I made up my mind to run away that evening, but in warming up some food on an oil-stove before dinner I absentmindedly let it catch fire. When I was trying to put the flames out, I upset the contents of the vessel over my hand, and had to be taken to the hospital.
I remember well that oppressive nightmare of the hospital. In what seemed to be a yellow — gray wilderness there were huddled together, grum — bling and groaning, gray and white figures in shrouds, while a tall man on crutches, with eyebrows like whiskers, pulled his black beard and roared:
“I will report it to his Eminence!”
The pallet beds reminded me of the coffin, and the patients, lying with their noses upward, were like dead sparrows.
The yellow walls rocked, the ceiling curved outward like a sail, the floor rose and fell beside my cot. Everything about the place was hope — less and miserable, and the twigs of trees tapped against the window like rods in some one’s hand.
At the door there danced a red-haired, thin dead person, drawing his shroud round him with his thin hands and squeaking:
“I don’t want mad people.”
The man on crutches shouted in his ear:
“I shall report it to his Eminence!”
Grandfather, grandmother, and every one had told me that they always starved people in hospitals, so I looked upon my life as finished.
A woman with glasses, also in a shroud, came to me, and wrote something on a slate hanging at the head of the bed. The chalk broke and fell all over me.
“What is your name?”
“I have no name.”
“But you must have one.”
“No.”
“Now, don’t be silly, or you will be whipped.”
I could well believe that they would whip me; that was why I would not answer her.
She made a hissing sound like a cat, and went out noiselessly, also like a cat.
Two lamps were lit. The yellow globes hung down from the ceiling like two eyes, hanging and winking, dazzled, and trying to get closer together.
Some one in the corner said:
“How can I play without a hand?”
“Ah, of course; they have cut off your hand.”
I came to the conclusion at once that they cut off a man’s hand because he played at cards!
What would they do with me before they starved me?
My hands burned and smarted just as if some one were pulling the bones out of them.
I cried softly from fright and pain, and shut my eyes so that the tears should not be seen; but they forced their way through my eyelids, and, trickling over my temples, fell into my ears.
The night came. All the inmates threw themselves upon their pallet beds, and hid themselves under gray blankets. Every minute it became quieter. Only some one could be heard muttering in a comer,
“It is no use; both he and she are rotters.”
I would have written a letter to grandmother, telling her to come and steal me from the hospital while I was still alive, but I could not write; my hands could not be used at all.
I would try to find a way of getting out of the place.
The silence of the night became more intense every moment, as if it were going to last forever.
Softly putting my feet to the floor, I went to the double door, half of which was open. In the corridor, under the lamp, on a wooden bench with a back to it, appeared a gray, bristling head surrounded by smoke, looking at me with dark, hollow eyes.
I had no time to hide myself.
“Who is that wandering about?
Come here!”
The voice was not formidable; it was soft.
I went to him. I saw a round face with short hair sticking out round it. On the head the hair was long and stuck out in all directions like a silver halo, and at the belt of this person hung a bunch of keys.
If his beard and hair had been longer, he would have looked like the Apostle Peter.
“You are the one with the burned hands?
Why are you wandering about at night?
By whose authority?”
He blew a lot of smoke at my chest and face, and, putting his warm hands on my neck, drew me to him.
“Are you frightened?”
“Yes.”
“Every one is frightened when they come here first, but that is nothing.
And you need not be afraid of me, of all people. I never hurt any one.
Would you like to smoke”?
No, don’t!
It is too soon; wait a year or two.
And where are your parents? You have none?