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Ward
Six
I
II
III IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XVIII Andrey Yefimitch walked away to the window and looked out into
the open country. It was getting dark, and on the horizon to the
right a cold crimson moon was mounting upwards. Not far from the
hospital fence, not much more than two hundred yards away, stood
a tall white house shut in by a stone wall. This was the prison.
"So this is real life," thought Andrey Yefimitch, and he felt
frightened.
The moon and the prison, and the nails on the fence, and the
far-away flames at the bone-charring factory were all terrible.
Behind him there was the sound of a sigh. Andrey Yefimitch
looked round and saw a man with glittering stars and orders on
his breast, who was smiling and slyly winking. And this, too,
seemed terrible.
Andrey Yefimitch assured himself that there was nothing special
about the moon or the prison, that even sane persons wear
orders, and that everything in time will decay and turn to
earth, but he was suddenly overcome with desire; he clutched at
the grating with both hands and shook it with all his might. The
strong grating did not yield.
Then that it might not be so dreadful he went to Ivan
Dmitritch's bed and sat down.
"I have lost heart, my dear fellow," he muttered, trembling and
wiping away the cold sweat, "I have lost heart."
"You should be philosophical," said Ivan Dmitritch ironically.
"My God, my God. . . . Yes, yes. . . . You were pleased to say
once that there was no philosophy in Russia, but that all
people, even the paltriest, talk philosophy. But you know the
philosophizing of the paltriest does not harm anyone," said
Andrey Yefimitch in a tone as if he wanted to cry and complain.
"Why, then, that malignant laugh, my friend, and how can these
paltry creatures help philosophizing if they are not satisfied?
For an intelligent, educated man, made in God's image, proud and
loving freedom, to have no alternative but to be a doctor in a
filthy, stupid, wretched little town, and to spend his whole
life among bottles, leeches, mustard plasters! Quackery,
narrowness, vulgarity! Oh, my God!"
"You are talking nonsense. If you don't like being a doctor you
should have gone in for being a statesman."
"I could not, I could not do anything. We are weak, my dear
friend. . . . I used to be indifferent. I reasoned boldly and
soundly, but at the first coarse touch of life upon me I have
lost heart. . . . Prostration. . . . . We are weak, we are poor
creatures . . . and you, too, my dear friend, you are
intelligent, generous, you drew in good impulses with your
mother's milk, but you had hardly entered upon life when you
were exhausted and fell ill. . . . Weak, weak!"
Andrey Yefimitch was all the while at the approach of evening
tormented by another persistent sensation besides terror and the
feeling of resentment. At last he realized that he was longing
for a smoke and for beer.
"I am going out, my friend," he said. "I will tell them to bring
a light; I can't put up with this. . . . I am not equal to it. .
. ."
Andrey Yefimitch went to the door and opened it, but at once
Nikita jumped up and barred his way.
"Where are you going? You can't, you can't!" he said. "It's
bedtime."
"But I'm only going out for a minute to walk about the yard,"
said Andrey Yefimitch.
"You can't, you can't; it's forbidden. You know that yourself."
"But what difference will it make to anyone if I do go out?"
asked Andrey Yefimitch, shrugging his shoulders. "I don't
understand. Nikita, I must go out!" he said in a trembling
voice. "I must."
"Don't be disorderly, it's not right," Nikita said peremptorily.
"This is beyond everything," Ivan Dmitritch cried suddenly, and
he jumped up. "What right has he not to let you out? How dare
they keep us here? I believe it is clearly laid down in the law
that no one can be deprived of freedom without trial! It's an
outrage! It's tyranny!"
"Of course it's tyranny," said Andrey Yefimitch, encouraged by
Ivan Dmitritch's outburst. "I must go out, I want to. He has no
right! Open, I tell you."
"Do you hear, you dull-witted brute?" cried Ivan Dmitritch, and
he banged on the door with his fist. "Open the door, or I will
break it open! Torturer!"
"Open the door," cried Andrey Yefimitch, trembling all over; "I
insist!"
"Talk away!" Nikita answered through the door, "talk away. . .
."
"Anyhow, go and call Yevgeny Fyodoritch! Say that I beg him to
come for a minute!"
"His honour will come of himself to-morrow."
"They will never let us out," Ivan Dmitritch was going on
meanwhile. "They will leave us to rot here! Oh, Lord, can there
really be no hell in the next world, and will these wretches be
forgiven? Where is justice? Open the door, you wretch! I am
choking!" he cried in a hoarse voice, and flung himself upon the
door. "I'll dash out my brains, murderers!"
Nikita opened the door quickly, and roughly with both his hands
and his knee shoved Andrey Yefimitch back, then swung his arm
and punched him in the face with his fist. It seemed to Andrey
Yefimitch as though a huge salt wave enveloped him from his head
downwards and dragged him to the bed; there really was a salt
taste in his mouth: most likely the blood was running from his
teeth. He waved his arms as though he were trying to swim out
and clutched at a bedstead, and at the same moment felt Nikita
hit him twice on the back.
Ivan Dmitritch gave a loud scream. He must have been beaten too.
Then all was still, the faint moonlight came through the
grating, and a shadow like a net lay on the floor. It was
terrible. Andrey Yefimitch lay and held his breath: he was
expecting with horror to be struck again. He felt as though
someone had taken a sickle, thrust it into him, and turned it
round several times in his breast and bowels. He bit the pillow
from pain and clenched his teeth, and all at once through the
chaos in his brain there flashed the terrible unbearable thought
that these people, who seemed now like black shadows in the
moonlight, had to endure such pain day by day for years. How
could it have happened that for more than twenty years he had
not known it and had refused to know it? He knew nothing of
pain, had no conception of it, so he was not to blame, but his
conscience, as inexorable and as rough as Nikita, made him turn
cold from the crown of his head to his heels. He leaped up,
tried to cry out with all his might, and to run in haste to kill
Nikita, and then Hobotov, the superintendent and the assistant,
and then himself; but no sound came from his chest, and his legs
would not obey him. Gasping for breath, he tore at the
dressing-gown and the shirt on his breast, rent them, and fell
senseless on the bed.
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