Stories (30 page)

“You’ll get well, God willing,” Nikita repeated.

He gathered up Andrei Yefimych’s clothes, went out, and closed the door behind him.

“It makes no difference …” thought Andrei Yefimych, shyly wrapping himself in the robe, and feeling that his new costume made him look like a prisoner. “It makes no difference … no difference whether it’s a tailcoat, a uniform, or this robe …”

But what about his watch? And the notebook in the side pocket? And the cigarettes? Where had Nikita taken his clothes? Now, perhaps, he would not put on his trousers, waistcoat, and shoes till his dying day. All this was somehow st
range and even incomprehensible at first. Andrei Yefimych was still convinced that there was no difference between the house of the tradeswoman Belov and Ward No. 6, and that everything in this world was nonsense and vanity of vanities, and yet his hands shook, his feet were cold, and he felt eerie at the thought that Ivan Dmitrich would soon get up and see him in the robe. He stood up, paced a little, and sat down.

Now he had been sitting for half an hour, an hour, and he was sick of it to the point of anguish. Could one really live here for a day, a week, and even years, like these people? Well, so he sat, paced, and sat down again; he could go and look out the window, and again pace up and down. And then what? Go on sitting this way all the time, like an idol, and thinking? No, that was hardly possible.

Andrei Yefimych lay down, but got up at once, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, and felt that his whole face smelled of smoked fish. He paced again.

“This is some sort of misunderstanding …” he said, spreading his arms in perplexity. “It must be explained, there’s a misunderstanding here …”

Just then Ivan Dmitrich woke up. He sat up and propped his cheeks on his fists. He spat. Then he glanced lazily at the doctor and for the first moment apparently understood nothing; but soon his sleepy face turned malicious and jeering.

“Aha, so they’ve stuck you in here, too, my dear!” he said in a voice hoarse from sleep, squinting one eye. “Delighted. You used to suck people’s blood, now they’ll suck yours. Excellent!”

“This is some sort of misunderstanding…” said Andrei
Yefimych, frightened by Ivan Dmitrich’s words; he shrugged and repeated: “A misunderstanding of some sort…”

Ivan Dmitrich spat again and lay down.

“Cursed life!” he growled. “And what’s so bitter and offensive is that this life will end not with a reward for suffering, not with an apotheosis, as in the opera, but with death; peasants will come and drag your dead body by the arms and legs to the basement. Brr! Well, never mind … But in the other world it will be our turn to celebrate … I’ll come from the other world as a ghost and scare these vipers. I’ll give them all gray hair.”

Moiseika came back and, seeing the doctor, held out his hand.

“Give me a little kopeck!” he said.

Andrei Yefimych walked over to the window and looked out at the field. It was getting dark, and on the horizon to the right a cold, crimson moon was rising. Not far from the hospital fence, no more than two hundred yards away, stood a tall white building surrounded by a stone wall. This was the prison.

“Here is reality!” thought Andrei Yefimych, and he felt frightened.

The moon was frightening, and the prison, and the nails on the fence, and the distant flame of the bone-burning factory. He heard a sigh behind him. Andrei Yefimych turned around and saw a man with stars and decorations gleaming on his chest, who smiled and slyly winked his eye. This, too, was frightening.

Andrei Yefimych assured himself that there was nothing special about the moon or the prison, and that mentally sound people also wore decorations, and that in time everything would rot and turn to clay, but despair suddenly overwhelmed him, he seized the grille with both hands and shook it with all his might. The strong grille did not yield.

Then, not to feel so frightened, he went to Ivan Dmitrich’s bed and sat down.

“I’ve lost heart, my dear,” he murmured, trembling and wiping off the cold sweat. “Lost heart.”

“Try philosophizing,” Ivan Dmitrich said jeeringly

“My God, my God … Yes, yes … You once said there’s no
philosophy in Russia, yet everybody philosophizes, even little folk. But little folk’s philosophizing doesn’t harm anyone,” Andrei Yefimych said, sounding as if he wanted to weep and awaken pity “Why, then, this gleeful laughter, my dear? And how can little folk help philosophizing, if they’re not content? An intelligent, educated, proud, freedom-loving man, the likeness of God,
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has no other recourse than to work as a doctor in a dirty, stupid little town, and deal all his life with cupping glasses, leeches, and mustard pl
asters! Charlatanism, narrow-mindedness, banality! Oh, my God!”

“You’re pouring out nonsense. If you loathe being a doctor, you should have become a government minister.”

“Impossible, it’s all impossible. We’re weak, my dear … I used to be indifferent, I reasoned cheerfully and sensibly, but life had only to touch me rudely and I lost heart … prostration … We’re weak, we’re trash … And you, too, my dear. You’re intelligent, noble, you drank in good impulses with your mother’s milk, but as soon as you entered into life, you got tired and fell ill … Weak, weak!”

Something persistent, apart from fear and a feeling of offense, oppressed Andrei Yefimych all the while as evening drew on. Finally, he realized that he wanted to drink some beer and smoke.

“I’m getting out of here, my dear,” he said. “I’ll tell them to bring a light here … I can’t take this … I’m not able …”

Andrei Yefimych went to the door and opened it, but Nikita immediately jumped up and barred his way.

“Where are you going? You can’t, you can’t!” he said. “It’s bedtime!”

“But I’ll only go out for a minute to stroll in the yard!” said Andrei Yefimych, quite dumbstruck.

“You can’t, you can’t, it’s against orders. You know it yourself.”

Nikita slammed the door and leaned his back against it.

“But if I go out, what’s that to anyone?” Andrei Yefimych asked, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t understand! Nikita, I have to go out!” he said in a quavering voice. “I must!”

“Don’t start any disorder, it’s not good!” Nikita said admonishingly

“What the devil is all this!” Ivan Dmitrich suddenly shouted and jumped up. “What right does he have not to let you out? How dare they keep us here? I believe the law clearly states that no one can be deprived of freedom without a trial! This is coercion! Tyranny!”

“Of course it’s tyranny!” said Andrei Yefimych, encouraged by Ivan Dmitrich’s shout. “I must go out, I have to! He has no right. Let me out, I tell you!”

“Do you hear, you dumb brute?” shouted Ivan Dmitrich, and he banged on the door with his fist. “Open up, or I’ll break the door down! Butcher!”

“Open up!” cried Andrei Yefimych, trembling all over. “I demand it!”

“Keep talking!” Nikita answered from outside the door. “Keep talking!”

“At least call Evgeny Fyodorych here! Tell him I ask him kindly … for a minute!”

“He’ll come himself tomorrow.”

“They’ll never let us out!” Ivan Dmitrich went on meanwhile. “They’ll make us rot here! O Lord, can it be there’s no hell in the other world and these scoundrels will be forgiven? Where is the justice? Open up, scoundrel, I’m suffocating!” he shouted in a hoarse voice and leaned his weight against the door. “I’ll smash my head! Murderers!”

Nikita quickly opened the door, rudely shoved Andrei Yefimych aside with his hands and knee, then swung and hit him in the face with his fist. Andrei Yefimych felt as if a huge salt wave had broken over him and was pulling him towards the bed; in fact, there was a salt taste in his mouth: his teeth were probably bleeding. He waved his arms as if trying to swim and got hold of someone’s bed, and just then he felt Nikita hit him twice in the back.

Ivan Dmitrich gave a loud cry. He, too, must have been beaten.

Then all was quiet. Thin moonlight came through the grille, and a shadow resembling a net lay on the floor. It was frightening. Andrei Yefimych lay there with bated breath: he waited in terror to be hit again. It was as if someone had taken a sickle, plunged it into him, and twisted it several times in his chest and guts. He bit his pillow in pain and clenched his teeth, and suddenly, amidst the chaos, a dreadful, unbearable thought flashed clearly in his head, that exactly the same pain must have been felt day after day, for years, by these people who now looked like black shadows
in the moonlight. How could it happen that in the course of more than twenty years he had not known and had not wanted to know it? He had not known, he had had no notion of pain, and therefore was not to blame, but his conscience, as rough and intractable as
Nikita, made him go cold from head to foot. He jumped up, wanted to shout with all his might and run quickly to kill Nikita, then Khobotov, the superintendent, and the assistant doctor, then himself, but no sound came from his chest and his legs would
not obey him; suffocating, he tore at the robe and shirt on his chest, ripped them, and collapsed unconscious on his bed.

The next morning his head ached, there was a ringing in his ears, and his whole body felt sick. Recalling his weakness yesterday, he was not ashamed. He had been fainthearted yesterday, afraid even of the moon, had sincerely uttered feelings and thoughts he had previously not suspected were in him. For instance, thoughts about the discontent of the philosophizing little folk. But now it made no difference to him.

He did not eat or drink, lay motionless and was silent.

“It makes no difference to me,” he thought, when he was asked questions. “I won’t answer … It makes no difference to me.”

After dinner Mikhail Averyanych came and brought a quarter of a pound of tea and a pound of fruit jellies. Daryushka also came and stood by his bed for a whole hour with a look of dumb grief on her face. Doctor Khobotov visited him, too. He brought a bottle of potassium bromide and told Nikita to fumigate the ward with something.

Towards evening Andrei Yefimych died of apoplexy. First he felt violent chills and nausea; something disgusting, which seemed to pervade his whole body, even his fingers, welled up from his stomach to his head and flooded his eyes and ears. Everything turned green before him. Andrei Yefimych understood that his end had come and remembered that Ivan Dmitrich, Mikhail Averyanych, and millions of people believed in immortality. And what if it was so? But he did not want immortality, and he thought of it for only a moment. A herd of deer, extraordinarily beautiful and graceful, which h
e had read about the day before, ran past him; then a peasant woman reached out to him with a certified l
etter … Mikhail Averyanych said something. Then everything vanished and Andrei Yefimych lost consciousness forever.

Peasants came, picked him up by the arms and legs, and carried
him to the chapel. He lay there on a table, his eyes open, and the moon shone on him at night. In the morning Sergei Sergeich came, prayed piously before the crucifix, and closed his former superior’s eyes.

The following day Andrei Yefimych was buried. Only Mikhail Averyanych and Daryushka attended the funeral.

N
OVEMBER
1892

A
ndrei Vassilyich Kovrin, master of arts, was overworked and his nerves were upset. He was not being treated, but once in passing, over a bottle of wine, he talked about it with a doctor friend, who advised him to spend the spring and summer in the country. Quite opportunely, a long letter also came from Tanya Pesotsky, inviting him to come to Borisovka and stay for a while. And he decided that he did in fact need to get away.

First—this was in April—he went to his own place, his family estate Kovrinka, and there spent three weeks in solitude; then, having waited for good roads, he set out by carriage to visit his former guardian and tutor Pesotsky, a horticulturist well known in Russia. From Kovrinka to Borisovka, where the Pesotskys lived, was no more than fifty miles, and driving on a soft springtime road in a comfortable, well-sprung carriage was a true pleasure.

Pesotsky’s house was enormous, with columns, with lions whose plaster was peeling off, and with a tailcoated lackey at the entrance. The old park, gloomy and severe, laid out in the English manner, spread over more than half a mile from the house to the river and ended at a sheer, steep, clayey bank on which pine trees grew, their bared roots looking like shaggy paws; water glistened desolately below, snipe flitted about with a pitiful peeping, and the mood there always made you want to sit down and write a ballad. But near the
house, in the yard and gardens, which together with the nursery
took up some eighty acres, it was cheerful and exhilarating even in bad weather. Kovrin had never seen anywhere else such amazing roses, lilies, camellias, such tulips
of every possible color, beginning with bright white and ending with sooty black, nor such a wealth of flowers in general, as in Pesotsky’s garden. Spring was only just beginning, and the real luxuriance of flowers was still hidden in the hothouse, yet what blossomed along the walks and here and there in the flower beds was enough so that, strolling in the garden, you felt yourself in a kingdom of tender colors, especially in the early hours when dew sparkled on every petal.

What formed the decorative part of the gardens, and which Pesotsky himself scornfully referred to as trifles, had made a fairytale impression on Kovrin when he was a child. What whims, refined monstrosities, and mockeries of nature there were here! There were espaliered fruit trees, a pear tree that had the form of a Lombardy poplar, spherical oaks and lindens, an umbrella-shaped apple tree, arches, monograms, candelabras, and even an 1862 of plum trees—representing the year in which Pesotsky first took up horticulture. You would meet beautiful, shapely trees, their trunks stra
ight and strong as palms, and only on closer inspection would you discover that they were gooseberry or currant bushes. But what was most cheerful about the gardens and gave them an animated look, was the constant movement. From early morning till evening people with wheelbarrows, hoes, and watering cans were milling around the trees, the bushes, the walks and flower beds …

Kovrin arrived at the Pesotskys in the evening, past nine o’clock. He found Tanya and her father, Yegor Semyonych, greatly alarmed. The thermometer and the clear, starry sky foretold frost by morning, and meanwhile the gardener, Ivan Karlych, had gone to town, and there was no one they could count on. Over supper they talked only of the morning frost, and it was decided that Tanya would not go to bed and after midnight would make the rounds of the gardens to see if all was in order, and that Yegor Semyonych would get up at three or even earlier.

Kovrin sat with Tanya all evening and after midnight went to the gardens with her. It was cold. Outside there was already a strong smell of smoke. In the big orchard, which was called commercial and which brought Yegor Semyonych several thousand a year in net income, thick, black, pungent smoke covered the ground and, enveloping
the trees, saved those thousands from the frost. The trees here stood in a checkerboard pattern, their rows straight and regular as ranks of soldiers, and this strict, pedantic regularity and the fact that all the trees were of the same height and had
perfectly uniform crowns and trunks, made the picture monotonous and even dull. Kovrin and Tanya walked along the rows, where fires of dung, straw, and assorted refuse smoldered, and occasionally met workers, who wandered through the smoke like shades. Only the cherries, plums, and some varieties of apple were in bloom, yet the entire orchard was drowned in smoke, and it was only near the nursery that Kovrin could draw a deep breath.

“When I was still a child I used to sneeze from the smoke here,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “but to this day I don’t understand why smoke protects against frost.”

“Smoke takes the place of clouds, when there aren’t any …” replied Tanya.

“And what are clouds needed for?”

“When the weather’s gray and overcast, there are no morning frosts.”

“So that’s it!”

He laughed and took her by the hand. Her broad, very serious, chilled face, with its narrow, dark eyebrows, the upturned collar of her coat, which prevented her from moving her head freely, and she herself, lean, trim, her dress tucked up on account of the dew, moved him to tenderness.

“Lord, she’s already grown up!” he said. “When I left here the last time, five years ago, you were still a child. You were so skinny and long-legged, you went bare-headed, dressed in short skirts, and to tease you I called you a stork … What time can do!”

“Yes, five years!” Tanya sighed. “A lot of water has flowed under the bridge. Tell me, Andryusha, in all conscience,” she began animatedly, looking into his face, “have you grown unaccustomed to us? Though why do I ask? You’re a man, you live your own interesting life, you’re important… Estrangement is so natural! But, however it may be, Andryusha, I’d like you to consider us your own. We have a right to that.”

“I do, Tanya.”

“Word of honor?”

“Yes, word of honor.”

“You were surprised today that we have so many photographs of
you. But you know my father adores you. I sometimes think he loves you more than he does me. He’s proud of you. You’re a learned, extraordinary man, you’ve made a brilliant career, and he’s sure you’ve turned out like this because he brought you up. I don’t prevent him from thinking so. Let him.”

Dawn was already breaking, and this was especially noticeable from the distinctness with which the billows of smoke and the crowns of the trees stood out in the air. Nightingales were singing, and the calling of quails came from the fields.

“Anyhow, it’s time for bed,” said Tanya. “And it’s cold.” She took him under the arm. “Thank you for coming, Andryusha. We have uninteresting acquaintances, and few of them at that. All we have is orchard, orchard, orchard—and nothing more. Full-stock, half-stock,” she laughed, “pippin, rennet, borovinka, budding, grafting … All, all our life has gone into the orchard, I never even drea
m of anything but apple and pear trees. Of course, it’s good and useful, but sometimes one wants something else for diversity. I remember how you used to come to us for vacations, or just so, and the house felt somehow more fresh and bright, as if the dust covers had been taken off the furniture and lamps. I was a little girl then and yet I understood.”

She spoke for a long time and with great feeling. For some reason it occurred to him that he might become attached to this small, weak, loquacious being, get carried away, and fall in love—in their situation it was so possible and natural! This thought moved and amused him, he bent down to the sweet, preoccupied face and sang softly:

When they came home, Yegor Semyonych was already up. Kovrin was not sleepy, he got to talking with the old man and went back to the gardens with him. Yegor Semyonych was tall, broad-shouldered, big-bellied, and suffered from shortness of breath, but he always walked so quickly that it was hard to keep up with him. He had an extremely preoccupied air, was always hurrying somewhere, and with a look implying that if he were even one minute late, all would be lost!

“Here’s something, my boy …” he began, pausing to catch his
breath. “On the surface of the ground, as you see, it’s freezing, but if you raise the thermometer on a stick four yards above ground, it’s warm … Why is that?”

“I really don’t know,” Kovrin said, laughing.

“Hm … One can’t know everything, of course … However vast the mind, not everything will find room in it. Philosophy is more in your line?”

“Yes. I teach psychology, but I’m generally concerned with philosophy.”

“And it doesn’t bore you?”

“On the contrary, it’s all I live for.”

“Well, God be with you …” Yegor Semyonych said, stroking his side-whiskers thoughtfully. “God be with you … I’m very glad … very glad for you, my boy …”

But suddenly he cocked an ear and, making a terrible face, ran off and soon disappeared behind the trees into the clouds of smoke.

“Who tied a horse to that apple tree?” his desperate, heartrending cry was heard. “What scoundrel and villain dared to tie a horse to that apple tree? My God, my God! Befouled, begrimed, besmutted, bedeviled! The orchard’s lost! The orchard’s ruined! My God!”

When he came back to Kovrin, his face was exhausted, offended.

“What can you do with these confounded people?” he said in a tearful voice, spreading his arms. “Styopka brought a load of manure during the night and tied his horse to an apple tree! The scoundrel wrapped the reins so tightly around it that the bark wore through in three places. Imagine! I tell him, and the dimwit just stands there blinking his eyes! Hanging’s too good for him!”

Having calmed down, he embraced Kovrin and kissed him on the cheek.

“Well, God be with you … God be with you …” he muttered. “I’m very glad you’ve come. I can’t tell you how glad … Thank you.”

Then at the same quick pace and with a preoccupied air he went around all the gardens and showed his former ward the conservatories, hothouses, potting sheds, and his two apiaries, which he called the wonder of our century.

As they walked about, the sun rose and brightly lit up the gardens. It became warm. Anticipating a clear, long, happy day, Kovrin remembered that it was still only the beginning of May and the whole summer still lay ahead, just as clear, long, and happy, and
suddenly a joyful young feeling stirred in his breast, such as he had experienced in childhood running about in these gardens. And he embraced the old man and kissed him tenderly They were both moved. They went in and sat down to tea from old porcelain cups, with cream, with rich, buttery rolls—and these small things again remin
ded Kovrin of his childhood and youth. The beautiful present and the awakening impressions of the past flowed together in him; they made his soul feel crowded but good.

He waited till Tanya woke up and had his coffee with her, strolled a little, then went to his room and sat down to work. He read attentively, took notes, and occasionally raised his eyes to look at the open windows or the fresh flowers, still wet with dew, that stood in vases on the table, then lowered them to the book again, and it seemed to him that every fiber of him was thrilling and frolicking with pleasure.

In the country he went on leading the same nervous and restless life as in the city. He read and wrote a great deal, studied Italian, and while strolling thought with pleasure that he would soon sit down to work again. He slept so little that everyone was amazed; if he inadvertently dozed off for half an hour in the afternoon, he would not sleep all night afterwards, and following the sleepless night would feel himself as brisk and cheerful as if nothing had happened.

He talked a lot, drank wine, and smoked expensive cigars. Often, if not every day, neighboring young ladies visited the Pesotskys, sang and played the piano with Tanya; occasionally a young man came, a neighbor, who was a good violinist. Kovrin listened eagerly to the music and singing, and it filled him with lang
uor, which manifested itself physically in the closing of his eyes and the drooping of his head to one side.

Once after evening tea he was sitting on the balcony reading. In the drawing room, just then, Tanya—a soprano, one of her friends—a contralto, and the young man with the violin were rehearsing the famous serenade of Braga.
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Kovrin listened to the words—they were in Russian—and was quite unable to understand their meaning. Finally he put his book down and, listening attentively,
understood: a girl with a morbid imagination heard some sort of mysterious sounds in the garden at night, so beautiful and strange that she could only take them for a sacred harmony, which we mortals were unabl
e to understand and which therefore flew back to heaven. Kovrin’s eyes began to close. He got up and strolled languidly through the drawing room, then through the reception hall. When the singing stopped, he took Tanya under the arm and walked out to the balcony with her.

“Ever since this morning I’ve been thinking about a certain legend,” he said. “I don’t remember whether I read it or heard it somewhere, but the legend is somehow strange, incongruous. In the first place, it’s not distinguished by its clarity. A thousand years ago a monk, dressed in black, was walking in the desert somewhere in Syria or Arabia … Several miles from the place where he was walking, some fishermen saw another black monk moving slowly over the surface of a lake. This second monk was a mirage. Now forget all the laws of optics, which the legend seems not to recognize, and
listen further. The mirage produced another mirage, and that one a third, so that the image of the black monk began to be transmitted endlessly from one layer of the atmosphere to another. He was seen now in Africa, now in Spain, now in India, now in the Far North … Finally he left the limits of the earth’s atmosphere and is now wandering all over the universe, never getting into conditions that might enable him to fade away. Perhaps he can now be seen somewhere on Mars or on some star in the Southern Cross. But, my dear, the very essence, the crux, of the legend is that exactly a thousand year
s after the monk walk
ed in the desert, the mirage will enter the earth’s atmosphere again and show itself to people. And the thousand years are now supposedly at an end … According to the legend, we ought to expect the black monk any day now.”