Forty Stories (23 page)

Apparently the ship was beginning to roll. The hammock slowly rose and fell under Gusev, as though it were sighing: this happened once, twice, three times.… Something crashed down on the floor with a ringing sound: probably a jug had fallen.

“The wind must have slipped its chains,” Gusev said, straining his ears.

This time Pavel Ivanich cleared his throat and said irritably:
“First you say a fish has smacked into the side of a ship, then you say the wind has slipped its chains.… Is the wind, then, an animal that it breaks loose from its chains?”

“That’s what the Christians say.”

“Then the Christians are know-nothings just like you. They say whatever they want to say. You should have a head on your shoulders and try to reason things out. You don’t have any brains!”

Pavel Ivanich suffered from seasickness. When the sea was rough he was usually bad-tempered, and the merest trifle would reduce him to a state of complete exasperation. In Gusev’s opinion there was nothing at all to be angry about. What was strange or astonishing in the story about the fish or the wind slipping its chains? Suppose the fish were as big as a mountain, suppose its backbone was as strong as a sturgeon’s, and then suppose that far away, at the very end of the world, there were great walls of stone and that the furious winds were chained to these walls. If the winds had not broken loose from their chains, how do you account for the fact that they fling themselves across the sea like maniacs, and struggle to escape like dogs? If they were not chained up, what became of them when the seas were calm?

For a long time Gusev pondered those massive rusty chains and the fish as big as mountains, and then he wearied of these things and instead he summoned up the memory of his village, that village to which he was returning after five years’ service in the Far East. He thought of an immense pool crusted with snow; on one side stood the potteries, which were the color of brick, with the high chimney and clouds of black smoke, and on the other side lay the village. Driving a sleigh, his brother Alexey emerged from the fifth courtyard from the end, his little son Vanka and his daughter Akulka sitting behind him, both of them wearing big felt boots. Alexey had been drinking, Vanka was laughing, and Akulka was bundled up so that it was impossible to see her face.

“Unless he’s careful, the children will be frozen stiff!” Gusev thought. “Oh Lord, put some sense in their heads so that they will honor their father and mother, and not be any wiser than their father and mother.…”

“They need new soles for their boots,” the sick sailor roared in his delirium. “Yes, they do!”

At this point Gusev’s thoughts broke off, and for no reason at all the pool gave place to the head of a huge bull without eyes, and the horse and sleigh were no longer going straight ahead, but were whirling round and round in clouds of black smoke. But he was delighted to have seen his own people. Joy made him catch his breath, shivers went up and down his spine, and his fingers tingled.

“Praise the Lord, for He has granted us to see each other,” he murmured feverishly, and then he opened his eyes and looked for water in the dark.

He drank some water and lay down, and once more he saw the sleigh gliding along, and once more he saw the head of the bull without eyes, and the smoke, and the clouds. And so it went on until the sun rose.

The first object to emerge through the darkness was a blue circle, the porthole; then little by little Gusev was able to make out the shape of the man in the next hammock, Pavel Ivanich. This man slept sitting up, as he felt suffocated lying down. He had a gray face, a long sharp nose, and eyes which seemed enormous because he was terribly emaciated; and his temples were sunken, his hair was long, and there were only a few small threads of beard. From his face no one could have told his social status, whether he was 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 no one hearing him talk would ever have regarded him as a monk. Worn out by coughing, illness, and suffocating heat, he breathed laboriously,
his parched lips trembling. Seeing Gusev gazing at him, he turned his face towards him and said: “I’m beginning to guess.… Yes … I understand it perfectly now.…”

“What do you understand, Pavel Ivanich?”

“It’s like this.… It has always seemed strange to me. Here you are, terribly ill, and instead of being left in peace, you are taken on board a ship where it’s hot and the air’s stifling and the deck is always pitching and rolling, and in fact everything threatens you with death.… It’s all clear to me now.… Yes.… The doctors got you on the ship, to get rid of you. They were fed up with looking after you—you’re only cattle. You don’t pay them anything, you are a nuisance, and you spoil their statistics when you die. So, of course, you are cattle! And it’s no trouble to get rid of you. All that’s needed in the first place is to have no conscience or humanity, and in the second place the ship’s officers can be told lies. No need to worry about the first—we are artists in all that. As for the second, you can always do it with a little practice. In a crowd of four hundred healthy soldiers and sailors, no one notices half a dozen sick ones. Well, they got you on the ship, mixed you up with the healthy ones, made a quick count, and because there was a lot of confusion no one saw anything wrong in it, but when the ship sailed they discovered there were paralytics and sick people in the last stages of consumption lying about the deck.…”

Gusev did not understand a single word spoken by Pavel Ivanich, and thinking he was being reprimanded, he said in self-defense: “I was lying on deck only because I didn’t have the strength to stand. When we were being unloaded from the barge onto the ship, I caught a terrible chill.”

“It’s revolting,” Pavel Ivanich went on. “The worst of it is they knew perfectly well you couldn’t survive such a long journey, and yet they shove you on the ship! Let’s suppose you last out as far as the Indian Ocean, what happens then? It’s terrible to think about it.… And that’s all you get for your years of faithful service with never a bad mark against you.”

Pavel Ivanich’s eyes flashed anger, he frowned contemptuously, and gasped out: “There are people the newspapers really ought to tear apart, till the feathers are flying!”

The two sick soldiers and the sailor were awake, and already playing cards. The sailor was half reclining on his hammock, while the soldiers sat near him on the floor in uncomfortable attitudes. One soldier had his right arm in a sling, and his wrist was so heavily bandaged that it resembled a fur cap: he kept his cards under his right armpit or in the crook of his elbow while playing with his left hand. The ship was rolling heavily. It was impossible to stand upright or drink tea or take medicine.

“What were you—an officer’s servant?” Pavel Ivanich asked Gusev.

“That’s right. I was an officer’s orderly.”

“Dear God!” said Pavel Ivanich, and he shook his head mournfully. “You tear a man from his home, drag him out of his nest, send him ten thousand miles away, let him rot with consumption, and … You wonder why they do it!… Just to make him the servant of some Captain Kopeikin or Midshipman Dirka! It doesn’t make sense!”

“Being an officer’s servant isn’t hard work, Pavel Ivanich. You get up in the morning and clean the boots and get the samovar ready and sweep the rooms, and then there’s nothing more to do. The lieutenant spends his days drawing up plans, and if you like you can say your prayers or maybe read a book or maybe go out on the street. God grant everyone such a life!”

“That’s all very well. The lieutenant draws up his plans, while you spend the day sitting around the kitchen and longing for your own home.… Plans!… It’s not a question of plans, but of a human life! Life doesn’t come back again, and you have to treat it gently.”

“Of course, Pavel Ivanich, a bad man is never well treated, either at home or in the service, but if you live right and obey orders, who wants to do you harm? The officers are educated gentlemen, they understand.… In five years they never once
put me in the can, and they only hit me once, so help me God!”

“What did they hit you for?”

“For fighting. I’ve got a pair of tough hands, Pavel Ivanich. Four Chinese came into our yard, they were bringing firewood or something—I don’t remember. Well, I was bored, and I beat them up, and the nose of one of them started to bleed.… The lieutenant watched it through a window, flew into a temper, and boxed my ears!”

“Poor stupid fool,” said Pavel Ivanich. “You never understand anything.”

He was completely exhausted by the rolling of the ship, and closed his eyes, and sometimes his head fell back and sometimes it dropped on his chest. Several times he tried to lie down, but he never succeeded. His breathing was labored.

“Why did you beat up those four Chinese?”

“They came into the yard and so I beat them up—that’s all.”

Silence followed. The cardplayers went on playing for two hours with much eagerness and angry shouting, but the rolling of the ship was finally too much even for them; they threw their cards aside, and lay down. Once again Gusev saw the large pool, the potteries, and the village. Once again the sleigh made its way over the snow, and Vanka was laughing, and Akulka in the silliest way was throwing open her fur coat and kicking out her feet, as though she were saying: “Look, good people, at my new felt boots, not like Vanka’s old ones!”

“Soon she will be six years old, and she hasn’t any sense in her head,” Gusev murmured in his fever. “Instead of kicking out your feet, you would be spending your time better if you brought a drink to the old soldier who is your uncle, and then I’ll give you a present!”

And then came Andron with his flintlock over his shoulder, carrying a hare he had shot, with the crazy Jew Issaichik coming after him and offering a bar of soap for the hare; and then there was the black calf in the passageway, and Domna was sewing a shirt and crying about something, and there came once again
the bull’s head without eyes, and the black smoke.…

Overhead someone gave a loud shout, and several sailors ran past, and there was a sound as though some heavy object was being dragged across the deck or something had burst open. Again the sailors ran past.… Had there been an accident? Gusev lifted his head, listened, and observed that the two soldiers and the sailor were playing cards again. Pavel Ivanich was sitting up and moving his lips. You were suffocating in the heat, you had no strength to breathe, you were thirsty, and the water was hot, disgusting. The ship was still rolling badly.

Suddenly something strange happened to one of the soldiers who was playing cards.… He called hearts diamonds, then he got muddled over the score, and then let the cards fall from his hands. He smiled a frightened, stupid smile, and gazed at the other cardplayers.

“I won’t be a moment, fellows,” he said, and lay down on the floor.

They were all astonished. They shouted at him, but he did not answer.

“Stepan, maybe you’re feeling ill, eh?” the soldier with his arm in a sling said. “Maybe we should get a priest, eh?”

“Drink some water, Stepan,” the sailor said. “Here, drink, brother!”

“Why do you have to knock the jug against his teeth?” Gusev exclaimed angrily. “Haven’t you got eyes, cabbagehead?”

“What’s that?”

“What’s that?” Gusev mimicked him. “There’s not a drop of breath left in him—he’s dead! That’s what! Lord God, how stupid can you get?”

The ship stopped rolling, and Pavel Ivanich grew more cheerful. He was no longer ill-tempered. His face wore a boastful, challenging, defiant look, as though he wanted to say: “Just a moment,
I’ll tell you something to make you split your sides with laughing!” The little round porthole was open, and a gentle breeze was blowing on Pavel Ivanich. There came the sound of voices and the splashing of oars in the water.… Beneath the porthole someone was droning in an unpleasant, reedy voice; it was probably a Chinese singing.

“So here we are in the harbor,” Pavel Ivanich said with an ironical smile. “Only another month, and we’ll be in Russia.… I address myself to our distinguished civilians and military men! I reach Odessa, and then make a beeline for Kharkov. In Kharkov I have a friend, a man of letters. I’ll go up to him and say: ‘Come, brother, put aside those abominable subjects you write about, the loves of women and the beauties of nature, and show us the two-legged vermin. There’s a theme for you.…’ ”

He thought for a minute and then he said: “Gusev, do you know how I made a fool of them?”

“Made a fool of who, Pavel Ivanich?”

“Why, those people.… You know, there’s only a first and third class on this ship, and they only allow peasants in the third class—only the scum. If you’re wearing a coat and look from a distance like a gentleman or a bourgeois, then they make you travel first class. You have to put down five hundred rubles, even if it kills you. ‘Why make a rule like that?’ I ask them. ‘Do you want to raise the prestige of the Russian intellectuals?’ ‘Not on your life,’ they say. ‘We won’t let you, because a decent person won’t go into the third class—it’s too horrible and disgusting.’ ‘Sir, I congratulate you for being so considerate for the affairs of decent people. Besides, whether it is nice or horrible, I haven’t got the five hundred rubles. I haven’t looted the treasury, I haven’t exploited natives, I never smuggled contraband, or flogged anyone to death, so judge for yourselves whether I have the right to travel first class or even the right to count myself among the Russian intellectuals.’ But you can’t teach logic to these fellows. I had to play a trick on them. I put
on a peasant’s coat and high-boots, and wore a drunken stupid expression, and went to the ticket agents and said: ‘Won’t you give me a little ticket, Your Excellencies?’ ”

“What class do you really belong to?” the sailor said.

“The ecclesiastical class. My father was an honest priest, and he always told the truth to the great ones of the world—threw it in their faces—and so we suffered a great deal.”

Pavel Ivanich was exhausted with talking. He went on, gasping for breath: “Yes, I always tell them the truth straight in their faces. I’m not afraid of anyone or anything. In this respect there is a vast difference between me and you. You people are in the dark, you are blind and beaten to the ground; you see nothing, and what you do see you fail to understand.… They tell you the wind breaks loose from its chains, that you are beasts, savages, and you believe it. Someone punches you in the neck—you kiss his hand! A reptile in a raccoon coat strips you of everything you possess, and then tosses you a penny for your pains, and you say: ‘Sir, let me kiss your hand.’ You are outcasts, poor pathetic wretches.… I am different. I live in full consciousness of my powers. I see everything, like a hawk or an eagle hovering over the earth, and I understand everything. I am protest incarnate. When I see tyranny, I protest. When I see cant and hypocrisy, I protest. When I see swine triumphant, I protest. I cannot be silenced: no Spanish Inquisition will make me hold my tongue. No! If you cut out my tongue, I will still protest—with gestures. Bury me in a cellar, and I will shout so loud they will hear me a mile away, or else I will starve myself to death, and thus hang another weight round their black consciences. Kill me, and my ghost will haunt them! All my acquaintances say: ‘You are a most insufferable fellow, Pavel Ivanich!’ I am proud of my reputation. For three years I served in the Far East, and I shall be remembered there for a hundred years because I quarreled with everyone. My friends write to me from Russia: ‘Don’t come back!’ But as you see I am going back to spite them!… 
Yes, that’s life as I understand it! That’s what is called life.”