Stories (28 page)

“Here’s a little application along your lines, sir,” the member of the council addressed Andrei Yefimych, after they had all exchanged greetings and sat down at the table. “Evgeny Fyodorych says here that there’s not enough room for the dispensary in the main building, and that it ought to be transferred to one of the annexes. That’s all right, of course, the transfer is possible, but the main concern is that the annex will need renovation.”

“Yes, it won’t do without renovation,” Andrei Yefimych said, after some reflection. “If, for example, we decide to fit out the corner annex as a dispensary, we’ll need a minimum of five hundred roubles. An unproductive expense.”

A short silence ensued.

“I already had the honor of reporting ten years ago,” Andrei Yefimych went on in a low voice, “that this hospital in its present state is a luxury beyond the town’s means. It was built in the forties, but the means were different then. The town spends too much on unnecessary buildings and superfluous jobs. I think that with a different system it would be possible to run two model hospitals on the same money.”

“Then let’s set up a different system!” the member of the council said briskly.

“As I’ve already had the honor of reporting, the medical area should be transferred to the jurisdiction of the zemstvo.”

“Yes, transfer the money to the zemstvo, and let them steal it,” the blond doctor laughed.

“That’s just what they’ll do,” said the council member, and he also laughed.

Andrei Yefimych gave the blond doctor a dull and listless look and said:

“We must be fair.”

Another silence ensued. Tea was served. The military commander, very embarrassed for some reason, touched Andrei Yefimych’s hand across the table and said:

“You’ve quite forgotten us, doctor. You’re a monk, anyhow: you don’t play cards, you don’t like women. You’re bored with our sort.”

Everybody began talking about how boring it was for a decent man to live in this town. No theater, no music, and at the last club dance there were some twenty ladies and only two gentlemen. The young people do not dance but spend all their time crowding around the buffet or playing cards. Slowly and softly, without looking at anyone, Andrei Yefimych began to say how regrettable, how deeply regrettable, it was that the townspeople put their life’s energy, their hearts and minds, into playing cards or gossiping, and neither can nor wish to spend time in interesting conversation or reading, to enjoy
the delights furnished by the mind. The mind alone is interesting and remarkable, while the rest is petty and base. Khobotov listened attentively to his colleague and suddenly asked:

“Andrei Yefimych, what is the date today?”

Having received an answer, he and the blond doctor, in the tone of examiners aware of their incompetence, began to ask Andrei Yefimych what day it was, how many days there were in a year, and whether it was true that a remarkable prophet was living in Ward No. 6.

In answer to the last question, Andrei Yefimych blushed and said:

“Yes, he’s ill, but he’s an interesting young man.”

They did not ask him any more questions.

As he was putting his coat on in the front hall, the military governor placed his hand on his shoulder and said with a sigh:

“It’s time we old men had a rest!”

On leaving the town hall, Andrei Yefimych realized that this had been a commission appointed to verify his mental abilities. He recalled the questions he had been asked, blushed, and now, for some reason, for the first time in his life felt bitterly sorry for medicine.

“My God,” he thought, remembering how the doctors had just tested him, “they took courses in psychiatry so recently, passed examinations—why this total ignorance? They have no idea what psychiatry is!”

And for the first time in his life he felt insulted and angry.

That same evening Mikhail Averyanych came to see him.
Without any greeting, the postmaster went up to him, took him by both hands, and said in a worried voice:

“My dear friend, prove to me that you believe in my genuine sympathy and consider me your friend … My friend!” and stopping Andrei Yefimych from speaking, he went on worriedly: “I love you for your education and nobility of soul. Listen to me, my dear. The rules of science demand that the doctors conceal the truth from you, but I, being a military man, come straight out with it: you’re not well! Forgive me, my dear, but it’s true, everybody around you noticed it long ago. Dr. Evgeny Fyodorych has just told me that for the sake of your health you need rest and diversion. Absolutely right! Exce
llent! In a few days I’ll be taking a leave, to go and sniff a different air. Prove to me that you’re my friend, come with me! Come along, we’ll dust off the old days.”

“I feel perfectly well,” Andrei Yefimych said, after thinking a little. “I can’t go. Allow me to prove my friendship for you in some other way.”

To go somewhere, for no known reason, without books, without Daryushka, without beer, to sharply disrupt an order of life established for twenty years—this idea at first seemed wild and fantastic to him. But he recalled the conversation he had had in the town hall, and the painful mood he had experienced as he returned home, and the thought of a brief absence from this town, where stupid people considered him mad, appealed to him.

“And where, in fact, 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 an amazing city! Let’s go, my friend!”

A week later it was suggested to Andrei Yefimych that he get some rest—that is, retire—which suggestion he met with indifference, and a week after that he and Mikhail Averyanych were sitting in a stagecoach heading for the nearest railway station. The days were cool, clear, with blue sky and a transparent view. They made the hundred and fifty miles to the railway station in two days, stopping twice for the night. When the tea at the posting stations was served in poorly washed glasses, or the harnessing of the horses took too
long, Mikhail Averyanych turned purple, shook all over, and sho
uted: “Silence! no argument!” And sitting in the coach, he talked non-stop about his travels around the Caucasus and the Kingdom of Poland. So many adventures, such encounters! He spoke loudly and made such astonished eyes that one might have thought he was lying. Besides, as he talked, he breathed into Andrei Yefimych’s face and guffawed in his ear. This bothered the doctor and interfered with his thinking and concentration.

On the train they traveled third class for economy, in a nonsmoking car. Half the people were of the clean sort. Mikhail Averyanych soon made everyone’s acquaintance and, going from seat to seat, said loudly that one ought not to travel by these outrageous railways. Cheating everywhere! No comparison with riding a horse: you zoom through sixty miles in a day and afterwards feel healthy and fresh. And our crop failures were caused by the draining of the Pinsk marshes. Generally, there were terrible disorders. He got excited, spoke loudly, and did not let others speak. This endless babble intersper
sed with loud guffaws and expressive gestures wearied Andrei Yefimych.

“Which of us is the madman?” he thought with vexation. “Is it I, who try not to trouble the passengers with anything, or this egoist, who thinks he’s the most intelligent and interesting man here and so won’t leave anyone in peace?”

In Moscow Mikhail Averyanych donned a military jacket without epaulettes and trousers with red piping. He went out in a military cap and greatcoat, and soldiers saluted him. Andrei Yefimych now thought that this was a man who, of the grand manners he once possessed, had squandered all the good and kept only the bad. He liked to be waited on, even when it was quite unnecessary. A box of matches would be lying before him on the table, and he would see it, yet he would call for a servant to hand him matches; he was not embarrassed to walk about in his underwear in front of the maid; a
ll manservants without distinction, even the old ones, he addressed familiarly, and, getting angry, dubbed them blockheads and fools. It seemed to Andrei Yefimych that this was grand, but vile.

Before anything else, Mikhail Averyanych took his friend to see the Iverskaya icon. He prayed ardently, bowing to the ground and with tears, and when he finished, sighed deeply and said:

“Even if you don’t believe, you feel somehow more at ease once you’ve prayed. Kiss it, my dear.”

Andrei Yefimych became embarrassed and kissed the icon, while Mikhail Averyanych pursed his lips and, nodding his head, prayed in a whisper, tears coming to his eyes again. Then they went to the Kremlin and there looked at the Tsar-cannon and the Tsar-bell and even touched them with their fingers, admired the view of Zamoskvorechye, visited the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the Rumiantsev Museum.
¹⁶

They had dinner at Testov’s. Mikhail Averyanych spent a long time studying the menu, stroking his side-whiskers, and said in the tone of a gourmand who feels in a restaurant as if he were at home:

“Let’s see what you can offer us to eat today, my angel!”

The doctor walked, looked, ate, drank, but had only one feeling: vexation with Mikhail Averyanych. He wanted to have a rest from his friend, to leave him, to hide, but the friend considered it his duty not to let him go a step away and to provide him with as many diversions as possible. When there was nothing to look at, he diverted him with talk. Andrei Yefimych held out for two days, but on the third he announced to his friend that he was sick and wanted to stay home all day. The friend said that in that case he, too, would stay home. Indeed, one had to rest or one’s legs would fall off. Andrei
Yefimych lay on the sofa, face to the wall, and with clenched teeth listened to his friend hotly insisting that France was certain to defeat Germany sooner or later, that there were a great many swindlers in Moscow, and that one cannot judge a horse by its color. The doctor had a buzzing in his ears, his heart pounded, but out of delicacy he dared not ask his friend to be quiet. Fortunately, Mikhail Averyanych got bored sitting in the hotel room, and after dinner he went out for a stroll.

Left alone, Andrei Yefimych gave himself up to a feeling of relief. How pleasant to lie motionless on the sofa and realize that you are alone in the room! True happiness is impossible witho
ut solitude. The fallen angel probably betrayed God because he longed for solitude, which angels do not know. Andrei Yefimych wanted to think about what he had seen and heard in the last few days, but he could not get Mikhail Averyanych out of his head.

“He took a leave and came with me out of friendship, out of
magnanimity,” the doctor thought with vexation. “There’s nothing worse than this friendly solicitude. It seems he’s a kind, magnanimous, and merry fellow, and yet he’s a bore. An insufferable bore. Just as there are people who always say only nice and intelligent things, yet you can sense that they’re quite obtuse.”

In the days that followed, Andrei Yefimych gave himself out as ill and never left the room. He lay facing the back of the sofa and languished while his friend amused him with conversation, or rested while his friend was absent. He was annoyed with himself for having come along and with his friend for growing more talkative and casual every day; he simply could not manage to attune his thoughts to anything serious and lofty.

“The reality Ivan Dmitrich spoke about is getting to me,” he thought, angry at his own pettiness. “However, it’s nonsense … I’ll go home and everything will be as before …”

In Petersburg it was the same: he spent whole days without leaving the hotel room, lay on the sofa, and got up only to have some beer.

Mikhail Averyanych kept urging him to go to Warsaw.

“My dear, why should I go there?” Andrei Yefimych said in an imploring tone. “Go by yourself and let me go home! I beg you!”

“Not for anything!” protested Mikhail Averyanych. “It’s an amazing city. I spent the five happiest years of my life in it.”

Andrei Yefimych did not have enough character to stand up for himself and, sick at heart, went to Warsaw. There he never left
the hotel room, lay on the sofa, angry with himself, with his friend, and with the servants who stubbornly refused to understand Russian, while Mikhail Averyanych, hale, hearty, and cheerful as ever, went around the city from morning till evening, looking up his old acquaintances. Several times he stayed away all night. After one such night, spent who knows where, he came home early in the morning, greatly agitated, red-faced, and disheveled. He paced up and down the room for a long time, muttering something to himself, then stopped and said:

“Honor before all!”

After pacing a little more, he clutched his head and said in a tragic voice:

“Yes, honor before all! Cursed be the moment I first thought of coming to this Babylon! My dear,” he turned to the doctor, “despise me: I lost at cards! Give me five hundred roubles!”

Andrei Yefimych counted out five hundred roubles and silently handed them to his friend. The man, still crimson with shame and wrath, uttered some needless oath incoherently, put his cap on his head, and went out. Returning about two hours later, he collapsed into an armchair, sighed loudly, and said:

“My honor is saved! Let’s go, my friend. I don’t want to stay a minute longer in this cursed city. Crooks! Austrian spies!”

When the friends returned to their town, it was already November and the streets were deep in snow. Andrei Yefimych’s post had been taken over by Dr. Khobotov. He was still living in his old apartment, waiting for Andrei Yefimych to come and vacate the hospital apartment. The homely woman whom he called his cook was already living in one of the annexes.

New hospital rumors went around town. It was said that the homely woman had quarreled with the superintendent, and that the ma
n had supposedly crawled on his knees before her, begging forgiveness.

The first day after his arrival, Andrei Yefimych had to find himself an apartment.

“My friend,” the postmaster said to him timidly, “forgive my indiscreet question: what means do you have at your disposal?”