Selected Stories of Anton Chekov - By Anton Chekhov Page 0,65

for nothing, doesn’t honor his parents. Without me it’ll all be lost, and my father and the old woman, for all I know, may have to go begging. Anyhow, brother, my legs won’t hold me up, and it’s stifling here … Let’s go to bed.”

V

Gusev goes back to the sick bay and lies down on his cot. As before he suffers from some vague yearning, and he cannot figure out what he wants. There is a weight on his chest, a throbbing in his head, his mouth is so dry that he can hardly move his tongue. He dozes and mutters and, tormented by nightmares, coughing, and stuffiness, falls fast asleep towards morning. He dreams that they have just taken the bread out of the oven in the barracks, and he gets into the oven and has a steambath, lashing himself with birch branches. He sleeps for two days, and on the third day two sailors come from topside and carry him out of the sick bay.

He is sewn up in canvas and, to weight him down, two iron bars are put in with him. Sewn up in canvas, he comes to resemble a carrot or a black radish, wide at the head, narrow towards the foot … Before sunset he is taken out on deck and laid on a plank; one end of the plank rests on the rail, the other on a box placed on a stool. Discharged soldiers and the ship’s crew stand around him with their hats off.

“Blessed is our God,” the priest begins, “always, now, and ever, and unto ages of ages!”

“Amen!” sing three sailors.

The discharged soldiers and the crew cross themselves and keep looking askance at the waves. It is strange that a man has been sewn up in canvas and will presently be thrown into the waves. Can it really happen to anyone?

The priest sprinkles Gusev with some soil and bows. They sing “Memory Eternal.”5

The man on watch lifts the end of the plank. Gusev slides off, falls head down, then turns over in the air and—splash! Foam covers him, and for a moment he seems to be wrapped in lace, but the moment passes—and he disappears into the waves.

He goes quickly towards the bottom. Will he get there? The bottom, they say, is three miles down. After some ten or twelve fathoms he begins to go slower and slower, sways rhythmically, as if pondering, and, borne by the current, drifts more quickly sideways than down.

But now he meets on his way a school of little fish, which are known as pilot fish. Seeing a dark body, the fish stop stock-still, and suddenly they all turn around at once and disappear. In less than a minute, swift as arrows, they rush back at Gusev, piercing the water in zigzags around him …

After that another dark body appears. It is a shark. Grandly and casually, as if not noticing Gusev, it swims under him, and he comes down on its back, then it turns belly up, basking in the warm, transparent water, and lazily opens its jaws with their twin rows of teeth. The pilot fish are delighted; they have stopped and wait to see what will happen. After playing with the body, the shark casually puts its jaws under it, touches it warily with its teeth, and the canvas rips open the whole length of the body, from head to foot; one of the bars falls out and, frightening the pilot fish, striking the shark on the side, quickly goes to the bottom.

And up above just then, on the side where the sun goes down, clouds are massing; one cloud resembles a triumphal arch, another a lion, a third a pair of scissors … A broad green shaft comes from behind the clouds and stretches to the very middle of the sky; shortly afterwards a violet shaft lies next to it, then a golden one, then a pink one … The sky turns a soft lilac. Seeing this magnificent, enchanting sky, the ocean frowns at first, but soon itself takes on such tender, joyful, passionate colors as human tongue can hardly name.

DECEMBER 1890

PEASANT WOMEN

In the village of Raibuzh, just across the street from the church, stands a two-storied house with a stone foundation and an iron roof The owner, Filipp Ivanovich Kashin, nicknamed Dyudya, lives on the lower floor with his family, and on the upper floor, which is usually very hot in summer and very cold in winter, he lodges passing officials,