Short Stories by Chekhov
for him in the yard; there he was told that the old doctor had gone to
see the mental patients. Going into the lodge and stopping in the entry,
Hobotov heard the following conversation:
"We shall never agree, and you will not succeed in converting me to your
faith," Ivan Dmitritch was saying irritably; "you are utterly ignorant
of reality, and you have never known suffering, but have only like a
leech fed beside the sufferings of others, while I have been in
continual suffering from the day of my birth till to-day. For that
reason, I tell you frankly, I consider myself superior to you and more
competent in every respect. It's not for you to teach me."
"I have absolutely no ambition to convert you to my faith," said Andrey
Yefimitch gently, and with regret that the other refused to understand
him. "And that is not what matters, my friend; what matters is not that
you have suffered and I have not. Joy and suffering are passing; let us
leave them, never mind them. What matters is that you and I think; we
see in each other people who are capable of thinking and reasoning, and
that is a common bond between us however different our views. If you
knew, my friend, how sick I am of the universal senselessness,
ineptitude, stupidity, and with what delight I always talk with you! You
are an intelligent man, and I enjoyed your company."
Hobotov opened the door an inch and glanced into the ward; Ivan
Dmitritch in his night-cap and the doctor Andrey Yefimitch were sitting
side by side on the bed. The madman was grimacing, twitching, and
convulsively wrapping himself in his gown, while the doctor sat
motionless with bowed head, and his face was red and look helpless and
sorrowful. Hobotov shrugged his shoulders, grinned, and glanced at
Nikita. Nikita shrugged his shoulders too.
Next day Hobotov went to the lodge, accompanied by the assistant. Both
stood in the entry and listened.
"I fancy our old man has gone clean off his chump!" said Hobotov as he
came out of the lodge.
"Lord have mercy upon us sinners!" sighed the decorous Sergey
Sergeyitch, scrupulously avoiding the puddles that he might not muddy
his polished boots. "I must own, honoured Yevgeny Fyodoritch, I have
been expecting it for a long time." XII
After this Andrey Yefimitch began to notice a mysterious air in all
around him. The attendants, the nurses, and the patients looked at him
inquisitively when they met him, and then whispered together. The
superintendent's little daughter Masha, whom he liked to meet in the
hospital garden, for some reason ran away from him now when he went up
with a smile to stroke her on the head. The postmaster no longer said,
"Perfectly true," as he listened to him, but in unaccountable confusion
muttered, "Yes, yes, yes . . ." and looked at him with a grieved and
thoughtful expression; for some reason he took to advising his friend to
give up vodka and beer, but as a man of delicate feeling he did not say
this directly, but hinted it, telling him first about the commanding
officer of his battalion, an excellent man, and then about the priest of
the regiment, a capital fellow, both of whom drank and fell ill, but on
giving up drinking completely regained their health. On two or three
occasions Andrey Yefimitch was visited by his colleague Hobotov, who
also advised him to give up spirituous liquors, and for no apparent
reason recommended him to take bromide.
In August Andrey Yefimitch got a letter from the mayor of the town
asking him to come on very important business. On arriving at the town
hall at the time fixed, Andrey Yefimitch found there the military
commander, the superintendent of the district school, a member of the
town council, Hobotov, and a plump, fair gentleman who was introduced to
him as a doctor. This doctor, with a Polish surname difficult to
pronounce, lived at a pedigree stud-farm twenty miles away, and was now
on a visit to the town.
"There's something that concerns you," said the member of the town
council, addressing Andrey Yefimitch after they had all greeted one
another and sat down to the table. "Here Yevgeny Fyodoritch says that
there is not room for the dispensary in the main building, and that it
ought to be transferred to one of the lodges. That's of no
consequence--of course it can be transferred, but the point is that the
lodge wants doing up."
"Yes, it would have to be done up," said Andrey Yefimitch after a
moment's thought. "If the corner lodge, for instance, were fitted up as
a dispensary, I imagine it would cost at least five hundred roubles. An
unproductive expenditure!"
Everyone was silent for a space.
"I had the honour of submitting to you ten years ago," Andrey Yefimitch
went on in a low voice, "that the hospital in its present form is a
luxury for the town beyond its means. It was built in the forties, but
things were different then. The town spends too much on unnecessary
buildings and superfluous staff. I believe with a different system two
model hospitals might be maintained for the same money."
"Well, let us have a different system, then!" the member of the town
council said briskly.
"I have already had the honour of submitting to you that the medical
department should be transferred to the supervision of the Zemstvo."
"Yes, transfer the money to the Zemstvo and they will steal it," laughed
the fair-haired doctor.
"That's what it always comes to," the member of the council assented,
and he also laughed.
Andrey Yefimitch looked with apathetic, lustreless eyes at the fair-
haired doctor and said: "One should be just."
Again there was silence. Tea was brought in. The military commander, for
some reason much embarrassed, touched Andrey Yefimitch's hand across the
table and said: "You have quite forgotten us, doctor. But of course you
are a hermit: you don't play cards and don't like women. You would be
dull with fellows like us."
They all began saying how boring it was for a decent person to live in
such a town. No theatre, no music, and at the last dance at the club
there had been about twenty ladies and only two gentlemen. The young men
did not dance, but spent all the time crowding round the refreshment bar
or playing cards.
Not looking at anyone and speaking slowly in a low voice, Andrey
Yefimitch began saying what a pity, what a terrible pity it was that the
townspeople should waste their vital energy, their hearts, and their
minds on cards and gossip, and should have neither the power nor the
inclination to spend their time in interesting conversation and reading,
and should refuse to take advantage of the enjoyments of the mind. The
mind alone was interesting and worthy of attention, all the rest was low
and petty. Hobotov listened to his colleague attentively and suddenly
asked:
"Andrey Yefimitch, what day of the month is it?"
Having received an answer, the fair-haired doctor and he, in the tone of
examiners conscious of their lack of skill, began asking Andrey
Yefimitch what was the day of the week, how many days there were in the
year, and whether it was true that there was a remarkable prophet living
in Ward No. 6.
In response to the last question Andrey Yefimitch turned rather red and
said: "Yes, he is mentally deranged, but he is an interesting young
man."
They asked him no other questions.
When he was putting on his overcoat in the entry, the military commander
laid a hand on his shoulder and said with a sigh:
"It's time for us old fellows to rest!"
As he came out of the hall, Andrey Yefimitch understood that it had been
a committee appointed to enquire into his mental condition. He recalled
the questions that had been asked him, flushed crimson, and for some
reason, for the first time in his life, felt bitterly grieved for
medical science.
"My God. . ." he thought, remembering how these doctors had just
examined him; "why, they have only lately been hearing lectures on
mental pathology; they had passed an examination--what's the explanation
of this crass ignorance? They have not a conception of mental
pathology!"
And for the first time in his life he felt insulted and moved to anger.
In the evening of the same day Mihail Averyanitch came to see him. The
postmaster went up to him without waiting to greet him, took him by both
hands, and said in an agitated voice:
"My dear fellow, my dear friend, show me that you believe in my genuine
affection and look on me as your friend!" And preventing Andrey
Yefimitch from speaking, he went on, growing excited: "I love you for
your culture and nobility of soul. Listen to me, my dear fellow. The
rules of their profession compel the doctors to conceal the truth from
you, but I blurt out the plain truth like a soldier. You are not well!
Excuse me, my dear fellow, but it is the truth; everyone about you has
been noticing it for a long time. Dr. Yevgeny Fyodoritch has just told
me that it is essential for you to rest and distract your mind for the
sake of your health. Perfectly true! Excellent! In a day or two I am
taking a holiday and am going away for a sniff of a different
atmosphere. Show that you are a friend to me, let us go together! Let us
go for a jaunt as in the good old days."
"I feel perfectly well," said Andrey Yefimitch after a moment's thought.
"I can't go away. Allow me to show you my friendship in some other way."
To go off with no object, without his books, without his Daryushka,
without his beer, to break abruptly through the routine of life,
established for twenty years--the idea for the first minute struck him as
wild and fantastic, but he remembered the conversation at the Zemstvo
committee and the depressing feelings with which he had returned home,
and the thought of a brief absence from the town in which stupid people
looked on him as a madman was pleasant to him.
"And where precisely do you intend to go?" he asked.
"To Moscow, to Petersburg, to Warsaw. . . . I spent the five happiest
years of my life in Warsaw. What a marvellous town! Let us go, my dear
fellow!" XIII
A week later it was suggested to Andrey Yefimitch that he should have a
rest--that is, send in his resignation--a suggestion he received with
indifference, and a week later still, Mihail Averyanitch and he were
sitting in a posting carriage driving to the nearest railway station.
The days were cool and bright, with a blue sky and a transparent
distance. They were two days driving the hundred and fifty miles to the
railway station, and stayed two nights on the way. When at the posting
station the glasses given them for their tea had not been properly
washed, or the drivers were slow in harnessing the horses, Mihail
Averyanitch would turn crimson, and quivering all over would shout:
"Hold your tongue! Don't argue!"
And in the carriage he talked without ceasing for a moment, describing
his campaigns in the Caucasus and in Poland. What adventures he had had,
what meetings! He talked loudly and opened his eyes so wide with wonder
that he might well be thought to be lying. Moreover, as he talked he
breathed in Andrey Yefimitch's face and laughed into his ear. This
bothered the doctor and prevented him from thinking or concentrating his
mind.
In the train they travelled, from motives of economy, third-class in a
non-smoking compartment. Half the passengers were decent people. Mihail
Averyanitch soon made friends with everyone, and moving from one seat to
another, kept saying loudly that they ought not to travel by these
appalling lines. It was a regular swindle! A very different thing riding
on a good horse: one could do over seventy miles a day and feel fresh
and well after it. And our bad harvests were due to the draining of the
Pinsk marshes; altogether, the way things were done was dreadful. He got