Orlóff and His Wife: Tales of the Barefoot Brigade. Maksim Gorky

my Eruslán the Brave!"[11]

[11] The hero of a seventeenth century Russian fairy-tale, after the Persian tale of "Rustem."—Translator.

      "Stop that, I tell you … or look out for yourself!"

      "You're my darling little Grísha!"

      "Well, what's the matter with you, anyhow?"

      When her caresses had tamed him a little, he asked her anxiously:

      "But you're not afraid?"

      "Why, we shall be together," she replied simply.

      It pleased him to hear this. He said to her:

      "You brave little creature!"

      And, at the same time, he pinched her side so hard that she shrieked.

      *

      The first day of the Orlóffs' service in the hospital coincided with a very great influx of patients, and the two novices, accustomed, as they were, to their slowly-moving existence, felt worried and hampered in the midst of this seething activity which had seized them in its grasp. Awkward, unable to comprehend orders, overwhelmed by impressions, they immediately lost their heads, and although they incessantly ran hither and thither, in the effort to work, they hindered others rather than accomplished anything themselves. Several times, Grigóry felt, with all his being, that he merited a stem shout or a scolding for his incompetence, but, to his great amazement, no one shouted at him.

      When one of the doctors, a tall, black-mustached man, with a hooked nose, and a huge wart over his right eyebrow, ordered Grigóry to assist one of the patients to sit down in the bath-tub, Grigóry gripped the sick man under the arms with so much zeal that the man groaned and frowned.

      "Don't break him to pieces, my dear fellow, he'll fit into the bath-tub whole. … " said the doctor seriously.

      Orlóff was abashed; but the sick man, a long, gaunt fellow, laughed with all his might, and said hoarsely: "He's new to it. … He doesn't know how."

      Another doctor, an old man, with a pointed gray beard, and large, brilliant eyes, gave the Orlóffs instructions, when they reached the barracks, how to treat the patients, what to do in this case and that, how to handle the sick people in transferring them. In conclusion, he asked them whether they had been to the bath the day before, and gave them white aprons. This doctor's voice was soft, he spoke rapidly; he took a great liking to the married pair, but half an hour later they had forgotten all his instructions, overwhelmed with the stormy life of the barracks. All about them flitted people in white, orders were issued, caught on the fly by the orderlies, the sick people rattled in their throats, moaned and groaned, water flowed and splashed; and all these sounds floated on the air, which was so thickly saturated with penetrating odors that tickled the nostrils disagreeably, that it seemed as though every word of the doctors, every sigh of the patients, stunk also, and irritated the nose. …

      At first, it seemed to Orlóff that utterly restless chaos reigned there, wherein he could not possibly find his place, and that he would choke, grow deaf, fall ill. … But a few hours passed, and Grigóry, invaded by the breath of energy everywhere disseminated, pricked up his ears, and became permeated with a mighty desire to adjust himself to his business as speedily as possible, conscious that he would feel calmer and easier if he could turn in company with the rest.

      "Corrosive sublimate!" shouted one doctor.

      "More hot water in this bath-tub!" commanded a scraggy little medical student, with red, inflamed eyelids.

      "Here you … what's your name? Orlóff … yes! rub his feet. … There, that's the way … you understand. … So-o, so-o. … More lightly—you'll take the skin off. … Oï, how tired I am. … "

      Another long-haired and pock-marked student gave Grigóry orders and showed him how to work.

      "They've brought another patient!" the news passed from one to another.

      "Orlóff, go and carry him in."

      Grigóry displayed great zeal—all covered with perspiration, dizzy, with dimmed eves and a heavy darkness in his head. At times, the feeling of personal existence in him completely vanished under the pressure of the mass of impressions which he underwent every moment. The green spots under the clouded eyes on earth-colored faces, bones which seemed to have been sharpened by the disease, the sticky, malodorous skin, the strange convulsions of the hardly living bodies—all this made his heart contract with grief, and caused a nausea which he could, with difficulty, control.

      Several times, in the corridor of the barracks, he caught a fleeting glimpse of his wife; she had grown thin, and her face was gray and abstracted. He even managed to ask her, with a voice which had grown hoarse:

      "Well, how goes it?"

      She smiled faintly in reply, and silently disappeared.

      A totally unaccustomed thought stung Grigóry: perhaps he had done wrong in forcing his wife to come hither, to such filthy work. She would fall ill of the infection. … And the next time he met her, he shouted at her severely:

      "See to it that you wash your hands often … take care!"

      "And what if I don't?"—she asked, teasingly, displaying her small, white teeth.

      This enraged him. A pretty place she had chosen for mirth, the fool! And how mean they were, those women! But he did not succeed in saying anything to her; catching his angry glance, Matréna went rapidly away to the women's section.

      And a minute later he was carrying his acquaintance the policeman to the dead-house. The policeman rocked gently to and fro on the stretcher, with his eyes fixed in a stare, from beneath contorted brows, on the clear, hot sky. Grigóry gazed at him with dull terror in his heart: The day before yesterday he had seen that policeman at his post, and had even sworn at him as he went past—they had some little accounts to settle between them. And now, here was this man, so healthy and malicious, lying dead, all disfigured, drawn up with convulsions.

      Orlóff felt that this was not right—why should a man be born into the world at all, if he must die, in one day, of such a dirty disease? He gazed down upon the policeman from above, and pitied him. What would become of his children … three in all? The dead man had buried his wife a year ago, and had not yet succeeded in marrying for the second time.

      He even ached, somewhere inside, with this pity. But, all at once, the clenched left hand of the corpse slowly moved and straightened itself out. At the same moment, the left side of the distorted mouth, which had been half open up to now, closed.

      "Halt!"—shouted Orlóff hoarsely, setting the stretcher down on the ground.—"Be quick!"—he said in a whisper to the orderly who was carrying the corpse with him. The latter turned round, cast a glance at the dead man, and said angrily to Orlóff:

      "What are you lying for? Don't you understand that he's only putting himself in order for the coffin? You see how it has twisted him up? He can't be put into the coffin like that. Hey there, carry him along!"

      "Yes, but he is moving. … " protested Orlóff.

"Carry him along, do you hear, you queer man! Don't you understand words? I tell you: he's putting himself in order—well, that means that he's moving. This ignorance of yours may lead you into sin, if you don't look out. … Look lively there! Can a man make such speeches about a dead body? That signifies a riot, brother … that's what it is! Understand? In other words, hold your tongue, and don't utter a syllable to anyone about his moving—they're all like that. Otherwise, the sow will tell it to the boar-pig, and the boar will tell it to the whole town, well, and the result will be a riot—'they're burying people alive!' The populace will come here, and tear us in bits. There'll be about enough of you left for a breakfast-roll.[12] Understand? Shunt him here, on the left."