CHAPTER VI

"Come and drink your tea, Grischka." With these words Matrona awoke her husband the next morning.

He lifted his head and looked at her. She was smiling pleasantly at him; her hair was brushed, and looked glossy and neat, whilst her white dress gave her a smart, clean appearance.

It pleased him to see her thus, but immediately afterwards the thought glanced through his brain that the other men in the Infirmary might also find pleasure in looking at her.

"What's the matter?... Tea's ready?.. I'll have my tea here!... Where do you want me to go and get it?" he asked, with a frown.

"Come, we'll drink our tea together," she proposed, looking at him with her grey smiling eyes.

Grigori turned away, and replied in a curt voice that he would come directly.

As she left the room he stretched himself once more in his bunk and began to brood.

"Yes ... she calls me to tea ... and is as pleasant as possible! She has grown thinner too in these last few days...."

He felt pity for her, and would have liked to have prepared an agreeable surprise for her, perhaps to have bought some cakes or something of that sort to eat with their tea. But whilst he was washing he put these thoughts away.... "Why should he spoil his wife?... She could get on very well without it!"

They drank their tea in a small bright room, the two windows of which looked out on to the open fields. The gilded rays of the morning sun lay on the floor. Dew still sparkled on the grass under the window. Along the distant horizon could be just seen through a light opal morning mist the trees that bordered the high-road. The sky was cloudless, and a fresh smell of grass and of damp earth was waited in at the open windows.

The table stood just between the two windows, and three people sat down to it; Grigori, Matrona, and a companion of the latter, a tall, thin, middle-aged person, with a pock-marked face and good-tempered grey eyes. She was called Felizata Jegorovna, and she was a spinster and the daughter of a college superintendent She could not drink the tea provided by the Infirmary, and so used her own samovar. All this she told Orloff in an excited cracked voice; she invited him hospitably to take a seat near the window, and to refresh himself with the "magnificent air of Heaven," whilst she disappeared somewhere for a time.

"Well, were you very tired yesterday?" Orloff asked his wife.

"I should rather think so," Matrona replied in a lively tone of voice. "I could scarcely feel my legs under me, and my head was swimming. I moved about at last as if I were half dead, and could scarcely hold on till I was released from duty.... I was praying all the time to the Lord that He would be merciful to us."

"How is it, then? Don't you feel afraid here?"

"What, of the sick people?"

"Of the sick people ... or of anything else...."

"I am only afraid of the dead.... Do you know," ... she bent down towards him and whispered in a scared voice—"they still move after they are dead ... it's true, on my soul!"

"I know that ... I have seen it myself!" Grigori continued with an ironical laugh—"The police-officer Nazaroff nearly gave me a box on the ear as he lay on the stretcher. I was carrying him to the mortuary, and all of a sudden he let out with his left hand.... I only just escaped it ... it's true!"

Grischka was in the best of tempers. Taking his tea in this bright clean room, from which could be seen endless distances of green fields and blue sky, pleased him immensely. And there was something else too which caused him pleasure—something which radiated, as it were, from his own personality. He felt the desire to show the best side of his character, and at the same time to appear in Matronal eyes as the hero of the hour.

"I shall make this my life work.... Heaven itself shall rejoice at it! I have my own special reasons for doing so.... The people here, I tell you, are such as one seldom meets in the world...."

He told her now of his conversation with the doctor, and whilst he unconsciously exaggerated a little, he worked himself into a still pleasanter frame of mind.

"And then the work itself, too," he continued. "You see, my dear, it's a holy work ... it's a sort of war. On one side stands the cholera, and we stand on the opposite side ... who is going to prove the stronger? We have to sharpen our wits to see that nothing is neglected.... What is this cholera after all?... We must first understand that clearly, and then we must use all means possible to fight it.... Doctor Wasschtschenko said to me, 'We need you, Orloff, in this business. Don't let yourself be frightened. Continue to rub the feet and the stomachs of the patients,' he said, and I will rub their insides with my medicines.... And so we shall thoroughly get the better of the disease, you will see, and the patient will recover, and will thank us for restoring him to life.' ... Think of that; you and I together, Matrona ... you and I!"

He swelled his chest out with a feeling of pride, and looked at Matrona with sparkling eyes. She smiled back at him, but did not reply. He looked so handsome whilst he was speaking, and reminded her so of the Grischka whom she used to know in their early married life.

"On the women's side also every one is so zealous and so good!" she said, after a pause. "There's that lady doctor with the spectacles, and all the nurses, they are all first-rate people; they talk to one so simply, so that one understands at once what they want done."

"Then you are contented also?" asked Grigori, when his enthusiasm had cooled a little.

"I should rather think I was contented! Lord! yes!... just reckon up!... I get twelve roubles, and you get twenty.... That makes thirty-two roubles a month! And our keep besides.... What a lot we shall be able to save if the cholera lasts right on into the winter!... Then we shall be able ... at last ... please God ... to get out of that hole of a cellar!..."

"Hm!... Yes, we can think about that,...." said Orloff thoughtfully; and after a few moments he tapped Matrona on the shoulder, and continued, with a ring of hope in his voice, "Ah, Matrona, perhaps the sun of happiness may yet shine upon us!... We won't lose courage, will we?"

She also was filled with enthusiasm.

"Yes, if you would only keep sober," she remarked after a few moments' pause, in a doubtful tone.

"Don't talk about that now; that will depend entirely on circumstances.... Once our lives become different, then my habits will alter."

"Please God that may indeed happen!" sighed Matrona from the bottom of her heart "Well, don't say any more about it!"

"Dear Grischenka!"

They separated, experiencing quite new sensations towards each other. They were full of joyful courage, and firmly resolved to put forth all their strength, so as to succeed in their new work. Three or four days passed, and Orloff had already earned several words of praise for his quickness and zeal. At the same time he remarked, however, that the other attendants were envious of him, and were trying to make mischief, so that he had to be constantly on his guard. This awoke in him a feeling of enmity, whereas, before that, he had been good friends with Pronim. The secret and open enmity of these fellow-workers was really a pain to him. "The jealous brutes," he thought to himself, and ground his teeth together. "But I'll get the chance some day of paying them back in their own coin!" Unconsciously his thoughts travelled to Matrona—for he could talk over everything with her. She would not envy him his success, and would not, like this fellow Pronim, bum his boots with carbolic acid.

Each day brought the same busy rush, just as Orloff had experienced at first But it was now no longer so fatiguing to him, for he got more accustomed to it every day. He had learnt to distinguish the smells of the different remedies, and as often as possible he refreshed himself with the smell of the ether, to which he had taken a great fancy. He had observed that the smell of ether was as exciting to him as was a good glass of vodka. He understood quite quickly now the doctors' orders; it was only necessary for them to show him by signs what had to be done. He was chatty and pleasant, and knew how to divert the attention of the patients, and this pleased increasingly the doctors and students. All the impressions which in his new occupation pressed in upon him, worked together to elevate his feelings, and to increase his own self-respect. He felt within himself a lively desire to do something great, so that the attention of all should be directed to him, and that every one should be astonished. It seemed almost as if he had now for the first time become conscious that he was a human being, and as if he felt the need to prove this to himself and others by some heroic deed. Filled with this unaccustomed ambition, Orloff undertook various venturesome deeds, in the hopes of distinguishing himself in the eyes of onlookers. For instance, he would carry alone, without waiting for the help of another attendant, some heavy patient from his bed to the bath-room; he did not shrink from attending to the most filthy among the cholera patients, seeming to despise the possibility of infection, and treating the corpses with cynical indifference.

But even all this did not satisfy him. He still longed to do something greater, something more out of the common. This unappeased longing caused him pain, and brought back his former moodiness, and as he had no one else with whom he could speak, he opened his heart to Matrona.

One evening when they were off duty, and had had their tea, they went out into the fields together. The Infirmary stood some way out at the back of the town, in the midst of a green far-stretching plain, bounded on one side by the dark edge of the forest, and on the other by the soft outline of the distant town. Towards the north the field extended into the far distance, and faded into a dim blue horizon; on the south it was bordered by the deep ravine-like banks of the river, which ran through the country roads, shaded on either side by trees planted at regular intervals The sun was just setting, and the golden crosses of the church-towers of the town, rising above the dark green of the gardens, flashed in all their brilliance against the background of the sky, and reflected golden rays. The windows also of the houses flashed back the red glow of the sunset. Music could be heard in the distance. From the dense ravine, sown thickly with the débris of the fir-trees bordering the river, an aromatic scent arose, whilst the evening wind brought from the forest in caressing waves a mingling of spicy perfumes. A soft, sweetly melancholy, yet intense feeling, lay over the whole wide expanse.

The Orloffs walked silently through the fields, breathing delightedly the fresh air, which, in contrast with the atmosphere of the Infirmary, seemed to them more than ordinarily pleasant.

"Listen! there's a band!... Is it in the town or up at the barracks?" Matrona asked in a low voice of her husband, who seemed to be sunk in thought.

She did not like him to brood in this sort of way by himself. He appeared to her at such moments strange and far away. They had seen but little of each other these last few days, so that the moments now when they were together, seemed to her all the more precious.

"A band?" asked Grigori, as if waking out of a dream, "the devil take such music!... You should just listen to the music which is ringing through my soul.... That's the right sort of music!..."

"What sort of music are you talking about?" said Matrona, looking anxiously into his eyes.

"I don't know myself what sort.... I can't describe it to you, and if I could you would not understand. My soul seems in a sort of glow.... I should like to go forth, far, far away.... I should like to put forth my whole strength.... Ah! I feel within me such boundless strength!... If for instance this cholera would change itself into a man, into a giant, into Ilja Murometz himself, for instance ... then I would wrestle with him, and we would see who would conquer!... Thou art strong, and I, Grischka Orloff, am also strong ... we will see which is the stronger of the two! ... And I would overcome him, even if I myself lost my life in the struggle.... They would erect a cross to me there in the green fields, 'To the Memory of Grigori Andrejeff Orloff ... who freed Russia from the Cholera.' ... That's all I should want!"

His face flushed, and his eyes flashed whilst he was speaking.

"My dear brave one!" whispered Matrona, and pressed tenderly against him.

"I would throw myself against a hundred sharp knives if I could do any good.... Do you understand? that?... Not for my own profit, but to make men's lives happier.... I see there such people as the doctor Wasschtschenko and the student Chochrjakoff; the work they do is quite wonderful. One would think they would have died long ago from absolute fatigue.... Do you think they work for the love of money? No man would work like that for money only! The head doctor has plenty of his own ... he needs no more ... he is a rich man already.... When he was ill lately, Doctor Wasschtschenko watched by him for four days and nights; not once did he go home during the whole time.... Money plays no part in all this; they do it out of pity ... they are sorry for the people, and so they sacrifice themselves ... And for whom?... For everybody ... as much for Mischka Ussoff as for anybody else.... They took as much pains to get him better as they did about the others, and they were quite rejoiced when he got better. This Mishka, if he had his deserts, should be in penal servitude, for every one knows that he is a thief or something worse!... Yet they were quite rejoiced when he got out of bed for the first time, and laughed aloud for pure joy!... I should like to feel such happiness also; I am full of envy when I see how glad they are, and I grow hot with the desire to do as they do. But how am I to begin?... Ah!'tis a devil of a business!..."

He made a hopeless gesture, expressive of his despair, and once more sank into profound reflection. Matrona was silent, but her heart beat rapidly. The excited state of mind of her husband made her feel vaguely anxious. She felt distinctly in his words the burning pain which oppressed him during his, to her, incomprehensible fits of depression. She loved her husband; and it was a husband she needed, not a hero....

They approached the steep banks of the river, and sat down near each other on the grass. Above them nodded the feathery tops of the young birch-trees. Down below, over the water, lay a blue mist, reeking of rotting leaves, of pine-needles, and of damp earth. Backwards and forwards a light breath of wind swept over the ravine; the tops of the young trees moved softly, and the whole forest seemed filled simultaneously with a shy whispering, as if some beloved person were asleep under the shelter of its trees, and it feared to wake him. The stars shone down from above, and the lights flashed from the town, having the appearance, against the dark background, of gardens of gay quivering flowers. The Orloffs sat on in silence. Grigori drummed with his fingers on his knee, whilst Matrona watched him and sighed softly.

Suddenly she put her arms round his neck, laid her head against his breast, and whispered—

"Grischenka, my dear one, my loved one! How good you have grown towards me, my dear brave lad!... We are living now just as we did when we were first married—you never say a bad word to me.... You talk to me, and open your heart to me.... Not once have you scolded me...."

"Are you already longing for something of that sort? If so, I will give you a thorough good beating," he said jokingly, whilst he felt for her in his heart nothing but sympathy and tenderness. He stroked her hair softly, and experienced a real pleasure in giving her these fatherly caresses. Matrona appeared to him at this moment as a child. She sat on his knees, and nestled soft and warm against his breast.

"My dear, dear one!" she whispered.

He breathed deeply, and words poured from his mouth, which were to her, and to himself, full of new meaning.

"Ah! my poor little girl!... Little coaxing thing! You see now, you have no one nearer to you in the world than your husband! And you look at me always with such a frightened glance out of the corner of your eye. If I have hurt you now and then, it was because I was suffering from this ache, Motrja! We lived in our hole ... we saw no sunlight, we knew no one. Now I have got out of the hole, and am among human beings. How blind I was to the world and to life!... Now I understand that a wife should be a man's best friend, the friend of his heart, so to speak. For men are vicious and cruel.... They are always trying to harm one another.... There's this Pronim Wasioukoff!... devil take him!... We won't talk of that, Motrja. We shall be all right in time, and we won't lose courage! We will live in a human way, and reasonably, won't we?... What do you say to that, you dear little goose?"

She was crying. Tears rolled down her cheeks, as she realized the happiness which he pictured to her; and she only replied with kisses.

"Ah! my only loved one!" he whispered, returning her caresses. Clinging tenderly together, they sat there and kissed the salt tears from each other's cheeks. And for some time Orloff continued to speak in the same new tone....

It had become quite dark. Countless stars lit up the evening sky, which looked down with triumphant sadness on the earth. The plain all around them was as peaceful as the heavens above.