Александр Куприн – The Garnet Bracelet and other Stories / Гранатовый браслет и другие повести. Книга для чтения на английском языке (страница 6)

“You talk about compromise,” said Bobrov gloomily, “but today you extracted the splinters from that Masalsk stone-mason’s skull, didn’t you?”

“Ah, my friend, what difference does one repaired skull make? Think how many bellies you keep full and how many people you give work to. Ilovaisky says in his History that ‘Tsar Boris, being desirous of winning the favour of the people, undertook the construction of public buildings in the years of famine,’ or something like that. Now try to work out what tremendous good you – ”

The doctor’s last words seemed to jolt Bobrov, who sat up quickly in bed and swung his bare feet over the side.

“Good?” he shouted frenziedly. “Are you talking to me about good? In that case, if you really want to sum up what’s good or bad, allow me to give you some statistics.” And he began in sharp, measured tones, as if speaking from a platform: “It has long been known that work in a mine, metal works, or large factory shortens the workman’s life by roughly a quarter, to say nothing of accidents or back-breaking toil. As a physician you know better than I do how many workmen suffer from syphilis or drink, or live in appalling conditions in those accursed barracks and mud-huts. Wait, doctor – before you object, try to remember how many workmen over forty or forty-five you’ve seen in factories. I haven’t met any. That means the workman gives his employer three months of his life a year, one week a month, or, in short, six hours a day. Now listen to this. Our six blast-furnaces will require some thirty thousand men – I suppose Tsar Boris never dreamt of such a figure. Thirty thousand men who burn up, so to speak, altogether a hundred and eighty thousand hours of their own lives every day, that is, seven thousand five hundred days, or – how many years does that add up to?”

“About twenty years,” the doctor prompted, after a brief pause.

“About twenty years a day!” cried Bobrov. “Two days of work swallow up one man. Damn it! Do you remember those Assyrians or Moabites in the Bible who offered human sacrifices to their gods? But, really, those brass gentlemen, Moloch and Dagon, would have blushed with shame and mortification at the figures I’ve quoted.”

This peculiar calculation had just occurred to Bobrov, who, like many impressionable people, discovered new ideas only in the heat of debate. Nevertheless, both he and Goldberg were struck by the unusual statistics.

“Hang it all, you bewilder me,” said the doctor. “The figures may be inaccurate, though.”

“And do you know anything,” Bobrov went on, with even greater vehemence, “about another statistical table which enables you to compute with devilish accuracy the price in human lives of each step forward of your damnable chariot, the invention of each paltry winnowing-fan, seeder, or rail-mill? A fine thing is your civilization, whose fruits are figures, the units being steel machines, and the ciphers human lives!”

“But look here, my friend,” said the doctor, taken aback by Bobrov’s violence, “do you mean to say, then, that we’d better fall back on primitive labour? Why do you consider only the black side? After all, in spite of your statistics, the mill has provided a school, a church, a good hospital, and a low-interest credit society for the workmen.”

Bobrov jumped out of bed and began to run about barefoot.

“Those hospitals and schools of yours don’t mean a thing! They’re no more than sops for humanists like you, concessions to public opinion. I can tell you, if you like, what we actually think of all that. Do you know what a finish is?”

“A finish? Hasn’t that got something to do with horses – with racing?”

“That’s it. A finish is the last seven-hundred foot spurt before the winning-post. The horse makes it at top speed – it’s the supreme effort, and to get the horse to make that effort they lash it till it bleeds. Then, when it’s passed the mark, it may die for all anybody cares. We’re like that, too. When we’ve squeezed the last spurt out of the horse and it drops with a broken back and shattered legs, to hell with it, it’s no longer good for anything! Your schools and hospitals mean a fat lot to a horse that’s breathed its last after the finish. Have you ever watched smelting or rolling? If you have, you ought to know that it takes deucedly strong nerves, steel muscles, and the agility of a circus performer. You ought to know that everyone on the job escapes death several times a day thanks only to his wonderful self-control. And would you like to know how much a workman gets for work of that sort?”

“Still, as long as the mill’s there, the workman’s sure of a job,” Goldberg persisted.

“Don’t be naive, doctor!” cried Bobrov, sitting on the window-sill. “The workman depends today more than ever on market demand, on stock-jobbing, on various intrigues. Each big enterprise passes through different hands three or four times before it gets under way. Do you know how our company came into being? A sum of money was put up by a small group of business men. At first the business was planned on a small scale. But a whole gang of engineers, directors and contractors frittered away the capital before the owners could see what was what. Enormous buildings were erected that turned out to be good for nothing. They were scrapped – blown up with dynamite. Only when the concern was sold at ten kopeks to the ruble did it transpire that the whole dirty gang had been acting by arrangement, for which they were paid by a more powerful and astute company. Now the business is being conducted on a much larger scale, but I know very well that the first failure cost eight hundred workmen their two months’ wages. That’s your safe employment for you! Why, as soon as the shares drop wages slide down too. I suppose you know how shares rise or drop? To bring that about you have to go to Petersburg and whisper in a broker’s ear that you want to sell, say, three hundred thousand rubles’ worth of shares, adding that it’s strictly between you and him and that you’ll pay him a nice brokerage if only he keeps his mouth shut. Then you whisper the same to another couple of brokers, and the shares instantly drop by several dozen rubles. And the greater the secrecy the sooner and surer the drop. Safe employment, indeed!”

With a vigorous push Bobrov flung the window open. Cold air rushed into the room.

“Look, doctor!” cried Bobrov, pointing to the mill.

Goldberg raised himself on his elbow and peered into the night darkness outside. The immense expanse spreading out in the distance was alight with innumerable heaps of red-hot lime-stone, whose surface flared up into bluish and green sulphur flames every now and again. Those were limekilns[2] burning. A blood-red glow wavered over the mill, showing in dark relief the slender tops of the great chimneys, whose lower parts were blurred by grey mist rising from the ground. Ceaselessly those giants belched clouds of dense smoke that merged into a chaotic mass trailing eastwards, with patches like balls of dirty grey or rust-coloured cotton wool. Bright shafts of burning gas trembled and danced above the tall, thin smoke deflectors, making them look like giant torches. The gas flames threw on the smoke cloud above the mill strange, ominous reflections. From time to time, following the sharp clank of the signal hammer, the bell of a blast-furnace would go down, and a whirlwind of flames and soot would hurtle skywards from the orifice of the furnace, roaring like distant thunder. Then, with startling suddenness, the whole mill would flash into view for a few seconds, and the serried row of black round hot-blast stoves would look like the towers of a fabulous iron castle. The burning coke ovens stretched in long, regular rows. Occasionally one of them flared up and blazed like a huge red eye. Electric light added its bluish, lifeless shine to the glare of red-hot iron. There was a continuous clangour and crashing of iron.

In the glow of the mill lights Bobrov’s face had taken on a sinister coppery hue, his eyes glistened bright red, and tousled hair hung over his forehead. His voice was piercing and angry.

“There he is – that Moloch who wants warm human blood!” he cried, stretching his thin arm out of the window. “To be sure, this is progress and machine labour and cultural advancement. But, for heaven’s sake, think of it – twenty years! Twenty years of human life a day! At moments I feel like a murderer, I swear!”

“Good God, the man’s mad,” thought the doctor, shuddering. He set about soothing Bobrov.

“Come, come, Andrei Ilyich, my friend. Why worry about foolish things! It’s damp outside, and you’ve opened the window. Go to bed, and take some bromide – here.”

“He’s a maniac, he really is,” he thought, with a feeling of both compassion and fear.

Exhausted by his outburst, Bobrov put up little resistance. But when he got into bed he suddenly broke into hysterical sobs. And the doctor sat by his side for a long time, stroking his head as if he had been a child, and soothing him with what words of sympathy occurred to him.