home. . . . Plans indeed! . . . It is not plans that matter, but a human life. Life is not given
twice, it must be treated mercifully."
"Of course, Pavel Ivanitch, a bad man gets no mercy anywhere, neither at home nor in the
army, but if you live as you ought and obey orders, who has any need to insult you? The
officers are educated gentlemen, they understand. . . . In five years I was never once in
prison, and I was never struck a blow, so help me God, but once."
"What for?"
"For fighting. I have a heavy hand, Pavel Ivanitch. Four Chinamen came into our yard; they
were bringing firewood or something, I don't remember. Well, I was bored and I knocked
them about a bit, one's nose began bleeding, damn the fellow. . . . The lieutenant saw it
through the little window, he was angry and gave me a box on the ear."
"Foolish, pitiful man . . ." whispered Pavel Ivanitch. "You don't understand anything."
He was utterly exhausted by the tossing of the ship and closed his eyes; his head alternately
fell back and dropped forward on his breast. Several times he tried to lie down but nothing
came of it; his difficulty in breathing prevented it.
"And what did you hit the four Chinamen for?" he asked a little while afterwards.
"Oh, nothing. They came into the yard and I hit them."
And a stillness followed. . . . The card-players had been playing for two hours with
enthusiasm and loud abuse of one another, but the motion of the ship overcame them, too;
they threw aside the cards and lay down. Again Gusev saw the big pond, the brick building,
the village. . . . Again the sledge was coming along, again Vanka was laughing and Akulka,
silly little thing, threw open her fur coat and stuck her feet out, as much as to say: "Look,
good people, my snowboots are not like Vanka's, they are new ones."
"Five years old, and she has no sense yet," Gusev muttered in delirium. "Instead of kicking
your legs you had better come and get your soldier uncle a drink. I will give you something
nice."
Then Andron with a flintlock gun on his shoulder was carrying a hare he had killed, and he
was followed by the decrepit old Jew Isaitchik, who offers to barter the hare for a piece of
soap; then the black calf in the shed, then Domna sewing at a shirt and crying about
something, and then again the bull's head without eyes, black smoke. . . .
Overhead someone gave a loud shout, several sailors ran by, they seemed to be dragging
something bulky over the deck, something fell with a crash. Again they ran by. . . . Had
something gone wrong? Gusev raised his head, listened, and saw that the two soldiers and
the sailor were playing cards again; Pavel Ivanitch was sitting up moving his lips. It was
stifling, one hadn't strength to breathe, one was thirsty, the water was warm, disgusting. The
ship heaved as much as ever.
Suddenly something strange happened to one of the soldiers playing cards. . . . He called