person
Stepan
also: Степан
One of the two sick soldiers playing cards in the sick bay alongside Gusev and Pavel Ivanych; he suddenly grows confused mid-game, lies down on the floor, and dies within moments, the first of the sick bay's deaths in the story.
Reading notes
- Gusev §50 Stepan
One of the two sick soldiers who had been playing cards; his sudden confusion and collapse two sections earlier (loc 47-48) is revealed here to be death, the first of two deaths the story depicts in the sick bay (Pavel Ivanych's follows at loc 84-87).
- Gusev §54 There's no breath in him, he's dead!
Gusev's blunt diagnosis, delivered with irritation at the other men's slowness to notice rather than shock or grief, sets the story's characteristic tone for death throughout: matter-of-fact, undramatized, quickly absorbed back into the ship's routine (the very next section-break moves straight to "There is no rocking, and Pavel Ivanych has grown cheerful").