CHAPTER 8 - The Combat between the Professor and the Poet
Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev (Homeless) regains consciousness in a stark white‑walled room of a psychiatric clinic. He notes the clean bed, a metallic nightstand, and blinds that let sunlight flood the space. After pressing the call button, a frosted glass cylinder displays rotating prompts (“Drink”, “Nurse”, “Call the Doctor”, “Attendant”). A plump, friendly nurse in a white coat enters, raises the blinds, and shows Ivan a modern bathroom. She comments on the clinic’s reputation among foreign tourists, prompting Ivan to recall the mysterious foreign consultant he met at Patriarch’s Ponds. She dresses him in a shirt, underwear, and crimson flannel pyjamas, then escorts him to a huge examination room filled with nickel‑plated instruments, Bunsen burners, lamps, and glass cases.
Three attendants—a man and two women in white—conduct a thorough interview. Ivan deliberately refrains from violent outbursts or recounting the consultant; instead he answers a cascade of personal questions about his past illnesses, family, and recent events at Patriarch’s Ponds, including his encounter with Pontius Pilate. The staff perform routine medical checks: temperature, pulse, eye examination, small pricks for blood, tapping his knees, placing rubber bracelets, and other non‑painful procedures. After the exam, Ivan receives coffee, soft‑boiled eggs, and buttered bread.
Shortly thereafter a dignified man of about forty‑five, impeccably shaven and courteous, enters with a retinue of white‑coated staff. He introduces himself as Doctor Stravinsky, the chief of the institution. Stravinsky scans Ivan’s chart, mutters in a half‑known language, and comments on the diagnosis of schizophrenia, echoing the professor’s earlier words. He questions Ivan about his status as a poet and then invites Ivan to speak. Ivan declares that he was detained as a madman and reports his recent encounter with a mysterious person who knew Pontius Pilate and predicted Berlioz’s tram accident. Stravinsky probes for details, asking about “Annushka,” which Ivan dismisses as irrelevant. He then summarizes Ivan’s chaotic actions from the previous day—hanging an icon, falling from a fence, carrying a candle in his underwear, beating someone in a restaurant, calling the police, attempting to jump out a window, and being tied up.
Stravinsky concludes that Ivan is “normal” after Ivan asserts it, and proposes a logical course: Ivan should write a declaration about the consultant and submit it, while remaining in the clinic for his own safety. He orders a staff member, Fyodor Vassilyevich, to check Ivan “Citizen Homeless” out for a town visit but not to change his linens, anticipating his return in two hours. Stravinsky warns that if Ivan goes to the police in his underwear, he will simply be brought back to the clinic. He repeatedly assures Ivan that he will be helped, that peace is his salvation, and that he must avoid further agitation. The chapter ends with Stravinsky leaving, the nurse remaining, and the sunlit riverbank visible through the window.