Next is a small, lively, very active old man with a little pointed beard and the black fuzzy hair of a Negro. He spends all day sauntering from window to window, or squatting on his bed Turkish style; tirelessly, like a bullfinch, he chirrups, softly sings and titters. He shows his childish gaiety and liveliness of character at night as well, when he rises to pray – that is, to beat his breast with his fists and pick at the door. This is Moses the Jew, an imbecile who lost his reason about twenty years ago when his hat workshop burnt down.
He alone among the inmates of Ward No. 6 has permission to leave the outbuilding and he is even allowed to go out from the yard into the street. He has long enjoyed this privilege, probably because he is the hospital’s oldest resident and a gentle, harmless idiot, the town buffoon, a long-familiar sight in the street with his retinue of urchins and dogs. In his smock, comical night-cap and slippers – sometimes barefoot and even trouserless – he walks the streets, stopping in doorways and going into shops to beg for money. At one place they give him kvass, at another some bread and somewhere else a copeck, so that he usually returns to the ward rich and well-fed. Everything he brings back is confiscated by Nikita for his own use. The old soldier does this roughly and angrily, turning out his pockets and calling upon God to witness that he will never let the Jew out into the street again and that for him the worst thing in this world is lack of discipline.
Moses loves doing everyone a good turn. He fetches water for his fellow inmates, tucks them up in bed, promises to bring each of them a copeck when he comes back from the streets, and to make them all new caps. He spoonfeeds his paralytic left-hand neighbour. This he does not out of compassion or for humanitarian reasons, but because he wants to imitate his right-hand neighbour Gromov and he involuntarily bows to his authority.
Ivan Dmitrich Gromov, about thirty-three years old, a gentleman by birth, former court usher and low-ranking civil servant, suffers from persecution mania. He tends to lie curled up on his bed or pace from corner to corner, as if taking a constitutional; only very rarely does he sit still. He is always in a state of great agitation and excitement, and some vague, indeterminate feeling of apprehension makes him perpetually tense. The slightest rustle in the lobby or shout from outside is enough to make him raise his head and listen intently. Are they coming for him? Is it he they are looking for? And then his face takes on an expression of extreme anxiety and revulsion.
I like his broad, high-cheekboned face, always pale and miserable, seemingly mirroring a soul tormented by inner turmoil and constant dread. His grimaces are weird and troubled, but the delicate lines etched on his face by profound, genuine suffering, express intelligence and reason, and his eyes have a healthy, warm glow. And I like the character of the man himself – so polite and obliging, so exceptionally sensitive in his attitude to everyone except Nikita. If someone happens to drop a button or spoon he immediately leaps from his bed to pick it up. Every morning he wishes his companions good morning and bids them good night every time he goes to bed.
But madness is apparent in other things besides his grimaces and persistent nervous tension. Some evenings he wraps himself tightly in his smock and dashes from corner to corner and in between the beds, trembling all over, his teeth chattering. It is as if he has a high fever. From his sudden stops to look at the other inmates he clearly has something very important to say. However, no doubt realizing that they won’t listen to him or understand, he shakes his head impatiently and continues marching up and down. But soon the desire to speak outweighs all other considerations and he gives full vent to his feelings with a fervent, passionate tirade. His speech is disjointed, feverish, as if he is delirious, jerky and not always intelligible. But at the same time, in the way he talks, in his words and his voice, you can hear something that is extraordinarily fine. When he speaks you recognize both the lunatic and the human being in him. It is difficult to convey that mad gibberish on paper. He talks of human baseness, of violence trampling over truth, of the beautiful life that will eventually come to be on earth and of the barred windows – a constant reminder for him of the folly and cruelty of his oppressors. The result is a chaotic, incoherent medley of songs that are old but still fresh.
II
About twelve or fifteen years ago, in the town’s main street, there lived in his own house a civil servant called Gromov, respectable and well-to-do. He had two sons, Sergey and Ivan. While in his fourth year at university Sergey contracted galloping consumption and died. This death was the first of a whole series of misfortunes that suddenly overtook the Gromovs. A week after Sergey’s funeral the old man was prosecuted for forgery and embezzlement and died soon afterwards of typhus in the prison hospital. His house and all his property were sold off at auction and Ivan Dmitrich and his mother were left completely destitute.
When his father was alive Ivan Dmitrich had lived in St Petersburg, studied at the university, received an allowance of sixty to seventy roubles a month and had no idea of the meaning of poverty. But now he was forced to change his way of life drastically. From morning to night he had to do coaching for a mere pittance, copy out documents – yet still he went hungry, for all he earned went to support his mother. This kind of life was too much for him. He lost heart, became ill, abandoned his studies and went home. Here, in this little town, he obtained a teaching appointment in the district school through someone pulling strings for him, but he failed to get on with his colleagues, was disliked by the pupils and he soon gave it up. His mother died. For about six months he was unemployed, had to live on bread and water, and then he became a court usher. This post he held until he was discharged for reasons of ill health.
Never, even as a young student, had he looked like a healthy person. He was always pale and thin, and subject to colds, eating little and sleeping badly. One glass of wine went to his head and made him hysterical. He had always liked company, but thanks to his irritability and suspiciousness he was never able to make close friends with anyone. He always spoke with contempt about the townspeople, whose gross ignorance and torpid, brutish existence he found vile and disgusting. He talked in a high-pitched voice, loudly and excitedly, invariably indignant and exasperated, or with delight and surprise – and always sincerely.
Whatever you happened to be discussing with him he would always lead on to one and the same topic: life in that town was stifling and boring, society lacked any higher interests and led a lacklustre, aimless existence, varying it only with violence, crude debauchery and hypocrisy; the scoundrels were well-fed and well-dressed, while honest men ate crusts. There was a crying need for schools, an honest local newspaper, a theatre, public lectures, intellectual solidarity. It was time for society to wake up to its shortcomings and be duly shocked. When judging people he laid on the colours thickly, using only black and white and no intermediate shades. For him humanity was divided into the rogues and the honest: there was nothing in between. He always spoke passionately and rapturously of love and women, but he had never been in love.
Despite his harsh judgements and nervous character he was liked in the town and in his absence was affectionately called ‘dear old Vanya’. His innate tact, helpfulness, decency, moral integrity, along with his shabby frock-coat, sickly appearance and family misfortunes, inspired sympathy, kindness – and sadness. Besides, he was an educated man and very well read – according to the townspeople he knew everything and was considered a kind of walking encyclopedia.
He read a great deal and would sit for hours in the club, nervously plucking his beard and leafing through magazines and books: from his expression he was obviously not simply reading, but devouring, barely giving himself time to digest the contents. Evidently, reading was a function of his illness, since he swooped on whatever came to hand with equal avidity, even old newspapers and almanacs. At home he always read lying down.
III
One autumn morning, his coat collar turned up, Ivan was tramping through the muddy side-streets and back alleys to collect a fine from some tra
desman. As always in the mornings he was in a sombre mood. In a certain alley he passed two convicts in foot-irons, escorted by four guards armed with rifles. Gromov had often passed convicts before and they always made him feel awkward and compassionate, but this time the encounter produced a particularly odd impression. Suddenly it occurred to him that he too might be clapped in irons like them and taken through the mud to prison. When he had seen the tradesman and was on his way home he ran into a police inspector friend near the post office who greeted him and walked a few steps down the street with him. For some reason this struck him as suspicious. At home visions of convicts and armed guards haunted him all day and some inexplicable, deep feeling of unease prevented him from reading and concentrating. In the evenings he did not light his lamp and he lay awake all night in constant fear he might be arrested, clapped in irons and thrown into prison. He was not aware of having committed any crime and could solemnly guarantee that he would never commit murder, arson or robbery. But then, it was so easy to commit a crime accidentally or unintentionally. And how about false accusations and a miscarriage of justice? All that was highly possible, nothing odd about it at all. Indeed, hadn’t the folk wisdom of old taught that one is never safe from poverty or prison? Given the present state of the law a miscarriage of justice was very much on the cards – and no wonder. People who adopt a professional, bureaucratic attitude to the suffering of others – judges, policemen and doctors, for example – become hardened to such a degree, from sheer force of habit, that even if they want to they cannot help treating their clients strictly by the book. In this respect they are no different from peasants who slaughter sheep and calves in their back yards without even noticing the blood. Having adopted this formal, soulless attitude to the individual, all a judge needs to deprive an innocent man of his civil rights and to sentence him to hard labour is time. Just give a judge time to observe the various formalities (for which he receives a salary) and then it’s all over. Fat chance, then, of finding any justice and protection in this filthy little town a hundred and twenty-five miles from the nearest station! And how ludicrous even to think of justice when society considers every act of violence as rational, expedient and necessary, when every act of mercy – an acquittal, for instance – provokes a whole explosion of unsatisfied vindictiveness!
Next morning Gromov awoke in terror, with a cold sweat on his forehead. Now he was absolutely convinced that he might be arrested any moment. The very fact that yesterday’s oppressive thoughts were still plaguing him meant that there must be a grain of truth in them. After all, those thoughts couldn’t have entered his head for no reason, could they?
A policeman strolled leisurely past his window: there must be a reason for that! And now two men came and stood near the house and did not say one word. Why were they silent?
And for Gromov there began whole days and nights of agony. Every person who passed the window or entered the yard was a spy or detective. Every day at noon a police inspector usually drove down the street in his carriage and pair, on his way from his out-of-town estate to police headquarters, but on each occasion Gromov had the feeling that he was driving faster than was warranted and that there was a peculiar expression on his face: obviously he was in a hurry to report that a very dangerous criminal was at large in the town. With every ring of the doorbell or knock at the gate Gromov shuddered; he went through agonies every time a stranger visited his landlady. If he met a policeman or gendarme he would start smiling and whistling in an effort to appear unconcerned. He lay awake for nights on end expecting arrest, snoring and sighing loudly so that his landlady would think he was asleep. After all, if a man didn’t sleep at night it could only mean that he was suffering pangs of conscience – and what evidence that would be! The actual facts of the matter and common sense convinced him that all these fears were absurd and neurotic, and that if one took a broader view there was nothing really so terrible in them as long as you had a clear conscience. But the more logically and consistently he reasoned, the more severe and excruciating his mental anguish became. He resembled the hermit who wanted to clear a plot for himself in virgin forest: the harder he wielded his axe the thicker and stronger grew the trees around him. Finally realizing how futile his efforts were, Gromov gave up the struggle and surrendered completely to despair and terror.
He became more solitary in his habits and avoided company. His job had always been disagreeable, now it was downright unbearable. He was afraid someone might trick him by slipping some money into his pocket and he would be accused of bribery. Or that he might accidentally make a mistake in an official document – that would be tantamount to forgery – or that he might lose money that had been entrusted to him. Strangely, never before had his mind been so supple and inventive as now, when every day he was busy thinking up a thousand different reasons for being seriously worried about his freedom and honour. On the other hand, his interest in the outside world had weakened significantly, particularly his interest in books – and his memory was failing badly.
In the spring, when the snow had melted, the semi-decomposed bodies of an old woman and a boy, showing signs of a violent death, were found in a gully near the cemetery. The townspeople talked of nothing but these corpses and the unidentified murderers. To make it quite clear to everyone that he wasn’t the murderer, Gromov would walk down the street smiling and whenever he met a friend he would turn pale, blush, and then declare that there was no crime more detestable than killing the weak and defenceless. But he soon tired of this pretence and after reflection decided that the best thing he could do would be to hide in the landlady’s cellar. He remained there for a whole day, then the next night and the day after that – and he was chilled to the bone. After that he waited until dark and sneaked back to his room like a thief. He stood in the middle of the room until daylight, stock-still, listening for every sound. Early in the morning, before sunrise, some stove-makers called on his landlady. Gromov knew very well that they had come to rebuild the kitchen stove, but his fear led him to believe that they were really policemen in disguise. He stole out of the flat and fled down the street in panic, hatless and coatless. Barking dogs ran after him, somewhere behind him a man shouted, the wind whistled in his ears and Gromov felt that all the violence in the world had joined forces behind his back and was pursuing him.
He was stopped and brought home. His landlady sent for the doctor. Dr Andrey Yefimych Ragin (of whom more later) prescribed cold compresses and laurel water drops. Then he shook his head sadly and left, telling the landlady that he wouldn’t be calling any more since it was wrong to prevent people going out of their minds. As he could not afford to have treatment at home Gromov was soon sent to hospital and put in the ward for venereal patients. He did not sleep at night, made trouble and disturbed the other patients, so he was quickly transferred to Ward No. 6 on Dr Ragin’s orders.
Within a year the townspeople had completely forgotten about Gromov and his books were dumped in a sledge in the landlady’s shed, from which they were pilfered by boys from the street.
IV
As I have already pointed out, Gromov’s left-hand neighbour is Moses the Jew, while his neighbour on the right is a bloated, almost globular peasant with a vacant, completely senseless expression. This torpid, gluttonous, filthy animal has long lost all capacity for thought or feeling. He constantly gives off an acrid, suffocating stench.
Nikita, who has to clear up after him, beats him mercilessly, taking huge swings and not pulling his punches. But it isn’t the beatings that are so horrifying – one can get used to beatings – but the fact that this supine animal makes no response to them, either by sound, movement or the look in his eyes, but merely rocks slightly, like a heavy barrel.
The fifth and last inmate of Ward No. 6 is a working-class man from the town, once a post office sorter. He is small, thin and fair, with a kind but somewhat cunning face. Judging from his clever, calm eyes that view everything brightly and cheerfully, he seems to have his wits about him and p
ossesses some important and pleasant secret. Under his pillow and mattress he keeps something hidden that he refuses to show to anyone – not for fear that it might be stolen or confiscated, but out of sheer modesty. Sometimes he goes to the window, turns his back to the others, pins something to his chest and inspects it with lowered head. But if anyone happens to approach him he becomes flustered and tears it off his chest: his secret is easily guessed.
‘Congratulate me’, he often tells Gromov. ‘I’ve been awarded the Order of St Stanislas,1 second class with star. Normally the second class with star is only awarded to foreigners, but for some reason they want to make an exception in my case’, he says smiling and shrugging his shoulders in astonishment. ‘Really, that’s the last thing I expected, I must say!’
‘I don’t know anything about these things’, Gromov gloomily replies.
‘Do you know what I shall get, sooner or later?’ the ex-sorter continues, slyly winking. ‘I’m going to be awarded the Swedish Polar Star. An order like that is definitely worth trying hard for. A white cross and black ribbon. Very handsome!’
Probably nowhere else in the world is life so boring as in this building. Every morning the patients – with the exception of the paralytic and the fat peasant – go into the lobby, where they wash themselves from a large tub and dry themselves on the skirts of their smocks. Then they drink tea from tin mugs which Nikita brings from the main block. Each patient gets one mugful. At noon they have sour cabbage soup and porridge; in the evening they have the porridge left over from lunch. Between meals they lie down, sleep, look out of the window and pace from corner to corner. And so it goes on day after day. Even the ex-sorter can talk of nothing but those decorations.
Ward No. 6 and Other Stories Page 7
