Short Stories by Chekhov
they were much worse off at home than in the hospital--they couldn't be
fed on woodcocks! Others said in excuse that the town alone, without
help from the Zemstvo, was not equal to maintaining a good hospital;
thank God for having one at all, even a poor one. And the newly formed
Zemstvo did not open infirmaries either in the town or the
neighbourhood, relying on the fact that the town already had its
hospital.
After looking over the hospital Andrey Yefimitch came to the conclusion
that it was an immoral institution and extremely prejudicial to the
health of the townspeople. In his opinion the most sensible thing that
could be done was to let out the patients and close the hospital. But he
reflected that his will alone was not enough to do this, and that it
would be useless; if physical and moral impurity were driven out of one
place, they would only move to another; one must wait for it to wither
away of itself. Besides, if people open a hospital and put up with
having it, it must be because they need it; superstition and all the
nastiness and abominations of daily life were necessary, since in
process of time they worked out to something sensible, just as manure
turns into black earth. There was nothing on earth so good that it had
not something nasty about its first origin.
When Andrey Yefimitch undertook his duties he was apparently not greatly
concerned about the irregularities at the hospital. He only asked the
attendants and nurses not to sleep in the wards, and had two cupboards
of instruments put up; the superintendent, the housekeeper, the medical
assistant, and the erysipelas remained unchanged.
Andrey Yefimitch loved intelligence and honesty intensely, but he had no
strength of will nor belief in his right to organize an intelligent and
honest life about him. He was absolutely unable to give orders, to
forbid things, and to insist. It seemed as though he had taken a vow
never to raise his voice and never to make use of the imperative. It was
difficult for him to say "Fetch" or "Bring"; when he wanted his meals he
would cough hesitatingly and say to the cook, "How about tea?. . ." or
"How about dinner? . . ." To dismiss the superintendent or to tell him
to leave off stealing, or to abolish the unnecessary parasitic post
altogether, was absolutely beyond his powers. When Andrey Yefimitch was
deceived or flattered, or accounts he knew to be cooked were brought him
to sign, he would turn as red as a crab and feel guilty, but yet he
would sign the accounts. When the patients complained to him of being
hungry or of the roughness of the nurses, he would be confused and
mutter guiltily: "Very well, very well, I will go into it later . . . .
Most likely there is some misunderstanding. . ."
At first Andrey Yefimitch worked very zealously. He saw patients every
day from morning till dinner-time, performed operations, and even
attended confinements. The ladies said of him that he was attentive and
clever at diagnosing diseases, especially those of women and children.
But in process of time the work unmistakably wearied him by its monotony
and obvious uselessness. To-day one sees thirty patients, and to-morrow
they have increased to thirty-five, the next day forty, and so on from
day to day, from year to year, while the mortality in the town did not
decrease and the patients did not leave off coming. To be any real help
to forty patients between morning and dinner was not physically
possible, so it could but lead to deception. If twelve thousand patients
were seen in a year it meant, if one looked at it simply, that twelve
thousand men were deceived. To put those who were seriously ill into
wards, and to treat them according to the principles of science, was
impossible, too, because though there were principles there was no
science; if he were to put aside philosophy and pedantically follow the
rules as other doctors did, the things above all necessary were
cleanliness and ventilation instead of dirt, wholesome nourishment
instead of broth made of stinking, sour cabbage, and good assistants
instead of thieves; and, indeed, why hinder people dying if death is the
normal and legitimate end of everyone? What is gained if some shop-
keeper or clerk lives an extra five or ten years? If the aim of medicine
is by drugs to alleviate suffering, the question forces itself on one:
why alleviate it? In the first place, they say that suffering leads man
to perfection; and in the second, if mankind really learns to alleviate
its sufferings with pills and drops, it will completely abandon religion
and philosophy, in which it has hitherto found not merely protection
from all sorts of trouble, but even happiness. Pushkin suffered terrible
agonies before his death, poor Heine lay paralyzed for several years;
why, then, should not some Andrey Yefimitch or Matryona Savishna be ill,
since their lives had nothing of importance in them, and would have been
entirely empty and like the life of an amoeba except for suffering?
Oppressed by such reflections, Andrey Yefimitch relaxed his efforts and
gave up visiting the hospital every day. VI
His life was passed like this. As a rule he got up at eight o'clock in
the morning, dressed, and drank his tea. Then he sat down in his study
to read, or went to the hospital. At the hospital the out-patients were
sitting in the dark, narrow little corridor waiting to be seen by the
doctor. The nurses and the attendants, tramping with their boots over
the brick floors, ran by them; gaunt-looking patients in dressing-gowns
passed; dead bodies and vessels full of filth were carried by; the
children were crying, and there was a cold draught. Andrey Yefimitch
knew that such surroundings were torture to feverish, consumptive, and
impressionable patients; but what could be done? In the consulting-room
he was met by his assistant, Sergey Sergeyitch--a fat little man with a
plump, well-washed shaven face, with soft, smooth manners, wearing a new
loosely cut suit, and looking more like a senator than a medical
assistant. He had an immense practice in the town, wore a white tie, and
considered himself more proficient than the doctor, who had no practice.
In the corner of the consulting-room there stood a large ikon in a
shrine with a heavy lamp in front of it, and near it a candle-stand with
a white cover on it. On the walls hung portraits of bishops, a view of
the Svyatogorsky Monastery, and wreaths of dried cornflowers. Sergey
Sergeyitch was religious, and liked solemnity and decorum. The ikon had
been put up at his expense; at his instructions some one of the patients
read the hymns of praise in the consulting-room on Sundays, and after
the reading Sergey Sergeyitch himself went through the wards with a
censer and burned incense.
There were a great many patients, but the time was short, and so the
work was confined to the asking of a few brief questions and the
administration of some drugs, such as castor-oil or volatile ointment.
Andrey Yefimitch would sit with his cheek resting in his hand, lost in
thought and asking questions mechanically. Sergey Sergeyitch sat down
too, rubbing his hands, and from time to time putting in his word.
"We suffer pain and poverty," he would say, "because we do not pray to
the merciful God as we should. Yes!"
Andrey Yefimitch never performed any operation when he was seeing
patients; he had long ago given up doing so, and the sight of blood
upset him. When he had to open a child's mouth in order to look at its
throat, and the child cried and tried to defend itself with its little
hands, the noise in his ears made his head go round and brought tears to
his eyes. He would make haste to prescribe a drug, and motion to the
woman to take the child away.
He was soon wearied by the timidity of the patients and their
incoherence, by the proximity of the pious Sergey Sergeyitch, by the
portraits on the walls, and by his own questions which he had asked over
and over again for twenty years. And he would go away after seeing five
or six patients. The rest would be seen by his assistant in his absence.
With the agreeable thought that, thank God, he had no private practice
now, and that no one would interrupt him, Andrey Yefimitch sat down to
the table immediately on reaching home and took up a book. He read a
great deal and always with enjoyment. Half his salary went on buying
books, and of the six rooms that made up his abode three were heaped up
with books and old magazines. He liked best of all works on history and
philosophy; the only medical publication to which he subscribed was The
Doctor, of which he always read the last pages first. He would always go
on reading for several hours without a break and without being weary. He
did not read as rapidly and impulsively as Ivan Dmitritch had done in
the past, but slowly and with concentration, often pausing over a
passage which he liked or did not find intelligible. Near the books
there always stood a decanter of vodka, and a salted cucumber or a
pickled apple lay beside it, not on a plate, but on the baize table-
cloth. Every half-hour he would pour himself out a glass of vodka and
drink it without taking his eyes off the book. Then without looking at
it he would feel for the cucumber and bite off a bit.
At three o'clock he would go cautiously to the kitchen door; cough, and
say, "Daryushka, what about dinner? . ."
After his dinner--a rather poor and untidily served one--Andrey Yefimitch
would walk up and down his rooms with his arms folded, thinking. The
clock would strike four, then five, and still he would be walking up and
down thinking. Occasionally the kitchen door would creak, and the red
and sleepy face of Daryushka would appear.
"Andrey Yefimitch, isn't it time for you to have your beer?" she would
ask anxiously.
"No, it's not time yet . . ." he would answer. "I'll wait a little . . .
. I'll wait a little. . ."
Towards the evening the postmaster, Mihail Averyanitch, the only man in
town whose society did not bore Andrey Yefimitch, would come in. Mihail
Averyanitch had once been a very rich landowner, and had served in the
calvary, but had come to ruin, and was forced by poverty to take a job
in the post office late in life. He had a hale and hearty appearance,
luxuriant grey whiskers, the manners of a well-bred man, and a loud,
pleasant voice. He was good-natured and emotional, but hot-tempered.
When anyone in the post office made a protest, expressed disagreement,
or even began to argue, Mihail Averyanitch would turn crimson, shake all
over, and shout in a voice of thunder, "Hold your tongue!" so that the
post office had long enjoyed the reputation of an institution which it
was terrible to visit. Mihail Averyanitch liked and respected Andrey
Yefimitch for his culture and the loftiness of his soul; he treated the
other inhabitants of the town superciliously, as though they were his
subordinates.
"Here I am," he would say, going in to Andrey Yefimitch. "Good evening,
my dear fellow! I'll be bound, you are getting sick of me, aren't you?"
"On the contrary, I am delighted," said the doctor. "I am always glad to
see you."
The friends would sit on the sofa in the study and for some time would
smoke in silence.
"Daryushka, what about the beer?" Andrey Yefimitch would say.
They would drink their first bottle still in silence, the doctor
brooding and Mihail Averyanitch with a gay and animated face, like a man
who has something very interesting to tell. The doctor was always the
one to begin the conversation.
"What a pity," he would say quietly and slowly, not looking his friend
in the face (he never looked anyone in the face)--"what a great pity it
is that there are no people in our town who are capable of carrying on