'Fooled who, Paul Ivanovich ?'
'Why, those people we were talking about. There are only two classes on this boat, see, frst and third. And no one's allowed to travel third class except peasants—the riff'-raff, in other words. Wear a jacket and look in the least like a gentleman or bourgeois—then you must go fi.rst class, if you please! You must fork out your five hundred roubles if it kills you.
'"Now why," I ask, "did you make such a rule? Trying to raise the prestige of the Russian intelligentsia, I assume?"
'"Not at all. We don't allow it because no respectable person should travel third—it's very nasty and messy in there."
"'Oh yes? Grateful for your concern on behalf of respectable per- sons, I'm sure! But nice or nasty, I haven't got five hundred roubles either way. I've never embezzled public funds, I haven't exploited any natives. I've not done any smuggling—nor have I ever flogged anyone to death. So judge for yourself—have I any right to travel first class, let alone reckon myself a member of the Russian intelligentsia ?"
'But logic gets you nowhere with these people, so I'm reduced to deception. I put on a worknun's coat and high boots, I assume the facial expression of a drunken brute, and off"I go to the agent. "Gimme one o' them tickets, kind sir!"'
'And what might your station be in life?' asks the sailor.
'The clerical. My father was an honest priest who always told the powers that be the truth to their faces—and no little did he sufffer for it.'
S.A.O.S.-8
Paul Ivanovich is tired of speaking. He gasps for breath, but still goes on.
'Yes, I never mince my words, I fear nothing and no one—there's a vast difference between me and you in this respect. You're a blind, benighted, downwn-trodden lot. You see nothing—and what you do see you don't understand. People tell you the wind's broken loose from its chain—that you're cattle, savages. And you believe them. They punch you on the neck—you kiss their hand. Some animal in a racoon coat robs you, then tips you fifteen copecks—and, "Oh, let me kiss your hand, sir," say you. You're pariahs, you're a pathetic lot, but me— that's another matter. I live a conscious life, and I see everything as an eagle or hawk sees it, soaring above the earth. I understand it all. I am protest incarnate. Ifl see tyranny, I protest. Ifl see a canting hypocrite, I protest. If I see swine triumphant, I protest. I can't be put downwn, no Spanish Inquisition can silence me. No sir. Cut out my tongue and I'll protest in mime. Wall me up in a cellar and I'll shout so loud, I'll be heard a mile off. Or I'll starve myself to death, and leave that extra weight on their black consciences. Kill me—my ghost will still haunt you. "You're quite insufferable, Paul Ivanovich"—so say all who know me, and I glory in that reputation. I've served three years in the Far East, and I'll be remembered there for a century. I've had rows with everyone. "Don't come back," my friends write from European Russia. So I da^ well will come back and show them, indeed I will. That's life, the way I see it—that's what I call living.'
Not listening, Gusev looks through the port-hole. On limpid water of delicate turquoise hue a boat tosses, bathed in blinding hot sunlight. In it stand naked Chinese, holding up cages of canaries.
'Sing, sing,' they shout.
Another boat bangs into the first, and a steam cutter dashes past. Then comes yet another boat with a fat Chinese sitting in it, eating rice with chopsticks. The water heaves lazily, with lazy white gulls gliding above it.
'That greasy one needs a good clout on the neck,' thinks Gusev, gazing at the fat Chinese and yawning.
He is dozing, and feels as if all nature is dream-bound too. Time passes swiftly. The day goes by unnoticed, unnoticed too steals on the dark.
No longer at anchor, the ship forges on to some further destina- tion.
IV
Two days pass. Paul Ivanovich no longer sits up. He is l ying down with his eyes shut, and his nose seems to have grown sharper.
'Paul Ivanovich!' Gusev shouts. 'Hey, Paul Ivanovich!'
Paul Ivanovich opens his eyes and moves his lips.
'Feeling unwell?'
'It's nothing, nothing,' gasps Paul Ivanovich in answer. 'On the contrary, I feel better, actually. I can lie down now, see ? I feel easier.'
'Well, thank God for that, Paul Ivanovich.'
'Comparing myself with you poor lads, I feel sorry for you. My lungs are all right, this is only a stomach cough. I can endure hell, let alone the Red Sea. I have a critical attitude to my illness and medicines, what's more. But you—you benighted people, you have a rotten time, you really do.'
There is no motion and the sea is calm, but it is sweltering hot, like a steam bath. It was hard enough to listen, let alone speak. Gusev hugs his knees, rests his head on them and thinks of his homcland. Heavens, what joy to think about snow and cold in this stifling hcat! You're sledging along, when the horses suddenly shy and bolt.
Roads, ditches, gulleys—it's all one to them. Along they hurtle like mad, right down the village, over pond, past pottery, out through open country.
'Hold him!' shout pottery hands and peasants at the top of their voices. 'Hold hard!'
But why hold? Let the keen, cold gale lash your face and bite your hands. Those clods of snow kicked up by horses' hooves—let them fall on cap, down collar, on neck and chest. Runners may squeak, traces and swingletrees snap—to hell with them! And what joy when the sledge overturns and you fly full tilt into a snowdrift, face buried in snow— then stand up, white all over, with icicles hanging from your moustache, no cap, no mittens, your belt undone.
People laugh, dogs bark.
Paul Ivanovich half opens one eye and looks at Gusev.
'Did your commanding officer steal, Gusev?' he asks softly.
'Who can tell, Paul Ivanovich? We know nothing, it don't come to our ears.'
A long silence follows. Gusev broods, rambles deliriously, keeps drinking water. He finds it hard to speak, hard to listen, and he is afraid of being talked to. One hour passes, then a second, then a third.
Evening comes on, then night, but he noticcs nothing, and still sits dreaming of thc frost.
It sounds as if somconc has come into the sick-bay, and voices are heard—but five minutes later everything is silent.
'God be with him,' says the soldicr with his arm in a sling. 'May he rest in peace, he was a rcstless man.'
'What ?' Gusev asks. 'Who?'
'He's dead, they've just carried him up.'
'Ah well,' mumbles Gusev with a ya^. 'May the Kingdom of Heaven be his.'
'What do you think, Gusev ?' asks the soldier with the sling after a short pause. 'Will he go to heaven or not?'
'Who?'
'Paul Ivanovich.'
'Yes, he will—he suffered so long. And then he's from thc clergy, and priests always have a lot of relations—their prayers will save him.'
The soldier with the sling sits on Gusev's bunk.
'You're not long for this world either, Gusev,' hc says in an under- tone. 'You'll never get to Russia.'
'Did the doctor or his assistant say so?' Gusev asks.
'It's not that anyone said so, it's just obvious—you can always tell when someone's just going to die. You don't cat, you don't drink, and you're so thin—you're a frightful sight. It's consumption, in fact. I don't say this to upset you, but you may want to have the sacrament and the last rites. And if you have :^ny money you'd better give it to the senior officer.'
'I never wrote home,' sighs Gusev. 'They won't even know I'm dead.'
'They will,' says the sick sailor in a deep voice. 'When you're dead an entry will be made in the ship's log, they'll give a note to the Army Commander in Odessa, and he'll send a message to your parish or whatever it is.'
This talk makes Gusev uneasy, and a vague urge disturbs him. He drinks water, but that isn't it. He stretches towards the port-hole and breathes in the hot, dank air, but that isn't it either. He tries to think of homc and frost—and it still isn't right.
He feels in the end that one more minute in the sick-bay will surely choke him to dcath.