round window; then little by little Gusev could distinguish his
neighbour in the next hammock, Pavel Ivanitch. The man slept sitting up,
as he could not breathe lying down. His face was grey, his nose was long
and sharp, his eyes looked huge from the terrible thinness of his face,
his temples were sunken, his beard was skimpy, his hair was long....
Looking at him you could not make out of what class he was, whether he
were a gentleman, a merchant, or a peasant. Judging from his expression
and his long hair he might have been a hermit or a lay brother in a
monastery--but if one listened to what he said it seemed that he could
not be a monk. He was worn out by his cough and his illness and by the
stifling heat, and breathed with difficulty, moving his parched lips.
Noticing that Gusev was looking at him he turned his face towards him
and said:
"I begin to guess.... Yes.... I understand it all perfectly now."
"What do you understand, Pavel Ivanitch?"
"I'll tell you.... It has always seemed to me strange that terribly ill
as you are you should be here in a steamer where it is so hot and
stifling and we are always being tossed up and down, where, in fact,
everything threatens you with death; now it is all clear to me....
Yes.... Your doctors put you on the steamer to get rid of you. They get
sick of looking after poor brutes like you.... You don't pay them
anything, they have a bother with you, and you damage their records with
your deaths--so, of course, you are brutes! It's not difficult to get rid
of you.... All that is necessary is, in the first place, to have no
conscience or humanity, and, secondly, to deceive the steamer
authorities. The first condition need hardly be considered, in that
respect we are artists; and one can always succeed in the second with a
little practice. In a crowd of four hundred healthy soldiers and sailors
half a dozen sick ones are not conspicuous; well, they drove you all on
to the steamer, mixed you with the healthy ones, hurriedly counted you
over, and in the confusion nothing amiss was noticed, and when the
steamer had started they saw that there were paralytics and consumptives
in the last stage lying about on the deck...."
Gusev did not understand Pavel Ivanitch; but supposing he was being
blamed, he said in self-defence:
"I lay on the deck because I had not the strength to stand; when we were
unloaded from the barge on to the ship I caught a fearful chill."
"It's revolting," Pavel Ivanitch went on. "The worst of it is they know
perfectly well that you can't last out the long journey, and yet they
put you here. Supposing you get as far as the Indian Ocean, what then?
It's horrible to think of it.... And that's their gratitude for your
faithful, irreproachable service!"
Pavel Ivanitch's eyes looked angry; he frowned contemptuously and said,
gasping:
"Those are the people who ought to be plucked in the newspapers till the
feathers fly in all directions."
The two sick soldiers and the sailor were awake and already playing
cards. The sailor was half reclining in his hammock, the soldiers were
sitting near him on the floor in the most uncomfortable attitudes. One
of the soldiers had his right arm in a sling, and the hand was swathed
up in a regular bundle so that he held his cards under his right arm or
in the crook of his elbow while he played with the left. The ship was
rolling heavily. They could not stand up, nor drink tea, nor take their
medicines.
"Were you an officer's servant?" Pavel Ivanitch asked Gusev.
"Yes, an officer's servant."
"My God, my God!" said Pavel Ivanitch, and he shook his head mournfully.
"To tear a man out of his home, drag him twelve thousand miles away,
then to drive him into consumption and... and what is it all for, one
wonders? To turn him into a servant for some Captain Kopeikin or
midshipman Dirka! How logical!"
"It's not hard work, Pavel Ivanitch. You get up in the morning and clean
the boots, get the samovar, sweep the rooms, and then you have nothing
more to do. The lieutenant is all the day drawing plans, and if you like
you can say your prayers, if you like you can read a book or go out into
the street. God grant everyone such a life."
"Yes, very nice, the lieutenant draws plans all the day and you sit in
the kitchen and pine for home.... Plans indeed!... It is not plans that
matter, but a human life. Life is not given twice, it must be treated
mercifully."
"Of course, Pavel Ivanitch, a bad man gets no mercy anywhere, neither at
home nor in the army, but if you live as you ought and obey orders, who
has any need to insult you? The officers are educated gentlemen, they
understand.... In five years I was never once in prison, and I was never
struck a blow, so help me God, but once."
"What for?"
"For fighting. I have a heavy hand, Pavel Ivanitch. Four Chinamen came
into our yard; they were bringing firewood or something, I don't
remember. Well, I was bored and I knocked them about a bit, one's nose
began bleeding, damn the fellow.... The lieutenant saw it through the
little window, he was angry and gave me a box on the ear."
"Foolish, pitiful man..." whispered Pavel Ivanitch. "You don't
understand anything."
He was utterly exhausted by the tossing of the ship and closed his eyes;
his head alternately fell back and dropped forward on his breast.
Several times he tried to lie down but nothing came of it; his
difficulty in breathing prevented it.
"And what did you hit the four Chinamen for?" he asked a little while
afterwards.
"Oh, nothing. They came into the yard and I hit them."
And a stillness followed.... The card-players had been playing for two
hours with enthusiasm and loud abuse of one another, but the motion of
the ship overcame them, too; they threw aside the cards and lay down.
Again Gusev saw the big pond, the brick building, the village.... Again
the sledge was coming along, again Vanka was laughing and Akulka, silly
little thing, threw open her fur coat and stuck her feet out, as much as
to say: "Look, good people, my snowboots are not like Vanka's, they are
new ones."
"Five years old, and she has no sense yet," Gusev muttered in delirium.
"Instead of kicking your legs you had better come and get your soldier
uncle a drink. I will give you something nice."
Then Andron with a flintlock gun on his shoulder was carrying a hare he
had killed, and he was followed by the decrepit old Jew Isaitchik, who
offers to barter the hare for a piece of soap; then the black calf in
the shed, then Domna sewing at a shirt and crying about something, and
then again the bull's head without eyes, black smoke....
Overhead someone gave a loud shout, several sailors ran by, they seemed
to be dragging something bulky over the deck, something fell with a
crash. Again they ran by.... Had something gone wrong? Gusev raised his
head, listened, and saw that the two soldiers and the sailor were
playing cards again; Pavel Ivanitch was sitting up moving his lips. It
was stifling, one hadn't strength to breathe, one was thirsty, the water
was warm, disgusting. The ship heaved as much as ever.
Suddenly something strange happened to one of the soldiers playing
cards.... He called hearts diamonds, got muddled in his score, and
dropped his cards, then with a frightened, foolish smile looked round at
all of them.
"I shan't be a minute, mates, I'll..." he said, and lay down on the
floor.
Everybody was amazed. They called to him, he did not answer.
"Stephan, maybe you are feeling bad, eh?" the soldier with his arm in a
sling asked him. "Perhaps we had better bring the priest, eh?"
"Have a drink of water, Stepan..." said the sailor. "Here, lad, drink."
"Why are you knocking the jug against his teeth?" said Gusev angrily.
"Don't you see, turnip head?"
"What?"
"What?" Gusev repeated, mimicking him. "There is no breath in him, he is
dead! That's what! What nonsensical people, Lord have mercy on us...!"
III
The ship was not rocking and Pavel Ivanitch was more cheerful. He was no
longer ill-humoured. His face had a boastful, defiant, mocking
expression. He looked as though he wanted to say: "Yes, in a minute I
will tell you something that will make you split your sides with
laughing." The little round window was open and a soft breeze was
blowing on Pavel Ivanitch. There was a sound of voices, of the plash of
oars in the water.... Just under the little window someone began droning
in a high, unpleasant voice: no doubt it was a Chinaman singing.
"Here we are in the harbour," said Pavel Ivanitch, smiling ironically.
"Only another month and we shall be in Russia. Well, worthy gentlemen
and warriors! I shall arrive at Odessa and from there go straight to
Harkov. In Harkov I have a friend, a literary man. I shall go to him and
say, 'Come, old man, put aside your horrid subjects, ladies' amours and
the beauties of nature, and show up human depravity.'"
For a minute he pondered, then said:
"Gusev, do you know how I took them in?"
"Took in whom, Pavel Ivanitch?"
"Why, these fellows.... You know that on this steamer there is only a
first-class and a third-class, and they only allow peasants--that is the
rift-raft--to go in the third. If you have got on a reefer jacket and
have the faintest resemblance to a gentleman or a bourgeois you must go
first-class, if you please. You must fork out five hundred roubles if
you die for it. Why, I ask, have you made such a rule? Do you want to
raise the prestige of educated Russians thereby? Not a bit of it. We
don't let you go third-class simply because a decent person can't go
third-class; it is very horrible and disgusting. Yes, indeed. I am very
grateful for such solicitude for decent people's welfare. But in any
case, whether it is nasty there or nice, five hundred roubles I haven't
got. I haven't pilfered government money. I haven't exploited the
natives, I haven't trafficked in contraband, I have flogged no one to
death, so judge whether I have the right to travel first-class and even
less to reckon myself of the educated class? But you won't catch them
with logic.... One has to resort to deception. I put on a workman's coat
and high boots, I assumed a drunken, servile mug and went to the agents:
'Give us a little ticket, your honour,' said I...."
"Why, what class do you belong to?" asked a sailor.
"Clerical. My father was an honest priest, he always told the great ones
of the world the truth to their faces; and he had a great deal to put up
with in consequence."
Pavel Ivanitch was exhausted with talking and gasped for breath, but
still went on:
"Yes, I always tell people the truth to their faces. I am not afraid of
anyone or anything. There is a vast difference between me and all of you
in that respect. You are in darkness, you are blind, crushed; you see
nothing and what you do see you don't understand.... You are told the
wind breaks loose from its chain, that you are beasts, Petchenyegs, and
you believe it; they punch you in the neck, you kiss their hands; some
animal in a sable-lined coat robs you and then tips you fifteen kopecks
and you: 'Let me kiss your hand, sir.' You are pariahs, pitiful
people.... I am a different sort. My eyes are open, I see it all as
clearly as a hawk or an eagle when it floats over the earth, and I
understand it all. I am a living protest. I see irresponsible tyranny--I
protest. I see cant and hypocrisy--I protest. I see swine triumphant--I
protest. And I cannot be suppressed, no Spanish Inquisition can make me
hold my tongue. No.... Cut out my tongue and I would protest in dumb
show; shut me up in a cellar--I will shout from it to be heard half a
mile away, or I will starve myself to death that they may have another
weight on their black consciences. Kill me and I will haunt them with my
ghost. All my acquaintances say to me: 'You are a most insufferable
person, Pavel Ivanitch.' I am proud of such a reputation. I have served
three years in the far East, and I shall be remembered there for a
hundred years: I had rows with everyone. My friends write to me from
Russia, 'Don't come back,' but here I am going back to spite them...
yes.... That is life as I understand it. That is what one can call
life."
Gusev was looking at the little window and was not listening. A boat was
swaying on the transparent, soft, turquoise water all bathed in hot,
dazzling sunshine. In it there were naked Chinamen holding up cages with
canaries and calling out:
"It sings, it sings!"
Another boat knocked against the first; the steam cutter darted by. And
then there came another boat with a fat Chinaman sitting in it, eating
rice with little sticks.
Languidly the water heaved, languidly the white seagulls floated over
it.
"I should like to give that fat fellow one in the neck," thought Gusev,
gazing at the stout Chinaman, with a yawn.
He dozed off, and it seemed to him that all nature was dozing, too. Time
flew swiftly by; imperceptibly the day passed, imperceptibly the
darkness came on.... The steamer was no longer standing still, but
moving on further.
IV
Two days passed, Pavel Ivanitch lay down instead of sitting up; his eyes
were closed, his nose seemed to have grown sharper.
"Pavel Ivanitch," Gusev called to him. "Hey, Pavel Ivanitch."
Pavel Ivanitch opened his eyes and moved his lips.
"Are you feeling bad?"
"No... it's nothing..." answered Pavel Ivanitch, gasping. "Nothing; on
the contrary--I am rather better.... You see I can lie down. I am a
little easier...."
"Well, thank God for that, Pavel Ivanitch."
"When I compare myself with you I am sorry for you... poor fellow. My
lungs are all right, it is only a stomach cough.... I can stand hell,
let alone the Red Sea. Besides I take a critical attitude to my illness
and to the medicines they give me for it. While you... you are in
darkness.... It's hard for you, very, very hard!"
The ship was not rolling, it was calm, but as hot and stifling as a
bath-house; it was not only hard to speak but even hard to listen. Gusev
hugged his knees, laid his head on them and thought of his home. Good
heavens, what a relief it was to think of snow and cold in that stifling
heat! You drive in a sledge, all at once the horses take fright at
something and bolt.... Regardless of the road, the ditches, the ravines,
they dash like mad things, right through the village, over the pond by
the pottery works, out across the open fields. "Hold on," the pottery
hands and the peasants shout, meeting them. "Hold on." But why? Let the
keen, cold wind beat in one's face and bite one's hands; let the lumps
of snow, kicked up by the horses' hoofs, fall on one's cap, on one's
back, down one's collar, on one's chest; let the runners ring on the
snow, and the traces and the sledge be smashed, deuce take them one and
all! And how delightful when the sledge upsets and you go flying full
tilt into a drift, face downwards in the snow, and then you get up white
all over with icicles on your moustaches; no cap, no gloves, your belt
undone.... People laugh, the dogs bark....
Pavel Ivanitch half opened one eye, looked at Gusev with it, and asked
softly:
"Gusev, did your commanding officer steal?"
"Who can tell, Pavel Ivanitch! We can't say, it didn't reach us."
And after that a long time passed in silence. Gusev brooded, muttered
something in delirium, and kept drinking water; it was hard for him to
talk and hard to listen, and he was afraid of being talked to. An hour
passed, a second, a third; evening came on, then night, but he did not
notice it. He still sat dreaming of the frost.
There was a sound as though someone came into the hospital, and voices
were audible, but a few minutes passed and all was still again.
"The Kingdom of Heaven and eternal peace," said the soldier with his arm
in a sling. "He was an uncomfortable man."
"What?" asked Gusev. "Who?"
"He is dead, they have just carried him up."
"Oh, well," muttered Gusev, yawning, "the Kingdom of Heaven be his."
"What do you think?" the soldier with his arm in a sling asked Gusev.
"Will he be in the Kingdom of Heaven or not?"
"Who is it you are talking about?"
"Pavel Ivanitch."
"He will be... he suffered so long. And there is another thing, he
belonged to the clergy, and the priests always have a lot of relations.
Their prayers will save him."
The soldier with the sling sat down on a hammock near Gusev and said in
an undertone:
"And you, Gusev, are not long for this world. You will never get to
Russia."
"Did the doctor or his assistant say so?" asked Gusev.
"It isn't that they said so, but one can see it.... One can see directly
when a man's going to die. You don't eat, you don't drink; it's dreadful
to see how thin you've got. It's consumption, in fact. I say it, not to
upset you, but because maybe you would like to have the sacrament and
extreme unction. And if you have any money you had better give it to the
senior officer."
"I haven't written home..." Gusev sighed. "I shall die and they won't
know."
"They'll hear of it," the sick sailor brought out in a bass voice. "When
you die they will put it down in the Gazette, at Odessa they will send
in a report to the commanding officer there and he will send it to the
parish or somewhere...."
Gusev began to be uneasy after such a conversation and to feel a vague
yearning. He drank water--it was not that; he dragged himself to the
window and breathed the hot, moist air--it was not that; he tried to
think of home, of the frost--it was not that.... At last it seemed to him
one minute longer in the ward and he would certainly expire.
"It's stifling, mates..." he said. "I'll go on deck. Help me up, for
Christ's sake."
"All right," assented the soldier with the sling. "I'll carry you, you
can't walk, hold on to my neck."
Gusev put his arm round the soldier's neck, the latter put his unhurt
arm round him and carried him up. On the deck sailors and time-expired
soldiers were lying asleep side by side; there were so many of them it
was difficult to pass.
"Stand down," the soldier with the sling said softly. "Follow me
quietly, hold on to my shirt...."
It was dark. There was no light on deck, nor on the masts, nor anywhere
on the sea around. At the furthest end of the ship the man on watch was
standing perfectly still like a statue, and it looked as though he were
asleep. It seemed as though the steamer were abandoned to itself and
were going at its own will.
"Now they will throw Pavel Ivanitch into the sea," said the soldier with
the sling. "In a sack and then into the water."
"Yes, that's the rule."
"But it's better to lie at home in the earth. Anyway, your mother comes
to the grave and weeps."
"Of course."
There was a smell of hay and of dung. There were oxen standing with
drooping heads by the ship's rail. One, two, three; eight of them! And
there was a little horse. Gusev put out his hand to stroke it, but it
shook its head, showed its teeth, and tried to bite his sleeve.
"Damned brute..." said Gusev angrily.
The two of them, he and the soldier, threaded their way to the head of
the ship, then stood at the rail and looked up and down. Overhead deep
sky, bright stars, peace and stillness, exactly as at home in the
village, below darkness and disorder. The tall waves were resounding, no
one could tell why. Whichever wave you looked at each one was trying to
rise higher than all the rest and to chase and crush the next one; after
it a third as fierce and hideous flew noisily, with a glint of light on
its white crest.
The sea has no sense and no pity. If the steamer had been smaller and
not made of thick iron, the waves would have crushed it to pieces
without the slightest compunction, and would have devoured all the
people in it with no distinction of saints or sinners. The steamer had
the same cruel and meaningless expression. This monster with its huge
beak was dashing onwards, cutting millions of waves in its path; it had
no fear of the darkness nor the wind, nor of space, nor of solitude,
caring for nothing, and if the ocean had its people, this monster would
have crushed them, too, without distinction of saints or sinners.
"Where are we now?" asked Gusev.
"I don't know. We must be in the ocean."
"There is no sight of land..."
"No indeed! They say we shan't see it for seven days."
The two soldiers watched the white foam with the phosphorus light on it
and were silent, thinking. Gusev was the first to break the silence.
"There is nothing to be afraid of," he said, "only one is full of dread
as though one were sitting in a dark forest; but if, for instance, they
let a boat down on to the water this minute and an officer ordered me to
go a hundred miles over the sea to catch fish, I'd go. Or, let's say, if
a Christian were to fall into the water this minute, I'd go in after
him. A German or a Chinaman I wouldn't save, but I'd go in after a
Christian."
"And are you afraid to die?"
"Yes. I am sorry for the folks at home. My brother at home, you know,
isn't steady; he drinks, he beats his wife for nothing, he does not
honour his parents. Everything will go to ruin without me, and father
and my old mother will be begging their bread, I shouldn't wonder. But
my legs won't bear me, brother, and it's hot here. Let's go to sleep."
V
Gusev went back to the ward and got into his hammock. He was again
tormented by a vague craving, and he could not make out what he wanted.
There was an oppression on his chest, a throbbing in his head, his mouth
was so dry that it was difficult for him to move his tongue. He dozed,
and murmured in his sleep, and, worn out with nightmares, his cough, and
the stifling heat, towards morning he fell into a sound sleep. He
dreamed that they were just taking the bread out of the oven in the
barracks and he climbed into the stove and had a steam bath in it,
lashing himself with a bunch of birch twigs. He slept for two days, and
at midday on the third two sailors came down and carried him out.
He was sewn up in sailcloth and to make him heavier they put with him
two iron weights. Sewn up in the sailcloth he looked like a carrot or a
radish: broad at the head and narrow at the feet.... Before sunset they
brought him up to the deck and put him on a plank; one end of the plank
lay on the side of the ship, the other on a box, placed on a stool.
Round him stood the soldiers and the officers with their caps off.
"Blessed be the Name of the Lord..." the priest began. "As it was in the
beginning, is now, and ever shall be."
"Amen," chanted three sailors.
The soldiers and the officers crossed themselves and looked away at the
waves. It was strange that a man should be sewn up in sailcloth and
should soon be flying into the sea. Was it possible that such a thing
might happen to anyone?
The priest strewed earth upon Gusev and bowed down. They sang "Eternal
Memory."
The man on watch duty tilted up the end of the plank, Gusev slid off and
flew head foremost, turned a somersault in the air and splashed into the
sea. He was covered with foam and for a moment looked as though he were
wrapped in lace, but the minute passed and he disappeared in the waves.
He went rapidly towards the bottom. Did he reach it? It was said to be
three miles to the bottom. After sinking sixty or seventy feet, he began
moving more and more slowly, swaying rhythmically, as though he were
hesitating and, carried along by the current, moved more rapidly
sideways than downwards.
Then he was met by a shoal of the fish called harbour pilots. Seeing the
dark body the fish stopped as though petrified, and suddenly turned
round and disappeared. In less than a minute they flew back swift as an
arrow to Gusev, and began zig-zagging round him in the water.
After that another dark body appeared. It was a shark. It swam under
Gusev with dignity and no show of interest, as though it did not notice
him, and sank down upon its back, then it turned belly upwards, basking
in the warm, transparent water and languidly opened its jaws with two
rows of teeth. The harbour pilots are delighted, they stop to see what
will come next. After playing a little with the body the shark
nonchalantly puts its jaws under it, cautiously touches it with its
teeth, and the sailcloth is rent its full length from head to foot; one
of the weights falls out and frightens the harbour pilots, and striking
the shark on the ribs goes rapidly to the bottom.