II

Seven years had passed by. I don't think it necessary to relate all

that happened to me during that period. I moved restlessly about over

Russia, and made my way into the remotest wilds, and thank God I did!

The wilds are not so much to be dreaded as some people suppose, and in

the most hidden places, under the fallen twigs and rotting leaves in

the very heart of the forest, spring up flowers of sweet fragrance.

One day in spring, as I was passing on some official duties through a

small town in one of the outlying provinces of Eastern Russia, through

the dim little window of my coach I saw standing before a shop in the

square a man whose face struck me as exceedingly familiar. I looked

attentively at the man, and to my great delight recognised him as

Elisei, Pasinkov's servant.

I at once told the driver to stop, jumped out of the coach, and went up

to Elisei.

'Hullo, friend!' I began, with difficulty concealing my excitement;

'are you here with your master?'

'Yes, I'm with my master,' he responded slowly, and then suddenly cried

out: 'Why, sir, is it you? I didn't know you.'

'Are you here with Yakov Ivanitch?'

'Yes, sir, with him, to be sure ... whom else would I be with?'

'Take me to him quickly.'

'To be sure! to be sure! This way, please, this way ... we're stopping

here at the tavern.' Elisei led me across the square, incessantly

repeating--'Well, now, won't Yakov Ivanitch be pleased!'

This man, of Kalmuck extraction, and hideous, even savage appearance,

but the kindest-hearted creature and by no means a fool, was

passionately devoted to Pasinkov, and had been his servant for ten

years.

'Is Yakov Ivanitch quite well?' I asked him.

Elisei turned his dusky, yellow little face to me.

'Ah, sir, he's in a poor way ... in a poor way, sir! You won't know his

honour.... He's not long for this world, I'm afraid. That's how it is

we've stopped here, or we had been going on to Odessa for his health.'

'Where do you come from?'

'From Siberia, sir.'

'From Siberia?'

'Yes, sir. Yakov Ivanitch was sent to a post out there. It was there

his honour got his wound.'

'Do you mean to say he went into the military service?'

'Oh no, sir. He served in the civil service.'

'What a strange thing!' I thought.

Meanwhile we had reached the tavern, and Elisei ran on in front to

announce me. During the first years of our separation, Pasinkov and I

had written to each other pretty often, but his last letter had reached

me four years before, and since then I had heard nothing of him.

'Please come up, sir!' Elisei shouted to me from the staircase; 'Yakov

Ivanitch is very anxious to see you.'

I ran hurriedly up the tottering stairs, went into a dark little

room--and my heart sank.... On a narrow bed, under a fur cloak, pale as

a corpse, lay Pasinkov, and he was stretching out to me a bare, wasted

hand. I rushed up to him and embraced him passionately.

'Yasha!' I cried at last; 'what's wrong with you?'

'Nothing,' he answered in a faint voice; 'I'm a bit feeble. What chance

brought you here?'

I sat down on a chair beside Pasinkov's bed, and, never letting his

hands out of my hands, I began gazing into his face. I recognised the

features I loved; the expression of the eyes and the smile were

unchanged; but what a wreck illness had made of him!

He noticed the impression he was making on me.

'It's three days since I shaved,' he observed; 'and, to be sure, I've

not been combed and brushed, but except for that ... I'm not so bad.'

'Tell me, please, Yasha,' I began; 'what's this Elisei's been telling

me ... you were wounded?'

'Ah! yes, it's quite a history,' he replied. 'I'll tell you it later.

Yes, I was wounded, and only fancy what by?--an arrow.'

'An arrow?'

'Yes, an arrow; only not a mythological one, not Cupid's arrow, but a

real arrow of very flexible wood, with a sharply-pointed tip at one

end.... A very unpleasant sensation is produced by such an arrow,

especially when it sticks in one's lungs.'

'But however did it come about? upon my word!...'

'I'll tell you how it happened. You know there always was a great deal

of the absurd in my life. Do you remember my comical correspondence

about getting my passport? Well, I was wounded in an absurd fashion

too. And if you come to think of it, what self-respecting person in our

enlightened century would permit himself to be wounded by an arrow? And

not accidentally--observe--not at sports of any sort, but in a battle.'

'But you still don't tell me ...'

'All right, wait a minute,' he interrupted. 'You know that soon after

you left Petersburg I was transferred to Novgorod. I was a good time at

Novgorod, and I must own I was bored there, though even there I came

across one creature....' (He sighed.) ... 'But no matter about that

now; two years ago I got a capital little berth, some way off, it's

true, in the Irkutsk province, but what of that! It seems as though my

father and I were destined from birth to visit Siberia. A splendid

country, Siberia! Rich, fertile--every one will tell you the same. I

liked it very much there. The natives were put under my rule; they're a

harmless lot of people; but as my ill-luck would have it, they took it

into their heads, a dozen of them, not more, to smuggle in contraband

goods. I was sent to arrest them. Arrest them I did, but one of them,

crazy he must have been, thought fit to defend himself, and treated me

to the arrow.... I almost died of it; however, I got all right again.

Now, here I am going to get completely cured.... The government--God

give them all good health!--have provided the cash.'

Pasinkov let his head fall back on the pillow, exhausted, and ceased

speaking. A faint flush suffused his cheeks. He closed his eyes.

'He can't talk much,' Elisei, who had not left the room, murmured in an

undertone.

A silence followed; nothing was heard but the sick man's painful

breathing.

'But here,' he went on, opening his eyes, 'I've been stopping a

fortnight in this little town.... I caught cold, I suppose. The

district doctor here is attending me--you'll see him; he seems to know

his business. I'm awfully glad it happened so, though, or how should we

have met?' (And he took my hand. His hand, which had just before been

cold as ice, was now burning hot.) 'Tell me something about yourself,'

he began again, throwing the cloak back off his chest. 'You and I

haven't seen each other since God knows when.'

I hastened to carry out his wish, so as not to let him talk, and

started giving an account of myself. He listened to me at first with

great attention, then asked for drink, and then began closing his eyes

again and turning his head restlessly on the pillow. I advised him to

have a little nap, adding that I should not go on further till he was

well again, and that I should establish myself in a room beside him.

'It's very nasty here ...' Pasinkov was beginning, but I stopped his

mouth, and went softly out. Elisei followed me.

'What is it, Elisei? Why, he's dying, isn't he?' I questioned the

faithful servant.

Elisei simply made a gesture with his hand, and turned away.

Having dismissed my driver, and rapidly moved my things into the next

room, I went to see whether Pasinkov was asleep. At the door I ran up

against a tall man, very fat and heavily built. His face, pock-marked

and puffy, expressed laziness--and nothing else; his tiny little eyes

seemed, as it were, glued up, and his lips looked polished, as though

he were just awake.

'Allow me to ask,' I questioned him, 'are you not the doctor?'

The fat man looked at me, seeming with an effort to lift his

overhanging forehead with his eyebrows.

'Yes, sir,' he responded at last.

'Do me the favour, Mr. Doctor, won't you, please, to come this way into

my room? Yakov Ivanitch, is, I believe, now asleep. I am a friend of

his and should like to have a little talk with you about his illness,

which makes me very uneasy.'

'Very good,' answered the doctor, with an expression which seemed to

try and say, 'Why talk so much? I'd have come anyway,' and he followed

me.

'Tell me, please,' I began, as soon as he had dropped into a chair, 'is

my friend's condition serious? What do you think?'

'Yes,' answered the fat man, tranquilly.

'And... is it very serious?'

'Yes, it's serious.'

'So that he may...even die?'

'He may.'