Short Stories by Chekhov
landlady also. Daryushka sold old clothes and books on the sly, and told
lies to the landlady, saying that the doctor was just going to receive a
large sum of money.
He was angry with himself for having wasted on travelling the thousand
roubles he had saved up. How useful that thousand roubles would have
been now! He was vexed that people would not leave him in peace. Hobotov
thought it his duty to look in on his sick colleague from time to time.
Everything about him was revolting to Andrey Yefimitch--his well-fed face
and vulgar, condescending tone, and his use of the word "colleague," and
his high top-boots; the most revolting thing was that he thought it was
his duty to treat Andrey Yefimitch, and thought that he really was
treating him. On every visit he brought a bottle of bromide and rhubarb
pills.
Mihail Averyanitch, too, thought it his duty to visit his friend and
entertain him. Every time he went in to Andrey Yefimitch with an
affectation of ease, laughed constrainedly, and began assuring him that
he was looking very well to-day, and that, thank God, he was on the
highroad to recovery, and from this it might be concluded that he looked
on his friend's condition as hopeless. He had not yet repaid his Warsaw
debt, and was overwhelmed by shame; he was constrained, and so tried to
laugh louder and talk more amusingly. His anecdotes and descriptions
seemed endless now, and were an agony both to Andrey Yefimitch and
himself.
In his presence Andrey Yefimitch usually lay on the sofa with his face
to the wall, and listened with his teeth clenched; his soul was
oppressed with rankling disgust, and after every visit from his friend
he felt as though this disgust had risen higher, and was mounting into
his throat.
To stifle petty thoughts he made haste to reflect that he himself, and
Hobotov, and Mihail Averyanitch, would all sooner or later perish
without leaving any trace on the world. If one imagined some spirit
flying by the earthly globe in space in a million years he would see
nothing but clay and bare rocks. Everything--culture and the moral
law--would pass away and not even a burdock would grow out of them. Of
what consequence was shame in the presence of a shopkeeper, of what
consequence was the insignificant Hobotov or the wearisome friendship of
Mihail Averyanitch? It was all trivial and nonsensical.
But such reflections did not help him now. Scarcely had he imagined the
earthly globe in a million years, when Hobotov in his high top-boots or
Mihail Averyanitch with his forced laugh would appear from behind a bare
rock, and he even heard the shamefaced whisper: "The Warsaw debt. . . .
I will repay it in a day or two, my dear fellow, without fail. . . ."
XVI
One day Mihail Averyanitch came after dinner when Andrey Yefimitch was
lying on the sofa. It so happened that Hobotov arrived at the same time
with his bromide. Andrey Yefimitch got up heavily and sat down, leaning
both arms on the sofa.
"You have a much better colour to-day than you had yesterday, my dear
man," began Mihail Averyanitch. "Yes, you look jolly. Upon my soul, you
do!"
"It's high time you were well, dear colleague," said Hobotov, yawning.
"I'll be bound, you are sick of this bobbery."
"And we shall recover," said Mihail Averyanitch cheerfully. "We shall
live another hundred years! To be sure!"
"Not a hundred years, but another twenty," Hobotov said reassuringly.
"It's all right, all right, colleague; don't lose heart. . . . Don't go
piling it on!"
"We'll show what we can do," laughed Mihail Averyanitch, and he slapped
his friend on the knee. "We'll show them yet! Next summer, please God,
we shall be off to the Caucasus, and we will ride all over it on
horseback--trot, trot, trot! And when we are back from the Caucasus I
shouldn't wonder if we will all dance at the wedding." Mihail
Averyanitch gave a sly wink. "We'll marry you, my dear boy, we'll marry
you. . . ."
Andrey Yefimitch felt suddenly that the rising disgust had mounted to
his throat, his heart began beating violently.
"That's vulgar," he said, getting up quickly and walking away to the
window. "Don't you understand that you are talking vulgar nonsense?"
He meant to go on softly and politely, but against his will he suddenly
clenched his fists and raised them above his head.
"Leave me alone," he shouted in a voice unlike his own, blushing crimson
and shaking all over. "Go away, both of you!"
Mihail Averyanitch and Hobotov got up and stared at him first with
amazement and then with alarm.
"Go away, both!" Andrey Yefimitch went on shouting. "Stupid people!
Foolish people! I don't want either your friendship or your medicines,
stupid man! Vulgar! Nasty!"
Hobotov and Mihail Averyanitch, looking at each other in bewilderment,
staggered to the door and went out. Andrey Yefimitch snatched up the
bottle of bromide and flung it after them; the bottle broke with a crash
on the door-frame.
"Go to the devil!" he shouted in a tearful voice, running out into the
passage. "To the devil!"
When his guests were gone Andrey Yefimitch lay down on the sofa,
trembling as though in a fever, and went on for a long while repeating:
"Stupid people! Foolish people!"
When he was calmer, what occurred to him first of all was the thought
that poor Mihail Averyanitch must be feeling fearfully ashamed and
depressed now, and that it was all dreadful. Nothing like this had ever
happened to him before. Where was his intelligence and his tact? Where
was his comprehension of things and his philosophical indifference?
The doctor could not sleep all night for shame and vexation with
himself, and at ten o'clock next morning he went to the post office and
apologized to the postmaster.
"We won't think again of what has happened," Mihail Averyanitch, greatly
touched, said with a sigh, warmly pressing his hand. "Let bygones be
bygones. Lyubavkin," he suddenly shouted so loud that all the postmen
and other persons present started, "hand a chair; and you wait," he
shouted to a peasant woman who was stretching out a registered letter to
him through the grating. "Don't you see that I am busy? We will not
remember the past," he went on, affectionately addressing Andrey
Yefimitch; "sit down, I beg you, my dear fellow."
For a minute he stroked his knees in silence, and then said:
"I have never had a thought of taking offence. Illness is no joke, I
understand. Your attack frightened the doctor and me yesterday, and we
had a long talk about you afterwards. My dear friend, why won't you
treat your illness seriously? You can't go on like this . . . . Excuse
me speaking openly as a friend," whispered Mihail Averyanitch. "You live
in the most unfavourable surroundings, in a crowd, in uncleanliness, no
one to look after you, no money for proper treatment. . . . My dear
friend, the doctor and I implore you with all our hearts, listen to our
advice: go into the hospital! There you will have wholesome food and
attendance and treatment. Though, between ourselves, Yevgeny Fyodoritch
is mauvais ton, yet he does understand his work, you can fully rely upon
him. He has promised me he will look after you."
Andrey Yefimitch was touched by the postmaster's genuine sympathy and
the tears which suddenly glittered on his cheeks.
"My honoured friend, don't believe it!" he whispered, laying his hand on
his heart; "don't believe them. It's all a sham. My illness is only that
in twenty years I have only found one intelligent man in the whole town,
and he is mad. I am not ill at all, it's simply that I have got into an
enchanted circle which there is no getting out of. I don't care; I am
ready for anything."
"Go into the hospital, my dear fellow."
"I don't care if it were into the pit."
"Give me your word, my dear man, that you will obey Yevgeny Fyodoritch
in everything."
"Certainly I will give you my word. But I repeat, my honoured friend, I
have got into an enchanted circle. Now everything, even the genuine
sympathy of my friends, leads to the same thing--to my ruin. I am going
to my ruin, and I have the manliness to recognize it."
"My dear fellow, you will recover."
"What's the use of saying that?" said Andrey Yefimitch, with irritation.
"There are few men who at the end of their lives do not experience what
I am experiencing now. When you are told that you have something such as
diseased kidneys or enlarged heart, and you begin being treated for it,
or are told you are mad or a criminal--that is, in fact, when people
suddenly turn their attention to you--you may be sure you have got into
an enchanted circle from which you will not escape. You will try to
escape and make things worse. You had better give in, for no human
efforts can save you. So it seems to me."
Meanwhile the public was crowding at the grating. That he might not be
in their way, Andrey Yefimitch got up and began to take leave. Mihail
Averyanitch made him promise on his honour once more, and escorted him
to the outer door.
Towards evening on the same day Hobotov, in his sheepskin and his high
top-boots, suddenly made his appearance, and said to Andrey Yefimitch in
a tone as though nothing had happened the day before:
"I have come on business, colleague. I have come to ask you whether you
would not join me in a consultation. Eh?"
Thinking that Hobotov wanted to distract his mind with an outing, or
perhaps really to enable him to earn something, Andrey Yefimitch put on
his coat and hat, and went out with him into the street. He was glad of
the opportunity to smooth over his fault of the previous day and to be
reconciled, and in his heart thanked Hobotov, who did not even allude to
yesterday's scene and was evidently sparing him. One would never have
expected such delicacy from this uncultured man.
"Where is your invalid?" asked Andrey Yefimitch.
"In the hospital. . . . I have long wanted to show him to you. A very
interesting case."
They went into the hospital yard, and going round the main building,
turned towards the lodge where the mental cases were kept, and all this,
for some reason, in silence. When they went into the lodge Nikita as
usual jumped up and stood at attention.
"One of the patients here has a lung complication." Hobotov said in an
undertone, going into the yard with Andrey Yefimitch. "You wait here,
I'll be back directly. I am going for a stethoscope."
And he went away. XVII
It was getting dusk. Ivan Dmitritch was lying on his bed with his face
thrust unto his pillow; the paralytic was sitting motionless, crying
quietly and moving his lips. The fat peasant and the former sorter were
asleep. It was quiet.
Andrey Yefimitch sat down on Ivan Dmitritch's bed and waited. But half
an hour passed, and instead of Hobotov, Nikita came into the ward with a
dressing-gown, some underlinen, and a pair of slippers in a heap on his
arm.
"Please change your things, your honour," he said softly. "Here is your
bed; come this way," he added, pointing to an empty bedstead which had
obviously recently been brought into the ward. "It's all right; please
God, you will recover."
Andrey Yefimitch understood it all. Without saying a word he crossed to
the bed to which Nikita pointed and sat down; seeing that Nikita was
standing waiting, he undressed entirely and he felt ashamed. Then he put
on the hospital clothes; the drawers were very short, the shirt was
long, and the dressing-gown smelt of smoked fish.
"Please God, you will recover," repeated Nikita, and he gathered up
Andrey Yefimitch's clothes into his arms, went out, and shut the door
after him.
"No matter . . ." thought Andrey Yefimitch, wrapping himself in his
dressing-gown in a shamefaced way and feeling that he looked like a
convict in his new costume. "It's no matter. . . . It does not matter