Gusev by
Chekhov
I II
III IV
V
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."
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