Yefimitch began saying what a pity, what a terrible pity it was that the
townspeople should waste their vital energy, their hearts, and their
minds on cards and gossip, and should have neither the power nor the
inclination to spend their time in interesting conversation and reading,
and should refuse to take advantage of the enjoyments of the mind. The
mind alone was interesting and worthy of attention, all the rest was low
and petty. Hobotov listened to his colleague attentively and suddenly
asked:
"Andrey Yefimitch, what day of the month is it?"
Having received an answer, the fair-haired doctor and he, in the tone of
examiners conscious of their lack of skill, began asking Andrey
Yefimitch what was the day of the week, how many days there were in the
year, and whether it was true that there was a remarkable prophet living
in Ward No. 6.
In response to the last question Andrey Yefimitch turned rather red and
said: "Yes, he is mentally deranged, but he is an interesting young
man."
They asked him no other questions.
When he was putting on his overcoat in the entry, the military commander
laid a hand on his shoulder and said with a sigh:
"It's time for us old fellows to rest!"
As he came out of the hall, Andrey Yefimitch understood that it had been
a committee appointed to enquire into his mental condition. He recalled
the questions that had been asked him, flushed crimson, and for some
reason, for the first time in his life, felt bitterly grieved for
medical science.
"My God. . ." he thought, remembering how these doctors had just
examined him; "why, they have only lately been hearing lectures on
mental pathology; they had passed an examination--what's the explanation
of this crass ignorance? They have not a conception of mental
pathology!"
And for the first time in his life he felt insulted and moved to anger.
In the evening of the same day Mihail Averyanitch came to see him. The
postmaster went up to him without waiting to greet him, took him by both
hands, and said in an agitated voice:
"My dear fellow, my dear friend, show me that you believe in my genuine
affection and look on me as your friend!" And preventing Andrey
Yefimitch from speaking, he went on, growing excited: "I love you for
your culture and nobility of soul. Listen to me, my dear fellow. The
rules of their profession compel the doctors to conceal the truth from
you, but I blurt out the plain truth like a soldier. You are not well!
Excuse me, my dear fellow, but it is the truth; everyone about you has
been noticing it for a long time. Dr. Yevgeny Fyodoritch has just told
me that it is essential for you to rest and distract your mind for the
sake of your health. Perfectly true! Excellent! In a day or two I am
taking a holiday and am going away for a sniff of a different
atmosphere. Show that you are a friend to me, let us go together! Let us
go for a jaunt as in the good old days."
"I feel perfectly well," said Andrey Yefimitch after a moment's thought.
"I can't go away. Allow me to show you my friendship in some other way."
To go off with no object, without his books, without his Daryushka,
without his beer, to break abruptly through the routine of life,
established for twenty years--the idea for the first minute struck him as
wild and fantastic, but he remembered the conversation at the Zemstvo
committee and the depressing feelings with which he had returned home,
and the thought of a brief absence from the town in which stupid people
looked on him as a madman was pleasant to him.
"And where precisely do you intend to go?" he asked.
"To Moscow, to Petersburg, to Warsaw. . . . I spent the five happiest
years of my life in Warsaw. What a marvellous town! Let us go, my dear
fellow!" XIII
A week later it was suggested to Andrey Yefimitch that he should have a
rest--that is, send in his resignation--a suggestion he received with
indifference, and a week later still, Mihail Averyanitch and he were
sitting in a posting carriage driving to the nearest railway station.
The days were cool and bright, with a blue sky and a transparent
distance. They were two days driving the hundred and fifty miles to the
railway station, and stayed two nights on the way. When at the posting
station the glasses given them for their tea had not been properly
washed, or the drivers were slow in harnessing the horses, Mihail
Averyanitch would turn crimson, and quivering all over would shout:
"Hold your tongue! Don't argue!"
And in the carriage he talked without ceasing for a moment, describing
his campaigns in the Caucasus and in Poland. What adventures he had had,
what meetings! He talked loudly and opened his eyes so wide with wonder
that he might well be thought to be lying. Moreover, as he talked he
breathed in Andrey Yefimitch's face and laughed into his ear. This
bothered the doctor and prevented him from thinking or concentrating his
mind.
In the train they travelled, from motives of economy, third-class in a
non-smoking compartment. Half the passengers were decent people. Mihail
Averyanitch soon made friends with everyone, and moving from one seat to
another, kept saying loudly that they ought not to travel by these
appalling lines. It was a regular swindle! A very different thing riding
on a good horse: one could do over seventy miles a day and feel fresh
and well after it. And our bad harvests were due to the draining of the
Pinsk marshes; altogether, the way things were done was dreadful. He got
excited, talked loudly, and would not let others speak. This endless
chatter to the accompaniment of loud laughter and expressive gestures
wearied Andrey Yefimitch.
"Which of us is the madman?" he thought with vexation. "I, who try not
to disturb my fellow-passengers in any way, or this egoist who thinks
that he is cleverer and more interesting than anyone here, and so will
leave no one in peace?"
In Moscow Mihail Averyanitch put on a military coat without epaulettes
and trousers with red braid on them. He wore a military cap and overcoat
in the street, and soldiers saluted him. It seemed to Andrey Yefimitch,
now, that his companion was a man who had flung away all that was good
and kept only what was bad of all the characteristics of a country
gentleman that he had once possessed. He liked to be waited on even when
it was quite unnecessary. The matches would be lying before him on the
table, and he would see them and shout to the waiter to give him the
matches; he did not hesitate to appear before a maidservant in nothing
but his underclothes; he used the familiar mode of address to all
footmen indiscriminately, even old men, and when he was angry called
them fools and blockheads. This, Andrey Yefimitch thought, was like a
gentleman, but disgusting.
First of all Mihail Averyanitch led his friend to the Iversky Madonna.
He prayed fervently, shedding tears and bowing down to the earth, and
when he had finished, heaved a deep sigh and said:
"Even though one does not believe it makes one somehow easier when one
prays a little. Kiss the ikon, my dear fellow."
Andrey Yefimitch was embarrassed and he kissed the image, while Mihail
Averyanitch pursed up his lips and prayed in a whisper, and again tears
came into his eyes. Then they went to the Kremlin and looked there at
the Tsar-cannon and the Tsar-bell, and even touched them with their
fingers, admired the view over the river, visited St. Saviour's and the
Rumyantsev museum.
They dined at Tyestov's. Mihail Averyanitch looked a long time at the
menu, stroking his whiskers, and said in the tone of a gourmand
accustomed to dine in restaurants:
"We shall see what you give us to eat to-day, angel!" XIV
The doctor walked about, looked at things, ate and drank, but he had all
the while one feeling: annoyance with Mihail Averyanitch. He longed to
have a rest from his friend, to get away from him, to hide himself,
while the friend thought it was his duty not to let the doctor move a
step away from him, and to provide him with as many distractions as
possible. When there was nothing to look at he entertained him with
conversation. For two days Andrey Yefimitch endured it, but on the third
he announced to his friend that he was ill and wanted to stay at home
for the whole day; his friend replied that in that case he would stay
too--that really he needed rest, for he was run off his legs already.
Andrey Yefimitch lay on the sofa, with his face to the back, and
clenching his teeth, listened to his friend, who assured him with heat
that sooner or later France would certainly thrash Germany, that there
were a great many scoundrels in Moscow, and that it was impossible to
judge of a horse's quality by its outward appearance. The doctor began
to have a buzzing in his ears and palpitations of the heart, but out of
delicacy could not bring himself to beg his friend to go away or hold
his tongue. Fortunately Mihail Averyanitch grew weary of sitting in the
hotel room, and after dinner he went out for a walk.
As soon as he was alone Andrey Yefimitch abandoned himself to a feeling
of relief. How pleasant to lie motionless on the sofa and to know that
one is alone in the room! Real happiness is impossible without solitude.
The fallen angel betrayed God probably because he longed for solitude,
of which the angels know nothing. Andrey Yefimitch wanted to think about
what he had seen and heard during the last few days, but he could not
get Mihail Averyanitch out of his head.
"Why, he has taken a holiday and come with me out of friendship, out of
generosity," thought the doctor with vexation; "nothing could be worse
than this friendly supervision. I suppose he is good-natured and
generous and a lively fellow, but he is a bore. An insufferable bore. In
the same way there are people who never say anything but what is clever
and good, yet one feels that they are dull-witted people."
For the following days Andrey Yefimitch declared himself ill and would
not leave the hotel room; he lay with his face to the back of the sofa,
and suffered agonies of weariness when his friend entertained him with
conversation, or rested when his friend was absent. He was vexed with
himself for having come, and with his friend, who grew every day more
talkative and more free-and-easy; he could not succeed in attuning his
thoughts to a serious and lofty level.
"This is what I get from the real life Ivan Dmitritch talked about," he
thought, angry at his own pettiness. "It's of no consequence, though. .
. . I shall go home, and everything will go on as before . . . ."
It was the same thing in Petersburg too; for whole days together he did
not leave the hotel room, but lay on the sofa and only got up to drink
beer.
Mihail Averyanitch was all haste to get to Warsaw.
"My dear man, what should I go there for?" said Andrey Yefimitch in an
imploring voice. "You go alone and let me get home! I entreat you!"
"On no account," protested Mihail Averyanitch. "It's a marvellous town."
Andrey Yefimitch had not the strength of will to insist on his own way,
and much against his inclination went to Warsaw. There he did not leave
the hotel room, but lay on the sofa, furious with himself, with his
friend, and with the waiters, who obstinately refused to understand
Russian; while Mihail Averyanitch, healthy, hearty, and full of spirits
as usual, went about the town from morning to night, looking for his old
acquaintances. Several times he did not return home at night. After one
night spent in some unknown haunt he returned home early in the morning,
in a violently excited condition, with a red face and tousled hair. For
a long time he walked up and down the rooms muttering something to
himself, then stopped and said:
"Honour before everything."
After walking up and down a little longer he clutched his head in both
hands and pronounced in a tragic voice: "Yes, honour before everything!
Accursed be the moment when the idea first entered my head to visit this
Babylon! My dear friend," he added, addressing the doctor, "you may
despise me, I have played and lost; lend me five hundred roubles!"
Andrey Yefimitch counted out five hundred roubles and gave them to his
friend without a word. The latter, still crimson with shame and anger,
incoherently articulated some useless vow, put on his cap, and went out.
Returning two hours later he flopped into an easy-chair, heaved a loud
sigh, and said:
"My honour is saved. Let us go, my friend; I do not care to remain
another hour in this accursed town. Scoundrels! Austrian spies!"
By the time the friends were back in their own town it was November, and
deep snow was lying in the streets. Dr. Hobotov had Andrey Yefimitch's
post; he was still living in his old lodgings, waiting for Andrey
Yefimitch to arrive and clear out of the hospital apartments. The plain
woman whom he called his cook was already established in one of the
lodges.
Fresh scandals about the hospital were going the round of the town. It
was said that the plain woman had quarrelled with the superintendent,
and that the latter had crawled on his knees before her begging
forgiveness. On the very first day he arrived Andrey Yefimitch had to
look out for lodgings.
"My friend," the postmaster said to him timidly, "excuse an indiscreet
question: what means have you at your disposal?"
Andrey Yefimitch, without a word, counted out his money and said:
"Eighty-six roubles."
"I don't mean that," Mihail Averyanitch brought out in confusion,
misunderstanding him; "I mean, what have you to live on?"
"I tell you, eighty-six roubles . . . I have nothing else."
Mihail Averyanitch looked upon the doctor as an honourable man, yet he
suspected that he had accumulated a fortune of at least twenty thousand.
Now learning that Andrey Yefimitch was a beggar, that he had nothing to
live on he was for some reason suddenly moved to tears and embraced his
friend. XV
Andrey Yefimitch now lodged in a little house with three windows. There
were only three rooms besides the kitchen in the little house. The
doctor lived in two of them which looked into the street, while
Daryushka and the landlady with her three children lived in the third
room and the kitchen. Sometimes the landlady's lover, a drunken peasant
who was rowdy and reduced the children and Daryushka to terror, would
come for the night. When he arrived and established himself in the
kitchen and demanded vodka, they all felt very uncomfortable, and the
doctor would be moved by pity to take the crying children into his room
and let them lie on his floor, and this gave him great satisfaction.
He got up as before at eight o'clock, and after his morning tea sat down
to read his old books and magazines: he had no money for new ones.
Either because the books were old, or perhaps because of the change in
his surroundings, reading exhausted him, and did not grip his attention
as before. That he might not spend his time in idleness he made a
detailed catalogue of his books and gummed little labels on their backs,
and this mechanical, tedious work seemed to him more interesting than
reading. The monotonous, tedious work lulled his thoughts to sleep in
some unaccountable way, and the time passed quickly while he thought of
nothing. Even sitting in the kitchen, peeling potatoes with Daryushka or
picking over the buckwheat grain, seemed to him interesting. On
Saturdays and Sundays he went to church. Standing near the wall and half
closing his eyes, he listened to the singing and thought of his father,
of his mother, of the university, of the religions of the world; he felt
calm and melancholy, and as he went out of the church afterwards he
regretted that the service was so soon over. He went twice to the
hospital to talk to Ivan Dmitritch. But on both occasions Ivan Dmitritch
was unusually excited and ill-humoured; he bade the doctor leave him in
peace, as he had long been sick of empty chatter, and declared, to make
up for all his sufferings, he asked from the damned scoundrels only one
favour--solitary confinement. Surely they would not refuse him even that?
On both occasions when Andrey Yefimitch was taking leave of him and
wishing him good-night, he answered rudely and said:
"Go to hell!"
And Andrey Yefimitch did not know now whether to go to him for the third
time or not. He longed to go.
In old days Andrey Yefimitch used to walk about his rooms and think in
the interval after dinner, but now from dinner-time till evening tea he
lay on the sofa with his face to the back and gave himself up to trivial
thoughts which he could not struggle against. He was mortified that
after more than twenty years of service he had been given neither a
pension nor any assistance. It is true that he had not done his work
honestly, but, then, all who are in the Service get a pension without
distinction whether they are honest or not. Contemporary justice lies
precisely in the bestowal of grades, orders, and pensions, not for moral
qualities or capacities, but for service whatever it may have been like.
Why was he alone to be an exception? He had no money at all. He was
ashamed to pass by the shop and look at the woman who owned it. He owed
thirty-two roubles for beer already. There was money owing to the
landlady also. Daryushka sold old clothes and books on the sly, and told
lies to the landlady, saying that the doctor was just going to receive a
large sum of money.
He was angry with himself for having wasted on travelling the thousand
roubles he had saved up. How useful that thousand roubles would have
been now! He was vexed that people would not leave him in peace. Hobotov
thought it his duty to look in on his sick colleague from time to time.
Everything about him was revolting to Andrey Yefimitch--his well-fed face
and vulgar, condescending tone, and his use of the word "colleague," and
his high top-boots; the most revolting thing was that he thought it was
his duty to treat Andrey Yefimitch, and thought that he really was
treating him. On every visit he brought a bottle of bromide and rhubarb
pills.
Mihail Averyanitch, too, thought it his duty to visit his friend and
entertain him. Every time he went in to Andrey Yefimitch with an
affectation of ease, laughed constrainedly, and began assuring him that
he was looking very well to-day, and that, thank God, he was on the
highroad to recovery, and from this it might be concluded that he looked
on his friend's condition as hopeless. He had not yet repaid his Warsaw
debt, and was overwhelmed by shame; he was constrained, and so tried to
laugh louder and talk more amusingly. His anecdotes and descriptions
seemed endless now, and were an agony both to Andrey Yefimitch and
himself.
In his presence Andrey Yefimitch usually lay on the sofa with his face
to the wall, and listened with his teeth clenched; his soul was
oppressed with rankling disgust, and after every visit from his friend
he felt as though this disgust had risen higher, and was mounting into
his throat.
To stifle petty thoughts he made haste to reflect that he himself, and
Hobotov, and Mihail Averyanitch, would all sooner or later perish
without leaving any trace on the world. If one imagined some spirit
flying by the earthly globe in space in a million years he would see
nothing but clay and bare rocks. Everything--culture and the moral
law--would pass away and not even a burdock would grow out of them. Of
what consequence was shame in the presence of a shopkeeper, of what
consequence was the insignificant Hobotov or the wearisome friendship of
Mihail Averyanitch? It was all trivial and nonsensical.
But such reflections did not help him now. Scarcely had he imagined the
earthly globe in a million years, when Hobotov in his high top-boots or
Mihail Averyanitch with his forced laugh would appear from behind a bare
rock, and he even heard the shamefaced whisper: "The Warsaw debt. . . .
I will repay it in a day or two, my dear fellow, without fail. . . ."
XVI
One day Mihail Averyanitch came after dinner when Andrey Yefimitch was
lying on the sofa. It so happened that Hobotov arrived at the same time
with his bromide. Andrey Yefimitch got up heavily and sat down, leaning
both arms on the sofa.
"You have a much better colour to-day than you had yesterday, my dear
man," began Mihail Averyanitch. "Yes, you look jolly. Upon my soul, you
do!"
"It's high time you were well, dear colleague," said Hobotov, yawning.
"I'll be bound, you are sick of this bobbery."
"And we shall recover," said Mihail Averyanitch cheerfully. "We shall
live another hundred years! To be sure!"
"Not a hundred years, but another twenty," Hobotov said reassuringly.
"It's all right, all right, colleague; don't lose heart. . . . Don't go
piling it on!"
"We'll show what we can do," laughed Mihail Averyanitch, and he slapped
his friend on the knee. "We'll show them yet! Next summer, please God,
we shall be off to the Caucasus, and we will ride all over it on
horseback--trot, trot, trot! And when we are back from the Caucasus I
shouldn't wonder if we will all dance at the wedding." Mihail
Averyanitch gave a sly wink. "We'll marry you, my dear boy, we'll marry
you. . . ."
Andrey Yefimitch felt suddenly that the rising disgust had mounted to
his throat, his heart began beating violently.
"That's vulgar," he said, getting up quickly and walking away to the
window. "Don't you understand that you are talking vulgar nonsense?"
He meant to go on softly and politely, but against his will he suddenly
clenched his fists and raised them above his head.
"Leave me alone," he shouted in a voice unlike his own, blushing crimson
and shaking all over. "Go away, both of you!"
Mihail Averyanitch and Hobotov got up and stared at him first with
amazement and then with alarm.
"Go away, both!" Andrey Yefimitch went on shouting. "Stupid people!
Foolish people! I don't want either your friendship or your medicines,
stupid man! Vulgar! Nasty!"
Hobotov and Mihail Averyanitch, looking at each other in bewilderment,
staggered to the door and went out. Andrey Yefimitch snatched up the
bottle of bromide and flung it after them; the bottle broke with a crash
on the door-frame.
"Go to the devil!" he shouted in a tearful voice, running out into the
passage. "To the devil!"
When his guests were gone Andrey Yefimitch lay down on the sofa,
trembling as though in a fever, and went on for a long while repeating:
"Stupid people! Foolish people!"
When he was calmer, what occurred to him first of all was the thought
that poor Mihail Averyanitch must be feeling fearfully ashamed and
depressed now, and that it was all dreadful. Nothing like this had ever
happened to him before. Where was his intelligence and his tact? Where
was his comprehension of things and his philosophical indifference?
The doctor could not sleep all night for shame and vexation with
himself, and at ten o'clock next morning he went to the post office and
apologized to the postmaster.
"We won't think again of what has happened," Mihail Averyanitch, greatly
touched, said with a sigh, warmly pressing his hand. "Let bygones be
bygones. Lyubavkin," he suddenly shouted so loud that all the postmen
and other persons present started, "hand a chair; and you wait," he
shouted to a peasant woman who was stretching out a registered letter to
him through the grating. "Don't you see that I am busy? We will not
remember the past," he went on, affectionately addressing Andrey
Yefimitch; "sit down, I beg you, my dear fellow."
For a minute he stroked his knees in silence, and then said:
"I have never had a thought of taking offence. Illness is no joke, I
understand. Your attack frightened the doctor and me yesterday, and we
had a long talk about you afterwards. My dear friend, why won't you
treat your illness seriously? You can't go on like this . . . . Excuse
me speaking openly as a friend," whispered Mihail Averyanitch. "You live
in the most unfavourable surroundings, in a crowd, in uncleanliness, no
one to look after you, no money for proper treatment. . . . My dear
friend, the doctor and I implore you with all our hearts, listen to our
advice: go into the hospital! There you will have wholesome food and
attendance and treatment. Though, between ourselves, Yevgeny Fyodoritch
is mauvais ton, yet he does understand his work, you can fully rely upon
him. He has promised me he will look after you."
Andrey Yefimitch was touched by the postmaster's genuine sympathy and
the tears which suddenly glittered on his cheeks.