y the sound of his steps, by the look in his eyes,
and dared not utter a word in his presence.

Andrey Hrisanfitch lighted a cigarette, but at that very moment there
was a ring from upstairs. He put out his cigarette, and, assuming a very
grave face, hastened to his front door.

The general was coming downstairs, fresh and rosy from his bath.

"And what is there in that room?" he asked, pointing to a door.

Andrey Hrisanfitch put his hands down swiftly to the seams of his
trousers, and pronounced loudly:

"Charcot douche, your Excellency!"

GUSEV

I

IT was getting dark; it would soon be night.

Gusev, a discharged soldier, sat up in his hammock and said in an
undertone:

"I say, Pavel Ivanitch. A soldier at Sutchan told me: while they were
sailing a big fish came into collision with their ship and stove a hole
in it."

The nondescript individual whom he was addressing, and whom everyone in
the ship's hospital called Pavel Ivanitch, was silent, as though he had
not heard.

And again a stillness followed... The wind frolicked with the rigging,
the screw throbbed, the waves lashed, the hammocks creaked, but the
ear had long ago become accustomed to these sounds, and it seemed
that everything around was asleep and silent. It was dreary. The three
invalids--two soldiers and a sailor--who had been playing cards all the
day were asleep and talking in their dreams.

It seemed as though the ship were beginning to rock. The hammock slowly
rose and fell under Gusev, as though it were heaving a sigh, and this
was repeated once, twice, three times.... Something crashed on to the
floor with a clang: it must have been a jug falling down.

"The wind has broken loose from its chain..." said Gusev, listening.

This time Pavel Ivanitch cleared his throat and answered irritably:

"One minute a vessel's running into a fish, the next, the wind's
breaking loose from its chain. Is the wind a beast that it can break
loose from its chain?"

"That's how christened folk talk."

"They are as ignorant as you are then. They say all sorts of things.
One must keep a head on one's shoulders and use one's reason. You are a
senseless creature."

Pavel Ivanitch was subject to sea-sickness. When the sea was rough
he was usually ill-humoured, and the merest trifle would make him
irritable. And in Gusev's opinion there was absolutely nothing to be
vexed about. What was there strange or wonderful, for instance, in the
fish or i