Chapter 6 six

six His life was spent like this.Usually he gets up around eight o'clock in the morning, gets dressed, and drinks tea.Then he sits down to read in his study, or goes to work in the hospital.In hospitals, outpatients sit in narrow, dark corridors waiting to be seen.Handymen and nurses ran about them, their boots thumping on the brick floor; emaciated inpatients weaved through; dead bodies and filthy utensils were carried out; The draft kept pouring in.Andrey Yefimitch knew that such surroundings were a torment for feverish, consumptive, and sensitive patients, but what could be done?In the consulting room he was greeted by the doctor Sergey Sergeyitch.The man was short and fat, with a round face that was clean-shaven and clean-washed.Mild and deliberate, he looked more like a senator than a healer in his baggy new suit.He also practiced medicine privately in the city, and there were many patients. He wore a white tie and thought he was better than doctors, because doctors did not practice medicine in private.In the corner of the consulting room was a shrine containing a large icon, lit by a heavy lamp, and beside it a candelabra, covered with a white cloth.On the walls hung several portraits of the archbishop, a view of the monastery of the Holy Mountain, and garlands of wilted cornflowers.Sergey Sergeich believed in God and loved sacred rituals.The icon was set up with his personal money.Every Sunday, he ordered a patient to sing a hymn aloud in the consulting room, and after the singing was over, Zargey Sergeyitch went around the wards with a censer in his hand, shaking it to diffuse the incense.

There were many patients and little time, so his work was limited to brief inquiries and the dispensing of ammonia liniment or castor oil.Andrey Yefimitch was sitting at the table, resting his cheek in his fist, meditating, and asking dull questions.Sergey Sergeyitch was also sitting, rubbing his hands, and occasionally interjected a word or two. "We are sick and poor," he used to say, "because we don't pray well to a merciful God. Yes!" Andrey Yefimitch did not perform any operations when he was in the clinic.He has long been unaccustomed to operations, and he feels uncomfortable when he sees blood.Sometimes he had to open the baby's mouth to look at the throat, and the baby would yell and wave its little hands to parry, and then his ears would buzz, his hair would become dizzy, and tears would well up in his eyes.He hurriedly wrote a prescription, waved his hand, and asked the woman to take the child away quickly.

In the outpatient clinic, the timid and incoherent speech of the patients, Sergei Sergeyitch sitting there, the paintings on the wall, his own constant questions for twenty years - all this quickly Just bore him.He saw five or six patients and left.The rest of the patients were treated by doctors alone. Andrey Yefimitch thought with pleasure that, thank God, he had long since given up his private practice, and no one would bother him now.After returning home, he immediately sat in the study and started reading.He read a lot, always with great interest.He spends half his salary on books, and three of the six-room apartments are stocked with books and old magazines.His favorite reading is history and philosophy.For medicine he subscribed to only one copy of The Physician, and usually read it from the back.Each time he could read for hours without a break without getting tired.He did not read quickly and impulsively like Ivan Dmitry, but he read slowly and deeply, and he often stopped when he read what he liked or did not understand.There is always a small bottle of vodka, a pickled yellow claw, or a pickled apple next to the book, and it is placed directly on the woolen tablecloth without a plate.Every half hour, keeping his eyes on the book, he poured himself a glass of vodka, drank it, and then without looking, he touched the cucumber with his hand and bit off a piece.

At three o'clock, he walked cautiously to the kitchen door, coughed a few times, and said: "Daryushka, I'd better get me something to eat..." After a rather poor and unclean lunch, Andrey Yefimitch walked up and down the rooms, crossing his arms and thinking of something.The clock struck four, and after five he was still pacing and thinking.Sometimes the kitchen door creaked, and Daryushka's red, sleepy face peeped out of it. "Andrey Yefimitch, should you have a beer?" she asked with concern. "No, not yet..." he replied, "just a little longer...a little longer..."

Postmaster Mikhail Averyanitch usually visited in the evening.Of all the inhabitants of the town Andrey Yefimitch was not yet bored by his acquaintance.Mikhail Averlianitch had been a wealthy landowner who had served in the cavalry regiment, but had been bankrupt, and had been obliged to earn his living in the post office in his old age.He was vigorous, athletic, with a fine gray beard, courteous manners, and a loud, melodious voice.He is kind and affectionate, but has a bad temper.At the post office, whenever a customer protested, disagreed with something, or just made a comment, Mikhail Averyanitch blushed, trembled all over, and shouted like thunder: "Shut up!" !” Therefore, this post office has long been known as a yamen that no one is afraid to enter.Mikhail Averyanitch thought Andrey Yefimitch was well-bred and high-minded, and therefore he respected and loved him.He treats the rest of the population as arrogantly as he treats his subordinates.

"Here I come!" he said, going into Andrey Yefimitch's study. "Good day, my dear friend! I'm afraid I've already annoyed you?" "On the contrary, I am very glad," answered the doctor, "I am always glad to see you." The two friends sat on the couch in the study, and they first smoked in silence for a while. "Daryushka, you'd better get us some beer!" said Andrey Yefimitch. They drank the first bottle of beer without saying a word: the doctor was meditating, Mikhail looked cheerful and excited, as if he had something very interesting to tell.The conversation always starts with the doctor.

"What a pity," he said slowly and peacefully, shaking his head, not looking at the other person (he never looked directly into faces), what a pity, dear Mikhail Averyanitch, in In our city, no one can talk about advanced or interesting topics. They don't have the ability and don't like to do it.This is a huge loss for us.Even intellectuals are not immune to vulgarity, and their level of development, I dare say, is not at all higher than that of the lower classes. " "Exactly. I agree." "You yourself know," continued the doctor calmly and slowly, "that in this world everything is of little or no interest except the noblest spiritual expressions of human wisdom. Wisdom draws a sharp line between man and beast." , implying the holiness of man, and to some extent even superseding the immortality of man - though immortality does not exist. Wisdom is thus the only possible source of pleasure. But we do not see wisdom all around us. people who can't hear the words of wisdom -- so we're not happy. Yes, we have books, but that's very different from lively conversation and active association. If you will allow me to make an analogy that isn't quite right, then I would say: Books are music scores, conversations are songs.”

"Completely correct." Then there was silence.Daryushka came out of the kitchen with a dull, sad face, put his face in his hands, and stopped outside the door, wanting to hear what they had to say. "Oh!" sighed Mihail Averyanitch, "I wish people would be wiser now!" Then he told how healthy, happy, and interesting life had been in the old days, how clever the Russian intelligentsia was, how much they valued fame and friendship.They don't need an IOU to lend money to others, and think it is shameful not to lend a helping hand when a friend is in trouble.And what fun the travels, the adventures, the arguments!What kind of friends, what kind of women!Speaking of the Caucasus, what a fascinating place it is!There was a battalion commander's wife who was a strange woman who would put on an officer's uniform at night and ride into the mountains alone without a guide.She was said to have had an affair with a young duke in the mountain village. "

"My Lady..." Daryushka sighed. "Besides, what a drink it was! What a meal! Those free-thinking people are not afraid of anything!" Andrey Yefimitch listened, but was deaf: he was thinking about something, and now and then he took a sip of beer. "I often dream of intelligent people and talk to them," he interrupted Mikhail Averyanitch suddenly, "my father gave me a good education, but in the sixties Under his influence, he insisted that I become a doctor. I think this way, if I had not listened to him, then I must be in the center of the ideological movement now. I am afraid I have become a professor in a certain department. Of course, wisdom also Not eternal, but ephemeral, but you already know why I love it so much. Life is a distressing trap. When a thinking man reaches manhood and his consciousness matures, he cannot help Feeling as if he had fallen into a trap with no way out. In fact, his coming from nothingness to life was not of his own will, but some accidental circumstance brought about it.... Why? He wanted to make sense of his life meaning and purpose, but he was not told, or said nonsense. He knocked at the door—no one opened it for him. Finally death came to him—again not of his own will. Metaphorically, as In the same way that men in prison, bound together by common misfortune, are at ease when they gather together, so when men of analysis and generalization gather together, they are exchanging proudly free thoughts with each other. You don’t feel like you’re living in a pie when you’re killing time in it. In that sense, wisdom is an irreplaceable joy.”

"Completely correct." Andrey Yefimitch, without looking at the other, talked at intervals, calmly, all the while talking about wise men and conversations with them.Mihail Averyanitch listened attentively, and agreed repeatedly: "Exactly." "Then you don't believe in the immortality of the soul?" asked the postmaster suddenly. "No, my dear Mihail Averyanitch, I don't believe it, and I have no reason to believe it." "To be honest, I doubt it too. But then again, I have a feeling that I'm never going to die. Well, I thought to myself, old man, you're damned! But something whispered inside: Don't believe me , you can't die!..."

Just after nine o'clock Mikhail Averyanitch took his leave and went home.He put on his fur coat in the front room and said with a sigh: "Yes, God has thrown us into such a lonely place! The worst thing is that we have to die here. Alas! . . . "