Ward Number Six and Other Stories

'But what use is it to anyone?'

'Since there are such things as prisons and lunatic asylums someone must be shut up in them, mustn't they? If not you, then I, if not I, then someone else. Just wait until prisons and asylums cease to exist in the distant future, then there won't be any bars on the windows or hospital smocks. Sooner or later, of course, that time will come.'

Gromov smiled derisively.

'You'rejoking,' he said, screwing up his eyes. 'You aid your minion Nikita . . . you have no concern with the future, your sort of gentry haven't. But better times are on the way, my dear sir, you take that from me. I may sound banal, you may laugh at me, but a new life will dawnwn. Justice shall triumph, our day will come. I shan't see it, I shall be dead, but someone's great-grandchildren will live to sec it. I greet them with all my heart and I'm glad for their sake: glad, I tell you! March forward, my friends, and may God be with you.'

Eyes shining, Gromov arose and stretched his arms towards the window.

'From behind these bars I bless you,' he continued in throbbing tones. 'Long live justice! I rejoice!'

'I see no special cause for rejoicing,' said Dr. Ragin, who found Gromov's gesture theatrical, yet most pleasing. 'There will be no prisons or asylums, and justice shall indeed prevaiclass="underline" as you say, sir. But the real essence ofthings won't change, will it? The laws ofnature will stay as they are. People are going to fall ill, grow old and die, just as they do now. And gloriously as your dawnwn may irradiate your life, you'll still end up nailed in your coffin and thrownwn in a pit.'

'But what about immortality?'

'Oh, really!'

'You may not believe in it, but I do. Someone in Dostoyevsky or Voltaire says that if God hadn't existed man would have invented him. And I profoundly believe that if there's no such thing as immortality human genius will sooner or later invent it.'

'Well said,' remarked Ragin, smiling delightedly. 'I'm glad you're a believer. With such faith a man can live a merry life, even immured inside a wall. Did you receive any education, sir?'

'Yes, I went to university, but didn't take my degree.'

'You're a thinking man and a thoughtful one. You can find consolation inside yourself in any surroundings. Free, profound speculation on the meaning oflife, utter contempt for the world's foolish vanities ... those are two blessings higher than any other knownwn to man. And you can possess them though you live behind triple rows of bars. Diogenes lived in a barrel, but was happier than all the emperors of this world.'

'Your Diogenes was an ass,' Gromov pronounced morosely. 'But why all this stuff about Diogenes and the meaning of something or other?'

He jumped up in sudden rage.

'I love life, love it passionately! I have a persecution complex, I suffer constant, agonizing fears, but there are moments when such a lust for life comes over me that I fear my brain will burst. I have such a tremendous appetite for life, tremendous!'

He paced the ward excitedly.

'In my day-dreams I see visions,' he said in hushed tones. 'People sort of haunt me, I hear voices and music, I seem to be walking through a forest or along a beach, and I do so long for the hum and bustle of life.

'Tell me now, what's the news ?' Gromov asked. 'What's going on?'

'In townwn, you mean, or in general ?'

'Oh, tell me about the town firrt and then about things generally.'

'All right. The townwn is an abysmal bore, what with no one to talk to, no one to listen to and no new faces. Actually, though, a young doctor did turn up recently: Khobotov.'

'He came while I was still in circulation. What's he like then, pretty crude?'

'Well, he's not exactly cultured. It's odd, you know, there's no mental stagnation in St. Petersburg and Moscow, so far as one can see. Things are humming there, so they must have some pretty impressive people around. But why do they always send us people of whom the less said the better? Unfortunate town!'

'Yes, unfortunate indeed,' sighed Gromov, and laughed. 'But how are things in general ? What do the newspapers and magazines say?'

The ward was already in darkness. The doctor stood up to describe what was being written, abroad and in Russia, and spoke of current intellectual trends. Gromov listened carefully and asked questions, but then suddenly clutched his head as ifgripped by some hideous memory and lay on the bed, his back to the doctor.

'What's the matter?' the doctor asked.

'Not one more word will you hear from me,' said Gromov roughly. 'Leave me alone.'

'Why, what's the matter ?'

'Leave me alone, I tell you. To blazes '

Dr. Ragin shrugged his shoulders, sighed and went out.

'You might clean up a bit, Nikita,' he said as he passed through the lobby. 'The smell's absolutely frightful.'

'Oh, yes sir. Oh certainly, sir.'

'Now, what a nice young man,' thought Ragin as he went to his quarters. 'I think he's the first person I've been able to talk to since I've been here. He can use his brain and he is interested in just the right things.'

While reading, and then as he went to bed, he kept thinking of Gromov, and on waking up next morning he remembered meeting so intelligent and entertaining a person on the previous day, and decided to call on him again at the first opportunity.

X

Gromov lay in the same posture as yesterday, his head clutched in his hands, his legs tucked beneath him. His face was hidden.

'Hello there, my dear friend,' said Ragin. 'Not asleep, are you?'

'Firstly, I'm not your dear friend,' said Gromov into his pillow. 'And secondly, you are wasting your time. Not one word will you get out of me.'

'Odd,' muttered Ragin, flustered. 'We were having such a friendly chat yesterday, but you suddenly took offence and broke off abruptly. I put something clumsily, very likely, or I may have expressed an idea contrary to your convictions.'

'Catch me trusting you? Not likely!' said Gromov, raising himself slightly, and looking at the doctor with contempt and misgiving. His eyes were bloodshot. 'Do your spying and snooping somewhere else, there's nothing for you here. I spotted your little game yesterday.'

'What a strange delusion,' the doctor laughed. 'So you take me for a ^sp^y?'

'I do. A spy or a doctor I'm to be examined by ... what's the difference?'

'Oh, really, I must say! I'm sorry, but you are a fi^^y chap.'

The doctor sat on a stool near the bed and shook his head reproachfully.

'But let's suppose you are right,' he said. 'Let's suppose I am a deceiver trying to catch you out and give you away to the police. You'll be arrested and tried, but will you be any worse off in court and prison than you are here? And if you're sent to Siberia as an exile—or as a convict, even—would that really be worse than sitting cooped up in this hut? I don't think so. So what have you to fear?'

These words obviously had their effect on Gromov. He quietly sat ^up.

It was about halfhalf past four in the afternoon: the time when Ragin usually paced his rooms and Daryushka asked ifit was time for his beer. The weather was calm and clear.

'I came out for an afternoon stroll,' the doctor said, 'and I'm calling on you, as you see. Spring is here.'

'What month is it now, March?' asked Gromov.

'Yes, it's the end of March.'

'Is it muddy outside?'

'No, not very. ^^ garden paths are walkable.'

'I'd like to go for a carriage drive now, somewhere out of town,' said Gromov, rubbing bloodshot eyes as if half asleep. 'Then I'd like to come home to a warm, comfortable study where some proper doctor would cure my headache. It's ages since I lived like a hu^n being. This place is so foul, it's unbearably disgusting.'

He was tired after the previous day's excitement: inert and reluctant to speak. His fmgers shook and he looked as ifhe had an acute headache.