Akulka’s Husband
(A Story)
It was rather late at night, about twelve o’clock. I had fallen asleep but soon waked up. The tiny dim light of the night-lamp glimmered faintly in the ward. … Almost all were asleep. Even Ustyantsev was asleep, and in the stillness one could hear how painfully he breathed and the husky, wheezing in his throat at every gasp. Far away in the passage there suddenly sounded the heavy footsteps of the sentinel coming to relieve the watch. There was a clang of a gun against the floor. The ward door was opened: the corporal, stepping in cautiously, counted over the patients. A minute later the ward was shut up, a new sentinel was put on duty, the watchman moved away, and again the same stillness. Only then I noticed that on the left at a little distance from me there were two patients awake, who seemed to be whispering together. It used to happen in the ward sometimes that two men would lie side by side for days and months without speaking, and suddenly would begin talking, excited by the stillness of the night, and one would reveal his whole past to the other.