Ward No. 6

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

I I

In the hospital yard there is a small outbuilding surrounded by a whole forest of burdocks, nettles and wild hemp. The roof on it is rusty, the pipe has half collapsed, the steps near the porch are rotten and overgrown with grass, and only traces of the plaster remain. Its front facade faces the hospital, its rear facade looks into the field, from which it is separated by a gray hospital fence with nails. These nails, with their points facing upward, both the fence and the very outbuilding have that special dull, damned look that only hospital and prison buildings have.

If you are not afraid of getting burned by nettles, then go along the narrow path leading to the outbuilding and see what is happening inside. Opening the first door, we enter the hallway. Here, near the walls and near the stove, there are mountains of hospital rubbish piled up. Mattresses, old tattered robes, pantaloons, shirts with blue stripes, worthless, worn-out shoes - all this tearing is piled up, crumpled, tangled, rotting and emits a suffocating smell.

On the rubbish there is always a watchman Nikita, an old retired soldier with red patches, lying with a pipe in his teeth. He has a stern, well-drunk face, drooping eyebrows that give his face the expression of a steppe shepherd, and a red nose; he is short in stature, looking dry and wiry, but his posture is impressive and his fists are hefty. He belongs to those simple-minded, positive, efficient and stupid people who love order more than anything else in the world and are therefore convinced that they should be beaten. He hits you in the face, chest, back, whatever he hits, and I’m sure that without this there would be no order here.

Next, you enter a large, spacious room that occupies the entire outbuilding, except for the entryway. The walls here are smeared with dirty blue paint, the ceiling is smoked, like in a chicken hut - it is clear that the stoves smoke here in winter and it can be carbon monoxide. The windows are disfigured from the inside with iron bars. Paul is a sulfur and a splinter. It stinks of sauerkraut, wick fumes, bedbugs and ammonia, and this stench makes you feel like you're entering a menagerie in the first minute.

The room has beds screwed to the floor. People in blue hospital gowns and antique caps sit and lie on them. These are crazy.

There are five of them here. Only one noble title, the rest are all townspeople. The first from the door, a tall, thin tradesman with a red, shiny mustache and tear-stained eyes, sits with his head propped up and looks at one point. Day and night he is sad, shaking his head, sighing and smiling bitterly; He rarely takes part in conversations and usually does not answer questions. He eats and drinks mechanically when given. Judging by the painful, beating cough, thinness and blush on his cheeks, he begins to consume consumption.

He is followed by a small, lively, very active old man with a sharp beard and black, curly hair, like a black man. During the day, he walks around the ward from window to window or sits on his bed, legs tucked up in Turkish, and quietly whistles, sings quietly and giggles like a bullfinch. He also shows childish cheerfulness and lively character at night, when he stands up to pray to God, that is, knock his fists on his chest and pick his finger at the door. This is the Jew Moiseika, a fool who was crazy about twenty years ago when his hat workshop burned down.

Of all the inhabitants of ward No. 6, only he alone is allowed to leave the outbuilding and even from the hospital yard onto the street. He has enjoyed such a privilege for a long time, probably as a sick old-timer and as a quiet, harmless fool, a city buffoon, whom he has long been accustomed to seeing on the streets, surrounded by boys and dogs. In a robe, in a funny hat and shoes, sometimes barefoot and even without trousers, he walks the streets, stopping at gates and benches, and asks for a pretty penny. In one place they will give him kvass, in another - bread, in a third - a pretty penny, so he usually returns to the outbuilding well-fed and rich. Nikita takes everything he brings with him to his advantage. The soldier does this rudely, with a heart, turning out his pockets and calling God as a witnessthat he would never let a Jew into the street again and that unrest was the worst thing in the world for him.

Moiseika loves to serve. He gives water to his comrades, covers them when they sleep, promises to bring everyone a penny from the street and sew a new hat; he also spoon-feeds his neighbor on the left side, a paralytic. He does this not out of compassion or for any humanitarian reasons, but by imitating and unwittingly submitting to his neighbor on the right side, Gromov.

Ivan Dmitrich Gromov, a man of about thirty-three, a noble man, a former bailiff and provincial secretary, suffers from persecution mania. He either lies on the bed, curled up, or walks from corner to corner, as if for exercise, but he sits very rarely. He is always excited, excited and tense by some vague, uncertain expectation. The slightest rustle in the hallway or a scream in the yard is enough for him to raise his head and begin to listen: is this not what they are following him? Isn't that what they're looking for? And his face expresses extreme anxiety and disgust.

I like his wide, cheekbones face, always pale and unhappy, reflecting in itself, as in a mirror, a soul tortured by struggle and prolonged fear. His grimaces are strange and painful, but the subtle features placed on his face by deep sincere suffering are reasonable and intelligent, and there is a warm, healthy shine in his eyes. I like him himself, polite, helpful and unusually delicate in his treatment of everyone except Nikita. When someone drops a button or spoon, he quickly jumps out of bed and picks it up. Every morning he congratulates his comrades on a good morning, going to bed - he wishes them good night.

In addition to his constantly tense state and grimacing, his madness is expressed in the following. Sometimes in the evenings he smells like his robe and, trembling with his whole body, chattering his teeth, begins to quickly walk from corner to corner and between beds. It looks like he has a severe fever. By the way he suddenly stops and looks at his comrades, it is clear that he wants to say something very important, but, apparently realizing that they will not listen to him or will not understand him, he impatiently shakes his head and continues to walk. But soon the desire to speak takes precedence over all considerations, and he gives himself free rein and speaks passionately and passionately. His speech is disorderly, feverish, like nonsense, impetuous and not always understandable, but in it one hears, both in words and in voice, something extremely good. When he says,you recognize him as a madman and a man. It's hard to put his crazy speech on paper. He talks about human meanness, about violence that tramples the truth, about the wonderful life that will eventually be on earth, about window bars that remind him every minute of the stupidity and cruelty of rapists. It turns out to be a chaotic, awkward medley of old, but still unsung songs.

II

About 12-15 years ago, in the city, on the most important street, the official Gromov, a respectable and wealthy man, lived in his own house. He had two sons: Sergei and Ivan. Already a fourth-year student, Sergei fell ill with fleeting consumption and died, and this death seemed to serve as the beginning of a number of misfortunes that suddenly fell on the Gromov family. A week after Sergei’s funeral, the old father was put on trial for forgery and embezzlement and soon died in a prison hospital from typhus. The house and all the movable property were sold under the hammer, and Ivan Dmitrich and his mother were left without any funds.

Previously, under his father, Ivan Dmitrich, living in St. Petersburg, where he studied at the university, received 60 - 70 rubles a month and had no idea about need, but now he had to dramatically change his life. He had to give penny lessons from morning to night, engage in correspondence and still starve, since all his earnings were sent to his mother for food. Ivan Dmitrich could not stand such a life; he lost heart, withered away and, leaving the university, went home. Here, in the town, under the patronage, he received a position as a teacher in a district school, but did not get along with his comrades, did not like the students and soon gave up his place. The mother died. He went without a seat for six months, eating only bread and water, then joined the bailiff. He held this position until he was dismissed due to illness.

He never, even in his young student years, gave the impression of being healthy. He was always pale, thin, prone to colds, ate little, and slept poorly. One glass of wine made him dizzy and hysterical. He was always drawn to people, but, thanks to his irritable character and suspiciousness, he did not get close to anyone and had no friends. He always spoke of the townspeople with contempt, saying that their gross ignorance and sleepy animal life seemed vile and disgusting to him. He spoke as a tenor, loud, ardent and nothing less than indignant and indignant or with delight and surprise, and always sincerely. Whatever happened, no matter what you talk to him about, he reduces everything to one thing: the city is stuffy and boring to live in, society has no higher interests, it leads a dull, meaningless life, diversifying it with violence, gross debauchery and hypocrisy;the scoundrels are well-fed and clothed, but the honest ones eat crumbs; we need schools, a local newspaper with an honest direction, a theater, public readings, unity of intelligent forces; it is necessary for society to recognize itself and be horrified. In his judgments about people, he put thick colors, only white and black, without recognizing any shades; His humanity was divided into honest and scoundrels; there was no middle ground. He always spoke passionately and with delight about women and love, but he was never in love. He always spoke passionately and with delight about women and love, but he was never in love. He always spoke passionately and with delight about women and love, but he was never in love.

In the city, despite the harshness of his judgments and nervousness, he was loved and affectionately called Vanya behind his back. His innate delicacy, helpfulness, decency, moral purity and his worn frock coat, sickly appearance and family misfortunes inspired a good, warm and sad feeling; Moreover, he was well educated and well-read, knew, in the opinion of the townspeople, everything in the city was something like a walking reference dictionary.

He read a lot. It happened that he kept sitting in a club, nervously fiddling with his beard and flipping through magazines and books; and it’s clear from his face that he doesn’t read, but swallows, barely having time to chew. One must think that reading was one of his painful habits, since he attacked with equal greed everything that came to his hands, even last year’s newspapers and calendars. He always read at home while lying down.

III

One autumn morning, raising the collar of his coat and spanking in the mud, Ivan Dmitrich made his way through the alleys and backyards to some tradesman to receive a writ of execution. His mood was gloomy, as always in the morning. In one of the alleys he met two prisoners in shackles and four guards with guns. Previously, Ivan Dmitrich very often met prisoners and each time they aroused feelings of compassion and awkwardness in him, but now this meeting made some special, strange impression on him. For some reason it suddenly seemed to him that he, too, could be shackled and led through the mud to prison in the same way. Having visited the tradesman and returning to his home, he met a policeman he knew near the post office, who greeted him and walked with him down the street for several stepsand for some reason it seemed suspicious to him. At home, prisoners and soldiers with guns could not get out of his head all day, and an incomprehensible mental anxiety prevented him from reading and concentrating. In the evening he did not light a fire at his place, and at night he did not sleep and kept thinking that he could be arrested, chained and sent to prison. He did not know any guilt and could guarantee that in the future he would never kill, set fire to or steal; but isn’t it difficult to commit a crime accidentally, unwittingly, and isn’t slander possible, and finally, a miscarriage of justice? After all, it’s not for nothing that centuries-old folk experience teaches you not to renounce money and prison. But a miscarriage of justice in the current legal proceedings is very possible and there is nothing tricky about it. People who have an official, business relationship to the suffering of others, for example, judges, police officers, doctors, over time, due to habit,they are tempered to such an extent that they would like, but cannot treat their clients except formally; on this side, they are no different from a man who slashes sheep and calves in the backyard and does not notice blood. With a formal, soulless attitude towards the individual, in order for an innocent person to be deprived of all rights of his fortune and sentenced to hard labor, the judge needs only one thing: time. Just time to comply with some formalities for which the judge is paid a salary, and then it’s all over. Then look for justice and protection in this small, dirty town, two hundred miles from the railway! And isn’t it funny to think about justice when all violence is encountered by society as a reasonable and expedient necessity and every act of mercy, for example, an acquittal, causes a whole explosion of dissatisfactiona vengeful feeling?

In the morning, Ivan Dmitrich got out of bed in horror, with a cold sweat on his forehead, quite confident that he could be arrested every minute. If yesterday’s difficult thoughts do not leave him for so long, he thought, then it means there is some truth in them. They really couldn’t come to mind without any reason.

The policeman slowly walked past the windows: this was not without reason. Two people stopped near the house and are silent. Why are they silent?

And painful days and nights came for Ivan Dmitrich. Everyone who passed by the windows and entered the yard seemed like spies and detectives. At noon, the police officer usually drove a couple along the street; It was he who was driving from his suburban estate to the police headquarters, but each time it seemed to Ivan Dmitrich that he was driving too fast and with some special expression: obviously, he was in a hurry to announce that a very important criminal had appeared in the city. Ivan Dmitrich shuddered at every ringing and knocking on the gate, languishing when he met a new person at the hostess; when meeting with police and gendarmes, he smiled and whistled to seem indifferent. He did not sleep all night long, awaiting arrest, but snored loudly and sighed as if sleepy, so that it seemed to the hostess that he was sleeping; After all, if he doesn’t sleep, then it means he is tormented by remorse - what evidence!Facts and sound logic convinced him that all these fears - nonsense and psychopathy, that in arrest and prison, if you look at the matter more broadly, there is essentially nothing terrible - his conscience would be calm; but the smarter and more logical he reasoned, the stronger and more painful the mental anxiety became. It was like one hermit wanted to cut down a place for himself in a virgin forest; the harder he worked with an ax, the thicker and stronger the forest grew. Ivan Dmitrich, in the end, seeing that it was useless, completely gave up reasoning and devoted himself entirely to despair and fear. how one hermit wanted to cut down a place for himself in a virgin forest; the harder he worked with an ax, the thicker and stronger the forest grew. Ivan Dmitrich, in the end, seeing that it was useless, completely gave up reasoning and devoted himself entirely to despair and fear. how one hermit wanted to cut down a place for himself in a virgin forest; the harder he worked with an ax, the thicker and stronger the forest grew. Ivan Dmitrich, in the end, seeing that it was useless, completely gave up reasoning and devoted himself entirely to despair and fear.

He began to retire and avoid people. The service had disgusted him before, but now it has become unbearable for him. He was afraid that they would somehow let him down, put a bribe in his pocket unnoticed and then convict him, or he himself would accidentally make a mistake in government papers that amounted to a forgery, or lose other people’s money. It is strange that never at any other time was his thought as flexible and inventive as it is now, when every day he invented thousands of different reasons to seriously fear for his freedom and honor. But interest in the outside world, in particular in books, weakened significantly, and began to greatly change memory.

In the spring, when the snow melted, two half-rotten corpses were found in a ravine near the cemetery - an old woman and a boy, with signs of violent death. All there was talk in the city was about these corpses and unknown killers. Ivan Dmitrich, so as not to think that it was he who killed, walked the streets and smiled, and when he met his acquaintances, he turned pale, blushed and began to assure that there was no more vile crime than the murder of the weak and defenseless. But this lie soon tired him, and, after some reflection, he decided that in his position the best thing was to hide in the owner's cellar. He sat in the cellar for a day, then night and another day, chilled badly and, waiting for the streaks, secretly, like a thief, made his way into his room. Until dawn he stood in the middle of the room, without moving or listening. Early in the morning before sunrise, stove makers came to the hostess. Ivan Dmitrich knew wellthat they came to move the stove in the kitchen, but fear told him that they were police officers dressed as stove makers. He slowly left the apartment and, overcome with horror, without a hat or frock coat, ran down the street. Dogs were chasing him with barking, a man was screaming somewhere behind, air was whistling in his ears, and it seemed to Ivan Dmitrich that the violence of the whole world had accumulated behind him and was chasing him.

He was detained, brought home and the owner was sent for the doctor. Dr. Andrei Efimych, who is the subject in front, prescribed cold lotions on his head and laurel cherry drops, sadly shook his head and left, telling the hostess that he would not come again, because people should not be prevented from going crazy. Since there was nothing to live on or receive treatment at home, Ivan Dmitrich was soon sent to the hospital and admitted there in a ward for sexually transmitted patients. He did not sleep at night, was capricious and disturbed the sick, and soon, by order of Andrei Efimych, he was transferred to ward No. 6.

A year later, the city completely forgot about Ivan Dmitrich, and his books, dumped by the owner in a sleigh under a canopy, were taken away by the boys.

IV

The neighbor on the left side of Ivan Dmitrich, as I already said, is the Jew Moiseyka, while the neighbor on the right is a fat-swollen, almost round man with a stupid, completely meaningless face. This is a motionless, gluttonous and unclean animal that has long lost the ability to think and feel. He constantly gives off a sharp, suffocating stench.

Nikita, who is cleaning up after him, hits him terribly, with all his might, not sparing his fists; and the scary thing here is not that they beat him - you can get used to this - but the fact that this dull animal does not respond to beatings with either a sound, or a movement, or an expression in its eyes, but only sways slightly, like a heavy barrel.

The fifth and last inhabitant of ward No. 6 is a tradesman who once served as a sorter at the post office, a small, thin blond man with a kind but somewhat crafty face. Judging by his smart, calm eyes, looking clear and cheerful, he is on his own mind and has some very important and pleasant secret. He has something under his pillow and under his mattress that he doesn’t show to anyone, but not out of fear that he might be taken away or stolen, but out of shyness. Sometimes he goes to the window and, turning his back to his comrades, puts something on his chest and looks with his head bent; if you approach him at this time, he will be embarrassed and rip something off his chest. But his secret is not difficult to guess.

"Congratulate me", he often says to Ivan Dmitrich, "I am presented to Stanislav of the second degree with a star". The second degree with a star is given only to foreigners, but for some reason they want to make an exception for me," he smiles, shrugging his shoulders in bewilderment. - Frankly, I didn’t expect it!

""I don’t understand anything about this," Ivan Dmitrich says gloomily.

"But do you know what I will achieve sooner or later?" continues the former sorter, slyly squinting his eyes. - I will certainly get the Swedish North Star. The order is worth a pat. White cross and black ribbon. It's very beautiful.

Probably nowhere else is life as monotonous as in an outbuilding. In the morning, the sick, in addition to the paralytic and the fat man, wash themselves in the entryway from a large tub and wipe themselves with coats of robes; after that, tea is poured from tin mugs, which Nikita brings from the main building. Each is entitled to one mug. At noon they eat sauerkraut cabbage soup and porridge, and in the evening they dine on porridge left over from lunch. In between they lie, sleep, look out the windows and walk from corner to corner. And so every day. Even a former sorter talks about the same orders.

Fresh people are rarely seen in ward No. 6. The doctor has not accepted new crazy people for a long time, and there are few people in this world who like to visit crazy houses. Semyon Lazarich, a barber, visits the outbuilding once every two months. We will not say how he cuts the hair of crazy people and how Nikita helps him do this, and how confused patients become every time a drunken smiling barber appears.

No one looks into the outbuilding except the barber. Patients are condemned to see only Nikita day after day.

However, recently a rather strange rumor spread throughout the hospital building.

They spread a rumor that a doctor allegedly began to visit ward No. 6.

V

Strange rumor!

Dr. Andrey Efimych Ragin is a wonderful person of his kind. It is said that in his early youth he was very pious and prepared himself for a spiritual career, and that, having completed a course at a gymnasium in 1863, he intended to enter a theological academy, but as if his father, a doctor of medicine and a surgeon, caustically laughed at him and declared categorically that he would not consider him his son if he went to the priesthood. I don’t know how true this is, but Andrei Efimych himself admitted more than once that he never felt called to medicine and to special sciences in general.

Be that as it may, after completing a course at the Faculty of Medicine, he did not become a priest. He did not show piety and looked as little like a spiritual person at the beginning of his medical career as he does now.

His appearance is heavy, rough, peasant; with his face, beard, flat hair and strong, clumsy build, he resembles an innkeeper on a high road, corroded, unrestrained and steep. The face is stern, covered with blue veins, the eyes are small, the nose is red. With a tall stature and wide shoulders, he has huge arms and legs; It seems that enough with a fist - out of spirit. But his gait is quiet and his gait is cautious, insinuating; when meeting in a narrow corridor, he is always the first to stop to give way, and not in a bass voice, as you expect, but in a thin, soft tenor says: "guilty!" He has a small tumor on his neck that prevents him from wearing hard starch collars, so he always wears a soft linen or chintz shirt. In general, he dresses not like a doctor. He drags the same pair for ten years, and new clotheswhich he usually buys in a Jewish shop, it seems as worn and rumpled as the old one; in the same frock coat he receives patients, dines, and goes on visits; but this is not out of stinginess, but from complete inattention to his appearance.

When Andrei Efimych came to the city to accept the position, the "godly institution" was in terrible condition. It was hard to breathe from the stench in the wards, corridors and hospital yard. Hospital men, nurses and their children slept in the wards with the sick. They complained that there was no life from cockroaches, bedbugs and mice. There was no birth in the surgical department. There were only two scalpels and not a single thermometer for the entire hospital; potatoes were kept in the baths. A caretaker, a castellan and a paramedic robbed the sick, and they said about the old doctor, Andrei Efimych’s predecessor, that he was secretly selling hospital alcohol and made himself a whole harem of nurses and sick women. The city knew very well about these riots and even exaggerated them, but treated them calmly; some justified them by sayingthat only townspeople and men go to the hospital, who cannot be dissatisfied, since they live much worse at home than in the hospital; It’s not like feeding them hazel grouse! Others said in justification that one city cannot maintain a good hospital without the help of the zemstvo; Thank God that there is at least a bad one. And the young zemstvo did not open hospitals either in the city or near it, citing the fact that the city already has its own hospital.

After examining the hospital, Andrei Efimych came to the conclusion that this institution is immoral and highly harmful to the health of residents. In his opinion, the smartest thing that could be done was to release the patients and close the hospital. But he reasoned that his will alone was not enough for this and that it would be useless; if physical and moral uncleanness is driven out of one place, then it will move to another; you have to wait for it to disappear on its own. In addition, if people opened a hospital and tolerate it at home, then it means they need it; Prejudice and all these everyday nasty things and abominations are needed, since over time they are processed into something worthwhile, like manure into black soil. There is nothing so good on earth that it does not have nasty things in its original source.

Having accepted the position, Andrei Efimych was apparently quite indifferent to the unrest. He asked only the hospital men and nurses not to spend the night in the wards and placed two cabinets with instruments; the caretaker, the castellan, the paramedic and the surgical face remained in their places.

Andrei Efimych is extremely fond of intelligence and honesty, but in order to arrange a smart and honest life around him, he lacks character and faith in his right. He does not know how to order, prohibit or insist positively. It's as if he vowed never to raise his voice or use an imperative mood. It’s difficult for him to say "give" or "bring"; when he wants to eat, he hesitantly coughs and says to the cook: "How can I have tea."... or: "How can I have lunch.". Telling the caretaker to stop stealing, or driving him away, or completely abolishing this unnecessary parasitic position is completely beyond his power. When they deceive Andrei Efimych or flatter him, or present him with a deliberately vile bill for signature, he blushes like cancer and feels guilty, but he still signs the bill;when patients complain to him about hunger or rude caregivers, he becomes embarrassed and mutters guiltily:

--Okay, okay, I'll sort it out after... There's probably a misunderstanding here...

At first, Andrei Efimych worked very hard. He took it daily from morning to lunch, performed operations and even practiced obstetrics. The ladies said about him that he is attentive and is excellent at guessing diseases, especially childhood and female ones. But over time, things became noticeably boring for him with their monotony and obvious uselessness. Today you will see 30 patients, and tomorrow, you see, there are 35 of them, the day after tomorrow 40, and so on day after day, year after year, and the mortality rate in the city does not decrease, and patients do not stop walking. There is no physical opportunity to provide serious assistance to 40 visiting patients from morning to lunch, which means that one deception inevitably comes out. In the reporting year, 12,000 patients came, which means, simply reasoning, 12,000 people were deceived. According to the rules of science, it is also impossible to put serious patients in wards and deal with thembecause there are rules, but there is no science; if we leave philosophy and pedantically follow the rules, like other doctors, then for this, first of all, we need cleanliness and ventilation, not dirt, healthy food, and not cabbage soup made from stinking sauerkraut, and good helpers, not thieves.

And why stop people from dying if death is the normal and legal end of everyone? What if some tradesman or official lives an extra five, ten years? If we see the goal of medicine in the fact that medicines alleviate suffering, then the question involuntarily arises: why alleviate them? Firstly, they say that suffering leads a person to perfection, and secondly, if humanity really learns to alleviate its suffering with pills and drops, then it will completely abandon religion and philosophy, in which until now it has found not only protection from all ills, but even happiness. Pushkin experienced terrible torment before his death, poor Heine lay in paralysis for several years; Why not cheer up some Andrei Efimych or Matryona Savishna, whose life is meaningless and would be completely empty and similar to the life of an amoebaif it weren't for suffering?

Suppressed by such reasoning, Andrei Efimych gave up and began to go to the hospital not every day.

VI

His life goes like this. Usually he gets up in the morning at about eight o'clock, gets dressed and drinks tea. Then he sits down in his office to read or goes to the hospital. Here, in the hospital, outpatients are sitting in a narrow dark corridor, waiting for acceptance. Men and nurses run past them, banging their boots on the brick floor, skinny patients in dressing gowns walk by, carrying the dead and dishes with sewage, children cry, and a through wind blows. Andrei Efimych knows that for feverish, consumptive and generally impressionable patients such a situation is painful, but what can you do? In the reception area he is met by paramedic Sergei Sergeich, a small, fat man with a shaved, clean-washed, plump face, with soft, smooth manners and a new spacious suit, looking more like a senator than a paramedic. He has a huge practice in the cityhe wears a white tie and considers himself more knowledgeable than a doctor who has no practice at all. In the corner, in the reception area, there is a large image in a kiota, with a heavy lamp, next to it is a shutter in a white cover; On the walls hang portraits of bishops, a view of the Svyatogorsk Monastery and wreaths of dry cornflowers. Sergei Sergeich is religious and loves splendor. The image was staged by his dependents; On Sundays, in the waiting room, one of the patients, on his orders, reads aloud from an akathist, and after reading, Sergei Sergeich himself goes around all the wards with a censer and cakes incense in them. The image was staged by his dependents; On Sundays, in the waiting room, one of the patients, on his orders, reads aloud from an akathist, and after reading, Sergei Sergeich himself goes around all the wards with a censer and cakes incense in them. The image was staged by his dependents; On Sundays, in the waiting room, one of the patients, on his orders, reads aloud from an akathist, and after reading, Sergei Sergeich himself goes around all the wards with a censer and burns incense in them.

There are many patients, but little time, and therefore the matter is limited to just a short survey and the dispensing of some medicine, such as a flying ointment or castor oil. Andrei Efimych sits with his fist propped up on his cheek, thinking, and mechanically asks questions. Sergei Sergeich also sits, rubs his hands and occasionally intervenes.

"We are sick and endure need because," he says, "we pray poorly to the merciful Lord.". Yes!

During acceptance, Andrei Efimych does not perform any operations; he has long been unaccustomed to them and the sight of blood worries him unpleasantly. When he has to open his child’s mouth to look into his throat, and the child screams and defends himself with his little hands, the noise in his ears makes his head spin and tears appear in his eyes. He is in a hurry to prescribe medicine and waves his hands so that the woman can take the child away as quickly as possible.

At the reception, he will soon be bored with the timidity of the patients and their stupidity, the closeness of the splendid Sergei Sergeich, portraits on the walls and his own questions, which he has been asking invariably for more than twenty years. And he leaves, having accepted five or six sick people. The rest are taken in by a paramedic without him.

With the pleasant thought that, thank God, he has not had a private practice for a long time and that no one will interfere with him, Andrei Efimych, having arrived home, immediately sits down at the table in his office and begins to read. He reads a lot and always with great pleasure. Half of his salary is spent buying books, and of the six rooms in his apartment, three are littered with books and old magazines. Most of all he loves essays on history and philosophy; in medicine, he prescribes only "The Doctor," whom he always begins to read from the end. Reading each time continues without a break for several hours and does not tire him. He does not read as quickly and impetuously as Ivan Dmitrich once read, but slowly, with penetration, often stopping at places that he likes or does not understand.There is always a decanter of vodka near the book and a pickled cucumber or pickled apple lying right on the cloth, without a plate. Every half hour, without taking his eyes off the book, he pours himself a glass of vodka and drinks, then, without looking, he feels for a cucumber and bites off a piece.

At three o'clock he carefully walks to the kitchen door, coughs and says

-- Daryushka, how can I have lunch...

After lunch, which is quite bad and unkempt, Andrei Efimych walks around his rooms with his arms crossed over his chest and thinks. He beats for four hours, then five, and he keeps walking and thinking. Occasionally the kitchen door creaks and Daryushka’s red, sleepy face appears from it.

"Andrey Efimych, isn’t it time for you to drink beer?" she asks anxiously.

"No, it's not time yet..." - he answers. -- I'll wait... I'll wait...

In the evening, the postmaster, Mikhail Averyanych, usually comes, the only person in the whole city whose company is not painful for Andrei Efimych. Mikhail Averyanych was once a very rich landowner and served in the cavalry, but he went bankrupt and, out of need, entered the postal department in his old age. He has a cheerful, healthy appearance, luxurious gray buoys, well-mannered manners and a loud, pleasant voice. He is kind and sensitive, but hot-tempered. When one of the visitors protests at the post office, does not agree, or simply begins to reason, then Mikhail Averyanych turns purple, shakes with his whole body, I shout in a thunderous voice: "Be silent!", so the post office has long had a reputation as an institution in which it’s scary to be. Mikhail Averyanych respects and loves Andrei Efimych for his education and nobility of soulhe treats other ordinary people down as if they were his subordinates.

"here I come!" he says, entering Andrei Efimych. - Hello, my dear! I guess you're already tired of me, huh?

"On the contrary, I’m very glad," the doctor answers him. -- I'm always glad to see you.

Friends sit on the sofa in the office and smoke silently for a while.

"daryushka, how can we have some beer!" says Andrey Efimych.

They also drink the first bottle silently: the doctor - after thinking, and Mikhail Averyanych - with a cheerful, lively look, like a person who has something very interesting to tell. The doctor always starts the conversation.

"What a pity", he says slowly and quietly, shaking his head and not looking into the eyes of his interlocutor (he never looks into his eyes), "how deeply sorry, dear Mikhail Averyanych, that there are absolutely no people in our city who could and loved to have a smart and interesting conversation. This is a huge deprivation for us. Even the intelligentsia does not rise above vulgarity; the level of its development, I assure you, is no higher than that of the lower class.

-- Quite right. Agree.

"you yourself will deign to know", continues the doctor quietly and with an arrangement, "that in this world everything is insignificant and uninteresting, except for the highest spiritual manifestations of the human mind. The mind draws a sharp line between animal and man, hints at the divinity of the latter and, to some extent, even replaces immortality, which does not exist. Based on this, the mind serves as the only possible source of pleasure. We do not see or hear the mind around us, which means we are deprived of pleasure. True, we have books, but this is not at all like live conversation and communication. If you allow me to make a not entirely successful comparison, then books are notes, and conversation is singing.

-- Quite right.

There is silence. Daryushka comes out of the kitchen and, with an expression of stupid grief, resting her face on her fist, stops at the door to listen.

-- Eh! - Mikhail Averyanych sighs. -We wanted from the current mind!

And he tells how life used to be great, fun and interesting, what a smart intelligentsia there was in Russia and how highly they put the concepts of honor and friendship. They lent money without a bill of exchange, and it was considered a shame not to lend a helping hand to a friend in need. And what hikes, adventures, skirmishes there were, what comrades, what women! And the Caucasus - what an amazing region! And the wife of one battalion commander, a strange woman, put on an officer’s dress and went to the mountains in the evenings, alone without a guide. They say that in the villages she had an affair with some prince.

"The queen of heaven, mother..." sighs Daryushka.

-- And how they drank! How they ate! And what desperate liberals they were!

Andrei Efimych listens and does not hear; he is thinking about something and sipping beer.

"I often dream of smart people and conversations with them," he says unexpectedly, interrupting Mikhail Averyanych. - My father gave me an excellent education, but under the influence of the ideas of the sixties he forced me to become a doctor. It seems to me that if I had not listened to him then, now I would be at the very center of mental movement. Probably would be a member of some faculty. Of course, the mind is also not eternal and transitory, but you already know why I have a tendency towards it. Life is an annoying trap. When a thinking person reaches maturity and comes into mature consciousness, he involuntarily feels as if in a trap from which there is no way out. In fact, he was caused against his will by some accidents from oblivion to life... Why? He wants to know the meaning and purpose of his existence, they don’t tell him or they tell him absurdities;he knocks - they don’t open it for him; death comes to him - also against his will. And so, just as in prison, people bound by common misfortune feel easier when they come together, so in life you don’t notice the trap when people prone to analysis and generalizations come together and spend time exchanging proud, free ideas. In this sense, the mind is an irreplaceable pleasure.

-- Quite right.

Without looking his interlocutor in the eyes, quietly and with pauses, Andrei Efimych continues to talk about smart people and conversations with them, and Mikhail Averyanych listens to him carefully and agrees: "Exactly right.".

"Don’t you believe in the immortality of the soul?" - the postmaster suddenly asks.

"no, dear Mikhail Averyanych, I don’t believe it and have no reason to believe it.".

--I must confess, and I doubt it. But although, by the way, I feel as if I will never die. Oh, I think it’s old shit, it’s time to die! And in my soul there is some kind of voice: don’t believe it, you won’t die!..

At the beginning of ten o'clock, Mikhail Averyanych leaves. Putting on a fur coat in the front, he says with a sigh:

--However, into what wilderness fate has carried us!

The most annoying thing is that you will have to die here. Eh!..

VII

After seeing off his friend, Andrei Efimych sits down at the table and starts reading again. The silence of evening and then night is not broken by any sound, and time seems to stop and freeze with the doctor over the book, and it seems that nothing exists except this book and the lamp with a green cap. The doctor’s rough, peasant face little by little lights up with a smile of tenderness and delight at the movements of the human mind. Oh, why is man not immortal? - he thinks. - Why brain centers and convolutions, why vision, speech, well-being, genius, if all this is destined to go into the soil and, in the end, cool down along with the earth’s crust, and then rush around the sun for millions of years without meaning and without purpose? In order to cool down and then rush around, there is no need at all to extract from oblivion a person with his tall, almost divine mind, and then, as if in mockery,turn it into clay.

Metabolism! But what cowardice it is to console yourself with this surrogate of immortality! Unconscious processes occurring in nature are lower than even human stupidity, since stupidity still has consciousness and will, but there is absolutely nothing in processes. Only a coward who has more fear of death than dignity can console himself with the fact that his body will eventually live in grass, in stone, in a toad... Seeing your immortality in metabolism is as strange as prophesying a brilliant future for a case after an expensive violin has broken and become worthless.

When the clock strikes, Andrei Efimych leans back in his chair and closes his eyes to think a little. And by chance, under the influence of good thoughts subtracted from the book, he glances at his past and present. The past is disgusting, it’s better not to remember it. And in the present it is the same as in the past. He knows that while his thoughts rush along with the chilled earth around the sun, next to the doctor’s apartment, people are languishing in a large building in illness and physical uncleanness; perhaps someone is awake and fighting insects, someone is infected with erysipelas or groans from a tightly placed bandage; perhaps patients play cards with nurses and drink vodka. In the reporting year, 12,000 people were deceived; the entire hospital business, like 20 years ago, is built on theft, squabbles, gossip, nepotism, and gross quackeryand the hospital is still an immoral institution and highly harmful to the health of residents. He knows that in ward No. 6 behind bars Nikita beats the sick and that Moiseika walks around the city every day and collects alms.

On the other hand, he knows very well that over the past 25 years there has been a fabulous change in medicine. When he was studying at the university, it seemed to him that medicine would soon suffer the same fate as alchemy and metaphysics, but now, when he reads at night, medicine touches him and excites him with surprise and even delight. In fact, what an unexpected brilliance, what a revolution! Thanks to antisepsis, operations are performed that the great Pirogov considered impossible even in spe {in the hope of the future (lat.).}. Ordinary zemstvo doctors decide to perform a resection of the knee joint, there is only one death per hundred pervosections, and stone disease is considered such a trifle that they don’t even write about it. Syphilis is radically cured. And the theory of heredity, hypnotism, the discoveries of Pasteur and Koch, hygiene with statistics,what about our Russian zemstvo medicine? Psychiatry, with its current classification of diseases, methods of recognition and treatment, is a whole Elborus in comparison with what it was. Now the crazy people are not poured cold water on their heads or given hot shirts; they are kept humanely and even, as they write in the newspapers, performances and balls are organized for them. Andrei Efimych knows that with the current views and tastes, such an abomination as ward No. 6 is possible only two hundred miles from the railway, in a town where the mayor and all the vowels are semi-literate townspeople who see in the doctor a priest who needs to be believed without any criticism, at least he poured molten tin into his mouth; elsewhere, the public and newspapers would have long ago snapped up this little Bastille to shreds. methods of recognition and treatment - this is a whole Elborus in comparison with what it was. Now the crazy people are not poured cold water on their heads or given hot shirts; they are kept humanely and even, as they write in the newspapers, performances and balls are organized for them. Andrei Efimych knows that with the current views and tastes, such an abomination as ward No. 6 is possible only two hundred miles from the railway, in a town where the mayor and all the vowels are semi-literate townspeople who see in the doctor a priest who needs to be believed without any criticism, at least he poured molten tin into his mouth; elsewhere, the public and newspapers would have long ago snapped up this little Bastille to shreds. methods of recognition and treatment - this is a whole Elborus in comparison with what it was. Now the crazy people are not poured cold water on their heads or given hot shirts; they are kept humanely and even, as they write in the newspapers, performances and balls are organized for them. Andrei Efimych knows that with the current views and tastes, such an abomination as ward No. 6 is possible only two hundred miles from the railway, in a town where the mayor and all the vowels are semi-literate townspeople who see in the doctor a priest who needs to be believed without any criticism, at least he poured molten tin into his mouth; elsewhere, the public and newspapers would have long ago snapped up this little Bastille to shreds. they are kept humanely and even, as they say in the newspapers, they organize performances and balls for them. Andrei Efimych knows that with the current views and tastes, such an abomination as ward No. 6 is possible only two hundred miles from the railway, in a town where the mayor and all the vowels are semi-literate townspeople who see in the doctor a priest who needs to be believed without any criticism, at least he poured molten tin into his mouth; elsewhere, the public and newspapers would have long ago snapped up this little Bastille to shreds. they are kept humanely and even, as they say in the newspapers, they organize performances and balls for them. Andrei Efimych knows that with the current views and tastes, such an abomination as ward No. 6 is possible only two hundred miles from the railway, in a town where the mayor and all the vowels are semi-literate townspeople who see in the doctor a priest who needs to be believed without any criticism, at least he poured molten tin into his mouth; elsewhere, the public and newspapers would have long ago snapped up this little Bastille to shreds. which must be believed without any criticism, at least it pours molten tin into your mouth; Elsewhere, the public and newspapers would have long ago snapped this little Bastille to shreds. which must be believed without any criticism, at least it pours molten tin into your mouth; Elsewhere, the public and newspapers would have long ago snapped this little Bastille to shreds.

"But what? - Andrei Efimych asks himself, opening his eyes. - What of this? And antiseptics, and Koch, and Pasteur, but the essence of the matter has not changed at all. The morbidity and mortality are still the same. Crazy people are given balls and performances, but they are still not allowed into the wild. This means that it’s all nonsense and fuss, and there’s essentially no difference between a better Viennese clinic and my hospital.".

But grief and a feeling similar to envy prevent him from being indifferent. It must be from fatigue. The heavy head leans towards the book, he puts his hands under his face to make it softer, and thinks

"I serve a harmful cause and I get paid by people I cheat; I'm not honest. But in itself I am nothing, I am only a piece of necessary social evil: all district officials are harmful and receive salaries for nothing... This means that it is not me who is to blame for my dishonesty, but time... If I had been born two hundred years later, I would have been different.".

When it strikes for 3 hours, he puts out the lamp and goes into the bedroom. He doesn't want to sleep.

VIII

About two years ago, the zemstvo became generous and decided to issue three hundred rubles annually as an allowance for strengthening medical personnel in the city hospital until the opening of the zemstvo hospital, and the city invited the district doctor Evgeny Fedorych Khobotov to help Andrei Efimych. He is still a very young man - he is not even thirty - a tall brunette with wide cheekbones and small eyes; probably his ancestors were foreigners. He came to the city penniless, with a small suitcase and a young ugly woman whom he calls his cook. This woman has an infant. Evgeniy Fedorych walks in a cap with a visor and high boots, and in winter in a sheepskin coat. He became close friends with paramedic Sergei Sergeich and the treasurer, and for some reason calls the rest of the officials aristocrats and shuns them.In his entire apartment he has only one book - "The latest recipes of the Vienna clinic for 1881." When going to the patient, he always takes this book with him. He plays billiards in the club in the evenings, but doesn’t like cards. A big hunter will use words such as gimp, mantifolia with vinegar in a conversation, will cast a shadow on you, etc.

He visits the hospital twice a week, goes around the wards and sees patients. The complete absence of antiseptics and blood-sucking jars outrage him, but he does not introduce new orders, for fear of offending Andrei Efimych. He considers his colleague Andrei Efimych an old rogue, suspects he has a lot of money and secretly envies him. He would willingly take his place.

IX

One spring evening, at the end of March, when there was no snow on the ground and starlings were singing in the hospital garden, the doctor went out to see off his friend the postmaster to the gate. Just at this time, the Jew Moyseika, returning from mining, was entering the yard. He was without a hat and in small galoshes on his bare feet and held a small bag of alms in his hands.

"give me a penny!" he turned to the doctor, trembling from the cold and smiling.

Andrei Efimych, who never knew how to refuse, gave him a dime.

"How bad this is," he thought, looking at his bare feet with red skinny ankles. "It’s wet.".

And, prompted by a feeling similar to both pity and disgust, he followed the Jew into the outbuilding, looking either at his bald head or at his ankles. When the doctor entered, Nikita jumped up from the pile of rubbish and stretched out.

"hello, Nikita," Andrei Efimych said softly. - "How can I give this Jew boots, or something, otherwise he’ll catch a cold?".

--Listen, your honor. I'll report to the caretaker.

-- Please. You ask him on my behalf. Say what I asked.

The door from the hallway to the ward was open. Ivan Dmitrich, lying on the bed and rising to his elbow, listened with alarm to someone else’s voice and suddenly recognized the doctor. He shook with anger, jumped up and, with a red, angry face, with bulging eyes, ran out into the middle of the room.

"The doctor has come!" he shouted and laughed. - Finally! Gentlemen, congratulations, the doctor honors us with his visit! Damn bastard! - he squealed and, in a frenzy the likes of which had never been seen in the ward, stamped his foot. - Kill this reptile! No, killing is not enough! Drown in a latrine!

Andrei Efimych, who heard this, looked out of the hallway into the ward and asked softly:

--For what?

"-For what?" shouted Ivan Dmitrich, approaching him with a menacing look and frantically smelling into his robe. -- For what? Thief! - he said in disgust and making his lips as if wanting to spit. - Quack! Executioner!

"calm down," said Andrei Efimych, smiling guiltily. - I assure you, I have never stolen anything, but otherwise, you are probably greatly exaggerating. I see that you are angry with me. Calm down, I beg you, if you can, and say in cold blood: why are you angry?

'-Why are you keeping me here?

--For being sick.

--Yes, I'm sick. But dozens, hundreds of crazy people are walking free, because your ignorance is unable to distinguish them from healthy ones. Why should I and these unfortunate people sit here for everyone like scapegoats? You, the paramedic, the caretaker and all your hospital bastard are morally immeasurably inferior to each of us, why are we sitting and you are not? Where is the logic?

-- Moral attitude and logic have nothing to do with it. It all depends on the case. Those who were imprisoned sit, and those who were not imprisoned walk, that’s all. The fact that I am a doctor, and you are mentally ill, has neither morality nor logic, but only an empty accident.

"I don’t understand this nonsense..." - Ivan Dmitrich said dully and sat down on his bed.

Moiseika, whom Nikita was embarrassed to search in the presence of the doctor, laid out pieces of bread, pieces of paper and bones on his bed and, still trembling from the cold, spoke something quickly and melodiously in Jewish. He probably imagined that he had opened a shop.

"let me go", said Ivan Dmitrich, and his voice trembled.

-- Can't.

-- But why? Why?

--Because it's not in my power. Judge, what good will it do you if I let you go? Go. You will be detained by citizens or police and returned back.

-- Yes, yes, it's true... - said Ivan Dmitrich and rubbed his forehead. - This is terrible! But what should I do? What?

Andrei Efimych liked the voice of Ivan Dmitrich and his young, smart face with grimaces. He wanted to caress the young man and calm him down. He sat down next to him on the bed, thought and said

"you ask, what should I do?" The best thing about your situation is to run away from here. But, unfortunately, it is useless. You will be detained. When society protects itself from criminals, mental patients and generally inconvenient people, it is invincible. You have one thing left to do: calm down at the thought that your stay here is necessary.

-- Nobody needs it.

"Since there are prisons and insane asylums, someone should be in them.". Not you - so I, not me - so someone else. Wait, when prisons and madhouses end in the distant future, there will be no bars on the windows or bathrobes. Of course, such a time will come sooner or later.

Ivan Dmitrich smiled mockingly.

"you are joking", said he, squinting his eyes "Gentlemen like you and your assistant Nikita do not care at all about the future, but you may rest assured, dear sir, better times will come! Let me put it vulgarly, laugh, but the dawn of a new life will shine, the truth will triumph, and - there will be a holiday on our street! I won’t wait, I’ll die, but someone’s great-grandchildren will. I greet them with all my heart and rejoice, I rejoice for them! Go ahead! God help you, friends!

Ivan Dmitrich stood up with sparkling eyes and, stretching out his hands to the window, continued with excitement in his voice:

--Because of these bars, I bless you! Long live the truth! I'm happy!

""I don’t find much reason to rejoice," said Andrei Efimych, who found Ivan Dmitrich’s movement theatrical and at the same time really liked it. - There will be no prisons or madhouses, and it’s true, as you deigned to put it, it will triumph, but the essence of things will not change, the laws of nature will remain the same. People will get sick, grow old and die just as they do now. No matter how magnificent the dawn illuminates your life, in the end you will be stabbed into a coffin and thrown into a hole.

-- And immortality?

-- Uh, completeness!

"you don’t believe it, but I do.". In Dostoevsky or Voltaire, someone says that if there was no God, people would have invented him. And I deeply believe that if there is no immortality, then sooner or later the great human mind will invent it.

"well said," said Andrei Efimych, smiling with pleasure. - It’s good that you believe. With such faith you can live happily even if you are wrapped in a wall. Have you chosen to get an education somewhere?

"Yes, I was at university, but I didn’t graduate.".

--You're a thinking, thoughtful person. In any situation, you can find peace in yourself. Free and deep thinking, which strives for the understanding of life, and complete contempt for the stupid vanity of the world - these are two benefits above which man has never known. And you can have them, at least you lived behind three bars. Diogenes lived in a barrel, but was happier than all the kings of the earth.

"your Diogenes was a fool," Ivan Dmitrich said gloomily. - "What are you telling me about Diogenes, and about some understanding?" - he suddenly got angry and jumped up. - I love life, I love passionately! I have a mania of persecution, a constant painful fear, but there are moments when I am overcome by a thirst for life, and then I am afraid of going crazy. I want to live terribly, terribly!

He walked around the room in excitement and said, lowering his voice:

"When I dream, I get haunted. Some people come to me, I hear voices, music, and it seems to me that I am walking through some forests, along the seashore, and I so passionately want fuss and care... Tell me, well, what's new there? - asked Ivan Dmitrich. - What's there?

--Do you want to know about the city or at all?

-- Well, first tell me about the city, and then in general.

-- Well? The city is tediously boring... There is no one to say a word with, no one to listen to. There are no new people. However, a young doctor, Khobotov, arrived recently.

"He’s still here with me.". What, boor?

--Yes, not a cultured person. Strange, you know... Apparently, in our capitals there is no mental stagnation, there is movement, which means there must be real people there, but for some reason every time they send people to us from there that they wouldn’t look. Unhappy city!

-- Yes, unhappy city! - Ivan Dmitrich sighed and laughed. - But how? What do they write in newspapers and magazines?

It was already dark in the room. The doctor stood up and, standing, began to tell what was being written abroad and in Russia and what direction of thought was now being noticed. Ivan Dmitrich listened attentively and asked questions, but suddenly, accurately remembering something terrible, he grabbed his head and lay down on the bed, with his back to the doctor.

"What's wrong with you?" asked Andrei Efimych.

"You won’t hear another word from me!" - Ivan Dmitrich said rudely. - Leave me!

-- Why?

--Tell you: leave it! What the hell?

Andrei Efimych shrugged, sighed and left. As he walked through the hallway, he said

--How to put it away here, Nikita... Terribly heavy smell!

--Listen, your honor.

"What a nice young man! - thought Andrei Efimych, going to his apartment. - For the entire time I’ve been living here, this seems to be the first one I can talk to. He knows how to reason and is interested in exactly what is needed.".

Reading and then going to bed, he kept thinking about Ivan Dmitrich, and when he woke up the next day in the morning, he remembered that yesterday he had met an intelligent and interesting person, and decided to go to him again at the first opportunity.

X

Ivan Dmitrich lay in the same position as yesterday, with his head in his arms and legs between his legs. His face was not visible.

"hello, my friend", said Andrei Yefimych. -You are awake?

"Firstly, I am not your friend", said Ivan Dmitrich into his pillow, "and secondly, you are in vain in your trouble: you will not get a single word from me".

-- Strange... - Andrei Efimych muttered in embarrassment. - Yesterday we talked so peacefully, but suddenly for some reason you were offended and immediately cut it off... I probably expressed myself somehow awkwardly or perhaps expressed a thought that disagreed with your beliefs...

"Yes, so I'll believe you!" said Ivan Dmitrich, rising and looking at the doctor mockingly and anxiously; his eyes were red. -You can go spy and torture somewhere else, but here you have nothing to do. Yesterday I understood why you came.

"Strange fantasy!" grinned the doctor. - So you think I'm a spy?

-- Yeah, I suppose... The spy or doctor they put me to test with is the same.

-- Ah, what a real excuse you are... weirdo!

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

"But let's say you're right," he said. -Let's say that I treacherously take you at your word in order to hand you over to the police. You will be arrested and then tried. But will it be worse for you in court and in prison than here? And if they are exiled to a settlement and even to hard labor, then is it worse than sitting in this outbuilding? I guess no worse... What is there to be afraid of?

Apparently, these words had an effect on Ivan Dmitrich. He sat down quietly.

It was five o'clock in the evening - the time when Andrei Efimych usually walks around his rooms and Daryushka asks him if it's time for him to drink beer. The weather outside was quiet and clear.

"And after lunch I went out for a walk, and so I came in, as you can see," said the doctor. - It’s quite spring.

--Now what month? March? - asked Ivan Dmitrich.

--Yeah, late March.

-- Dirty in the yard?

-- No, not really. There are already paths in the garden.

"Now it would be nice to ride in a stroller somewhere out of town," said Ivan Dmitrich, rubbing his red eyes, like a sleepy one, "then I would return home to a warm, cozy office and... and get treatment from a decent doctor for a headache... I haven't lived like a human being for a long time. And it’s disgusting here! Unbearably disgusting!

After yesterday's excitement, he was tired and lethargic and spoke reluctantly. His fingers trembled, and it was clear from his face that he had a severe headache.

"There is no difference between a warm, cozy office and this chamber," said Andrei Efimych. - - Peace and contentment of a person is not outside of him, but in himself.

--So how?

"an ordinary person expects good or bad things from the outside, that is, from a stroller and office, while a thinker expects good or bad things from himself.".

"go and preach this philosophy in Greece, where it’s warm and smells like orange, but here it’s not according to the climate.". Who was I talking to about Diogenes? With you, or what?

--Yeah, yesterday with me.

"Diogenes didn’t need an office or a warm room; it’s already hot there. Lie in a barrel and eat oranges and olives. If he had had the opportunity to live in Russia, he would have asked to go to the room not only in December, but in May. I suppose it would be crooked from the cold.

-- No. You don’t have to feel cold, like any pain in general. Marcus Aurelius said: "Pain is a living idea of pain: make an effort of will to change this idea, throw it away, stop complaining, and the pain will disappear.". That's fair. A sage, or simply a thinking, thoughtful person, is distinguished precisely by the fact that he despises suffering; he is always satisfied and not surprised by anything.

"I’m an idiot, then, because I suffer, I’m dissatisfied, and I’m surprised at human meanness.".

--You're in vain. If you think more often, you will understand how insignificant everything external that worries us is. We must strive for understanding life, and in it is the true good.

-- Understanding... - Ivan Dmitrich winced. - External, internal... Sorry, I don't understand this. "I only know," he said, standing up and looking angrily at the doctor, "I know that God created me from warm blood and nerves, yes!" And organic tissue, if it is viable, should respond to any irritation. And I react! I respond to pain with screams and tears, to meanness with indignation, to abomination with disgust. In my opinion, this is actually called life. The lower the body, the less sensitive it is and the weaker it responds to irritation, and the higher it is, the more susceptible and energetic it reacts to reality. How can you not know this? Doctor, he doesn’t know such trifles! To despise suffering, to be always satisfied and not to be surprised by anything, you need to reach this state," and Ivan Dmitrich pointed to Tolstoya man who has swum in fat - or to harden himself with suffering to such an extent as to lose all sensitivity to it, that is, in other words, to stop living. Sorry, I’m not a sage or a philosopher," Ivan Dmitrich continued with irritation, "and I don’t understand anything about it.". I'm not able to reason.

"On the contrary, you reason beautifully.".

--The Stoics you parody were wonderful people, but their teaching froze two thousand years ago and did not move forward one bit and will not move, since it is neither practical nor vital. It was successful only among the minority, who spend their lives studying and savoring all sorts of teachings, but the majority did not understand it. The teaching, which preaches indifference to wealth, to the comforts of life, contempt for suffering and death, is completely incomprehensible to the vast majority, since this majority has never known either wealth or comfort in life; and to despise suffering would mean for him to despise life itself, since the entire being of man consists of feelings of hunger, cold, resentment, loss and Hamlet’s fear of death. All life is in these feelings: you can be burdened by it, hate it, but not despise it. Yes, so, I repeat,the teachings of the Stoics can never have a future, but, as you can see, struggle, sensitivity to pain, and the ability to respond to irritation progress from the beginning of the century to today...

Ivan Dmitrich suddenly lost the thread of thoughts, stopped and rubbed his forehead annoyingly.

"I wanted to say something important, but I was lost," he said. -What am I talking about? Yes! So I say: one of the Stoics sold himself into slavery in order to ransom his neighbor. You see, it means that the Stoic also reacted to irritation, since such a generous act as destroying oneself for the sake of one’s neighbor requires an indignant, compassionate soul. I forgot everything I taught here in prison, otherwise I would have remembered something else. Should we take Christ? Christ responded to reality by crying, smiling, sad, angry, even sad; He did not go towards suffering with a smile and did not despise death, but prayed in the garden of Gethsemane that this cup would pass him by.

Ivan Dmitrich laughed and sat down.

"let us suppose the peace and contentment of a person is not outside him, but in himself," he said. - "Let’s say you need to despise suffering and not be surprised by anything.". But on what basis do you preach this? Are you a sage? A philosopher?

'"No, I'm not a philosopher, but everyone should preach it, because it makes sense.

"No, I want to know why you consider yourself competent in the matter of understanding, contempt for suffering, etc.? Have you ever suffered? Do you have a concept of suffering? Excuse me: were you flogged as a child?

-- No, my parents had an aversion to corporal punishment.

"and my father gave me a cruel whipping. My father was a tough, hemorrhoidal official, with a long nose and a yellow neck. But let's talk about you. In your entire life, no one has touched you with a finger, no one has intimidated you, no one has beaten you; You are as healthy as a bull. You grew up under your father’s wing and studied at his expense, and then immediately captured the sinecure. For more than twenty years you lived in a free apartment, with heating, with lighting, with servants, and having the right to work as and as much as you like, at least to do nothing. By nature, you are a lazy, loose person, and therefore you tried to shape your life so that nothing would bother you or move you. You handed over your affairs to the paramedic and other bastards, and you yourself sat in the warmth and silence, saved money, read books,they delighted themselves with reflections on various sublime nonsense and (Ivan Dmitrich looked at the doctor’s red nose) drinking. In a word, you have not seen life, you do not know it at all, but you are familiar with reality only theoretically. But you despise suffering and are not surprised by anything for a very simple reason: vanity of vanities, external and internal, contempt for life, suffering and death, understanding, true good - all this is a philosophy most suitable for the Russian couch potato. You see, for example, how a man beats his wife. Why stand up? Let him hit, both will die sooner or later anyway; and the one who hits also insults with beatings not the one he hits, but himself. Drinking is stupid and indecent, but drinking is dying and not drinking is dying. Baba comes, her teeth hurt... Well, what? Pain is an idea of pain and, moreover, you cannot live in this world without illnesswe’ll all die, so go baba away, don’t stop me from thinking and drinking vodka. The young man asks for advice on what to do, how to live; Before answering, another would think, but here the answer is ready: strive for understanding or for the true good. What is this fantastic "true good"? There is no answer, of course. We are kept here behind bars, persecuted, tortured, but this is wonderful and reasonable, because there is no difference between this chamber and a warm, cozy office. Convenient philosophy: there is nothing to do, and your conscience is clear, and you feel like a sage... No, sir, this is not philosophy, not thinking, not breadth of gaze, but laziness, fakirism, sleepy stupor... Yes! - Ivan Dmitrich got angry again. - You despise suffering, and I suppose you pin your finger with the door, you’ll scream at the top of your lungs! The young man asks for advice on what to do, how to live; Before answering, another would think, but here the answer is ready: strive for understanding or for the true good. What is this fantastic "true good"? There is no answer, of course. We are kept here behind bars, persecuted, tortured, but this is wonderful and reasonable, because there is no difference between this chamber and a warm, cozy office. Convenient philosophy: there is nothing to do, and your conscience is clear, and you feel like a sage... No, sir, this is not philosophy, not thinking, not breadth of gaze, but laziness, fakirism, sleepy stupor... Yes! - Ivan Dmitrich got angry again. - You despise suffering, and I suppose you pin your finger with the door, you’ll scream at the top of your lungs! The young man asks for advice on what to do, how to live; Before answering, another would think, but here the answer is ready: strive for understanding or for the true good. What is this fantastic "true good"? There is no answer, of course. We are kept here behind bars, persecuted, tortured, but this is wonderful and reasonable, because there is no difference between this chamber and a warm, cozy office. Convenient philosophy: there is nothing to do, and your conscience is clear, and you feel like a sage... No, sir, this is not philosophy, not thinking, not breadth of gaze, but laziness, fakirism, sleepy stupor... Yes! - Ivan Dmitrich got angry again. - You despise suffering, and I suppose you pin your finger with the door, you’ll scream at the top of your lungs! What is this fantastic "true good"? There is no answer, of course. We are kept here behind bars, persecuted, tortured, but this is wonderful and reasonable, because there is no difference between this chamber and a warm, cozy office. Convenient philosophy: there is nothing to do, and your conscience is clear, and you feel like a sage... No, sir, this is not philosophy, not thinking, not breadth of gaze, but laziness, fakirism, sleepy stupor... Yes! - Ivan Dmitrich got angry again. - You despise suffering, but I suppose you pin your finger with the door, you’ll scream at the top of your lungs! What is this fantastic "true good"? There is no answer, of course. We are kept here behind bars, persecuted, tortured, but this is wonderful and reasonable, because there is no difference between this chamber and a warm, cozy office. Convenient philosophy: there is nothing to do, and your conscience is clear, and you feel like a sage... No, sir, this is not philosophy, not thinking, not breadth of gaze, but laziness, fakirism, sleepy stupor... Yes! - Ivan Dmitrich got angry again. - You despise suffering, but I suppose you pin your finger with the door, you’ll scream at the top of your lungs! this is not philosophy, not thinking, not breadth of gaze, but laziness, fakirism, sleepy stupor... Yes! - Ivan Dmitrich got angry again. - You despise suffering, but I suppose you pin your finger with the door, you’ll scream at the top of your lungs! this is not philosophy, not thinking, not breadth of gaze, but laziness, fakirism, sleepy stupor... Yes! - Ivan Dmitrich got angry again. - You despise suffering, but I suppose you pin your finger with the door, you’ll scream at the top of your lungs!

"Or maybe I won’t bark," said Andrei Efimych, smiling meekly.

--Yes, of course! But if you were fucked by paralysis or, let’s say, some fool and impudent person, taking advantage of his position and rank, insulted you publicly and you knew that this would go to him with impunity, - well, then you would understand how to refer others to understanding and true good.

""This is original," said Andrei Efimych, laughing with pleasure and rubbing his hands. "I am pleasantly struck by your tendency to generalize, and my characteristic, which you just tormented me to make, is simply brilliant. Frankly, talking with you gives me great pleasure. Well, sir, I have listened to you, now you too are well pleased to listen to me...

XI

This conversation continued for about another hour and, apparently, made a deep impression on Andrei Efimych. He began to go to the outbuilding every day. He went there in the mornings and afternoons, and often the evening darkness found him in conversation with Ivan Dmitrich. At first, Ivan Dmitrich was wild about him, suspected him of malicious intent and openly expressed his hostility, but then he got used to him and changed his harsh address to a condescendingly ironic one.

Soon a rumor spread throughout the hospital that Dr. Andrei Efimych began to visit ward No. 6. No one - neither the paramedic, nor Nikita, nor the nurses could understand why he went there, why he sat there for hours, what he talked about and why he didn’t write prescriptions. His actions seemed strange. Mikhail Averyanych often did not find him at home, which had never happened before, and Daryushka was very embarrassed, since the doctor was no longer drinking beer at a certain time and was sometimes even late for lunch.

One day, it was already at the end of June, Dr. Khobotov came to Andrei Efimych on some business; without finding him at home, he went to look for him in the yard; then he was told that the old doctor had gone to the mentally ill. Entering the outbuilding and stopping in the hallway, Khobotov heard the following conversation:

"We will never sing and you will not be able to convert me to your faith," said Ivan Dmitrich with irritation. - You are not at all familiar with reality and you have never suffered, but only, like a drunkard, you fed around the suffering of others, but I suffered continuously from the day of birth until today. Therefore, I say frankly: I consider myself superior to you and more competent in all respects. It's not for you to teach me.

""I have no complaint at all to convert you to my faith," Andrei Efimych said quietly and with regret that they did not want to understand him. -And that’s not the point, my friend. It's not that you suffered and I didn't. Suffering and joys are transitory; let us leave them, God be with them. But the fact is that you and I think; we see in each other people who are able to think and reason, and this makes us in solidarity, no matter how different our views may be. If you knew, my friend, how tired I am of general madness, mediocrity, stupidity, and with what joy I talk to you every time! You are a smart person and I enjoy you.

Khobotov opened the door to the top and looked into the room; Ivan Dmitrich in a cap and Dr. Andrei Efimych were sitting next to each other on the bed. The madman grimaced, shuddered and frantically smelled into his robe, and the doctor sat motionless, with his head down, and his face was red, helpless, sad. Khobotov shrugged, grinned and looked at Nikita. Nikita shrugged his shoulders too.

The next day, Khobotov came to the outbuilding with a paramedic. Both stood in the hallway and eavesdropped.

"and our grandfather seems to have completely dared!" - said Khobotov, leaving the outbuilding.

"God have mercy on us sinners!" sighed the splendid Sergei Sergeich, diligently walking around the puddles so as not to stain his brightly cleaned boots. - Frankly, dear Evgeniy Fedorych, I have been expecting this for a long time!

XII

After this, Andrei Efimych began to notice some kind of mystery all around. When meeting him, men, nurses and patients looked at him questioningly and then whispered. The girl Masha, the caretaker's daughter, whom he loved to meet in the hospital garden, now that he approached her with a smile to pat her on the head, for some reason ran away from him. Postmaster Mikhail Averyanych, listening to him, no longer said: "Exactly right," but in incomprehensible embarrassment muttered: "yes, yes, yes..." and looked at him thoughtfully and sadly; for some reason, he began to advise his friend to leave vodka and beer, but at the same time, as a delicate person, he spoke not directly, but in hints, talking either about one battalion commander, an excellent man, or about a regimental priest, a nice fellow, who drank and got sick, but, having stopped drinking, we have completely recovered.Colleague Khobotov came to Andrei Efimych two or three times; he also advised leaving alcoholic beverages and recommended taking potassium bromide without any apparent reason.

In August, Andrei Efimych received a letter from the mayor asking him to come on a very important matter. Arriving at the appointed time at the council, Andrei Efimych found there a military commander, a full-time caretaker of the district school, a member of the council, Khobotov and some other plump, blond gentleman who was introduced to him as a doctor. This doctor, with a Polish, difficult to pronounce surname, lived thirty miles from the city, at a stud farm and was now passing through the city.

"here is a statement regarding your part, sir," a council member addressed Andrei Efimych after everyone said hello and sat down at the table. - - Here Evgeniy Fedorych says that the pharmacy is a bit cramped in the main building and that it should be transferred to one of the outbuildings. Of course, it’s nothing, you can translate it, but the main reason is that the outbuilding will want repairs.

"Yes, we can’t do without repairs," said Andrei Efimych, thinking. - If, for example, a corner outbuilding is adapted for a pharmacy, then, I believe, a minimum of five hundred rubles will be needed for this. The consumption is unproductive.

They were a little silent.

""I already had the honor of reporting ten years ago," Andrei Efimych continued in a quiet voice, "that this hospital in its present form is a luxury beyond the means of the city. It was built in the forties, but then there were the wrong funds. The city spends too much on unnecessary buildings and unnecessary positions. I think with this money it would be possible, under other orders, to maintain two exemplary hospitals.

"So let’s start other procedures!" - the council member said vividly.

"I already had the honor of reporting: transfer the medical part to the zemstvo.".

"Yes, give the zemstvo the money, and it will steal," the blond doctor laughed.

"That’s as usual," the council member agreed and laughed too.

Andrei Efimych looked listlessly and dimly at the blond doctor and said:

--Gotta be fair.

They were silent again. They served tea. The military commander, for some reason very embarrassed, touched Andrei Efimych’s hand through the table and said:

"You’ve completely forgotten us, doctor. However, you are a monk: you don’t play cards, you don’t like women. You and our brother are bored.

Everyone started talking about how boring it is for a decent person to live in this city. No theater, no music, and at the last dance evening there were about twenty ladies in the club and only two gentlemen. Young people don’t dance, but crowd around the buffet or play cards all the time. Andrei Efimych slowly and quietly, without looking at anyone, began to talk about how sorry, how deeply sorry it is that the townspeople spend their vital energy, their hearts and minds on maps and gossip, and do not know how and do not want to spend time in interesting conversation and reading, do not want to enjoy the pleasures that the mind gives. Only one mind is interesting and wonderful, but the rest is petty and base. Khobotov listened carefully to his colleague and suddenly asked:

--Andriy Yefimych, what date is it today?

Having received the answer, he and the blond doctor, in the tone of examiners who felt inept, began to ask Andrei Efimych what day it was, how many days a year and whether it was true that a wonderful prophet lived in ward No. 6.

In response to the last question, Andrei Efimych blushed and said:

"Yes, he’s a sick but interesting young man.". He was not asked any more questions.

When he put on his coat in the hallway, the military commander put his hand on his shoulder and said with a sigh:

"It’s time for us old people to get some rest!

After leaving the council, Andrei Efimych realized that it was a commission appointed to examine his mental abilities. He remembered the questions they asked him, blushed and for some reason now, for the first time in his life, he felt bitterly sorry for medicine.

"Oh my God," he thought, remembering how the doctors had just examined him, "after all, they had been listening to psychiatry so recently, taking an exam," "where does this round ignorance come from? They have no idea about psychiatry!'

And for the first time in his life he felt insulted and angry.

That same day in the evening he had Mikhail Averyanych. Without saying hello, the postmaster approached him, took him by both hands and said in an excited voice

'-My dear, my friend, prove to me that you believe in my sincere affection and consider me your friend... My friend! - and, preventing Andrei Efimych from speaking, he continued, worried: "I love you for your education and nobility of soul.". Listen to me, my dear. The rules of science oblige doctors to hide the truth from you, but I cut the truth in a military way: you are unhealthy! Excuse me, my dear, but it’s true, everyone around me noticed this a long time ago. Now Dr. Evgeniy Fedorych told me that for the benefit of your health you need to rest and have fun. Absolutely right! Excellent! These days I'm taking a vacation and leaving to smell some other air. Prove that you are my friend, let's go together! Let's go shake off the old days.

""I feel completely healthy," said Andrei Efimych, thinking. - I can’t go. Let me prove my friendship to you somehow differently.

Going somewhere, for some unknown reason, without books, without Daryushka, without beer, to sharply disrupt the order of life that had been established over 20 years - such an idea seemed wild and fantastic to him at first. Po he remembered the conversation he had in the council, and the difficult mood that he experienced returning home from the council, and the thought of leaving the city for a while, where stupid people consider him crazy, smiled at him.

"where do you actually intend to go?" - he asked.

--To Moscow, to St. Petersburg, to Warsaw... I spent five of the happiest years of my life in Warsaw. What an amazing city! Let's go, my dear!

XIII

A week later, Andrei Efimych was offered to rest, that is, to resign, which he was indifferent to, and a week later he and Mikhail Averyanych were already sitting in a postal tarantass and driving to the nearest railway station. The days were cool, clear, with blue skies and a clear distance. We drove two hundred miles to the station in two days and spent the night twice along the way. When poorly washed glasses were served with tea at postal stations or horses were harnessed for a long time, Mikhail Averyanych turned purple, shaking his whole body and shouting: "Be silent! don't reason!" And sitting in a tarantass, he, without stopping for a minute, talked about his trips to the Caucasus and the Kingdom of Poland. How many adventures there were, what meetings! He spoke loudly and at the same time made such surprised eyes that one might think that he was lying. In addition, telling,he breathed in Andrei Efimych’s face and laughed in his ear. This constrained the doctor and prevented him from thinking and concentrating.

We traveled by rail to save money in third class, in a non-smoking carriage. The audience was half clean. Mikhail Averyanych soon got to know everyone and, moving from bench to bench, loudly said that he should not drive on these outrageous roads. There's fraud all around! It’s different on horseback: you wave a hundred miles in one day and then feel healthy and fresh. And our harvest failures are due to the fact that the Pinsk swamps were drained. In general, the unrest is terrible. He got excited, spoke loudly and did not let others speak. This endless chatter, interspersed with loud laughter and expressive gestures, tired Andrei Efimych.

"Which of both of us is crazy?" - he thought with annoyance. "Am I the one who tries not to bother the passengers with anything, or this egoist who thinks that he is smarter and more interesting than everyone else here, and therefore haunts no one?"

In Moscow, Mikhail Averyanych wore a military frock coat without shoulder straps and pantaloons with red piping. On the street he wore a military cap and an overcoat, and the soldiers saluted him. It now seemed to Andrei Efimych that he was a man who, out of everything lordly that he once had, squandered all the good and left himself only the bad. He loved to be served, even when it was completely unnecessary. The matches lay on the table in front of him, and he saw them, but shouted to the man to hand him the matches; in front of the maid, he did not hesitate to wear only his underwear; You spoke to all the lackeys indiscriminately, even the old people, and, angry, called them idiots and fools. This, as it seemed to Andrei Efimych, was lordly, but disgusting.

First of all, Mikhail Averyanych led his friend to Iverskaya. He prayed fervently, with prostrations and tears, and when he had finished, he took a deep breath and said

--Though you don't believe it, it's somehow calmer when you pray. Take a kiss, my dear.

Andrei Efimych was embarrassed and venerated the image, and Mikhail Averyanych stretched out his lips and, shaking his head, prayed in a whisper, and again tears welled up in his eyes. Then we went to the Kremlin and looked there at the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bell, and even touched them with our fingers, admired the view of Zamoskvorechye, visited the Cathedral of the Savior and the Rumyantsev Museum.

They dined at Testov's. Mikhail Averyanych looked at the menu for a long time, smoothing out the buoys, and said in the tone of a gourmet, accustomed to feeling at home in restaurants:

--Let's see what you feed us today, angel!

XIV

The doctor walked, looked, ate, drank, but he had one feeling: annoyance at Mikhail Averyanych. He wanted to take a break from his friend, get away from him, hide, but his friend considered it his duty not to let him go a single step away from himself and give him as much entertainment as possible. When there was nothing to look at, he entertained him with conversations. Andrei Efimych endured for two days, but on the third he announced to his friend that he was sick and wanted to stay at home all day. The friend said that in this case he would stay. In fact, you need to rest, otherwise you won’t have enough legs. Andrei Efimych lay down on the sofa, facing the back and, gritting his teeth, listened to his friend, who ardently assured him that France would sooner or later certainly defeat Germany, that there were a lot of scammers in Moscow and that the appearance of a horse could not be used to judge its merits. The doctor started having tinnitus and palpitationsbut out of delicacy, he did not dare ask his friend to leave or remain silent. Fortunately, Mikhail Averyanych got bored of sitting in his room, and after lunch he went for a walk.

Left alone, Andrei Efimych indulged in a feeling of rest. How nice it is to lie still on the sofa and realize that you are alone in the room! True happiness is impossible without loneliness. The fallen angel betrayed God, probably because he wanted loneliness, which the angels do not know. Andrei Efimych wanted to think about what he had seen and heard in recent days, but Mikhail Averyanych did not get out of his head.

"But he took a vacation and went with me out of friendship, out of generosity," the doctor thought with annoyance. - - There is nothing worse than this friendly tutelage. After all, it seems that he is kind, generous, cheerful, but boring. Unbearably boring. There are also people who always say only smart and good words, but you feel like they are stupid people.".

In the following days, Andrei Efimych spoke sick and did not leave his room. He lay facing the back of the sofa and languished when his friend entertained him with conversations, or rested when his friend was away. He annoyed himself for going, and his friend, who became more and more chatty and cheeky every day; He was unable to tune his thoughts into a serious, sublime mood.

"It’s the reality that Ivan Dmitrich was talking about that makes me see," he thought, angry at his pettiness. - However, nonsense... I'll come home and everything will go as before..."

And in St. Petersburg it’s the same: he didn’t leave his room for days, lay on the sofa and got up only to drink beer.

Mikhail Averyanych was always in a hurry to go to Warsaw.

"my dear, why am I going there?" - Andrei Efimych said in a pleading voice. -- Go alone, and let me go home! Please!

-- Under no circumstances! - Mikhail Averyanych protested. - This is an amazing city. I spent the five happiest years of my life in it!

Andrei Efimych did not have the character to insist on his own, and he reluctantly went to Warsaw. Here he did not leave the room, lay on the sofa and was angry with himself, with his friend and with the lackeys, who stubbornly refused to understand Russian, and Mikhail Averyanych, as usual, healthy, cheerful and cheerful, walked around the city from morning to evening and looked for his old acquaintances. Several times he did not spend the night at home. After one night spent in an unknown location, he returned home early in the morning in a very agitated state, red and unkempt. He walked from corner to corner for a long time, muttering something to himself, then stopped and said

-- Honor first!

After walking around a little longer, he grabbed his head and said in a tragic voice:

--Yes, honor first! Damn the minute it first occurred to me to go to this Babylon! "My dear," he turned to the doctor, "despise me: I’m lost!" Give me five hundred rubles!

Andrei Efimych counted out five hundred rubles and silently gave them to his friend. He, still crimson with shame and anger, incoherently took some unnecessary oath, put on his cap and left. Returning two hours later, he fell into a chair, sighed loudly and said:

-- Honor saved! Let's go, my friend! I don't want to stay in this damned city for a single minute. Fraudsters! Austrian spies!

When the friends returned to their city, it was already November and there was deep snow on the streets. Andrei Efimych's place was taken by Dr. Khobotov; he was still living in the old apartment, waiting for Andrei Efimych to arrive and clean the hospital apartment. The ugly woman, whom he called his cook, already lived in one of the outbuildings.

New hospital gossip circulated around the city. They said that the ugly woman had quarreled with the caretaker and this one seemed to be crawling on his knees in front of her, asking for forgiveness.

On the very first day of his arrival, Andrei Efimych had to find an apartment.

"my friend", said the postmaster to him timidly, I am sorry for the indiscreet question: what means do you have at your disposal?

Andrei Efimych silently counted his money and said:

-- Eighty-six rubles.

"I’m not asking that," Mikhail Averyanych said in embarrassment, not understanding the doctor. - I ask, what means do you have at all?

"I’m telling you: eighty-six rubles... I have nothing else.

Mikhail Averyanych considered the doctor an honest and noble man, but still suspected that he had a capital of at least twenty thousand. Now, having learned that Andrei Efimych was a beggar, that he had nothing to live with, for some reason he suddenly began to cry and hugged his friend.

XV

Andrei Efimych lived in the three-window house of the bourgeois Belova. This lodge had only three rooms, not including the kitchen. Two of them, with windows facing the street, were occupied by a doctor, and in the third and in the kitchen lived Daryushka and a bourgeois woman with three children. Sometimes a lover, a drunken man, came to spend the night with the hostess, raging at night and terrifying the children and Daryushka. When he came and, sitting down in the kitchen, began to demand vodka, everyone became very cramped, and the doctor, out of pity, took the crying children to him, laid them on his floor, and this gave him great pleasure.

He still got up at eight o'clock and after tea he sat down to read his old books and magazines. He no longer had money for new ones. Whether because the books were old or, perhaps, because of a change in environment, reading no longer deeply captured him and tired him. In order not to spend time idly, he compiled a detailed catalog of his books and glued tickets to their spines, and this mechanical, painstaking work seemed more interesting to him than reading. The monotonous painstaking work somehow incomprehensibly lulled his thoughts, he did not think about anything, and time passed quickly. He even found it interesting to sit in the kitchen and peel potatoes with Daryushka or choose a sauce from buckwheat. On Saturdays and Sundays he went to church. Standing near the wall and closing his eyes, he listened to the singing and thought about his father, his mother, about the university, about religions;he was calm, sad, and then, leaving the church, he regretted that the service ended so soon.

He went to the hospital twice to see Ivan Dmitrich to talk to him. But both times Ivan Dmitrich was unusually excited and angry; he asked to be left alone, since he had long been tired of empty chatter, and said that he asked the damned vile people for only one reward for all their suffering - solitary confinement. Is this really even being denied to him? When Andrei Efimych said goodbye to him both times and wished him good night, he snapped and said:

-- To hell with it!

And Andrei Efimych now did not know whether to go a third time or not. But I wanted to go.

Previously, in the afternoon, Andrei Efimych walked around the rooms and thought, but now from lunch to evening tea he lay on the sofa facing his back and indulged in petty thoughts that he could not overcome. He was offended that for his more than twenty years of service he was not given either a pension or a lump sum benefit. True, he did not serve honestly, but all employees receive a pension without distinction whether they are honest or not. Modern justice lies precisely in the fact that ranks, orders and pensions are awarded not to moral qualities and abilities, but to service in general, whatever it may be. Why should he alone be an exception? He had no money at all. He was ashamed to walk past the bench and look at the hostess. They already owe 32 rubles for beer. The bourgeois Belova is also owed. Daryushka is slowly selling old dresses and books and lying to the ownerthat soon the doctor will receive a lot of money.

He was angry with himself for spending a thousand rubles on the trip, which he had accumulated. How useful this thousand would be now! He was annoyed that people did not leave him alone. Khobotov considered it his duty to occasionally visit a sick colleague. Everything about him was disgusting to Andrei Efimych: his well-fed face, his bad, condescending tone, the word "colleague," and his high boots; the most disgusting thing was that he considered it his duty to treat Andrei Efimych and thought that he was really treating him. On each visit he brought a bottle of potassium bromide and rhubarb pills.

And Mikhail Averyanych also considered it his duty to visit his friend and entertain him. Each time he entered Andrei Efimych with feigned swagger, laughed forcedly and began to assure him that he looked great today and that things, thank God, were getting better, and from this one could conclude that he considered his friend’s position hopeless. He had not yet paid his Warsaw debt and was dejected by the heavy shame, was tense and therefore tried to laugh louder and tell funnier stories. His jokes and stories now seemed endless and were painful both for Andrei Efimych and for himself.

In his presence, Andrei Efimych usually lay down on the sofa facing the wall and listened, gritting his teeth; Scale lay in layers on his soul, and after each visit to a friend, he felt that this scale was getting higher and higher and seemed to fit his throat.

In order to drown out petty feelings, he hastened to think that he himself, Khobotov, and Mikhail Averyanych must sooner or later die without leaving even an imprint in nature. If you imagine that in a million years some spirit will fly past the globe in space, then it will see only clay and bare cliffs. Everything - both culture and the moral law - will disappear and will not even grow into burdocks. What do shame in front of a shopkeeper, insignificant Khobotov, and the difficult friendship of Mikhail Averyanych mean? All this is nonsense and nothing.

But such reasoning no longer helped. As soon as he imagined the globe a million years later, Khobotov in high boots or Mikhail Averyanych laughing intensely appeared from behind a bare cliff, and even a bashful whisper was heard: "And I will repay the Warsaw debt, my dear, these days... Surely."

XVI

One day, Mikhail Averyanych came after lunch, when Andrei Efimych was lying on the sofa. It so happened that at the same time Khobotov also appeared with potassium bromide. Andrei Efimych stood up heavily, sat down and rested both hands on the sofa.

"and today, my dear", began Mikhail Averyanych, "your complexion is much better than yesterday". Well done! By God, well done!

"it’s time, it’s time to get better, colleague," Khobotov said, yawning. - "I suppose you yourself are tired of this rigmarole.".

-- And we'll get better! - Mikhail Averyanych said cheerfully. - We'll live another hundred years! That's it!

"One hundred not one hundred, but enough for twenty more," Khobotov consoled. - "Nothing, nothing, colleague, don’t be discouraged... It will cast a shadow on you.

"We'll show ourselves again!" - Mikhail Averyanych laughed and patted his friend on the knee. -We'll show you again! Next summer, God willing, we’ll go to the Caucasus and ride all over it - gop! gop! gop! And let’s return from the Caucasus, look, what the hell, we’ll be walking at the wedding. - Mikhail Averyanych winked his eye slyly. - - We are marrying you, dear friend... we are getting married...

Andrei Efimych suddenly felt that the scale was approaching his throat; his heart began to beat terribly.

"It's gone!" he said, rising quickly and walking away to the window. -Don't you understand that you are saying vulgarity?

He wanted to continue gently and politely, but against his will he suddenly clenched his fists and raised them above his head.

"Leave me!" he shouted in a voice other than his own, crimson and trembling with his whole body. - Out! Both out, both!

Mikhail Averyanych and Khobotov stood up and stared at him, first with bewilderment, then with fear.

"Both out!" - Andrei Efimych continued to shout. - Stupid people! Stupid people! I don't need friendship or your medicine, stupid man! Vulgarity! Nasty!

Khobotov and Mikhail Averyanych, looking at each other in confusion, backed away to the door and went out into the hallway. Andrei Efimych grabbed a bottle of potassium bromide and threw it after them; the bottle broke on the threshold with a ringing sound.

-- Get the hell out! - he shouted in a crying voice, running out into the hallway. - To hell!

As the guests left, Andrei Efimych, trembling as if in a fever, lay down on the sofa and repeated for a long time:

--Dumb people! Stupid people!

When he calmed down, the first thing he thought was that poor Mikhail Averyanych must now be terribly ashamed and heavy in his soul, and that all this was terrible. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Where is the mind and tact? Where is the understanding of things and philosophical indifference?

The doctor could not sleep all night in shame and annoyance at himself, and in the morning, at about ten o’clock, he went to the post office and apologized to the postmaster.

"let’s not remember what happened," said the touched Mikhail Averyanych with a sigh, shaking his hand tightly. - Whoever remembers the old is out of sight. Lyubavkin! - he suddenly shouted so loudly that all the postmen and visitors shuddered. -- Give me a chair. Wait! - he shouted to the woman, who was holding out a registered letter to him through the bars. -Don't you see that I'm busy? "Let’s not remember the old," he continued tenderly, turning to Andrei Efimych. - - Sit down, I humbly ask, my dear.

He stroked his knees in silence for a minute and then said

"I never thought of being offended by you.". The disease is not my brother, I understand. Your seizure scared the doctor and me yesterday, and we talked about you for a long time afterwards. My dear, why don't you want to seriously take care of your illness? Is it possible to do this? Sorry for your friendly frankness," whispered Mikhail Averyanych, "you live in the most unfavorable environment: cramped conditions, uncleanness, no care for you, nothing to treat... My dear friend, we beg you and the doctor with all your heart, listen to our advice: go to the hospital! There is healthy food, care, and treatment. Evgeniy Fedorovich, although bad manners, between you and me, is knowledgeable, you can quite rely on him. He gave me his word that he would take care of you.

Andrei Efimych was touched by the sincere participation and tears that suddenly shone on the postmaster’s cheeks.

"Dear, don’t believe me!" he whispered, putting his hand to his heart. -- Don't believe them! This is a hoax! My only illness is that in twenty years I have found only one smart person in the whole city, and even that crazy one. There is no illness, but I just found myself in a vicious circle from which there is no way out. I don't care, I'm ready for anything.

'-Go to the hospital, my dear.

"I don’t care, even if it’s in a hole.".

-- Give me, my dear, the word that you will obey Evgeniy Fedorych in everything.

--Excuse me, I give you my word. But, I repeat, dear, I found myself in a vicious circle. Now everything, even the sincere participation of my friends, is leaning towards one thing - towards my destruction. I am dying and have the courage to realize it.

-- Darling, you'll recover.

"why say that?" said Andrei Efimych with irritation. - It’s a rare person at the end of his life who doesn’t experience the same thing as me now. When they tell you that you have something like bad kidneys and an enlarged heart, and you begin to be treated, or they say that you are crazy or a criminal, that is, in a word, when people suddenly pay attention to you, then know that you are in a vicious circle from which you will never leave. You will try to get out and get even more lost. Surrender, because no amount of human effort will save you. That's what I think.

Meanwhile, the audience was crowding around the bars. Andrei Efimych, in order not to interfere, stood up and began to say goodbye. Mikhail Averyanych once again took his word of honor from him and walked him to the outer door.

That same day, before the evening, Khobotov unexpectedly appeared to Andrei Efimych in a sheepskin coat and high boots and said in such a tone as if nothing had happened yesterday:

"and I’m on business with you, colleague. I came to invite you: would you like to go to a consultation with me, huh?

Thinking that Khobotov wanted to entertain him with a walk or, in fact, let him earn money, Andrei Efimych got dressed and went outside with him. He was glad to have the opportunity to make amends for yesterday’s guilt and make peace, and in his heart he thanked Khobotov, who did not even mention yesterday and, apparently, spared him. It was difficult to expect such delicacy from this uncultured person.

"Where is your patient?" asked Andrei Efimych.

'-I'm in the hospital. I've been wanting to show you for a long time... A most interesting case.

We entered the hospital yard and, bypassing the main building, headed to the outbuilding where the insane were housed. And for some reason all this is silent. When we entered the outbuilding, Nikita, as usual, jumped up and stretched out.

"here one had a complication on the part of his lungs," Khobotov said in a low voice, entering the ward with Andrei Efimych. -- You wait here, and I’m here now. I'll only go get a stethoscope.

And he left.

XVII

It was already getting dark. Ivan Dmitrich lay on his bed, his face buried in a pillow; the paralytic sat motionless, quietly crying and moving his lips. The fat man and the former sorter were sleeping. It was quiet.

Andrei Efimych sat on Ivan Dmitrich’s bed and waited. But half an hour passed, and instead of Khobotov, Nikita entered the room, holding an armful of a robe, someone’s underwear and shoes.

"please get dressed, your honor," he said quietly. "Here’s your bed, come here," he added, pointing to the empty bed that you obviously recently brought. - God willing, you will recover.

Andrey Efimych understood everything. He, without saying a word, went to the bed Nikita had pointed to and sat down; seeing Nikita standing and waiting, he stripped naked and felt ashamed. Then he put on a hospital dress; the long johns were very short, the shirt was long, and the robe smelled of smoked fish.

"you’ll get better, God willing," Nikita repeated.

He took Andrei Efimych’s dress in his armful, went out and closed the door behind him.

"It doesn’t matter..." - thought Andrei Efimych, shyly smelling into his robe and feeling that in his new suit he looked like a prisoner. -- Anyway... It’s the same as a tailcoat, a uniform, or this robe..."

But what about the clock? What about the notebook, what's in the side pocket? What about cigarettes? Where did Nikita take the dress? Now, perhaps, until death you will no longer have to wear trousers, a vest or boots. All this is somehow strange and even incomprehensible at first. Andrei Efimych was now convinced that there was no difference between the house of the bourgeois Belova and ward No. 6, that everything in this world was nonsense and vanity, and yet his hands were shaking, his legs were cold and it was terrible to think that soon Ivan Dmitrich would get up and see that he is in a robe. He got up, walked and sat down again.

So he has already sat for half an hour, an hour, and he is tired of melancholy; Is it really possible to live here for a day, a week and even years, like these people? Well, here he was sitting, walked and sat down again; You can go and look out the window, and again walk from corner to corner. And then what? So sit like a idol all the time and think? No, it's hardly possible.

Andrei Efimych lay down, but immediately stood up, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and felt that his whole face smelled of smoked fish. He walked again.

"This is some kind of misunderstanding..." he said, throwing up his hands in bewilderment. - I need to explain myself, there is a misunderstanding here...

At this time, Ivan Dmitrich woke up. He sat down and propped his cheeks with his fists. Spit Then he glanced lazily at the doctor, and apparently at the first minute he understood nothing; but soon his sleepy face became angry and mocking.

"yeah, and they put you here, my dear!" he said in a hoarse, sleepy voice, closing one eye. - I'm very glad. Then you drank blood from people, and now they will drink from you. Excellent!

"This is some kind of misunderstanding..." - said Andrei Efimych, frightened by the words of Ivan Dmitrich; he shrugged his shoulders and repeated: - some kind of misunderstanding...

Ivan Dmitrich spat again and lay down.

-- Damn life! - he grumbled. -- And what is bitter and offensive, because this life will end not with a reward for suffering, not with apotheosis, as in the opera, but with death; men will come and drag the dead man by the arms and legs to the basement. Brr! Well, nothing... But in the next world there will be our holiday... From the other world I will come here as a shadow and scare these reptiles. I'll make them turn gray.

Moiseika returned and, seeing the doctor, extended his hand.

"Give me a penny!" he said.

XVIII

Andrei Efimych walked to the window and looked into the field. It was already getting dark, and a cold, crimson moon was rising on the horizon on the right side. Not far from the hospital fence, no more than a hundred fathoms away, stood a tall white house surrounded by a stone wall. It was a prison.

"This is reality!" - thought Andrei Efimych, and he became scared.

The moon, the prison, the nails on the fence, and the distant flame in the bone-finding plant were scary. A sigh was heard from behind. Andrei Efimych looked back and saw a man with shiny stars and orders on his chest, smiling and winking slyly. And it seemed scary.

Andrei Efimych assured himself that there was nothing special in the moon and in prison, that mentally healthy people wear orders and that everything would rot over time and turn into clay, but despair suddenly took possession of him, he grabbed the bars with both hands and shook it with all his might. The strong grille did not give in.

Then, so that it wouldn’t be so scary, he went to Ivan Dmitrich’s bedside and sat down.

"I have lost heart, my dear", he murmured, trembling and wiping away the cold sweat. -- He lost heart.

"and you philosophize," Ivan Dmitrich said mockingly.

'-Oh my God, oh my God... Yes, yes... You somehow deigned to say that in Russia there is no philosophy, but everyone philosophizes, even small fry. But the philosophizing of small fry does not harm anyone," said Andrei Efimych in such a tone as if he wanted to cry and pity. - Why, my dear, this malicious laughter? And how can you not philosophize this small fry if it is not satisfied? An intelligent, educated, proud, freedom-loving person, in the likeness of God, has no other choice but to go as a doctor to a dirty, stupid town, and all his life there are jars, leeches, mustard plasters! Quackery, narrowness, vulgarity! Oh my God!

'-You're talking nonsense. If it’s disgusting to become a doctor, they would become ministers.

-- Nowhere, nowhere. We are weak, dear... I was indifferent, cheerful and sensible, and as soon as life rudely touched me, I lost heart... prostration... We are weak, we are trashy... And so do you, my dear. You are smart, noble, you sucked in good impulses with your mother’s milk, but you barely entered life when you got tired and sick... Weak, weak!

Something else intractable, besides fear and a feeling of resentment, tormented Andrei Efimych all the time since the evening. Finally he realized that he wanted beer and smoking.

""I’ll get out of here, my dear," he said. - "I’ll tell you to give me fire here... I can't do that... not able to...

Andrei Efimych went to the door and opened it, but immediately Nikita jumped up and blocked his way.

--Where are you going? You can't, you can't! - he said. - It's time to sleep!

"But I’ll just walk around the yard for a minute!" - Andrei Efimych was dumbfounded.

--You can't, you can't, you're not ordered. You know it yourself. Nikita slammed the door and leaned his back against it.

"But if I leave here, what will happen to whom?" asked Andrei Efimych, shrugging his shoulders. - I do not understand! Nikita, I have to go out! - he said in a trembling voice. - I need it!

"Don’t start a riot, it’s not good!" - Nikita said instructively.

"The devil knows what this is!" - Ivan Dmitrich suddenly screamed and jumped up. -What right does he have not to let in? How dare they keep us here? The law seems to make it clear that no one can be deprived of their liberty without trial! This is violence! Arbitrariness!

"Of course, arbitrariness!" said Andrei Efimych, encouraged by the cry of Ivan Dmitrich. - I need, I have to go out! He has no right! Let go, they tell you!

"Do you hear me, you stupid brute?" shouted Ivan Dmitrich and knocked on the door with his fist. - - Open it, otherwise I’ll break down the door! Flayer!

-- Open up! - Andrei Efimych shouted, trembling with his whole body. -I demand!

--Talk again! - Nikita answered outside the door. - Talk!

"At least go call Yevgeny Fedorych here! Say I ask him to welcome... for a minute!

"Tomorrow they’ll come by themselves.".

"They'll never let us out!" - Ivan Dmitrich continued meanwhile. - They rot us here! Oh, Lord, is there really no hell in the next world and these scoundrels will be forgiven? Where is the justice? Open it, scoundrel, I'm suffocating! - he shouted in a hoarse voice and leaned on the door. - I'll smash my head! Killers!

Nikita quickly opened the door, roughly pushed Andrei Efimych with both hands and his knee, then swung and hit him in the face with his fist. It seemed to Andrei Efimych that a huge salt wave covered him headlong and dragged him to the bed; in fact, it was salty in his mouth: it was probably bleeding from his teeth. He, as if wanting to swim out, waved his arms and grabbed someone’s bed, and at that time he felt that Nikita had hit him twice in the back.

Ivan Dmitrich screamed loudly. They must have beaten him too.

Then everything calmed down. Liquid moonlight passed through the bars, and a shadow resembling a net lay on the floor. It was scary. Andrei Efimych lay down and held his breath; he waited in horror to be hit again. Exactly who took the sickle, stuck it into it and turned it several times in the chest and intestines. From pain he bit his pillow and clenched his teeth, and suddenly a terrible, unbearable thought flashed clearly in his head, amid the chaos, that these people, who now seemed black shadows in the moonlight, should have experienced the same pain for years, day after day. How could it happen that for more than twenty years he did not know and did not want to know this? He didn’t know, had no idea about the pain, which means he was not to blame, but his conscience, as intractable and rude as Nikita, made him cool from the back of his head to his toes. He jumped up, wanted to shout with all his might and run quickly to kill Nikitathen Khobotov, the caretaker and paramedic, then himself, but not a single sound came out of his chest, and his legs did not obey; Choking, he tore his robe and shirt on his chest, tore it and fell unconscious on the bed.

XIX

The next morning he had a headache, a buzz in his ears and a feeling of malaise throughout his body. He was not ashamed to remember his weakness yesterday. Yesterday he was cowardly, afraid even of the moon, sincerely expressed feelings and thoughts that he had never suspected before. For example, thoughts about dissatisfaction with philosophizing small fry. But now he didn't care.

He did not eat, did not drink, lay motionless and silent.

"I don’t care," he thought when asked questions. - I won’t answer... I don't care."

After lunch, Mikhail Averyanych came and brought a quarter of tea and a pound of marmalade. Daryushka also came and stood near the bed for an hour with an expression of stupid grief on her face. Dr. Khobotov also visited him. He brought a bottle of potassium bromide and ordered Nikita to smoke something in the room.

In the evening, Andrei Efimych died of apoplexy. At first he felt amazing chills and nausea; something disgusting, as it seemed, penetrating into the whole body, even into the fingers, pulled from the stomach to the head and flooded the eyes and ears. My eyes turned green. Andrei Efimych realized that he had come to an end, and remembered that Ivan Dmitrich, Mikhail Averyanych and millions of people believe in immortality. What if it exists? But he did not want immortality, and he thought about it only for one moment. A herd of deer, unusually beautiful and graceful, which he read about yesterday, ran past him; then the woman extended her hand to him with a registered letter... Mikhail Averyanych said something. Then everything disappeared, and Andrei Efimych was forgotten forever.

The men came, took him by the arms and legs and carried him to the chapel. There he lay on the table with his eyes open, and the moon illuminated him at night. In the morning, Sergei Sergeich came, prayed devoutly for the crucifixion and closed the eyes of his former boss.

A day later, Andrei Efimych was buried. Only Mikhail Averyanych and Daryushka were at the funeral.