intelligent classes never rise above commonplaces; the level of their
development, I assure you, is no higher than that of the lower order."
"Entirely true. I agree with you."
"As you yourself know very well," continued the doctor, pausing
intermittently, "as you know, everything in this world is insignificant
and uninteresting except the higher phenomena of the human intellect.
Intellect creates a sharp distinction between the animal and the
man, it reminds the latter of his divinity, and to a certain extent
compensates him for the immortality which he has not. As the result of
this, intellect serves as the only fountain of enjoyment. When we say
we see and hear around us no evidence of intellect, we mean thereby
that we are deprived of true happiness. True, we have our books, but
that is a very different thing from living converse and communication.
If I may use a not very apt simile, books are the accompaniment, but
conversation is the singing.'"
"That is entirely true."
A silence followed. From the kitchen came Dáryushka, and, with her head
resting on her hands and an expression of stupid vexation on her face,
stood at the door and listened.
"Akh!" sighed Mikhail Averyanitch, "why seek intellect among the men
of the present day?" And he began to relate how in the old days life
was wholesome, gay, and interesting, how the intellect of Russia was
really enlightened, and how high a place was given to the ideas of
honour and friendship. Money was lent without I. O. U.'s, and it was
regarded as shameful not to stretch out the hand of aid to a needy
friend. What marches there were, what adventures, what fights, what
companions-in-arms, what women! The Caucasus, what a marvellous
country! And the wife of the commander of his battalion--what a strange
woman!--who put on an officer's uniform and drove into the mountains at
night without an escort. They said she had a romance with a prince in
one of the villages.
"Heavenly mother! Lord preserve us!" sighed Dáryushka.
"And how we drank! How we used to eat! What desperate Liberals we were!"
Andréi Yéfimitch listened, but heard nothing; he was thinking of
something else and drinking his beer.
"I often dream of clever people and have imaginary conversations with
them," he said, suddenly, interrupting Mikhail Averyanitch. "My father
gave me a splendid education, but, under the influence of the ideas
current in the sixties, forced me to become a doctor. It seems to me
that if I had disobeyed him I might now be living in the very centre
of the intellectual movement--probably a member of some faculty. Of
course intellect itself is not eternal but transitory--but you already
know why I worship it so. Life is a vexatious snare. When a reflecting
man attains manhood and ripe consciousness, he cannot but feel himself
in a trap from which there is no escape.... By an accident, without
consulting his own will, he is called from non-existence into life....
Why? He wishes to know the aim and significance of his existence; he is
answered with silence or absurdities; he knocks but it is not opened
to him; and death itself comes against his will. And so, as prisoners
united by common misfortune are relieved when they meet, men inclined
to analysis and generalisation do not notice the snare in which they
live when they spend their days in the exchange of free ideas. In this
sense intellect is an irreplaceable enjoyment."
"Entirely true!"
And still with his face averted from his companion, Andréi Yéfimitch,
in a soft voice, with constant pauses, continues to speak of clever men
and of the joy of communion with them, and Mikhail Averyanitch listens
attentively and says: "It is entirely true."
"Then you do not believe in the immortality of the soul?" asks the
postmaster.
"No, my dear Mikhail Averyanitch. I do not believe, and I have no
reason for believing."
"I admit that I also doubt it. Still I have a feeling that I can never
die. 'Come,' I say to myself, 'Come, old man, it's time for you to
die.' But in my heart a voice answers: 'Don't believe it, you will
never die.'"
At nine o'clock Mikhail Averyanitch takes leave. As he puts on his
overcoat in the hall, he says with a sigh:
"Yes, what a desert fate has planted us in! And what is worst of all,
we shall have to die here. _Akh!_"