Requests not to interrupt the speaker alternated with shouts of disagreement. The expressions of protest became louder and more frequent. Someone who accompanied Gintz and for the moment took upon himself the task of chairman shouted that remarks from the audience were not allowed and called for order. Some demanded that a citizeness from the crowd be given the floor, others hissed and asked them not to interfere.
A woman was making her way through the crowd towards the upside-down box that served as a platform. She had no intention of getting onto the box, but having squeezed her way there, she stood beside it. The woman was known. Silence fell. The woman held the attention of the crowding people. It was Ustinya.
“Zybushino, you were saying, comrade commissar, and then concerning eyes, you were saying, we must have eyes and not fall into deception, and yet you yourself, I listened to you, only know how to carp at us with your Bolsheviks and Mensheviks—Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, that’s all we hear from you.9 But that there’ll be no more war and everything will be like between brothers, that’s called God’s way and not the Mensheviks’, and that the mills and factories go to the poor, that again is not the Bolsheviks, but human pity. And the deaf-mute gets thrown in our faces without you, I’m sick of hearing it. What is he to you, really! Have you got something against him? That he went around mute all the time, and then suddenly up and spoke without asking anybody? Never saw the like, eh? Well, there’s been even better! That famous she-ass, for instance. ‘Balaam, Balaam,’ she says, ‘I ask you honestly, don’t go there, you’ll be sorry.’10 Well, sure enough, he didn’t listen and went. Like you saying, ‘A deaf-mute.’ He thinks, ‘Why listen to her—she’s an ass, an animal.’ He scorned the brute. And how he repented later. But you surely know how it ended.”
“How?” someone in the public became curious.
“All right!” barked Ustinya. “Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.”
“No, that’s no good. Tell us how.” The same voice would not quiet down.
“How, how—you stick like a thistle! He turned into a pillar of salt.”
“Nice try, dearie! That was Lot. Lot’s wife,”11 shouts rang out. Everyone laughed. The chairman called the assembly to order. The doctor went to bed.
8
The next day he saw Antipova. He found her in the butler’s pantry. Before Larissa Fyodorovna lay a pile of laundry. She was ironing.
The pantry was one of the back rooms on the upper floor, and it gave onto the garden. In it samovars were prepared, food delivered on the dumbwaiter from the kitchen was put on plates, dirty dishes were sent down to be washed. In the pantry the material accounts of the hospital were kept. In it dishes and linen were checked against the lists, people rested during their time off and arranged meetings with each other.
The windows on the garden were open. The pantry smelled of linden blossoms, the caraway bitterness of dry twigs, as in old parks, and slightly of coal gas from the two irons, which Larissa Fyodorovna used alternately, putting now one, now the other into the ventilation pipe to fire them up again.
“Why didn’t you knock on my door yesterday? Mademoiselle told me. Anyhow, you did the right thing. I was already in bed and couldn’t have let you in. Well, hello. Be careful, don’t get yourself dirty. There’s coal spilled here.”
“You’re obviously ironing for the whole hospital?”
“No, a lot of it is mine. So you’ve been teasing me that I’ll never get out of here. But this time I’m serious. See, I’m getting ready, packing. I’ll pack up—and be off. I to the Urals, and you to Moscow. And then one day they’ll ask Yuri Andreevich: ‘Have you ever heard of the little town of Meliuzeevo?’ ‘Not that I recall.’ ‘And who is this Antipova?’ ‘I have no idea.’ ”
“Well, that’s unlikely. How was your trip around the rural areas? Is it nice in the country?”
“I can’t put it in a couple of words. How quickly the irons get cold! Give me a new one, please, if you don’t mind. There, sticking in the ventilation pipe. And this one goes back into the pipe. So. Thank you. Villages differ. It all depends on the inhabitants. In some the people are hardworking, industrious. There it’s all right. But in others there must be nothing but drunkards. There it’s desolation. It’s frightening to look at.”
“Don’t be silly. What drunkards? A lot you understand. There’s simply nobody there, the men have all been taken as soldiers. Well, all right. And how is the zemstvo, the new revolutionary one?”
“You’re not right about the drunkards, I disagree with you. And the zemstvo? There will be a long torment with the zemstvo. The instructions are inapplicable, there’s nobody to work with in the rural areas. At the moment all the peasants are interested in is the land question.12 I went to Razdolnoe. What beauty! You should go there. In the spring there was a bit of burning and looting. A barn burned down, the fruit trees got charred, part of the façade is damaged by soot. I didn’t get to Zybushino, didn’t have time. But everywhere they assure you that the deaf-mute isn’t made up. They describe his appearance. They say he’s young, educated.”
“Last night Ustinya laid herself out for him on the platz.”
“I only just came back, and again there was a whole cartload of junk from Razdolnoe. I’ve begged them so many times to leave us in peace. As if we don’t have enough of our own! And this morning guards came from the commandant’s with a note from the district. They desperately need the countess’s silver tea service and crystal. Just for one evening, to be returned. We know their ‘to be returned.’ Half of the things will be missing. For a party, they say. Some sort of visitor.”
“Ah, I can guess who. A new frontline commissar has come. I saw him by chance. He’s preparing to take on the deserters, surround them and disarm them. The commissar is still quite green, an infant in practical matters. The locals suggest using Cossacks, but he thinks he can take them with tears. He says the people are children, and so on, and he thinks it’s all children’s games. Galiullin begs him, says don’t awaken the sleeping beast, leave it to us, but you can’t argue with such a man once something’s lodged in his head. Listen. Leave your irons for a moment and listen. There’s going to be an unimaginable scramble here soon. It’s not in our power to prevent it. How I wish you’d be gone before the mess begins!”
“Nothing will happen. You’re exaggerating. Besides, I am leaving. But it can’t be just like that: snip-snap and good luck to you. I have to turn over the inventory with a list, otherwise it will look as if I’ve stolen something. And who am I to turn it over to? That’s the question. I’ve suffered so much with this inventory, and the only reward is reproaches. I registered Zhabrinsky’s property as the hospital’s, because that was the sense of the decree. And now it comes out that I did it as a pretense, in order to keep things for the owner. How vile!”
“Ah, spit on the rugs and china, let it all perish. As if there was anything to be upset about! Yes, yes, it’s vexing in the highest degree that we didn’t see each other yesterday. I was so inspired! I’d have explained all of heavenly mechanics for you, and answered all the accursed questions!13 No, no joking, I really was longing to speak myself out. To tell about my wife, my son, my life. Devil take it, can’t a grown-up man talk with a grown-up woman without the immediate suspicion that there’s something ‘behind’ it? Brr! To the devil with all these fronts and behinds!