Korobeinikov, of course, can feel that the temperature at the dacha has dropped for some reason. He’s nervous; he smokes one cigarette after another; behind the thick lenses of his glasses his eyes watch, frightened and uneasy; he thinks the problem must be his stories—maybe he’s repeating himself, maybe they aren’t interested in this stuff. He hastens to inform them about the Filipino healers—it doesn’t help; he remembers a marvelous story about the Berdichev bonesetter who puts hopeless paralytics back on their feet—useless; the ice stays ice; they stare at him, their eyes hard as nuts. Finally he gets up to leave, and they all nod, but it’s not quite the same; they offer him the jacket again, but they don’t even pretend to rise, don’t walk him out to the porch, don’t see him off—it’s as though their joints had turned to stone. True, Olga Mikhailovna can’t help but do her duty as hostess: she opens the front door, waits for him to descend from the porch, turn on his flashlight, and disappear deep into the birch grove. The beam floats steadily, thoughtfully, through the severe, white tree trunks; it doesn’t soar or circle, doesn’t dance in the darkness.
Korobeinikov’s ashtray is full of butts—geez, look how much he smoked! Everyone stares after the ashtray meaningfully as Olga Mikhailovna’s husband goes to dump it—that mound of empty, stinking cardboard tips—as if it measured the guilt of an unclean man.
Korobeinikov walks through the unsheltering grove. The birch trunks are chilly, and the ground feels cold through his shoes; ahead smolder the lights of the sanatorium, a vale of woe: the beds there are white and the bed tables are white, the walls shine with white oil paint, white lamps hang from the ceilings, and on the staircase landing, where Korobeinikov goes to smoke, a fire hose is curled up in a white cabinet with glass doors. The hose is brown, flat, long—infinitely long, longer than life—and at night, when Korobeinikov falls asleep, headless orderlies will sail into the ward without touching the floor and order Korobeinikov to swallow the hose—that’s what you have to do before an operation—and, choking, he will swallow, swallow those long, endless yards of dull, rough ribbon.
The next day, Korobeinikov sits at his boring meal, listlessly pokes at his fish balls with a fork, stares out the wide sanatorium windows to where August burns with gold, green, and deep blue—he’ll go for his usual walk and then he’ll drop by that house after alclass="underline" he was only imagining things, he must have been in a bad mood himself, it’s just the illness, it’s the pain, the rumble, the spoonful of fire he must have swallowed somehow by mistake, those people have nothing to do with it. He walks through the grove, touches the cold bushes, leans his spectacles earthward, looking for a mushroom, but there aren’t any; lots of people hunt for them here.
He sits on the veranda, trying to joke and be entertaining, but Olga Mikhailovna only narrows her eyes, and Olga Mikhailovna’s husband, who whenever he hears a good joke repeats it again and again, asks, “So how’s your megahertz—still hurts?” although the question is really unnecessary. And the conversation flags, halts, dries up, as if everything on earth had already been said.
It must be boring for them to listen to the same thing over and over again—why hadn’t he considered that? Now, when that yellow-eyed sculptor puts on a show, they’re all pleased as Punch, they all laugh. Still, an old friend is better than two new ones, Korobeinikov thinks vaguely to himself; no matter, he’ll just have to outtalk him. He’ll prepare something for tomorrow. About life after death, for instance. What a person sees when he faints or is in a coma, when he’s clinically dead. Oh, there’s a lot of gripping stuff! The witnesses are completely reliable. He actually talked to one of these people. This guy told him that on the other side, everything is sky blue and transparent, but there’s no air, and you don’t need to breathe, you don’t even miss it. And, you know, the feeling is like when you’re young, or you just got out of the army, or you just had a son— a really good feeling. And then someone appears—you can’t exactly see anyone, but he’s there all the same—and this someone talks to you, but without any voice. “It’s not time yet,” he says. In a kind of respectful way. And then, whoosh!—you’re suddenly back on the operating table again, everybody’s running around you, frantic, but you’re lying there and you’re thinking, What do any of you know!… Yes, that’s a good story. Only it has to be told with elan, with spirit. Have to rouse the audience, right?… No, I won’t go there anymore, thinks Korobeinikov, heading back, tripping over a root. It’s humiliating, for heaven’s sake! If only it weren’t for the whiteness of the hospital, the dull shine of the linoleum, the sterile, deathly cigarette bucket! If only the fire hose didn’t come sneaking up in the evenings, didn’t stick to you with suction cups, didn’t sting you to the very core.
Completely yellow, Korobeinikov walks along the evening path. Dmitry Ilich embraces Olga Mikhailovna in the birch forest.
“Why does he keep dragging himself over here?” says Olga Mikhailovna indignantly, her eyes following the gaunt figure.
“Oh, don’t pay him any mind, little one,” says Dmitry Ilich, kissing her.
“How do you stand him, Dima, you’re simply a saint!”
“Don’t be silly, my child, what’s there to get excited about! He’s got it bad enough as is, let him live out his life in peace! For him the time has come to wither; for you, to blossom. You see, even my walking stick is blooming at the sight of you.” Olga Mikhailovna’s head spins; if no one could see her she’d jump up and down and do cartwheels—wow, what a romance! Dmitry Ilich combs back his hair with his fingers, flashes his hawk eyes, and feasts them on Olga Mikhailovna.
It grows dark. Korobeinikov, completely black, shuffles from the village to the sanatorium; a little ball of light bounces about on the roots. Dmitry Ilich has no secrets from Olga Mikhailovna: “By the way, my child, I was only joking,” he says, knocking leaves from a bush with a stick. “It was a practical joke— punish me. That story about the poems—it never happened, and I’ve never seen that Korobeinikov of yours before in my life.”
“What do you mean, Dima?” says Olga Mikhailovna, scared.
“The devil led me astray. Or maybe I was jealous of him. I thought, Who is this Korobeinikov character? But I pulled it off, didn’t I?”
“Ohhhh, Dimochka, you’re so bad,” pouts Olga Mikhailovna. “What are we going to do with you? Come on, let’s go have our tea. My husband is probably sharpening his switchblade by now.”
Over tea they giggle like conspirators. “What’s with you two?” says Olga Mikhailovna’s husband, surprised. So they have to tell about how Dmitry Ilich played a joke on Korobeinikov.
Dmitry Ilich is very amusing about doing penance—he clasps his hands together and begs to be forgiven. He even wants to get down on his knees in front of everyone, only his lame leg gets in his way. “Don’t be ridiculous!” everyone shouts. No, he insists, he’ll get down on his knees! At least on one knee. He’s repented, repented! On one knee, and the other leg cocked like a pistoclass="underline" how do you prefer the other leg—in front or behind? Everyone laughs: this Dmitry Ilich is so awfully artistic! And though Korobeinikov may be vindicated now, he’s a bore anyway. And somehow they’ve got used to thinking badly of him. Oh, to hell with him! “Heavenly flame!” “Megahertz!” “It hertz until it stoptz!” “Did you hear that?” shouts Olga Mikhailovna’s husband. “It hertz until it stoptz!” Anyway, he always talked such a lot of nonsense, and told such lies—did you notice? And tomorrow he’ll drag himself over here again. He ought to at least be ashamed—he can see how people feel about him; he could just stay put in that sanatorium of his! Spit in his face and he thinks it’s a spring rain!