'And where is your patient?' asked Ragin.
'In the hospital. I've been wanting to show you this for some time: a most fascinating case.'
Entering the hospital yard, they skirted the main block on their way to the hut where the lunatics were housed: all this in silence for some reason. When they entered the hut Nikitajumped up as usual and stood to attention.
'One of these people has a lung complication,' said Khobotov in an undertone, entering the ward with Ragin.
'Now, you wait here, I'll be back in a moment. I'll just fetch my stethoscope.'
He left.
XVII
Darkness was already falling and Ivan Gromov lay on his bed with his face buried in his piUow. The paralysed patient sat immobile, quietly weeping and moving his lips. The fat peasant and the former post-office sorter were asleep. It was quiet.
Ragin sat on Gromov's bed and waited. But half an hour passed, and instead of Khobotov it was Nikita who came into the ward with a hospital smock, underclothes and slippers clasped in his arms.
'Kindly put these on, sir,' he said quietly.
'Now, here's your bed, you come this way,' he added, pointing to an empty bed which had obviously been brought in recently. It's all right, you'U get better, God willing.'
Now Ragin understood. He went wordlessly to the bed indicated by Nikita and sat do^. Seeing Nikita standing there waiting, he took off all his clothes and felt embarassed. Then he put on the hospital clothes. The pants were too short, the shirt was too long, the smock stank of smoked fish.
'You'll get better, God willing,' repeated Nikita.
He collected Ragin's clothing in his arms, went out and closed the door behind him.
'Oh, who cares?' thought Ragin, bashfully wrapping his smock around him and feeling like a convict in his new garb. 'Nothing matters. Tail-<:oat, uniform or smock .. • whatever you wear, it's all the same.'
What about his watch, though? And the notebook inhis side pocket? What ofhis cigarettes? And where had Nikita taken his clothes? Now perhaps he would never have occasion to put on his trousers, waistcoat and boots for the rest of his life. All this was a bit weird at first— mysterious, even. Ragin was still convinced that there was no difference at all between Mrs. Belov's house and Ward Number Six, that everything on this earth is folly and vanity—yet his hands trembled, his legs grew cold, and he was afraid of Gromov suddenly standing up and seeing him in this smock. He got up, paced about, then sat down again.
He sat for a further half hour, then another hour, and was bored to tears. Could one really spend a day or a week here—years, even, like these people? Here he was having sat do^n, walked about, then sat do^n again. One could go and look out ot the window and cross the room again. But what next? Was one to sit like this all the time like a stuffed dummy, just thinking ? No, one could hardly do that.
Ragin lay do^n, but at once stood up again, wiped the cold sweat from his brow with his sleeve and smelt his whole face stinking of smoked fish.- He paced about again.
'This is some misunderstanding,' he said, spreading his arms in perplexity. 'It must be cleared up, it's a misunderstanding '
Then Ivan Gromov awoke, sat up, propped his cheeks on his fists. He spat. He gave the doctor a lazy glance, obviously not understanding for a minute, but then a malevolent leer suddenly came over his sleepy face.
'Oho, so they've shoved you in here too, have they, old man,' he said in a voice hoarse with sleep, closing one eye. 'Welcome, indeed. So far you've been the vampire, now it's your turn to be thrown to the bloodsuckers! An excellent idea!'
'This is some misunderstanding,' Ragin said, fearing Gromov's words. He shrugged his shoulders.
'It's a misunderstanding,' he repeated.
Gromov spat again and lay do^n.
'Oh, blast this life!' he grumbled. 'And the really galling, wounding thing is that it won't end with any recompense for sufferings or operatic apotheosis, will it? It will end in death. Some peasants will come and drag one's corpse into a cellar by its hands and feet. Ugh! Oh well, never mind, we'll have our fun in the next world. I shall come back from the other world and haunt these rats. I'll scare them, I'll turn their hair white.'
Little Moses came in, saw the doctor and held out his hand.
'Give us a copeck,' he said.
XVIII
Ragin went over to the window and looked out into open country. Darkness was already falling and a cold, crimson moon was rising above the horizon on the right. Not far from the hospital fence, no more than a couple of hundred yards away, stood a tall white building with a stone wall round it: the prison.
'So this is reality,' thought Ragin, terrified.
Moon, prison, the nails on the fence, a distant flame in the glue factory ... it all terrified him. Hearing a sigh behind him, Ragin tun;^.ed and saw a man with shining stars and medals on his chest who smiled and artfully winked an eye. That too struck Ragin as terrifying.
Ragin told himself that there was nothing peculiar about a moon and a prison, that even sane persons wear medals, and that everything would rot and turn to clay in time, but despair suddenly overwhelmed him and he clutched the window-bars with both hands, shaking them with all his strength. The iron grille did not yield.
Then, to lull his fears, he went to Gromov's bed and sat do^.
'I don't feel too grand, old chap,' he muttered, trembling and wiping off the cold sweat. 'I'm feeling a little low.'
'Then how about a spot of philosophy?' jeered Gromov.
'Oh, God, my God! Yes, er, quite so. You, sir, once remarked that there's no Russian philosophy, but that all Russians, nonentities included, are philosophers.
'But the philosophic theorizings of nonentities don't do any harm, do they?' Ragin asked, his tone suggesting that he wanted to weep and arouse sympathy. 'So why laugh at my misfortunes, dear friend? And why shouldn't nonentities talk philosophy if they're dissatisfied? An intelligent, well-educated, proud, freedom-loving man made in God's image . . . and his only outlet is to be a doctor in a dirty, stupid little townwn surrounded by cupping-glasses, leeches and mustard plasters all his life! How bogus, how parochial, ye Gods, how cheap!'
'Stuff and nonsense. If you hated doctoring you should have been a Minister of the Crown.'
'There's nothing one can be, I tell you. And we're so feeble, my friend. I used to be detached, I used to argue confidently arid sensibly, but it only took a bit ofrough handling to make me lose heart and cave in. We're a rotten, feeble lot. You are the same, my dear chap. You're intelligent, you have integrity, you imbibed high principles at your mother's breast, but barely were you launched on life before you tired and sickened. You're feeble, I tell you.'
Besides fear and resentment, some other depressing sensation had been nagging at Ragin ever since nightfall. In the end he realized that he wanted his beer and a smoke.
'I'm just going out, my dear chap,' he said. 'I'll tell them to bring us a light. I can't manage like this, can't cope '
Ragin went and opened the door, but Nikita jumped up in a flash and blocked his path.
'Andjust where do you think you're off to?' he asked. 'None of that, now! It's bed-time.'
Ragin was flabbergasted. 'But I only want a t^^ in the yard for a minute.'
'None of that, now. It ain't allowed, you know that.'
Slamming the door behind him, Nikita leant his back against it.
Ragin shrugged his shoulders. 'But what does it matter if I go out for a bit?' he asked.
'I don't understand, Nikita, I must go out,' he said in quavering tones. 'I've got to.'
'Don't you give me no trouble, we can't have that,' Nikita cautioned him.