36

NEKHLYUDOV kept up with the quick pace of the convicts, but clad even as lightly as he was, in a thin overcoat, he felt dreadfully hot and, above all, found that it was difficult to breathe, so hot and dusty was the motionless sultry air in the streets. After walking about a quarter of a mile he got into the trap and drove on ahead, but it felt hotter still in the middle of the street, in the trap. He tried to recall last night’s conversation with his brother-in-law, but the recollection no longer agitated him as it had done that morning. It had been pushed into the background by the impression made on him at seeing the convict party emerge from the gaol and march off. But above all – it was intolerably hot. Two high-school boys were standing with their caps off before an ice-cream seller squatting by a fence in the shade of some trees. One of the boys was already enjoying his ice, licking a little horn spoon; the other was waiting for a tumbler to be filled to the brim with something yellow.

‘Where could I get a drink?’ Nekhlyudov asked his driver, overcome by irrepressible thirst.

‘There’s a good inn just here,’ said the cabman, turning a corner and driving Nekhlyudov to a door with a large sign above it.

A plump man in shirt-sleeves stood behind the counter; the waiters, in clothes that had once been white, were sitting at the tables, there being scarcely any customers; they looked with curiosity at this unusual visitor and offered their services. Nekhlyudov asked for seltzer water, and sat down away from the window at a little table covered with a dirty cloth.

Two men were sitting at another table with a tea-tray and a frosted glass bottle in front of them, mopping the perspiration from their brows and assisting each other over some calculation. One of them was dark and bald, with a fringe of black hair at the back of his head like Rogozhinsky. This reminded Nekhlyudov again of last night’s conversation with his brother-in-law and that he had wanted to see him and Natalia once more before his departure. ‘I shall hardly have time before the train leaves,’ he thought. ‘I had better write her a letter.’ And asking for a sheet of paper, an envelope and a stamp, he began to consider what he should say, while he sipped the cool effervescing water. But his thoughts wandered and he found it quite impossible to compose the letter.

‘My dear Natalia,’ he began, ‘I cannot bear to go away with the memory of my conversation last night with your husband without –’ (‘What next? Am I to apologize for what I said yesterday? But I said what I thought. And he would think that I was taking it back. And besides, he was meddling in my affairs.… No, I can’t do it.’) And again there arose his hatred for the conceited individual who was so foreign to him and never understood him. Nekhlyudov put the unfinished letter in his pocket, and settling his bill went out into the street and told the driver to catch up with the party.

The heat had grown worse. The walls and stones seemed to exude hot air. The sizzling pavement scorched one’s feet, and Nekhlyudov felt a burning sensation when he touched the lacquered wing of the vehicle with his bare hand

The horse jogged wearily along, hooves clicking monotonously on the dusty uneven cobblestones; the cabby kept falling into a doze. Nekhlyudov sat indifferently gazing before him, thinking of nothing in particular. Opposite the gates of a big house, where the road sloped to the gutter, stood a little crowd of people and a convoy soldier with his rifle. Nekhlyudov stopped his driver.

‘What is it?’ he asked a house-porter.

‘Something the matter with one of the convicts.’

Nekhlyudov got down and approached the group. On the rough uneven cobblestones curving down to the gutter, with his head lower than his feet, lay a broad-shouldered elderly convict with a ginger beard, red face and snub nose, in a grey cloak and grey trousers. He was lying on his back with the palms of his freckled hands downwards; at long intervals his deep powerful chest heaved rhythmically and he sobbed, gazing up at the sky with staring bloodshot eyes. A frowning policeman stood over him, together with a pedlar, a postman, a clerk, an old woman with a sunshade and a boy with clipped hair holding an empty basket.

‘They are weak. They get weak sitting locked up in gaol, and then they’re brought out into a fiery furnace like this,’ said the clerk, feeling someone was to blame, and addressing Nekhlyudov as he came up.

‘He’s dying, most likely,’ said the old woman with the sunshade in a doleful voice.

‘You ought to loosen his shirt,’ said the postman.

The policeman with his thick trembling fingers began clumsily untying the tapes that fastened the shirt round the sinewy red neck. He was evidently agitated and confused, but still deemed it necessary to address the crowd.

‘What are you standing round for? It’s quite hot enough without all of you to keep off the breeze.’

‘The doctor is supposed to see to it that the weak ones stay behind. Instead, they sent this one out more dead than alive,’ said the clerk, showing off his knowledge of the regulations.

Having undone the tapes of the man’s shirt, the policeman straightened himself and looked round.

‘Move along there, I tell you! It’s none of your business, and what are you gaping at, I should like to know,’ he said, turning towards Nekhlyudov for sympathy, but meeting with no sympathy there he looked at the convoy soldier.

The soldier, however, was standing to one side examining the heel of his boot where it was worn away, and was quite indifferent to the policeman’s difficulties.

‘Those whose business it is don’t care. Is it right to do a man to death like this?’

‘He may be a convict, but he’s a human being all the same,’ different voices were heard saying in the crowd.

‘Prop his head up higher and give him water,’ said Nekhlyudov.

‘They’ve gone to fetch water,’ replied the policeman and, taking the convict under the arms, he managed with an effort to raise his body a little higher.

‘Now then, what’s this mob here for?’ a firm commanding voice was heard all of a sudden, and a police-officer in an uncommonly clean and shiny uniform and still shinier top-boots strode up to the little knot of people round the convict. ‘Move on! Nobody has any business here!’ he shouted to the crowd, before he knew why they were there.

When he came close and saw the dying convict he nodded his head, satisfied, as though it was just what he expected. ‘What happened?’ he asked the policeman.

The policeman reported that while a gang of convicts was passing, this man had collapsed and the convoy officer had ordered him to be left there.

‘Well, that’s all right. He must be taken to the police-station. Get a cab.’

‘The house-porter has gone for one,’ said the policeman, with his fingers to his cap.

The clerk began saying something about the heat.

‘What’s it got to do with you? Move on!’ said the police-officer, and gave the clerk such a severe look that he was silenced.

‘He ought to have a little water,’ said Nekhlyudov.

The police-officer frowned at Nekhlyudov, too, but said nothing. However, when the house-porter brought a mug of water he told the policeman to give some to the convict. The policeman raised the man’s head which had fallen backwards, and tried to pour some water into his mouth, but he could not swallow, and the water ran down his beard, wetting the front of his jacket and his coarse dusty shirt.

‘Pour it over his head,’ ordered the officer, and the policeman, taking off the pancake-shaped cap, poured water over the red curly hair and the shaven skull.

The convict’s eyes opened wider, as though in alarm, but he did not move. Little rivulets of dirt and dust ran down his face but the same regular gasps escaped from his mouth, and his whole body kept jerking convulsively.

‘How about that cab there? Take that one,’ the officer said to the policeman, pointing to Nekhlyudov’s cab. ‘Hey, you!’

‘Engaged,’ said the cabby gloomily, without looking up.

‘This is my driver,’ said Nekhlyudov, ‘but you can take him. I will pay,’ he added, turning to the cabman.

‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ shouted the officer. ‘Get on.’

The policeman, the house-porter and the convoy soldier lifted the dying man and carried him to the trap, where they tried to make him sit up. But he could not support himself: his head fell back and his body slipped off the seat.

‘Lay him down,’ ordered the police-officer.

‘It’s all right, your honour. I’ll get him to the police-station like this,’ said the policeman, seating himself firmly beside the dying man and putting his strong right hand under the man’s arm.

The convoy soldier lifted the stockingless feet in their prison shoes, and stretched them out under the box.

The police-officer looked round and noticing the convict’s pancake-shaped cap lying in the road picked it up and stuck it on the wet, backward-fallen head.

‘Right – march!’ he commanded.

The cabman looked round with irritation, shook his head and accompanied by the convoy soldier started slowly back towards the police-station. The policeman sitting beside the convict kept clutching at the slipping body, with its head swaying in all directions. The convoy soldier walked alongside, keeping the legs under the box. Nekhlyudov followed after.