beard was skimpy, his hair was long....
Looking at him you could not make out of what class he was, whether he
were a gentleman, a merchant, or a peasant. Judging from his expression
and his long hair he might have been a hermit or a lay brother in a
monastery--but if one listened to what he said it seemed that he could
not be a monk. He was worn out by his cough and his illness and by the
stifling heat, and breathed with difficulty, moving his parched lips.
Noticing that Gusev was looking at him he turned his face towards him
and said:

"I begin to guess.... Yes.... I understand it all perfectly now."

"What do you understand, Pavel Ivanitch?"

"I'll tell you.... It has always seemed to me strange that terribly
ill as you are you should be here in a steamer where it is so hot and
stifling and we are always being tossed up and down, where, in fact,
everything threatens you with death; now it is all clear to me....
Yes.... Your doctors put you on the steamer to get rid of you. They
get sick of looking after poor brutes like you.... You don't pay them
anything, they have a bother with you, and you damage their records with
your deaths--so, of course, you are brutes! It's not difficult to get
rid of you.... All that is necessary is, in the first place, to have
no conscience or humanity, and, secondly, to deceive the steamer
authorities. The first condition need hardly be considered, in that
respect we are artists; and one can always succeed in the second with a
little practice. In a crowd of four hundred healthy soldiers and sailors
half a dozen sick ones are not conspicuous; well, they drove you all on
to the steamer, mixed you with the healthy ones, hurriedly counted
you over, and in the confusion nothing amiss was noticed, and when the
steamer had started they saw that there were paralytics and consumptives
in the last stage lying about on the deck...."

Gusev did not understand Pavel Ivanitch; but supposing he was being
blamed, he said in self-defence:

"I lay on the deck because I had not the strength to stand; when we were
unloaded from the barge on to the ship I caught a fearful chill."

"It's revolting," Pavel Ivanitch went on. "The worst of it is they know
perfectly well that you can't last out the long journey, and yet they
put you here. Supposing you get as far as the Indian Ocean, what then?
It's horrible to think of it.... And that's their gratitude for your
faithful, irreproachable service!"

Pavel Iv