'I'm real bad, mates,' says hc. 'I'm going on deck—help me up, for Christ's sakc.'
'All right.' agrees the soldier with the sling. 'You'll never do it on your o^, I'll carry you. Hold on to my neck.'
Gusev puts his arms round the soldier's neck, while the soldier puts his able arm round Gusev and carries him up. Sailors and discharged soldiers are sleeping all over the place on deck—so many of them that it is hard to pass.
'Get do^,' the soldier with the sling says quietly. 'Follow me slowly, hold on to my shirt.'
It is dark. There are no lights on deck or masts, or in the sea around them. Still as a statue on the tip of the bow stands the man on watch, but he too looks as ifhe is sleeping. Left to its o^ devices, apparently, the ship seems to be sailing where it lists.
'They're going to throw Paul Ivanovich in the sea now,' says the soldier with the sling. 'They'll put him in a sack and throw him in.'
'Yes. That's the way of it.'
'But it's better to lie in the earth at home. At least your mother will come and cry over your grave.'
'Very true.'
There is a smell of dung and hay. Bullocks with lowered heads are standing by the ship's rail. One, two, three—there are eight of them. There is a small pony too. Gusev puts his hand out to stroke it, but it tosses its head, bares its teeth, and tries to bite his sleeve.
'Blasted thing!' says Gusev angrily.
The two of them, he and the sailor, quietly thread their way to the bows, then stand by the rail and look up and do^ without a word. Overhead are deep sky, bright stars, peace, quiet—and it is just like being at home in your village. But do^ below are darkness and dis- order. The tall waves roar for no kno^ reason. Whichever wave you watch, each is trying to lift itself above the others, crushing them and chasing its neighbour, while on it, with a growling flash of its white mane, pounces a third roller no less wild and hideous.
The sea has no sense, no pity. Were the ship smaller, were it not made of stout iron, the waves would snap it without the slightest compunction and devour all the people, saints and sinners alike. The ship shows the same mindless cruelty. That beaked monster drives on, cutting millions of waves in her path, not fearing darkness, wind, void, solitude. She cares for nothing, and if the ocean had its people this juggernaut would crush them too, saints and sinners alike.
'Where are we now?' Gusev asks.
'I don't know. In the ocean, we must be.' 'Can't see land.'
'Some hope! We shan't see that for a week, they say.'
Silently reflecting, both soldiers watch the white foam with its phosphorescent glint. The first to break silence is Gusev.
'It ain't frightening,' says he. 'It does give you the creeps a bit, though—like sitting in a dark forest. But if they was to lower a dinghy into the water now, say, and an officer told me to go sixty miles over the sea and fish—1'd go. Or say some good Christian was to fall over- board, I'd go in after him. A German or a Chinaman I wouldn't save, but I'd go in after a Christian.'
'Are you afeared of dying?'
'Aye. It's the old home that worries me. My brother's none too steady, see? He drinks, he beats his wife when he didn't ought to, and he don't look up to his parents. It'll all go to rack and ruin without me, and my father and my old mother will have to beg for their bread, very like. But I can't rightly stand up, mate, and it's so stuffy here. Let's go to bed.'
v
Gusev goes back to the sick-bay and gets in his Some vague
urge still disturbs him, but what it is he wants he just can't reckon. His chest feels tight, his head's pounding, and his mouth's so parched, he can hardly move his tongue. He dozes and rambles. Tormented by nightmares, cough and sweltering atmosphere, he falls fast asleep by morning. He dreams that they havejust taken the bread out of the oven in his barracks. He has climbed into the stove himself, and is having a steam bath, lashing himself with a birch switch. He sleeps for two days. At noon on the third, two soldiers come do^ and carry him out of the sick-bay.
They sew him up in sail-cloth and put in two iron bars to weigh him do^. Se^ in canvas, he looks like a carrot or radish—broad at the head and narrow at the base.
They carry him on deck before sundo^, and place him on a plank. One end of the plank rests on the ship's rail, the other on a box set on a stool. Heads bare, discharged soldiers and crew stand by.
'Blessed is the Lord's name,' begins the priest. 'As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.'
'Amen,' chant three sailors.
Soldiers and crew cross themselves, glancing sideways at the waves.
Strange that a man has been sewn into that sail-cloth and will shortly fly into those waves. Could that really happen to any of them?
The priest scatters earth over Gusev and makes an obeisance. Eternal Memory is sung.
The officer of the watch tilts one end of the plank. Gusev slides down it, flies off head first, does a somersault in the air and—in he splashes! Foam envelops him, and he seems swathed in lace for a second, but the second passes and he vanishes beneath the waves.
He moves swiftly towards the bottom. Will he reach it? It is said to be three miles do^. He sinks eight or nine fathoms, then begins to move more and more slowly, swaying rhythmically as if trying to make up his mind. Caught by a current, he is swept sideways more swiftly than do^wards.
Now he meets a shoal of little pilot-fsh. Seeing the dark body, the fish stop dead. Suddenly all t^rc tail at once and vanish. Less than a minute later they again pounce on Gusev like arrows and stitch the water round him with zig-zags.
Then another dark hulk looms—a shark. Ponderous, reluctant and apparently ignoring Gusev, it glides under him and he sinks on to its back. Then it turns belly upwards, basking in the warm, translucent water, and languidly opening its jaw with the two rows of fangs. The pilot-fish are delighted, waiting to see what will happen next. After playing with the body, the shark nonchalantly puts itsjaws underneath, cautiously probing with its fangs, and the sail-cloth tears along the body's whole length from head to foot. One iron bar falls out, scares the pilot-fi.sh, hits the shark on the flank and goes swiftly to the bottom.
Overhead, meanwhile, clouds are massing on the sunset side—one like a triumphal arch, another like a lion, a third like a pair of scissors.
From the clouds a broad, green shaft of light breaks through, spanning out to the sky's very centre. A little later a violet ray settles alongside, then a gold one by that, and then a pink one.
The sky turns a delicate mauve. Gazing at this sky so glorious and magical, the ocean scowls at first, but soon it too takes on tender, joyous, ardent hues for which human speech hardly has a name.
PEASANT WOMEN
JusT opposite the church in the village of Raybuzh stands an iron- roofed, two-storey house with a stone foundation. The o^er, Philip Kashin, also kno^ as Dyudya, lives on the ground floor with his faiily, while on the upper storey^<xtremely hot in summer, ex- tremely cold in winter—are lodgings for passing officials, merchants and cowty gentlemen. Dyudya rents plots of land, keeps a tavern on the highway, deals in tar, honey, cattle and bonnets, and has saved about eight thousand roubles which he keeps in the to^ bank.
His elder son Theodore is foreman mechanic in a factory—having gone up in the world, as the locals say, and left the rest of them stand- ing. Theodore's wife Sophia, a plain woman in poor health, makes her home with her father-in-law, is always crying, and drives over to hospital for treatment every Sunday. Dyudya's second son, hunch- backed Alyoshka, lives at home with his father, and was recently married to a girl from a poor family called Barbara—a pretty young thing who enjoys the best of health and likes to dress smartly. When officials and merchants put up at the house, they always insist on Barbara serving the samovar and making their beds.