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CHAPTER 6. Schizophrenia, as was Said

       It was half past one in the morning when a man with a pointed beard andwearing  a  white  coat came  out  to  the  examining  room  of  the  famouspsychiatric clinic, built recently on the outskirts of Moscow by the bank ofthe river. Three  orderlies had their eyes fastened on Ivan Nikolaevich, whowas sitting on a couch. The extremely agitated poet Riukhin was also  there.The napkins with which Ivan Nikolaevich had been bed up lay in a pile on thesame couch. Ivan Nikolaevich's arms and legs were free.     Seeing  the  entering man,  Riukhin  turned  pale,  coughed,  and  saidtimidly:     'Hello, Doctor.'     The doctor bowed to Riukhin but,  as he bowed, looked not at him but atIvan Nikolaevich. The latter sat perfecdy motionless, with an angry face andknitted brows, and did not even stir at the doctor's entrance.     'Here,  Doctor,'  Riukhin  began  speaking,  for  some  reason,   in  amysterious  whisper,  glancing  timorously  at  Ivan  Nikolaevich,  'is  therenowned poet Ivan Homeless .. . well, you see .. . we're afraid it might bedelirium tremens . . .'     'Was he drinking hard?' the doctor said through his teeth.     'No, he drank, but not really so . ..'     'Did he  chase  after cockroaches, rats,  little  devils,  or  slinkingdogs?'     'No,' Riukhin  replied with  a shudder, 'I  saw him yesterday and  thismorning ... he was perfectly well.'     'And why is he in his drawers? Did you get him out of bed?'     'No, Doctor, he came to the restaurant that way ...'     'Aha,  aha,' the  doctor  said with great  satisfaction,  'and why  thescratches? Did he have a fight?'     'He fell off  a fence,  and then  in the restaurant he hit somebody ...and then somebody else . . .'     'So, so,  so,' the doctor  said  and,  turning  to Ivan, added:  'Hellothere!'     'Greetings, saboteur!'' Ivan replied spitefully and loudly.     Riukhin was so embarrassed that he  did not dare raise his eyes to  thecourteous  doctor. But the latter,  not offended in  the least, took off hisglasses  with  a habitual, deft movement, raised the skirt of  his coat, putthem into the back pocket of his trousers, and then asked Ivan:     'How old are you?'     'YOU can all go to the devil!' Ivan shouted rudely and turned away.     'But why are you angry? Did I say anything unpleasant to you?'     'I'm twenty-three years old,'  Ivan began excitedly,  'and I'll file  acomplaint against you all. And particularly against you, louse!' he advertedseparately to Riukhin.     'And what do you want to complain about?'     'About the fact that I, a healthy man, was seized and dragged by  forceto a madhouse!' Ivan replied wrathfully.     Here Riukhin looked closely at Ivan and went cold: there  was decidedlyno insanity  in  the  man's  eyes.  No  longer  dull  as  dicy  had been  atGriboedov's, they were now clear as ever.     'Good  God!' Riukhin  thought  fearfully. 'So he's really  normal! Whatnonsense! Why, in fact,  did we drag him here? He's normal, normal, only hismug got scratched . . .'     'You are,' the doctor began calmly, sitting down on  a white stool witha shiny foot,  'not  in a madhouse, but in a clinic, where no  one will keepyou if it's not necessary.'     Ivan Nikolaevich glanced at  him mistrustfully out of the  comer of hiseye, but still grumbled:     'Thank the Lord! One normal man has finally turned up among the idiots,of whom the first is that giftless goof Sashka!'     'Who is this giftless Sashka?' the doctor inquired.     'This one here - Riukhin,' Ivan  replied,  jabbing his  dirty finger inRiukhin's direction.     The latter  flushed with  indignation.  That's the  thanks  I get,'  hethought bitterly, 'for showing concern for him! What trash, really!'     'Psychologically,   a   typical   little   kulak,'
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   IvanNikolaevich began,  evidently from an irresistible urge to denounce Riukhin,'and,  what's  more,  a  little  kulak  carefully  disguising  himself as  aproletarian.  Look  at his  lenten physiognomy,  and  compare it with  thoseresounding verses he wrote for the First of  May[3] -  heh,  heh,heh ... "Soaring up!" and "Soaring down!!" But  if you could look inside himand  see what  he thinks  ... you'd  gasp!' And Ivan Nikolaevich burst  intosinister laughter.     Riukhin  was  breathing heavily, turned  red,  and  thought of just onething, that he had warmed a serpent on his breast, that he had shown concernfor a  man who turned out to be a vicious enemy.  And,  above all, there wasnothing to be done: there's no arguing with the mentally ill!     'And  why, actually, were you  brought  here?'  the doctor asked, afterlistening attentively to Homeless's denunciations.     'Devil take them, the numskulls! They  seized me, tied  me up with somerags, and dragged me away in a truck!'     'May I ask why you came to the restaurant in just your underwear?'     There's  nothing surprising about that,' Ivan  replied. 'I  went for  aswim in the Moscow River, so they filched my clothes and left me this trash!I couldn't very  well walk around Moscow  naked! I  put it  on because I washurrying to Griboedov's restaurant.'     The doctor glanced questioningly at Riukhin, who muttered glumly:     'The name of the restaurant.'     'Aha,'  said  the  doctor,  'and  why were you  in  such a  hurry? Somebusiness meeting?'     'I'm trying to catch the  consultant,' Ivan Nikolaevich said and lookedaround anxiously.     'What consultant?'     'Do you know Berlioz?' Ivan asked significantly.     The . . . composer?'     Ivan got upset.     'What composer? Ah, yes ... Ah, no. The  composer  has the same name asMisha Berlioz.'     Riukhin had no wish to say anything, but was forced to explain:     The secretary of Massolit, Berlioz, was run over  by a tram-car tonightat the Patriarch's Ponds.'     'Don't blab about what you don't know!' Ivan got angry with Riukhin. 'Iwas there, not you! He got him under the tram-car on purpose!'     'Pushed him?'     '"Pushed  him",  nothing!'  Ivan  exclaimed,  angered  by  the  generalobtuseness.  'His kind don't need to push! He can perform such stunts - holdon  to  your hat! He knew  beforehand  that  Berlioz  would  get  under  thetram-car!'     'And did anyone besides you see this consultant?'     That's the trouble, it was just Berlioz and I.'     'So.  And what measures did you take to  catch this murderer?' Here thedoctor  turned and sent  a glance towards a  woman in a white coat, who  wassitting  at  a table to one side. She took out  a sheet of  paper  and beganfilling in the blank spaces in its columns.     'Here's what measures: I took a little candle from the kitchen...'     That one?' asked the doctor, pointing to the broken candle lying on thetable in front of the woman, next to the icon.     That very one, and . . .'     'And why the icon?'     'Ah, yes,  the  icon .  .  .'  Ivan  blushed. 'It  was  the  icon  thatfrightened them  most of all.'  He again jabbed his finger  in the directionofRiukhin. 'But the thing  is that  he, the  consultant,  he ... let's speakdirectly . ..  is mixed up with the unclean powers .  .. and you won't catchhim so easily.'     The orderlies for some reason snapped to attention and  fastened  theireyes on Ivan.     Yes, sirs,'  Ivan  went on,  'mixed up with them! An absolute fact.  Hespoke personally with Pontius Pilate.  And  there's no need  to stare  at melike that. I'm telling the truth! He saw everything --  the balcony  and thepalm trees. In short, he was at Pontius Pilate's, I can vouch for it.'     'Come, come .. .'     'Well, so I pinned the icon on my chest and ran .. .'     Here the clock suddenly struck twice.     'Oh-oh!' Ivan exclaimed and  got up from the couch. 'It's  two o'clock,and I'm wasting time with you! Excuse me, where's the telephone?'     'Let him use the telephone,' the doctor told the orderlies.     Ivan  grabbed  the receiver,  and  the  woman  meanwhile  quietly askedRiukhin:     'Is he married?'     'Single,' Riukhin answered fearfully.     'Member of a trade union?'     'Yes.'     'Police?'   Ivan   shouted   into   the   receiver.  'Police?   Comradeofficer-on-duty, give orders at once for five motor cycles with machine-gunsto be sent out to catch the foreign  consultant. What? Come and  pick me up,I'll go with you ...  It's the poet Homeless speaking from the madhouse .. .What's  your address?' Homeless asked the  doctor in a whisper, covering thereceiver with his hand, and then again shouting into it: 'Are you listening?Hello!  ..  .  Outrageous!' Ivan  suddenly  screamed and hurled the receiveragainst the wall. Then he  turned to the  doctor, offered him his hand, said'Goodbye' drily, and made as if to leave.     'For  pity's sake, where do you intend to go?' the doctor said, peeringinto Ivan's  eyes. 'In the dead of night,  in your underwear .. . You're notfeeling well, stay with us.'     'Let  me  pass,'  Ivan said to the  orderlies, who  closed ranks at thedoor. 'Will you let me pass or not?' the poet shouted in a terrible voice.     Riukhin  trembled, but the woman  pushed  a button  on the table  and ashiny little box with a sealed ampoule popped out on to its glass surface.     'Ah,  so?!'  Ivan  said, turning around  with a wild  and hunted  look.'Well, then . . . Goodbye!' And he rushed head first into the window-blind.     The  crash was rather  forceful, but the glass behind the blind gave nocrack, and in an instant Ivan Nikolaevich was struggling in the hands of theorderlies. He gasped, tried to bite, shouted:     'So that's the sort of windows you've got here! Let me go! Let me go! .. .'     A syringe  flashed  in  the  doctor's hand, with  a single movement thewoman  slit the  threadbare sleeve  of  the  shirt and  seized the  arm withunwomanly strength. There was a  smell of ether, Ivan went limp in the handsof the four people, the deft doctor  took advantage of this moment and stuckthe needle into Ivan's arm. They held Ivan for  another few seconds and thenlowered him on to the couch.     'Bandits!' Ivan shouted and jumped up from the couch, but was installedon it again. The moment they let go of him, he again jumped up, but sat backdown  by himself. He paused, gazing around wildly, then unexpectedly yawned,then smiled maliciously.     'Locked me up after all,' he said, yawned again, unexpectedly lay down,put his  head  on  the pillow,  his fist under his  head  like a  child, andmuttered now in a sleepy voice, without  malice: 'Very well, then ... you'llpay for it yourselves ... I've warned  you, you  can do as you like ...  I'mnow interested most of all in Pontius Pilate ... Pilate  ...', and he closedhis eyes.     'A bath,  a private  room, number 117,  and  a nurse to watch him,' thedoctor ordered as  he put his glasses on. Here  Riukhin again gave a  start:the white  door  opened noiselessly, behind it a corridor could be seen, litby blue night-lights. Out  of  the corridor rolled  a  stretcher  on  rubberwheels, to  which the  quieted Ivan was transferred, and  then he rolled offdown the corridor and the door closed behind him.     'Doctor,' the shaken Riukhin  asked in a whisper, 'it means he's reallyill?'     'Oh, yes,' replied the doctor.     'But what's wrong with him, then?' Riukhin asked timidly.     The tired doctor glanced at Riukhin and answered listlessly:     'Locomotor and speech excitation . . .  delirious interpretations ... Acomplex case, it seems.  Schizophrenia,  I suppose. Plus this alcoholism . ..'     Riukhin understood nothing from the  doctor's words, except that thingswere evidently not so great with Ivan Nikolaevich. He sighed and asked:     'But what's all this talk of his about some consultant?'     'He  must have seen  somebody who struck his disturbed imagination.  Ormaybe a hallucination ...'     A  few minutes later the truck was carrying  Riukhin off to Moscow. Daywas breaking,  and  the light  of the street lights still burning  along thehighway was  now unnecessary and unpleasant. The driver was vexed at  havingwasted  the night, drove the truck  as fast as  he could, and skidded on theturns.     Now the woods dropped off, stayed somewhere behind, and  the river wentsomewhere to the side, and an  omnium  gatherum came  spilling  to  meet thetruck: fences with sentry boxes and stacks of wood, tall posts and some sortof poles, with spools strung on the poles, heaps of rubble, the earth scoredby canals -- in short,  you sensed that she was there, Moscow, right  there,around the turn, and about to heave herself upon you and engulf you.     Riukhin  was jolted and tossed  about; the sort of stump he had  placedhimself on kept trying  to slide out from under him. The restaurant napkins,thrown in by the policeman and Pantelei, who  had left earlier by bus, movedall  around the  flatbed. Riukhin tried to collect  them, but then, for somereason hissing spitefully: 'Devil take them! What  am I doing fussing like afool? ...', he spumed them aside with his foot and stopped looking at them.     The rider's state of mind was terrible. It was  becoming clear that hisvisit to the house of sorrow had left the deepest mark on him. Riukhin triedto understand what was tormenting him. The corridor with  blue lights, whichhad  stuck  itself  to  his  memory?  The  thought that there  is no greatermisfortune in the world than the loss of reason?  Yes, yes, of course, that,too. But that - that's only a general thought. There's something  else. Whatis it? An insult, that's what. Yes, yes, insulting words hurled right in hisface by Homeless. And the trouble is not that  they were insulting, but thatthere was truth in them.     The  poet no longer looked around, but, staring into the dirty, shakingfloor, began muttering something, whining, gnawing at himself.     Yes, poetry ... He was thirty-two years old! And, indeed, what then? Sothen he  would go on writing  his  several poems a year. Into old  age? Yes,into old age. What would these poems bring him? Glory? 'What nonsense! Don'tdeceive  yourself, at least. Glory will never come to someone who writes badpoems. What makes them  bad? The  truth, he was  telling the truth!' Riukhinaddressed himself mercilessly. 'I don't believe in anything I write! . . .'     Poisoned  bv this  burst of  neurasthenia,  the poet swayed,  the floorunder  him stopped shaking. Riukhin raised his head and saw that he had longbeen in  Moscow, and,  what's more, that it was dawn  over Moscow,  that thecloud was underlit with gold, that his truck had stopped, caught in a columnof  other  vehicles at the turn on to the boulevard, and  that very close tohim on a pedestal stood a  metal man, his head  inclined slightly, gazing atthe boulevard with indifference.     Some strange thoughts flooded the head of  the ailing poet. 'There's anexample of real  luck.  . .' Here Riukhin rose  to  his full height  on  theflatbed  of  the truck  and  raised his arm,  for some reason attacking  thecast-iron man who was  not bothering anyone. 'Whatever step he  made in  hislife, whatever happened to  him, it all turned to his benefit, it all led tohis glory!  But what did  he  do? I  can't conceive ...  Is  there  anythingspecial in the words: "The snowstorm covers . . ."? I don't understand! .. .Luck, sheer luck!' Riukhin concluded with venom,  and  felt the truck movingunder him.  'He  shot him, that white  guard shot  him, smashed his hip, andassured his immortality...'     The column began to move. In no more  than  two minutes, the completelyill  and even aged poet was entering the veranda of Griboedov's.  It was nowempty. In a corner some company was finishing its drinks,  and in the middlethe familiar master of  ceremonies  was bustling about, wearing  a skullcap,with a glass of Abrau wine in his hand.     Riukhin,  laden   with   napkins,   was   met   affably  by   ArchibaldArchi-baldovich and at once relieved  of the cursed  rags.  Had Riukhin  notbecome so  worn out in the  clinic and on the truck, he would certainly havederived  pleasure from telling how everything had gone  in  the hospital andembellishing the story  with invented details. But just then he was far fromsuch things,  and, little  observant  though  Riukhin  was, now,  after  thetorture on the truck, he peered keenly at the pirate for the first time  andrealized  that,  though the  man  asked about  Homeless  and  even exclaimed'Ai-yai-yai!', he was essentially quite indifferent  to  Homeless's fate anddid  not  feel a bit sorry for him.  'And bravo!  Right  you  are!'  Riukhinthought  with cynical, self-annihilating malice and, breaking off  the storyabout the schizophrenia, begged:     'Archibald  Archibaldovich,  a drop of  vodka  . ..' The pirate made  acompassionate face and whispered:     'I understand . . . this very minute . . .' and beckoned to a waiter. Aquarter of an hour later, Riukhin sat in complete solitude, hunched over hisbream, drinking glass after glass, understanding and recognizing that it wasno longer  possible to  set  anything right in  his life, that  it was  onlypossible to forget.     The  poet  had  wasted his night  while  others  were feasting and  nowunderstood  that it was impossible to get it  back. One needed only to raiseone's head  from  the  lamp  to  the  sky to understand  that  the night wasirretrievably lost. Waiters were hurriedly tearing the  tablecloths from thetables. The  cats  slinking  around  the veranda  had  a morning  look.  Dayirresistibly heaved itself upon the poet.

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