Chapter 9: The Affliction

Waiting and waiting, the coachman Yona finally got his first passenger:

“Coachman, to Vyborg!” Yona heard the shout; he jolted violently, peering through his frost-laced eyelashes, and saw a soldier in a military greatcoat with a hood.

“To Vyborg!” the soldier shouted again. “Are you asleep or what? To Vyborg!”

For some reason, despite having a passenger, the coachman Yona seemed distracted, mechanically jerking the reins, as if he didn’t even know where he was supposed to go.

“Where are you charging to, you devil!” came a cry from the swirling black shadows around him. “Where’s the devil sending you? Keep to the right!”

“You can’t even drive! Keep to the right!” the soldier snapped.

So what happened? Why was he distracted?

Belinsky’s confusion was immediately answered:

Yona turned his head to look at the passenger, moving his lips… he clearly wanted to speak, but no word emerged from his throat—only a hissing sound.

“What?” the soldier asked.

Yona twisted his mouth into a bitter smile, strained his throat, and finally croaked out:

“Master, my son… he died this week.”

Such a tragic thing explained why the coachman Yona was like this now.

Faced with this sorrow, nearly overwhelming, would the soldier comfort him?

“Oh!… What illness did he die of?”

Yona turned his whole body toward the passenger.

“Who knows? Probably fever… he lay in the hospital three days and died… It was God’s will.”

“Turn, you devil!” came a shout from the darkness. “Are you blind, old dog? Use your eyes!”

“Just drive, drive on…” the passenger said. “If you go like this, we won’t arrive till tomorrow. Hurry up!”

The half-hearted question was merely polite indifference—the soldier had no real interest in the matter.

Seeing this, Belinsky felt a faint anger rising, and hurriedly looked ahead.

What would happen next?

To whom could this poor coachman pour out such grief?

After seeing off the officer, three young men soon arrived:

“Coachman, to Police Bridge!” the hunchback rasped in a hoarse voice. “Three of us… twenty kopecks!”

Yona jerked the reins and clicked his tongue. Twenty kopecks was unfair, but he didn’t care to haggle… a ruble or five kopecks—it was all the same to him now, as long as there was a passenger…

This old man seemed to have forgotten even his livelihood—he only wanted someone to talk to, to ease his misery through human contact. But could that really help?

“My… my son… he died this week.”

“Everyone dies,” the hunchback coughed, wiped his lips, and sighed. “Come on, drive, drive! Gentlemen, I can’t take this anymore! When will he ever get us there?”

“Just give him a little encouragement… a smack on the neck!”

“Old bastard, you hear me? I swear I’ll beat your neck!… Talking politely to people like you is worse than walking!… You hear me, you old dragon? Don’t you care what we say?”

For a grieving old man, such a reply was outright humiliation—how did he respond?

Yona didn’t so much feel as heard a sharp crack against the back of his head.

“Heh heh…” he laughed. “What cheerful masters… May God bless you!”

“Coachman, do you have a wife?” the tall one asked.

“Me? Heh heh… What cheerful masters! My wife’s turned to mud now… hahaha!… In the grave!… Now my son’s dead too, but I’m still alive… It’s strange—Death got the wrong door… it should’ve come for me, not my son…”

Yona turned around, wanting to tell how his son had died, but just then the hunchback exhaled with relief and declared, thank God, they’d arrived.

Why did the old man respond this way to such humiliation?

Was he too grief-stricken to care, or had such treatment become so common he was numb—desperate only to speak, to release his sorrow?

After these men left, the old man found no one else to confide in; in anguish and pain, he once again took the initiative to speak—and still received the same response:

Yona saw a yard servant carrying a small cloth bundle and decided to speak to him.

“Old brother, what time is it?” he asked.

“Past nine… Why are you stopping here? Move your sled!”

At this point, the old man seemed to finally give up.

Yona drove his sled a few steps away, bent over, and let sorrow torment him… He felt speaking to others was useless… But before five minutes passed, he straightened up, shook his head as if seized by sharp pain, tugged the reins… he couldn’t bear it.

“Back to the stable,” he thought. “Back to the stable.”

Yet the pain clung to him like a burr—he finally couldn’t help glancing at the young coachman beside him:

“Go ahead, drink your fill… I, brother, my son died… Did you hear? He died in the hospital this week… Such things happen!”

Yona watched to see if his words had any effect—but none. The young man had pulled the blanket over his head and was asleep.

Now, with no one to tell, nowhere to go, and pain too great to relieve, the poor old man looked around once more—and finally found the only being who could listen.

And that being was:

“Are you eating grass?” Yona asked his horse, seeing its bright eyes. “Go on, eat, eat… Since we didn’t earn money for oats, we’ll eat grass instead… Yes… I’m too old to drive now… My son should be driving—he was a true coachman… If only he were still alive…”

Yona fell silent for a moment, then continued:

“That’s how it is, my little mare… Kuzma Yonich is gone… He’s passed away… He died for no reason… Suppose you had a foal, and you were its mother… Suddenly, say, that foal dies… Wouldn’t you grieve?”

The thin horse chewed its grass, listened, and blew warm breath onto its master’s hand.

Yona became absorbed, pouring out everything in his heart to it…

Who could have imagined that, in the end, it was this thin horse that gave the old man his final comfort?

Seeing this astonishing ending, Belinsky had no time to look elsewhere—he leapt to his feet, pacing the room, and shouted to Nekrasov beside him:

“Yes, Nikolai! They are people, living people! Why won’t they listen to them? Why never pity or notice them? So many would rather waste their time on meaningless things than cast a single glance at their brothers!”

And our writer merely recorded these things truthfully—yet they call him a liar, a fabricator of history, with ill intent!

Do they have no eyes?! Or have their hearts hardened so much they see only their own present, only what they want to see, utterly blind to the past, the present, and the millions beyond?

Nikolai, this author is a doctor—a surgeon! He is dissecting all of Russian society with his scalpel!

Not water, coughing.

Chekhov wrote this with such precision, it’s almost impossible to extract further.

We can only try to extract the key moments.





(End of chapter)