cover some means of
avoiding the necessity for concealment and deception, and the torment of
living in different towns, and of not seeing each other for a long time.
How could they shake off these intolerable fetters?

"How? How?" he asked, holding his head in his hands. "How?"

And it seemed that but a little while and the solution would be found
and there would begin a lovely new life; and to both of them it was
clear that the end was still very far off, and that their hardest and
most difficult period was only just beginning.

GOUSSIEV

It was already dark and would soon be night.

Goussiev, a private on long leave, raised himself a little in his
hammock and said in a whisper:

"Can you hear me, Pavel Ivanich? A soldier at Souchan told me that their
boat ran into an enormous fish and knocked a hole in her bottom."

The man of condition unknown whom he addressed, and whom everybody in
the hospital-ship called Pavel Ivanich, was silent, as if he had not
heard.

And once more there was silence.... The wind whistled through the
rigging, the screw buzzed, the waves came washing, the hammocks
squeaked, but to all these sounds their ears were long since accustomed
and it seemed as though everything were wrapped in sleep and silence.
It was very oppressive. The three patients--two soldiers and a
sailor--who had played cards all day were now asleep and tossing to and
fro.

The vessel began to shake. The hammock under Goussiev slowly heaved up
and down, as though it were breathing--one, two, three.... Something
crashed on the floor and began to tinkle: the jug must have fallen down.

"The wind has broken loose...." said Goussiev, listening attentively.

This time Pavel Ivanich coughed and answered irritably:

"You spoke just now of a ship colliding with a large fish, and now you
talk of the wind breaking loose.... Is the wind a dog to break loose?"

"That's what people say."

"Then people are as ignorant as you.... But what do they not say? You
should keep a head on your shoulders and think. Silly idiot!"

Pavel Ivanich was subject to seasickness. When the ship rolled he would
get very cross, and the least trifle would upset him, though Goussiev
could never see anything to be cross about. What was there unusual in
his story about the fish or in his saying that the wind had broken
loose? Suppose the fish were as big as a mountain and its back were as
hard as a sturgeon's, and suppose that at the end of