Chapter 6 Chapter 6 Sure enough, it's schizophrenia

At half past one in the morning, a man in a white smock and a goatee walked into the waiting room of a famous new mental hospital near the river on the outskirts of Moscow.Three male hygienists were staring intently at Ivan Nikolayevich, who was sitting on the couch.The excited poet Liu Xin sat beside him.The long towels with which Ivan Nikolayevich had been bound were piled up on the sofa, and now the homeless poet could move his arms and legs freely. Seeing the person coming, Liu Xin's face became even paler. He cleared his throat and said timidly: "Hello, doctor!" The doctor returned the gift to Liuxin, but when he returned the gift, he did not look at Liuxin, but at the homeless Ivan Nikolayevich.

Ivan was scowling, frowning, and sat on the sofa without moving a muscle, not even when the doctor came in. "Doctor, look," Liuxin whispered furtively for some reason, and glanced at Ivan Nikolaevich with trepidation, "this is the famous poet Ivan the Homeless... Look at this . . . we were concerned that he might be a drunkard..." "Do you often drink too much?" the doctor asked in a low voice. "Not really. I drink a little often, but not too much, so I won't..." "Has he ever caught a cockroach, a rat, an imp, or a street dog?!" "No," Liu Xin couldn't help shivering and said, "I met him yesterday, and I met him this morning. He was completely healthy at the time..."

"Why is he only wearing drawers? You dragged him out of bed?" "Doctor, that's how he ran into the restaurant..." "Oh, oh," the doctor seemed very satisfied, "why does he have a cut on his face? Did he fight with someone?" "He fell when climbing over the wall, and then he hit someone...and others..." "Well, well, so it is like this." The doctor said.Then he turned around and asked Ivan, "Hello!" "Yes, pervert!" Ivan answered loudly and viciously. Liu Xin felt so embarrassed that she didn't even dare to look up at this polite doctor.However, the doctor didn't mind.He quickly took off his glasses with his habitual movements, lifted the back of his white coat, put the glasses in his back pocket, and asked Ivan again:

"How old are you?" "Go to hell with you all! Really!" Ivan yelled brusquely, then turned his head away. "Why are you angry? Did I say something to offend you?" "I am twenty-three years old," Ivan said excitedly, "I want to sue all of you. Especially you, a scum!" He pointed to Liu Xin and said. "What do you want to accuse?" "Accuse you of arresting me, a perfectly healthy person, and forcibly sending me to a lunatic asylum!" Ivan replied angrily. At this time Liu Xin looked at Ivan seriously, and couldn't help but feel a chill down his spine: There was no sign of madness in Ivan's eyes.The eyes that had been cloudy at the Griboyedovs' house were now as clear as ever.

Liu Xin was secretly surprised: "My mother! Isn't he all right? It's terrible! It's a mess! Indeed, why did we bring him here? He's normal, very normal! It's just a scratch on his face. I found a place..." "You're not in a madhouse," said the doctor kindly, sitting next to him on a stool with shiny galvanized legs, "you're in a hospital. No one here will force you to stay if it's not necessary. " Ivan Nikolayevich cast a distrustful sidelong glance at the doctor, but still muttered: "Then thank God! There's finally a normal man out of many idiots, and the number one idiot is Sashka, a mediocre bum!"

"Who is this stupid Sashka you speak of?" asked the doctor. "No, it's him, Liu Xin!" Ivan replied, pointing at Liu Xin with his dirty fingers. Liu Xin was so angry that his face was on fire.He secretly thought sadly: "I took care of his affairs with good intentions, but he not only didn't thank me, but treated me like this, really heartless!" "In terms of thoughts and feelings, he is a typical small rich peasant!" Homeless Ivan started talking again, and it seemed that he must expose Liuxin's background today, "and he is a small rich peasant cleverly disguised as a proletariat! You see Compare his wretched face with those resounding May Day poems he wrote! Hey, hey... What's 'fluttering!' What's 'Show it off!'... But look at his heart again , look what he's thinking... you'll be surprised!" Ivan laughed ominously.

Liu Xin panted heavily, her face flushed, and she had only one thought in her mind: I warmed a frozen snake in my arms, and I expressed sympathy for him, but it turned out that he was a vicious enemy.But right now there is nothing to do with him, can't you just scold him with a mentally abnormal person? ! "Then why did they send you to us?" asked the doctor, after he had listened carefully to the poet's revelation. "The devil knows what's going on with these fools! They caught me suddenly, wrapped me up in some rags, put me in a car, and pulled me!" "Excuse me, why did you go to the restaurant in only a pair of drawers?"

"It's nothing unusual," replied Ivan, "I went swimming in the Moskva River, and my clothes were stolen, and I was left with these two rags! I can't walk around Moscow Street naked! I have to put it on, because I have to hurry to the restaurant, to Griboyedov's." The doctor looked at Liu Xin in bewilderment, and Liu Xin hurriedly explained with a mournful face: "The name of the restaurant is 'Griboyedov'." "Oh, I see," said the doctor, "and what are you in such a rush to the restaurant for? Some business appointment?"

"I'm going to get the adviser," said Ivan Nikolayevich, looking around anxiously again. "Catch what consultant?" "Do you know Berlioz?" "Is this a...foreign composer?" "Where did that composer come from?! Oh, yes, no, not that one! That composer just has the same surname as Mischa Berlioz." Liu Xin, who didn't want to talk anymore, had no choice but to explain a few more words: "He's talking about Berlioz, the secretary of the 'Mo Wenlian', who was run over by a tram outside Patriarch Lake Park last night."

①Chapter 1 uses "Chairman of the Council", and here uses "Secretary". (sic) "If you don't know, don't talk nonsense!" Ivan was very angry at Liu Xin's explanation, "I was there, not you! That guy deliberately got him under the tram!" "Pushed him?" "Why do you need to 'push'?" Seeing that everyone was so simple-minded, Ivan became even more angry.He exclaimed: "He doesn't have to push!! He can do anything, take care! He knew beforehand that Berlioz was going to be run over by a tram!" "Has anyone else seen this advisor besides you?"

"That's the worst part! Only Berlioz and I have seen it." "So that's the case. Then what measures did you take to catch this murderer?" At this time, the doctor turned his head and gave a look to the woman in a white blouse sitting at the small table next to her.The woman took out a piece of paper from the small table and filled it out according to the columns on it. "I took steps like this: I took a candle from the kitchen..." "Is this the one?" asked the doctor, pointing to a broken candle lying on the little table in front of the woman, beside which stood a holy image. "It's this one, and..." "Then what are you doing with this icon?" "Yeah, I took the icon..." Ivan blushed, "It was this icon that frightened them." Ivan pointed to Liu Xin again as he spoke. "That's the case, because he is the consultant. He... Let me tell you the truth, he has contacts with demons... It's not something you can catch casually." At this moment, for some reason, several hygienists stood aside with their hands down in order, staring straight at Ivan. "No," Ivan went on, "he has associations with demons! That fact cannot be changed. He talked to Pontius Pilate himself... You don't have to look at me like that! I'm telling the truth He's seen them all, the balconies, the palm trees, everything. In short, he's visited Pontius Pilate. I can assure you of that." "Hey, look! "That's it! So, I pinned Shengbao to my chest first, and then I went after him..." Suddenly, the clock on the wall struck twice. "Oh," Ivan said, hearing the bell, and getting up from the couch, "it's already two o'clock, and I'm still wasting time with you! Excuse me, where is the phone?" "Let him call." The doctor ordered the health worker not to stop him. Ivan walked over and picked up the receiver.The woman in the white blouse took the opportunity to ask Liu Xin: "Is this person married?" "He's single." Liu Xin replied in panic. "A union member?" "yes……" "Civilian police station?" Ivan was shouting into the phone receiver, "Civilian police station? Comrade on duty, please send five motorcycles with light machine guns to hunt down foreign consultants immediately!...What?...You come to pick them up Me, I'll go with you... I'm a poet, I'm homeless, I'm calling from the madhouse... What's your address here?" The homeless man covered the receiver with his hands and asked the doctor in a low voice, and then said He said loudly into the microphone, "Are you listening to me? Hey! Hey...it's unreasonable!" Ivan suddenly yelled and threw the receiver against the wall.Then he turned to the doctor again, stretched out a hand and said coldly "Goodbye!" and was about to go out the door. "Excuse me, where are you going?" the doctor asked seriously, looking into Ivan's eyes. "It's late at night, and you're only wearing a shirt... You're not in good health, so stay with us for now!" "Let me out!" Ivan shouted to several male health workers blocking the door, "Will you let me go?" Liu Xin trembled with fright. The woman in a white blouse pressed the button on the small table, and a small shiny box and a sealed ampoule jumped out of the glass plate of the small table. "Ah, so that's it?!" Ivan exclaimed, looking wildly around like a wild beast, "Okay, that's all! Let's say goodbye! . . . " As he spoke, he hung his head Hit the curtained window.The window slammed, but the tempered glass behind the curtain was not shattered.In an instant, Ivan was already struggling under the powerful hands of several hygienists.He was panting heavily, trying to bite someone with his teeth, and kept shouting: "Ah, you have this glass! . . . Hey, let me go! I tell you to let me go!" The syringe flashed in the doctor's hand, the woman tore open the worn sleeve of Tolstoy's shirt, and a strong, non-feminine hand gripped Ivan's arm tightly.There was an odor of ethanol.Ivan was subdued by four men.The nimble doctor took advantage of this moment to inject Ivan's arm with an injection.Several people pressed him for a few more seconds, and then put him on the couch. "They're all robbers!" cried Ivan, jumping up from the sofa, but he was immediately picked up again.As soon as the people let go, he stood up again, but this time he couldn't stand firmly, and sat down by himself.He looked around strangely, was silent for a moment, then suddenly yawned and smiled wickedly. "You guys are locked up after all!" he said, yawning again, and lay down suddenly, with his head on the pillow, a fist under his face like a child, and muttering like a dream , the tone is no longer so harsh: "In this case, well... you will suffer the consequences. Anyway, I warned you in advance, what to do in the future is up to you! What I am most interested in now is the one who originally went to Pilate... Pilate..." He finally closed his eyes. "Take a shower. Live in the single room No. 117. Observe." The doctor put on his glasses while arranging the work.At this time Liu Xin was startled again: he saw two white doors quietly and automatically opened, revealing a long corridor with several nighttime blue lights on.A couch on small rubber wheels was rolled out in the corridor, and the quiet Ivan was moved there.Ivan was pushed into the corridor, and the two white doors closed silently again. "Doctor," the shocked Liu Xin asked in a low voice, "so he is really sick?" "Oh, no," replied the doctor. "What disease is he suffering from?" Liu Xin asked timidly. The tired doctor glanced at Liu Xin and said listlessly: "Actual and verbal excitement...Delirious commentary...It seems that his condition is very complicated...It should be regarded as schizophrenia, and alcoholism..." Liu Xin did not understand the doctor's words at all, only that Ivan Nikolayevich was not doing well anyway.He sighed and asked again: "Why does he keep talking about a consultant?" "Probably he saw someone who stimulated him into a morbid imagination. Maybe it was his own hallucination..." A few minutes later, the big truck drove Liu Xin back to downtown Moscow.It was already daylight, and the street lights on the highway had not been extinguished, but they were useless, even a bit of an eyesore.The truck driver, pissed off from having spent the night in vain, drove as fast as he could, and the rear wheels slid out at every turn, and the body of the truck tipped over. Seeing a forest being thrown back, the Moskva River receding aside, all kinds of things rushed at the truck one by one: fences with watchtowers, firewood piles, extremely high pillars and antenna masts with many Coils, piles of gravel, land divided by various ditches—in short, it gave the impression that Moscow was right in front of us, just around the corner, and it would rush over and hug us in no time. Liu Xin's body swayed and bumped along with the carriage, and the piece of wood sitting under her would break away from the pressure of the ground from time to time and jump aside.The long towels from the restaurant rolled around in the carriage, which were randomly thrown onto the car by the policemen and Pan Jielie who took the trolley bus back to the city in advance before leaving.Liu Xin crawled on the car, trying to put the towels together, but suddenly said viciously to himself, "Go to hell! Why am I crawling around here like a fool?" He kicked the towels with his feet. Step aside and never look at it again. Sitting in the car, Liu Xin was in a terrible mood, apparently what he saw and heard in the mental hospital made him feel very painful.Liu Xin really wanted to sort out her thoughts: what is torturing him?Is it the corridor with the small blue light that is deeply imprinted in my mind?Is it the idea that losing your mind is the greatest misfortune in the world?Yes, that's the idea, including it of course.However, this idea is also very general.No, there seemed to be some other emotion.what is it then?Is sad?That's it, yes, yes!It was the sad things the homeless man had said to him pointing his nose.It was not the stinging words themselves that troubled him, but the fact that they contained truth. The poet Liu Xin no longer looked at the side of the road at this time, he stared at the beating dirty carriage boards in front of him, full of sorrow, complaining about God and others.He muttered to himself. Yes, he writes poetry...he is thirty-two this year!Really, think about it, what will we do in the future?He will continue to do this in the future, compiling a few poems every year.Until old?Yes, until old age.What would these poems bring him?Will he be honored? "Don't talk nonsense! At least you don't lie to yourself anymore! People who make up crooked poems will never be honored. Do you ask why those poems are crooked? Ivan is right, Ivan told the truth !” Liu Xin questioned and answered mercilessly, “I don’t even believe what I wrote just because of it! The poet Liu Xin, who suddenly suffered from neurasthenia, swayed forward, and he felt that the floor of the carriage no longer swayed to either side.Looking up, it turned out that the big truck had already driven into the urban area, it was already dawn in Moscow, and the clouds in the sky were dyed golden.In a flash just now, this car stopped at a corner entering the street and was waiting in the long queue of vehicles.He also saw, very close to him, an iron man standing on a stone seat, tilting his head slightly, watching everything on the street with cold eyes. Some strange ideas suddenly flashed in the mind of the poet who suffered from neurasthenia.He immediately straightened up in the truck compartment, raised a hand, and for some reason attacked the iron man who didn't provoke anyone: "Look, this guy is the proof of good luck... the way of his life, No matter what happens, it is beneficial to him, and it will add honor to him! But what contribution did he make? I really can't understand...'Storm...like smoke...'① Could it be What special meaning is contained in these words? I really don't understand!...It's just his luck! It's just luck!" Liu Xin suddenly came to such a vicious conclusion.At this time, he felt the truck under his feet shake again, "The white party member shot him, shot him a few times, broke his hip bone, which actually made him live forever..."② ① "Iron Man Standing on a Stone Seat" refers to the statue of Pushkin.Only the first two words of Pushkin's poem "Winter's Night" are quoted in the original text.The Chinese translation (translated by Ge Baoquan) of the first two lines of this poem is: "The storm blows up a whirlwind of snow, covering the sky like smoke." ②Pushkin died of severe abdominal injuries during a duel with the French exiled nobleman Dantes.Liu Xin's internal monologue shows that this so-called "poet" not only has no understanding of Pushkin's poems, but also lacks common sense. "This formulation. The long convoy begins to move.In less than two minutes, our poet Liuxin was on the balcony of Griboyedov's house, but at this time he was completely sick, and even looked much older.The balcony was empty, but there was still a small group of people drinking in the corner.The most active of them was a well-known theatrical announcer, wearing a embroidered round cap and holding a goblet full of "Abrau". ①The famous Russian champagne is produced by the "Abrau Gyurso" winery in the North Caucasus. Liu Xin came up with a large pile of towels, and Archibald Archibaldovitch enthusiastically went forward and took those nasty towels.If it weren't for the torture he suffered in the hospital and on the truck, Liu Xin would probably still be talking about the whole process in the mental hospital with relish and embellishment, and he would be very satisfied.But now he couldn't care less about it.Besides, no matter how unobservant Liu Xin was, after being tortured on the truck, he finally took a serious look in the pirate's eyes for the first time.He could see clearly that although the pirate asked the poet about the situation of the homeless, and even sighed "Oh, oh!"Liu Xin thought to himself viciously with a feeling of abandoning everything and giving up on himself: "Okay! You did the right thing!" So he stopped the narration about schizophrenia, and begged the pirate: "How about a drink, Archibald Archibaldovich? . . . " The pirate put on a sympathetic face and whispered: "I can understand...here I bring it..." As he spoke, he waved to the waiter. A quarter of an hour later, Liu Xin was sitting alone at the dining table, hunched over, staring at the plate of small fish in front of her, pouring wine into her belly one cup after another.He knew, and admitted, that there was nothing he could do to change the course of his life, all he could do was to forget. Others were feasting and feasting throughout the night, but Liu Xin, the poet, wasted the night in vain.Now he knows: this is irreparable.Just take your eyes off the lamp and look up at the sky and you'll know instantly; the night is gone forever.The waiters in the restaurant were busy tearing off the tablecloths from the tables, and even the cats scurrying around the verandah looked like they were in the morning.The day has come overwhelmingly upon the poet.