"I should think so! I was one of the first to come. Hundreds have died before my eyes. One lives here indeed in a state of uncertainty, but otherwise, to tell the truth, it's not bad ... it is God's work,—just like the Red Cross in war. Have you heard of the Red Cross ambulance work, and of the nurses and sisters? I saw them in the Turkish war.... And I was also at Ardahan and at Kars. They were indeed a brave lot, those ambulance people I Full of kind-heartedness and courage. We soldiers had at least our guns and cannons; but they went about among the bullets as if they had been walking about in some pleasant garden. And when they found either one of us or a Turk—they brought them all to the place where the doctors were dressing the wounds, and stood near, whilst all around them the bullets were flying ... sch!... sch!... Tju!... Fit!... Often some poor chap would be hit by a ball just at the back of the neck,—ping!... and there he would lie...."
This conversation, added to the drop of vodka which he held drunk, put Orloff into a more cheerful frame of mind.
"If I were to tell A, then I should also have to tell B," he consoled himself with thinking, whilst he rubbed the feet of a patient. "As the ale is drawn, so it must be drunk."
Behind him some one was begging in a plaintive voice—"Give me water!... Give me something to drink ... for the love of...."
Another one called out, his teeth chattering with cold—"Oh!... Och!... Hohoho!... hotter still!... It does me good, doctor! Christ will reward you!... Give me some more hot water...."
"Just pass the wine over here!" called out Doctor Wasschtschenko.
Orloff listened, full of interest, whilst he did his own work, to all that went on around him, and it began to dawn upon him that it was not all so meaningless and chaotic as it appeared to him at first This was no chaos reigning here, but powerful, conscious, active strength. It was only when he thought of the police-officer, that a cold terror took possession of him, and he threw a scared glance out of the window towards the mortuary where the dead man lay. He really did believe at heart that the police-officer was dead, but at times horrid doubts shot through his mind. Suppose the dead man were to suddenly jump up and shout! And he remembered how some one had told him once that those who had died of the cholera broke out of their coffins, and, so it was said, ran about alter each other. As he went backwards and forwards at his work, rubbing the limbs of one patient, helping another into a bath, everything seemed to be seething and turning round in his brain. He thought of Matrona; what was she perhaps doing at this same moment? Sometimes he felt a fleeting wish to see her at once, if only for a minute. But immediately this was succeeded by another thought; "After all, she's all right here!... It's good for her to have to move about; the fat little lump.... It won't hurt her to get a bit thinner ... perhaps then she won't be so stupid...."
He could not get rid of the thought that Matrona was nourishing hidden desires in her breast, which were not flattering to his own manly vanity. He went to the length of acknowledging to himself that she certainly had every right to be discontented with her past life, and it was possible she might long for some sort of change. The fact of his acknowledging this much to himself was the cause of his mistaking his doubts as to her loyalty for the truth; and as a result of his jealousy he asked himself the question—"Why did I want to leave my cellar, and get into this kettle of hot water?" ... But all these, and other thoughts, stirred and whirled deep down at the bottom of his soul, they had no influence on his work, and they were driven into the background by the ceaseless attention which he bestowed on all that went on in the Infirmary. He had never in his life seen men work as did these doctors and medical students, and more than once he thought, as he looked into their drawn faces, that they indeed more than earned their salaries.
As soon as Orloff was off duty he went, though he could hardly keep on his legs, into the courtyard of the Infirmary, and lay down close to the wall, under the window of the dispensary. His thoughts seemed all scattered; near his heart he felt a dull, throbbing pain, and his legs were heavy with fatigue. He seemed to have no more strength left either for thought or desire, but stretched himself out at once on the turf, and stared up towards the sky, which was filled with the many-coloured cloud-glories of the setting sun. He dropped asleep at once, half-dead with fatigue.
He dreamt that he and his wife were the guests of Doctor Wasschtschenko—in a great room, around which stood elegant Viennese chairs. On these chairs sat all the patients from the Infirmary. In the middle of the room the doctor began to dance the Russian national dance with Matrona, whilst Grischka himself played on the accordion and laughed light-heartedly, for the doctor's long legs were quite stiff at the joints, and he stepped in a dignified way like a heron on a bog, by the side of Matrona. And the patients sitting round all laughed also, and swayed uncertainly on their chairs.