person
Gusev
also: Гусев
A peasant soldier on indefinite furlough, dying of consumption in the sick bay of a military hospital ship returning from five years' service in the Far East. Uncomplaining and half-superstitious, he spends the story drifting between fevered visions of home (his brother's family, the frozen pond, a sledge ride) and flat, unreflective exchanges with his dying bunk-neighbor Pavel Ivanych. He recounts beating four Chinese laborers without remorse and states he would not save a drowning German or Chinese man but would save a baptized Russian; he dies and is buried at sea in the story's final movement.
Reading notes
- Gusev §3 a private on indefinite furlough
"Бессрочноотпускной" (literally "indefinite-furlough") designated a soldier who had completed his active-duty term but remained liable for recall to service in wartime -- Gusev and the other soldiers on the ship are veterans heading home after their active service, not deserters or men on leave.
- Gusev §96 You don't eat, you don't drink, you've grown so thin -- it's frightening to look at you. Consumption, in a word
The bandaged soldier's blunt diagnosis of Gusev, delivered as practical advice (take communion, hand over any money) rather than as comfort, mirrors Gusev's own earlier blunt diagnosis of Stepan's death (loc 54); the story treats dying, throughout, as a fact to be managed rather than mourned.
Mentioned in 1 work (42 mentions)
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