The Kiss and Other Stories/The Runaway
THE RUNAWAY
IT was an endless affair. Pashka and his mother, drenched with rain, tramped mile after mile, first across stubble fields, then by soft woodland paths where yellow leaves stuck to his boots, and on and on till daybreak. After that he stood two hours in a dark entrance-hall, and waited for the doors to open. In the hall, of course, it was warmer and drier than outside; but even there the piercing wind carried the raindrops in. And as the hall slowly filled with patients, Pashka, wedging his way through the crowd, pressed his face against a sheepskin coat which smelt strongly of salted fish, and slumbered.
At last the bolt slipped, the door opened, and Pashka and his mother found themselves in the waiting-room. Yet another long delay! The patients sat on benches; no one stirred; no one opened his mouth. Pashka stared at the crowd, and likewise held his tongue, though he witnessed many ludicrous, inexplicable things. But once when a boy hopped into the room on one leg, he nudged his mother's side, grinned in his sleeve, and exclaimed —
“Look, mother — a sparrow!”
“Don't talk, child, don't talk!”
At a little window appeared the feldscher's sleepy face. “Come and give your names.”
The waiting patients, among them the funny, hopping boy, crowded round the window. Of each the feldscher asked name and patronymic, age, village, dates of illness, and other questions. From his mother's answer, Pashka learnt that his name was Pavl Galaktionoff, that he was seven years old, and that he had been ill since Easter.
When the names were entered there was another short delay; and then through the waiting-room walked the doctor, in white apron, with a towel on his shoulder. As he passed the hopping boy, he shrugged his shoulders, and said in a sing-song voice —
“You're a donkey! Now aren't you a donkey? I told you Monday, and you come on Friday! Don't worry yourself so far as I'm concerned, but if you're not careful, fool, you'll lose your leg!”
The hopping boy blinked, grimaced piteously as if asking for alms, and began —
“Ivan Nikolaitch, be so kind . . .”
“None of your Ivan Nikolaitch!” said the doctor teasingly. “I told you Monday — you should obey! You're a donkey, that's all.”
The reception began. The doctor sat in his room, and called for the patients in turn. Now and then from the room came shrill exclamations, the sobs of children, and the doctor's angry exclamations—
“Don't howl. I won't murder you! Sit quiet!”
At last came Pashka's turn. “Pavl Galaktionoff!” cried the doctor. Pashka's mother at first seemed dazed, as if the summons were unexpected; but she recovered herself, took Pashka's hand, and led him into the doctor's room. The doctor sat on a table, and tapped mechanically with a mallet a thick book.
“What is the matter?” he asked, without looking at his visitors.
“My boy has a boil, batiushka, on his elbow,” answered Pashka's mother; and her expression implied that she herself was suffering from Pashka's boil.
“Take off his clothes!”
Pashka, panting, untied his neckkerchief, rubbed his nose on his sleeve, and began to unbutton his coat.
“Woman! have you come to pay me a visit?” said the doctor irritably. “Why don't you hurry? Are you the only one waiting?”
Pashka hurriedly threw his coat on the floor, and, with his mother's help, took off his shirt. The doctor looked at him absent-mindedly, and slapped him on the bare stomach.
“Serious, brother Pashka,” he exclaimed. “You have outgrown your corporation!” When he had said this, he sighed, and added, “Show me your elbow!”
Pashka took fright at a bowl of blood-tinged water, looked at the doctor's apron, and began to cry.
“For shame!” said the doctor mockingly. “He's big enough to get married, yet he begins to howl. For shame!”
Pashka tried to stop his tears. He looked at his mother, and his expression said, “Don't tell them at home that I cried at the hospital.”
The doctor examined the elbow, pinched it, sighed, smacked his lips, and again felt the elbow.
“You ought to be whipped, woman!” he said. “Why didn't you bring him sooner? His arm is nearly gone! Look at him, idiot, can't you see that the joint is diseased?”
“It is you who know best, batiushka!” said Pashka's mother.
“Batiushka! the lad's arm is rotting off, and you with your batiushka! What sort of a workman will he make without arms? You'll have to nurse him all his life! If you've got a pimple on your nose you run off here for treatment, but you let your own child rot for six months! You people are all the same!”
He lighted a cigarette. While it burned away he scolded Pashka's mother, hummed a tune, shook his head rhythmically, and thought something out. Naked Pashka stood before him, listened to the tune, and watched the smoke. When the cigarette went out the doctor started, and said in a low voice—
“Listen, woman! Ointments and mixtures are no use in this case; you must leave him here.”
“If it must be so, batiushka, so be it.”
“We must have an operation. . . . And you, Pashka, you must stay,” said the doctor, patting his shoulder. “We will let mother go, but you, brother, you will stay with me. It is not bad here, brother! I have raspberry bushes. You and I, Pashka, as soon as we get better, will go and catch thrushes, and I will show you a fox. We shall pay visits together. Eh? Will you stay? And mother will come for you to-morrow.”
Pashka looked questioningly at his mother.
“You must stay, child,” she said.
“Of course he'll stay,” said the doctor merrily. “There is nothing to argue about! I'll show him a live fox. We'll drive to the fair and buy sugar-candy. Marya Denisovna, take him upstairs!”
The doctor was certainly a merry, talkative man; and Pashka was attracted, all the more because he had never been at a fair, and wanted to see a live fox. But his mother? He thought the problem out, and decided to ask the doctor to let his mother remain with him; but before he could open his mouth the nurse was leading him upstairs. With mouth wide open, he looked around. The stairs, the floors, the door-posts, all were painted a beautiful yellow; and everywhere there was a tempting smell of fast-butter. Everywhere hung lamps, everywhere lay carpets; and brass water-taps projected from every wall. But most of all Pashka was pleased by his bed with its grey, shaggy counterpane. He felt the pillows and the counterpane, and came to the conclusion that the doctor had a very nice house.
It was a little ward with only three cots. The first was vacant, the second Pashka's; and on the third sat a very old man with sour eyes, who coughed without cease, and spat into a bowl. From his bed Pashka could see through the open door part of another ward with two beds; on one lay a thin, very pallid man with a caoutchouc bladder on his head. A peasant, arms apart, with bandaged head, looking very like an old woman, sat on the other.
Having set Pashka on his bed, the nurse left him. She returned immediately with an armful of clothes. “These are for you,” she said to him. “Put them on.”
Pashka took off his old clothes, and, not without pleasure, arrayed himself in his new garments. After donning a shirt, a pair of trousers, and a grey dressing-gown, he looked at himself complacently, and thought how he would like to walk down the village street in his new clothes. Imagination painted his mother sending him to the kitchen garden by the river, to pluck cabbage leaves for the pig, while the village boys and girls stood round him and gaped enviously at his dressing-gown.
When next the nurse returned she brought two tin bowls, two spoons, and two slices of bread. She gave one bowl to the old man, and the other to Pashka. "Eat!" she said.
When Pashka examined the bowl he found it full of greasy soup with a piece of meat at the bottom; and again he reasoned that the doctor lived very comfortably, and was not half as angry as he seemed. He dallied over the soup, licked the spoon after each mouthful, and when nothing remained but the meat, cast a sidelong glance at the old man, and felt envy. With a sigh, he began the meat, trying to make it last as long as possible. But his efforts were in vain; the meat vanished speedily. There remained only the bread. Bread without condiment is tasteless food, but there was no remedy; after weighing the problem, he ate the bread also. And just as he had finished it the nurse arrived with two more bowls. This time the bowls contained roast beef and potatoes.
“Where is your bread?” she asked. Pashka did not answer, but distended his cheeks and puffed out the air.
“You've gobbled it up?” said the nurse reproachfully. “What will you eat your meat with?” She left him, and returned with more bread. Never in his life had Pashka eaten roast beef, and, trying it now, he found it very tasty. But it disappeared in a few seconds; and again only the bread was left, a bigger slice than the first. The old man, having finished his dinner, hid his bread in a drawer; and Pashka resolved to do the same, but after a moment's hesitation, he ate it up.
After dinner he set out to explore. In the next ward he found four men, in addition to those he had seen from his bed. Only one drew his attention. This was a tall, skeleton peasant, morose and hairy-faced, who sat on his bed, shook his head incessantly, and waved his arms pendulum-wise. Pashka could not tear his eyes away. At first the peasant's measured pendulum movements seemed droll, and made for the amusement of onlookers; but when Pashka looked at the peasant's face, he understood that this meant intolerable pain, and he felt sorry. In the third ward were two men with dark-red faces—red as if plastered with clay. They sat up motionless in bed, and, with their strange faces and nearly hidden features, resembled heathen gods.
“Auntie, why are they like that?” he asked the nurse.
“They are small-pox patients, laddie.”
When Pashka returned to his own room be sat on his bed, and waited for the doctor to come and catch thrushes or drive to the fair. But the doctor tarried. At the door of the next ward the feldscher stood for a moment. He bent over the patient with the ice-bag, and cried—
“Mikhailo!”
But sleeping Mikhailo did not hear. The feldscher waved his hand, and went away. While waiting for the doctor, Pashka looked at his neighbour. The old man continued to cough, and spit into the bowl, and his cough was drawn-out and wheezy. But one thing pleased Pashka intensely. When the old man, having coughed, inhaled a breath, something whistled in his chest, and sang in different notes.
“Grandfather, what is that whistling in your inside?” asked Pashka.
The old man did not answer. Pashka waited a minute, and began again.
“Grandfather, where is the fox?”
“What fox?”
“The live one.”
“Where should it be? In the wood, of course.”
The hours slipped by, but no doctor came. At last the nurse brought Pashka's tea, and scolded him for having eaten the bread; the feldscher returned and tried to waken Mikhailo; the lamps were lighted; but still no doctor. It was already too late to drive to the fair or catch thrushes. Pashka stretched himself on his bed and began to think. He thought of the doctor's promised sugar-candy, of his mother's face and voice, of the darkness in the cabin at home, of querulous Yegorovna, And he suddenly felt tedium and grief. But remembering that his mother would come in the morning, he smiled, and fell asleep.
He was awakened by a noise. Men walked in the adjoining ward and spoke in whispers. The dim gleam of nightlights and lamps showed three figures moving near Mikhailo's bed.
“Shall we take him on the mattress, or as he is?” asked one.
“As he is. There's no room for the mattress. Akh, he's dead at a bad hour, heaven rest his soul!”
Then—one of the figures taking Mikhailo's shoulders, another his feet—they lifted him, and the folds of his dressing-gown hung limply in the air. The third—it was the woman-like peasant—crossed himself; and all three, shuffling their feet, tripping in the folds of the dressing-gown, went out of the ward.
The sleeping man's chest whistled, and sang in different notes. Pashka heard it, looked in fright at the black windows, and jumped out of bed in panic.
“Mother!” he screamed.
And, without awaiting an answer, he rushed into the adjoining ward. The lamps and nightlights barely banished the gloom; the patients, agitated by Mikhailo's death, were sitting up in their beds. Grim, dishevelled, haunted by shades, they looked like giants; they seemed to increase in size; and far away in a dark corner sat a peasant nodding his head and swinging his pendulous hands. Without seeing the door, Pashka tore through the small-pox ward into the corridor, thence into an endless chamber full of long-haired monsters with ancient faces. He flew through the women's ward, again reached the corridor, recognised the balustrade, and rushed downstairs. And there, finding himself in the waiting-room where he had sat that morning, he looked wildly for the door.
The latch rattled, a cold wind blew, and Pashka, stumbling, sped into the yard, in his head a single thought: to flee, to flee! He did not know the road, but felt that it was enough to run without cease and that he would soon be at home with his mother. The moon shone through the clouds of an overcast sky. Pashka ran straight ahead, dashed round a shed into the shrubbery, stood a second in doubt, then rushed back to the hospital and ran around it. But there he stopped in indecision, for suddenly before his eyes rose the white crosses of a graveyard.
“Mother!” he screamed, and turned back again.
And at last, as he dashed past the black, menacing building, he saw a lighted window.
In the darkness, the bright red patch breathed terror. But Pashka, mad with panic, unknowing whither to flee, turned towards it with relief. Beside the window were steps and a hall door with a white notice-board. Pashka rushed up the steps, and looked through the window. A sharp, breathless joy suddenly seized him. For there in the window at a table sat the merry, talkative doctor with a book in his hands. Pashka laughed with joy; he tried to cry out; but some irresistible force suppressed his breath, and struck him on the legs, and he staggered and fell senseless on the steps.
When he came to himself it was quite light; and the sing-song voice that had promised the fair, the thrushes, and the live fox whispered in his ear —
“You're a donkey, Pashka! Now aren't you a donkey? You ought to be whipped. . . .”
THE REED
THE REED
RELAXED from his tramp in the breathless fir-wood, covered with cobwebs and fir-needles, Meliton Shishkoff, steward at Dementieff's farm, gun on shoulder, walked by the margin of the wood. His Damka, cross between setter and yard-dog, pregnant but unnaturally thin, with wet tail between legs, dragged herself after her master, and did her best to escape being pricked. It was a tedious, cloudy morning. The mist-shrouded trees and bracken scattered big drops, and the damp forest exhaled a smell of decay.
Ahead, where the wood ended, rose birches, and between their trunks and branches gleamed a vision of mist. Some one behind the birches played a home-made shepherd's reed. The musician piped only half a dozen notes, piped them idly, with no attempt at melody, and his music sounded rude and tedious beyond words.
Where the forest thinned and fir-trees mingled with young birches Meliton saw a herd. Hamshackled horses, cows, and sheep wandered between