The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories | Page 9

dispensary,
the everlasting to-do with the bottles and blisters, struck him as
contemptible, sickening.
"Who says it's a sin to enjoy oneself?" he asked himself with vexation.
"Those who say that have never lived in freedom like Merik and
Kalashnikov, and have never loved Lyubka; they have been beggars all
their lives, have lived without any pleasure, and have only loved their
wives, who are like frogs."
And he thought about himself that he had not hitherto been a thief, a
swindler, or even a brigand, simply because he could not, or had not yet
met with a suitable opportunity.
----
A year and a half passed. In spring, after Easter, Yergunov, who had
long before been dismissed from the hospital and was hanging about
without a job, came out of the tavern in Ryepino and sauntered
aimlessly along the street.

He went out into the open country. Here there was the scent of spring,
and a warm caressing wind was blowing. The calm, starry night looked
down from the sky on the earth. My God, how infinite the depth of the
sky, and with what fathomless immensity it stretched over the world!
The world is created well enough, only why and with what right do
people, thought Yergunov, divide their fellows into the sober and the
drunken, the employed and the dismissed, and so on. Why do the sober
and well fed sleep comfortably in their homes while the drunken and
the hungry must wander about the country without a refuge? Why was
it that if anyone had not a job and did not get a salary he had to go
hungry, without clothes and boots? Whose idea was it? Why was it the
birds and the wild beasts in the woods did not have jobs and get salaries,
but lived as they pleased?
Far away in the sky a beautiful crimson glow lay quivering, stretched
wide over the horizon. Yergunov stopped, and for a long time he gazed
at it, and kept wondering why was it that if he had carried off someone
else's samovar the day before and sold it for drink in the taverns it
would be a sin? Why was it?
Two carts drove by on the road; in one of them there was a woman
asleep, in the other sat an old man without a cap on.
"Grandfather, where is that fire?" asked Yergunov.
"Andrey Tchirikov's inn," answered the old man.
And Yergunov recalled what had happened to him eighteen months
before in the winter, in that very inn, and how Merik had boasted; and
he imagined the old woman and Lyubka, with their throats cut, burning,
and he envied Merik. And when he walked back to the tavern, looking
at the houses of the rich publicans, cattle-dealers, and blacksmiths, he
reflected how nice it would be to steal by night into some rich man's
house!
WARD NO. 6
I
In the hospital yard there stands a small lodge surrounded by a perfect
forest of burdocks, nettles, and wild hemp. Its roof is rusty, the
chimney is tumbling down, the steps at the front-door are rotting away
and overgrown with grass, and there are only traces left of the stucco.
The front of the lodge faces the hospital; at the back it looks out into
the open country, from which it is separated by the grey hospital fence

with nails on it. These nails, with their points upwards, and the fence,
and the lodge itself, have that peculiar, desolate, God-forsaken look
which is only found in our hospital and prison buildings.
If you are not afraid of being stung by the nettles, come by the narrow
footpath that leads to the lodge, and let us see what is going on inside.
Opening the first door, we walk into the entry. Here along the walls and
by the stove every sort of hospital rubbish lies littered about. Mattresses,
old tattered dressing-gowns, trousers, blue striped shirts, boots and
shoes no good for anything --all these remnants are piled up in heaps,
mixed up and crumpled, mouldering and giving out a sickly smell.
The porter, Nikita, an old soldier wearing rusty good-conduct stripes, is
always lying on the litter with a pipe between his teeth. He has a grim,
surly, battered-looking face, overhanging eyebrows which give him the
expression of a sheep-dog of the steppes, and a red nose; he is short and
looks thin and scraggy, but he is of imposing deportment and his fists
are vigorous. He belongs to the class of simple-hearted, practical, and
dull-witted people, prompt in carrying out orders, who like discipline
better than anything in the world, and so are convinced that it is their
duty to beat people. He showers blows on the face, on the chest, on the
back, on whatever