'Scene Seventeen. When on earth's it going to finish?' he thought. 'Good God, if this torment goes on another ten minutes, I'll have to shout for help. This is too much!'
But now at last the good lady began reading faster and more loudly, raised her pitch and announced: 'Curtain.'
Pavel Vasilyevich breathed a sigh of reliefand was abouttoget up, but straight away Medusina turned over the page and carried on reading:
'Act Two. The stage represents the village street. Right a school, left a hospital. On the steps of thc hospital sit the village lads and lasses.'
'Pardon me for interrupting,' said Pavel Vasilycvich, 'but how many acts are there altogether?'
'Five,' answered Medusina, and straight away, as if fearing her listener might leave the room, hurried on: 'Valentine is looking out of a window in the school. Upstage villagers can be seen taking their goods and chattels into the village tavern.'
Like a condemned man who knows he cannot be reprieved, Pavel Vasilyevich abandoned all hope, gave up wondering when the play would end, and was concerned only to keep his eyes from sticking together and to preserve the expression of interest on his face. The future, when this lady would finish reading and depart, seemed so remote that he could not even contemplate it.
'A-blah-bla-bla-bla . . .' Medusina's voice reverberated in his ears. 'Blah-bla-bla . . . Zzzzz '
'I forgot to take my soda,' he thought.'. .. Er, what was that? Oh yes, my soda . . . I've probably got a stomach ulcer . . . It's an extraordinary thing, Smirnovsky guzzles vodka all day long, and his stomach'sstill all right . . . Some little bird's settled on the window- sill . . . A sparrow . . .'
Pavel Vasilyevich forced himself to keep his aching, drooping eyelids apart, yawned without opening his mouth and looked at Medusina. She was becoming blurred, starred wobbling, grew three
heads, towered up and touched the ceiling . ..
'Valentme. No, you must allow me to go away . . . Anna (alarmed). But why? Volent/ne (aside). She blanched! (fo Anna.) Do not force me to explain my reasons. I would rather die than let you know those reasons. Anna (after a pjusej. You cannot leave now . . .'
Medusina began to swell again, expanded to gigantic proportions and merged with the grey atmosphere of the study; all he saw now was her mouth opening and closing; then suddenly she became very small, like a bottle, started to wobble and together with the desk receded to the far end of the room . . .
'Valentine (holdrng Anna in his armsj. You have resurrected me, you have shown me life's purpose! You have revived me as the spring rain revives the awakening earth! But it is too late - ah, too late! An' incurable malady gnaws at my breast . . .'
Pavel Vasilyevich gave a start and stared at Medusina with dull, bleary eyes; for a whole minute he gazed at her fixedly, as if in a complete stupor . ..
'Scene Eleven. Enter the Baron and a police officer with witnewes. Valentme. Take me away! Anna. I am his!Take me too! Yes, take me too! I love him, love him more than my own life. The Baron. Anna Sergeyevna, does your father's suffering mean nothing to you -'
Medusina began to swell again . . . Gazing round wildly, Pavel Vasilyevich half rose, gave a deep-chested, unnatural yell, seized a heavy paperweight from the table and completely beside himself, swung it round with all his strength at Medusina's head . . .
'Tie me up, I've killed her!' he said when the servants ran in a minute later.
He was acquitted.
Typhus
Young Lieutenant Klimov was travelling in a smoking compartment of the mail train from Petersburg to Moscow. Opposite him sat an elderly man with the dean-shaven face of a ship's master, a well-to- do Finn or Swede to judge by his appearance, who spent the entire journey sucking on his pipe and going over the same topic of conver- sation:
'Ha, you are officer! My brother also is officer but he is sailor. He is sailor stationed at Kronstadt. Why are you going to Moscow?'
Tm stationed there.'
'Ha! And are you family man?'
'No, I live with my aunt and sister.'
'My brother also is officer, sailor, but he is family man, has wife and three children. Ha!'
The Finn seemed constantly astonished by something, gave a broad, fatuous grin every time he exclaimed 'Ha !', and kept puffing away at his stinking pipe. Klimov, who was feeling unwell and found it hard work answering his questions, loathed him from the bottom of his hean. He imagined how pleasant it would be to snatch the hissing pipe out of his hands and fling it under the seat, then drive the Finn himself into another carriage.
'They're a disgusting race, these Finns . .. and the Greeks,' he thought. 'A useless, superfluous, disgusting race. They just take up living space. What use are they?'
And the thought of Finns and Greeks made him feel a kind of nausea all over. By way of comparison he tried to think about the French and Italians, but for some reason the only images that these races conjured up in his mind were of organ-grinders, naked women and the foreign oleographs that hung above his aunt's chest of drawers at home.
Altogether, the officer did not feel his normal self. Even though he was occupying the whole of a seat, he somehow could not make his arms and legs comfortable on it, his mouth felt dry and sticky, and a thick fog filled his mind; his thoughts seemed to be wandering about not only inside his skull but outside it as well, among the seats and passengers shrouded in gloom. Through his clouded mind, as in a dream, he heard the mutter of voices, the clatter of wheels, the banging of doors. Bells rang, the guard blew his whistle, and passen- gers scurried along the platform - all more frequently than usual. Time Aew by quickly, imperceptibly, so that thp train seemed to be stopping at a station every minute, and metallic voices were con- stantly shouting from outside:
'Mail aboard?'
'All aboard!'
The stove-attendant seemed to come in too often to glance at the thermometer, and the noise of trains passing in the other direction and the rumble of wheels as they crossed a bridge seemed to go on without a break. The noises and whistles, the Finn, the tobacco smoke - all these, mixed up with those menacing, Aeeting, shadowy images, whose shape and meaning arc beyond the recall of a healthy person, pressed in on Khmov like an intolerable nightmare. In terr- ible anguish he raised his heavy head and looked at the lantern, in whose rays shadows and misty spotswereswirling; he wanted to ask for some water, but his parched tongue would scarcely move and he was barely strong enough to answer the Finn's questions. He tried to scnlc himself more comfortably and go to sleep, but to no avail; the Finn dropped off several times, woke up and re-lit his pipe, addressed him with his inevitable 'Ha!' and dropped off again, but the lieuten- ant was still quite unable to find a comfortable position for his legs, and the menacing images still Aoated before his eyes.
At Spirovo he got out and went into the station for a glass of water. Some people were sitting at a table, having a quick meal.
'How can they bear to eat?' he thought, trying not to breathe in the smell of fried meat or look at the chewing mouths, all of which disgusted him to the point of nausea.
A beautiful lady was carrying on a loud conversation with a military man in a red peak-cap and showing a set of magnificent white teeth whenever she smiled; the smile, the teeth and the lady herselfproduced in Klimov the same feeling ofdisgustas the smoked bacon and fried cutlets. He could not understand how the military man in the red cap could possibly bear to sit beside her and look at her healthy, smiling face.
He finished his water and returned to the carriage. The Finn was sining up smoking. His pipe was hissing and wheezing like a leaky galosh in wet weather.
'Ha!' he said with astonishment. 'What station is this?'