Stories (29 page)

Andrei Yefimych silently counted his money and said:

“Eighty-six roubles.”

“That’s not what I’m asking,” Mikhail Averyanych said in embarrassment, not understanding the doctor. “I’m asking what means you have in general.”

“But I told you: eighty-six roubles … That’s all I have.”

Mikhail Averyanych considered the doctor an honest and noble man, but even so he suspected him of having a capital of some twenty thousand at least. Learning now that Andrei Yefimych was destitute, that he had nothing to live on, he suddenly wept for some reason and embraced his friend.

Andrei Yefimych lived in the little three-windowed house of the tradeswoman Belov. There were only three rooms in this little house, not counting the kitchen. The doctor occupied the two with windows on the street, and in the third and the kitchen lived
Daryushka, the tradeswoman, and her three children. Sometimes the landlady’s lover came to spend the night with her, a drunken lout who got violent during the night and terrified the children and Daryushka. When he came, settled himself in the kitchen, and started demanding vodka, everybody felt very crowded
, and out of pity the doctor would take the crying children to his rooms and bed them down on the floor, and this gave him great pleasure.

He got up at eight o’clock, as formerly, and after tea sat down to read his old books and magazines. He now had no money for new ones. Either because the books were old, or perhaps because of the change of circumstances, reading wearied him and no longer interested him deeply. So as not to spend his time in idleness, he made a detailed catalogue of his books and glued labels to their spines, and this mechanical, painstaking work seemed to him more interesting than reading. This monotonous, painstaking work lulled his mind in some incomprehensible way, he did not think of anything,
and the time passed quickly. He even found it interesting to sit in the kitchen and peel potatoes with Daryushka or sort buckwheat. On Saturdays and Sundays he went to church. Standing by the wall, eyes closed, he listened to the singing and thought about his father, his mother, the university, religion; he felt peaceful, sad, and afterwards, leaving the church, was sorry the service had ended so soon.

Twice he went to the hospital to see Ivan Dmitrich and talk with him. But both times Ivan Dmitrich was unusually upset and angry; he begged to be left alone, having long since grown weary of empty chatter, and for all his sufferings he asked only one reward of cursed, mean people—solitary confinement. Was even that to be denied him? Both times, when Andrei Yefimych took leave of him and wished him a good night, he snarled and said:

“Go to the devil!”

And now Andrei Yefimych did not know whether he should go a third time or not. But he wanted to go.

Formerly, in the time after dinner, Andrei Yefimych had paced his rooms and reflected, but now he spent the time between dinner and evening tea lying on the sofa, face to the back, giving himself up to petty thoughts, which he was unable to fight off.
He felt offended that for his more than twenty years of service he had been given neither a pension nor a one-time payment. True, he had served dishonestly, but everyone who served got a pension, whether
they were honest or not. Contemporary justice consisted in granting rank, decorations, and pensions not to moral qualities or abilities but to service in general, however it was performed. Why should he be the only exception? He had no money at all. He was ashamed to pass the grocery shop and look at the shopkeeper. He had already run up a bill of thirty-two roubles for beer. He also owed money t
o the tradeswoman Belov. Daryushka sold old clothes and books on the sly and lied to the landlady that the doctor was soon to receive a very large sum of money.

He was angry with himself for having spent the thousand roubles he had saved on a trip. How useful that thousand would have been to him now! He was vexed that people would not leave him alone. Khobotov considered it his duty to visit his sick colleague occasionally. Everything about him disgusted Andrei Yefimych: his well-fed face, and his bad, condescending tone, and the word “colleague,” and his high boots; most disgusting was that he considered it his duty to treat Andrei Yefimych and thought that he was indeed treating him. On each of his visits he brought a bottle of potassium bromide and r
hubarb pills.

Mikhail Averyanych also considered it his duty to visit his friend and divert him. He always entered Andrei Yefimych’s with affected nonchalance and a forced guffaw and began assuring him that he looked very well today and, thank God, things were improving, from which it could be concluded that he considered his friend’s condition hopeless. He had not yet paid back his Warsaw debt and was weighed down by heavy shame, felt tense, and therefore tried to guffaw more loudly and talk more amusingly. His jokes and stories now seemed endless and were a torment both to Andrei Yefimych and for himself.

In his presence Andrei Yefimych usually lay on the sofa with his face to the wall and listened with clenched teeth; layers of
scum settled on his soul, and after each visit from his friend he felt this scum rising higher, as if reaching to his throat.

To stifle his petty feelings, he hastened to reflect that he himself, and Khobotov, and Mikhail Averyanych, must die sooner or later, without leaving even a trace on nature. If one should imagine some spirit, a million years from now, flying through space past the earth, that spirit would see only clay and bare cliffs. Everything—including culture and moral law—woul
d have perished, and no burdock
would even be growing.
¹⁷
What, then, was this shame before the shopkeeper, the worthless Khobotov, the painful friendship of Mikhail Averyanych? It was all nonsense and trifles.

But such reasoning no longer helped. As soon as he imagined the earth a million years from now, Khobotov appeared in high boots from behind a bare cliff, or else the forcedly laughing Mikhail Averyanych, and he even heard his shamefaced whisper: “I’ll pay back the Warsaw debt one of these days, my dear … Without fail.”

Once Mikhail Averyanych came after dinner, when Andrei Yefimych was lying on the sofa. It so happened that Khobotov also arrived at the same time with the potassium bromide. Andrei Yefimych got up heavily, sat on the sofa, and propped himself with both hands.

“And today, my dear,” Mikhail Averyanych began, “your color has much improved over yesterday. Well done, by God! Well done!”

“It’s high time, high time you got better, colleague,” Khobotov said, yawning. “You must be tired of this flim-flam yourself.”

“We’ll get better,” Mikhail Averyanych said cheerfully. “We’ll live another hundred years! Yes, sir!”

“Hundred or no hundred, there’s enough in him for twenty,” Khobotov reassured. “Never mind, never mind, colleague, don’t be so glum … Stop blowing smoke.”

“We’ll still show ourselves!” Mikhail Averyanych guffawed and patted his friend’s knee. “We’ll show ourselves! Next summer, God willing, we’ll take a swing through the Caucasus and cover it all on horseback—hup! hup! hup! And when we come back from the Caucasus, for all I know, we’ll dance at a wedding.” Mikhail Averyanych winked slyly. “We’ll get you married, dear friend … married …”

Andrei Yefimych suddenly felt the scum rise to his throat; his heart was pounding terribly.

“This is all so banal!” he said, getting up quickly and going to the window. “Don’t you understand that you’re speaking in banalities?”

He wanted to go on gently and politely, but against his will suddenly clenched his fists and raised them above his head.

“Leave me alone!” he shouted in a voice not his own, turning purple and trembling all over. “Get out! Get out, both of you!”

Mikhail Averyanych and Khobotov stood up and stared at him first in bewilderment, then in fear.

“Get out, both of you!” Andrei Yefimych went on shouting. “Obtuse people! Stupid people! I need neither your friendship nor your medicine, obtuse man! Banality! Filth!”

Khobotov and Mikhail Averyanych, exchanging perplexed looks, backed their way to the door and went out into the front hall. Andrei Yefimych seized the bottle of potassium bromide and hurled it after them; the bottle smashed jingling on the threshold.

“Go to the devil!” he shouted in a tearful voice, running out to the front hall. “To the devil!”

After his visitors left, Andrei Yefimych, trembling as in a fever, lay down on the sofa and for a long time went on repeating:

“Obtuse people! Stupid people!”

When he calmed down, it occurred to him first of all that poor Mikhail Averyanych must now be terribly ashamed and dispirited and that all this was terrible. Nothing like it had ever happened before. Where were his intelligence and tact? Where were his comprehension of things and his philosophical indifference?

The doctor was unable to sleep all night from shame and vexation with himself, and in the morning, around ten o’clock, he went to the post office and apologized to the postmaster.

“We’ll forget what happened,” the moved Mikhail Averyanych said with a sigh, firmly pressing his hand. “Let bygones be bygones. Lyubavkin!” he suddenly shouted so loudly that all the postal clerks and clients jumped. “Fetch a chair! And you wait!” he shouted at a peasant woman who was passing him a certified letter through the grille. “Can’t you see I’m busy? We’ll forget the bygones,” he went on tenderly, addressing Andrei Yefimych. “Sit down, my dear, I humbly beg you.”

He patted his knees in silence for a moment and then said:

“It never occurred to me to be offended with you. Illness is nobody’s friend, I realize. Your fit yesterday frightened me and the doctor, and we talked about you for a long time afterwards. My dear friend, why don’t you want to attend seriously to your illness? This can’t go on! Excuse my friendly candor,” Mikhail Averyanych whispered, “but you live in the most unfavorable circumstances: it’s crowded, dirty, nobody looks after you, there’s no money for
treatment … My dear friend, the doct
or and I beg you with all our hearts to heed our advice: go to the hospital! The food there is wholesome, they’ll look after you and treat you. Evgeny Fyodorovich may be in
mauvais ton,
¹⁸
just between us, but he’s well-informed and totally reliable. He gave me his word he’d look after you.”

Andrei Yefimych was touched by this genuine concern and by the tears that suddenly glistened on the postmaster’s cheeks.

“My esteemed friend, don’t believe it!” he whispered, placing his hand on his heart. “Don’t believe them! It’s not true! My only illness is that in twenty years I’ve found only one intelligent man in the whole town, and he’s mad. There is no illness at all, I simply got into a magic circle that I can’t get out of. It makes no difference to me, I’m ready for everything.”

“Go to the hospital, my dear.”

“Or to the pit—it makes no difference to me.”

“Give me your word, my dearest friend, that you’ll obey Evgeny Fyodorych in all things.”

“If you please, I give my word. But I repeat, my esteemed friend, I got into a magic circle. Now everything, even the genuine sympathy of my friends, leads to one thing—my perdition. I’m perishing, and I have enough courage to realize it.”

“You’ll get well, my friend.”

“Why say that?” Andrei Yefimych said vexedly “It’s a rare man who doesn’t experience the same thing towards the end of his life as I am experiencing now. When you’re told that you have something like a bad kidney or an enlarged heart, and you start getting treated, or that you’re a madman or a criminal, that is, in short, when people suddenly pay attention to you, then you should know that you’ve gotten into a magic circle and you’ll n
ever get out of it. If you try to get out, you’ll get more lost. Give up, because no human effort can save you. So it seems to me.”

Meanwhile people were crowding to the grille. Andrei Yefimych, not wishing to hinder anyone, got up and began to take his leave. Mikhail Averyanych once again asked him for his word of honor and saw him to the front door.

That same day, before evening, Andrei Yefimych received an unexpected visit from Khobotov, in his short jacket and high boots, who said, as if nothing had happened the day before:

“I’m here on business, colleague. I’ve come to ask you if you’d like to join me in a consultation. Eh?”

Thinking that Khobotov wanted to divert him with a stroll, or indeed give him a chance to earn some money, Andrei Yefimych put on his coat and went out with him. He was glad of the chance to smooth over his fault of the day before and make peace, and in his heart was grateful to Khobotov, who did not utter a peep about the day before and was obviously sparing him. He would hardly have expected such delicacy from this uncultivated man.

“Where’s your patient?” asked Andrei Yefimych.

“In the hospital. I’ve been wanting to show you for a long time … A most interesting case.”

They went into the hospital yard and, going around the main building, made their way to the annex where the insane were housed. And all this, for some reason, in silence. When they went into the annex, Nikita jumped up as usual and stood at attention.

“One of them has developed a lung complication,” Khobotov said in a low voice, as he and Andrei Yefimych went into the ward. “Wait here, I’ll be back at once. I must get my stethoscope.”

And he went out.

It was twilight. Ivan Dmitrich lay on his bed, his face in the pillow; the paralytic sat motionless, weeping softly and moving his lips. The fat peasant and the former sorter were asleep. It was quiet.

Andrei Yefimych sat down on Ivan Dmitrich’s bed and waited. But about half an hour went by, and instead of Khobotov, Nikita came into the ward carrying a hospital robe, someone’s underwear and slippers.

“Please put these on, Your Honor,” he said softly. “Here’s your little bed, if you please,” he added, pointing to an empty bed, obviously brought in recently. “Never mind, God willing, you’ll get well.”

Andrei Yefimych understood everything. Without saying a word, he went over to the bed Nikita had pointed to and sat down; seeing that Nikita was standing and waiting, he undressed completely and felt embarrassed. Then he put on the hospital clothes.
The drawers were very short, the shirt long, and the robe smelled of smoked fish.