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Goussiev
by
II
At first through the darkness there appeared only a blue circle, the port-hole, then Goussiev began slowly to distinguish the man in the next hammock, Pavel Ivanich. He was sleeping in a sitting position, for if he lay down he could not breathe. His face was grey; his nose long and sharp, and his eyes were huge, because he was so thin; his temples were sunk, his beard scanty, the hair on his head long…. By his face it was impossible to tell his class: gentleman, merchant, or peasant; judging by his appearance and long hair he looked almost like a recluse, a lay-brother, but when he spoke–he was not at all like a monk. He was losing strength through his cough and his illness and the suffocating heat, and he breathed heavily and was always moving his dry lips. Noticing that Goussiev was looking at him, he turned toward him and said:
“I’m beginning to understand…. Yes…. Now I understand.”
“What do you understand, Pavel Ivanich?”
“Yes…. It was strange to me at first, why you sick men, instead of being kept quiet, should be on this steamer, where the heat is stifling, and stinking, and pitching and tossing, and must be fatal to you; but now it is all clear to me…. Yes. The doctors sent you to the steamer to get rid of you. They got tired of all the trouble you gave them, brutes like you.
…You don’t pay them; you only give a lot of trouble, and if you die you spoil their reports. Therefore you are just cattle, and there is no difficulty in getting rid of you…. They only need to lack conscience and humanity, and to deceive the owners of the steamer. We needn’t worry about the first, they are experts by nature; but the second needs a certain amount of practice. In a crowd of four hundred healthy soldiers and sailors–five sick men are never noticed; so you were carried up to the steamer, mixed with a healthy lot who were counted in such a hurry that nothing wrong was noticed, and when the steamer got away they saw fever-stricken and consumptive men lying helpless on the deck….”
Goussiev could not make out what Pavel Ivanich was talking about; thinking he was being taken to task, he said by way of excusing himself:
“I lay on the deck because when we were taken off the barge I caught a chill.”
“Shocking!” said Pavel Ivanich. “They know quite well that you can’t last out the voyage, and yet they send you here! You may get as far as the Indian Ocean, but what then? It is awful to think of…. And that’s all the return you get for faithful unblemished service!”
Pavel Ivanich looked very angry, and smote his forehead and gasped:
“They ought to be shown up in the papers. There would be an awful row.”
The two sick soldiers and the sailor were already up and had begun to play cards, the sailor propped up in his hammock, and the soldiers squatting uncomfortably on the floor. One soldier had his right arm in a sling and his wrist was tightly bandaged so that he had to hold the cards in his left hand or in the crook of his elbow. The boat was rolling violently so that it was impossible to get up or to drink tea or to take medicine.
“You were an orderly?” Pavel Ivanich asked Goussiev.
“That’s it. An orderly.”
“My God, my God!” said Pavel Ivanich sorrowfully. “To take a man from his native place, drag him fifteen thousand miles, drive him into consumption … and what for? I ask you. To make him an orderly to some Captain Farthing or Midshipman Hole! Where’s the sense of it?”
“It’s not a bad job, Pavel Ivanich. You get up in the morning, clean the boots, boil the samovar, tidy up the room, and then there is nothing to do. The lieutenant draws plans all day long, and you can pray to God if you like–or read books–or go out into the streets. It’s a good enough life.”