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Updated: June 25, 2025
This conversation made Goussiev begin to feel unhappy and a vague desire began to take possession of him. He drank water it was not that; he stretched out to the port-hole and breathed the hot, moist air it was not that; he tried to think of his native place and the snow it was not that.... At last he felt that he would choke if he stayed a moment longer in the hospital.
Goussiev was not listening, but lay looking out of the port-hole; on the transparent lovely turquoise water swung a boat all shining in the shimmering light; a fat Chinaman was sitting in it eating rice with chop-sticks. The water murmured softly, and over it lazily soared white sea-gulls.
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?
All were at a loss. They shouted at him but he made no reply. "Stiepan, are you ill?" asked the other soldier with the bandaged hand. "Perhaps we'd better call the priest, eh?" "Stiepan, drink some water," said the sailor. "Here, mate, have a drink." "What's the good of breaking his teeth with the jug," shouted Goussiev angrily. "Don't you see, you fatheads?" "What." "What!" cried Goussiev.
"It would be fun to give that fat fellow one on the back of his neck...." thought Goussiev, watching the fat Chinaman and yawning. He dozed, and it seemed to him that all the world was slumbering. Time slipped swiftly away. The day passed imperceptibly; imperceptibly the twilight fell.... The steamer was still no longer but was moving on. Two days passed.
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.
Goussiev could not make out what Pavel Ivanich was talking about; thinking he was being taken to task, he said by way of excusing himself: "I lay on the deck because when we were taken off the barge I caught a chill." "Shocking!" said Pavel Ivanich. "They know quite well that you can't last out the voyage, and yet they send you here! You may get as far as the Indian Ocean, but what then?
"Why, they say we shan't see land for another seven days." The two soldiers looked at the white foam gleaming with phosphorescence. Goussiev was the first to break the silence. "Nothing is really horrible," he said. "You feel uneasy, as if you were in a dark forest. Suppose a boat were lowered and I was ordered to go a hundred miles out to sea to fish I would go.
The ship was running smoothly; it was calm but still stifling and hot as a Turkish bath; it was hard not only to speak but even to listen without an effort. Goussiev clasped his knees, leaned his head on them and thought of his native place. My God, in such heat it was a pleasure to think of snow and cold!
Goussiev put out his hand to pat it, but it shook its head, showed its teeth and tried to bite his sleeve. "Damn you," said Goussiev angrily. He and the soldier slowly made their way to the bows and stood against the bulwark and looked silently up and down.
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