Gusev was looking at the little window and was not listening. A boat was swaying on the trans- parent, soft, turquoise water all bathed in hot, daz- zling sunshine. In it there were naked Chinamen holding up cages with canaries and calling out:
" It sings, it sings! "
Another boat knocked against the first; the steam cutter darted by. And then there came another boat with a fat Chinaman sitting in it, eating rice with little sticks.
Languidly the water heaved, languidly the white seagulls floated over it.
" I should like to give that fat fellow one in the neck," thought Gusev, gazing at the stout China- man, with a yawn.
He dozed off, and it seemed to him that all nature was dozing, too. Time flew swiftly by; im- perceptibly the day passed, imperceptibly the dark- ness came on. . . . The steamer was no longer standing still, but moving on further.
IV
Two days passed, Pavel Ivanitch lay down in- stead of sitting up ; his eyes were closed, his nose seemed to have grown sharper.
" Pavel Ivanitch," Gusev called to him. 11 Hey, Pavel Ivanitch."
Pavel Ivanitch opened his eyes and moved his lips.
11 Are you feeling bad? "
" No • . . it's nothing . • ." answered Pavel I vanitch, gasping. " Nothing; on the contrary . . . I am rather better. . . . You see I can lie down . • . . I am a little easier. . . ."
" Well, thank God for that, Pavel Ivanitch."
" When I compare myself with you I am sorry for you . . . poor fellow. My lungs are all right, it is only a stomach cough. . . . I can stand hell, let alone the Red Sea. Besides I take a critical attitude to my illness and to the medicines they give me for it. While you . . . you are in dark- ness. . . . It's hard for you, very, very hard 1 "
The ship was not rolling, it was calm, but as hot and stifling as a bath-house ; it was not only hard to speak but even hard to listen. Gusev hugged his knees, laid his head on them and thought of his home. Good heavens, what a relief it was to think of snow and cold in that stifling heat I You drive in a sledge, all at once the horses take fright at something and bolt. . . . Regardless of the road, the ditches, the ravines, they dash like mad things, right through the village, over the pond by the pot- tery works, out across the open fields. " Hold on," the pottery hands and the peasants shout, meeting them. " Hold on." But why? Let the keen, cold wind beat in one's face and bite one's hands ; let the lumps of snow, kicked up by the horses' hoofs, fall on one's cap, on one's back, down one's collar, on one's chest; let the runners ring on the snow, and the traces and the sledge be smashed, deuce take them one and all 1 And how delightful when the sledge upsets and you go Hying full tilt into a drift, face downwards in the snow, and then you get up white all over with icicles on your moustaches ; no cap, no gloves, your belt undone. . . . People laugh, the dogs bark. . . .
Pavel Ivanitch half opened one eye, looked at Gusev with it, and asked softly:
" Gusev, did your commanding officer steal? "
" Who can tell, Pavel Ivanitch I We can't say, it didn't reach us."
And after that a long time passed in silence. Gusev brooded, muttered something in delirium, and kept drinking water ; it was hard for him to talk and hard to listen, and he was afraid of being talked to. An hour passed, a second, a third; evening came on, then night, but he did not notice it. He still sat dreaming of the frost.
There was a sound as though someone came into the hospital, and voices were audible, but a few min- utes passed and all was still again.
11 The Kingdom of Heaven and eternal peace," said the soldier with his arm in a sling. " He was an uncomfortable man."
" What ? " asked Gusev. " Who ? "
11 He is dead, they have just carried him up."
" Oh, well," muttered Gusev, yawning, 11 the King- dom of Heaven be his."
" What do you think? " the soldier with his arm in a sling asked Gusev. " Will he be in the King- dom of Heaven or not? "
" Who is it you are talking about? "
" Pavel I vanitch."
" He will be . . . he suffered so long. And there is another thing, he belonged to the clergy, and the priests always have a lot of relations. Their pray- ers will save him."
The soldier with the sling sat down on a ham- mock near Gusev and said in an undertone:
" And you, Gusev, are not long for this world. You will never get to Russia."
" Did the doctor or his assistant say so? " asked Gusev.
" It isn't that they said so, but one can see it. . . . One can see directly when a man's going to die. You don't eat, you don't drink; it's dreadful to see how thin you've got. It's consumption, in fact. I say it, not to upset you, but because maybe you would like to have the sacrament and extreme unc- tion. And if you have any money you had better give it to the senior officer."
" I haven't written home . . ." Gusev sighed. " I shall die and they won't know."
" They'll hear of it," the sick sailor brought out in a bass voice. " When you die they will put it down in the Gazette, at Odessa they will send in a report to the commanding officer there and he will send it to the parish or somewhere. . . ."
Gusev began to be uneasy after such a conversa- tion and to feel a vague yearning. He drank wa- ter — it was not that; he dragged himself to the window and breathed the hot, moist air — it was not that; he tried to think of home, of the frost — it was not that. . . . At last it seemed to him one minute longer in the ward and he would certainly expire.