Sanine by Mikhail Artsybashev (ebook pdf reader for pc .TXT) 📕

“Come on! We’ll go!” said Sina with decision.

“Schafroff and Novikoff are there,” added Dubova, as if to justify herself.

Sina ran indoors to fetch her hat and coat, and then they went sadly through the town to the large, grey, three-storied building, the hospital where Semenoff lay dying.

The long, vaulted passages were dark, and smelt strongly of iodoform and carbolic. As they passed the section for the insane, they heard a strident, angry voice, but no one was visible. They felt scared, and anxiously hastened towards a dark little window. An old, grey-haired peasant, with a long white beard and wearing a large apron came clattering along the passage in his heavy top-boots to meet them.

“Who is it that you wish to see?” he asked, stopping short.

“A student has been brought here⁠—Semenoff⁠—today!” stammered Dubova.

“No. 6, please, upstairs,” said the attendant, and passed on. They could hear him spit noisily on the flooring and then wipe it with his foot. Upstairs it was brighter and cleaner; and the ceiling was not vaulted. A door with “Doctors’ Room” inscribed on it stood ajar. A lamp was burning in this room where a jingling of bottles and glasses could be heard. Yourii looked inside, and called out. The jingling ceased, and Riasantzeff appeared, looking fresh and hearty, as usual.

“Ah!” he exclaimed in a cheery voice, being evidently accustomed to events such as that which saddened his visitors. “I am on duty today. How do you do, ladies?” Yet, frowning suddenly, he added with grave significance, “He seems to be still unconscious. Let us go to him. Novikoff and the others are there.”

As they walked in single file along the clean, bare passage, past big white doors with black numbers on them, Riasantzeff said:

“A priest has been sent for. It’s astonishing how quickly the end came. I was amazed. But latterly he caught cold, you know, and that was what did it. Here we are.”

Riasantzeff opened a white door and went in, the others following in awkward fashion as they pushed against each other on the threshold.

The room was clean and spacious. Four of the six beds in it were empty, each one having its coarse grey coverlet folded neatly, and strangely suggestive of a coffin. On the fifth bed sat a little wizened old man in a dressing-gown, who glanced timidly at the newcomers; and on the sixth bed, beneath a similar coarse coverlet, lay Semenoff. At his side, in a bent posture, sat Novikoff, while Ivanoff and Schafroff stood by the window. To all of them it seemed odd and painful to shake hands in the presence of the dying man, yet not to do so seemed equally embarrassing, as though by such omission they hinted that death was near. Some greeted each other, and some refrained, while all stood still gazing with grim curiosity at Semenoff.

He breathed slowly and with difficulty. How different he looked from the Semenoff they knew! Indeed, he hardly seemed to be alive. Though his features and his limbs were the same, they now appeared strangely rigid and dreadful to behold. That which naturally gave life and movement to the bodies of other human beings no longer seemed to exist in his. Something horrible was being swiftly, secretly accomplished within his motionless frame, an important work that could not be postponed. All that remained to him of life was, as it were, concentrated upon this work, observing it with keen, inexplicable interest.

The lamp hanging from the ceiling shone clearly upon the dying man’s lifeless visage. All standing there gazed upon it, holding their breath as if fearing to disturb something infinitely solemn; and in such silence the laboured, sibilant breathing of the patient sounded terribly distinct.

The door opened, and with short, senile steps a fat little priest entered, accompanied by his psalm-singer, a dark, gaunt man. With these came Sanine. The priest, coughing slightly, bowed to the doctors and to all present, who acknowledged his greeting with excessive politeness, and then remained perfectly silent as before. Without noticing anybody, Sanine took up his position by the window, eyeing Semenoff and the others with great curiosity as he sought to discern what the patient and those about him actually felt and thought. Semenoff remained motionless, breathing just as before.

“He is unconscious, is he?” asked the priest gently, without addressing anyone in particular.

“Yes,” replied Novikoff, hastily.

Sanine murmured something unintelligible. The priest looked questioningly at him, but, as Sanine remained silent, he turned away, smoothed his hair back, donned his stole and in high-pitched, unctuous tones began to chant the prayers for the dying.

The psalm-singer had a bass voice, hoarse and disagreeable, so that the vocal contrast was a painfully discordant one as the sound of this chanting rose to the lofty ceiling. No sooner had it commenced than the eyes of all were fixed in terror upon the dying man. Novikoff, standing nearest to him, thought that Semenoff’s eyelids moved slightly, as if the sightless eyeballs had been turned in the direction of the chanting. To the others, however, Semenoff appeared as strangely motionless as before.

At the first notes Sina began to cry, gently but persistently, letting the tears course down her youthful, pretty face. All the others looked at her, and Dubova in her turn began to weep. To the men’s eyes tears also rose, which by clenching their teeth they strove to keep back. Every time the chanting grew louder, the girls wept more freely. Sanine frowned, and shrugged his shoulders irritably, thinking how intolerable to Semenoff, if he heard it, such wailing must be when to healthy normal men it was so utterly depressing.

“Not so loud!” he said to the priest irritably.

The latter amiably bent forward to hear this remark, and, when he understood it, he frowned and only sang louder. His companion glared at Sanine and the others all looked at him as well, in fear and astonishment, as if he had said something offensive. Sanine showed his