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A.P. Chekhov -
Ward No. 6
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I
In the hospital yard there stands a small
lodge surrounded by a perfect forest of burdocks, nettles, and
wild hemp. Its roof is rusty, the chimney is tumbling down, the
steps at the front-door are rotting away and overgrown with
grass, and there are only traces left of the stucco. The front
of the lodge faces the hospital; at the back it looks out into
the open country, from which it is separated by the grey
hospital fence with nails on it. These nails, with their points
upwards, and the fence, and the lodge itself, have that
peculiar, desolate, God-forsaken look which is only found in our
hospital and prison buildings.
If you are not afraid of being stung by the nettles, come by the
narrow footpath that leads to the lodge, and let us see what is
going on inside. Opening the first door, we walk into the entry.
Here along the walls and by the stove every sort of hospital
rubbish lies littered about. Mattresses, old tattered
dressing-gowns, trousers, blue striped shirts, boots and shoes
no good for anything -- all these remnants are piled up in
heaps, mixed up and crumpled, mouldering and giving out a sickly
smell.
The porter, Nikita, an old soldier wearing rusty good-conduct
stripes, is always lying on the litter with a pipe between his
teeth. He has a grim, surly, battered-looking face, overhanging
eyebrows which give him the expression of a sheep-dog of the
steppes, and a red nose; he is short and looks thin and scraggy,
but he is of imposing deportment and his fists are vigorous. He
belongs to the class of simple-hearted, practical, and
dull-witted people, prompt in carrying out orders, who like
discipline better than anything in the world, and so are
convinced that it is their duty to beat people. He showers blows
on the face, on the chest, on the back, on whatever comes first,
and is convinced that there would be no order in the place if he
did not.
Next you come into a big, spacious room which fills up the whole
lodge except for the entry. Here the walls are painted a dirty
blue, the ceiling is as sooty as in a hut without a chimney --
it is evident that in the winter the stove smokes and the room
is full of fumes. The windows are disfigured by iron gratings on
the inside. The wooden floor is grey and full of splinters.
There is a stench of sour cabbage, of smouldering wicks, of
bugs, and of ammonia, and for the first minute this stench gives
you the impression of having walked into a menagerie.
There are bedsteads screwed to the floor. Men in blue hospital
dressing-gowns, and wearing nightcaps in the old style, are
sitting and lying on them. These are the lunatics.
There are five of them in all here. Only one is of the upper
class, the rest are all artisans. The one nearest the door -- a
tall, lean workman with shining red whiskers and tear-stained
eyes -- sits with his head propped on his hand, staring at the
same point. Day and night he grieves, shaking his head, sighing
and smiling bitterly. He takes a part in conversation and
usually makes no answer to questions; he eats and drinks
mechanically when food is offered him. From his agonizing,
throbbing cough, his thinness, and the flush on his cheeks, one
may judge that he is in the first stage of consumption. Next to
him is a little, alert, very lively old man, with a pointed
beard and curly black hair like a negro's. By day he walks up
and down the ward from window to window, or sits on his bed,
cross-legged like a Turk, and, ceaselessly as a bullfinch
whistles, softly sings and titters. He shows his childish gaiety
and lively character at night also when he gets up to say his
prayers -- that is, to beat himself on the chest with his fists,
and to scratch with his fingers at the door. This is the Jew
Moiseika, an imbecile, who went crazy twenty years ago when his
hat factory was burnt down.
And of all the inhabitants of Ward No. 6, he is the only one who
is allowed to go out of the lodge, and even out of the yard into
the street. He has enjoyed this privilege for years, probably
because he is an old inhabitant of the hospital -- a quiet,
harmless imbecile, the buffoon of the town, where people are
used to seeing him surrounded by boys and dogs. In his wretched
gown, in his absurd night-cap, and in slippers, sometimes with
bare legs and even without trousers, he walks about the streets,
stopping at the gates and little shops, and begging for a
copper. In one place they will give him some kvass, in another
some bread, in another a copper, so that he generally goes back
to the ward feeling rich and well fed. Everything that he brings
back Nikita takes from him for his own benefit. The soldier does
this roughly, angrily turning the Jew's pockets inside out, and
calling God to witness that he will not let him go into the
street again, and that breach of the regulations is worse to him
than anything in the world.
Moiseika likes to make himself useful. He gives his companions
water, and covers them up when they are asleep; he promises each
of them to bring him back a kopeck, and to make him a new cap;
he feeds with a spoon his neighbour on the left, who is
paralyzed. He acts in this way, not from compassion nor from any
considerations of a humane kind, but through imitation,
unconsciously dominated by Gromov, his neighbour on the right
hand.
Ivan Dmitritch Gromov, a man of thirty-three, who is a gentleman
by birth, and has been a court usher and provincial secretary,
suffers from the mania of persecution. He either lies curled up
in bed, or walks from corner to corner as though for exercise;
he very rarely sits down. He is always excited, agitated, and
overwrought by a sort of vague, undefined expectation. The
faintest rustle in the entry or shout in the yard is enough to
make him raise his head and begin listening: whether they are
coming for him, whether they are looking for him. And at such
times his face expresses the utmost uneasiness and repulsion.
I like his broad face with its high cheek-bones, always pale and
unhappy, and reflecting, as though in a mirror, a soul tormented
by conflict and long-continued terror. His grimaces are strange
and abnormal, but the delicate lines traced on his face by
profound, genuine suffering show intelligence and sense, and
there is a warm and healthy light in his eyes. I like the man
himself, courteous, anxious to be of use, and extraordinarily
gentle to everyone except Nikita. When anyone drops a button or
a spoon, he jumps up from his bed quickly and picks it up; every
day he says good-morning to his companions, and when he goes to
bed he wishes them good-night.
Besides his continually overwrought condition and his grimaces,
his madness shows itself in the following way also. Sometimes in
the evenings he wraps himself in his dressing-gown, and,
trembling all over, with his teeth chattering, begins walking
rapidly from corner to corner and between the bedsteads. It
seems as though he is in a violent fever. From the way he
suddenly stops and glances at his companions, it can be seen
that he is longing to say something very important, but,
apparently reflecting that they would not listen, or would not
understand him, he shakes his head impatiently and goes on
pacing up and down. But soon the desire to speak gets the upper
hand of every consideration, and he will let himself go and
speak fervently and passionately. His talk is disordered and
feverish like delirium, disconnected, and not always
intelligible, but, on the other hand, something extremely fine
may be felt in it, both in the words and the voice. When he
talks you recognize in him the lunatic and the man. It is
difficult to reproduce on paper his insane talk. He speaks of
the baseness of mankind, of violence trampling on justice, of
the glorious life which will one day be upon earth, of the
window-gratings, which remind him every minute of the stupidity
and cruelty of oppressors. It makes a disorderly, incoherent
potpourri of themes old but not yet out of date.
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