'Oh, what the blazes is going on?' Gromov suddenly shouted and jumped up. 'What right has he to stop you? How dare they keep us here ? The law, I think, states clearly enough that no one may be deprived of his liberty without a court order. It's an outrage, it's sheer tyranny!'
'Of course it is,' said Ragin, encouraged by Gromov's shout. 'I must go out, I've got to! He has no right to do this. Let me out of here, I tell you !'
'Do you hear me, you stupid bastard ?' shouted Gromov, banging his fist on the door. 'Open up or I'll break down the door, you bloody savage!'
'Open up!' shouted Ragin, shaking all over. 'I insist!'
'You just say one word more!' Nikita answered from behind the door. 'Just you try it, that's all!'
'At least go and fetch Dr. Khobotov. Tell him I asked him to come over, er, for a minute.'
'The doctor will be along tomorrow anyway.'
'They'll never let us out,' Gromov was saying. 'They'll let us rot here. Oh Lord, can there really be no hell in the next world, will these blackguards really get away with it? It's so unfair!
'Open up, scum, I'm choking!' he shouted hoarsely, charging the door. 'I'll beat my brains out! Murdering bastards!'
Nikita swiftly opened the door, roughly shoved Ragin back with both hands and a knee, then swung and punched him in the face. Ragin felt as if a vast wave of salt water had broken over his head and swept him to his bed. And his mouth did indeed taste salty—because blood was corning from his teeth, probably. As if trying to swim away, he struck out and gripped someone's bed. As he did so he felt Nikita hit him twice in the back.
Gromov gave a loud shriek. He must have been hit too.
Then all was quiet. Moonlight filtered through the bars, a network of shadows lay on the floor. It was horrible. Ragin lay downwn and held his breath—terrified, awaiting another blow. He felt as ifsomeone had stuck a sickle in him and twisted it a few times inside his chest and guts. He bit the pillow in his pain and clenched his teeth. Then suddenly a fearful thought past all bearing flashed through the chaos of his mind: thatjust such a pain must be the daily lot, year in year out, ofthese men who loomed before him like black shadows in the moonlight. How could it be that for twenty years and more he had ignored that—and ignored it wilfully? He had not knownwn pain, he had had no conception of it, so this wasn't his fault. And yet his conscience proved as tough and obdurate as Nikita, flooding him from head to heels with an icy chill. He leapt up, wanting to shout at the top of his voice, wanting to rush off and kill Nikita, then Khobotov, then the manager, then Khobo- tov's assistant and fmally himself But no noise came from his chest, his legs would not obey him. Panting, he ripped the smock and shirt on his chest, and flopped unconscious on his bed.
XIX
On the next morning he had a headache, his ears buzzed, his whole body felt exhausted. He was not ashamed to recall his feebleness ofthe previous day. He had been cowardly yesterday, he had even been scared of the moon, he had frankly expressed feelings and thoughts which he had never suspected himself ofharbouring: those ideas on the discontents of theorizing nonentities, for instance. But now he cared nothing for all that. '
He neither ate nor drank, but lay still and silent.
'I don't care,' he thought as they asked him their questions. 'I'm not answering, I just don't care.'
Michael Averyanovich arrived that afternoon with a quarter of a pound of tea and a pound ofjam. Daryushka came too and stood near the bed for a whole hour, her face expressing dazed grief Dr. Khobotov also visited. He brought a bottle of potassium bromide and told Nikita to fumigate the ward.
Late that afternoon Ragin died of a stroke. His first sensation was of a devastating feverish chill and nausea. Something quite sickening seemed to permeate his whole body, even his fingers, sweeping from his stomach to his head, swamping his eyes and ears. A green light flashed in his eyes. Knowing that his end was near, Ragin remembered that Gromov, Michael Averyanovich and millions of others believed in immortality. Now, what if there really were such a thing? But he didn't want any immortality, he only thought about it for a moment. A herd of deer, extraordinarily handsome and graceful, of which he had been reading on the previous day, darted past him. A peasant woman held out a registered letter, Michael Averyanovich said something.
Then it all vanished. Dr. Andrew Yefimovich Ragin plunged into eternal oblivion.
The peasant orderlies came, seized his hands and feet, and hauled him off to the chapel. There he lay on the table, open-eyed and bathed in moonlight at night. On the next morning Sergey Sergeyevich came, prayed devoutly before the crucifix and closed his ex-boss's eyes.
A day later Ragin was buried. Only Michael Averyanovich and Daryushka went to the funeral.
ARIADNE
о n the deck of the Odessa-Sevastopol steamer a rather good-looking man with a full beard carne up and asked me for a light.
'Notice those Germans sitting by the deck-house?' he asked. 'When Germans or Englishmen meet, they talk about crops, the price ofwool or personal affairs, yet somehow when we Russians meet, we always talk about women and abstract ideas. Mainly women, though.'
I knew him by sight because we had both come in on the train from abroad the day before and I had seen him at the customs at Volochisk, standing with his lady companion before a mountain of suitcases and hampers full offeminine attire. He was annoyed and much disheartened at having to pay duty on some odd bit of silk, and his companion protested and threatened to complain. Then on the way to Odessa I saw him taking cakes and oranges along to the ladies' compartment.
It was rather damp and the sea was a little rough, so the women had gone to their cabins. The bearded man sat do^n beside me.
'Yes,' he went on. 'When Russians meet they only discuss abstract subjects and women. We're pompous intellectuals forever laying down the law and we can't tackle a problem at all unless it's on a very lofty plane. A Russian actor can't act the fool—even in a farce he feels he has to be profound—and the rest of us arejust the same. Even our small talk must be on the most exalted level. We're not bold, sincere or natural enough, that 's why. And why do we keep on about women so ? Because we aren't satisfied, I think. We idealize women too much and make demands out of all proportion to what we're actually likely to get. We don't get what we want or anything like it. Hence our dissatisfaction, shattered hopes and wounded spirits, and you can't have a sore point without wanting to talk about it. Would it bore you if I went on?'
'Not at all.'
'Then may I introduce myself?' he asked, rising slightly from his seat. 'I'm Ivan Sharnokhin, a landowner from the Moscow district, you might say. As for you—1 know you well.
He sat do^n again and went on, loo^ng into my eyes in a frank, friendly sort of way.
'This endless talk about women—a second-rate philosopher like Max Nordau would put it do^n to sex mania, the serf-owning mentality or somet^ng, but that's not my view. We're dissatisfied because we're idealists, I tell you. We want the creatures who bear us and our children to be superior to us and everything else on God's earth. As young men we feel romantic adoration for our beloved. To us love and happiness are one and the same. We Russians look do^n on anyone who doesn't marry for love, we find lust ridiculous and disgusting, and our most successful novels and stories are those in which the women are beautiful, romantic and exalted. Russians have raved over Raphael's Madonna and worried about w^nen's rights for years, but that isn't a pose, believe me. The trouble is this, though. No sooner do we marry or have a love affair than in a couple of years we feel disappointed and let do^n. Then we have more affairs and more dreadful disappointments. In the end we decide that women are mean, restless, lying, unfair, primitive, cruel creatures. Indeed, far from thi^^mg them man's superiors, we completely look do^n on them. Dissatisfied and deceived as we are, we can only grouse and talk in and out of season about being let down so badly.'