I am a literary giant in Russia

Chapter 9: Distress

After waiting for a long time, the coachman Jonah finally got his first customer:
"Driver, to the Vyborg district!" Iona heard the cry. "Driver!" Iona shuddered, and through his eyelashes, which were caked with snow, he saw a soldier in a greatcoat with a hood.

"To the Vyborg district!" the soldier shouted again. "Are you asleep or something? To the Vyborg district!"

For some reason, even though there were customers, the coachman Jonah seemed a little absent-minded. He just shook the reins stiffly, but he didn't seem to know where he was going.

"Where are you going, devil!" Jonah heard a cry from the midst of the endless stream of shadows. "Where are you going, devil? Keep to the right!"

"You can't even drive a car! Keep to the right!" the soldier said angrily.

So what happened? Why was he so distracted?

Belinsky's doubts were immediately answered:
"Iona turned his head to look at the passengers and moved his lips. He seemed to want to speak, but no words came out of his throat, only a hissing sound.

"What?" asked the soldier.

Iona gave a wry smile, strained his throat, and finally spoke hoarsely:
"Master, um, my son...died this week."

It's such a sad thing, no wonder the coachman Jonah is like this now.

So, facing his sadness that seems to be almost uncontrollable, will the soldier comfort him?

"Oh! ... What disease did he die of?"

Iona turned around and said to the passenger:
"Who knows? He probably had a fever. He lay in the hospital for three days and then died. It was God's will."

"Turn around, devil!" a voice cried out from the darkness. "Are you blind or something, old dog? Look with your eyes!"

"Drive your car, drive your car..." the passenger said, "If you keep going like this, you won't get there tomorrow. Hurry up!"

The question asked subconsciously was just a courtesy. In fact, the soldier had no interest in this matter at all.

Seeing this, Belinsky felt a little angry and looked back hurriedly.

What will happen next?
To whom could the poor coachman confide his sorrow?

After the officer left, three young men soon arrived:

"'Driver, to Police Bridge!' the hunchback cried in a cracked voice. 'Three of us... twenty kopecks!'

Iona shook the reins and smacked his lips. Twenty kopecks was an unfair price, but he had no time to bargain... A ruble, five kopecks, it made no difference to him now, as long as there were passengers..."

Right now, the old man seems to be unable to even take care of his livelihood. He just wants to find someone to talk to, so that he can relieve his bad mood in the process of interacting with others. But is this really possible?

"My... um... my son died this week!"

"We're all going to die..." the hunchback coughed, wiped his lips, and sighed. "Come on, drive, drive! Gentlemen, I can't stand this ride any longer! When will he take us away?"

"Then you should encourage him a little... give him a crooked neck!"

"You old fool, do you hear me? Seriously, I'm going to hit you on the neck!... It's better to just walk away than to be polite to people like you!... Do you hear me, old dragon (a strange dragon, an insult)? Don't you take our words to heart?"

For a sad old man, such a reply is already humiliating, but how did the old man react?

Iona heard, rather than felt, a thud on the back of his head. "Hehe," he laughed, "those jolly gentlemen... God bless you!"

"Coachman, do you have a wife?" asked the tall man.

"Me? Ha ha ha! These jolly gentlemen! My wife is now in the mud... Ha ha ha!... In the grave!... And now my son is dead, too, and I am still alive... It's a strange thing, Death has come to the wrong door... He should have come for me, but he went for my son..."

Jonah turned back and was about to tell how his son had died, but the hunchback breathed a sigh of relief and declared, "Thank God, they're here at last."

Why did the old man react like this in the face of such humiliation?

Was he too sad to care at all, or was it that this kind of thing was too common and he had long been numb and just wanted to talk to someone to express his feelings?

After the group left, the old man could no longer find anyone to talk to. In distress and pain, he chose to speak again, but still got a similar result:
"Iona saw a servant sweeping the yard with a small rush bag and decided to talk to him.

"Brother, what time is it now?" he asked.

"It's past nine o'clock... What are you doing here? Get your sled out of the way!"

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

Iona drives the sled a few paces away, hunches over himself, and lets his torment consume him. He feels it is useless to tell anyone about it. But before five minutes are over, he straightens himself up, shakes his head as if in a sharp pain, pulls at the reins. He can no longer bear it.

"Back to the inn," he thought, "back to the inn!"

But it seemed that the pain still lingered on him like a thorn in his flesh. He finally couldn't help but look at the coachman next to him:
"Then drink to your heart's content... As for me, my son is dead... Have you heard? He died in the hospital this week... It's really possible!"

Jonah looked to see if his words had any effect, but he saw none. The young man had already covered himself with the quilt, even his head, and was asleep.

At this point, there was no one to talk to and nowhere to go. Even though he was in so much pain, he still couldn't get rid of it. The poor old man looked around again and finally found the only person he could talk to.

And this object is:
"Are you eating grass?" Jonah asks his horse, seeing its shining eyes. "Well, eat, eat. . . . Since we haven't earned enough to buy oats, we'll just eat grass. . . . Yes. . . I'm too old to drive. . . . My son ought to be driving, I can't do it. . . . He's a real coachman. . . . If only he were alive."

Iona was silent for a moment, then continued:

"That's it, my little mare... Kuzma Ionech is gone... He passed away... He died for no reason... For example, you have a foal now, and you are the foal's mother... And then, for example, the foal passes away... Wouldn't you be sad?"

The lean horse chewed the hay, listened, and blew on his master's hands.

Jonah was so engrossed in his talk that he told it everything that was in his heart..."

Who would have thought that in the end, it was a skinny horse that gave the old man the final comfort?

Seeing this astonishing outcome, Belinsky had no time to look to the other side. Instead, he stood up excitedly and walked around the room while shouting to Nekrasov beside him:
"Yes, Nicholas! They are also human beings, living people! Why are you unwilling to listen to them? Why do you never sympathize with them and pay attention to them? Too many people would rather waste a lot of time on meaningless things and never even look at their brothers!
Our writers simply recorded these events truthfully, but they accused them of talking nonsense, fabricating history, and having bad intentions!
Do they have no eyes?! Or are their hearts so hardened that they only see their own present, only see what they want to see and what they think, and completely ignore the past, present, and the millions of people far away!
Nikolay, this author is a doctor, a surgeon! He is dissecting the entire Russian society with a scalpel! "

It’s not a water cough.

It is true that what Chekhov wrote was too concise, to the point where it is almost impossible to refine it.

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

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(End of this chapter)