Ward
Six
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XIX
XIX Next morning his head ached, there was a droning in his ears and
a feeling of utter weakness all over. He was not ashamed at
recalling his weakness the day before. He had been cowardly, had
even been afraid of the moon, had openly expressed thoughts and
feelings such as he had not expected in himself before; for
instance, the thought that the paltry people who philosophized
were really dissatisfied. But now nothing mattered to him.
He ate nothing; he drank nothing. He lay motionless and silent.
"It is all the same to me," he thought when they asked him
questions. "I am not going to answer. . . . It's all the same to
me."
After dinner Mihail Averyanitch brought him a quarter pound of
tea and a pound of fruit pastilles. Daryushka came too and stood
for a whole hour by the bed with an expression of dull grief on
her face. Dr. Hobotov visited him. He brought a bottle of
bromide and told Nikita to fumigate the ward with something.
Towards evening Andrey Yefimitch died of an apoplectic stroke.
At first he had a violent shivering fit and a feeling of
sickness; something revolting as it seemed, penetrating through
his whole body, even to his finger-tips, strained from his
stomach to his head and flooded his eyes and ears. There was a
greenness before his eyes. Andrey Yefimitch understood that his
end had come, and remembered that Ivan Dmitritch, Mihail
Averyanitch, and millions of people believed in immortality. And
what if it really existed? But he did not want immortality --
and he thought of it only for one instant. A herd of deer,
extraordinarily beautiful and graceful, of which he had been
reading the day before, ran by him; then a peasant woman
stretched out her hand to him with a registered letter. . . .
Mihail Averyanitch said something, then it all vanished, and
Andrey Yefimitch sank into oblivion for ever.
The hospital porters came, took him by his arms and legs, and
carried him away to the chapel.
There he lay on the table, with open eyes, and the moon shed its
light upon him at night. In the morning Sergey Sergeyitch came,
prayed piously before the crucifix, and closed his former
chief's eyes.
Next day Andrey Yefimitch was buried. Mihail Averyanitch and
Daryushka were the only people at the funeral.
NOTES
provincial secretary: the 12th rank in the Table of Ranks for
the Russian Civil Service
gendarmes: the political police
laurel drops: used to calm patients
Stanislav order: most frequently given non-military order; it
had an 8-pointed star
Swedish 'Polar Star': Swedish metal established in 1748 and
given to both Swedes and non-Swedes
erysipelas: severe skin infection
Zemstvo: a district council with locally elected members
Pushkin: Russia's greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837)
was killed in a duel and died after two days
Heine: the German poet and wit (1797-1856) was confined to his
bed for the last 8 years of his life
senator: the Russian Senate functioned as a Supreme Court and
interpreted the laws
white tie: Russian doctors traditionally wore white ties
The Doctor: medical journal published in St. Petersburg
he knocks and it is not opened to him: cf. Matthew 7:7
the great Pirogov: N. I. Pirogov (1810-1881) was a famous
surgeon and teacher
in spe: in hope or expectation
stone: kidney stone
Pasteur and of Koch: Louis Pasteur (1822-1910) was a French
chemist who developed vaccination techniques; Robert Koch
(1843-1910) was a German bacteriologist
Elborus: Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe
strait-waistcoats: straitjacket
Bastille: French royal fortress and prison in Paris; its fall
signaled the beginning of the French Revolution
bobbery: dillydallying
cupping: an outdated medical treatment in which blood is removed
by placing evacuated glass cups on the skin; bleeding the
patient by cupping, applying leeches, or cutting was accepted
medical practice from the middle ages until the middle of the
19th century
midden-pit: latrine
Dostoevsky or Voltaire: F. M. Dostoevsky (1821-1881) was a
famous Russian novelist; in his novel The Brothers Karamazov, he
quotes the phrase from Voltaire about inventing God; Fran?is
Voltaire was a major figure in the French Enlightenment; the
phrase Chekhov refers to comes from a 1769 work; the exact
phrase is "Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer"
Diogenes lived in a tub: Diogenes (412 B.C. - 323 B.C.) was a
Greek cynic philosopher
Marcus Aurelius: Marcus Aurelius (121 - 180) was a Roman emperor
and stoic philosopher
Stoics: a philosophy founded by Zeno around 308 B.C. believing
that humans should be free from passion and should calmly accept
whatever fate has in store
Garden of Gethsemane: where Judas betrayed Jesus; see Matthew
26:36-42
vanity of vanities: Ecclesiastes 1:1
bromide: bromide of potassium was used in the nineteenth century
as a sedative
Poland: Poland at this time was part of the Russian Empire
third-class: the cheapest and most uncomfortable seats
Iversky Madonna: alleged wonder-working icon
Tsar-cannon and Tsar-bell: 40-ton cannon cast in 1586 and
200-ton bell cast in 1735
St. Saviour's and the Rumyantsev museum: Church of the Savior,
built to mark victory of Russians over French invaders in 1812;
Rumiantsev Museum, built in 1787, housed nearly a million books
Tyestov's: a fancy Moscow restaurant
Austrian spies: at that time part of what is now Poland was in
the Austro-Hungarian Empire
rhubarb pills: used as a purgative
mauvais ton: ill-bred, lacking in manners
bone-charring factory: animal bones were burned to produce
fertilizer
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