The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

The sailors saw it, stopped them, and reported to the captain, and he ordered them both locked up below and given rum and wine and some cold food, so that they could eat and drink and go on with their bet—but they were not to be given hot inflamed puddling, because the alcohol might cause combustion inside them.

And so they were brought to Petersburg locked up, and neither of them won the bet between them; and there they were laid in different carriages, and the Englishman was taken to the embassy on the English Embankment, while Lefty was taken to the police station.

From then on their fates began to differ greatly.

XVIII

As soon as the Englishman was brought to the embassy, a doctor and an apothecary were called for him. The doctor ordered him put into a warm bath, in his presence, and the apothecary at once rolled a gutta-percha pill and stuck it into his mouth himself, and then they both took him and laid him on a featherbed, covered him with a fur coat, and left him there to sweat, and, so that he wouldn’t be disturbed, the order was given to the whole embassy that no one should dare to sneeze. The doctor and the apothecary waited until the bos’man fell asleep, and then prepared another gutta-percha pill for him, put it on his bedside table, and left.

But Lefty was dumped on the floor of the police station and asked:

“Who are you and where from and do you have a passport or any other dokyment?”

But he was so weakened by illness, drinking, and the prolonged fluctations that he didn’t answer a word, but only groaned.

Then he was searched at once, his nice clothes were taken off him, the money and the watch with the rebeater were confiscated, and the police chief ordered him dispatched to the hospital for free in the first cab that came along.

A policeman took Lefty out, intending to put him in a sleigh, but he was a long time catching a cabby, because they avoid the police. And all that while Lefty lay on the cold gobbles, and then, when the policeman did catch a cabby, he had no warm fox fur, because on such occasions cabbies hide the warm fox fur under them, so that the policemen will get their feet frozen quickly. They transported Lefty uncovered, and, when changing cabs, they also dropped him each time, and when they picked him up, they pulled his ears so that he would come to his senses. They brought him to one hospital—he could not be admitted without a dokyment; they brought him to another—he was not admitted there either; and the same for the third, and the fourth—they dragged him around the remote by-lanes till morning, and kept changing cabs, so that he got all battered up. Then one doctor told the policeman to take him to the Obukhovsky Charity Hospital, where people of unknown estate were all brought to die.

There he asked for a receipt, and Lefty was left sitting on the floor in the corridor until things were sorted out.

And meanwhile the English bos’man got up the next day, swallowed the other gutta-percha pill, had a light breakfast of chicken and rice, washed it down with fuzzy water, and said:

“Where’s my Russian cumrade? I’ll go and look for him.”

He got dressed and ran off.

XIX

Astonishingly enough, the bos’man somehow found Lefty very quickly, only he was still not lying in bed, but on the floor of the corridor, and he complained to the Englishman.

“There’s a couple of words,” he says, “that I absolutely must say to the sovereign.”

The Englishman ran to Count Kleinmichel¹³ and raised a ruckus.

“This is not possible! It’s a sheep’s hide,” he says, “but there’s a man’s soul inside.”

For such reasoning the Englishman was thrown out at once, so that he wouldn’t dare mention man’s soul. And then someone said to him, “You’d better go to the Cossack Platov—he has simple feelings.”

The Englishman got to Platov, who was now lying on his couchment again. Platov heard him out and remembered Lefty.

“Why, of course, brother,” he says, “I’m a close acquaintance of his, even pulled his hair once, only I don’t know how to help him in this unfortunate case, because I’m no longer in the service at all and got myself a full aperplexy—there’s no respect for me now—but run quickly to Commandant Skobelev,¹⁴ he’s in power and also has experience in this line, he’ll do something.”

The bos’man went to Skobelev and told him everything: what Lefty’s ailment was and how it came about. Skobelev says:

“I understand that ailment, only a German can’t treat it, what’s needed is a doctor from the clerical estate, who grew up with such examples and knows what to do. I’ll send the Russian doctor Martyn-Solsky¹⁵ there at once.”

But by the time Martyn-Solsky arrived, Lefty was already done for, because the back of his head had been bashed against the gobbles, and he could utter only one thing clearly:

“Tell the sovereign that the English don’t use bath brick to clean their guns: let us not use it either, otherwise, God forbid there’s a war, they’ll be no good for shooting.”

And with these loyal words, Lefty crossed himself and died.