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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13418-0.txt b/13418-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..986ae42 --- /dev/null +++ b/13418-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8397 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Chorus Girl and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Chorus Girl and Other Stories + +Author: Anton Chekhov + +Release Date: September 9, 2004 [EBook #13418] +[Last updated: October 21, 2017] + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHORUS GIRL AND OTHER STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by James Rusk + + + + + +THE TALES OF CHEKHOV + +VOLUME 8 + +THE CHORUS GIRL AND OTHER STORIES + +BY + +ANTON TCHEKHOV + +Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE CHORUS GIRL +VEROTCHKA +MY LIFE +AT A COUNTRY HOUSE +A FATHER +ON THE ROAD +ROTHSCHILD'S FIDDLE +IVAN MATVEYITCH +ZINOTCHKA +BAD WEATHER +A GENTLEMAN FRIEND +A TRIVIAL INCIDENT + + + + +THE CHORUS GIRL + +ONE day when she was younger and better-looking, and when her voice +was stronger, Nikolay Petrovitch Kolpakov, her adorer, was sitting +in the outer room in her summer villa. It was intolerably hot and +stifling. Kolpakov, who had just dined and drunk a whole bottle of +inferior port, felt ill-humoured and out of sorts. Both were bored +and waiting for the heat of the day to be over in order to go for +a walk. + +All at once there was a sudden ring at the door. Kolpakov, who was +sitting with his coat off, in his slippers, jumped up and looked +inquiringly at Pasha. + +"It must be the postman or one of the girls," said the singer. + +Kolpakov did not mind being found by the postman or Pasha's lady +friends, but by way of precaution gathered up his clothes and went +into the next room, while Pasha ran to open the door. To her great +surprise in the doorway stood, not the postman and not a girl friend, +but an unknown woman, young and beautiful, who was dressed like a +lady, and from all outward signs was one. + +The stranger was pale and was breathing heavily as though she had +been running up a steep flight of stairs. + +"What is it?" asked Pasha. + +The lady did not at once answer. She took a step forward, slowly +looked about the room, and sat down in a way that suggested that +from fatigue, or perhaps illness, she could not stand; then for a +long time her pale lips quivered as she tried in vain to speak. + +"Is my husband here?" she asked at last, raising to Pasha her big +eyes with their red tear-stained lids. + +"Husband?" whispered Pasha, and was suddenly so frightened that her +hands and feet turned cold. "What husband?" she repeated, beginning +to tremble. + +"My husband, . . . Nikolay Petrovitch Kolpakov." + +"N . . . no, madam. . . . I . . . I don't know any husband." + +A minute passed in silence. The stranger several times passed her +handkerchief over her pale lips and held her breath to stop her +inward trembling, while Pasha stood before her motionless, like a +post, and looked at her with astonishment and terror. + +"So you say he is not here?" the lady asked, this time speaking +with a firm voice and smiling oddly. + +"I . . . I don't know who it is you are asking about." + +"You are horrid, mean, vile . . ." the stranger muttered, scanning +Pasha with hatred and repulsion. "Yes, yes . . . you are horrid. I +am very, very glad that at last I can tell you so!" + +Pasha felt that on this lady in black with the angry eyes and white +slender fingers she produced the impression of something horrid and +unseemly, and she felt ashamed of her chubby red cheeks, the pock-mark +on her nose, and the fringe on her forehead, which never could be +combed back. And it seemed to her that if she had been thin, and +had had no powder on her face and no fringe on her forehead, then +she could have disguised the fact that she was not "respectable," +and she would not have felt so frightened and ashamed to stand +facing this unknown, mysterious lady. + +"Where is my husband?" the lady went on. "Though I don't care whether +he is here or not, but I ought to tell you that the money has been +missed, and they are looking for Nikolay Petrovitch. . . . They +mean to arrest him. That's your doing!" + +The lady got up and walked about the room in great excitement. Pasha +looked at her and was so frightened that she could not understand. + +"He'll be found and arrested to-day," said the lady, and she gave +a sob, and in that sound could be heard her resentment and vexation. +"I know who has brought him to this awful position! Low, horrid +creature! Loathsome, mercenary hussy!" The lady's lips worked and +her nose wrinkled up with disgust. "I am helpless, do you hear, you +low woman? . . . I am helpless; you are stronger than I am, but +there is One to defend me and my children! God sees all! He is just! +He will punish you for every tear I have shed, for all my sleepless +nights! The time will come; you will think of me! . . ." + +Silence followed again. The lady walked about the room and wrung +her hands, while Pasha still gazed blankly at her in amazement, not +understanding and expecting something terrible. + +"I know nothing about it, madam," she said, and suddenly burst into +tears. + +"You are lying!" cried the lady, and her eyes flashed angrily at +her. "I know all about it! I've known you a long time. I know that +for the last month he has been spending every day with you!" + +"Yes. What then? What of it? I have a great many visitors, but I +don't force anyone to come. He is free to do as he likes." + +"I tell you they have discovered that money is missing! He has +embezzled money at the office! For the sake of such a . . . creature +as you, for your sake he has actually committed a crime. Listen," +said the lady in a resolute voice, stopping short, facing Pasha. +"You can have no principles; you live simply to do harm--that's +your object; but one can't imagine you have fallen so low that you +have no trace of human feeling left! He has a wife, children. . . . +If he is condemned and sent into exile we shall starve, the +children and I. . . . Understand that! And yet there is a chance +of saving him and us from destitution and disgrace. If I take them +nine hundred roubles to-day they will let him alone. Only nine +hundred roubles!" + +"What nine hundred roubles?" Pasha asked softly. "I . . . I don't +know. . . . I haven't taken it." + +"I am not asking you for nine hundred roubles. . . . You have no +money, and I don't want your money. I ask you for something else. +. . . Men usually give expensive things to women like you. Only +give me back the things my husband has given you!" + +"Madam, he has never made me a present of anything!" Pasha wailed, +beginning to understand. + +"Where is the money? He has squandered his own and mine and other +people's. . . . What has become of it all? Listen, I beg you! I was +carried away by indignation and have said a lot of nasty things to +you, but I apologize. You must hate me, I know, but if you are +capable of sympathy, put yourself in my position! I implore you to +give me back the things!" + +"H'm!" said Pasha, and she shrugged her shoulders. "I would with +pleasure, but God is my witness, he never made me a present of +anything. Believe me, on my conscience. However, you are right, +though," said the singer in confusion, "he did bring me two little +things. Certainly I will give them back, if you wish it." + +Pasha pulled out one of the drawers in the toilet-table and took +out of it a hollow gold bracelet and a thin ring with a ruby in it. + +"Here, madam!" she said, handing the visitor these articles. + +The lady flushed and her face quivered. She was offended. + +"What are you giving me?" she said. "I am not asking for charity, +but for what does not belong to you . . . what you have taken +advantage of your position to squeeze out of my husband . . . that +weak, unhappy man. . . . On Thursday, when I saw you with my husband +at the harbour you were wearing expensive brooches and bracelets. +So it's no use your playing the innocent lamb to me! I ask you for +the last time: will you give me the things, or not?" + +"You are a queer one, upon my word," said Pasha, beginning to feel +offended. "I assure you that, except the bracelet and this little +ring, I've never seen a thing from your Nikolay Petrovitch. He +brings me nothing but sweet cakes." + +"Sweet cakes!" laughed the stranger. "At home the children have +nothing to eat, and here you have sweet cakes. You absolutely refuse +to restore the presents?" + +Receiving no answer, the lady sat down and stared into space, +pondering. + +"What's to be done now?" she said. "If I don't get nine hundred +roubles, he is ruined, and the children and I am ruined, too. Shall +I kill this low woman or go down on my knees to her?" + +The lady pressed her handkerchief to her face and broke into sobs. + +"I beg you!" Pasha heard through the stranger's sobs. "You see you +have plundered and ruined my husband. Save him. . . . You have no +feeling for him, but the children . . . the children . . . What +have the children done?" + +Pasha imagined little children standing in the street, crying with +hunger, and she, too, sobbed. + +"What can I do, madam?" she said. "You say that I am a low woman +and that I have ruined Nikolay Petrovitch, and I assure you . . . +before God Almighty, I have had nothing from him whatever. . . . +There is only one girl in our chorus who has a rich admirer; all +the rest of us live from hand to mouth on bread and kvass. Nikolay +Petrovitch is a highly educated, refined gentleman, so I've made +him welcome. We are bound to make gentlemen welcome." + +"I ask you for the things! Give me the things! I am crying. . . . +I am humiliating myself. . . . If you like I will go down on my +knees! If you wish it!" + +Pasha shrieked with horror and waved her hands. She felt that this +pale, beautiful lady who expressed herself so grandly, as though +she were on the stage, really might go down on her knees to her, +simply from pride, from grandeur, to exalt herself and humiliate +the chorus girl. + +"Very well, I will give you things!" said Pasha, wiping her eyes +and bustling about. "By all means. Only they are not from Nikolay +Petrovitch. . . . I got these from other gentlemen. As you +please. . . ." + +Pasha pulled out the upper drawer of the chest, took out a diamond +brooch, a coral necklace, some rings and bracelets, and gave them +all to the lady. + +"Take them if you like, only I've never had anything from your +husband. Take them and grow rich," Pasha went on, offended at the +threat to go down on her knees. "And if you are a lady . . . his +lawful wife, you should keep him to yourself. I should think so! I +did not ask him to come; he came of himself." + +Through her tears the lady scrutinized the articles given her and +said: + +"This isn't everything. . . . There won't be five hundred roubles' +worth here." + +Pasha impulsively flung out of the chest a gold watch, a cigar-case +and studs, and said, flinging up her hands: + +"I've nothing else left. . . . You can search!" + +The visitor gave a sigh, with trembling hands twisted the things +up in her handkerchief, and went out without uttering a word, without +even nodding her head. + +The door from the next room opened and Kolpakov walked in. He was +pale and kept shaking his head nervously, as though he had swallowed +something very bitter; tears were glistening in his eyes. + +"What presents did you make me?" Pasha asked, pouncing upon him. +"When did you, allow me to ask you?" + +"Presents . . . that's no matter!" said Kolpakov, and he tossed his +head. "My God! She cried before you, she humbled herself. . . ." + +"I am asking you, what presents did you make me?" Pasha cried. + +"My God! She, a lady, so proud, so pure. . . . She was ready to go +down on her knees to . . . to this wench! And I've brought her to +this! I've allowed it!" + +He clutched his head in his hands and moaned. + +"No, I shall never forgive myself for this! I shall never forgive +myself! Get away from me . . . you low creature!" he cried with +repulsion, backing away from Pasha, and thrusting her off with +trembling hands. "She would have gone down on her knees, and . . . +and to you! Oh, my God!" + +He rapidly dressed, and pushing Pasha aside contemptuously, made +for the door and went out. + +Pasha lay down and began wailing aloud. She was already regretting +her things which she had given away so impulsively, and her feelings +were hurt. She remembered how three years ago a merchant had beaten +her for no sort of reason, and she wailed more loudly than ever. + + +VEROTCHKA + +IVAN ALEXEYITCH OGNEV remembers how on that August evening he opened +the glass door with a rattle and went out on to the verandah. He +was wearing a light Inverness cape and a wide-brimmed straw hat, +the very one that was lying with his top-boots in the dust under +his bed. In one hand he had a big bundle of books and notebooks, +in the other a thick knotted stick. + +Behind the door, holding the lamp to show the way, stood the master +of the house, Kuznetsov, a bald old man with a long grey beard, in +a snow-white piqué jacket. The old man was smiling cordially and +nodding his head. + +"Good-bye, old fellow!" said Ognev. + +Kuznetsov put the lamp on a little table and went out to the verandah. +Two long narrow shadows moved down the steps towards the flower-beds, +swayed to and fro, and leaned their heads on the trunks of the +lime-trees. + +"Good-bye and once more thank you, my dear fellow!" said Ivan +Alexeyitch. "Thank you for your welcome, for your kindness, for +your affection. . . . I shall never forget your hospitality as long +as I live. You are so good, and your daughter is so good, and +everyone here is so kind, so good-humoured and friendly . . . Such +a splendid set of people that I don't know how to say what I feel!" + +From excess of feeling and under the influence of the home-made +wine he had just drunk, Ognev talked in a singing voice like a +divinity student, and was so touched that he expressed his feelings +not so much by words as by the blinking of his eyes and the twitching +of his shoulders. Kuznetsov, who had also drunk a good deal and was +touched, craned forward to the young man and kissed him. + +"I've grown as fond of you as if I were your dog," Ognev went on. +"I've been turning up here almost every day; I've stayed the night +a dozen times. It's dreadful to think of all the home-made wine +I've drunk. And thank you most of all for your co-operation and +help. Without you I should have been busy here over my statistics +till October. I shall put in my preface: 'I think it my duty to +express my gratitude to the President of the District Zemstvo of +N----, Kuznetsov, for his kind co-operation.' There is a brilliant +future before statistics! My humble respects to Vera Gavrilovna, +and tell the doctors, both the lawyers and your secretary, that I +shall never forget their help! And now, old fellow, let us embrace +one another and kiss for the last time!" + +Ognev, limp with emotion, kissed the old man once more and began +going down the steps. On the last step he looked round and asked: +"Shall we meet again some day?" + +"God knows!" said the old man. "Most likely not!" + +"Yes, that's true! Nothing will tempt you to Petersburg and I am +never likely to turn up in this district again. Well, good-bye!" + +"You had better leave the books behind!" Kuznetsov called after +him. "You don't want to drag such a weight with you. I would send +them by a servant to-morrow!" + +But Ognev was rapidly walking away from the house and was not +listening. His heart, warmed by the wine, was brimming over with +good-humour, friendliness, and sadness. He walked along thinking +how frequently one met with good people, and what a pity it was +that nothing was left of those meetings but memories. At times one +catches a glimpse of cranes on the horizon, and a faint gust of +wind brings their plaintive, ecstatic cry, and a minute later, +however greedily one scans the blue distance, one cannot see a speck +nor catch a sound; and like that, people with their faces and their +words flit through our lives and are drowned in the past, leaving +nothing except faint traces in the memory. Having been in the N---- +District from the early spring, and having been almost every day +at the friendly Kuznetsovs', Ivan Alexeyitch had become as much at +home with the old man, his daughter, and the servants as though +they were his own people; he had grown familiar with the whole house +to the smallest detail, with the cosy verandah, the windings of the +avenues, the silhouettes of the trees over the kitchen and the +bath-house; but as soon as he was out of the gate all this would +be changed to memory and would lose its meaning as reality for ever, +and in a year or two all these dear images would grow as dim in his +consciousness as stories he had read or things he had imagined. + +"Nothing in life is so precious as people!" Ognev thought in his +emotion, as he strode along the avenue to the gate. "Nothing!" + +It was warm and still in the garden. There was a scent of the +mignonette, of the tobacco-plants, and of the heliotrope, which +were not yet over in the flower-beds. The spaces between the bushes +and the tree-trunks were filled with a fine soft mist soaked through +and through with moonlight, and, as Ognev long remembered, coils +of mist that looked like phantoms slowly but perceptibly followed +one another across the avenue. The moon stood high above the garden, +and below it transparent patches of mist were floating eastward. +The whole world seemed to consist of nothing but black silhouettes +and wandering white shadows. Ognev, seeing the mist on a moonlight +August evening almost for the first time in his life, imagined he +was seeing, not nature, but a stage effect in which unskilful +workmen, trying to light up the garden with white Bengal fire, hid +behind the bushes and let off clouds of white smoke together with +the light. + +When Ognev reached the garden gate a dark shadow moved away from +the low fence and came towards him. + +"Vera Gavrilovna!" he said, delighted. "You here? And I have been +looking everywhere for you; wanted to say good-bye. . . . Good-bye; +I am going away!" + +"So early? Why, it's only eleven o'clock." + +"Yes, it's time I was off. I have a four-mile walk and then my +packing. I must be up early to-morrow." + +Before Ognev stood Kuznetsov's daughter Vera, a girl of one-and-twenty, +as usual melancholy, carelessly dressed, and attractive. Girls who +are dreamy and spend whole days lying down, lazily reading whatever +they come across, who are bored and melancholy, are usually careless +in their dress. To those of them who have been endowed by nature +with taste and an instinct of beauty, the slight carelessness adds +a special charm. When Ognev later on remembered her, he could not +picture pretty Verotchka except in a full blouse which was crumpled +in deep folds at the belt and yet did not touch her waist; without +her hair done up high and a curl that had come loose from it on her +forehead; without the knitted red shawl with ball fringe at the +edge which hung disconsolately on Vera's shoulders in the evenings, +like a flag on a windless day, and in the daytime lay about, crushed +up, in the hall near the men's hats or on a box in the dining-room, +where the old cat did not hesitate to sleep on it. This shawl and +the folds of her blouse suggested a feeling of freedom and laziness, +of good-nature and sitting at home. Perhaps because Vera attracted +Ognev he saw in every frill and button something warm, naïve, cosy, +something nice and poetical, just what is lacking in cold, insincere +women that have no instinct for beauty. + +Verotchka had a good figure, a regular profile, and beautiful curly +hair. Ognev, who had seen few women in his life, thought her a +beauty. + +"I am going away," he said as he took leave of her at the gate. +"Don't remember evil against me! Thank you for everything!" + +In the same singing divinity student's voice in which he had talked +to her father, with the same blinking and twitching of his shoulders, +he began thanking Vera for her hospitality, kindness, and friendliness. + +"I've written about you in every letter to my mother," he said. "If +everyone were like you and your dad, what a jolly place the world +would be! You are such a splendid set of people! All such genuine, +friendly people with no nonsense about you." + +"Where are you going to now?" asked Vera. + +"I am going now to my mother's at Oryol; I shall be a fortnight +with her, and then back to Petersburg and work." + +"And then?" + +"And then? I shall work all the winter and in the spring go somewhere +into the provinces again to collect material. Well, be happy, live +a hundred years . . . don't remember evil against me. We shall not +see each other again." + +Ognev stooped down and kissed Vera's hand. Then, in silent emotion, +he straightened his cape, shifted his bundle of books to a more +comfortable position, paused, and said: + +"What a lot of mist!" + +"Yes. Have you left anything behind?" + +"No, I don't think so. . . ." + +For some seconds Ognev stood in silence, then he moved clumsily +towards the gate and went out of the garden. + +"Stay; I'll see you as far as our wood," said Vera, following him +out. + +They walked along the road. Now the trees did not obscure the view, +and one could see the sky and the distance. As though covered with +a veil all nature was hidden in a transparent, colourless haze +through which her beauty peeped gaily; where the mist was thicker +and whiter it lay heaped unevenly about the stones, stalks, and +bushes or drifted in coils over the road, clung close to the earth +and seemed trying not to conceal the view. Through the haze they +could see all the road as far as the wood, with dark ditches at the +sides and tiny bushes which grew in the ditches and caught the +straying wisps of mist. Half a mile from the gate they saw the dark +patch of Kuznetsov's wood. + +"Why has she come with me? I shall have to see her back," thought +Ognev, but looking at her profile he gave a friendly smile and said: +"One doesn't want to go away in such lovely weather. It's quite a +romantic evening, with the moon, the stillness, and all the etceteras. +Do you know, Vera Gavrilovna, here I have lived twenty-nine years +in the world and never had a romance. No romantic episode in my +whole life, so that I only know by hearsay of rendezvous, 'avenues +of sighs,' and kisses. It's not normal! In town, when one sits in +one's lodgings, one does not notice the blank, but here in the fresh +air one feels it. . . . One resents it!" + +"Why is it?" + +"I don't know. I suppose I've never had time, or perhaps it was I +have never met women who. . . . In fact, I have very few acquaintances +and never go anywhere." + +For some three hundred paces the young people walked on in silence. +Ognev kept glancing at Verotchka's bare head and shawl, and days +of spring and summer rose to his mind one after another. It had +been a period when far from his grey Petersburg lodgings, enjoying +the friendly warmth of kind people, nature, and the work he loved, +he had not had time to notice how the sunsets followed the glow of +dawn, and how, one after another foretelling the end of summer, +first the nightingale ceased singing, then the quail, then a little +later the landrail. The days slipped by unnoticed, so that life +must have been happy and easy. He began calling aloud how reluctantly +he, poor and unaccustomed to change of scene and society, had come +at the end of April to the N---- District, where he had expected +dreariness, loneliness, and indifference to statistics, which he +considered was now the foremost among the sciences. When he arrived +on an April morning at the little town of N---- he had put up at +the inn kept by Ryabuhin, the Old Believer, where for twenty kopecks +a day they had given him a light, clean room on condition that he +should not smoke indoors. After resting and finding who was the +president of the District Zemstvo, he had set off at once on foot +to Kuznetsov. He had to walk three miles through lush meadows and +young copses. Larks were hovering in the clouds, filling the air +with silvery notes, and rooks flapping their wings with sedate +dignity floated over the green cornland. + +"Good heavens!" Ognev had thought in wonder; "can it be that there's +always air like this to breathe here, or is this scent only to-day, +in honour of my coming?" + +Expecting a cold business-like reception, he went in to Kuznetsov's +diffidently, looking up from under his eyebrows and shyly pulling +his beard. At first Kuznetsov wrinkled up his brows and could not +understand what use the Zemstvo could be to the young man and his +statistics; but when the latter explained at length what was material +for statistics and how such material was collected, Kuznetsov +brightened, smiled, and with childish curiosity began looking at +his notebooks. On the evening of the same day Ivan Alexeyitch was +already sitting at supper with the Kuznetsovs, was rapidly becoming +exhilarated by their strong home-made wine, and looking at the calm +faces and lazy movements of his new acquaintances, felt all over +that sweet, drowsy indolence which makes one want to sleep and +stretch and smile; while his new acquaintances looked at him +good-naturedly and asked him whether his father and mother were +living, how much he earned a month, how often he went to the +theatre. . . . + +Ognev recalled his expeditions about the neighbourhood, the picnics, +the fishing parties, the visit of the whole party to the convent +to see the Mother Superior Marfa, who had given each of the visitors +a bead purse; he recalled the hot, endless typically Russian arguments +in which the opponents, spluttering and banging the table with their +fists, misunderstand and interrupt one another, unconsciously +contradict themselves at every phrase, continually change the +subject, and after arguing for two or three hours, laugh and say: +"Goodness knows what we have been arguing about! Beginning with one +thing and going on to another!" + +"And do you remember how the doctor and you and I rode to Shestovo?" +said Ivan Alexeyitch to Vera as they reached the copse. "It was +there that the crazy saint met us: I gave him a five-kopeck piece, +and he crossed himself three times and flung it into the rye. Good +heavens! I am carrying away such a mass of memories that if I could +gather them together into a whole it would make a good nugget of +gold! I don't understand why clever, perceptive people crowd into +Petersburg and Moscow and don't come here. Is there more truth and +freedom in the Nevsky and in the big damp houses than here? Really, +the idea of artists, scientific men, and journalists all living +crowded together in furnished rooms has always seemed to me a +mistake." + +Twenty paces from the copse the road was crossed by a small narrow +bridge with posts at the corners, which had always served as a +resting-place for the Kuznetsovs and their guests on their evening +walks. From there those who liked could mimic the forest echo, and +one could see the road vanish in the dark woodland track. + +"Well, here is the bridge!" said Ognev. "Here you must turn back." + +Vera stopped and drew a breath. + +"Let us sit down," she said, sitting down on one of the posts. +"People generally sit down when they say good-bye before starting +on a journey." + +Ognev settled himself beside her on his bundle of books and went +on talking. She was breathless from the walk, and was looking, not +at Ivan Alexeyitch, but away into the distance so that he could not +see her face. + +"And what if we meet in ten years' time?" he said. "What shall we +be like then? You will be by then the respectable mother of a family, +and I shall be the author of some weighty statistical work of no +use to anyone, as thick as forty thousand such works. We shall meet +and think of old days. . . . Now we are conscious of the present; +it absorbs and excites us, but when we meet we shall not remember +the day, nor the month, nor even the year in which we saw each other +for the last time on this bridge. You will be changed, perhaps +. . . . Tell me, will you be different?" + +Vera started and turned her face towards him. + +"What?" she asked. + +"I asked you just now. . . ." + +"Excuse me, I did not hear what you were saying." + +Only then Ognev noticed a change in Vera. She was pale, breathing +fast, and the tremor in her breathing affected her hands and lips +and head, and not one curl as usual, but two, came loose and fell +on her forehead. . . . Evidently she avoided looking him in the +face, and, trying to mask her emotion, at one moment fingered her +collar, which seemed to be rasping her neck, at another pulled her +red shawl from one shoulder to the other. + +"I am afraid you are cold," said Ognev. "It's not at all wise to +sit in the mist. Let me see you back _nach-haus_." + +Vera sat mute. + +"What is the matter?" asked Ognev, with a smile. "You sit silent +and don't answer my questions. Are you cross, or don't you feel +well?" + +Vera pressed the palm of her hand to the cheek nearest to Ognev, +and then abruptly jerked it away. + +"An awful position!" she murmured, with a look of pain on her face. +"Awful!" + +"How is it awful?" asked Ognev, shrugging his shoulders and not +concealing his surprise. "What's the matter?" + +Still breathing hard and twitching her shoulders, Vera turned her +back to him, looked at the sky for half a minute, and said: + +"There is something I must say to you, Ivan Alexeyitch. . . ." + +"I am listening." + +"It may seem strange to you. . . . You will be surprised, but I +don't care. . . ." + +Ognev shrugged his shoulders once more and prepared himself to +listen. + +"You see . . ." Verotchka began, bowing her head and fingering a +ball on the fringe of her shawl. "You see . . . this is what I +wanted to tell you. . . . You'll think it strange . . . and silly, +but I . . . can't bear it any longer." + +Vera's words died away in an indistinct mutter and were suddenly +cut short by tears. The girl hid her face in her handkerchief, bent +lower than ever, and wept bitterly. Ivan Alexeyitch cleared his +throat in confusion and looked about him hopelessly, at his wits' +end, not knowing what to say or do. Being unused to the sight of +tears, he felt his own eyes, too, beginning to smart. + +"Well, what next!" he muttered helplessly. "Vera Gavrilovna, what's +this for, I should like to know? My dear girl, are you . . . are +you ill? Or has someone been nasty to you? Tell me, perhaps I could, +so to say . . . help you. . . ." + +When, trying to console her, he ventured cautiously to remove her +hands from her face, she smiled at him through her tears and said: + +"I . . . love you!" + +These words, so simple and ordinary, were uttered in ordinary human +language, but Ognev, in acute embarrassment, turned away from Vera, +and got up, while his confusion was followed by terror. + +The sad, warm, sentimental mood induced by leave-taking and the +home-made wine suddenly vanished, and gave place to an acute and +unpleasant feeling of awkwardness. He felt an inward revulsion; he +looked askance at Vera, and now that by declaring her love for him +she had cast off the aloofness which so adds to a woman's charm, +she seemed to him, as it were, shorter, plainer, more ordinary. + +"What's the meaning of it?" he thought with horror. "But I . . . +do I love her or not? That's the question!" + +And she breathed easily and freely now that the worst and most +difficult thing was said. She, too, got up, and looking Ivan +Alexeyitch straight in the face, began talking rapidly, warmly, +irrepressibly. + +As a man suddenly panic-stricken cannot afterwards remember the +succession of sounds accompanying the catastrophe that overwhelmed +him, so Ognev cannot remember Vera's words and phrases. He can only +recall the meaning of what she said, and the sensation her words +evoked in him. He remembers her voice, which seemed stifled and +husky with emotion, and the extraordinary music and passion of her +intonation. Laughing, crying with tears glistening on her eyelashes, +she told him that from the first day of their acquaintance he had +struck her by his originality, his intelligence, his kind intelligent +eyes, by his work and objects in life; that she loved him passionately, +deeply, madly; that when coming into the house from the garden in +the summer she saw his cape in the hall or heard his voice in the +distance, she felt a cold shudder at her heart, a foreboding of +happiness; even his slightest jokes had made her laugh; in every +figure in his note-books she saw something extraordinarily wise and +grand; his knotted stick seemed to her more beautiful than the +trees. + +The copse and the wisps of mist and the black ditches at the side +of the road seemed hushed listening to her, whilst something strange +and unpleasant was passing in Ognev's heart. . . . Telling him of +her love, Vera was enchantingly beautiful; she spoke eloquently and +passionately, but he felt neither pleasure nor gladness, as he would +have liked to; he felt nothing but compassion for Vera, pity and +regret that a good girl should be distressed on his account. Whether +he was affected by generalizations from reading or by the insuperable +habit of looking at things objectively, which so often hinders +people from living, but Vera's ecstasies and suffering struck him +as affected, not to be taken seriously, and at the same time +rebellious feeling whispered to him that all he was hearing and +seeing now, from the point of view of nature and personal happiness, +was more important than any statistics and books and truths. . . . +And he raged and blamed himself, though he did not understand exactly +where he was in fault. + +To complete his embarrassment, he was absolutely at a loss what to +say, and yet something he must say. To say bluntly, "I don't love +you," was beyond him, and he could not bring himself to say "Yes," +because however much he rummaged in his heart he could not find one +spark of feeling in it. . . . + +He was silent, and she meanwhile was saying that for her there was +no greater happiness than to see him, to follow him wherever he +liked this very moment, to be his wife and helper, and that if he +went away from her she would die of misery. + +"I cannot stay here!" she said, wringing her hands. "I am sick of +the house and this wood and the air. I cannot bear the everlasting +peace and aimless life, I can't endure our colourless, pale people, +who are all as like one another as two drops of water! They are all +good-natured and warm-hearted because they are all well-fed and +know nothing of struggle or suffering, . . . I want to be in those +big damp houses where people suffer, embittered by work and +need. . ." + +And this, too, seemed to Ognev affected and not to be taken seriously. +When Vera had finished he still did not know what to say, but it +was impossible to be silent, and he muttered: + +"Vera Gavrilovna, I am very grateful to you, though I feel I've +done nothing to deserve such . . . feeling . . . on your part. +Besides, as an honest man I ought to tell you that . . . happiness +depends on equality--that is, when both parties are . . . equally +in love. . . ." + +But he was immediately ashamed of his mutterings and ceased. He +felt that his face at that moment looked stupid, guilty, blank, +that it was strained and affected. . . . Vera must have been able +to read the truth on his countenance, for she suddenly became grave, +turned pale, and bent her head. + +"You must forgive me," Ognev muttered, not able to endure the +silence. "I respect you so much that . . . it pains me. . . ." + +Vera turned sharply and walked rapidly homewards. Ognev followed +her. + +"No, don't!" said Vera, with a wave of her hand. "Don't come; I can +go alone." + +"Oh, yes . . . I must see you home anyway." + +Whatever Ognev said, it all to the last word struck him as loathsome +and flat. The feeling of guilt grew greater at every step. He raged +inwardly, clenched his fists, and cursed his coldness and his +stupidity with women. Trying to stir his feelings, he looked at +Verotchka's beautiful figure, at her hair and the traces of her +little feet on the dusty road; he remembered her words and her +tears, but all that only touched his heart and did not quicken his +pulse. + +"Ach! one can't force oneself to love," he assured himself, and at +the same time he thought, "But shall I ever fall in love without? +I am nearly thirty! I have never met anyone better than Vera and I +never shall. . . . Oh, this premature old age! Old age at thirty!" + +Vera walked on in front more and more rapidly, without looking back +at him or raising her head. It seemed to him that sorrow had made +her thinner and narrower in the shoulders. + +"I can imagine what's going on in her heart now!" he thought, looking +at her back. "She must be ready to die with shame and mortification! +My God, there's so much life, poetry, and meaning in it that it +would move a stone, and I . . . I am stupid and absurd!" + +At the gate Vera stole a glance at him, and, shrugging and wrapping +her shawl round her walked rapidly away down the avenue. + +Ivan Alexeyitch was left alone. Going back to the copse, he walked +slowly, continually standing still and looking round at the gate +with an expression in his whole figure that suggested that he could +not believe his own memory. He looked for Vera's footprints on the +road, and could not believe that the girl who had so attracted him +had just declared her love, and that he had so clumsily and bluntly +"refused" her. For the first time in his life it was his lot to +learn by experience how little that a man does depends on his own +will, and to suffer in his own person the feelings of a decent +kindly man who has against his will caused his neighbour cruel, +undeserved anguish. + +His conscience tormented him, and when Vera disappeared he felt as +though he had lost something very precious, something very near and +dear which he could never find again. He felt that with Vera a part +of his youth had slipped away from him, and that the moments which +he had passed through so fruitlessly would never be repeated. + +When he reached the bridge he stopped and sank into thought. He +wanted to discover the reason of his strange coldness. That it was +due to something within him and not outside himself was clear to +him. He frankly acknowledged to himself that it was not the +intellectual coldness of which clever people so often boast, not +the coldness of a conceited fool, but simply impotence of soul, +incapacity for being moved by beauty, premature old age brought on +by education, his casual existence, struggling for a livelihood, +his homeless life in lodgings. From the bridge he walked slowly, +as it were reluctantly, into the wood. Here, where in the dense +black darkness glaring patches of moonlight gleamed here and there, +where he felt nothing except his thoughts, he longed passionately +to regain what he had lost. + +And Ivan Alexeyitch remembers that he went back again. Urging himself +on with his memories, forcing himself to picture Vera, he strode +rapidly towards the garden. There was no mist by then along the +road or in the garden, and the bright moon looked down from the sky +as though it had just been washed; only the eastern sky was dark +and misty. . . . Ognev remembers his cautious steps, the dark +windows, the heavy scent of heliotrope and mignonette. His old +friend Karo, wagging his tail amicably, came up to him and sniffed +his hand. This was the one living creature who saw him walk two or +three times round the house, stand near Vera's dark window, and +with a deep sigh and a wave of his hand walk out of the garden. + +An hour later he was in the town, and, worn out and exhausted, +leaned his body and hot face against the gatepost of the inn as he +knocked at the gate. Somewhere in the town a dog barked sleepily, +and as though in response to his knock, someone clanged the hour +on an iron plate near the church. + +"You prowl about at night," grumbled his host, the Old Believer, +opening the door to him, in a long nightgown like a woman's. "You +had better be saying your prayers instead of prowling about." + +When Ivan Alexeyitch reached his room he sank on the bed and gazed +a long, long time at the light. Then he tossed his head and began +packing. + + +MY LIFE + +THE STORY OF A PROVINCIAL + +I + +THE Superintendent said to me: "I only keep you out of regard for +your worthy father; but for that you would have been sent flying +long ago." I replied to him: "You flatter me too much, your Excellency, +in assuming that I am capable of flying." And then I heard him say: +"Take that gentleman away; he gets upon my nerves." + +Two days later I was dismissed. And in this way I have, during the +years I have been regarded as grown up, lost nine situations, to +the great mortification of my father, the architect of our town. I +have served in various departments, but all these nine jobs have +been as alike as one drop of water is to another: I had to sit, +write, listen to rude or stupid observations, and go on doing so +till I was dismissed. + +When I came in to my father he was sitting buried in a low arm-chair +with his eyes closed. His dry, emaciated face, with a shade of dark +blue where it was shaved (he looked like an old Catholic organist), +expressed meekness and resignation. Without responding to my greeting +or opening his eyes, he said: + +"If my dear wife and your mother were living, your life would have +been a source of continual distress to her. I see the Divine +Providence in her premature death. I beg you, unhappy boy," he +continued, opening his eyes, "tell me: what am I to do with you?" + +In the past when I was younger my friends and relations had known +what to do with me: some of them used to advise me to volunteer for +the army, others to get a job in a pharmacy, and others in the +telegraph department; now that I am over twenty-five, that grey +hairs are beginning to show on my temples, and that I have been +already in the army, and in a pharmacy, and in the telegraph +department, it would seem that all earthly possibilities have been +exhausted, and people have given up advising me, and merely sigh +or shake their heads. + +"What do you think about yourself?" my father went on. "By the time +they are your age, young men have a secure social position, while +look at you: you are a proletarian, a beggar, a burden on your +father!" + +And as usual he proceeded to declare that the young people of to-day +were on the road to perdition through infidelity, materialism, and +self-conceit, and that amateur theatricals ought to be prohibited, +because they seduced young people from religion and their duties. + +"To-morrow we shall go together, and you shall apologize to the +superintendent, and promise him to work conscientiously," he said +in conclusion. "You ought not to remain one single day with no +regular position in society." + +"I beg you to listen to me," I said sullenly, expecting nothing +good from this conversation. "What you call a position in society +is the privilege of capital and education. Those who have neither +wealth nor education earn their daily bread by manual labour, and +I see no grounds for my being an exception." + +"When you begin talking about manual labour it is always stupid and +vulgar!" said my father with irritation. "Understand, you dense +fellow--understand, you addle-pate, that besides coarse physical +strength you have the divine spirit, a spark of the holy fire, which +distinguishes you in the most striking way from the ass or the +reptile, and brings you nearer to the Deity! This fire is the fruit +of the efforts of the best of mankind during thousands of years. +Your great-grandfather Poloznev, the general, fought at Borodino; +your grandfather was a poet, an orator, and a Marshal of Nobility; +your uncle is a schoolmaster; and lastly, I, your father, am an +architect! All the Poloznevs have guarded the sacred fire for you +to put it out!" + +"One must be just," I said. "Millions of people put up with manual +labour." + +"And let them put up with it! They don't know how to do anything +else! Anybody, even the most abject fool or criminal, is capable +of manual labour; such labour is the distinguishing mark of the +slave and the barbarian, while the holy fire is vouchsafed only to +a few!" + +To continue this conversation was unprofitable. My father worshipped +himself, and nothing was convincing to him but what he said himself. +Besides, I knew perfectly well that the disdain with which he talked +of physical toil was founded not so much on reverence for the sacred +fire as on a secret dread that I should become a workman, and should +set the whole town talking about me; what was worse, all my +contemporaries had long ago taken their degrees and were getting +on well, and the son of the manager of the State Bank was already +a collegiate assessor, while I, his only son, was nothing! To +continue the conversation was unprofitable and unpleasant, but I +still sat on and feebly retorted, hoping that I might at last be +understood. The whole question, of course, was clear and simple, +and only concerned with the means of my earning my living; but the +simplicity of it was not seen, and I was talked to in mawkishly +rounded phrases of Borodino, of the sacred fire, of my uncle a +forgotten poet, who had once written poor and artificial verses; I +was rudely called an addlepate and a dense fellow. And how I longed +to be understood! In spite of everything, I loved my father and my +sister and it had been my habit from childhood to consult them-- +a habit so deeply rooted that I doubt whether I could ever have got +rid of it; whether I were in the right or the wrong, I was in +constant dread of wounding them, constantly afraid that my father's +thin neck would turn crimson and that he would have a stroke. + +"To sit in a stuffy room," I began, "to copy, to compete with a +typewriter, is shameful and humiliating for a man of my age. What +can the sacred fire have to do with it?" + +"It's intellectual work, anyway," said my father. "But that's enough; +let us cut short this conversation, and in any case I warn you: if +you don't go back to your work again, but follow your contemptible +propensities, then my daughter and I will banish you from our hearts. +I shall strike you out of my will, I swear by the living God!" + +With perfect sincerity to prove the purity of the motives by which +I wanted to be guided in all my doings, I said: + +"The question of inheritance does not seem very important to me. I +shall renounce it all beforehand." + +For some reason or other, quite to my surprise, these words were +deeply resented by my father. He turned crimson. + +"Don't dare to talk to me like that, stupid!" he shouted in a thin, +shrill voice. "Wastrel!" and with a rapid, skilful, and habitual +movement he slapped me twice in the face. "You are forgetting +yourself." + +When my father beat me as a child I had to stand up straight, with +my hands held stiffly to my trouser seams, and look him straight +in the face. And now when he hit me I was utterly overwhelmed, and, +as though I were still a child, drew myself up and tried to look +him in the face. My father was old and very thin but his delicate +muscles must have been as strong as leather, for his blows hurt a +good deal. + +I staggered back into the passage, and there he snatched up his +umbrella, and with it hit me several times on the head and shoulders; +at that moment my sister opened the drawing-room door to find out +what the noise was, but at once turned away with a look of horror +and pity without uttering a word in my defence. + +My determination not to return to the Government office, but to +begin a new life of toil, was not to be shaken. All that was left +for me to do was to fix upon the special employment, and there was +no particular difficulty about that, as it seemed to me that I was +very strong and fitted for the very heaviest labour. I was faced +with a monotonous life of toil in the midst of hunger, coarseness, +and stench, continually preoccupied with earning my daily bread. +And--who knows?--as I returned from my work along Great Dvoryansky +Street, I might very likely envy Dolzhikov, the engineer, who lived +by intellectual work, but, at the moment, thinking over all my +future hardships made me light-hearted. At times I had dreamed of +spiritual activity, imagining myself a teacher, a doctor, or a +writer, but these dreams remained dreams. The taste for intellectual +pleasures--for the theatre, for instance, and for reading--was +a passion with me, but whether I had any ability for intellectual +work I don't know. At school I had had an unconquerable aversion +for Greek, so that I was only in the fourth class when they had to +take me from school. For a long while I had coaches preparing me +for the fifth class. Then I served in various Government offices, +spending the greater part of the day in complete idleness, and I +was told that was intellectual work. My activity in the scholastic +and official sphere had required neither mental application nor +talent, nor special qualifications, nor creative impulse; it was +mechanical. Such intellectual work I put on a lower level than +physical toil; I despise it, and I don't think that for one moment +it could serve as a justification for an idle, careless life, as +it is indeed nothing but a sham, one of the forms of that same +idleness. Real intellectual work I have in all probability never +known. + +Evening came on. We lived in Great Dvoryansky Street; it was the +principal street in the town, and in the absence of decent public +gardens our _beau monde_ used to use it as a promenade in the +evenings. This charming street did to some extent take the place +of a public garden, as on each side of it there was a row of poplars +which smelt sweet, particularly after rain, and acacias, tall bushes +of lilac, wild-cherries and apple-trees hung over the fences and +palings. The May twilight, the tender young greenery with its +shifting shades, the scent of the lilac, the buzzing of the insects, +the stillness, the warmth--how fresh and marvellous it all is, +though spring is repeated every year! I stood at the garden gate +and watched the passers-by. With most of them I had grown up and +at one time played pranks; now they might have been disconcerted +by my being near them, for I was poorly and unfashionably dressed, +and they used to say of my very narrow trousers and huge, clumsy +boots that they were like sticks of macaroni stuck in boats. Besides, +I had a bad reputation in the town because I had no decent social +position, and used often to play billiards in cheap taverns, and +also, perhaps, because I had on two occasions been hauled up before +an officer of the police, though I had done nothing whatever to +account for this. + +In the big house opposite someone was playing the piano at Dolzhikov's. +It was beginning to get dark, and stars were twinkling in the sky. +Here my father, in an old top-hat with wide upturned brim, walked +slowly by with my sister on his arm, bowing in response to greetings. + +"Look up," he said to my sister, pointing to the sky with the same +umbrella with which he had beaten me that afternoon. "Look up at +the sky! Even the tiniest stars are all worlds! How insignificant +is man in comparison with the universe!" + +And he said this in a tone that suggested that it was particularly +agreeable and flattering to him that he was so insignificant. How +absolutely devoid of talent and imagination he was! Sad to say, he +was the only architect in the town, and in the fifteen to twenty +years that I could remember not one single decent house had been +built in it. When any one asked him to plan a house, he usually +drew first the reception hall and drawing-room: just as in old days +the boarding-school misses always started from the stove when they +danced, so his artistic ideas could only begin and develop from the +hall and drawing-room. To them he tacked on a dining-room, a nursery, +a study, linking the rooms together with doors, and so they all +inevitably turned into passages, and every one of them had two or +even three unnecessary doors. His imagination must have been lacking +in clearness, extremely muddled, curtailed. As though feeling that +something was lacking, he invariably had recourse to all sorts of +outbuildings, planting one beside another; and I can see now the +narrow entries, the poky little passages, the crooked staircases +leading to half-landings where one could not stand upright, and +where, instead of a floor, there were three huge steps like the +shelves of a bath-house; and the kitchen was invariably in the +basement with a brick floor and vaulted ceilings. The front of the +house had a harsh, stubborn expression; the lines of it were stiff +and timid; the roof was low-pitched and, as it were, squashed down; +and the fat, well-fed-looking chimneys were invariably crowned by +wire caps with squeaking black cowls. And for some reason all these +houses, built by my father exactly like one another, vaguely reminded +me of his top-hat and the back of his head, stiff and stubborn-looking. +In the course of years they have grown used in the town to the +poverty of my father's imagination. It has taken root and become +our local style. + +This same style my father had brought into my sister's life also, +beginning with christening her Kleopatra (just as he had named me +Misail). When she was a little girl he scared her by references to +the stars, to the sages of ancient times, to our ancestors, and +discoursed at length on the nature of life and duty; and now, when +she was twenty-six, he kept up the same habits, allowing her to +walk arm in arm with no one but himself, and imagining for some +reason that sooner or later a suitable young man would be sure to +appear, and to desire to enter into matrimony with her from respect +for his personal qualities. She adored my father, feared him, and +believed in his exceptional intelligence. + +It was quite dark, and gradually the street grew empty. The music +had ceased in the house opposite; the gate was thrown wide open, +and a team with three horses trotted frolicking along our street +with a soft tinkle of little bells. That was the engineer going for +a drive with his daughter. It was bedtime. + +I had my own room in the house, but I lived in a shed in the yard, +under the same roof as a brick barn which had been built some time +or other, probably to keep harness in; great hooks were driven into +the wall. Now it was not wanted, and for the last thirty years my +father had stowed away in it his newspapers, which for some reason +he had bound in half-yearly volumes and allowed nobody to touch. +Living here, I was less liable to be seen by my father and his +visitors, and I fancied that if I did not live in a real room, and +did not go into the house every day to dinner, my father's words +that I was a burden upon him did not sound so offensive. + +My sister was waiting for me. Unseen by my father, she had brought +me some supper: not a very large slice of cold veal and a piece of +bread. In our house such sayings as: "A penny saved is a penny +gained," and "Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care +of themselves," and so on, were frequently repeated, and my sister, +weighed down by these vulgar maxims, did her utmost to cut down the +expenses, and so we fared badly. Putting the plate on the table, +she sat down on my bed and began to cry. + +"Misail," she said, "what a way to treat us!" + +She did not cover her face; her tears dropped on her bosom and +hands, and there was a look of distress on her face. She fell back +on the pillow, and abandoned herself to her tears, sobbing and +quivering all over. + +"You have left the service again . . ." she articulated. "Oh, how +awful it is!" + +"But do understand, sister, do understand . . . ." I said, and I +was overcome with despair because she was crying. + +As ill-luck would have it, the kerosene in my little lamp was +exhausted; it began to smoke, and was on the point of going out, +and the old hooks on the walls looked down sullenly, and their +shadows flickered. + +"Have mercy on us," said my sister, sitting up. "Father is in +terrible distress and I am ill; I shall go out of my mind. What +will become of you?" she said, sobbing and stretching out her arms +to me. "I beg you, I implore you, for our dear mother's sake, I beg +you to go back to the office!" + +"I can't, Kleopatra!" I said, feeling that a little more and I +should give way. "I cannot!" + +"Why not?" my sister went on. "Why not? Well, if you can't get on +with the Head, look out for another post. Why shouldn't you get a +situation on the railway, for instance? I have just been talking +to Anyuta Blagovo; she declares they would take you on the railway-line, +and even promised to try and get a post for you. For God's sake, +Misail, think a little! Think a little, I implore you." + +We talked a little longer and I gave way. I said that the thought +of a job on the railway that was being constructed had never occurred +to me, and that if she liked I was ready to try it. + +She smiled joyfully through her tears and squeezed my hand, and +then went on crying because she could not stop, while I went to the +kitchen for some kerosene. + +II + +Among the devoted supporters of amateur theatricals, concerts and +_tableaux vivants_ for charitable objects the Azhogins, who lived +in their own house in Great Dvoryansky Street, took a foremost +place; they always provided the room, and took upon themselves all +the troublesome arrangements and the expenses. They were a family +of wealthy landowners who had an estate of some nine thousand acres +in the district and a capital house, but they did not care for the +country, and lived winter and summer alike in the town. The family +consisted of the mother, a tall, spare, refined lady, with short +hair, a short jacket, and a flat-looking skirt in the English +fashion, and three daughters who, when they were spoken of, were +called not by their names but simply: the eldest, the middle, and +the youngest. They all had ugly sharp chins, and were short-sighted +and round-shouldered. They were dressed like their mother, they +lisped disagreeably, and yet, in spite of that, infallibly took +part in every performance and were continually doing something with +a charitable object--acting, reciting, singing. They were very +serious and never smiled, and even in a musical comedy they played +without the faintest trace of gaiety, with a businesslike air, as +though they were engaged in bookkeeping. + +I loved our theatricals, especially the numerous, noisy, and rather +incoherent rehearsals, after which they always gave a supper. In +the choice of the plays and the distribution of the parts I had no +hand at all. The post assigned to me lay behind the scenes. I painted +the scenes, copied out the parts, prompted, made up the actors' +faces; and I was entrusted, too, with various stage effects such +as thunder, the singing of nightingales, and so on. Since I had no +proper social position and no decent clothes, at the rehearsals I +held aloof from the rest in the shadows of the wings and maintained +a shy silence. + +I painted the scenes at the Azhogins' either in the barn or in the +yard. I was assisted by Andrey Ivanov, a house painter, or, as he +called himself, a contractor for all kinds of house decorations, a +tall, very thin, pale man of fifty, with a hollow chest, with sunken +temples, with blue rings round his eyes, rather terrible to look +at in fact. He was afflicted with some internal malady, and every +autumn and spring people said that he wouldn't recover, but after +being laid up for a while he would get up and say afterwards with +surprise: "I have escaped dying again." + +In the town he was called Radish, and they declared that this was +his real name. He was as fond of the theatre as I was, and as soon +as rumours reached him that a performance was being got up he threw +aside all his work and went to the Azhogins' to paint scenes. + +The day after my talk with my sister, I was working at the Azhogins' +from morning till night. The rehearsal was fixed for seven o'clock +in the evening, and an hour before it began all the amateurs were +gathered together in the hall, and the eldest, the middle, and the +youngest Azhogins were pacing about the stage, reading from manuscript +books. Radish, in a long rusty-red overcoat and a scarf muffled +round his neck, already stood leaning with his head against the +wall, gazing with a devout expression at the stage. Madame Azhogin +went up first to one and then to another guest, saying something +agreeable to each. She had a way of gazing into one's face, and +speaking softly as though telling a secret. + +"It must be difficult to paint scenery," she said softly, coming +up to me. "I was just talking to Madame Mufke about superstitions +when I saw you come in. My goodness, my whole life I have been +waging war against superstitions! To convince the servants what +nonsense all their terrors are, I always light three candles, and +begin all my important undertakings on the thirteenth of the month." + +Dolzhikov's daughter came in, a plump, fair beauty, dressed, as +people said, in everything from Paris. She did not act, but a chair +was set for her on the stage at the rehearsals, and the performances +never began till she had appeared in the front row, dazzling and +astounding everyone with her fine clothes. As a product of the +capital she was allowed to make remarks during the rehearsals; and +she did so with a sweet indulgent smile, and one could see that she +looked upon our performance as a childish amusement. It was said +she had studied singing at the Petersburg Conservatoire, and even +sang for a whole winter in a private opera. I thought her very +charming, and I usually watched her through the rehearsals and +performances without taking my eyes off her. + +I had just picked up the manuscript book to begin prompting when +my sister suddenly made her appearance. Without taking off her cloak +or hat, she came up to me and said: + +"Come along, I beg you." + +I went with her. Anyuta Blagovo, also in her hat and wearing a dark +veil, was standing behind the scenes at the door. She was the +daughter of the Assistant President of the Court, who had held that +office in our town almost ever since the establishment of the circuit +court. Since she was tall and had a good figure, her assistance was +considered indispensable for _tableaux vivants_, and when she +represented a fairy or something like Glory her face burned with +shame; but she took no part in dramatic performances, and came to +the rehearsals only for a moment on some special errand, and did +not go into the hall. Now, too, it was evident that she had only +looked in for a minute. + +"My father was speaking about you," she said drily, blushing and +not looking at me. "Dolzhikov has promised you a post on the +railway-line. Apply to him to-morrow; he will be at home." + +I bowed and thanked her for the trouble she had taken. + +"And you can give up this," she said, indicating the exercise book. + +My sister and she went up to Madame Azhogin and for two minutes +they were whispering with her looking towards me; they were consulting +about something. + +"Yes, indeed," said Madame Azhogin, softly coming up to me and +looking intently into my face. "Yes, indeed, if this distracts you +from serious pursuits"--she took the manuscript book from my hands +--"you can hand it over to someone else; don't distress yourself, +my friend, go home, and good luck to you." + +I said good-bye to her, and went away overcome with confusion. As +I went down the stairs I saw my sister and Anyuta Blagovo going +away; they were hastening along, talking eagerly about something, +probably about my going into the railway service. My sister had +never been at a rehearsal before, and now she was most likely +conscience-stricken, and afraid her father might find out that, +without his permission, she had been to the Azhogins'! + +I went to Dolzhikov's next day between twelve and one. The footman +conducted me into a very beautiful room, which was the engineer's +drawing-room, and, at the same time, his working study. Everything +here was soft and elegant, and, for a man so unaccustomed to luxury +as I was, it seemed strange. There were costly rugs, huge arm-chairs, +bronzes, pictures, gold and plush frames; among the photographs +scattered about the walls there were very beautiful women, clever, +lovely faces, easy attitudes; from the drawing-room there was a +door leading straight into the garden on to a verandah: one could +see lilac-trees; one could see a table laid for lunch, a number of +bottles, a bouquet of roses; there was a fragrance of spring and +expensive cigars, a fragrance of happiness--and everything seemed +as though it would say: "Here is a man who has lived and laboured, +and has attained at last the happiness possible on earth." The +engineer's daughter was sitting at the writing-table, reading a +newspaper. + +"You have come to see my father?" she asked. "He is having a shower +bath; he will be here directly. Please sit down and wait." + +I sat down. + +"I believe you live opposite?" she questioned me, after a brief +silence. + +"Yes." + +"I am so bored that I watch you every day out of the window; you +must excuse me," she went on, looking at the newspaper, "and I often +see your sister; she always has such a look of kindness and +concentration." + +Dolzhikov came in. He was rubbing his neck with a towel. + +"Papa, Monsieur Poloznev," said his daughter. + +"Yes, yes, Blagovo was telling me," he turned briskly to me without +giving me his hand. "But listen, what can I give you? What sort of +posts have I got? You are a queer set of people!" he went on aloud +in a tone as though he were giving me a lecture. "A score of you +keep coming to me every day; you imagine I am the head of a department! +I am constructing a railway-line, my friends; I have employment for +heavy labour: I need mechanics, smiths, navvies, carpenters, +well-sinkers, and none of you can do anything but sit and write! +You are all clerks." + +And he seemed to me to have the same air of happiness as his rugs +and easy chairs. He was stout and healthy, ruddy-cheeked and +broad-chested, in a print cotton shirt and full trousers like a toy +china sledge-driver. He had a curly, round beard--and not a single +grey hair--a hooked nose, and clear, dark, guileless eyes. + +"What can you do?" he went on. "There is nothing you can do! I am +an engineer. I am a man of an assured position, but before they +gave me a railway-line I was for years in harness; I have been a +practical mechanic. For two years I worked in Belgium as an oiler. +You can judge for yourself, my dear fellow, what kind of work can +I offer you?" + +"Of course that is so . . ." I muttered in extreme confusion, unable +to face his clear, guileless eyes. + +"Can you work the telegraph, any way?" he asked, after a moment's +thought. + +"Yes, I have been a telegraph clerk." + +"Hm! Well, we will see then. Meanwhile, go to Dubetchnya. I have +got a fellow there, but he is a wretched creature." + +"And what will my duties consist of?" I asked. + +"We shall see. Go there; meanwhile I will make arrangements. Only +please don't get drunk, and don't worry me with requests of any +sort, or I shall send you packing." + +He turned away from me without even a nod. + +I bowed to him and his daughter who was reading a newspaper, and +went away. My heart felt so heavy, that when my sister began asking +me how the engineer had received me, I could not utter a single +word. + +I got up early in the morning, at sunrise, to go to Dubetchnya. +There was not a soul in our Great Dvoryansky Street; everyone was +asleep, and my footsteps rang out with a solitary, hollow sound. +The poplars, covered with dew, filled the air with soft fragrance. +I was sad, and did not want to go away from the town. I was fond +of my native town. It seemed to be so beautiful and so snug! I loved +the fresh greenery, the still, sunny morning, the chiming of our +bells; but the people with whom I lived in this town were boring, +alien to me, sometimes even repulsive. I did not like them nor +understand them. + +I did not understand what these sixty-five thousand people lived +for and by. I knew that Kimry lived by boots, that Tula made samovars +and guns, that Odessa was a sea-port, but what our town was, and +what it did, I did not know. Great Dvoryansky Street and the two +other smartest streets lived on the interest of capital, or on +salaries received by officials from the public treasury; but what +the other eight streets, which ran parallel for over two miles and +vanished beyond the hills, lived upon, was always an insoluble +riddle to me. And the way those people lived one is ashamed to +describe! No garden, no theatre, no decent band; the public library +and the club library were only visited by Jewish youths, so that +the magazines and new books lay for months uncut; rich and well-educated +people slept in close, stuffy bedrooms, on wooden bedsteads infested +with bugs; their children were kept in revoltingly dirty rooms +called nurseries, and the servants, even the old and respected ones, +slept on the floor in the kitchen, covered with rags. On ordinary +days the houses smelt of beetroot soup, and on fast days of sturgeon +cooked in sunflower oil. The food was not good, and the drinking +water was unwholesome. In the town council, at the governor's, at +the head priest's, on all sides in private houses, people had been +saying for years and years that our town had not a good and cheap +water-supply, and that it was necessary to obtain a loan of two +hundred thousand from the Treasury for laying on water; very rich +people, of whom three dozen could have been counted up in our town, +and who at times lost whole estates at cards, drank the polluted +water, too, and talked all their lives with great excitement of a +loan for the water-supply--and I did not understand that; it +seemed to me it would have been simpler to take the two hundred +thousand out of their own pockets and lay it out on that object. + +I did not know one honest man in the town. My father took bribes, +and imagined that they were given him out of respect for his moral +qualities; at the high school, in order to be moved up rapidly from +class to class, the boys went to board with their teachers, who +charged them exorbitant sums; the wife of the military commander +took bribes from the recruits when they were called up before the +board and even deigned to accept refreshments from them, and on one +occasion could not get up from her knees in church because she was +drunk; the doctors took bribes, too, when the recruits came up for +examination, and the town doctor and the veterinary surgeon levied +a regular tax on the butchers' shops and the restaurants; at the +district school they did a trade in certificates, qualifying for +partial exemption from military service; the higher clergy took +bribes from the humbler priests and from the church elders; at the +Municipal, the Artisans', and all the other Boards every petitioner +was pursued by a shout: "Don't forget your thanks!" and the petitioner +would turn back to give sixpence or a shilling. And those who did +not take bribes, such as the higher officials of the Department of +Justice, were haughty, offered two fingers instead of shaking hands, +were distinguished by the frigidity and narrowness of their judgments, +spent a great deal of time over cards, drank to excess, married +heiresses, and undoubtedly had a pernicious corrupting influence +on those around them. It was only the girls who had still the fresh +fragrance of moral purity; most of them had higher impulses, pure +and honest hearts; but they had no understanding of life, and +believed that bribes were given out of respect for moral qualities, +and after they were married grew old quickly, let themselves go +completely, and sank hopelessly in the mire of vulgar, petty bourgeois +existence. + +III + +A railway-line was being constructed in our neighbourhood. On the +eve of feast days the streets were thronged with ragged fellows +whom the townspeople called "navvies," and of whom they were afraid. +And more than once I had seen one of these tatterdemalions with a +bloodstained countenance being led to the police station, while a +samovar or some linen, wet from the wash, was carried behind by way +of material evidence. The navvies usually congregated about the +taverns and the market-place; they drank, ate, and used bad language, +and pursued with shrill whistles every woman of light behaviour who +passed by. To entertain this hungry rabble our shopkeepers made +cats and dogs drunk with vodka, or tied an old kerosene can to a +dog's tail; a hue and cry was raised, and the dog dashed along the +street, jingling the can, squealing with terror; it fancied some +monster was close upon its heels; it would run far out of the town +into the open country and there sink exhausted. There were in the +town several dogs who went about trembling with their tails between +their legs; and people said this diversion had been too much for +them, and had driven them mad. + +A station was being built four miles from the town. It was said +that the engineers asked for a bribe of fifty thousand roubles for +bringing the line right up to the town, but the town council would +only consent to give forty thousand; they could not come to an +agreement over the difference, and now the townspeople regretted +it, as they had to make a road to the station and that, it was +reckoned, would cost more. The sleepers and rails had been laid +throughout the whole length of the line, and trains ran up and down +it, bringing building materials and labourers, and further progress +was only delayed on account of the bridges which Dolzhikov was +building, and some of the stations were not yet finished. + +Dubetchnya, as our first station was called, was a little under +twelve miles from the town. I walked. The cornfields, bathed in the +morning sunshine, were bright green. It was a flat, cheerful country, +and in the distance there were the distinct outlines of the station, +of ancient barrows, and far-away homesteads. . . . How nice it was +out there in the open! And how I longed to be filled with the sense +of freedom, if only for that one morning, that I might not think +of what was being done in the town, not think of my needs, not feel +hungry! Nothing has so marred my existence as an acute feeling of +hunger, which made images of buckwheat porridge, rissoles, and baked +fish mingle strangely with my best thoughts. Here I was standing +alone in the open country, gazing upward at a lark which hovered +in the air at the same spot, trilling as though in hysterics, and +meanwhile I was thinking: "How nice it would be to eat a piece of +bread and butter!" + +Or I would sit down by the roadside to rest, and shut my eyes to +listen to the delicious sounds of May, and what haunted me was the +smell of hot potatoes. Though I was tall and strongly built, I had +as a rule little to eat, and so the predominant sensation throughout +the day was hunger, and perhaps that was why I knew so well how it +is that such multitudes of people toil merely for their daily bread, +and can talk of nothing but things to eat. + +At Dubetchnya they were plastering the inside of the station, and +building a wooden upper storey to the pumping shed. It was hot; +there was a smell of lime, and the workmen sauntered listlessly +between the heaps of shavings and mortar rubble. The pointsman lay +asleep near his sentry box, and the sun was blazing full on his +face. There was not a single tree. The telegraph wire hummed faintly +and hawks were perching on it here and there. I, wandering, too, +among the heaps of rubbish, and not knowing what to do, recalled +how the engineer, in answer to my question what my duties would +consist in, had said: "We shall see when you are there"; but what +could one see in that wilderness? + +The plasterers spoke of the foreman, and of a certain Fyodot Vasilyev. +I did not understand, and gradually I was overcome by depression +--the physical depression in which one is conscious of one's arms +and legs and huge body, and does not know what to do with them or +where to put them. + +After I had been walking about for at least a couple of hours, I +noticed that there were telegraph poles running off to the right +from the station, and that they ended a mile or a mile and a half +away at a white stone wall. The workmen told me the office was +there, and at last I reflected that that was where I ought to go. + +It was a very old manor house, deserted long ago. The wall round +it, of porous white stone, was mouldering and had fallen away in +places, and the lodge, the blank wall of which looked out on the +open country, had a rusty roof with patches of tin-plate gleaming +here and there on it. Within the gates could be seen a spacious +courtyard overgrown with rough weeds, and an old manor house with +sunblinds on the windows, and a high roof red with rust. Two lodges, +exactly alike, stood one on each side of the house to right and to +left: one had its windows nailed up with boards; near the other, +of which the windows were open, there was washing on the line, and +there were calves moving about. The last of the telegraph poles +stood in the courtyard, and the wire from it ran to the window of +the lodge, of which the blank wall looked out into the open country. +The door stood open; I went in. By the telegraph apparatus a gentleman +with a curly dark head, wearing a reefer coat made of sailcloth, +was sitting at a table; he glanced at me morosely from under his +brows, but immediately smiled and said: + +"Hullo, Better-than-nothing!" + +It was Ivan Tcheprakov, an old schoolfellow of mine, who had been +expelled from the second class for smoking. We used at one time, +during autumn, to catch goldfinches, finches, and linnets together, +and to sell them in the market early in the morning, while our +parents were still in their beds. We watched for flocks of migrating +starlings and shot at them with small shot, then we picked up those +that were wounded, and some of them died in our hands in terrible +agonies (I remember to this day how they moaned in the cage at +night); those that recovered we sold, and swore with the utmost +effrontery that they were all cocks. On one occasion at the market +I had only one starling left, which I had offered to purchasers in +vain, till at last I sold it for a farthing. "Anyway, it's better +than nothing," I said to comfort myself, as I put the farthing in +my pocket, and from that day the street urchins and the schoolboys +called after me: "Better-than-nothing"; and to this day the street +boys and the shopkeepers mock at me with the nickname, though no +one remembers how it arose. + +Tcheprakov was not of robust constitution: he was narrow-chested, +round-shouldered, and long-legged. He wore a silk cord for a tie, +had no trace of a waistcoat, and his boots were worse than mine, +with the heels trodden down on one side. He stared, hardly even +blinking, with a strained expression, as though he were just going +to catch something, and he was always in a fuss. + +"You wait a minute," he would say fussily. "You listen. . . . +Whatever was I talking about?" + +We got into conversation. I learned that the estate on which I now +was had until recently been the property of the Tcheprakovs, and +had only the autumn before passed into the possession of Dolzhikov, +who considered it more profitable to put his money into land than +to keep it in notes, and had already bought up three good-sized +mortgaged estates in our neighbourhood. At the sale Tcheprakov's +mother had reserved for herself the right to live for the next two +years in one of the lodges at the side, and had obtained a post for +her son in the office. + +"I should think he could buy!" Tcheprakov said of the engineer. +"See what he fleeces out of the contractors alone! He fleeces +everyone!" + +Then he took me to dinner, deciding fussily that I should live with +him in the lodge, and have my meals from his mother. + +"She is a bit stingy," he said, "but she won't charge you much." + +It was very cramped in the little rooms in which his mother lived; +they were all, even the passage and the entry, piled up with furniture +which had been brought from the big house after the sale; and the +furniture was all old-fashioned mahogany. Madame Tcheprakov, a very +stout middle-aged lady with slanting Chinese eyes, was sitting in +a big arm-chair by the window, knitting a stocking. She received +me ceremoniously. + +"This is Poloznev, mamma," Tcheprakov introduced me. "He is going +to serve here." + +"Are you a nobleman?" she asked in a strange, disagreeable voice: +it seemed to me to sound as though fat were bubbling in her throat. + +"Yes," I answered. + +"Sit down." + +The dinner was a poor one. Nothing was served but pies filled with +bitter curd, and milk soup. Elena Nikiforovna, who presided, kept +blinking in a queer way, first with one eye and then with the other. +She talked, she ate, but yet there was something deathly about her +whole figure, and one almost fancied the faint smell of a corpse. +There was only a glimmer of life in her, a glimmer of consciousness +that she had been a lady who had once had her own serfs, that she +was the widow of a general whom the servants had to address as "your +Excellency"; and when these feeble relics of life flickered up in +her for an instant she would say to her son: + +"Jean, you are not holding your knife properly!" + +Or she would say to me, drawing a deep breath, with the mincing air +of a hostess trying to entertain a visitor: + +"You know we have sold our estate. Of course, it is a pity, we are +used to the place, but Dolzhikov has promised to make Jean stationmaster +of Dubetchnya, so we shall not have to go away; we shall live here +at the station, and that is just the same as being on our own +property! The engineer is so nice! Don't you think he is very +handsome?" + +Until recently the Tcheprakovs had lived in a wealthy style, but +since the death of the general everything had been changed. Elena +Nikiforovna had taken to quarrelling with the neighbours, to going +to law, and to not paying her bailiffs or her labourers; she was +in constant terror of being robbed, and in some ten years Dubetchnya +had become unrecognizable. + +Behind the great house was an old garden which had already run wild, +and was overgrown with rough weeds and bushes. I walked up and down +the verandah, which was still solid and beautiful; through the glass +doors one could see a room with parquetted floor, probably the +drawing-room; an old-fashioned piano and pictures in deep mahogany +frames--there was nothing else. In the old flower-beds all that +remained were peonies and poppies, which lifted their white and +bright red heads above the grass. Young maples and elms, already +nibbled by the cows, grew beside the paths, drawn up and hindering +each other's growth. The garden was thickly overgrown and seemed +impassable, but this was only near the house where there stood +poplars, fir-trees, and old limetrees, all of the same age, relics +of the former avenues. Further on, beyond them the garden had been +cleared for the sake of hay, and here it was not moist and stuffy, +and there were no spiders' webs in one's mouth and eyes. A light +breeze was blowing. The further one went the more open it was, and +here in the open space were cherries, plums, and spreading apple-trees, +disfigured by props and by canker; and pear-trees so tall that one +could not believe they were pear-trees. This part of the garden was +let to some shopkeepers of the town, and it was protected from +thieves and starlings by a feeble-minded peasant who lived in a +shanty in it. + +The garden, growing more and more open, till it became definitely +a meadow, sloped down to the river, which was overgrown with green +weeds and osiers. Near the milldam was the millpond, deep and full +of fish; a little mill with a thatched roof was working away with +a wrathful sound, and frogs croaked furiously. Circles passed from +time to time over the smooth, mirror-like water, and the water-lilies +trembled, stirred by the lively fish. On the further side of the +river was the little village Dubetchnya. The still, blue millpond +was alluring with its promise of coolness and peace. And now all +this--the millpond and the mill and the snug-looking banks-- +belonged to the engineer! + +And so my new work began. I received and forwarded telegrams, wrote +various reports, and made fair copies of the notes of requirements, +the complaints, and the reports sent to the office by the illiterate +foremen and workmen. But for the greater part of the day I did +nothing but walk about the room waiting for telegrams, or made a +boy sit in the lodge while I went for a walk in the garden, until +the boy ran to tell me that there was a tapping at the operating +machine. I had dinner at Madame Tcheprakov's. Meat we had very +rarely: our dishes were all made of milk, and Wednesdays and Fridays +were fast days, and on those days we had pink plates which were +called Lenten plates. Madame Tcheprakov was continually blinking +--it was her invariable habit, and I always felt ill at ease in +her presence. + +As there was not enough work in the lodge for one, Tcheprakov did +nothing, but simply dozed, or went with his gun to shoot ducks on +the millpond. In the evenings he drank too much in the village or +the station, and before going to bed stared in the looking-glass +and said: "Hullo, Ivan Tcheprakov." + +When he was drunk he was very pale, and kept rubbing his hands and +laughing with a sound like a neigh: "hee-hee-hee!" By way of bravado +he used to strip and run about the country naked. He used to eat +flies and say they were rather sour. + +IV + +One day, after dinner, he ran breathless into the lodge and said: +"Go along, your sister has come." + +I went out, and there I found a hired brake from the town standing +before the entrance of the great house. My sister had come in it +with Anyuta Blagovo and a gentleman in a military tunic. Going up +closer I recognized the latter: it was the brother of Anyuta Blagovo, +the army doctor. + +"We have come to you for a picnic," he said; "is that all right?" + +My sister and Anyuta wanted to ask how I was getting on here, but +both were silent, and simply gazed at me. I was silent too. They +saw that I did not like the place, and tears came into my sister's +eyes, while Anyuta Blagovo turned crimson. + +We went into the garden. The doctor walked ahead of us all and said +enthusiastically: + +"What air! Holy Mother, what air!" + +In appearance he was still a student. And he walked and talked like +a student, and the expression of his grey eyes was as keen, honest, +and frank as a nice student's. Beside his tall and handsome sister +he looked frail and thin; and his beard was thin too, and his voice, +too, was a thin but rather agreeable tenor. He was serving in a +regiment somewhere, and had come home to his people for a holiday, +and said he was going in the autumn to Petersburg for his examination +as a doctor of medicine. He was already a family man, with a wife +and three children, he had married very young, in his second year +at the University, and now people in the town said he was unhappy +in his family life and was not living with his wife. + +"What time is it?" my sister asked uneasily. "We must get back in +good time. Papa let me come to see my brother on condition I was +back at six." + +"Oh, bother your papa!" sighed the doctor. + +I set the samovar. We put down a carpet before the verandah of the +great house and had our tea there, and the doctor knelt down, drank +out of his saucer, and declared that he now knew what bliss was. +Then Tcheprakov came with the key and opened the glass door, and +we all went into the house. There it was half dark and mysterious, +and smelt of mushrooms, and our footsteps had a hollow sound as +though there were cellars under the floor. The doctor stopped and +touched the keys of the piano, and it responded faintly with a +husky, quivering, but melodious chord; he tried his voice and sang +a song, frowning and tapping impatiently with his foot when some +note was mute. My sister did not talk about going home, but walked +about the rooms and kept saying: + +"How happy I am! How happy I am!" + +There was a note of astonishment in her voice, as though it seemed +to her incredible that she, too, could feel light-hearted. It was +the first time in my life I had seen her so happy. She actually +looked prettier. In profile she did not look nice; her nose and +mouth seemed to stick out and had an expression as though she were +pouting, but she had beautiful dark eyes, a pale, very delicate +complexion, and a touching expression of goodness and melancholy, +and when she talked she seemed charming and even beautiful. We both, +she and I, took after our mother, were broad shouldered, strongly +built, and capable of endurance, but her pallor was a sign of +ill-health; she often had a cough, and I sometimes caught in her +face that look one sees in people who are seriously ill, but for +some reason conceal the fact. There was something naïve and childish +in her gaiety now, as though the joy that had been suppressed and +smothered in our childhood by harsh education had now suddenly +awakened in her soul and found a free outlet. + +But when evening came on and the horses were brought round, my +sister sank into silence and looked thin and shrunken, and she got +into the brake as though she were going to the scaffold. + +When they had all gone, and the sound had died away . . . I remembered +that Anyuta Blagovo had not said a word to me all day. + +"She is a wonderful girl!" I thought. "Wonderful girl!" + +St. Peter's fast came, and we had nothing but Lenten dishes every +day. I was weighed down by physical depression due to idleness and +my unsettled position, and dissatisfied with myself. Listless and +hungry, I lounged about the garden and only waited for a suitable +mood to go away. + +Towards evening one day, when Radish was sitting in the lodge, +Dolzhikov, very sunburnt and grey with dust, walked in unexpectedly. +He had been spending three days on his land, and had come now to +Dubetchnya by the steamer, and walked to us from the station. While +waiting for the carriage, which was to come for him from the town, +he walked round the grounds with his bailiff, giving orders in a +loud voice, then sat for a whole hour in our lodge, writing letters. +While he was there telegrams came for him, and he himself tapped +off the answers. We three stood in silence at attention. + +"What a muddle!" he said, glancing contemptuously at a record book. +"In a fortnight I am transferring the office to the station, and I +don't know what I am to do with you, my friends." + +"I do my best, your honour," said Tcheprakov. + +"To be sure, I see how you do your best. The only thing you can do +is to take your salary," the engineer went on, looking at me; "you +keep relying on patronage to _faire le carrière_ as quickly and as +easily as possible. Well, I don't care for patronage. No one took +any trouble on my behalf. Before they gave me a railway contract I +went about as a mechanic and worked in Belgium as an oiler. And +you, Panteley, what are you doing here?" he asked, turning to Radish. +"Drinking with them?" + +He, for some reason, always called humble people Panteley, and such +as me and Tcheprakov he despised, and called them drunkards, beasts, +and rabble to their faces. Altogether he was cruel to humble +subordinates, and used to fine them and turn them off coldly without +explanations. + +At last the horses came for him. As he said good-bye he promised +to turn us all off in a fortnight; he called his bailiff a blockhead; +and then, lolling at ease in his carriage, drove back to the town. + +"Andrey Ivanitch," I said to Radish, "take me on as a workman." + +"Oh, all right!" + +And we set off together in the direction of the town. When the +station and the big house with its buildings were left behind I +asked: "Andrey Ivanitch, why did you come to Dubetchnya this evening?" + +"In the first place my fellows are working on the line, and in the +second place I came to pay the general's lady my interest. Last +year I borrowed fifty roubles from her, and I pay her now a rouble +a month interest." + +The painter stopped and took me by the button. + +"Misail Alexeyitch, our angel," he went on. "The way I look at it +is that if any man, gentle or simple, takes even the smallest +interest, he is doing evil. There cannot be truth and justice in +such a man." + +Radish, lean, pale, dreadful-looking, shut his eyes, shook his head, +and, in the tone of a philosopher, pronounced: + +"Lice consume the grass, rust consumes the iron, and lying the soul. +Lord, have mercy upon us sinners." + +V + +Radish was not practical, and was not at all good at forming an +estimate; he took more work than he could get through, and when +calculating he was agitated, lost his head, and so was almost always +out of pocket over his jobs. He undertook painting, glazing, +paperhanging, and even tiling roofs, and I can remember his running +about for three days to find tilers for the sake of a paltry job. +He was a first-rate workman; he sometimes earned as much as ten +roubles a day; and if it had not been for the desire at all costs +to be a master, and to be called a contractor, he would probably +have had plenty of money. + +He was paid by the job, but he paid me and the other workmen by the +day, from one and twopence to two shillings a day. When it was fine +and dry we did all kinds of outside work, chiefly painting roofs. +When I was new to the work it made my feet burn as though I were +walking on hot bricks, and when I put on felt boots they were hotter +than ever. But this was only at first; later on I got used to it, +and everything went swimmingly. I was living now among people to +whom labour was obligatory, inevitable, and who worked like +cart-horses, often with no idea of the moral significance of labour, +and, indeed, never using the word "labour" in conversation at all. +Beside them I, too, felt like a cart-horse, growing more and more +imbued with the feeling of the obligatory and inevitable character +of what I was doing, and this made my life easier, setting me free +from all doubt and uncertainty. + +At first everything interested me, everything was new, as though I +had been born again. I could sleep on the ground and go about +barefoot, and that was extremely pleasant; I could stand in a crowd +of the common people and be no constraint to anyone, and when a cab +horse fell down in the street I ran to help it up without being +afraid of soiling my clothes. And the best of it all was, I was +living on my own account and no burden to anyone! + +Painting roofs, especially with our own oil and colours, was regarded +as a particularly profitable job, and so this rough, dull work was +not disdained, even by such good workmen as Radish. In short breeches, +and wasted, purple-looking legs, he used to go about the roofs, +looking like a stork, and I used to hear him, as he plied his brush, +breathing heavily and saying: "Woe, woe to us sinners!" + +He walked about the roofs as freely as though he were upon the +ground. In spite of his being ill and pale as a corpse, his agility +was extraordinary: he used to paint the domes and cupolas of the +churches without scaffolding, like a young man, with only the help +of a ladder and a rope, and it was rather horrible when standing +on a height far from the earth; he would draw himself up erect, and +for some unknown reason pronounce: + +"Lice consume grass, rust consumes iron, and lying the soul!" + +Or, thinking about something, would answer his thoughts aloud: + +"Anything may happen! Anything may happen!" + +When I went home from my work, all the people who were sitting on +benches by the gates, all the shopmen and boys and their employers, +made sneering and spiteful remarks after me, and this upset me at +first and seemed to be simply monstrous. + +"Better-than-nothing!" I heard on all sides. "House painter! Yellow +ochre!" + +And none behaved so ungraciously to me as those who had only lately +been humble people themselves, and had earned their bread by hard +manual labour. In the streets full of shops I was once passing an +ironmonger's when water was thrown over me as though by accident, +and on one occasion someone darted out with a stick at me, while a +fishmonger, a grey-headed old man, barred my way and said, looking +at me angrily: + +"I am not sorry for you, you fool! It's your father I am sorry for." + +And my acquaintances were for some reason overcome with embarrassment +when they met me. Some of them looked upon me as a queer fish and +a comic fool; others were sorry for me; others did not know what +attitude to take up to me, and it was difficult to make them out. +One day I met Anyuta Blagovo in a side street near Great Dvoryansky +Street. I was going to work, and was carrying two long brushes and +a pail of paint. Recognizing me Anyuta flushed crimson. + +"Please do not bow to me in the street," she said nervously, harshly, +and in a shaking voice, without offering me her hand, and tears +suddenly gleamed in her eyes. "If to your mind all this is necessary, +so be it . . . so be it, but I beg you not to meet me!" + +I no longer lived in Great Dvoryansky Street, but in the suburb +with my old nurse Karpovna, a good-natured but gloomy old woman, +who always foreboded some harm, was afraid of all dreams, and even +in the bees and wasps that flew into her room saw omens of evil, +and the fact that I had become a workman, to her thinking, boded +nothing good. + +"Your life is ruined," she would say, mournfully shaking her head, +"ruined." + +Her adopted son Prokofy, a huge, uncouth, red-headed fellow of +thirty, with bristling moustaches, a butcher by trade, lived in the +little house with her. When he met me in the passage he would make +way for me in respectful silence, and if he was drunk he would +salute me with all five fingers at once. He used to have supper in +the evening, and through the partition wall of boards I could hear +him clear his throat and sigh as he drank off glass after glass. + +"Mamma," he would call in an undertone. + +"Well," Karpovna, who was passionately devoted to her adopted son, +would respond: "What is it, sonny?" + +"I can show you a testimony of my affection, mamma. All this earthly +life I will cherish you in your declining years in this vale of +tears, and when you die I will bury you at my expense; I have said +it, and you can believe it." + +I got up every morning before sunrise, and went to bed early. We +house painters ate a great deal and slept soundly; the only thing +amiss was that my heart used to beat violently at night. I did not +quarrel with my mates. Violent abuse, desperate oaths, and wishes +such as, "Blast your eyes," or "Cholera take you," never ceased all +day, but, nevertheless, we lived on very friendly terms. The other +fellows suspected me of being some sort of religious sectary, and +made good-natured jokes at my expense, saying that even my own +father had disowned me, and thereupon would add that they rarely +went into the temple of God themselves, and that many of them had +not been to confession for ten years. They justified this laxity +on their part by saying that a painter among men was like a jackdaw +among birds. + +The men had a good opinion of me, and treated me with respect; it +was evident that my not drinking, not smoking, but leading a quiet, +steady life pleased them very much. It was only an unpleasant shock +to them that I took no hand in stealing oil and did not go with +them to ask for tips from people on whose property we were working. +Stealing oil and paints from those who employed them was a house +painter's custom, and was not regarded as theft, and it was remarkable +that even so upright a man as Radish would always carry away a +little white lead and oil as he went home from work. And even the +most respectable old fellows, who owned the houses in which they +lived in the suburb, were not ashamed to ask for a tip, and it made +me feel vexed and ashamed to see the men go in a body to congratulate +some nonentity on the commencement or the completion of the job, +and thank him with degrading servility when they had received a few +coppers. + +With people on whose work they were engaged they behaved like wily +courtiers, and almost every day I was reminded of Shakespeare's +Polonius. + +"I fancy it is going to rain," the man whose house was being painted +would say, looking at the sky. + +"It is, there is not a doubt it is," the painters would agree. + +"I don't think it is a rain-cloud, though. Perhaps it won't rain +after all." + +"No, it won't, your honour! I am sure it won't." + +But their attitude to their patrons behind their backs was usually +one of irony, and when they saw, for instance, a gentleman sitting +in the verandah reading a newspaper, they would observe: + +"He reads the paper, but I daresay he has nothing to eat." + +I never went home to see my own people. When I came back from work +I often found waiting for me little notes, brief and anxious, in +which my sister wrote to me about my father; that he had been +particularly preoccupied at dinner and had eaten nothing, or that +he had been giddy and staggering, or that he had locked himself in +his room and had not come out for a long time. Such items of news +troubled me; I could not sleep, and at times even walked up and +down Great Dvoryansky Street at night by our house, looking in at +the dark windows and trying to guess whether everything was well +at home. On Sundays my sister came to see me, but came in secret, +as though it were not to see me but our nurse. And if she came in +to see me she was very pale, with tear-stained eyes, and she began +crying at once. + +"Our father will never live through this," she would say. "If +anything should happen to him--God grant it may not--your +conscience will torment you all your life. It's awful, Misail; for +our mother's sake I beseech you: reform your ways." + +"My darling sister," I would say, "how can I reform my ways if I +am convinced that I am acting in accordance with my conscience? Do +understand!" + +"I know you are acting on your conscience, but perhaps it could be +done differently, somehow, so as not to wound anybody." + +"Ah, holy Saints!" the old woman sighed through the door. "Your +life is ruined! There will be trouble, my dears, there will be +trouble!" + +VI + +One Sunday Dr. Blagovo turned up unexpectedly. He was wearing a +military tunic over a silk shirt and high boots of patent leather. + +"I have come to see you," he began, shaking my hand heartily like +a student. "I am hearing about you every day, and I have been meaning +to come and have a heart-to-heart talk, as they say. The boredom +in the town is awful, there is not a living soul, no one to say a +word to. It's hot, Holy Mother," he went on, taking off his tunic +and sitting in his silk shirt. "My dear fellow, let me talk to you." + +I was dull myself, and had for a long time been craving for the +society of someone not a house painter. I was genuinely glad to see +him. + +"I'll begin by saying," he said, sitting down on my bed, "that I +sympathize with you from the bottom of my heart, and deeply respect +the life you are leading. They don't understand you here in the +town, and, indeed, there is no one to understand, seeing that, as +you know, they are all, with very few exceptions, regular Gogolesque +pig faces here. But I saw what you were at once that time at the +picnic. You are a noble soul, an honest, high-minded man! I respect +you, and feel it a great honour to shake hands with you!" he went +on enthusiastically. "To have made such a complete and violent +change of life as you have done, you must have passed through a +complicated spiritual crisis, and to continue this manner of life +now, and to keep up to the high standard of your convictions +continually, must be a strain on your mind and heart from day to +day. Now to begin our talk, tell me, don't you consider that if you +had spent your strength of will, this strained activity, all these +powers on something else, for instance, on gradually becoming a +great scientist, or artist, your life would have been broader and +deeper and would have been more productive?" + +We talked, and when we got upon manual labour I expressed this idea: +that what is wanted is that the strong should not enslave the weak, +that the minority should not be a parasite on the majority, nor a +vampire for ever sucking its vital sap; that is, all, without +exception, strong and weak, rich and poor, should take part equally +in the struggle for existence, each one on his own account, and +that there was no better means for equalizing things in that way +than manual labour, in the form of universal service, compulsory +for all. + +"Then do you think everyone without exception ought to engage in +manual labour?" asked the doctor. + +"Yes." + +"And don't you think that if everyone, including the best men, the +thinkers and great scientists, taking part in the struggle for +existence, each on his own account, are going to waste their time +breaking stones and painting roofs, may not that threaten a grave +danger to progress?" + +"Where is the danger?" I asked. "Why, progress is in deeds of love, +in fulfilling the moral law; if you don't enslave anyone, if you +don't oppress anyone, what further progress do you want?" + +"But, excuse me," Blagovo suddenly fired up, rising to his feet. +"But, excuse me! If a snail in its shell busies itself over perfecting +its own personality and muddles about with the moral law, do you +call that progress?" + +"Why muddles?" I said, offended. "If you don't force your neighbour +to feed and clothe you, to transport you from place to place and +defend you from your enemies, surely in the midst of a life entirely +resting on slavery, that is progress, isn't it? To my mind it is +the most important progress, and perhaps the only one possible and +necessary for man." + +"The limits of universal world progress are in infinity, and to +talk of some 'possible' progress limited by our needs and temporary +theories is, excuse my saying so, positively strange." + +"If the limits of progress are in infinity as you say, it follows +that its aims are not definite," I said. "To live without knowing +definitely what you are living for!" + +"So be it! But that 'not knowing' is not so dull as your 'knowing.' +I am going up a ladder which is called progress, civilization, +culture; I go on and up without knowing definitely where I am going, +but really it is worth living for the sake of that delightful ladder; +while you know what you are living for, you live for the sake of +some people's not enslaving others, that the artist and the man who +rubs his paints may dine equally well. But you know that's the +petty, bourgeois, kitchen, grey side of life, and surely it is +revolting to live for that alone? If some insects do enslave others, +bother them, let them devour each other! We need not think about +them. You know they will die and decay just the same, however +zealously you rescue them from slavery. We must think of that great +millennium which awaits humanity in the remote future." + +Blagovo argued warmly with me, but at the same time one could see +he was troubled by some irrelevant idea. + +"I suppose your sister is not coming?" he said, looking at his +watch. "She was at our house yesterday, and said she would be seeing +you to-day. You keep saying slavery, slavery . . ." he went on. +"But you know that is a special question, and all such questions +are solved by humanity gradually." + +We began talking of doing things gradually. I said that "the question +of doing good or evil every one settles for himself, without waiting +till humanity settles it by the way of gradual development. Moreover, +this gradual process has more than one aspect. Side by side with +the gradual development of human ideas the gradual growth of ideas +of another order is observed. Serfdom is no more, but the capitalist +system is growing. And in the very heyday of emancipating ideas, +just as in the days of Baty, the majority feeds, clothes, and defends +the minority while remaining hungry, inadequately clad, and +defenceless. Such an order of things can be made to fit in finely +with any tendencies and currents of thought you like, because the +art of enslaving is also gradually being cultivated. We no longer +flog our servants in the stable, but we give to slavery refined +forms, at least, we succeed in finding a justification for it in +each particular case. Ideas are ideas with us, but if now, at the +end of the nineteenth century, it were possible to lay the burden +of the most unpleasant of our physiological functions upon the +working class, we should certainly do so, and afterwards, of course, +justify ourselves by saying that if the best people, the thinkers +and great scientists, were to waste their precious time on these +functions, progress might be menaced with great danger." + +But at this point my sister arrived. Seeing the doctor she was +fluttered and troubled, and began saying immediately that it was +time for her to go home to her father. + +"Kleopatra Alexyevna," said Blagovo earnestly, pressing both hands +to his heart, "what will happen to your father if you spend half +an hour or so with your brother and me?" + +He was frank, and knew how to communicate his liveliness to others. +After a moment's thought, my sister laughed, and all at once became +suddenly gay as she had been at the picnic. We went out into the +country, and lying in the grass went on with our talk, and looked +towards the town where all the windows facing west were like +glittering gold because the sun was setting. + +After that, whenever my sister was coming to see me Blagovo turned +up too, and they always greeted each other as though their meeting +in my room was accidental. My sister listened while the doctor and +I argued, and at such times her expression was joyfully enthusiastic, +full of tenderness and curiosity, and it seemed to me that a new +world she had never dreamed of before, and which she was now striving +to fathom, was gradually opening before her eyes. When the doctor +was not there she was quiet and sad, and now if she sometimes shed +tears as she sat on my bed it was for reasons of which she did not +speak. + +In August Radish ordered us to be ready to go to the railway-line. +Two days before we were "banished" from the town my father came to +see me. He sat down and in a leisurely way, without looking at me, +wiped his red face, then took out of his pocket our town _Messenger_, +and deliberately, with emphasis on each word, read out the news +that the son of the branch manager of the State Bank, a young man +of my age, had been appointed head of a Department in the Exchequer. + +"And now look at you," he said, folding up the newspaper, "a beggar, +in rags, good for nothing! Even working-class people and peasants +obtain education in order to become men, while you, a Poloznev, +with ancestors of rank and distinction, aspire to the gutter! But +I have not come here to talk to you; I have washed my hands of you +--" he added in a stifled voice, getting up. "I have come to find +out where your sister is, you worthless fellow. She left home after +dinner, and here it is nearly eight and she is not back. She has +taken to going out frequently without telling me; she is less dutiful +--and I see in it your evil and degrading influence. Where is she?" + +In his hand he had the umbrella I knew so well, and I was already +flustered and drew myself up like a schoolboy, expecting my father +to begin hitting me with it, but he noticed my glance at the umbrella +and most likely that restrained him. + +"Live as you please!" he said. "I shall not give you my blessing!" + +"Holy Saints!" my nurse muttered behind the door. "You poor, unlucky +child! Ah, my heart bodes ill!" + +I worked on the railway-line. It rained without stopping all August; +it was damp and cold; they had not carried the corn in the fields, +and on big farms where the wheat had been cut by machines it lay +not in sheaves but in heaps, and I remember how those luckless heaps +of wheat turned blacker every day and the grain was sprouting in +them. It was hard to work; the pouring rain spoiled everything we +managed to do. We were not allowed to live or to sleep in the railway +buildings, and we took refuge in the damp and filthy mud huts in +which the navvies had lived during the summer, and I could not sleep +at night for the cold and the woodlice crawling on my face and +hands. And when we worked near the bridges the navvies used to come +in the evenings in a gang, simply in order to beat the painters-- +it was a form of sport to them. They used to beat us, to steal our +brushes. And to annoy us and rouse us to fight they used to spoil +our work; they would, for instance, smear over the signal boxes +with green paint. To complete our troubles, Radish took to paying +us very irregularly. All the painting work on the line was given +out to a contractor; he gave it out to another; and this subcontractor +gave it to Radish after subtracting twenty per cent. for himself. +The job was not a profitable one in itself, and the rain made it +worse; time was wasted; we could not work while Radish was obliged +to pay the fellows by the day. The hungry painters almost came to +beating him, called him a cheat, a blood-sucker, a Judas, while he, +poor fellow, sighed, lifted up his hand to Heaven in despair, and +was continually going to Madame Tcheprakov for money. + +VII + +Autumn came on, rainy, dark, and muddy. The season of unemployment +set in, and I used to sit at home out of work for three days at a +stretch, or did various little jobs, not in the painting line. For +instance, I wheeled earth, earning about fourpence a day by it. Dr. +Blagovo had gone away to Petersburg. My sister had given up coming +to see me. Radish was laid up at home ill, expecting death from day +to day. + +And my mood was autumnal too. Perhaps because, having become a +workman, I saw our town life only from the seamy side, it was my +lot almost every day to make discoveries which reduced me almost +to despair. Those of my fellow-citizens, about whom I had no opinion +before, or who had externally appeared perfectly decent, turned out +now to be base, cruel people, capable of any dirty action. We common +people were deceived, cheated, and kept waiting for hours together +in the cold entry or the kitchen; we were insulted and treated with +the utmost rudeness. In the autumn I papered the reading-room and +two other rooms at the club; I was paid a penny three-farthings the +piece, but had to sign a receipt at the rate of twopence halfpenny, +and when I refused to do so, a gentleman of benevolent appearance +in gold-rimmed spectacles, who must have been one of the club +committee, said to me: + +"If you say much more, you blackguard, I'll pound your face into a +jelly!" + +And when the flunkey whispered to him what I was, the son of Poloznev +the architect, he became embarrassed, turned crimson, but immediately +recovered himself and said: "Devil take him." + +In the shops they palmed off on us workmen putrid meat, musty flour, +and tea that had been used and dried again; the police hustled us +in church, the assistants and nurses in the hospital plundered us, +and if we were too poor to give them a bribe they revenged themselves +by bringing us food in dirty vessels. In the post-office the pettiest +official considered he had a right to treat us like animals, and +to shout with coarse insolence: "You wait!" "Where are you shoving +to?" Even the housedogs were unfriendly to us, and fell upon us +with peculiar viciousness. But the thing that struck me most of all +in my new position was the complete lack of justice, what is defined +by the peasants in the words: "They have forgotten God." Rarely did +a day pass without swindling. We were swindled by the merchants who +sold us oil, by the contractors and the workmen and the people who +employed us. I need not say that there could never be a question +of our rights, and we always had to ask for the money we earned as +though it were a charity, and to stand waiting for it at the back +door, cap in hand. + +I was papering a room at the club next to the reading-room; in the +evening, when I was just getting ready to go, the daughter of +Dolzhikov, the engineer, walked into the room with a bundle of books +under her arm. + +I bowed to her. + +"Oh, how do you do!" she said, recognizing me at once, and holding +out her hand. "I'm very glad to see you." + +She smiled and looked with curiosity and wonder at my smock, my +pail of paste, the paper stretched on the floor; I was embarrassed, +and she, too, felt awkward. + +"You must excuse my looking at you like this," she said. "I have +been told so much about you. Especially by Dr. Blagovo; he is simply +in love with you. And I have made the acquaintance of your sister +too; a sweet, dear girl, but I can never persuade her that there +is nothing awful about your adopting the simple life. On the contrary, +you have become the most interesting man in the town." + +She looked again at the pail of paste and the wallpaper, and went +on: + +"I asked Dr. Blagovo to make me better acquainted with you, but +apparently he forgot, or had not time. Anyway, we are acquainted +all the same, and if you would come and see me quite simply I should +be extremely indebted to you. I so long to have a talk. I am a +simple person," she added, holding out her hand to me, "and I hope +that you will feel no constraint with me. My father is not here, +he is in Petersburg." + +She went off into the reading-room, rustling her skirts, while I +went home, and for a long time could not get to sleep. + +That cheerless autumn some kind soul, evidently wishing to alleviate +my existence, sent me from time to time tea and lemons, or biscuits, +or roast game. Karpovna told me that they were always brought by a +soldier, and from whom they came she did not know; and the soldier +used to enquire whether I was well, and whether I dined every day, +and whether I had warm clothing. When the frosts began I was presented +in the same way in my absence with a soft knitted scarf brought by +the soldier. There was a faint elusive smell of scent about it, and +I guessed who my good fairy was. The scarf smelt of lilies-of-the-valley, +the favourite scent of Anyuta Blagovo. + +Towards winter there was more work and it was more cheerful. Radish +recovered, and we worked together in the cemetery church, where we +were putting the ground-work on the ikon-stand before gilding. It +was a clean, quiet job, and, as our fellows used to say, profitable. +One could get through a lot of work in a day, and the time passed +quickly, imperceptibly. There was no swearing, no laughter, no loud +talk. The place itself compelled one to quietness and decent +behaviour, and disposed one to quiet, serious thoughts. Absorbed +in our work we stood or sat motionless like statues; there was a +deathly silence in keeping with the cemetery, so that if a tool +fell, or a flame spluttered in the lamp, the noise of such sounds +rang out abrupt and resonant, and made us look round. After a long +silence we would hear a buzzing like the swarming of bees: it was +the requiem of a baby being chanted slowly in subdued voices in the +porch; or an artist, painting a dove with stars round it on a cupola +would begin softly whistling, and recollecting himself with a start +would at once relapse into silence; or Radish, answering his thoughts, +would say with a sigh: "Anything is possible! Anything is possible!" +or a slow disconsolate bell would begin ringing over our heads, and +the painters would observe that it must be for the funeral of some +wealthy person. . . . + +My days I spent in this stillness in the twilight of the church, +and in the long evenings I played billiards or went to the theatre +in the gallery wearing the new trousers I had bought out of my own +earnings. Concerts and performances had already begun at the +Azhogins'; Radish used to paint the scenes alone now. He used to +tell me the plot of the plays and describe the _tableaux vivants_ +which he witnessed. I listened to him with envy. I felt greatly +drawn to the rehearsals, but I could not bring myself to go to the +Azhogins'. + +A week before Christmas Dr. Blagovo arrived. And again we argued +and played billiards in the evenings. When he played he used to +take off his coat and unbutton his shirt over his chest, and for +some reason tried altogether to assume the air of a desperate rake. +He did not drink much, but made a great uproar about it, and had a +special faculty for getting through twenty roubles in an evening +at such a poor cheap tavern as the _Volga_. + +My sister began coming to see me again; they both expressed surprise +every time on seeing each other, but from her joyful, guilty face +it was evident that these meetings were not accidental. One evening, +when we were playing billiards, the doctor said to me: + +"I say, why don't you go and see Miss Dolzhikov? You don't know +Mariya Viktorovna; she is a clever creature, a charmer, a simple, +good-natured soul." + +I described how her father had received me in the spring. + +"Nonsense!" laughed the doctor, "the engineer's one thing and she's +another. Really, my dear fellow, you mustn't be nasty to her; go +and see her sometimes. For instance, let's go and see her tomorrow +evening. What do you say?" + +He persuaded me. The next evening I put on my new serge trousers, +and in some agitation I set off to Miss Dolzhikov's. The footman +did not seem so haughty and terrible, nor the furniture so gorgeous, +as on that morning when I had come to ask a favour. Mariya Viktorovna +was expecting me, and she received me like an old acquaintance, +shaking hands with me in a friendly way. She was wearing a grey +cloth dress with full sleeves, and had her hair done in the style +which we used to call "dogs' ears," when it came into fashion in +the town a year before. The hair was combed down over the ears, and +this made Mariya Viktorovna's face look broader, and she seemed to +me this time very much like her father, whose face was broad and +red, with something in its expression like a sledge-driver. She was +handsome and elegant, but not youthful looking; she looked thirty, +though in reality she was not more than twenty-five. + +"Dear Doctor, how grateful I am to you," she said, making me sit +down. "If it hadn't been for him you wouldn't have come to see me. +I am bored to death! My father has gone away and left me alone, and +I don't know what to do with myself in this town." + +Then she began asking me where I was working now, how much I earned, +where I lived. + +"Do you spend on yourself nothing but what you earn?" she asked. + +"No." + +"Happy man!" she sighed. "All the evil in life, it seems to me, +comes from idleness, boredom, and spiritual emptiness, and all this +is inevitable when one is accustomed to living at other people's +expense. Don't think I am showing off, I tell you truthfully: it +is not interesting or pleasant to be rich. 'Make to yourselves +friends of the mammon of unrighteousness' is said, because there +is not and cannot be a mammon that's righteous." + +She looked round at the furniture with a grave, cold expression, +as though she wanted to count it over, and went on: + +"Comfort and luxury have a magical power; little by little they +draw into their clutches even strong-willed people. At one time +father and I lived simply, not in a rich style, but now you see +how! It is something monstrous," she said, shrugging her shoulders; +"we spend up to twenty thousand a year! In the provinces!" + +"One comes to look at comfort and luxury as the invariable privilege +of capital and education," I said, "and it seems to me that the +comforts of life may be combined with any sort of labour, even the +hardest and dirtiest. Your father is rich, and yet he says himself +that it has been his lot to be a mechanic and an oiler." + +She smiled and shook her head doubtfully: "My father sometimes eats +bread dipped in kvass," she said. "It's a fancy, a whim!" + +At that moment there was a ring and she got up. + +"The rich and well-educated ought to work like everyone else," she +said, "and if there is comfort it ought to be equal for all. There +ought not to be any privileges. But that's enough philosophizing. +Tell me something amusing. Tell me about the painters. What are +they like? Funny?" + +The doctor came in; I began telling them about the painters, but, +being unaccustomed to talking, I was constrained, and described +them like an ethnologist, gravely and tediously. The doctor, too, +told us some anecdotes of working men: he staggered about, shed +tears, dropped on his knees, and, even, mimicking a drunkard, lay +on the floor; it was as good as a play, and Mariya Viktorovna laughed +till she cried as she looked at him. Then he played on the piano +and sang in his thin, pleasant tenor, while Mariya Viktorovna stood +by and picked out what he was to sing, and corrected him when he +made a mistake. + +"I've heard that you sing, too?" I enquired. + +"Sing, too!" cried the doctor in horror. "She sings exquisitely, a +perfect artist, and you talk of her 'singing too'! What an idea!" + +"I did study in earnest at one time," she said, answering my question, +"but now I have given it up." + +Sitting on a low stool she told us of her life in Petersburg, and +mimicked some celebrated singers, imitating their voice and manner +of singing. She made a sketch of the doctor in her album, then of +me; she did not draw well, but both the portraits were like us. She +laughed, and was full of mischief and charming grimaces, and this +suited her better than talking about the mammon of unrighteousness, +and it seemed to me that she had been talking just before about +wealth and luxury, not in earnest, but in imitation of someone. She +was a superb comic actress. I mentally compared her with our young +ladies, and even the handsome, dignified Anyuta Blagovo could not +stand comparison with her; the difference was immense, like the +difference between a beautiful, cultivated rose and a wild briar. + +We had supper together, the three of us. The doctor and Mariya +Viktorovna drank red wine, champagne, and coffee with brandy in it; +they clinked glasses and drank to friendship, to enlightenment, to +progress, to liberty, and they did not get drunk but only flushed, +and were continually, for no reason, laughing till they cried. So +as not to be tiresome I drank claret too. + +"Talented, richly endowed natures," said Miss Dolzhikov, "know how +to live, and go their own way; mediocre people, like myself for +instance, know nothing and can do nothing of themselves; there is +nothing left for them but to discern some deep social movement, and +to float where they are carried by it." + +"How can one discern what doesn't exist?" asked the doctor. + +"We think so because we don't see it." + +"Is that so? The social movements are the invention of the new +literature. There are none among us." + +An argument began. + +"There are no deep social movements among us and never have been," +the doctor declared loudly. "There is no end to what the new +literature has invented! It has invented intellectual workers in +the country, and you may search through all our villages and find +at the most some lout in a reefer jacket or a black frock-coat who +will make four mistakes in spelling a word of three letters. Cultured +life has not yet begun among us. There's the same savagery, the +same uniform boorishness, the same triviality, as five hundred years +ago. Movements, currents there have been, but it has all been petty, +paltry, bent upon vulgar and mercenary interests--and one cannot +see anything important in them. If you think you have discerned a +deep social movement, and in following it you devote yourself to +tasks in the modern taste, such as the emancipation of insects from +slavery or abstinence from beef rissoles, I congratulate you, Madam. +We must study, and study, and study and we must wait a bit with our +deep social movements; we are not mature enough for them yet; and +to tell the truth, we don't know anything about them." + +"You don't know anything about them, but I do," said Mariya Viktorovna. + +"Goodness, how tiresome you are to-day!" + +"Our duty is to study and to study, to try to accumulate as much +knowledge as possible, for genuine social movements arise where +there is knowledge; and the happiness of mankind in the future lies +only in knowledge. I drink to science!" + +"There is no doubt about one thing: one must organize one's life +somehow differently," said Mariya Viktorovna, after a moment's +silence and thought. "Life, such as it has been hitherto, is not +worth having. Don't let us talk about it." + +As we came away from her the cathedral clock struck two. + +"Did you like her?" asked the doctor; "she's nice, isn't she?" + +On Christmas day we dined with Mariya Viktorovna, and all through +the holidays we went to see her almost every day. There was never +anyone there but ourselves, and she was right when she said that +she had no friends in the town but the doctor and me. We spent our +time for the most part in conversation; sometimes the doctor brought +some book or magazine and read aloud to us. In reality he was the +first well-educated man I had met in my life: I cannot judge whether +he knew a great deal, but he always displayed his knowledge as +though he wanted other people to share it. When he talked about +anything relating to medicine he was not like any one of the doctors +in our town, but made a fresh, peculiar impression upon me, and I +fancied that if he liked he might have become a real man of science. +And he was perhaps the only person who had a real influence upon +me at that time. Seeing him, and reading the books he gave me, I +began little by little to feel a thirst for the knowledge which +would have given significance to my cheerless labour. It seemed +strange to me, for instance, that I had not known till then that +the whole world was made up of sixty elements, I had not known what +oil was, what paints were, and that I could have got on without +knowing these things. My acquaintance with the doctor elevated me +morally too. I was continually arguing with him and, though I usually +remained of my own opinion, yet, thanks to him, I began to perceive +that everything was not clear to me, and I began trying to work out +as far as I could definite convictions in myself, that the dictates +of conscience might be definite, and that there might be nothing +vague in my mind. Yet, though he was the most cultivated and best +man in the town, he was nevertheless far from perfection. In his +manners, in his habit of turning every conversation into an argument, +in his pleasant tenor, even in his friendliness, there was something +coarse, like a divinity student, and when he took off his coat and +sat in his silk shirt, or flung a tip to a waiter in the restaurant, +I always fancied that culture might be all very well, but the Tatar +was fermenting in him still. + +At Epiphany he went back to Petersburg. He went off in the morning, +and after dinner my sister came in. Without taking off her fur coat +and her cap she sat down in silence, very pale, and kept her eyes +fixed on the same spot. She was chilled by the frost and one could +see that she was upset by it. + +"You must have caught cold," I said. + +Her eyes filled with tears; she got up and went out to Karpovna +without saying a word to me, as though I had hurt her feelings. And +a little later I heard her saying, in a tone of bitter reproach: + +"Nurse, what have I been living for till now? What? Tell me, haven't +I wasted my youth? All the best years of my life to know nothing +but keeping accounts, pouring out tea, counting the halfpence, +entertaining visitors, and thinking there was nothing better in the +world! Nurse, do understand, I have the cravings of a human being, +and I want to live, and they have turned me into something like a +housekeeper. It's horrible, horrible!" + +She flung her keys towards the door, and they fell with a jingle +into my room. They were the keys of the sideboard, of the kitchen +cupboard, of the cellar, and of the tea-caddy, the keys which my +mother used to carry. + +"Oh, merciful heavens!" cried the old woman in horror. "Holy Saints +above!" + +Before going home my sister came into my room to pick up the keys, +and said: + +"You must forgive me. Something queer has happened to me lately." + +VIII + +On returning home late one evening from Mariya Viktorovna's I found +waiting in my room a young police inspector in a new uniform; he +was sitting at my table, looking through my books. + +"At last," he said, getting up and stretching himself. "This is the +third time I have been to you. The Governor commands you to present +yourself before him at nine o'clock in the morning. Without fail." + +He took from me a signed statement that I would act upon his +Excellency's command, and went away. This late visit of the police +inspector and unexpected invitation to the Governor's had an +overwhelmingly oppressive effect upon me. From my earliest childhood +I have felt terror-stricken in the presence of gendarmes, policemen, +and law court officials, and now I was tormented by uneasiness, as +though I were really guilty in some way. And I could not get to +sleep. My nurse and Prokofy were also upset and could not sleep. +My nurse had earache too; she moaned, and several times began crying +with pain. Hearing that I was awake, Prokofy came into my room with +a lamp and sat down at the table. + +"You ought to have a drink of pepper cordial," he said, after a +moment's thought. "If one does have a drink in this vale of tears +it does no harm. And if Mamma were to pour a little pepper cordial +in her ear it would do her a lot of good." + +Between two and three he was going to the slaughter-house for the +meat. I knew I should not sleep till morning now, and to get through +the time till nine o'clock I went with him. We walked with a lantern, +while his boy Nikolka, aged thirteen, with blue patches on his +cheeks from frostbites, a regular young brigand to judge by his +expression, drove after us in the sledge, urging on the horse in a +husky voice. + +"I suppose they will punish you at the Governor's," Prokofy said +to me on the way. "There are rules of the trade for governors, and +rules for the higher clergy, and rules for the officers, and rules +for the doctors, and every class has its rules. But you haven't +kept to your rules, and you can't be allowed." + +The slaughter-house was behind the cemetery, and till then I had +only seen it in the distance. It consisted of three gloomy barns, +surrounded by a grey fence, and when the wind blew from that quarter +on hot days in summer, it brought a stifling stench from them. Now +going into the yard in the dark I did not see the barns; I kept +coming across horses and sledges, some empty, some loaded up with +meat. Men were walking about with lanterns, swearing in a disgusting +way. Prokofy and Nikolka swore just as revoltingly, and the air was +in a continual uproar with swearing, coughing, and the neighing of +horses. + +There was a smell of dead bodies and of dung. It was thawing, the +snow was changing into mud; and in the darkness it seemed to me +that I was walking through pools of blood. + +Having piled up the sledges full of meat we set off to the butcher's +shop in the market. It began to get light. Cooks with baskets and +elderly ladies in mantles came along one after another. Prokofy, +with a chopper in his hand, in a white apron spattered with blood, +swore fearful oaths, crossed himself at the church, shouted aloud +for the whole market to hear, that he was giving away the meat at +cost price and even at a loss to himself. He gave short weight and +short change, the cooks saw that, but, deafened by his shouts, did +not protest, and only called him a hangman. Brandishing and bringing +down his terrible chopper he threw himself into picturesque attitudes, +and each time uttered the sound "Geck" with a ferocious expression, +and I was afraid he really would chop off somebody's head or hand. + +I spent all the morning in the butcher's shop, and when at last I +went to the Governor's, my overcoat smelt of meat and blood. My +state of mind was as though I were being sent spear in hand to meet +a bear. I remember the tall staircase with a striped carpet on it, +and the young official, with shiny buttons, who mutely motioned me +to the door with both hands, and ran to announce me. I went into a +hall luxuriously but frigidly and tastelessly furnished, and the +high, narrow mirrors in the spaces between the walls, and the bright +yellow window curtains, struck the eye particularly unpleasantly. +One could see that the governors were changed, but the furniture +remained the same. Again the young official motioned me with both +hands to the door, and I went up to a big green table at which a +military general, with the Order of Vladimir on his breast, was +standing. + +"Mr. Poloznev, I have asked you to come," he began, holding a letter +in his hand, and opening his mouth like a round "o," "I have asked +you to come here to inform you of this. Your highly respected father +has appealed by letter and by word of mouth to the Marshal of the +Nobility begging him to summon you, and to lay before you the +inconsistency of your behaviour with the rank of the nobility to +which you have the honour to belong. His Excellency Alexandr +Pavlovitch, justly supposing that your conduct might serve as a bad +example, and considering that mere persuasion on his part would not +be sufficient, but that official intervention in earnest was +essential, presents me here in this letter with his views in regard +to you, which I share." + +He said this, quietly, respectfully, standing erect, as though I +were his superior officer and looking at me with no trace of severity. +His face looked worn and wizened, and was all wrinkles; there were +bags under his eyes; his hair was dyed; and it was impossible to +tell from his appearance how old he was--forty or sixty. + +"I trust," he went on, "that you appreciate the delicacy of our +honoured Alexandr Pavlovitch, who has addressed himself to me not +officially, but privately. I, too, have asked you to come here +unofficially, and I am speaking to you, not as a Governor, but from +a sincere regard for your father. And so I beg you either to alter +your line of conduct and return to duties in keeping with your rank, +or to avoid setting a bad example, remove to another district where +you are not known, and where you can follow any occupation you +please. In the other case, I shall be forced to take extreme +measures." + +He stood for half a minute in silence, looking at me with his mouth +open. + +"Are you a vegetarian?" he asked. + +"No, your Excellency, I eat meat." + +He sat down and drew some papers towards him. I bowed and went out. + +It was not worth while now to go to work before dinner. I went home +to sleep, but could not sleep from an unpleasant, sickly feeling, +induced by the slaughter house and my conversation with the Governor, +and when the evening came I went, gloomy and out of sorts, to Mariya +Viktorovna. I told her how I had been at the Governor's, while she +stared at me in perplexity as though she did not believe it, then +suddenly began laughing gaily, loudly, irrepressibly, as only +good-natured laughter-loving people can. + +"If only one could tell that in Petersburg!" she brought out, almost +falling over with laughter, and propping herself against the table. +"If one could tell that in Petersburg!" + +IX + +Now we used to see each other often, sometimes twice a day. She +used to come to the cemetery almost every day after dinner, and +read the epitaphs on the crosses and tombstones while she waited +for me. Sometimes she would come into the church, and, standing by +me, would look on while I worked. The stillness, the naïve work of +the painters and gilders, Radish's sage reflections, and the fact +that I did not differ externally from the other workmen, and worked +just as they did in my waistcoat with no socks on, and that I was +addressed familiarly by them--all this was new to her and touched +her. One day a workman, who was painting a dove on the ceiling, +called out to me in her presence: + +"Misail, hand me up the white paint." + +I took him the white paint, and afterwards, when I let myself down +by the frail scaffolding, she looked at me, touched to tears and +smiling. + +"What a dear you are!" she said. + +I remembered from my childhood how a green parrot, belonging to one +of the rich men of the town, had escaped from its cage, and how for +quite a month afterwards the beautiful bird had haunted the town, +flying from garden to garden, homeless and solitary. Mariya Viktorovna +reminded me of that bird. + +"There is positively nowhere for me to go now but the cemetery," +she said to me with a laugh. "The town has become disgustingly dull. +At the Azhogins' they are still reciting, singing, lisping. I have +grown to detest them of late; your sister is an unsociable creature; +Mademoiselle Blagovo hates me for some reason. I don't care for the +theatre. Tell me where am I to go?" + +When I went to see her I smelt of paint and turpentine, and my hands +were stained--and she liked that; she wanted me to come to her +in my ordinary working clothes; but in her drawing-room those clothes +made me feel awkward. I felt embarrassed, as though I were in +uniform, so I always put on my new serge trousers when I went to +her. And she did not like that. + +"You must own you are not quite at home in your new character," she +said to me one day. "Your workman's dress does not feel natural to +you; you are awkward in it. Tell me, isn't that because you haven't +a firm conviction, and are not satisfied? The very kind of work you +have chosen--your painting--surely it does not satisfy you, +does it?" she asked, laughing. "I know paint makes things look nicer +and last longer, but those things belong to rich people who live +in towns, and after all they are luxuries. Besides, you have often +said yourself that everybody ought to get his bread by the work of +his own hands, yet you get money and not bread. Why shouldn't you +keep to the literal sense of your words? You ought to be getting +bread, that is, you ought to be ploughing, sowing, reaping, threshing, +or doing something which has a direct connection with agriculture, +for instance, looking after cows, digging, building huts of +logs. . . ." + +She opened a pretty cupboard that stood near her writing-table, and +said: + +"I am saying all this to you because I want to let you into my +secret. _Voilà !_ This is my agricultural library. Here I have fields, +kitchen garden and orchard, and cattleyard and beehives. I read +them greedily, and have already learnt all the theory to the tiniest +detail. My dream, my darling wish, is to go to our Dubetchnya as +soon as March is here. It's marvellous there, exquisite, isn't it? +The first year I shall have a look round and get into things, and +the year after I shall begin to work properly myself, putting my +back into it as they say. My father has promised to give me Dubetchnya +and I shall do exactly what I like with it." + +Flushed, excited to tears, and laughing, she dreamed aloud how she +would live at Dubetchnya, and what an interesting life it would be! +I envied her. March was near, the days were growing longer and +longer, and on bright sunny days water dripped from the roofs at +midday, and there was a fragrance of spring; I, too, longed for the +country. + +And when she said that she should move to Dubetchnya, I realized +vividly that I should remain in the town alone, and I felt that I +envied her with her cupboard of books and her agriculture. I knew +nothing of work on the land, and did not like it, and I should have +liked to have told her that work on the land was slavish toil, but +I remembered that something similar had been said more than once +by my father, and I held my tongue. + +Lent began. Viktor Ivanitch, whose existence I had begun to forget, +arrived from Petersburg. He arrived unexpectedly, without even a +telegram to say he was coming. When I went in, as usual in the +evening, he was walking about the drawing-room, telling some story +with his face freshly washed and shaven, looking ten years younger: +his daughter was kneeling on the floor, taking out of his trunks +boxes, bottles, and books, and handing them to Pavel the footman. +I involuntarily drew back a step when I saw the engineer, but he +held out both hands to me and said, smiling, showing his strong +white teeth that looked like a sledge-driver's: + +"Here he is, here he is! Very glad to see you, Mr. House-painter! +Masha has told me all about it; she has been singing your praises. +I quite understand and approve," he went on, taking my arm. "To be +a good workman is ever so much more honest and more sensible than +wasting government paper and wearing a cockade on your head. I +myself worked in Belgium with these very hands and then spent two +years as a mechanic. . . ." + +He was wearing a short reefer jacket and indoor slippers; he walked +like a man with the gout, rolling slightly from side to side and +rubbing his hands. Humming something he softly purred and hugged +himself with satisfaction at being at home again at last, and able +to have his beloved shower bath. + +"There is no disputing," he said to me at supper, "there is no +disputing; you are all nice and charming people, but for some reason, +as soon as you take to manual labour, or go in for saving the +peasants, in the long run it all comes to no more than being a +dissenter. Aren't you a dissenter? Here you don't take vodka. What's +the meaning of that if it is not being a dissenter?" + +To satisfy him I drank some vodka and I drank some wine, too. We +tasted the cheese, the sausage, the pâtés, the pickles, and the +savouries of all sorts that the engineer had brought with him, and +the wine that had come in his absence from abroad. The wine was +first-rate. For some reason the engineer got wine and cigars from +abroad without paying duty; the caviare and the dried sturgeon +someone sent him for nothing; he did not pay rent for his flat as +the owner of the house provided the kerosene for the line; and +altogether he and his daughter produced on me the impression that +all the best in the world was at their service, and provided for +them for nothing. + +I went on going to see them, but not with the same eagerness. The +engineer made me feel constrained, and in his presence I did not +feel free. I could not face his clear, guileless eyes, his reflections +wearied and sickened me; I was sickened, too, by the memory that +so lately I had been in the employment of this red-faced, well-fed +man, and that he had been brutally rude to me. It is true that he +put his arm round my waist, slapped me on the shoulder in a friendly +way, approved my manner of life, but I felt that, as before, he +despised my insignificance, and only put up with me to please his +daughter, and I couldn't now laugh and talk as I liked, and I behaved +unsociably and kept expecting that in another minute he would address +me as Panteley as he did his footman Pavel. How my pride as a +provincial and a working man was revolted. I, a proletarian, a house +painter, went every day to rich people who were alien to me, and +whom the whole town regarded as though they were foreigners, and +every day I drank costly wines with them and ate unusual dainties +--my conscience refused to be reconciled to it! On my way to the +house I sullenly avoided meeting people, and looked at them from +under my brows as though I really were a dissenter, and when I was +going home from the engineer's I was ashamed of my well-fed condition. + +Above all I was afraid of being carried away. Whether I was walking +along the street, or working, or talking to the other fellows, I +was all the time thinking of one thing only, of going in the evening +to see Mariya Viktorovna and was picturing her voice, her laugh, +her movements. When I was getting ready to go to her I always spent +a long time before my nurse's warped looking-glass, as I fastened +my tie; my serge trousers were detestable in my eyes, and I suffered +torments, and at the same time despised myself for being so trivial. +When she called to me out of the other room that she was not dressed +and asked me to wait, I listened to her dressing; it agitated me, +I felt as though the ground were giving way under my feet. And when +I saw a woman's figure in the street, even at a distance, I invariably +compared it. It seemed to me that all our girls and women were +vulgar, that they were absurdly dressed, and did not know how to +hold themselves; and these comparisons aroused a feeling of pride +in me: Mariya Viktorovna was the best of them all! And I dreamed +of her and myself at night. + +One evening at supper with the engineer we ate a whole lobster As +I was going home afterwards I remembered that the engineer twice +called me "My dear fellow" at supper, and I reflected that they +treated me very kindly in that house, as they might an unfortunate +big dog who had been kicked out by its owners, that they were amusing +themselves with me, and that when they were tired of me they would +turn me out like a dog. I felt ashamed and wounded, wounded to the +point of tears as though I had been insulted, and looking up at the +sky I took a vow to put an end to all this. + +The next day I did not go to the Dolzhikov's. Late in the evening, +when it was quite dark and raining, I walked along Great Dvoryansky +Street, looking up at the windows. Everyone was asleep at the +Azhogins', and the only light was in one of the furthest windows. +It was Madame Azhogin in her own room, sewing by the light of three +candles, imagining that she was combating superstition. Our house +was in darkness, but at the Dolzhikovs', on the contrary, the windows +were lighted up, but one could distinguish nothing through the +flowers and the curtains. I kept walking up and down the street; +the cold March rain drenched me through. I heard my father come +home from the club; he stood knocking at the gate. A minute later +a light appeared at the window, and I saw my sister, who was hastening +down with a lamp, while with the other hand she was twisting her +thick hair together as she went. Then my father walked about the +drawing-room, talking and rubbing his hands, while my sister sat +in a low chair, thinking and not listening to what he said. + +But then they went away; the light went out. . . . I glanced round +at the engineer's, and there, too, all was darkness now. In the +dark and the rain I felt hopelessly alone, abandoned to the whims +of destiny; I felt that all my doings, my desires, and everything +I had thought and said till then were trivial in comparison with +my loneliness, in comparison with my present suffering, and the +suffering that lay before me in the future. Alas, the thoughts and +doings of living creatures are not nearly so significant as their +sufferings! And without clearly realizing what I was doing, I pulled +at the bell of the Dolzhikovs' gate, broke it, and ran along the +street like some naughty boy, with a feeling of terror in my heart, +expecting every moment that they would come out and recognize me. +When I stopped at the end of the street to take breath I could hear +nothing but the sound of the rain, and somewhere in the distance a +watchman striking on a sheet of iron. + +For a whole week I did not go to the Dolzhikovs'. My serge trousers +were sold. There was nothing doing in the painting trade. I knew +the pangs of hunger again, and earned from twopence to fourpence a +day, where I could, by heavy and unpleasant work. Struggling up to +my knees in the cold mud, straining my chest, I tried to stifle my +memories, and, as it were, to punish myself for the cheeses and +preserves with which I had been regaled at the engineer's. But all +the same, as soon as I lay in bed, wet and hungry, my sinful +imagination immediately began to paint exquisite, seductive pictures, +and with amazement I acknowledged to myself that I was in love, +passionately in love, and I fell into a sound, heavy sleep, feeling +that hard labour only made my body stronger and younger. + +One evening snow began falling most inappropriately, and the wind +blew from the north as though winter had come back again. When I +returned from work that evening I found Mariya Viktorovna in my +room. She was sitting in her fur coat, and had both hands in her +muff. + +"Why don't you come to see me?" she asked, raising her clear, clever +eyes, and I was utterly confused with delight and stood stiffly +upright before her, as I used to stand facing my father when he was +going to beat me; she looked into my face and I could see from her +eyes that she understood why I was confused. + +"Why don't you come to see me?" she repeated. "If you don't want +to come, you see, I have come to you." + +She got up and came close to me. + +"Don't desert me," she said, and her eyes filled with tears. "I am +alone, utterly alone." + +She began crying; and, hiding her face in her muff, articulated: + +"Alone! My life is hard, very hard, and in all the world I have no +one but you. Don't desert me!" + +Looking for a handkerchief to wipe her tears she smiled; we were +silent for some time, then I put my arms round her and kissed her, +scratching my cheek till it bled with her hatpin as I did it. + +And we began talking to each other as though we had been on the +closest terms for ages and ages. + +X + +Two days later she sent me to Dubetchnya and I was unutterably +delighted to go. As I walked towards the station and afterwards, +as I was sitting in the train, I kept laughing from no apparent +cause, and people looked at me as though I were drunk. Snow was +falling, and there were still frosts in the mornings, but the roads +were already dark-coloured and rooks hovered over them, cawing. + +At first I had intended to fit up an abode for us two, Masha and +me, in the lodge at the side opposite Madame Tcheprakov's lodge, +but it appeared that the doves and the ducks had been living there +for a long time, and it was impossible to clean it without destroying +a great number of nests. There was nothing for it but to live in +the comfortless rooms of the big house with the sunblinds. The +peasants called the house the palace; there were more than twenty +rooms in it, and the only furniture was a piano and a child's +arm-chair lying in the attic. And if Masha had brought all her +furniture from the town we should even then have been unable to get +rid of the impression of immense emptiness and cold. I picked out +three small rooms with windows looking into the garden, and worked +from early morning till night, setting them to rights, putting in +new panes, papering the walls, filling up the holes and chinks in +the floors. It was easy, pleasant work. I was continually running +to the river to see whether the ice were not going; I kept fancying +that starlings were flying. And at night, thinking of Masha, I +listened with an unutterably sweet feeling, with clutching delight +to the noise of the rats and the wind droning and knocking above +the ceiling. It seemed as though some old house spirit were coughing +in the attic. + +The snow was deep; a great deal had fallen even at the end of March, +but it melted quickly, as though by magic, and the spring floods +passed in a tumultuous rush, so that by the beginning of April the +starlings were already noisy, and yellow butterflies were flying +in the garden. It was exquisite weather. Every day, towards evening, +I used to walk to the town to meet Masha, and what a delight it was +to walk with bare feet along the gradually drying, still soft road. +Half-way I used to sit down and look towards the town, not venturing +to go near it. The sight of it troubled me. I kept wondering how +the people I knew would behave to me when they heard of my love. +What would my father say? What troubled me particularly was the +thought that my life was more complicated, and that I had completely +lost all power to set it right, and that, like a balloon, it was +bearing me away, God knows whither. I no longer considered the +problem how to earn my daily bread, how to live, but thought about +--I really don't know what. + +Masha used to come in a carriage; I used to get in with her, and +we drove to Dubetchnya, feeling light-hearted and free. Or, after +waiting till the sun had set, I would go back dissatisfied and +dreary, wondering why Masha had not come; at the gate or in the +garden I would be met by a sweet, unexpected apparition--it was +she! It would turn out that she had come by rail, and had walked +from the station. What a festival it was! In a simple woollen dress +with a kerchief on her head, with a modest sunshade, but laced in, +slender, in expensive foreign boots--it was a talented actress +playing the part of a little workgirl. We looked round our domain +and decided which should be her room, and which mine, where we would +have our avenue, our kitchen garden, our beehives. + +We already had hens, ducks, and geese, which we loved because they +were ours. We had, all ready for sowing, oats, clover, timothy +grass, buckwheat, and vegetable seeds, and we always looked at all +these stores and discussed at length the crop we might get; and +everything Masha said to me seemed extraordinarily clever, and fine. +This was the happiest time of my life. + +Soon after St. Thomas's week we were married at our parish church +in the village of Kurilovka, two miles from Dubetchnya. Masha wanted +everything to be done quietly; at her wish our "best men" were +peasant lads, the sacristan sang alone, and we came back from the +church in a small, jolting chaise which she drove herself. Our only +guest from the town was my sister Kleopatra, to whom Masha sent a +note three days before the wedding. My sister came in a white dress +and wore gloves. During the wedding she cried quietly from joy and +tenderness. Her expression was motherly and infinitely kind. She +was intoxicated with our happiness, and smiled as though she were +absorbing a sweet delirium, and looking at her during our wedding, +I realized that for her there was nothing in the world higher than +love, earthly love, and that she was dreaming of it secretly, +timidly, but continually and passionately. She embraced and kissed +Masha, and, not knowing how to express her rapture, said to her of +me: "He is good! He is very good!" + +Before she went away she changed into her ordinary dress, and drew +me into the garden to talk to me alone. + +"Father is very much hurt," she said, "that you have written nothing +to him. You ought to have asked for his blessing. But in reality +he is very much pleased. He says that this marriage will raise you +in the eyes of all society, and that under the influence of Mariya +Viktorovna you will begin to take a more serious view of life. We +talk of nothing but you in the evenings now, and yesterday he +actually used the expression: 'Our Misail.' That pleased me. It +seems as though he had some plan in his mind, and I fancy he wants +to set you an example of magnanimity and be the first to speak of +reconciliation. It is very possible he may come here to see you in +a day or two." + +She hurriedly made the sign of the cross over me several times and +said: + +"Well, God be with you. Be happy. Anyuta Blagovo is a very clever +girl; she says about your marriage that God is sending you a fresh +ordeal. To be sure--married life does not bring only joy but +suffering too. That's bound to be so." + +Masha and I walked a couple of miles to see her on her way; we +walked back slowly and in silence, as though we were resting. Masha +held my hand, my heart felt light, and I had no inclination to talk +about love; we had become closer and more akin now that we were +married, and we felt that nothing now could separate us. + +"Your sister is a nice creature," said Masha, "but it seems as +though she had been tormented for years. Your father must be a +terrible man." + +I began telling her how my sister and I had been brought up, and +what a senseless torture our childhood had really been. When she +heard how my father had so lately beaten me, she shuddered and drew +closer to me. + +"Don't tell me any more," she said. "It's horrible!" + +Now she never left me. We lived together in the three rooms in the +big house, and in the evenings we bolted the door which led to the +empty part of the house, as though someone were living there whom +we did not know, and were afraid of. I got up early, at dawn, and +immediately set to work of some sort. I mended the carts, made paths +in the garden, dug the flower beds, painted the roof of the house. +When the time came to sow the oats I tried to plough the ground +over again, to harrow and to sow, and I did it all conscientiously, +keeping up with our labourer; I was worn out, the rain and the cold +wind made my face and feet burn for hours afterwards. I dreamed of +ploughed land at night. But field labour did not attract me. I did +not understand farming, and I did not care for it; it was perhaps +because my forefathers had not been tillers of the soil, and the +very blood that flowed in my veins was purely of the city. I loved +nature tenderly; I loved the fields and meadows and kitchen gardens, +but the peasant who turned up the soil with his plough and urged +on his pitiful horse, wet and tattered, with his craning neck, was +to me the expression of coarse, savage, ugly force, and every time +I looked at his uncouth movements I involuntarily began thinking +of the legendary life of the remote past, before men knew the use +of fire. The fierce bull that ran with the peasants' herd, and the +horses, when they dashed about the village, stamping their hoofs, +moved me to fear, and everything rather big, strong, and angry, +whether it was the ram with its horns, the gander, or the yard-dog, +seemed to me the expression of the same coarse, savage force. This +mood was particularly strong in me in bad weather, when heavy clouds +were hanging over the black ploughed land. Above all, when I was +ploughing or sowing, and two or three people stood looking how I +was doing it, I had not the feeling that this work was inevitable +and obligatory, and it seemed to me that I was amusing myself. I +preferred doing something in the yard, and there was nothing I liked +so much as painting the roof. + +I used to walk through the garden and the meadow to our mill. It +was let to a peasant of Kurilovka called Stepan, a handsome, dark +fellow with a thick black beard, who looked very strong. He did not +like the miller's work, and looked upon it as dreary and unprofitable, +and only lived at the mill in order not to live at home. He was a +leather-worker, and was always surrounded by a pleasant smell of +tar and leather. He was not fond of talking, he was listless and +sluggish, and was always sitting in the doorway or on the river +bank, humming "oo-loo-loo." His wife and mother-in-law, both +white-faced, languid, and meek, used sometimes to come from Kurilovka +to see him; they made low bows to him and addressed him formally, +"Stepan Petrovitch," while he went on sitting on the river bank, +softly humming "oo-loo-loo," without responding by word or movement +to their bows. One hour and then a second would pass in silence. +His mother-in-law and wife, after whispering together, would get +up and gaze at him for some time, expecting him to look round; then +they would make a low bow, and in sugary, chanting voices, say: + +"Good-bye, Stepan Petrovitch!" + +And they would go away. After that Stepan, picking up the parcel +they had left, containing cracknels or a shirt, would heave a sigh +and say, winking in their direction: + +"The female sex!" + +The mill with two sets of millstones worked day and night. I used +to help Stepan; I liked the work, and when he went off I was glad +to stay and take his place. + +XI + +After bright warm weather came a spell of wet; all May it rained +and was cold. The sound of the millwheels and of the rain disposed +one to indolence and slumber. The floor trembled, there was a smell +of flour, and that, too, induced drowsiness. My wife in a short +fur-lined jacket, and in men's high golosh boots, would make her +appearance twice a day, and she always said the same thing: + +"And this is called summer! Worse than it was in October!" + +We used to have tea and make the porridge together, or we would sit +for hours at a stretch without speaking, waiting for the rain to +stop. Once, when Stepan had gone off to the fair, Masha stayed all +night at the mill. When we got up we could not tell what time it +was, as the rainclouds covered the whole sky; but sleepy cocks were +crowing at Dubetchnya, and landrails were calling in the meadows; +it was still very, very early. . . . My wife and I went down to the +millpond and drew out the net which Stepan had thrown in over night +in our presence. A big pike was struggling in it, and a cray-fish +was twisting about, clawing upwards with its pincers. + +"Let them go," said Masha. "Let them be happy too." + +Because we got up so early and afterwards did nothing, that day +seemed very long, the longest day in my life. Towards evening Stepan +came back and I went home. + +"Your father came to-day," said Masha. + +"Where is he?" I asked. + +"He has gone away. I would not see him." + +Seeing that I remained standing and silent, that I was sorry for +my father, she said: + +"One must be consistent. I would not see him, and sent word to him +not to trouble to come and see us again." + +A minute later I was out at the gate and walking to the town to +explain things to my father. It was muddy, slippery, cold. For the +first time since my marriage I felt suddenly sad, and in my brain +exhausted by that long, grey day, there was stirring the thought +that perhaps I was not living as I ought. I was worn out; little +by little I was overcome by despondency and indolence, I did not +want to move or think, and after going on a little I gave it up +with a wave of my hand and turned back. + +The engineer in a leather overcoat with a hood was standing in the +middle of the yard. + +"Where's the furniture? There used to be lovely furniture in the +Empire style: there used to be pictures, there used to be vases, +while now you could play ball in it! I bought the place with the +furniture. The devil take her!" + +Moisey, a thin pock-marked fellow of twenty-five, with insolent +little eyes, who was in the service of the general's widow, stood +near him crumpling up his cap in his hands; one of his cheeks was +bigger than the other, as though he had lain too long on it. + +"Your honour was graciously pleased to buy the place without the +furniture," he brought out irresolutely; "I remember." + +"Hold your tongue!" shouted the engineer; he turned crimson and +shook with anger . . . and the echo in the garden loudly repeated +his shout. + +XII + +When I was doing anything in the garden or the yard, Moisey would +stand beside me, and folding his arms behind his back he would stand +lazily and impudently staring at me with his little eyes. And this +irritated me to such a degree that I threw up my work and went away. + +From Stepan we heard that Moisey was Madame Tcheprakov's lover. I +noticed that when people came to her to borrow money they addressed +themselves first to Moisey, and once I saw a peasant, black from +head to foot--he must have been a coalheaver--bow down at +Moisey's feet. Sometimes, after a little whispering, he gave out +money himself, without consulting his mistress, from which I concluded +that he did a little business on his own account. + +He used to shoot in our garden under our windows, carried off +victuals from our cellar, borrowed our horses without asking +permission, and we were indignant and began to feel as though +Dubetchnya were not ours, and Masha would say, turning pale: + +"Can we really have to go on living with these reptiles another +eighteen months?" + +Madame Tcheprakov's son, Ivan, was serving as a guard on our +railway-line. He had grown much thinner and feebler during the +winter, so that a single glass was enough to make him drunk, and +he shivered out of the sunshine. He wore the guard's uniform with +aversion and was ashamed of it, but considered his post a good one, +as he could steal the candles and sell them. My new position excited +in him a mixed feeling of wonder, envy, and a vague hope that +something of the same sort might happen to him. He used to watch +Masha with ecstatic eyes, ask me what I had for dinner now, and his +lean and ugly face wore a sad and sweetish expression, and he moved +his fingers as though he were feeling my happiness with them. + +"Listen, Better-than-nothing," he said fussily, relighting his +cigarette at every instant; there was always a litter where he +stood, for he wasted dozens of matches, lighting one cigarette. +"Listen, my life now is the nastiest possible. The worst of it is +any subaltern can shout: 'Hi, there, guard!' I have overheard all +sorts of things in the train, my boy, and do you know, I have learned +that life's a beastly thing! My mother has been the ruin of me! A +doctor in the train told me that if parents are immoral, their +children are drunkards or criminals. Think of that!" + +Once he came into the yard, staggering; his eyes gazed about blankly, +his breathing was laboured; he laughed and cried and babbled as +though in a high fever, and the only words I could catch in his +muddled talk were, "My mother! Where's my mother?" which he uttered +with a wail like a child who has lost his mother in a crowd. I led +him into our garden and laid him down under a tree, and Masha and +I took turns to sit by him all that day and all night. He was very +sick, and Masha looked with aversion at his pale, wet face, and +said: + +"Is it possible these reptiles will go on living another year and +a half in our yard? It's awful! it's awful!" + +And how many mortifications the peasants caused us! How many bitter +disappointments in those early days in the spring months, when we +so longed to be happy. My wife built a school. I drew a plan of a +school for sixty boys, and the Zemstvo Board approved of it, but +advised us to build the school at Kurilovka the big village which +was only two miles from us. Moreover, the school at Kurilovka in +which children--from four villages, our Dubetchnya being one of +the number--were taught, was old and too small, and the floor was +scarcely safe to walk upon. At the end of March at Masha's wish, +she was appointed guardian of the Kurilovka school, and at the +beginning of April we three times summoned the village assembly, +and tried to persuade the peasants that their school was old and +overcrowded, and that it was essential to build a new one. A member +of the Zemstvo Board and the Inspector of Peasant Schools came, and +they, too, tried to persuade them. After each meeting the peasants +surrounded us, begging for a bucket of vodka; we were hot in the +crowd; we were soon exhausted, and returned home dissatisfied and +a little ill at ease. In the end the peasants set apart a plot of +ground for the school, and were obliged to bring all the building +material from the town with their own horses. And the very first +Sunday after the spring corn was sown carts set off from Kurilovka +and Dubetchnya to fetch bricks for the foundations. They set off +as soon as it was light, and came back late in the evening; the +peasants were drunk, and said they were worn out. + +As ill-luck would have it, the rain and the cold persisted all +through May. The road was in an awful state: it was deep in mud. +The carts usually drove into our yard when they came back from the +town--and what a horrible ordeal it was. A potbellied horse would +appear at the gate, setting its front legs wide apart; it would +stumble forward before coming into the yard; a beam, nine yards +long, wet and slimy-looking, crept in on a waggon. Beside it, muffled +up against the rain, strode a peasant with the skirts of his coat +tucked up in his belt, not looking where he was going, but stepping +through the puddles. Another cart would appear with boards, then a +third with a beam, a fourth . . . and the space before our house +was gradually crowded up with horses, beams, and planks. Men and +women, with their heads muffled and their skirts tucked up, would +stare angrily at our windows, make an uproar, and clamour for the +mistress to come out to them; coarse oaths were audible. Meanwhile +Moisey stood at one side, and we fancied he was enjoying our +discomfiture. + +"We are not going to cart any more," the peasants would shout. "We +are worn out! Let her go and get the stuff herself." + +Masha, pale and flustered, expecting every minute that they would +break into the house, would send them out a half-pail of vodka; +after that the noise would subside and the long beams, one after +another, would crawl slowly out of the yard. + +When I was setting off to see the building my wife was worried and +said: + +"The peasants are spiteful; I only hope they won't do you a mischief. +Wait a minute, I'll come with you." + +We drove to Kurilovka together, and there the carpenters asked us +for a drink. The framework of the house was ready. It was time to +lay the foundation, but the masons had not come; this caused delay, +and the carpenters complained. And when at last the masons did come, +it appeared that there was no sand; it had been somehow overlooked +that it would be needed. Taking advantage of our helpless position, +the peasants demanded thirty kopecks for each cartload, though the +distance from the building to the river where they got the sand was +less than a quarter of a mile, and more than five hundred cartloads +were found to be necessary. There was no end to the misunderstandings, +swearing, and importunity; my wife was indignant, and the foreman +of the masons, Tit Petrov, an old man of seventy, took her by the +arm, and said: + +"You look here! You look here! You only bring me the sand; I set +ten men on at once, and in two days it will be done! You look here!" + +But they brought the sand and two days passed, and four, and a week, +and instead of the promised foundations there was still a yawning +hole. + +"It's enough to drive one out of one's senses," said my wife, in +distress. "What people! What people!" + +In the midst of these disorderly doings the engineer arrived; he +brought with him parcels of wine and savouries, and after a prolonged +meal lay down for a nap in the verandah and snored so loudly that +the labourers shook their heads and said: "Well!" + +Masha was not pleased at his coming, she did not trust him, though +at the same time she asked his advice. When, after sleeping too +long after dinner, he got up in a bad humour and said unpleasant +things about our management of the place, or expressed regret that +he had bought Dubetchnya, which had already been a loss to him, +poor Masha's face wore an expression of misery. She would complain +to him, and he would yawn and say that the peasants ought to be +flogged. + +He called our marriage and our life a farce, and said it was a +caprice, a whim. + +"She has done something of the sort before," he said about Masha. +"She once fancied herself a great opera singer and left me; I was +looking for her for two months, and, my dear soul, I spent a thousand +roubles on telegrams alone." + +He no longer called me a dissenter or Mr. Painter, and did not as +in the past express approval of my living like a workman, but said: + +"You are a strange person! You are not a normal person! I won't +venture to prophesy, but you will come to a bad end!" + +And Masha slept badly at night, and was always sitting at our bedroom +window thinking. There was no laughter at supper now, no charming +grimaces. I was wretched, and when it rained, every drop that fell +seemed to pierce my heart, like small shot, and I felt ready to +fall on my knees before Masha and apologize for the weather. When +the peasants made a noise in the yard I felt guilty also. For hours +at a time I sat still in one place, thinking of nothing but what a +splendid person Masha was, what a wonderful person. I loved her +passionately, and I was fascinated by everything she did, everything +she said. She had a bent for quiet, studious pursuits; she was fond +of reading for hours together, of studying. Although her knowledge +of farming was only from books she surprised us all by what she +knew; and every piece of advice she gave was of value; not one was +ever thrown away; and, with all that, what nobility, what taste, +what graciousness, that graciousness which is only found in +well-educated people. + +To this woman, with her sound, practical intelligence, the disorderly +surroundings with petty cares and sordid anxieties in which we were +living now were an agony: I saw that and could not sleep at night; +my brain worked feverishly and I had a lump in my throat. I rushed +about not knowing what to do. + +I galloped to the town and brought Masha books, newspapers, sweets, +flowers; with Stepan I caught fish, wading for hours up to my neck +in the cold water in the rain to catch eel-pout to vary our fare; +I demeaned myself to beg the peasants not to make a noise; I plied +them with vodka, bought them off, made all sorts of promises. And +how many other foolish things I did! + +At last the rain ceased, the earth dried. One would get up at four +o'clock in the morning; one would go out into the garden--where +there was dew sparkling on the flowers, the twitter of birds, the +hum of insects, not one cloud in the sky; and the garden, the +meadows, and the river were so lovely, yet there were memories of +the peasants, of their carts, of the engineer. Masha and I drove +out together in the racing droshky to the fields to look at the +oats. She used to drive, I sat behind; her shoulders were raised +and the wind played with her hair. + +"Keep to the right!" she shouted to those she met. + +"You are like a sledge-driver," I said to her one day. + +"Maybe! Why, my grandfather, the engineer's father, was a sledge-driver. +Didn't you know that?" she asked, turning to me, and at once she +mimicked the way sledge-drivers shout and sing. + +"And thank God for that," I thought as I listened to her. "Thank +God." + +And again memories of the peasants, of the carts, of the engineer. . . . + +XIII + +Dr. Blagovo arrived on his bicycle. My sister began coming often. +Again there were conversations about manual labour, about progress, +about a mysterious millennium awaiting mankind in the remote future. +The doctor did not like our farmwork, because it interfered with +arguments, and said that ploughing, reaping, grazing calves were +unworthy of a free man, and all these coarse forms of the struggle +for existence men would in time relegate to animals and machines, +while they would devote themselves exclusively to scientific +investigation. My sister kept begging them to let her go home +earlier, and if she stayed on till late in the evening, or spent +the night with us, there would be no end to the agitation. + +"Good Heavens, what a baby you are still!" said Masha reproachfully. +"It is positively absurd." + +"Yes, it is absurd," my sister agreed, "I know it's absurd; but +what is to be done if I haven't the strength to get over it? I keep +feeling as though I were doing wrong." + +At haymaking I ached all over from the unaccustomed labour; in the +evening, sitting on the verandah and talking with the others, I +suddenly dropped asleep, and they laughed aloud at me. They waked +me up and made me sit down to supper; I was overpowered with +drowsiness and I saw the lights, the faces, and the plates as it +were in a dream, heard the voices, but did not understand them. And +getting up early in the morning, I took up the scythe at once, or +went to the building and worked hard all day. + +When I remained at home on holidays I noticed that my sister and +Masha were concealing something from me, and even seemed to be +avoiding me. My wife was tender to me as before, but she had thoughts +of her own apart, which she did not share with me. There was no +doubt that her exasperation with the peasants was growing, the life +was becoming more and more distasteful to her, and yet she did not +complain to me. She talked to the doctor now more readily than she +did to me, and I did not understand why it was so. + +It was the custom in our province at haymaking and harvest time for +the labourers to come to the manor house in the evening and be +regaled with vodka; even young girls drank a glass. We did not keep +up this practice; the mowers and the peasant women stood about in +our yard till late in the evening expecting vodka, and then departed +abusing us. And all the time Masha frowned grimly and said nothing, +or murmured to the doctor with exasperation: "Savages! Petchenyegs!" + +In the country newcomers are met ungraciously, almost with hostility, +as they are at school. And we were received in this way. At first +we were looked upon as stupid, silly people, who had bought an +estate simply because we did not know what to do with our money. +We were laughed at. The peasants grazed their cattle in our wood +and even in our garden; they drove away our cows and horses to the +village, and then demanded money for the damage done by them. They +came in whole companies into our yard, and loudly clamoured that +at the mowing we had cut some piece of land that did not belong to +us; and as we did not yet know the boundaries of our estate very +accurately, we took their word for it and paid damages. Afterwards +it turned out that there had been no mistake at the mowing. They +barked the lime-trees in our wood. One of the Dubetchnya peasants, +a regular shark, who did a trade in vodka without a licence, bribed +our labourers, and in collaboration with them cheated us in a most +treacherous way. They took the new wheels off our carts and replaced +them with old ones, stole our ploughing harness and actually sold +them to us, and so on. But what was most mortifying of all was what +happened at the building; the peasant women stole by night boards, +bricks, tiles, pieces of iron. The village elder with witnesses +made a search in their huts; the village meeting fined them two +roubles each, and afterwards this money was spent on drink by the +whole commune. + +When Masha heard about this, she would say to the doctor or my +sister indignantly: + +"What beasts! It's awful! awful!" + +And I heard her more than once express regret that she had ever +taken it into her head to build the school. + +"You must understand," the doctor tried to persuade her, "that if +you build this school and do good in general, it's not for the sake +of the peasants, but in the name of culture, in the name of the +future; and the worse the peasants are the more reason for building +the school. Understand that!" + +But there was a lack of conviction in his voice, and it seemed to +me that both he and Masha hated the peasants. + +Masha often went to the mill, taking my sister with her, and they +both said, laughing, that they went to have a look at Stepan, he +was so handsome. Stepan, it appeared, was torpid and taciturn only +with men; in feminine society his manners were free and easy, and +he talked incessantly. One day, going down to the river to bathe, +I accidentally overheard a conversation. Masha and Kleopatra, both +in white dresses, were sitting on the bank in the spreading shade +of a willow, and Stepan was standing by them with his hands behind +his back, and was saying: + +"Are peasants men? They are not men, but, asking your pardon, wild +beasts, impostors. What life has a peasant? Nothing but eating and +drinking; all he cares for is victuals to be cheaper and swilling +liquor at the tavern like a fool; and there's no conversation, no +manners, no formality, nothing but ignorance! He lives in filth, +his wife lives in filth, and his children live in filth. What he +stands up in, he lies down to sleep in; he picks the potatoes out +of the soup with his fingers; he drinks kvass with a cockroach in +it, and doesn't bother to blow it away!" + +"It's their poverty, of course," my sister put in. + +"Poverty? There is want to be sure, there's different sorts of want, +Madam. If a man is in prison, or let us say blind or crippled, that +really is trouble I wouldn't wish anyone, but if a man's free and +has all his senses, if he has his eyes and his hands and his strength +and God, what more does he want? It's cockering themselves, and +it's ignorance, Madam, it's not poverty. If you, let us suppose, +good gentlefolk, by your education, wish out of kindness to help +him he will drink away your money in his low way; or, what's worse, +he will open a drinkshop, and with your money start robbing the +people. You say poverty, but does the rich peasant live better? He, +too, asking your pardon, lives like a swine: coarse, loud-mouthed, +cudgel-headed, broader than he is long, fat, red-faced mug, I'd +like to swing my fist and send him flying, the scoundrel. There's +Larion, another rich one at Dubetchnya, and I bet he strips the +bark off your trees as much as any poor one; and he is a foul-mouthed +fellow; his children are the same, and when he has had a drop too +much he'll topple with his nose in a puddle and sleep there. They +are all a worthless lot, Madam. If you live in a village with them +it is like hell. It has stuck in my teeth, that village has, and +thank the Lord, the King of Heaven, I've plenty to eat and clothes +to wear, I served out my time in the dragoons, I was village elder +for three years, and now I am a free Cossack, I live where I like. +I don't want to live in the village, and no one has the right to +force me. They say--my wife. They say you are bound to live in +your cottage with your wife. But why so? I am not her hired man." + +"Tell me, Stepan, did you marry for love?" asked Masha. + +"Love among us in the village!" answered Stepan, and he gave a +laugh. "Properly speaking, Madam, if you care to know, this is my +second marriage. I am not a Kurilovka man, I am from Zalegoshtcho, +but afterwards I was taken into Kurilovka when I married. You see +my father did not want to divide the land among us. There were five +of us brothers. I took my leave and went to another village to live +with my wife's family, but my first wife died when she was young." + +"What did she die of?" + +"Of foolishness. She used to cry and cry and cry for no reason, and +so she pined away. She was always drinking some sort of herbs to +make her better looking, and I suppose she damaged her inside. And +my second wife is a Kurilovka woman too, there is nothing in her. +She's a village woman, a peasant woman, and nothing more. I was +taken in when they plighted me to her. I thought she was young and +fair-skinned, and that they lived in a clean way. Her mother was +just like a Flagellant and she drank coffee, and the chief thing, +to be sure, they were clean in their ways. So I married her, and +next day we sat down to dinner; I bade my mother-in-law give me a +spoon, and she gives me a spoon, and I see her wipe it out with her +finger. So much for you, thought I; nice sort of cleanliness yours +is. I lived a year with them and then I went away. I might have +married a girl from the town," he went on after a pause. "They say +a wife is a helpmate to her husband. What do I want with a helpmate? +I help myself; I'd rather she talked to me, and not clack, clack, +clack, but circumstantially, feelingly. What is life without good +conversation?" + +Stepan suddenly paused, and at once there was the sound of his +dreary, monotonous "oo-loo-loo-loo." This meant that he had seen +me. + +Masha used often to go to the mill, and evidently found pleasure +in her conversations with Stepan. Stepan abused the peasants with +such sincerity and conviction, and she was attracted to him. Every +time she came back from the mill the feeble-minded peasant, who +looked after the garden, shouted at her: + +"Wench Palashka! Hulla, wench Palashka!" and he would bark like a +dog: "Ga! Ga!" + +And she would stop and look at him attentively, as though in that +idiot's barking she found an answer to her thoughts, and probably +he attracted her in the same way as Stepan's abuse. At home some +piece of news would await her, such, for instance, as that the geese +from the village had ruined our cabbage in the garden, or that +Larion had stolen the reins; and shrugging her shoulders, she would +say with a laugh: + +"What do you expect of these people?" + +She was indignant, and there was rancour in her heart, and meanwhile +I was growing used to the peasants, and I felt more and more drawn +to them. For the most part they were nervous, irritable, downtrodden +people; they were people whose imagination had been stifled, ignorant, +with a poor, dingy outlook on life, whose thoughts were ever the +same--of the grey earth, of grey days, of black bread, people who +cheated, but like birds hiding nothing but their head behind the +tree--people who could not count. They would not come to mow for +us for twenty roubles, but they came for half a pail of vodka, +though for twenty roubles they could have bought four pails. There +really was filth and drunkenness and foolishness and deceit, but +with all that one yet felt that the life of the peasants rested on +a firm, sound foundation. However uncouth a wild animal the peasant +following the plough seemed, and however he might stupefy himself +with vodka, still, looking at him more closely, one felt that there +was in him what was needed, something very important, which was +lacking in Masha and in the doctor, for instance, and that was that +he believed the chief thing on earth was truth and justice, and +that his salvation, and that of the whole people, was only to be +found in truth and justice, and so more than anything in the world +he loved just dealing. I told my wife she saw the spots on the +glass, but not the glass itself; she said nothing in reply, or +hummed like Stepan "oo-loo-loo-loo." When this good-hearted and +clever woman turned pale with indignation, and with a quiver in her +voice spoke to the doctor of the drunkenness and dishonesty, it +perplexed me, and I was struck by the shortness of her memory. How +could she forget that her father the engineer drank too, and drank +heavily, and that the money with which Dubetchnya had been bought +had been acquired by a whole series of shameless, impudent dishonesties? +How could she forget it? + +XIV + +My sister, too, was leading a life of her own which she carefully +hid from me. She was often whispering with Masha. When I went up +to her she seemed to shrink into herself, and there was a guilty, +imploring look in her eyes; evidently there was something going on +in her heart of which she was afraid or ashamed. So as to avoid +meeting me in the garden, or being left alone with me, she always +kept close to Masha, and I rarely had an opportunity of talking to +her except at dinner. + +One evening I was walking quietly through the garden on my way back +from the building. It was beginning to get dark. Without noticing +me, or hearing my step, my sister was walking near a spreading old +apple-tree, absolutely noiselessly as though she were a phantom. +She was dressed in black, and was walking rapidly backwards and +forwards on the same track, looking at the ground. An apple fell +from the tree; she started at the sound, stood still and pressed +her hands to her temples. At that moment I went up to her. + +In a rush of tender affection which suddenly flooded my heart, with +tears in my eyes, suddenly remembering my mother and our childhood, +I put my arm round her shoulders and kissed her. + +"What is the matter?" I asked her. "You are unhappy; I have seen +it for a long time. Tell me what's wrong?" + +"I am frightened," she said, trembling. + +"What is it?" I insisted. "For God's sake, be open!" + +"I will, I will be open; I will tell you the whole truth. To hide +it from you is so hard, so agonizing. Misail, I love . . ." she +went on in a whisper, "I love him . . . I love him. . . . I am +happy, but why am I so frightened?" + +There was the sound of footsteps; between the trees appeared Dr. +Blagovo in his silk shirt with his high top boots. Evidently they +had arranged to meet near the apple-tree. Seeing him, she rushed +impulsively towards him with a cry of pain as though he were being +taken from her. + +"Vladimir! Vladimir!" + +She clung to him and looked greedily into his face, and only then +I noticed how pale and thin she had become of late. It was particularly +noticeable from her lace collar which I had known for so long, and +which now hung more loosely than ever before about her thin, long +neck. The doctor was disconcerted, but at once recovered himself, +and, stroking her hair, said: + +"There, there. . . . Why so nervous? You see, I'm here." + +We were silent, looking with embarrassment at each other, then we +walked on, the three of us together, and I heard the doctor say to +me: + +"Civilized life has not yet begun among us. Old men console themselves +by making out that if there is nothing now, there was something in +the forties or the sixties; that's the old: you and I are young; +our brains have not yet been touched by _marasmus senilis_; we +cannot comfort ourselves with such illusions. The beginning of +Russia was in 862, but the beginning of civilized Russia has not +come yet." + +But I did not grasp the meaning of these reflections. It was somehow +strange, I could not believe it, that my sister was in love, that +she was walking and holding the arm of a stranger and looking +tenderly at him. My sister, this nervous, frightened, crushed, +fettered creature, loved a man who was married and had children! I +felt sorry for something, but what exactly I don't know; the presence +of the doctor was for some reason distasteful to me now, and I could +not imagine what would come of this love of theirs. + +XV + +Masha and I drove to Kurilovka to the dedication of the school. + +"Autumn, autumn, autumn, . . ." said Masha softly, looking away. +"Summer is over. There are no birds and nothing is green but the +willows." + +Yes, summer was over. There were fine, warm days, but it was fresh +in the morning, and the shepherds went out in their sheepskins +already; and in our garden the dew did not dry off the asters all +day long. There were plaintive sounds all the time, and one could +not make out whether they came from the shutters creaking on their +rusty hinges, or from the flying cranes--and one's heart felt +light, and one was eager for life. + +"The summer is over," said Masha. "Now you and I can balance our +accounts. We have done a lot of work, a lot of thinking; we are the +better for it--all honour and glory to us--we have succeeded +in self-improvement; but have our successes had any perceptible +influence on the life around us, have they brought any benefit to +anyone whatever? No. Ignorance, physical uncleanliness, drunkenness, +an appallingly high infant mortality, everything remains as it was, +and no one is the better for your having ploughed and sown, and my +having wasted money and read books. Obviously we have been working +only for ourselves and have had advanced ideas only for ourselves." +Such reasonings perplexed me, and I did not know what to think. + +"We have been sincere from beginning to end," said I, "and if anyone +is sincere he is right." + +"Who disputes it? We were right, but we haven't succeeded in properly +accomplishing what we were right in. To begin with, our external +methods themselves--aren't they mistaken? You want to be of use +to men, but by the very fact of your buying an estate, from the +very start you cut yourself off from any possibility of doing +anything useful for them. Then if you work, dress, eat like a peasant +you sanctify, as it were, by your authority, their heavy, clumsy +dress, their horrible huts, their stupid beards. . . . On the other +hand, if we suppose that you work for long, long years, your whole +life, that in the end some practical results are obtained, yet what +are they, your results, what can they do against such elemental +forces as wholesale ignorance, hunger, cold, degeneration? A drop +in the ocean! Other methods of struggle are needed, strong, bold, +rapid! If one really wants to be of use one must get out of the +narrow circle of ordinary social work, and try to act direct upon +the mass! What is wanted, first of all, is a loud, energetic +propaganda. Why is it that art--music, for instance--is so +living, so popular, and in reality so powerful? Because the musician +or the singer affects thousands at once. Precious, precious art!" +she went on, looking dreamily at the sky. "Art gives us wings and +carries us far, far away! Anyone who is sick of filth, of petty, +mercenary interests, anyone who is revolted, wounded, and indignant, +can find peace and satisfaction only in the beautiful." + +When we drove into Kurilovka the weather was bright and joyous. +Somewhere they were threshing; there was a smell of rye straw. A +mountain ash was bright red behind the hurdle fences, and all the +trees wherever one looked were ruddy or golden. They were ringing +the bells, they were carrying the ikons to the school, and we could +hear them sing: "Holy Mother, our Defender," and how limpid the air +was, and how high the doves were flying. + +The service was being held in the classroom. Then the peasants of +Kurilovka brought Masha the ikon, and the peasants of Dubetchnya +offered her a big loaf and a gilt salt cellar. And Masha broke into +sobs. + +"If anything has been said that shouldn't have been or anything +done not to your liking, forgive us," said an old man, and he bowed +down to her and to me. + +As we drove home Masha kept looking round at the school; the green +roof, which I had painted, and which was glistening in the sun, +remained in sight for a long while. And I felt that the look Masha +turned upon it now was one of farewell. + +XVI + +In the evening she got ready to go to the town. Of late she had +taken to going often to the town and staying the night there. In +her absence I could not work, my hands felt weak and limp; our huge +courtyard seemed a dreary, repulsive, empty hole. The garden was +full of angry noises, and without her the house, the trees, the +horses were no longer "ours." + +I did not go out of the house, but went on sitting at her table +beside her bookshelf with the books on land work, those old favourites +no longer wanted and looking at me now so shamefacedly. For whole +hours together, while it struck seven, eight, nine, while the autumn +night, black as soot, came on outside, I kept examining her old +glove, or the pen with which she always wrote, or her little scissors. +I did nothing, and realized clearly that all I had done before, +ploughing, mowing, chopping, had only been because she wished it. +And if she had sent me to clean a deep well, where I had to stand +up to my waist in deep water, I should have crawled into the well +without considering whether it was necessary or not. And now when +she was not near, Dubetchnya, with its ruins, its untidiness, its +banging shutters, with its thieves by day and by night, seemed to +me a chaos in which any work would be useless. Besides, what had I +to work for here, why anxiety and thought about the future, if I +felt that the earth was giving way under my feet, that I had played +my part in Dubetchnya, and that the fate of the books on farming +was awaiting me too? Oh, what misery it was at night, in hours of +solitude, when I was listening every minute in alarm, as though I +were expecting someone to shout that it was time for me to go away! +I did not grieve for Dubetchnya. I grieved for my love which, too, +was threatened with its autumn. What an immense happiness it is to +love and be loved, and how awful to feel that one is slipping down +from that high pinnacle! + +Masha returned from the town towards the evening of the next day. +She was displeased with something, but she concealed it, and only +said, why was it all the window frames had been put in for the +winter it was enough to suffocate one. I took out two frames. We +were not hungry, but we sat down to supper. + +"Go and wash your hands," said my wife; "you smell of putty." + +She had brought some new illustrated papers from the town, and we +looked at them together after supper. There were supplements with +fashion plates and patterns. Masha looked through them casually, +and was putting them aside to examine them properly later on; but +one dress, with a flat skirt as full as a bell and large sleeves, +interested her, and she looked at it for a minute gravely and +attentively. + +"That's not bad," she said. + +"Yes, that dress would suit you beautifully," I said, "beautifully." + +And looking with emotion at the dress, admiring that patch of grey +simply because she liked it, I went on tenderly: + +"A charming, exquisite dress! Splendid, glorious, Masha! My precious +Masha!" + +And tears dropped on the fashion plate. + +"Splendid Masha . . ." I muttered; "sweet, precious Masha. . . ." + +She went to bed, while I sat another hour looking at the illustrations. + +"It's a pity you took out the window frames," she said from the +bedroom, "I am afraid it may be cold. Oh, dear, what a draught there +is!" + +I read something out of the column of odds and ends, a receipt for +making cheap ink, and an account of the biggest diamond in the +world. I came again upon the fashion plate of the dress she liked, +and I imagined her at a ball, with a fan, bare shoulders, brilliant, +splendid, with a full understanding of painting, music, literature, +and how small and how brief my part seemed! + +Our meeting, our marriage, had been only one of the episodes of +which there would be many more in the life of this vital, richly +gifted woman. All the best in the world, as I have said already, +was at her service, and she received it absolutely for nothing, and +even ideas and the intellectual movement in vogue served simply for +her recreation, giving variety to her life, and I was only the +sledge-driver who drove her from one entertainment to another. Now +she did not need me. She would take flight, and I should be alone. + +And as though in response to my thought, there came a despairing +scream from the garden. + +"He-e-elp!" + +It was a shrill, womanish voice, and as though to mimic it the wind +whistled in the chimney on the same shrill note. Half a minute +passed, and again through the noise of the wind, but coming, it +seemed, from the other end of the yard: + +"He-e-elp!" + +"Misail, do you hear?" my wife asked me softly. "Do you hear?" + +She came out from the bedroom in her nightgown, with her hair down, +and listened, looking at the dark window. + +"Someone is being murdered," she said. "That is the last straw." + +I took my gun and went out. It was very dark outside, the wind was +high, and it was difficult to stand. I went to the gate and listened, +the trees roared, the wind whistled and, probably at the feeble-minded +peasant's, a dog howled lazily. Outside the gates the darkness was +absolute, not a light on the railway-line. And near the lodge, which +a year before had been the office, suddenly sounded a smothered +scream: + +"He-e-elp!" + +"Who's there?" I called. + +There were two people struggling. One was thrusting the other out, +while the other was resisting, and both were breathing heavily. + +"Leave go," said one, and I recognized Ivan Tcheprakov; it was he +who was shrieking in a shrill, womanish voice: "Let go, you damned +brute, or I'll bite your hand off." + +The other I recognized as Moisey. I separated them, and as I did +so I could not resist hitting Moisey two blows in the face. He fell +down, then got up again, and I hit him once more. + +"He tried to kill me," he muttered. "He was trying to get at his +mamma's chest. . . . I want to lock him up in the lodge for security." + +Tcheprakov was drunk and did not recognize me; he kept drawing deep +breaths, as though he were just going to shout "help" again. + +I left them and went back to the house; my wife was lying on her +bed; she had dressed. I told her what had happened in the yard, and +did not conceal the fact that I had hit Moisey. + +"It's terrible to live in the country," she said. + +"And what a long night it is. Oh dear, if only it were over!" + +"He-e-elp!" we heard again, a little later. + +"I'll go and stop them," I said. + +"No, let them bite each other's throats," she said with an expression +of disgust. + +She was looking up at the ceiling, listening, while I sat beside +her, not daring to speak to her, feeling as though I were to blame +for their shouting "help" in the yard and for the night's seeming +so long. + +We were silent, and I waited impatiently for a gleam of light at +the window, and Masha looked all the time as though she had awakened +from a trance and now was marvelling how she, so clever, and +well-educated, so elegant, had come into this pitiful, provincial, +empty hole among a crew of petty, insignificant people, and how she +could have so far forgotten herself as ever to be attracted by one +of these people, and for more than six months to have been his wife. +It seemed to me that at that moment it did not matter to her whether +it was I, or Moisey, or Tcheprakov; everything for her was merged +in that savage drunken "help"--I and our marriage, and our work +together, and the mud and slush of autumn, and when she sighed or +moved into a more comfortable position I read in her face: "Oh, +that morning would come quickly!" + +In the morning she went away. I spent another three days at Dubetchnya +expecting her, then I packed all our things in one room, locked it, +and walked to the town. It was already evening when I rang at the +engineer's, and the street lamps were burning in Great Dvoryansky +Street. Pavel told me there was no one at home; Viktor Ivanitch had +gone to Petersburg, and Mariya Viktorovna was probably at the +rehearsal at the Azhogins'. I remember with what emotion I went on +to the Azhogins', how my heart throbbed and fluttered as I mounted +the stairs, and stood waiting a long while on the landing at the +top, not daring to enter that temple of the muses! In the big room +there were lighted candles everywhere, on a little table, on the +piano, and on the stage, everywhere in threes; and the first +performance was fixed for the thirteenth, and now the first rehearsal +was on a Monday, an unlucky day. All part of the war against +superstition! All the devotees of the scenic art were gathered +together; the eldest, the middle, and the youngest sisters were +walking about the stage, reading their parts in exercise books. +Apart from all the rest stood Radish, motionless, with the side of +his head pressed to the wall as he gazed with adoration at the +stage, waiting for the rehearsal to begin. Everything as it used +to be. + +I was making my way to my hostess; I had to pay my respects to her, +but suddenly everyone said "Hush!" and waved me to step quietly. +There was a silence. The lid of the piano was raised; a lady sat +down at it screwing up her short-sighted eyes at the music, and my +Masha walked up to the piano, in a low-necked dress, looking +beautiful, but with a special, new sort of beauty not in the least +like the Masha who used to come and meet me in the spring at the +mill. She sang: "Why do I love the radiant night?" + +It was the first time during our whole acquaintance that I had heard +her sing. She had a fine, mellow, powerful voice, and while she +sang I felt as though I were eating a ripe, sweet, fragrant melon. +She ended, the audience applauded, and she smiled, very much pleased, +making play with her eyes, turning over the music, smoothing her +skirts, like a bird that has at last broken out of its cage and +preens its wings in freedom. Her hair was arranged over her ears, +and she had an unpleasant, defiant expression in her face, as though +she wanted to throw down a challenge to us all, or to shout to us +as she did to her horses: "Hey, there, my beauties!" + +And she must at that moment have been very much like her grandfather +the sledge-driver. + +"You here too?" she said, giving me her hand. "Did you hear me sing? +Well, what did you think of it?" and without waiting for my answer +she went on: "It's a very good thing you are here. I am going +to-night to Petersburg for a short time. You'll let me go, won't +you?" + +At midnight I went with her to the station. She embraced me +affectionately, probably feeling grateful to me for not asking +unnecessary questions, and she promised to write to me, and I held +her hands a long time, and kissed them, hardly able to restrain my +tears and not uttering a word. + +And when she had gone I stood watching the retreating lights, +caressing her in imagination and softly murmuring: + +"My darling Masha, glorious Masha. . . ." + +I spent the night at Karpovna's, and next morning I was at work +with Radish, re-covering the furniture of a rich merchant who was +marrying his daughter to a doctor. + +XVII + +My sister came after dinner on Sunday and had tea with me. + +"I read a great deal now," she said, showing me the books which she +had fetched from the public library on her way to me. "Thanks to +your wife and to Vladimir, they have awakened me to self-realization. +They have been my salvation; they have made me feel myself a human +being. In old days I used to lie awake at night with worries of all +sorts, thinking what a lot of sugar we had used in the week, or +hoping the cucumbers would not be too salt. And now, too, I lie +awake at night, but I have different thoughts. I am distressed that +half my life has been passed in such a foolish, cowardly way. I +despise my past; I am ashamed of it. And I look upon our father now +as my enemy. Oh, how grateful I am to your wife! And Vladimir! He +is such a wonderful person! They have opened my eyes!" + +"That's bad that you don't sleep at night," I said. + +"Do you think I am ill? Not at all. Vladimir sounded me, and said +I was perfectly well. But health is not what matters, it is not so +important. Tell me: am I right?" + +She needed moral support, that was obvious. Masha had gone away. +Dr. Blagovo was in Petersburg, and there was no one left in the +town but me, to tell her she was right. She looked intently into +my face, trying to read my secret thoughts, and if I were absorbed +or silent in her presence she thought this was on her account, and +was grieved. I always had to be on my guard, and when she asked me +whether she was right I hastened to assure her that she was right, +and that I had a deep respect for her. + +"Do you know they have given me a part at the Azhogins'?" she went +on. "I want to act on the stage, I want to live--in fact, I mean +to drain the full cup. I have no talent, none, and the part is only +ten lines, but still this is immeasurably finer and loftier than +pouring out tea five times a day, and looking to see if the cook +has eaten too much. Above all, let my father see I am capable of +protest." + +After tea she lay down on my bed, and lay for a little while with +her eyes closed, looking very pale. + +"What weakness," she said, getting up. "Vladimir says all city-bred +women and girls are anæmic from doing nothing. What a clever man +Vladimir is! He is right, absolutely right. We must work!" + +Two days later she came to the Azhogins' with her manuscript for +the rehearsal. She was wearing a black dress with a string of coral +round her neck, and a brooch that in the distance was like a pastry +puff, and in her ears earrings sparkling with brilliants. When I +looked at her I felt uncomfortable. I was struck by her lack of +taste. That she had very inappropriately put on earrings and +brilliants, and that she was strangely dressed, was remarked by +other people too; I saw smiles on people's faces, and heard someone +say with a laugh: "Kleopatra of Egypt." + +She was trying to assume society manners, to be unconstrained and +at her ease, and so seemed artificial and strange. She had lost +simplicity and sweetness. + +"I told father just now that I was going to the rehearsal," she +began, coming up to me, "and he shouted that he would not give me +his blessing, and actually almost struck me. Only fancy, I don't +know my part," she said, looking at her manuscript. "I am sure to +make a mess of it. So be it, the die is cast," she went on in intense +excitement. "The die is cast. . . ." + +It seemed to her that everyone was looking at her, and that all +were amazed at the momentous step she had taken, that everyone was +expecting something special of her, and it would have been impossible +to convince her that no one was paying attention to people so petty +and insignificant as she and I were. + +She had nothing to do till the third act, and her part, that of a +visitor, a provincial crony, consisted only in standing at the door +as though listening, and then delivering a brief monologue. In the +interval before her appearance, an hour and a half at least, while +they were moving about on the stage reading their parts, drinking +tea and arguing, she did not leave my side, and was all the time +muttering her part and nervously crumpling up the manuscript. And +imagining that everyone was looking at her and waiting for her +appearance, with a trembling hand she smoothed back her hair and +said to me: + +"I shall certainly make a mess of it. . . . What a load on my heart, +if only you knew! I feel frightened, as though I were just going +to be led to execution." + +At last her turn came. + +"Kleopatra Alexyevna, it's your cue!" said the stage manager. + +She came forward into the middle of the stage with an expression +of horror on her face, looking ugly and angular, and for half a +minute stood as though in a trance, perfectly motionless, and only +her big earrings shook in her ears. + +"The first time you can read it," said someone. + +It was clear to me that she was trembling, and trembling so much +that she could not speak, and could not unfold her manuscript, and +that she was incapable of acting her part; and I was already on the +point of going to her and saying something, when she suddenly dropped +on her knees in the middle of the stage and broke into loud sobs. + +All was commotion and hubbub. I alone stood still, leaning against +the side scene, overwhelmed by what had happened, not understanding +and not knowing what to do. I saw them lift her up and lead her +away. I saw Anyuta Blagovo come up to me; I had not seen her in the +room before, and she seemed to have sprung out of the earth. She +was wearing her hat and veil, and, as always, had an air of having +come only for a moment. + +"I told her not to take a part," she said angrily, jerking out each +word abruptly and turning crimson. "It's insanity! You ought to +have prevented her!" + +Madame Azhogin, in a short jacket with short sleeves, with cigarette +ash on her breast, looking thin and flat, came rapidly towards me. + +"My dear, this is terrible," she brought out, wringing her hands, +and, as her habit was, looking intently into my face. "This is +terrible! Your sister is in a condition. . . . She is with child. +Take her away, I implore you. . . ." + +She was breathless with agitation, while on one side stood her three +daughters, exactly like her, thin and flat, huddling together in a +scared way. They were alarmed, overwhelmed, as though a convict had +been caught in their house. What a disgrace, how dreadful! And yet +this estimable family had spent its life waging war on superstition; +evidently they imagined that all the superstition and error of +humanity was limited to the three candles, the thirteenth of the +month, and to the unluckiness of Monday! + +"I beg you. . . I beg," repeated Madame Azhogin, pursing up her +lips in the shape of a heart on the syllable "you." "I beg you to +take her home." + +XVIII + +A little later my sister and I were walking along the street. I +covered her with the skirts of my coat; we hastened, choosing back +streets where there were no street lamps, avoiding passers-by; it +was as though we were running away. She was no longer crying, but +looked at me with dry eyes. To Karpovna's, where I took her, it was +only twenty minutes' walk, and, strange to say, in that short time +we succeeded in thinking of our whole life; we talked over everything, +considered our position, reflected. . . . + +We decided we could not go on living in this town, and that when I +had earned a little money we would move to some other place. In +some houses everyone was asleep, in others they were playing cards; +we hated these houses; we were afraid of them. We talked of the +fanaticism, the coarseness of feeling, the insignificance of these +respectable families, these amateurs of dramatic art whom we had +so alarmed, and I kept asking in what way these stupid, cruel, lazy, +and dishonest people were superior to the drunken and superstitious +peasants of Kurilovka, or in what way they were better than animals, +who in the same way are thrown into a panic when some incident +disturbs the monotony of their life limited by their instincts. +What would have happened to my sister now if she had been left to +live at home? + +What moral agonies would she have experienced, talking with my +father, meeting every day with acquaintances? I imagined this to +myself, and at once there came into my mind people, all people I +knew, who had been slowly done to death by their nearest relations. +I remembered the tortured dogs, driven mad, the live sparrows plucked +naked by boys and flung into the water, and a long, long series of +obscure lingering miseries which I had looked on continually from +early childhood in that town; and I could not understand what these +sixty thousand people lived for, what they read the gospel for, why +they prayed, why they read books and magazines. What good had they +gained from all that had been said and written hitherto if they +were still possessed by the same spiritual darkness and hatred of +liberty, as they were a hundred and three hundred years ago? A +master carpenter spends his whole life building houses in the town, +and always, to the day of his death, calls a "gallery" a "galdery." +So these sixty thousand people have been reading and hearing of +truth, of justice, of mercy, of freedom for generations, and yet +from morning till night, till the day of their death, they are +lying, and tormenting each other, and they fear liberty and hate +it as a deadly foe. + +"And so my fate is decided," said my sister, as we arrived home. +"After what has happened I cannot go back _there_. Heavens, how +good that is! My heart feels lighter." + +She went to bed at once. Tears were glittering on her eyelashes, +but her expression was happy; she fell into a sound sweet sleep, +and one could see that her heart was lighter and that she was +resting. It was a long, long time since she had slept like that. + +And so we began our life together. She was always singing and saying +that her life was very happy, and the books I brought her from the +public library I took back unread, as now she could not read; she +wanted to do nothing but dream and talk of the future, mending my +linen, or helping Karpovna near the stove; she was always singing, +or talking of her Vladimir, of his cleverness, of his charming +manners, of his kindness, of his extraordinary learning, and I +assented to all she said, though by now I disliked her doctor. She +wanted to work, to lead an independent life on her own account, and +she used to say that she would become a school-teacher or a doctor's +assistant as soon as her health would permit her, and would herself +do the scrubbing and the washing. Already she was passionately +devoted to her child; he was not yet born, but she knew already the +colour of his eyes, what his hands would be like, and how he would +laugh. She was fond of talking about education, and as her Vladimir +was the best man in the world, all her discussion of education could +be summed up in the question how to make the boy as fascinating as +his father. There was no end to her talk, and everything she said +made her intensely joyful. Sometimes I was delighted, too, though +I could not have said why. + +I suppose her dreaminess infected me. I, too, gave up reading, and +did nothing but dream. In the evenings, in spite of my fatigue, I +walked up and down the room, with my hands in my pockets, talking +of Masha. + +"What do you think?" I would ask of my sister. "When will she come +back? I think she'll come back at Christmas, not later; what has +she to do there?" + +"As she doesn't write to you, it's evident she will come back very +soon." + +"That's true," I assented, though I knew perfectly well that Masha +would not return to our town. + +I missed her fearfully, and could no longer deceive myself, and +tried to get other people to deceive me. My sister was expecting +her doctor, and I--Masha; and both of us talked incessantly, +laughed, and did not notice that we were preventing Karpovna from +sleeping. She lay on the stove and kept muttering: + +"The samovar hummed this morning, it did hum! Oh, it bodes no good, +my dears, it bodes no good!" + +No one ever came to see us but the postman, who brought my sister +letters from the doctor, and Prokofy, who sometimes came in to see +us in the evening, and after looking at my sister without speaking +went away, and when he was in the kitchen said: + +"Every class ought to remember its rules, and anyone, who is so +proud that he won't understand that, will find it a vale of tears." + +He was very fond of the phrase "a vale of tears." One day--it was +in Christmas week, when I was walking by the bazaar--he called +me into the butcher's shop, and not shaking hands with me, announced +that he had to speak to me about something very important. His face +was red from the frost and vodka; near him, behind the counter, +stood Nikolka, with the expression of a brigand, holding a bloodstained +knife in his hand. + +"I desire to express my word to you," Prokofy began. "This incident +cannot continue, because, as you understand yourself that for such +a vale, people will say nothing good of you or of us. Mamma, through +pity, cannot say something unpleasant to you, that your sister +should move into another lodging on account of her condition, but +I won't have it any more, because I can't approve of her behaviour." + +I understood him, and I went out of the shop. The same day my sister +and I moved to Radish's. We had no money for a cab, and we walked +on foot; I carried a parcel of our belongings on my back; my sister +had nothing in her hands, but she gasped for breath and coughed, +and kept asking whether we should get there soon. + +XIX + +At last a letter came from Masha. + +"Dear, good M. A." (she wrote), "our kind, gentle 'angel' as the +old painter calls you, farewell; I am going with my father to America +for the exhibition. In a few days I shall see the ocean--so far +from Dubetchnya, it's dreadful to think! It's far and unfathomable +as the sky, and I long to be there in freedom. I am triumphant, I +am mad, and you see how incoherent my letter is. Dear, good one, +give me my freedom, make haste to break the thread, which still +holds, binding you and me together. My meeting and knowing you was +a ray from heaven that lighted up my existence; but my becoming +your wife was a mistake, you understand that, and I am oppressed +now by the consciousness of the mistake, and I beseech you, on my +knees, my generous friend, quickly, quickly, before I start for the +ocean, telegraph that you consent to correct our common mistake, +to remove the solitary stone from my wings, and my father, who will +undertake all the arrangements, promised me not to burden you too +much with formalities. And so I am free to fly whither I will? Yes? + +"Be happy, and God bless you; forgive me, a sinner. + +"I am well, I am wasting money, doing all sorts of silly things, +and I thank God every minute that such a bad woman as I has no +children. I sing and have success, but it's not an infatuation; no, +it's my haven, my cell to which I go for peace. King David had a +ring with an inscription on it: 'All things pass.' When one is sad +those words make one cheerful, and when one is cheerful it makes +one sad. I have got myself a ring like that with Hebrew letters on +it, and this talisman keeps me from infatuations. All things pass, +life will pass, one wants nothing. Or at least one wants nothing +but the sense of freedom, for when anyone is free, he wants nothing, +nothing, nothing. Break the thread. A warm hug to you and your +sister. Forgive and forget your M." + +My sister used to lie down in one room, and Radish, who had been +ill again and was now better, in another. Just at the moment when +I received this letter my sister went softly into the painter's +room, sat down beside him and began reading aloud. She read to him +every day, Ostrovsky or Gogol, and he listened, staring at one +point, not laughing, but shaking his head and muttering to himself +from time to time: + +"Anything may happen! Anything may happen!" + +If anything ugly or unseemly were depicted in the play he would say +as though vindictively, thrusting his finger into the book: + +"There it is, lying! That's what it does, lying does." + +The plays fascinated him, both from their subjects and their moral, +and from their skilful, complex construction, and he marvelled at +"him," never calling the author by his name. How neatly _he_ has +put it all together. + +This time my sister read softly only one page, and could read no +more: her voice would not last out. Radish took her hand and, moving +his parched lips, said, hardly audibly, in a husky voice: + +"The soul of a righteous man is white and smooth as chalk, but the +soul of a sinful man is like pumice stone. The soul of a righteous +man is like clear oil, but the soul of a sinful man is gas tar. We +must labour, we must sorrow, we must suffer sickness," he went on, +"and he who does not labour and sorrow will not gain the Kingdom +of Heaven. Woe, woe to them that are well fed, woe to the mighty, +woe to the rich, woe to the moneylenders! Not for them is the Kingdom +of Heaven. Lice eat grass, rust eats iron. . ." + +"And lying the soul," my sister added laughing. I read the letter +through once more. At that moment there walked into the kitchen a +soldier who had been bringing us twice a week parcels of tea, French +bread and game, which smelt of scent, from some unknown giver. I +had no work. I had had to sit at home idle for whole days together, +and probably whoever sent us the French bread knew that we were in +want. + +I heard my sister talking to the soldier and laughing gaily. Then, +lying down, she ate some French bread and said to me: + +"When you wouldn't go into the service, but became a house painter, +Anyuta Blagovo and I knew from the beginning that you were right, +but we were frightened to say so aloud. Tell me what force is it +that hinders us from saying what one thinks? Take Anyuta Blagovo +now, for instance. She loves you, she adores you, she knows you are +right, she loves me too, like a sister, and knows that I am right, +and I daresay in her soul envies me, but some force prevents her +from coming to see us, she shuns us, she is afraid." + +My sister crossed her arms over her breast, and said passionately: + +"How she loves you, if only you knew! She has confessed her love +to no one but me, and then very secretly in the dark. She led me +into a dark avenue in the garden, and began whispering how precious +you were to her. You will see, she'll never marry, because she loves +you. Are you sorry for her?" + +"Yes." + +"It's she who has sent the bread. She is absurd really, what is the +use of being so secret? I used to be absurd and foolish, but now I +have got away from that and am afraid of nobody. I think and say +aloud what I like, and am happy. When I lived at home I hadn't a +conception of happiness, and now I wouldn't change with a queen." + +Dr. Blagovo arrived. He had taken his doctor's degree, and was now +staying in our town with his father; he was taking a rest, and said +that he would soon go back to Petersburg again. He wanted to study +anti-toxins against typhus, and, I believe, cholera; he wanted to +go abroad to perfect his training, and then to be appointed a +professor. He had already left the army service, and wore a roomy +serge reefer jacket, very full trousers, and magnificent neckties. +My sister was in ecstasies over his scarfpin, his studs, and the +red silk handkerchief which he wore, I suppose from foppishness, +sticking out of the breast pocket of his jacket. One day, having +nothing to do, she and I counted up all the suits we remembered him +wearing, and came to the conclusion that he had at least ten. It +was clear that he still loved my sister as before, but he never +once even in jest spoke of taking her with him to Petersburg or +abroad, and I could not picture to myself clearly what would become +of her if she remained alive and what would become of her child. +She did nothing but dream endlessly, and never thought seriously +of the future; she said he might go where he liked, and might abandon +her even, so long as he was happy himself; that what had been was +enough for her. + +As a rule he used to sound her very carefully on his arrival, and +used to insist on her taking milk and drops in his presence. It was +the same on this occasion. He sounded her and made her drink a glass +of milk, and there was a smell of creosote in our room afterwards. + +"That's a good girl," he said, taking the glass from her. "You +mustn't talk too much now; you've taken to chattering like a magpie +of late. Please hold your tongue." + +She laughed. Then he came into Radish's room where I was sitting +and affectionately slapped me on the shoulder. + +"Well, how goes it, old man?" he said, bending down to the invalid. + +"Your honour," said Radish, moving his lips slowly, "your honour, +I venture to submit. . . . We all walk in the fear of God, we all +have to die. . . . Permit me to tell you the truth. . . . Your +honour, the Kingdom of Heaven will not be for you!" + +"There's no help for it," the doctor said jestingly; "there must +be somebody in hell, you know." + +And all at once something happened with my consciousness; as though +I were in a dream, as though I were standing on a winter night in +the slaughterhouse yard, and Prokofy beside me, smelling of pepper +cordial; I made an effort to control myself, and rubbed my eyes, +and at once it seemed to me that I was going along the road to the +interview with the Governor. Nothing of the sort had happened to +me before, or has happened to me since, and these strange memories +that were like dreams, I ascribed to overexhaustion of my nerves. +I lived through the scene at the slaughterhouse, and the interview +with the Governor, and at the same time was dimly aware that it was +not real. + +When I came to myself I saw that I was no longer in the house, but +in the street, and was standing with the doctor near a lamp-post. + +"It's sad, it's sad," he was saying, and tears were trickling down +his cheeks. "She is in good spirits, she's always laughing and +hopeful, but her position's hopeless, dear boy. Your Radish hates +me, and is always trying to make me feel that I have treated her +badly. He is right from his standpoint, but I have my point of view +too; and I shall never regret all that has happened. One must love; +we ought all to love--oughtn't we? There would be no life without +love; anyone who fears and avoids love is not free." + +Little by little he passed to other subjects, began talking of +science, of his dissertation which had been liked in Petersburg. +He was carried away by his subject, and no longer thought of my +sister, nor of his grief, nor of me. Life was of absorbing interest +to him. She has America and her ring with the inscription on it, I +thought, while this fellow has his doctor's degree and a professor's +chair to look forward to, and only my sister and I are left with +the old things. + +When I said good-bye to him, I went up to the lamp-post and read +the letter once more. And I remembered, I remembered vividly how +that spring morning she had come to me at the mill, lain down and +covered herself with her jacket--she wanted to be like a simple +peasant woman. And how, another time--it was in the morning also +--we drew the net out of the water, and heavy drops of rain fell +upon us from the riverside willows, and we laughed. + +It was dark in our house in Great Dvoryansky Street. I got over the +fence and, as I used to do in the old days, went by the back way +to the kitchen to borrow a lantern. There was no one in the kitchen. +The samovar hissed near the stove, waiting for my father. "Who pours +out my father's tea now?" I thought. Taking the lantern I went out +to the shed, built myself up a bed of old newspapers and lay down. +The hooks on the walls looked forbidding, as they used to of old, +and their shadows flickered. It was cold. I felt that my sister +would come in in a minute, and bring me supper, but at once I +remembered that she was ill and was lying at Radish's, and it seemed +to me strange that I should have climbed over the fence and be lying +here in this unheated shed. My mind was in a maze, and I saw all +sorts of absurd things. + +There was a ring. A ring familiar from childhood: first the wire +rustled against the wall, then a short plaintive ring in the kitchen. +It was my father come back from the club. I got up and went into +the kitchen. Axinya the cook clasped her hands on seeing me, and +for some reason burst into tears. + +"My own!" she said softly. "My precious! O Lord!" + +And she began crumpling up her apron in her agitation. In the window +there were standing jars of berries in vodka. I poured myself out +a teacupful and greedily drank it off, for I was intensely thirsty. +Axinya had quite recently scrubbed the table and benches, and there +was that smell in the kitchen which is found in bright, snug kitchens +kept by tidy cooks. And that smell and the chirp of the cricket +used to lure us as children into the kitchen, and put us in the +mood for hearing fairy tales and playing at "Kings" . . . + +"Where's Kleopatra?" Axinya asked softly, in a fluster, holding her +breath; "and where is your cap, my dear? Your wife, you say, has +gone to Petersburg?" + +She had been our servant in our mother's time, and used once to +give Kleopatra and me our baths, and to her we were still children +who had to be talked to for their good. For a quarter of an hour +or so she laid before me all the reflections which she had with the +sagacity of an old servant been accumulating in the stillness of +that kitchen, all the time since we had seen each other. She said +that the doctor could be forced to marry Kleopatra; he only needed +to be thoroughly frightened; and that if an appeal were promptly +written the bishop would annul the first marriage; that it would +be a good thing for me to sell Dubetchnya without my wife's knowledge, +and put the money in the bank in my own name; that if my sister and +I were to bow down at my father's feet and ask him properly, he +might perhaps forgive us; that we ought to have a service sung to +the Queen of Heaven. . . . + +"Come, go along, my dear, and speak to him," she said, when she +heard my father's cough. "Go along, speak to him; bow down, your +head won't drop off." + +I went in. My father was sitting at the table sketching a plan of +a summer villa, with Gothic windows, and with a fat turret like a +fireman's watch tower--something peculiarly stiff and tasteless. +Going into the study I stood still where I could see this drawing. +I did not know why I had gone in to my father, but I remember that +when I saw his lean face, his red neck, and his shadow on the wall, +I wanted to throw myself on his neck, and as Axinya had told me, +bow down at his feet; but the sight of the summer villa with the +Gothic windows, and the fat turret, restrained me. + +"Good evening," I said. + +He glanced at me, and at once dropped his eyes on his drawing. + +"What do you want?" he asked, after waiting a little. + +"I have come to tell you my sister's very ill. She can't live very +long," I added in a hollow voice. + +"Well," sighed my father, taking off his spectacles, and laying +them on the table. "What thou sowest that shalt thou reap. What +thou sowest," he repeated, getting up from the table, "that shalt +thou reap. I ask you to remember how you came to me two years ago, +and on this very spot I begged you, I besought you to give up your +errors; I reminded you of your duty, of your honour, of what you +owed to your forefathers whose traditions we ought to preserve as +sacred. Did you obey me? You scorned my counsels, and obstinately +persisted in clinging to your false ideals; worse still you drew +your sister into the path of error with you, and led her to lose +her moral principles and sense of shame. Now you are both in a bad +way. Well, as thou sowest, so shalt thou reap!" + +As he said this he walked up and down the room. He probably imagined +that I had come to him to confess my wrong doings, and he probably +expected that I should begin begging him to forgive my sister and +me. I was cold, I was shivering as though I were in a fever, and +spoke with difficulty in a husky voice. + +"And I beg you, too, to remember," I said, "on this very spot I +besought you to understand me, to reflect, to decide with me how +and for what we should live, and in answer you began talking about +our forefathers, about my grandfather who wrote poems. One tells +you now that your only daughter is hopelessly ill, and you go on +again about your forefathers, your traditions. . . . And such +frivolity in your old age, when death is close at hand, and you +haven't more than five or ten years left!" + +"What have you come here for?" my father asked sternly, evidently +offended at my reproaching him for his frivolity. + +"I don't know. I love you, I am unutterably sorry that we are so +far apart--so you see I have come. I love you still, but my sister +has broken with you completely. She does not forgive you, and will +never forgive you now. Your very name arouses her aversion for the +past, for life." + +"And who is to blame for it?" cried my father. "It's your fault, +you scoundrel!" + +"Well, suppose it is my fault?" I said. "I admit I have been to +blame in many things, but why is it that this life of yours, which +you think binding upon us, too--why is it so dreary, so barren? +How is it that in not one of these houses you have been building +for the last thirty years has there been anyone from whom I might +have learnt how to live, so as not to be to blame? There is not one +honest man in the whole town! These houses of yours are nests of +damnation, where mothers and daughters are made away with, where +children are tortured. . . . My poor mother!" I went on in despair. +"My poor sister! One has to stupefy oneself with vodka, with cards, +with scandal; one must become a scoundrel, a hypocrite, or go on +drawing plans for years and years, so as not to notice all the +horrors that lie hidden in these houses. Our town has existed for +hundreds of years, and all that time it has not produced one man +of service to our country--not one. You have stifled in the germ +everything in the least living and bright. It's a town of shopkeepers, +publicans, counting-house clerks, canting hypocrites; it's a useless, +unnecessary town, which not one soul would regret if it suddenly +sank through the earth." + +"I don't want to listen to you, you scoundrel!" said my father, and +he took up his ruler from the table. "You are drunk. Don't dare +come and see your father in such a state! I tell you for the last +time, and you can repeat it to your depraved sister, that you'll +get nothing from me, either of you. I have torn my disobedient +children out of my heart, and if they suffer for their disobedience +and obstinacy I do not pity them. You can go whence you came. It +has pleased God to chastise me with you, but I will bear the trial +with resignation, and, like Job, I will find consolation in my +sufferings and in unremitting labour. You must not cross my threshold +till you have mended your ways. I am a just man, all I tell you is +for your benefit, and if you desire your own good you ought to +remember all your life what I say and have said to you. . . ." + +I waved my hand in despair and went away. I don't remember what +happened afterwards, that night and next day. + +I am told that I walked about the streets bareheaded, staggering, +and singing aloud, while a crowd of boys ran after me, shouting: + +"Better-than-nothing!" + +XX + +If I wanted to order a ring for myself, the inscription I should +choose would be: "Nothing passes away." I believe that nothing +passes away without leaving a trace, and that every step we take, +however small, has significance for our present and our future +existence. + +What I have been through has not been for nothing. My great troubles, +my patience, have touched people's hearts, and now they don't call +me "Better-than-nothing," they don't laugh at me, and when I walk +by the shops they don't throw water over me. They have grown used +to my being a workman, and see nothing strange in my carrying a +pail of paint and putting in windows, though I am of noble rank; +on the contrary, people are glad to give me orders, and I am now +considered a first-rate workman, and the best foreman after Radish, +who, though he has regained his health, and though, as before, he +paints the cupola on the belfry without scaffolding, has no longer +the force to control the workmen; instead of him I now run about +the town looking for work, I engage the workmen and pay them, borrow +money at a high rate of interest, and now that I myself am a +contractor, I understand how it is that one may have to waste three +days racing about the town in search of tilers on account of some +twopenny-halfpenny job. People are civil to me, they address me +politely, and in the houses where I work, they offer me tea, and +send to enquire whether I wouldn't like dinner. Children and young +girls often come and look at me with curiosity and compassion. + +One day I was working in the Governor's garden, painting an arbour +there to look like marble. The Governor, walking in the garden, +came up to the arbour and, having nothing to do, entered into +conversation with me, and I reminded him how he had once summoned +me to an interview with him. He looked into my face intently for a +minute, then made his mouth like a round "O," flung up his hands, +and said: "I don't remember!" + +I have grown older, have become silent, stern, and austere, I rarely +laugh, and I am told that I have grown like Radish, and that like +him I bore the workmen by my useless exhortations. + +Mariya Viktorovna, my former wife, is living now abroad, while her +father is constructing a railway somewhere in the eastern provinces, +and is buying estates there. Dr. Blagovo is also abroad. Dubetchnya +has passed again into the possession of Madame Tcheprakov, who has +bought it after forcing the engineer to knock the price down twenty +per cent. Moisey goes about now in a bowler hat; he often drives +into the town in a racing droshky on business of some sort, and +stops near the bank. They say he has already bought up a mortgaged +estate, and is constantly making enquiries at the bank about +Dubetchnya, which he means to buy too. Poor Ivan Tcheprakov was for +a long while out of work, staggering about the town and drinking. +I tried to get him into our work, and for a time he painted roofs +and put in window-panes in our company, and even got to like it, +and stole oil, asked for tips, and drank like a regular painter. +But he soon got sick of the work, and went back to Dubetchnya, and +afterwards the workmen confessed to me that he had tried to persuade +them to join him one night and murder Moisey and rob Madame Tcheprakov. + +My father has greatly aged; he is very bent, and in the evenings +walks up and down near his house. I never go to see him. + +During an epidemic of cholera Prokofy doctored some of the shopkeepers +with pepper cordial and pitch, and took money for doing so, and, +as I learned from the newspapers, was flogged for abusing the doctors +as he sat in his shop. His shop boy Nikolka died of cholera. Karpovna +is still alive and, as always, she loves and fears her Prokofy. +When she sees me, she always shakes her head mournfully, and says +with a sigh: "Your life is ruined." + +On working days I am busy from morning till night. On holidays, in +fine weather, I take my tiny niece (my sister reckoned on a boy, +but the child is a girl) and walk in a leisurely way to the cemetery. +There I stand or sit down, and stay a long time gazing at the grave +that is so dear to me, and tell the child that her mother lies here. + +Sometimes, by the graveside, I find Anyuta Blagovo. We greet each +other and stand in silence, or talk of Kleopatra, of her child, of +how sad life is in this world; then, going out of the cemetery we +walk along in silence and she slackens her pace on purpose to walk +beside me a little longer. The little girl, joyous and happy, pulls +at her hand, laughing and screwing up her eyes in the bright sunlight, +and we stand still and join in caressing the dear child. + +When we reach the town Anyuta Blagovo, agitated and flushing crimson, +says good-bye to me and walks on alone, austere and respectable. . . . +And no one who met her could, looking at her, imagine that she +had just been walking beside me and even caressing the child. + + +AT A COUNTRY HOUSE + +PAVEL ILYITCH RASHEVITCH walked up and down, stepping softly on the +floor covered with little Russian plaids, and casting a long shadow +on the wall and ceiling while his guest, Meier, the deputy examining +magistrate, sat on the sofa with one leg drawn up under him smoking +and listening. The clock already pointed to eleven, and there were +sounds of the table being laid in the room next to the study. + +"Say what you like," Rashevitch was saying, "from the standpoint +of fraternity, equality, and the rest of it, Mitka, the swineherd, +is perhaps a man the same as Goethe and Frederick the Great; but +take your stand on a scientific basis, have the courage to look +facts in the face, and it will be obvious to you that blue blood +is not a mere prejudice, that it is not a feminine invention. Blue +blood, my dear fellow, has an historical justification, and to +refuse to recognize it is, to my thinking, as strange as to refuse +to recognize the antlers on a stag. One must reckon with facts! You +are a law student and have confined your attention to the humane +studies, and you can still flatter yourself with illusions of +equality, fraternity, and so on; I am an incorrigible Darwinian, +and for me words such as lineage, aristocracy, noble blood, are not +empty sounds." + +Rashevitch was roused and spoke with feeling. His eyes sparkled, +his pince-nez would not stay on his nose, he kept nervously shrugging +his shoulders and blinking, and at the word "Darwinian" he looked +jauntily in the looking-glass and combed his grey beard with both +hands. He was wearing a very short and shabby reefer jacket and +narrow trousers; the rapidity of his movements, his jaunty air, and +his abbreviated jacket all seemed out of keeping with him, and his +big comely head, with long hair suggestive of a bishop or a veteran +poet, seemed to have been fixed on to the body of a tall, lanky, +affected youth. When he stood with his legs wide apart, his long +shadow looked like a pair of scissors. + +He was fond of talking, and he always fancied that he was saying +something new and original. In the presence of Meier he was conscious +of an unusual flow of spirits and rush of ideas. He found the +examining magistrate sympathetic, and was stimulated by his youth, +his health, his good manners, his dignity, and, above all, by his +cordial attitude to himself and his family. Rashevitch was not a +favourite with his acquaintances; as a rule they fought shy of him, +and, as he knew, declared that he had driven his wife into her grave +with his talking, and they called him, behind his back, a spiteful +creature and a toad. Meier, a man new to the district and unprejudiced, +visited him often and readily and had even been known to say that +Rashevitch and his daughters were the only people in the district +with whom he felt as much at home as with his own people. Rashevitch +liked him too, because he was a young man who might be a good match +for his elder daughter, Genya. + +And now, enjoying his ideas and the sound of his own voice, and +looking with pleasure at the plump but well-proportioned, neatly +cropped, correct Meier, Rashevitch dreamed of how he would arrange +his daughter's marriage with a good man, and then how all his worries +over the estate would pass to his son-in-law. Hateful worries! The +interest owing to the bank had not been paid for the last two +quarters, and fines and arrears of all sorts had mounted up to more +than two thousand. + +"To my mind there can be no doubt," Rashevitch went on, growing +more and more enthusiastic, "that if a Richard Coeur-de-Lion, or +Frederick Barbarossa, for instance, is brave and noble those qualities +will pass by heredity to his son, together with the convolutions +and bumps of the brain, and if that courage and nobility of soul +are preserved in the son by means of education and exercise, and +if he marries a princess who is also noble and brave, those qualities +will be transmitted to his grandson, and so on, until they become +a generic characteristic and pass organically into the flesh and +blood. Thanks to a strict sexual selection, to the fact that high-born +families have instinctively guarded themselves against marriage +with their inferiors, and young men of high rank have not married +just anybody, lofty, spiritual qualities have been transmitted from +generation to generation in their full purity, have been preserved, +and as time goes on have, through exercise, become more exalted and +lofty. For the fact that there is good in humanity we are indebted +to nature, to the normal, natural, consistent order of things, which +has throughout the ages scrupulously segregated blue blood from +plebeian. Yes, my dear boy, no low lout, no cook's son has given +us literature, science, art, law, conceptions of honour and duty +. . . . For all these things mankind is indebted exclusively to the +aristocracy, and from that point of view, the point of view of +natural history, an inferior Sobakevitch by the very fact of his +blue blood is superior and more useful than the very best merchant, +even though the latter may have built fifteen museums. Say what you +like! And when I refuse to shake hands with a low lout or a cook's +son, or to let him sit down to table with me, by that very act I +am safeguarding what is the best thing on earth, and am carrying +out one of Mother Nature's finest designs for leading us up to +perfection. . ." + +Rashevitch stood still, combing his beard with both hands; his +shadow, too, stood still on the wall, looking like a pair of scissors. + +"Take Mother-Russia now," he went on, thrusting his hands in his +pockets and standing first on his heels and then on his toes. "Who +are her best people? Take our first-rate painters, writers, composers +. . . . Who are they? They were all of aristocratic origin. Pushkin, +Lermontov, Turgenev, Gontcharov, Tolstoy, they were not sexton's +children." + +"Gontcharov was a merchant," said Meier. + +"Well, the exception only proves the rule. Besides, Gontcharov's +genius is quite open to dispute. But let us drop names and turn to +facts. What would you say, my good sir, for instance, to this +eloquent fact: when one of the mob forces his way where he has not +been permitted before, into society, into the world of learning, +of literature, into the Zemstvo or the law courts, observe, Nature +herself, first of all, champions the higher rights of humanity, and +is the first to wage war on the rabble. As soon as the plebeian +forces himself into a place he is not fit for he begins to ail, to +go into consumption, to go out of his mind, and to degenerate, and +nowhere do we find so many puny, neurotic wrecks, consumptives, and +starvelings of all sorts as among these darlings. They die like +flies in autumn. If it were not for this providential degeneration +there would not have been a stone left standing of our civilization, +the rabble would have demolished everything. Tell me, if you please, +what has the inroad of the barbarians given us so far? What has the +rabble brought with it?" Rashevitch assumed a mysterious, frightened +expression, and went on: "Never has literature and learning been +at such low ebb among us as now. The men of to-day, my good sir, +have neither ideas nor ideals, and all their sayings and doings are +permeated by one spirit--to get all they can and to strip someone +to his last thread. All these men of to-day who give themselves out +as honest and progressive people can be bought at a rouble a piece, +and the distinguishing mark of the 'intellectual' of to-day is that +you have to keep strict watch over your pocket when you talk to +him, or else he will run off with your purse." Rashevitch winked +and burst out laughing. "Upon my soul, he will!" he said, in a thin, +gleeful voice. "And morals! What of their morals?" Rashevitch looked +round towards the door. "No one is surprised nowadays when a wife +robs and leaves her husband. What's that, a trifle! Nowadays, my +dear boy, a chit of a girl of twelve is scheming to get a lover, +and all these amateur theatricals and literary evenings are only +invented to make it easier to get a rich merchant to take a girl +on as his mistress. . . . Mothers sell their daughters, and people +make no bones about asking a husband at what price he sells his +wife, and one can haggle over the bargain, you know, my +dear. . . ." + +Meier, who had been sitting motionless and silent all the time, +suddenly got up from the sofa and looked at his watch. + +"I beg your pardon, Pavel Ilyitch," he said, "it is time for me to +be going." + +But Pavel Ilyitch, who had not finished his remarks, put his arm +round him and, forcibly reseating him on the sofa, vowed that he +would not let him go without supper. And again Meier sat and listened, +but he looked at Rashevitch with perplexity and uneasiness, as +though he were only now beginning to understand him. Patches of red +came into his face. And when at last a maidservant came in to tell +them that the young ladies asked them to go to supper, he gave a +sigh of relief and was the first to walk out of the study. + +At the table in the next room were Rashevitch's daughters, Genya +and Iraida, girls of four-and-twenty and two-and-twenty respectively, +both very pale, with black eyes, and exactly the same height. Genya +had her hair down, and Iraida had hers done up high on her head. +Before eating anything they each drank a wineglassful of bitter +liqueur, with an air as though they had drunk it by accident for +the first time in their lives and both were overcome with confusion +and burst out laughing. + +"Don't be naughty, girls," said Rashevitch. + +Genya and Iraida talked French with each other, and Russian with +their father and their visitor. Interrupting one another, and mixing +up French words with Russian, they began rapidly describing how +just at this time in August, in previous years, they had set off +to the boarding school and what fun it had been. Now there was +nowhere to go, and they had to stay at their home in the country, +summer and winter without change. Such dreariness! + +"Don't be naughty, girls," Rashevitch said again. + +He wanted to be talking himself. If other people talked in his +presence, he suffered from a feeling like jealousy. + +"So that's how it is, my dear boy," he began, looking affectionately +at Meier. "In the simplicity and goodness of our hearts, and from +fear of being suspected of being behind the times, we fraternize +with, excuse me, all sorts of riff-raff, we preach fraternity and +equality with money-lenders and innkeepers; but if we would only +think, we should see how criminal that good-nature is. We have +brought things to such a pass, that the fate of civilization is +hanging on a hair. My dear fellow, what our forefathers gained in +the course of ages will be to-morrow, if not to-day, outraged and +destroyed by these modern Huns. . . ." + +After supper they all went into the drawing-room. Genya and Iraida +lighted the candles on the piano, got out their music. . . . But +their father still went on talking, and there was no telling when +he would leave off. They looked with misery and vexation at their +egoist-father, to whom the pleasure of chattering and displaying +his intelligence was evidently more precious and important than his +daughters' happiness. Meier, the only young man who ever came to +their house, came--they knew--for the sake of their charming, +feminine society, but the irrepressible old man had taken possession +of him, and would not let him move a step away. + +"Just as the knights of the west repelled the invasions of the +Mongols, so we, before it is too late, ought to unite and strike +together against our foe," Rashevitch went on in the tone of a +preacher, holding up his right hand. "May I appear to the riff-raff +not as Pavel Ilyitch, but as a mighty, menacing Richard Coeur-de-Lion. +Let us give up sloppy sentimentality; enough of it! Let us all make +a compact, that as soon as a plebeian comes near us we fling some +careless phrase straight in his ugly face: 'Paws off! Go back to +your kennel, you cur!' straight in his ugly face," Rashevitch went +on gleefully, flicking his crooked finger in front of him. "In his +ugly face!" + +"I can't do that," Meier brought out, turning away. + +"Why not?" Rashevitch answered briskly, anticipating a prolonged +and interesting argument. "Why not?" + +"Because I am of the artisan class myself!" + +As he said this Meier turned crimson, and his neck seemed to swell, +and tears actually gleamed in his eyes. + +"My father was a simple workman," he said, in a rough, jerky voice, +"but I see no harm in that." + +Rashevitch was fearfully confused. Dumbfoundered, as though he had +been caught in the act of a crime, he gazed helplessly at Meier, +and did not know what to say. Genya and Iraida flushed crimson, and +bent over their music; they were ashamed of their tactless father. +A minute passed in silence, and there was a feeling of unbearable +discomfort, when all at once with a sort of painful stiffness and +inappropriateness, there sounded in the air the words: + +"Yes, I am of the artisan class, and I am proud of it!" + +Thereupon Meier, stumbling awkwardly among the furniture, took his +leave, and walked rapidly into the hall, though his carriage was +not yet at the door. + +"You'll have a dark drive to-night," Rashevitch muttered, following +him. "The moon does not rise till late to-night." + +They stood together on the steps in the dark, and waited for the +horses to be brought. It was cool. + +"There's a falling star," said Meier, wrapping himself in his +overcoat. + +"There are a great many in August." + +When the horses were at the door, Rashevitch gazed intently at the +sky, and said with a sigh: + +"A phenomenon worthy of the pen of Flammarion. . . ." + +After seeing his visitor off, he walked up and down the garden, +gesticulating in the darkness, reluctant to believe that such a +queer, stupid misunderstanding had only just occurred. He was ashamed +and vexed with himself. In the first place it had been extremely +incautious and tactless on his part to raise the damnable subject +of blue blood, without finding out beforehand what his visitor's +position was. Something of the same sort had happened to him before; +he had, on one occasion in a railway carriage, begun abusing the +Germans, and it had afterwards appeared that all the persons he had +been conversing with were German. In the second place he felt that +Meier would never come and see him again. These intellectuals who +have risen from the people are morbidly sensitive, obstinate and +slow to forgive. + +"It's bad, it's bad," muttered Rashevitch, spitting; he had a feeling +of discomfort and loathing as though he had eaten soap. "Ah, it's +bad!" + +He could see from the garden, through the drawing-room window, Genya +by the piano, very pale, and looking scared, with her hair down. +She was talking very, very rapidly. . . . Iraida was walking up and +down the room, lost in thought; but now she, too, began talking +rapidly with her face full of indignation. They were both talking +at once. Rashevitch could not hear a word, but he guessed what they +were talking about. Genya was probably complaining that her father +drove away every decent person from the house with his talk, and +to-day he had driven away from them their one acquaintance, perhaps +a suitor, and now the poor young man would not have one place in +the whole district where he could find rest for his soul. And judging +by the despairing way in which she threw up her arms, Iraida was +talking probably on the subject of their dreary existence, their +wasted youth. . . . + +When he reached his own room, Rashevitch sat down on his bed and +began to undress. He felt oppressed, and he was still haunted by +the same feeling as though he had eaten soap. He was ashamed. As +he undressed he looked at his long, sinewy, elderly legs, and +remembered that in the district they called him the "toad," and +after every long conversation he always felt ashamed. Somehow or +other, by some fatality, it always happened that he began mildly, +amicably, with good intentions, calling himself an old student, an +idealist, a Quixote, but without being himself aware of it, gradually +passed into abuse and slander, and what was most surprising, with +perfect sincerity criticized science, art and morals, though he had +not read a book for the last twenty years, had been nowhere farther +than their provincial town, and did not really know what was going +on in the world. If he sat down to write anything, if it were only +a letter of congratulation, there would somehow be abuse in the +letter. And all this was strange, because in reality he was a man +of feeling, given to tears. Could he be possessed by some devil +which hated and slandered in him, apart from his own will? + +"It's bad," he sighed, as he lay down under the quilt. "It's bad." + +His daughters did not sleep either. There was a sound of laughter +and screaming, as though someone was being pursued; it was Genya +in hysterics. A little later Iraida was sobbing too. A maidservant +ran barefoot up and down the passage several times. . . . + +"What a business! Good Lord! . . ." muttered Rashevitch, sighing +and tossing from side to side. "It's bad." + +He had a nightmare. He dreamt he was standing naked, as tall as a +giraffe, in the middle of the room, and saying, as he flicked his +finger before him: + +"In his ugly face! his ugly face! his ugly face!" + +He woke up in a fright, and first of all remembered that a +misunderstanding had happened in the evening, and that Meier would +certainly not come again. He remembered, too, that he had to pay +the interest at the bank, to find husbands for his daughters, that +one must have food and drink, and close at hand were illness, old +age, unpleasantnesses, that soon it would be winter, and that there +was no wood. . . . + +It was past nine o'clock in the morning. Rashevitch slowly dressed, +drank his tea and ate two hunks of bread and butter. His daughters +did not come down to breakfast; they did not want to meet him, and +that wounded him. He lay down on his sofa in his study, then sat +down to his table and began writing a letter to his daughters. His +hand shook and his eyes smarted. He wrote that he was old, and no +use to anyone and that nobody loved him, and he begged his daughters +to forget him, and when he died to bury him in a plain, deal coffin +without ceremony, or to send his body to Harkov to the dissecting +theatre. He felt that every line he wrote reeked of malice and +affectation, but he could not stop, and went on writing and writing. + +"The toad!" he suddenly heard from the next room; it was the voice +of his elder daughter, a voice with a hiss of indignation. "The +toad!" + +"The toad!" the younger one repeated like an echo. "The toad!" + + +A FATHER + +"I ADMIT I have had a drop. . . . You must excuse me. I went into +a beer shop on the way here, and as it was so hot had a couple of +bottles. It's hot, my boy." + +Old Musatov took a nondescript rag out of his pocket and wiped his +shaven, battered face with it. + +"I have come only for a minute, Borenka, my angel," he went on, not +looking at his son, "about something very important. Excuse me, +perhaps I am hindering you. Haven't you ten roubles, my dear, you +could let me have till Tuesday? You see, I ought to have paid for +my lodging yesterday, and money, you see! . . . None! Not to save +my life!" + +Young Musatov went out without a word, and began whispering the +other side of the door with the landlady of the summer villa and +his colleagues who had taken the villa with him. Three minutes later +he came back, and without a word gave his father a ten-rouble note. +The latter thrust it carelessly into his pocket without looking at +it, and said: + +"_Merci._ Well, how are you getting on? It's a long time since we +met." + +"Yes, a long time, not since Easter." + +"Half a dozen times I have been meaning to come to you, but I've +never had time. First one thing, then another. . . . It's simply +awful! I am talking nonsense though. . . . All that's nonsense. +Don't you believe me, Borenka. I said I would pay you back the ten +roubles on Tuesday, don't believe that either. Don't believe a word +I say. I have nothing to do at all, it's simply laziness, drunkenness, +and I am ashamed to be seen in such clothes in the street. You must +excuse me, Borenka. Here I have sent the girl to you three times +for money and written you piteous letters. Thanks for the money, +but don't believe the letters; I was telling fibs. I am ashamed to +rob you, my angel; I know that you can scarcely make both ends meet +yourself, and feed on locusts, but my impudence is too much for me. +I am such a specimen of impudence--fit for a show! . . . You must +excuse me, Borenka. I tell you the truth, because I can't see your +angel face without emotion." + +A minute passed in silence. The old man heaved a deep sigh and said: + +"You might treat me to a glass of beer perhaps." + +His son went out without a word, and again there was a sound of +whispering the other side of the door. When a little later the beer +was brought in, the old man seemed to revive at the sight of the +bottles and abruptly changed his tone. + +"I was at the races the other day, my boy," he began telling him, +assuming a scared expression. "We were a party of three, and we +pooled three roubles on Frisky. And, thanks to that Frisky, we got +thirty-two roubles each for our rouble. I can't get on without the +races, my boy. It's a gentlemanly diversion. My virago always gives +me a dressing over the races, but I go. I love it, and that's all +about it." + +Boris, a fair-haired young man with a melancholy immobile face, was +walking slowly up and down, listening in silence. When the old man +stopped to clear his throat, he went up to him and said: + +"I bought myself a pair of boots the other day, father, which turn +out to be too tight for me. Won't you take them? I'll let you have +them cheap." + +"If you like," said the old man with a grimace, "only for the price +you gave for them, without any cheapening." + +"Very well, I'll let you have them on credit." + +The son groped under the bed and produced the new boots. The father +took off his clumsy, rusty, evidently second-hand boots and began +trying on the new ones. + +"A perfect fit," he said. "Right, let me keep them. And on Tuesday, +when I get my pension, I'll send you the money for them. That's not +true, though," he went on, suddenly falling into the same tearful +tone again. "And it was a lie about the races, too, and a lie about +the pension. And you are deceiving me, Borenka. . . . I feel your +generous tactfulness. I see through you! Your boots were too small, +because your heart is too big. Ah, Borenka, Borenka! I understand +it all and feel it!" + +"Have you moved into new lodgings?" his son interrupted, to change +the conversation. + +"Yes, my boy. I move every month. My virago can't stay long in the +same place with her temper." + +"I went to your lodgings, I meant to ask you to stay here with me. +In your state of health it would do you good to be in the fresh +air." + +"No," said the old man, with a wave of his hand, "the woman wouldn't +let me, and I shouldn't care to myself. A hundred times you have +tried to drag me out of the pit, and I have tried myself, but nothing +came of it. Give it up. I must stick in my filthy hole. This minute, +here I am sitting, looking at your angel face, yet something is +drawing me home to my hole. Such is my fate. You can't draw a +dung-beetle to a rose. But it's time I was going, my boy. It's +getting dark." + +"Wait a minute then, I'll come with you. I have to go to town to-day +myself." + +Both put on their overcoats and went out. When a little while +afterwards they were driving in a cab, it was already dark, and +lights began to gleam in the windows. + +"I've robbed you, Borenka!" the father muttered. "Poor children, +poor children! It must be a dreadful trouble to have such a father! +Borenka, my angel, I cannot lie when I see your face. You must +excuse me. . . . What my depravity has come to, my God. Here I have +just been robbing you, and put you to shame with my drunken state; +I am robbing your brothers, too, and put them to shame, and you +should have seen me yesterday! I won't conceal it, Borenka. Some +neighbours, a wretched crew, came to see my virago; I got drunk, +too, with them, and I blackguarded you poor children for all I was +worth. I abused you, and complained that you had abandoned me. I +wanted, you see, to touch the drunken hussies' hearts, and pose as +an unhappy father. It's my way, you know, when I want to screen my +vices I throw all the blame on my innocent children. I can't tell +lies and hide things from you, Borenka. I came to see you as proud +as a peacock, but when I saw your gentleness and kind heart, my +tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, and it upset my conscience +completely." + +"Hush, father, let's talk of something else." + +"Mother of God, what children I have," the old man went on, not +heeding his son. "What wealth God has bestowed on me. Such children +ought not to have had a black sheep like me for a father, but a +real man with soul and feeling! I am not worthy of you!" + +The old man took off his cap with a button at the top and crossed +himself several times. + +"Thanks be to Thee, O Lord!" he said with a sigh, looking from side +to side as though seeking for an ikon. "Remarkable, exceptional +children! I have three sons, and they are all like one. Sober, +steady, hard-working, and what brains! Cabman, what brains! Grigory +alone has brains enough for ten. He speaks French, he speaks German, +and talks better than any of your lawyers--one is never tired of +listening. My children, my children, I can't believe that you are +mine! I can't believe it! You are a martyr, my Borenka, I am ruining +you, and I shall go on ruining you. . . . You give to me endlessly, +though you know your money is thrown away. The other day I sent you +a pitiful letter, I described how ill I was, but you know I was +lying, I wanted the money for rum. And you give to me because you +are afraid to wound me by refusing. I know all that, and feel it. +Grisha's a martyr, too. On Thursday I went to his office, drunk, +filthy, ragged, reeking of vodka like a cellar . . . I went straight +up, such a figure, I pestered him with nasty talk, while his +colleagues and superiors and petitioners were standing round. I +have disgraced him for life. And he wasn't the least confused, only +turned a bit pale, but smiled and came up to me as though there +were nothing the matter, even introduced me to his colleagues. Then +he took me all the way home, and not a word of reproach. I rob him +worse than you. Take your brother Sasha now, he's a martyr too! He +married, as you know, a colonel's daughter of an aristocratic circle, +and got a dowry with her. . . . You would think he would have nothing +to do with me. No, brother, after his wedding he came with his young +wife and paid me the first visit . . . in my hole. . . . Upon my +soul!" + +The old man gave a sob and then began laughing. + +"And at that moment, as luck would have it, we were eating grated +radish with kvass and frying fish, and there was a stink enough in +the flat to make the devil sick. I was lying down--I'd had a drop +--my virago bounced out at the young people with her face crimson. +. . . It was a disgrace in fact. But Sasha rose superior to it all." + +"Yes, our Sasha is a good fellow," said Boris. + +"The most splendid fellow! You are all pure gold, you and Grisha +and Sasha and Sonya. I worry you, torment you, disgrace you, rob +you, and all my life I have not heard one word of reproach from +you, you have never given me one cross look. It would be all very +well if I had been a decent father to you--but as it is! You have +had nothing from me but harm. I am a bad, dissipated man. . . . +Now, thank God, I am quieter and I have no strength of will, but +in old days when you were little I had determination, will. Whatever +I said or did I always thought it was right. Sometimes I'd come +home from the club at night, drunk and ill-humoured, and scold at +your poor mother for spending money. The whole night I would be +railing at her, and think it the right thing too; you would get up +in the morning and go to school, while I'd still be venting my +temper upon her. Heavens! I did torture her, poor martyr! When you +came back from school and I was asleep you didn't dare to have +dinner till I got up. At dinner again there would be a flare up. I +daresay you remember. I wish no one such a father; God sent me to +you for a trial. Yes, for a trial! Hold out, children, to the end! +Honour thy father and thy days shall be long. Perhaps for your noble +conduct God will grant you long life. Cabman, stop!" + +The old man jumped out of the cab and ran into a tavern. Half an +hour later he came back, cleared his throat in a drunken way, and +sat down beside his son. + +"Where's Sonya now?" he asked. "Still at boarding-school?" + +"No, she left in May, and is living now with Sasha's mother-in-law." + +"There!" said the old man in surprise. "She is a jolly good girl! +So she is following her brother's example. . . . Ah, Borenka, she +has no mother, no one to rejoice over her! I say, Borenka, does she +. . . does she know how I am living? Eh?" + +Boris made no answer. Five minutes passed in profound silence. The +old man gave a sob, wiped his face with a rag and said: + +"I love her, Borenka! She is my only daughter, you know, and in +one's old age there is no comfort like a daughter. Could I see her, +Borenka?" + +"Of course, when you like." + +"Really? And she won't mind?" + +"Of course not, she has been trying to find you so as to see you." + +"Upon my soul! What children! Cabman, eh? Arrange it, Borenka +darling! She is a young lady now, _delicatesse, consommé_, and all +the rest of it in a refined way, and I don't want to show myself +to her in such an abject state. I'll tell you how we'll contrive +to work it. For three days I will keep away from spirits, to get +my filthy, drunken phiz into better order. Then I'll come to you, +and you shall lend me for the time some suit of yours; I'll shave +and have my hair cut, then you go and bring her to your flat. Will +you?" + +"Very well." + +"Cabman, stop!" + +The old man sprang out of the cab again and ran into a tavern. While +Boris was driving with him to his lodging he jumped out twice again, +while his son sat silent and waited patiently for him. When, after +dismissing the cab, they made their way across a long, filthy yard +to the "virago's" lodging, the old man put on an utterly shamefaced +and guilty air, and began timidly clearing his throat and clicking +with his lips. + +"Borenka," he said in an ingratiating voice, "if my virago begins +saying anything, don't take any notice . . . and behave to her, you +know, affably. She is ignorant and impudent, but she's a good +baggage. There is a good, warm heart beating in her bosom!" + +The long yard ended, and Boris found himself in a dark entry. The +swing door creaked, there was a smell of cooking and a smoking +samovar. There was a sound of harsh voices. Passing through the +passage into the kitchen Boris could see nothing but thick smoke, +a line with washing on it, and the chimney of the samovar through +a crack of which golden sparks were dropping. + +"And here is my cell," said the old man, stooping down and going +into a little room with a low-pitched ceiling, and an atmosphere +unbearably stifling from the proximity of the kitchen. + +Here three women were sitting at the table regaling themselves. +Seeing the visitors, they exchanged glances and left off eating. + +"Well, did you get it?" one of them, apparently the "virago" herself, +asked abruptly. + +"Yes, yes," muttered the old man. "Well, Boris, pray sit down. +Everything is plain here, young man . . . we live in a simple way." + +He bustled about in an aimless way. He felt ashamed before his son, +and at the same time apparently he wanted to keep up before the +women his dignity as cock of the walk, and as a forsaken, unhappy +father. + +"Yes, young man, we live simply with no nonsense," he went on +muttering. "We are simple people, young man. . . . We are not like +you, we don't want to keep up a show before people. No! . . . Shall +we have a drink of vodka?" + +One of the women (she was ashamed to drink before a stranger) heaved +a sigh and said: + +"Well, I'll have another drink on account of the mushrooms. . . . +They are such mushrooms, they make you drink even if you don't want +to. Ivan Gerasimitch, offer the young gentleman, perhaps he will +have a drink!" + +The last word she pronounced in a mincing drawl. + +"Have a drink, young man!" said the father, not looking at his son. +"We have no wine or liqueurs, my boy, we live in a plain way." + +"He doesn't like our ways," sighed the "virago." "Never mind, never +mind, he'll have a drink." + +Not to offend his father by refusing, Boris took a wineglass and +drank in silence. When they brought in the samovar, to satisfy the +old man, he drank two cups of disgusting tea in silence, with a +melancholy face. Without a word he listened to the virago dropping +hints about there being in this world cruel, heartless children who +abandon their parents. + +"I know what you are thinking now!" said the old man, after drinking +more and passing into his habitual state of drunken excitement. +"You think I have let myself sink into the mire, that I am to be +pitied, but to my thinking, this simple life is much more normal +than your life, . . . I don't need anybody, and . . . and I don't +intend to eat humble pie. . . . I can't endure a wretched boy's +looking at me with compassion." + +After tea he cleaned a herring and sprinkled it with onion, with +such feeling, that tears of emotion stood in his eyes. He began +talking again about the races and his winnings, about some Panama +hat for which he had paid sixteen roubles the day before. He told +lies with the same relish with which he ate herring and drank. His +son sat on in silence for an hour, and began to say good-bye. + +"I don't venture to keep you," the old man said, haughtily. "You +must excuse me, young man, for not living as you would like!" + +He ruffled up his feathers, snorted with dignity, and winked at the +women. + +"Good-bye, young man," he said, seeing his son into the entry. +"Attendez." + +In the entry, where it was dark, he suddenly pressed his face against +the young man's sleeve and gave a sob. + +"I should like to have a look at Sonitchka," he whispered. "Arrange +it, Borenka, my angel. I'll shave, I'll put on your suit . . . I'll +put on a straight face . . . I'll hold my tongue while she is there. +Yes, yes, I will hold my tongue!" + +He looked round timidly towards the door, through which the women's +voices were heard, checked his sobs, and said aloud: + +"Good-bye, young man! Attendez." + + +ON THE ROAD + +_"Upon the breast of a gigantic crag, +A golden cloudlet rested for one night."_ + +LERMONTOV. + +IN the room which the tavern keeper, the Cossack Semyon Tchistopluy, +called the "travellers' room," that is kept exclusively for travellers, +a tall, broad-shouldered man of forty was sitting at the big unpainted +table. He was asleep with his elbows on the table and his head +leaning on his fist. An end of tallow candle, stuck into an old +pomatum pot, lighted up his light brown beard, his thick, broad +nose, his sunburnt cheeks, and the thick, black eyebrows overhanging +his closed eyes. . . . The nose and the cheeks and the eyebrows, +all the features, each taken separately, were coarse and heavy, +like the furniture and the stove in the "travellers' room," but +taken all together they gave the effect of something harmonious and +even beautiful. Such is the lucky star, as it is called, of the +Russian face: the coarser and harsher its features the softer and +more good-natured it looks. The man was dressed in a gentleman's +reefer jacket, shabby, but bound with wide new braid, a plush +waistcoat, and full black trousers thrust into big high boots. + +On one of the benches, which stood in a continuous row along the +wall, a girl of eight, in a brown dress and long black stockings, +lay asleep on a coat lined with fox. Her face was pale, her hair +was flaxen, her shoulders were narrow, her whole body was thin and +frail, but her nose stood out as thick and ugly a lump as the man's. +She was sound asleep, and unconscious that her semi-circular comb +had fallen off her head and was cutting her cheek. + +The "travellers' room" had a festive appearance. The air was full +of the smell of freshly scrubbed floors, there were no rags hanging +as usual on the line that ran diagonally across the room, and a +little lamp was burning in the corner over the table, casting a +patch of red light on the ikon of St. George the Victorious. From +the ikon stretched on each side of the corner a row of cheap +oleographs, which maintained a strict and careful gradation in the +transition from the sacred to the profane. In the dim light of the +candle end and the red ikon lamp the pictures looked like one +continuous stripe, covered with blurs of black. When the tiled +stove, trying to sing in unison with the weather, drew in the air +with a howl, while the logs, as though waking up, burst into bright +flame and hissed angrily, red patches began dancing on the log +walls, and over the head of the sleeping man could be seen first +the Elder Seraphim, then the Shah Nasir-ed-Din, then a fat, brown +baby with goggle eyes, whispering in the ear of a young girl with +an extraordinarily blank, and indifferent face. . . . + +Outside a storm was raging. Something frantic and wrathful, but +profoundly unhappy, seemed to be flinging itself about the tavern +with the ferocity of a wild beast and trying to break in. Banging +at the doors, knocking at the windows and on the roof, scratching +at the walls, it alternately threatened and besought, then subsided +for a brief interval, and then with a gleeful, treacherous howl +burst into the chimney, but the wood flared up, and the fire, like +a chained dog, flew wrathfully to meet its foe, a battle began, and +after it--sobs, shrieks, howls of wrath. In all of this there was +the sound of angry misery and unsatisfied hate, and the mortified +impatience of something accustomed to triumph. + +Bewitched by this wild, inhuman music the "travellers' room" seemed +spellbound for ever, but all at once the door creaked and the potboy, +in a new print shirt, came in. Limping on one leg, and blinking his +sleepy eyes, he snuffed the candle with his fingers, put some more +wood on the fire and went out. At once from the church, which was +three hundred paces from the tavern, the clock struck midnight. The +wind played with the chimes as with the snowflakes; chasing the +sounds of the clock it whirled them round and round over a vast +space, so that some strokes were cut short or drawn out in long, +vibrating notes, while others were completely lost in the general +uproar. One stroke sounded as distinctly in the room as though it +had chimed just under the window. The child, sleeping on the fox-skin, +started and raised her head. For a minute she stared blankly at the +dark window, at Nasir-ed-Din over whom a crimson glow from the fire +flickered at that moment, then she turned her eyes upon the sleeping +man. + +"Daddy," she said. + +But the man did not move. The little girl knitted her brow angrily, +lay down, and curled up her legs. Someone in the tavern gave a loud, +prolonged yawn. Soon afterwards there was the squeak of the swing +door and the sound of indistinct voices. Someone came in, shaking +the snow off, and stamping in felt boots which made a muffled thud. + +"What is it?" a woman's voice asked languidly. + +"Mademoiselle Ilovaisky has come, . . ." answered a bass voice. + +Again there was the squeak of the swing door. Then came the roar +of the wind rushing in. Someone, probably the lame boy, ran to the +door leading to the "travellers' room," coughed deferentially, and +lifted the latch. + +"This way, lady, please," said a woman's voice in dulcet tones. +"It's clean in here, my beauty. . . ." + +The door was opened wide and a peasant with a beard appeared in the +doorway, in the long coat of a coachman, plastered all over with +snow from head to foot, and carrying a big trunk on his shoulder. +He was followed into the room by a feminine figure, scarcely half +his height, with no face and no arms, muffled and wrapped up like +a bundle and also covered with snow. A damp chill, as from a cellar, +seemed to come to the child from the coachman and the bundle, and +the fire and the candles flickered. + +"What nonsense!" said the bundle angrily, "We could go perfectly +well. We have only nine more miles to go, mostly by the forest, and +we should not get lost. . . ." + +"As for getting lost, we shouldn't, but the horses can't go on, +lady!" answered the coachman. "And it is Thy Will, O Lord! As though +I had done it on purpose!" + +"God knows where you have brought me. . . . Well, be quiet. . . . +There are people asleep here, it seems. You can go. . . ." + +The coachman put the portmanteau on the floor, and as he did so, a +great lump of snow fell off his shoulders. He gave a sniff and went +out. + +Then the little girl saw two little hands come out from the middle +of the bundle, stretch upwards and begin angrily disentangling the +network of shawls, kerchiefs, and scarves. First a big shawl fell +on the ground, then a hood, then a white knitted kerchief. After +freeing her head, the traveller took off her pelisse and at once +shrank to half the size. Now she was in a long, grey coat with big +buttons and bulging pockets. From one pocket she pulled out a paper +parcel, from the other a bunch of big, heavy keys, which she put +down so carelessly that the sleeping man started and opened his +eyes. For some time he looked blankly round him as though he didn't +know where he was, then he shook his head, went to the corner and +sat down. . . . The newcomer took off her great coat, which made +her shrink to half her size again, she took off her big felt boots, +and sat down, too. + +By now she no longer resembled a bundle: she was a thin little +brunette of twenty, as slim as a snake, with a long white face and +curly hair. Her nose was long and sharp, her chin, too, was long +and sharp, her eyelashes were long, the corners of her mouth were +sharp, and, thanks to this general sharpness, the expression of her +face was biting. Swathed in a closely fitting black dress with a +mass of lace at her neck and sleeves, with sharp elbows and long +pink fingers, she recalled the portraits of mediæval English ladies. +The grave concentration of her face increased this likeness. + +The lady looked round at the room, glanced sideways at the man and +the little girl, shrugged her shoulders, and moved to the window. +The dark windows were shaking from the damp west wind. Big flakes +of snow glistening in their whiteness, lay on the window frame, but +at once disappeared, borne away by the wind. The savage music grew +louder and louder. . . . + +After a long silence the little girl suddenly turned over, and said +angrily, emphasizing each word: + +"Oh, goodness, goodness, how unhappy I am! Unhappier than anyone!" + +The man got up and moved with little steps to the child with a +guilty air, which was utterly out of keeping with his huge figure +and big beard. + +"You are not asleep, dearie?" he said, in an apologetic voice. "What +do you want?" + +"I don't want anything, my shoulder aches! You are a wicked man, +Daddy, and God will punish you! You'll see He will punish you." + +"My darling, I know your shoulder aches, but what can I do, dearie?" +said the man, in the tone in which men who have been drinking excuse +themselves to their stern spouses. "It's the journey has made your +shoulder ache, Sasha. To-morrow we shall get there and rest, and +the pain will go away. . . ." + +"To-morrow, to-morrow. . . . Every day you say to-morrow. We shall +be going on another twenty days." + +"But we shall arrive to-morrow, dearie, on your father's word of +honour. I never tell a lie, but if we are detained by the snowstorm +it is not my fault." + +"I can't bear any more, I can't, I can't!" + +Sasha jerked her leg abruptly and filled the room with an unpleasant +wailing. Her father made a despairing gesture, and looked hopelessly +towards the young lady. The latter shrugged her shoulders, and +hesitatingly went up to Sasha. + +"Listen, my dear," she said, "it is no use crying. It's really +naughty; if your shoulder aches it can't be helped." + +"You see, Madam," said the man quickly, as though defending himself, +"we have not slept for two nights, and have been travelling in a +revolting conveyance. Well, of course, it is natural she should be +ill and miserable, . . . and then, you know, we had a drunken driver, +our portmanteau has been stolen . . . the snowstorm all the time, +but what's the use of crying, Madam? I am exhausted, though, by +sleeping in a sitting position, and I feel as though I were drunk. +Oh, dear! Sasha, and I feel sick as it is, and then you cry!" + +The man shook his head, and with a gesture of despair sat down. + +"Of course you mustn't cry," said the young lady. "It's only little +babies cry. If you are ill, dear, you must undress and go to +sleep. . . . Let us take off your things!" + +When the child had been undressed and pacified a silence reigned +again. The young lady seated herself at the window, and looked round +wonderingly at the room of the inn, at the ikon, at the stove. . . . +Apparently the room and the little girl with the thick nose, in +her short boy's nightgown, and the child's father, all seemed strange +to her. This strange man was sitting in a corner; he kept looking +about him helplessly, as though he were drunk, and rubbing his face +with the palm of his hand. He sat silent, blinking, and judging +from his guilty-looking figure it was difficult to imagine that he +would soon begin to speak. Yet he was the first to begin. Stroking +his knees, he gave a cough, laughed, and said: + +"It's a comedy, it really is. . . . I look and I cannot believe my +eyes: for what devilry has destiny driven us to this accursed inn? +What did she want to show by it? Life sometimes performs such _'salto +mortale,'_ one can only stare and blink in amazement. Have you come +from far, Madam?" + +"No, not from far," answered the young lady. "I am going from our +estate, fifteen miles from here, to our farm, to my father and +brother. My name is Ilovaisky, and the farm is called Ilovaiskoe. +It's nine miles away. What unpleasant weather!" + +"It couldn't be worse." + +The lame boy came in and stuck a new candle in the pomatum pot. + +"You might bring us the samovar, boy," said the man, addressing +him. + +"Who drinks tea now?" laughed the boy. "It is a sin to drink tea +before mass. . . ." + +"Never mind boy, you won't burn in hell if we do. . . ." + +Over the tea the new acquaintances got into conversation. + +Mlle. Ilovaisky learned that her companion was called Grigory +Petrovitch Liharev, that he was the brother of the Liharev who was +Marshal of Nobility in one of the neighbouring districts, and he +himself had once been a landowner, but had "run through everything +in his time." Liharev learned that her name was Marya Mihailovna, +that her father had a huge estate, but that she was the only one +to look after it as her father and brother looked at life through +their fingers, were irresponsible, and were too fond of harriers. + +"My father and brother are all alone at the farm," she told him, +brandishing her fingers (she had the habit of moving her fingers +before her pointed face as she talked, and after every sentence +moistened her lips with her sharp little tongue). "They, I mean +men, are an irresponsible lot, and don't stir a finger for themselves. +I can fancy there will be no one to give them a meal after the fast! +We have no mother, and we have such servants that they can't lay +the tablecloth properly when I am away. You can imagine their +condition now! They will be left with nothing to break their fast, +while I have to stay here all night. How strange it all is." + +She shrugged her shoulders, took a sip from her cup, and said: + +"There are festivals that have a special fragrance: at Easter, +Trinity and Christmas there is a peculiar scent in the air. Even +unbelievers are fond of those festivals. My brother, for instance, +argues that there is no God, but he is the first to hurry to Matins +at Easter." + +Liharev raised his eyes to Mlle. Ilovaisky and laughed. + +"They argue that there is no God," she went on, laughing too, "but +why is it, tell me, all the celebrated writers, the learned men, +clever people generally, in fact, believe towards the end of their +life?" + +"If a man does not know how to believe when he is young, Madam, he +won't believe in his old age if he is ever so much of a writer." + +Judging from Liharev's cough he had a bass voice, but, probably +from being afraid to speak aloud, or from exaggerated shyness, he +spoke in a tenor. After a brief pause he heaved a sign and said: + +"The way I look at it is that faith is a faculty of the spirit. It +is just the same as a talent, one must be born with it. So far as +I can judge by myself, by the people I have seen in my time, and +by all that is done around us, this faculty is present in Russians +in its highest degree. Russian life presents us with an uninterrupted +succession of convictions and aspirations, and if you care to know, +it has not yet the faintest notion of lack of faith or scepticism. +If a Russian does not believe in God, it means he believes in +something else." + +Liharev took a cup of tea from Mlle. Ilovaisky, drank off half in +one gulp, and went on: + +"I will tell you about myself. Nature has implanted in my breast +an extraordinary faculty for belief. Whisper it not to the night, +but half my life I was in the ranks of the Atheists and Nihilists, +but there was not one hour in my life in which I ceased to believe. +All talents, as a rule, show themselves in early childhood, and so +my faculty showed itself when I could still walk upright under the +table. My mother liked her children to eat a great deal, and when +she gave me food she used to say: 'Eat! Soup is the great thing in +life!' I believed, and ate the soup ten times a day, ate like a +shark, ate till I was disgusted and stupefied. My nurse used to +tell me fairy tales, and I believed in house-spirits, in wood-elves, +and in goblins of all kinds. I used sometimes to steal corrosive +sublimate from my father, sprinkle it on cakes, and carry them up +to the attic that the house-spirits, you see, might eat them and +be killed. And when I was taught to read and understand what I read, +then there was a fine to-do. I ran away to America and went off to +join the brigands, and wanted to go into a monastery, and hired +boys to torture me for being a Christian. And note that my faith +was always active, never dead. If I was running away to America I +was not alone, but seduced someone else, as great a fool as I was, +to go with me, and was delighted when I was nearly frozen outside +the town gates and when I was thrashed; if I went to join the +brigands I always came back with my face battered. A most restless +childhood, I assure you! And when they sent me to the high school +and pelted me with all sorts of truths--that is, that the earth +goes round the sun, or that white light is not white, but is made +up of seven colours--my poor little head began to go round! +Everything was thrown into a whirl in me: Navin who made the sun +stand still, and my mother who in the name of the Prophet Elijah +disapproved of lightning conductors, and my father who was indifferent +to the truths I had learned. My enlightenment inspired me. I wandered +about the house and stables like one possessed, preaching my truths, +was horrified by ignorance, glowed with hatred for anyone who saw +in white light nothing but white light. . . . But all that's nonsense +and childishness. Serious, so to speak, manly enthusiasms began +only at the university. You have, no doubt, Madam, taken your degree +somewhere?" + +"I studied at Novotcherkask at the Don Institute." + +"Then you have not been to a university? So you don't know what +science means. All the sciences in the world have the same passport, +without which they regard themselves as meaningless . . . the +striving towards truth! Every one of them, even pharmacology, has +for its aim not utility, not the alleviation of life, but truth. +It's remarkable! When you set to work to study any science, what +strikes you first of all is its beginning. I assure you there is +nothing more attractive and grander, nothing is so staggering, +nothing takes a man's breath away like the beginning of any science. +From the first five or six lectures you are soaring on wings of the +brightest hopes, you already seem to yourself to be welcoming truth +with open arms. And I gave myself up to science, heart and soul, +passionately, as to the woman one loves. I was its slave; I found +it the sun of my existence, and asked for no other. I studied day +and night without rest, ruined myself over books, wept when before +my eyes men exploited science for their own personal ends. But my +enthusiasm did not last long. The trouble is that every science has +a beginning but not an end, like a recurring decimal. Zoology has +discovered 35,000 kinds of insects, chemistry reckons 60 elements. +If in time tens of noughts can be written after these figures, +Zoology and chemistry will be just as far from their end as now, +and all contemporary scientific work consists in increasing these +numbers. I saw through this trick when I discovered the 35,001-st +and felt no satisfaction. Well, I had no time to suffer from +disillusionment, as I was soon possessed by a new faith. I plunged +into Nihilism, with its manifestoes, its 'black divisions,' and all +the rest of it. I 'went to the people,' worked in factories, worked +as an oiler, as a barge hauler. Afterwards, when wandering over +Russia, I had a taste of Russian life, I turned into a fervent +devotee of that life. I loved the Russian people with poignant +intensity; I loved their God and believed in Him, and in their +language, their creative genius. . . . And so on, and so on. . . . +I have been a Slavophile in my time, I used to pester Aksakov with +letters, and I was a Ukrainophile, and an archæologist, and a +collector of specimens of peasant art. . . . I was enthusiastic +over ideas, people, events, places . . . my enthusiasm was endless! +Five years ago I was working for the abolition of private property; +my last creed was non-resistance to evil." + +Sasha gave an abrupt sigh and began moving. Liharev got up and went +to her. + +"Won't you have some tea, dearie?" he asked tenderly. + +"Drink it yourself," the child answered rudely. Liharev was +disconcerted, and went back to the table with a guilty step. + +"Then you have had a lively time," said Mlle. Ilovaisky; "you have +something to remember." + +"Well, yes, it's all very lively when one sits over tea and chatters +to a kind listener, but you should ask what that liveliness has +cost me! What price have I paid for the variety of my life? You +see, Madam, I have not held my convictions like a German doctor of +philosophy, _zierlichmännerlich_, I have not lived in solitude, but +every conviction I have had has bound my back to the yoke, has torn +my body to pieces. Judge, for yourself. I was wealthy like my +brothers, but now I am a beggar. In the delirium of my enthusiasm +I smashed up my own fortune and my wife's--a heap of other people's +money. Now I am forty-two, old age is close upon me, and I am +homeless, like a dog that has dropped behind its waggon at night. +All my life I have not known what peace meant, my soul has been in +continual agitation, distressed even by its hopes . . . I have been +wearied out with heavy irregular work, have endured privation, have +five times been in prison, have dragged myself across the provinces +of Archangel and of Tobolsk . . . it's painful to think of it! I +have lived, but in my fever I have not even been conscious of the +process of life itself. Would you believe it, I don't remember a +single spring, I never noticed how my wife loved me, how my children +were born. What more can I tell you? I have been a misfortune to +all who have loved me. . . . My mother has worn mourning for me all +these fifteen years, while my proud brothers, who have had to wince, +to blush, to bow their heads, to waste their money on my account, +have come in the end to hate me like poison." + +Liharev got up and sat down again. + +"If I were simply unhappy I should thank God," he went on without +looking at his listener. "My personal unhappiness sinks into the +background when I remember how often in my enthusiasms I have been +absurd, far from the truth, unjust, cruel, dangerous! How often I +have hated and despised those whom I ought to have loved, and _vice +versa_, I have changed a thousand times. One day I believe, fall +down and worship, the next I flee like a coward from the gods and +friends of yesterday, and swallow in silence the 'scoundrel!' they +hurl after me. God alone has seen how often I have wept and bitten +my pillow in shame for my enthusiasms. Never once in my life have +I intentionally lied or done evil, but my conscience is not clear! +I cannot even boast, Madam, that I have no one's life upon my +conscience, for my wife died before my eyes, worn out by my reckless +activity. Yes, my wife! I tell you they have two ways of treating +women nowadays. Some measure women's skulls to prove woman is +inferior to man, pick out her defects to mock at her, to look +original in her eyes, and to justify their sensuality. Others do +their utmost to raise women to their level, that is, force them to +learn by heart the 35,000 species, to speak and write the same +foolish things as they speak and write themselves." + +Liharev's face darkened. + +"I tell you that woman has been and always will be the slave of +man," he said in a bass voice, striking his fist on the table. "She +is the soft, tender wax which a man always moulds into anything he +likes. . . . My God! for the sake of some trumpery masculine +enthusiasm she will cut off her hair, abandon her family, die among +strangers! . . . among the ideas for which she has sacrificed herself +there is not a single feminine one. . . . An unquestioning, devoted +slave! I have not measured skulls, but I say this from hard, bitter +experience: the proudest, most independent women, if I have succeeded +in communicating to them my enthusiasm, have followed me without +criticism, without question, and done anything I chose; I have +turned a nun into a Nihilist who, as I heard afterwards, shot a +gendarme; my wife never left me for a minute in my wanderings, and +like a weathercock changed her faith in step with my changing +enthusiasms." + +Liharev jumped up and walked up and down the room. + +"A noble, sublime slavery!" he said, clasping his hands. "It is +just in it that the highest meaning of woman's life lies! Of all +the fearful medley of thoughts and impressions accumulated in my +brain from my association with women my memory, like a filter, has +retained no ideas, no clever saying, no philosophy, nothing but +that extraordinary, resignation to fate, that wonderful mercifulness, +forgiveness of everything." + +Liharev clenched his fists, stared at a fixed point, and with a +sort of passionate intensity, as though he were savouring each word +as he uttered it, hissed through his clenched teeth: + +"That . . . that great-hearted fortitude, faithfulness unto death, +poetry of the heart. . . . The meaning of life lies in just that +unrepining martyrdom, in the tears which would soften a stone, in +the boundless, all-forgiving love which brings light and warmth +into the chaos of life. . . ." + +Mlle. Ilovaisky got up slowly, took a step towards Liharev, and +fixed her eyes upon his face. From the tears that glittered on his +eyelashes, from his quivering, passionate voice, from the flush on +his cheeks, it was clear to her that women were not a chance, not +a simple subject of conversation. They were the object of his new +enthusiasm, or, as he said himself, his new faith! For the first +time in her life she saw a man carried away, fervently believing. +With his gesticulations, with his flashing eyes he seemed to her +mad, frantic, but there was a feeling of such beauty in the fire +of his eyes, in his words, in all the movements of his huge body, +that without noticing what she was doing she stood facing him as +though rooted to the spot, and gazed into his face with delight. + +"Take my mother," he said, stretching out his hand to her with an +imploring expression on his face, "I poisoned her existence, according +to her ideas disgraced the name of Liharev, did her as much harm +as the most malignant enemy, and what do you think? My brothers +give her little sums for holy bread and church services, and outraging +her religious feelings, she saves that money and sends it in secret +to her erring Grigory. This trifle alone elevates and ennobles the +soul far more than all the theories, all the clever sayings and the +35,000 species. I can give you thousands of instances. Take you, +even, for instance! With tempest and darkness outside you are going +to your father and your brother to cheer them with your affection +in the holiday, though very likely they have forgotten and are not +thinking of you. And, wait a bit, and you will love a man and follow +him to the North Pole. You would, wouldn't you?" + +"Yes, if I loved him." + +"There, you see," cried Liharev delighted, and he even stamped with +his foot. "Oh dear! How glad I am that I have met you! Fate is kind +to me, I am always meeting splendid people. Not a day passes but +one makes acquaintance with somebody one would give one's soul for. +There are ever so many more good people than bad in this world. +Here, see, for instance, how openly and from our hearts we have +been talking as though we had known each other a hundred years. +Sometimes, I assure you, one restrains oneself for ten years and +holds one's tongue, is reserved with one's friends and one's wife, +and meets some cadet in a train and babbles one's whole soul out +to him. It is the first time I have the honour of seeing you, and +yet I have confessed to you as I have never confessed in my life. +Why is it?" + +Rubbing his hands and smiling good-humouredly Liharev walked up and +down the room, and fell to talking about women again. Meanwhile +they began ringing for matins. + +"Goodness," wailed Sasha. "He won't let me sleep with his talking!" + +"Oh, yes!" said Liharev, startled. "I am sorry, darling, sleep, +sleep. . . . I have two boys besides her," he whispered. "They are +living with their uncle, Madam, but this one can't exist a day +without her father. She's wretched, she complains, but she sticks +to me like a fly to honey. I have been chattering too much, Madam, +and it would do you no harm to sleep. Wouldn't you like me to make +up a bed for you?" + +Without waiting for permission he shook the wet pelisse, stretched +it on a bench, fur side upwards, collected various shawls and +scarves, put the overcoat folded up into a roll for a pillow, and +all this he did in silence with a look of devout reverence, as +though he were not handling a woman's rags, but the fragments of +holy vessels. There was something apologetic, embarrassed about his +whole figure, as though in the presence of a weak creature he felt +ashamed of his height and strength. . . . + +When Mlle. Ilovaisky had lain down, he put out the candle and sat +down on a stool by the stove. + +"So, Madam," he whispered, lighting a fat cigarette and puffing the +smoke into the stove. "Nature has put into the Russian an extraordinary +faculty for belief, a searching intelligence, and the gift of +speculation, but all that is reduced to ashes by irresponsibility, +laziness, and dreamy frivolity. . . . Yes. . . ." + +She gazed wonderingly into the darkness, and saw only a spot of red +on the ikon and the flicker of the light of the stove on Liharev's +face. The darkness, the chime of the bells, the roar of the storm, +the lame boy, Sasha with her fretfulness, unhappy Liharev and his +sayings--all this was mingled together, and seemed to grow into +one huge impression, and God's world seemed to her fantastic, full +of marvels and magical forces. All that she had heard was ringing +in her ears, and human life presented itself to her as a beautiful +poetic fairy-tale without an end. + +The immense impression grew and grew, clouded consciousness, and +turned into a sweet dream. She was asleep, though she saw the little +ikon lamp and a big nose with the light playing on it. + +She heard the sound of weeping. + +"Daddy, darling," a child's voice was tenderly entreating, "let's +go back to uncle! There is a Christmas-tree there! Styopa and Kolya +are there!" + +"My darling, what can I do?" a man's bass persuaded softly. "Understand +me! Come, understand!" + +And the man's weeping blended with the child's. This voice of human +sorrow, in the midst of the howling of the storm, touched the girl's +ear with such sweet human music that she could not bear the delight +of it, and wept too. She was conscious afterwards of a big, black +shadow coming softly up to her, picking up a shawl that had dropped +on to the floor and carefully wrapping it round her feet. + +Mlle. Ilovaisky was awakened by a strange uproar. She jumped up and +looked about her in astonishment. The deep blue dawn was looking +in at the window half-covered with snow. In the room there was a +grey twilight, through which the stove and the sleeping child and +Nasir-ed-Din stood out distinctly. The stove and the lamp were both +out. Through the wide-open door she could see the big tavern room +with a counter and chairs. A man, with a stupid, gipsy face and +astonished eyes, was standing in the middle of the room in a puddle +of melting snow, holding a big red star on a stick. He was surrounded +by a group of boys, motionless as statues, and plastered over with +snow. The light shone through the red paper of the star, throwing +a glow of red on their wet faces. The crowd was shouting in disorder, +and from its uproar Mlle. Ilovaisky could make out only one couplet: + +"Hi, you Little Russian lad, +Bring your sharp knife, +We will kill the Jew, we will kill him, +The son of tribulation. . ." + +Liharev was standing near the counter, looking feelingly at the +singers and tapping his feet in time. Seeing Mlle. Ilovaisky, he +smiled all over his face and came up to her. She smiled too. + +"A happy Christmas!" he said. "I saw you slept well." + +She looked at him, said nothing, and went on smiling. + +After the conversation in the night he seemed to her not tall and +broad shouldered, but little, just as the biggest steamer seems to +us a little thing when we hear that it has crossed the ocean. + +"Well, it is time for me to set off," she said. "I must put on my +things. Tell me where you are going now?" + +"I? To the station of Klinushki, from there to Sergievo, and from +Sergievo, with horses, thirty miles to the coal mines that belong +to a horrid man, a general called Shashkovsky. My brothers have got +me the post of superintendent there. . . . I am going to be a coal +miner." + +"Stay, I know those mines. Shashkovsky is my uncle, you know. But +. . . what are you going there for?" asked Mlle. Ilovaisky, looking +at Liharev in surprise. + +"As superintendent. To superintend the coal mines." + +"I don't understand!" she shrugged her shoulders. "You are going +to the mines. But you know, it's the bare steppe, a desert, so +dreary that you couldn't exist a day there! It's horrible coal, no +one will buy it, and my uncle's a maniac, a despot, a bankrupt +. . . . You won't get your salary!" + +"No matter," said Liharev, unconcernedly, "I am thankful even for +coal mines." + +She shrugged her shoulders, and walked about the room in agitation. + +"I don't understand, I don't understand," she said, moving her +fingers before her face. "It's impossible, and . . . and irrational! +You must understand that it's . . . it's worse than exile. It is a +living tomb! O Heavens!" she said hotly, going up to Liharev and +moving her fingers before his smiling face; her upper lip was +quivering, and her sharp face turned pale, "Come, picture it, the +bare steppe, solitude. There is no one to say a word to there, and +you . . . are enthusiastic over women! Coal mines . . . and women!" + +Mlle. Ilovaisky was suddenly ashamed of her heat and, turning away +from Liharev, walked to the window. + +"No, no, you can't go there," she said, moving her fingers rapidly +over the pane. + +Not only in her heart, but even in her spine she felt that behind +her stood an infinitely unhappy man, lost and outcast, while he, +as though he were unaware of his unhappiness, as though he had not +shed tears in the night, was looking at her with a kindly smile. +Better he should go on weeping! She walked up and down the room +several times in agitation, then stopped short in a corner and sank +into thought. Liharev was saying something, but she did not hear +him. Turning her back on him she took out of her purse a money note, +stood for a long time crumpling it in her hand, and looking round +at Liharev, blushed and put it in her pocket. + +The coachman's voice was heard through the door. With a stern, +concentrated face she began putting on her things in silence. Liharev +wrapped her up, chatting gaily, but every word he said lay on her +heart like a weight. It is not cheering to hear the unhappy or the +dying jest. + +When the transformation of a live person into a shapeless bundle +had been completed, Mlle. Ilovaisky looked for the last time round +the "travellers' room," stood a moment in silence, and slowly walked +out. Liharev went to see her off. . . . + +Outside, God alone knows why, the winter was raging still. Whole +clouds of big soft snowflakes were whirling restlessly over the +earth, unable to find a resting-place. The horses, the sledge, the +trees, a bull tied to a post, all were white and seemed soft and +fluffy. + +"Well, God help you," muttered Liharev, tucking her into the sledge. +"Don't remember evil against me . . . ." + +She was silent. When the sledge started, and had to go round a huge +snowdrift, she looked back at Liharev with an expression as though +she wanted to say something to him. He ran up to her, but she did +not say a word to him, she only looked at him through her long +eyelashes with little specks of snow on them. + +Whether his finely intuitive soul were really able to read that +look, or whether his imagination deceived him, it suddenly began +to seem to him that with another touch or two that girl would have +forgiven him his failures, his age, his desolate position, and would +have followed him without question or reasonings. He stood a long +while as though rooted to the spot, gazing at the tracks left by +the sledge runners. The snowflakes greedily settled on his hair, +his beard, his shoulders. . . . Soon the track of the runners had +vanished, and he himself covered with snow, began to look like a +white rock, but still his eyes kept seeking something in the clouds +of snow. + + +ROTHSCHILD'S FIDDLE + +THE town was a little one, worse than a village, and it was inhabited +by scarcely any but old people who died with an infrequency that +was really annoying. In the hospital and in the prison fortress +very few coffins were needed. In fact business was bad. If Yakov +Ivanov had been an undertaker in the chief town of the province he +would certainly have had a house of his own, and people would have +addressed him as Yakov Matveyitch; here in this wretched little +town people called him simply Yakov; his nickname in the street was +for some reason Bronze, and he lived in a poor way like a humble +peasant, in a little old hut in which there was only one room, and +in this room he and Marfa, the stove, a double bed, the coffins, +his bench, and all their belongings were crowded together. + +Yakov made good, solid coffins. For peasants and working people he +made them to fit himself, and this was never unsuccessful, for there +were none taller and stronger than he, even in the prison, though +he was seventy. For gentry and for women he made them to measure, +and used an iron foot-rule for the purpose. He was very unwilling +to take orders for children's coffins, and made them straight off +without measurements, contemptuously, and when he was paid for the +work he always said: + +"I must confess I don't like trumpery jobs." + +Apart from his trade, playing the fiddle brought him in a small +income. + +The Jews' orchestra conducted by Moisey Ilyitch Shahkes, the tinsmith, +who took more than half their receipts for himself, played as a +rule at weddings in the town. As Yakov played very well on the +fiddle, especially Russian songs, Shahkes sometimes invited him to +join the orchestra at a fee of half a rouble a day, in addition to +tips from the visitors. When Bronze sat in the orchestra first of +all his face became crimson and perspiring; it was hot, there was +a suffocating smell of garlic, the fiddle squeaked, the double bass +wheezed close to his right ear, while the flute wailed at his left, +played by a gaunt, red-haired Jew who had a perfect network of red +and blue veins all over his face, and who bore the name of the +famous millionaire Rothschild. And this accursed Jew contrived to +play even the liveliest things plaintively. For no apparent reason +Yakov little by little became possessed by hatred and contempt for +the Jews, and especially for Rothschild; he began to pick quarrels +with him, rail at him in unseemly language and once even tried to +strike him, and Rothschild was offended and said, looking at him +ferociously: + +"If it were not that I respect you for your talent, I would have +sent you flying out of the window." + +Then he began to weep. And because of this Yakov was not often asked +to play in the orchestra; he was only sent for in case of extreme +necessity in the absence of one of the Jews. + +Yakov was never in a good temper, as he was continually having to +put up with terrible losses. For instance, it was a sin to work on +Sundays or Saints' days, and Monday was an unlucky day, so that in +the course of the year there were some two hundred days on which, +whether he liked it or not, he had to sit with his hands folded. +And only think, what a loss that meant. If anyone in the town had +a wedding without music, or if Shahkes did not send for Yakov, that +was a loss, too. The superintendent of the prison was ill for two +years and was wasting away, and Yakov was impatiently waiting for +him to die, but the superintendent went away to the chief town of +the province to be doctored, and there took and died. There's a +loss for you, ten roubles at least, as there would have been an +expensive coffin to make, lined with brocade. The thought of his +losses haunted Yakov, especially at night; he laid his fiddle on +the bed beside him, and when all sorts of nonsensical ideas came +into his mind he touched a string; the fiddle gave out a sound in +the darkness, and he felt better. + +On the sixth of May of the previous year Marfa had suddenly been +taken ill. The old woman's breathing was laboured, she drank a great +deal of water, and she staggered as she walked, yet she lighted the +stove in the morning and even went herself to get water. Towards +evening she lay down. Yakov played his fiddle all day; when it was +quite dark he took the book in which he used every day to put down +his losses, and, feeling dull, he began adding up the total for the +year. It came to more than a thousand roubles. This so agitated him +that he flung the reckoning beads down, and trampled them under his +feet. Then he picked up the reckoning beads, and again spent a long +time clicking with them and heaving deep, strained sighs. His face +was crimson and wet with perspiration. He thought that if he had +put that lost thousand roubles in the bank, the interest for a year +would have been at least forty roubles, so that forty roubles was +a loss too. In fact, wherever one turned there were losses and +nothing else. + +"Yakov!" Marfa called unexpectedly. "I am dying." + +He looked round at his wife. Her face was rosy with fever, unusually +bright and joyful-looking. Bronze, accustomed to seeing her face +always pale, timid, and unhappy-looking, was bewildered. It looked +as if she really were dying and were glad that she was going away +for ever from that hut, from the coffins, and from Yakov. . . . And +she gazed at the ceiling and moved her lips, and her expression was +one of happiness, as though she saw death as her deliverer and were +whispering with him. + +It was daybreak; from the windows one could see the flush of dawn. +Looking at the old woman, Yakov for some reason reflected that he +had not once in his life been affectionate to her, had had no feeling +for her, had never once thought to buy her a kerchief, or to bring +her home some dainty from a wedding, but had done nothing but shout +at her, scold her for his losses, shake his fists at her; it is +true he had never actually beaten her, but he had frightened her, +and at such times she had always been numb with terror. Why, he had +forbidden her to drink tea because they spent too much without that, +and she drank only hot water. And he understood why she had such a +strange, joyful face now, and he was overcome with dread. + +As soon as it was morning he borrowed a horse from a neighbour and +took Marfa to the hospital. There were not many patients there, and +so he had not long to wait, only three hours. To his great satisfaction +the patients were not being received by the doctor, who was himself +ill, but by the assistant, Maxim Nikolaitch, an old man of whom +everyone in the town used to say that, though he drank and was +quarrelsome, he knew more than the doctor. + +"I wish you good-day," said Yakov, leading his old woman into the +consulting room. "You must excuse us, Maxim Nikolaitch, we are +always troubling you with our trumpery affairs. Here you see my +better half is ailing, the partner of my life, as they say, excuse +the expression. . . ." + +Knitting his grizzled brows and stroking his whiskers the assistant +began to examine the old woman, and she sat on a stool, a wasted, +bent figure with a sharp nose and open mouth, looking like a bird +that wants to drink. + +"H------m . . . Ah! . . ." the assistant said slowly, and he heaved +a sigh. "Influenza and possibly fever. There's typhus in the town +now. Well, the old woman has lived her life, thank God. . . . How +old is she?" + +"She'll be seventy in another year, Maxim Nikolaitch." + +"Well, the old woman has lived her life, it's time to say good-bye." + +"You are quite right in what you say, of course, Maxim Nikolaitch," +said Yakov, smiling from politeness, "and we thank you feelingly +for your kindness, but allow me to say every insect wants to live." + +"To be sure," said the assistant, in a tone which suggested that +it depended upon him whether the woman lived or died. "Well, then, +my good fellow, put a cold compress on her head, and give her these +powders twice a day, and so good-bye. Bonjour." + +From the expression of his face Yakov saw that it was a bad case, +and that no sort of powders would be any help; it was clear to him +that Marfa would die very soon, if not to-day, to-morrow. He nudged +the assistant's elbow, winked at him, and said in a low voice: + +"If you would just cup her, Maxim Nikolaitch." + +"I have no time, I have no time, my good fellow. Take your old woman +and go in God's name. Goodbye." + +"Be so gracious," Yakov besought him. "You know yourself that if, +let us say, it were her stomach or her inside that were bad, then +powders or drops, but you see she had got a chill! In a chill the +first thing is to let blood, Maxim Nikolaitch." + +But the assistant had already sent for the next patient, and a +peasant woman came into the consulting room with a boy. + +"Go along! go along," he said to Yakov, frowning. "It's no use to +--" + +"In that case put on leeches, anyway! Make us pray for you for +ever." + +The assistant flew into a rage and shouted: + +"You speak to me again! You blockhead. . . ." + +Yakov flew into a rage too, and he turned crimson all over, but he +did not utter a word. He took Marfa on his arm and led her out of +the room. Only when they were sitting in the cart he looked morosely +and ironically at the hospital, and said: + +"A nice set of artists they have settled here! No fear, but he would +have cupped a rich man, but even a leech he grudges to the poor. +The Herods!" + +When they got home and went into the hut, Marfa stood for ten minutes +holding on to the stove. It seemed to her that if she were to lie +down Yakov would talk to her about his losses, and scold her for +lying down and not wanting to work. Yakov looked at her drearily +and thought that to-morrow was St. John the Divine's, and next day +St. Nikolay the Wonder-worker's, and the day after that was Sunday, +and then Monday, an unlucky day. For four days he would not be able +to work, and most likely Marfa would die on one of those days; so +he would have to make the coffin to-day. He picked up his iron rule, +went up to the old woman and took her measure. Then she lay down, +and he crossed himself and began making the coffin. + +When the coffin was finished Bronze put on his spectacles and wrote +in his book: "Marfa Ivanov's coffin, two roubles, forty kopecks." + +And he heaved a sigh. The old woman lay all the time silent with +her eyes closed. But in the evening, when it got dark, she suddenly +called the old man. + +"Do you remember, Yakov," she asked, looking at him joyfully. "Do +you remember fifty years ago God gave us a little baby with flaxen +hair? We used always to be sitting by the river then, singing songs +. . . under the willows," and laughing bitterly, she added: "The +baby girl died." + +Yakov racked his memory, but could not remember the baby or the +willows. + +"It's your fancy," he said. + +The priest arrived; he administered the sacrament and extreme +unction. Then Marfa began muttering something unintelligible, and +towards morning she died. Old women, neighbours, washed her, dressed +her, and laid her in the coffin. To avoid paying the sacristan, +Yakov read the psalms over the body himself, and they got nothing +out of him for the grave, as the grave-digger was a crony of his. +Four peasants carried the coffin to the graveyard, not for money, +but from respect. The coffin was followed by old women, beggars, +and a couple of crazy saints, and the people who met it crossed +themselves piously. . . . And Yakov was very much pleased that it +was so creditable, so decorous, and so cheap, and no offence to +anyone. As he took his last leave of Marfa he touched the coffin +and thought: "A good piece of work!" + +But as he was going back from the cemetery he was overcome by acute +depression. He didn't feel quite well: his breathing was laboured +and feverish, his legs felt weak, and he had a craving for drink. +And thoughts of all sorts forced themselves on his mind. He remembered +again that all his life he had never felt for Marfa, had never been +affectionate to her. The fifty-two years they had lived in the same +hut had dragged on a long, long time, but it had somehow happened +that in all that time he had never once thought of her, had paid +no attention to her, as though she had been a cat or a dog. And +yet, every day, she had lighted the stove, had cooked and baked, had +gone for the water, had chopped the wood, had slept with him in the +same bed, and when he came home drunk from the weddings always +reverently hung his fiddle on the wall and put him to bed, and all +this in silence, with a timid, anxious expression. + +Rothschild, smiling and bowing, came to meet Yakov. + +"I was looking for you, uncle," he said. "Moisey Ilyitch sends you +his greetings and bids you come to him at once." + +Yakov felt in no mood for this. He wanted to cry. + +"Leave me alone," he said, and walked on. + +"How can you," Rothschild said, fluttered, running on in front. +"Moisey Ilyitch will be offended! He bade you come at once!" + +Yakov was revolted at the Jew's gasping for breath and blinking, +and having so many red freckles on his face. And it was disgusting +to look at his green coat with black patches on it, and all his +fragile, refined figure. + +"Why are you pestering me, garlic?" shouted Yakov. "Don't persist!" + +The Jew got angry and shouted too: + +"Not so noisy, please, or I'll send you flying over the fence!" + +"Get out of my sight!" roared Yakov, and rushed at him with his +fists. "One can't live for you scabby Jews!" + +Rothschild, half dead with terror, crouched down and waved his hands +over his head, as though to ward off a blow; then he leapt up and +ran away as fast as his legs could carry him: as he ran he gave +little skips and kept clasping his hands, and Yakov could see how +his long thin spine wriggled. Some boys, delighted at the incident, +ran after him shouting "Jew! Jew!" Some dogs joined in the chase +barking. Someone burst into a roar of laughter, then gave a whistle; +the dogs barked with even more noise and unanimity. Then a dog must +have bitten Rothschild, as a desperate, sickly scream was heard. + +Yakov went for a walk on the grazing ground, then wandered on at +random in the outskirts of the town, while the street boys shouted: + +"Here's Bronze! Here's Bronze!" + +He came to the river, where the curlews floated in the air uttering +shrill cries and the ducks quacked. The sun was blazing hot, and +there was a glitter from the water, so that it hurt the eyes to +look at it. Yakov walked by a path along the bank and saw a plump, +rosy-cheeked lady come out of the bathing-shed, and thought about +her: "Ugh! you otter!" + +Not far from the bathing-shed boys were catching crayfish with bits +of meat; seeing him, they began shouting spitefully, "Bronze! +Bronze!" And then he saw an old spreading willow-tree with a big +hollow in it, and a crow's nest on it. . . . And suddenly there +rose up vividly in Yakov's memory a baby with flaxen hair, and the +willow-tree Marfa had spoken of. Why, that is it, the same willow-tree +--green, still, and sorrowful. . . . How old it has grown, poor +thing! + +He sat down under it and began to recall the past. On the other +bank, where now there was the water meadow, in those days there +stood a big birchwood, and yonder on the bare hillside that could +be seen on the horizon an old, old pine forest used to be a bluish +patch in the distance. Big boats used to sail on the river. But now +it was all smooth and unruffled, and on the other bank there stood +now only one birch-tree, youthful and slender like a young lady, +and there was nothing on the river but ducks and geese, and it +didn't look as though there had ever been boats on it. It seemed +as though even the geese were fewer than of old. Yakov shut his +eyes, and in his imagination huge flocks of white geese soared, +meeting one another. + +He wondered how it had happened that for the last forty or fifty +years of his life he had never once been to the river, or if he had +been by it he had not paid attention to it. Why, it was a decent +sized river, not a trumpery one; he might have gone in for fishing +and sold the fish to merchants, officials, and the bar-keeper at +the station, and then have put money in the bank; he might have +sailed in a boat from one house to another, playing the fiddle, and +people of all classes would have paid to hear him; he might have +tried getting big boats afloat again--that would be better than +making coffins; he might have bred geese, killed them and sent them +in the winter to Moscow. Why, the feathers alone would very likely +mount up to ten roubles in the year. But he had wasted his time, +he had done nothing of this. What losses! Ah! What losses! And if +he had gone in for all those things at once--catching fish and +playing the fiddle, and running boats and killing geese--what a +fortune he would have made! But nothing of this had happened, even +in his dreams; life had passed uselessly without any pleasure, had +been wasted for nothing, not even a pinch of snuff; there was nothing +left in front, and if one looked back--there was nothing there +but losses, and such terrible ones, it made one cold all over. And +why was it a man could not live so as to avoid these losses and +misfortunes? One wondered why they had cut down the birch copse and +the pine forest. Why was he walking with no reason on the grazing +ground? Why do people always do what isn't needful? Why had Yakov +all his life scolded, bellowed, shaken his fists, ill-treated his +wife, and, one might ask, what necessity was there for him to +frighten and insult the Jew that day? Why did people in general +hinder each other from living? What losses were due to it! what +terrible losses! If it were not for hatred and malice people would +get immense benefit from one another. + +In the evening and the night he had visions of the baby, of the +willow, of fish, of slaughtered geese, and Marfa looking in profile +like a bird that wants to drink, and the pale, pitiful face of +Rothschild, and faces moved down from all sides and muttered of +losses. He tossed from side to side, and got out of bed five times +to play the fiddle. + +In the morning he got up with an effort and went to the hospital. +The same Maxim Nikolaitch told him to put a cold compress on his +head, and gave him some powders, and from his tone and expression +of face Yakov realized that it was a bad case and that no powders +would be any use. As he went home afterwards, he reflected that +death would be nothing but a benefit; he would not have to eat or +drink, or pay taxes or offend people, and, as a man lies in his +grave not for one year but for hundreds and thousands, if one +reckoned it up the gain would be enormous. A man's life meant loss: +death meant gain. This reflection was, of course, a just one, but +yet it was bitter and mortifying; why was the order of the world +so strange, that life, which is given to man only once, passes away +without benefit? + +He was not sorry to die, but at home, as soon as he saw his fiddle, +it sent a pang to his heart and he felt sorry. He could not take +the fiddle with him to the grave, and now it would be left forlorn, +and the same thing would happen to it as to the birch copse and the +pine forest. Everything in this world was wasted and would be wasted! +Yakov went out of the hut and sat in the doorway, pressing the +fiddle to his bosom. Thinking of his wasted, profitless life, he +began to play, he did not know what, but it was plaintive and +touching, and tears trickled down his cheeks. And the harder he +thought, the more mournfully the fiddle wailed. + +The latch clicked once and again, and Rothschild appeared at the +gate. He walked across half the yard boldly, but seeing Yakov he +stopped short, and seemed to shrink together, and probably from +terror, began making signs with his hands as though he wanted to +show on his fingers what o'clock it was. + +"Come along, it's all right," said Yakov in a friendly tone, and +he beckoned him to come up. "Come along!" + +Looking at him mistrustfully and apprehensively, Rothschild began +to advance, and stopped seven feet off. + +"Be so good as not to beat me," he said, ducking. "Moisey Ilyitch +has sent me again. 'Don't be afraid,' he said; 'go to Yakov again +and tell him,' he said, 'we can't get on without him.' There is a +wedding on Wednesday. . . . Ye---es! Mr. Shapovalov is marrying his +daughter to a good man. . . . And it will be a grand wedding, oo-oo!" +added the Jew, screwing up one eye. + +"I can't come," said Yakov, breathing hard. "I'm ill, brother." + +And he began playing again, and the tears gushed from his eyes on +to the fiddle. Rothschild listened attentively, standing sideways +to him and folding his arms on his chest. The scared and perplexed +expression on his face, little by little, changed to a look of woe +and suffering; he rolled his eyes as though he were experiencing +an agonizing ecstasy, and articulated, "Vachhh!" and tears slowly +ran down his cheeks and trickled on his greenish coat. + +And Yakov lay in bed all the rest of the day grieving. In the +evening, when the priest confessing him asked, Did he remember any +special sin he had committed? straining his failing memory he thought +again of Marfa's unhappy face, and the despairing shriek of the Jew +when the dog bit him, and said, hardly audibly, "Give the fiddle +to Rothschild." + +"Very well," answered the priest. + +And now everyone in the town asks where Rothschild got such a fine +fiddle. Did he buy it or steal it? Or perhaps it had come to him +as a pledge. He gave up the flute long ago, and now plays nothing +but the fiddle. As plaintive sounds flow now from his bow, as came +once from his flute, but when he tries to repeat what Yakov played, +sitting in the doorway, the effect is something so sad and sorrowful +that his audience weep, and he himself rolls his eyes and articulates +"Vachhh! . . ." And this new air was so much liked in the town that +the merchants and officials used to be continually sending for +Rothschild and making him play it over and over again a dozen times. + + +IVAN MATVEYITCH + +BETWEEN five and six in the evening. A fairly well-known man of +learning--we will call him simply the man of learning--is sitting +in his study nervously biting his nails. + +"It's positively revolting," he says, continually looking at his +watch. "It shows the utmost disrespect for another man's time and +work. In England such a person would not earn a farthing, he would +die of hunger. You wait a minute, when you do come . . . ." + +And feeling a craving to vent his wrath and impatience upon someone, +the man of learning goes to the door leading to his wife's room and +knocks. + +"Listen, Katya," he says in an indignant voice. "If you see Pyotr +Danilitch, tell him that decent people don't do such things. It's +abominable! He recommends a secretary, and does not know the sort +of man he is recommending! The wretched boy is two or three hours +late with unfailing regularity every day. Do you call that a +secretary? Those two or three hours are more precious to me than +two or three years to other people. When he does come I will swear +at him like a dog, and won't pay him and will kick him out. It's +no use standing on ceremony with people like that!" + +"You say that every day, and yet he goes on coming and coming." + +"But to-day I have made up my mind. I have lost enough through him. +You must excuse me, but I shall swear at him like a cabman." + +At last a ring is heard. The man of learning makes a grave face; +drawing himself up, and, throwing back his head, he goes into the +entry. There his amanuensis Ivan Matveyitch, a young man of eighteen, +with a face oval as an egg and no moustache, wearing a shabby, mangy +overcoat and no goloshes, is already standing by the hatstand. He +is in breathless haste, and scrupulously wipes his huge clumsy boots +on the doormat, trying as he does so to conceal from the maidservant +a hole in his boot through which a white sock is peeping. Seeing +the man of learning he smiles with that broad, prolonged, somewhat +foolish smile which is seen only on the faces of children or very +good-natured people. + +"Ah, good evening!" he says, holding out a big wet hand. "Has your +sore throat gone?" + +"Ivan Matveyitch," says the man of learning in a shaking voice, +stepping back and clasping his hands together. "Ivan Matveyitch." + +Then he dashes up to the amanuensis, clutches him by the shoulders, +and begins feebly shaking him. + +"What a way to treat me!" he says with despair in his voice. "You +dreadful, horrid fellow, what a way to treat me! Are you laughing +at me, are you jeering at me? Eh?" + +Judging from the smile which still lingered on his face Ivan +Matveyitch had expected a very different reception, and so, seeing +the man of learning's countenance eloquent of indignation, his oval +face grows longer than ever, and he opens his mouth in amazement. + +"What is . . . what is it?" he asks. + +"And you ask that?" the man of learning clasps his hands. "You know +how precious time is to me, and you are so late. You are two hours +late! . . . Have you no fear of God?" + +"I haven't come straight from home," mutters Ivan Matveyitch, untying +his scarf irresolutely. "I have been at my aunt's name-day party, +and my aunt lives five miles away. . . . If I had come straight +from home, then it would have been a different thing." + +"Come, reflect, Ivan Matveyitch, is there any logic in your conduct? +Here you have work to do, work at a fixed time, and you go flying +off after name-day parties and aunts! But do make haste and undo +your wretched scarf! It's beyond endurance, really!" + +The man of learning dashes up to the amanuensis again and helps him +to disentangle his scarf. + +"You are done up like a peasant woman, . . . Come along, . . . +Please make haste!" + +Blowing his nose in a dirty, crumpled-up handkerchief and pulling +down his grey reefer jacket, Ivan Matveyitch goes through the hall +and the drawing-room to the study. There a place and paper and even +cigarettes had been put ready for him long ago. + +"Sit down, sit down," the man of learning urges him on, rubbing his +hands impatiently. "You are an unsufferable person. . . . You know +the work has to be finished by a certain time, and then you are so +late. One is forced to scold you. Come, write, . . . Where did we +stop?" + +Ivan Matveyitch smooths his bristling cropped hair and takes up his +pen. The man of learning walks up and down the room, concentrates +himself, and begins to dictate: + +"The fact is . . . comma . . . that so to speak fundamental forms +. . . have you written it? . . . forms are conditioned entirely by +the essential nature of those principles . . . comma . . . which +find in them their expression and can only be embodied in them +. . . . New line, . . . There's a stop there, of course. . . . More +independence is found . . . is found . . . by the forms which have +not so much a political . . . comma . . . as a social character . ." + +"The high-school boys have a different uniform now . . . a grey +one," said Ivan Matveyitch, "when I was at school it was better: +they used to wear regular uniforms." + +"Oh dear, write please!" says the man of learning wrathfully. +"Character . . . have you written it? Speaking of the forms relating +to the organization . . . of administrative functions, and not to +the regulation of the life of the people . . . comma . . . it cannot +be said that they are marked by the nationalism of their forms . . . +the last three words in inverted commas. . . . Aie, aie . . . +tut, tut . . . so what did you want to say about the high school?" + +"That they used to wear a different uniform in my time." + +"Aha! . . . indeed, . . . Is it long since you left the high school?" + +"But I told you that yesterday. It is three years since I left +school. . . . I left in the fourth class." + +"And why did you give up high school?" asks the man of learning, +looking at Ivan Matveyitch's writing. + +"Oh, through family circumstances." + +"Must I speak to you again, Ivan Matveyitch? When will you get over +your habit of dragging out the lines? There ought not to be less +than forty letters in a line." + +"What, do you suppose I do it on purpose?" says Ivan Matveyitch, +offended. "There are more than forty letters in some of the other +lines. . . . You count them. And if you think I don't put enough +in the line, you can take something off my pay." + +"Oh dear, that's not the point. You have no delicacy, really. . . . +At the least thing you drag in money. The great thing is to be +exact, Ivan Matveyitch, to be exact is the great thing. You ought +to train yourself to be exact." + +The maidservant brings in a tray with two glasses of tea on it, and +a basket of rusks. . . . Ivan Matveyitch takes his glass awkwardly +with both hands, and at once begins drinking it. The tea is too +hot. To avoid burning his mouth Ivan Matveyitch tries to take a +tiny sip. He eats one rusk, then a second, then a third, and, looking +sideways, with embarrassment, at the man of learning, timidly +stretches after a fourth. . . . The noise he makes in swallowing, +the relish with which he smacks his lips, and the expression of +hungry greed in his raised eyebrows irritate the man of learning. + +"Make haste and finish, time is precious." + +"You dictate, I can drink and write at the same time. . . . I must +confess I was hungry." + +"I should think so after your walk!" + +"Yes, and what wretched weather! In our parts there is a scent of +spring by now. . . . There are puddles everywhere; the snow is +melting." + +"You are a southerner, I suppose?" + +"From the Don region. . . . It's quite spring with us by March. +Here it is frosty, everyone's in a fur coat, . . . but there you +can see the grass . . . it's dry everywhere, and one can even catch +tarantulas." + +"And what do you catch tarantulas for?" + +"Oh! . . . to pass the time . . ." says Ivan Matveyitch, and he +sighs. "It's fun catching them. You fix a bit of pitch on a thread, +let it down into their hole and begin hitting the tarantula on the +back with the pitch, and the brute gets cross, catches hold of the +pitch with his claws, and gets stuck. . . . And what we used to do +with them! We used to put a basinful of them together and drop a +bihorka in with them." + +"What is a bihorka?" + +"That's another spider, very much the same as a tarantula. In a +fight one of them can kill a hundred tarantulas." + +"H'm! . . . But we must write, . . . Where did we stop?" + +The man of learning dictates another twenty lines, then sits plunged +in meditation. + +Ivan Matveyitch, waiting while the other cogitates, sits and, craning +his neck, puts the collar of his shirt to rights. His tie will not +set properly, the stud has come out, and the collar keeps coming +apart. + +"H'm! . . ." says the man of learning. "Well, haven't you found a +job yet, Ivan Matveyitch?" + +"No. And how is one to find one? I am thinking, you know, of +volunteering for the army. But my father advises my going into a +chemist's." + +"H'm! . . . But it would be better for you to go into the university. +The examination is difficult, but with patience and hard work you +could get through. Study, read more. . . . Do you read much?" + +"Not much, I must own . . ." says Ivan Matveyitch, lighting a +cigarette. + +"Have you read Turgenev?" + +"N-no. . . ." + +"And Gogol?" + +"Gogol. H'm! . . . Gogol. . . . No, I haven't read him!" + +"Ivan Matveyitch! Aren't you ashamed? Aie! aie! You are such a nice +fellow, so much that is original in you . . . you haven't even read +Gogol! You must read him! I will give you his works! It's essential +to read him! We shall quarrel if you don't!" + +Again a silence follows. The man of learning meditates, half reclining +on a soft lounge, and Ivan Matveyitch, leaving his collar in peace, +concentrates his whole attention on his boots. He has not till then +noticed that two big puddles have been made by the snow melting off +his boots on the floor. He is ashamed. + +"I can't get on to-day . . ." mutters the man of learning. "I suppose +you are fond of catching birds, too, Ivan Matveyitch?" + +"That's in autumn, . . . I don't catch them here, but there at home +I always did." + +"To be sure . . . very good. But we must write, though." + +The man of learning gets up resolutely and begins dictating, but +after ten lines sits down on the lounge again. + +"No. . . . Perhaps we had better put it off till to-morrow morning," +he says. "Come to-morrow morning, only come early, at nine o'clock. +God preserve you from being late!" + +Ivan Matveyitch lays down his pen, gets up from the table and sits +in another chair. Five minutes pass in silence, and he begins to +feel it is time for him to go, that he is in the way; but in the +man of learning's study it is so snug and light and warm, and the +impression of the nice rusks and sweet tea is still so fresh that +there is a pang at his heart at the mere thought of home. At home +there is poverty, hunger, cold, his grumbling father, scoldings, +and here it is so quiet and unruffled, and interest even is taken +in his tarantulas and birds. + +The man of learning looks at his watch and takes up a book. + +"So you will give me Gogol?' says Ivan Matveyitch, getting up. + +"Yes, yes! But why are you in such a hurry, my dear boy? Sit down +and tell me something . . ." + +Ivan Matveyitch sits down and smiles broadly. Almost every evening +he sits in this study and always feels something extraordinarily +soft, attracting him, as it were akin, in the voice and the glance +of the man of learning. There are moments when he even fancies that +the man of learning is becoming attached to him, used to him, and +that if he scolds him for being late, it's simply because he misses +his chatter about tarantulas and how they catch goldfinches on the +Don. + + +ZINOTCHKA + +THE party of sportsmen spent the night in a peasant's hut on some +newly mown hay. The moon peeped in at the window; from the street +came the mournful wheezing of a concertina; from the hay came a +sickly sweet, faintly troubling scent. The sportsmen talked about +dogs, about women, about first love, and about snipe. After all the +ladies of their acquaintance had been picked to pieces, and hundreds +of stories had been told, the stoutest of the sportsmen, who looked +in the darkness like a haycock, and who talked in the mellow bass +of a staff officer, gave a loud yawn and said: + +"It is nothing much to be loved; the ladies are created for the +purpose of loving us men. But, tell me, has any one of you fellows +been hated--passionately, furiously hated? Has any one of you +watched the ecstasies of hatred? Eh?" + +No answer followed. + +"Has no one, gentlemen?" asked the staff officer's bass voice. "But +I, now, have been hated, hated by a pretty girl, and have been able +to study the symptoms of first hatred directed against myself. It +was the first, because it was something exactly the converse of +first love. What I am going to tell, however, happened when I knew +nothing about love or hate. I was eight at the time, but that made +no difference; in this case it was not _he_ but _she_ that mattered. +Well, I beg your attention. One fine summer evening, just before +sunset, I was sitting in the nursery, doing my lesson with my +governess, Zinotchka, a very charming and poetical creature who had +left boarding school not long before. Zinotchka looked absent-mindedly +towards the window and said: + +"'Yes. We breathe in oxygen; now tell me, Petya, what do we breathe +out?' + +"'Carbonic acid gas,' I answered, looking towards the same window. + +"'Right,' assented Zinotchka. 'Plants, on the contrary, breathe +in carbonic acid gas, and breathe out oxygen. Carbonic acid gas is +contained in seltzer water, and in the fumes from the samovar. . . . +It is a very noxious gas. Near Naples there is the so-called Cave +of Dogs, which contains carbonic acid gas; a dog dropped into it +is suffocated and dies.' + +"This luckless Cave of Dogs near Naples is a chemical marvel beyond +which no governess ventures to go. Zinotchka always hotly maintained +the usefulness of natural science, but I doubt if she knew any +chemistry beyond this Cave. + +"Well, she told me to repeat it. I repeated it. She asked me what +was meant by the horizon. I answered. And meantime, while we were +ruminating over the horizon and the Cave, in the yard below, my +father was just getting ready to go shooting. The dogs yapped, the +trace horses shifted from one leg to another impatiently and coquetted +with the coachman, the footman packed the waggonette with parcels +and all sorts of things. Beside the waggonette stood a brake in +which my mother and sisters were sitting to drive to a name-day +party at the Ivanetskys'. No one was left in the house but Zinotchka, +me, and my eldest brother, a student, who had toothache. You can +imagine my envy and my boredom. + +"'Well, what do we breathe in?' asked Zinotchka, looking at the +window. + +"'Oxygen. . .' + +"'Yes. And the horizon is the name given to the place where it +seems to us as though the earth meets the sky.' + +"Then the waggonette drove off, and after it the brake. . . . I saw +Zinotchka take a note out of her pocket, crumple it up convulsively +and press it to her temple, then she flushed crimson and looked at +her watch. + +"'So, remember,' she said, 'that near Naples is the so-called Cave +of Dogs. . . .' She glanced at her watch again and went on: 'where +the sky seems to us to meet the earth. . . .' + +"The poor girl in violent agitation walked about the room, and once +more glanced at her watch. There was another half-hour before the +end of our lesson. + +"'Now arithmetic,' she said, breathing hard and turning over the +pages of the sum-book with a trembling hand. 'Come, you work out +problem 325 and I . . . will be back directly.' + +"She went out. I heard her scurry down the stairs, and then I saw +her dart across the yard in her blue dress and vanish through the +garden gate. The rapidity of her movements, the flush on her cheeks +and her excitement, aroused my curiosity. Where had she run, and +what for? Being intelligent beyond my years I soon put two and two +together, and understood it all: she had run into the garden, taking +advantage of the absence of my stern parents, to steal in among the +raspberry bushes, or to pick herself some cherries. If that were +so, dash it all, I would go and have some cherries too. I threw +aside the sum-book and ran into the garden. I ran to the cherry +orchard, but she was not there. Passing by the raspberries, the +gooseberries, and the watchman's shanty, she crossed the kitchen +garden and reached the pond, pale, and starting at every sound. I +stole after her, and what I saw, my friends, was this. At the edge +of the pond, between the thick stumps of two old willows, stood my +elder brother, Sasha; one could not see from his face that he had +toothache. He looked towards Zinotchka as she approached him, and +his whole figure was lighted up by an expression of happiness as +though by sunshine. And Zinotchka, as though she were being driven +into the Cave of Dogs, and were being forced to breathe carbonic +acid gas, walked towards him, scarcely able to move one leg before +the other, breathing hard, with her head thrown back. . . . To judge +from appearances she was going to a rendezous for the first time +in her life. But at last she reached him. . . . For half a minute +they gazed at each other in silence, as though they could not believe +their eyes. Thereupon some force seemed to shove Zinotchka; she +laid her hands on Sasha's shoulders and let her head droop upon his +waistcoat. Sasha laughed, muttered something incoherent, and with +the clumsiness of a man head over ears in love, laid both hands on +Zinotchka's face. And the weather, gentlemen, was exquisite. . . . +The hill behind which the sun was setting, the two willows, the +green bank, the sky--all together with Sasha and Zinotchka were +reflected in the pond . . . perfect stillness . . . you can imagine +it. Millions of butterflies with long whiskers gleamed golden above +the reeds; beyond the garden they were driving the cattle. In fact, +it was a perfect picture. + +"Of all I had seen the only thing I understood was that Sasha was +kissing Zinotchka. That was improper. If _maman_ heard of it they +would both catch it. Feeling for some reason ashamed I went back +to the nursery, not waiting for the end of the rendezvous. There I +sat over the sum-book, pondered and reflected. A triumphant smile +strayed upon my countenance. On one side it was agreeable to be the +possessor of another person's secret; on the other it was also very +agreeable that such authorities as Sasha and Zinotchka might at any +moment be convicted by me of ignorance of the social proprieties. +Now they were in my power, and their peace was entirely dependent +on my magnanimity. I'd let them know. + +"When I went to bed, Zinotchka came into the nursery as usual to +find out whether I had dropped asleep without undressing and whether +I had said my prayers. I looked at her pretty, happy face and +grinned. I was bursting with my secret and itching to let it out. +I had to drop a hint and enjoy the effect. + +"'I know,' I said, grinning. 'Gy--y.' + +"'What do you know?' + +"'Gy--y! I saw you near the willows kissing Sasha. I followed you +and saw it all.' + +"Zinotchka started, flushed all over, and overwhelmed by 'my hint' +she sank down on the chair, on which stood a glass of water and a +candlestick. + +"'I saw you . . . kissing . . .' I repeated, sniggering and enjoying +her confusion. 'Aha! I'll tell mamma!' + +"Cowardly Zinotchka gazed at me intently, and convincing herself +that I really did know all about it, clutched my hand in despair +and muttered in a trembling whisper: + +"'Petya, it is low. . . . I beg of you, for God's sake. . . . Be +a man . . . don't tell anyone. . . . Decent people don't spy +. . . . It's low. . . . I entreat you.' + +"The poor girl was terribly afraid of my mother, a stern and virtuous +lady--that was one thing; and the second was that my grinning +countenance could not but outrage her first love so pure and poetical, +and you can imagine the state of her heart. Thanks to me, she did +not sleep a wink all night, and in the morning she appeared at +breakfast with blue rings round her eyes. When I met Sasha after +breakfast I could not refrain from grinning and boasting: + +"'I know! I saw you yesterday kissing Mademoiselle Zina!' + +"Sasha looked at me and said: + +"'You are a fool.' + +"He was not so cowardly as Zinotchka, and so my effect did not come +off. That provoked me to further efforts. If Sasha was not frightened +it was evident that he did not believe that I had seen and knew all +about it; wait a bit, I would show him. + +"At our lessons before dinner Zinotchka did not look at me, and her +voice faltered. Instead of trying to scare me she tried to propitiate +me in every way, giving me full marks, and not complaining to my +father of my naughtiness. Being intelligent beyond my years I +exploited her secret: I did not learn my lessons, walked into the +schoolroom on my head, and said all sorts of rude things. In fact, +if I had remained in that vein till to-day I should have become a +famous blackmailer. Well, a week passed. Another person's secret +irritated and fretted me like a splinter in my soul. I longed at +all costs to blurt it out and gloat over the effect. And one day +at dinner, when we had a lot of visitors, I gave a stupid snigger, +looked fiendishly at Zinotchka and said: + +"'I know. Gy--y! I saw! . . .' + +"'What do you know?' asked my mother. + +"I looked still more fiendishly at Zinotchka and Sasha. You ought +to have seen how the girl flushed up, and how furious Sasha's eyes +were! I bit my tongue and did not go on. Zinotchka gradually turned +pale, clenched her teeth, and ate no more dinner. At our evening +lessons that day I noticed a striking change in Zinotchka's face. +It looked sterner, colder, as it were, more like marble, while her +eyes gazed strangely straight into my face, and I give you my word +of honour I have never seen such terrible, annihilating eyes, even +in hounds when they overtake the wolf. I understood their expression +perfectly, when in the middle of a lesson she suddenly clenched her +teeth and hissed through them: + +"'I hate you! Oh, you vile, loathsome creature, if you knew how I +hate you, how I detest your cropped head, your vulgar, prominent +ears!' + +"But at once she took fright and said: + +"'I am not speaking to you, I am repeating a part out of a +play. . . .' + +"Then, my friends, at night I saw her come to my bedside and gaze +a long time into my face. She hated me passionately, and could not +exist away from me. The contemplation of my hated pug of a face had +become a necessity to her. I remember a lovely summer evening . . . +with the scent of hay, perfect stillness, and so on. The moon was +shining. I was walking up and down the avenue, thinking of cherry +jam. Suddenly Zinotchka, looking pale and lovely, came up to me, +she caught hold of my hand, and breathlessly began expressing +herself: + +"'Oh, how I hate you! I wish no one harm as I do you! Let me tell +you that! I want you to understand that!' + +"You understand, moonlight, her pale face, breathless with passion, +the stillness . . . little pig as I was I actually enjoyed it. I +listened to her, looked at her eyes. . . . At first I liked it, and +enjoyed the novelty. Then I was suddenly seized with terror, I gave +a scream, and ran into the house at breakneck speed. + +"I made up my mind that the best thing to do was to complain to +_maman_. And I did complain, mentioning incidentally how Sasha had +kissed Zinotchka. I was stupid, and did not know what would follow, +or I should have kept the secret to myself. . . . After hearing my +story _maman_ flushed with indignation and said: + +"'It is not your business to speak about that, you are still very +young. . . . But, what an example for children.' + +"My _maman_ was not only virtuous but diplomatic. To avoid a scandal +she did not get rid of Zinotchka at once, but set to work gradually, +systematically, to pave the way for her departure, as one does with +well-bred but intolerable people. I remember that when Zinotchka +did leave us the last glance she cast at the house was directed at +the window at which I was sitting, and I assure you, I remember +that glance to this day. + +"Zinotchka soon afterwards became my brother's wife. She is the +Zinaida Nikolaevna whom you know. The next time I met her I was +already an ensign. In spite of all her efforts she could not recognize +the hated Petya in the ensign with his moustache, but still she did +not treat me quite like a relation. . . . And even now, in spite +of my good-humoured baldness, meek corpulence, and unassuming air, +she still looks askance at me, and feels put out when I go to see +my brother. Hatred it seems can no more be forgotten than +love. . . . + +"Tchoo! I hear the cock crowing! Good-night. Milord! Lie down!" + + +BAD WEATHER + +BIG raindrops were pattering on the dark windows. It was one of +those disgusting summer holiday rains which, when they have begun, +last a long time--for weeks, till the frozen holiday maker grows +used to it, and sinks into complete apathy. It was cold; there was +a feeling of raw, unpleasant dampness. The mother-in-law of a lawyer, +called Kvashin, and his wife, Nadyezhda Filippovna, dressed in +waterproofs and shawls, were sitting over the dinner table in the +dining-room. It was written on the countenance of the elder lady +that she was, thank God, well-fed, well-clothed and in good health, +that she had married her only daughter to a good man, and now could +play her game of patience with an easy conscience; her daughter, a +rather short, plump, fair young woman of twenty, with a gentle +anæmic face, was reading a book with her elbows on the table; judging +from her eyes she was not so much reading as thinking her own +thoughts, which were not in the book. Neither of them spoke. There +was the sound of the pattering rain, and from the kitchen they could +hear the prolonged yawns of the cook. + +Kvashin himself was not at home. On rainy days he did not come to +the summer villa, but stayed in town; damp, rainy weather affected +his bronchitis and prevented him from working. He was of the opinion +that the sight of the grey sky and the tears of rain on the windows +deprived one of energy and induced the spleen. In the town, where +there was greater comfort, bad weather was scarcely noticed. + +After two games of patience, the old lady shuffled the cards and +took a glance at her daughter. + +"I have been trying with the cards whether it will be fine to-morrow, +and whether our Alexey Stepanovitch will come," she said. "It is +five days since he was here. . . . The weather is a chastisement +from God." + +Nadyezhda Filippovna looked indifferently at her mother, got up, +and began walking up and down the room. + +"The barometer was rising yesterday," she said doubtfully, "but +they say it is falling again to-day." + +The old lady laid out the cards in three long rows and shook her +head. + +"Do you miss him?" she asked, glancing at her daughter. + +"Of course." + +"I see you do. I should think so. He hasn't been here for five days. +In May the utmost was two, or at most three days, and now it is +serious, five days! I am not his wife, and yet I miss him. And +yesterday, when I heard the barometer was rising, I ordered them +to kill a chicken and prepare a carp for Alexey Stepanovitch. He +likes them. Your poor father couldn't bear fish, but he likes it. +He always eats it with relish." + +"My heart aches for him," said the daughter. "We are dull, but it +is duller still for him, you know, mamma." + +"I should think so! In the law-courts day in and day out, and in +the empty flat at night alone like an owl." + +"And what is so awful, mamma, he is alone there without servants; +there is no one to set the samovar or bring him water. Why didn't +he engage a valet for the summer months? And what use is the summer +villa at all if he does not care for it? I told him there was no +need to have it, but no, 'It is for the sake of your health,' he +said, and what is wrong with my health? It makes me ill that he +should have to put up with so much on my account." + +Looking over her mother's shoulder, the daughter noticed a mistake +in the patience, bent down to the table and began correcting it. A +silence followed. Both looked at the cards and imagined how their +Alexey Stepanovitch, utterly forlorn, was sitting now in the town +in his gloomy, empty study and working, hungry, exhausted, yearning +for his family. . . . + +"Do you know what, mamma?" said Nadyezhda Filippovna suddenly, and +her eyes began to shine. "If the weather is the same to-morrow I'll +go by the first train and see him in town! Anyway, I shall find out +how he is, have a look at him, and pour out his tea." + +And both of them began to wonder how it was that this idea, so +simple and easy to carry out, had not occurred to them before. It +was only half an hour in the train to the town, and then twenty +minutes in a cab. They said a little more, and went off to bed in +the same room, feeling more contented. + +"Oho-ho-ho. . . . Lord, forgive us sinners!" sighed the old lady +when the clock in the hall struck two. "There is no sleeping." + +"You are not asleep, mamma?" the daughter asked in a whisper. "I +keep thinking of Alyosha. I only hope he won't ruin his health in +town. Goodness knows where he dines and lunches. In restaurants and +taverns." + +"I have thought of that myself," sighed the old lady. "The Heavenly +Mother save and preserve him. But the rain, the rain!" + +In the morning the rain was not pattering on the panes, but the sky +was still grey. The trees stood looking mournful, and at every gust +of wind they scattered drops. The footprints on the muddy path, the +ditches and the ruts were full of water. Nadyezhda Filippovna made +up her mind to go. + +"Give him my love," said the old lady, wrapping her daughter up. +"Tell him not to think too much about his cases. . . . And he must +rest. Let him wrap his throat up when he goes out: the weather-- +God help us! And take him the chicken; food from home, even if cold, +is better than at a restaurant." + +The daughter went away, saying that she would come back by an evening +train or else next morning. + +But she came back long before dinner-time, when the old lady was +sitting on her trunk in her bedroom and drowsily thinking what to +cook for her son-in-law's supper. + +Going into the room her daughter, pale and agitated, sank on the +bed without uttering a word or taking off her hat, and pressed her +head into the pillow. + +"But what is the matter," said the old lady in surprise, "why back +so soon? Where is Alexey Stepanovitch?" + +Nadyezhda Filippovna raised her head and gazed at her mother with +dry, imploring eyes. + +"He is deceiving us, mamma," she said. + +"What are you saying? Christ be with you!" cried the old lady in +alarm, and her cap slipped off her head. "Who is going to deceive +us? Lord, have mercy on us!" + +"He is deceiving us, mamma!" repeated her daughter, and her chin +began to quiver. + +"How do you know?" cried the old lady, turning pale. + +"Our flat is locked up. The porter tells me that Alyosha has not +been home once for these five days. He is not living at home! He +is not at home, not at home!" + +She waved her hands and burst into loud weeping, uttering nothing +but: "Not at home! Not at home!" + +She began to be hysterical. + +"What's the meaning of it?" muttered the old woman in horror. "Why, +he wrote the day before yesterday that he never leaves the flat! +Where is he sleeping? Holy Saints!" + +Nadyezhda Filippovna felt so faint that she could not take off her +hat. She looked about her blankly, as though she had been drugged, +and convulsively clutched at her mother's arms. + +"What a person to trust: a porter!" said the old lady, fussing round +her daughter and crying. "What a jealous girl you are! He is not +going to deceive you, and how dare he? We are not just anybody. +Though we are of the merchant class, yet he has no right, for you +are his lawful wife! We can take proceedings! I gave twenty thousand +roubles with you! You did not want for a dowry!" + +And the old lady herself sobbed and gesticulated, and she felt +faint, too, and lay down on her trunk. Neither of them noticed that +patches of blue had made their appearance in the sky, that the +clouds were more transparent, that the first sunbeam was cautiously +gliding over the wet grass in the garden, that with renewed gaiety +the sparrows were hopping about the puddles which reflected the +racing clouds. + +Towards evening Kvashin arrived. Before leaving town he had gone +to his flat and had learned from the porter that his wife had come +in his absence. + +"Here I am," he said gaily, coming into his mother-in-law's room +and pretending not to notice their stern and tear-stained faces. +"Here I am! It's five days since we have seen each other!" + +He rapidly kissed his wife's hand and his mother-in-law's, and with +the air of a man delighted at having finished a difficult task, he +lolled in an arm-chair. + +"Ough!" he said, puffing out all the air from his lungs. "Here I +have been worried to death. I have scarcely sat down. For almost +five days now I have been, as it were, bivouacking. I haven't been +to the flat once, would you believe it? I have been busy the whole +time with the meeting of Shipunov's and Ivantchikov's creditors; I +had to work in Galdeyev's office at the shop. . . . I've had nothing +to eat or to drink, and slept on a bench, I was chilled through +. . . . I hadn't a free minute. I hadn't even time to go to the flat. +That's how I came not to be at home, Nadyusha. . . And Kvashin, +holding his sides as though his back were aching, glanced stealthily +at his wife and mother-in-law to see the effect of his lie, or as +he called it, diplomacy. The mother-in-law and wife were looking +at each other in joyful astonishment, as though beyond all hope and +expectation they had found something precious, which they had +lost. . . . Their faces beamed, their eyes glowed. . . . + +"My dear man," cried the old lady, jumping up, "why am I sitting +here? Tea! Tea at once! Perhaps you are hungry?" + +"Of course he is hungry," cried his wife, pulling off her head a +bandage soaked in vinegar. "Mamma, bring the wine, and the savouries. +Natalya, lay the table! Oh, my goodness, nothing is ready!" + +And both of them, frightened, happy, and bustling, ran about the +room. The old lady could not look without laughing at her daughter +who had slandered an innocent man, and the daughter felt +ashamed. . . . + +The table was soon laid. Kvashin, who smelt of madeira and liqueurs +and who could scarcely breathe from repletion, complained of being +hungry, forced himself to munch and kept on talking of the meeting +of Shipunov's and Ivantchikov's creditors, while his wife and +mother-in-law could not take their eyes off his face, and both +thought: + +"How clever and kind he is! How handsome!" + +"All serene," thought Kvashin, as he lay down on the well-filled +feather bed. "Though they are regular tradesmen's wives, though +they are Philistines, yet they have a charm of their own, and one +can spend a day or two of the week here with enjoyment. . . ." + +He wrapped himself up, got warm, and as he dozed off, he said to +himself: + +"All serene!" + + +A GENTLEMAN FRIEND + +THE charming Vanda, or, as she was described in her passport, the +"Honourable Citizen Nastasya Kanavkin," found herself, on leaving +the hospital, in a position she had never been in before: without +a home to go to or a farthing in her pocket. What was she to do? + +The first thing she did was to visit a pawn-broker's and pawn her +turquoise ring, her one piece of jewellery. They gave her a rouble +for the ring . . . but what can you get for a rouble? You can't buy +for that sum a fashionable short jacket, nor a big hat, nor a pair +of bronze shoes, and without those things she had a feeling of +being, as it were, undressed. She felt as though the very horses +and dogs were staring and laughing at the plainness of her dress. +And clothes were all she thought about: the question what she should +eat and where she should sleep did not trouble her in the least. + +"If only I could meet a gentleman friend," she thought to herself, +"I could get some money. . . . There isn't one who would refuse me, +I know. . ." + +But no gentleman she knew came her way. It would be easy enough to +meet them in the evening at the "Renaissance," but they wouldn't +let her in at the "Renaissance" in that shabby dress and with no +hat. What was she to do? + +After long hesitation, when she was sick of walking and sitting and +thinking, Vanda made up her mind to fall back on her last resource: +to go straight to the lodgings of some gentleman friend and ask for +money. + +She pondered which to go to. "Misha is out of the question; he's a +married man. . . . The old chap with the red hair will be at his +office at this time. . ." + +Vanda remembered a dentist, called Finkel, a converted Jew, who six +months ago had given her a bracelet, and on whose head she had once +emptied a glass of beer at the supper at the German Club. She was +awfully pleased at the thought of Finkel. + +"He'll be sure to give it me, if only I find him at home," she +thought, as she walked in his direction. "If he doesn't, I'll smash +all the lamps in the house." + +Before she reached the dentist's door she thought out her plan of +action: she would run laughing up the stairs, dash into the dentist's +room and demand twenty-five roubles. But as she touched the bell, +this plan seemed to vanish from her mind of itself. Vanda began +suddenly feeling frightened and nervous, which was not at all her +way. She was bold and saucy enough at drinking parties, but now, +dressed in everyday clothes, feeling herself in the position of an +ordinary person asking a favour, who might be refused admittance, +she felt suddenly timid and humiliated. She was ashamed and frightened. + +"Perhaps he has forgotten me by now," she thought, hardly daring +to pull the bell. "And how can I go up to him in such a dress, +looking like a beggar or some working girl?" + +And she rang the bell irresolutely. + +She heard steps coming: it was the porter. + +"Is the doctor at home?" she asked. + +She would have been glad now if the porter had said "No," but the +latter, instead of answering ushered her into the hall, and helped +her off with her coat. The staircase impressed her as luxurious, +and magnificent, but of all its splendours what caught her eye most +was an immense looking-glass, in which she saw a ragged figure +without a fashionable jacket, without a big hat, and without bronze +shoes. And it seemed strange to Vanda that, now that she was humbly +dressed and looked like a laundress or sewing girl, she felt ashamed, +and no trace of her usual boldness and sauciness remained, and in +her own mind she no longer thought of herself as Vanda, but as the +Nastasya Kanavkin she used to be in the old days. . . . + +"Walk in, please," said a maidservant, showing her into the +consulting-room. "The doctor will be here in a minute. Sit down." + +Vanda sank into a soft arm-chair. + +"I'll ask him to lend it me," she thought; "that will be quite +proper, for, after all, I do know him. If only that servant would +go. I don't like to ask before her. What does she want to stand +there for?" + +Five minutes later the door opened and Finkel came in. He was a +tall, dark Jew, with fat cheeks and bulging eyes. His cheeks, his +eyes, his chest, his body, all of him was so well fed, so loathsome +and repellent! At the "Renaissance" and the German Club he had +usually been rather tipsy, and would spend his money freely on +women, and be very long-suffering and patient with their pranks +(when Vanda, for instance, poured the beer over his head, he simply +smiled and shook his finger at her): now he had a cross, sleepy +expression and looked solemn and frigid like a police captain, and +he kept chewing something. + +"What can I do for you?" he asked, without looking at Vanda. + +Vanda looked at the serious countenance of the maid and the smug +figure of Finkel, who apparently did not recognize her, and she +turned red. + +"What can I do for you?" repeated the dentist a little irritably. + +"I've got toothache," murmured Vanda. + +"Aha! . . . Which is the tooth? Where?" + +Vanda remembered she had a hole in one of her teeth. + +"At the bottom . . . on the right . . ." she said. + +"Hm! . . . Open your mouth." + +Finkel frowned and, holding his breath, began examining the tooth. + +"Does it hurt?" he asked, digging into it with a steel instrument. + +"Yes," Vanda replied, untruthfully. + +"Shall I remind him?" she was wondering. "He would be sure to +remember me. But that servant! Why will she stand there?" + +Finkel suddenly snorted like a steam-engine right into her mouth, +and said: + +"I don't advise you to have it stopped. That tooth will never be +worth keeping anyhow." + +After probing the tooth a little more and soiling Vanda's lips and +gums with his tobacco-stained fingers, he held his breath again, +and put something cold into her mouth. Vanda suddenly felt a sharp +pain, cried out, and clutched at Finkel's hand. + +"It's all right, it's all right," he muttered; "don't you be +frightened! That tooth would have been no use to you, anyway . . . +you must be brave. . ." + +And his tobacco-stained fingers, smeared with blood, held up the +tooth to her eyes, while the maid approached and put a basin to her +mouth. + +"You wash out your mouth with cold water when you get home, and +that will stop the bleeding," said Finkel. + +He stood before her with the air of a man expecting her to go, +waiting to be left in peace. + +"Good-day," she said, turning towards the door. + +"Hm! . . . and how about my fee?" enquired Finkel, in a jesting +tone. + +"Oh, yes!" Vanda remembered, blushing, and she handed the Jew the +rouble that had been given her for her ring. + +When she got out into the street she felt more overwhelmed with +shame than before, but now it was not her poverty she was ashamed +of. She was unconscious now of not having a big hat and a fashionable +jacket. She walked along the street, spitting blood, and brooding +on her life, her ugly, wretched life, and the insults she had +endured, and would have to endure to-morrow, and next week, and all +her life, up to the very day of her death. + +"Oh! how awful it is! My God, how fearful!" + +Next day, however, she was back at the "Renaissance," and dancing +there. She had on an enormous new red hat, a new fashionable jacket, +and bronze shoes. And she was taken out to supper by a young merchant +up from Kazan. + + +A TRIVIAL INCIDENT + +IT was a sunny August midday as, in company with a Russian prince +who had come down in the world, I drove into the immense so-called +Shabelsky pine-forest where we were intending to look for woodcocks. +In virtue of the part he plays in this story my poor prince deserves +a detailed description. He was a tall, dark man, still youngish, +though already somewhat battered by life; with long moustaches like +a police captain's; with prominent black eyes, and with the manners +of a retired army man. He was a man of Oriental type, not very +intelligent, but straightforward and honest, not a bully, not a +fop, and not a rake--virtues which, in the eyes of the general +public, are equivalent to a certificate of being a nonentity and a +poor creature. People generally did not like him (he was never +spoken of in the district, except as "the illustrious duffer"). I +personally found the poor prince extremely nice with his misfortunes +and failures, which made up indeed his whole life. First of all he +was poor. He did not play cards, did not drink, had no occupation, +did not poke his nose into anything, and maintained a perpetual +silence but yet he had somehow succeeded in getting through thirty +to forty thousand roubles left him at his father's death. God only +knows what had become of the money. All that I can say is that owing +to lack of supervision a great deal was stolen by stewards, bailiffs, +and even footmen; a great deal went on lending money, giving bail, +and standing security. There were few landowners in the district +who did not owe him money. He gave to all who asked, and not so +much from good nature or confidence in people as from exaggerated +gentlemanliness as though he would say: "Take it and feel how _comme +il faut_ I am!" By the time I made his acquaintance he had got into +debt himself, had learned what it was like to have a second mortgage +on his land, and had sunk so deeply into difficulties that there +was no chance of his ever getting out of them again. There were +days when he had no dinner, and went about with an empty cigar-holder, +but he was always seen clean and fashionably dressed, and always +smelt strongly of ylang-ylang. + +The prince's second misfortune was his absolute solitariness. He +was not married, he had no friends nor relations. His silent and +reserved character and his _comme il faut_ deportment, which became +the more conspicuous the more anxious he was to conceal his poverty, +prevented him from becoming intimate with people. For love affairs +he was too heavy, spiritless, and cold, and so rarely got on with +women. . . . + +When we reached the forest this prince and I got out of the chaise +and walked along a narrow woodland path which was hidden among huge +ferns. But before we had gone a hundred paces a tall, lank figure +with a long oval face, wearing a shabby reefer jacket, a straw hat, +and patent leather boots, rose up from behind a young fir-tree some +three feet high, as though he had sprung out of the ground. The +stranger held in one hand a basket of mushrooms, with the other he +playfully fingered a cheap watch-chain on his waistcoat. On seeing +us he was taken aback, smoothed his waistcoat, coughed politely, +and gave an agreeable smile, as though he were delighted to see +such nice people as us. Then, to our complete surprise, he came up +to us, scraping with his long feet on the grass, bending his whole +person, and, still smiling agreeably, lifted his hat and pronounced +in a sugary voice with the intonations of a whining dog: + +"Aie, aie . . . gentlemen, painful as it is, it is my duty to warn +you that shooting is forbidden in this wood. Pardon me for venturing +to disturb you, though unacquainted, but . . . allow me to present +myself. I am Grontovsky, the head clerk on Madame Kandurin's estate." + +"Pleased to make your acquaintance, but why can't we shoot?" + +"Such is the wish of the owner of this forest!" + +The prince and I exchanged glances. A moment passed in silence. The +prince stood looking pensively at a big fly agaric at his feet, +which he had crushed with his stick. Grontovsky went on smiling +agreeably. His whole face was twitching, exuding honey, and even +the watch-chain on his waistcoat seemed to be smiling and trying +to impress us all with its refinement. A shade of embarrassment +passed over us like an angel passing; all three of us felt awkward. + +"Nonsense!" I said. "Only last week I was shooting here!" + +"Very possible!" Grontovsky sniggered through his teeth. "As a +matter of fact everyone shoots here regardless of the prohibition. +But once I have met you, it is my duty . . . my sacred duty to warn +you. I am a man in a dependent position. If the forest were mine, +on the word of honour of a Grontovsky, I should not oppose your +agreeable pleasure. But whose fault is it that I am in a dependent +position?" + +The lanky individual sighed and shrugged his shoulders. I began +arguing, getting hot and protesting, but the more loudly and +impressively I spoke the more mawkish and sugary Grontovsky's face +became. Evidently the consciousness of a certain power over us +afforded him the greatest gratification. He was enjoying his +condescending tone, his politeness, his manners, and with peculiar +relish pronounced his sonorous surname, of which he was probably +very fond. Standing before us he felt more than at ease, but judging +from the confused sideway glances he cast from time to time at his +basket, only one thing was spoiling his satisfaction--the mushrooms, +womanish, peasantish, prose, derogatory to his dignity. + +"We can't go back!" I said. "We have come over ten miles!" + +"What's to be done?" sighed Grontovsky. "If you had come not ten +but a hundred thousand miles, if the king even had come from America +or from some other distant land, even then I should think it my +duty . . . sacred, so to say, obligation . . ." + +"Does the forest belong to Nadyezhda Lvovna?" asked the prince. + +"Yes, Nadyezhda Lvovna . . ." + +"Is she at home now?" + +"Yes . . . I tell you what, you go to her, it is not more than half +a mile from here; if she gives you a note, then I. . . . I needn't +say! Ha--ha . . . he--he--!" + +"By all means," I agreed. "It's much nearer than to go back. . . . +You go to her, Sergey Ivanitch," I said, addressing the prince. +"You know her." + +The prince, who had been gazing the whole time at the crushed agaric, +raised his eyes to me, thought a minute, and said: + +"I used to know her at one time, but . . . it's rather awkward for +me to go to her. Besides, I am in shabby clothes. . . . You go, you +don't know her. . . . It's more suitable for you to go." + +I agreed. We got into our chaise and, followed by Grontovsky's +smiles, drove along the edge of the forest to the manor house. I +was not acquainted with Nadyezhda Lvovna Kandurin, née Shabelsky. +I had never seen her at close quarters, and knew her only by hearsay. +I knew that she was incredibly wealthy, richer than anyone else in +the province. After the death of her father, Shabelsky, who was a +landowner with no other children, she was left with several estates, +a stud farm, and a lot of money. I had heard that, though she was +only twenty-five or twenty-six, she was ugly, uninteresting, and +as insignificant as anybody, and was only distinguished from the +ordinary ladies of the district by her immense wealth. + +It has always seemed to me that wealth is felt, and that the rich +must have special feelings unknown to the poor. Often as I passed +by Nadyezhda Lvovna's big fruit garden, in which stood the large, +heavy house with its windows always curtained, I thought: "What is +she thinking at this moment? Is there happiness behind those blinds?" +and so on. Once I saw her from a distance in a fine light cabriolet, +driving a handsome white horse, and, sinful man that I am, I not +only envied her, but even thought that in her poses, in her movements, +there was something special, not to be found in people who are not +rich, just as persons of a servile nature succeed in discovering +"good family" at the first glance in people of the most ordinary +exterior, if they are a little more distinguished than themselves. +Nadyezhda Lvovna's inner life was only known to me by scandal. It +was said in the district that five or six years ago, before she was +married, during her father's lifetime, she had been passionately +in love with Prince Sergey Ivanitch, who was now beside me in the +chaise. The prince had been fond of visiting her father, and used +to spend whole days in his billiard room, where he played pyramids +indefatigably till his arms and legs ached. Six months before the +old man's death he had suddenly given up visiting the Shabelskys. +The gossip of the district having no positive facts to go upon +explained this abrupt change in their relations in various ways. +Some said that the prince, having observed the plain daughter's +feeling for him and being unable to reciprocate it, considered it +the duty of a gentleman to cut short his visits. Others maintained +that old Shabelsky had discovered why his daughter was pining away, +and had proposed to the poverty-stricken prince that he should marry +her; the prince, imagining in his narrow-minded way that they were +trying to buy him together with his title, was indignant, said +foolish things, and quarrelled with them. What was true and what +was false in this nonsense was difficult to say. But that there was +a portion of truth in it was evident, from the fact that the prince +always avoided conversation about Nadyezhda Lvovna. + +I knew that soon after her father's death Nadyezhda Lvovna had +married one Kandurin, a bachelor of law, not wealthy, but adroit, +who had come on a visit to the neighbourhood. She married him not +from love, but because she was touched by the love of the legal +gentleman who, so it was said, had cleverly played the love-sick +swain. At the time I am describing, Kandurin was for some reason +living in Cairo, and writing thence to his friend, the marshal of +the district, "Notes of Travel," while she sat languishing behind +lowered blinds, surrounded by idle parasites, and whiled away her +dreary days in petty philanthropy. + +On the way to the house the prince fell to talking. + +"It's three days since I have been at home," he said in a half +whisper, with a sidelong glance at the driver. "I am not a child, +nor a silly woman, and I have no prejudices, but I can't stand the +bailiffs. When I see a bailiff in my house I turn pale and tremble, +and even have a twitching in the calves of my legs. Do you know +Rogozhin refused to honour my note?" + +The prince did not, as a rule, like to complain of his straitened +circumstances; where poverty was concerned he was reserved and +exceedingly proud and sensitive, and so this announcement surprised +me. He stared a long time at the yellow clearing, warmed by the +sun, watched a long string of cranes float in the azure sky, and +turned facing me. + +"And by the sixth of September I must have the money ready for the +bank . . . the interest for my estate," he said aloud, by now +regardless of the coachman. "And where am I to get it? Altogether, +old man, I am in a tight fix! An awfully tight fix!" + +The prince examined the cock of his gun, blew on it for some reason, +and began looking for the cranes which by now were out of sight. + +"Sergey Ivanitch," I asked, after a minute's silence, "imagine if +they sell your Shatilovka, what will you do?" + +"I? I don't know! Shatilovka can't be saved, that's clear as daylight, +but I cannot imagine such a calamity. I can't imagine myself without +my daily bread secure. What can I do? I have had hardly any education; +I have not tried working yet; for government service it is late to +begin, . . . Besides, where could I serve? Where could I be of use? +Admitting that no great cleverness is needed for serving in our +Zemstvo, for example, yet I suffer from . . . the devil knows what, +a sort of faintheartedness, I haven't a ha'p'orth of pluck. If I +went into the Service I should always feel I was not in my right +place. I am not an idealist; I am not a Utopian; I haven't any +special principles; but am simply, I suppose, stupid and thoroughly +incompetent, a neurotic and a coward. Altogether not like other +people. All other people are like other people, only I seem to be +something . . . a poor thing. . . . I met Naryagin last Wednesday +--you know him?--drunken, slovenly . . . doesn't pay his debts, +stupid" (the prince frowned and tossed his head) . . . "a horrible +person! He said to me, staggering: 'I'm being balloted for as a +justice of the peace!' Of course, they won't elect him, but, you +see, he believes he is fit to be a justice of the peace and considers +that position within his capacity. He has boldness and self-confidence. +I went to see our investigating magistrate too. The man gets two +hundred and fifty roubles a month, and does scarcely anything. All +he can do is to stride backwards and forwards for days together in +nothing but his underclothes, but, ask him, he is convinced he is +doing his work and honourably performing his duty. I couldn't go +on like that! I should be ashamed to look the clerk in the face." + +At that moment Grontovsky, on a chestnut horse, galloped by us with +a flourish. On his left arm the basket bobbed up and down with the +mushrooms dancing in it. As he passed us he grinned and waved his +hand, as though we were old friends. + +"Blockhead!" the prince filtered through his teeth, looking after +him. "It's wonderful how disgusting it sometimes is to see satisfied +faces. A stupid, animal feeling due to hunger, I expect. . . . What +was I saying? Oh, yes, about going into the Service, . . . I should +be ashamed to take the salary, and yet, to tell the truth, it is +stupid. If one looks at it from a broader point of view, more +seriously, I am eating what isn't mine now. Am I not? But why am I +not ashamed of that. . . . It is a case of habit, I suppose . . . +and not being able to realize one's true position. . . . But that +position is most likely awful. . ." + +I looked at him, wondering if the prince were showing off. But his +face was mild and his eyes were mournfully following the movements +of the chestnut horse racing away, as though his happiness were +racing away with it. + +Apparently he was in that mood of irritation and sadness when women +weep quietly for no reason, and men feel a craving to complain of +themselves, of life, of God. . . . + +When I got out of the chaise at the gates of the house the prince +said to me: + +"A man once said, wanting to annoy me, that I have the face of a +cardsharper. I have noticed that cardsharpers are usually dark. Do +you know, it seems that if I really had been born a cardsharper I +should have remained a decent person to the day of my death, for I +should never have had the boldness to do wrong. I tell you frankly +I have had the chance once in my life of getting rich if I had told +a lie, a lie to myself and one woman . . . and one other person +whom I know would have forgiven me for lying; I should have put +into my pocket a million. But I could not. I hadn't the pluck!" + +From the gates we had to go to the house through the copse by a +long road, level as a ruler, and planted on each side with thick, +lopped lilacs. The house looked somewhat heavy, tasteless, like a +façade on the stage. It rose clumsily out of a mass of greenery, +and caught the eye like a great stone thrown on the velvety turf. +At the chief entrance I was met by a fat old footman in a green +swallow-tail coat and big silver-rimmed spectacles; without making +any announcement, only looking contemptuously at my dusty figure, +he showed me in. As I mounted the soft carpeted stairs there was, +for some reason, a strong smell of india-rubber. At the top I was +enveloped in an atmosphere found only in museums, in signorial +mansions and old-fashioned merchant houses; it seemed like the smell +of something long past, which had once lived and died and had left +its soul in the rooms. I passed through three or four rooms on my +way from the entry to the drawing-room. I remember bright yellow, +shining floors, lustres wrapped in stiff muslin, narrow, striped +rugs which stretched not straight from door to door, as they usually +do, but along the walls, so that not venturing to touch the bright +floor with my muddy boots I had to describe a rectangle in each +room. In the drawing-room, where the footman left me, stood +old-fashioned ancestral furniture in white covers, shrouded in +twilight. It looked surly and elderly, and, as though out of respect +for its repose, not a sound was audible. + +Even the clock was silent . . . it seemed as though the Princess +Tarakanov had fallen asleep in the golden frame, and the water and +the rats were still and motionless through magic. The daylight, +afraid of disturbing the universal tranquillity, scarcely pierced +through the lowered blinds, and lay on the soft rugs in pale, +slumbering streaks. + +Three minutes passed and a big, elderly woman in black, with her +cheek bandaged up, walked noiselessly into the drawing-room. She +bowed to me and pulled up the blinds. At once, enveloped in the +bright sunlight, the rats and water in the picture came to life and +movement, Princess Tarakanov was awakened, and the old chairs frowned +gloomily. + +"Her honour will be here in a minute, sir . . ." sighed the old +lady, frowning too. + +A few more minutes of waiting and I saw Nadyezhda Lvovna. What +struck me first of all was that she certainly was ugly, short, +scraggy, and round-shouldered. Her thick, chestnut hair was +magnificent; her face, pure and with a look of culture in it, was +aglow with youth; there was a clear and intelligent expression in +her eyes; but the whole charm of her head was lost through the +thickness of her lips and the over-acute facial angle. + +I mentioned my name, and announced the object of my visit. + +"I really don't know what I am to say!" she said, in hesitation, +dropping her eyes and smiling. "I don't like to refuse, and at the +same time. . . ." + +"Do, please," I begged. + +Nadyezhda Lvovna looked at me and laughed. I laughed too. She was +probably amused by what Grontovsky had so enjoyed--that is, the +right of giving or withholding permission; my visit suddenly struck +me as queer and strange. + +"I don't like to break the long-established rules," said Madame +Kandurin. "Shooting has been forbidden on our estate for the last +six years. No!" she shook her head resolutely. "Excuse me, I must +refuse you. If I allow you I must allow others. I don't like +unfairness. Either let all or no one." + +"I am sorry!" I sighed. "It's all the sadder because we have come +more than ten miles. I am not alone," I added, "Prince Sergey +Ivanitch is with me." + +I uttered the prince's name with no _arrière pensée_, not prompted +by any special motive or aim; I simply blurted it out without +thinking, in the simplicity of my heart. Hearing the familiar name +Madame Kandurin started, and bent a prolonged gaze upon me. I noticed +her nose turn pale. + +"That makes no difference . . ." she said, dropping her eyes. + +As I talked to her I stood at the window that looked out on the +shrubbery. I could see the whole shrubbery with the avenues and the +ponds and the road by which I had come. At the end of the road, +beyond the gates, the back of our chaise made a dark patch. Near +the gate, with his back to the house, the prince was standing with +his legs apart, talking to the lanky Grontovsky. + +Madame Kandurin had been standing all the time at the other window. +She looked from time to time towards the shrubbery, and from the +moment I mentioned the prince's name she did not turn away from the +window. + +"Excuse me," she said, screwing up her eyes as she looked towards +the road and the gate, "but it would be unfair to allow you only +to shoot. . . . And, besides, what pleasure is there in shooting +birds? What's it for? Are they in your way?" + +A solitary life, immured within four walls, with its indoor twilight +and heavy smell of decaying furniture, disposes people to sentimentality. +Madame Kandurin's idea did her credit, but I could not resist saying: + +"If one takes that line one ought to go barefoot. Boots are made +out of the leather of slaughtered animals." + +"One must distinguish between a necessity and a caprice," Madame +Kandurin answered in a toneless voice. + +She had by now recognized the prince, and did not take her eyes off +his figure. It is hard to describe the delight and the suffering +with which her ugly face was radiant! Her eyes were smiling and +shining, her lips were quivering and laughing, while her face craned +closer to the panes. Keeping hold of a flower-pot with both hands, +with bated breath and with one foot slightly lifted, she reminded +me of a dog pointing and waiting with passionate impatience for +"Fetch it!" + +I looked at her and at the prince who could not tell a lie once in +his life, and I felt angry and bitter against truth and falsehood, +which play such an elemental part in the personal happiness of men. + +The prince started suddenly, took aim and fired. A hawk, flying +over him, fluttered its wings and flew like an arrow far away. + +"He aimed too high!" I said. "And so, Nadyezhda Lvovna," I sighed, +moving away from the window, "you will not permit . . ."--Madame +Kandurin was silent. + +"I have the honour to take my leave," I said, "and I beg you to +forgive my disturbing you. . ." + +Madame Kandurin would have turned facing me, and had already moved +through a quarter of the angle, when she suddenly hid her face +behind the hangings, as though she felt tears in her eyes that she +wanted to conceal. + +"Good-bye. . . . Forgive me . . ." she said softly. + +I bowed to her back, and strode away across the bright yellow floors, +no longer keeping to the carpet. I was glad to get away from this +little domain of gilded boredom and sadness, and I hastened as +though anxious to shake off a heavy, fantastic dream with its +twilight, its enchanted princess, its lustres. . . . + +At the front door a maidservant overtook me and thrust a note into +my hand: "Shooting is permitted on showing this. N. K.," I read. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Chorus Girl and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHORUS GIRL AND OTHER STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 13418-8.txt or 13418-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/1/13418/ + +Produced by James Rusk + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/13418-0.zip b/13418-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..55ce2f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/13418-0.zip diff --git a/13418-8.txt b/13418-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7669ec6 --- /dev/null +++ b/13418-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8396 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Chorus Girl and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Chorus Girl and Other Stories + +Author: Anton Chekhov + +Release Date: September 9, 2004 [EBook #13418] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHORUS GIRL AND OTHER STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by James Rusk + + + + + +THE TALES OF CHEKHOV + +VOLUME 8 + +THE CHORUS GIRL AND OTHER STORIES + +BY + +ANTON TCHEKHOV + +Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE CHORUS GIRL +VEROTCHKA +MY LIFE +AT A COUNTRY HOUSE +A FATHER +ON THE ROAD +ROTHSCHILD'S FIDDLE +IVAN MATVEYITCH +ZINOTCHKA +BAD WEATHER +A GENTLEMAN FRIEND +A TRIVIAL INCIDENT + + + + +THE CHORUS GIRL + +ONE day when she was younger and better-looking, and when her voice +was stronger, Nikolay Petrovitch Kolpakov, her adorer, was sitting +in the outer room in her summer villa. It was intolerably hot and +stifling. Kolpakov, who had just dined and drunk a whole bottle of +inferior port, felt ill-humoured and out of sorts. Both were bored +and waiting for the heat of the day to be over in order to go for +a walk. + +All at once there was a sudden ring at the door. Kolpakov, who was +sitting with his coat off, in his slippers, jumped up and looked +inquiringly at Pasha. + +"It must be the postman or one of the girls," said the singer. + +Kolpakov did not mind being found by the postman or Pasha's lady +friends, but by way of precaution gathered up his clothes and went +into the next room, while Pasha ran to open the door. To her great +surprise in the doorway stood, not the postman and not a girl friend, +but an unknown woman, young and beautiful, who was dressed like a +lady, and from all outward signs was one. + +The stranger was pale and was breathing heavily as though she had +been running up a steep flight of stairs. + +"What is it?" asked Pasha. + +The lady did not at once answer. She took a step forward, slowly +looked about the room, and sat down in a way that suggested that +from fatigue, or perhaps illness, she could not stand; then for a +long time her pale lips quivered as she tried in vain to speak. + +"Is my husband here?" she asked at last, raising to Pasha her big +eyes with their red tear-stained lids. + +"Husband?" whispered Pasha, and was suddenly so frightened that her +hands and feet turned cold. "What husband?" she repeated, beginning +to tremble. + +"My husband, . . . Nikolay Petrovitch Kolpakov." + +"N . . . no, madam. . . . I . . . I don't know any husband." + +A minute passed in silence. The stranger several times passed her +handkerchief over her pale lips and held her breath to stop her +inward trembling, while Pasha stood before her motionless, like a +post, and looked at her with astonishment and terror. + +"So you say he is not here?" the lady asked, this time speaking +with a firm voice and smiling oddly. + +"I . . . I don't know who it is you are asking about." + +"You are horrid, mean, vile . . ." the stranger muttered, scanning +Pasha with hatred and repulsion. "Yes, yes . . . you are horrid. I +am very, very glad that at last I can tell you so!" + +Pasha felt that on this lady in black with the angry eyes and white +slender fingers she produced the impression of something horrid and +unseemly, and she felt ashamed of her chubby red cheeks, the pock-mark +on her nose, and the fringe on her forehead, which never could be +combed back. And it seemed to her that if she had been thin, and +had had no powder on her face and no fringe on her forehead, then +she could have disguised the fact that she was not "respectable," +and she would not have felt so frightened and ashamed to stand +facing this unknown, mysterious lady. + +"Where is my husband?" the lady went on. "Though I don't care whether +he is here or not, but I ought to tell you that the money has been +missed, and they are looking for Nikolay Petrovitch. . . . They +mean to arrest him. That's your doing!" + +The lady got up and walked about the room in great excitement. Pasha +looked at her and was so frightened that she could not understand. + +"He'll be found and arrested to-day," said the lady, and she gave +a sob, and in that sound could be heard her resentment and vexation. +"I know who has brought him to this awful position! Low, horrid +creature! Loathsome, mercenary hussy!" The lady's lips worked and +her nose wrinkled up with disgust. "I am helpless, do you hear, you +low woman? . . . I am helpless; you are stronger than I am, but +there is One to defend me and my children! God sees all! He is just! +He will punish you for every tear I have shed, for all my sleepless +nights! The time will come; you will think of me! . . ." + +Silence followed again. The lady walked about the room and wrung +her hands, while Pasha still gazed blankly at her in amazement, not +understanding and expecting something terrible. + +"I know nothing about it, madam," she said, and suddenly burst into +tears. + +"You are lying!" cried the lady, and her eyes flashed angrily at +her. "I know all about it! I've known you a long time. I know that +for the last month he has been spending every day with you!" + +"Yes. What then? What of it? I have a great many visitors, but I +don't force anyone to come. He is free to do as he likes." + +"I tell you they have discovered that money is missing! He has +embezzled money at the office! For the sake of such a . . . creature +as you, for your sake he has actually committed a crime. Listen," +said the lady in a resolute voice, stopping short, facing Pasha. +"You can have no principles; you live simply to do harm--that's +your object; but one can't imagine you have fallen so low that you +have no trace of human feeling left! He has a wife, children. . . . +If he is condemned and sent into exile we shall starve, the +children and I. . . . Understand that! And yet there is a chance +of saving him and us from destitution and disgrace. If I take them +nine hundred roubles to-day they will let him alone. Only nine +hundred roubles!" + +"What nine hundred roubles?" Pasha asked softly. "I . . . I don't +know. . . . I haven't taken it." + +"I am not asking you for nine hundred roubles. . . . You have no +money, and I don't want your money. I ask you for something else. +. . . Men usually give expensive things to women like you. Only +give me back the things my husband has given you!" + +"Madam, he has never made me a present of anything!" Pasha wailed, +beginning to understand. + +"Where is the money? He has squandered his own and mine and other +people's. . . . What has become of it all? Listen, I beg you! I was +carried away by indignation and have said a lot of nasty things to +you, but I apologize. You must hate me, I know, but if you are +capable of sympathy, put yourself in my position! I implore you to +give me back the things!" + +"H'm!" said Pasha, and she shrugged her shoulders. "I would with +pleasure, but God is my witness, he never made me a present of +anything. Believe me, on my conscience. However, you are right, +though," said the singer in confusion, "he did bring me two little +things. Certainly I will give them back, if you wish it." + +Pasha pulled out one of the drawers in the toilet-table and took +out of it a hollow gold bracelet and a thin ring with a ruby in it. + +"Here, madam!" she said, handing the visitor these articles. + +The lady flushed and her face quivered. She was offended. + +"What are you giving me?" she said. "I am not asking for charity, +but for what does not belong to you . . . what you have taken +advantage of your position to squeeze out of my husband . . . that +weak, unhappy man. . . . On Thursday, when I saw you with my husband +at the harbour you were wearing expensive brooches and bracelets. +So it's no use your playing the innocent lamb to me! I ask you for +the last time: will you give me the things, or not?" + +"You are a queer one, upon my word," said Pasha, beginning to feel +offended. "I assure you that, except the bracelet and this little +ring, I've never seen a thing from your Nikolay Petrovitch. He +brings me nothing but sweet cakes." + +"Sweet cakes!" laughed the stranger. "At home the children have +nothing to eat, and here you have sweet cakes. You absolutely refuse +to restore the presents?" + +Receiving no answer, the lady sat, down and stared into space, +pondering. + +"What's to be done now?" she said. "If I don't get nine hundred +roubles, he is ruined, and the children and I am ruined, too. Shall +I kill this low woman or go down on my knees to her?" + +The lady pressed her handkerchief to her face and broke into sobs. + +"I beg you!" Pasha heard through the stranger's sobs. "You see you +have plundered and ruined my husband. Save him. . . . You have no +feeling for him, but the children . . . the children . . . What +have the children done?" + +Pasha imagined little children standing in the street, crying with +hunger, and she, too, sobbed. + +"What can I do, madam?" she said. "You say that I am a low woman +and that I have ruined Nikolay Petrovitch, and I assure you . . . +before God Almighty, I have had nothing from him whatever. . . . +There is only one girl in our chorus who has a rich admirer; all +the rest of us live from hand to mouth on bread and kvass. Nikolay +Petrovitch is a highly educated, refined gentleman, so I've made +him welcome. We are bound to make gentlemen welcome." + +"I ask you for the things! Give me the things! I am crying. . . . +I am humiliating myself. . . . If you like I will go down on my +knees! If you wish it!" + +Pasha shrieked with horror and waved her hands. She felt that this +pale, beautiful lady who expressed herself so grandly, as though +she were on the stage, really might go down on her knees to her, +simply from pride, from grandeur, to exalt herself and humiliate +the chorus girl. + +"Very well, I will give you things!" said Pasha, wiping her eyes +and bustling about. "By all means. Only they are not from Nikolay +Petrovitch. . . . I got these from other gentlemen. As you +please. . . ." + +Pasha pulled out the upper drawer of the chest, took out a diamond +brooch, a coral necklace, some rings and bracelets, and gave them +all to the lady. + +"Take them if you like, only I've never had anything from your +husband. Take them and grow rich," Pasha went on, offended at the +threat to go down on her knees. "And if you are a lady . . . his +lawful wife, you should keep him to yourself. I should think so! I +did not ask him to come; he came of himself." + +Through her tears the lady scrutinized the articles given her and +said: + +"This isn't everything. . . . There won't be five hundred roubles' +worth here." + +Pasha impulsively flung out of the chest a gold watch, a cigar-case +and studs, and said, flinging up her hands: + +"I've nothing else left. . . . You can search!" + +The visitor gave a sigh, with trembling hands twisted the things +up in her handkerchief, and went out without uttering a word, without +even nodding her head. + +The door from the next room opened and Kolpakov walked in. He was +pale and kept shaking his head nervously, as though he had swallowed +something very bitter; tears were glistening in his eyes. + +"What presents did you make me?" Pasha asked, pouncing upon him. +"When did you, allow me to ask you?" + +"Presents . . . that's no matter!" said Kolpakov, and he tossed his +head. "My God! She cried before you, she humbled herself. . . ." + +"I am asking you, what presents did you make me?" Pasha cried. + +"My God! She, a lady, so proud, so pure. . . . She was ready to go +down on her knees to . . . to this wench! And I've brought her to +this! I've allowed it!" + +He clutched his head in his hands and moaned. + +"No, I shall never forgive myself for this! I shall never forgive +myself! Get away from me . . . you low creature!" he cried with +repulsion, backing away from Pasha, and thrusting her off with +trembling hands. "She would have gone down on her knees, and . . . +and to you! Oh, my God!" + +He rapidly dressed, and pushing Pasha aside contemptuously, made +for the door and went out. + +Pasha lay down and began wailing aloud. She was already regretting +her things which she had given away so impulsively, and her feelings +were hurt. She remembered how three years ago a merchant had beaten +her for no sort of reason, and she wailed more loudly than ever. + + +VEROTCHKA + +IVAN ALEXEYITCH OGNEV remembers how on that August evening he opened +the glass door with a rattle and went out on to the verandah. He +was wearing a light Inverness cape and a wide-brimmed straw hat, +the very one that was lying with his top-boots in the dust under +his bed. In one hand he had a big bundle of books and notebooks, +in the other a thick knotted stick. + +Behind the door, holding the lamp to show the way, stood the master +of the house, Kuznetsov, a bald old man with a long grey beard, in +a snow-white piqué jacket. The old man was smiling cordially and +nodding his head. + +"Good-bye, old fellow!" said Ognev. + +Kuznetsov put the lamp on a little table and went out to the verandah. +Two long narrow shadows moved down the steps towards the flower-beds, +swayed to and fro, and leaned their heads on the trunks of the +lime-trees. + +"Good-bye and once more thank you, my dear fellow!" said Ivan +Alexeyitch. "Thank you for your welcome, for your kindness, for +your affection. . . . I shall never forget your hospitality as long +as I live. You are so good, and your daughter is so good, and +everyone here is so kind, so good-humoured and friendly . . . Such +a splendid set of people that I don't know how to say what I feel!" + +From excess of feeling and under the influence of the home-made +wine he had just drunk, Ognev talked in a singing voice like a +divinity student, and was so touched that he expressed his feelings +not so much by words as by the blinking of his eyes and the twitching +of his shoulders. Kuznetsov, who had also drunk a good deal and was +touched, craned forward to the young man and kissed him. + +"I've grown as fond of you as if I were your dog," Ognev went on. +"I've been turning up here almost every day; I've stayed the night +a dozen times. It's dreadful to think of all the home-made wine +I've drunk. And thank you most of all for your co-operation and +help. Without you I should have been busy here over my statistics +till October. I shall put in my preface: 'I think it my duty to +express my gratitude to the President of the District Zemstvo of +N----, Kuznetsov, for his kind co-operation.' There is a brilliant +future before statistics! My humble respects to Vera Gavrilovna, +and tell the doctors, both the lawyers and your secretary, that I +shall never forget their help! And now, old fellow, let us embrace +one another and kiss for the last time!" + +Ognev, limp with emotion, kissed the old man once more and began +going down the steps. On the last step he looked round and asked: +"Shall we meet again some day?" + +"God knows!" said the old man. "Most likely not!" + +"Yes, that's true! Nothing will tempt you to Petersburg and I am +never likely to turn up in this district again. Well, good-bye!" + +"You had better leave the books behind!" Kuznetsov called after +him. "You don't want to drag such a weight with you. I would send +them by a servant to-morrow!" + +But Ognev was rapidly walking away from the house and was not +listening. His heart, warmed by the wine, was brimming over with +good-humour, friendliness, and sadness. He walked along thinking +how frequently one met with good people, and what a pity it was +that nothing was left of those meetings but memories. At times one +catches a glimpse of cranes on the horizon, and a faint gust of +wind brings their plaintive, ecstatic cry, and a minute later, +however greedily one scans the blue distance, one cannot see a speck +nor catch a sound; and like that, people with their faces and their +words flit through our lives and are drowned in the past, leaving +nothing except faint traces in the memory. Having been in the N---- +District from the early spring, and having been almost every day +at the friendly Kuznetsovs', Ivan Alexeyitch had become as much at +home with the old man, his daughter, and the servants as though +they were his own people; he had grown familiar with the whole house +to the smallest detail, with the cosy verandah, the windings of the +avenues, the silhouettes of the trees over the kitchen and the +bath-house; but as soon as he was out of the gate all this would +be changed to memory and would lose its meaning as reality for ever, +and in a year or two all these dear images would grow as dim in his +consciousness as stories he had read or things he had imagined. + +"Nothing in life is so precious as people!" Ognev thought in his +emotion, as he strode along the avenue to the gate. "Nothing!" + +It was warm and still in the garden. There was a scent of the +mignonette, of the tobacco-plants, and of the heliotrope, which +were not yet over in the flower-beds. The spaces between the bushes +and the tree-trunks were filled with a fine soft mist soaked through +and through with moonlight, and, as Ognev long remembered, coils +of mist that looked like phantoms slowly but perceptibly followed +one another across the avenue. The moon stood high above the garden, +and below it transparent patches of mist were floating eastward. +The whole world seemed to consist of nothing but black silhouettes +and wandering white shadows. Ognev, seeing the mist on a moonlight +August evening almost for the first time in his life, imagined he +was seeing, not nature, but a stage effect in which unskilful +workmen, trying to light up the garden with white Bengal fire, hid +behind the bushes and let off clouds of white smoke together with +the light. + +When Ognev reached the garden gate a dark shadow moved away from +the low fence and came towards him. + +"Vera Gavrilovna!" he said, delighted. "You here? And I have been +looking everywhere for you; wanted to say good-bye. . . . Good-bye; +I am going away!" + +"So early? Why, it's only eleven o'clock." + +"Yes, it's time I was off. I have a four-mile walk and then my +packing. I must be up early to-morrow." + +Before Ognev stood Kuznetsov's daughter Vera, a girl of one-and-twenty, +as usual melancholy, carelessly dressed, and attractive. Girls who +are dreamy and spend whole days lying down, lazily reading whatever +they come across, who are bored and melancholy, are usually careless +in their dress. To those of them who have been endowed by nature +with taste and an instinct of beauty, the slight carelessness adds +a special charm. When Ognev later on remembered her, he could not +picture pretty Verotchka except in a full blouse which was crumpled +in deep folds at the belt and yet did not touch her waist; without +her hair done up high and a curl that had come loose from it on her +forehead; without the knitted red shawl with ball fringe at the +edge which hung disconsolately on Vera's shoulders in the evenings, +like a flag on a windless day, and in the daytime lay about, crushed +up, in the hall near the men's hats or on a box in the dining-room, +where the old cat did not hesitate to sleep on it. This shawl and +the folds of her blouse suggested a feeling of freedom and laziness, +of good-nature and sitting at home. Perhaps because Vera attracted +Ognev he saw in every frill and button something warm, naïve, cosy, +something nice and poetical, just what is lacking in cold, insincere +women that have no instinct for beauty. + +Verotchka had a good figure, a regular profile, and beautiful curly +hair. Ognev, who had seen few women in his life, thought her a +beauty. + +"I am going away," he said as he took leave of her at the gate. +"Don't remember evil against me! Thank you for everything!" + +In the same singing divinity student's voice in which he had talked +to her father, with the same blinking and twitching of his shoulders, +he began thanking Vera for her hospitality, kindness, and friendliness. + +"I've written about you in every letter to my mother," he said. "If +everyone were like you and your dad, what a jolly place the world +would be! You are such a splendid set of people! All such genuine, +friendly people with no nonsense about you." + +"Where are you going to now?" asked Vera. + +"I am going now to my mother's at Oryol; I shall be a fortnight +with her, and then back to Petersburg and work." + +"And then?" + +"And then? I shall work all the winter and in the spring go somewhere +into the provinces again to collect material. Well, be happy, live +a hundred years . . . don't remember evil against me. We shall not +see each other again." + +Ognev stooped down and kissed Vera's hand. Then, in silent emotion, +he straightened his cape, shifted his bundle of books to a more +comfortable position, paused, and said: + +"What a lot of mist!" + +"Yes. Have you left anything behind?" + +"No, I don't think so. . . ." + +For some seconds Ognev stood in silence, then he moved clumsily +towards the gate and went out of the garden. + +"Stay; I'll see you as far as our wood," said Vera, following him +out. + +They walked along the road. Now the trees did not obscure the view, +and one could see the sky and the distance. As though covered with +a veil all nature was hidden in a transparent, colourless haze +through which her beauty peeped gaily; where the mist was thicker +and whiter it lay heaped unevenly about the stones, stalks, and +bushes or drifted in coils over the road, clung close to the earth +and seemed trying not to conceal the view. Through the haze they +could see all the road as far as the wood, with dark ditches at the +sides and tiny bushes which grew in the ditches and caught the +straying wisps of mist. Half a mile from the gate they saw the dark +patch of Kuznetsov's wood. + +"Why has she come with me? I shall have to see her back," thought +Ognev, but looking at her profile he gave a friendly smile and said: +"One doesn't want to go away in such lovely weather. It's quite a +romantic evening, with the moon, the stillness, and all the etceteras. +Do you know, Vera Gavrilovna, here I have lived twenty-nine years +in the world and never had a romance. No romantic episode in my +whole life, so that I only know by hearsay of rendezvous, 'avenues +of sighs,' and kisses. It's not normal! In town, when one sits in +one's lodgings, one does not notice the blank, but here in the fresh +air one feels it. . . . One resents it!" + +"Why is it?" + +"I don't know. I suppose I've never had time, or perhaps it was I +have never met women who. . . . In fact, I have very few acquaintances +and never go anywhere." + +For some three hundred paces the young people walked on in silence. +Ognev kept glancing at Verotchka's bare head and shawl, and days +of spring and summer rose to his mind one after another. It had +been a period when far from his grey Petersburg lodgings, enjoying +the friendly warmth of kind people, nature, and the work he loved, +he had not had time to notice how the sunsets followed the glow of +dawn, and how, one after another foretelling the end of summer, +first the nightingale ceased singing, then the quail, then a little +later the landrail. The days slipped by unnoticed, so that life +must have been happy and easy. He began calling aloud how reluctantly +he, poor and unaccustomed to change of scene and society, had come +at the end of April to the N---- District, where he had expected +dreariness, loneliness, and indifference to statistics, which he +considered was now the foremost among the sciences. When he arrived +on an April morning at the little town of N---- he had put up at +the inn kept by Ryabuhin, the Old Believer, where for twenty kopecks +a day they had given him a light, clean room on condition that he +should not smoke indoors. After resting and finding who was the +president of the District Zemstvo, he had set off at once on foot +to Kuznetsov. He had to walk three miles through lush meadows and +young copses. Larks were hovering in the clouds, filling the air +with silvery notes, and rooks flapping their wings with sedate +dignity floated over the green cornland. + +"Good heavens!" Ognev had thought in wonder; "can it be that there's +always air like this to breathe here, or is this scent only to-day, +in honour of my coming?" + +Expecting a cold business-like reception, he went in to Kuznetsov's +diffidently, looking up from under his eyebrows and shyly pulling +his beard. At first Kuznetsov wrinkled up his brows and could not +understand what use the Zemstvo could be to the young man and his +statistics; but when the latter explained at length what was material +for statistics and how such material was collected, Kuznetsov +brightened, smiled, and with childish curiosity began looking at +his notebooks. On the evening of the same day Ivan Alexeyitch was +already sitting at supper with the Kuznetsovs, was rapidly becoming +exhilarated by their strong home-made wine, and looking at the calm +faces and lazy movements of his new acquaintances, felt all over +that sweet, drowsy indolence which makes one want to sleep and +stretch and smile; while his new acquaintances looked at him +good-naturedly and asked him whether his father and mother were +living, how much he earned a month, how often he went to the +theatre. . . . + +Ognev recalled his expeditions about the neighbourhood, the picnics, +the fishing parties, the visit of the whole party to the convent +to see the Mother Superior Marfa, who had given each of the visitors +a bead purse; he recalled the hot, endless typically Russian arguments +in which the opponents, spluttering and banging the table with their +fists, misunderstand and interrupt one another, unconsciously +contradict themselves at every phrase, continually change the +subject, and after arguing for two or three hours, laugh and say: +"Goodness knows what we have been arguing about! Beginning with one +thing and going on to another!" + +"And do you remember how the doctor and you and I rode to Shestovo?" +said Ivan Alexeyitch to Vera as they reached the copse. "It was +there that the crazy saint met us: I gave him a five-kopeck piece, +and he crossed himself three times and flung it into the rye. Good +heavens! I am carrying away such a mass of memories that if I could +gather them together into a whole it would make a good nugget of +gold! I don't understand why clever, perceptive people crowd into +Petersburg and Moscow and don't come here. Is there more truth and +freedom in the Nevsky and in the big damp houses than here? Really, +the idea of artists, scientific men, and journalists all living +crowded together in furnished rooms has always seemed to me a +mistake." + +Twenty paces from the copse the road was crossed by a small narrow +bridge with posts at the corners, which had always served as a +resting-place for the Kuznetsovs and their guests on their evening +walks. From there those who liked could mimic the forest echo, and +one could see the road vanish in the dark woodland track. + +"Well, here is the bridge!" said Ognev. "Here you must turn back." + +Vera stopped and drew a breath. + +"Let us sit down," she said, sitting down on one of the posts. +"People generally sit down when they say good-bye before starting +on a journey." + +Ognev settled himself beside her on his bundle of books and went +on talking. She was breathless from the walk, and was looking, not +at Ivan Alexeyitch, but away into the distance so that he could not +see her face. + +"And what if we meet in ten years' time?" he said. "What shall we +be like then? You will be by then the respectable mother of a family, +and I shall be the author of some weighty statistical work of no +use to anyone, as thick as forty thousand such works. We shall meet +and think of old days. . . . Now we are conscious of the present; +it absorbs and excites us, but when we meet we shall not remember +the day, nor the month, nor even the year in which we saw each other +for the last time on this bridge. You will be changed, perhaps +. . . . Tell me, will you be different?" + +Vera started and turned her face towards him. + +"What?" she asked. + +"I asked you just now. . . ." + +"Excuse me, I did not hear what you were saying." + +Only then Ognev noticed a change in Vera. She was pale, breathing +fast, and the tremor in her breathing affected her hands and lips +and head, and not one curl as usual, but two, came loose and fell +on her forehead. . . . Evidently she avoided looking him in the +face, and, trying to mask her emotion, at one moment fingered her +collar, which seemed to be rasping her neck, at another pulled her +red shawl from one shoulder to the other. + +"I am afraid you are cold," said Ognev. "It's not at all wise to +sit in the mist. Let me see you back _nach-haus_." + +Vera sat mute. + +"What is the matter?" asked Ognev, with a smile. "You sit silent +and don't answer my questions. Are you cross, or don't you feel +well?" + +Vera pressed the palm of her hand to the cheek nearest to Ognev, +and then abruptly jerked it away. + +"An awful position!" she murmured, with a look of pain on her face. +"Awful!" + +"How is it awful?" asked Ognev, shrugging his shoulders and not +concealing his surprise. "What's the matter?" + +Still breathing hard and twitching her shoulders, Vera turned her +back to him, looked at the sky for half a minute, and said: + +"There is something I must say to you, Ivan Alexeyitch. . . ." + +"I am listening." + +"It may seem strange to you. . . . You will be surprised, but I +don't care. . . ." + +Ognev shrugged his shoulders once more and prepared himself to +listen. + +"You see . . ." Verotchka began, bowing her head and fingering a +ball on the fringe of her shawl. "You see . . . this is what I +wanted to tell you. . . . You'll think it strange . . . and silly, +but I . . . can't bear it any longer." + +Vera's words died away in an indistinct mutter and were suddenly +cut short by tears. The girl hid her face in her handkerchief, bent +lower than ever, and wept bitterly. Ivan Alexeyitch cleared his +throat in confusion and looked about him hopelessly, at his wits' +end, not knowing what to say or do. Being unused to the sight of +tears, he felt his own eyes, too, beginning to smart. + +"Well, what next!" he muttered helplessly. "Vera Gavrilovna, what's +this for, I should like to know? My dear girl, are you . . . are +you ill? Or has someone been nasty to you? Tell me, perhaps I could, +so to say . . . help you. . . ." + +When, trying to console her, he ventured cautiously to remove her +hands from her face, she smiled at him through her tears and said: + +"I . . . love you!" + +These words, so simple and ordinary, were uttered in ordinary human +language, but Ognev, in acute embarrassment, turned away from Vera, +and got up, while his confusion was followed by terror. + +The sad, warm, sentimental mood induced by leave-taking and the +home-made wine suddenly vanished, and gave place to an acute and +unpleasant feeling of awkwardness. He felt an inward revulsion; he +looked askance at Vera, and now that by declaring her love for him +she had cast off the aloofness which so adds to a woman's charm, +she seemed to him, as it were, shorter, plainer, more ordinary. + +"What's the meaning of it?" he thought with horror. "But I . . . +do I love her or not? That's the question!" + +And she breathed easily and freely now that the worst and most +difficult thing was said. She, too, got up, and looking Ivan +Alexeyitch straight in the face, began talking rapidly, warmly, +irrepressibly. + +As a man suddenly panic-stricken cannot afterwards remember the +succession of sounds accompanying the catastrophe that overwhelmed +him, so Ognev cannot remember Vera's words and phrases. He can only +recall the meaning of what she said, and the sensation her words +evoked in him. He remembers her voice, which seemed stifled and +husky with emotion, and the extraordinary music and passion of her +intonation. Laughing, crying with tears glistening on her eyelashes, +she told him that from the first day of their acquaintance he had +struck her by his originality, his intelligence, his kind intelligent +eyes, by his work and objects in life; that she loved him passionately, +deeply, madly; that when coming into the house from the garden in +the summer she saw his cape in the hall or heard his voice in the +distance, she felt a cold shudder at her heart, a foreboding of +happiness; even his slightest jokes had made her laugh; in every +figure in his note-books she saw something extraordinarily wise and +grand; his knotted stick seemed to her more beautiful than the +trees. + +The copse and the wisps of mist and the black ditches at the side +of the road seemed hushed listening to her, whilst something strange +and unpleasant was passing in Ognev's heart. . . . Telling him of +her love, Vera was enchantingly beautiful; she spoke eloquently and +passionately, but he felt neither pleasure nor gladness, as he would +have liked to; he felt nothing but compassion for Vera, pity and +regret that a good girl should be distressed on his account. Whether +he was affected by generalizations from reading or by the insuperable +habit of looking at things objectively, which so often hinders +people from living, but Vera's ecstasies and suffering struck him +as affected, not to be taken seriously, and at the same time +rebellious feeling whispered to him that all he was hearing and +seeing now, from the point of view of nature and personal happiness, +was more important than any statistics and books and truths. . . . +And he raged and blamed himself, though he did not understand exactly +where he was in fault. + +To complete his embarrassment, he was absolutely at a loss what to +say, and yet something he must say. To say bluntly, "I don't love +you," was beyond him, and he could not bring himself to say "Yes," +because however much he rummaged in his heart he could not find one +spark of feeling in it. . . . + +He was silent, and she meanwhile was saying that for her there was +no greater happiness than to see him, to follow him wherever he +liked this very moment, to be his wife and helper, and that if he +went away from her she would die of misery. + +"I cannot stay here!" she said, wringing her hands. "I am sick of +the house and this wood and the air. I cannot bear the everlasting +peace and aimless life, I can't endure our colourless, pale people, +who are all as like one another as two drops of water! They are all +good-natured and warm-hearted because they are all well-fed and +know nothing of struggle or suffering, . . . I want to be in those +big damp houses where people suffer, embittered by work and +need. . ." + +And this, too, seemed to Ognev affected and not to be taken seriously. +When Vera had finished he still did not know what to say, but it +was impossible to be silent, and he muttered: + +"Vera Gavrilovna, I am very grateful to you, though I feel I've +done nothing to deserve such . . . feeling . . . on your part. +Besides, as an honest man I ought to tell you that . . . happiness +depends on equality--that is, when both parties are . . . equally +in love. . . ." + +But he was immediately ashamed of his mutterings and ceased. He +felt that his face at that moment looked stupid, guilty, blank, +that it was strained and affected. . . . Vera must have been able +to read the truth on his countenance, for she suddenly became grave, +turned pale, and bent her head. + +"You must forgive me," Ognev muttered, not able to endure the +silence. "I respect you so much that . . . it pains me. . . ." + +Vera turned sharply and walked rapidly homewards. Ognev followed +her. + +"No, don't!" said Vera, with a wave of her hand. "Don't come; I can +go alone." + +"Oh, yes . . . I must see you home anyway." + +Whatever Ognev said, it all to the last word struck him as loathsome +and flat. The feeling of guilt grew greater at every step. He raged +inwardly, clenched his fists, and cursed his coldness and his +stupidity with women. Trying to stir his feelings, he looked at +Verotchka's beautiful figure, at her hair and the traces of her +little feet on the dusty road; he remembered her words and her +tears, but all that only touched his heart and did not quicken his +pulse. + +"Ach! one can't force oneself to love," he assured himself, and at +the same time he thought, "But shall I ever fall in love without? +I am nearly thirty! I have never met anyone better than Vera and I +never shall. . . . Oh, this premature old age! Old age at thirty!" + +Vera walked on in front more and more rapidly, without looking back +at him or raising her head. It seemed to him that sorrow had made +her thinner and narrower in the shoulders. + +"I can imagine what's going on in her heart now!" he thought, looking +at her back. "She must be ready to die with shame and mortification! +My God, there's so much life, poetry, and meaning in it that it +would move a stone, and I . . . I am stupid and absurd!" + +At the gate Vera stole a glance at him, and, shrugging and wrapping +her shawl round her walked rapidly away down the avenue. + +Ivan Alexeyitch was left alone. Going back to the copse, he walked +slowly, continually standing still and looking round at the gate +with an expression in his whole figure that suggested that he could +not believe his own memory. He looked for Vera's footprints on the +road, and could not believe that the girl who had so attracted him +had just declared her love, and that he had so clumsily and bluntly +"refused" her. For the first time in his life it was his lot to +learn by experience how little that a man does depends on his own +will, and to suffer in his own person the feelings of a decent +kindly man who has against his will caused his neighbour cruel, +undeserved anguish. + +His conscience tormented him, and when Vera disappeared he felt as +though he had lost something very precious, something very near and +dear which he could never find again. He felt that with Vera a part +of his youth had slipped away from him, and that the moments which +he had passed through so fruitlessly would never be repeated. + +When he reached the bridge he stopped and sank into thought. He +wanted to discover the reason of his strange coldness. That it was +due to something within him and not outside himself was clear to +him. He frankly acknowledged to himself that it was not the +intellectual coldness of which clever people so often boast, not +the coldness of a conceited fool, but simply impotence of soul, +incapacity for being moved by beauty, premature old age brought on +by education, his casual existence, struggling for a livelihood, +his homeless life in lodgings. From the bridge he walked slowly, +as it were reluctantly, into the wood. Here, where in the dense +black darkness glaring patches of moonlight gleamed here and there, +where he felt nothing except his thoughts, he longed passionately +to regain what he had lost. + +And Ivan Alexeyitch remembers that he went back again. Urging himself +on with his memories, forcing himself to picture Vera, he strode +rapidly towards the garden. There was no mist by then along the +road or in the garden, and the bright moon looked down from the sky +as though it had just been washed; only the eastern sky was dark +and misty. . . . Ognev remembers his cautious steps, the dark +windows, the heavy scent of heliotrope and mignonette. His old +friend Karo, wagging his tail amicably, came up to him and sniffed +his hand. This was the one living creature who saw him walk two or +three times round the house, stand near Vera's dark window, and +with a deep sigh and a wave of his hand walk out of the garden. + +An hour later he was in the town, and, worn out and exhausted, +leaned his body and hot face against the gatepost of the inn as he +knocked at the gate. Somewhere in the town a dog barked sleepily, +and as though in response to his knock, someone clanged the hour +on an iron plate near the church. + +"You prowl about at night," grumbled his host, the Old Believer, +opening the door to him, in a long nightgown like a woman's. "You +had better be saying your prayers instead of prowling about." + +When Ivan Alexeyitch reached his room he sank on the bed and gazed +a long, long time at the light. Then he tossed his head and began +packing. + + +MY LIFE + +THE STORY OF A PROVINCIAL + +I + +THE Superintendent said to me: "I only keep you out of regard for +your worthy father; but for that you would have been sent flying +long ago." I replied to him: "You flatter me too much, your Excellency, +in assuming that I am capable of flying." And then I heard him say: +"Take that gentleman away; he gets upon my nerves." + +Two days later I was dismissed. And in this way I have, during the +years I have been regarded as grown up, lost nine situations, to +the great mortification of my father, the architect of our town. I +have served in various departments, but all these nine jobs have +been as alike as one drop of water is to another: I had to sit, +write, listen to rude or stupid observations, and go on doing so +till I was dismissed. + +When I came in to my father he was sitting buried in a low arm-chair +with his eyes closed. His dry, emaciated face, with a shade of dark +blue where it was shaved (he looked like an old Catholic organist), +expressed meekness and resignation. Without responding to my greeting +or opening his eyes, he said: + +"If my dear wife and your mother were living, your life would have +been a source of continual distress to her. I see the Divine +Providence in her premature death. I beg you, unhappy boy," he +continued, opening his eyes, "tell me: what am I to do with you?" + +In the past when I was younger my friends and relations had known +what to do with me: some of them used to advise me to volunteer for +the army, others to get a job in a pharmacy, and others in the +telegraph department; now that I am over twenty-five, that grey +hairs are beginning to show on my temples, and that I have been +already in the army, and in a pharmacy, and in the telegraph +department, it would seem that all earthly possibilities have been +exhausted, and people have given up advising me, and merely sigh +or shake their heads. + +"What do you think about yourself?" my father went on. "By the time +they are your age, young men have a secure social position, while +look at you: you are a proletarian, a beggar, a burden on your +father!" + +And as usual he proceeded to declare that the young people of to-day +were on the road to perdition through infidelity, materialism, and +self-conceit, and that amateur theatricals ought to be prohibited, +because they seduced young people from religion and their duties. + +"To-morrow we shall go together, and you shall apologize to the +superintendent, and promise him to work conscientiously," he said +in conclusion. "You ought not to remain one single day with no +regular position in society." + +"I beg you to listen to me," I said sullenly, expecting nothing +good from this conversation. "What you call a position in society +is the privilege of capital and education. Those who have neither +wealth nor education earn their daily bread by manual labour, and +I see no grounds for my being an exception." + +"When you begin talking about manual labour it is always stupid and +vulgar!" said my father with irritation. "Understand, you dense +fellow--understand, you addle-pate, that besides coarse physical +strength you have the divine spirit, a spark of the holy fire, which +distinguishes you in the most striking way from the ass or the +reptile, and brings you nearer to the Deity! This fire is the fruit +of the efforts of the best of mankind during thousands of years. +Your great-grandfather Poloznev, the general, fought at Borodino; +your grandfather was a poet, an orator, and a Marshal of Nobility; +your uncle is a schoolmaster; and lastly, I, your father, am an +architect! All the Poloznevs have guarded the sacred fire for you +to put it out!" + +"One must be just," I said. "Millions of people put up with manual +labour." + +"And let them put up with it! They don't know how to do anything +else! Anybody, even the most abject fool or criminal, is capable +of manual labour; such labour is the distinguishing mark of the +slave and the barbarian, while the holy fire is vouchsafed only to +a few!" + +To continue this conversation was unprofitable. My father worshipped +himself, and nothing was convincing to him but what he said himself. +Besides, I knew perfectly well that the disdain with which he talked +of physical toil was founded not so much on reverence for the sacred +fire as on a secret dread that I should become a workman, and should +set the whole town talking about me; what was worse, all my +contemporaries had long ago taken their degrees and were getting +on well, and the son of the manager of the State Bank was already +a collegiate assessor, while I, his only son, was nothing! To +continue the conversation was unprofitable and unpleasant, but I +still sat on and feebly retorted, hoping that I might at last be +understood. The whole question, of course, was clear and simple, +and only concerned with the means of my earning my living; but the +simplicity of it was not seen, and I was talked to in mawkishly +rounded phrases of Borodino, of the sacred fire, of my uncle a +forgotten poet, who had once written poor and artificial verses; I +was rudely called an addlepate and a dense fellow. And how I longed +to be understood! In spite of everything, I loved my father and my +sister and it had been my habit from childhood to consult them-- +a habit so deeply rooted that I doubt whether I could ever have got +rid of it; whether I were in the right or the wrong, I was in +constant dread of wounding them, constantly afraid that my father's +thin neck would turn crimson and that he would have a stroke. + +"To sit in a stuffy room," I began, "to copy, to compete with a +typewriter, is shameful and humiliating for a man of my age. What +can the sacred fire have to do with it?" + +"It's intellectual work, anyway," said my father. "But that's enough; +let us cut short this conversation, and in any case I warn you: if +you don't go back to your work again, but follow your contemptible +propensities, then my daughter and I will banish you from our hearts. +I shall strike you out of my will, I swear by the living God!" + +With perfect sincerity to prove the purity of the motives by which +I wanted to be guided in all my doings, I said: + +"The question of inheritance does not seem very important to me. I +shall renounce it all beforehand." + +For some reason or other, quite to my surprise, these words were +deeply resented by my father. He turned crimson. + +"Don't dare to talk to me like that, stupid!" he shouted in a thin, +shrill voice. "Wastrel!" and with a rapid, skilful, and habitual +movement he slapped me twice in the face. "You are forgetting +yourself." + +When my father beat me as a child I had to stand up straight, with +my hands held stiffly to my trouser seams, and look him straight +in the face. And now when he hit me I was utterly overwhelmed, and, +as though I were still a child, drew myself up and tried to look +him in the face. My father was old and very thin but his delicate +muscles must have been as strong as leather, for his blows hurt a +good deal. + +I staggered back into the passage, and there he snatched up his +umbrella, and with it hit me several times on the head and shoulders; +at that moment my sister opened the drawing-room door to find out +what the noise was, but at once turned away with a look of horror +and pity without uttering a word in my defence. + +My determination not to return to the Government office, but to +begin a new life of toil, was not to be shaken. All that was left +for me to do was to fix upon the special employment, and there was +no particular difficulty about that, as it seemed to me that I was +very strong and fitted for the very heaviest labour. I was faced +with a monotonous life of toil in the midst of hunger, coarseness, +and stench, continually preoccupied with earning my daily bread. +And--who knows?--as I returned from my work along Great Dvoryansky +Street, I might very likely envy Dolzhikov the, engineer, who lived +by intellectual work, but, at the moment, thinking over all my +future hardships made me light-hearted. At times I had dreamed of +spiritual activity, imagining myself a teacher, a doctor, or a +writer, but these dreams remained dreams. The taste for intellectual +pleasures--for the theatre, for instance, and for reading--was +a passion with me, but whether I had any ability for intellectual +work I don't know. At school I had had an unconquerable aversion +for Greek, so that I was only in the fourth class when they had to +take me from school. For a long while I had coaches preparing me +for the fifth class. Then I served in various Government offices, +spending the greater part of the day in complete idleness, and I +was told that was intellectual work. My activity in the scholastic +and official sphere had required neither mental application nor +talent, nor special qualifications, nor creative impulse; it was +mechanical. Such intellectual work I put on a lower level than +physical toil; I despise it, and I don't think that for one moment +it could serve as a justification for an idle, careless life, as +it is indeed nothing but a sham, one of the forms of that same +idleness. Real intellectual work I have in all probability never +known. + +Evening came on. We lived in Great Dvoryansky Street; it was the +principal street in the town, and in the absence of decent public +gardens our _beau monde_ used to use it as a promenade in the +evenings. This charming street did to some extent take the place +of a public garden, as on each side of it there was a row of poplars +which smelt sweet, particularly after rain, and acacias, tall bushes +of lilac, wild-cherries and apple-trees hung over the fences and +palings. The May twilight, the tender young greenery with its +shifting shades, the scent of the lilac, the buzzing of the insects, +the stillness, the warmth--how fresh and marvellous it all is, +though spring is repeated every year! I stood at the garden gate +and watched the passers-by. With most of them I had grown up and +at one time played pranks; now they might have been disconcerted +by my being near them, for I was poorly and unfashionably dressed, +and they used to say of my very narrow trousers and huge, clumsy +boots that they were like sticks of macaroni stuck in boats. Besides, +I had a bad reputation in the town because I had no decent social +position, and used often to play billiards in cheap taverns, and +also, perhaps, because I had on two occasions been hauled up before +an officer of the police, though I had done nothing whatever to +account for this. + +In the big house opposite someone was playing the piano at Dolzhikov's. +It was beginning to get dark, and stars were twinkling in the sky. +Here my father, in an old top-hat with wide upturned brim, walked +slowly by with my sister on his arm, bowing in response to greetings. + +"Look up," he said to my sister, pointing to the sky with the same +umbrella with which he had beaten me that afternoon. "Look up at +the sky! Even the tiniest stars are all worlds! How insignificant +is man in comparison with the universe!" + +And he said this in a tone that suggested that it was particularly +agreeable and flattering to him that he was so insignificant. How +absolutely devoid of talent and imagination he was! Sad to say, he +was the only architect in the town, and in the fifteen to twenty +years that I could remember not one single decent house had been +built in it. When any one asked him to plan a house, he usually +drew first the reception hall and drawing-room: just as in old days +the boarding-school misses always started from the stove when they +danced, so his artistic ideas could only begin and develop from the +hall and drawing-room. To them he tacked on a dining-room, a nursery, +a study, linking the rooms together with doors, and so they all +inevitably turned into passages, and every one of them had two or +even three unnecessary doors. His imagination must have been lacking +in clearness, extremely muddled, curtailed. As though feeling that +something was lacking, he invariably had recourse to all sorts of +outbuildings, planting one beside another; and I can see now the +narrow entries, the poky little passages, the crooked staircases +leading to half-landings where one could not stand upright, and +where, instead of a floor, there were three huge steps like the +shelves of a bath-house; and the kitchen was invariably in the +basement with a brick floor and vaulted ceilings. The front of the +house had a harsh, stubborn expression; the lines of it were stiff +and timid; the roof was low-pitched and, as it were, squashed down; +and the fat, well-fed-looking chimneys were invariably crowned by +wire caps with squeaking black cowls. And for some reason all these +houses, built by my father exactly like one another, vaguely reminded +me of his top-hat and the back of his head, stiff and stubborn-looking. +In the course of years they have grown used in the town to the +poverty of my father's imagination. It has taken root and become +our local style. + +This same style my father had brought into my sister's life also, +beginning with christening her Kleopatra (just as he had named me +Misail). When she was a little girl he scared her by references to +the stars, to the sages of ancient times, to our ancestors, and +discoursed at length on the nature of life and duty; and now, when +she was twenty-six, he kept up the same habits, allowing her to +walk arm in arm with no one but himself, and imagining for some +reason that sooner or later a suitable young man would be sure to +appear, and to desire to enter into matrimony with her from respect +for his personal qualities. She adored my father, feared him, and +believed in his exceptional intelligence. + +It was quite dark, and gradually the street grew empty. The music +had ceased in the house opposite; the gate was thrown wide open, +and a team with three horses trotted frolicking along our street +with a soft tinkle of little bells. That was the engineer going for +a drive with his daughter. It was bedtime. + +I had my own room in the house, but I lived in a shed in the yard, +under the same roof as a brick barn which had been built some time +or other, probably to keep harness in; great hooks were driven into +the wall. Now it was not wanted, and for the last thirty years my +father had stowed away in it his newspapers, which for some reason +he had bound in half-yearly volumes and allowed nobody to touch. +Living here, I was less liable to be seen by my father and his +visitors, and I fancied that if I did not live in a real room, and +did not go into the house every day to dinner, my father's words +that I was a burden upon him did not sound so offensive. + +My sister was waiting for me. Unseen by my father, she had brought +me some supper: not a very large slice of cold veal and a piece of +bread. In our house such sayings as: "A penny saved is a penny +gained," and "Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care +of themselves," and so on, were frequently repeated, and my sister, +weighed down by these vulgar maxims, did her utmost to cut down the +expenses, and so we fared badly. Putting the plate on the table, +she sat down on my bed and began to cry. + +"Misail," she said, "what a way to treat us!" + +She did not cover her face; her tears dropped on her bosom and +hands, and there was a look of distress on her face. She fell back +on the pillow, and abandoned herself to her tears, sobbing and +quivering all over. + +"You have left the service again . . ." she articulated. "Oh, how +awful it is!" + +"But do understand, sister, do understand . . . ." I said, and I +was overcome with despair because she was crying. + +As ill-luck would have it, the kerosene in my little lamp was +exhausted; it began to smoke, and was on the point of going out, +and the old hooks on the walls looked down sullenly, and their +shadows flickered. + +"Have mercy on us," said my sister, sitting up. "Father is in +terrible distress and I am ill; I shall go out of my mind. What +will become of you?" she said, sobbing and stretching out her arms +to me. "I beg you, I implore you, for our dear mother's sake, I beg +you to go back to the office!" + +"I can't, Kleopatra!" I said, feeling that a little more and I +should give way. "I cannot!" + +"Why not?" my sister went on. "Why not? Well, if you can't get on +with the Head, look out for another post. Why shouldn't you get a +situation on the railway, for instance? I have just been talking +to Anyuta Blagovo; she declares they would take you on the railway-line, +and even promised to try and get a post for you. For God's sake, +Misail, think a little! Think a little, I implore you." + +We talked a little longer and I gave way. I said that the thought +of a job on the railway that was being constructed had never occurred +to me, and that if she liked I was ready to try it. + +She smiled joyfully through her tears and squeezed my hand, and +then went on crying because she could not stop, while I went to the +kitchen for some kerosene. + +II + +Among the devoted supporters of amateur theatricals, concerts and +_tableaux vivants_ for charitable objects the Azhogins, who lived +in their own house in Great Dvoryansky Street, took a foremost +place; they always provided the room, and took upon themselves all +the troublesome arrangements and the expenses. They were a family +of wealthy landowners who had an estate of some nine thousand acres +in the district and a capital house, but they did not care for the +country, and lived winter and summer alike in the town. The family +consisted of the mother, a tall, spare, refined lady, with short +hair, a short jacket, and a flat-looking skirt in the English +fashion, and three daughters who, when they were spoken of, were +called not by their names but simply: the eldest, the middle, and +the youngest. They all had ugly sharp chins, and were short-sighted +and round-shouldered. They were dressed like their mother, they +lisped disagreeably, and yet, in spite of that, infallibly took +part in every performance and were continually doing something with +a charitable object--acting, reciting, singing. They were very +serious and never smiled, and even in a musical comedy they played +without the faintest trace of gaiety, with a businesslike air, as +though they were engaged in bookkeeping. + +I loved our theatricals, especially the numerous, noisy, and rather +incoherent rehearsals, after which they always gave a supper. In +the choice of the plays and the distribution of the parts I had no +hand at all. The post assigned to me lay behind the scenes. I painted +the scenes, copied out the parts, prompted, made up the actors' +faces; and I was entrusted, too, with various stage effects such +as thunder, the singing of nightingales, and so on. Since I had no +proper social position and no decent clothes, at the rehearsals I +held aloof from the rest in the shadows of the wings and maintained +a shy silence. + +I painted the scenes at the Azhogins' either in the barn or in the +yard. I was assisted by Andrey Ivanov, a house painter, or, as he +called himself, a contractor for all kinds of house decorations, a +tall, very thin, pale man of fifty, with a hollow chest, with sunken +temples, with blue rings round his eyes, rather terrible to look +at in fact. He was afflicted with some internal malady, and every +autumn and spring people said that he wouldn't recover, but after +being laid up for a while he would get up and say afterwards with +surprise: "I have escaped dying again." + +In the town he was called Radish, and they declared that this was +his real name. He was as fond of the theatre as I was, and as soon +as rumours reached him that a performance was being got up he threw +aside all his work and went to the Azhogins' to paint scenes. + +The day after my talk with my sister, I was working at the Azhogins' +from morning till night. The rehearsal was fixed for seven o'clock +in the evening, and an hour before it began all the amateurs were +gathered together in the hall, and the eldest, the middle, and the +youngest Azhogins were pacing about the stage, reading from manuscript +books. Radish, in a long rusty-red overcoat and a scarf muffled +round his neck, already stood leaning with his head against the +wall, gazing with a devout expression at the stage. Madame Azhogin +went up first to one and then to another guest, saying something +agreeable to each. She had a way of gazing into one's face, and +speaking softly as though telling a secret. + +"It must be difficult to paint scenery," she said softly, coming +up to me. "I was just talking to Madame Mufke about superstitions +when I saw you come in. My goodness, my whole life I have been +waging war against superstitions! To convince the servants what +nonsense all their terrors are, I always light three candles, and +begin all my important undertakings on the thirteenth of the month." + +Dolzhikov's daughter came in, a plump, fair beauty, dressed, as +people said, in everything from Paris. She did not act, but a chair +was set for her on the stage at the rehearsals, and the performances +never began till she had appeared in the front row, dazzling and +astounding everyone with her fine clothes. As a product of the +capital she was allowed to make remarks during the rehearsals; and +she did so with a sweet indulgent smile, and one could see that she +looked upon our performance as a childish amusement. It was said +she had studied singing at the Petersburg Conservatoire, and even +sang for a whole winter in a private opera. I thought her very +charming, and I usually watched her through the rehearsals and +performances without taking my eyes off her. + +I had just picked up the manuscript book to begin prompting when +my sister suddenly made her appearance. Without taking off her cloak +or hat, she came up to me and said: + +"Come along, I beg you." + +I went with her. Anyuta Blagovo, also in her hat and wearing a dark +veil, was standing behind the scenes at the door. She was the +daughter of the Assistant President of the Court, who had held that +office in our town almost ever since the establishment of the circuit +court. Since she was tall and had a good figure, her assistance was +considered indispensable for _tableaux vivants_, and when she +represented a fairy or something like Glory her face burned with +shame; but she took no part in dramatic performances, and came to +the rehearsals only for a moment on some special errand, and did +not go into the hall. Now, too, it was evident that she had only +looked in for a minute. + +"My father was speaking about you," she said drily, blushing and +not looking at me. "Dolzhikov has promised you a post on the +railway-line. Apply to him to-morrow; he will be at home." + +I bowed and thanked her for the trouble she had taken. + +"And you can give up this," she said, indicating the exercise book. + +My sister and she went up to Madame Azhogin and for two minutes +they were whispering with her looking towards me; they were consulting +about something. + +"Yes, indeed," said Madame Azhogin, softly coming up to me and +looking intently into my face. "Yes, indeed, if this distracts you +from serious pursuits"--she took the manuscript book from my hands +--"you can hand it over to someone else; don't distress yourself, +my friend, go home, and good luck to you." + +I said good-bye to her, and went away overcome with confusion. As +I went down the stairs I saw my sister and Anyuta Blagovo going +away; they were hastening along, talking eagerly about something, +probably about my going into the railway service. My sister had +never been at a rehearsal before, and now she was most likely +conscience-stricken, and afraid her father might find out that, +without his permission, she had been to the Azhogins'! + +I went to Dolzhikov's next day between twelve and one. The footman +conducted me into a very beautiful room, which was the engineer's +drawing-room, and, at the same time, his working study. Everything +here was soft and elegant, and, for a man so unaccustomed to luxury +as I was, it seemed strange. There were costly rugs, huge arm-chairs, +bronzes, pictures, gold and plush frames; among the photographs +scattered about the walls there were very beautiful women, clever, +lovely faces, easy attitudes; from the drawing-room there was a +door leading straight into the garden on to a verandah: one could +see lilac-trees; one could see a table laid for lunch, a number of +bottles, a bouquet of roses; there was a fragrance of spring and +expensive cigars, a fragrance of happiness--and everything seemed +as though it would say: "Here is a man who has lived and laboured, +and has attained at last the happiness possible on earth." The +engineer's daughter was sitting at the writing-table, reading a +newspaper. + +"You have come to see my father?" she asked. "He is having a shower +bath; he will be here directly. Please sit down and wait." + +I sat down. + +"I believe you live opposite?" she questioned me, after a brief +silence. + +"Yes." + +"I am so bored that I watch you every day out of the window; you +must excuse me," she went on, looking at the newspaper, "and I often +see your sister; she always has such a look of kindness and +concentration." + +Dolzhikov came in. He was rubbing his neck with a towel. + +"Papa, Monsieur Poloznev," said his daughter. + +"Yes, yes, Blagovo was telling me," he turned briskly to me without +giving me his hand. "But listen, what can I give you? What sort of +posts have I got? You are a queer set of people!" he went on aloud +in a tone as though he were giving me a lecture. "A score of you +keep coming to me every day; you imagine I am the head of a department! +I am constructing a railway-line, my friends; I have employment for +heavy labour: I need mechanics, smiths, navvies, carpenters, +well-sinkers, and none of you can do anything but sit and write! +You are all clerks." + +And he seemed to me to have the same air of happiness as his rugs +and easy chairs. He was stout and healthy, ruddy-cheeked and +broad-chested, in a print cotton shirt and full trousers like a toy +china sledge-driver. He had a curly, round beard--and not a single +grey hair--a hooked nose, and clear, dark, guileless eyes. + +"What can you do?" he went on. "There is nothing you can do! I am +an engineer. I am a man of an assured position, but before they +gave me a railway-line I was for years in harness; I have been a +practical mechanic. For two years I worked in Belgium as an oiler. +You can judge for yourself, my dear fellow, what kind of work can +I offer you?" + +"Of course that is so . . ." I muttered in extreme confusion, unable +to face his clear, guileless eyes. + +"Can you work the telegraph, any way?" he asked, after a moment's +thought. + +"Yes, I have been a telegraph clerk." + +"Hm! Well, we will see then. Meanwhile, go to Dubetchnya. I have +got a fellow there, but he is a wretched creature." + +"And what will my duties consist of?" I asked. + +"We shall see. Go there; meanwhile I will make arrangements. Only +please don't get drunk, and don't worry me with requests of any +sort, or I shall send you packing." + +He turned away from me without even a nod. + +I bowed to him and his daughter who was reading a newspaper, and +went away. My heart felt so heavy, that when my sister began asking +me how the engineer had received me, I could not utter a single +word. + +I got up early in the morning, at sunrise, to go to Dubetchnya. +There was not a soul in our Great Dvoryansky Street; everyone was +asleep, and my footsteps rang out with a solitary, hollow sound. +The poplars, covered with dew, filled the air with soft fragrance. +I was sad, and did not want to go away from the town. I was fond +of my native town. It seemed to be so beautiful and so snug! I loved +the fresh greenery, the still, sunny morning, the chiming of our +bells; but the people with whom I lived in this town were boring, +alien to me, sometimes even repulsive. I did not like them nor +understand them. + +I did not understand what these sixty-five thousand people lived +for and by. I knew that Kimry lived by boots, that Tula made samovars +and guns, that Odessa was a sea-port, but what our town was, and +what it did, I did not know. Great Dvoryansky Street and the two +other smartest streets lived on the interest of capital, or on +salaries received by officials from the public treasury; but what +the other eight streets, which ran parallel for over two miles and +vanished beyond the hills, lived upon, was always an insoluble +riddle to me. And the way those people lived one is ashamed to +describe! No garden, no theatre, no decent band; the public library +and the club library were only visited by Jewish youths, so that +the magazines and new books lay for months uncut; rich and well-educated +people slept in close, stuffy bedrooms, on wooden bedsteads infested +with bugs; their children were kept in revoltingly dirty rooms +called nurseries, and the servants, even the old and respected ones, +slept on the floor in the kitchen, covered with rags. On ordinary +days the houses smelt of beetroot soup, and on fast days of sturgeon +cooked in sunflower oil. The food was not good, and the drinking +water was unwholesome. In the town council, at the governor's, at +the head priest's, on all sides in private houses, people had been +saying for years and years that our town had not a good and cheap +water-supply, and that it was necessary to obtain a loan of two +hundred thousand from the Treasury for laying on water; very rich +people, of whom three dozen could have been counted up in our town, +and who at times lost whole estates at cards, drank the polluted +water, too, and talked all their lives with great excitement of a +loan for the water-supply--and I did not understand that; it +seemed to me it would have been simpler to take the two hundred +thousand out of their own pockets and lay it out on that object. + +I did not know one honest man in the town. My father took bribes, +and imagined that they were given him out of respect for his moral +qualities; at the high school, in order to be moved up rapidly from +class to class, the boys went to board with their teachers, who +charged them exorbitant sums; the wife of the military commander +took bribes from the recruits when they were called up before the +board and even deigned to accept refreshments from them, and on one +occasion could not get up from her knees in church because she was +drunk; the doctors took bribes, too, when the recruits came up for +examination, and the town doctor and the veterinary surgeon levied +a regular tax on the butchers' shops and the restaurants; at the +district school they did a trade in certificates, qualifying for +partial exemption from military service; the higher clergy took +bribes from the humbler priests and from the church elders; at the +Municipal, the Artisans', and all the other Boards every petitioner +was pursued by a shout: "Don't forget your thanks!" and the petitioner +would turn back to give sixpence or a shilling. And those who did +not take bribes, such as the higher officials of the Department of +Justice, were haughty, offered two fingers instead of shaking hands, +were distinguished by the frigidity and narrowness of their judgments, +spent a great deal of time over cards, drank to excess, married +heiresses, and undoubtedly had a pernicious corrupting influence +on those around them. It was only the girls who had still the fresh +fragrance of moral purity; most of them had higher impulses, pure +and honest hearts; but they had no understanding of life, and +believed that bribes were given out of respect for moral qualities, +and after they were married grew old quickly, let themselves go +completely, and sank hopelessly in the mire of vulgar, petty bourgeois +existence. + +III + +A railway-line was being constructed in our neighbourhood. On the +eve of feast days the streets were thronged with ragged fellows +whom the townspeople called "navvies," and of whom they were afraid. +And more than once I had seen one of these tatterdemalions with a +bloodstained countenance being led to the police station, while a +samovar or some linen, wet from the wash, was carried behind by way +of material evidence. The navvies usually congregated about the +taverns and the market-place; they drank, ate, and used bad language, +and pursued with shrill whistles every woman of light behaviour who +passed by. To entertain this hungry rabble our shopkeepers made +cats and dogs drunk with vodka, or tied an old kerosene can to a +dog's tail; a hue and cry was raised, and the dog dashed along the +street, jingling the can, squealing with terror; it fancied some +monster was close upon its heels; it would run far out of the town +into the open country and there sink exhausted. There were in the +town several dogs who went about trembling with their tails between +their legs; and people said this diversion had been too much for +them, and had driven them mad. + +A station was being built four miles from the town. It was said +that the engineers asked for a bribe of fifty thousand roubles for +bringing the line right up to the town, but the town council would +only consent to give forty thousand; they could not come to an +agreement over the difference, and now the townspeople regretted +it, as they had to make a road to the station and that, it was +reckoned, would cost more. The sleepers and rails had been laid +throughout the whole length of the line, and trains ran up and down +it, bringing building materials and labourers, and further progress +was only delayed on account of the bridges which Dolzhikov was +building, and some of the stations were not yet finished. + +Dubetchnya, as our first station was called, was a little under +twelve miles from the town. I walked. The cornfields, bathed in the +morning sunshine, were bright green. It was a flat, cheerful country, +and in the distance there were the distinct outlines of the station, +of ancient barrows, and far-away homesteads. . . . How nice it was +out there in the open! And how I longed to be filled with the sense +of freedom, if only for that one morning, that I might not think +of what was being done in the town, not think of my needs, not feel +hungry! Nothing has so marred my existence as an acute feeling of +hunger, which made images of buckwheat porridge, rissoles, and baked +fish mingle strangely with my best thoughts. Here I was standing +alone in the open country, gazing upward at a lark which hovered +in the air at the same spot, trilling as though in hysterics, and +meanwhile I was thinking: "How nice it would be to eat a piece of +bread and butter!" + +Or I would sit down by the roadside to rest, and shut my eyes to +listen to the delicious sounds of May, and what haunted me was the +smell of hot potatoes. Though I was tall and strongly built, I had +as a rule little to eat, and so the predominant sensation throughout +the day was hunger, and perhaps that was why I knew so well how it +is that such multitudes of people toil merely for their daily bread, +and can talk of nothing but things to eat. + +At Dubetchnya they were plastering the inside of the station, and +building a wooden upper storey to the pumping shed. It was hot; +there was a smell of lime, and the workmen sauntered listlessly +between the heaps of shavings and mortar rubble. The pointsman lay +asleep near his sentry box, and the sun was blazing full on his +face. There was not a single tree. The telegraph wire hummed faintly +and hawks were perching on it here and there. I, wandering, too, +among the heaps of rubbish, and not knowing what to do, recalled +how the engineer, in answer to my question what my duties would +consist in, had said: "We shall see when you are there"; but what +could one see in that wilderness? + +The plasterers spoke of the foreman, and of a certain Fyodot Vasilyev. +I did not understand, and gradually I was overcome by depression +--the physical depression in which one is conscious of one's arms +and legs and huge body, and does not know what to do with them or +where to put them. + +After I had been walking about for at least a couple of hours, I +noticed that there were telegraph poles running off to the right +from the station, and that they ended a mile or a mile and a half +away at a white stone wall. The workmen told me the office was +there, and at last I reflected that that was where I ought to go. + +It was a very old manor house, deserted long ago. The wall round +it, of porous white stone, was mouldering and had fallen away in +places, and the lodge, the blank wall of which looked out on the +open country, had a rusty roof with patches of tin-plate gleaming +here and there on it. Within the gates could be seen a spacious +courtyard overgrown with rough weeds, and an old manor house with +sunblinds on the windows, and a high roof red with rust. Two lodges, +exactly alike, stood one on each side of the house to right and to +left: one had its windows nailed up with boards; near the other, +of which the windows were open, there was washing on the line, and +there were calves moving about. The last of the telegraph poles +stood in the courtyard, and the wire from it ran to the window of +the lodge, of which the blank wall looked out into the open country. +The door stood open; I went in. By the telegraph apparatus a gentleman +with a curly dark head, wearing a reefer coat made of sailcloth, +was sitting at a table; he glanced at me morosely from under his +brows, but immediately smiled and said: + +"Hullo, Better-than-nothing!" + +It was Ivan Tcheprakov, an old schoolfellow of mine, who had been +expelled from the second class for smoking. We used at one time, +during autumn, to catch goldfinches, finches, and linnets together, +and to sell them in the market early in the morning, while our +parents were still in their beds. We watched for flocks of migrating +starlings and shot at them with small shot, then we picked up those +that were wounded, and some of them died in our hands in terrible +agonies (I remember to this day how they moaned in the cage at +night); those that recovered we sold, and swore with the utmost +effrontery that they were all cocks. On one occasion at the market +I had only one starling left, which I had offered to purchasers in +vain, till at last I sold it for a farthing. "Anyway, it's better +than nothing," I said to comfort myself, as I put the farthing in +my pocket, and from that day the street urchins and the schoolboys +called after me: "Better-than-nothing"; and to this day the street +boys and the shopkeepers mock at me with the nickname, though no +one remembers how it arose. + +Tcheprakov was not of robust constitution: he was narrow-chested, +round-shouldered, and long-legged. He wore a silk cord for a tie, +had no trace of a waistcoat, and his boots were worse than mine, +with the heels trodden down on one side. He stared, hardly even +blinking, with a strained expression, as though he were just going +to catch something, and he was always in a fuss. + +"You wait a minute," he would say fussily. "You listen. . . . +Whatever was I talking about?" + +We got into conversation. I learned that the estate on which I now +was had until recently been the property of the Tcheprakovs, and +had only the autumn before passed into the possession of Dolzhikov, +who considered it more profitable to put his money into land than +to keep it in notes, and had already bought up three good-sized +mortgaged estates in our neighbourhood. At the sale Tcheprakov's +mother had reserved for herself the right to live for the next two +years in one of the lodges at the side, and had obtained a post for +her son in the office. + +"I should think he could buy!" Tcheprakov said of the engineer. +"See what he fleeces out of the contractors alone! He fleeces +everyone!" + +Then he took me to dinner, deciding fussily that I should live with +him in the lodge, and have my meals from his mother. + +"She is a bit stingy," he said, "but she won't charge you much." + +It was very cramped in the little rooms in which his mother lived; +they were all, even the passage and the entry, piled up with furniture +which had been brought from the big house after the sale; and the +furniture was all old-fashioned mahogany. Madame Tcheprakov, a very +stout middle-aged lady with slanting Chinese eyes, was sitting in +a big arm-chair by the window, knitting a stocking. She received +me ceremoniously. + +"This is Poloznev, mamma," Tcheprakov introduced me. "He is going +to serve here." + +"Are you a nobleman?" she asked in a strange, disagreeable voice: +it seemed to me to sound as though fat were bubbling in her throat. + +"Yes," I answered. + +"Sit down." + +The dinner was a poor one. Nothing was served but pies filled with +bitter curd, and milk soup. Elena Nikiforovna, who presided, kept +blinking in a queer way, first with one eye and then with the other. +She talked, she ate, but yet there was something deathly about her +whole figure, and one almost fancied the faint smell of a corpse. +There was only a glimmer of life in her, a glimmer of consciousness +that she had been a lady who had once had her own serfs, that she +was the widow of a general whom the servants had to address as "your +Excellency"; and when these feeble relics of life flickered up in +her for an instant she would say to her son: + +"Jean, you are not holding your knife properly!" + +Or she would say to me, drawing a deep breath, with the mincing air +of a hostess trying to entertain a visitor: + +"You know we have sold our estate. Of course, it is a pity, we are +used to the place, but Dolzhikov has promised to make Jean stationmaster +of Dubetchnya, so we shall not have to go away; we shall live here +at the station, and that is just the same as being on our own +property! The engineer is so nice! Don't you think he is very +handsome?" + +Until recently the Tcheprakovs had lived in a wealthy style, but +since the death of the general everything had been changed. Elena +Nikiforovna had taken to quarrelling with the neighbours, to going +to law, and to not paying her bailiffs or her labourers; she was +in constant terror of being robbed, and in some ten years Dubetchnya +had become unrecognizable. + +Behind the great house was an old garden which had already run wild, +and was overgrown with rough weeds and bushes. I walked up and down +the verandah, which was still solid and beautiful; through the glass +doors one could see a room with parquetted floor, probably the +drawing-room; an old-fashioned piano and pictures in deep mahogany +frames--there was nothing else. In the old flower-beds all that +remained were peonies and poppies, which lifted their white and +bright red heads above the grass. Young maples and elms, already +nibbled by the cows, grew beside the paths, drawn up and hindering +each other's growth. The garden was thickly overgrown and seemed +impassable, but this was only near the house where there stood +poplars, fir-trees, and old limetrees, all of the same age, relics +of the former avenues. Further on, beyond them the garden had been +cleared for the sake of hay, and here it was not moist and stuffy, +and there were no spiders' webs in one's mouth and eyes. A light +breeze was blowing. The further one went the more open it was, and +here in the open space were cherries, plums, and spreading apple-trees, +disfigured by props and by canker; and pear-trees so tall that one +could not believe they were pear-trees. This part of the garden was +let to some shopkeepers of the town, and it was protected from +thieves and starlings by a feeble-minded peasant who lived in a +shanty in it. + +The garden, growing more and more open, till it became definitely +a meadow, sloped down to the river, which was overgrown with green +weeds and osiers. Near the milldam was the millpond, deep and full +of fish; a little mill with a thatched roof was working away with +a wrathful sound, and frogs croaked furiously. Circles passed from +time to time over the smooth, mirror-like water, and the water-lilies +trembled, stirred by the lively fish. On the further side of the +river was the little village Dubetchnya. The still, blue millpond +was alluring with its promise of coolness and peace. And now all +this--the millpond and the mill and the snug-looking banks-- +belonged to the engineer! + +And so my new work began. I received and forwarded telegrams, wrote +various reports, and made fair copies of the notes of requirements, +the complaints, and the reports sent to the office by the illiterate +foremen and workmen. But for the greater part of the day I did +nothing but walk about the room waiting for telegrams, or made a +boy sit in the lodge while I went for a walk in the garden, until +the boy ran to tell me that there was a tapping at the operating +machine. I had dinner at Madame Tcheprakov's. Meat we had very +rarely: our dishes were all made of milk, and Wednesdays and Fridays +were fast days, and on those days we had pink plates which were +called Lenten plates. Madame Tcheprakov was continually blinking +--it was her invariable habit, and I always felt ill at ease in +her presence. + +As there was not enough work in the lodge for one, Tcheprakov did +nothing, but simply dozed, or went with his gun to shoot ducks on +the millpond. In the evenings he drank too much in the village or +the station, and before going to bed stared in the looking-glass +and said: "Hullo, Ivan Tcheprakov." + +When he was drunk he was very pale, and kept rubbing his hands and +laughing with a sound like a neigh: "hee-hee-hee!" By way of bravado +he used to strip and run about the country naked. He used to eat +flies and say they were rather sour. + +IV + +One day, after dinner, he ran breathless into the lodge and said: +"Go along, your sister has come." + +I went out, and there I found a hired brake from the town standing +before the entrance of the great house. My sister had come in it +with Anyuta Blagovo and a gentleman in a military tunic. Going up +closer I recognized the latter: it was the brother of Anyuta Blagovo, +the army doctor. + +"We have come to you for a picnic," he said; "is that all right?" + +My sister and Anyuta wanted to ask how I was getting on here, but +both were silent, and simply gazed at me. I was silent too. They +saw that I did not like the place, and tears came into my sister's +eyes, while Anyuta Blagovo turned crimson. + +We went into the garden. The doctor walked ahead of us all and said +enthusiastically: + +"What air! Holy Mother, what air!" + +In appearance he was still a student. And he walked and talked like +a student, and the expression of his grey eyes was as keen, honest, +and frank as a nice student's. Beside his tall and handsome sister +he looked frail and thin; and his beard was thin too, and his voice, +too, was a thin but rather agreeable tenor. He was serving in a +regiment somewhere, and had come home to his people for a holiday, +and said he was going in the autumn to Petersburg for his examination +as a doctor of medicine. He was already a family man, with a wife +and three children, he had married very young, in his second year +at the University, and now people in the town said he was unhappy +in his family life and was not living with his wife. + +"What time is it?" my sister asked uneasily. "We must get back in +good time. Papa let me come to see my brother on condition I was +back at six." + +"Oh, bother your papa!" sighed the doctor. + +I set the samovar. We put down a carpet before the verandah of the +great house and had our tea there, and the doctor knelt down, drank +out of his saucer, and declared that he now knew what bliss was. +Then Tcheprakov came with the key and opened the glass door, and +we all went into the house. There it was half dark and mysterious, +and smelt of mushrooms, and our footsteps had a hollow sound as +though there were cellars under the floor. The doctor stopped and +touched the keys of the piano, and it responded faintly with a +husky, quivering, but melodious chord; he tried his voice and sang +a song, frowning and tapping impatiently with his foot when some +note was mute. My sister did not talk about going home, but walked +about the rooms and kept saying: + +"How happy I am! How happy I am!" + +There was a note of astonishment in her voice, as though it seemed +to her incredible that she, too, could feel light-hearted. It was +the first time in my life I had seen her so happy. She actually +looked prettier. In profile she did not look nice; her nose and +mouth seemed to stick out and had an expression as though she were +pouting, but she had beautiful dark eyes, a pale, very delicate +complexion, and a touching expression of goodness and melancholy, +and when she talked she seemed charming and even beautiful. We both, +she and I, took after our mother, were broad shouldered, strongly +built, and capable of endurance, but her pallor was a sign of +ill-health; she often had a cough, and I sometimes caught in her +face that look one sees in people who are seriously ill, but for +some reason conceal the fact. There was something naïve and childish +in her gaiety now, as though the joy that had been suppressed and +smothered in our childhood by harsh education had now suddenly +awakened in her soul and found a free outlet. + +But when evening came on and the horses were brought round, my +sister sank into silence and looked thin and shrunken, and she got +into the brake as though she were going to the scaffold. + +When they had all gone, and the sound had died away . . . I remembered +that Anyuta Blagovo had not said a word to me all day. + +"She is a wonderful girl!" I thought. "Wonderful girl!" + +St. Peter's fast came, and we had nothing but Lenten dishes every +day. I was weighed down by physical depression due to idleness and +my unsettled position, and dissatisfied with myself. Listless and +hungry, I lounged about the garden and only waited for a suitable +mood to go away. + +Towards evening one day, when Radish was sitting in the lodge, +Dolzhikov, very sunburnt and grey with dust, walked in unexpectedly. +He had been spending three days on his land, and had come now to +Dubetchnya by the steamer, and walked to us from the station. While +waiting for the carriage, which was to come for him from the town, +he walked round the grounds with his bailiff, giving orders in a +loud voice, then sat for a whole hour in our lodge, writing letters. +While he was there telegrams came for him, and he himself tapped +off the answers. We three stood in silence at attention. + +"What a muddle!" he said, glancing contemptuously at a record book. +"In a fortnight I am transferring the office to the station, and I +don't know what I am to do with you, my friends." + +"I do my best, your honour," said Tcheprakov. + +"To be sure, I see how you do your best. The only thing you can do +is to take your salary," the engineer went on, looking at me; "you +keep relying on patronage to _faire le carrière_ as quickly and as +easily as possible. Well, I don't care for patronage. No one took +any trouble on my behalf. Before they gave me a railway contract I +went about as a mechanic and worked in Belgium as an oiler. And +you, Panteley, what are you doing here?" he asked, turning to Radish. +"Drinking with them?" + +He, for some reason, always called humble people Panteley, and such +as me and Tcheprakov he despised, and called them drunkards, beasts, +and rabble to their faces. Altogether he was cruel to humble +subordinates, and used to fine them and turn them off coldly without +explanations. + +At last the horses came for him. As he said good-bye he promised +to turn us all off in a fortnight; he called his bailiff a blockhead; +and then, lolling at ease in his carriage, drove back to the town. + +"Andrey Ivanitch," I said to Radish, "take me on as a workman." + +"Oh, all right!" + +And we set off together in the direction of the town. When the +station and the big house with its buildings were left behind I +asked: "Andrey Ivanitch, why did you come to Dubetchnya this evening?" + +"In the first place my fellows are working on the line, and in the +second place I came to pay the general's lady my interest. Last +year I borrowed fifty roubles from her, and I pay her now a rouble +a month interest." + +The painter stopped and took me by the button. + +"Misail Alexeyitch, our angel," he went on. "The way I look at it +is that if any man, gentle or simple, takes even the smallest +interest, he is doing evil. There cannot be truth and justice in +such a man." + +Radish, lean, pale, dreadful-looking, shut his eyes, shook his head, +and, in the tone of a philosopher, pronounced: + +"Lice consume the grass, rust consumes the iron, and lying the soul. +Lord, have mercy upon us sinners." + +V + +Radish was not practical, and was not at all good at forming an +estimate; he took more work than he could get through, and when +calculating he was agitated, lost his head, and so was almost always +out of pocket over his jobs. He undertook painting, glazing, +paperhanging, and even tiling roofs, and I can remember his running +about for three days to find tilers for the sake of a paltry job. +He was a first-rate workman; he sometimes earned as much as ten +roubles a day; and if it had not been for the desire at all costs +to be a master, and to be called a contractor, he would probably +have had plenty of money. + +He was paid by the job, but he paid me and the other workmen by the +day, from one and twopence to two shillings a day. When it was fine +and dry we did all kinds of outside work, chiefly painting roofs. +When I was new to the work it made my feet burn as though I were +walking on hot bricks, and when I put on felt boots they were hotter +than ever. But this was only at first; later on I got used to it, +and everything went swimmingly. I was living now among people to +whom labour was obligatory, inevitable, and who worked like +cart-horses, often with no idea of the moral significance of labour, +and, indeed, never using the word "labour" in conversation at all. +Beside them I, too, felt like a cart-horse, growing more and more +imbued with the feeling of the obligatory and inevitable character +of what I was doing, and this made my life easier, setting me free +from all doubt and uncertainty. + +At first everything interested me, everything was new, as though I +had been born again. I could sleep on the ground and go about +barefoot, and that was extremely pleasant; I could stand in a crowd +of the common people and be no constraint to anyone, and when a cab +horse fell down in the street I ran to help it up without being +afraid of soiling my clothes. And the best of it all was, I was +living on my own account and no burden to anyone! + +Painting roofs, especially with our own oil and colours, was regarded +as a particularly profitable job, and so this rough, dull work was +not disdained, even by such good workmen as Radish. In short breeches, +and wasted, purple-looking legs, he used to go about the roofs, +looking like a stork, and I used to hear him, as he plied his brush, +breathing heavily and saying: "Woe, woe to us sinners!" + +He walked about the roofs as freely as though he were upon the +ground. In spite of his being ill and pale as a corpse, his agility +was extraordinary: he used to paint the domes and cupolas of the +churches without scaffolding, like a young man, with only the help +of a ladder and a rope, and it was rather horrible when standing +on a height far from the earth; he would draw himself up erect, and +for some unknown reason pronounce: + +"Lice consume grass, rust consumes iron, and lying the soul!" + +Or, thinking about something, would answer his thoughts aloud: + +"Anything may happen! Anything may happen!" + +When I went home from my work, all the people who were sitting on +benches by the gates, all the shopmen and boys and their employers, +made sneering and spiteful remarks after me, and this upset me at +first and seemed to be simply monstrous. + +"Better-than-nothing!" I heard on all sides. "House painter! Yellow +ochre!" + +And none behaved so ungraciously to me as those who had only lately +been humble people themselves, and had earned their bread by hard +manual labour. In the streets full of shops I was once passing an +ironmonger's when water was thrown over me as though by accident, +and on one occasion someone darted out with a stick at me, while a +fishmonger, a grey-headed old man, barred my way and said, looking +at me angrily: + +"I am not sorry for you, you fool! It's your father I am sorry for." + +And my acquaintances were for some reason overcome with embarrassment +when they met me. Some of them looked upon me as a queer fish and +a comic fool; others were sorry for me; others did not know what +attitude to take up to me, and it was difficult to make them out. +One day I met Anyuta Blagovo in a side street near Great Dvoryansky +Street. I was going to work, and was carrying two long brushes and +a pail of paint. Recognizing me Anyuta flushed crimson. + +"Please do not bow to me in the street," she said nervously, harshly, +and in a shaking voice, without offering me her hand, and tears +suddenly gleamed in her eyes. "If to your mind all this is necessary, +so be it . . . so be it, but I beg you not to meet me!" + +I no longer lived in Great Dvoryansky Street, but in the suburb +with my old nurse Karpovna, a good-natured but gloomy old woman, +who always foreboded some harm, was afraid of all dreams, and even +in the bees and wasps that flew into her room saw omens of evil, +and the fact that I had become a workman, to her thinking, boded +nothing good. + +"Your life is ruined," she would say, mournfully shaking her head, +"ruined." + +Her adopted son Prokofy, a huge, uncouth, red-headed fellow of +thirty, with bristling moustaches, a butcher by trade, lived in the +little house with her. When he met me in the passage he would make +way for me in respectful silence, and if he was drunk he would +salute me with all five fingers at once. He used to have supper in +the evening, and through the partition wall of boards I could hear +him clear his throat and sigh as he drank off glass after glass. + +"Mamma," he would call in an undertone. + +"Well," Karpovna, who was passionately devoted to her adopted son, +would respond: "What is it, sonny?" + +"I can show you a testimony of my affection, mamma. All this earthly +life I will cherish you in your declining years in this vale of +tears, and when you die I will bury you at my expense; I have said +it, and you can believe it." + +I got up every morning before sunrise, and went to bed early. We +house painters ate a great deal and slept soundly; the only thing +amiss was that my heart used to beat violently at night. I did not +quarrel with my mates. Violent abuse, desperate oaths, and wishes +such as, "Blast your eyes," or "Cholera take you," never ceased all +day, but, nevertheless, we lived on very friendly terms. The other +fellows suspected me of being some sort of religious sectary, and +made good-natured jokes at my expense, saying that even my own +father had disowned me, and thereupon would add that they rarely +went into the temple of God themselves, and that many of them had +not been to confession for ten years. They justified this laxity +on their part by saying that a painter among men was like a jackdaw +among birds. + +The men had a good opinion of me, and treated me with respect; it +was evident that my not drinking, not smoking, but leading a quiet, +steady life pleased them very much. It was only an unpleasant shock +to them that I took no hand in stealing oil and did not go with +them to ask for tips from people on whose property we were working. +Stealing oil and paints from those who employed them was a house +painter's custom, and was not regarded as theft, and it was remarkable +that even so upright a man as Radish would always carry away a +little white lead and oil as he went home from work. And even the +most respectable old fellows, who owned the houses in which they +lived in the suburb, were not ashamed to ask for a tip, and it made +me feel vexed and ashamed to see the men go in a body to congratulate +some nonentity on the commencement or the completion of the job, +and thank him with degrading servility when they had received a few +coppers. + +With people on whose work they were engaged they behaved like wily +courtiers, and almost every day I was reminded of Shakespeare's +Polonius. + +"I fancy it is going to rain," the man whose house was being painted +would say, looking at the sky. + +"It is, there is not a doubt it is," the painters would agree. + +"I don't think it is a rain-cloud, though. Perhaps it won't rain +after all." + +"No, it won't, your honour! I am sure it won't." + +But their attitude to their patrons behind their backs was usually +one of irony, and when they saw, for instance, a gentleman sitting +in the verandah reading a newspaper, they would observe: + +"He reads the paper, but I daresay he has nothing to eat." + +I never went home to see my own people. When I came back from work +I often found waiting for me little notes, brief and anxious, in +which my sister wrote to me about my father; that he had been +particularly preoccupied at dinner and had eaten nothing, or that +he had been giddy and staggering, or that he had locked himself in +his room and had not come out for a long time. Such items of news +troubled me; I could not sleep, and at times even walked up and +down Great Dvoryansky Street at night by our house, looking in at +the dark windows and trying to guess whether everything was well +at home. On Sundays my sister came to see me, but came in secret, +as though it were not to see me but our nurse. And if she came in +to see me she was very pale, with tear-stained eyes, and she began +crying at once. + +"Our father will never live through this," she would say. "If +anything should happen to him--God grant it may not--your +conscience will torment you all your life. It's awful, Misail; for +our mother's sake I beseech you: reform your ways." + +"My darling sister," I would say, "how can I reform my ways if I +am convinced that I am acting in accordance with my conscience? Do +understand!" + +"I know you are acting on your conscience, but perhaps it could be +done differently, somehow, so as not to wound anybody." + +"Ah, holy Saints!" the old woman sighed through the door. "Your +life is ruined! There will be trouble, my dears, there will be +trouble!" + +VI + +One Sunday Dr. Blagovo turned up unexpectedly. He was wearing a +military tunic over a silk shirt and high boots of patent leather. + +"I have come to see you," he began, shaking my hand heartily like +a student. "I am hearing about you every day, and I have been meaning +to come and have a heart-to-heart talk, as they say. The boredom +in the town is awful, there is not a living soul, no one to say a +word to. It's hot, Holy Mother," he went on, taking off his tunic +and sitting in his silk shirt. "My dear fellow, let me talk to you." + +I was dull myself, and had for a long time been craving for the +society of someone not a house painter. I was genuinely glad to see +him. + +"I'll begin by saying," he said, sitting down on my bed, "that I +sympathize with you from the bottom of my heart, and deeply respect +the life you are leading. They don't understand you here in the +town, and, indeed, there is no one to understand, seeing that, as +you know, they are all, with very few exceptions, regular Gogolesque +pig faces here. But I saw what you were at once that time at the +picnic. You are a noble soul, an honest, high-minded man! I respect +you, and feel it a great honour to shake hands with you!" he went +on enthusiastically. "To have made such a complete and violent +change of life as you have done, you must have passed through a +complicated spiritual crisis, and to continue this manner of life +now, and to keep up to the high standard of your convictions +continually, must be a strain on your mind and heart from day to +day. Now to begin our talk, tell me, don't you consider that if you +had spent your strength of will, this strained activity, all these +powers on something else, for instance, on gradually becoming a +great scientist, or artist, your life would have been broader and +deeper and would have been more productive?" + +We talked, and when we got upon manual labour I expressed this idea: +that what is wanted is that the strong should not enslave the weak, +that the minority should not be a parasite on the majority, nor a +vampire for ever sucking its vital sap; that is, all, without +exception, strong and weak, rich and poor, should take part equally +in the struggle for existence, each one on his own account, and +that there was no better means for equalizing things in that way +than manual labour, in the form of universal service, compulsory +for all. + +"Then do you think everyone without exception ought to engage in +manual labour?" asked the doctor. + +"Yes." + +"And don't you think that if everyone, including the best men, the +thinkers and great scientists, taking part in the struggle for +existence, each on his own account, are going to waste their time +breaking stones and painting roofs, may not that threaten a grave +danger to progress?" + +"Where is the danger?" I asked. "Why, progress is in deeds of love, +in fulfilling the moral law; if you don't enslave anyone, if you +don't oppress anyone, what further progress do you want?" + +"But, excuse me," Blagovo suddenly fired up, rising to his feet. +"But, excuse me! If a snail in its shell busies itself over perfecting +its own personality and muddles about with the moral law, do you +call that progress?" + +"Why muddles?" I said, offended. "If you don't force your neighbour +to feed and clothe you, to transport you from place to place and +defend you from your enemies, surely in the midst of a life entirely +resting on slavery, that is progress, isn't it? To my mind it is +the most important progress, and perhaps the only one possible and +necessary for man." + +"The limits of universal world progress are in infinity, and to +talk of some 'possible' progress limited by our needs and temporary +theories is, excuse my saying so, positively strange." + +"If the limits of progress are in infinity as you say, it follows +that its aims are not definite," I said. "To live without knowing +definitely what you are living for!" + +"So be it! But that 'not knowing' is not so dull as your 'knowing.' +I am going up a ladder which is called progress, civilization, +culture; I go on and up without knowing definitely where I am going, +but really it is worth living for the sake of that delightful ladder; +while you know what you are living for, you live for the sake of +some people's not enslaving others, that the artist and the man who +rubs his paints may dine equally well. But you know that's the +petty, bourgeois, kitchen, grey side of life, and surely it is +revolting to live for that alone? If some insects do enslave others, +bother them, let them devour each other! We need not think about +them. You know they will die and decay just the same, however +zealously you rescue them from slavery. We must think of that great +millennium which awaits humanity in the remote future." + +Blagovo argued warmly with me, but at the same time one could see +he was troubled by some irrelevant idea. + +"I suppose your sister is not coming?" he said, looking at his +watch. "She was at our house yesterday, and said she would be seeing +you to-day. You keep saying slavery, slavery . . ." he went on. +"But you know that is a special question, and all such questions +are solved by humanity gradually." + +We began talking of doing things gradually. I said that "the question +of doing good or evil every one settles for himself, without waiting +till humanity settles it by the way of gradual development. Moreover, +this gradual process has more than one aspect. Side by side with +the gradual development of human ideas the gradual growth of ideas +of another order is observed. Serfdom is no more, but the capitalist +system is growing. And in the very heyday of emancipating ideas, +just as in the days of Baty, the majority feeds, clothes, and defends +the minority while remaining hungry, inadequately clad, and +defenceless. Such an order of things can be made to fit in finely +with any tendencies and currents of thought you like, because the +art of enslaving is also gradually being cultivated. We no longer +flog our servants in the stable, but we give to slavery refined +forms, at least, we succeed in finding a justification for it in +each particular case. Ideas are ideas with us, but if now, at the +end of the nineteenth century, it were possible to lay the burden +of the most unpleasant of our physiological functions upon the +working class, we should certainly do so, and afterwards, of course, +justify ourselves by saying that if the best people, the thinkers +and great scientists, were to waste their precious time on these +functions, progress might be menaced with great danger." + +But at this point my sister arrived. Seeing the doctor she was +fluttered and troubled, and began saying immediately that it was +time for her to go home to her father. + +"Kleopatra Alexyevna," said Blagovo earnestly, pressing both hands +to his heart, "what will happen to your father if you spend half +an hour or so with your brother and me?" + +He was frank, and knew how to communicate his liveliness to others. +After a moment's thought, my sister laughed, and all at once became +suddenly gay as she had been at the picnic. We went out into the +country, and lying in the grass went on with our talk, and looked +towards the town where all the windows facing west were like +glittering gold because the sun was setting. + +After that, whenever my sister was coming to see me Blagovo turned +up too, and they always greeted each other as though their meeting +in my room was accidental. My sister listened while the doctor and +I argued, and at such times her expression was joyfully enthusiastic, +full of tenderness and curiosity, and it seemed to me that a new +world she had never dreamed of before, and which she was now striving +to fathom, was gradually opening before her eyes. When the doctor +was not there she was quiet and sad, and now if she sometimes shed +tears as she sat on my bed it was for reasons of which she did not +speak. + +In August Radish ordered us to be ready to go to the railway-line. +Two days before we were "banished" from the town my father came to +see me. He sat down and in a leisurely way, without looking at me, +wiped his red face, then took out of his pocket our town _Messenger_, +and deliberately, with emphasis on each word, read out the news +that the son of the branch manager of the State Bank, a young man +of my age, had been appointed head of a Department in the Exchequer. + +"And now look at you," he said, folding up the newspaper, "a beggar, +in rags, good for nothing! Even working-class people and peasants +obtain education in order to become men, while you, a Poloznev, +with ancestors of rank and distinction, aspire to the gutter! But +I have not come here to talk to you; I have washed my hands of you +--" he added in a stifled voice, getting up. "I have come to find +out where your sister is, you worthless fellow. She left home after +dinner, and here it is nearly eight and she is not back. She has +taken to going out frequently without telling me; she is less dutiful +--and I see in it your evil and degrading influence. Where is she?" + +In his hand he had the umbrella I knew so well, and I was already +flustered and drew myself up like a schoolboy, expecting my father +to begin hitting me with it, but he noticed my glance at the umbrella +and most likely that restrained him. + +"Live as you please!" he said. "I shall not give you my blessing!" + +"Holy Saints!" my nurse muttered behind the door. "You poor, unlucky +child! Ah, my heart bodes ill!" + +I worked on the railway-line. It rained without stopping all August; +it was damp and cold; they had not carried the corn in the fields, +and on big farms where the wheat had been cut by machines it lay +not in sheaves but in heaps, and I remember how those luckless heaps +of wheat turned blacker every day and the grain was sprouting in +them. It was hard to work; the pouring rain spoiled everything we +managed to do. We were not allowed to live or to sleep in the railway +buildings, and we took refuge in the damp and filthy mud huts in +which the navvies had lived during the summer, and I could not sleep +at night for the cold and the woodlice crawling on my face and +hands. And when we worked near the bridges the navvies used to come +in the evenings in a gang, simply in order to beat the painters-- +it was a form of sport to them. They used to beat us, to steal our +brushes. And to annoy us and rouse us to fight they used to spoil +our work; they would, for instance, smear over the signal boxes +with green paint. To complete our troubles, Radish took to paying +us very irregularly. All the painting work on the line was given +out to a contractor; he gave it out to another; and this subcontractor +gave it to Radish after subtracting twenty per cent. for himself. +The job was not a profitable one in itself, and the rain made it +worse; time was wasted; we could not work while Radish was obliged +to pay the fellows by the day. The hungry painters almost came to +beating him, called him a cheat, a blood-sucker, a Judas, while he, +poor fellow, sighed, lifted up his hand to Heaven in despair, and +was continually going to Madame Tcheprakov for money. + +VII + +Autumn came on, rainy, dark, and muddy. The season of unemployment +set in, and I used to sit at home out of work for three days at a +stretch, or did various little jobs, not in the painting line. For +instance, I wheeled earth, earning about fourpence a day by it. Dr. +Blagovo had gone away to Petersburg. My sister had given up coming +to see me. Radish was laid up at home ill, expecting death from day +to day. + +And my mood was autumnal too. Perhaps because, having become a +workman, I saw our town life only from the seamy side, it was my +lot almost every day to make discoveries which reduced me almost +to despair. Those of my fellow-citizens, about whom I had no opinion +before, or who had externally appeared perfectly decent, turned out +now to be base, cruel people, capable of any dirty action. We common +people were deceived, cheated, and kept waiting for hours together +in the cold entry or the kitchen; we were insulted and treated with +the utmost rudeness. In the autumn I papered the reading-room and +two other rooms at the club; I was paid a penny three-farthings the +piece, but had to sign a receipt at the rate of twopence halfpenny, +and when I refused to do so, a gentleman of benevolent appearance +in gold-rimmed spectacles, who must have been one of the club +committee, said to me: + +"If you say much more, you blackguard, I'll pound your face into a +jelly!" + +And when the flunkey whispered to him what I was, the son of Poloznev +the architect, he became embarrassed, turned crimson, but immediately +recovered himself and said: "Devil take him." + +In the shops they palmed off on us workmen putrid meat, musty flour, +and tea that had been used and dried again; the police hustled us +in church, the assistants and nurses in the hospital plundered us, +and if we were too poor to give them a bribe they revenged themselves +by bringing us food in dirty vessels. In the post-office the pettiest +official considered he had a right to treat us like animals, and +to shout with coarse insolence: "You wait!" "Where are you shoving +to?" Even the housedogs were unfriendly to us, and fell upon us +with peculiar viciousness. But the thing that struck me most of all +in my new position was the complete lack of justice, what is defined +by the peasants in the words: "They have forgotten God." Rarely did +a day pass without swindling. We were swindled by the merchants who +sold us oil, by the contractors and the workmen and the people who +employed us. I need not say that there could never be a question +of our rights, and we always had to ask for the money we earned as +though it were a charity, and to stand waiting for it at the back +door, cap in hand. + +I was papering a room at the club next to the reading-room; in the +evening, when I was just getting ready to go, the daughter of +Dolzhikov, the engineer, walked into the room with a bundle of books +under her arm. + +I bowed to her. + +"Oh, how do you do!" she said, recognizing me at once, and holding +out her hand. "I'm very glad to see you." + +She smiled and looked with curiosity and wonder at my smock, my +pail of paste, the paper stretched on the floor; I was embarrassed, +and she, too, felt awkward. + +"You must excuse my looking at you like this," she said. "I have +been told so much about you. Especially by Dr. Blagovo; he is simply +in love with you. And I have made the acquaintance of your sister +too; a sweet, dear girl, but I can never persuade her that there +is nothing awful about your adopting the simple life. On the contrary, +you have become the most interesting man in the town." + +She looked again at the pail of paste and the wallpaper, and went +on: + +"I asked Dr. Blagovo to make me better acquainted with you, but +apparently he forgot, or had not time. Anyway, we are acquainted +all the same, and if you would come and see me quite simply I should +be extremely indebted to you. I so long to have a talk. I am a +simple person," she added, holding out her hand to me, "and I hope +that you will feel no constraint with me. My father is not here, +he is in Petersburg." + +She went off into the reading-room, rustling her skirts, while I +went home, and for a long time could not get to sleep. + +That cheerless autumn some kind soul, evidently wishing to alleviate +my existence, sent me from time to time tea and lemons, or biscuits, +or roast game. Karpovna told me that they were always brought by a +soldier, and from whom they came she did not know; and the soldier +used to enquire whether I was well, and whether I dined every day, +and whether I had warm clothing. When the frosts began I was presented +in the same way in my absence with a soft knitted scarf brought by +the soldier. There was a faint elusive smell of scent about it, and +I guessed who my good fairy was. The scarf smelt of lilies-of-the-valley, +the favourite scent of Anyuta Blagovo. + +Towards winter there was more work and it was more cheerful. Radish +recovered, and we worked together in the cemetery church, where we +were putting the ground-work on the ikon-stand before gilding. It +was a clean, quiet job, and, as our fellows used to say, profitable. +One could get through a lot of work in a day, and the time passed +quickly, imperceptibly. There was no swearing, no laughter, no loud +talk. The place itself compelled one to quietness and decent +behaviour, and disposed one to quiet, serious thoughts. Absorbed +in our work we stood or sat motionless like statues; there was a +deathly silence in keeping with the cemetery, so that if a tool +fell, or a flame spluttered in the lamp, the noise of such sounds +rang out abrupt and resonant, and made us look round. After a long +silence we would hear a buzzing like the swarming of bees: it was +the requiem of a baby being chanted slowly in subdued voices in the +porch; or an artist, painting a dove with stars round it on a cupola +would begin softly whistling, and recollecting himself with a start +would at once relapse into silence; or Radish, answering his thoughts, +would say with a sigh: "Anything is possible! Anything is possible!" +or a slow disconsolate bell would begin ringing over our heads, and +the painters would observe that it must be for the funeral of some +wealthy person. . . . + +My days I spent in this stillness in the twilight of the church, +and in the long evenings I played billiards or went to the theatre +in the gallery wearing the new trousers I had bought out of my own +earnings. Concerts and performances had already begun at the +Azhogins'; Radish used to paint the scenes alone now. He used to +tell me the plot of the plays and describe the _tableaux vivants_ +which he witnessed. I listened to him with envy. I felt greatly +drawn to the rehearsals, but I could not bring myself to go to the +Azhogins'. + +A week before Christmas Dr. Blagovo arrived. And again we argued +and played billiards in the evenings. When he played he used to +take off his coat and unbutton his shirt over his chest, and for +some reason tried altogether to assume the air of a desperate rake. +He did not drink much, but made a great uproar about it, and had a +special faculty for getting through twenty roubles in an evening +at such a poor cheap tavern as the _Volga_. + +My sister began coming to see me again; they both expressed surprise +every time on seeing each other, but from her joyful, guilty face +it was evident that these meetings were not accidental. One evening, +when we were playing billiards, the doctor said to me: + +"I say, why don't you go and see Miss Dolzhikov? You don't know +Mariya Viktorovna; she is a clever creature, a charmer, a simple, +good-natured soul." + +I described how her father had received me in the spring. + +"Nonsense!" laughed the doctor, "the engineer's one thing and she's +another. Really, my dear fellow, you mustn't be nasty to her; go +and see her sometimes. For instance, let's go and see her tomorrow +evening. What do you say?" + +He persuaded me. The next evening I put on my new serge trousers, +and in some agitation I set off to Miss Dolzhikov's. The footman +did not seem so haughty and terrible, nor the furniture so gorgeous, +as on that morning when I had come to ask a favour. Mariya Viktorovna +was expecting me, and she received me like an old acquaintance, +shaking hands with me in a friendly way. She was wearing a grey +cloth dress with full sleeves, and had her hair done in the style +which we used to call "dogs' ears," when it came into fashion in +the town a year before. The hair was combed down over the ears, and +this made Mariya Viktorovna's face look broader, and she seemed to +me this time very much like her father, whose face was broad and +red, with something in its expression like a sledge-driver. She was +handsome and elegant, but not youthful looking; she looked thirty, +though in reality she was not more than twenty-five. + +"Dear Doctor, how grateful I am to you," she said, making me sit +down. "If it hadn't been for him you wouldn't have come to see me. +I am bored to death! My father has gone away and left me alone, and +I don't know what to do with myself in this town." + +Then she began asking me where I was working now, how much I earned, +where I lived. + +"Do you spend on yourself nothing but what you earn?" she asked. + +"No." + +"Happy man!" she sighed. "All the evil in life, it seems to me, +comes from idleness, boredom, and spiritual emptiness, and all this +is inevitable when one is accustomed to living at other people's +expense. Don't think I am showing off, I tell you truthfully: it +is not interesting or pleasant to be rich. 'Make to yourselves +friends of the mammon of unrighteousness' is said, because there +is not and cannot be a mammon that's righteous." + +She looked round at the furniture with a grave, cold expression, +as though she wanted to count it over, and went on: + +"Comfort and luxury have a magical power; little by little they +draw into their clutches even strong-willed people. At one time +father and I lived simply, not in a rich style, but now you see +how! It is something monstrous," she said, shrugging her shoulders; +"we spend up to twenty thousand a year! In the provinces!" + +"One comes to look at comfort and luxury as the invariable privilege +of capital and education," I said, "and it seems to me that the +comforts of life may be combined with any sort of labour, even the +hardest and dirtiest. Your father is rich, and yet he says himself +that it has been his lot to be a mechanic and an oiler." + +She smiled and shook her head doubtfully: "My father sometimes eats +bread dipped in kvass," she said. "It's a fancy, a whim!" + +At that moment there was a ring and she got up. + +"The rich and well-educated ought to work like everyone else," she +said, "and if there is comfort it ought to be equal for all. There +ought not to be any privileges. But that's enough philosophizing. +Tell me something amusing. Tell me about the painters. What are +they like? Funny?" + +The doctor came in; I began telling them about the painters, but, +being unaccustomed to talking, I was constrained, and described +them like an ethnologist, gravely and tediously. The doctor, too, +told us some anecdotes of working men: he staggered about, shed +tears, dropped on his knees, and, even, mimicking a drunkard, lay +on the floor; it was as good as a play, and Mariya Viktorovna laughed +till she cried as she looked at him. Then he played on the piano +and sang in his thin, pleasant tenor, while Mariya Viktorovna stood +by and picked out what he was to sing, and corrected him when he +made a mistake. + +"I've heard that you sing, too?" I enquired. + +"Sing, too!" cried the doctor in horror. "She sings exquisitely, a +perfect artist, and you talk of her 'singing too'! What an idea!" + +"I did study in earnest at one time," she said, answering my question, +"but now I have given it up." + +Sitting on a low stool she told us of her life in Petersburg, and +mimicked some celebrated singers, imitating their voice and manner +of singing. She made a sketch of the doctor in her album, then of +me; she did not draw well, but both the portraits were like us. She +laughed, and was full of mischief and charming grimaces, and this +suited her better than talking about the mammon of unrighteousness, +and it seemed to me that she had been talking just before about +wealth and luxury, not in earnest, but in imitation of someone. She +was a superb comic actress. I mentally compared her with our young +ladies, and even the handsome, dignified Anyuta Blagovo could not +stand comparison with her; the difference was immense, like the +difference between a beautiful, cultivated rose and a wild briar. + +We had supper together, the three of us. The doctor and Mariya +Viktorovna drank red wine, champagne, and coffee with brandy in it; +they clinked glasses and drank to friendship, to enlightenment, to +progress, to liberty, and they did not get drunk but only flushed, +and were continually, for no reason, laughing till they cried. So +as not to be tiresome I drank claret too. + +"Talented, richly endowed natures," said Miss Dolzhikov, "know how +to live, and go their own way; mediocre people, like myself for +instance, know nothing and can do nothing of themselves; there is +nothing left for them but to discern some deep social movement, and +to float where they are carried by it." + +"How can one discern what doesn't exist?" asked the doctor. + +"We think so because we don't see it." + +"Is that so? The social movements are the invention of the new +literature. There are none among us." + +An argument began. + +"There are no deep social movements among us and never have been," +the doctor declared loudly. "There is no end to what the new +literature has invented! It has invented intellectual workers in +the country, and you may search through all our villages and find +at the most some lout in a reefer jacket or a black frock-coat who +will make four mistakes in spelling a word of three letters. Cultured +life has not yet begun among us. There's the same savagery, the +same uniform boorishness, the same triviality, as five hundred years +ago. Movements, currents there have been, but it has all been petty, +paltry, bent upon vulgar and mercenary interests--and one cannot +see anything important in them. If you think you have discerned a +deep social movement, and in following it you devote yourself to +tasks in the modern taste, such as the emancipation of insects from +slavery or abstinence from beef rissoles, I congratulate you, Madam. +We must study, and study, and study and we must wait a bit with our +deep social movements; we are not mature enough for them yet; and +to tell the truth, we don't know anything about them." + +"You don't know anything about them, but I do," said Mariya Viktorovna. +"Goodness, how tiresome you are to-day!" + +"Our duty is to study and to study, to try to accumulate as much +knowledge as possible, for genuine social movements arise where +there is knowledge; and the happiness of mankind in the future lies +only in knowledge. I drink to science!" + +"There is no doubt about one thing: one must organize one's life +somehow differently," said Mariya Viktorovna, after a moment's +silence and thought. "Life, such as it has been hitherto, is not +worth having. Don't let us talk about it." + +As we came away from her the cathedral clock struck two. + +"Did you like her?" asked the doctor; "she's nice, isn't she?" + +On Christmas day we dined with Mariya Viktorovna, and all through +the holidays we went to see her almost every day. There was never +anyone there but ourselves, and she was right when she said that +she had no friends in the town but the doctor and me. We spent our +time for the most part in conversation; sometimes the doctor brought +some book or magazine and read aloud to us. In reality he was the +first well-educated man I had met in my life: I cannot judge whether +he knew a great deal, but he always displayed his knowledge as +though he wanted other people to share it. When he talked about +anything relating to medicine he was not like any one of the doctors +in our town, but made a fresh, peculiar impression upon me, and I +fancied that if he liked he might have become a real man of science. +And he was perhaps the only person who had a real influence upon +me at that time. Seeing him, and reading the books he gave me, I +began little by little to feel a thirst for the knowledge which +would have given significance to my cheerless labour. It seemed +strange to me, for instance, that I had not known till then that +the whole world was made up of sixty elements, I had not known what +oil was, what paints were, and that I could have got on without +knowing these things. My acquaintance with the doctor elevated me +morally too. I was continually arguing with him and, though I usually +remained of my own opinion, yet, thanks to him, I began to perceive +that everything was not clear to me, and I began trying to work out +as far as I could definite convictions in myself, that the dictates +of conscience might be definite, and that there might be nothing +vague in my mind. Yet, though he was the most cultivated and best +man in the town, he was nevertheless far from perfection. In his +manners, in his habit of turning every conversation into an argument, +in his pleasant tenor, even in his friendliness, there was something +coarse, like a divinity student, and when he took off his coat and +sat in his silk shirt, or flung a tip to a waiter in the restaurant, +I always fancied that culture might be all very well, but the Tatar +was fermenting in him still. + +At Epiphany he went back to Petersburg. He went off in the morning, +and after dinner my sister came in. Without taking off her fur coat +and her cap she sat down in silence, very pale, and kept her eyes +fixed on the same spot. She was chilled by the frost and one could +see that she was upset by it. + +"You must have caught cold," I said. + +Her eyes filled with tears; she got up and went out to Karpovna +without saying a word to me, as though I had hurt her feelings. And +a little later I heard her saying, in a tone of bitter reproach: + +"Nurse, what have I been living for till now? What? Tell me, haven't +I wasted my youth? All the best years of my life to know nothing +but keeping accounts, pouring out tea, counting the halfpence, +entertaining visitors, and thinking there was nothing better in the +world! Nurse, do understand, I have the cravings of a human being, +and I want to live, and they have turned me into something like a +housekeeper. It's horrible, horrible!" + +She flung her keys towards the door, and they fell with a jingle +into my room. They were the keys of the sideboard, of the kitchen +cupboard, of the cellar, and of the tea-caddy, the keys which my +mother used to carry. + +"Oh, merciful heavens!" cried the old woman in horror. "Holy Saints +above!" + +Before going home my sister came into my room to pick up the keys, +and said: + +"You must forgive me. Something queer has happened to me lately." + +VIII + +On returning home late one evening from Mariya Viktorovna's I found +waiting in my room a young police inspector in a new uniform; he +was sitting at my table, looking through my books. + +"At last," he said, getting up and stretching himself. "This is the +third time I have been to you. The Governor commands you to present +yourself before him at nine o'clock in the morning. Without fail." + +He took from me a signed statement that I would act upon his +Excellency's command, and went away. This late visit of the police +inspector and unexpected invitation to the Governor's had an +overwhelmingly oppressive effect upon me. From my earliest childhood +I have felt terror-stricken in the presence of gendarmes, policemen, +and law court officials, and now I was tormented by uneasiness, as +though I were really guilty in some way. And I could not get to +sleep. My nurse and Prokofy were also upset and could not sleep. +My nurse had earache too; she moaned, and several times began crying +with pain. Hearing that I was awake, Prokofy came into my room with +a lamp and sat down at the table. + +"You ought to have a drink of pepper cordial," he said, after a +moment's thought. "If one does have a drink in this vale of tears +it does no harm. And if Mamma were to pour a little pepper cordial +in her ear it would do her a lot of good." + +Between two and three he was going to the slaughter-house for the +meat. I knew I should not sleep till morning now, and to get through +the time till nine o'clock I went with him. We walked with a lantern, +while his boy Nikolka, aged thirteen, with blue patches on his +cheeks from frostbites, a regular young brigand to judge by his +expression, drove after us in the sledge, urging on the horse in a +husky voice. + +"I suppose they will punish you at the Governor's," Prokofy said +to me on the way. "There are rules of the trade for governors, and +rules for the higher clergy, and rules for the officers, and rules +for the doctors, and every class has its rules. But you haven't +kept to your rules, and you can't be allowed." + +The slaughter-house was behind the cemetery, and till then I had +only seen it in the distance. It consisted of three gloomy barns, +surrounded by a grey fence, and when the wind blew from that quarter +on hot days in summer, it brought a stifling stench from them. Now +going into the yard in the dark I did not see the barns; I kept +coming across horses and sledges, some empty, some loaded up with +meat. Men were walking about with lanterns, swearing in a disgusting +way. Prokofy and Nikolka swore just as revoltingly, and the air was +in a continual uproar with swearing, coughing, and the neighing of +horses. + +There was a smell of dead bodies and of dung. It was thawing, the +snow was changing into mud; and in the darkness it seemed to me +that I was walking through pools of blood. + +Having piled up the sledges full of meat we set off to the butcher's +shop in the market. It began to get light. Cooks with baskets and +elderly ladies in mantles came along one after another, Prokofy, +with a chopper in his hand, in a white apron spattered with blood, +swore fearful oaths, crossed himself at the church, shouted aloud +for the whole market to hear, that he was giving away the meat at +cost price and even at a loss to himself. He gave short weight and +short change, the cooks saw that, but, deafened by his shouts, did +not protest, and only called him a hangman. Brandishing and bringing +down his terrible chopper he threw himself into picturesque attitudes, +and each time uttered the sound "Geck" with a ferocious expression, +and I was afraid he really would chop off somebody's head or hand. + +I spent all the morning in the butcher's shop, and when at last I +went to the Governor's, my overcoat smelt of meat and blood. My +state of mind was as though I were being sent spear in hand to meet +a bear. I remember the tall staircase with a striped carpet on it, +and the young official, with shiny buttons, who mutely motioned me +to the door with both hands, and ran to announce me. I went into a +hall luxuriously but frigidly and tastelessly furnished, and the +high, narrow mirrors in the spaces between the walls, and the bright +yellow window curtains, struck the eye particularly unpleasantly. +One could see that the governors were changed, but the furniture +remained the same. Again the young official motioned me with both +hands to the door, and I went up to a big green table at which a +military general, with the Order of Vladimir on his breast, was +standing. + +"Mr. Poloznev, I have asked you to come," he began, holding a letter +in his hand, and opening his mouth like a round "o," "I have asked +you to come here to inform you of this. Your highly respected father +has appealed by letter and by word of mouth to the Marshal of the +Nobility begging him to summon you, and to lay before you the +inconsistency of your behaviour with the rank of the nobility to +which you have the honour to belong. His Excellency Alexandr +Pavlovitch, justly supposing that your conduct might serve as a bad +example, and considering that mere persuasion on his part would not +be sufficient, but that official intervention in earnest was +essential, presents me here in this letter with his views in regard +to you, which I share." + +He said this, quietly, respectfully, standing erect, as though I +were his superior officer and looking at me with no trace of severity. +His face looked worn and wizened, and was all wrinkles; there were +bags under his eyes; his hair was dyed; and it was impossible to +tell from his appearance how old he was--forty or sixty. + +"I trust," he went on, "that you appreciate the delicacy of our +honoured Alexandr Pavlovitch, who has addressed himself to me not +officially, but privately. I, too, have asked you to come here +unofficially, and I am speaking to you, not as a Governor, but from +a sincere regard for your father. And so I beg you either to alter +your line of conduct and return to duties in keeping with your rank, +or to avoid setting a bad example, remove to another district where +you are not known, and where you can follow any occupation you +please. In the other case, I shall be forced to take extreme +measures." + +He stood for half a minute in silence, looking at me with his mouth +open. + +"Are you a vegetarian?" he asked. + +"No, your Excellency, I eat meat." + +He sat down and drew some papers towards him. I bowed and went out. + +It was not worth while now to go to work before dinner. I went home +to sleep, but could not sleep from an unpleasant, sickly feeling, +induced by the slaughter house and my conversation with the Governor, +and when the evening came I went, gloomy and out of sorts, to Mariya +Viktorovna. I told her how I had been at the Governor's, while she +stared at me in perplexity as though she did not believe it, then +suddenly began laughing gaily, loudly, irrepressibly, as only +good-natured laughter-loving people can. + +"If only one could tell that in Petersburg!" she brought out, almost +falling over with laughter, and propping herself against the table. +"If one could tell that in Petersburg!" + +IX + +Now we used to see each other often, sometimes twice a day. She +used to come to the cemetery almost every day after dinner, and +read the epitaphs on the crosses and tombstones while she waited +for me. Sometimes she would come into the church, and, standing by +me, would look on while I worked. The stillness, the naïve work of +the painters and gilders, Radish's sage reflections, and the fact +that I did not differ externally from the other workmen, and worked +just as they did in my waistcoat with no socks on, and that I was +addressed familiarly by them--all this was new to her and touched +her. One day a workman, who was painting a dove on the ceiling, +called out to me in her presence: + +"Misail, hand me up the white paint." + +I took him the white paint, and afterwards, when I let myself down +by the frail scaffolding, she looked at me, touched to tears and +smiling. + +"What a dear you are!" she said. + +I remembered from my childhood how a green parrot, belonging to one +of the rich men of the town, had escaped from its cage, and how for +quite a month afterwards the beautiful bird had haunted the town, +flying from garden to garden, homeless and solitary. Mariya Viktorovna +reminded me of that bird. + +"There is positively nowhere for me to go now but the cemetery," +she said to me with a laugh. "The town has become disgustingly dull. +At the Azhogins' they are still reciting, singing, lisping. I have +grown to detest them of late; your sister is an unsociable creature; +Mademoiselle Blagovo hates me for some reason. I don't care for the +theatre. Tell me where am I to go?" + +When I went to see her I smelt of paint and turpentine, and my hands +were stained--and she liked that; she wanted me to come to her +in my ordinary working clothes; but in her drawing-room those clothes +made me feel awkward. I felt embarrassed, as though I were in +uniform, so I always put on my new serge trousers when I went to +her. And she did not like that. + +"You must own you are not quite at home in your new character," she +said to me one day. "Your workman's dress does not feel natural to +you; you are awkward in it. Tell me, isn't that because you haven't +a firm conviction, and are not satisfied? The very kind of work you +have chosen--your painting--surely it does not satisfy you, +does it?" she asked, laughing. "I know paint makes things look nicer +and last longer, but those things belong to rich people who live +in towns, and after all they are luxuries. Besides, you have often +said yourself that everybody ought to get his bread by the work of +his own hands, yet you get money and not bread. Why shouldn't you +keep to the literal sense of your words? You ought to be getting +bread, that is, you ought to be ploughing, sowing, reaping, threshing, +or doing something which has a direct connection with agriculture, +for instance, looking after cows, digging, building huts of +logs. . . ." + +She opened a pretty cupboard that stood near her writing-table, and +said: + +"I am saying all this to you because I want to let you into my +secret. _Voilà!_ This is my agricultural library. Here I have fields, +kitchen garden and orchard, and cattleyard and beehives. I read +them greedily, and have already learnt all the theory to the tiniest +detail. My dream, my darling wish, is to go to our Dubetchnya as +soon as March is here. It's marvellous there, exquisite, isn't it? +The first year I shall have a look round and get into things, and +the year after I shall begin to work properly myself, putting my +back into it as they say. My father has promised to give me Dubetchnya +and I shall do exactly what I like with it." + +Flushed, excited to tears, and laughing, she dreamed aloud how she +would live at Dubetchnya, and what an interesting life it would be! +I envied her. March was near, the days were growing longer and +longer, and on bright sunny days water dripped from the roofs at +midday, and there was a fragrance of spring; I, too, longed for the +country. + +And when she said that she should move to Dubetchnya, I realized +vividly that I should remain in the town alone, and I felt that I +envied her with her cupboard of books and her agriculture. I knew +nothing of work on the land, and did not like it, and I should have +liked to have told her that work on the land was slavish toil, but +I remembered that something similar had been said more than once +by my father, and I held my tongue. + +Lent began. Viktor Ivanitch, whose existence I had begun to forget, +arrived from Petersburg. He arrived unexpectedly, without even a +telegram to say he was coming. When I went in, as usual in the +evening, he was walking about the drawing-room, telling some story +with his face freshly washed and shaven, looking ten years younger: +his daughter was kneeling on the floor, taking out of his trunks +boxes, bottles, and books, and handing them to Pavel the footman. +I involuntarily drew back a step when I saw the engineer, but he +held out both hands to me and said, smiling, showing his strong +white teeth that looked like a sledge-driver's: + +"Here he is, here he is! Very glad to see you, Mr. House-painter! +Masha has told me all about it; she has been singing your praises. +I quite understand and approve," he went on, taking my arm. "To be +a good workman is ever so much more honest and more sensible than +wasting government paper and wearing a cockade on your head. I +myself worked in Belgium with these very hands and then spent two +years as a mechanic. . . ." + +He was wearing a short reefer jacket and indoor slippers; he walked +like a man with the gout, rolling slightly from side to side and +rubbing his hands. Humming something he softly purred and hugged +himself with satisfaction at being at home again at last, and able +to have his beloved shower bath. + +"There is no disputing," he said to me at supper, "there is no +disputing; you are all nice and charming people, but for some reason, +as soon as you take to manual labour, or go in for saving the +peasants, in the long run it all comes to no more than being a +dissenter. Aren't you a dissenter? Here you don't take vodka. What's +the meaning of that if it is not being a dissenter?" + +To satisfy him I drank some vodka and I drank some wine, too. We +tasted the cheese, the sausage, the pâtés, the pickles, and the +savouries of all sorts that the engineer had brought with him, and +the wine that had come in his absence from abroad. The wine was +first-rate. For some reason the engineer got wine and cigars from +abroad without paying duty; the caviare and the dried sturgeon +someone sent him for nothing; he did not pay rent for his flat as +the owner of the house provided the kerosene for the line; and +altogether he and his daughter produced on me the impression that +all the best in the world was at their service, and provided for +them for nothing. + +I went on going to see them, but not with the same eagerness. The +engineer made me feel constrained, and in his presence I did not +feel free. I could not face his clear, guileless eyes, his reflections +wearied and sickened me; I was sickened, too, by the memory that +so lately I had been in the employment of this red-faced, well-fed +man, and that he had been brutally rude to me. It is true that he +put his arm round my waist, slapped me on the shoulder in a friendly +way, approved my manner of life, but I felt that, as before, he +despised my insignificance, and only put up with me to please his +daughter, and I couldn't now laugh and talk as I liked, and I behaved +unsociably and kept expecting that in another minute he would address +me as Panteley as he did his footman Pavel. How my pride as a +provincial and a working man was revolted. I, a proletarian, a house +painter, went every day to rich people who were alien to me, and +whom the whole town regarded as though they were foreigners, and +every day I drank costly wines with them and ate unusual dainties +--my conscience refused to be reconciled to it! On my way to the +house I sullenly avoided meeting people, and looked at them from +under my brows as though I really were a dissenter, and when I was +going home from the engineer's I was ashamed of my well-fed condition. + +Above all I was afraid of being carried away. Whether I was walking +along the street, or working, or talking to the other fellows, I +was all the time thinking of one thing only, of going in the evening +to see Mariya Viktorovna and was picturing her voice, her laugh, +her movements. When I was getting ready to go to her I always spent +a long time before my nurse's warped looking-glass, as I fastened +my tie; my serge trousers were detestable in my eyes, and I suffered +torments, and at the same time despised myself for being so trivial. +When she called to me out of the other room that she was not dressed +and asked me to wait, I listened to her dressing; it agitated me, +I felt as though the ground were giving way under my feet. And when +I saw a woman's figure in the street, even at a distance, I invariably +compared it. It seemed to me that all our girls and women were +vulgar, that they were absurdly dressed, and did not know how to +hold themselves; and these comparisons aroused a feeling of pride +in me: Mariya Viktorovna was the best of them all! And I dreamed +of her and myself at night. + +One evening at supper with the engineer we ate a whole lobster As +I was going home afterwards I remembered that the engineer twice +called me "My dear fellow" at supper, and I reflected that they +treated me very kindly in that house, as they might an unfortunate +big dog who had been kicked out by its owners, that they were amusing +themselves with me, and that when they were tired of me they would +turn me out like a dog. I felt ashamed and wounded, wounded to the +point of tears as though I had been insulted, and looking up at the +sky I took a vow to put an end to all this. + +The next day I did not go to the Dolzhikov's. Late in the evening, +when it was quite dark and raining, I walked along Great Dvoryansky +Street, looking up at the windows. Everyone was asleep at the +Azhogins', and the only light was in one of the furthest windows. +It was Madame Azhogin in her own room, sewing by the light of three +candles, imagining that she was combating superstition. Our house +was in darkness, but at the Dolzhikovs', on the contrary, the windows +were lighted up, but one could distinguish nothing through the +flowers and the curtains. I kept walking up and down the street; +the cold March rain drenched me through. I heard my father come +home from the club; he stood knocking at the gate. A minute later +a light appeared at the window, and I saw my sister, who was hastening +down with a lamp, while with the other hand she was twisting her +thick hair together as she went. Then my father walked about the +drawing-room, talking and rubbing his hands, while my sister sat +in a low chair, thinking and not listening to what he said. + +But then they went away; the light went out. . . . I glanced round +at the engineer's, and there, too, all was darkness now. In the +dark and the rain I felt hopelessly alone, abandoned to the whims +of destiny; I felt that all my doings, my desires, and everything +I had thought and said till then were trivial in comparison with +my loneliness, in comparison with my present suffering, and the +suffering that lay before me in the future. Alas, the thoughts and +doings of living creatures are not nearly so significant as their +sufferings! And without clearly realizing what I was doing, I pulled +at the bell of the Dolzhikovs' gate, broke it, and ran along the +street like some naughty boy, with a feeling of terror in my heart, +expecting every moment that they would come out and recognize me. +When I stopped at the end of the street to take breath I could hear +nothing but the sound of the rain, and somewhere in the distance a +watchman striking on a sheet of iron. + +For a whole week I did not go to the Dolzhikovs'. My serge trousers +were sold. There was nothing doing in the painting trade. I knew +the pangs of hunger again, and earned from twopence to fourpence a +day, where I could, by heavy and unpleasant work. Struggling up to +my knees in the cold mud, straining my chest, I tried to stifle my +memories, and, as it were, to punish myself for the cheeses and +preserves with which I had been regaled at the engineer's. But all +the same, as soon as I lay in bed, wet and hungry, my sinful +imagination immediately began to paint exquisite, seductive pictures, +and with amazement I acknowledged to myself that I was in love, +passionately in love, and I fell into a sound, heavy sleep, feeling +that hard labour only made my body stronger and younger. + +One evening snow began falling most inappropriately, and the wind +blew from the north as though winter had come back again. When I +returned from work that evening I found Mariya Viktorovna in my +room. She was sitting in her fur coat, and had both hands in her +muff. + +"Why don't you come to see me?" she asked, raising her clear, clever +eyes, and I was utterly confused with delight and stood stiffly +upright before her, as I used to stand facing my father when he was +going to beat me; she looked into my face and I could see from her +eyes that she understood why I was confused. + +"Why don't you come to see me?" she repeated. "If you don't want +to come, you see, I have come to you." + +She got up and came close to me. + +"Don't desert me," she said, and her eyes filled with tears. "I am +alone, utterly alone." + +She began crying; and, hiding her face in her muff, articulated: + +"Alone! My life is hard, very hard, and in all the world I have no +one but you. Don't desert me!" + +Looking for a handkerchief to wipe her tears she smiled; we were +silent for some time, then I put my arms round her and kissed her, +scratching my cheek till it bled with her hatpin as I did it. + +And we began talking to each other as though we had been on the +closest terms for ages and ages. + +X + +Two days later she sent me to Dubetchnya and I was unutterably +delighted to go. As I walked towards the station and afterwards, +as I was sitting in the train, I kept laughing from no apparent +cause, and people looked at me as though I were drunk. Snow was +falling, and there were still frosts in the mornings, but the roads +were already dark-coloured and rooks hovered over them, cawing. + +At first I had intended to fit up an abode for us two, Masha and +me, in the lodge at the side opposite Madame Tcheprakov's lodge, +but it appeared that the doves and the ducks had been living there +for a long time, and it was impossible to clean it without destroying +a great number of nests. There was nothing for it but to live in +the comfortless rooms of the big house with the sunblinds. The +peasants called the house the palace; there were more than twenty +rooms in it, and the only furniture was a piano and a child's +arm-chair lying in the attic. And if Masha had brought all her +furniture from the town we should even then have been unable to get +rid of the impression of immense emptiness and cold. I picked out +three small rooms with windows looking into the garden, and worked +from early morning till night, setting them to rights, putting in +new panes, papering the walls, filling up the holes and chinks in +the floors. It was easy, pleasant work. I was continually running +to the river to see whether the ice were not going; I kept fancying +that starlings were flying. And at night, thinking of Masha, I +listened with an unutterably sweet feeling, with clutching delight +to the noise of the rats and the wind droning and knocking above +the ceiling. It seemed as though some old house spirit were coughing +in the attic. + +The snow was deep; a great deal had fallen even at the end of March, +but it melted quickly, as though by magic, and the spring floods +passed in a tumultuous rush, so that by the beginning of April the +starlings were already noisy, and yellow butterflies were flying +in the garden. It was exquisite weather. Every day, towards evening, +I used to walk to the town to meet Masha, and what a delight it was +to walk with bare feet along the gradually drying, still soft road. +Half-way I used to sit down and look towards the town, not venturing +to go near it. The sight of it troubled me. I kept wondering how +the people I knew would behave to me when they heard of my love. +What would my father say? What troubled me particularly was the +thought that my life was more complicated, and that I had completely +lost all power to set it right, and that, like a balloon, it was +bearing me away, God knows whither. I no longer considered the +problem how to earn my daily bread, how to live, but thought about +--I really don't know what. + +Masha used to come in a carriage; I used to get in with her, and +we drove to Dubetchnya, feeling light-hearted and free. Or, after +waiting till the sun had set, I would go back dissatisfied and +dreary, wondering why Masha had not come; at the gate or in the +garden I would be met by a sweet, unexpected apparition--it was +she! It would turn out that she had come by rail, and had walked +from the station. What a festival it was! In a simple woollen dress +with a kerchief on her head, with a modest sunshade, but laced in, +slender, in expensive foreign boots--it was a talented actress +playing the part of a little workgirl. We looked round our domain +and decided which should be her room, and which mine, where we would +have our avenue, our kitchen garden, our beehives. + +We already had hens, ducks, and geese, which we loved because they +were ours. We had, all ready for sowing, oats, clover, timothy +grass, buckwheat, and vegetable seeds, and we always looked at all +these stores and discussed at length the crop we might get; and +everything Masha said to me seemed extraordinarily clever, and fine. +This was the happiest time of my life. + +Soon after St. Thomas's week we were married at our parish church +in the village of Kurilovka, two miles from Dubetchnya. Masha wanted +everything to be done quietly; at her wish our "best men" were +peasant lads, the sacristan sang alone, and we came back from the +church in a small, jolting chaise which she drove herself. Our only +guest from the town was my sister Kleopatra, to whom Masha sent a +note three days before the wedding. My sister came in a white dress +and wore gloves. During the wedding she cried quietly from joy and +tenderness. Her expression was motherly and infinitely kind. She +was intoxicated with our happiness, and smiled as though she were +absorbing a sweet delirium, and looking at her during our wedding, +I realized that for her there was nothing in the world higher than +love, earthly love, and that she was dreaming of it secretly, +timidly, but continually and passionately. She embraced and kissed +Masha, and, not knowing how to express her rapture, said to her of +me: "He is good! He is very good!" + +Before she went away she changed into her ordinary dress, and drew +me into the garden to talk to me alone. + +"Father is very much hurt," she said, "that you have written nothing +to him. You ought to have asked for his blessing. But in reality +he is very much pleased. He says that this marriage will raise you +in the eyes of all society, and that under the influence of Mariya +Viktorovna you will begin to take a more serious view of life. We +talk of nothing but you in the evenings now, and yesterday he +actually used the expression: 'Our Misail.' That pleased me. It +seems as though he had some plan in his mind, and I fancy he wants +to set you an example of magnanimity and be the first to speak of +reconciliation. It is very possible he may come here to see you in +a day or two." + +She hurriedly made the sign of the cross over me several times and +said: + +"Well, God be with you. Be happy. Anyuta Blagovo is a very clever +girl; she says about your marriage that God is sending you a fresh +ordeal. To be sure--married life does not bring only joy but +suffering too. That's bound to be so." + +Masha and I walked a couple of miles to see her on her way; we +walked back slowly and in silence, as though we were resting. Masha +held my hand, my heart felt light, and I had no inclination to talk +about love; we had become closer and more akin now that we were +married, and we felt that nothing now could separate us. + +"Your sister is a nice creature," said Masha, "but it seems as +though she had been tormented for years. Your father must be a +terrible man." + +I began telling her how my sister and I had been brought up, and +what a senseless torture our childhood had really been. When she +heard how my father had so lately beaten me, she shuddered and drew +closer to me. + +"Don't tell me any more," she said. "It's horrible!" + +Now she never left me. We lived together in the three rooms in the +big house, and in the evenings we bolted the door which led to the +empty part of the house, as though someone were living there whom +we did not know, and were afraid of. I got up early, at dawn, and +immediately set to work of some sort. I mended the carts, made paths +in the garden, dug the flower beds, painted the roof of the house. +When the time came to sow the oats I tried to plough the ground +over again, to harrow and to sow, and I did it all conscientiously, +keeping up with our labourer; I was worn out, the rain and the cold +wind made my face and feet burn for hours afterwards. I dreamed of +ploughed land at night. But field labour did not attract me. I did +not understand farming, and I did not care for it; it was perhaps +because my forefathers had not been tillers of the soil, and the +very blood that flowed in my veins was purely of the city. I loved +nature tenderly; I loved the fields and meadows and kitchen gardens, +but the peasant who turned up the soil with his plough and urged +on his pitiful horse, wet and tattered, with his craning neck, was +to me the expression of coarse, savage, ugly force, and every time +I looked at his uncouth movements I involuntarily began thinking +of the legendary life of the remote past, before men knew the use +of fire. The fierce bull that ran with the peasants' herd, and the +horses, when they dashed about the village, stamping their hoofs, +moved me to fear, and everything rather big, strong, and angry, +whether it was the ram with its horns, the gander, or the yard-dog, +seemed to me the expression of the same coarse, savage force. This +mood was particularly strong in me in bad weather, when heavy clouds +were hanging over the black ploughed land. Above all, when I was +ploughing or sowing, and two or three people stood looking how I +was doing it, I had not the feeling that this work was inevitable +and obligatory, and it seemed to me that I was amusing myself. I +preferred doing something in the yard, and there was nothing I liked +so much as painting the roof. + +I used to walk through the garden and the meadow to our mill. It +was let to a peasant of Kurilovka called Stepan, a handsome, dark +fellow with a thick black beard, who looked very strong. He did not +like the miller's work, and looked upon it as dreary and unprofitable, +and only lived at the mill in order not to live at home. He was a +leather-worker, and was always surrounded by a pleasant smell of +tar and leather. He was not fond of talking, he was listless and +sluggish, and was always sitting in the doorway or on the river +bank, humming "oo-loo-loo." His wife and mother-in-law, both +white-faced, languid, and meek, used sometimes to come from Kurilovka +to see him; they made low bows to him and addressed him formally, +"Stepan Petrovitch," while he went on sitting on the river bank, +softly humming "oo-loo-loo," without responding by word or movement +to their bows. One hour and then a second would pass in silence. +His mother-in-law and wife, after whispering together, would get +up and gaze at him for some time, expecting him to look round; then +they would make a low bow, and in sugary, chanting voices, say: + +"Good-bye, Stepan Petrovitch!" + +And they would go away. After that Stepan, picking up the parcel +they had left, containing cracknels or a shirt, would heave a sigh +and say, winking in their direction: + +"The female sex!" + +The mill with two sets of millstones worked day and night. I used +to help Stepan; I liked the work, and when he went off I was glad +to stay and take his place. + +XI + +After bright warm weather came a spell of wet; all May it rained +and was cold. The sound of the millwheels and of the rain disposed +one to indolence and slumber. The floor trembled, there was a smell +of flour, and that, too, induced drowsiness. My wife in a short +fur-lined jacket, and in men's high golosh boots, would make her +appearance twice a day, and she always said the same thing: + +"And this is called summer! Worse than it was in October!" + +We used to have tea and make the porridge together, or we would sit +for hours at a stretch without speaking, waiting for the rain to +stop. Once, when Stepan had gone off to the fair, Masha stayed all +night at the mill. When we got up we could not tell what time it +was, as the rainclouds covered the whole sky; but sleepy cocks were +crowing at Dubetchnya, and landrails were calling in the meadows; +it was still very, very early. . . . My wife and I went down to the +millpond and drew out the net which Stepan had thrown in over night +in our presence. A big pike was struggling in it, and a cray-fish +was twisting about, clawing upwards with its pincers. + +"Let them go," said Masha. "Let them be happy too." + +Because we got up so early and afterwards did nothing, that day +seemed very long, the longest day in my life. Towards evening Stepan +came back and I went home. + +"Your father came to-day," said Masha. + +"Where is he?" I asked. + +"He has gone away. I would not see him." + +Seeing that I remained standing and silent, that I was sorry for +my father, she said: + +"One must be consistent. I would not see him, and sent word to him +not to trouble to come and see us again." + +A minute later I was out at the gate and walking to the town to +explain things to my father. It was muddy, slippery, cold. For the +first time since my marriage I felt suddenly sad, and in my brain +exhausted by that long, grey day, there was stirring the thought +that perhaps I was not living as I ought. I was worn out; little +by little I was overcome by despondency and indolence, I did not +want to move or think, and after going on a little I gave it up +with a wave of my hand and turned back. + +The engineer in a leather overcoat with a hood was standing in the +middle of the yard. + +"Where's the furniture? There used to be lovely furniture in the +Empire style: there used to be pictures, there used to be vases, +while now you could play ball in it! I bought the place with the +furniture. The devil take her!" + +Moisey, a thin pock-marked fellow of twenty-five, with insolent +little eyes, who was in the service of the general's widow, stood +near him crumpling up his cap in his hands; one of his cheeks was +bigger than the other, as though he had lain too long on it. + +"Your honour was graciously pleased to buy the place without the +furniture," he brought out irresolutely; "I remember." + +"Hold your tongue!" shouted the engineer; he turned crimson and +shook with anger . . . and the echo in the garden loudly repeated +his shout. + +XII + +When I was doing anything in the garden or the yard, Moisey would +stand beside me, and folding his arms behind his back he would stand +lazily and impudently staring at me with his little eyes. And this +irritated me to such a degree that I threw up my work and went away. + +From Stepan we heard that Moisey was Madame Tcheprakov's lover. I +noticed that when people came to her to borrow money they addressed +themselves first to Moisey, and once I saw a peasant, black from +head to foot--he must have been a coalheaver--bow down at +Moisey's feet. Sometimes, after a little whispering, he gave out +money himself, without consulting his mistress, from which I concluded +that he did a little business on his own account. + +He used to shoot in our garden under our windows, carried off +victuals from our cellar, borrowed our horses without asking +permission, and we were indignant and began to feel as though +Dubetchnya were not ours, and Masha would say, turning pale: + +"Can we really have to go on living with these reptiles another +eighteen months?" + +Madame Tcheprakov's son, Ivan, was serving as a guard on our +railway-line. He had grown much thinner and feebler during the +winter, so that a single glass was enough to make him drunk, and +he shivered out of the sunshine. He wore the guard's uniform with +aversion and was ashamed of it, but considered his post a good one, +as he could steal the candles and sell them. My new position excited +in him a mixed feeling of wonder, envy, and a vague hope that +something of the same sort might happen to him. He used to watch +Masha with ecstatic eyes, ask me what I had for dinner now, and his +lean and ugly face wore a sad and sweetish expression, and he moved +his fingers as though he were feeling my happiness with them. + +"Listen, Better-than-nothing," he said fussily, relighting his +cigarette at every instant; there was always a litter where he +stood, for he wasted dozens of matches, lighting one cigarette. +"Listen, my life now is the nastiest possible. The worst of it is +any subaltern can shout: 'Hi, there, guard!' I have overheard all +sorts of things in the train, my boy, and do you know, I have learned +that life's a beastly thing! My mother has been the ruin of me! A +doctor in the train told me that if parents are immoral, their +children are drunkards or criminals. Think of that!" + +Once he came into the yard, staggering; his eyes gazed about blankly, +his breathing was laboured; he laughed and cried and babbled as +though in a high fever, and the only words I could catch in his +muddled talk were, "My mother! Where's my mother?" which he uttered +with a wail like a child who has lost his mother in a crowd. I led +him into our garden and laid him down under a tree, and Masha and +I took turns to sit by him all that day and all night. He was very +sick, and Masha looked with aversion at his pale, wet face, and +said: + +"Is it possible these reptiles will go on living another year and +a half in our yard? It's awful! it's awful!" + +And how many mortifications the peasants caused us! How many bitter +disappointments in those early days in the spring months, when we +so longed to be happy. My wife built a school. I drew a plan of a +school for sixty boys, and the Zemstvo Board approved of it, but +advised us to build the school at Kurilovka the big village which +was only two miles from us. Moreover, the school at Kurilovka in +which children--from four villages, our Dubetchnya being one of +the number--were taught, was old and too small, and the floor was +scarcely safe to walk upon. At the end of March at Masha's wish, +she was appointed guardian of the Kurilovka school, and at the +beginning of April we three times summoned the village assembly, +and tried to persuade the peasants that their school was old and +overcrowded, and that it was essential to build a new one. A member +of the Zemstvo Board and the Inspector of Peasant Schools came, and +they, too, tried to persuade them. After each meeting the peasants +surrounded us, begging for a bucket of vodka; we were hot in the +crowd; we were soon exhausted, and returned home dissatisfied and +a little ill at ease. In the end the peasants set apart a plot of +ground for the school, and were obliged to bring all the building +material from the town with their own horses. And the very first +Sunday after the spring corn was sown carts set off from Kurilovka +and Dubetchnya to fetch bricks for the foundations. They set off +as soon as it was light, and came back late in the evening; the +peasants were drunk, and said they were worn out. + +As ill-luck would have it, the rain and the cold persisted all +through May. The road was in an awful state: it was deep in mud. +The carts usually drove into our yard when they came back from the +town--and what a horrible ordeal it was. A potbellied horse would +appear at the gate, setting its front legs wide apart; it would +stumble forward before coming into the yard; a beam, nine yards +long, wet and slimy-looking, crept in on a waggon. Beside it, muffled +up against the rain, strode a peasant with the skirts of his coat +tucked up in his belt, not looking where he was going, but stepping +through the puddles. Another cart would appear with boards, then a +third with a beam, a fourth . . . and the space before our house +was gradually crowded up with horses, beams, and planks. Men and +women, with their heads muffled and their skirts tucked up, would +stare angrily at our windows, make an uproar, and clamour for the +mistress to come out to them; coarse oaths were audible. Meanwhile +Moisey stood at one side, and we fancied he was enjoying our +discomfiture. + +"We are not going to cart any more," the peasants would shout. "We +are worn out! Let her go and get the stuff herself." + +Masha, pale and flustered, expecting every minute that they would +break into the house, would send them out a half-pail of vodka; +after that the noise would subside and the long beams, one after +another, would crawl slowly out of the yard. + +When I was setting off to see the building my wife was worried and +said: + +"The peasants are spiteful; I only hope they won't do you a mischief. +Wait a minute, I'll come with you." + +We drove to Kurilovka together, and there the carpenters asked us +for a drink. The framework of the house was ready. It was time to +lay the foundation, but the masons had not come; this caused delay, +and the carpenters complained. And when at last the masons did come, +it appeared that there was no sand; it had been somehow overlooked +that it would be needed. Taking advantage of our helpless position, +the peasants demanded thirty kopecks for each cartload, though the +distance from the building to the river where they got the sand was +less than a quarter of a mile, and more than five hundred cartloads +were found to be necessary. There was no end to the misunderstandings, +swearing, and importunity; my wife was indignant, and the foreman +of the masons, Tit Petrov, an old man of seventy, took her by the +arm, and said: + +"You look here! You look here! You only bring me the sand; I set +ten men on at once, and in two days it will be done! You look here!" + +But they brought the sand and two days passed, and four, and a week, +and instead of the promised foundations there was still a yawning +hole. + +"It's enough to drive one out of one's senses," said my wife, in +distress. "What people! What people!" + +In the midst of these disorderly doings the engineer arrived; he +brought with him parcels of wine and savouries, and after a prolonged +meal lay down for a nap in the verandah and snored so loudly that +the labourers shook their heads and said: "Well!" + +Masha was not pleased at his coming, she did not trust him, though +at the same time she asked his advice. When, after sleeping too +long after dinner, he got up in a bad humour and said unpleasant +things about our management of the place, or expressed regret that +he had bought Dubetchnya, which had already been a loss to him, +poor Masha's face wore an expression of misery. She would complain +to him, and he would yawn and say that the peasants ought to be +flogged. + +He called our marriage and our life a farce, and said it was a +caprice, a whim. + +"She has done something of the sort before," he said about Masha. +"She once fancied herself a great opera singer and left me; I was +looking for her for two months, and, my dear soul, I spent a thousand +roubles on telegrams alone." + +He no longer called me a dissenter or Mr. Painter, and did not as +in the past express approval of my living like a workman, but said: + +"You are a strange person! You are not a normal person! I won't +venture to prophesy, but you will come to a bad end!" + +And Masha slept badly at night, and was always sitting at our bedroom +window thinking. There was no laughter at supper now, no charming +grimaces. I was wretched, and when it rained, every drop that fell +seemed to pierce my heart, like small shot, and I felt ready to +fall on my knees before Masha and apologize for the weather. When +the peasants made a noise in the yard I felt guilty also. For hours +at a time I sat still in one place, thinking of nothing but what a +splendid person Masha was, what a wonderful person. I loved her +passionately, and I was fascinated by everything she did, everything +she said. She had a bent for quiet, studious pursuits; she was fond +of reading for hours together, of studying. Although her knowledge +of farming was only from books she surprised us all by what she +knew; and every piece of advice she gave was of value; not one was +ever thrown away; and, with all that, what nobility, what taste, +what graciousness, that graciousness which is only found in +well-educated people. + +To this woman, with her sound, practical intelligence, the disorderly +surroundings with petty cares and sordid anxieties in which we were +living now were an agony: I saw that and could not sleep at night; +my brain worked feverishly and I had a lump in my throat. I rushed +about not knowing what to do. + +I galloped to the town and brought Masha books, newspapers, sweets, +flowers; with Stepan I caught fish, wading for hours up to my neck +in the cold water in the rain to catch eel-pout to vary our fare; +I demeaned myself to beg the peasants not to make a noise; I plied +them with vodka, bought them off, made all sorts of promises. And +how many other foolish things I did! + +At last the rain ceased, the earth dried. One would get up at four +o'clock in the morning; one would go out into the garden--where +there was dew sparkling on the flowers, the twitter of birds, the +hum of insects, not one cloud in the sky; and the garden, the +meadows, and the river were so lovely, yet there were memories of +the peasants, of their carts, of the engineer. Masha and I drove +out together in the racing droshky to the fields to look at the +oats. She used to drive, I sat behind; her shoulders were raised +and the wind played with her hair. + +"Keep to the right!" she shouted to those she met. + +"You are like a sledge-driver," I said to her one day. + +"Maybe! Why, my grandfather, the engineer's father, was a sledge-driver. +Didn't you know that?" she asked, turning to me, and at once she +mimicked the way sledge-drivers shout and sing. + +"And thank God for that," I thought as I listened to her. "Thank +God." + +And again memories of the peasants, of the carts, of the engineer. . . . + +XIII + +Dr. Blagovo arrived on his bicycle. My sister began coming often. +Again there were conversations about manual labour, about progress, +about a mysterious millennium awaiting mankind in the remote future. +The doctor did not like our farmwork, because it interfered with +arguments, and said that ploughing, reaping, grazing calves were +unworthy of a free man, and all these coarse forms of the struggle +for existence men would in time relegate to animals and machines, +while they would devote themselves exclusively to scientific +investigation. My sister kept begging them to let her go home +earlier, and if she stayed on till late in the evening, or spent +the night with us, there would be no end to the agitation. + +"Good Heavens, what a baby you are still!" said Masha reproachfully. +"It is positively absurd." + +"Yes, it is absurd," my sister agreed, "I know it's absurd; but +what is to be done if I haven't the strength to get over it? I keep +feeling as though I were doing wrong." + +At haymaking I ached all over from the unaccustomed labour; in the +evening, sitting on the verandah and talking with the others, I +suddenly dropped asleep, and they laughed aloud at me. They waked +me up and made me sit down to supper; I was overpowered with +drowsiness and I saw the lights, the faces, and the plates as it +were in a dream, heard the voices, but did not understand them. And +getting up early in the morning, I took up the scythe at once, or +went to the building and worked hard all day. + +When I remained at home on holidays I noticed that my sister and +Masha were concealing something from me, and even seemed to be +avoiding me. My wife was tender to me as before, but she had thoughts +of her own apart, which she did not share with me. There was no +doubt that her exasperation with the peasants was growing, the life +was becoming more and more distasteful to her, and yet she did not +complain to me. She talked to the doctor now more readily than she +did to me, and I did not understand why it was so. + +It was the custom in our province at haymaking and harvest time for +the labourers to come to the manor house in the evening and be +regaled with vodka; even young girls drank a glass. We did not keep +up this practice; the mowers and the peasant women stood about in +our yard till late in the evening expecting vodka, and then departed +abusing us. And all the time Masha frowned grimly and said nothing, +or murmured to the doctor with exasperation: "Savages! Petchenyegs!" + +In the country newcomers are met ungraciously, almost with hostility, +as they are at school. And we were received in this way. At first +we were looked upon as stupid, silly people, who had bought an +estate simply because we did not know what to do with our money. +We were laughed at. The peasants grazed their cattle in our wood +and even in our garden; they drove away our cows and horses to the +village, and then demanded money for the damage done by them. They +came in whole companies into our yard, and loudly clamoured that +at the mowing we had cut some piece of land that did not belong to +us; and as we did not yet know the boundaries of our estate very +accurately, we took their word for it and paid damages. Afterwards +it turned out that there had been no mistake at the mowing. They +barked the lime-trees in our wood. One of the Dubetchnya peasants, +a regular shark, who did a trade in vodka without a licence, bribed +our labourers, and in collaboration with them cheated us in a most +treacherous way. They took the new wheels off our carts and replaced +them with old ones, stole our ploughing harness and actually sold +them to us, and so on. But what was most mortifying of all was what +happened at the building; the peasant women stole by night boards, +bricks, tiles, pieces of iron. The village elder with witnesses +made a search in their huts; the village meeting fined them two +roubles each, and afterwards this money was spent on drink by the +whole commune. + +When Masha heard about this, she would say to the doctor or my +sister indignantly: + +"What beasts! It's awful! awful!" + +And I heard her more than once express regret that she had ever +taken it into her head to build the school. + +"You must understand," the doctor tried to persuade her, "that if +you build this school and do good in general, it's not for the sake +of the peasants, but in the name of culture, in the name of the +future; and the worse the peasants are the more reason for building +the school. Understand that!" + +But there was a lack of conviction in his voice, and it seemed to +me that both he and Masha hated the peasants. + +Masha often went to the mill, taking my sister with her, and they +both said, laughing, that they went to have a look at Stepan, he +was so handsome. Stepan, it appeared, was torpid and taciturn only +with men; in feminine society his manners were free and easy, and +he talked incessantly. One day, going down to the river to bathe, +I accidentally overheard a conversation. Masha and Kleopatra, both +in white dresses, were sitting on the bank in the spreading shade +of a willow, and Stepan was standing by them with his hands behind +his back, and was saying: + +"Are peasants men? They are not men, but, asking your pardon, wild +beasts, impostors. What life has a peasant? Nothing but eating and +drinking; all he cares for is victuals to be cheaper and swilling +liquor at the tavern like a fool; and there's no conversation, no +manners, no formality, nothing but ignorance! He lives in filth, +his wife lives in filth, and his children live in filth. What he +stands up in, he lies down to sleep in; he picks the potatoes out +of the soup with his fingers; he drinks kvass with a cockroach in +it, and doesn't bother to blow it away!" + +"It's their poverty, of course," my sister put in. + +"Poverty? There is want to be sure, there's different sorts of want, +Madam. If a man is in prison, or let us say blind or crippled, that +really is trouble I wouldn't wish anyone, but if a man's free and +has all his senses, if he has his eyes and his hands and his strength +and God, what more does he want? It's cockering themselves, and +it's ignorance, Madam, it's not poverty. If you, let us suppose, +good gentlefolk, by your education, wish out of kindness to help +him he will drink away your money in his low way; or, what's worse, +he will open a drinkshop, and with your money start robbing the +people. You say poverty, but does the rich peasant live better? He, +too, asking your pardon, lives like a swine: coarse, loud-mouthed, +cudgel-headed, broader than he is long, fat, red-faced mug, I'd +like to swing my fist and send him flying, the scoundrel. There's +Larion, another rich one at Dubetchnya, and I bet he strips the +bark off your trees as much as any poor one; and he is a foul-mouthed +fellow; his children are the same, and when he has had a drop too +much he'll topple with his nose in a puddle and sleep there. They +are all a worthless lot, Madam. If you live in a village with them +it is like hell. It has stuck in my teeth, that village has, and +thank the Lord, the King of Heaven, I've plenty to eat and clothes +to wear, I served out my time in the dragoons, I was village elder +for three years, and now I am a free Cossack, I live where I like. +I don't want to live in the village, and no one has the right to +force me. They say--my wife. They say you are bound to live in +your cottage with your wife. But why so? I am not her hired man." + +"Tell me, Stepan, did you marry for love?" asked Masha. + +"Love among us in the village!" answered Stepan, and he gave a +laugh. "Properly speaking, Madam, if you care to know, this is my +second marriage. I am not a Kurilovka man, I am from Zalegoshtcho, +but afterwards I was taken into Kurilovka when I married. You see +my father did not want to divide the land among us. There were five +of us brothers. I took my leave and went to another village to live +with my wife's family, but my first wife died when she was young." + +"What did she die of?" + +"Of foolishness. She used to cry and cry and cry for no reason, and +so she pined away. She was always drinking some sort of herbs to +make her better looking, and I suppose she damaged her inside. And +my second wife is a Kurilovka woman too, there is nothing in her. +She's a village woman, a peasant woman, and nothing more. I was +taken in when they plighted me to her. I thought she was young and +fair-skinned, and that they lived in a clean way. Her mother was +just like a Flagellant and she drank coffee, and the chief thing, +to be sure, they were clean in their ways. So I married her, and +next day we sat down to dinner; I bade my mother-in-law give me a +spoon, and she gives me a spoon, and I see her wipe it out with her +finger. So much for you, thought I; nice sort of cleanliness yours +is. I lived a year with them and then I went away. I might have +married a girl from the town," he went on after a pause. "They say +a wife is a helpmate to her husband. What do I want with a helpmate? +I help myself; I'd rather she talked to me, and not clack, clack, +clack, but circumstantially, feelingly. What is life without good +conversation?" + +Stepan suddenly paused, and at once there was the sound of his +dreary, monotonous "oo-loo-loo-loo." This meant that he had seen +me. + +Masha used often to go to the mill, and evidently found pleasure +in her conversations with Stepan. Stepan abused the peasants with +such sincerity and conviction, and she was attracted to him. Every +time she came back from the mill the feeble-minded peasant, who +looked after the garden, shouted at her: + +"Wench Palashka! Hulla, wench Palashka!" and he would bark like a +dog: "Ga! Ga!" + +And she would stop and look at him attentively, as though in that +idiot's barking she found an answer to her thoughts, and probably +he attracted her in the same way as Stepan's abuse. At home some +piece of news would await her, such, for instance, as that the geese +from the village had ruined our cabbage in the garden, or that +Larion had stolen the reins; and shrugging her shoulders, she would +say with a laugh: + +"What do you expect of these people?" + +She was indignant, and there was rancour in her heart, and meanwhile +I was growing used to the peasants, and I felt more and more drawn +to them. For the most part they were nervous, irritable, downtrodden +people; they were people whose imagination had been stifled, ignorant, +with a poor, dingy outlook on life, whose thoughts were ever the +same--of the grey earth, of grey days, of black bread, people who +cheated, but like birds hiding nothing but their head behind the +tree--people who could not count. They would not come to mow for +us for twenty roubles, but they came for half a pail of vodka, +though for twenty roubles they could have bought four pails. There +really was filth and drunkenness and foolishness and deceit, but +with all that one yet felt that the life of the peasants rested on +a firm, sound foundation. However uncouth a wild animal the peasant +following the plough seemed, and however he might stupefy himself +with vodka, still, looking at him more closely, one felt that there +was in him what was needed, something very important, which was +lacking in Masha and in the doctor, for instance, and that was that +he believed the chief thing on earth was truth and justice, and +that his salvation, and that of the whole people, was only to be +found in truth and justice, and so more than anything in the world +he loved just dealing. I told my wife she saw the spots on the +glass, but not the glass itself; she said nothing in reply, or +hummed like Stepan "oo-loo-loo-loo." When this good-hearted and +clever woman turned pale with indignation, and with a quiver in her +voice spoke to the doctor of the drunkenness and dishonesty, it +perplexed me, and I was struck by the shortness of her memory. How +could she forget that her father the engineer drank too, and drank +heavily, and that the money with which Dubetchnya had been bought +had been acquired by a whole series of shameless, impudent dishonesties? +How could she forget it? + +XIV + +My sister, too, was leading a life of her own which she carefully +hid from me. She was often whispering with Masha. When I went up +to her she seemed to shrink into herself, and there was a guilty, +imploring look in her eyes; evidently there was something going on +in her heart of which she was afraid or ashamed. So as to avoid +meeting me in the garden, or being left alone with me, she always +kept close to Masha, and I rarely had an opportunity of talking to +her except at dinner. + +One evening I was walking quietly through the garden on my way back +from the building. It was beginning to get dark. Without noticing +me, or hearing my step, my sister was walking near a spreading old +apple-tree, absolutely noiselessly as though she were a phantom. +She was dressed in black, and was walking rapidly backwards and +forwards on the same track, looking at the ground. An apple fell +from the tree; she started at the sound, stood still and pressed +her hands to her temples. At that moment I went up to her. + +In a rush of tender affection which suddenly flooded my heart, with +tears in my eyes, suddenly remembering my mother and our childhood, +I put my arm round her shoulders and kissed her. + +"What is the matter?" I asked her. "You are unhappy; I have seen +it for a long time. Tell me what's wrong?" + +"I am frightened," she said, trembling. + +"What is it?" I insisted. "For God's sake, be open!" + +"I will, I will be open; I will tell you the whole truth. To hide +it from you is so hard, so agonizing. Misail, I love . . ." she +went on in a whisper, "I love him . . . I love him. . . . I am +happy, but why am I so frightened?" + +There was the sound of footsteps; between the trees appeared Dr. +Blagovo in his silk shirt with his high top boots. Evidently they +had arranged to meet near the apple-tree. Seeing him, she rushed +impulsively towards him with a cry of pain as though he were being +taken from her. + +"Vladimir! Vladimir!" + +She clung to him and looked greedily into his face, and only then +I noticed how pale and thin she had become of late. It was particularly +noticeable from her lace collar which I had known for so long, and +which now hung more loosely than ever before about her thin, long +neck. The doctor was disconcerted, but at once recovered himself, +and, stroking her hair, said: + +"There, there. . . . Why so nervous? You see, I'm here." + +We were silent, looking with embarrassment at each other, then we +walked on, the three of us together, and I heard the doctor say to +me: + +"Civilized life has not yet begun among us. Old men console themselves +by making out that if there is nothing now, there was something in +the forties or the sixties; that's the old: you and I are young; +our brains have not yet been touched by _marasmus senilis_; we +cannot comfort ourselves with such illusions. The beginning of +Russia was in 862, but the beginning of civilized Russia has not +come yet." + +But I did not grasp the meaning of these reflections. It was somehow +strange, I could not believe it, that my sister was in love, that +she was walking and holding the arm of a stranger and looking +tenderly at him. My sister, this nervous, frightened, crushed, +fettered creature, loved a man who was married and had children! I +felt sorry for something, but what exactly I don't know; the presence +of the doctor was for some reason distasteful to me now, and I could +not imagine what would come of this love of theirs. + +XV + +Masha and I drove to Kurilovka to the dedication of the school. + +"Autumn, autumn, autumn, . . ." said Masha softly, looking away. +"Summer is over. There are no birds and nothing is green but the +willows." + +Yes, summer was over. There were fine, warm days, but it was fresh +in the morning, and the shepherds went out in their sheepskins +already; and in our garden the dew did not dry off the asters all +day long. There were plaintive sounds all the time, and one could +not make out whether they came from the shutters creaking on their +rusty hinges, or from the flying cranes--and one's heart felt +light, and one was eager for life. + +"The summer is over," said Masha. "Now you and I can balance our +accounts. We have done a lot of work, a lot of thinking; we are the +better for it--all honour and glory to us--we have succeeded +in self-improvement; but have our successes had any perceptible +influence on the life around us, have they brought any benefit to +anyone whatever? No. Ignorance, physical uncleanliness, drunkenness, +an appallingly high infant mortality, everything remains as it was, +and no one is the better for your having ploughed and sown, and my +having wasted money and read books. Obviously we have been working +only for ourselves and have had advanced ideas only for ourselves." +Such reasonings perplexed me, and I did not know what to think. + +"We have been sincere from beginning to end," said I, "and if anyone +is sincere he is right." + +"Who disputes it? We were right, but we haven't succeeded in properly +accomplishing what we were right in. To begin with, our external +methods themselves--aren't they mistaken? You want to be of use +to men, but by the very fact of your buying an estate, from the +very start you cut yourself off from any possibility of doing +anything useful for them. Then if you work, dress, eat like a peasant +you sanctify, as it were, by your authority, their heavy, clumsy +dress, their horrible huts, their stupid beards. . . . On the other +hand, if we suppose that you work for long, long years, your whole +life, that in the end some practical results are obtained, yet what +are they, your results, what can they do against such elemental +forces as wholesale ignorance, hunger, cold, degeneration? A drop +in the ocean! Other methods of struggle are needed, strong, bold, +rapid! If one really wants to be of use one must get out of the +narrow circle of ordinary social work, and try to act direct upon +the mass! What is wanted, first of all, is a loud, energetic +propaganda. Why is it that art--music, for instance--is so +living, so popular, and in reality so powerful? Because the musician +or the singer affects thousands at once. Precious, precious art!" +she went on, looking dreamily at the sky. "Art gives us wings and +carries us far, far away! Anyone who is sick of filth, of petty, +mercenary interests, anyone who is revolted, wounded, and indignant, +can find peace and satisfaction only in the beautiful." + +When we drove into Kurilovka the weather was bright and joyous. +Somewhere they were threshing; there was a smell of rye straw. A +mountain ash was bright red behind the hurdle fences, and all the +trees wherever one looked were ruddy or golden. They were ringing +the bells, they were carrying the ikons to the school, and we could +hear them sing: "Holy Mother, our Defender," and how limpid the air +was, and how high the doves were flying. + +The service was being held in the classroom. Then the peasants of +Kurilovka brought Masha the ikon, and the peasants of Dubetchnya +offered her a big loaf and a gilt salt cellar. And Masha broke into +sobs. + +"If anything has been said that shouldn't have been or anything +done not to your liking, forgive us," said an old man, and he bowed +down to her and to me. + +As we drove home Masha kept looking round at the school; the green +roof, which I had painted, and which was glistening in the sun, +remained in sight for a long while. And I felt that the look Masha +turned upon it now was one of farewell. + +XVI + +In the evening she got ready to go to the town. Of late she had +taken to going often to the town and staying the night there. In +her absence I could not work, my hands felt weak and limp; our huge +courtyard seemed a dreary, repulsive, empty hole. The garden was +full of angry noises, and without her the house, the trees, the +horses were no longer "ours." + +I did not go out of the house, but went on sitting at her table +beside her bookshelf with the books on land work, those old favourites +no longer wanted and looking at me now so shamefacedly. For whole +hours together, while it struck seven, eight, nine, while the autumn +night, black as soot, came on outside, I kept examining her old +glove, or the pen with which she always wrote, or her little scissors. +I did nothing, and realized clearly that all I had done before, +ploughing, mowing, chopping, had only been because she wished it. +And if she had sent me to clean a deep well, where I had to stand +up to my waist in deep water, I should have crawled into the well +without considering whether it was necessary or not. And now when +she was not near, Dubetchnya, with its ruins, its untidiness, its +banging shutters, with its thieves by day and by night, seemed to +me a chaos in which any work would be useless. Besides, what had I +to work for here, why anxiety and thought about the future, if I +felt that the earth was giving way under my feet, that I had played +my part in Dubetchnya, and that the fate of the books on farming +was awaiting me too? Oh, what misery it was at night, in hours of +solitude, when I was listening every minute in alarm, as though I +were expecting someone to shout that it was time for me to go away! +I did not grieve for Dubetchnya. I grieved for my love which, too, +was threatened with its autumn. What an immense happiness it is to +love and be loved, and how awful to feel that one is slipping down +from that high pinnacle! + +Masha returned from the town towards the evening of the next day. +She was displeased with something, but she concealed it, and only +said, why was it all the window frames had been put in for the +winter it was enough to suffocate one. I took out two frames. We +were not hungry, but we sat down to supper. + +"Go and wash your hands," said my wife; "you smell of putty." + +She had brought some new illustrated papers from the town, and we +looked at them together after supper. There were supplements with +fashion plates and patterns. Masha looked through them casually, +and was putting them aside to examine them properly later on; but +one dress, with a flat skirt as full as a bell and large sleeves, +interested her, and she looked at it for a minute gravely and +attentively. + +"That's not bad," she said. + +"Yes, that dress would suit you beautifully," I said, "beautifully." + +And looking with emotion at the dress, admiring that patch of grey +simply because she liked it, I went on tenderly: + +"A charming, exquisite dress! Splendid, glorious, Masha! My precious +Masha!" + +And tears dropped on the fashion plate. + +"Splendid Masha . . ." I muttered; "sweet, precious Masha. . . ." + +She went to bed, while I sat another hour looking at the illustrations. + +"It's a pity you took out the window frames," she said from the +bedroom, "I am afraid it may be cold. Oh, dear, what a draught there +is!" + +I read something out of the column of odds and ends, a receipt for +making cheap ink, and an account of the biggest diamond in the +world. I came again upon the fashion plate of the dress she liked, +and I imagined her at a ball, with a fan, bare shoulders, brilliant, +splendid, with a full understanding of painting, music, literature, +and how small and how brief my part seemed! + +Our meeting, our marriage, had been only one of the episodes of +which there would be many more in the life of this vital, richly +gifted woman. All the best in the world, as I have said already, +was at her service, and she received it absolutely for nothing, and +even ideas and the intellectual movement in vogue served simply for +her recreation, giving variety to her life, and I was only the +sledge-driver who drove her from one entertainment to another. Now +she did not need me. She would take flight, and I should be alone. + +And as though in response to my thought, there came a despairing +scream from the garden. + +"He-e-elp!" + +It was a shrill, womanish voice, and as though to mimic it the wind +whistled in the chimney on the same shrill note. Half a minute +passed, and again through the noise of the wind, but coming, it +seemed, from the other end of the yard: + +"He-e-elp!" + +"Misail, do you hear?" my wife asked me softly. "Do you hear?" + +She came out from the bedroom in her nightgown, with her hair down, +and listened, looking at the dark window. + +"Someone is being murdered," she said. "That is the last straw." + +I took my gun and went out. It was very dark outside, the wind was +high, and it was difficult to stand. I went to the gate and listened, +the trees roared, the wind whistled and, probably at the feeble-minded +peasant's, a dog howled lazily. Outside the gates the darkness was +absolute, not a light on the railway-line. And near the lodge, which +a year before had been the office, suddenly sounded a smothered +scream: + +"He-e-elp!" + +"Who's there?" I called. + +There were two people struggling. One was thrusting the other out, +while the other was resisting, and both were breathing heavily. + +"Leave go," said one, and I recognized Ivan Tcheprakov; it was he +who was shrieking in a shrill, womanish voice: "Let go, you damned +brute, or I'll bite your hand off." + +The other I recognized as Moisey. I separated them, and as I did +so I could not resist hitting Moisey two blows in the face. He fell +down, then got up again, and I hit him once more. + +"He tried to kill me," he muttered. "He was trying to get at his +mamma's chest. . . . I want to lock him up in the lodge for security." + +Tcheprakov was drunk and did not recognize me; he kept drawing deep +breaths, as though he were just going to shout "help" again. + +I left them and went back to the house; my wife was lying on her +bed; she had dressed. I told her what had happened in the yard, and +did not conceal the fact that I had hit Moisey. + +"It's terrible to live in the country," she said. + +"And what a long night it is. Oh dear, if only it were over!" + +"He-e-elp!" we heard again, a little later. + +"I'll go and stop them," I said. + +"No, let them bite each other's throats," she said with an expression +of disgust. + +She was looking up at the ceiling, listening, while I sat beside +her, not daring to speak to her, feeling as though I were to blame +for their shouting "help" in the yard and for the night's seeming +so long. + +We were silent, and I waited impatiently for a gleam of light at +the window, and Masha looked all the time as though she had awakened +from a trance and now was marvelling how she, so clever, and +well-educated, so elegant, had come into this pitiful, provincial, +empty hole among a crew of petty, insignificant people, and how she +could have so far forgotten herself as ever to be attracted by one +of these people, and for more than six months to have been his wife. +It seemed to me that at that moment it did not matter to her whether +it was I, or Moisey, or Tcheprakov; everything for her was merged +in that savage drunken "help"--I and our marriage, and our work +together, and the mud and slush of autumn, and when she sighed or +moved into a more comfortable position I read in her face: "Oh, +that morning would come quickly!" + +In the morning she went away. I spent another three days at Dubetchnya +expecting her, then I packed all our things in one room, locked it, +and walked to the town. It was already evening when I rang at the +engineer's, and the street lamps were burning in Great Dvoryansky +Street. Pavel told me there was no one at home; Viktor Ivanitch had +gone to Petersburg, and Mariya Viktorovna was probably at the +rehearsal at the Azhogins'. I remember with what emotion I went on +to the Azhogins', how my heart throbbed and fluttered as I mounted +the stairs, and stood waiting a long while on the landing at the +top, not daring to enter that temple of the muses! In the big room +there were lighted candles everywhere, on a little table, on the +piano, and on the stage, everywhere in threes; and the first +performance was fixed for the thirteenth, and now the first rehearsal +was on a Monday, an unlucky day. All part of the war against +superstition! All the devotees of the scenic art were gathered +together; the eldest, the middle, and the youngest sisters were +walking about the stage, reading their parts in exercise books. +Apart from all the rest stood Radish, motionless, with the side of +his head pressed to the wall as he gazed with adoration at the +stage, waiting for the rehearsal to begin. Everything as it used +to be. + +I was making my way to my hostess; I had to pay my respects to her, +but suddenly everyone said "Hush!" and waved me to step quietly. +There was a silence. The lid of the piano was raised; a lady sat +down at it screwing up her short-sighted eyes at the music, and my +Masha walked up to the piano, in a low-necked dress, looking +beautiful, but with a special, new sort of beauty not in the least +like the Masha who used to come and meet me in the spring at the +mill. She sang: "Why do I love the radiant night?" + +It was the first time during our whole acquaintance that I had heard +her sing. She had a fine, mellow, powerful voice, and while she +sang I felt as though I were eating a ripe, sweet, fragrant melon. +She ended, the audience applauded, and she smiled, very much pleased, +making play with her eyes, turning over the music, smoothing her +skirts, like a bird that has at last broken out of its cage and +preens its wings in freedom. Her hair was arranged over her ears, +and she had an unpleasant, defiant expression in her face, as though +she wanted to throw down a challenge to us all, or to shout to us +as she did to her horses: "Hey, there, my beauties!" + +And she must at that moment have been very much like her grandfather +the sledge-driver. + +"You here too?" she said, giving me her hand. "Did you hear me sing? +Well, what did you think of it?" and without waiting for my answer +she went on: "It's a very good thing you are here. I am going +to-night to Petersburg for a short time. You'll let me go, won't +you?" + +At midnight I went with her to the station. She embraced me +affectionately, probably feeling grateful to me for not asking +unnecessary questions, and she promised to write to me, and I held +her hands a long time, and kissed them, hardly able to restrain my +tears and not uttering a word. + +And when she had gone I stood watching the retreating lights, +caressing her in imagination and softly murmuring: + +"My darling Masha, glorious Masha. . . ." + +I spent the night at Karpovna's, and next morning I was at work +with Radish, re-covering the furniture of a rich merchant who was +marrying his daughter to a doctor. + +XVII + +My sister came after dinner on Sunday and had tea with me. + +"I read a great deal now," she said, showing me the books which she +had fetched from the public library on her way to me. "Thanks to +your wife and to Vladimir, they have awakened me to self-realization. +They have been my salvation; they have made me feel myself a human +being. In old days I used to lie awake at night with worries of all +sorts, thinking what a lot of sugar we had used in the week, or +hoping the cucumbers would not be too salt. And now, too, I lie +awake at night, but I have different thoughts. I am distressed that +half my life has been passed in such a foolish, cowardly way. I +despise my past; I am ashamed of it. And I look upon our father now +as my enemy. Oh, how grateful I am to your wife! And Vladimir! He +is such a wonderful person! They have opened my eyes!" + +"That's bad that you don't sleep at night," I said. + +"Do you think I am ill? Not at all. Vladimir sounded me, and said +I was perfectly well. But health is not what matters, it is not so +important. Tell me: am I right?" + +She needed moral support, that was obvious. Masha had gone away. +Dr. Blagovo was in Petersburg, and there was no one left in the +town but me, to tell her she was right. She looked intently into +my face, trying to read my secret thoughts, and if I were absorbed +or silent in her presence she thought this was on her account, and +was grieved. I always had to be on my guard, and when she asked me +whether she was right I hastened to assure her that she was right, +and that I had a deep respect for her. + +"Do you know they have given me a part at the Azhogins'?" she went +on. "I want to act on the stage, I want to live--in fact, I mean +to drain the full cup. I have no talent, none, and the part is only +ten lines, but still this is immeasurably finer and loftier than +pouring out tea five times a day, and looking to see if the cook +has eaten too much. Above all, let my father see I am capable of +protest." + +After tea she lay down on my bed, and lay for a little while with +her eyes closed, looking very pale. + +"What weakness," she said, getting up. "Vladimir says all city-bred +women and girls are anæmic from doing nothing. What a clever man +Vladimir is! He is right, absolutely right. We must work!" + +Two days later she came to the Azhogins' with her manuscript for +the rehearsal. She was wearing a black dress with a string of coral +round her neck, and a brooch that in the distance was like a pastry +puff, and in her ears earrings sparkling with brilliants. When I +looked at her I felt uncomfortable. I was struck by her lack of +taste. That she had very inappropriately put on earrings and +brilliants, and that she was strangely dressed, was remarked by +other people too; I saw smiles on people's faces, and heard someone +say with a laugh: "Kleopatra of Egypt." + +She was trying to assume society manners, to be unconstrained and +at her ease, and so seemed artificial and strange. She had lost +simplicity and sweetness. + +"I told father just now that I was going to the rehearsal," she +began, coming up to me, "and he shouted that he would not give me +his blessing, and actually almost struck me. Only fancy, I don't +know my part," she said, looking at her manuscript. "I am sure to +make a mess of it. So be it, the die is cast," she went on in intense +excitement. "The die is cast. . . ." + +It seemed to her that everyone was looking at her, and that all +were amazed at the momentous step she had taken, that everyone was +expecting something special of her, and it would have been impossible +to convince her that no one was paying attention to people so petty +and insignificant as she and I were. + +She had nothing to do till the third act, and her part, that of a +visitor, a provincial crony, consisted only in standing at the door +as though listening, and then delivering a brief monologue. In the +interval before her appearance, an hour and a half at least, while +they were moving about on the stage reading their parts, drinking +tea and arguing, she did not leave my side, and was all the time +muttering her part and nervously crumpling up the manuscript. And +imagining that everyone was looking at her and waiting for her +appearance, with a trembling hand she smoothed back her hair and +said to me: + +"I shall certainly make a mess of it. . . . What a load on my heart, +if only you knew! I feel frightened, as though I were just going +to be led to execution." + +At last her turn came. + +"Kleopatra Alexyevna, it's your cue!" said the stage manager. + +She came forward into the middle of the stage with an expression +of horror on her face, looking ugly and angular, and for half a +minute stood as though in a trance, perfectly motionless, and only +her big earrings shook in her ears. + +"The first time you can read it," said someone. + +It was clear to me that she was trembling, and trembling so much +that she could not speak, and could not unfold her manuscript, and +that she was incapable of acting her part; and I was already on the +point of going to her and saying something, when she suddenly dropped +on her knees in the middle of the stage and broke into loud sobs. + +All was commotion and hubbub. I alone stood still, leaning against +the side scene, overwhelmed by what had happened, not understanding +and not knowing what to do. I saw them lift her up and lead her +away. I saw Anyuta Blagovo come up to me; I had not seen her in the +room before, and she seemed to have sprung out of the earth. She +was wearing her hat and veil, and, as always, had an air of having +come only for a moment. + +"I told her not to take a part," she said angrily, jerking out each +word abruptly and turning crimson. "It's insanity! You ought to +have prevented her!" + +Madame Azhogin, in a short jacket with short sleeves, with cigarette +ash on her breast, looking thin and flat, came rapidly towards me. + +"My dear, this is terrible," she brought out, wringing her hands, +and, as her habit was, looking intently into my face. "This is +terrible! Your sister is in a condition. . . . She is with child. +Take her away, I implore you. . . ." + +She was breathless with agitation, while on one side stood her three +daughters, exactly like her, thin and flat, huddling together in a +scared way. They were alarmed, overwhelmed, as though a convict had +been caught in their house. What a disgrace, how dreadful! And yet +this estimable family had spent its life waging war on superstition; +evidently they imagined that all the superstition and error of +humanity was limited to the three candles, the thirteenth of the +month, and to the unluckiness of Monday! + +"I beg you. . . I beg," repeated Madame Azhogin, pursing up her +lips in the shape of a heart on the syllable "you." "I beg you to +take her home." + +XVIII + +A little later my sister and I were walking along the street. I +covered her with the skirts of my coat; we hastened, choosing back +streets where there were no street lamps, avoiding passers-by; it +was as though we were running away. She was no longer crying, but +looked at me with dry eyes. To Karpovna's, where I took her, it was +only twenty minutes' walk, and, strange to say, in that short time +we succeeded in thinking of our whole life; we talked over everything, +considered our position, reflected. . . . + +We decided we could not go on living in this town, and that when I +had earned a little money we would move to some other place. In +some houses everyone was asleep, in others they were playing cards; +we hated these houses; we were afraid of them. We talked of the +fanaticism, the coarseness of feeling, the insignificance of these +respectable families, these amateurs of dramatic art whom we had +so alarmed, and I kept asking in what way these stupid, cruel, lazy, +and dishonest people were superior to the drunken and superstitious +peasants of Kurilovka, or in what way they were better than animals, +who in the same way are thrown into a panic when some incident +disturbs the monotony of their life limited by their instincts. +What would have happened to my sister now if she had been left to +live at home? + +What moral agonies would she have experienced, talking with my +father, meeting every day with acquaintances? I imagined this to +myself, and at once there came into my mind people, all people I +knew, who had been slowly done to death by their nearest relations. +I remembered the tortured dogs, driven mad, the live sparrows plucked +naked by boys and flung into the water, and a long, long series of +obscure lingering miseries which I had looked on continually from +early childhood in that town; and I could not understand what these +sixty thousand people lived for, what they read the gospel for, why +they prayed, why they read books and magazines. What good had they +gained from all that had been said and written hitherto if they +were still possessed by the same spiritual darkness and hatred of +liberty, as they were a hundred and three hundred years ago? A +master carpenter spends his whole life building houses in the town, +and always, to the day of his death, calls a "gallery" a "galdery." +So these sixty thousand people have been reading and hearing of +truth, of justice, of mercy, of freedom for generations, and yet +from morning till night, till the day of their death, they are +lying, and tormenting each other, and they fear liberty and hate +it as a deadly foe. + +"And so my fate is decided," said my sister, as we arrived home. +"After what has happened I cannot go back _there_. Heavens, how +good that is! My heart feels lighter." + +She went to bed at once. Tears were glittering on her eyelashes, +but her expression was happy; she fell into a sound sweet sleep, +and one could see that her heart was lighter and that she was +resting. It was a long, long time since she had slept like that. + +And so we began our life together. She was always singing and saying +that her life was very happy, and the books I brought her from the +public library I took back unread, as now she could not read; she +wanted to do nothing but dream and talk of the future, mending my +linen, or helping Karpovna near the stove; she was always singing, +or talking of her Vladimir, of his cleverness, of his charming +manners, of his kindness, of his extraordinary learning, and I +assented to all she said, though by now I disliked her doctor. She +wanted to work, to lead an independent life on her own account, and +she used to say that she would become a school-teacher or a doctor' +s assistant as soon as her health would permit her, and would herself +do the scrubbing and the washing. Already she was passionately +devoted to her child; he was not yet born, but she knew already the +colour of his eyes, what his hands would be like, and how he would +laugh. She was fond of talking about education, and as her Vladimir +was the best man in the world, all her discussion of education could +be summed up in the question how to make the boy as fascinating as +his father. There was no end to her talk, and everything she said +made her intensely joyful. Sometimes I was delighted, too, though +I could not have said why. + +I suppose her dreaminess infected me. I, too, gave up reading, and +did nothing but dream. In the evenings, in spite of my fatigue, I +walked up and down the room, with my hands in my pockets, talking +of Masha. + +"What do you think?" I would ask of my sister. "When will she come +back? I think she'll come back at Christmas, not later; what has +she to do there?" + +"As she doesn't write to you, it's evident she will come back very +soon. + +"That's true," I assented, though I knew perfectly well that Masha +would not return to our town. + +I missed her fearfully, and could no longer deceive myself, and +tried to get other people to deceive me. My sister was expecting +her doctor, and I--Masha; and both of us talked incessantly, +laughed, and did not notice that we were preventing Karpovna from +sleeping. She lay on the stove and kept muttering: + +"The samovar hummed this morning, it did hum! Oh, it bodes no good, +my dears, it bodes no good!" + +No one ever came to see us but the postman, who brought my sister +letters from the doctor, and Prokofy, who sometimes came in to see +us in the evening, and after looking at my sister without speaking +went away, and when he was in the kitchen said: + +"Every class ought to remember its rules, and anyone, who is so +proud that he won't understand that, will find it a vale of tears." + +He was very fond of the phrase "a vale of tears." One day--it was +in Christmas week, when I was walking by the bazaar--he called +me into the butcher's shop, and not shaking hands with me, announced +that he had to speak to me about something very important. His face +was red from the frost and vodka; near him, behind the counter, +stood Nikolka, with the expression of a brigand, holding a bloodstained +knife in his hand. + +"I desire to express my word to you," Prokofy began. "This incident +cannot continue, because, as you understand yourself that for such +a vale, people will say nothing good of you or of us. Mamma, through +pity, cannot say something unpleasant to you, that your sister +should move into another lodging on account of her condition, but +I won't have it any more, because I can't approve of her behaviour." + +I understood him, and I went out of the shop. The same day my sister +and I moved to Radish's. We had no money for a cab, and we walked +on foot; I carried a parcel of our belongings on my back; my sister +had nothing in her hands, but she gasped for breath and coughed, +and kept asking whether we should get there soon. + +XIX + +At last a letter came from Masha. + +"Dear, good M. A." (she wrote), "our kind, gentle 'angel' as the +old painter calls you, farewell; I am going with my father to America +for the exhibition. In a few days I shall see the ocean--so far +from Dubetchnya, it's dreadful to think! It's far and unfathomable +as the sky, and I long to be there in freedom. I am triumphant, I +am mad, and you see how incoherent my letter is. Dear, good one, +give me my freedom, make haste to break the thread, which still +holds, binding you and me together. My meeting and knowing you was +a ray from heaven that lighted up my existence; but my becoming +your wife was a mistake, you understand that, and I am oppressed +now by the consciousness of the mistake, and I beseech you, on my +knees, my generous friend, quickly, quickly, before I start for the +ocean, telegraph that you consent to correct our common mistake, +to remove the solitary stone from my wings, and my father, who will +undertake all the arrangements, promised me not to burden you too +much with formalities. And so I am free to fly whither I will? Yes? + +"Be happy, and God bless you; forgive me, a sinner. + +"I am well, I am wasting money, doing all sorts of silly things, +and I thank God every minute that such a bad woman as I has no +children. I sing and have success, but it's not an infatuation; no, +it's my haven, my cell to which I go for peace. King David had a +ring with an inscription on it: 'All things pass.' When one is sad +those words make one cheerful, and when one is cheerful it makes +one sad. I have got myself a ring like that with Hebrew letters on +it, and this talisman keeps me from infatuations. All things pass, +life will pass, one wants nothing. Or at least one wants nothing +but the sense of freedom, for when anyone is free, he wants nothing, +nothing, nothing. Break the thread. A warm hug to you and your +sister. Forgive and forget your M." + +My sister used to lie down in one room, and Radish, who had been +ill again and was now better, in another. Just at the moment when +I received this letter my sister went softly into the painter's +room, sat down beside him and began reading aloud. She read to him +every day, Ostrovsky or Gogol, and he listened, staring at one +point, not laughing, but shaking his head and muttering to himself +from time to time: + +"Anything may happen! Anything may happen!" + +If anything ugly or unseemly were depicted in the play he would say +as though vindictively, thrusting his finger into the book: + +"There it is, lying! That's what it does, lying does." + +The plays fascinated him, both from their subjects and their moral, +and from their skilful, complex construction, and he marvelled at +"him," never calling the author by his name. How neatly _he_ has +put it all together. + +This time my sister read softly only one page, and could read no +more: her voice would not last out. Radish took her hand and, moving +his parched lips, said, hardly audibly, in a husky voice: + +"The soul of a righteous man is white and smooth as chalk, but the +soul of a sinful man is like pumice stone. The soul of a righteous +man is like clear oil, but the soul of a sinful man is gas tar. We +must labour, we must sorrow, we must suffer sickness," he went on, +"and he who does not labour and sorrow will not gain the Kingdom +of Heaven. Woe, woe to them that are well fed, woe to the mighty, +woe to the rich, woe to the moneylenders! Not for them is the Kingdom +of Heaven. Lice eat grass, rust eats iron. . ." + +"And lying the soul," my sister added laughing. I read the letter +through once more. At that moment there walked into the kitchen a +soldier who had been bringing us twice a week parcels of tea, French +bread and game, which smelt of scent, from some unknown giver. I +had no work. I had had to sit at home idle for whole days together, +and probably whoever sent us the French bread knew that we were in +want. + +I heard my sister talking to the soldier and laughing gaily. Then, +lying down, she ate some French bread and said to me: + +"When you wouldn't go into the service, but became a house painter, +Anyuta Blagovo and I knew from the beginning that you were right, +but we were frightened to say so aloud. Tell me what force is it +that hinders us from saying what one thinks? Take Anyuta Blagovo +now, for instance. She loves you, she adores you, she knows you are +right, she loves me too, like a sister, and knows that I am right, +and I daresay in her soul envies me, but some force prevents her +from coming to see us, she shuns us, she is afraid." + +My sister crossed her arms over her breast, and said passionately: + +"How she loves you, if only you knew! She has confessed her love +to no one but me, and then very secretly in the dark. She led me +into a dark avenue in the garden, and began whispering how precious +you were to her. You will see, she'll never marry, because she loves +you. Are you sorry for her?" + +"Yes." + +"It's she who has sent the bread. She is absurd really, what is the +use of being so secret? I used to be absurd and foolish, but now I +have got away from that and am afraid of nobody. I think and say +aloud what I like, and am happy. When I lived at home I hadn't a +conception of happiness, and now I wouldn't change with a queen." + +Dr. Blagovo arrived. He had taken his doctor's degree, and was now +staying in our town with his father; he was taking a rest, and said +that he would soon go back to Petersburg again. He wanted to study +anti-toxins against typhus, and, I believe, cholera; he wanted to +go abroad to perfect his training, and then to be appointed a +professor. He had already left the army service, and wore a roomy +serge reefer jacket, very full trousers, and magnificent neckties. +My sister was in ecstasies over his scarfpin, his studs, and the +red silk handkerchief which he wore, I suppose from foppishness, +sticking out of the breast pocket of his jacket. One day, having +nothing to do, she and I counted up all the suits we remembered him +wearing, and came to the conclusion that he had at least ten. It +was clear that he still loved my sister as before, but he never +once even in jest spoke of taking her with him to Petersburg or +abroad, and I could not picture to myself clearly what would become +of her if she remained alive and what would become of her child. +She did nothing but dream endlessly, and never thought seriously +of the future; she said he might go where he liked, and might abandon +her even, so long as he was happy himself; that what had been was +enough for her. + +As a rule he used to sound her very carefully on his arrival, and +used to insist on her taking milk and drops in his presence. It was +the same on this occasion. He sounded her and made her drink a glass +of milk, and there was a smell of creosote in our room afterwards. + +"That's a good girl," he said, taking the glass from her. "You +mustn't talk too much now; you've taken to chattering like a magpie +of late. Please hold your tongue." + +She laughed. Then he came into Radish's room where I was sitting +and affectionately slapped me on the shoulder. + +"Well, how goes it, old man?" he said, bending down to the invalid. + +"Your honour," said Radish, moving his lips slowly, "your honour, +I venture to submit. . . . We all walk in the fear of God, we all +have to die. . . . Permit me to tell you the truth. . . . Your +honour, the Kingdom of Heaven will not be for you!" + +"There's no help for it," the doctor said jestingly; "there must +be somebody in hell, you know." + +And all at once something happened with my consciousness; as though +I were in a dream, as though I were standing on a winter night in +the slaughterhouse yard, and Prokofy beside me, smelling of pepper +cordial; I made an effort to control myself, and rubbed my eyes, +and at once it seemed to me that I was going along the road to the +interview with the Governor. Nothing of the sort had happened to +me before, or has happened to me since, and these strange memories +that were like dreams, I ascribed to overexhaustion of my nerves. +I lived through the scene at the slaughterhouse, and the interview +with the Governor, and at the same time was dimly aware that it was +not real. + +When I came to myself I saw that I was no longer in the house, but +in the street, and was standing with the doctor near a lamp-post. + +"It's sad, it's sad," he was saying, and tears were trickling down +his cheeks. "She is in good spirits, she's always laughing and +hopeful, but her position's hopeless, dear boy. Your Radish hates +me, and is always trying to make me feel that I have treated her +badly. He is right from his standpoint, but I have my point of view +too; and I shall never regret all that has happened. One must love; +we ought all to love--oughtn't we? There would be no life without +love; anyone who fears and avoids love is not free." + +Little by little he passed to other subjects, began talking of +science, of his dissertation which had been liked in Petersburg. +He was carried away by his subject, and no longer thought of my +sister, nor of his grief, nor of me. Life was of absorbing interest +to him. She has America and her ring with the inscription on it, I +thought, while this fellow has his doctor's degree and a professor's +chair to look forward to, and only my sister and I are left with +the old things. + +When I said good-bye to him, I went up to the lamp-post and read +the letter once more. And I remembered, I remembered vividly how +that spring morning she had come to me at the mill, lain down and +covered herself with her jacket--she wanted to be like a simple +peasant woman. And how, another time--it was in the morning also +--we drew the net out of the water, and heavy drops of rain fell +upon us from the riverside willows, and we laughed. + +It was dark in our house in Great Dvoryansky Street. I got over the +fence and, as I used to do in the old days, went by the back way +to the kitchen to borrow a lantern. There was no one in the kitchen. +The samovar hissed near the stove, waiting for my father. "Who pours +out my father's tea now?" I thought. Taking the lantern I went out +to the shed, built myself up a bed of old newspapers and lay down. +The hooks on the walls looked forbidding, as they used to of old, +and their shadows flickered. It was cold. I felt that my sister +would come in in a minute, and bring me supper, but at once I +remembered that she was ill and was lying at Radish's, and it seemed +to me strange that I should have climbed over the fence and be lying +here in this unheated shed. My mind was in a maze, and I saw all +sorts of absurd things. + +There was a ring. A ring familiar from childhood: first the wire +rustled against the wall, then a short plaintive ring in the kitchen. +It was my father come back from the club. I got up and went into +the kitchen. Axinya the cook clasped her hands on seeing me, and +for some reason burst into tears. + +"My own!" she said softly. "My precious! O Lord!" + +And she began crumpling up her apron in her agitation. In the window +there were standing jars of berries in vodka. I poured myself out +a teacupful and greedily drank it off, for I was intensely thirsty. +Axinya had quite recently scrubbed the table and benches, and there +was that smell in the kitchen which is found in bright, snug kitchens +kept by tidy cooks. And that smell and the chirp of the cricket +used to lure us as children into the kitchen, and put us in the +mood for hearing fairy tales and playing at "Kings" . . . + +"Where's Kleopatra?" Axinya asked softly, in a fluster, holding her +breath; "and where is your cap, my dear? Your wife, you say, has +gone to Petersburg?" + +She had been our servant in our mother's time, and used once to +give Kleopatra and me our baths, and to her we were still children +who had to be talked to for their good. For a quarter of an hour +or so she laid before me all the reflections which she had with the +sagacity of an old servant been accumulating in the stillness of +that kitchen, all the time since we had seen each other. She said +that the doctor could be forced to marry Kleopatra; he only needed +to be thoroughly frightened; and that if an appeal were promptly +written the bishop would annul the first marriage; that it would +be a good thing for me to sell Dubetchnya without my wife's knowledge, +and put the money in the bank in my own name; that if my sister and +I were to bow down at my father's feet and ask him properly, he +might perhaps forgive us; that we ought to have a service sung to +the Queen of Heaven. . . . + +"Come, go along, my dear, and speak to him," she said, when she +heard my father's cough. "Go along, speak to him; bow down, your +head won't drop off." + +I went in. My father was sitting at the table sketching a plan of +a summer villa, with Gothic windows, and with a fat turret like a +fireman's watch tower--something peculiarly stiff and tasteless. +Going into the study I stood still where I could see this drawing. +I did not know why I had gone in to my father, but I remember that +when I saw his lean face, his red neck, and his shadow on the wall, +I wanted to throw myself on his neck, and as Axinya had told me, +bow down at his feet; but the sight of the summer villa with the +Gothic windows, and the fat turret, restrained me. + +"Good evening," I said. + +He glanced at me, and at once dropped his eyes on his drawing. + +"What do you want?" he asked, after waiting a little. + +"I have come to tell you my sister's very ill. She can't live very +long," I added in a hollow voice. + +"Well," sighed my father, taking off his spectacles, and laying +them on the table. "What thou sowest that shalt thou reap. What +thou sowest," he repeated, getting up from the table, "that shalt +thou reap. I ask you to remember how you came to me two years ago, +and on this very spot I begged you, I besought you to give up your +errors; I reminded you of your duty, of your honour, of what you +owed to your forefathers whose traditions we ought to preserve as +sacred. Did you obey me? You scorned my counsels, and obstinately +persisted in clinging to your false ideals; worse still you drew +your sister into the path of error with you, and led her to lose +her moral principles and sense of shame. Now you are both in a bad +way. Well, as thou sowest, so shalt thou reap!" + +As he said this he walked up and down the room. He probably imagined +that I had come to him to confess my wrong doings, and he probably +expected that I should begin begging him to forgive my sister and +me. I was cold, I was shivering as though I were in a fever, and +spoke with difficulty in a husky voice. + +"And I beg you, too, to remember," I said, "on this very spot I +besought you to understand me, to reflect, to decide with me how +and for what we should live, and in answer you began talking about +our forefathers, about my grandfather who wrote poems. One tells +you now that your only daughter is hopelessly ill, and you go on +again about your forefathers, your traditions. . . . And such +frivolity in your old age, when death is close at hand, and you +haven't more than five or ten years left!" + +"What have you come here for?" my father asked sternly, evidently +offended at my reproaching him for his frivolity. + +"I don't know. I love you, I am unutterably sorry that we are so +far apart--so you see I have come. I love you still, but my sister +has broken with you completely. She does not forgive you, and will +never forgive you now. Your very name arouses her aversion for the +past, for life." + +"And who is to blame for it?" cried my father. "It's your fault, +you scoundrel!" + +"Well, suppose it is my fault?" I said. "I admit I have been to +blame in many things, but why is it that this life of yours, which +you think binding upon us, too--why is it so dreary, so barren? +How is it that in not one of these houses you have been building +for the last thirty years has there been anyone from whom I might +have learnt how to live, so as not to be to blame? There is not one +honest man in the whole town! These houses of yours are nests of +damnation, where mothers and daughters are made away with, where +children are tortured. . . . My poor mother!" I went on in despair. +"My poor sister! One has to stupefy oneself with vodka, with cards, +with scandal; one must become a scoundrel, a hypocrite, or go on +drawing plans for years and years, so as not to notice all the +horrors that lie hidden in these houses. Our town has existed for +hundreds of years, and all that time it has not produced one man +of service to our country--not one. You have stifled in the germ +everything in the least living and bright. It's a town of shopkeepers, +publicans, counting-house clerks, canting hypocrites; it's a useless, +unnecessary town, which not one soul would regret if it suddenly +sank through the earth." + +"I don't want to listen to you, you scoundrel!" said my father, and +he took up his ruler from the table. "You are drunk. Don't dare +come and see your father in such a state! I tell you for the last +time, and you can repeat it to your depraved sister, that you'll +get nothing from me, either of you. I have torn my disobedient +children out of my heart, and if they suffer for their disobedience +and obstinacy I do not pity them. You can go whence you came. It +has pleased God to chastise me with you, but I will bear the trial +with resignation, and, like Job, I will find consolation in my +sufferings and in unremitting labour. You must not cross my threshold +till you have mended your ways. I am a just man, all I tell you is +for your benefit, and if you desire your own good you ought to +remember all your life what I say and have said to you. . . ." + +I waved my hand in despair and went away. I don't remember what +happened afterwards, that night and next day. + +I am told that I walked about the streets bareheaded, staggering, +and singing aloud, while a crowd of boys ran after me, shouting: + +"Better-than-nothing!" + +XX + +If I wanted to order a ring for myself, the inscription I should +choose would be: "Nothing passes away." I believe that nothing +passes away without leaving a trace, and that every step we take, +however small, has significance for our present and our future +existence. + +What I have been through has not been for nothing. My great troubles, +my patience, have touched people's hearts, and now they don't call +me "Better-than-nothing," they don't laugh at me, and when I walk +by the shops they don't throw water over me. They have grown used +to my being a workman, and see nothing strange in my carrying a +pail of paint and putting in windows, though I am of noble rank; +on the contrary, people are glad to give me orders, and I am now +considered a first-rate workman, and the best foreman after Radish, +who, though he has regained his health, and though, as before, he +paints the cupola on the belfry without scaffolding, has no longer +the force to control the workmen; instead of him I now run about +the town looking for work, I engage the workmen and pay them, borrow +money at a high rate of interest, and now that I myself am a +contractor, I understand how it is that one may have to waste three +days racing about the town in search of tilers on account of some +twopenny-halfpenny job. People are civil to me, they address me +politely, and in the houses where I work, they offer me tea, and +send to enquire whether I wouldn't like dinner. Children and young +girls often come and look at me with curiosity and compassion. + +One day I was working in the Governor's garden, painting an arbour +there to look like marble. The Governor, walking in the garden, +came up to the arbour and, having nothing to do, entered into +conversation with me, and I reminded him how he had once summoned +me to an interview with him. He looked into my face intently for a +minute, then made his mouth like a round "O," flung up his hands, +and said: "I don't remember!" + +I have grown older, have become silent, stern, and austere, I rarely +laugh, and I am told that I have grown like Radish, and that like +him I bore the workmen by my useless exhortations. + +Mariya Viktorovna, my former wife, is living now abroad, while her +father is constructing a railway somewhere in the eastern provinces, +and is buying estates there. Dr. Blagovo is also abroad. Dubetchnya +has passed again into the possession of Madame Tcheprakov, who has +bought it after forcing the engineer to knock the price down twenty +per cent. Moisey goes about now in a bowler hat; he often drives +into the town in a racing droshky on business of some sort, and +stops near the bank. They say he has already bought up a mortgaged +estate, and is constantly making enquiries at the bank about +Dubetchnya, which he means to buy too. Poor Ivan Tcheprakov was for +a long while out of work, staggering about the town and drinking. +I tried to get him into our work, and for a time he painted roofs +and put in window-panes in our company, and even got to like it, +and stole oil, asked for tips, and drank like a regular painter. +But he soon got sick of the work, and went back to Dubetchnya, and +afterwards the workmen confessed to me that he had tried to persuade +them to join him one night and murder Moisey and rob Madame Tcheprakov. + +My father has greatly aged; he is very bent, and in the evenings +walks up and down near his house. I never go to see him. + +During an epidemic of cholera Prokofy doctored some of the shopkeepers +with pepper cordial and pitch, and took money for doing so, and, +as I learned from the newspapers, was flogged for abusing the doctors +as he sat in his shop. His shop boy Nikolka died of cholera. Karpovna +is still alive and, as always, she loves and fears her Prokofy. +When she sees me, she always shakes her head mournfully, and says +with a sigh: "Your life is ruined." + +On working days I am busy from morning till night. On holidays, in +fine weather, I take my tiny niece (my sister reckoned on a boy, +but the child is a girl) and walk in a leisurely way to the cemetery. +There I stand or sit down, and stay a long time gazing at the grave +that is so dear to me, and tell the child that her mother lies here. + +Sometimes, by the graveside, I find Anyuta Blagovo. We greet each +other and stand in silence, or talk of Kleopatra, of her child, of +how sad life is in this world; then, going out of the cemetery we +walk along in silence and she slackens her pace on purpose to walk +beside me a little longer. The little girl, joyous and happy, pulls +at her hand, laughing and screwing up her eyes in the bright sunlight, +and we stand still and join in caressing the dear child. + +When we reach the town Anyuta Blagovo, agitated and flushing crimson, +says good-bye to me and walks on alone, austere and respectable. . . . +And no one who met her could, looking at her, imagine that she +had just been walking beside me and even caressing the child. + + +AT A COUNTRY HOUSE + +PAVEL ILYITCH RASHEVITCH walked up and down, stepping softly on the +floor covered with little Russian plaids, and casting a long shadow +on the wall and ceiling while his guest, Meier, the deputy examining +magistrate, sat on the sofa with one leg drawn up under him smoking +and listening. The clock already pointed to eleven, and there were +sounds of the table being laid in the room next to the study. + +"Say what you like," Rashevitch was saying, "from the standpoint +of fraternity, equality, and the rest of it, Mitka, the swineherd, +is perhaps a man the same as Goethe and Frederick the Great; but +take your stand on a scientific basis, have the courage to look +facts in the face, and it will be obvious to you that blue blood +is not a mere prejudice, that it is not a feminine invention. Blue +blood, my dear fellow, has an historical justification, and to +refuse to recognize it is, to my thinking, as strange as to refuse +to recognize the antlers on a stag. One must reckon with facts! You +are a law student and have confined your attention to the humane +studies, and you can still flatter yourself with illusions of +equality, fraternity, and so on; I am an incorrigible Darwinian, +and for me words such as lineage, aristocracy, noble blood, are not +empty sounds." + +Rashevitch was roused and spoke with feeling. His eyes sparkled, +his pince-nez would not stay on his nose, he kept nervously shrugging +his shoulders and blinking, and at the word "Darwinian" he looked +jauntily in the looking-glass and combed his grey beard with both +hands. He was wearing a very short and shabby reefer jacket and +narrow trousers; the rapidity of his movements, his jaunty air, and +his abbreviated jacket all seemed out of keeping with him, and his +big comely head, with long hair suggestive of a bishop or a veteran +poet, seemed to have been fixed on to the body of a tall, lanky, +affected youth. When he stood with his legs wide apart, his long +shadow looked like a pair of scissors. + +He was fond of talking, and he always fancied that he was saying +something new and original. In the presence of Meier he was conscious +of an unusual flow of spirits and rush of ideas. He found the +examining magistrate sympathetic, and was stimulated by his youth, +his health, his good manners, his dignity, and, above all, by his +cordial attitude to himself and his family. Rashevitch was not a +favourite with his acquaintances; as a rule they fought shy of him, +and, as he knew, declared that he had driven his wife into her grave +with his talking, and they called him, behind his back, a spiteful +creature and a toad. Meier, a man new to the district and unprejudiced, +visited him often and readily and had even been known to say that +Rashevitch and his daughters were the only people in the district +with whom he felt as much at home as with his own people. Rashevitch +liked him too, because he was a young man who might be a good match +for his elder daughter, Genya. + +And now, enjoying his ideas and the sound of his own voice, and +looking with pleasure at the plump but well-proportioned, neatly +cropped, correct Meier, Rashevitch dreamed of how he would arrange +his daughter's marriage with a good man, and then how all his worries +over the estate would pass to his son-in-law. Hateful worries! The +interest owing to the bank had not been paid for the last two +quarters, and fines and arrears of all sorts had mounted up to more +than two thousand. + +"To my mind there can be no doubt," Rashevitch went on, growing +more and more enthusiastic, "that if a Richard Coeur-de-Lion, or +Frederick Barbarossa, for instance, is brave and noble those qualities +will pass by heredity to his son, together with the convolutions +and bumps of the brain, and if that courage and nobility of soul +are preserved in the son by means of education and exercise, and +if he marries a princess who is also noble and brave, those qualities +will be transmitted to his grandson, and so on, until they become +a generic characteristic and pass organically into the flesh and +blood. Thanks to a strict sexual selection, to the fact that high-born +families have instinctively guarded themselves against marriage +with their inferiors, and young men of high rank have not married +just anybody, lofty, spiritual qualities have been transmitted from +generation to generation in their full purity, have been preserved, +and as time goes on have, through exercise, become more exalted and +lofty. For the fact that there is good in humanity we are indebted +to nature, to the normal, natural, consistent order of things, which +has throughout the ages scrupulously segregated blue blood from +plebeian. Yes, my dear boy, no low lout, no cook's son has given +us literature, science, art, law, conceptions of honour and duty +. . . . For all these things mankind is indebted exclusively to the +aristocracy, and from that point of view, the point of view of +natural history, an inferior Sobakevitch by the very fact of his +blue blood is superior and more useful than the very best merchant, +even though the latter may have built fifteen museums. Say what you +like! And when I refuse to shake hands with a low lout or a cook's +son, or to let him sit down to table with me, by that very act I +am safeguarding what is the best thing on earth, and am carrying +out one of Mother Nature's finest designs for leading us up to +perfection. . ." + +Rashevitch stood still, combing his beard with both hands; his +shadow, too, stood still on the wall, looking like a pair of scissors. + +"Take Mother-Russia now," he went on, thrusting his hands in his +pockets and standing first on his heels and then on his toes. "Who +are her best people? Take our first-rate painters, writers, composers +. . . . Who are they? They were all of aristocratic origin. Pushkin, +Lermontov, Turgenev, Gontcharov, Tolstoy, they were not sexton's +children." + +"Gontcharov was a merchant," said Meier. + +"Well, the exception only proves the rule. Besides, Gontcharov's +genius is quite open to dispute. But let us drop names and turn to +facts. What would you say, my good sir, for instance, to this +eloquent fact: when one of the mob forces his way where he has not +been permitted before, into society, into the world of learning, +of literature, into the Zemstvo or the law courts, observe, Nature +herself, first of all, champions the higher rights of humanity, and +is the first to wage war on the rabble. As soon as the plebeian +forces himself into a place he is not fit for he begins to ail, to +go into consumption, to go out of his mind, and to degenerate, and +nowhere do we find so many puny, neurotic wrecks, consumptives, and +starvelings of all sorts as among these darlings. They die like +flies in autumn. If it were not for this providential degeneration +there would not have been a stone left standing of our civilization, +the rabble would have demolished everything. Tell me, if you please, +what has the inroad of the barbarians given us so far? What has the +rabble brought with it?" Rashevitch assumed a mysterious, frightened +expression, and went on: "Never has literature and learning been +at such low ebb among us as now. The men of to-day, my good sir, +have neither ideas nor ideals, and all their sayings and doings are +permeated by one spirit--to get all they can and to strip someone +to his last thread. All these men of to-day who give themselves out +as honest and progressive people can be bought at a rouble a piece, +and the distinguishing mark of the 'intellectual' of to-day is that +you have to keep strict watch over your pocket when you talk to +him, or else he will run off with your purse." Rashevitch winked +and burst out laughing. "Upon my soul, he will! he said, in a thin, +gleeful voice. "And morals! What of their morals?" Rashevitch looked +round towards the door. "No one is surprised nowadays when a wife +robs and leaves her husband. What's that, a trifle! Nowadays, my +dear boy, a chit of a girl of twelve is scheming to get a lover, +and all these amateur theatricals and literary evenings are only +invented to make it easier to get a rich merchant to take a girl +on as his mistress. . . . Mothers sell their daughters, and people +make no bones about asking a husband at what price he sells his +wife, and one can haggle over the bargain, you know, my +dear. . . ." + +Meier, who had been sitting motionless and silent all the time, +suddenly got up from the sofa and looked at his watch. + +"I beg your pardon, Pavel Ilyitch," he said, "it is time for me to +be going." + +But Pavel Ilyitch, who had not finished his remarks, put his arm +round him and, forcibly reseating him on the sofa, vowed that he +would not let him go without supper. And again Meier sat and listened, +but he looked at Rashevitch with perplexity and uneasiness, as +though he were only now beginning to understand him. Patches of red +came into his face. And when at last a maidservant came in to tell +them that the young ladies asked them to go to supper, he gave a +sigh of relief and was the first to walk out of the study. + +At the table in the next room were Rashevitch's daughters, Genya +and Iraida, girls of four-and-twenty and two-and-twenty respectively, +both very pale, with black eyes, and exactly the same height. Genya +had her hair down, and Iraida had hers done up high on her head. +Before eating anything they each drank a wineglassful of bitter +liqueur, with an air as though they had drunk it by accident for +the first time in their lives and both were overcome with confusion +and burst out laughing. + +"Don't be naughty, girls," said Rashevitch. + +Genya and Iraida talked French with each other, and Russian with +their father and their visitor. Interrupting one another, and mixing +up French words with Russian, they began rapidly describing how +just at this time in August, in previous years, they had set off +to the hoarding school and what fun it had been. Now there was +nowhere to go, and they had to stay at their home in the country, +summer and winter without change. Such dreariness! + +"Don't be naughty, girls," Rashevitch said again. + +He wanted to be talking himself. If other people talked in his +presence, he suffered from a feeling like jealousy. + +"So that's how it is, my dear boy," he began, looking affectionately +at Meier. "In the simplicity and goodness of our hearts, and from +fear of being suspected of being behind the times, we fraternize +with, excuse me, all sorts of riff-raff, we preach fraternity and +equality with money-lenders and innkeepers; but if we would only +think, we should see how criminal that good-nature is. We have +brought things to such a pass, that the fate of civilization is +hanging on a hair. My dear fellow, what our forefathers gained in +the course of ages will be to-morrow, if not to-day, outraged and +destroyed by these modern Huns. . . ." + +After supper they all went into the drawing-room. Genya and Iraida +lighted the candles on the piano, got out their music. . . . But +their father still went on talking, and there was no telling when +he would leave off. They looked with misery and vexation at their +egoist-father, to whom the pleasure of chattering and displaying +his intelligence was evidently more precious and important than his +daughters' happiness. Meier, the only young man who ever came to +their house, came--they knew--for the sake of their charming, +feminine society, but the irrepressible old man had taken possession +of him, and would not let him move a step away. + +"Just as the knights of the west repelled the invasions of the +Mongols, so we, before it is too late, ought to unite and strike +together against our foe," Rashevitch went on in the tone of a +preacher, holding up his right hand. "May I appear to the riff-raff +not as Pavel Ilyitch, but as a mighty, menacing Richard Coeur-de-Lion. +Let us give up sloppy sentimentality; enough of it! Let us all make +a compact, that as soon as a plebeian comes near us we fling some +careless phrase straight in his ugly face: 'Paws off! Go back to +your kennel, you cur!' straight in his ugly face," Rashevitch went +on gleefully, flicking his crooked finger in front of him. "In his +ugly face!" + +"I can't do that," Meier brought out, turning away. + +"Why not?" Rashevitch answered briskly, anticipating a prolonged +and interesting argument. "Why not?" + +"Because I am of the artisan class myself!" + +As he said this Meier turned crimson, and his neck seemed to swell, +and tears actually gleamed in his eyes. + +"My father was a simple workman," he said, in a rough, jerky voice, +"but I see no harm in that." + +Rashevitch was fearfully confused. Dumbfoundered, as though he had +been caught in the act of a crime, he gazed helplessly at Meier, +and did not know what to say. Genya and Iraida flushed crimson, and +bent over their music; they were ashamed of their tactless father. +A minute passed in silence, and there was a feeling of unbearable +discomfort, when all at once with a sort of painful stiffness and +inappropriateness, there sounded in the air the words: + +"Yes, I am of the artisan class, and I am proud of it!" + +Thereupon Meier, stumbling awkwardly among the furniture, took his +leave, and walked rapidly into the hall, though his carriage was +not yet at the door. + +"You'll have a dark drive to-night," Rashevitch muttered, following +him. "The moon does not rise till late to-night." + +They stood together on the steps in the dark, and waited for the +horses to be brought. It was cool. + +"There's a falling star," said Meier, wrapping himself in his +overcoat. + +"There are a great many in August." + +When the horses were at the door, Rashevitch gazed intently at the +sky, and said with a sigh: + +"A phenomenon worthy of the pen of Flammarion. . . ." + +After seeing his visitor off, he walked up and down the garden, +gesticulating in the darkness, reluctant to believe that such a +queer, stupid misunderstanding had only just occurred. He was ashamed +and vexed with himself. In the first place it had been extremely +incautious and tactless on his part to raise the damnable subject +of blue blood, without finding out beforehand what his visitor's +position was. Something of the same sort had happened to him before; +he had, on one occasion in a railway carriage, begun abusing the +Germans, and it had afterwards appeared that all the persons he had +been conversing with were German. In the second place he felt that +Meier would never come and see him again. These intellectuals who +have risen from the people are morbidly sensitive, obstinate and +slow to forgive. + +"It's bad, it's bad," muttered Rashevitch, spitting; he had a feeling +of discomfort and loathing as though he had eaten soap. "Ah, it's +bad!" + +He could see from the garden, through the drawing-room window, Genya +by the piano, very pale, and looking scared, with her hair down. +She was talking very, very rapidly. . . . Iraida was walking up and +down the room, lost in thought; but now she, too, began talking +rapidly with her face full of indignation. They were both talking +at once. Rashevitch could not hear a word, but he guessed what they +were talking about. Genya was probably complaining that her father +drove away every decent person from the house with his talk, and +to-day he had driven away from them their one acquaintance, perhaps +a suitor, and now the poor young man would not have one place in +the whole district where he could find rest for his soul. And judging +by the despairing way in which she threw up her arms, Iraida was +talking probably on the subject of their dreary existence, their +wasted youth. . . . + +When he reached his own room, Rashevitch sat down on his bed and +began to undress. He felt oppressed, and he was still haunted by +the same feeling as though he had eaten soap. He was ashamed. As +he undressed he looked at his long, sinewy, elderly legs, and +remembered that in the district they called him the "toad," and +after every long conversation he always felt ashamed. Somehow or +other, by some fatality, it always happened that he began mildly, +amicably, with good intentions, calling himself an old student, an +idealist, a Quixote, but without being himself aware of it, gradually +passed into abuse and slander, and what was most surprising, with +perfect sincerity criticized science, art and morals, though he had +not read a book for the last twenty years, had been nowhere farther +than their provincial town, and did not really know what was going +on in the world. If he sat down to write anything, if it were only +a letter of congratulation, there would somehow be abuse in the +letter. And all this was strange, because in reality he was a man +of feeling, given to tears, Could he be possessed by some devil +which hated and slandered in him, apart from his own will? + +"It's bad," he sighed, as he lay down under the quilt. "It's bad." + +His daughters did not sleep either. There was a sound of laughter +and screaming, as though someone was being pursued; it was Genya +in hysterics. A little later Iraida was sobbing too. A maidservant +ran barefoot up and down the passage several times. . . . + +"What a business! Good Lord! . . ." muttered Rashevitch, sighing +and tossing from side to side. "It's bad." + +He had a nightmare. He dreamt he was standing naked, as tall as a +giraffe, in the middle of the room, and saying, as he flicked his +finger before him: + +"In his ugly face! his ugly face! his ugly face!" + +He woke up in a fright, and first of all remembered that a +misunderstanding had happened in the evening, and that Meier would +certainly not come again. He remembered, too, that he had to pay +the interest at the bank, to find husbands for his daughters, that +one must have food and drink, and close at hand were illness, old +age, unpleasantnesses, that soon it would be winter, and that there +was no wood. . . . + +It was past nine o'clock in the morning. Rashevitch slowly dressed, +drank his tea and ate two hunks of bread and butter. His daughters +did not come down to breakfast; they did not want to meet him, and +that wounded him. He lay down on his sofa in his study, then sat +down to his table and began writing a letter to his daughters. His +hand shook and his eyes smarted. He wrote that he was old, and no +use to anyone and that nobody loved him, and he begged his daughters +to forget him, and when he died to bury him in a plain, deal coffin +without ceremony, or to send his body to Harkov to the dissecting +theatre. He felt that every line he wrote reeked of malice and +affectation, but he could not stop, and went on writing and writing. + +"The toad!" he suddenly heard from the next room; it was the voice +of his elder daughter, a voice with a hiss of indignation. "The +toad!" + +"The toad!" the younger one repeated like an echo. "The toad!" + + +A FATHER + +"I ADMIT I have had a drop. . . . You must excuse me. I went into +a beer shop on the way here, and as it was so hot had a couple of +bottles. It's hot, my boy." + +Old Musatov took a nondescript rag out of his pocket and wiped his +shaven, battered face with it. + +"I have come only for a minute, Borenka, my angel," he went on, not +looking at his son, "about something very important. Excuse me, +perhaps I am hindering you. Haven't you ten roubles, my dear, you +could let me have till Tuesday? You see, I ought to have paid for +my lodging yesterday, and money, you see! . . . None! Not to save +my life!" + +Young Musatov went out without a word, and began whispering the +other side of the door with the landlady of the summer villa and +his colleagues who had taken the villa with him. Three minutes later +he came back, and without a word gave his father a ten-rouble note. +The latter thrust it carelessly into his pocket without looking at +it, and said: + +"_Merci._ Well, how are you getting on? It's a long time since we +met." + +"Yes, a long time, not since Easter." + +"Half a dozen times I have been meaning to come to you, but I've +never had time. First one thing, then another. . . . It's simply +awful! I am talking nonsense though. . . . All that's nonsense. +Don't you believe me, Borenka. I said I would pay you back the ten +roubles on Tuesday, don't believe that either. Don't believe a word +I say. I have nothing to do at all, it's simply laziness, drunkenness, +and I am ashamed to be seen in such clothes in the street. You must +excuse me, Borenka. Here I have sent the girl to you three times +for money and written you piteous letters. Thanks for the money, +but don't believe the letters; I was telling fibs. I am ashamed to +rob you, my angel; I know that you can scarcely make both ends meet +yourself, and feed on locusts, but my impudence is too much for me. +I am such a specimen of impudence--fit for a show! . . . You must +excuse me, Borenka. I tell you the truth, because I can't see your +angel face without emotion." + +A minute passed in silence. The old man heaved a deep sigh and said: + +"You might treat me to a glass of beer perhaps." + +His son went out without a word, and again there was a sound of +whispering the other side of the door. When a little later the beer +was brought in, the old man seemed to revive at the sight of the +bottles and abruptly changed his tone. + +"I was at the races the other day, my boy," he began telling him, +assuming a scared expression. "We were a party of three, and we +pooled three roubles on Frisky. And, thanks to that Frisky, we got +thirty-two roubles each for our rouble. I can't get on without the +races, my boy. It's a gentlemanly diversion. My virago always gives +me a dressing over the races, but I go. I love it, and that's all +about it." + +Boris, a fair-haired young man with a melancholy immobile face, was +walking slowly up and down, listening in silence. When the old man +stopped to clear his throat, he went up to him and said: + +"I bought myself a pair of boots the other day, father, which turn +out to be too tight for me. Won't you take them? I'll let you have +them cheap." + +"If you like," said the old man with a grimace, "only for the price +you gave for them, without any cheapening." + +"Very well, I'll let you have them on credit." + +The son groped under the bed and produced the new boots. The father +took off his clumsy, rusty, evidently second-hand boots and began +trying on the new ones. + +"A perfect fit," he said. "Right, let me keep them. And on Tuesday, +when I get my pension, I'll send you the money for them. That's not +true, though," he went on, suddenly falling into the same tearful +tone again. "And it was a lie about the races, too, and a lie about +the pension. And you are deceiving me, Borenka. . . . I feel your +generous tactfulness. I see through you! Your boots were too small, +because your heart is too big. Ah, Borenka, Borenka! I understand +it all and feel it!" + +"Have you moved into new lodgings?" his son interrupted, to change +the conversation. + +"Yes, my boy. I move every month. My virago can't stay long in the +same place with her temper." + +"I went to your lodgings, I meant to ask you to stay here with me. +In your state of health it would do you good to be in the fresh +air." + +"No," said the old man, with a wave of his hand, "the woman wouldn't +let me, and I shouldn't care to myself. A hundred times you have +tried to drag me out of the pit, and I have tried myself, but nothing +came of it. Give it up. I must stick in my filthy hole. This minute, +here I am sitting, looking at your angel face, yet something is +drawing me home to my hole. Such is my fate. You can't draw a +dung-beetle to a rose. But it's time I was going, my boy. It's +getting dark." + +"Wait a minute then, I'll come with you. I have to go to town to-day +myself." + +Both put on their overcoats and went out. When a little while +afterwards they were driving in a cab, it was already dark, and +lights began to gleam in the windows. + +"I've robbed you, Borenka!" the father muttered. "Poor children, +poor children! It must be a dreadful trouble to have such a father! +Borenka, my angel, I cannot lie when I see your face. You must +excuse me. . . . What my depravity has come to, my God. Here I have +just been robbing you, and put you to shame with my drunken state; +I am robbing your brothers, too, and put them to shame, and you +should have seen me yesterday! I won't conceal it, Borenka. Some +neighbours, a wretched crew, came to see my virago; I got drunk, +too, with them, and I blackguarded you poor children for all I was +worth. I abused you, and complained that you had abandoned me. I +wanted, you see, to touch the drunken hussies' hearts, and pose as +an unhappy father. It's my way, you know, when I want to screen my +vices I throw all the blame on my innocent children. I can't tell +lies and hide things from you, Borenka. I came to see you as proud +as a peacock, but when I saw your gentleness and kind heart, my +tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, and it upset my conscience +completely." + +"Hush, father, let's talk of something else." + +"Mother of God, what children I have," the old man went on, not +heeding his son. "What wealth God has bestowed on me. Such children +ought not to have had a black sheep like me for a father, but a +real man with soul and feeling! I am not worthy of you!" + +The old man took off his cap with a button at the top and crossed +himself several times. + +"Thanks be to Thee, O Lord!" he said with a sigh, looking from side +to side as though seeking for an ikon. "Remarkable, exceptional +children! I have three sons, and they are all like one. Sober, +steady, hard-working, and what brains! Cabman, what brains! Grigory +alone has brains enough for ten. He speaks French, he speaks German, +and talks better than any of your lawyers--one is never tired of +listening. My children, my children, I can't believe that you are +mine! I can't believe it! You are a martyr, my Borenka, I am ruining +you, and I shall go on ruining you. . . . You give to me endlessly, +though you know your money is thrown away. The other day I sent you +a pitiful letter, I described how ill I was, but you know I was +lying, I wanted the money for rum. And you give to me because you +are afraid to wound me by refusing. I know all that, and feel it. +Grisha's a martyr, too. On Thursday I went to his office, drunk, +filthy, ragged, reeking of vodka like a cellar . . . I went straight +up, such a figure, I pestered him with nasty talk, while his +colleagues and superiors and petitioners were standing round. I +have disgraced him for life. And he wasn't the least confused, only +turned a bit pale, but smiled and came up to me as though there +were nothing the matter, even introduced me to his colleagues. Then +he took me all the way home, and not a word of reproach. I rob him +worse than you. Take your brother Sasha now, he's a martyr too! He +married, as you know, a colonel's daughter of an aristocratic circle, +and got a dowry with her. . . . You would think he would have nothing +to do with me. No, brother, after his wedding he came with his young +wife and paid me the first visit . . . in my hole. . . . Upon my +soul!" + +The old man gave a sob and then began laughing. + +"And at that moment, as luck would have it, we were eating grated +radish with kvass and frying fish, and there was a stink enough in +the flat to make the devil sick. I was lying down--I'd had a drop +--my virago bounced out at the young people with her face crimson, +. . . It was a disgrace in fact. But Sasha rose superior to it all." + +"Yes, our Sasha is a good fellow," said Boris. + +"The most splendid fellow! You are all pure gold, you and Grisha +and Sasha and Sonya. I worry you, torment you, disgrace you, rob +you, and all my life I have not heard one word of reproach from +you, you have never given me one cross look. It would be all very +well if I had been a decent father to you--but as it is! You have +had nothing from me but harm. I am a bad, dissipated man. . . . +Now, thank God, I am quieter and I have no strength of will, but +in old days when you were little I had determination, will. Whatever +I said or did I always thought it was right. Sometimes I'd come +home from the club at night, drunk and ill-humoured, and scold at +your poor mother for spending money. The whole night I would be +railing at her, and think it the right thing too; you would get up +in the morning and go to school, while I'd still be venting my +temper upon her. Heavens! I did torture her, poor martyr! When you +came back from school and I was asleep you didn't dare to have +dinner till I got up. At dinner again there would be a flare up. I +daresay you remember. I wish no one such a father; God sent me to +you for a trial. Yes, for a trial! Hold out, children, to the end! +Honour thy father and thy days shall be long. Perhaps for your noble +conduct God will grant you long life. Cabman, stop!" + +The old man jumped out of the cab and ran into a tavern. Half an +hour later he came back, cleared his throat in a drunken way, and +sat down beside his son. + +"Where's Sonya now?" he asked. "Still at boarding-school?" + +"No, she left in May, and is living now with Sasha's mother-in-law." + +"There!" said the old man in surprise. "She is a jolly good girl! +So she is following her brother's example. . . . Ah, Borenka, she +has no mother, no one to rejoice over her! I say, Borenka, does she +. . . does she know how I am living? Eh?" + +Boris made no answer. Five minutes passed in profound silence. The +old man gave a sob, wiped his face with a rag and said: + +"I love her, Borenka! She is my only daughter, you know, and in +one's old age there is no comfort like a daughter. Could I see her, +Borenka?" + +"Of course, when you like." + +"Really? And she won't mind?" + +"Of course not, she has been trying to find you so as to see you." + +"Upon my soul! What children! Cabman, eh? Arrange it, Borenka +darling! She is a young lady now, _delicatesse, consommé_, and all +the rest of it in a refined way, and I don't want to show myself +to her in such an abject state. I'll tell you how we'll contrive +to work it. For three days I will keep away from spirits, to get +my filthy, drunken phiz into better order. Then I'll come to you, +and you shall lend me for the time some suit of yours; I'll shave +and have my hair cut, then you go and bring her to your flat. Will +you?" + +"Very well." + +"Cabman, stop!" + +The old man sprang out of the cab again and ran into a tavern. While +Boris was driving with him to his lodging he jumped out twice again, +while his son sat silent and waited patiently for him. When, after +dismissing the cab, they made their way across a long, filthy yard +to the "virago's" lodging, the old man put on an utterly shamefaced +and guilty air, and began timidly clearing his throat and clicking +with his lips. + +"Borenka," he said in an ingratiating voice, "if my virago begins +saying anything, don't take any notice . . . and behave to her, you +know, affably. She is ignorant and impudent, but she's a good +baggage. There is a good, warm heart beating in her bosom!" + +The long yard ended, and Boris found himself in a dark entry. The +swing door creaked, there was a smell of cooking and a smoking +samovar. There was a sound of harsh voices. Passing through the +passage into the kitchen Boris could see nothing but thick smoke, +a line with washing on it, and the chimney of the samovar through +a crack of which golden sparks were dropping. + +"And here is my cell," said the old man, stooping down and going +into a little room with a low-pitched ceiling, and an atmosphere +unbearably stifling from the proximity of the kitchen. + +Here three women were sitting at the table regaling themselves. +Seeing the visitors, they exchanged glances and left off eating. + +"Well, did you get it?" one of them, apparently the "virago" herself, +asked abruptly. + +"Yes, yes," muttered the old man. "Well, Boris, pray sit down. +Everything is plain here, young man . . . we live in a simple way." + +He bustled about in an aimless way. He felt ashamed before his son, +and at the same time apparently he wanted to keep up before the +women his dignity as cock of the walk, and as a forsaken, unhappy +father. + +"Yes, young man, we live simply with no nonsense," he went on +muttering. "We are simple people, young man. . . . We are not like +you, we don't want to keep up a show before people. No! . . . Shall +we have a drink of vodka?" + +One of the women (she was ashamed to drink before a stranger) heaved +a sigh and said: + +"Well, I'll have another drink on account of the mushrooms. . . . +They are such mushrooms, they make you drink even if you don't want +to. Ivan Gerasimitch, offer the young gentleman, perhaps he will +have a drink!" + +The last word she pronounced in a mincing drawl. + +"Have a drink, young man!" said the father, not looking at his son. +"We have no wine or liqueurs, my boy, we live in a plain way." + +"He doesn't like our ways," sighed the "virago." "Never mind, never +mind, he'll have a drink." + +Not to offend his father by refusing, Boris took a wineglass and +drank in silence. When they brought in the samovar, to satisfy the +old man, he drank two cups of disgusting tea in silence, with a +melancholy face. Without a word he listened to the virago dropping +hints about there being in this world cruel, heartless children who +abandon their parents. + +"I know what you are thinking now!" said the old man, after drinking +more and passing into his habitual state of drunken excitement. +"You think I have let myself sink into the mire, that I am to be +pitied, but to my thinking, this simple life is much more normal +than your life, . . . I don't need anybody, and . . . and I don't +intend to eat humble pie. . . . I can't endure a wretched boy's +looking at me with compassion." + +After tea he cleaned a herring and sprinkled it with onion, with +such feeling, that tears of emotion stood in his eyes. He began +talking again about the races and his winnings, about some Panama +hat for which he had paid sixteen roubles the day before. He told +lies with the same relish with which he ate herring and drank. His +son sat on in silence for an hour, and began to say good-bye. + +"I don't venture to keep you," the old man said, haughtily. "You +must excuse me, young man, for not living as you would like!" + +He ruffled up his feathers, snorted with dignity, and winked at the +women. + +"Good-bye, young man," he said, seeing his son into the entry. +"Attendez." + +In the entry, where it was dark, he suddenly pressed his face against +the young man's sleeve and gave a sob. + +"I should like to have a look at Sonitchka," he whispered. "Arrange +it, Borenka, my angel. I'll shave, I'll put on your suit . . . I'll +put on a straight face . . . I'll hold my tongue while she is there. +Yes, yes, I will hold my tongue!" + +He looked round timidly towards the door, through which the women's +voices were heard, checked his sobs, and said aloud: + +"Good-bye, young man! Attendez." + + +ON THE ROAD + +_"Upon the breast of a gigantic crag, +A golden cloudlet rested for one night."_ + +LERMONTOV. + +IN the room which the tavern keeper, the Cossack Semyon Tchistopluy, +called the "travellers' room," that is kept exclusively for travellers, +a tall, broad-shouldered man of forty was sitting at the big unpainted +table. He was asleep with his elbows on the table and his head +leaning on his fist. An end of tallow candle, stuck into an old +pomatum pot, lighted up his light brown beard, his thick, broad +nose, his sunburnt cheeks, and the thick, black eyebrows overhanging +his closed eyes. . . . The nose and the cheeks and the eyebrows, +all the features, each taken separately, were coarse and heavy, +like the furniture and the stove in the "travellers' room," but +taken all together they gave the effect of something harmonious and +even beautiful. Such is the lucky star, as it is called, of the +Russian face: the coarser and harsher its features the softer and +more good-natured it looks. The man was dressed in a gentleman's +reefer jacket, shabby, but bound with wide new braid, a plush +waistcoat, and full black trousers thrust into big high boots. + +On one of the benches, which stood in a continuous row along the +wall, a girl of eight, in a brown dress and long black stockings, +lay asleep on a coat lined with fox. Her face was pale, her hair +was flaxen, her shoulders were narrow, her whole body was thin and +frail, but her nose stood out as thick and ugly a lump as the man's. +She was sound asleep, and unconscious that her semi-circular comb +had fallen off her head and was cutting her cheek. + +The "travellers' room" had a festive appearance. The air was full +of the smell of freshly scrubbed floors, there were no rags hanging +as usual on the line that ran diagonally across the room, and a +little lamp was burning in the corner over the table, casting a +patch of red light on the ikon of St. George the Victorious. From +the ikon stretched on each side of the corner a row of cheap +oleographs, which maintained a strict and careful gradation in the +transition from the sacred to the profane. In the dim light of the +candle end and the red ikon lamp the pictures looked like one +continuous stripe, covered with blurs of black. When the tiled +stove, trying to sing in unison with the weather, drew in the air +with a howl, while the logs, as though waking up, burst into bright +flame and hissed angrily, red patches began dancing on the log +walls, and over the head of the sleeping man could be seen first +the Elder Seraphim, then the Shah Nasir-ed-Din, then a fat, brown +baby with goggle eyes, whispering in the ear of a young girl with +an extraordinarily blank, and indifferent face. . . . + +Outside a storm was raging. Something frantic and wrathful, but +profoundly unhappy, seemed to be flinging itself about the tavern +with the ferocity of a wild beast and trying to break in. Banging +at the doors, knocking at the windows and on the roof, scratching +at the walls, it alternately threatened and besought, then subsided +for a brief interval, and then with a gleeful, treacherous howl +burst into the chimney, but the wood flared up, and the fire, like +a chained dog, flew wrathfully to meet its foe, a battle began, and +after it--sobs, shrieks, howls of wrath. In all of this there was +the sound of angry misery and unsatisfied hate, and the mortified +impatience of something accustomed to triumph. + +Bewitched by this wild, inhuman music the "travellers' room" seemed +spellbound for ever, but all at once the door creaked and the potboy, +in a new print shirt, came in. Limping on one leg, and blinking his +sleepy eyes, he snuffed the candle with his fingers, put some more +wood on the fire and went out. At once from the church, which was +three hundred paces from the tavern, the clock struck midnight. The +wind played with the chimes as with the snowflakes; chasing the +sounds of the clock it whirled them round and round over a vast +space, so that some strokes were cut short or drawn out in long, +vibrating notes, while others were completely lost in the general +uproar. One stroke sounded as distinctly in the room as though it +had chimed just under the window. The child, sleeping on the fox-skin, +started and raised her head. For a minute she stared blankly at the +dark window, at Nasir-ed-Din over whom a crimson glow from the fire +flickered at that moment, then she turned her eyes upon the sleeping +man. + +"Daddy," she said. + +But the man did not move. The little girl knitted her brow angrily, +lay down, and curled up her legs. Someone in the tavern gave a loud, +prolonged yawn. Soon afterwards there was the squeak of the swing +door and the sound of indistinct voices. Someone came in, shaking +the snow off, and stamping in felt boots which made a muffled thud. + +"What is it?" a woman s voice asked languidly. + +"Mademoiselle Ilovaisky has come, . . ." answered a bass voice. + +Again there was the squeak of the swing door. Then came the roar +of the wind rushing in. Someone, probably the lame boy, ran to the +door leading to the "travellers' room," coughed deferentially, and +lifted the latch. + +"This way, lady, please," said a woman's voice in dulcet tones. +"It's clean in here, my beauty. . . ." + +The door was opened wide and a peasant with a beard appeared in the +doorway, in the long coat of a coachman, plastered all over with +snow from head to foot, and carrying a big trunk on his shoulder. +He was followed into the room by a feminine figure, scarcely half +his height, with no face and no arms, muffled and wrapped up like +a bundle and also covered with snow. A damp chill, as from a cellar, +seemed to come to the child from the coachman and the bundle, and +the fire and the candles flickered. + +"What nonsense!" said the bundle angrily, "We could go perfectly +well. We have only nine more miles to go, mostly by the forest, and +we should not get lost. . . ." + +"As for getting lost, we shouldn't, but the horses can't go on, +lady!" answered the coachman. "And it is Thy Will, O Lord! As though +I had done it on purpose!" + +"God knows where you have brought me. . . . Well, be quiet. . . . +There are people asleep here, it seems. You can go. . . ." + +The coachman put the portmanteau on the floor, and as he did so, a +great lump of snow fell off his shoulders. He gave a sniff and went +out. + +Then the little girl saw two little hands come out from the middle +of the bundle, stretch upwards and begin angrily disentangling the +network of shawls, kerchiefs, and scarves. First a big shawl fell +on the ground, then a hood, then a white knitted kerchief. After +freeing her head, the traveller took off her pelisse and at once +shrank to half the size. Now she was in a long, grey coat with big +buttons and bulging pockets. From one pocket she pulled out a paper +parcel, from the other a bunch of big, heavy keys, which she put +down so carelessly that the sleeping man started and opened his +eyes. For some time he looked blankly round him as though he didn't +know where he was, then he shook his head, went to the corner and +sat down. . . . The newcomer took off her great coat, which made +her shrink to half her size again, she took off her big felt boots, +and sat down, too. + +By now she no longer resembled a bundle: she was a thin little +brunette of twenty, as slim as a snake, with a long white face and +curly hair. Her nose was long and sharp, her chin, too, was long +and sharp, her eyelashes were long, the corners of her mouth were +sharp, and, thanks to this general sharpness, the expression of her +face was biting. Swathed in a closely fitting black dress with a +mass of lace at her neck and sleeves, with sharp elbows and long +pink fingers, she recalled the portraits of mediæval English ladies. +The grave concentration of her face increased this likeness. + +The lady looked round at the room, glanced sideways at the man and +the little girl, shrugged her shoulders, and moved to the window. +The dark windows were shaking from the damp west wind. Big flakes +of snow glistening in their whiteness, lay on the window frame, but +at once disappeared, borne away by the wind. The savage music grew +louder and louder. . . . + +After a long silence the little girl suddenly turned over, and said +angrily, emphasizing each word: + +"Oh, goodness, goodness, how unhappy I am! Unhappier than anyone!" + +The man got up and moved with little steps to the child with a +guilty air, which was utterly out of keeping with his huge figure +and big beard. + +"You are not asleep, dearie?" he said, in an apologetic voice. "What +do you want?" + +"I don't want anything, my shoulder aches! You are a wicked man, +Daddy, and God will punish you! You'll see He will punish you." + +"My darling, I know your shoulder aches, but what can I do, dearie?" +said the man, in the tone in which men who have been drinking excuse +themselves to their stern spouses. "It's the journey has made your +shoulder ache, Sasha. To-morrow we shall get there and rest, and +the pain will go away. . . ." + +"To-morrow, to-morrow. . . . Every day you say to-morrow. We shall +be going on another twenty days." + +"But we shall arrive to-morrow, dearie, on your father's word of +honour. I never tell a lie, but if we are detained by the snowstorm +it is not my fault." + +"I can't bear any more, I can't, I can't!" + +Sasha jerked her leg abruptly and filled the room with an unpleasant +wailing. Her father made a despairing gesture, and looked hopelessly +towards the young lady. The latter shrugged her shoulders, and +hesitatingly went up to Sasha. + +"Listen, my dear," she said, "it is no use crying. It's really +naughty; if your shoulder aches it can't be helped." + +"You see, Madam," said the man quickly, as though defending himself, +"we have not slept for two nights, and have been travelling in a +revolting conveyance. Well, of course, it is natural she should be +ill and miserable, . . . and then, you know, we had a drunken driver, +our portmanteau has been stolen . . . the snowstorm all the time, +but what's the use of crying, Madam? I am exhausted, though, by +sleeping in a sitting position, and I feel as though I were drunk. +Oh, dear! Sasha, and I feel sick as it is, and then you cry!" + +The man shook his head, and with a gesture of despair sat down. + +"Of course you mustn't cry," said the young lady. "It's only little +babies cry. If you are ill, dear, you must undress and go to +sleep. . . . Let us take off your things!" + +When the child had been undressed and pacified a silence reigned +again. The young lady seated herself at the window, and looked round +wonderingly at the room of the inn, at the ikon, at the stove. . . . +Apparently the room and the little girl with the thick nose, in +her short boy's nightgown, and the child's father, all seemed strange +to her. This strange man was sitting in a corner; he kept looking +about him helplessly, as though he were drunk, and rubbing his face +with the palm of his hand. He sat silent, blinking, and judging +from his guilty-looking figure it was difficult to imagine that he +would soon begin to speak. Yet he was the first to begin. Stroking +his knees, he gave a cough, laughed, and said: + +"It's a comedy, it really is. . . . I look and I cannot believe my +eyes: for what devilry has destiny driven us to this accursed inn? +What did she want to show by it? Life sometimes performs such _'salto +mortale,'_ one can only stare and blink in amazement. Have you come +from far, Madam?" + +"No, not from far," answered the young lady. "I am going from our +estate, fifteen miles from here, to our farm, to my father and +brother. My name is Ilovaisky, and the farm is called Ilovaiskoe. +It's nine miles away. What unpleasant weather!" + +"It couldn't be worse." + +The lame boy came in and stuck a new candle in the pomatum pot. + +"You might bring us the samovar, boy," said the man, addressing +him. + +"Who drinks tea now?" laughed the boy. "It is a sin to drink tea +before mass. . . ." + +"Never mind boy, you won't burn in hell if we do. . . ." + +Over the tea the new acquaintances got into conversation. + +Mlle. Ilovaisky learned that her companion was called Grigory +Petrovitch Liharev, that he was the brother of the Liharev who was +Marshal of Nobility in one of the neighbouring districts, and he +himself had once been a landowner, but had "run through everything +in his time." Liharev learned that her name was Marya Mihailovna, +that her father had a huge estate, but that she was the only one +to look after it as her father and brother looked at life through +their fingers, were irresponsible, and were too fond of harriers. + +"My father and brother are all alone at the farm," she told him, +brandishing her fingers (she had the habit of moving her fingers +before her pointed face as she talked, and after every sentence +moistened her lips with her sharp little tongue). "They, I mean +men, are an irresponsible lot, and don't stir a finger for themselves. +I can fancy there will be no one to give them a meal after the fast! +We have no mother, and we have such servants that they can't lay +the tablecloth properly when I am away. You can imagine their +condition now! They will be left with nothing to break their fast, +while I have to stay here all night. How strange it all is." + +She shrugged her shoulders, took a sip from her cup, and said: + +"There are festivals that have a special fragrance: at Easter, +Trinity and Christmas there is a peculiar scent in the air. Even +unbelievers are fond of those festivals. My brother, for instance, +argues that there is no God, but he is the first to hurry to Matins +at Easter." + +Liharev raised his eyes to Mlle. Ilovaisky and laughed. + +"They argue that there is no God," she went on, laughing too, "but +why is it, tell me, all the celebrated writers, the learned men, +clever people generally, in fact, believe towards the end of their +life?" + +"If a man does not know how to believe when he is young, Madam, he +won't believe in his old age if he is ever so much of a writer." + +Judging from Liharev's cough he had a bass voice, but, probably +from being afraid to speak aloud, or from exaggerated shyness, he +spoke in a tenor. After a brief pause he heaved a sign and said: + +"The way I look at it is that faith is a faculty of the spirit. It +is just the same as a talent, one must be born with it. So far as +I can judge by myself, by the people I have seen in my time, and +by all that is done around us, this faculty is present in Russians +in its highest degree. Russian life presents us with an uninterrupted +succession of convictions and aspirations, and if you care to know, +it has not yet the faintest notion of lack of faith or scepticism. +If a Russian does not believe in God, it means he believes in +something else." + +Liharev took a cup of tea from Mlle. Ilovaisky, drank off half in +one gulp, and went on: + +"I will tell you about myself. Nature has implanted in my breast +an extraordinary faculty for belief. Whisper it not to the night, +but half my life I was in the ranks of the Atheists and Nihilists, +but there was not one hour in my life in which I ceased to believe. +All talents, as a rule, show themselves in early childhood, and so +my faculty showed itself when I could still walk upright under the +table. My mother liked her children to eat a great deal, and when +she gave me food she used to say: 'Eat! Soup is the great thing in +life!' I believed, and ate the soup ten times a day, ate like a +shark, ate till I was disgusted and stupefied. My nurse used to +tell me fairy tales, and I believed in house-spirits, in wood-elves, +and in goblins of all kinds. I used sometimes to steal corrosive +sublimate from my father, sprinkle it on cakes, and carry them up +to the attic that the house-spirits, you see, might eat them and +be killed. And when I was taught to read and understand what I read, +then there was a fine to-do. I ran away to America and went off to +join the brigands, and wanted to go into a monastery, and hired +boys to torture me for being a Christian. And note that my faith +was always active, never dead. If I was running away to America I +was not alone, but seduced someone else, as great a fool as I was, +to go with me, and was delighted when I was nearly frozen outside +the town gates and when I was thrashed; if I went to join the +brigands I always came back with my face battered. A most restless +childhood, I assure you! And when they sent me to the high school +and pelted me with all sorts of truths--that is, that the earth +goes round the sun, or that white light is not white, but is made +up of seven colours--my poor little head began to go round! +Everything was thrown into a whirl in me: Navin who made the sun +stand still, and my mother who in the name of the Prophet Elijah +disapproved of lightning conductors, and my father who was indifferent +to the truths I had learned. My enlightenment inspired me. I wandered +about the house and stables like one possessed, preaching my truths, +was horrified by ignorance, glowed with hatred for anyone who saw +in white light nothing but white light. . . . But all that's nonsense +and childishness. Serious, so to speak, manly enthusiasms began +only at the university. You have, no doubt, Madam, taken your degree +somewhere?" + +"I studied at Novotcherkask at the Don Institute." + +"Then you have not been to a university? So you don't know what +science means. All the sciences in the world have the same passport, +without which they regard themselves as meaningless . . . the +striving towards truth! Every one of them, even pharmacology, has +for its aim not utility, not the alleviation of life, but truth. +It's remarkable! When you set to work to study any science, what +strikes you first of all is its beginning. I assure you there is +nothing more attractive and grander, nothing is so staggering, +nothing takes a man's breath away like the beginning of any science. +From the first five or six lectures you are soaring on wings of the +brightest hopes, you already seem to yourself to be welcoming truth +with open arms. And I gave myself up to science, heart and soul, +passionately, as to the woman one loves. I was its slave; I found +it the sun of my existence, and asked for no other. I studied day +and night without rest, ruined myself over books, wept when before +my eyes men exploited science for their own personal ends. But my +enthusiasm did not last long. The trouble is that every science has +a beginning but not an end, like a recurring decimal. Zoology has +discovered 35,000 kinds of insects, chemistry reckons 60 elements. +If in time tens of noughts can be written after these figures. +Zoology and chemistry will be just as far from their end as now, +and all contemporary scientific work consists in increasing these +numbers. I saw through this trick when I discovered the 35,001-st +and felt no satisfaction. Well, I had no time to suffer from +disillusionment, as I was soon possessed by a new faith. I plunged +into Nihilism, with its manifestoes, its 'black divisions,' and all +the rest of it. I 'went to the people,' worked in factories, worked +as an oiler, as a barge hauler. Afterwards, when wandering over +Russia, I had a taste of Russian life, I turned into a fervent +devotee of that life. I loved the Russian people with poignant +intensity; I loved their God and believed in Him, and in their +language, their creative genius. . . . And so on, and so on. . . . +I have been a Slavophile in my time, I used to pester Aksakov with +letters, and I was a Ukrainophile, and an archæologist, and a +collector of specimens of peasant art. . . . I was enthusiastic +over ideas, people, events, places . . . my enthusiasm was endless! +Five years ago I was working for the abolition of private property; +my last creed was non-resistance to evil." + +Sasha gave an abrupt sigh and began moving. Liharev got up and went +to her. + +"Won't you have some tea, dearie?" he asked tenderly. + +"Drink it yourself," the child answered rudely. Liharev was +disconcerted, and went back to the table with a guilty step. + +"Then you have had a lively time," said Mlle. Ilovaisky; "you have +something to remember." + +"Well, yes, it's all very lively when one sits over tea and chatters +to a kind listener, but you should ask what that liveliness has +cost me! What price have I paid for the variety of my life? You +see, Madam, I have not held my convictions like a German doctor of +philosophy, _zierlichmännerlich_, I have not lived in solitude, but +every conviction I have had has bound my back to the yoke, has torn +my body to pieces. Judge, for yourself. I was wealthy like my +brothers, but now I am a beggar. In the delirium of my enthusiasm +I smashed up my own fortune and my wife's--a heap of other people's +money. Now I am forty-two, old age is close upon me, and I am +homeless, like a dog that has dropped behind its waggon at night. +All my life I have not known what peace meant, my soul has been in +continual agitation, distressed even by its hopes . . . I have been +wearied out with heavy irregular work, have endured privation, have +five times been in prison, have dragged myself across the provinces +of Archangel and of Tobolsk . . . it's painful to think of it! I +have lived, but in my fever I have not even been conscious of the +process of life itself. Would you believe it, I don't remember a +single spring, I never noticed how my wife loved me, how my children +were born. What more can I tell you? I have been a misfortune to +all who have loved me. . . . My mother has worn mourning for me all +these fifteen years, while my proud brothers, who have had to wince, +to blush, to bow their heads, to waste their money on my account, +have come in the end to hate me like poison." + +Liharev got up and sat down again. + +"If I were simply unhappy I should thank God," he went on without +looking at his listener. "My personal unhappiness sinks into the +background when I remember how often in my enthusiasms I have been +absurd, far from the truth, unjust, cruel, dangerous! How often I +have hated and despised those whom I ought to have loved, and _vice +versa_, I have changed a thousand times. One day I believe, fall +down and worship, the next I flee like a coward from the gods and +friends of yesterday, and swallow in silence the 'scoundrel!' they +hurl after me. God alone has seen how often I have wept and bitten +my pillow in shame for my enthusiasms. Never once in my life have +I intentionally lied or done evil, but my conscience is not clear! +I cannot even boast, Madam, that I have no one's life upon my +conscience, for my wife died before my eyes, worn out by my reckless +activity. Yes, my wife! I tell you they have two ways of treating +women nowadays. Some measure women's skulls to prove woman is +inferior to man, pick out her defects to mock at her, to look +original in her eyes, and to justify their sensuality. Others do +their utmost to raise women to their level, that is, force them to +learn by heart the 35,000 species, to speak and write the same +foolish things as they speak and write themselves." + +Liharev's face darkened. + +"I tell you that woman has been and always will be the slave of +man," he said in a bass voice, striking his fist on the table. "She +is the soft, tender wax which a man always moulds into anything he +likes. . . . My God! for the sake of some trumpery masculine +enthusiasm she will cut off her hair, abandon her family, die among +strangers! . . . among the ideas for which she has sacrificed herself +there is not a single feminine one. . . . An unquestioning, devoted +slave! I have not measured skulls, but I say this from hard, bitter +experience: the proudest, most independent women, if I have succeeded +in communicating to them my enthusiasm, have followed me without +criticism, without question, and done anything I chose; I have +turned a nun into a Nihilist who, as I heard afterwards, shot a +gendarme; my wife never left me for a minute in my wanderings, and +like a weathercock changed her faith in step with my changing +enthusiasms." + +Liharev jumped up and walked up and down the room. + +"A noble, sublime slavery!" he said, clasping his hands. "It is +just in it that the highest meaning of woman's life lies! Of all +the fearful medley of thoughts and impressions accumulated in my +brain from my association with women my memory, like a filter, has +retained no ideas, no clever saying, no philosophy, nothing but +that extraordinary, resignation to fate, that wonderful mercifulness, +forgiveness of everything." + +Liharev clenched his fists, stared at a fixed point, and with a +sort of passionate intensity, as though he were savouring each word +as he uttered it, hissed through his clenched teeth: + +"That . . . that great-hearted fortitude, faithfulness unto death, +poetry of the heart. . . . The meaning of life lies in just that +unrepining martyrdom, in the tears which would soften a stone, in +the boundless, all-forgiving love which brings light and warmth +into the chaos of life. . . ." + +Mlle. Ilovaisky got up slowly, took a step towards Liharev, and +fixed her eyes upon his face. From the tears that glittered on his +eyelashes, from his quivering, passionate voice, from the flush on +his cheeks, it was clear to her that women were not a chance, not +a simple subject of conversation. They were the object of his new +enthusiasm, or, as he said himself, his new faith! For the first +time in her life she saw a man carried away, fervently believing. +With his gesticulations, with his flashing eyes he seemed to her +mad, frantic, but there was a feeling of such beauty in the fire +of his eyes, in his words, in all the movements of his huge body, +that without noticing what she was doing she stood facing him as +though rooted to the spot, and gazed into his face with delight. + +"Take my mother," he said, stretching out his hand to her with an +imploring expression on his face, "I poisoned her existence, according +to her ideas disgraced the name of Liharev, did her as much harm +as the most malignant enemy, and what do you think? My brothers +give her little sums for holy bread and church services, and outraging +her religious feelings, she saves that money and sends it in secret +to her erring Grigory. This trifle alone elevates and ennobles the +soul far more than all the theories, all the clever sayings and the +35,000 species. I can give you thousands of instances. Take you, +even, for instance! With tempest and darkness outside you are going +to your father and your brother to cheer them with your affection +in the holiday, though very likely they have forgotten and are not +thinking of you. And, wait a bit, and you will love a man and follow +him to the North Pole. You would, wouldn't you?" + +"Yes, if I loved him." + +"There, you see," cried Liharev delighted, and he even stamped with +his foot. "Oh dear! How glad I am that I have met you! Fate is kind +to me, I am always meeting splendid people. Not a day passes but +one makes acquaintance with somebody one would give one's soul for. +There are ever so many more good people than bad in this world. +Here, see, for instance, how openly and from our hearts we have +been talking as though we had known each other a hundred years. +Sometimes, I assure you, one restrains oneself for ten years and +holds one's tongue, is reserved with one's friends and one's wife, +and meets some cadet in a train and babbles one's whole soul out +to him. It is the first time I have the honour of seeing you, and +yet I have confessed to you as I have never confessed in my life. +Why is it?" + +Rubbing his hands and smiling good-humouredly Liharev walked up and +down the room, and fell to talking about women again. Meanwhile +they began ringing for matins. + +"Goodness," wailed Sasha. "He won't let me sleep with his talking!" + +"Oh, yes!" said Liharev, startled. "I am sorry, darling, sleep, +sleep. . . . I have two boys besides her," he whispered. "They are +living with their uncle, Madam, but this one can't exist a day +without her father. She's wretched, she complains, but she sticks +to me like a fly to honey. I have been chattering too much, Madam, +and it would do you no harm to sleep. Wouldn't you like me to make +up a bed for you?" + +Without waiting for permission he shook the wet pelisse, stretched +it on a bench, fur side upwards, collected various shawls and +scarves, put the overcoat folded up into a roll for a pillow, and +all this he did in silence with a look of devout reverence, as +though he were not handling a woman's rags, but the fragments of +holy vessels. There was something apologetic, embarrassed about his +whole figure, as though in the presence of a weak creature he felt +ashamed of his height and strength. . . . + +When Mlle. Ilovaisky had lain down, he put out the candle and sat +down on a stool by the stove. + +"So, Madam," he whispered, lighting a fat cigarette and puffing the +smoke into the stove. "Nature has put into the Russian an extraordinary +faculty for belief, a searching intelligence, and the gift of +speculation, but all that is reduced to ashes by irresponsibility, +laziness, and dreamy frivolity. . . . Yes. . . ." + +She gazed wonderingly into the darkness, and saw only a spot of red +on the ikon and the flicker of the light of the stove on Liharev's +face. The darkness, the chime of the bells, the roar of the storm, +the lame boy, Sasha with her fretfulness, unhappy Liharev and his +sayings--all this was mingled together, and seemed to grow into +one huge impression, and God's world seemed to her fantastic, full +of marvels and magical forces. All that she had heard was ringing +in her ears, and human life presented itself to her as a beautiful +poetic fairy-tale without an end. + +The immense impression grew and grew, clouded consciousness, and +turned into a sweet dream. She was asleep, though she saw the little +ikon lamp and a big nose with the light playing on it. + +She heard the sound of weeping. + +"Daddy, darling," a child's voice was tenderly entreating, "let's +go back to uncle! There is a Christmas-tree there! Styopa and Kolya +are there!" + +"My darling, what can I do?" a man's bass persuaded softly. "Understand +me! Come, understand!" + +And the man's weeping blended with the child's. This voice of human +sorrow, in the midst of the howling of the storm, touched the girl's +ear with such sweet human music that she could not bear the delight +of it, and wept too. She was conscious afterwards of a big, black +shadow coming softly up to her, picking up a shawl that had dropped +on to the floor and carefully wrapping it round her feet. + +Mile. Ilovaisky was awakened by a strange uproar. She jumped up and +looked about her in astonishment. The deep blue dawn was looking +in at the window half-covered with snow. In the room there was a +grey twilight, through which the stove and the sleeping child and +Nasir-ed-Din stood out distinctly. The stove and the lamp were both +out. Through the wide-open door she could see the big tavern room +with a counter and chairs. A man, with a stupid, gipsy face and +astonished eyes, was standing in the middle of the room in a puddle +of melting snow, holding a big red star on a stick. He was surrounded +by a group of boys, motionless as statues, and plastered over with +snow. The light shone through the red paper of the star, throwing +a glow of red on their wet faces. The crowd was shouting in disorder, +and from its uproar Mile. Ilovaisky could make out only one couplet: + +"Hi, you Little Russian lad, +Bring your sharp knife, +We will kill the Jew, we will kill him, +The son of tribulation. . ." + +Liharev was standing near the counter, looking feelingly at the +singers and tapping his feet in time. Seeing Mile. Ilovaisky, he +smiled all over his face and came up to her. She smiled too. + +"A happy Christmas!" he said. "I saw you slept well." + +She looked at him, said nothing, and went on smiling. + +After the conversation in the night he seemed to her not tall and +broad shouldered, but little, just as the biggest steamer seems to +us a little thing when we hear that it has crossed the ocean. + +"Well, it is time for me to set off," she said. "I must put on my +things. Tell me where you are going now?" + +"I? To the station of Klinushki, from there to Sergievo, and from +Sergievo, with horses, thirty miles to the coal mines that belong +to a horrid man, a general called Shashkovsky. My brothers have got +me the post of superintendent there. . . . I am going to be a coal +miner." + +"Stay, I know those mines. Shashkovsky is my uncle, you know. But +. . . what are you going there for?" asked Mlle. Ilovaisky, looking +at Liharev in surprise. + +"As superintendent. To superintend the coal mines." + +"I don't understand!" she shrugged her shoulders. "You are going +to the mines. But you know, it's the bare steppe, a desert, so +dreary that you couldn't exist a day there! It's horrible coal, no +one will buy it, and my uncle's a maniac, a despot, a bankrupt +. . . . You won't get your salary!" + +"No matter," said Liharev, unconcernedly, "I am thankful even for +coal mines." + +She shrugged her shoulders, and walked about the room in agitation. + +"I don't understand, I don't understand," she said, moving her +fingers before her face. "It's impossible, and . . . and irrational! +You must understand that it's . . . it's worse than exile. It is a +living tomb! O Heavens!" she said hotly, going up to Liharev and +moving her fingers before his smiling face; her upper lip was +quivering, and her sharp face turned pale, "Come, picture it, the +bare steppe, solitude. There is no one to say a word to there, and +you . . . are enthusiastic over women! Coal mines . . . and women!" + +Mlle. Ilovaisky was suddenly ashamed of her heat and, turning away +from Liharev, walked to the window. + +"No, no, you can't go there," she said, moving her fingers rapidly +over the pane. + +Not only in her heart, but even in her spine she felt that behind +her stood an infinitely unhappy man, lost and outcast, while he, +as though he were unaware of his unhappiness, as though he had not +shed tears in the night, was looking at her with a kindly smile. +Better he should go on weeping! She walked up and down the room +several times in agitation, then stopped short in a corner and sank +into thought. Liharev was saying something, but she did not hear +him. Turning her back on him she took out of her purse a money note, +stood for a long time crumpling it in her hand, and looking round +at Liharev, blushed and put it in her pocket. + +The coachman's voice was heard through the door. With a stern, +concentrated face she began putting on her things in silence. Liharev +wrapped her up, chatting gaily, but every word he said lay on her +heart like a weight. It is not cheering to hear the unhappy or the +dying jest. + +When the transformation of a live person into a shapeless bundle +had been completed, Mlle. Ilovaisky looked for the last time round +the "travellers' room," stood a moment in silence, and slowly walked +out. Liharev went to see her off. . . . + +Outside, God alone knows why, the winter was raging still. Whole +clouds of big soft snowflakes were whirling restlessly over the +earth, unable to find a resting-place. The horses, the sledge, the +trees, a bull tied to a post, all were white and seemed soft and +fluffy. + +"Well, God help you," muttered Liharev, tucking her into the sledge. +"Don't remember evil against me . . . ." + +She was silent. When the sledge started, and had to go round a huge +snowdrift, she looked back at Liharev with an expression as though +she wanted to say something to him. He ran up to her, but she did +not say a word to him, she only looked at him through her long +eyelashes with little specks of snow on them. + +Whether his finely intuitive soul were really able to read that +look, or whether his imagination deceived him, it suddenly began +to seem to him that with another touch or two that girl would have +forgiven him his failures, his age, his desolate position, and would +have followed him without question or reasonings. He stood a long +while as though rooted to the spot, gazing at the tracks left by +the sledge runners. The snowflakes greedily settled on his hair, +his beard, his shoulders. . . . Soon the track of the runners had +vanished, and he himself covered with snow, began to look like a +white rock, but still his eyes kept seeking something in the clouds +of snow. + + +ROTHSCHILD'S FIDDLE + +THE town was a little one, worse than a village, and it was inhabited +by scarcely any but old people who died with an infrequency that +was really annoying. In the hospital and in the prison fortress +very few coffins were needed. In fact business was bad. If Yakov +Ivanov had been an undertaker in the chief town of the province he +would certainly have had a house of his own, and people would have +addressed him as Yakov Matveyitch; here in this wretched little +town people called him simply Yakov; his nickname in the street was +for some reason Bronze, and he lived in a poor way like a humble +peasant, in a little old hut in which there was only one room, and +in this room he and Marfa, the stove, a double bed, the coffins, +his bench, and all their belongings were crowded together. + +Yakov made good, solid coffins. For peasants and working people he +made them to fit himself, and this was never unsuccessful, for there +were none taller and stronger than he, even in the prison, though +he was seventy. For gentry and for women he made them to measure, +and used an iron foot-rule for the purpose. He was very unwilling +to take orders for children's coffins, and made them straight off +without measurements, contemptuously, and when he was paid for the +work he always said: + +"I must confess I don't like trumpery jobs." + +Apart from his trade, playing the fiddle brought him in a small +income. + +The Jews' orchestra conducted by Moisey Ilyitch Shahkes, the tinsmith, +who took more than half their receipts for himself, played as a +rule at weddings in the town. As Yakov played very well on the +fiddle, especially Russian songs, Shahkes sometimes invited him to +join the orchestra at a fee of half a rouble a day, in addition to +tips from the visitors. When Bronze sat in the orchestra first of +all his face became crimson and perspiring; it was hot, there was +a suffocating smell of garlic, the fiddle squeaked, the double bass +wheezed close to his right ear, while the flute wailed at his left, +played by a gaunt, red-haired Jew who had a perfect network of red +and blue veins all over his face, and who bore the name of the +famous millionaire Rothschild. And this accursed Jew contrived to +play even the liveliest things plaintively. For no apparent reason +Yakov little by little became possessed by hatred and contempt for +the Jews, and especially for Rothschild; he began to pick quarrels +with him, rail at him in unseemly language and once even tried to +strike him, and Rothschild was offended and said, looking at him +ferociously: + +"If it were not that I respect you for your talent, I would have +sent you flying out of the window." + +Then he began to weep. And because of this Yakov was not often asked +to play in the orchestra; he was only sent for in case of extreme +necessity in the absence of one of the Jews. + +Yakov was never in a good temper, as he was continually having to +put up with terrible losses. For instance, it was a sin to work on +Sundays or Saints' days, and Monday was an unlucky day, so that in +the course of the year there were some two hundred days on which, +whether he liked it or not, he had to sit with his hands folded. +And only think, what a loss that meant. If anyone in the town had +a wedding without music, or if Shahkes did not send for Yakov, that +was a loss, too. The superintendent of the prison was ill for two +years and was wasting away, and Yakov was impatiently waiting for +him to die, but the superintendent went away to the chief town of +the province to be doctored, and there took and died. There's a +loss for you, ten roubles at least, as there would have been an +expensive coffin to make, lined with brocade. The thought of his +losses haunted Yakov, especially at night; he laid his fiddle on +the bed beside him, and when all sorts of nonsensical ideas came +into his mind he touched a string; the fiddle gave out a sound in +the darkness, and he felt better. + +On the sixth of May of the previous year Marfa had suddenly been +taken ill. The old woman's breathing was laboured, she drank a great +deal of water, and she staggered as she walked, yet she lighted the +stove in the morning and even went herself to get water. Towards +evening she lay down. Yakov played his fiddle all day; when it was +quite dark he took the book in which he used every day to put down +his losses, and, feeling dull, he began adding up the total for the +year. It came to more than a thousand roubles. This so agitated him +that he flung the reckoning beads down, and trampled them under his +feet. Then he picked up the reckoning beads, and again spent a long +time clicking with them and heaving deep, strained sighs. His face +was crimson and wet with perspiration. He thought that if he had +put that lost thousand roubles in the bank, the interest for a year +would have been at least forty roubles, so that forty roubles was +a loss too. In fact, wherever one turned there were losses and +nothing else. + +"Yakov!" Marfa called unexpectedly. "I am dying." + +He looked round at his wife. Her face was rosy with fever, unusually +bright and joyful-looking. Bronze, accustomed to seeing her face +always pale, timid, and unhappy-looking, was bewildered. It looked +as if she really were dying and were glad that she was going away +for ever from that hut, from the coffins, and from Yakov. . . . And +she gazed at the ceiling and moved her lips, and her expression was +one of happiness, as though she saw death as her deliverer and were +whispering with him. + +It was daybreak; from the windows one could see the flush of dawn. +Looking at the old woman, Yakov for some reason reflected that he +had not once in his life been affectionate to her, had had no feeling +for her, had never once thought to buy her a kerchief, or to bring +her home some dainty from a wedding, but had done nothing but shout +at her, scold her for his losses, shake his fists at her; it is +true he had never actually beaten her, but he had frightened her, +and at such times she had always been numb with terror. Why, he had +forbidden her to drink tea because they spent too much without that, +and she drank only hot water. And he understood why she had such a +strange, joyful face now, and he was overcome with dread. + +As soon as it was morning he borrowed a horse from a neighbour and +took Marfa to the hospital. There were not many patients there, and +so he had not long to wait, only three hours. To his great satisfaction +the patients were not being received by the doctor, who was himself +ill, but by the assistant, Maxim Nikolaitch, an old man of whom +everyone in the town used to say that, though he drank and was +quarrelsome, he knew more than the doctor. + +"I wish you good-day," said Yakov, leading his old woman into the +consulting room. "You must excuse us, Maxim Nikolaitch, we are +always troubling you with our trumpery affairs. Here you see my +better half is ailing, the partner of my life, as they say, excuse +the expression. . . ." + +Knitting his grizzled brows and stroking his whiskers the assistant +began to examine the old woman, and she sat on a stool, a wasted, +bent figure with a sharp nose and open mouth, looking like a bird +that wants to drink. + +"H------m . . . Ah! . . ." the assistant said slowly, and he heaved +a sigh. "Influenza and possibly fever. There's typhus in the town +now. Well, the old woman has lived her life, thank God. . . . How +old is she?" + +"She'll be seventy in another year, Maxim Nikolaitch." + +"Well, the old woman has lived her life, it's time to say good-bye." + +"You are quite right in what you say, of course, Maxim Nikolaitch," +said Yakov, smiling from politeness, "and we thank you feelingly +for your kindness, but allow me to say every insect wants to live." + +"To be sure," said the assistant, in a tone which suggested that +it depended upon him whether the woman lived or died. "Well, then, +my good fellow, put a cold compress on her head, and give her these +powders twice a day, and so good-bye. Bonjour." + +From the expression of his face Yakov saw that it was a bad case, +and that no sort of powders would be any help; it was clear to him +that Marfa would die very soon, if not to-day, to-morrow. He nudged +the assistant's elbow, winked at him, and said in a low voice: + +"If you would just cup her, Maxim Nikolaitch." + +"I have no time, I have no time, my good fellow. Take your old woman +and go in God's name. Goodbye." + +"Be so gracious," Yakov besought him. "You know yourself that if, +let us say, it were her stomach or her inside that were bad, then +powders or drops, but you see she had got a chill! In a chill the +first thing is to let blood, Maxim Nikolaitch." + +But the assistant had already sent for the next patient, and a +peasant woman came into the consulting room with a boy. + +"Go along! go along," he said to Yakov, frowning. "It's no use to +--" + +"In that case put on leeches, anyway! Make us pray for you for +ever." + +The assistant flew into a rage and shouted: + +"You speak to me again! You blockhead. . . ." + +Yakov flew into a rage too, and he turned crimson all over, but he +did not utter a word. He took Marfa on his arm and led her out of +the room. Only when they were sitting in the cart he looked morosely +and ironically at the hospital, and said: + +"A nice set of artists they have settled here! No fear, but he would +have cupped a rich man, but even a leech he grudges to the poor. +The Herods!" + +When they got home and went into the hut, Marfa stood for ten minutes +holding on to the stove. It seemed to her that if she were to lie +down Yakov would talk to her about his losses, and scold her for +lying down and not wanting to work. Yakov looked at her drearily +and thought that to-morrow was St. John the Divine's, and next day +St. Nikolay the Wonder-worker's, and the day after that was Sunday, +and then Monday, an unlucky day. For four days he would not be able +to work, and most likely Marfa would die on one of those days; so +he would have to make the coffin to-day. He picked up his iron rule, +went up to the old woman and took her measure. Then she lay down, +and he crossed himself and began making the coffin. + +When the coffin was finished Bronze put on his spectacles and wrote +in his book: "Marfa Ivanov's coffin, two roubles, forty kopecks." + +And he heaved a sigh. The old woman lay all the time silent with +her eyes closed. But in the evening, when it got dark, she suddenly +called the old man. + +"Do you remember, Yakov," she asked, looking at him joyfully. "Do +you remember fifty years ago God gave us a little baby with flaxen +hair? We used always to be sitting by the river then, singing songs +. . . under the willows," and laughing bitterly, she added: "The +baby girl died." + +Yakov racked his memory, but could not remember the baby or the +willows. + +"It's your fancy," he said. + +The priest arrived; he administered the sacrament and extreme +unction. Then Marfa began muttering something unintelligible, and +towards morning she died. Old women, neighbours, washed her, dressed +her, and laid her in the coffin. To avoid paying the sacristan, +Yakov read the psalms over the body himself, and they got nothing +out of him for the grave, as the grave-digger was a crony of his. +Four peasants carried the coffin to the graveyard, not for money, +but from respect. The coffin was followed by old women, beggars, +and a couple of crazy saints, and the people who met it crossed +themselves piously. . . . And Yakov was very much pleased that it +was so creditable, so decorous, and so cheap, and no offence to +anyone. As he took his last leave of Marfa he touched the coffin +and thought: "A good piece of work!" + +But as he was going back from the cemetery he was overcome by acute +depression. He didn't feel quite well: his breathing was laboured +and feverish, his legs felt weak, and he had a craving for drink. +And thoughts of all sorts forced themselves on his mind. He remembered +again that all his life he had never felt for Marfa, had never been +affectionate to her. The fifty-two years they had lived in the same +hut had dragged on a long, long time, but it had somehow happened +that in all that time he had never once thought of her, had paid +no attention to her, as though she had been a cat or a dog. And +yet, every day, she had lighted the stove had cooked and baked, had +gone for the water, had chopped the wood, had slept with him in the +same bed, and when he came home drunk from the weddings always +reverently hung his fiddle on the wall and put him to bed, and all +this in silence, with a timid, anxious expression. + +Rothschild, smiling and bowing, came to meet Yakov. + +"I was looking for you, uncle," he said. "Moisey Ilyitch sends you +his greetings and bids you come to him at once." + +Yakov felt in no mood for this. He wanted to cry. + +"Leave me alone," he said, and walked on. + +"How can you," Rothschild said, fluttered, running on in front. +"Moisey Ilyitch will be offended! He bade you come at once!" + +Yakov was revolted at the Jew's gasping for breath and blinking, +and having so many red freckles on his face. And it was disgusting +to look at his green coat with black patches on it, and all his +fragile, refined figure. + +"Why are you pestering me, garlic?" shouted Yakov. "Don't persist!" + +The Jew got angry and shouted too: + +"Not so noisy, please, or I'll send you flying over the fence!" + +"Get out of my sight!" roared Yakov, and rushed at him with his +fists. "One can't live for you scabby Jews!" + +Rothschild, half dead with terror, crouched down and waved his hands +over his head, as though to ward off a blow; then he leapt up and +ran away as fast as his legs could carry him: as he ran he gave +little skips and kept clasping his hands, and Yakov could see how +his long thin spine wriggled. Some boys, delighted at the incident, +ran after him shouting "Jew! Jew!" Some dogs joined in the chase +barking. Someone burst into a roar of laughter, then gave a whistle; +the dogs barked with even more noise and unanimity. Then a dog must +have bitten Rothschild, as a desperate, sickly scream was heard. + +Yakov went for a walk on the grazing ground, then wandered on at +random in the outskirts of the town, while the street boys shouted: + +"Here's Bronze! Here's Bronze!" + +He came to the river, where the curlews floated in the air uttering +shrill cries and the ducks quacked. The sun was blazing hot, and +there was a glitter from the water, so that it hurt the eyes to +look at it. Yakov walked by a path along the bank and saw a plump, +rosy-cheeked lady come out of the bathing-shed, and thought about +her: "Ugh! you otter!" + +Not far from the bathing-shed boys were catching crayfish with bits +of meat; seeing him, they began shouting spitefully, "Bronze! +Bronze!" And then he saw an old spreading willow-tree with a big +hollow in it, and a crow's nest on it. . . . And suddenly there +rose up vividly in Yakov's memory a baby with flaxen hair, and the +willow-tree Marfa had spoken of. Why, that is it, the same willow-tree +--green, still, and sorrowful. . . . How old it has grown, poor +thing! + +He sat down under it and began to recall the past. On the other +bank, where now there was the water meadow, in those days there +stood a big birchwood, and yonder on the bare hillside that could +be seen on the horizon an old, old pine forest used to be a bluish +patch in the distance. Big boats used to sail on the river. But now +it was all smooth and unruffled, and on the other bank there stood +now only one birch-tree, youthful and slender like a young lady, +and there was nothing on the river but ducks and geese, and it +didn't look as though there had ever been boats on it. It seemed +as though even the geese were fewer than of old. Yakov shut his +eyes, and in his imagination huge flocks of white geese soared, +meeting one another. + +He wondered how it had happened that for the last forty or fifty +years of his life he had never once been to the river, or if he had +been by it he had not paid attention to it. Why, it was a decent +sized river, not a trumpery one; he might have gone in for fishing +and sold the fish to merchants, officials, and the bar-keeper at +the station, and then have put money in the bank; he might have +sailed in a boat from one house to another, playing the fiddle, and +people of all classes would have paid to hear him; he might have +tried getting big boats afloat again--that would be better than +making coffins; he might have bred geese, killed them and sent them +in the winter to Moscow Why, the feathers alone would very likely +mount up to ten roubles in the year. But he had wasted his time, +he had done nothing of this. What losses! Ah! What losses! And if +he had gone in for all those things at once--catching fish and +playing the fiddle, and running boats and killing geese--what a +fortune he would have made! But nothing of this had happened, even +in his dreams; life had passed uselessly without any pleasure, had +been wasted for nothing, not even a pinch of snuff; there was nothing +left in front, and if one looked back--there was nothing there +but losses, and such terrible ones, it made one cold all over. And +why was it a man could not live so as to avoid these losses and +misfortunes? One wondered why they had cut down the birch copse and +the pine forest. Why was he walking with no reason on the grazing +ground? Why do people always do what isn't needful? Why had Yakov +all his life scolded, bellowed, shaken his fists, ill-treated his +wife, and, one might ask, what necessity was there for him to +frighten and insult the Jew that day? Why did people in general +hinder each other from living? What losses were due to it! what +terrible losses! If it were not for hatred and malice people would +get immense benefit from one another. + +In the evening and the night he had visions of the baby, of the +willow, of fish, of slaughtered geese, and Marfa looking in profile +like a bird that wants to drink, and the pale, pitiful face of +Rothschild, and faces moved down from all sides and muttered of +losses. He tossed from side to side, and got out of bed five times +to play the fiddle. + +In the morning he got up with an effort and went to the hospital. +The same Maxim Nikolaitch told him to put a cold compress on his +head, and gave him some powders, and from his tone and expression +of face Yakov realized that it was a bad case and that no powders +would be any use. As he went home afterwards, he reflected that +death would be nothing but a benefit; he would not have to eat or +drink, or pay taxes or offend people, and, as a man lies in his +grave not for one year but for hundreds and thousands, if one +reckoned it up the gain would be enormous. A man's life meant loss: +death meant gain. This reflection was, of course, a just one, but +yet it was bitter and mortifying; why was the order of the world +so strange, that life, which is given to man only once, passes away +without benefit? + +He was not sorry to die, but at home, as soon as he saw his fiddle, +it sent a pang to his heart and he felt sorry. He could not take +the fiddle with him to the grave, and now it would be left forlorn, +and the same thing would happen to it as to the birch copse and the +pine forest. Everything in this world was wasted and would be wasted! +Yakov went out of the hut and sat in the doorway, pressing the +fiddle to his bosom. Thinking of his wasted, profitless life, he +began to play, he did not know what, but it was plaintive and +touching, and tears trickled down his cheeks. And the harder he +thought, the more mournfully the fiddle wailed. + +The latch clicked once and again, and Rothschild appeared at the +gate. He walked across half the yard boldly, but seeing Yakov he +stopped short, and seemed to shrink together, and probably from +terror, began making signs with his hands as though he wanted to +show on his fingers what o'clock it was. + +"Come along, it's all right," said Yakov in a friendly tone, and +he beckoned him to come up. "Come along!" + +Looking at him mistrustfully and apprehensively, Rothschild began +to advance, and stopped seven feet off. + +"Be so good as not to beat me," he said, ducking. "Moisey Ilyitch +has sent me again. 'Don't be afraid,' he said; 'go to Yakov again +and tell him,' he said, 'we can't get on without him.' There is a +wedding on Wednesday. . . . Ye---es! Mr. Shapovalov is marrying his +daughter to a good man. . . . And it will be a grand wedding, oo-oo!" +added the Jew, screwing up one eye. + +"I can't come," said Yakov, breathing hard. "I'm ill, brother." + +And he began playing again, and the tears gushed from his eyes on +to the fiddle. Rothschild listened attentively, standing sideways +to him and folding his arms on his chest. The scared and perplexed +expression on his face, little by little, changed to a look of woe +and suffering; he rolled his eyes as though he were experiencing +an agonizing ecstasy, and articulated, "Vachhh!" and tears slowly +ran down his cheeks and trickled on his greenish coat. + +And Yakov lay in bed all the rest of the day grieving. In the +evening, when the priest confessing him asked, Did he remember any +special sin he had committed? straining his failing memory he thought +again of Marfa's unhappy face, and the despairing shriek of the Jew +when the dog bit him, and said, hardly audibly, "Give the fiddle +to Rothschild." + +"Very well," answered the priest. + +And now everyone in the town asks where Rothschild got such a fine +fiddle. Did he buy it or steal it? Or perhaps it had come to him +as a pledge. He gave up the flute long ago, and now plays nothing +but the fiddle. As plaintive sounds flow now from his bow, as came +once from his flute, but when he tries to repeat what Yakov played, +sitting in the doorway, the effect is something so sad and sorrowful +that his audience weep, and he himself rolls his eyes and articulates +"Vachhh! . . ." And this new air was so much liked in the town that +the merchants and officials used to be continually sending for +Rothschild and making him play it over and over again a dozen times. + + +IVAN MATVEYITCH + +BETWEEN five and six in the evening. A fairly well-known man of +learning--we will call him simply the man of learning--is sitting +in his study nervously biting his nails. + +"It's positively revolting," he says, continually looking at his +watch. "It shows the utmost disrespect for another man's time and +work. In England such a person would not earn a farthing, he would +die of hunger. You wait a minute, when you do come . . . ." + +And feeling a craving to vent his wrath and impatience upon someone, +the man of learning goes to the door leading to his wife's room and +knocks. + +"Listen, Katya," he says in an indignant voice. "If you see Pyotr +Danilitch, tell him that decent people don't do such things. It's +abominable! He recommends a secretary, and does not know the sort +of man he is recommending! The wretched boy is two or three hours +late with unfailing regularity every day. Do you call that a +secretary? Those two or three hours are more precious to me than +two or three years to other people. When he does come I will swear +at him like a dog, and won't pay him and will kick him out. It's +no use standing on ceremony with people like that!" + +"You say that every day, and yet he goes on coming and coming." + +"But to-day I have made up my mind. I have lost enough through him. +You must excuse me, but I shall swear at him like a cabman." + +At last a ring is heard. The man of learning makes a grave face; +drawing himself up, and, throwing back his head, he goes into the +entry. There his amanuensis Ivan Matveyitch, a young man of eighteen, +with a face oval as an egg and no moustache, wearing a shabby, mangy +overcoat and no goloshes, is already standing by the hatstand. He +is in breathless haste, and scrupulously wipes his huge clumsy boots +on the doormat, trying as he does so to conceal from the maidservant +a hole in his boot through which a white sock is peeping. Seeing +the man of learning he smiles with that broad, prolonged, somewhat +foolish smile which is seen only on the faces of children or very +good-natured people. + +"Ah, good evening!" he says, holding out a big wet hand. "Has your +sore throat gone?" + +"Ivan Matveyitch," says the man of learning in a shaking voice, +stepping back and clasping his hands together. "Ivan Matveyitch." + +Then he dashes up to the amanuensis, clutches him by the shoulders, +and begins feebly shaking him. + +"What a way to treat me!" he says with despair in his voice. "You +dreadful, horrid fellow, what a way to treat me! Are you laughing +at me, are you jeering at me? Eh?" + +Judging from the smile which still lingered on his face Ivan +Matveyitch had expected a very different reception, and so, seeing +the man of learning's countenance eloquent of indignation, his oval +face grows longer than ever, and he opens his mouth in amazement. + +"What is . . . what is it?" he asks. + +"And you ask that?" the man of learning clasps his hands. "You know +how precious time is to me, and you are so late. You are two hours +late! . . . Have you no fear of God?" + +"I haven't come straight from home," mutters Ivan Matveyitch, untying +his scarf irresolutely. "I have been at my aunt's name-day party, +and my aunt lives five miles away. . . . If I had come straight +from home, then it would have been a different thing." + +"Come, reflect, Ivan Matveyitch, is there any logic in your conduct? +Here you have work to do, work at a fixed time, and you go flying +off after name-day parties and aunts! But do make haste and undo +your wretched scarf! It's beyond endurance, really!" + +The man of learning dashes up to the amanuensis again and helps him +to disentangle his scarf. + +"You are done up like a peasant woman, . . . Come along, . . . +Please make haste!" + +Blowing his nose in a dirty, crumpled-up handkerchief and pulling +down his grey reefer jacket, Ivan Matveyitch goes through the hall +and the drawing-room to the study. There a place and paper and even +cigarettes had been put ready for him long ago. + +"Sit down, sit down," the man of learning urges him on, rubbing his +hands impatiently. "You are an unsufferable person. . . . You know +the work has to be finished by a certain time, and then you are so +late. One is forced to scold you. Come, write, . . . Where did we +stop?" + +Ivan Matveyitch smooths his bristling cropped hair and takes up his +pen. The man of learning walks up and down the room, concentrates +himself, and begins to dictate: + +"The fact is . . . comma . . . that so to speak fundamental forms +. . . have you written it? . . . forms are conditioned entirely by +the essential nature of those principles . . . comma . . . which +find in them their expression and can only be embodied in them +. . . . New line, . . . There's a stop there, of course. . . . More +independence is found . . . is found . . . by the forms which have +not so much a political . . . comma . . . as a social character . ." + +"The high-school boys have a different uniform now . . . a grey +one," said Ivan Matveyitch, "when I was at school it was better: +they used to wear regular uniforms." + +"Oh dear, write please!" says the man of learning wrathfully. +"Character . . . have you written it? Speaking of the forms relating +to the organization . . . of administrative functions, and not to +the regulation of the life of the people . . . comma . . . it cannot +be said that they are marked by the nationalism of their forms . . . +the last three words in inverted commas. . . . Aie, aie . . . +tut, tut . . . so what did you want to say about the high school?" + +"That they used to wear a different uniform in my time." + +"Aha! . . . indeed, . . . Is it long since you left the high school?" + +"But I told you that yesterday. It is three years since I left +school. . . . I left in the fourth class." + +"And why did you give up high school?" asks the man of learning, +looking at Ivan Matveyitch's writing. + +"Oh, through family circumstances." + +"Must I speak to you again, Ivan Matveyitch? When will you get over +your habit of dragging out the lines? There ought not to be less +than forty letters in a line." + +"What, do you suppose I do it on purpose?" says Ivan Matveyitch, +offended. "There are more than forty letters in some of the other +lines. . . . You count them. And if you think I don't put enough +in the line, you can take something off my pay." + +"Oh dear, that's not the point. You have no delicacy, really. . . . +At the least thing you drag in money. The great thing is to be +exact, Ivan Matveyitch, to be exact is the great thing. You ought +to train yourself to be exact." + +The maidservant brings in a tray with two glasses of tea on it, and +a basket of rusks. . . . Ivan Matveyitch takes his glass awkwardly +with both hands, and at once begins drinking it. The tea is too +hot. To avoid burning his mouth Ivan Matveyitch tries to take a +tiny sip. He eats one rusk, then a second, then a third, and, looking +sideways, with embarrassment, at the man of learning, timidly +stretches after a fourth. . . . The noise he makes in swallowing, +the relish with which he smacks his lips, and the expression of +hungry greed in his raised eyebrows irritate the man of learning. + +"Make haste and finish, time is precious." + +"You dictate, I can drink and write at the same time. . . . I must +confess I was hungry." + +"I should think so after your walk!" + +"Yes, and what wretched weather! In our parts there is a scent of +spring by now. . . . There are puddles everywhere; the snow is +melting." + +"You are a southerner, I suppose?" + +"From the Don region. . . . It's quite spring with us by March. +Here it is frosty, everyone's in a fur coat, . . . but there you +can see the grass . . . it's dry everywhere, and one can even catch +tarantulas." + +"And what do you catch tarantulas for?" + +"Oh! . . . to pass the time . . ." says Ivan Matveyitch, and he +sighs. "It's fun catching them. You fix a bit of pitch on a thread, +let it down into their hole and begin hitting the tarantula on the +back with the pitch, and the brute gets cross, catches hold of the +pitch with his claws, and gets stuck. . . . And what we used to do +with them! We used to put a basinful of them together and drop a +bihorka in with them." + +"What is a bihorka?" + +"That's another spider, very much the same as a tarantula. In a +fight one of them can kill a hundred tarantulas." + +"H'm! . . . But we must write, . . . Where did we stop?" + +The man of learning dictates another twenty lines, then sits plunged +in meditation. + +Ivan Matveyitch, waiting while the other cogitates, sits and, craning +his neck, puts the collar of his shirt to rights. His tie will not +set properly, the stud has come out, and the collar keeps coming +apart. + +"H'm! . . ." says the man of learning. "Well, haven't you found a +job yet, Ivan Matveyitch?" + +"No. And how is one to find one? I am thinking, you know, of +volunteering for the army. But my father advises my going into a +chemist's." + +"H'm! . . . But it would be better for you to go into the university. +The examination is difficult, but with patience and hard work you +could get through. Study, read more. . . . Do you read much?" + +"Not much, I must own . . ." says Ivan Matveyitch, lighting a +cigarette. + +"Have you read Turgenev?" + +"N-no. . . ." + +"And Gogol?" + +"Gogol. H'm! . . . Gogol. . . . No, I haven't read him!" + +"Ivan Matveyitch! Aren't you ashamed? Aie! aie! You are such a nice +fellow, so much that is original in you . . . you haven't even read +Gogol! You must read him! I will give you his works! It's essential +to read him! We shall quarrel if you don't!" + +Again a silence follows. The man of learning meditates, half reclining +on a soft lounge, and Ivan Matveyitch, leaving his collar in peace, +concentrates his whole attention on his boots. He has not till then +noticed that two big puddles have been made by the snow melting off +his boots on the floor. He is ashamed. + +"I can't get on to-day . . ." mutters the man of learning. "I suppose +you are fond of catching birds, too, Ivan Matveyitch?" + +"That's in autumn, . . . I don't catch them here, but there at home +I always did." + +"To be sure . . . very good. But we must write, though." + +The man of learning gets up resolutely and begins dictating, but +after ten lines sits down on the lounge again. + +"No. . . . Perhaps we had better put it off till to-morrow morning," +he says. "Come to-morrow morning, only come early, at nine o'clock. +God preserve you from being late!" + +Ivan Matveyitch lays down his pen, gets up from the table and sits +in another chair. Five minutes pass in silence, and he begins to +feel it is time for him to go, that he is in the way; but in the +man of learning's study it is so snug and light and warm, and the +impression of the nice rusks and sweet tea is still so fresh that +there is a pang at his heart at the mere thought of home. At home +there is poverty, hunger, cold, his grumbling father, scoldings, +and here it is so quiet and unruffled, and interest even is taken +in his tarantulas and birds. + +The man of learning looks at his watch and takes up a book. + +"So you will give me Gogol?' says Ivan Matveyitch, getting up. + +"Yes, yes! But why are you in such a hurry, my dear boy? Sit down +and tell me something . . ." + +Ivan Matveyitch sits down and smiles broadly. Almost every evening +he sits in this study and always feels something extraordinarily +soft, attracting him, as it were akin, in the voice and the glance +of the man of learning. There are moments when he even fancies that +the man of learning is becoming attached to him, used to him, and +that if he scolds him for being late, it's simply because he misses +his chatter about tarantulas and how they catch goldfinches on the +Don. + + +ZINOTCHKA + +THE party of sportsmen spent the night in a peasant's hut on some +newly mown hay. The moon peeped in at the window; from the street +came the mournful wheezing of a concertina; from the hay came a +sickly sweet, faintly troubling scent. The sportsmen talked about +dogs, about women, about first love, and about snipe. After all the +ladies of their acquaintance had been picked to pieces, and hundreds +of stories had been told, the stoutest of the sportsmen, who looked +in the darkness like a haycock, and who talked in the mellow bass +of a staff officer, gave a loud yawn and said: + +"It is nothing much to be loved; the ladies are created for the +purpose of loving us men. But, tell me, has any one of you fellows +been hated--passionately, furiously hated? Has any one of you +watched the ecstasies of hatred? Eh?" + +No answer followed. + +"Has no one, gentlemen?" asked the staff officer's bass voice. "But +I, now, have been hated, hated by a pretty girl, and have been able +to study the symptoms of first hatred directed against myself. It +was the first, because it was something exactly the converse of +first love. What I am going to tell, however, happened when I knew +nothing about love or hate. I was eight at the time, but that made +no difference; in this case it was not _he_ but _she_ that mattered. +Well, I beg your attention. One fine summer evening, just before +sunset, I was sitting in the nursery, doing my lesson with my +governess, Zinotchka, a very charming and poetical creature who had +left boarding school not long before. Zinotchka looked absent-mindedly +towards the window and said: + +"'Yes. We breathe in oxygen; now tell me, Petya, what do we breathe +out?' + +"'Carbonic acid gas,' I answered, looking towards the same window. + +"'Right,' assented Zinotchka. 'Plants, on the contrary, breathe +in carbonic acid gas, and breathe out oxygen. Carbonic acid gas is +contained in seltzer water, and in the fumes from the samovar. . . . +It is a very noxious gas. Near Naples there is the so-called Cave +of Dogs, which contains carbonic acid gas; a dog dropped into it +is suffocated and dies.' + +"This luckless Cave of Dogs near Naples is a chemical marvel beyond +which no governess ventures to go. Zinotchka always hotly maintained +the usefulness of natural science, but I doubt if she knew any +chemistry beyond this Cave. + +"Well, she told me to repeat it. I repeated it. She asked me what +was meant by the horizon. I answered. And meantime, while we were +ruminating over the horizon and the Cave, in the yard below, my +father was just getting ready to go shooting. The dogs yapped, the +trace horses shifted from one leg to another impatiently and coquetted +with the coachman, the footman packed the waggonette with parcels +and all sorts of things. Beside the waggonette stood a brake in +which my mother and sisters were sitting to drive to a name-day +party at the Ivanetskys'. No one was left in the house but Zinotchka, +me, and my eldest brother, a student, who had toothache. You can +imagine my envy and my boredom. + +"'Well, what do we breathe in?' asked Zinotchka, looking at the +window. + +"'Oxygen. . .' + +"'Yes. And the horizon is the name given to the place where it +seems to us as though the earth meets the sky.' + +"Then the waggonette drove off, and after it the brake. . . . I saw +Zinotchka take a note out of her pocket, crumple it up convulsively +and press it to her temple, then she flushed crimson and looked at +her watch. + +"'So, remember,' she said, 'that near Naples is the so-called Cave +of Dogs. . . .' She glanced at her watch again and went on: 'where +the sky seems to us to meet the earth. . . .' + +"The poor girl in violent agitation walked about the room, and once +more glanced at her watch. There was another half-hour before the +end of our lesson. + +"'Now arithmetic,' she said, breathing hard and turning over the +pages of the sum-book with a trembling hand. 'Come, you work out +problem 325 and I . . . will be back directly.' + +"She went out. I heard her scurry down the stairs, and then I saw +her dart across the yard in her blue dress and vanish through the +garden gate. The rapidity of her movements, the flush on her cheeks +and her excitement, aroused my curiosity. Where had she run, and +what for? Being intelligent beyond my years I soon put two and two +together, and understood it all: she had run into the garden, taking +advantage of the absence of my stern parents, to steal in among the +raspberry bushes, or to pick herself some cherries. If that were +so, dash it all, I would go and have some cherries too. I threw +aside the sum-book and ran into the garden. I ran to the cherry +orchard, but she was not there. Passing by the raspberries, the +gooseberries, and the watchman's shanty, she crossed the kitchen +garden and reached the pond, pale, and starting at every sound. I +stole after her, and what I saw, my friends, was this. At the edge +of the pond, between the thick stumps of two old willows, stood my +elder brother, Sasha; one could not see from his face that he had +toothache. He looked towards Zinotchka as she approached him, and +his whole figure was lighted up by an expression of happiness as +though by sunshine. And Zinotchka, as though she were being driven +into the Cave of Dogs, and were being forced to breathe carbonic +acid gas, walked towards him, scarcely able to move one leg before +the other, breathing hard, with her head thrown back. . . . To judge +from appearances she was going to a rendezous for the first time +in her life. But at last she reached him. . . . For half a minute +they gazed at each other in silence, as though they could not believe +their eyes. Thereupon some force seemed to shove Zinotchka; she +laid her hands on Sasha's shoulders and let her head droop upon his +waistcoat. Sasha laughed, muttered something incoherent, and with +the clumsiness of a man head over ears in love, laid both hands on +Zinotchka's face. And the weather, gentlemen, was exquisite. . . . +The hill behind which the sun was setting, the two willows, the +green bank, the sky--all together with Sasha and Zinotchka were +reflected in the pond . . . perfect stillness . . . you can imagine +it. Millions of butterflies with long whiskers gleamed golden above +the reeds; beyond the garden they were driving the cattle. In fact, +it was a perfect picture. + +"Of all I had seen the only thing I understood was that Sasha was +kissing Zinotchka. That was improper. If _maman_ heard of it they +would both catch it. Feeling for some reason ashamed I went back +to the nursery, not waiting for the end of the rendezvous. There I +sat over the sum-book, pondered and reflected. A triumphant smile +strayed upon my countenance. On one side it was agreeable to be the +possessor of another person's secret; on the other it was also very +agreeable that such authorities as Sasha and Zinotchka might at any +moment be convicted by me of ignorance of the social proprieties. +Now they were in my power, and their peace was entirely dependent +on my magnanimity. I'd let them know. + +"When I went to bed, Zinotchka came into the nursery as usual to +find out whether I had dropped asleep without undressing and whether +I had said my prayers. I looked at her pretty, happy face and +grinned. I was bursting with my secret and itching to let it out. +I had to drop a hint and enjoy the effect. + +"'I know,' I said, grinning. 'Gy--y.' + +"'What do you know?' + +"'Gy--y! I saw you near the willows kissing Sasha. I followed you +and saw it all.' + +"Zinotchka started, flushed all over, and overwhelmed by 'my hint' +she sank down on the chair, on which stood a glass of water and a +candlestick. + +"'I saw you . . . kissing . . .' I repeated, sniggering and enjoying +her confusion. 'Aha! I'll tell mamma!' + +"Cowardly Zinotchka gazed at me intently, and convincing herself +that I really did know all about it, clutched my hand in despair +and muttered in a trembling whisper: + +"'Petya, it is low. . . . I beg of you, for God's sake. . . . Be +a man . . . don't tell anyone. . . . Decent people don't spy +. . . . It's low. . . . I entreat you.' + +"The poor girl was terribly afraid of my mother, a stern and virtuous +lady--that was one thing; and the second was that my grinning +countenance could not but outrage her first love so pure and poetical, +and you can imagine the state of her heart. Thanks to me, she did +not sleep a wink all night, and in the morning she appeared at +breakfast with blue rings round her eyes. When I met Sasha after +breakfast I could not refrain from grinning and boasting: + +"'I know! I saw you yesterday kissing Mademoiselle Zina!' + +"Sasha looked at me and said: + +"'You are a fool.' + +"He was not so cowardly as Zinotchka, and so my effect did not come +off. That provoked me to further efforts. If Sasha was not frightened +it was evident that he did not believe that I had seen and knew all +about it; wait a bit, I would show him. + +"At our lessons before dinner Zinotchka did not look at me, and her +voice faltered. Instead of trying to scare me she tried to propitiate +me in every way, giving me full marks, and not complaining to my +father of my naughtiness. Being intelligent beyond my years I +exploited her secret: I did not learn my lessons, walked into the +schoolroom on my head, and said all sorts of rude things. In fact, +if I had remained in that vein till to-day I should have become a +famous blackmailer. Well, a week passed. Another person's secret +irritated and fretted me like a splinter in my soul. I longed at +all costs to blurt it out and gloat over the effect. And one day +at dinner, when we had a lot of visitors, I gave a stupid snigger, +looked fiendishly at Zinotchka and said: + +"'I know. Gy--y! I saw! . . .' + +"'What do you know?' asked my mother. + +"I looked still more fiendishly at Zinotchka and Sasha. You ought +to have seen how the girl flushed up, and how furious Sasha's eyes +were! I bit my tongue and did not go on. Zinotchka gradually turned +pale, clenched her teeth, and ate no more dinner. At our evening +lessons that day I noticed a striking change in Zinotchka's face. +It looked sterner, colder, as it were, more like marble, while her +eyes gazed strangely straight into my face, and I give you my word +of honour I have never seen such terrible, annihilating eyes, even +in hounds when they overtake the wolf. I understood their expression +perfectly, when in the middle of a lesson she suddenly clenched her +teeth and hissed through them: + +"'I hate you! Oh, you vile, loathsome creature, if you knew how I +hate you, how I detest your cropped head, your vulgar, prominent +ears!' + +"But at once she took fright and said: + +"'I am not speaking to you, I am repeating a part out of a +play. . . .' + +"Then, my friends, at night I saw her come to my bedside and gaze +a long time into my face. She hated me passionately, and could not +exist away from me. The contemplation of my hated pug of a face had +become a necessity to her. I remember a lovely summer evening . . . +with the scent of hay, perfect stillness, and so on. The moon was +shining. I was walking up and down the avenue, thinking of cherry +jam. Suddenly Zinotchka, looking pale and lovely, came up to me, +she caught hold of my hand, and breathlessly began expressing +herself: + +"'Oh, how I hate you! I wish no one harm as I do you! Let me tell +you that! I want you to understand that!' + +"You understand, moonlight, her pale face, breathless with passion, +the stillness . . . little pig as I was I actually enjoyed it. I +listened to her, looked at her eyes. . . . At first I liked it, and +enjoyed the novelty. Then I was suddenly seized with terror, I gave +a scream, and ran into the house at breakneck speed. + +"I made up my mind that the best thing to do was to complain to +_maman_. And I did complain, mentioning incidentally how Sasha had +kissed Zinotchka. I was stupid, and did not know what would follow, +or I should have kept the secret to myself. . . . After hearing my +story _maman_ flushed with indignation and said: + +"'It is not your business to speak about that, you are still very +young. . . . But, what an example for children.' + +"My _maman_ was not only virtuous but diplomatic. To avoid a scandal +she did not get rid of Zinotchka at once, but set to work gradually, +systematically, to pave the way for her departure, as one does with +well-bred but intolerable people. I remember that when Zinotchka +did leave us the last glance she cast at the house was directed at +the window at which I was sitting, and I assure you, I remember +that glance to this day. + +"Zinotchka soon afterwards became my brother's wife. She is the +Zinaida Nikolaevna whom you know. The next time I met her I was +already an ensign. In spite of all her efforts she could not recognize +the hated Petya in the ensign with his moustache, but still she did +not treat me quite like a relation. . . . And even now, in spite +of my good-humoured baldness, meek corpulence, and unassuming air, +she still looks askance at me, and feels put out when I go to see +my brother. Hatred it seems can no more be forgotten than +love. . . . + +"Tchoo! I hear the cock crowing! Good-night. Milord! Lie down!" + + +BAD WEATHER + +BIG raindrops were pattering on the dark windows. It was one of +those disgusting summer holiday rains which, when they have begun, +last a long time--for weeks, till the frozen holiday maker grows +used to it, and sinks into complete apathy. It was cold; there was +a feeling of raw, unpleasant dampness. The mother-in-law of a lawyer, +called Kvashin, and his wife, Nadyezhda Filippovna, dressed in +waterproofs and shawls, were sitting over the dinner table in the +dining-room. It was written on the countenance of the elder lady +that she was, thank God, well-fed, well-clothed and in good health, +that she had married her only daughter to a good man, and now could +play her game of patience with an easy conscience; her daughter, a +rather short, plump, fair young woman of twenty, with a gentle +anæmic face, was reading a book with her elbows on the table; judging +from her eyes she was not so much reading as thinking her own +thoughts, which were not in the book. Neither of them spoke. There +was the sound of the pattering rain, and from the kitchen they could +hear the prolonged yawns of the cook. + +Kvashin himself was not at home. On rainy days he did not come to +the summer villa, but stayed in town; damp, rainy weather affected +his bronchitis and prevented him from working. He was of the opinion +that the sight of the grey sky and the tears of rain on the windows +deprived one of energy and induced the spleen. In the town, where +there was greater comfort, bad weather was scarcely noticed. + +After two games of patience, the old lady shuffled the cards and +took a glance at her daughter. + +"I have been trying with the cards whether it will be fine to-morrow, +and whether our Alexey Stepanovitch will come," she said. "It is +five days since he was here. . . . The weather is a chastisement +from God." + +Nadyezhda Filippovna looked indifferently at her mother, got up, +and began walking up and down the room. + +"The barometer was rising yesterday," she said doubtfully, "but +they say it is falling again to-day." + +The old lady laid out the cards in three long rows and shook her +head. + +"Do you miss him?" she asked, glancing at her daughter. + +"Of course." + +"I see you do. I should think so. He hasn't been here for five days. +In May the utmost was two, or at most three days, and now it is +serious, five days! I am not his wife, and yet I miss him. And +yesterday, when I heard the barometer was rising, I ordered them +to kill a chicken and prepare a carp for Alexey Stepanovitch. He +likes them. Your poor father couldn't bear fish, but he likes it. +He always eats it with relish." + +"My heart aches for him," said the daughter. "We are dull, but it +is duller still for him, you know, mamma." + +"I should think so! In the law-courts day in and day out, and in +the empty flat at night alone like an owl." + +"And what is so awful, mamma, he is alone there without servants; +there is no one to set the samovar or bring him water. Why didn't +he engage a valet for the summer months? And what use is the summer +villa at all if he does not care for it? I told him there was no +need to have it, but no, 'It is for the sake of your health,' he +said, and what is wrong with my health? It makes me ill that he +should have to put up with so much on my account." + +Looking over her mother's shoulder, the daughter noticed a mistake +in the patience, bent down to the table and began correcting it. A +silence followed. Both looked at the cards and imagined how their +Alexey Stepanovitch, utterly forlorn, was sitting now in the town +in his gloomy, empty study and working, hungry, exhausted, yearning +for his family. . . . + +"Do you know what, mamma?" said Nadyezhda Filippovna suddenly, and +her eyes began to shine. "If the weather is the same to-morrow I'll +go by the first train and see him in town! Anyway, I shall find out +how he is, have a look at him, and pour out his tea." + +And both of them began to wonder how it was that this idea, so +simple and easy to carry out, had not occurred to them before. It +was only half an hour in the train to the town, and then twenty +minutes in a cab. They said a little more, and went off to bed in +the same room, feeling more contented. + +"Oho-ho-ho. . . . Lord, forgive us sinners!" sighed the old lady +when the clock in the hall struck two. "There is no sleeping." + +"You are not asleep, mamma?" the daughter asked in a whisper. "I +keep thinking of Alyosha. I only hope he won't ruin his health in +town. Goodness knows where he dines and lunches. In restaurants and +taverns." + +"I have thought of that myself," sighed the old lady. "The Heavenly +Mother save and preserve him. But the rain, the rain!" + +In the morning the rain was not pattering on the panes, but the sky +was still grey. The trees stood looking mournful, and at every gust +of wind they scattered drops. The footprints on the muddy path, the +ditches and the ruts were full of water. Nadyezhda Filippovna made +up her mind to go. + +"Give him my love," said the old lady, wrapping her daughter up. +"Tell him not to think too much about his cases. . . . And he must +rest. Let him wrap his throat up when he goes out: the weather-- +God help us! And take him the chicken; food from home, even if cold, +is better than at a restaurant." + +The daughter went away, saying that she would come back by an evening +train or else next morning. + +But she came back long before dinner-time, when the old lady was +sitting on her trunk in her bedroom and drowsily thinking what to +cook for her son-in-law's supper. + +Going into the room her daughter, pale and agitated, sank on the +bed without uttering a word or taking off her hat, and pressed her +head into the pillow. + +"But what is the matter," said the old lady in surprise, "why back +so soon? Where is Alexey Stepanovitch?" + +Nadyezhda Filippovna raised her head and gazed at her mother with +dry, imploring eyes. + +"He is deceiving us, mamma," she said. + +"What are you saying? Christ be with you!" cried the old lady in +alarm, and her cap slipped off her head. "Who is going to deceive +us? Lord, have mercy on us!" + +"He is deceiving us, mamma!" repeated her daughter, and her chin +began to quiver. + +"How do you know?" cried the old lady, turning pale. + +"Our flat is locked up. The porter tells me that Alyosha has not +been home once for these five days. He is not living at home! He +is not at home, not at home!" + +She waved her hands and burst into loud weeping, uttering nothing +but: "Not at home! Not at home!" + +She began to be hysterical. + +"What's the meaning of it?" muttered the old woman in horror. "Why, +he wrote the day before yesterday that he never leaves the flat! +Where is he sleeping? Holy Saints!" + +Nadyezhda Filippovna felt so faint that she could not take off her +hat. She looked about her blankly, as though she had been drugged, +and convulsively clutched at her mother's arms. + +"What a person to trust: a porter!" said the old lady, fussing round +her daughter and crying. "What a jealous girl you are! He is not +going to deceive you, and how dare he? We are not just anybody. +Though we are of the merchant class, yet he has no right, for you +are his lawful wife! We can take proceedings! I gave twenty thousand +roubles with you! You did not want for a dowry!" + +And the old lady herself sobbed and gesticulated, and she felt +faint, too, and lay down on her trunk. Neither of them noticed that +patches of blue had made their appearance in the sky, that the +clouds were more transparent, that the first sunbeam was cautiously +gliding over the wet grass in the garden, that with renewed gaiety +the sparrows were hopping about the puddles which reflected the +racing clouds. + +Towards evening Kvashin arrived. Before leaving town he had gone +to his flat and had learned from the porter that his wife had come +in his absence. + +"Here I am," he said gaily, coming into his mother-in-law's room +and pretending not to notice their stern and tear-stained faces. +"Here I am! It's five days since we have seen each other!" + +He rapidly kissed his wife's hand and his mother-in-law's, and with +the air of man delighted at having finished a difficult task, he +lolled in an arm-chair. + +"Ough!" he said, puffing out all the air from his lungs. "Here I +have been worried to death. I have scarcely sat down. For almost +five days now I have been, as it were, bivouacking. I haven't been +to the flat once, would you believe it? I have been busy the whole +time with the meeting of Shipunov's and Ivantchikov's creditors; I +had to work in Galdeyev's office at the shop. . . . I've had nothing +to eat or to drink, and slept on a bench, I was chilled through +. . . . I hadn't a free minute. I hadn't even time to go to the flat. +That's how I came not to be at home, Nadyusha, . . And Kvashin, +holding his sides as though his back were aching, glanced stealthily +at his wife and mother-in-law to see the effect of his lie, or as +he called it, diplomacy. The mother-in-law and wife were looking +at each other in joyful astonishment, as though beyond all hope and +expectation they had found something precious, which they had +lost. . . . Their faces beamed, their eyes glowed. . . . + +"My dear man," cried the old lady, jumping up, "why am I sitting +here? Tea! Tea at once! Perhaps you are hungry?" + +"Of course he is hungry," cried his wife, pulling off her head a +bandage soaked in vinegar. "Mamma, bring the wine, and the savouries. +Natalya, lay the table! Oh, my goodness, nothing is ready!" + +And both of them, frightened, happy, and bustling, ran about the +room. The old lady could not look without laughing at her daughter +who had slandered an innocent man, and the daughter felt +ashamed. . . . + +The table was soon laid. Kvashin, who smelt of madeira and liqueurs +and who could scarcely breathe from repletion, complained of being +hungry, forced himself to munch and kept on talking of the meeting +of Shipunov's and Ivantchikov's creditors, while his wife and +mother-in-law could not take their eyes off his face, and both +thought: + +"How clever and kind he is! How handsome!" + +"All serene," thought Kvashin, as he lay down on the well-filled +feather bed. "Though they are regular tradesmen's wives, though +they are Philistines, yet they have a charm of their own, and one +can spend a day or two of the week here with enjoyment. . . ." + +He wrapped himself up, got warm, and as he dozed off, he said to +himself: + +"All serene!" + + +A GENTLEMAN FRIEND + +THE charming Vanda, or, as she was described in her passport, the +"Honourable Citizen Nastasya Kanavkin," found herself, on leaving +the hospital, in a position she had never been in before: without +a home to go to or a farthing in her pocket. What was she to do? + +The first thing she did was to visit a pawn-broker's and pawn her +turquoise ring, her one piece of jewellery. They gave her a rouble +for the ring . . . but what can you get for a rouble? You can't buy +for that sum a fashionable short jacket, nor a big hat, nor a pair +of bronze shoes, and without those things she had a feeling of +being, as it were, undressed. She felt as though the very horses +and dogs were staring and laughing at the plainness of her dress. +And clothes were all she thought about: the question what she should +eat and where she should sleep did not trouble her in the least. + +"If only I could meet a gentleman friend," she thought to herself, +"I could get some money. . . . There isn't one who would refuse me, +I know. . ." + +But no gentleman she knew came her way. It would be easy enough to +meet them in the evening at the "Renaissance," but they wouldn't +let her in at the "Renaissance" in that shabby dress and with no +hat. What was she to do? + +After long hesitation, when she was sick of walking and sitting and +thinking, Vanda made up her mind to fall back on her last resource: +to go straight to the lodgings of some gentleman friend and ask for +money. + +She pondered which to go to. "Misha is out of the question; he's a +married man. . . . The old chap with the red hair will be at his +office at this time. . ." + +Vanda remembered a dentist, called Finkel, a converted Jew, who six +months ago had given her a bracelet, and on whose head she had once +emptied a glass of beer at the supper at the German Club. She was +awfully pleased at the thought of Finkel. + +"He'll be sure to give it me, if only I find him at home," she +thought, as she walked in his direction. "If he doesn't, I'll smash +all the lamps in the house." + +Before she reached the dentist's door she thought out her plan of +action: she would run laughing up the stairs, dash into the dentist's +room and demand twenty-five roubles. But as she touched the bell, +this plan seemed to vanish from her mind of itself. Vanda began +suddenly feeling frightened and nervous, which was not at all her +way. She was bold and saucy enough at drinking parties, but now, +dressed in everyday clothes, feeling herself in the position of an +ordinary person asking a favour, who might be refused admittance, +she felt suddenly timid and humiliated. She was ashamed and frightened. + +"Perhaps he has forgotten me by now," she thought, hardly daring +to pull the bell. "And how can I go up to him in such a dress, +looking like a beggar or some working girl?" + +And she rang the bell irresolutely. + +She heard steps coming: it was the porter. + +"Is the doctor at home?" she asked. + +She would have been glad now if the porter had said "No," but the +latter, instead of answering ushered her into the hall, and helped +her off with her coat. The staircase impressed her as luxurious, +and magnificent, but of all its splendours what caught her eye most +was an immense looking-glass, in which she saw a ragged figure +without a fashionable jacket, without a big hat, and without bronze +shoes. And it seemed strange to Vanda that, now that she was humbly +dressed and looked like a laundress or sewing girl, she felt ashamed, +and no trace of her usual boldness and sauciness remained, and in +her own mind she no longer thought of herself as Vanda, but as the +Nastasya Kanavkin she used to be in the old days. . . . + +"Walk in, please," said a maidservant, showing her into the +consulting-room. "The doctor will be here in a minute. Sit down." + +Vanda sank into a soft arm-chair. + +"I'll ask him to lend it me," she thought; "that will be quite +proper, for, after all, I do know him. If only that servant would +go. I don't like to ask before her. What does she want to stand +there for?" + +Five minutes later the door opened and Finkel came in. He was a +tall, dark Jew, with fat cheeks and bulging eyes. His cheeks, his +eyes, his chest, his body, all of him was so well fed, so loathsome +and repellent! At the "Renaissance" and the German Club he had +usually been rather tipsy, and would spend his money freely on +women, and be very long-suffering and patient with their pranks +(when Vanda, for instance, poured the beer over his head, he simply +smiled and shook his finger at her): now he had a cross, sleepy +expression and looked solemn and frigid like a police captain, and +he kept chewing something. + +"What can I do for you?" he asked, without looking at Vanda. + +Vanda looked at the serious countenance of the maid and the smug +figure of Finkel, who apparently did not recognize her, and she +turned red. + +"What can I do for you?" repeated the dentist a little irritably. + +"I've got toothache," murmured Vanda. + +"Aha! . . . Which is the tooth? Where?" + +Vanda remembered she had a hole in one of her teeth. + +"At the bottom . . . on the right . . ." she said. + +"Hm! . . . Open your mouth." + +Finkel frowned and, holding his breath, began examining the tooth. + +"Does it hurt?" he asked, digging into it with a steel instrument. + +"Yes," Vanda replied, untruthfully. + +"Shall I remind him?" she was wondering. "He would be sure to +remember me. But that servant! Why will she stand there?" + +Finkel suddenly snorted like a steam-engine right into her mouth, +and said: + +"I don't advise you to have it stopped. That tooth will never be +worth keeping anyhow." + +After probing the tooth a little more and soiling Vanda's lips and +gums with his tobacco-stained fingers, he held his breath again, +and put something cold into her mouth. Vanda suddenly felt a sharp +pain, cried out, and clutched at Finkel's hand. + +"It's all right, it's all right," he muttered; "don't you be +frightened! That tooth would have been no use to you, anyway . . . +you must be brave. . ." + +And his tobacco-stained fingers, smeared with blood, held up the +tooth to her eyes, while the maid approached and put a basin to her +mouth. + +"You wash out your mouth with cold water when you get home, and +that will stop the bleeding," said Finkel. + +He stood before her with the air of a man expecting her to go, +waiting to be left in peace. + +"Good-day," she said, turning towards the door. + +"Hm! . . . and how about my fee?" enquired Finkel, in a jesting +tone. + +"Oh, yes!" Vanda remembered, blushing, and she handed the Jew the +rouble that had been given her for her ring. + +When she got out into the street she felt more overwhelmed with +shame than before, but now it was not her poverty she was ashamed +of. She was unconscious now of not having a big hat and a fashionable +jacket. She walked along the street, spitting blood, and brooding +on her life, her ugly, wretched life, and the insults she had +endured, and would have to endure to-morrow, and next week, and all +her life, up to the very day of her death. + +"Oh! how awful it is! My God, how fearful!" + +Next day, however, she was back at the "Renaissance," and dancing +there. She had on an enormous new red hat, a new fashionable jacket, +and bronze shoes. And she was taken out to supper by a young merchant +up from Kazan. + + +A TRIVIAL INCIDENT + +IT was a sunny August midday as, in company with a Russian prince +who had come down in the world, I drove into the immense so-called +Shabelsky pine-forest where we were intending to look for woodcocks. +In virtue of the part he plays in this story my poor prince deserves +a detailed description. He was a tall, dark man, still youngish, +though already somewhat battered by life; with long moustaches like +a police captain's; with prominent black eyes, and with the manners +of a retired army man. He was a man of Oriental type, not very +intelligent, but straightforward and honest, not a bully, not a +fop, and not a rake--virtues which, in the eyes of the general +public, are equivalent to a certificate of being a nonentity and a +poor creature. People generally did not like him (he was never +spoken of in the district, except as "the illustrious duffer"). I +personally found the poor prince extremely nice with his misfortunes +and failures, which made up indeed his whole life. First of all he +was poor. He did not play cards, did not drink, had no occupation, +did not poke his nose into anything, and maintained a perpetual +silence but yet he had somehow succeeded in getting through thirty +to forty thousand roubles left him at his father's death. God only +knows what had become of the money. All that I can say is that owing +to lack of supervision a great deal was stolen by stewards, bailiffs, +and even footmen; a great deal went on lending money, giving bail, +and standing security. There were few landowners in the district +who did not owe him money. He gave to all who asked, and not so +much from good nature or confidence in people as from exaggerated +gentlemanliness as though he would say: "Take it and feel how _comme +il faut_ I am!" By the time I made his acquaintance he had got into +debt himself, had learned what it was like to have a second mortgage +on his land, and had sunk so deeply into difficulties that there +was no chance of his ever getting out of them again. There were +days when he had no dinner, and went about with an empty cigar-holder, +but he was always seen clean and fashionably dressed, and always +smelt strongly of ylang-ylang. + +The prince's second misfortune was his absolute solitariness. He +was not married, he had no friends nor relations. His silent and +reserved character and his _comme il faut_ deportment, which became +the more conspicuous the more anxious he was to conceal his poverty, +prevented him from becoming intimate with people. For love affairs +he was too heavy, spiritless, and cold, and so rarely got on with +women. . . . + +When we reached the forest this prince and I got out of the chaise +and walked along a narrow woodland path which was hidden among huge +ferns. But before we had gone a hundred paces a tall, lank figure +with a long oval face, wearing a shabby reefer jacket, a straw hat, +and patent leather boots, rose up from behind a young fir-tree some +three feet high, as though he had sprung out of the ground. The +stranger held in one hand a basket of mushrooms, with the other he +playfully fingered a cheap watch-chain on his waistcoat. On seeing +us he was taken aback, smoothed his waistcoat, coughed politely, +and gave an agreeable smile, as though he were delighted to see +such nice people as us. Then, to our complete surprise, he came up +to us, scraping with his long feet on the grass, bending his whole +person, and, still smiling agreeably, lifted his hat and pronounced +in a sugary voice with the intonations of a whining dog: + +"Aie, aie . . . gentlemen, painful as it is, it is my duty to warn +you that shooting is forbidden in this wood. Pardon me for venturing +to disturb you, though unacquainted, but . . . allow me to present +myself. I am Grontovsky, the head clerk on Madame Kandurin's estate." + +"Pleased to make your acquaintance, but why can't we shoot?" + +"Such is the wish of the owner of this forest!" + +The prince and I exchanged glances. A moment passed in silence. The +prince stood looking pensively at a big fly agaric at his feet, +which he had crushed with his stick. Grontovsky went on smiling +agreeably. His whole face was twitching, exuding honey, and even +the watch-chain on his waistcoat seemed to be smiling and trying +to impress us all with its refinement. A shade of embarrassment +passed over us like an angel passing; all three of us felt awkward. + +"Nonsense!" I said. "Only last week I was shooting here!" + +"Very possible!" Grontovsky sniggered through his teeth. "As a +matter of fact everyone shoots here regardless of the prohibition. +But once I have met you, it is my duty . . . my sacred duty to warn +you. I am a man in a dependent position. If the forest were mine, +on the word of honour of a Grontovsky, I should not oppose your +agreeable pleasure. But whose fault is it that I am in a dependent +position?" + +The lanky individual sighed and shrugged his shoulders. I began +arguing, getting hot and protesting, but the more loudly and +impressively I spoke the more mawkish and sugary Grontovsky's face +became. Evidently the consciousness of a certain power over us +afforded him the greatest gratification. He was enjoying his +condescending tone, his politeness, his manners, and with peculiar +relish pronounced his sonorous surname, of which he was probably +very fond. Standing before us he felt more than at ease, but judging +from the confused sideway glances he cast from time to time at his +basket, only one thing was spoiling his satisfaction--the mushrooms, +womanish, peasantish, prose, derogatory to his dignity. + +"We can't go back!" I said. "We have come over ten miles!" + +"What's to be done?" sighed Grontovsky. "If you had come not ten +but a hundred thousand miles, if the king even had come from America +or from some other distant land, even then I should think it my +duty . . . sacred, so to say, obligation . . ." + +"Does the forest belong to Nadyezhda Lvovna?" asked the prince. + +"Yes, Nadyezhda Lvovna . . ." + +"Is she at home now?" + +"Yes . . . I tell you what, you go to her, it is not more than half +a mile from here; if she gives you a note, then I. . . . I needn't +say! Ha--ha . . . he--he--!" + +"By all means," I agreed. "It's much nearer than to go back. . . . +You go to her, Sergey Ivanitch," I said, addressing the prince. +"You know her." + +The prince, who had been gazing the whole time at the crushed agaric, +raised his eyes to me, thought a minute, and said: + +"I used to know her at one time, but . . . it's rather awkward for +me to go to her. Besides, I am in shabby clothes. . . . You go, you +don't know her. . . . It's more suitable for you to go." + +I agreed. We got into our chaise and, followed by Grontovsky's +smiles, drove along the edge of the forest to the manor house. I +was not acquainted with Nadyezhda Lvovna Kandurin, née Shabelsky. +I had never seen her at close quarters, and knew her only by hearsay. +I knew that she was incredibly wealthy, richer than anyone else in +the province. After the death of her father, Shabelsky, who was a +landowner with no other children, she was left with several estates, +a stud farm, and a lot of money. I had heard that, though she was +only twenty-five or twenty-six, she was ugly, uninteresting, and +as insignificant as anybody, and was only distinguished from the +ordinary ladies of the district by her immense wealth. + +It has always seemed to me that wealth is felt, and that the rich +must have special feelings unknown to the poor. Often as I passed +by Nadyezhda Lvovna's big fruit garden, in which stood the large, +heavy house with its windows always curtained, I thought: "What is +she thinking at this moment? Is there happiness behind those blinds?" +and so on. Once I saw her from a distance in a fine light cabriolet, +driving a handsome white horse, and, sinful man that I am, I not +only envied her, but even thought that in her poses, in her movements, +there was something special, not to be found in people who are not +rich, just as persons of a servile nature succeed in discovering +"good family" at the first glance in people of the most ordinary +exterior, if they are a little more distinguished than themselves. +Nadyezhda Lvovna's inner life was only known to me by scandal. It +was said in the district that five or six years ago, before she was +married, during her father's lifetime, she had been passionately +in love with Prince Sergey Ivanitch, who was now beside me in the +chaise. The prince had been fond of visiting her father, and used +to spend whole days in his billiard room, where he played pyramids +indefatigably till his arms and legs ached. Six months before the +old man's death he had suddenly given up visiting the Shabelskys. +The gossip of the district having no positive facts to go upon +explained this abrupt change in their relations in various ways. +Some said that the prince, having observed the plain daughter's +feeling for him and being unable to reciprocate it, considered it +the duty of a gentleman to cut short his visits. Others maintained +that old Shabelsky had discovered why his daughter was pining away, +and had proposed to the poverty-stricken prince that he should marry +her; the prince, imagining in his narrow-minded way that they were +trying to buy him together with his title, was indignant, said +foolish things, and quarrelled with them. What was true and what +was false in this nonsense was difficult to say. But that there was +a portion of truth in it was evident, from the fact that the prince +always avoided conversation about Nadyezhda Lvovna. + +I knew that soon after her father's death Nadyezhda Lvovna had +married one Kandurin, a bachelor of law, not wealthy, but adroit, +who had come on a visit to the neighbourhood. She married him not +from love, but because she was touched by the love of the legal +gentleman who, so it was said, had cleverly played the love-sick +swain. At the time I am describing, Kandurin was for some reason +living in Cairo, and writing thence to his friend, the marshal of +the district, "Notes of Travel," while she sat languishing behind +lowered blinds, surrounded by idle parasites, and whiled away her +dreary days in petty philanthropy. + +On the way to the house the prince fell to talking. + +"It's three days since I have been at home," he said in a half +whisper, with a sidelong glance at the driver. "I am not a child, +nor a silly woman, and I have no prejudices, but I can't stand the +bailiffs. When I see a bailiff in my house I turn pale and tremble, +and even have a twitching in the calves of my legs. Do you know +Rogozhin refused to honour my note?" + +The prince did not, as a rule, like to complain of his straitened +circumstances; where poverty was concerned he was reserved and +exceedingly proud and sensitive, and so this announcement surprised +me. He stared a long time at the yellow clearing, warmed by the +sun, watched a long string of cranes float in the azure sky, and +turned facing me. + +"And by the sixth of September I must have the money ready for the +bank . . . the interest for my estate," he said aloud, by now +regardless of the coachman. "And where am I to get it? Altogether, +old man, I am in a tight fix! An awfully tight fix!" + +The prince examined the cock of his gun, blew on it for some reason, +and began looking for the cranes which by now were out of sight. + +"Sergey Ivanitch," I asked, after a minute's silence, "imagine if +they sell your Shatilovka, what will you do?" + +"I? I don't know! Shatilovka can't be saved, that's clear as daylight, +but I cannot imagine such a calamity. I can't imagine myself without +my daily bread secure. What can I do? I have had hardly any education; +I have not tried working yet; for government service it is late to +begin, . . . Besides, where could I serve? Where could I be of use? +Admitting that no great cleverness is needed for serving in our +Zemstvo, for example, yet I suffer from . . . the devil knows what, +a sort of faintheartedness, I haven't a ha'p'orth of pluck. If I +went into the Service I should always feel I was not in my right +place. I am not an idealist; I am not a Utopian; I haven't any +special principles; but am simply, I suppose, stupid and thoroughly +incompetent, a neurotic and a coward. Altogether not like other +people. All other people are like other people, only I seem to be +something . . . a poor thing. . . . I met Naryagin last Wednesday +--you know him?--drunken, slovenly . . . doesn't pay his debts, +stupid" (the prince frowned and tossed his head) . . . "a horrible +person! He said to me, staggering: 'I'm being balloted for as a +justice of the peace!' Of course, they won't elect him, but, you +see, he believes he is fit to be a justice of the peace and considers +that position within his capacity. He has boldness and self-confidence. +I went to see our investigating magistrate too. The man gets two +hundred and fifty roubles a month, and does scarcely anything. All +he can do is to stride backwards and forwards for days together in +nothing but his underclothes, but, ask him, he is convinced he is +doing his work and honourably performing his duty. I couldn't go +on like that! I should be ashamed to look the clerk in the face." + +At that moment Grontovsky, on a chestnut horse, galloped by us with +a flourish. On his left arm the basket bobbed up and down with the +mushrooms dancing in it. As he passed us he grinned and waved his +hand, as though we were old friends. + +"Blockhead!" the prince filtered through his teeth, looking after +him. "It's wonderful how disgusting it sometimes is to see satisfied +faces. A stupid, animal feeling due to hunger, I expect. . . . What +was I saying? Oh, yes, about going into the Service, . . . I should +be ashamed to take the salary, and yet, to tell the truth, it is +stupid. If one looks at it from a broader point of view, more +seriously, I am eating what isn't mine now. Am I not? But why am I +not ashamed of that. . . . It is a case of habit, I suppose . . . +and not being able to realize one's true position. . . . But that +position is most likely awful. . ." + +I looked at him, wondering if the prince were showing off. But his +face was mild and his eyes were mournfully following the movements +of the chestnut horse racing away, as though his happiness were +racing away with it. + +Apparently he was in that mood of irritation and sadness when women +weep quietly for no reason, and men feel a craving to complain of +themselves, of life, of God. . . . + +When I got out of the chaise at the gates of the house the prince +said to me: + +"A man once said, wanting to annoy me, that I have the face of a +cardsharper. I have noticed that cardsharpers are usually dark. Do +you know, it seems that if I really had been born a cardsharper I +should have remained a decent person to the day of my death, for I +should never have had the boldness to do wrong. I tell you frankly +I have had the chance once in my life of getting rich if I had told +a lie, a lie to myself and one woman . . . and one other person +whom I know would have forgiven me for lying; I should have put +into my pocket a million. But I could not. I hadn't the pluck!" + +From the gates we had to go to the house through the copse by a +long road, level as a ruler, and planted on each side with thick, +lopped lilacs. The house looked somewhat heavy, tasteless, like a +façade on the stage. It rose clumsily out of a mass of greenery, +and caught the eye like a great stone thrown on the velvety turf. +At the chief entrance I was met by a fat old footman in a green +swallow-tail coat and big silver-rimmed spectacles; without making +any announcement, only looking contemptuously at my dusty figure, +he showed me in. As I mounted the soft carpeted stairs there was, +for some reason, a strong smell of india-rubber. At the top I was +enveloped in an atmosphere found only in museums, in signorial +mansions and old-fashioned merchant houses; it seemed like the smell +of something long past, which had once lived and died and had left +its soul in the rooms. I passed through three or four rooms on my +way from the entry to the drawing-room. I remember bright yellow, +shining floors, lustres wrapped in stiff muslin, narrow, striped +rugs which stretched not straight from door to door, as they usually +do, but along the walls, so that not venturing to touch the bright +floor with my muddy boots I had to describe a rectangle in each +room. In the drawing-room, where the footman left me, stood +old-fashioned ancestral furniture in white covers, shrouded in +twilight. It looked surly and elderly, and, as though out of respect +for its repose, not a sound was audible. + +Even the clock was silent . . . it seemed as though the Princess +Tarakanov had fallen asleep in the golden frame, and the water and +the rats were still and motionless through magic. The daylight, +afraid of disturbing the universal tranquillity, scarcely pierced +through the lowered blinds, and lay on the soft rugs in pale, +slumbering streaks. + +Three minutes passed and a big, elderly woman in black, with her +cheek bandaged up, walked noiselessly into the drawing-room. She +bowed to me and pulled up the blinds. At once, enveloped in the +bright sunlight, the rats and water in the picture came to life and +movement, Princess Tarakanov was awakened, and the old chairs frowned +gloomily. + +"Her honour will be here in a minute, sir . . ." sighed the old +lady, frowning too. + +A few more minutes of waiting and I saw Nadyezhda Lvovna. What +struck me first of all was that she certainly was ugly, short, +scraggy, and round-shouldered. Her thick, chestnut hair was +magnificent; her face, pure and with a look of culture in it, was +aglow with youth; there was a clear and intelligent expression in +her eyes; but the whole charm of her head was lost through the +thickness of her lips and the over-acute facial angle. + +I mentioned my name, and announced the object of my visit. + +"I really don't know what I am to say!" she said, in hesitation, +dropping her eyes and smiling. "I don't like to refuse, and at the +same time. . . ." + +"Do, please," I begged. + +Nadyezhda Lvovna looked at me and laughed. I laughed too. She was +probably amused by what Grontovsky had so enjoyed--that is, the +right of giving or withholding permission; my visit suddenly struck +me as queer and strange. + +"I don't like to break the long-established rules," said Madame +Kandurin. "Shooting has been forbidden on our estate for the last +six years. No!" she shook her head resolutely. "Excuse me, I must +refuse you. If I allow you I must allow others. I don't like +unfairness. Either let all or no one." + +"I am sorry!" I sighed. "It's all the sadder because we have come +more than ten miles. I am not alone," I added, "Prince Sergey +Ivanitch is with me." + +I uttered the prince's name with no _arrière pensée_, not prompted +by any special motive or aim; I simply blurted it out without +thinking, in the simplicity of my heart. Hearing the familiar name +Madame Kandurin started, and bent a prolonged gaze upon me. I noticed +her nose turn pale. + +"That makes no difference . . ." she said, dropping her eyes. + +As I talked to her I stood at the window that looked out on the +shrubbery. I could see the whole shrubbery with the avenues and the +ponds and the road by which I had come. At the end of the road, +beyond the gates, the back of our chaise made a dark patch. Near +the gate, with his back to the house, the prince was standing with +his legs apart, talking to the lanky Grontovsky. + +Madame Kandurin had been standing all the time at the other window. +She looked from time to time towards the shrubbery, and from the +moment I mentioned the prince's name she did not turn away from the +window. + +"Excuse me," she said, screwing up her eyes as she looked towards +the road and the gate, "but it would be unfair to allow you only +to shoot. . . . And, besides, what pleasure is there in shooting +birds? What's it for? Are they in your way?" + +A solitary life, immured within four walls, with its indoor twilight +and heavy smell of decaying furniture, disposes people to sentimentality. +Madame Kandurin's idea did her credit, but I could not resist saying: + +"If one takes that line one ought to go barefoot. Boots are made +out of the leather of slaughtered animals." + +"One must distinguish between a necessity and a caprice," Madame +Kandurin answered in a toneless voice. + +She had by now recognized the prince, and did not take her eyes off +his figure. It is hard to describe the delight and the suffering +with which her ugly face was radiant! Her eyes were smiling and +shining, her lips were quivering and laughing, while her face craned +closer to the panes. Keeping hold of a flower-pot with both hands, +with bated breath and with one foot slightly lifted, she reminded +me of a dog pointing and waiting with passionate impatience for +"Fetch it!" + +I looked at her and at the prince who could not tell a lie once in +his life, and I felt angry and bitter against truth and falsehood, +which play such an elemental part in the personal happiness of men. + +The prince started suddenly, took aim and fired. A hawk, flying +over him, fluttered its wings and flew like an arrow far away. + +"He aimed too high!" I said. "And so, Nadyezhda Lvovna," I sighed, +moving away from the window, "you will not permit . . ."--Madame +Kandurin was silent. + +"I have the honour to take my leave," I said, "and I beg you to +forgive my disturbing you. . ." + +Madame Kandurin would have turned facing me, and had already moved +through a quarter of the angle, when she suddenly hid her face +behind the hangings, as though she felt tears in her eyes that she +wanted to conceal. + +"Good-bye. . . . Forgive me . . ." she said softly. + +I bowed to her back, and strode away across the bright yellow floors, +no longer keeping to the carpet. I was glad to get away from this +little domain of gilded boredom and sadness, and I hastened as +though anxious to shake off a heavy, fantastic dream with its +twilight, its enchanted princess, its lustres. . . . + +At the front door a maidservant overtook me and thrust a note into +my hand: "Shooting is permitted on showing this. N. K.," I read. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Chorus Girl and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHORUS GIRL AND OTHER STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 13418-8.txt or 13418-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/1/13418/ + +Produced by James Rusk + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org</p> + +<p id="id00002" style="margin-top: 2em">Title: The Chorus Girl and Other Stories</p> + +<p id="id00003">Author: Anton Chekhov</p> + +<p id="id00004">Release Date: September 9, 2004 [EBook #13418][Last updated: October 21, 2017]</p> + +<p id="id00005">Language: English</p> + +<p id="id00006" style="margin-top: 2em">*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHORUS GIRL AND OTHER STORIES ***</p> + +<p id="id00007" style="margin-top: 4em">Produced by James Rusk</p> + +<h1 id="id00008" style="margin-top: 5em">THE TALES OF CHEKHOV</h1> + +<h5 id="id00009">VOLUME 8</h5> + +<h5 id="id00010">THE CHORUS GIRL AND OTHER STORIES</h5> + +<h5 id="id00011">BY</h5> + +<h5 id="id00012">ANTON TCHEKHOV</h5> + +<p id="id00013">Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT</p> + +<h2 id="id00014" style="margin-top: 4em">CONTENTS</h2> + +<table > + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#id00016"> THE CHORUS GIRL</a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#id00077"> VEROTCHKA</a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#id00175"> MY LIFE</a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#id00778"> AT A COUNTRY HOUSE</a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#id00827"> A FATHER</a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#id00896"> ON THE ROAD</a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#id01006"> ROTHSCHILD'S FIDDLE</a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#id01075"> IVAN MATVEYITCH</a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#id01142"> ZINOTCHKA</a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#id01189"> BAD WEATHER</a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#id01239"> A GENTLEMAN FRIEND</a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#id01283"> A TRIVIAL INCIDENT</a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<h4 id="id00016" style="margin-top: 4em">THE CHORUS GIRL</h4> + +<p id="id00017">ONE day when she was younger and better-looking, and when her voice +was stronger, Nikolay Petrovitch Kolpakov, her adorer, was sitting +in the outer room in her summer villa. It was intolerably hot and +stifling. Kolpakov, who had just dined and drunk a whole bottle of +inferior port, felt ill-humoured and out of sorts. Both were bored +and waiting for the heat of the day to be over in order to go for +a walk.</p> + +<p id="id00018">All at once there was a sudden ring at the door. Kolpakov, who was +sitting with his coat off, in his slippers, jumped up and looked +inquiringly at Pasha.</p> + +<p id="id00019">"It must be the postman or one of the girls," said the singer.</p> + +<p id="id00020">Kolpakov did not mind being found by the postman or Pasha's lady +friends, but by way of precaution gathered up his clothes and went +into the next room, while Pasha ran to open the door. To her great +surprise in the doorway stood, not the postman and not a girl friend, +but an unknown woman, young and beautiful, who was dressed like a +lady, and from all outward signs was one.</p> + +<p id="id00021">The stranger was pale and was breathing heavily as though she had +been running up a steep flight of stairs.</p> + +<p id="id00022">"What is it?" asked Pasha.</p> + +<p id="id00023">The lady did not at once answer. She took a step forward, slowly +looked about the room, and sat down in a way that suggested that +from fatigue, or perhaps illness, she could not stand; then for a +long time her pale lips quivered as she tried in vain to speak.</p> + +<p id="id00024">"Is my husband here?" she asked at last, raising to Pasha her big +eyes with their red tear-stained lids.</p> + +<p id="id00025">"Husband?" whispered Pasha, and was suddenly so frightened that her +hands and feet turned cold. "What husband?" she repeated, beginning +to tremble.</p> + +<p id="id00026">"My husband, . . . Nikolay Petrovitch Kolpakov."</p> + +<p id="id00027">"N . . . no, madam. . . . I . . . I don't know any husband."</p> + +<p id="id00028">A minute passed in silence. The stranger several times passed her +handkerchief over her pale lips and held her breath to stop her +inward trembling, while Pasha stood before her motionless, like a +post, and looked at her with astonishment and terror.</p> + +<p id="id00029">"So you say he is not here?" the lady asked, this time speaking +with a firm voice and smiling oddly.</p> + +<p id="id00030">"I . . . I don't know who it is you are asking about."</p> + +<p id="id00031">"You are horrid, mean, vile . . ." the stranger muttered, scanning +Pasha with hatred and repulsion. "Yes, yes . . . you are horrid. I +am very, very glad that at last I can tell you so!"</p> + +<p id="id00032">Pasha felt that on this lady in black with the angry eyes and white +slender fingers she produced the impression of something horrid and +unseemly, and she felt ashamed of her chubby red cheeks, the pock-mark +on her nose, and the fringe on her forehead, which never could be +combed back. And it seemed to her that if she had been thin, and +had had no powder on her face and no fringe on her forehead, then +she could have disguised the fact that she was not "respectable," +and she would not have felt so frightened and ashamed to stand +facing this unknown, mysterious lady.</p> + +<p id="id00033">"Where is my husband?" the lady went on. "Though I don't care whether +he is here or not, but I ought to tell you that the money has been +missed, and they are looking for Nikolay Petrovitch. . . . They +mean to arrest him. That's your doing!"</p> + +<p id="id00034">The lady got up and walked about the room in great excitement. Pasha +looked at her and was so frightened that she could not understand.</p> + +<p id="id00035">"He'll be found and arrested to-day," said the lady, and she gave +a sob, and in that sound could be heard her resentment and vexation. +"I know who has brought him to this awful position! Low, horrid +creature! Loathsome, mercenary hussy!" The lady's lips worked and +her nose wrinkled up with disgust. "I am helpless, do you hear, you +low woman? . . . I am helpless; you are stronger than I am, but +there is One to defend me and my children! God sees all! He is just! +He will punish you for every tear I have shed, for all my sleepless +nights! The time will come; you will think of me! . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00036">Silence followed again. The lady walked about the room and wrung +her hands, while Pasha still gazed blankly at her in amazement, not +understanding and expecting something terrible.</p> + +<p id="id00037">"I know nothing about it, madam," she said, and suddenly burst into +tears.</p> + +<p id="id00038">"You are lying!" cried the lady, and her eyes flashed angrily at +her. "I know all about it! I've known you a long time. I know that +for the last month he has been spending every day with you!"</p> + +<p id="id00039">"Yes. What then? What of it? I have a great many visitors, but I +don't force anyone to come. He is free to do as he likes."</p> + +<p id="id00040">"I tell you they have discovered that money is missing! He has +embezzled money at the office! For the sake of such a . . . creature +as you, for your sake he has actually committed a crime. Listen," +said the lady in a resolute voice, stopping short, facing Pasha. +"You can have no principles; you live simply to do harm—that's +your object; but one can't imagine you have fallen so low that you +have no trace of human feeling left! He has a wife, children. . . . +If he is condemned and sent into exile we shall starve, the +children and I. . . . Understand that! And yet there is a chance +of saving him and us from destitution and disgrace. If I take them +nine hundred roubles to-day they will let him alone. Only nine +hundred roubles!"</p> + +<p id="id00041">"What nine hundred roubles?" Pasha asked softly. "I . . . I don't +know. . . . I haven't taken it."</p> + +<p id="id00042">"I am not asking you for nine hundred roubles. . . . You have no +money, and I don't want your money. I ask you for something else. +. . . Men usually give expensive things to women like you. Only +give me back the things my husband has given you!"</p> + +<p id="id00043">"Madam, he has never made me a present of anything!" Pasha wailed, +beginning to understand.</p> + +<p id="id00044">"Where is the money? He has squandered his own and mine and other +people's. . . . What has become of it all? Listen, I beg you! I was +carried away by indignation and have said a lot of nasty things to +you, but I apologize. You must hate me, I know, but if you are +capable of sympathy, put yourself in my position! I implore you to +give me back the things!"</p> + +<p id="id00045">"H'm!" said Pasha, and she shrugged her shoulders. "I would with +pleasure, but God is my witness, he never made me a present of +anything. Believe me, on my conscience. However, you are right, +though," said the singer in confusion, "he did bring me two little +things. Certainly I will give them back, if you wish it."</p> + +<p id="id00046">Pasha pulled out one of the drawers in the toilet-table and took +out of it a hollow gold bracelet and a thin ring with a ruby in it.</p> + +<p id="id00047">"Here, madam!" she said, handing the visitor these articles.</p> + +<p id="id00048">The lady flushed and her face quivered. She was offended.</p> + +<p id="id00049">"What are you giving me?" she said. "I am not asking for charity, +but for what does not belong to you . . . what you have taken +advantage of your position to squeeze out of my husband . . . that +weak, unhappy man. . . . On Thursday, when I saw you with my husband +at the harbour you were wearing expensive brooches and bracelets. +So it's no use your playing the innocent lamb to me! I ask you for +the last time: will you give me the things, or not?"</p> + +<p id="id00050">"You are a queer one, upon my word," said Pasha, beginning to feel +offended. "I assure you that, except the bracelet and this little +ring, I've never seen a thing from your Nikolay Petrovitch. He +brings me nothing but sweet cakes."</p> + +<p id="id00051">"Sweet cakes!" laughed the stranger. "At home the children have +nothing to eat, and here you have sweet cakes. You absolutely refuse +to restore the presents?"</p> + +<p id="id00052">Receiving no answer, the lady sat down and stared into space, +pondering.</p> + +<p id="id00053">"What's to be done now?" she said. "If I don't get nine hundred +roubles, he is ruined, and the children and I am ruined, too. Shall +I kill this low woman or go down on my knees to her?"</p> + +<p id="id00054">The lady pressed her handkerchief to her face and broke into sobs.</p> + +<p id="id00055">"I beg you!" Pasha heard through the stranger's sobs. "You see you +have plundered and ruined my husband. Save him. . . . You have no +feeling for him, but the children . . . the children . . . What +have the children done?"</p> + +<p id="id00056">Pasha imagined little children standing in the street, crying with +hunger, and she, too, sobbed.</p> + +<p id="id00057">"What can I do, madam?" she said. "You say that I am a low woman +and that I have ruined Nikolay Petrovitch, and I assure you . . . +before God Almighty, I have had nothing from him whatever. . . . +There is only one girl in our chorus who has a rich admirer; all +the rest of us live from hand to mouth on bread and kvass. Nikolay +Petrovitch is a highly educated, refined gentleman, so I've made +him welcome. We are bound to make gentlemen welcome."</p> + +<p id="id00058">"I ask you for the things! Give me the things! I am crying. . . . +I am humiliating myself. . . . If you like I will go down on my +knees! If you wish it!"</p> + +<p id="id00059">Pasha shrieked with horror and waved her hands. She felt that this +pale, beautiful lady who expressed herself so grandly, as though +she were on the stage, really might go down on her knees to her, +simply from pride, from grandeur, to exalt herself and humiliate +the chorus girl.</p> + +<p id="id00060">"Very well, I will give you things!" said Pasha, wiping her eyes +and bustling about. "By all means. Only they are not from Nikolay +Petrovitch. . . . I got these from other gentlemen. As you +please. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00061">Pasha pulled out the upper drawer of the chest, took out a diamond +brooch, a coral necklace, some rings and bracelets, and gave them +all to the lady.</p> + +<p id="id00062">"Take them if you like, only I've never had anything from your +husband. Take them and grow rich," Pasha went on, offended at the +threat to go down on her knees. "And if you are a lady . . . his +lawful wife, you should keep him to yourself. I should think so! I +did not ask him to come; he came of himself."</p> + +<p id="id00063">Through her tears the lady scrutinized the articles given her and +said:</p> + +<p id="id00064">"This isn't everything. . . . There won't be five hundred roubles' +worth here."</p> + +<p id="id00065">Pasha impulsively flung out of the chest a gold watch, a cigar-case +and studs, and said, flinging up her hands:</p> + +<p id="id00066">"I've nothing else left. . . . You can search!"</p> + +<p id="id00067">The visitor gave a sigh, with trembling hands twisted the things +up in her handkerchief, and went out without uttering a word, without +even nodding her head.</p> + +<p id="id00068">The door from the next room opened and Kolpakov walked in. He was +pale and kept shaking his head nervously, as though he had swallowed +something very bitter; tears were glistening in his eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00069">"What presents did you make me?" Pasha asked, pouncing upon him. +"When did you, allow me to ask you?"</p> + +<p id="id00070">"Presents . . . that's no matter!" said Kolpakov, and he tossed his +head. "My God! She cried before you, she humbled herself. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00071">"I am asking you, what presents did you make me?" Pasha cried.</p> + +<p id="id00072">"My God! She, a lady, so proud, so pure. . . . She was ready to go +down on her knees to . . . to this wench! And I've brought her to +this! I've allowed it!"</p> + +<p id="id00073">He clutched his head in his hands and moaned.</p> + +<p id="id00074">"No, I shall never forgive myself for this! I shall never forgive +myself! Get away from me . . . you low creature!" he cried with +repulsion, backing away from Pasha, and thrusting her off with +trembling hands. "She would have gone down on her knees, and . . . +and to you! Oh, my God!"</p> + +<p id="id00075">He rapidly dressed, and pushing Pasha aside contemptuously, made +for the door and went out.</p> + +<p id="id00076">Pasha lay down and began wailing aloud. She was already regretting +her things which she had given away so impulsively, and her feelings +were hurt. She remembered how three years ago a merchant had beaten +her for no sort of reason, and she wailed more loudly than ever.</p> + +<h4 id="id00077" style="margin-top: 2em">VEROTCHKA</h4> + +<p id="id00078">IVAN ALEXEYITCH OGNEV remembers how on that August evening he opened +the glass door with a rattle and went out on to the verandah. He +was wearing a light Inverness cape and a wide-brimmed straw hat, +the very one that was lying with his top-boots in the dust under +his bed. In one hand he had a big bundle of books and notebooks, +in the other a thick knotted stick.</p> + +<p id="id00079">Behind the door, holding the lamp to show the way, stood the master +of the house, Kuznetsov, a bald old man with a long grey beard, in +a snow-white piqué jacket. The old man was smiling cordially and +nodding his head.</p> + +<p id="id00080">"Good-bye, old fellow!" said Ognev.</p> + +<p id="id00081">Kuznetsov put the lamp on a little table and went out to the verandah. +Two long narrow shadows moved down the steps towards the flower-beds, +swayed to and fro, and leaned their heads on the trunks of the +lime-trees.</p> + +<p id="id00082">"Good-bye and once more thank you, my dear fellow!" said Ivan +Alexeyitch. "Thank you for your welcome, for your kindness, for +your affection. . . . I shall never forget your hospitality as long +as I live. You are so good, and your daughter is so good, and +everyone here is so kind, so good-humoured and friendly . . . Such +a splendid set of people that I don't know how to say what I feel!"</p> + +<p id="id00083">From excess of feeling and under the influence of the home-made +wine he had just drunk, Ognev talked in a singing voice like a +divinity student, and was so touched that he expressed his feelings +not so much by words as by the blinking of his eyes and the twitching +of his shoulders. Kuznetsov, who had also drunk a good deal and was +touched, craned forward to the young man and kissed him.</p> + +<p id="id00084">"I've grown as fond of you as if I were your dog," Ognev went on. +"I've been turning up here almost every day; I've stayed the night +a dozen times. It's dreadful to think of all the home-made wine +I've drunk. And thank you most of all for your co-operation and +help. Without you I should have been busy here over my statistics +till October. I shall put in my preface: 'I think it my duty to +express my gratitude to the President of the District Zemstvo of +N——, Kuznetsov, for his kind co-operation.' There is a brilliant +future before statistics! My humble respects to Vera Gavrilovna, +and tell the doctors, both the lawyers and your secretary, that I +shall never forget their help! And now, old fellow, let us embrace +one another and kiss for the last time!"</p> + +<p id="id00085">Ognev, limp with emotion, kissed the old man once more and began +going down the steps. On the last step he looked round and asked: +"Shall we meet again some day?"</p> + +<p id="id00086">"God knows!" said the old man. "Most likely not!"</p> + +<p id="id00087">"Yes, that's true! Nothing will tempt you to Petersburg and I am +never likely to turn up in this district again. Well, good-bye!"</p> + +<p id="id00088">"You had better leave the books behind!" Kuznetsov called after +him. "You don't want to drag such a weight with you. I would send +them by a servant to-morrow!"</p> + +<p id="id00089">But Ognev was rapidly walking away from the house and was not +listening. His heart, warmed by the wine, was brimming over with +good-humour, friendliness, and sadness. He walked along thinking +how frequently one met with good people, and what a pity it was +that nothing was left of those meetings but memories. At times one +catches a glimpse of cranes on the horizon, and a faint gust of +wind brings their plaintive, ecstatic cry, and a minute later, +however greedily one scans the blue distance, one cannot see a speck +nor catch a sound; and like that, people with their faces and their +words flit through our lives and are drowned in the past, leaving +nothing except faint traces in the memory. Having been in the N—— +District from the early spring, and having been almost every day +at the friendly Kuznetsovs', Ivan Alexeyitch had become as much at +home with the old man, his daughter, and the servants as though +they were his own people; he had grown familiar with the whole house +to the smallest detail, with the cosy verandah, the windings of the +avenues, the silhouettes of the trees over the kitchen and the +bath-house; but as soon as he was out of the gate all this would +be changed to memory and would lose its meaning as reality for ever, +and in a year or two all these dear images would grow as dim in his +consciousness as stories he had read or things he had imagined.</p> + +<p id="id00090">"Nothing in life is so precious as people!" Ognev thought in his +emotion, as he strode along the avenue to the gate. "Nothing!"</p> + +<p id="id00091">It was warm and still in the garden. There was a scent of the +mignonette, of the tobacco-plants, and of the heliotrope, which +were not yet over in the flower-beds. The spaces between the bushes +and the tree-trunks were filled with a fine soft mist soaked through +and through with moonlight, and, as Ognev long remembered, coils +of mist that looked like phantoms slowly but perceptibly followed +one another across the avenue. The moon stood high above the garden, +and below it transparent patches of mist were floating eastward. +The whole world seemed to consist of nothing but black silhouettes +and wandering white shadows. Ognev, seeing the mist on a moonlight +August evening almost for the first time in his life, imagined he +was seeing, not nature, but a stage effect in which unskilful +workmen, trying to light up the garden with white Bengal fire, hid +behind the bushes and let off clouds of white smoke together with +the light.</p> + +<p id="id00092">When Ognev reached the garden gate a dark shadow moved away from +the low fence and came towards him.</p> + +<p id="id00093">"Vera Gavrilovna!" he said, delighted. "You here? And I have been +looking everywhere for you; wanted to say good-bye. . . . Good-bye; +I am going away!"</p> + +<p id="id00094">"So early? Why, it's only eleven o'clock."</p> + +<p id="id00095">"Yes, it's time I was off. I have a four-mile walk and then my +packing. I must be up early to-morrow."</p> + +<p id="id00096">Before Ognev stood Kuznetsov's daughter Vera, a girl of one-and-twenty, +as usual melancholy, carelessly dressed, and attractive. Girls who +are dreamy and spend whole days lying down, lazily reading whatever +they come across, who are bored and melancholy, are usually careless +in their dress. To those of them who have been endowed by nature +with taste and an instinct of beauty, the slight carelessness adds +a special charm. When Ognev later on remembered her, he could not +picture pretty Verotchka except in a full blouse which was crumpled +in deep folds at the belt and yet did not touch her waist; without +her hair done up high and a curl that had come loose from it on her +forehead; without the knitted red shawl with ball fringe at the +edge which hung disconsolately on Vera's shoulders in the evenings, +like a flag on a windless day, and in the daytime lay about, crushed +up, in the hall near the men's hats or on a box in the dining-room, +where the old cat did not hesitate to sleep on it. This shawl and +the folds of her blouse suggested a feeling of freedom and laziness, +of good-nature and sitting at home. Perhaps because Vera attracted +Ognev he saw in every frill and button something warm, naïve, cosy, +something nice and poetical, just what is lacking in cold, insincere +women that have no instinct for beauty.</p> + +<p id="id00097">Verotchka had a good figure, a regular profile, and beautiful curly +hair. Ognev, who had seen few women in his life, thought her a +beauty.</p> + +<p id="id00098">"I am going away," he said as he took leave of her at the gate. +"Don't remember evil against me! Thank you for everything!"</p> + +<p id="id00099">In the same singing divinity student's voice in which he had talked +to her father, with the same blinking and twitching of his shoulders, +he began thanking Vera for her hospitality, kindness, and friendliness.</p> + +<p id="id00100">"I've written about you in every letter to my mother," he said. "If +everyone were like you and your dad, what a jolly place the world +would be! You are such a splendid set of people! All such genuine, +friendly people with no nonsense about you."</p> + +<p id="id00101">"Where are you going to now?" asked Vera.</p> + +<p id="id00102">"I am going now to my mother's at Oryol; I shall be a fortnight +with her, and then back to Petersburg and work."</p> + +<p id="id00103">"And then?"</p> + +<p id="id00104">"And then? I shall work all the winter and in the spring go somewhere +into the provinces again to collect material. Well, be happy, live +a hundred years . . . don't remember evil against me. We shall not +see each other again."</p> + +<p id="id00105">Ognev stooped down and kissed Vera's hand. Then, in silent emotion, +he straightened his cape, shifted his bundle of books to a more +comfortable position, paused, and said:</p> + +<p id="id00106">"What a lot of mist!"</p> + +<p id="id00107">"Yes. Have you left anything behind?"</p> + +<p id="id00108">"No, I don't think so. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00109">For some seconds Ognev stood in silence, then he moved clumsily +towards the gate and went out of the garden.</p> + +<p id="id00110">"Stay; I'll see you as far as our wood," said Vera, following him +out.</p> + +<p id="id00111">They walked along the road. Now the trees did not obscure the view, +and one could see the sky and the distance. As though covered with +a veil all nature was hidden in a transparent, colourless haze +through which her beauty peeped gaily; where the mist was thicker +and whiter it lay heaped unevenly about the stones, stalks, and +bushes or drifted in coils over the road, clung close to the earth +and seemed trying not to conceal the view. Through the haze they +could see all the road as far as the wood, with dark ditches at the +sides and tiny bushes which grew in the ditches and caught the +straying wisps of mist. Half a mile from the gate they saw the dark +patch of Kuznetsov's wood.</p> + +<p id="id00112">"Why has she come with me? I shall have to see her back," thought +Ognev, but looking at her profile he gave a friendly smile and said: +"One doesn't want to go away in such lovely weather. It's quite a +romantic evening, with the moon, the stillness, and all the etceteras. +Do you know, Vera Gavrilovna, here I have lived twenty-nine years +in the world and never had a romance. No romantic episode in my +whole life, so that I only know by hearsay of rendezvous, 'avenues +of sighs,' and kisses. It's not normal! In town, when one sits in +one's lodgings, one does not notice the blank, but here in the fresh +air one feels it. . . . One resents it!"</p> + +<p id="id00113">"Why is it?"</p> + +<p id="id00114">"I don't know. I suppose I've never had time, or perhaps it was I +have never met women who. . . . In fact, I have very few acquaintances +and never go anywhere."</p> + +<p id="id00115">For some three hundred paces the young people walked on in silence. +Ognev kept glancing at Verotchka's bare head and shawl, and days +of spring and summer rose to his mind one after another. It had +been a period when far from his grey Petersburg lodgings, enjoying +the friendly warmth of kind people, nature, and the work he loved, +he had not had time to notice how the sunsets followed the glow of +dawn, and how, one after another foretelling the end of summer, +first the nightingale ceased singing, then the quail, then a little +later the landrail. The days slipped by unnoticed, so that life +must have been happy and easy. He began calling aloud how reluctantly +he, poor and unaccustomed to change of scene and society, had come +at the end of April to the N—— District, where he had expected +dreariness, loneliness, and indifference to statistics, which he +considered was now the foremost among the sciences. When he arrived +on an April morning at the little town of N—— he had put up at +the inn kept by Ryabuhin, the Old Believer, where for twenty kopecks +a day they had given him a light, clean room on condition that he +should not smoke indoors. After resting and finding who was the +president of the District Zemstvo, he had set off at once on foot +to Kuznetsov. He had to walk three miles through lush meadows and +young copses. Larks were hovering in the clouds, filling the air +with silvery notes, and rooks flapping their wings with sedate +dignity floated over the green cornland.</p> + +<p id="id00116">"Good heavens!" Ognev had thought in wonder; "can it be that there's +always air like this to breathe here, or is this scent only to-day, +in honour of my coming?"</p> + +<p id="id00117">Expecting a cold business-like reception, he went in to Kuznetsov's +diffidently, looking up from under his eyebrows and shyly pulling +his beard. At first Kuznetsov wrinkled up his brows and could not +understand what use the Zemstvo could be to the young man and his +statistics; but when the latter explained at length what was material +for statistics and how such material was collected, Kuznetsov +brightened, smiled, and with childish curiosity began looking at +his notebooks. On the evening of the same day Ivan Alexeyitch was +already sitting at supper with the Kuznetsovs, was rapidly becoming +exhilarated by their strong home-made wine, and looking at the calm +faces and lazy movements of his new acquaintances, felt all over +that sweet, drowsy indolence which makes one want to sleep and +stretch and smile; while his new acquaintances looked at him +good-naturedly and asked him whether his father and mother were +living, how much he earned a month, how often he went to the +theatre. . . .</p> + +<p id="id00118">Ognev recalled his expeditions about the neighbourhood, the picnics, +the fishing parties, the visit of the whole party to the convent +to see the Mother Superior Marfa, who had given each of the visitors +a bead purse; he recalled the hot, endless typically Russian arguments +in which the opponents, spluttering and banging the table with their +fists, misunderstand and interrupt one another, unconsciously +contradict themselves at every phrase, continually change the +subject, and after arguing for two or three hours, laugh and say: +"Goodness knows what we have been arguing about! Beginning with one +thing and going on to another!"</p> + +<p id="id00119">"And do you remember how the doctor and you and I rode to Shestovo?" +said Ivan Alexeyitch to Vera as they reached the copse. "It was +there that the crazy saint met us: I gave him a five-kopeck piece, +and he crossed himself three times and flung it into the rye. Good +heavens! I am carrying away such a mass of memories that if I could +gather them together into a whole it would make a good nugget of +gold! I don't understand why clever, perceptive people crowd into +Petersburg and Moscow and don't come here. Is there more truth and +freedom in the Nevsky and in the big damp houses than here? Really, +the idea of artists, scientific men, and journalists all living +crowded together in furnished rooms has always seemed to me a +mistake."</p> + +<p id="id00120">Twenty paces from the copse the road was crossed by a small narrow +bridge with posts at the corners, which had always served as a +resting-place for the Kuznetsovs and their guests on their evening +walks. From there those who liked could mimic the forest echo, and +one could see the road vanish in the dark woodland track.</p> + +<p id="id00121">"Well, here is the bridge!" said Ognev. "Here you must turn back."</p> + +<p id="id00122">Vera stopped and drew a breath.</p> + +<p id="id00123">"Let us sit down," she said, sitting down on one of the posts. +"People generally sit down when they say good-bye before starting +on a journey."</p> + +<p id="id00124">Ognev settled himself beside her on his bundle of books and went +on talking. She was breathless from the walk, and was looking, not +at Ivan Alexeyitch, but away into the distance so that he could not +see her face.</p> + +<p id="id00125">"And what if we meet in ten years' time?" he said. "What shall we +be like then? You will be by then the respectable mother of a family, +and I shall be the author of some weighty statistical work of no +use to anyone, as thick as forty thousand such works. We shall meet +and think of old days. . . . Now we are conscious of the present; +it absorbs and excites us, but when we meet we shall not remember +the day, nor the month, nor even the year in which we saw each other +for the last time on this bridge. You will be changed, perhaps +. . . . Tell me, will you be different?"</p> + +<p id="id00126">Vera started and turned her face towards him.</p> + +<p id="id00127">"What?" she asked.</p> + +<p id="id00128">"I asked you just now. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00129">"Excuse me, I did not hear what you were saying."</p> + +<p id="id00130">Only then Ognev noticed a change in Vera. She was pale, breathing +fast, and the tremor in her breathing affected her hands and lips +and head, and not one curl as usual, but two, came loose and fell +on her forehead. . . . Evidently she avoided looking him in the +face, and, trying to mask her emotion, at one moment fingered her +collar, which seemed to be rasping her neck, at another pulled her +red shawl from one shoulder to the other.</p> + +<p id="id00131">"I am afraid you are cold," said Ognev. "It's not at all wise to +sit in the mist. Let me see you back <i>nach-haus</i>."</p> + +<p id="id00132">Vera sat mute.</p> + +<p id="id00133">"What is the matter?" asked Ognev, with a smile. "You sit silent +and don't answer my questions. Are you cross, or don't you feel +well?"</p> + +<p id="id00134">Vera pressed the palm of her hand to the cheek nearest to Ognev, +and then abruptly jerked it away.</p> + +<p id="id00135">"An awful position!" she murmured, with a look of pain on her face. +"Awful!"</p> + +<p id="id00136">"How is it awful?" asked Ognev, shrugging his shoulders and not +concealing his surprise. "What's the matter?"</p> + +<p id="id00137">Still breathing hard and twitching her shoulders, Vera turned her +back to him, looked at the sky for half a minute, and said:</p> + +<p id="id00138">"There is something I must say to you, Ivan Alexeyitch. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00139">"I am listening."</p> + +<p id="id00140">"It may seem strange to you. . . . You will be surprised, but I +don't care. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00141">Ognev shrugged his shoulders once more and prepared himself to +listen.</p> + +<p id="id00142">"You see . . ." Verotchka began, bowing her head and fingering a +ball on the fringe of her shawl. "You see . . . this is what I +wanted to tell you. . . . You'll think it strange . . . and silly, +but I . . . can't bear it any longer."</p> + +<p id="id00143">Vera's words died away in an indistinct mutter and were suddenly +cut short by tears. The girl hid her face in her handkerchief, bent +lower than ever, and wept bitterly. Ivan Alexeyitch cleared his +throat in confusion and looked about him hopelessly, at his wits' +end, not knowing what to say or do. Being unused to the sight of +tears, he felt his own eyes, too, beginning to smart.</p> + +<p id="id00144">"Well, what next!" he muttered helplessly. "Vera Gavrilovna, what's +this for, I should like to know? My dear girl, are you . . . are +you ill? Or has someone been nasty to you? Tell me, perhaps I could, +so to say . . . help you. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00145">When, trying to console her, he ventured cautiously to remove her +hands from her face, she smiled at him through her tears and said:</p> + +<p id="id00146">"I . . . love you!"</p> + +<p id="id00147">These words, so simple and ordinary, were uttered in ordinary human +language, but Ognev, in acute embarrassment, turned away from Vera, +and got up, while his confusion was followed by terror.</p> + +<p id="id00148">The sad, warm, sentimental mood induced by leave-taking and the +home-made wine suddenly vanished, and gave place to an acute and +unpleasant feeling of awkwardness. He felt an inward revulsion; he +looked askance at Vera, and now that by declaring her love for him +she had cast off the aloofness which so adds to a woman's charm, +she seemed to him, as it were, shorter, plainer, more ordinary.</p> + +<p id="id00149">"What's the meaning of it?" he thought with horror. "But I . . . +do I love her or not? That's the question!"</p> + +<p id="id00150">And she breathed easily and freely now that the worst and most +difficult thing was said. She, too, got up, and looking Ivan +Alexeyitch straight in the face, began talking rapidly, warmly, +irrepressibly.</p> + +<p id="id00151">As a man suddenly panic-stricken cannot afterwards remember the +succession of sounds accompanying the catastrophe that overwhelmed +him, so Ognev cannot remember Vera's words and phrases. He can only +recall the meaning of what she said, and the sensation her words +evoked in him. He remembers her voice, which seemed stifled and +husky with emotion, and the extraordinary music and passion of her +intonation. Laughing, crying with tears glistening on her eyelashes, +she told him that from the first day of their acquaintance he had +struck her by his originality, his intelligence, his kind intelligent +eyes, by his work and objects in life; that she loved him passionately, +deeply, madly; that when coming into the house from the garden in +the summer she saw his cape in the hall or heard his voice in the +distance, she felt a cold shudder at her heart, a foreboding of +happiness; even his slightest jokes had made her laugh; in every +figure in his note-books she saw something extraordinarily wise and +grand; his knotted stick seemed to her more beautiful than the +trees.</p> + +<p id="id00152">The copse and the wisps of mist and the black ditches at the side +of the road seemed hushed listening to her, whilst something strange +and unpleasant was passing in Ognev's heart. . . . Telling him of +her love, Vera was enchantingly beautiful; she spoke eloquently and +passionately, but he felt neither pleasure nor gladness, as he would +have liked to; he felt nothing but compassion for Vera, pity and +regret that a good girl should be distressed on his account. Whether +he was affected by generalizations from reading or by the insuperable +habit of looking at things objectively, which so often hinders +people from living, but Vera's ecstasies and suffering struck him +as affected, not to be taken seriously, and at the same time +rebellious feeling whispered to him that all he was hearing and +seeing now, from the point of view of nature and personal happiness, +was more important than any statistics and books and truths. . . . +And he raged and blamed himself, though he did not understand exactly +where he was in fault.</p> + +<p id="id00153">To complete his embarrassment, he was absolutely at a loss what to +say, and yet something he must say. To say bluntly, "I don't love +you," was beyond him, and he could not bring himself to say "Yes," +because however much he rummaged in his heart he could not find one +spark of feeling in it. . . .</p> + +<p id="id00154">He was silent, and she meanwhile was saying that for her there was +no greater happiness than to see him, to follow him wherever he +liked this very moment, to be his wife and helper, and that if he +went away from her she would die of misery.</p> + +<p id="id00155">"I cannot stay here!" she said, wringing her hands. "I am sick of +the house and this wood and the air. I cannot bear the everlasting +peace and aimless life, I can't endure our colourless, pale people, +who are all as like one another as two drops of water! They are all +good-natured and warm-hearted because they are all well-fed and +know nothing of struggle or suffering, . . . I want to be in those +big damp houses where people suffer, embittered by work and +need. . ."</p> + +<p id="id00156">And this, too, seemed to Ognev affected and not to be taken seriously. +When Vera had finished he still did not know what to say, but it +was impossible to be silent, and he muttered:</p> + +<p id="id00157">"Vera Gavrilovna, I am very grateful to you, though I feel I've +done nothing to deserve such . . . feeling . . . on your part. +Besides, as an honest man I ought to tell you that . . . happiness +depends on equality—that is, when both parties are . . . equally +in love. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00158">But he was immediately ashamed of his mutterings and ceased. He +felt that his face at that moment looked stupid, guilty, blank, +that it was strained and affected. . . . Vera must have been able +to read the truth on his countenance, for she suddenly became grave, +turned pale, and bent her head.</p> + +<p id="id00159">"You must forgive me," Ognev muttered, not able to endure the +silence. "I respect you so much that . . . it pains me. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00160">Vera turned sharply and walked rapidly homewards. Ognev followed +her.</p> + +<p id="id00161">"No, don't!" said Vera, with a wave of her hand. "Don't come; I can +go alone."</p> + +<p id="id00162">"Oh, yes . . . I must see you home anyway."</p> + +<p id="id00163">Whatever Ognev said, it all to the last word struck him as loathsome +and flat. The feeling of guilt grew greater at every step. He raged +inwardly, clenched his fists, and cursed his coldness and his +stupidity with women. Trying to stir his feelings, he looked at +Verotchka's beautiful figure, at her hair and the traces of her +little feet on the dusty road; he remembered her words and her +tears, but all that only touched his heart and did not quicken his +pulse.</p> + +<p id="id00164">"Ach! one can't force oneself to love," he assured himself, and at +the same time he thought, "But shall I ever fall in love without? +I am nearly thirty! I have never met anyone better than Vera and I +never shall. . . . Oh, this premature old age! Old age at thirty!"</p> + +<p id="id00165">Vera walked on in front more and more rapidly, without looking back +at him or raising her head. It seemed to him that sorrow had made +her thinner and narrower in the shoulders.</p> + +<p id="id00166">"I can imagine what's going on in her heart now!" he thought, looking +at her back. "She must be ready to die with shame and mortification! +My God, there's so much life, poetry, and meaning in it that it +would move a stone, and I . . . I am stupid and absurd!"</p> + +<p id="id00167">At the gate Vera stole a glance at him, and, shrugging and wrapping +her shawl round her walked rapidly away down the avenue.</p> + +<p id="id00168">Ivan Alexeyitch was left alone. Going back to the copse, he walked +slowly, continually standing still and looking round at the gate +with an expression in his whole figure that suggested that he could +not believe his own memory. He looked for Vera's footprints on the +road, and could not believe that the girl who had so attracted him +had just declared her love, and that he had so clumsily and bluntly +"refused" her. For the first time in his life it was his lot to +learn by experience how little that a man does depends on his own +will, and to suffer in his own person the feelings of a decent +kindly man who has against his will caused his neighbour cruel, +undeserved anguish.</p> + +<p id="id00169">His conscience tormented him, and when Vera disappeared he felt as +though he had lost something very precious, something very near and +dear which he could never find again. He felt that with Vera a part +of his youth had slipped away from him, and that the moments which +he had passed through so fruitlessly would never be repeated.</p> + +<p id="id00170">When he reached the bridge he stopped and sank into thought. He +wanted to discover the reason of his strange coldness. That it was +due to something within him and not outside himself was clear to +him. He frankly acknowledged to himself that it was not the +intellectual coldness of which clever people so often boast, not +the coldness of a conceited fool, but simply impotence of soul, +incapacity for being moved by beauty, premature old age brought on +by education, his casual existence, struggling for a livelihood, +his homeless life in lodgings. From the bridge he walked slowly, +as it were reluctantly, into the wood. Here, where in the dense +black darkness glaring patches of moonlight gleamed here and there, +where he felt nothing except his thoughts, he longed passionately +to regain what he had lost.</p> + +<p id="id00171">And Ivan Alexeyitch remembers that he went back again. Urging himself +on with his memories, forcing himself to picture Vera, he strode +rapidly towards the garden. There was no mist by then along the +road or in the garden, and the bright moon looked down from the sky +as though it had just been washed; only the eastern sky was dark +and misty. . . . Ognev remembers his cautious steps, the dark +windows, the heavy scent of heliotrope and mignonette. His old +friend Karo, wagging his tail amicably, came up to him and sniffed +his hand. This was the one living creature who saw him walk two or +three times round the house, stand near Vera's dark window, and +with a deep sigh and a wave of his hand walk out of the garden.</p> + +<p id="id00172">An hour later he was in the town, and, worn out and exhausted, +leaned his body and hot face against the gatepost of the inn as he +knocked at the gate. Somewhere in the town a dog barked sleepily, +and as though in response to his knock, someone clanged the hour +on an iron plate near the church.</p> + +<p id="id00173">"You prowl about at night," grumbled his host, the Old Believer, +opening the door to him, in a long nightgown like a woman's. "You +had better be saying your prayers instead of prowling about."</p> + +<p id="id00174">When Ivan Alexeyitch reached his room he sank on the bed and gazed +a long, long time at the light. Then he tossed his head and began +packing.</p> + +<h4 id="id00175" style="margin-top: 2em">MY LIFE</h4> + +<h5 id="id00176">THE STORY OF A PROVINCIAL</h5> + +<h5 id="id00177">I</h5> + +<p id="id00178">THE Superintendent said to me: "I only keep you out of regard for +your worthy father; but for that you would have been sent flying +long ago." I replied to him: "You flatter me too much, your Excellency, +in assuming that I am capable of flying." And then I heard him say: +"Take that gentleman away; he gets upon my nerves."</p> + +<p id="id00179">Two days later I was dismissed. And in this way I have, during the +years I have been regarded as grown up, lost nine situations, to +the great mortification of my father, the architect of our town. I +have served in various departments, but all these nine jobs have +been as alike as one drop of water is to another: I had to sit, +write, listen to rude or stupid observations, and go on doing so +till I was dismissed.</p> + +<p id="id00180">When I came in to my father he was sitting buried in a low arm-chair +with his eyes closed. His dry, emaciated face, with a shade of dark +blue where it was shaved (he looked like an old Catholic organist), +expressed meekness and resignation. Without responding to my greeting +or opening his eyes, he said:</p> + +<p id="id00181">"If my dear wife and your mother were living, your life would have +been a source of continual distress to her. I see the Divine +Providence in her premature death. I beg you, unhappy boy," he +continued, opening his eyes, "tell me: what am I to do with you?"</p> + +<p id="id00182">In the past when I was younger my friends and relations had known +what to do with me: some of them used to advise me to volunteer for +the army, others to get a job in a pharmacy, and others in the +telegraph department; now that I am over twenty-five, that grey +hairs are beginning to show on my temples, and that I have been +already in the army, and in a pharmacy, and in the telegraph +department, it would seem that all earthly possibilities have been +exhausted, and people have given up advising me, and merely sigh +or shake their heads.</p> + +<p id="id00183">"What do you think about yourself?" my father went on. "By the time +they are your age, young men have a secure social position, while +look at you: you are a proletarian, a beggar, a burden on your +father!"</p> + +<p id="id00184">And as usual he proceeded to declare that the young people of to-day +were on the road to perdition through infidelity, materialism, and +self-conceit, and that amateur theatricals ought to be prohibited, +because they seduced young people from religion and their duties.</p> + +<p id="id00185">"To-morrow we shall go together, and you shall apologize to the +superintendent, and promise him to work conscientiously," he said +in conclusion. "You ought not to remain one single day with no +regular position in society."</p> + +<p id="id00186">"I beg you to listen to me," I said sullenly, expecting nothing +good from this conversation. "What you call a position in society +is the privilege of capital and education. Those who have neither +wealth nor education earn their daily bread by manual labour, and +I see no grounds for my being an exception."</p> + +<p id="id00187">"When you begin talking about manual labour it is always stupid and +vulgar!" said my father with irritation. "Understand, you dense +fellow—understand, you addle-pate, that besides coarse physical +strength you have the divine spirit, a spark of the holy fire, which +distinguishes you in the most striking way from the ass or the +reptile, and brings you nearer to the Deity! This fire is the fruit +of the efforts of the best of mankind during thousands of years. +Your great-grandfather Poloznev, the general, fought at Borodino; +your grandfather was a poet, an orator, and a Marshal of Nobility; +your uncle is a schoolmaster; and lastly, I, your father, am an +architect! All the Poloznevs have guarded the sacred fire for you +to put it out!"</p> + +<p id="id00188">"One must be just," I said. "Millions of people put up with manual +labour."</p> + +<p id="id00189">"And let them put up with it! They don't know how to do anything +else! Anybody, even the most abject fool or criminal, is capable +of manual labour; such labour is the distinguishing mark of the +slave and the barbarian, while the holy fire is vouchsafed only to +a few!"</p> + +<p id="id00190">To continue this conversation was unprofitable. My father worshipped +himself, and nothing was convincing to him but what he said himself. +Besides, I knew perfectly well that the disdain with which he talked +of physical toil was founded not so much on reverence for the sacred +fire as on a secret dread that I should become a workman, and should +set the whole town talking about me; what was worse, all my +contemporaries had long ago taken their degrees and were getting +on well, and the son of the manager of the State Bank was already +a collegiate assessor, while I, his only son, was nothing! To +continue the conversation was unprofitable and unpleasant, but I +still sat on and feebly retorted, hoping that I might at last be +understood. The whole question, of course, was clear and simple, +and only concerned with the means of my earning my living; but the +simplicity of it was not seen, and I was talked to in mawkishly +rounded phrases of Borodino, of the sacred fire, of my uncle a +forgotten poet, who had once written poor and artificial verses; I +was rudely called an addlepate and a dense fellow. And how I longed +to be understood! In spite of everything, I loved my father and my +sister and it had been my habit from childhood to consult them—a +habit so deeply rooted that I doubt whether I could ever have got +rid of it; whether I were in the right or the wrong, I was in +constant dread of wounding them, constantly afraid that my father's +thin neck would turn crimson and that he would have a stroke.</p> + +<p id="id00191">"To sit in a stuffy room," I began, "to copy, to compete with a +typewriter, is shameful and humiliating for a man of my age. What +can the sacred fire have to do with it?"</p> + +<p id="id00192">"It's intellectual work, anyway," said my father. "But that's enough; +let us cut short this conversation, and in any case I warn you: if +you don't go back to your work again, but follow your contemptible +propensities, then my daughter and I will banish you from our hearts. +I shall strike you out of my will, I swear by the living God!"</p> + +<p id="id00193">With perfect sincerity to prove the purity of the motives by which +I wanted to be guided in all my doings, I said:</p> + +<p id="id00194">"The question of inheritance does not seem very important to me. I +shall renounce it all beforehand."</p> + +<p id="id00195">For some reason or other, quite to my surprise, these words were +deeply resented by my father. He turned crimson.</p> + +<p id="id00196">"Don't dare to talk to me like that, stupid!" he shouted in a thin, +shrill voice. "Wastrel!" and with a rapid, skilful, and habitual +movement he slapped me twice in the face. "You are forgetting +yourself."</p> + +<p id="id00197">When my father beat me as a child I had to stand up straight, with +my hands held stiffly to my trouser seams, and look him straight +in the face. And now when he hit me I was utterly overwhelmed, and, +as though I were still a child, drew myself up and tried to look +him in the face. My father was old and very thin but his delicate +muscles must have been as strong as leather, for his blows hurt a +good deal.</p> + +<p id="id00198">I staggered back into the passage, and there he snatched up his +umbrella, and with it hit me several times on the head and shoulders; +at that moment my sister opened the drawing-room door to find out +what the noise was, but at once turned away with a look of horror +and pity without uttering a word in my defence.</p> + +<p id="id00199">My determination not to return to the Government office, but to +begin a new life of toil, was not to be shaken. All that was left +for me to do was to fix upon the special employment, and there was +no particular difficulty about that, as it seemed to me that I was +very strong and fitted for the very heaviest labour. I was faced +with a monotonous life of toil in the midst of hunger, coarseness, +and stench, continually preoccupied with earning my daily bread. +And—who knows?—as I returned from my work along Great Dvoryansky +Street, I might very likely envy Dolzhikov, the engineer, who lived +by intellectual work, but, at the moment, thinking over all my +future hardships made me light-hearted. At times I had dreamed of +spiritual activity, imagining myself a teacher, a doctor, or a +writer, but these dreams remained dreams. The taste for intellectual +pleasures—for the theatre, for instance, and for reading—was +a passion with me, but whether I had any ability for intellectual +work I don't know. At school I had had an unconquerable aversion +for Greek, so that I was only in the fourth class when they had to +take me from school. For a long while I had coaches preparing me +for the fifth class. Then I served in various Government offices, +spending the greater part of the day in complete idleness, and I +was told that was intellectual work. My activity in the scholastic +and official sphere had required neither mental application nor +talent, nor special qualifications, nor creative impulse; it was +mechanical. Such intellectual work I put on a lower level than +physical toil; I despise it, and I don't think that for one moment +it could serve as a justification for an idle, careless life, as +it is indeed nothing but a sham, one of the forms of that same +idleness. Real intellectual work I have in all probability never +known.</p> + +<p id="id00200">Evening came on. We lived in Great Dvoryansky Street; it was the +principal street in the town, and in the absence of decent public +gardens our <i>beau monde</i> used to use it as a promenade in the +evenings. This charming street did to some extent take the place +of a public garden, as on each side of it there was a row of poplars +which smelt sweet, particularly after rain, and acacias, tall bushes +of lilac, wild-cherries and apple-trees hung over the fences and +palings. The May twilight, the tender young greenery with its +shifting shades, the scent of the lilac, the buzzing of the insects, +the stillness, the warmth—how fresh and marvellous it all is, +though spring is repeated every year! I stood at the garden gate +and watched the passers-by. With most of them I had grown up and +at one time played pranks; now they might have been disconcerted +by my being near them, for I was poorly and unfashionably dressed, +and they used to say of my very narrow trousers and huge, clumsy +boots that they were like sticks of macaroni stuck in boats. Besides, +I had a bad reputation in the town because I had no decent social +position, and used often to play billiards in cheap taverns, and +also, perhaps, because I had on two occasions been hauled up before +an officer of the police, though I had done nothing whatever to +account for this.</p> + +<p id="id00201">In the big house opposite someone was playing the piano at Dolzhikov's. +It was beginning to get dark, and stars were twinkling in the sky. +Here my father, in an old top-hat with wide upturned brim, walked +slowly by with my sister on his arm, bowing in response to greetings.</p> + +<p id="id00202">"Look up," he said to my sister, pointing to the sky with the same +umbrella with which he had beaten me that afternoon. "Look up at +the sky! Even the tiniest stars are all worlds! How insignificant +is man in comparison with the universe!"</p> + +<p id="id00203">And he said this in a tone that suggested that it was particularly +agreeable and flattering to him that he was so insignificant. How +absolutely devoid of talent and imagination he was! Sad to say, he +was the only architect in the town, and in the fifteen to twenty +years that I could remember not one single decent house had been +built in it. When any one asked him to plan a house, he usually +drew first the reception hall and drawing-room: just as in old days +the boarding-school misses always started from the stove when they +danced, so his artistic ideas could only begin and develop from the +hall and drawing-room. To them he tacked on a dining-room, a nursery, +a study, linking the rooms together with doors, and so they all +inevitably turned into passages, and every one of them had two or +even three unnecessary doors. His imagination must have been lacking +in clearness, extremely muddled, curtailed. As though feeling that +something was lacking, he invariably had recourse to all sorts of +outbuildings, planting one beside another; and I can see now the +narrow entries, the poky little passages, the crooked staircases +leading to half-landings where one could not stand upright, and +where, instead of a floor, there were three huge steps like the +shelves of a bath-house; and the kitchen was invariably in the +basement with a brick floor and vaulted ceilings. The front of the +house had a harsh, stubborn expression; the lines of it were stiff +and timid; the roof was low-pitched and, as it were, squashed down; +and the fat, well-fed-looking chimneys were invariably crowned by +wire caps with squeaking black cowls. And for some reason all these +houses, built by my father exactly like one another, vaguely reminded +me of his top-hat and the back of his head, stiff and stubborn-looking. +In the course of years they have grown used in the town to the +poverty of my father's imagination. It has taken root and become +our local style.</p> + +<p id="id00204">This same style my father had brought into my sister's life also, +beginning with christening her Kleopatra (just as he had named me +Misail). When she was a little girl he scared her by references to +the stars, to the sages of ancient times, to our ancestors, and +discoursed at length on the nature of life and duty; and now, when +she was twenty-six, he kept up the same habits, allowing her to +walk arm in arm with no one but himself, and imagining for some +reason that sooner or later a suitable young man would be sure to +appear, and to desire to enter into matrimony with her from respect +for his personal qualities. She adored my father, feared him, and +believed in his exceptional intelligence.</p> + +<p id="id00205">It was quite dark, and gradually the street grew empty. The music +had ceased in the house opposite; the gate was thrown wide open, +and a team with three horses trotted frolicking along our street +with a soft tinkle of little bells. That was the engineer going for +a drive with his daughter. It was bedtime.</p> + +<p id="id00206">I had my own room in the house, but I lived in a shed in the yard, +under the same roof as a brick barn which had been built some time +or other, probably to keep harness in; great hooks were driven into +the wall. Now it was not wanted, and for the last thirty years my +father had stowed away in it his newspapers, which for some reason +he had bound in half-yearly volumes and allowed nobody to touch. +Living here, I was less liable to be seen by my father and his +visitors, and I fancied that if I did not live in a real room, and +did not go into the house every day to dinner, my father's words +that I was a burden upon him did not sound so offensive.</p> + +<p id="id00207">My sister was waiting for me. Unseen by my father, she had brought +me some supper: not a very large slice of cold veal and a piece of +bread. In our house such sayings as: "A penny saved is a penny +gained," and "Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care +of themselves," and so on, were frequently repeated, and my sister, +weighed down by these vulgar maxims, did her utmost to cut down the +expenses, and so we fared badly. Putting the plate on the table, +she sat down on my bed and began to cry.</p> + +<p id="id00208">"Misail," she said, "what a way to treat us!"</p> + +<p id="id00209">She did not cover her face; her tears dropped on her bosom and +hands, and there was a look of distress on her face. She fell back +on the pillow, and abandoned herself to her tears, sobbing and +quivering all over.</p> + +<p id="id00210">"You have left the service again . . ." she articulated. "Oh, how +awful it is!"</p> + +<p id="id00211">"But do understand, sister, do understand . . . ." I said, and I +was overcome with despair because she was crying.</p> + +<p id="id00212">As ill-luck would have it, the kerosene in my little lamp was +exhausted; it began to smoke, and was on the point of going out, +and the old hooks on the walls looked down sullenly, and their +shadows flickered.</p> + +<p id="id00213">"Have mercy on us," said my sister, sitting up. "Father is in +terrible distress and I am ill; I shall go out of my mind. What +will become of you?" she said, sobbing and stretching out her arms +to me. "I beg you, I implore you, for our dear mother's sake, I beg +you to go back to the office!"</p> + +<p id="id00214">"I can't, Kleopatra!" I said, feeling that a little more and I +should give way. "I cannot!"</p> + +<p id="id00215">"Why not?" my sister went on. "Why not? Well, if you can't get on +with the Head, look out for another post. Why shouldn't you get a +situation on the railway, for instance? I have just been talking +to Anyuta Blagovo; she declares they would take you on the railway-line, +and even promised to try and get a post for you. For God's sake, +Misail, think a little! Think a little, I implore you."</p> + +<p id="id00216">We talked a little longer and I gave way. I said that the thought +of a job on the railway that was being constructed had never occurred +to me, and that if she liked I was ready to try it.</p> + +<p id="id00217">She smiled joyfully through her tears and squeezed my hand, and +then went on crying because she could not stop, while I went to the +kitchen for some kerosene.</p> + +<h5 id="id00218">II</h5> + +<p id="id00219">Among the devoted supporters of amateur theatricals, concerts and +<i>tableaux vivants</i> for charitable objects the Azhogins, who lived +in their own house in Great Dvoryansky Street, took a foremost +place; they always provided the room, and took upon themselves all +the troublesome arrangements and the expenses. They were a family +of wealthy landowners who had an estate of some nine thousand acres +in the district and a capital house, but they did not care for the +country, and lived winter and summer alike in the town. The family +consisted of the mother, a tall, spare, refined lady, with short +hair, a short jacket, and a flat-looking skirt in the English +fashion, and three daughters who, when they were spoken of, were +called not by their names but simply: the eldest, the middle, and +the youngest. They all had ugly sharp chins, and were short-sighted +and round-shouldered. They were dressed like their mother, they +lisped disagreeably, and yet, in spite of that, infallibly took +part in every performance and were continually doing something with +a charitable object—acting, reciting, singing. They were very +serious and never smiled, and even in a musical comedy they played +without the faintest trace of gaiety, with a businesslike air, as +though they were engaged in bookkeeping.</p> + +<p id="id00220">I loved our theatricals, especially the numerous, noisy, and rather +incoherent rehearsals, after which they always gave a supper. In +the choice of the plays and the distribution of the parts I had no +hand at all. The post assigned to me lay behind the scenes. I painted +the scenes, copied out the parts, prompted, made up the actors' +faces; and I was entrusted, too, with various stage effects such +as thunder, the singing of nightingales, and so on. Since I had no +proper social position and no decent clothes, at the rehearsals I +held aloof from the rest in the shadows of the wings and maintained +a shy silence.</p> + +<p id="id00221">I painted the scenes at the Azhogins' either in the barn or in the +yard. I was assisted by Andrey Ivanov, a house painter, or, as he +called himself, a contractor for all kinds of house decorations, a +tall, very thin, pale man of fifty, with a hollow chest, with sunken +temples, with blue rings round his eyes, rather terrible to look +at in fact. He was afflicted with some internal malady, and every +autumn and spring people said that he wouldn't recover, but after +being laid up for a while he would get up and say afterwards with +surprise: "I have escaped dying again."</p> + +<p id="id00222">In the town he was called Radish, and they declared that this was +his real name. He was as fond of the theatre as I was, and as soon +as rumours reached him that a performance was being got up he threw +aside all his work and went to the Azhogins' to paint scenes.</p> + +<p id="id00223">The day after my talk with my sister, I was working at the Azhogins' +from morning till night. The rehearsal was fixed for seven o'clock +in the evening, and an hour before it began all the amateurs were +gathered together in the hall, and the eldest, the middle, and the +youngest Azhogins were pacing about the stage, reading from manuscript +books. Radish, in a long rusty-red overcoat and a scarf muffled +round his neck, already stood leaning with his head against the +wall, gazing with a devout expression at the stage. Madame Azhogin +went up first to one and then to another guest, saying something +agreeable to each. She had a way of gazing into one's face, and +speaking softly as though telling a secret.</p> + +<p id="id00224">"It must be difficult to paint scenery," she said softly, coming +up to me. "I was just talking to Madame Mufke about superstitions +when I saw you come in. My goodness, my whole life I have been +waging war against superstitions! To convince the servants what +nonsense all their terrors are, I always light three candles, and +begin all my important undertakings on the thirteenth of the month."</p> + +<p id="id00225">Dolzhikov's daughter came in, a plump, fair beauty, dressed, as +people said, in everything from Paris. She did not act, but a chair +was set for her on the stage at the rehearsals, and the performances +never began till she had appeared in the front row, dazzling and +astounding everyone with her fine clothes. As a product of the +capital she was allowed to make remarks during the rehearsals; and +she did so with a sweet indulgent smile, and one could see that she +looked upon our performance as a childish amusement. It was said +she had studied singing at the Petersburg Conservatoire, and even +sang for a whole winter in a private opera. I thought her very +charming, and I usually watched her through the rehearsals and +performances without taking my eyes off her.</p> + +<p id="id00226">I had just picked up the manuscript book to begin prompting when +my sister suddenly made her appearance. Without taking off her cloak +or hat, she came up to me and said:</p> + +<p id="id00227">"Come along, I beg you."</p> + +<p id="id00228">I went with her. Anyuta Blagovo, also in her hat and wearing a dark +veil, was standing behind the scenes at the door. She was the +daughter of the Assistant President of the Court, who had held that +office in our town almost ever since the establishment of the circuit +court. Since she was tall and had a good figure, her assistance was +considered indispensable for <i>tableaux vivants</i>, and when she +represented a fairy or something like Glory her face burned with +shame; but she took no part in dramatic performances, and came to +the rehearsals only for a moment on some special errand, and did +not go into the hall. Now, too, it was evident that she had only +looked in for a minute.</p> + +<p id="id00229">"My father was speaking about you," she said drily, blushing and +not looking at me. "Dolzhikov has promised you a post on the +railway-line. Apply to him to-morrow; he will be at home."</p> + +<p id="id00230">I bowed and thanked her for the trouble she had taken.</p> + +<p id="id00231">"And you can give up this," she said, indicating the exercise book.</p> + +<p id="id00232">My sister and she went up to Madame Azhogin and for two minutes +they were whispering with her looking towards me; they were consulting +about something.</p> + +<p id="id00233">"Yes, indeed," said Madame Azhogin, softly coming up to me and +looking intently into my face. "Yes, indeed, if this distracts you +from serious pursuits"—she took the manuscript book from my hands—"you +can hand it over to someone else; don't distress yourself, +my friend, go home, and good luck to you."</p> + +<p id="id00234">I said good-bye to her, and went away overcome with confusion. As +I went down the stairs I saw my sister and Anyuta Blagovo going +away; they were hastening along, talking eagerly about something, +probably about my going into the railway service. My sister had +never been at a rehearsal before, and now she was most likely +conscience-stricken, and afraid her father might find out that, +without his permission, she had been to the Azhogins'!</p> + +<p id="id00235">I went to Dolzhikov's next day between twelve and one. The footman +conducted me into a very beautiful room, which was the engineer's +drawing-room, and, at the same time, his working study. Everything +here was soft and elegant, and, for a man so unaccustomed to luxury +as I was, it seemed strange. There were costly rugs, huge arm-chairs, +bronzes, pictures, gold and plush frames; among the photographs +scattered about the walls there were very beautiful women, clever, +lovely faces, easy attitudes; from the drawing-room there was a +door leading straight into the garden on to a verandah: one could +see lilac-trees; one could see a table laid for lunch, a number of +bottles, a bouquet of roses; there was a fragrance of spring and +expensive cigars, a fragrance of happiness—and everything seemed +as though it would say: "Here is a man who has lived and laboured, +and has attained at last the happiness possible on earth." The +engineer's daughter was sitting at the writing-table, reading a +newspaper.</p> + +<p id="id00236">"You have come to see my father?" she asked. "He is having a shower +bath; he will be here directly. Please sit down and wait."</p> + +<p id="id00237">I sat down.</p> + +<p id="id00238">"I believe you live opposite?" she questioned me, after a brief +silence.</p> + +<p id="id00239">"Yes."</p> + +<p id="id00240">"I am so bored that I watch you every day out of the window; you +must excuse me," she went on, looking at the newspaper, "and I often +see your sister; she always has such a look of kindness and +concentration."</p> + +<p id="id00241">Dolzhikov came in. He was rubbing his neck with a towel.</p> + +<p id="id00242">"Papa, Monsieur Poloznev," said his daughter.</p> + +<p id="id00243">"Yes, yes, Blagovo was telling me," he turned briskly to me without +giving me his hand. "But listen, what can I give you? What sort of +posts have I got? You are a queer set of people!" he went on aloud +in a tone as though he were giving me a lecture. "A score of you +keep coming to me every day; you imagine I am the head of a department! +I am constructing a railway-line, my friends; I have employment for +heavy labour: I need mechanics, smiths, navvies, carpenters, +well-sinkers, and none of you can do anything but sit and write! +You are all clerks."</p> + +<p id="id00244">And he seemed to me to have the same air of happiness as his rugs +and easy chairs. He was stout and healthy, ruddy-cheeked and +broad-chested, in a print cotton shirt and full trousers like a toy +china sledge-driver. He had a curly, round beard—and not a single +grey hair—a hooked nose, and clear, dark, guileless eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00245">"What can you do?" he went on. "There is nothing you can do! I am +an engineer. I am a man of an assured position, but before they +gave me a railway-line I was for years in harness; I have been a +practical mechanic. For two years I worked in Belgium as an oiler. +You can judge for yourself, my dear fellow, what kind of work can +I offer you?"</p> + +<p id="id00246">"Of course that is so . . ." I muttered in extreme confusion, unable +to face his clear, guileless eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00247">"Can you work the telegraph, any way?" he asked, after a moment's +thought.</p> + +<p id="id00248">"Yes, I have been a telegraph clerk."</p> + +<p id="id00249">"Hm! Well, we will see then. Meanwhile, go to Dubetchnya. I have +got a fellow there, but he is a wretched creature."</p> + +<p id="id00250">"And what will my duties consist of?" I asked.</p> + +<p id="id00251">"We shall see. Go there; meanwhile I will make arrangements. Only +please don't get drunk, and don't worry me with requests of any +sort, or I shall send you packing."</p> + +<p id="id00252">He turned away from me without even a nod.</p> + +<p id="id00253">I bowed to him and his daughter who was reading a newspaper, and +went away. My heart felt so heavy, that when my sister began asking +me how the engineer had received me, I could not utter a single +word.</p> + +<p id="id00254">I got up early in the morning, at sunrise, to go to Dubetchnya. +There was not a soul in our Great Dvoryansky Street; everyone was +asleep, and my footsteps rang out with a solitary, hollow sound. +The poplars, covered with dew, filled the air with soft fragrance. +I was sad, and did not want to go away from the town. I was fond +of my native town. It seemed to be so beautiful and so snug! I loved +the fresh greenery, the still, sunny morning, the chiming of our +bells; but the people with whom I lived in this town were boring, +alien to me, sometimes even repulsive. I did not like them nor +understand them.</p> + +<p id="id00255">I did not understand what these sixty-five thousand people lived +for and by. I knew that Kimry lived by boots, that Tula made samovars +and guns, that Odessa was a sea-port, but what our town was, and +what it did, I did not know. Great Dvoryansky Street and the two +other smartest streets lived on the interest of capital, or on +salaries received by officials from the public treasury; but what +the other eight streets, which ran parallel for over two miles and +vanished beyond the hills, lived upon, was always an insoluble +riddle to me. And the way those people lived one is ashamed to +describe! No garden, no theatre, no decent band; the public library +and the club library were only visited by Jewish youths, so that +the magazines and new books lay for months uncut; rich and well-educated +people slept in close, stuffy bedrooms, on wooden bedsteads infested +with bugs; their children were kept in revoltingly dirty rooms +called nurseries, and the servants, even the old and respected ones, +slept on the floor in the kitchen, covered with rags. On ordinary +days the houses smelt of beetroot soup, and on fast days of sturgeon +cooked in sunflower oil. The food was not good, and the drinking +water was unwholesome. In the town council, at the governor's, at +the head priest's, on all sides in private houses, people had been +saying for years and years that our town had not a good and cheap +water-supply, and that it was necessary to obtain a loan of two +hundred thousand from the Treasury for laying on water; very rich +people, of whom three dozen could have been counted up in our town, +and who at times lost whole estates at cards, drank the polluted +water, too, and talked all their lives with great excitement of a +loan for the water-supply—and I did not understand that; it +seemed to me it would have been simpler to take the two hundred +thousand out of their own pockets and lay it out on that object.</p> + +<p id="id00256">I did not know one honest man in the town. My father took bribes, +and imagined that they were given him out of respect for his moral +qualities; at the high school, in order to be moved up rapidly from +class to class, the boys went to board with their teachers, who +charged them exorbitant sums; the wife of the military commander +took bribes from the recruits when they were called up before the +board and even deigned to accept refreshments from them, and on one +occasion could not get up from her knees in church because she was +drunk; the doctors took bribes, too, when the recruits came up for +examination, and the town doctor and the veterinary surgeon levied +a regular tax on the butchers' shops and the restaurants; at the +district school they did a trade in certificates, qualifying for +partial exemption from military service; the higher clergy took +bribes from the humbler priests and from the church elders; at the +Municipal, the Artisans', and all the other Boards every petitioner +was pursued by a shout: "Don't forget your thanks!" and the petitioner +would turn back to give sixpence or a shilling. And those who did +not take bribes, such as the higher officials of the Department of +Justice, were haughty, offered two fingers instead of shaking hands, +were distinguished by the frigidity and narrowness of their judgments, +spent a great deal of time over cards, drank to excess, married +heiresses, and undoubtedly had a pernicious corrupting influence +on those around them. It was only the girls who had still the fresh +fragrance of moral purity; most of them had higher impulses, pure +and honest hearts; but they had no understanding of life, and +believed that bribes were given out of respect for moral qualities, +and after they were married grew old quickly, let themselves go +completely, and sank hopelessly in the mire of vulgar, petty bourgeois +existence.</p> + +<h5 id="id00257">III</h5> + +<p id="id00258">A railway-line was being constructed in our neighbourhood. On the +eve of feast days the streets were thronged with ragged fellows +whom the townspeople called "navvies," and of whom they were afraid. +And more than once I had seen one of these tatterdemalions with a +bloodstained countenance being led to the police station, while a +samovar or some linen, wet from the wash, was carried behind by way +of material evidence. The navvies usually congregated about the +taverns and the market-place; they drank, ate, and used bad language, +and pursued with shrill whistles every woman of light behaviour who +passed by. To entertain this hungry rabble our shopkeepers made +cats and dogs drunk with vodka, or tied an old kerosene can to a +dog's tail; a hue and cry was raised, and the dog dashed along the +street, jingling the can, squealing with terror; it fancied some +monster was close upon its heels; it would run far out of the town +into the open country and there sink exhausted. There were in the +town several dogs who went about trembling with their tails between +their legs; and people said this diversion had been too much for +them, and had driven them mad.</p> + +<p id="id00259">A station was being built four miles from the town. It was said +that the engineers asked for a bribe of fifty thousand roubles for +bringing the line right up to the town, but the town council would +only consent to give forty thousand; they could not come to an +agreement over the difference, and now the townspeople regretted +it, as they had to make a road to the station and that, it was +reckoned, would cost more. The sleepers and rails had been laid +throughout the whole length of the line, and trains ran up and down +it, bringing building materials and labourers, and further progress +was only delayed on account of the bridges which Dolzhikov was +building, and some of the stations were not yet finished.</p> + +<p id="id00260">Dubetchnya, as our first station was called, was a little under +twelve miles from the town. I walked. The cornfields, bathed in the +morning sunshine, were bright green. It was a flat, cheerful country, +and in the distance there were the distinct outlines of the station, +of ancient barrows, and far-away homesteads. . . . How nice it was +out there in the open! And how I longed to be filled with the sense +of freedom, if only for that one morning, that I might not think +of what was being done in the town, not think of my needs, not feel +hungry! Nothing has so marred my existence as an acute feeling of +hunger, which made images of buckwheat porridge, rissoles, and baked +fish mingle strangely with my best thoughts. Here I was standing +alone in the open country, gazing upward at a lark which hovered +in the air at the same spot, trilling as though in hysterics, and +meanwhile I was thinking: "How nice it would be to eat a piece of +bread and butter!"</p> + +<p id="id00261">Or I would sit down by the roadside to rest, and shut my eyes to +listen to the delicious sounds of May, and what haunted me was the +smell of hot potatoes. Though I was tall and strongly built, I had +as a rule little to eat, and so the predominant sensation throughout +the day was hunger, and perhaps that was why I knew so well how it +is that such multitudes of people toil merely for their daily bread, +and can talk of nothing but things to eat.</p> + +<p id="id00262">At Dubetchnya they were plastering the inside of the station, and +building a wooden upper storey to the pumping shed. It was hot; +there was a smell of lime, and the workmen sauntered listlessly +between the heaps of shavings and mortar rubble. The pointsman lay +asleep near his sentry box, and the sun was blazing full on his +face. There was not a single tree. The telegraph wire hummed faintly +and hawks were perching on it here and there. I, wandering, too, +among the heaps of rubbish, and not knowing what to do, recalled +how the engineer, in answer to my question what my duties would +consist in, had said: "We shall see when you are there"; but what +could one see in that wilderness?</p> + +<p id="id00263">The plasterers spoke of the foreman, and of a certain Fyodot Vasilyev. +I did not understand, and gradually I was overcome by depression—the +physical depression in which one is conscious of one's arms +and legs and huge body, and does not know what to do with them or +where to put them.</p> + +<p id="id00264">After I had been walking about for at least a couple of hours, I +noticed that there were telegraph poles running off to the right +from the station, and that they ended a mile or a mile and a half +away at a white stone wall. The workmen told me the office was +there, and at last I reflected that that was where I ought to go.</p> + +<p id="id00265">It was a very old manor house, deserted long ago. The wall round +it, of porous white stone, was mouldering and had fallen away in +places, and the lodge, the blank wall of which looked out on the +open country, had a rusty roof with patches of tin-plate gleaming +here and there on it. Within the gates could be seen a spacious +courtyard overgrown with rough weeds, and an old manor house with +sunblinds on the windows, and a high roof red with rust. Two lodges, +exactly alike, stood one on each side of the house to right and to +left: one had its windows nailed up with boards; near the other, +of which the windows were open, there was washing on the line, and +there were calves moving about. The last of the telegraph poles +stood in the courtyard, and the wire from it ran to the window of +the lodge, of which the blank wall looked out into the open country. +The door stood open; I went in. By the telegraph apparatus a gentleman +with a curly dark head, wearing a reefer coat made of sailcloth, +was sitting at a table; he glanced at me morosely from under his +brows, but immediately smiled and said:</p> + +<p id="id00266">"Hullo, Better-than-nothing!"</p> + +<p id="id00267">It was Ivan Tcheprakov, an old schoolfellow of mine, who had been +expelled from the second class for smoking. We used at one time, +during autumn, to catch goldfinches, finches, and linnets together, +and to sell them in the market early in the morning, while our +parents were still in their beds. We watched for flocks of migrating +starlings and shot at them with small shot, then we picked up those +that were wounded, and some of them died in our hands in terrible +agonies (I remember to this day how they moaned in the cage at +night); those that recovered we sold, and swore with the utmost +effrontery that they were all cocks. On one occasion at the market +I had only one starling left, which I had offered to purchasers in +vain, till at last I sold it for a farthing. "Anyway, it's better +than nothing," I said to comfort myself, as I put the farthing in +my pocket, and from that day the street urchins and the schoolboys +called after me: "Better-than-nothing"; and to this day the street +boys and the shopkeepers mock at me with the nickname, though no +one remembers how it arose.</p> + +<p id="id00268">Tcheprakov was not of robust constitution: he was narrow-chested, +round-shouldered, and long-legged. He wore a silk cord for a tie, +had no trace of a waistcoat, and his boots were worse than mine, +with the heels trodden down on one side. He stared, hardly even +blinking, with a strained expression, as though he were just going +to catch something, and he was always in a fuss.</p> + +<p id="id00269">"You wait a minute," he would say fussily. "You listen. . . . +Whatever was I talking about?" +</p> + +<p id="id00270">We got into conversation. I learned that the estate on which I now +was had until recently been the property of the Tcheprakovs, and +had only the autumn before passed into the possession of Dolzhikov, +who considered it more profitable to put his money into land than +to keep it in notes, and had already bought up three good-sized +mortgaged estates in our neighbourhood. At the sale Tcheprakov's +mother had reserved for herself the right to live for the next two +years in one of the lodges at the side, and had obtained a post for +her son in the office.</p> + +<p id="id00271">"I should think he could buy!" Tcheprakov said of the engineer. +"See what he fleeces out of the contractors alone! He fleeces +everyone!"</p> + +<p id="id00272">Then he took me to dinner, deciding fussily that I should live with +him in the lodge, and have my meals from his mother.</p> + +<p id="id00273">"She is a bit stingy," he said, "but she won't charge you much."</p> + +<p id="id00274">It was very cramped in the little rooms in which his mother lived; +they were all, even the passage and the entry, piled up with furniture +which had been brought from the big house after the sale; and the +furniture was all old-fashioned mahogany. Madame Tcheprakov, a very +stout middle-aged lady with slanting Chinese eyes, was sitting in +a big arm-chair by the window, knitting a stocking. She received +me ceremoniously.</p> + +<p id="id00275">"This is Poloznev, mamma," Tcheprakov introduced me. "He is going +to serve here."</p> + +<p id="id00276">"Are you a nobleman?" she asked in a strange, disagreeable voice: +it seemed to me to sound as though fat were bubbling in her throat.</p> + +<p id="id00277">"Yes," I answered.</p> + +<p id="id00278">"Sit down."</p> + +<p id="id00279">The dinner was a poor one. Nothing was served but pies filled with +bitter curd, and milk soup. Elena Nikiforovna, who presided, kept +blinking in a queer way, first with one eye and then with the other. +She talked, she ate, but yet there was something deathly about her +whole figure, and one almost fancied the faint smell of a corpse. +There was only a glimmer of life in her, a glimmer of consciousness +that she had been a lady who had once had her own serfs, that she +was the widow of a general whom the servants had to address as "your +Excellency"; and when these feeble relics of life flickered up in +her for an instant she would say to her son:</p> + +<p id="id00280">"Jean, you are not holding your knife properly!"</p> + +<p id="id00281">Or she would say to me, drawing a deep breath, with the mincing air +of a hostess trying to entertain a visitor:</p> + +<p id="id00282">"You know we have sold our estate. Of course, it is a pity, we are +used to the place, but Dolzhikov has promised to make Jean stationmaster +of Dubetchnya, so we shall not have to go away; we shall live here +at the station, and that is just the same as being on our own +property! The engineer is so nice! Don't you think he is very +handsome?"</p> + +<p id="id00283">Until recently the Tcheprakovs had lived in a wealthy style, but +since the death of the general everything had been changed. Elena +Nikiforovna had taken to quarrelling with the neighbours, to going +to law, and to not paying her bailiffs or her labourers; she was +in constant terror of being robbed, and in some ten years Dubetchnya +had become unrecognizable.</p> + +<p id="id00284">Behind the great house was an old garden which had already run wild, +and was overgrown with rough weeds and bushes. I walked up and down +the verandah, which was still solid and beautiful; through the glass +doors one could see a room with parquetted floor, probably the +drawing-room; an old-fashioned piano and pictures in deep mahogany +frames—there was nothing else. In the old flower-beds all that +remained were peonies and poppies, which lifted their white and +bright red heads above the grass. Young maples and elms, already +nibbled by the cows, grew beside the paths, drawn up and hindering +each other's growth. The garden was thickly overgrown and seemed +impassable, but this was only near the house where there stood +poplars, fir-trees, and old limetrees, all of the same age, relics +of the former avenues. Further on, beyond them the garden had been +cleared for the sake of hay, and here it was not moist and stuffy, +and there were no spiders' webs in one's mouth and eyes. A light +breeze was blowing. The further one went the more open it was, and +here in the open space were cherries, plums, and spreading apple-trees, +disfigured by props and by canker; and pear-trees so tall that one +could not believe they were pear-trees. This part of the garden was +let to some shopkeepers of the town, and it was protected from +thieves and starlings by a feeble-minded peasant who lived in a +shanty in it.</p> + +<p id="id00285">The garden, growing more and more open, till it became definitely +a meadow, sloped down to the river, which was overgrown with green +weeds and osiers. Near the milldam was the millpond, deep and full +of fish; a little mill with a thatched roof was working away with +a wrathful sound, and frogs croaked furiously. Circles passed from +time to time over the smooth, mirror-like water, and the water-lilies +trembled, stirred by the lively fish. On the further side of the +river was the little village Dubetchnya. The still, blue millpond +was alluring with its promise of coolness and peace. And now all +this—the millpond and the mill and the snug-looking banks—belonged +to the engineer!</p> + +<p id="id00286">And so my new work began. I received and forwarded telegrams, wrote +various reports, and made fair copies of the notes of requirements, +the complaints, and the reports sent to the office by the illiterate +foremen and workmen. But for the greater part of the day I did +nothing but walk about the room waiting for telegrams, or made a +boy sit in the lodge while I went for a walk in the garden, until +the boy ran to tell me that there was a tapping at the operating +machine. I had dinner at Madame Tcheprakov's. Meat we had very +rarely: our dishes were all made of milk, and Wednesdays and Fridays +were fast days, and on those days we had pink plates which were +called Lenten plates. Madame Tcheprakov was continually blinking—it +was her invariable habit, and I always felt ill at ease in +her presence.</p> + +<p id="id00287">As there was not enough work in the lodge for one, Tcheprakov did +nothing, but simply dozed, or went with his gun to shoot ducks on +the millpond. In the evenings he drank too much in the village or +the station, and before going to bed stared in the looking-glass +and said: "Hullo, Ivan Tcheprakov."</p> + +<p id="id00288">When he was drunk he was very pale, and kept rubbing his hands and +laughing with a sound like a neigh: "hee-hee-hee!" By way of bravado +he used to strip and run about the country naked. He used to eat +flies and say they were rather sour.</p> + +<h5 id="id00289">IV</h5> + +<p id="id00290">One day, after dinner, he ran breathless into the lodge and said: +"Go along, your sister has come." +</p> + +<p id="id00291">I went out, and there I found a hired brake from the town standing +before the entrance of the great house. My sister had come in it +with Anyuta Blagovo and a gentleman in a military tunic. Going up +closer I recognized the latter: it was the brother of Anyuta Blagovo, +the army doctor.</p> + +<p id="id00292">"We have come to you for a picnic," he said; "is that all right?"</p> + +<p id="id00293">My sister and Anyuta wanted to ask how I was getting on here, but +both were silent, and simply gazed at me. I was silent too. They +saw that I did not like the place, and tears came into my sister's +eyes, while Anyuta Blagovo turned crimson.</p> + +<p id="id00294">We went into the garden. The doctor walked ahead of us all and said +enthusiastically:</p> + +<p id="id00295">"What air! Holy Mother, what air!"</p> + +<p id="id00296">In appearance he was still a student. And he walked and talked like +a student, and the expression of his grey eyes was as keen, honest, +and frank as a nice student's. Beside his tall and handsome sister +he looked frail and thin; and his beard was thin too, and his voice, +too, was a thin but rather agreeable tenor. He was serving in a +regiment somewhere, and had come home to his people for a holiday, +and said he was going in the autumn to Petersburg for his examination +as a doctor of medicine. He was already a family man, with a wife +and three children, he had married very young, in his second year +at the University, and now people in the town said he was unhappy +in his family life and was not living with his wife.</p> + +<p id="id00297">"What time is it?" my sister asked uneasily. "We must get back in +good time. Papa let me come to see my brother on condition I was +back at six."</p> + +<p id="id00298">"Oh, bother your papa!" sighed the doctor.</p> + +<p id="id00299">I set the samovar. We put down a carpet before the verandah of the +great house and had our tea there, and the doctor knelt down, drank +out of his saucer, and declared that he now knew what bliss was. +Then Tcheprakov came with the key and opened the glass door, and +we all went into the house. There it was half dark and mysterious, +and smelt of mushrooms, and our footsteps had a hollow sound as +though there were cellars under the floor. The doctor stopped and +touched the keys of the piano, and it responded faintly with a +husky, quivering, but melodious chord; he tried his voice and sang +a song, frowning and tapping impatiently with his foot when some +note was mute. My sister did not talk about going home, but walked +about the rooms and kept saying:</p> + +<p id="id00300">"How happy I am! How happy I am!"</p> + +<p id="id00301">There was a note of astonishment in her voice, as though it seemed +to her incredible that she, too, could feel light-hearted. It was +the first time in my life I had seen her so happy. She actually +looked prettier. In profile she did not look nice; her nose and +mouth seemed to stick out and had an expression as though she were +pouting, but she had beautiful dark eyes, a pale, very delicate +complexion, and a touching expression of goodness and melancholy, +and when she talked she seemed charming and even beautiful. We both, +she and I, took after our mother, were broad shouldered, strongly +built, and capable of endurance, but her pallor was a sign of +ill-health; she often had a cough, and I sometimes caught in her +face that look one sees in people who are seriously ill, but for +some reason conceal the fact. There was something naïve and childish +in her gaiety now, as though the joy that had been suppressed and +smothered in our childhood by harsh education had now suddenly +awakened in her soul and found a free outlet.</p> + +<p id="id00302">But when evening came on and the horses were brought round, my +sister sank into silence and looked thin and shrunken, and she got +into the brake as though she were going to the scaffold.</p> + +<p id="id00303">When they had all gone, and the sound had died away . . . I remembered +that Anyuta Blagovo had not said a word to me all day.</p> + +<p id="id00304">"She is a wonderful girl!" I thought. "Wonderful girl!"</p> + +<p id="id00305">St. Peter's fast came, and we had nothing but Lenten dishes every +day. I was weighed down by physical depression due to idleness and +my unsettled position, and dissatisfied with myself. Listless and +hungry, I lounged about the garden and only waited for a suitable +mood to go away.</p> + +<p id="id00306">Towards evening one day, when Radish was sitting in the lodge, +Dolzhikov, very sunburnt and grey with dust, walked in unexpectedly. +He had been spending three days on his land, and had come now to +Dubetchnya by the steamer, and walked to us from the station. While +waiting for the carriage, which was to come for him from the town, +he walked round the grounds with his bailiff, giving orders in a +loud voice, then sat for a whole hour in our lodge, writing letters. +While he was there telegrams came for him, and he himself tapped +off the answers. We three stood in silence at attention.</p> + +<p id="id00307">"What a muddle!" he said, glancing contemptuously at a record book. +"In a fortnight I am transferring the office to the station, and I +don't know what I am to do with you, my friends."</p> + +<p id="id00308">"I do my best, your honour," said Tcheprakov.</p> + +<p id="id00309">"To be sure, I see how you do your best. The only thing you can do +is to take your salary," the engineer went on, looking at me; "you +keep relying on patronage to <i>faire le carrière</i> as quickly and as +easily as possible. Well, I don't care for patronage. No one took +any trouble on my behalf. Before they gave me a railway contract I +went about as a mechanic and worked in Belgium as an oiler. And +you, Panteley, what are you doing here?" he asked, turning to Radish. +"Drinking with them?"</p> + +<p id="id00310">He, for some reason, always called humble people Panteley, and such +as me and Tcheprakov he despised, and called them drunkards, beasts, +and rabble to their faces. Altogether he was cruel to humble +subordinates, and used to fine them and turn them off coldly without +explanations.</p> + +<p id="id00311">At last the horses came for him. As he said good-bye he promised +to turn us all off in a fortnight; he called his bailiff a blockhead; +and then, lolling at ease in his carriage, drove back to the town.</p> + +<p id="id00312">"Andrey Ivanitch," I said to Radish, "take me on as a workman."</p> + +<p id="id00313">"Oh, all right!"</p> + +<p id="id00314">And we set off together in the direction of the town. When the +station and the big house with its buildings were left behind I +asked: "Andrey Ivanitch, why did you come to Dubetchnya this evening?"</p> + +<p id="id00315">"In the first place my fellows are working on the line, and in the +second place I came to pay the general's lady my interest. Last +year I borrowed fifty roubles from her, and I pay her now a rouble +a month interest."</p> + +<p id="id00316">The painter stopped and took me by the button.</p> + +<p id="id00317">"Misail Alexeyitch, our angel," he went on. "The way I look at it +is that if any man, gentle or simple, takes even the smallest +interest, he is doing evil. There cannot be truth and justice in +such a man."</p> + +<p id="id00318">Radish, lean, pale, dreadful-looking, shut his eyes, shook his head, +and, in the tone of a philosopher, pronounced:</p> + +<p id="id00319">"Lice consume the grass, rust consumes the iron, and lying the soul. +Lord, have mercy upon us sinners."</p> + +<h5 id="id00320">V</h5> + +<p id="id00321">Radish was not practical, and was not at all good at forming an +estimate; he took more work than he could get through, and when +calculating he was agitated, lost his head, and so was almost always +out of pocket over his jobs. He undertook painting, glazing, +paperhanging, and even tiling roofs, and I can remember his running +about for three days to find tilers for the sake of a paltry job. +He was a first-rate workman; he sometimes earned as much as ten +roubles a day; and if it had not been for the desire at all costs +to be a master, and to be called a contractor, he would probably +have had plenty of money.</p> + +<p id="id00322">He was paid by the job, but he paid me and the other workmen by the +day, from one and twopence to two shillings a day. When it was fine +and dry we did all kinds of outside work, chiefly painting roofs. +When I was new to the work it made my feet burn as though I were +walking on hot bricks, and when I put on felt boots they were hotter +than ever. But this was only at first; later on I got used to it, +and everything went swimmingly. I was living now among people to +whom labour was obligatory, inevitable, and who worked like +cart-horses, often with no idea of the moral significance of labour, +and, indeed, never using the word "labour" in conversation at all. +Beside them I, too, felt like a cart-horse, growing more and more +imbued with the feeling of the obligatory and inevitable character +of what I was doing, and this made my life easier, setting me free +from all doubt and uncertainty.</p> + +<p id="id00323">At first everything interested me, everything was new, as though I +had been born again. I could sleep on the ground and go about +barefoot, and that was extremely pleasant; I could stand in a crowd +of the common people and be no constraint to anyone, and when a cab +horse fell down in the street I ran to help it up without being +afraid of soiling my clothes. And the best of it all was, I was +living on my own account and no burden to anyone!</p> + +<p id="id00324">Painting roofs, especially with our own oil and colours, was regarded +as a particularly profitable job, and so this rough, dull work was +not disdained, even by such good workmen as Radish. In short breeches, +and wasted, purple-looking legs, he used to go about the roofs, +looking like a stork, and I used to hear him, as he plied his brush, +breathing heavily and saying: "Woe, woe to us sinners!"</p> + +<p id="id00325">He walked about the roofs as freely as though he were upon the +ground. In spite of his being ill and pale as a corpse, his agility +was extraordinary: he used to paint the domes and cupolas of the +churches without scaffolding, like a young man, with only the help +of a ladder and a rope, and it was rather horrible when standing +on a height far from the earth; he would draw himself up erect, and +for some unknown reason pronounce:</p> + +<p id="id00326">"Lice consume grass, rust consumes iron, and lying the soul!"</p> + +<p id="id00327">Or, thinking about something, would answer his thoughts aloud:</p> + +<p id="id00328">"Anything may happen! Anything may happen!"</p> + +<p id="id00329">When I went home from my work, all the people who were sitting on +benches by the gates, all the shopmen and boys and their employers, +made sneering and spiteful remarks after me, and this upset me at +first and seemed to be simply monstrous.</p> + +<p id="id00330">"Better-than-nothing!" I heard on all sides. "House painter! Yellow +ochre!"</p> + +<p id="id00331">And none behaved so ungraciously to me as those who had only lately +been humble people themselves, and had earned their bread by hard +manual labour. In the streets full of shops I was once passing an +ironmonger's when water was thrown over me as though by accident, +and on one occasion someone darted out with a stick at me, while a +fishmonger, a grey-headed old man, barred my way and said, looking +at me angrily:</p> + +<p id="id00332">"I am not sorry for you, you fool! It's your father I am sorry for."</p> + +<p id="id00333">And my acquaintances were for some reason overcome with embarrassment +when they met me. Some of them looked upon me as a queer fish and +a comic fool; others were sorry for me; others did not know what +attitude to take up to me, and it was difficult to make them out. +One day I met Anyuta Blagovo in a side street near Great Dvoryansky +Street. I was going to work, and was carrying two long brushes and +a pail of paint. Recognizing me Anyuta flushed crimson.</p> + +<p id="id00334">"Please do not bow to me in the street," she said nervously, harshly, +and in a shaking voice, without offering me her hand, and tears +suddenly gleamed in her eyes. "If to your mind all this is necessary, +so be it . . . so be it, but I beg you not to meet me!"</p> + +<p id="id00335">I no longer lived in Great Dvoryansky Street, but in the suburb +with my old nurse Karpovna, a good-natured but gloomy old woman, +who always foreboded some harm, was afraid of all dreams, and even +in the bees and wasps that flew into her room saw omens of evil, +and the fact that I had become a workman, to her thinking, boded +nothing good.</p> + +<p id="id00336">"Your life is ruined," she would say, mournfully shaking her head, +"ruined."</p> + +<p id="id00337">Her adopted son Prokofy, a huge, uncouth, red-headed fellow of +thirty, with bristling moustaches, a butcher by trade, lived in the +little house with her. When he met me in the passage he would make +way for me in respectful silence, and if he was drunk he would +salute me with all five fingers at once. He used to have supper in +the evening, and through the partition wall of boards I could hear +him clear his throat and sigh as he drank off glass after glass.</p> + +<p id="id00338">"Mamma," he would call in an undertone.</p> + +<p id="id00339">"Well," Karpovna, who was passionately devoted to her adopted son, +would respond: "What is it, sonny?"</p> + +<p id="id00340">"I can show you a testimony of my affection, mamma. All this earthly +life I will cherish you in your declining years in this vale of +tears, and when you die I will bury you at my expense; I have said +it, and you can believe it."</p> + +<p id="id00341">I got up every morning before sunrise, and went to bed early. We +house painters ate a great deal and slept soundly; the only thing +amiss was that my heart used to beat violently at night. I did not +quarrel with my mates. Violent abuse, desperate oaths, and wishes +such as, "Blast your eyes," or "Cholera take you," never ceased all +day, but, nevertheless, we lived on very friendly terms. The other +fellows suspected me of being some sort of religious sectary, and +made good-natured jokes at my expense, saying that even my own +father had disowned me, and thereupon would add that they rarely +went into the temple of God themselves, and that many of them had +not been to confession for ten years. They justified this laxity +on their part by saying that a painter among men was like a jackdaw +among birds.</p> + +<p id="id00342">The men had a good opinion of me, and treated me with respect; it +was evident that my not drinking, not smoking, but leading a quiet, +steady life pleased them very much. It was only an unpleasant shock +to them that I took no hand in stealing oil and did not go with +them to ask for tips from people on whose property we were working. +Stealing oil and paints from those who employed them was a house +painter's custom, and was not regarded as theft, and it was remarkable +that even so upright a man as Radish would always carry away a +little white lead and oil as he went home from work. And even the +most respectable old fellows, who owned the houses in which they +lived in the suburb, were not ashamed to ask for a tip, and it made +me feel vexed and ashamed to see the men go in a body to congratulate +some nonentity on the commencement or the completion of the job, +and thank him with degrading servility when they had received a few +coppers.</p> + +<p id="id00343">With people on whose work they were engaged they behaved like wily +courtiers, and almost every day I was reminded of Shakespeare's +Polonius.</p> + +<p id="id00344">"I fancy it is going to rain," the man whose house was being painted +would say, looking at the sky.</p> + +<p id="id00345">"It is, there is not a doubt it is," the painters would agree.</p> + +<p id="id00346">"I don't think it is a rain-cloud, though. Perhaps it won't rain +after all."</p> + +<p id="id00347">"No, it won't, your honour! I am sure it won't."</p> + +<p id="id00348">But their attitude to their patrons behind their backs was usually +one of irony, and when they saw, for instance, a gentleman sitting +in the verandah reading a newspaper, they would observe:</p> + +<p id="id00349">"He reads the paper, but I daresay he has nothing to eat."</p> + +<p id="id00350">I never went home to see my own people. When I came back from work +I often found waiting for me little notes, brief and anxious, in +which my sister wrote to me about my father; that he had been +particularly preoccupied at dinner and had eaten nothing, or that +he had been giddy and staggering, or that he had locked himself in +his room and had not come out for a long time. Such items of news +troubled me; I could not sleep, and at times even walked up and +down Great Dvoryansky Street at night by our house, looking in at +the dark windows and trying to guess whether everything was well +at home. On Sundays my sister came to see me, but came in secret, +as though it were not to see me but our nurse. And if she came in +to see me she was very pale, with tear-stained eyes, and she began +crying at once.</p> + +<p id="id00351">"Our father will never live through this," she would say. "If +anything should happen to him—God grant it may not—your +conscience will torment you all your life. It's awful, Misail; for +our mother's sake I beseech you: reform your ways."</p> + +<p id="id00352">"My darling sister," I would say, "how can I reform my ways if I +am convinced that I am acting in accordance with my conscience? Do +understand!"</p> + +<p id="id00353">"I know you are acting on your conscience, but perhaps it could be +done differently, somehow, so as not to wound anybody."</p> + +<p id="id00354">"Ah, holy Saints!" the old woman sighed through the door. "Your +life is ruined! There will be trouble, my dears, there will be +trouble!"</p> + +<h5 id="id00355">VI</h5> + +<p id="id00356">One Sunday Dr. Blagovo turned up unexpectedly. He was wearing a +military tunic over a silk shirt and high boots of patent leather.</p> + +<p id="id00357">"I have come to see you," he began, shaking my hand heartily like +a student. "I am hearing about you every day, and I have been meaning +to come and have a heart-to-heart talk, as they say. The boredom +in the town is awful, there is not a living soul, no one to say a +word to. It's hot, Holy Mother," he went on, taking off his tunic +and sitting in his silk shirt. "My dear fellow, let me talk to you."</p> + +<p id="id00358">I was dull myself, and had for a long time been craving for the +society of someone not a house painter. I was genuinely glad to see +him.</p> + +<p id="id00359">"I'll begin by saying," he said, sitting down on my bed, "that I +sympathize with you from the bottom of my heart, and deeply respect +the life you are leading. They don't understand you here in the +town, and, indeed, there is no one to understand, seeing that, as +you know, they are all, with very few exceptions, regular Gogolesque +pig faces here. But I saw what you were at once that time at the +picnic. You are a noble soul, an honest, high-minded man! I respect +you, and feel it a great honour to shake hands with you!" he went +on enthusiastically. "To have made such a complete and violent +change of life as you have done, you must have passed through a +complicated spiritual crisis, and to continue this manner of life +now, and to keep up to the high standard of your convictions +continually, must be a strain on your mind and heart from day to +day. Now to begin our talk, tell me, don't you consider that if you +had spent your strength of will, this strained activity, all these +powers on something else, for instance, on gradually becoming a +great scientist, or artist, your life would have been broader and +deeper and would have been more productive?"</p> + +<p id="id00360">We talked, and when we got upon manual labour I expressed this idea: +that what is wanted is that the strong should not enslave the weak, +that the minority should not be a parasite on the majority, nor a +vampire for ever sucking its vital sap; that is, all, without +exception, strong and weak, rich and poor, should take part equally +in the struggle for existence, each one on his own account, and +that there was no better means for equalizing things in that way +than manual labour, in the form of universal service, compulsory +for all.</p> + +<p id="id00361">"Then do you think everyone without exception ought to engage in +manual labour?" asked the doctor.</p> + +<p id="id00362">"Yes."</p> + +<p id="id00363">"And don't you think that if everyone, including the best men, the +thinkers and great scientists, taking part in the struggle for +existence, each on his own account, are going to waste their time +breaking stones and painting roofs, may not that threaten a grave +danger to progress?"</p> + +<p id="id00364">"Where is the danger?" I asked. "Why, progress is in deeds of love, +in fulfilling the moral law; if you don't enslave anyone, if you +don't oppress anyone, what further progress do you want?"</p> + +<p id="id00365">"But, excuse me," Blagovo suddenly fired up, rising to his feet. +"But, excuse me! If a snail in its shell busies itself over perfecting +its own personality and muddles about with the moral law, do you +call that progress?"</p> + +<p id="id00366">"Why muddles?" I said, offended. "If you don't force your neighbour +to feed and clothe you, to transport you from place to place and +defend you from your enemies, surely in the midst of a life entirely +resting on slavery, that is progress, isn't it? To my mind it is +the most important progress, and perhaps the only one possible and +necessary for man."</p> + +<p id="id00367">"The limits of universal world progress are in infinity, and to +talk of some 'possible' progress limited by our needs and temporary +theories is, excuse my saying so, positively strange."</p> + +<p id="id00368">"If the limits of progress are in infinity as you say, it follows +that its aims are not definite," I said. "To live without knowing +definitely what you are living for!"</p> + +<p id="id00369">"So be it! But that 'not knowing' is not so dull as your 'knowing.' +I am going up a ladder which is called progress, civilization, +culture; I go on and up without knowing definitely where I am going, +but really it is worth living for the sake of that delightful ladder; +while you know what you are living for, you live for the sake of +some people's not enslaving others, that the artist and the man who +rubs his paints may dine equally well. But you know that's the +petty, bourgeois, kitchen, grey side of life, and surely it is +revolting to live for that alone? If some insects do enslave others, +bother them, let them devour each other! We need not think about +them. You know they will die and decay just the same, however +zealously you rescue them from slavery. We must think of that great +millennium which awaits humanity in the remote future."</p> + +<p id="id00370">Blagovo argued warmly with me, but at the same time one could see +he was troubled by some irrelevant idea.</p> + +<p id="id00371">"I suppose your sister is not coming?" he said, looking at his +watch. "She was at our house yesterday, and said she would be seeing +you to-day. You keep saying slavery, slavery . . ." he went on. +"But you know that is a special question, and all such questions +are solved by humanity gradually."</p> + +<p id="id00372">We began talking of doing things gradually. I said that "the question +of doing good or evil every one settles for himself, without waiting +till humanity settles it by the way of gradual development. Moreover, +this gradual process has more than one aspect. Side by side with +the gradual development of human ideas the gradual growth of ideas +of another order is observed. Serfdom is no more, but the capitalist +system is growing. And in the very heyday of emancipating ideas, +just as in the days of Baty, the majority feeds, clothes, and defends +the minority while remaining hungry, inadequately clad, and +defenceless. Such an order of things can be made to fit in finely +with any tendencies and currents of thought you like, because the +art of enslaving is also gradually being cultivated. We no longer +flog our servants in the stable, but we give to slavery refined +forms, at least, we succeed in finding a justification for it in +each particular case. Ideas are ideas with us, but if now, at the +end of the nineteenth century, it were possible to lay the burden +of the most unpleasant of our physiological functions upon the +working class, we should certainly do so, and afterwards, of course, +justify ourselves by saying that if the best people, the thinkers +and great scientists, were to waste their precious time on these +functions, progress might be menaced with great danger."</p> + +<p id="id00373">But at this point my sister arrived. Seeing the doctor she was +fluttered and troubled, and began saying immediately that it was +time for her to go home to her father.</p> + +<p id="id00374">"Kleopatra Alexyevna," said Blagovo earnestly, pressing both hands +to his heart, "what will happen to your father if you spend half +an hour or so with your brother and me?"</p> + +<p id="id00375">He was frank, and knew how to communicate his liveliness to others. +After a moment's thought, my sister laughed, and all at once became +suddenly gay as she had been at the picnic. We went out into the +country, and lying in the grass went on with our talk, and looked +towards the town where all the windows facing west were like +glittering gold because the sun was setting.</p> + +<p id="id00376">After that, whenever my sister was coming to see me Blagovo turned +up too, and they always greeted each other as though their meeting +in my room was accidental. My sister listened while the doctor and +I argued, and at such times her expression was joyfully enthusiastic, +full of tenderness and curiosity, and it seemed to me that a new +world she had never dreamed of before, and which she was now striving +to fathom, was gradually opening before her eyes. When the doctor +was not there she was quiet and sad, and now if she sometimes shed +tears as she sat on my bed it was for reasons of which she did not +speak.</p> + +<p id="id00377">In August Radish ordered us to be ready to go to the railway-line. +Two days before we were "banished" from the town my father came to +see me. He sat down and in a leisurely way, without looking at me, +wiped his red face, then took out of his pocket our town <i>Messenger</i>, +and deliberately, with emphasis on each word, read out the news +that the son of the branch manager of the State Bank, a young man +of my age, had been appointed head of a Department in the Exchequer.</p> + +<p id="id00378">"And now look at you," he said, folding up the newspaper, "a beggar, +in rags, good for nothing! Even working-class people and peasants +obtain education in order to become men, while you, a Poloznev, +with ancestors of rank and distinction, aspire to the gutter! But +I have not come here to talk to you; I have washed my hands of you—" +he added in a stifled voice, getting up. "I have come to find +out where your sister is, you worthless fellow. She left home after +dinner, and here it is nearly eight and she is not back. She has +taken to going out frequently without telling me; she is less dutiful—and +I see in it your evil and degrading influence. Where is she?"</p> + +<p id="id00379">In his hand he had the umbrella I knew so well, and I was already +flustered and drew myself up like a schoolboy, expecting my father +to begin hitting me with it, but he noticed my glance at the umbrella +and most likely that restrained him.</p> + +<p id="id00380">"Live as you please!" he said. "I shall not give you my blessing!"</p> + +<p id="id00381">"Holy Saints!" my nurse muttered behind the door. "You poor, unlucky +child! Ah, my heart bodes ill!"</p> + +<p id="id00382">I worked on the railway-line. It rained without stopping all August; +it was damp and cold; they had not carried the corn in the fields, +and on big farms where the wheat had been cut by machines it lay +not in sheaves but in heaps, and I remember how those luckless heaps +of wheat turned blacker every day and the grain was sprouting in +them. It was hard to work; the pouring rain spoiled everything we +managed to do. We were not allowed to live or to sleep in the railway +buildings, and we took refuge in the damp and filthy mud huts in +which the navvies had lived during the summer, and I could not sleep +at night for the cold and the woodlice crawling on my face and +hands. And when we worked near the bridges the navvies used to come +in the evenings in a gang, simply in order to beat the painters—it +was a form of sport to them. They used to beat us, to steal our +brushes. And to annoy us and rouse us to fight they used to spoil +our work; they would, for instance, smear over the signal boxes +with green paint. To complete our troubles, Radish took to paying +us very irregularly. All the painting work on the line was given +out to a contractor; he gave it out to another; and this subcontractor +gave it to Radish after subtracting twenty per cent. for himself. +The job was not a profitable one in itself, and the rain made it +worse; time was wasted; we could not work while Radish was obliged +to pay the fellows by the day. The hungry painters almost came to +beating him, called him a cheat, a blood-sucker, a Judas, while he, +poor fellow, sighed, lifted up his hand to Heaven in despair, and +was continually going to Madame Tcheprakov for money.</p> + +<h5 id="id00383">VII</h5> + +<p id="id00384">Autumn came on, rainy, dark, and muddy. The season of unemployment +set in, and I used to sit at home out of work for three days at a +stretch, or did various little jobs, not in the painting line. For +instance, I wheeled earth, earning about fourpence a day by it. Dr. +Blagovo had gone away to Petersburg. My sister had given up coming +to see me. Radish was laid up at home ill, expecting death from day +to day.</p> + +<p id="id00385">And my mood was autumnal too. Perhaps because, having become a +workman, I saw our town life only from the seamy side, it was my +lot almost every day to make discoveries which reduced me almost +to despair. Those of my fellow-citizens, about whom I had no opinion +before, or who had externally appeared perfectly decent, turned out +now to be base, cruel people, capable of any dirty action. We common +people were deceived, cheated, and kept waiting for hours together +in the cold entry or the kitchen; we were insulted and treated with +the utmost rudeness. In the autumn I papered the reading-room and +two other rooms at the club; I was paid a penny three-farthings the +piece, but had to sign a receipt at the rate of twopence halfpenny, +and when I refused to do so, a gentleman of benevolent appearance +in gold-rimmed spectacles, who must have been one of the club +committee, said to me:</p> + +<p id="id00386">"If you say much more, you blackguard, I'll pound your face into a +jelly!"</p> + +<p id="id00387">And when the flunkey whispered to him what I was, the son of Poloznev +the architect, he became embarrassed, turned crimson, but immediately +recovered himself and said: "Devil take him."</p> + +<p id="id00388">In the shops they palmed off on us workmen putrid meat, musty flour, +and tea that had been used and dried again; the police hustled us +in church, the assistants and nurses in the hospital plundered us, +and if we were too poor to give them a bribe they revenged themselves +by bringing us food in dirty vessels. In the post-office the pettiest +official considered he had a right to treat us like animals, and +to shout with coarse insolence: "You wait!" "Where are you shoving +to?" Even the housedogs were unfriendly to us, and fell upon us +with peculiar viciousness. But the thing that struck me most of all +in my new position was the complete lack of justice, what is defined +by the peasants in the words: "They have forgotten God." Rarely did +a day pass without swindling. We were swindled by the merchants who +sold us oil, by the contractors and the workmen and the people who +employed us. I need not say that there could never be a question +of our rights, and we always had to ask for the money we earned as +though it were a charity, and to stand waiting for it at the back +door, cap in hand.</p> + +<p id="id00389">I was papering a room at the club next to the reading-room; in the +evening, when I was just getting ready to go, the daughter of +Dolzhikov, the engineer, walked into the room with a bundle of books +under her arm.</p> + +<p id="id00390">I bowed to her.</p> + +<p id="id00391">"Oh, how do you do!" she said, recognizing me at once, and holding +out her hand. "I'm very glad to see you."</p> + +<p id="id00392">She smiled and looked with curiosity and wonder at my smock, my +pail of paste, the paper stretched on the floor; I was embarrassed, +and she, too, felt awkward.</p> + +<p id="id00393">"You must excuse my looking at you like this," she said. "I have +been told so much about you. Especially by Dr. Blagovo; he is simply +in love with you. And I have made the acquaintance of your sister +too; a sweet, dear girl, but I can never persuade her that there +is nothing awful about your adopting the simple life. On the contrary, +you have become the most interesting man in the town."</p> + +<p id="id00394">She looked again at the pail of paste and the wallpaper, and went +on:</p> + +<p id="id00395">"I asked Dr. Blagovo to make me better acquainted with you, but +apparently he forgot, or had not time. Anyway, we are acquainted +all the same, and if you would come and see me quite simply I should +be extremely indebted to you. I so long to have a talk. I am a +simple person," she added, holding out her hand to me, "and I hope +that you will feel no constraint with me. My father is not here, +he is in Petersburg."</p> + +<p id="id00396">She went off into the reading-room, rustling her skirts, while I +went home, and for a long time could not get to sleep.</p> + +<p id="id00397">That cheerless autumn some kind soul, evidently wishing to alleviate +my existence, sent me from time to time tea and lemons, or biscuits, +or roast game. Karpovna told me that they were always brought by a +soldier, and from whom they came she did not know; and the soldier +used to enquire whether I was well, and whether I dined every day, +and whether I had warm clothing. When the frosts began I was presented +in the same way in my absence with a soft knitted scarf brought by +the soldier. There was a faint elusive smell of scent about it, and +I guessed who my good fairy was. The scarf smelt of lilies-of-the-valley, +the favourite scent of Anyuta Blagovo.</p> + +<p id="id00398">Towards winter there was more work and it was more cheerful. Radish +recovered, and we worked together in the cemetery church, where we +were putting the ground-work on the ikon-stand before gilding. It +was a clean, quiet job, and, as our fellows used to say, profitable. +One could get through a lot of work in a day, and the time passed +quickly, imperceptibly. There was no swearing, no laughter, no loud +talk. The place itself compelled one to quietness and decent +behaviour, and disposed one to quiet, serious thoughts. Absorbed +in our work we stood or sat motionless like statues; there was a +deathly silence in keeping with the cemetery, so that if a tool +fell, or a flame spluttered in the lamp, the noise of such sounds +rang out abrupt and resonant, and made us look round. After a long +silence we would hear a buzzing like the swarming of bees: it was +the requiem of a baby being chanted slowly in subdued voices in the +porch; or an artist, painting a dove with stars round it on a cupola +would begin softly whistling, and recollecting himself with a start +would at once relapse into silence; or Radish, answering his thoughts, +would say with a sigh: "Anything is possible! Anything is possible!" +or a slow disconsolate bell would begin ringing over our heads, and +the painters would observe that it must be for the funeral of some +wealthy person. . . .</p> + +<p id="id00399">My days I spent in this stillness in the twilight of the church, +and in the long evenings I played billiards or went to the theatre +in the gallery wearing the new trousers I had bought out of my own +earnings. Concerts and performances had already begun at the +Azhogins'; Radish used to paint the scenes alone now. He used to +tell me the plot of the plays and describe the <i>tableaux vivants</i> +which he witnessed. I listened to him with envy. I felt greatly +drawn to the rehearsals, but I could not bring myself to go to the +Azhogins'.</p> + +<p id="id00400">A week before Christmas Dr. Blagovo arrived. And again we argued +and played billiards in the evenings. When he played he used to +take off his coat and unbutton his shirt over his chest, and for +some reason tried altogether to assume the air of a desperate rake. +He did not drink much, but made a great uproar about it, and had a +special faculty for getting through twenty roubles in an evening +at such a poor cheap tavern as the <i>Volga</i>.</p> + +<p id="id00401">My sister began coming to see me again; they both expressed surprise +every time on seeing each other, but from her joyful, guilty face +it was evident that these meetings were not accidental. One evening, +when we were playing billiards, the doctor said to me:</p> + +<p id="id00402">"I say, why don't you go and see Miss Dolzhikov? You don't know +Mariya Viktorovna; she is a clever creature, a charmer, a simple, +good-natured soul."</p> + +<p id="id00403">I described how her father had received me in the spring.</p> + +<p id="id00404">"Nonsense!" laughed the doctor, "the engineer's one thing and she's +another. Really, my dear fellow, you mustn't be nasty to her; go +and see her sometimes. For instance, let's go and see her tomorrow +evening. What do you say?"</p> + +<p id="id00405">He persuaded me. The next evening I put on my new serge trousers, +and in some agitation I set off to Miss Dolzhikov's. The footman +did not seem so haughty and terrible, nor the furniture so gorgeous, +as on that morning when I had come to ask a favour. Mariya Viktorovna +was expecting me, and she received me like an old acquaintance, +shaking hands with me in a friendly way. She was wearing a grey +cloth dress with full sleeves, and had her hair done in the style +which we used to call "dogs' ears," when it came into fashion in +the town a year before. The hair was combed down over the ears, and +this made Mariya Viktorovna's face look broader, and she seemed to +me this time very much like her father, whose face was broad and +red, with something in its expression like a sledge-driver. She was +handsome and elegant, but not youthful looking; she looked thirty, +though in reality she was not more than twenty-five.</p> + +<p id="id00406">"Dear Doctor, how grateful I am to you," she said, making me sit +down. "If it hadn't been for him you wouldn't have come to see me. +I am bored to death! My father has gone away and left me alone, and +I don't know what to do with myself in this town."</p> + +<p id="id00407">Then she began asking me where I was working now, how much I earned, +where I lived.</p> + +<p id="id00408">"Do you spend on yourself nothing but what you earn?" she asked.</p> + +<p id="id00409">"No."</p> + +<p id="id00410">"Happy man!" she sighed. "All the evil in life, it seems to me, +comes from idleness, boredom, and spiritual emptiness, and all this +is inevitable when one is accustomed to living at other people's +expense. Don't think I am showing off, I tell you truthfully: it +is not interesting or pleasant to be rich. 'Make to yourselves +friends of the mammon of unrighteousness' is said, because there +is not and cannot be a mammon that's righteous."</p> + +<p id="id00411">She looked round at the furniture with a grave, cold expression, +as though she wanted to count it over, and went on:</p> + +<p id="id00412">"Comfort and luxury have a magical power; little by little they +draw into their clutches even strong-willed people. At one time +father and I lived simply, not in a rich style, but now you see +how! It is something monstrous," she said, shrugging her shoulders; +"we spend up to twenty thousand a year! In the provinces!"</p> + +<p id="id00413">"One comes to look at comfort and luxury as the invariable privilege +of capital and education," I said, "and it seems to me that the +comforts of life may be combined with any sort of labour, even the +hardest and dirtiest. Your father is rich, and yet he says himself +that it has been his lot to be a mechanic and an oiler."</p> + +<p id="id00414">She smiled and shook her head doubtfully: "My father sometimes eats +bread dipped in kvass," she said. "It's a fancy, a whim!"</p> + +<p id="id00415">At that moment there was a ring and she got up.</p> + +<p id="id00416">"The rich and well-educated ought to work like everyone else," she +said, "and if there is comfort it ought to be equal for all. There +ought not to be any privileges. But that's enough philosophizing. +Tell me something amusing. Tell me about the painters. What are +they like? Funny?"</p> + +<p id="id00417">The doctor came in; I began telling them about the painters, but, +being unaccustomed to talking, I was constrained, and described +them like an ethnologist, gravely and tediously. The doctor, too, +told us some anecdotes of working men: he staggered about, shed +tears, dropped on his knees, and, even, mimicking a drunkard, lay +on the floor; it was as good as a play, and Mariya Viktorovna laughed +till she cried as she looked at him. Then he played on the piano +and sang in his thin, pleasant tenor, while Mariya Viktorovna stood +by and picked out what he was to sing, and corrected him when he +made a mistake.</p> + +<p id="id00418">"I've heard that you sing, too?" I enquired.</p> + +<p id="id00419">"Sing, too!" cried the doctor in horror. "She sings exquisitely, a +perfect artist, and you talk of her 'singing too'! What an idea!"</p> + +<p id="id00420">"I did study in earnest at one time," she said, answering my question, +"but now I have given it up."</p> + +<p id="id00421">Sitting on a low stool she told us of her life in Petersburg, and +mimicked some celebrated singers, imitating their voice and manner +of singing. She made a sketch of the doctor in her album, then of +me; she did not draw well, but both the portraits were like us. She +laughed, and was full of mischief and charming grimaces, and this +suited her better than talking about the mammon of unrighteousness, +and it seemed to me that she had been talking just before about +wealth and luxury, not in earnest, but in imitation of someone. She +was a superb comic actress. I mentally compared her with our young +ladies, and even the handsome, dignified Anyuta Blagovo could not +stand comparison with her; the difference was immense, like the +difference between a beautiful, cultivated rose and a wild briar.</p> + +<p id="id00422">We had supper together, the three of us. The doctor and Mariya +Viktorovna drank red wine, champagne, and coffee with brandy in it; +they clinked glasses and drank to friendship, to enlightenment, to +progress, to liberty, and they did not get drunk but only flushed, +and were continually, for no reason, laughing till they cried. So +as not to be tiresome I drank claret too.</p> + +<p id="id00423">"Talented, richly endowed natures," said Miss Dolzhikov, "know how +to live, and go their own way; mediocre people, like myself for +instance, know nothing and can do nothing of themselves; there is +nothing left for them but to discern some deep social movement, and +to float where they are carried by it."</p> + +<p id="id00424">"How can one discern what doesn't exist?" asked the doctor.</p> + +<p id="id00425">"We think so because we don't see it."</p> + +<p id="id00426">"Is that so? The social movements are the invention of the new +literature. There are none among us."</p> + +<p id="id00427">An argument began.</p> + +<p id="id00428">"There are no deep social movements among us and never have been," +the doctor declared loudly. "There is no end to what the new +literature has invented! It has invented intellectual workers in +the country, and you may search through all our villages and find +at the most some lout in a reefer jacket or a black frock-coat who +will make four mistakes in spelling a word of three letters. Cultured +life has not yet begun among us. There's the same savagery, the +same uniform boorishness, the same triviality, as five hundred years +ago. Movements, currents there have been, but it has all been petty, +paltry, bent upon vulgar and mercenary interests—and one cannot +see anything important in them. If you think you have discerned a +deep social movement, and in following it you devote yourself to +tasks in the modern taste, such as the emancipation of insects from +slavery or abstinence from beef rissoles, I congratulate you, Madam. +We must study, and study, and study and we must wait a bit with our +deep social movements; we are not mature enough for them yet; and +to tell the truth, we don't know anything about them."</p> + +<p id="id00429">"You don't know anything about them, but I do," said Mariya Viktorovna. +"Goodness, how tiresome you are to-day!"</p> + +<p id="id00430">"Our duty is to study and to study, to try to accumulate as much +knowledge as possible, for genuine social movements arise where +there is knowledge; and the happiness of mankind in the future lies +only in knowledge. I drink to science!"</p> + +<p id="id00431">"There is no doubt about one thing: one must organize one's life +somehow differently," said Mariya Viktorovna, after a moment's +silence and thought. "Life, such as it has been hitherto, is not +worth having. Don't let us talk about it."</p> + +<p id="id00432">As we came away from her the cathedral clock struck two.</p> + +<p id="id00433">"Did you like her?" asked the doctor; "she's nice, isn't she?"</p> + +<p id="id00434">On Christmas day we dined with Mariya Viktorovna, and all through +the holidays we went to see her almost every day. There was never +anyone there but ourselves, and she was right when she said that +she had no friends in the town but the doctor and me. We spent our +time for the most part in conversation; sometimes the doctor brought +some book or magazine and read aloud to us. In reality he was the +first well-educated man I had met in my life: I cannot judge whether +he knew a great deal, but he always displayed his knowledge as +though he wanted other people to share it. When he talked about +anything relating to medicine he was not like any one of the doctors +in our town, but made a fresh, peculiar impression upon me, and I +fancied that if he liked he might have become a real man of science. +And he was perhaps the only person who had a real influence upon +me at that time. Seeing him, and reading the books he gave me, I +began little by little to feel a thirst for the knowledge which +would have given significance to my cheerless labour. It seemed +strange to me, for instance, that I had not known till then that +the whole world was made up of sixty elements, I had not known what +oil was, what paints were, and that I could have got on without +knowing these things. My acquaintance with the doctor elevated me +morally too. I was continually arguing with him and, though I usually +remained of my own opinion, yet, thanks to him, I began to perceive +that everything was not clear to me, and I began trying to work out +as far as I could definite convictions in myself, that the dictates +of conscience might be definite, and that there might be nothing +vague in my mind. Yet, though he was the most cultivated and best +man in the town, he was nevertheless far from perfection. In his +manners, in his habit of turning every conversation into an argument, +in his pleasant tenor, even in his friendliness, there was something +coarse, like a divinity student, and when he took off his coat and +sat in his silk shirt, or flung a tip to a waiter in the restaurant, +I always fancied that culture might be all very well, but the Tatar +was fermenting in him still.</p> + +<p id="id00435">At Epiphany he went back to Petersburg. He went off in the morning, +and after dinner my sister came in. Without taking off her fur coat +and her cap she sat down in silence, very pale, and kept her eyes +fixed on the same spot. She was chilled by the frost and one could +see that she was upset by it.</p> + +<p id="id00436">"You must have caught cold," I said.</p> + +<p id="id00437">Her eyes filled with tears; she got up and went out to Karpovna +without saying a word to me, as though I had hurt her feelings. And +a little later I heard her saying, in a tone of bitter reproach:</p> + +<p id="id00438">"Nurse, what have I been living for till now? What? Tell me, haven't +I wasted my youth? All the best years of my life to know nothing +but keeping accounts, pouring out tea, counting the halfpence, +entertaining visitors, and thinking there was nothing better in the +world! Nurse, do understand, I have the cravings of a human being, +and I want to live, and they have turned me into something like a +housekeeper. It's horrible, horrible!"</p> + +<p id="id00439">She flung her keys towards the door, and they fell with a jingle +into my room. They were the keys of the sideboard, of the kitchen +cupboard, of the cellar, and of the tea-caddy, the keys which my +mother used to carry.</p> + +<p id="id00440">"Oh, merciful heavens!" cried the old woman in horror. "Holy Saints +above!"</p> + +<p id="id00441">Before going home my sister came into my room to pick up the keys, +and said:</p> + +<p id="id00442">"You must forgive me. Something queer has happened to me lately."</p> + +<h5 id="id00443">VIII</h5> + +<p id="id00444">On returning home late one evening from Mariya Viktorovna's I found +waiting in my room a young police inspector in a new uniform; he +was sitting at my table, looking through my books.</p> + +<p id="id00445">"At last," he said, getting up and stretching himself. "This is the +third time I have been to you. The Governor commands you to present +yourself before him at nine o'clock in the morning. Without fail."</p> + +<p id="id00446">He took from me a signed statement that I would act upon his +Excellency's command, and went away. This late visit of the police +inspector and unexpected invitation to the Governor's had an +overwhelmingly oppressive effect upon me. From my earliest childhood +I have felt terror-stricken in the presence of gendarmes, policemen, +and law court officials, and now I was tormented by uneasiness, as +though I were really guilty in some way. And I could not get to +sleep. My nurse and Prokofy were also upset and could not sleep. +My nurse had earache too; she moaned, and several times began crying +with pain. Hearing that I was awake, Prokofy came into my room with +a lamp and sat down at the table.</p> + +<p id="id00447">"You ought to have a drink of pepper cordial," he said, after a +moment's thought. "If one does have a drink in this vale of tears +it does no harm. And if Mamma were to pour a little pepper cordial +in her ear it would do her a lot of good."</p> + +<p id="id00448">Between two and three he was going to the slaughter-house for the +meat. I knew I should not sleep till morning now, and to get through +the time till nine o'clock I went with him. We walked with a lantern, +while his boy Nikolka, aged thirteen, with blue patches on his +cheeks from frostbites, a regular young brigand to judge by his +expression, drove after us in the sledge, urging on the horse in a +husky voice.</p> + +<p id="id00449">"I suppose they will punish you at the Governor's," Prokofy said +to me on the way. "There are rules of the trade for governors, and +rules for the higher clergy, and rules for the officers, and rules +for the doctors, and every class has its rules. But you haven't +kept to your rules, and you can't be allowed."</p> + +<p id="id00450">The slaughter-house was behind the cemetery, and till then I had +only seen it in the distance. It consisted of three gloomy barns, +surrounded by a grey fence, and when the wind blew from that quarter +on hot days in summer, it brought a stifling stench from them. Now +going into the yard in the dark I did not see the barns; I kept +coming across horses and sledges, some empty, some loaded up with +meat. Men were walking about with lanterns, swearing in a disgusting +way. Prokofy and Nikolka swore just as revoltingly, and the air was +in a continual uproar with swearing, coughing, and the neighing of +horses.</p> + +<p id="id00451">There was a smell of dead bodies and of dung. It was thawing, the +snow was changing into mud; and in the darkness it seemed to me +that I was walking through pools of blood.</p> + +<p id="id00452">Having piled up the sledges full of meat we set off to the butcher's +shop in the market. It began to get light. Cooks with baskets and +elderly ladies in mantles came along one after another. Prokofy, +with a chopper in his hand, in a white apron spattered with blood, +swore fearful oaths, crossed himself at the church, shouted aloud +for the whole market to hear, that he was giving away the meat at +cost price and even at a loss to himself. He gave short weight and +short change, the cooks saw that, but, deafened by his shouts, did +not protest, and only called him a hangman. Brandishing and bringing +down his terrible chopper he threw himself into picturesque attitudes, +and each time uttered the sound "Geck" with a ferocious expression, +and I was afraid he really would chop off somebody's head or hand.</p> + +<p id="id00453">I spent all the morning in the butcher's shop, and when at last I +went to the Governor's, my overcoat smelt of meat and blood. My +state of mind was as though I were being sent spear in hand to meet +a bear. I remember the tall staircase with a striped carpet on it, +and the young official, with shiny buttons, who mutely motioned me +to the door with both hands, and ran to announce me. I went into a +hall luxuriously but frigidly and tastelessly furnished, and the +high, narrow mirrors in the spaces between the walls, and the bright +yellow window curtains, struck the eye particularly unpleasantly. +One could see that the governors were changed, but the furniture +remained the same. Again the young official motioned me with both +hands to the door, and I went up to a big green table at which a +military general, with the Order of Vladimir on his breast, was +standing.</p> + +<p id="id00454">"Mr. Poloznev, I have asked you to come," he began, holding a letter +in his hand, and opening his mouth like a round "o," "I have asked +you to come here to inform you of this. Your highly respected father +has appealed by letter and by word of mouth to the Marshal of the +Nobility begging him to summon you, and to lay before you the +inconsistency of your behaviour with the rank of the nobility to +which you have the honour to belong. His Excellency Alexandr +Pavlovitch, justly supposing that your conduct might serve as a bad +example, and considering that mere persuasion on his part would not +be sufficient, but that official intervention in earnest was +essential, presents me here in this letter with his views in regard +to you, which I share."</p> + +<p id="id00455">He said this, quietly, respectfully, standing erect, as though I +were his superior officer and looking at me with no trace of severity. +His face looked worn and wizened, and was all wrinkles; there were +bags under his eyes; his hair was dyed; and it was impossible to +tell from his appearance how old he was—forty or sixty.</p> + +<p id="id00456">"I trust," he went on, "that you appreciate the delicacy of our +honoured Alexandr Pavlovitch, who has addressed himself to me not +officially, but privately. I, too, have asked you to come here +unofficially, and I am speaking to you, not as a Governor, but from +a sincere regard for your father. And so I beg you either to alter +your line of conduct and return to duties in keeping with your rank, +or to avoid setting a bad example, remove to another district where +you are not known, and where you can follow any occupation you +please. In the other case, I shall be forced to take extreme +measures."</p> + +<p id="id00457">He stood for half a minute in silence, looking at me with his mouth +open.</p> + +<p id="id00458">"Are you a vegetarian?" he asked.</p> + +<p id="id00459">"No, your Excellency, I eat meat."</p> + +<p id="id00460">He sat down and drew some papers towards him. I bowed and went out.</p> + +<p id="id00461">It was not worth while now to go to work before dinner. I went home +to sleep, but could not sleep from an unpleasant, sickly feeling, +induced by the slaughter house and my conversation with the Governor, +and when the evening came I went, gloomy and out of sorts, to Mariya +Viktorovna. I told her how I had been at the Governor's, while she +stared at me in perplexity as though she did not believe it, then +suddenly began laughing gaily, loudly, irrepressibly, as only +good-natured laughter-loving people can.</p> + +<p id="id00462">"If only one could tell that in Petersburg!" she brought out, almost +falling over with laughter, and propping herself against the table. +"If one could tell that in Petersburg!"</p> + +<h5 id="id00463">IX</h5> + +<p id="id00464">Now we used to see each other often, sometimes twice a day. She +used to come to the cemetery almost every day after dinner, and +read the epitaphs on the crosses and tombstones while she waited +for me. Sometimes she would come into the church, and, standing by +me, would look on while I worked. The stillness, the naïve work of +the painters and gilders, Radish's sage reflections, and the fact +that I did not differ externally from the other workmen, and worked +just as they did in my waistcoat with no socks on, and that I was +addressed familiarly by them—all this was new to her and touched +her. One day a workman, who was painting a dove on the ceiling, +called out to me in her presence:</p> + +<p id="id00465">"Misail, hand me up the white paint."</p> + +<p id="id00466">I took him the white paint, and afterwards, when I let myself down +by the frail scaffolding, she looked at me, touched to tears and +smiling.</p> + +<p id="id00467">"What a dear you are!" she said.</p> + +<p id="id00468">I remembered from my childhood how a green parrot, belonging to one +of the rich men of the town, had escaped from its cage, and how for +quite a month afterwards the beautiful bird had haunted the town, +flying from garden to garden, homeless and solitary. Mariya Viktorovna +reminded me of that bird.</p> + +<p id="id00469">"There is positively nowhere for me to go now but the cemetery," +she said to me with a laugh. "The town has become disgustingly dull. +At the Azhogins' they are still reciting, singing, lisping. I have +grown to detest them of late; your sister is an unsociable creature; +Mademoiselle Blagovo hates me for some reason. I don't care for the +theatre. Tell me where am I to go?"</p> + +<p id="id00470">When I went to see her I smelt of paint and turpentine, and my hands +were stained—and she liked that; she wanted me to come to her +in my ordinary working clothes; but in her drawing-room those clothes +made me feel awkward. I felt embarrassed, as though I were in +uniform, so I always put on my new serge trousers when I went to +her. And she did not like that.</p> + +<p id="id00471">"You must own you are not quite at home in your new character," she +said to me one day. "Your workman's dress does not feel natural to +you; you are awkward in it. Tell me, isn't that because you haven't +a firm conviction, and are not satisfied? The very kind of work you +have chosen—your painting—surely it does not satisfy you, +does it?" she asked, laughing. "I know paint makes things look nicer +and last longer, but those things belong to rich people who live +in towns, and after all they are luxuries. Besides, you have often +said yourself that everybody ought to get his bread by the work of +his own hands, yet you get money and not bread. Why shouldn't you +keep to the literal sense of your words? You ought to be getting +bread, that is, you ought to be ploughing, sowing, reaping, threshing, +or doing something which has a direct connection with agriculture, +for instance, looking after cows, digging, building huts of +logs. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00472">She opened a pretty cupboard that stood near her writing-table, and +said:</p> + +<p id="id00473">"I am saying all this to you because I want to let you into my +secret. <i>Voilà !</i> This is my agricultural library. Here I have fields, +kitchen garden and orchard, and cattleyard and beehives. I read +them greedily, and have already learnt all the theory to the tiniest +detail. My dream, my darling wish, is to go to our Dubetchnya as +soon as March is here. It's marvellous there, exquisite, isn't it? +The first year I shall have a look round and get into things, and +the year after I shall begin to work properly myself, putting my +back into it as they say. My father has promised to give me Dubetchnya +and I shall do exactly what I like with it."</p> + +<p id="id00474">Flushed, excited to tears, and laughing, she dreamed aloud how she +would live at Dubetchnya, and what an interesting life it would be! +I envied her. March was near, the days were growing longer and +longer, and on bright sunny days water dripped from the roofs at +midday, and there was a fragrance of spring; I, too, longed for the +country.</p> + +<p id="id00475">And when she said that she should move to Dubetchnya, I realized +vividly that I should remain in the town alone, and I felt that I +envied her with her cupboard of books and her agriculture. I knew +nothing of work on the land, and did not like it, and I should have +liked to have told her that work on the land was slavish toil, but +I remembered that something similar had been said more than once +by my father, and I held my tongue.</p> + +<p id="id00476">Lent began. Viktor Ivanitch, whose existence I had begun to forget, +arrived from Petersburg. He arrived unexpectedly, without even a +telegram to say he was coming. When I went in, as usual in the +evening, he was walking about the drawing-room, telling some story +with his face freshly washed and shaven, looking ten years younger: +his daughter was kneeling on the floor, taking out of his trunks +boxes, bottles, and books, and handing them to Pavel the footman. +I involuntarily drew back a step when I saw the engineer, but he +held out both hands to me and said, smiling, showing his strong +white teeth that looked like a sledge-driver's:</p> + +<p id="id00477">"Here he is, here he is! Very glad to see you, Mr. House-painter! +Masha has told me all about it; she has been singing your praises. +I quite understand and approve," he went on, taking my arm. "To be +a good workman is ever so much more honest and more sensible than +wasting government paper and wearing a cockade on your head. I +myself worked in Belgium with these very hands and then spent two +years as a mechanic. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00478">He was wearing a short reefer jacket and indoor slippers; he walked +like a man with the gout, rolling slightly from side to side and +rubbing his hands. Humming something he softly purred and hugged +himself with satisfaction at being at home again at last, and able +to have his beloved shower bath.</p> + +<p id="id00479">"There is no disputing," he said to me at supper, "there is no +disputing; you are all nice and charming people, but for some reason, +as soon as you take to manual labour, or go in for saving the +peasants, in the long run it all comes to no more than being a +dissenter. Aren't you a dissenter? Here you don't take vodka. What's +the meaning of that if it is not being a dissenter?"</p> + +<p id="id00480">To satisfy him I drank some vodka and I drank some wine, too. We +tasted the cheese, the sausage, the pâtés, the pickles, and the +savouries of all sorts that the engineer had brought with him, and +the wine that had come in his absence from abroad. The wine was +first-rate. For some reason the engineer got wine and cigars from +abroad without paying duty; the caviare and the dried sturgeon +someone sent him for nothing; he did not pay rent for his flat as +the owner of the house provided the kerosene for the line; and +altogether he and his daughter produced on me the impression that +all the best in the world was at their service, and provided for +them for nothing.</p> + +<p id="id00481">I went on going to see them, but not with the same eagerness. The +engineer made me feel constrained, and in his presence I did not +feel free. I could not face his clear, guileless eyes, his reflections +wearied and sickened me; I was sickened, too, by the memory that +so lately I had been in the employment of this red-faced, well-fed +man, and that he had been brutally rude to me. It is true that he +put his arm round my waist, slapped me on the shoulder in a friendly +way, approved my manner of life, but I felt that, as before, he +despised my insignificance, and only put up with me to please his +daughter, and I couldn't now laugh and talk as I liked, and I behaved +unsociably and kept expecting that in another minute he would address +me as Panteley as he did his footman Pavel. How my pride as a +provincial and a working man was revolted. I, a proletarian, a house +painter, went every day to rich people who were alien to me, and +whom the whole town regarded as though they were foreigners, and +every day I drank costly wines with them and ate unusual dainties—my +conscience refused to be reconciled to it! On my way to the +house I sullenly avoided meeting people, and looked at them from +under my brows as though I really were a dissenter, and when I was +going home from the engineer's I was ashamed of my well-fed condition.</p> + +<p id="id00482">Above all I was afraid of being carried away. Whether I was walking +along the street, or working, or talking to the other fellows, I +was all the time thinking of one thing only, of going in the evening +to see Mariya Viktorovna and was picturing her voice, her laugh, +her movements. When I was getting ready to go to her I always spent +a long time before my nurse's warped looking-glass, as I fastened +my tie; my serge trousers were detestable in my eyes, and I suffered +torments, and at the same time despised myself for being so trivial. +When she called to me out of the other room that she was not dressed +and asked me to wait, I listened to her dressing; it agitated me, +I felt as though the ground were giving way under my feet. And when +I saw a woman's figure in the street, even at a distance, I invariably +compared it. It seemed to me that all our girls and women were +vulgar, that they were absurdly dressed, and did not know how to +hold themselves; and these comparisons aroused a feeling of pride +in me: Mariya Viktorovna was the best of them all! And I dreamed +of her and myself at night.</p> + +<p id="id00483">One evening at supper with the engineer we ate a whole lobster As +I was going home afterwards I remembered that the engineer twice +called me "My dear fellow" at supper, and I reflected that they +treated me very kindly in that house, as they might an unfortunate +big dog who had been kicked out by its owners, that they were amusing +themselves with me, and that when they were tired of me they would +turn me out like a dog. I felt ashamed and wounded, wounded to the +point of tears as though I had been insulted, and looking up at the +sky I took a vow to put an end to all this.</p> + +<p id="id00484">The next day I did not go to the Dolzhikov's. Late in the evening, +when it was quite dark and raining, I walked along Great Dvoryansky +Street, looking up at the windows. Everyone was asleep at the +Azhogins', and the only light was in one of the furthest windows. +It was Madame Azhogin in her own room, sewing by the light of three +candles, imagining that she was combating superstition. Our house +was in darkness, but at the Dolzhikovs', on the contrary, the windows +were lighted up, but one could distinguish nothing through the +flowers and the curtains. I kept walking up and down the street; +the cold March rain drenched me through. I heard my father come +home from the club; he stood knocking at the gate. A minute later +a light appeared at the window, and I saw my sister, who was hastening +down with a lamp, while with the other hand she was twisting her +thick hair together as she went. Then my father walked about the +drawing-room, talking and rubbing his hands, while my sister sat +in a low chair, thinking and not listening to what he said.</p> + +<p id="id00485">But then they went away; the light went out. . . . I glanced round +at the engineer's, and there, too, all was darkness now. In the +dark and the rain I felt hopelessly alone, abandoned to the whims +of destiny; I felt that all my doings, my desires, and everything +I had thought and said till then were trivial in comparison with +my loneliness, in comparison with my present suffering, and the +suffering that lay before me in the future. Alas, the thoughts and +doings of living creatures are not nearly so significant as their +sufferings! And without clearly realizing what I was doing, I pulled +at the bell of the Dolzhikovs' gate, broke it, and ran along the +street like some naughty boy, with a feeling of terror in my heart, +expecting every moment that they would come out and recognize me. +When I stopped at the end of the street to take breath I could hear +nothing but the sound of the rain, and somewhere in the distance a +watchman striking on a sheet of iron.</p> + +<p id="id00486">For a whole week I did not go to the Dolzhikovs'. My serge trousers +were sold. There was nothing doing in the painting trade. I knew +the pangs of hunger again, and earned from twopence to fourpence a +day, where I could, by heavy and unpleasant work. Struggling up to +my knees in the cold mud, straining my chest, I tried to stifle my +memories, and, as it were, to punish myself for the cheeses and +preserves with which I had been regaled at the engineer's. But all +the same, as soon as I lay in bed, wet and hungry, my sinful +imagination immediately began to paint exquisite, seductive pictures, +and with amazement I acknowledged to myself that I was in love, +passionately in love, and I fell into a sound, heavy sleep, feeling +that hard labour only made my body stronger and younger.</p> + +<p id="id00487">One evening snow began falling most inappropriately, and the wind +blew from the north as though winter had come back again. When I +returned from work that evening I found Mariya Viktorovna in my +room. She was sitting in her fur coat, and had both hands in her +muff.</p> + +<p id="id00488">"Why don't you come to see me?" she asked, raising her clear, clever +eyes, and I was utterly confused with delight and stood stiffly +upright before her, as I used to stand facing my father when he was +going to beat me; she looked into my face and I could see from her +eyes that she understood why I was confused.</p> + +<p id="id00489">"Why don't you come to see me?" she repeated. "If you don't want +to come, you see, I have come to you."</p> + +<p id="id00490">She got up and came close to me.</p> + +<p id="id00491">"Don't desert me," she said, and her eyes filled with tears. "I am +alone, utterly alone."</p> + +<p id="id00492">She began crying; and, hiding her face in her muff, articulated:</p> + +<p id="id00493">"Alone! My life is hard, very hard, and in all the world I have no +one but you. Don't desert me!"</p> + +<p id="id00494">Looking for a handkerchief to wipe her tears she smiled; we were +silent for some time, then I put my arms round her and kissed her, +scratching my cheek till it bled with her hatpin as I did it.</p> + +<p id="id00495">And we began talking to each other as though we had been on the +closest terms for ages and ages.</p> + +<h5 id="id00496">X</h5> + +<p id="id00497">Two days later she sent me to Dubetchnya and I was unutterably +delighted to go. As I walked towards the station and afterwards, +as I was sitting in the train, I kept laughing from no apparent +cause, and people looked at me as though I were drunk. Snow was +falling, and there were still frosts in the mornings, but the roads +were already dark-coloured and rooks hovered over them, cawing.</p> + +<p id="id00498">At first I had intended to fit up an abode for us two, Masha and +me, in the lodge at the side opposite Madame Tcheprakov's lodge, +but it appeared that the doves and the ducks had been living there +for a long time, and it was impossible to clean it without destroying +a great number of nests. There was nothing for it but to live in +the comfortless rooms of the big house with the sunblinds. The +peasants called the house the palace; there were more than twenty +rooms in it, and the only furniture was a piano and a child's +arm-chair lying in the attic. And if Masha had brought all her +furniture from the town we should even then have been unable to get +rid of the impression of immense emptiness and cold. I picked out +three small rooms with windows looking into the garden, and worked +from early morning till night, setting them to rights, putting in +new panes, papering the walls, filling up the holes and chinks in +the floors. It was easy, pleasant work. I was continually running +to the river to see whether the ice were not going; I kept fancying +that starlings were flying. And at night, thinking of Masha, I +listened with an unutterably sweet feeling, with clutching delight +to the noise of the rats and the wind droning and knocking above +the ceiling. It seemed as though some old house spirit were coughing +in the attic.</p> + +<p id="id00499">The snow was deep; a great deal had fallen even at the end of March, +but it melted quickly, as though by magic, and the spring floods +passed in a tumultuous rush, so that by the beginning of April the +starlings were already noisy, and yellow butterflies were flying +in the garden. It was exquisite weather. Every day, towards evening, +I used to walk to the town to meet Masha, and what a delight it was +to walk with bare feet along the gradually drying, still soft road. +Half-way I used to sit down and look towards the town, not venturing +to go near it. The sight of it troubled me. I kept wondering how +the people I knew would behave to me when they heard of my love. +What would my father say? What troubled me particularly was the +thought that my life was more complicated, and that I had completely +lost all power to set it right, and that, like a balloon, it was +bearing me away, God knows whither. I no longer considered the +problem how to earn my daily bread, how to live, but thought about—I +really don't know what.</p> + +<p id="id00500">Masha used to come in a carriage; I used to get in with her, and +we drove to Dubetchnya, feeling light-hearted and free. Or, after +waiting till the sun had set, I would go back dissatisfied and +dreary, wondering why Masha had not come; at the gate or in the +garden I would be met by a sweet, unexpected apparition—it was +she! It would turn out that she had come by rail, and had walked +from the station. What a festival it was! In a simple woollen dress +with a kerchief on her head, with a modest sunshade, but laced in, +slender, in expensive foreign boots—it was a talented actress +playing the part of a little workgirl. We looked round our domain +and decided which should be her room, and which mine, where we would +have our avenue, our kitchen garden, our beehives.</p> + +<p id="id00501">We already had hens, ducks, and geese, which we loved because they +were ours. We had, all ready for sowing, oats, clover, timothy +grass, buckwheat, and vegetable seeds, and we always looked at all +these stores and discussed at length the crop we might get; and +everything Masha said to me seemed extraordinarily clever, and fine. +This was the happiest time of my life.</p> + +<p id="id00502">Soon after St. Thomas's week we were married at our parish church +in the village of Kurilovka, two miles from Dubetchnya. Masha wanted +everything to be done quietly; at her wish our "best men" were +peasant lads, the sacristan sang alone, and we came back from the +church in a small, jolting chaise which she drove herself. Our only +guest from the town was my sister Kleopatra, to whom Masha sent a +note three days before the wedding. My sister came in a white dress +and wore gloves. During the wedding she cried quietly from joy and +tenderness. Her expression was motherly and infinitely kind. She +was intoxicated with our happiness, and smiled as though she were +absorbing a sweet delirium, and looking at her during our wedding, +I realized that for her there was nothing in the world higher than +love, earthly love, and that she was dreaming of it secretly, +timidly, but continually and passionately. She embraced and kissed +Masha, and, not knowing how to express her rapture, said to her of +me: "He is good! He is very good!"</p> + +<p id="id00503">Before she went away she changed into her ordinary dress, and drew +me into the garden to talk to me alone.</p> + +<p id="id00504">"Father is very much hurt," she said, "that you have written nothing +to him. You ought to have asked for his blessing. But in reality +he is very much pleased. He says that this marriage will raise you +in the eyes of all society, and that under the influence of Mariya +Viktorovna you will begin to take a more serious view of life. We +talk of nothing but you in the evenings now, and yesterday he +actually used the expression: 'Our Misail.' That pleased me. It +seems as though he had some plan in his mind, and I fancy he wants +to set you an example of magnanimity and be the first to speak of +reconciliation. It is very possible he may come here to see you in +a day or two."</p> + +<p id="id00505">She hurriedly made the sign of the cross over me several times and +said:</p> + +<p id="id00506">"Well, God be with you. Be happy. Anyuta Blagovo is a very clever +girl; she says about your marriage that God is sending you a fresh +ordeal. To be sure—married life does not bring only joy but +suffering too. That's bound to be so."</p> + +<p id="id00507">Masha and I walked a couple of miles to see her on her way; we +walked back slowly and in silence, as though we were resting. Masha +held my hand, my heart felt light, and I had no inclination to talk +about love; we had become closer and more akin now that we were +married, and we felt that nothing now could separate us.</p> + +<p id="id00508">"Your sister is a nice creature," said Masha, "but it seems as +though she had been tormented for years. Your father must be a +terrible man."</p> + +<p id="id00509">I began telling her how my sister and I had been brought up, and +what a senseless torture our childhood had really been. When she +heard how my father had so lately beaten me, she shuddered and drew +closer to me.</p> + +<p id="id00510">"Don't tell me any more," she said. "It's horrible!"</p> + +<p id="id00511">Now she never left me. We lived together in the three rooms in the +big house, and in the evenings we bolted the door which led to the +empty part of the house, as though someone were living there whom +we did not know, and were afraid of. I got up early, at dawn, and +immediately set to work of some sort. I mended the carts, made paths +in the garden, dug the flower beds, painted the roof of the house. +When the time came to sow the oats I tried to plough the ground +over again, to harrow and to sow, and I did it all conscientiously, +keeping up with our labourer; I was worn out, the rain and the cold +wind made my face and feet burn for hours afterwards. I dreamed of +ploughed land at night. But field labour did not attract me. I did +not understand farming, and I did not care for it; it was perhaps +because my forefathers had not been tillers of the soil, and the +very blood that flowed in my veins was purely of the city. I loved +nature tenderly; I loved the fields and meadows and kitchen gardens, +but the peasant who turned up the soil with his plough and urged +on his pitiful horse, wet and tattered, with his craning neck, was +to me the expression of coarse, savage, ugly force, and every time +I looked at his uncouth movements I involuntarily began thinking +of the legendary life of the remote past, before men knew the use +of fire. The fierce bull that ran with the peasants' herd, and the +horses, when they dashed about the village, stamping their hoofs, +moved me to fear, and everything rather big, strong, and angry, +whether it was the ram with its horns, the gander, or the yard-dog, +seemed to me the expression of the same coarse, savage force. This +mood was particularly strong in me in bad weather, when heavy clouds +were hanging over the black ploughed land. Above all, when I was +ploughing or sowing, and two or three people stood looking how I +was doing it, I had not the feeling that this work was inevitable +and obligatory, and it seemed to me that I was amusing myself. I +preferred doing something in the yard, and there was nothing I liked +so much as painting the roof.</p> + +<p id="id00512">I used to walk through the garden and the meadow to our mill. It +was let to a peasant of Kurilovka called Stepan, a handsome, dark +fellow with a thick black beard, who looked very strong. He did not +like the miller's work, and looked upon it as dreary and unprofitable, +and only lived at the mill in order not to live at home. He was a +leather-worker, and was always surrounded by a pleasant smell of +tar and leather. He was not fond of talking, he was listless and +sluggish, and was always sitting in the doorway or on the river +bank, humming "oo-loo-loo." His wife and mother-in-law, both +white-faced, languid, and meek, used sometimes to come from Kurilovka +to see him; they made low bows to him and addressed him formally, +"Stepan Petrovitch," while he went on sitting on the river bank, +softly humming "oo-loo-loo," without responding by word or movement +to their bows. One hour and then a second would pass in silence. +His mother-in-law and wife, after whispering together, would get +up and gaze at him for some time, expecting him to look round; then +they would make a low bow, and in sugary, chanting voices, say:</p> + +<p id="id00513">"Good-bye, Stepan Petrovitch!"</p> + +<p id="id00514">And they would go away. After that Stepan, picking up the parcel +they had left, containing cracknels or a shirt, would heave a sigh +and say, winking in their direction:</p> + +<p id="id00515">"The female sex!"</p> + +<p id="id00516">The mill with two sets of millstones worked day and night. I used +to help Stepan; I liked the work, and when he went off I was glad +to stay and take his place.</p> + +<h5 id="id00517">XI</h5> + +<p id="id00518">After bright warm weather came a spell of wet; all May it rained +and was cold. The sound of the millwheels and of the rain disposed +one to indolence and slumber. The floor trembled, there was a smell +of flour, and that, too, induced drowsiness. My wife in a short +fur-lined jacket, and in men's high golosh boots, would make her +appearance twice a day, and she always said the same thing:</p> + +<p id="id00519">"And this is called summer! Worse than it was in October!"</p> + +<p id="id00520">We used to have tea and make the porridge together, or we would sit +for hours at a stretch without speaking, waiting for the rain to +stop. Once, when Stepan had gone off to the fair, Masha stayed all +night at the mill. When we got up we could not tell what time it +was, as the rainclouds covered the whole sky; but sleepy cocks were +crowing at Dubetchnya, and landrails were calling in the meadows; +it was still very, very early. . . . My wife and I went down to the +millpond and drew out the net which Stepan had thrown in over night +in our presence. A big pike was struggling in it, and a cray-fish +was twisting about, clawing upwards with its pincers.</p> + +<p id="id00521">"Let them go," said Masha. "Let them be happy too."</p> + +<p id="id00522">Because we got up so early and afterwards did nothing, that day +seemed very long, the longest day in my life. Towards evening Stepan +came back and I went home.</p> + +<p id="id00523">"Your father came to-day," said Masha.</p> + +<p id="id00524">"Where is he?" I asked.</p> + +<p id="id00525">"He has gone away. I would not see him."</p> + +<p id="id00526">Seeing that I remained standing and silent, that I was sorry for +my father, she said:</p> + +<p id="id00527">"One must be consistent. I would not see him, and sent word to him +not to trouble to come and see us again."</p> + +<p id="id00528">A minute later I was out at the gate and walking to the town to +explain things to my father. It was muddy, slippery, cold. For the +first time since my marriage I felt suddenly sad, and in my brain +exhausted by that long, grey day, there was stirring the thought +that perhaps I was not living as I ought. I was worn out; little +by little I was overcome by despondency and indolence, I did not +want to move or think, and after going on a little I gave it up +with a wave of my hand and turned back.</p> + +<p id="id00529">The engineer in a leather overcoat with a hood was standing in the +middle of the yard.</p> + +<p id="id00530">"Where's the furniture? There used to be lovely furniture in the +Empire style: there used to be pictures, there used to be vases, +while now you could play ball in it! I bought the place with the +furniture. The devil take her!"</p> + +<p id="id00531">Moisey, a thin pock-marked fellow of twenty-five, with insolent +little eyes, who was in the service of the general's widow, stood +near him crumpling up his cap in his hands; one of his cheeks was +bigger than the other, as though he had lain too long on it.</p> + +<p id="id00532">"Your honour was graciously pleased to buy the place without the +furniture," he brought out irresolutely; "I remember."</p> + +<p id="id00533">"Hold your tongue!" shouted the engineer; he turned crimson and +shook with anger . . . and the echo in the garden loudly repeated +his shout.</p> + +<h5 id="id00534">XII</h5> + +<p id="id00535">When I was doing anything in the garden or the yard, Moisey would +stand beside me, and folding his arms behind his back he would stand +lazily and impudently staring at me with his little eyes. And this +irritated me to such a degree that I threw up my work and went away.</p> + +<p id="id00536">From Stepan we heard that Moisey was Madame Tcheprakov's lover. I +noticed that when people came to her to borrow money they addressed +themselves first to Moisey, and once I saw a peasant, black from +head to foot—he must have been a coalheaver—bow down at +Moisey's feet. Sometimes, after a little whispering, he gave out +money himself, without consulting his mistress, from which I concluded +that he did a little business on his own account.</p> + +<p id="id00537">He used to shoot in our garden under our windows, carried off +victuals from our cellar, borrowed our horses without asking +permission, and we were indignant and began to feel as though +Dubetchnya were not ours, and Masha would say, turning pale:</p> + +<p id="id00538">"Can we really have to go on living with these reptiles another +eighteen months?"</p> + +<p id="id00539">Madame Tcheprakov's son, Ivan, was serving as a guard on our +railway-line. He had grown much thinner and feebler during the +winter, so that a single glass was enough to make him drunk, and +he shivered out of the sunshine. He wore the guard's uniform with +aversion and was ashamed of it, but considered his post a good one, +as he could steal the candles and sell them. My new position excited +in him a mixed feeling of wonder, envy, and a vague hope that +something of the same sort might happen to him. He used to watch +Masha with ecstatic eyes, ask me what I had for dinner now, and his +lean and ugly face wore a sad and sweetish expression, and he moved +his fingers as though he were feeling my happiness with them.</p> + +<p id="id00540">"Listen, Better-than-nothing," he said fussily, relighting his +cigarette at every instant; there was always a litter where he +stood, for he wasted dozens of matches, lighting one cigarette. +"Listen, my life now is the nastiest possible. The worst of it is +any subaltern can shout: 'Hi, there, guard!' I have overheard all +sorts of things in the train, my boy, and do you know, I have learned +that life's a beastly thing! My mother has been the ruin of me! A +doctor in the train told me that if parents are immoral, their +children are drunkards or criminals. Think of that!"</p> + +<p id="id00541">Once he came into the yard, staggering; his eyes gazed about blankly, +his breathing was laboured; he laughed and cried and babbled as +though in a high fever, and the only words I could catch in his +muddled talk were, "My mother! Where's my mother?" which he uttered +with a wail like a child who has lost his mother in a crowd. I led +him into our garden and laid him down under a tree, and Masha and +I took turns to sit by him all that day and all night. He was very +sick, and Masha looked with aversion at his pale, wet face, and +said:</p> + +<p id="id00542">"Is it possible these reptiles will go on living another year and +a half in our yard? It's awful! it's awful!"</p> + +<p id="id00543">And how many mortifications the peasants caused us! How many bitter +disappointments in those early days in the spring months, when we +so longed to be happy. My wife built a school. I drew a plan of a +school for sixty boys, and the Zemstvo Board approved of it, but +advised us to build the school at Kurilovka the big village which +was only two miles from us. Moreover, the school at Kurilovka in +which children—from four villages, our Dubetchnya being one of +the number—were taught, was old and too small, and the floor was +scarcely safe to walk upon. At the end of March at Masha's wish, +she was appointed guardian of the Kurilovka school, and at the +beginning of April we three times summoned the village assembly, +and tried to persuade the peasants that their school was old and +overcrowded, and that it was essential to build a new one. A member +of the Zemstvo Board and the Inspector of Peasant Schools came, and +they, too, tried to persuade them. After each meeting the peasants +surrounded us, begging for a bucket of vodka; we were hot in the +crowd; we were soon exhausted, and returned home dissatisfied and +a little ill at ease. In the end the peasants set apart a plot of +ground for the school, and were obliged to bring all the building +material from the town with their own horses. And the very first +Sunday after the spring corn was sown carts set off from Kurilovka +and Dubetchnya to fetch bricks for the foundations. They set off +as soon as it was light, and came back late in the evening; the +peasants were drunk, and said they were worn out.</p> + +<p id="id00544">As ill-luck would have it, the rain and the cold persisted all +through May. The road was in an awful state: it was deep in mud. +The carts usually drove into our yard when they came back from the +town—and what a horrible ordeal it was. A potbellied horse would +appear at the gate, setting its front legs wide apart; it would +stumble forward before coming into the yard; a beam, nine yards +long, wet and slimy-looking, crept in on a waggon. Beside it, muffled +up against the rain, strode a peasant with the skirts of his coat +tucked up in his belt, not looking where he was going, but stepping +through the puddles. Another cart would appear with boards, then a +third with a beam, a fourth . . . and the space before our house +was gradually crowded up with horses, beams, and planks. Men and +women, with their heads muffled and their skirts tucked up, would +stare angrily at our windows, make an uproar, and clamour for the +mistress to come out to them; coarse oaths were audible. Meanwhile +Moisey stood at one side, and we fancied he was enjoying our +discomfiture.</p> + +<p id="id00545">"We are not going to cart any more," the peasants would shout. "We +are worn out! Let her go and get the stuff herself."</p> + +<p id="id00546">Masha, pale and flustered, expecting every minute that they would +break into the house, would send them out a half-pail of vodka; +after that the noise would subside and the long beams, one after +another, would crawl slowly out of the yard.</p> + +<p id="id00547">When I was setting off to see the building my wife was worried and +said:</p> + +<p id="id00548">"The peasants are spiteful; I only hope they won't do you a mischief. +Wait a minute, I'll come with you."</p> + +<p id="id00549">We drove to Kurilovka together, and there the carpenters asked us +for a drink. The framework of the house was ready. It was time to +lay the foundation, but the masons had not come; this caused delay, +and the carpenters complained. And when at last the masons did come, +it appeared that there was no sand; it had been somehow overlooked +that it would be needed. Taking advantage of our helpless position, +the peasants demanded thirty kopecks for each cartload, though the +distance from the building to the river where they got the sand was +less than a quarter of a mile, and more than five hundred cartloads +were found to be necessary. There was no end to the misunderstandings, +swearing, and importunity; my wife was indignant, and the foreman +of the masons, Tit Petrov, an old man of seventy, took her by the +arm, and said:</p> + +<p id="id00550">"You look here! You look here! You only bring me the sand; I set +ten men on at once, and in two days it will be done! You look here!"</p> + +<p id="id00551">But they brought the sand and two days passed, and four, and a week, +and instead of the promised foundations there was still a yawning +hole.</p> + +<p id="id00552">"It's enough to drive one out of one's senses," said my wife, in +distress. "What people! What people!"</p> + +<p id="id00553">In the midst of these disorderly doings the engineer arrived; he +brought with him parcels of wine and savouries, and after a prolonged +meal lay down for a nap in the verandah and snored so loudly that +the labourers shook their heads and said: "Well!"</p> + +<p id="id00554">Masha was not pleased at his coming, she did not trust him, though +at the same time she asked his advice. When, after sleeping too +long after dinner, he got up in a bad humour and said unpleasant +things about our management of the place, or expressed regret that +he had bought Dubetchnya, which had already been a loss to him, +poor Masha's face wore an expression of misery. She would complain +to him, and he would yawn and say that the peasants ought to be +flogged.</p> + +<p id="id00555">He called our marriage and our life a farce, and said it was a +caprice, a whim.</p> + +<p id="id00556">"She has done something of the sort before," he said about Masha. +"She once fancied herself a great opera singer and left me; I was +looking for her for two months, and, my dear soul, I spent a thousand +roubles on telegrams alone."</p> + +<p id="id00557">He no longer called me a dissenter or Mr. Painter, and did not as +in the past express approval of my living like a workman, but said:</p> + +<p id="id00558">"You are a strange person! You are not a normal person! I won't +venture to prophesy, but you will come to a bad end!"</p> + +<p id="id00559">And Masha slept badly at night, and was always sitting at our bedroom +window thinking. There was no laughter at supper now, no charming +grimaces. I was wretched, and when it rained, every drop that fell +seemed to pierce my heart, like small shot, and I felt ready to +fall on my knees before Masha and apologize for the weather. When +the peasants made a noise in the yard I felt guilty also. For hours +at a time I sat still in one place, thinking of nothing but what a +splendid person Masha was, what a wonderful person. I loved her +passionately, and I was fascinated by everything she did, everything +she said. She had a bent for quiet, studious pursuits; she was fond +of reading for hours together, of studying. Although her knowledge +of farming was only from books she surprised us all by what she +knew; and every piece of advice she gave was of value; not one was +ever thrown away; and, with all that, what nobility, what taste, +what graciousness, that graciousness which is only found in +well-educated people.</p> + +<p id="id00560">To this woman, with her sound, practical intelligence, the disorderly +surroundings with petty cares and sordid anxieties in which we were +living now were an agony: I saw that and could not sleep at night; +my brain worked feverishly and I had a lump in my throat. I rushed +about not knowing what to do.</p> + +<p id="id00561">I galloped to the town and brought Masha books, newspapers, sweets, +flowers; with Stepan I caught fish, wading for hours up to my neck +in the cold water in the rain to catch eel-pout to vary our fare; +I demeaned myself to beg the peasants not to make a noise; I plied +them with vodka, bought them off, made all sorts of promises. And +how many other foolish things I did!</p> + +<p id="id00562">At last the rain ceased, the earth dried. One would get up at four +o'clock in the morning; one would go out into the garden—where +there was dew sparkling on the flowers, the twitter of birds, the +hum of insects, not one cloud in the sky; and the garden, the +meadows, and the river were so lovely, yet there were memories of +the peasants, of their carts, of the engineer. Masha and I drove +out together in the racing droshky to the fields to look at the +oats. She used to drive, I sat behind; her shoulders were raised +and the wind played with her hair.</p> + +<p id="id00563">"Keep to the right!" she shouted to those she met.</p> + +<p id="id00564">"You are like a sledge-driver," I said to her one day.</p> + +<p id="id00565">"Maybe! Why, my grandfather, the engineer's father, was a sledge-driver. +Didn't you know that?" she asked, turning to me, and at once she +mimicked the way sledge-drivers shout and sing.</p> + +<p id="id00566">"And thank God for that," I thought as I listened to her. "Thank +God."</p> + +<p id="id00567">And again memories of the peasants, of the carts, of the engineer. . . .</p> + +<h5 id="id00568">XIII</h5> + +<p id="id00569">Dr. Blagovo arrived on his bicycle. My sister began coming often. +Again there were conversations about manual labour, about progress, +about a mysterious millennium awaiting mankind in the remote future. +The doctor did not like our farmwork, because it interfered with +arguments, and said that ploughing, reaping, grazing calves were +unworthy of a free man, and all these coarse forms of the struggle +for existence men would in time relegate to animals and machines, +while they would devote themselves exclusively to scientific +investigation. My sister kept begging them to let her go home +earlier, and if she stayed on till late in the evening, or spent +the night with us, there would be no end to the agitation.</p> + +<p id="id00570">"Good Heavens, what a baby you are still!" said Masha reproachfully. +"It is positively absurd."</p> + +<p id="id00571">"Yes, it is absurd," my sister agreed, "I know it's absurd; but +what is to be done if I haven't the strength to get over it? I keep +feeling as though I were doing wrong."</p> + +<p id="id00572">At haymaking I ached all over from the unaccustomed labour; in the +evening, sitting on the verandah and talking with the others, I +suddenly dropped asleep, and they laughed aloud at me. They waked +me up and made me sit down to supper; I was overpowered with +drowsiness and I saw the lights, the faces, and the plates as it +were in a dream, heard the voices, but did not understand them. And +getting up early in the morning, I took up the scythe at once, or +went to the building and worked hard all day.</p> + +<p id="id00573">When I remained at home on holidays I noticed that my sister and +Masha were concealing something from me, and even seemed to be +avoiding me. My wife was tender to me as before, but she had thoughts +of her own apart, which she did not share with me. There was no +doubt that her exasperation with the peasants was growing, the life +was becoming more and more distasteful to her, and yet she did not +complain to me. She talked to the doctor now more readily than she +did to me, and I did not understand why it was so.</p> + +<p id="id00574">It was the custom in our province at haymaking and harvest time for +the labourers to come to the manor house in the evening and be +regaled with vodka; even young girls drank a glass. We did not keep +up this practice; the mowers and the peasant women stood about in +our yard till late in the evening expecting vodka, and then departed +abusing us. And all the time Masha frowned grimly and said nothing, +or murmured to the doctor with exasperation: "Savages! Petchenyegs!"</p> + +<p id="id00575">In the country newcomers are met ungraciously, almost with hostility, +as they are at school. And we were received in this way. At first +we were looked upon as stupid, silly people, who had bought an +estate simply because we did not know what to do with our money. +We were laughed at. The peasants grazed their cattle in our wood +and even in our garden; they drove away our cows and horses to the +village, and then demanded money for the damage done by them. They +came in whole companies into our yard, and loudly clamoured that +at the mowing we had cut some piece of land that did not belong to +us; and as we did not yet know the boundaries of our estate very +accurately, we took their word for it and paid damages. Afterwards +it turned out that there had been no mistake at the mowing. They +barked the lime-trees in our wood. One of the Dubetchnya peasants, +a regular shark, who did a trade in vodka without a licence, bribed +our labourers, and in collaboration with them cheated us in a most +treacherous way. They took the new wheels off our carts and replaced +them with old ones, stole our ploughing harness and actually sold +them to us, and so on. But what was most mortifying of all was what +happened at the building; the peasant women stole by night boards, +bricks, tiles, pieces of iron. The village elder with witnesses +made a search in their huts; the village meeting fined them two +roubles each, and afterwards this money was spent on drink by the +whole commune.</p> + +<p id="id00576">When Masha heard about this, she would say to the doctor or my +sister indignantly:</p> + +<p id="id00577">"What beasts! It's awful! awful!"</p> + +<p id="id00578">And I heard her more than once express regret that she had ever +taken it into her head to build the school.</p> + +<p id="id00579">"You must understand," the doctor tried to persuade her, "that if +you build this school and do good in general, it's not for the sake +of the peasants, but in the name of culture, in the name of the +future; and the worse the peasants are the more reason for building +the school. Understand that!"</p> + +<p id="id00580">But there was a lack of conviction in his voice, and it seemed to +me that both he and Masha hated the peasants.</p> + +<p id="id00581">Masha often went to the mill, taking my sister with her, and they +both said, laughing, that they went to have a look at Stepan, he +was so handsome. Stepan, it appeared, was torpid and taciturn only +with men; in feminine society his manners were free and easy, and +he talked incessantly. One day, going down to the river to bathe, +I accidentally overheard a conversation. Masha and Kleopatra, both +in white dresses, were sitting on the bank in the spreading shade +of a willow, and Stepan was standing by them with his hands behind +his back, and was saying:</p> + +<p id="id00582">"Are peasants men? They are not men, but, asking your pardon, wild +beasts, impostors. What life has a peasant? Nothing but eating and +drinking; all he cares for is victuals to be cheaper and swilling +liquor at the tavern like a fool; and there's no conversation, no +manners, no formality, nothing but ignorance! He lives in filth, +his wife lives in filth, and his children live in filth. What he +stands up in, he lies down to sleep in; he picks the potatoes out +of the soup with his fingers; he drinks kvass with a cockroach in +it, and doesn't bother to blow it away!"</p> + +<p id="id00583">"It's their poverty, of course," my sister put in.</p> + +<p id="id00584">"Poverty? There is want to be sure, there's different sorts of want, +Madam. If a man is in prison, or let us say blind or crippled, that +really is trouble I wouldn't wish anyone, but if a man's free and +has all his senses, if he has his eyes and his hands and his strength +and God, what more does he want? It's cockering themselves, and +it's ignorance, Madam, it's not poverty. If you, let us suppose, +good gentlefolk, by your education, wish out of kindness to help +him he will drink away your money in his low way; or, what's worse, +he will open a drinkshop, and with your money start robbing the +people. You say poverty, but does the rich peasant live better? He, +too, asking your pardon, lives like a swine: coarse, loud-mouthed, +cudgel-headed, broader than he is long, fat, red-faced mug, I'd +like to swing my fist and send him flying, the scoundrel. There's +Larion, another rich one at Dubetchnya, and I bet he strips the +bark off your trees as much as any poor one; and he is a foul-mouthed +fellow; his children are the same, and when he has had a drop too +much he'll topple with his nose in a puddle and sleep there. They +are all a worthless lot, Madam. If you live in a village with them +it is like hell. It has stuck in my teeth, that village has, and +thank the Lord, the King of Heaven, I've plenty to eat and clothes +to wear, I served out my time in the dragoons, I was village elder +for three years, and now I am a free Cossack, I live where I like. +I don't want to live in the village, and no one has the right to +force me. They say—my wife. They say you are bound to live in +your cottage with your wife. But why so? I am not her hired man."</p> + +<p id="id00585">"Tell me, Stepan, did you marry for love?" asked Masha.</p> + +<p id="id00586">"Love among us in the village!" answered Stepan, and he gave a +laugh. "Properly speaking, Madam, if you care to know, this is my +second marriage. I am not a Kurilovka man, I am from Zalegoshtcho, +but afterwards I was taken into Kurilovka when I married. You see +my father did not want to divide the land among us. There were five +of us brothers. I took my leave and went to another village to live +with my wife's family, but my first wife died when she was young."</p> + +<p id="id00587">"What did she die of?"</p> + +<p id="id00588">"Of foolishness. She used to cry and cry and cry for no reason, and +so she pined away. She was always drinking some sort of herbs to +make her better looking, and I suppose she damaged her inside. And +my second wife is a Kurilovka woman too, there is nothing in her. +She's a village woman, a peasant woman, and nothing more. I was +taken in when they plighted me to her. I thought she was young and +fair-skinned, and that they lived in a clean way. Her mother was +just like a Flagellant and she drank coffee, and the chief thing, +to be sure, they were clean in their ways. So I married her, and +next day we sat down to dinner; I bade my mother-in-law give me a +spoon, and she gives me a spoon, and I see her wipe it out with her +finger. So much for you, thought I; nice sort of cleanliness yours +is. I lived a year with them and then I went away. I might have +married a girl from the town," he went on after a pause. "They say +a wife is a helpmate to her husband. What do I want with a helpmate? +I help myself; I'd rather she talked to me, and not clack, clack, +clack, but circumstantially, feelingly. What is life without good +conversation?"</p> + +<p id="id00589">Stepan suddenly paused, and at once there was the sound of his +dreary, monotonous "oo-loo-loo-loo." This meant that he had seen +me.</p> + +<p id="id00590">Masha used often to go to the mill, and evidently found pleasure +in her conversations with Stepan. Stepan abused the peasants with +such sincerity and conviction, and she was attracted to him. Every +time she came back from the mill the feeble-minded peasant, who +looked after the garden, shouted at her:</p> + +<p id="id00591">"Wench Palashka! Hulla, wench Palashka!" and he would bark like a +dog: "Ga! Ga!"</p> + +<p id="id00592">And she would stop and look at him attentively, as though in that +idiot's barking she found an answer to her thoughts, and probably +he attracted her in the same way as Stepan's abuse. At home some +piece of news would await her, such, for instance, as that the geese +from the village had ruined our cabbage in the garden, or that +Larion had stolen the reins; and shrugging her shoulders, she would +say with a laugh:</p> + +<p id="id00593">"What do you expect of these people?"</p> + +<p id="id00594">She was indignant, and there was rancour in her heart, and meanwhile +I was growing used to the peasants, and I felt more and more drawn +to them. For the most part they were nervous, irritable, downtrodden +people; they were people whose imagination had been stifled, ignorant, +with a poor, dingy outlook on life, whose thoughts were ever the +same—of the grey earth, of grey days, of black bread, people who +cheated, but like birds hiding nothing but their head behind the +tree—people who could not count. They would not come to mow for +us for twenty roubles, but they came for half a pail of vodka, +though for twenty roubles they could have bought four pails. There +really was filth and drunkenness and foolishness and deceit, but +with all that one yet felt that the life of the peasants rested on +a firm, sound foundation. However uncouth a wild animal the peasant +following the plough seemed, and however he might stupefy himself +with vodka, still, looking at him more closely, one felt that there +was in him what was needed, something very important, which was +lacking in Masha and in the doctor, for instance, and that was that +he believed the chief thing on earth was truth and justice, and +that his salvation, and that of the whole people, was only to be +found in truth and justice, and so more than anything in the world +he loved just dealing. I told my wife she saw the spots on the +glass, but not the glass itself; she said nothing in reply, or +hummed like Stepan "oo-loo-loo-loo." When this good-hearted and +clever woman turned pale with indignation, and with a quiver in her +voice spoke to the doctor of the drunkenness and dishonesty, it +perplexed me, and I was struck by the shortness of her memory. How +could she forget that her father the engineer drank too, and drank +heavily, and that the money with which Dubetchnya had been bought +had been acquired by a whole series of shameless, impudent dishonesties? +How could she forget it?</p> + +<h5 id="id00595">XIV</h5> + +<p id="id00596">My sister, too, was leading a life of her own which she carefully +hid from me. She was often whispering with Masha. When I went up +to her she seemed to shrink into herself, and there was a guilty, +imploring look in her eyes; evidently there was something going on +in her heart of which she was afraid or ashamed. So as to avoid +meeting me in the garden, or being left alone with me, she always +kept close to Masha, and I rarely had an opportunity of talking to +her except at dinner.</p> + +<p id="id00597">One evening I was walking quietly through the garden on my way back +from the building. It was beginning to get dark. Without noticing +me, or hearing my step, my sister was walking near a spreading old +apple-tree, absolutely noiselessly as though she were a phantom. +She was dressed in black, and was walking rapidly backwards and +forwards on the same track, looking at the ground. An apple fell +from the tree; she started at the sound, stood still and pressed +her hands to her temples. At that moment I went up to her.</p> + +<p id="id00598">In a rush of tender affection which suddenly flooded my heart, with +tears in my eyes, suddenly remembering my mother and our childhood, +I put my arm round her shoulders and kissed her.</p> + +<p id="id00599">"What is the matter?" I asked her. "You are unhappy; I have seen +it for a long time. Tell me what's wrong?"</p> + +<p id="id00600">"I am frightened," she said, trembling.</p> + +<p id="id00601">"What is it?" I insisted. "For God's sake, be open!"</p> + +<p id="id00602">"I will, I will be open; I will tell you the whole truth. To hide +it from you is so hard, so agonizing. Misail, I love . . ." she +went on in a whisper, "I love him . . . I love him. . . . I am +happy, but why am I so frightened?"</p> + +<p id="id00603">There was the sound of footsteps; between the trees appeared Dr. +Blagovo in his silk shirt with his high top boots. Evidently they +had arranged to meet near the apple-tree. Seeing him, she rushed +impulsively towards him with a cry of pain as though he were being +taken from her.</p> + +<p id="id00604">"Vladimir! Vladimir!"</p> + +<p id="id00605">She clung to him and looked greedily into his face, and only then +I noticed how pale and thin she had become of late. It was particularly +noticeable from her lace collar which I had known for so long, and +which now hung more loosely than ever before about her thin, long +neck. The doctor was disconcerted, but at once recovered himself, +and, stroking her hair, said:</p> + +<p id="id00606">"There, there. . . . Why so nervous? You see, I'm here."</p> + +<p id="id00607">We were silent, looking with embarrassment at each other, then we +walked on, the three of us together, and I heard the doctor say to +me:</p> + +<p id="id00608">"Civilized life has not yet begun among us. Old men console themselves +by making out that if there is nothing now, there was something in +the forties or the sixties; that's the old: you and I are young; +our brains have not yet been touched by <i>marasmus senilis</i>; we +cannot comfort ourselves with such illusions. The beginning of +Russia was in 862, but the beginning of civilized Russia has not +come yet."</p> + +<p id="id00609">But I did not grasp the meaning of these reflections. It was somehow +strange, I could not believe it, that my sister was in love, that +she was walking and holding the arm of a stranger and looking +tenderly at him. My sister, this nervous, frightened, crushed, +fettered creature, loved a man who was married and had children! I +felt sorry for something, but what exactly I don't know; the presence +of the doctor was for some reason distasteful to me now, and I could +not imagine what would come of this love of theirs.</p> + +<h5 id="id00610">XV</h5> + +<p id="id00611">Masha and I drove to Kurilovka to the dedication of the school.</p> + +<p id="id00612">"Autumn, autumn, autumn, . . ." said Masha softly, looking away. +"Summer is over. There are no birds and nothing is green but the +willows."</p> + +<p id="id00613">Yes, summer was over. There were fine, warm days, but it was fresh +in the morning, and the shepherds went out in their sheepskins +already; and in our garden the dew did not dry off the asters all +day long. There were plaintive sounds all the time, and one could +not make out whether they came from the shutters creaking on their +rusty hinges, or from the flying cranes—and one's heart felt +light, and one was eager for life.</p> + +<p id="id00614">"The summer is over," said Masha. "Now you and I can balance our +accounts. We have done a lot of work, a lot of thinking; we are the +better for it—all honour and glory to us—we have succeeded +in self-improvement; but have our successes had any perceptible +influence on the life around us, have they brought any benefit to +anyone whatever? No. Ignorance, physical uncleanliness, drunkenness, +an appallingly high infant mortality, everything remains as it was, +and no one is the better for your having ploughed and sown, and my +having wasted money and read books. Obviously we have been working +only for ourselves and have had advanced ideas only for ourselves." +Such reasonings perplexed me, and I did not know what to think.</p> + +<p id="id00615">"We have been sincere from beginning to end," said I, "and if anyone +is sincere he is right."</p> + +<p id="id00616">"Who disputes it? We were right, but we haven't succeeded in properly +accomplishing what we were right in. To begin with, our external +methods themselves—aren't they mistaken? You want to be of use +to men, but by the very fact of your buying an estate, from the +very start you cut yourself off from any possibility of doing +anything useful for them. Then if you work, dress, eat like a peasant +you sanctify, as it were, by your authority, their heavy, clumsy +dress, their horrible huts, their stupid beards. . . . On the other +hand, if we suppose that you work for long, long years, your whole +life, that in the end some practical results are obtained, yet what +are they, your results, what can they do against such elemental +forces as wholesale ignorance, hunger, cold, degeneration? A drop +in the ocean! Other methods of struggle are needed, strong, bold, +rapid! If one really wants to be of use one must get out of the +narrow circle of ordinary social work, and try to act direct upon +the mass! What is wanted, first of all, is a loud, energetic +propaganda. Why is it that art—music, for instance—is so +living, so popular, and in reality so powerful? Because the musician +or the singer affects thousands at once. Precious, precious art!" +she went on, looking dreamily at the sky. "Art gives us wings and +carries us far, far away! Anyone who is sick of filth, of petty, +mercenary interests, anyone who is revolted, wounded, and indignant, +can find peace and satisfaction only in the beautiful."</p> + +<p id="id00617">When we drove into Kurilovka the weather was bright and joyous. +Somewhere they were threshing; there was a smell of rye straw. A +mountain ash was bright red behind the hurdle fences, and all the +trees wherever one looked were ruddy or golden. They were ringing +the bells, they were carrying the ikons to the school, and we could +hear them sing: "Holy Mother, our Defender," and how limpid the air +was, and how high the doves were flying.</p> + +<p id="id00618">The service was being held in the classroom. Then the peasants of +Kurilovka brought Masha the ikon, and the peasants of Dubetchnya +offered her a big loaf and a gilt salt cellar. And Masha broke into +sobs.</p> + +<p id="id00619">"If anything has been said that shouldn't have been or anything +done not to your liking, forgive us," said an old man, and he bowed +down to her and to me.</p> + +<p id="id00620">As we drove home Masha kept looking round at the school; the green +roof, which I had painted, and which was glistening in the sun, +remained in sight for a long while. And I felt that the look Masha +turned upon it now was one of farewell.</p> + +<h5 id="id00621">XVI</h5> + +<p id="id00622">In the evening she got ready to go to the town. Of late she had +taken to going often to the town and staying the night there. In +her absence I could not work, my hands felt weak and limp; our huge +courtyard seemed a dreary, repulsive, empty hole. The garden was +full of angry noises, and without her the house, the trees, the +horses were no longer "ours."</p> + +<p id="id00623">I did not go out of the house, but went on sitting at her table +beside her bookshelf with the books on land work, those old favourites +no longer wanted and looking at me now so shamefacedly. For whole +hours together, while it struck seven, eight, nine, while the autumn +night, black as soot, came on outside, I kept examining her old +glove, or the pen with which she always wrote, or her little scissors. +I did nothing, and realized clearly that all I had done before, +ploughing, mowing, chopping, had only been because she wished it. +And if she had sent me to clean a deep well, where I had to stand +up to my waist in deep water, I should have crawled into the well +without considering whether it was necessary or not. And now when +she was not near, Dubetchnya, with its ruins, its untidiness, its +banging shutters, with its thieves by day and by night, seemed to +me a chaos in which any work would be useless. Besides, what had I +to work for here, why anxiety and thought about the future, if I +felt that the earth was giving way under my feet, that I had played +my part in Dubetchnya, and that the fate of the books on farming +was awaiting me too? Oh, what misery it was at night, in hours of +solitude, when I was listening every minute in alarm, as though I +were expecting someone to shout that it was time for me to go away! +I did not grieve for Dubetchnya. I grieved for my love which, too, +was threatened with its autumn. What an immense happiness it is to +love and be loved, and how awful to feel that one is slipping down +from that high pinnacle!</p> + +<p id="id00624">Masha returned from the town towards the evening of the next day. +She was displeased with something, but she concealed it, and only +said, why was it all the window frames had been put in for the +winter it was enough to suffocate one. I took out two frames. We +were not hungry, but we sat down to supper.</p> + +<p id="id00625">"Go and wash your hands," said my wife; "you smell of putty."</p> + +<p id="id00626">She had brought some new illustrated papers from the town, and we +looked at them together after supper. There were supplements with +fashion plates and patterns. Masha looked through them casually, +and was putting them aside to examine them properly later on; but +one dress, with a flat skirt as full as a bell and large sleeves, +interested her, and she looked at it for a minute gravely and +attentively.</p> + +<p id="id00627">"That's not bad," she said.</p> + +<p id="id00628">"Yes, that dress would suit you beautifully," I said, "beautifully."</p> + +<p id="id00629">And looking with emotion at the dress, admiring that patch of grey +simply because she liked it, I went on tenderly:</p> + +<p id="id00630">"A charming, exquisite dress! Splendid, glorious, Masha! My precious +Masha!"</p> + +<p id="id00631">And tears dropped on the fashion plate.</p> + +<p id="id00632">"Splendid Masha . . ." I muttered; "sweet, precious Masha. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00633">She went to bed, while I sat another hour looking at the illustrations.</p> + +<p id="id00634">"It's a pity you took out the window frames," she said from the +bedroom, "I am afraid it may be cold. Oh, dear, what a draught there +is!"</p> + +<p id="id00635">I read something out of the column of odds and ends, a receipt for +making cheap ink, and an account of the biggest diamond in the +world. I came again upon the fashion plate of the dress she liked, +and I imagined her at a ball, with a fan, bare shoulders, brilliant, +splendid, with a full understanding of painting, music, literature, +and how small and how brief my part seemed!</p> + +<p id="id00636">Our meeting, our marriage, had been only one of the episodes of +which there would be many more in the life of this vital, richly +gifted woman. All the best in the world, as I have said already, +was at her service, and she received it absolutely for nothing, and +even ideas and the intellectual movement in vogue served simply for +her recreation, giving variety to her life, and I was only the +sledge-driver who drove her from one entertainment to another. Now +she did not need me. She would take flight, and I should be alone.</p> + +<p id="id00637">And as though in response to my thought, there came a despairing +scream from the garden.</p> + +<p id="id00638">"He-e-elp!"</p> + +<p id="id00639">It was a shrill, womanish voice, and as though to mimic it the wind +whistled in the chimney on the same shrill note. Half a minute +passed, and again through the noise of the wind, but coming, it +seemed, from the other end of the yard:</p> + +<p id="id00640">"He-e-elp!"</p> + +<p id="id00641">"Misail, do you hear?" my wife asked me softly. "Do you hear?"</p> + +<p id="id00642">She came out from the bedroom in her nightgown, with her hair down, +and listened, looking at the dark window.</p> + +<p id="id00643">"Someone is being murdered," she said. "That is the last straw."</p> + +<p id="id00644">I took my gun and went out. It was very dark outside, the wind was +high, and it was difficult to stand. I went to the gate and listened, +the trees roared, the wind whistled and, probably at the feeble-minded +peasant's, a dog howled lazily. Outside the gates the darkness was +absolute, not a light on the railway-line. And near the lodge, which +a year before had been the office, suddenly sounded a smothered +scream:</p> + +<p id="id00645">"He-e-elp!"</p> + +<p id="id00646">"Who's there?" I called.</p> + +<p id="id00647">There were two people struggling. One was thrusting the other out, +while the other was resisting, and both were breathing heavily.</p> + +<p id="id00648">"Leave go," said one, and I recognized Ivan Tcheprakov; it was he +who was shrieking in a shrill, womanish voice: "Let go, you damned +brute, or I'll bite your hand off."</p> + +<p id="id00649">The other I recognized as Moisey. I separated them, and as I did +so I could not resist hitting Moisey two blows in the face. He fell +down, then got up again, and I hit him once more.</p> + +<p id="id00650">"He tried to kill me," he muttered. "He was trying to get at his +mamma's chest. . . . I want to lock him up in the lodge for security."</p> + +<p id="id00651">Tcheprakov was drunk and did not recognize me; he kept drawing deep +breaths, as though he were just going to shout "help" again.</p> + +<p id="id00652">I left them and went back to the house; my wife was lying on her +bed; she had dressed. I told her what had happened in the yard, and +did not conceal the fact that I had hit Moisey.</p> + +<p id="id00653">"It's terrible to live in the country," she said.</p> + +<p id="id00654">"And what a long night it is. Oh dear, if only it were over!"</p> + +<p id="id00655">"He-e-elp!" we heard again, a little later.</p> + +<p id="id00656">"I'll go and stop them," I said.</p> + +<p id="id00657">"No, let them bite each other's throats," she said with an expression +of disgust.</p> + +<p id="id00658">She was looking up at the ceiling, listening, while I sat beside +her, not daring to speak to her, feeling as though I were to blame +for their shouting "help" in the yard and for the night's seeming +so long.</p> + +<p id="id00659">We were silent, and I waited impatiently for a gleam of light at +the window, and Masha looked all the time as though she had awakened +from a trance and now was marvelling how she, so clever, and +well-educated, so elegant, had come into this pitiful, provincial, +empty hole among a crew of petty, insignificant people, and how she +could have so far forgotten herself as ever to be attracted by one +of these people, and for more than six months to have been his wife. +It seemed to me that at that moment it did not matter to her whether +it was I, or Moisey, or Tcheprakov; everything for her was merged +in that savage drunken "help"—I and our marriage, and our work +together, and the mud and slush of autumn, and when she sighed or +moved into a more comfortable position I read in her face: "Oh, +that morning would come quickly!"</p> + +<p id="id00660">In the morning she went away. I spent another three days at Dubetchnya +expecting her, then I packed all our things in one room, locked it, +and walked to the town. It was already evening when I rang at the +engineer's, and the street lamps were burning in Great Dvoryansky +Street. Pavel told me there was no one at home; Viktor Ivanitch had +gone to Petersburg, and Mariya Viktorovna was probably at the +rehearsal at the Azhogins'. I remember with what emotion I went on +to the Azhogins', how my heart throbbed and fluttered as I mounted +the stairs, and stood waiting a long while on the landing at the +top, not daring to enter that temple of the muses! In the big room +there were lighted candles everywhere, on a little table, on the +piano, and on the stage, everywhere in threes; and the first +performance was fixed for the thirteenth, and now the first rehearsal +was on a Monday, an unlucky day. All part of the war against +superstition! All the devotees of the scenic art were gathered +together; the eldest, the middle, and the youngest sisters were +walking about the stage, reading their parts in exercise books. +Apart from all the rest stood Radish, motionless, with the side of +his head pressed to the wall as he gazed with adoration at the +stage, waiting for the rehearsal to begin. Everything as it used +to be.</p> + +<p id="id00661">I was making my way to my hostess; I had to pay my respects to her, +but suddenly everyone said "Hush!" and waved me to step quietly. +There was a silence. The lid of the piano was raised; a lady sat +down at it screwing up her short-sighted eyes at the music, and my +Masha walked up to the piano, in a low-necked dress, looking +beautiful, but with a special, new sort of beauty not in the least +like the Masha who used to come and meet me in the spring at the +mill. She sang: "Why do I love the radiant night?"</p> + +<p id="id00662">It was the first time during our whole acquaintance that I had heard +her sing. She had a fine, mellow, powerful voice, and while she +sang I felt as though I were eating a ripe, sweet, fragrant melon. +She ended, the audience applauded, and she smiled, very much pleased, +making play with her eyes, turning over the music, smoothing her +skirts, like a bird that has at last broken out of its cage and +preens its wings in freedom. Her hair was arranged over her ears, +and she had an unpleasant, defiant expression in her face, as though +she wanted to throw down a challenge to us all, or to shout to us +as she did to her horses: "Hey, there, my beauties!"</p> + +<p id="id00663">And she must at that moment have been very much like her grandfather +the sledge-driver.</p> + +<p id="id00664">"You here too?" she said, giving me her hand. "Did you hear me sing? +Well, what did you think of it?" and without waiting for my answer +she went on: "It's a very good thing you are here. I am going +to-night to Petersburg for a short time. You'll let me go, won't +you?"</p> + +<p id="id00665">At midnight I went with her to the station. She embraced me +affectionately, probably feeling grateful to me for not asking +unnecessary questions, and she promised to write to me, and I held +her hands a long time, and kissed them, hardly able to restrain my +tears and not uttering a word.</p> + +<p id="id00666">And when she had gone I stood watching the retreating lights, +caressing her in imagination and softly murmuring:</p> + +<p id="id00667">"My darling Masha, glorious Masha. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00668">I spent the night at Karpovna's, and next morning I was at work +with Radish, re-covering the furniture of a rich merchant who was +marrying his daughter to a doctor.</p> + +<h5 id="id00669">XVII</h5> + +<p id="id00670">My sister came after dinner on Sunday and had tea with me.</p> + +<p id="id00671">"I read a great deal now," she said, showing me the books which she +had fetched from the public library on her way to me. "Thanks to +your wife and to Vladimir, they have awakened me to self-realization. +They have been my salvation; they have made me feel myself a human +being. In old days I used to lie awake at night with worries of all +sorts, thinking what a lot of sugar we had used in the week, or +hoping the cucumbers would not be too salt. And now, too, I lie +awake at night, but I have different thoughts. I am distressed that +half my life has been passed in such a foolish, cowardly way. I +despise my past; I am ashamed of it. And I look upon our father now +as my enemy. Oh, how grateful I am to your wife! And Vladimir! He +is such a wonderful person! They have opened my eyes!"</p> + +<p id="id00672">"That's bad that you don't sleep at night," I said.</p> + +<p id="id00673">"Do you think I am ill? Not at all. Vladimir sounded me, and said +I was perfectly well. But health is not what matters, it is not so +important. Tell me: am I right?"</p> + +<p id="id00674">She needed moral support, that was obvious. Masha had gone away. +Dr. Blagovo was in Petersburg, and there was no one left in the +town but me, to tell her she was right. She looked intently into +my face, trying to read my secret thoughts, and if I were absorbed +or silent in her presence she thought this was on her account, and +was grieved. I always had to be on my guard, and when she asked me +whether she was right I hastened to assure her that she was right, +and that I had a deep respect for her.</p> + +<p id="id00675">"Do you know they have given me a part at the Azhogins'?" she went +on. "I want to act on the stage, I want to live—in fact, I mean +to drain the full cup. I have no talent, none, and the part is only +ten lines, but still this is immeasurably finer and loftier than +pouring out tea five times a day, and looking to see if the cook +has eaten too much. Above all, let my father see I am capable of +protest."</p> + +<p id="id00676">After tea she lay down on my bed, and lay for a little while with +her eyes closed, looking very pale.</p> + +<p id="id00677">"What weakness," she said, getting up. "Vladimir says all city-bred +women and girls are anæmic from doing nothing. What a clever man +Vladimir is! He is right, absolutely right. We must work!"</p> + +<p id="id00678">Two days later she came to the Azhogins' with her manuscript for +the rehearsal. She was wearing a black dress with a string of coral +round her neck, and a brooch that in the distance was like a pastry +puff, and in her ears earrings sparkling with brilliants. When I +looked at her I felt uncomfortable. I was struck by her lack of +taste. That she had very inappropriately put on earrings and +brilliants, and that she was strangely dressed, was remarked by +other people too; I saw smiles on people's faces, and heard someone +say with a laugh: "Kleopatra of Egypt."</p> + +<p id="id00679">She was trying to assume society manners, to be unconstrained and +at her ease, and so seemed artificial and strange. She had lost +simplicity and sweetness.</p> + +<p id="id00680">"I told father just now that I was going to the rehearsal," she +began, coming up to me, "and he shouted that he would not give me +his blessing, and actually almost struck me. Only fancy, I don't +know my part," she said, looking at her manuscript. "I am sure to +make a mess of it. So be it, the die is cast," she went on in intense +excitement. "The die is cast. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00681">It seemed to her that everyone was looking at her, and that all +were amazed at the momentous step she had taken, that everyone was +expecting something special of her, and it would have been impossible +to convince her that no one was paying attention to people so petty +and insignificant as she and I were.</p> + +<p id="id00682">She had nothing to do till the third act, and her part, that of a +visitor, a provincial crony, consisted only in standing at the door +as though listening, and then delivering a brief monologue. In the +interval before her appearance, an hour and a half at least, while +they were moving about on the stage reading their parts, drinking +tea and arguing, she did not leave my side, and was all the time +muttering her part and nervously crumpling up the manuscript. And +imagining that everyone was looking at her and waiting for her +appearance, with a trembling hand she smoothed back her hair and +said to me:</p> + +<p id="id00683">"I shall certainly make a mess of it. . . . What a load on my heart, +if only you knew! I feel frightened, as though I were just going +to be led to execution."</p> + +<p id="id00684">At last her turn came.</p> + +<p id="id00685">"Kleopatra Alexyevna, it's your cue!" said the stage manager.</p> + +<p id="id00686">She came forward into the middle of the stage with an expression +of horror on her face, looking ugly and angular, and for half a +minute stood as though in a trance, perfectly motionless, and only +her big earrings shook in her ears.</p> + +<p id="id00687">"The first time you can read it," said someone.</p> + +<p id="id00688">It was clear to me that she was trembling, and trembling so much +that she could not speak, and could not unfold her manuscript, and +that she was incapable of acting her part; and I was already on the +point of going to her and saying something, when she suddenly dropped +on her knees in the middle of the stage and broke into loud sobs.</p> + +<p id="id00689">All was commotion and hubbub. I alone stood still, leaning against +the side scene, overwhelmed by what had happened, not understanding +and not knowing what to do. I saw them lift her up and lead her +away. I saw Anyuta Blagovo come up to me; I had not seen her in the +room before, and she seemed to have sprung out of the earth. She +was wearing her hat and veil, and, as always, had an air of having +come only for a moment.</p> + +<p id="id00690">"I told her not to take a part," she said angrily, jerking out each +word abruptly and turning crimson. "It's insanity! You ought to +have prevented her!"</p> + +<p id="id00691">Madame Azhogin, in a short jacket with short sleeves, with cigarette +ash on her breast, looking thin and flat, came rapidly towards me.</p> + +<p id="id00692">"My dear, this is terrible," she brought out, wringing her hands, +and, as her habit was, looking intently into my face. "This is +terrible! Your sister is in a condition. . . . She is with child. +Take her away, I implore you. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00693">She was breathless with agitation, while on one side stood her three +daughters, exactly like her, thin and flat, huddling together in a +scared way. They were alarmed, overwhelmed, as though a convict had +been caught in their house. What a disgrace, how dreadful! And yet +this estimable family had spent its life waging war on superstition; +evidently they imagined that all the superstition and error of +humanity was limited to the three candles, the thirteenth of the +month, and to the unluckiness of Monday!</p> + +<p id="id00694">"I beg you. . . I beg," repeated Madame Azhogin, pursing up her +lips in the shape of a heart on the syllable "you." "I beg you to +take her home."</p> + +<h5 id="id00695">XVIII</h5> + +<p id="id00696">A little later my sister and I were walking along the street. I +covered her with the skirts of my coat; we hastened, choosing back +streets where there were no street lamps, avoiding passers-by; it +was as though we were running away. She was no longer crying, but +looked at me with dry eyes. To Karpovna's, where I took her, it was +only twenty minutes' walk, and, strange to say, in that short time +we succeeded in thinking of our whole life; we talked over everything, +considered our position, reflected. . . .</p> + +<p id="id00697">We decided we could not go on living in this town, and that when I +had earned a little money we would move to some other place. In +some houses everyone was asleep, in others they were playing cards; +we hated these houses; we were afraid of them. We talked of the +fanaticism, the coarseness of feeling, the insignificance of these +respectable families, these amateurs of dramatic art whom we had +so alarmed, and I kept asking in what way these stupid, cruel, lazy, +and dishonest people were superior to the drunken and superstitious +peasants of Kurilovka, or in what way they were better than animals, +who in the same way are thrown into a panic when some incident +disturbs the monotony of their life limited by their instincts. +What would have happened to my sister now if she had been left to +live at home?</p> + +<p id="id00698">What moral agonies would she have experienced, talking with my +father, meeting every day with acquaintances? I imagined this to +myself, and at once there came into my mind people, all people I +knew, who had been slowly done to death by their nearest relations. +I remembered the tortured dogs, driven mad, the live sparrows plucked +naked by boys and flung into the water, and a long, long series of +obscure lingering miseries which I had looked on continually from +early childhood in that town; and I could not understand what these +sixty thousand people lived for, what they read the gospel for, why +they prayed, why they read books and magazines. What good had they +gained from all that had been said and written hitherto if they +were still possessed by the same spiritual darkness and hatred of +liberty, as they were a hundred and three hundred years ago? A +master carpenter spends his whole life building houses in the town, +and always, to the day of his death, calls a "gallery" a "galdery." +So these sixty thousand people have been reading and hearing of +truth, of justice, of mercy, of freedom for generations, and yet +from morning till night, till the day of their death, they are +lying, and tormenting each other, and they fear liberty and hate +it as a deadly foe.</p> + +<p id="id00699">"And so my fate is decided," said my sister, as we arrived home. +"After what has happened I cannot go back <i>there</i>. Heavens, how +good that is! My heart feels lighter."</p> + +<p id="id00700">She went to bed at once. Tears were glittering on her eyelashes, +but her expression was happy; she fell into a sound sweet sleep, +and one could see that her heart was lighter and that she was +resting. It was a long, long time since she had slept like that.</p> + +<p id="id00701">And so we began our life together. She was always singing and saying +that her life was very happy, and the books I brought her from the +public library I took back unread, as now she could not read; she +wanted to do nothing but dream and talk of the future, mending my +linen, or helping Karpovna near the stove; she was always singing, +or talking of her Vladimir, of his cleverness, of his charming +manners, of his kindness, of his extraordinary learning, and I +assented to all she said, though by now I disliked her doctor. She +wanted to work, to lead an independent life on her own account, and +she used to say that she would become a school-teacher or a doctor's +assistant as soon as her health would permit her, and would herself +do the scrubbing and the washing. Already she was passionately +devoted to her child; he was not yet born, but she knew already the +colour of his eyes, what his hands would be like, and how he would +laugh. She was fond of talking about education, and as her Vladimir +was the best man in the world, all her discussion of education could +be summed up in the question how to make the boy as fascinating as +his father. There was no end to her talk, and everything she said +made her intensely joyful. Sometimes I was delighted, too, though +I could not have said why.</p> + +<p id="id00702">I suppose her dreaminess infected me. I, too, gave up reading, and +did nothing but dream. In the evenings, in spite of my fatigue, I +walked up and down the room, with my hands in my pockets, talking +of Masha.</p> + +<p id="id00703">"What do you think?" I would ask of my sister. "When will she come +back? I think she'll come back at Christmas, not later; what has +she to do there?"</p> + +<p id="id00704">"As she doesn't write to you, it's evident she will come back very +soon."</p> + +<p id="id00705">"That's true," I assented, though I knew perfectly well that Masha +would not return to our town.</p> + +<p id="id00706">I missed her fearfully, and could no longer deceive myself, and +tried to get other people to deceive me. My sister was expecting +her doctor, and I—Masha; and both of us talked incessantly, +laughed, and did not notice that we were preventing Karpovna from +sleeping. She lay on the stove and kept muttering:</p> + +<p id="id00707">"The samovar hummed this morning, it did hum! Oh, it bodes no good, +my dears, it bodes no good!"</p> + +<p id="id00708">No one ever came to see us but the postman, who brought my sister +letters from the doctor, and Prokofy, who sometimes came in to see +us in the evening, and after looking at my sister without speaking +went away, and when he was in the kitchen said:</p> + +<p id="id00709">"Every class ought to remember its rules, and anyone, who is so +proud that he won't understand that, will find it a vale of tears."</p> + +<p id="id00710">He was very fond of the phrase "a vale of tears." One day—it was +in Christmas week, when I was walking by the bazaar—he called +me into the butcher's shop, and not shaking hands with me, announced +that he had to speak to me about something very important. His face +was red from the frost and vodka; near him, behind the counter, +stood Nikolka, with the expression of a brigand, holding a bloodstained +knife in his hand.</p> + +<p id="id00711">"I desire to express my word to you," Prokofy began. "This incident +cannot continue, because, as you understand yourself that for such +a vale, people will say nothing good of you or of us. Mamma, through +pity, cannot say something unpleasant to you, that your sister +should move into another lodging on account of her condition, but +I won't have it any more, because I can't approve of her behaviour."</p> + +<p id="id00712">I understood him, and I went out of the shop. The same day my sister +and I moved to Radish's. We had no money for a cab, and we walked +on foot; I carried a parcel of our belongings on my back; my sister +had nothing in her hands, but she gasped for breath and coughed, +and kept asking whether we should get there soon.</p> + +<h5 id="id00713">XIX</h5> + +<p id="id00714">At last a letter came from Masha.</p> + +<p id="id00715">"Dear, good M. A." (she wrote), "our kind, gentle 'angel' as the +old painter calls you, farewell; I am going with my father to America +for the exhibition. In a few days I shall see the ocean—so far +from Dubetchnya, it's dreadful to think! It's far and unfathomable +as the sky, and I long to be there in freedom. I am triumphant, I +am mad, and you see how incoherent my letter is. Dear, good one, +give me my freedom, make haste to break the thread, which still +holds, binding you and me together. My meeting and knowing you was +a ray from heaven that lighted up my existence; but my becoming +your wife was a mistake, you understand that, and I am oppressed +now by the consciousness of the mistake, and I beseech you, on my +knees, my generous friend, quickly, quickly, before I start for the +ocean, telegraph that you consent to correct our common mistake, +to remove the solitary stone from my wings, and my father, who will +undertake all the arrangements, promised me not to burden you too +much with formalities. And so I am free to fly whither I will? Yes?</p> + +<p id="id00716">"Be happy, and God bless you; forgive me, a sinner.</p> + +<p id="id00717">"I am well, I am wasting money, doing all sorts of silly things, +and I thank God every minute that such a bad woman as I has no +children. I sing and have success, but it's not an infatuation; no, +it's my haven, my cell to which I go for peace. King David had a +ring with an inscription on it: 'All things pass.' When one is sad +those words make one cheerful, and when one is cheerful it makes +one sad. I have got myself a ring like that with Hebrew letters on +it, and this talisman keeps me from infatuations. All things pass, +life will pass, one wants nothing. Or at least one wants nothing +but the sense of freedom, for when anyone is free, he wants nothing, +nothing, nothing. Break the thread. A warm hug to you and your +sister. Forgive and forget your M."</p> + +<p id="id00718">My sister used to lie down in one room, and Radish, who had been +ill again and was now better, in another. Just at the moment when +I received this letter my sister went softly into the painter's +room, sat down beside him and began reading aloud. She read to him +every day, Ostrovsky or Gogol, and he listened, staring at one +point, not laughing, but shaking his head and muttering to himself +from time to time:</p> + +<p id="id00719">"Anything may happen! Anything may happen!"</p> + +<p id="id00720">If anything ugly or unseemly were depicted in the play he would say +as though vindictively, thrusting his finger into the book:</p> + +<p id="id00721">"There it is, lying! That's what it does, lying does."</p> + +<p id="id00722">The plays fascinated him, both from their subjects and their moral, +and from their skilful, complex construction, and he marvelled at +"him," never calling the author by his name. How neatly <i>he</i> has +put it all together.</p> + +<p id="id00723">This time my sister read softly only one page, and could read no +more: her voice would not last out. Radish took her hand and, moving +his parched lips, said, hardly audibly, in a husky voice:</p> + +<p id="id00724">"The soul of a righteous man is white and smooth as chalk, but the +soul of a sinful man is like pumice stone. The soul of a righteous +man is like clear oil, but the soul of a sinful man is gas tar. We +must labour, we must sorrow, we must suffer sickness," he went on, +"and he who does not labour and sorrow will not gain the Kingdom +of Heaven. Woe, woe to them that are well fed, woe to the mighty, +woe to the rich, woe to the moneylenders! Not for them is the Kingdom +of Heaven. Lice eat grass, rust eats iron. . ."</p> + +<p id="id00725">"And lying the soul," my sister added laughing. I read the letter +through once more. At that moment there walked into the kitchen a +soldier who had been bringing us twice a week parcels of tea, French +bread and game, which smelt of scent, from some unknown giver. I +had no work. I had had to sit at home idle for whole days together, +and probably whoever sent us the French bread knew that we were in +want.</p> + +<p id="id00726">I heard my sister talking to the soldier and laughing gaily. Then, +lying down, she ate some French bread and said to me:</p> + +<p id="id00727">"When you wouldn't go into the service, but became a house painter, +Anyuta Blagovo and I knew from the beginning that you were right, +but we were frightened to say so aloud. Tell me what force is it +that hinders us from saying what one thinks? Take Anyuta Blagovo +now, for instance. She loves you, she adores you, she knows you are +right, she loves me too, like a sister, and knows that I am right, +and I daresay in her soul envies me, but some force prevents her +from coming to see us, she shuns us, she is afraid."</p> + +<p id="id00728">My sister crossed her arms over her breast, and said passionately:</p> + +<p id="id00729">"How she loves you, if only you knew! She has confessed her love +to no one but me, and then very secretly in the dark. She led me +into a dark avenue in the garden, and began whispering how precious +you were to her. You will see, she'll never marry, because she loves +you. Are you sorry for her?"</p> + +<p id="id00730">"Yes."</p> + +<p id="id00731">"It's she who has sent the bread. She is absurd really, what is the +use of being so secret? I used to be absurd and foolish, but now I +have got away from that and am afraid of nobody. I think and say +aloud what I like, and am happy. When I lived at home I hadn't a +conception of happiness, and now I wouldn't change with a queen."</p> + +<p id="id00732">Dr. Blagovo arrived. He had taken his doctor's degree, and was now +staying in our town with his father; he was taking a rest, and said +that he would soon go back to Petersburg again. He wanted to study +anti-toxins against typhus, and, I believe, cholera; he wanted to +go abroad to perfect his training, and then to be appointed a +professor. He had already left the army service, and wore a roomy +serge reefer jacket, very full trousers, and magnificent neckties. +My sister was in ecstasies over his scarfpin, his studs, and the +red silk handkerchief which he wore, I suppose from foppishness, +sticking out of the breast pocket of his jacket. One day, having +nothing to do, she and I counted up all the suits we remembered him +wearing, and came to the conclusion that he had at least ten. It +was clear that he still loved my sister as before, but he never +once even in jest spoke of taking her with him to Petersburg or +abroad, and I could not picture to myself clearly what would become +of her if she remained alive and what would become of her child. +She did nothing but dream endlessly, and never thought seriously +of the future; she said he might go where he liked, and might abandon +her even, so long as he was happy himself; that what had been was +enough for her.</p> + +<p id="id00733">As a rule he used to sound her very carefully on his arrival, and +used to insist on her taking milk and drops in his presence. It was +the same on this occasion. He sounded her and made her drink a glass +of milk, and there was a smell of creosote in our room afterwards.</p> + +<p id="id00734">"That's a good girl," he said, taking the glass from her. "You +mustn't talk too much now; you've taken to chattering like a magpie +of late. Please hold your tongue."</p> + +<p id="id00735">She laughed. Then he came into Radish's room where I was sitting +and affectionately slapped me on the shoulder.</p> + +<p id="id00736">"Well, how goes it, old man?" he said, bending down to the invalid.</p> + +<p id="id00737">"Your honour," said Radish, moving his lips slowly, "your honour, +I venture to submit. . . . We all walk in the fear of God, we all +have to die. . . . Permit me to tell you the truth. . . . Your +honour, the Kingdom of Heaven will not be for you!"</p> + +<p id="id00738">"There's no help for it," the doctor said jestingly; "there must +be somebody in hell, you know."</p> + +<p id="id00739">And all at once something happened with my consciousness; as though +I were in a dream, as though I were standing on a winter night in +the slaughterhouse yard, and Prokofy beside me, smelling of pepper +cordial; I made an effort to control myself, and rubbed my eyes, +and at once it seemed to me that I was going along the road to the +interview with the Governor. Nothing of the sort had happened to +me before, or has happened to me since, and these strange memories +that were like dreams, I ascribed to overexhaustion of my nerves. +I lived through the scene at the slaughterhouse, and the interview +with the Governor, and at the same time was dimly aware that it was +not real.</p> + +<p id="id00740">When I came to myself I saw that I was no longer in the house, but +in the street, and was standing with the doctor near a lamp-post.</p> + +<p id="id00741">"It's sad, it's sad," he was saying, and tears were trickling down +his cheeks. "She is in good spirits, she's always laughing and +hopeful, but her position's hopeless, dear boy. Your Radish hates +me, and is always trying to make me feel that I have treated her +badly. He is right from his standpoint, but I have my point of view +too; and I shall never regret all that has happened. One must love; +we ought all to love—oughtn't we? There would be no life without +love; anyone who fears and avoids love is not free."</p> + +<p id="id00742">Little by little he passed to other subjects, began talking of +science, of his dissertation which had been liked in Petersburg. +He was carried away by his subject, and no longer thought of my +sister, nor of his grief, nor of me. Life was of absorbing interest +to him. She has America and her ring with the inscription on it, I +thought, while this fellow has his doctor's degree and a professor's +chair to look forward to, and only my sister and I are left with +the old things.</p> + +<p id="id00743">When I said good-bye to him, I went up to the lamp-post and read +the letter once more. And I remembered, I remembered vividly how +that spring morning she had come to me at the mill, lain down and +covered herself with her jacket—she wanted to be like a simple +peasant woman. And how, another time—it was in the morning also—we +drew the net out of the water, and heavy drops of rain fell +upon us from the riverside willows, and we laughed.</p> + +<p id="id00744">It was dark in our house in Great Dvoryansky Street. I got over the +fence and, as I used to do in the old days, went by the back way +to the kitchen to borrow a lantern. There was no one in the kitchen. +The samovar hissed near the stove, waiting for my father. "Who pours +out my father's tea now?" I thought. Taking the lantern I went out +to the shed, built myself up a bed of old newspapers and lay down. +The hooks on the walls looked forbidding, as they used to of old, +and their shadows flickered. It was cold. I felt that my sister +would come in in a minute, and bring me supper, but at once I +remembered that she was ill and was lying at Radish's, and it seemed +to me strange that I should have climbed over the fence and be lying +here in this unheated shed. My mind was in a maze, and I saw all +sorts of absurd things.</p> + +<p id="id00745">There was a ring. A ring familiar from childhood: first the wire +rustled against the wall, then a short plaintive ring in the kitchen. +It was my father come back from the club. I got up and went into +the kitchen. Axinya the cook clasped her hands on seeing me, and +for some reason burst into tears.</p> + +<p id="id00746">"My own!" she said softly. "My precious! O Lord!"</p> + +<p id="id00747">And she began crumpling up her apron in her agitation. In the window +there were standing jars of berries in vodka. I poured myself out +a teacupful and greedily drank it off, for I was intensely thirsty. +Axinya had quite recently scrubbed the table and benches, and there +was that smell in the kitchen which is found in bright, snug kitchens +kept by tidy cooks. And that smell and the chirp of the cricket +used to lure us as children into the kitchen, and put us in the +mood for hearing fairy tales and playing at "Kings" . . .</p> + +<p id="id00748">"Where's Kleopatra?" Axinya asked softly, in a fluster, holding her +breath; "and where is your cap, my dear? Your wife, you say, has +gone to Petersburg?"</p> + +<p id="id00749">She had been our servant in our mother's time, and used once to +give Kleopatra and me our baths, and to her we were still children +who had to be talked to for their good. For a quarter of an hour +or so she laid before me all the reflections which she had with the +sagacity of an old servant been accumulating in the stillness of +that kitchen, all the time since we had seen each other. She said +that the doctor could be forced to marry Kleopatra; he only needed +to be thoroughly frightened; and that if an appeal were promptly +written the bishop would annul the first marriage; that it would +be a good thing for me to sell Dubetchnya without my wife's knowledge, +and put the money in the bank in my own name; that if my sister and +I were to bow down at my father's feet and ask him properly, he +might perhaps forgive us; that we ought to have a service sung to +the Queen of Heaven. . . .</p> + +<p id="id00750">"Come, go along, my dear, and speak to him," she said, when she +heard my father's cough. "Go along, speak to him; bow down, your +head won't drop off."</p> + +<p id="id00751">I went in. My father was sitting at the table sketching a plan of +a summer villa, with Gothic windows, and with a fat turret like a +fireman's watch tower—something peculiarly stiff and tasteless. +Going into the study I stood still where I could see this drawing. +I did not know why I had gone in to my father, but I remember that +when I saw his lean face, his red neck, and his shadow on the wall, +I wanted to throw myself on his neck, and as Axinya had told me, +bow down at his feet; but the sight of the summer villa with the +Gothic windows, and the fat turret, restrained me.</p> + +<p id="id00752">"Good evening," I said.</p> + +<p id="id00753">He glanced at me, and at once dropped his eyes on his drawing.</p> + +<p id="id00754">"What do you want?" he asked, after waiting a little.</p> + +<p id="id00755">"I have come to tell you my sister's very ill. She can't live very +long," I added in a hollow voice.</p> + +<p id="id00756">"Well," sighed my father, taking off his spectacles, and laying +them on the table. "What thou sowest that shalt thou reap. What +thou sowest," he repeated, getting up from the table, "that shalt +thou reap. I ask you to remember how you came to me two years ago, +and on this very spot I begged you, I besought you to give up your +errors; I reminded you of your duty, of your honour, of what you +owed to your forefathers whose traditions we ought to preserve as +sacred. Did you obey me? You scorned my counsels, and obstinately +persisted in clinging to your false ideals; worse still you drew +your sister into the path of error with you, and led her to lose +her moral principles and sense of shame. Now you are both in a bad +way. Well, as thou sowest, so shalt thou reap!"</p> + +<p id="id00757">As he said this he walked up and down the room. He probably imagined +that I had come to him to confess my wrong doings, and he probably +expected that I should begin begging him to forgive my sister and +me. I was cold, I was shivering as though I were in a fever, and +spoke with difficulty in a husky voice.</p> + +<p id="id00758">"And I beg you, too, to remember," I said, "on this very spot I +besought you to understand me, to reflect, to decide with me how +and for what we should live, and in answer you began talking about +our forefathers, about my grandfather who wrote poems. One tells +you now that your only daughter is hopelessly ill, and you go on +again about your forefathers, your traditions. . . . And such +frivolity in your old age, when death is close at hand, and you +haven't more than five or ten years left!"</p> + +<p id="id00759">"What have you come here for?" my father asked sternly, evidently +offended at my reproaching him for his frivolity.</p> + +<p id="id00760">"I don't know. I love you, I am unutterably sorry that we are so +far apart—so you see I have come. I love you still, but my sister +has broken with you completely. She does not forgive you, and will +never forgive you now. Your very name arouses her aversion for the +past, for life."</p> + +<p id="id00761">"And who is to blame for it?" cried my father. "It's your fault, +you scoundrel!"</p> + +<p id="id00762">"Well, suppose it is my fault?" I said. "I admit I have been to +blame in many things, but why is it that this life of yours, which +you think binding upon us, too—why is it so dreary, so barren? +How is it that in not one of these houses you have been building +for the last thirty years has there been anyone from whom I might +have learnt how to live, so as not to be to blame? There is not one +honest man in the whole town! These houses of yours are nests of +damnation, where mothers and daughters are made away with, where +children are tortured. . . . My poor mother!" I went on in despair. +"My poor sister! One has to stupefy oneself with vodka, with cards, +with scandal; one must become a scoundrel, a hypocrite, or go on +drawing plans for years and years, so as not to notice all the +horrors that lie hidden in these houses. Our town has existed for +hundreds of years, and all that time it has not produced one man +of service to our country—not one. You have stifled in the germ +everything in the least living and bright. It's a town of shopkeepers, +publicans, counting-house clerks, canting hypocrites; it's a useless, +unnecessary town, which not one soul would regret if it suddenly +sank through the earth."</p> + +<p id="id00763">"I don't want to listen to you, you scoundrel!" said my father, and +he took up his ruler from the table. "You are drunk. Don't dare +come and see your father in such a state! I tell you for the last +time, and you can repeat it to your depraved sister, that you'll +get nothing from me, either of you. I have torn my disobedient +children out of my heart, and if they suffer for their disobedience +and obstinacy I do not pity them. You can go whence you came. It +has pleased God to chastise me with you, but I will bear the trial +with resignation, and, like Job, I will find consolation in my +sufferings and in unremitting labour. You must not cross my threshold +till you have mended your ways. I am a just man, all I tell you is +for your benefit, and if you desire your own good you ought to +remember all your life what I say and have said to you. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00764">I waved my hand in despair and went away. I don't remember what +happened afterwards, that night and next day.</p> + +<p id="id00765">I am told that I walked about the streets bareheaded, staggering, +and singing aloud, while a crowd of boys ran after me, shouting:</p> + +<p id="id00766">"Better-than-nothing!"</p> + +<h5 id="id00767">XX</h5> + +<p id="id00768">If I wanted to order a ring for myself, the inscription I should +choose would be: "Nothing passes away." I believe that nothing +passes away without leaving a trace, and that every step we take, +however small, has significance for our present and our future +existence.</p> + +<p id="id00769">What I have been through has not been for nothing. My great troubles, +my patience, have touched people's hearts, and now they don't call +me "Better-than-nothing," they don't laugh at me, and when I walk +by the shops they don't throw water over me. They have grown used +to my being a workman, and see nothing strange in my carrying a +pail of paint and putting in windows, though I am of noble rank; +on the contrary, people are glad to give me orders, and I am now +considered a first-rate workman, and the best foreman after Radish, +who, though he has regained his health, and though, as before, he +paints the cupola on the belfry without scaffolding, has no longer +the force to control the workmen; instead of him I now run about +the town looking for work, I engage the workmen and pay them, borrow +money at a high rate of interest, and now that I myself am a +contractor, I understand how it is that one may have to waste three +days racing about the town in search of tilers on account of some +twopenny-halfpenny job. People are civil to me, they address me +politely, and in the houses where I work, they offer me tea, and +send to enquire whether I wouldn't like dinner. Children and young +girls often come and look at me with curiosity and compassion.</p> + +<p id="id00770">One day I was working in the Governor's garden, painting an arbour +there to look like marble. The Governor, walking in the garden, +came up to the arbour and, having nothing to do, entered into +conversation with me, and I reminded him how he had once summoned +me to an interview with him. He looked into my face intently for a +minute, then made his mouth like a round "O," flung up his hands, +and said: "I don't remember!"</p> + +<p id="id00771">I have grown older, have become silent, stern, and austere, I rarely +laugh, and I am told that I have grown like Radish, and that like +him I bore the workmen by my useless exhortations.</p> + +<p id="id00772">Mariya Viktorovna, my former wife, is living now abroad, while her +father is constructing a railway somewhere in the eastern provinces, +and is buying estates there. Dr. Blagovo is also abroad. Dubetchnya +has passed again into the possession of Madame Tcheprakov, who has +bought it after forcing the engineer to knock the price down twenty +per cent. Moisey goes about now in a bowler hat; he often drives +into the town in a racing droshky on business of some sort, and +stops near the bank. They say he has already bought up a mortgaged +estate, and is constantly making enquiries at the bank about +Dubetchnya, which he means to buy too. Poor Ivan Tcheprakov was for +a long while out of work, staggering about the town and drinking. +I tried to get him into our work, and for a time he painted roofs +and put in window-panes in our company, and even got to like it, +and stole oil, asked for tips, and drank like a regular painter. +But he soon got sick of the work, and went back to Dubetchnya, and +afterwards the workmen confessed to me that he had tried to persuade +them to join him one night and murder Moisey and rob Madame Tcheprakov.</p> + +<p id="id00773">My father has greatly aged; he is very bent, and in the evenings +walks up and down near his house. I never go to see him.</p> + +<p id="id00774">During an epidemic of cholera Prokofy doctored some of the shopkeepers +with pepper cordial and pitch, and took money for doing so, and, +as I learned from the newspapers, was flogged for abusing the doctors +as he sat in his shop. His shop boy Nikolka died of cholera. Karpovna +is still alive and, as always, she loves and fears her Prokofy. +When she sees me, she always shakes her head mournfully, and says +with a sigh: "Your life is ruined."</p> + +<p id="id00775">On working days I am busy from morning till night. On holidays, in +fine weather, I take my tiny niece (my sister reckoned on a boy, +but the child is a girl) and walk in a leisurely way to the cemetery. +There I stand or sit down, and stay a long time gazing at the grave +that is so dear to me, and tell the child that her mother lies here.</p> + +<p id="id00776">Sometimes, by the graveside, I find Anyuta Blagovo. We greet each +other and stand in silence, or talk of Kleopatra, of her child, of +how sad life is in this world; then, going out of the cemetery we +walk along in silence and she slackens her pace on purpose to walk +beside me a little longer. The little girl, joyous and happy, pulls +at her hand, laughing and screwing up her eyes in the bright sunlight, +and we stand still and join in caressing the dear child.</p> + +<p id="id00777">When we reach the town Anyuta Blagovo, agitated and flushing crimson, +says good-bye to me and walks on alone, austere and respectable. . . . +And no one who met her could, looking at her, imagine that she +had just been walking beside me and even caressing the child.</p> + +<h4 id="id00778" style="margin-top: 2em">AT A COUNTRY HOUSE</h4> + +<p id="id00779">PAVEL ILYITCH RASHEVITCH walked up and down, stepping softly on the +floor covered with little Russian plaids, and casting a long shadow +on the wall and ceiling while his guest, Meier, the deputy examining +magistrate, sat on the sofa with one leg drawn up under him smoking +and listening. The clock already pointed to eleven, and there were +sounds of the table being laid in the room next to the study.</p> + +<p id="id00780">"Say what you like," Rashevitch was saying, "from the standpoint +of fraternity, equality, and the rest of it, Mitka, the swineherd, +is perhaps a man the same as Goethe and Frederick the Great; but +take your stand on a scientific basis, have the courage to look +facts in the face, and it will be obvious to you that blue blood +is not a mere prejudice, that it is not a feminine invention. Blue +blood, my dear fellow, has an historical justification, and to +refuse to recognize it is, to my thinking, as strange as to refuse +to recognize the antlers on a stag. One must reckon with facts! You +are a law student and have confined your attention to the humane +studies, and you can still flatter yourself with illusions of +equality, fraternity, and so on; I am an incorrigible Darwinian, +and for me words such as lineage, aristocracy, noble blood, are not +empty sounds."</p> + +<p id="id00781">Rashevitch was roused and spoke with feeling. His eyes sparkled, +his pince-nez would not stay on his nose, he kept nervously shrugging +his shoulders and blinking, and at the word "Darwinian" he looked +jauntily in the looking-glass and combed his grey beard with both +hands. He was wearing a very short and shabby reefer jacket and +narrow trousers; the rapidity of his movements, his jaunty air, and +his abbreviated jacket all seemed out of keeping with him, and his +big comely head, with long hair suggestive of a bishop or a veteran +poet, seemed to have been fixed on to the body of a tall, lanky, +affected youth. When he stood with his legs wide apart, his long +shadow looked like a pair of scissors.</p> + +<p id="id00782">He was fond of talking, and he always fancied that he was saying +something new and original. In the presence of Meier he was conscious +of an unusual flow of spirits and rush of ideas. He found the +examining magistrate sympathetic, and was stimulated by his youth, +his health, his good manners, his dignity, and, above all, by his +cordial attitude to himself and his family. Rashevitch was not a +favourite with his acquaintances; as a rule they fought shy of him, +and, as he knew, declared that he had driven his wife into her grave +with his talking, and they called him, behind his back, a spiteful +creature and a toad. Meier, a man new to the district and unprejudiced, +visited him often and readily and had even been known to say that +Rashevitch and his daughters were the only people in the district +with whom he felt as much at home as with his own people. Rashevitch +liked him too, because he was a young man who might be a good match +for his elder daughter, Genya.</p> + +<p id="id00783">And now, enjoying his ideas and the sound of his own voice, and +looking with pleasure at the plump but well-proportioned, neatly +cropped, correct Meier, Rashevitch dreamed of how he would arrange +his daughter's marriage with a good man, and then how all his worries +over the estate would pass to his son-in-law. Hateful worries! The +interest owing to the bank had not been paid for the last two +quarters, and fines and arrears of all sorts had mounted up to more +than two thousand.</p> + +<p id="id00784">"To my mind there can be no doubt," Rashevitch went on, growing +more and more enthusiastic, "that if a Richard Coeur-de-Lion, or +Frederick Barbarossa, for instance, is brave and noble those qualities +will pass by heredity to his son, together with the convolutions +and bumps of the brain, and if that courage and nobility of soul +are preserved in the son by means of education and exercise, and +if he marries a princess who is also noble and brave, those qualities +will be transmitted to his grandson, and so on, until they become +a generic characteristic and pass organically into the flesh and +blood. Thanks to a strict sexual selection, to the fact that high-born +families have instinctively guarded themselves against marriage +with their inferiors, and young men of high rank have not married +just anybody, lofty, spiritual qualities have been transmitted from +generation to generation in their full purity, have been preserved, +and as time goes on have, through exercise, become more exalted and +lofty. For the fact that there is good in humanity we are indebted +to nature, to the normal, natural, consistent order of things, which +has throughout the ages scrupulously segregated blue blood from +plebeian. Yes, my dear boy, no low lout, no cook's son has given +us literature, science, art, law, conceptions of honour and duty +. . . . For all these things mankind is indebted exclusively to the +aristocracy, and from that point of view, the point of view of +natural history, an inferior Sobakevitch by the very fact of his +blue blood is superior and more useful than the very best merchant, +even though the latter may have built fifteen museums. Say what you +like! And when I refuse to shake hands with a low lout or a cook's +son, or to let him sit down to table with me, by that very act I +am safeguarding what is the best thing on earth, and am carrying +out one of Mother Nature's finest designs for leading us up to +perfection. . ."</p> + +<p id="id00785">Rashevitch stood still, combing his beard with both hands; his +shadow, too, stood still on the wall, looking like a pair of scissors.</p> + +<p id="id00786">"Take Mother-Russia now," he went on, thrusting his hands in his +pockets and standing first on his heels and then on his toes. "Who +are her best people? Take our first-rate painters, writers, composers +. . . . Who are they? They were all of aristocratic origin. Pushkin, +Lermontov, Turgenev, Gontcharov, Tolstoy, they were not sexton's +children."</p> + +<p id="id00787">"Gontcharov was a merchant," said Meier.</p> + +<p id="id00788">"Well, the exception only proves the rule. Besides, Gontcharov's +genius is quite open to dispute. But let us drop names and turn to +facts. What would you say, my good sir, for instance, to this +eloquent fact: when one of the mob forces his way where he has not +been permitted before, into society, into the world of learning, +of literature, into the Zemstvo or the law courts, observe, Nature +herself, first of all, champions the higher rights of humanity, and +is the first to wage war on the rabble. As soon as the plebeian +forces himself into a place he is not fit for he begins to ail, to +go into consumption, to go out of his mind, and to degenerate, and +nowhere do we find so many puny, neurotic wrecks, consumptives, and +starvelings of all sorts as among these darlings. They die like +flies in autumn. If it were not for this providential degeneration +there would not have been a stone left standing of our civilization, +the rabble would have demolished everything. Tell me, if you please, +what has the inroad of the barbarians given us so far? What has the +rabble brought with it?" Rashevitch assumed a mysterious, frightened +expression, and went on: "Never has literature and learning been +at such low ebb among us as now. The men of to-day, my good sir, +have neither ideas nor ideals, and all their sayings and doings are +permeated by one spirit—to get all they can and to strip someone +to his last thread. All these men of to-day who give themselves out +as honest and progressive people can be bought at a rouble a piece, +and the distinguishing mark of the 'intellectual' of to-day is that +you have to keep strict watch over your pocket when you talk to +him, or else he will run off with your purse." Rashevitch winked +and burst out laughing. "Upon my soul, he will!" he said, in a thin, +gleeful voice. "And morals! What of their morals?" Rashevitch looked +round towards the door. "No one is surprised nowadays when a wife +robs and leaves her husband. What's that, a trifle! Nowadays, my +dear boy, a chit of a girl of twelve is scheming to get a lover, +and all these amateur theatricals and literary evenings are only +invented to make it easier to get a rich merchant to take a girl +on as his mistress. . . . Mothers sell their daughters, and people +make no bones about asking a husband at what price he sells his +wife, and one can haggle over the bargain, you know, my +dear. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00789">Meier, who had been sitting motionless and silent all the time, +suddenly got up from the sofa and looked at his watch.</p> + +<p id="id00790">"I beg your pardon, Pavel Ilyitch," he said, "it is time for me to +be going."</p> + +<p id="id00791">But Pavel Ilyitch, who had not finished his remarks, put his arm +round him and, forcibly reseating him on the sofa, vowed that he +would not let him go without supper. And again Meier sat and listened, +but he looked at Rashevitch with perplexity and uneasiness, as +though he were only now beginning to understand him. Patches of red +came into his face. And when at last a maidservant came in to tell +them that the young ladies asked them to go to supper, he gave a +sigh of relief and was the first to walk out of the study.</p> + +<p id="id00792">At the table in the next room were Rashevitch's daughters, Genya +and Iraida, girls of four-and-twenty and two-and-twenty respectively, +both very pale, with black eyes, and exactly the same height. Genya +had her hair down, and Iraida had hers done up high on her head. +Before eating anything they each drank a wineglassful of bitter +liqueur, with an air as though they had drunk it by accident for +the first time in their lives and both were overcome with confusion +and burst out laughing.</p> + +<p id="id00793">"Don't be naughty, girls," said Rashevitch.</p> + +<p id="id00794">Genya and Iraida talked French with each other, and Russian with +their father and their visitor. Interrupting one another, and mixing +up French words with Russian, they began rapidly describing how +just at this time in August, in previous years, they had set off +to the boarding school and what fun it had been. Now there was +nowhere to go, and they had to stay at their home in the country, +summer and winter without change. Such dreariness!</p> + +<p id="id00795">"Don't be naughty, girls," Rashevitch said again.</p> + +<p id="id00796">He wanted to be talking himself. If other people talked in his +presence, he suffered from a feeling like jealousy.</p> + +<p id="id00797">"So that's how it is, my dear boy," he began, looking affectionately +at Meier. "In the simplicity and goodness of our hearts, and from +fear of being suspected of being behind the times, we fraternize +with, excuse me, all sorts of riff-raff, we preach fraternity and +equality with money-lenders and innkeepers; but if we would only +think, we should see how criminal that good-nature is. We have +brought things to such a pass, that the fate of civilization is +hanging on a hair. My dear fellow, what our forefathers gained in +the course of ages will be to-morrow, if not to-day, outraged and +destroyed by these modern Huns. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00798">After supper they all went into the drawing-room. Genya and Iraida +lighted the candles on the piano, got out their music. . . . But +their father still went on talking, and there was no telling when +he would leave off. They looked with misery and vexation at their +egoist-father, to whom the pleasure of chattering and displaying +his intelligence was evidently more precious and important than his +daughters' happiness. Meier, the only young man who ever came to +their house, came—they knew—for the sake of their charming, +feminine society, but the irrepressible old man had taken possession +of him, and would not let him move a step away.</p> + +<p id="id00799">"Just as the knights of the west repelled the invasions of the +Mongols, so we, before it is too late, ought to unite and strike +together against our foe," Rashevitch went on in the tone of a +preacher, holding up his right hand. "May I appear to the riff-raff +not as Pavel Ilyitch, but as a mighty, menacing Richard Coeur-de-Lion. +Let us give up sloppy sentimentality; enough of it! Let us all make +a compact, that as soon as a plebeian comes near us we fling some +careless phrase straight in his ugly face: 'Paws off! Go back to +your kennel, you cur!' straight in his ugly face," Rashevitch went +on gleefully, flicking his crooked finger in front of him. "In his +ugly face!"</p> + +<p id="id00800">"I can't do that," Meier brought out, turning away.</p> + +<p id="id00801">"Why not?" Rashevitch answered briskly, anticipating a prolonged +and interesting argument. "Why not?"</p> + +<p id="id00802">"Because I am of the artisan class myself!"</p> + +<p id="id00803">As he said this Meier turned crimson, and his neck seemed to swell, +and tears actually gleamed in his eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00804">"My father was a simple workman," he said, in a rough, jerky voice, +"but I see no harm in that."</p> + +<p id="id00805">Rashevitch was fearfully confused. Dumbfoundered, as though he had +been caught in the act of a crime, he gazed helplessly at Meier, +and did not know what to say. Genya and Iraida flushed crimson, and +bent over their music; they were ashamed of their tactless father. +A minute passed in silence, and there was a feeling of unbearable +discomfort, when all at once with a sort of painful stiffness and +inappropriateness, there sounded in the air the words:</p> + +<p id="id00806">"Yes, I am of the artisan class, and I am proud of it!"</p> + +<p id="id00807">Thereupon Meier, stumbling awkwardly among the furniture, took his +leave, and walked rapidly into the hall, though his carriage was +not yet at the door.</p> + +<p id="id00808">"You'll have a dark drive to-night," Rashevitch muttered, following +him. "The moon does not rise till late to-night."</p> + +<p id="id00809">They stood together on the steps in the dark, and waited for the +horses to be brought. It was cool.</p> + +<p id="id00810">"There's a falling star," said Meier, wrapping himself in his +overcoat.</p> + +<p id="id00811">"There are a great many in August."</p> + +<p id="id00812">When the horses were at the door, Rashevitch gazed intently at the +sky, and said with a sigh:</p> + +<p id="id00813">"A phenomenon worthy of the pen of Flammarion. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00814">After seeing his visitor off, he walked up and down the garden, +gesticulating in the darkness, reluctant to believe that such a +queer, stupid misunderstanding had only just occurred. He was ashamed +and vexed with himself. In the first place it had been extremely +incautious and tactless on his part to raise the damnable subject +of blue blood, without finding out beforehand what his visitor's +position was. Something of the same sort had happened to him before; +he had, on one occasion in a railway carriage, begun abusing the +Germans, and it had afterwards appeared that all the persons he had +been conversing with were German. In the second place he felt that +Meier would never come and see him again. These intellectuals who +have risen from the people are morbidly sensitive, obstinate and +slow to forgive.</p> + +<p id="id00815">"It's bad, it's bad," muttered Rashevitch, spitting; he had a feeling +of discomfort and loathing as though he had eaten soap. "Ah, it's +bad!"</p> + +<p id="id00816">He could see from the garden, through the drawing-room window, Genya +by the piano, very pale, and looking scared, with her hair down. +She was talking very, very rapidly. . . . Iraida was walking up and +down the room, lost in thought; but now she, too, began talking +rapidly with her face full of indignation. They were both talking +at once. Rashevitch could not hear a word, but he guessed what they +were talking about. Genya was probably complaining that her father +drove away every decent person from the house with his talk, and +to-day he had driven away from them their one acquaintance, perhaps +a suitor, and now the poor young man would not have one place in +the whole district where he could find rest for his soul. And judging +by the despairing way in which she threw up her arms, Iraida was +talking probably on the subject of their dreary existence, their +wasted youth. . . .</p> + +<p id="id00817">When he reached his own room, Rashevitch sat down on his bed and +began to undress. He felt oppressed, and he was still haunted by +the same feeling as though he had eaten soap. He was ashamed. As +he undressed he looked at his long, sinewy, elderly legs, and +remembered that in the district they called him the "toad," and +after every long conversation he always felt ashamed. Somehow or +other, by some fatality, it always happened that he began mildly, +amicably, with good intentions, calling himself an old student, an +idealist, a Quixote, but without being himself aware of it, gradually +passed into abuse and slander, and what was most surprising, with +perfect sincerity criticized science, art and morals, though he had +not read a book for the last twenty years, had been nowhere farther +than their provincial town, and did not really know what was going +on in the world. If he sat down to write anything, if it were only +a letter of congratulation, there would somehow be abuse in the +letter. And all this was strange, because in reality he was a man +of feeling, given to tears. Could he be possessed by some devil +which hated and slandered in him, apart from his own will?</p> + +<p id="id00818">"It's bad," he sighed, as he lay down under the quilt. "It's bad."</p> + +<p id="id00819">His daughters did not sleep either. There was a sound of laughter +and screaming, as though someone was being pursued; it was Genya +in hysterics. A little later Iraida was sobbing too. A maidservant +ran barefoot up and down the passage several times. . . .</p> + +<p id="id00820">"What a business! Good Lord! . . ." muttered Rashevitch, sighing +and tossing from side to side. "It's bad."</p> + +<p id="id00821">He had a nightmare. He dreamt he was standing naked, as tall as a +giraffe, in the middle of the room, and saying, as he flicked his +finger before him:</p> + +<p id="id00822">"In his ugly face! his ugly face! his ugly face!"</p> + +<p id="id00823">He woke up in a fright, and first of all remembered that a +misunderstanding had happened in the evening, and that Meier would +certainly not come again. He remembered, too, that he had to pay +the interest at the bank, to find husbands for his daughters, that +one must have food and drink, and close at hand were illness, old +age, unpleasantnesses, that soon it would be winter, and that there +was no wood. . . .</p> + +<p id="id00824">It was past nine o'clock in the morning. Rashevitch slowly dressed, +drank his tea and ate two hunks of bread and butter. His daughters +did not come down to breakfast; they did not want to meet him, and +that wounded him. He lay down on his sofa in his study, then sat +down to his table and began writing a letter to his daughters. His +hand shook and his eyes smarted. He wrote that he was old, and no +use to anyone and that nobody loved him, and he begged his daughters +to forget him, and when he died to bury him in a plain, deal coffin +without ceremony, or to send his body to Harkov to the dissecting +theatre. He felt that every line he wrote reeked of malice and +affectation, but he could not stop, and went on writing and writing.</p> + +<p id="id00825">"The toad!" he suddenly heard from the next room; it was the voice +of his elder daughter, a voice with a hiss of indignation. "The +toad!"</p> + +<p id="id00826">"The toad!" the younger one repeated like an echo. "The toad!"</p> + +<h4 id="id00827" style="margin-top: 2em">A FATHER</h4> + +<p id="id00828">"I ADMIT I have had a drop. . . . You must excuse me. I went into +a beer shop on the way here, and as it was so hot had a couple of +bottles. It's hot, my boy."</p> + +<p id="id00829">Old Musatov took a nondescript rag out of his pocket and wiped his +shaven, battered face with it.</p> + +<p id="id00830">"I have come only for a minute, Borenka, my angel," he went on, not +looking at his son, "about something very important. Excuse me, +perhaps I am hindering you. Haven't you ten roubles, my dear, you +could let me have till Tuesday? You see, I ought to have paid for +my lodging yesterday, and money, you see! . . . None! Not to save +my life!"</p> + +<p id="id00831">Young Musatov went out without a word, and began whispering the +other side of the door with the landlady of the summer villa and +his colleagues who had taken the villa with him. Three minutes later +he came back, and without a word gave his father a ten-rouble note. +The latter thrust it carelessly into his pocket without looking at +it, and said:</p> + +<p id="id00832">"<i>Merci.</i> Well, how are you getting on? It's a long time since we +met."</p> + +<p id="id00833">"Yes, a long time, not since Easter."</p> + +<p id="id00834">"Half a dozen times I have been meaning to come to you, but I've +never had time. First one thing, then another. . . . It's simply +awful! I am talking nonsense though. . . . All that's nonsense. +Don't you believe me, Borenka. I said I would pay you back the ten +roubles on Tuesday, don't believe that either. Don't believe a word +I say. I have nothing to do at all, it's simply laziness, drunkenness, +and I am ashamed to be seen in such clothes in the street. You must +excuse me, Borenka. Here I have sent the girl to you three times +for money and written you piteous letters. Thanks for the money, +but don't believe the letters; I was telling fibs. I am ashamed to +rob you, my angel; I know that you can scarcely make both ends meet +yourself, and feed on locusts, but my impudence is too much for me. +I am such a specimen of impudence—fit for a show! . . . You must +excuse me, Borenka. I tell you the truth, because I can't see your +angel face without emotion."</p> + +<p id="id00835">A minute passed in silence. The old man heaved a deep sigh and said:</p> + +<p id="id00836">"You might treat me to a glass of beer perhaps."</p> + +<p id="id00837">His son went out without a word, and again there was a sound of +whispering the other side of the door. When a little later the beer +was brought in, the old man seemed to revive at the sight of the +bottles and abruptly changed his tone.</p> + +<p id="id00838">"I was at the races the other day, my boy," he began telling him, +assuming a scared expression. "We were a party of three, and we +pooled three roubles on Frisky. And, thanks to that Frisky, we got +thirty-two roubles each for our rouble. I can't get on without the +races, my boy. It's a gentlemanly diversion. My virago always gives +me a dressing over the races, but I go. I love it, and that's all +about it."</p> + +<p id="id00839">Boris, a fair-haired young man with a melancholy immobile face, was +walking slowly up and down, listening in silence. When the old man +stopped to clear his throat, he went up to him and said:</p> + +<p id="id00840">"I bought myself a pair of boots the other day, father, which turn +out to be too tight for me. Won't you take them? I'll let you have +them cheap."</p> + +<p id="id00841">"If you like," said the old man with a grimace, "only for the price +you gave for them, without any cheapening."</p> + +<p id="id00842">"Very well, I'll let you have them on credit."</p> + +<p id="id00843">The son groped under the bed and produced the new boots. The father +took off his clumsy, rusty, evidently second-hand boots and began +trying on the new ones.</p> + +<p id="id00844">"A perfect fit," he said. "Right, let me keep them. And on Tuesday, +when I get my pension, I'll send you the money for them. That's not +true, though," he went on, suddenly falling into the same tearful +tone again. "And it was a lie about the races, too, and a lie about +the pension. And you are deceiving me, Borenka. . . . I feel your +generous tactfulness. I see through you! Your boots were too small, +because your heart is too big. Ah, Borenka, Borenka! I understand +it all and feel it!"</p> + +<p id="id00845">"Have you moved into new lodgings?" his son interrupted, to change +the conversation.</p> + +<p id="id00846">"Yes, my boy. I move every month. My virago can't stay long in the +same place with her temper."</p> + +<p id="id00847">"I went to your lodgings, I meant to ask you to stay here with me. +In your state of health it would do you good to be in the fresh +air."</p> + +<p id="id00848">"No," said the old man, with a wave of his hand, "the woman wouldn't +let me, and I shouldn't care to myself. A hundred times you have +tried to drag me out of the pit, and I have tried myself, but nothing +came of it. Give it up. I must stick in my filthy hole. This minute, +here I am sitting, looking at your angel face, yet something is +drawing me home to my hole. Such is my fate. You can't draw a +dung-beetle to a rose. But it's time I was going, my boy. It's +getting dark."</p> + +<p id="id00849">"Wait a minute then, I'll come with you. I have to go to town to-day +myself."</p> + +<p id="id00850">Both put on their overcoats and went out. When a little while +afterwards they were driving in a cab, it was already dark, and +lights began to gleam in the windows.</p> + +<p id="id00851">"I've robbed you, Borenka!" the father muttered. "Poor children, +poor children! It must be a dreadful trouble to have such a father! +Borenka, my angel, I cannot lie when I see your face. You must +excuse me. . . . What my depravity has come to, my God. Here I have +just been robbing you, and put you to shame with my drunken state; +I am robbing your brothers, too, and put them to shame, and you +should have seen me yesterday! I won't conceal it, Borenka. Some +neighbours, a wretched crew, came to see my virago; I got drunk, +too, with them, and I blackguarded you poor children for all I was +worth. I abused you, and complained that you had abandoned me. I +wanted, you see, to touch the drunken hussies' hearts, and pose as +an unhappy father. It's my way, you know, when I want to screen my +vices I throw all the blame on my innocent children. I can't tell +lies and hide things from you, Borenka. I came to see you as proud +as a peacock, but when I saw your gentleness and kind heart, my +tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, and it upset my conscience +completely."</p> + +<p id="id00852">"Hush, father, let's talk of something else."</p> + +<p id="id00853">"Mother of God, what children I have," the old man went on, not +heeding his son. "What wealth God has bestowed on me. Such children +ought not to have had a black sheep like me for a father, but a +real man with soul and feeling! I am not worthy of you!"</p> + +<p id="id00854">The old man took off his cap with a button at the top and crossed +himself several times.</p> + +<p id="id00855">"Thanks be to Thee, O Lord!" he said with a sigh, looking from side +to side as though seeking for an ikon. "Remarkable, exceptional +children! I have three sons, and they are all like one. Sober, +steady, hard-working, and what brains! Cabman, what brains! Grigory +alone has brains enough for ten. He speaks French, he speaks German, +and talks better than any of your lawyers—one is never tired of +listening. My children, my children, I can't believe that you are +mine! I can't believe it! You are a martyr, my Borenka, I am ruining +you, and I shall go on ruining you. . . . You give to me endlessly, +though you know your money is thrown away. The other day I sent you +a pitiful letter, I described how ill I was, but you know I was +lying, I wanted the money for rum. And you give to me because you +are afraid to wound me by refusing. I know all that, and feel it. +Grisha's a martyr, too. On Thursday I went to his office, drunk, +filthy, ragged, reeking of vodka like a cellar . . . I went straight +up, such a figure, I pestered him with nasty talk, while his +colleagues and superiors and petitioners were standing round. I +have disgraced him for life. And he wasn't the least confused, only +turned a bit pale, but smiled and came up to me as though there +were nothing the matter, even introduced me to his colleagues. Then +he took me all the way home, and not a word of reproach. I rob him +worse than you. Take your brother Sasha now, he's a martyr too! He +married, as you know, a colonel's daughter of an aristocratic circle, +and got a dowry with her. . . . You would think he would have nothing +to do with me. No, brother, after his wedding he came with his young +wife and paid me the first visit . . . in my hole. . . . Upon my +soul!"</p> + +<p id="id00856">The old man gave a sob and then began laughing.</p> + +<p id="id00857">"And at that moment, as luck would have it, we were eating grated +radish with kvass and frying fish, and there was a stink enough in +the flat to make the devil sick. I was lying down—I'd had a drop—my +virago bounced out at the young people with her face crimson. +. . . It was a disgrace in fact. But Sasha rose superior to it all."</p> + +<p id="id00858">"Yes, our Sasha is a good fellow," said Boris.</p> + +<p id="id00859">"The most splendid fellow! You are all pure gold, you and Grisha +and Sasha and Sonya. I worry you, torment you, disgrace you, rob +you, and all my life I have not heard one word of reproach from +you, you have never given me one cross look. It would be all very +well if I had been a decent father to you—but as it is! You have +had nothing from me but harm. I am a bad, dissipated man. . . . +Now, thank God, I am quieter and I have no strength of will, but +in old days when you were little I had determination, will. Whatever +I said or did I always thought it was right. Sometimes I'd come +home from the club at night, drunk and ill-humoured, and scold at +your poor mother for spending money. The whole night I would be +railing at her, and think it the right thing too; you would get up +in the morning and go to school, while I'd still be venting my +temper upon her. Heavens! I did torture her, poor martyr! When you +came back from school and I was asleep you didn't dare to have +dinner till I got up. At dinner again there would be a flare up. I +daresay you remember. I wish no one such a father; God sent me to +you for a trial. Yes, for a trial! Hold out, children, to the end! +Honour thy father and thy days shall be long. Perhaps for your noble +conduct God will grant you long life. Cabman, stop!"</p> + +<p id="id00860">The old man jumped out of the cab and ran into a tavern. Half an +hour later he came back, cleared his throat in a drunken way, and +sat down beside his son.</p> + +<p id="id00861">"Where's Sonya now?" he asked. "Still at boarding-school?"</p> + +<p id="id00862">"No, she left in May, and is living now with Sasha's mother-in-law."</p> + +<p id="id00863">"There!" said the old man in surprise. "She is a jolly good girl! +So she is following her brother's example. . . . Ah, Borenka, she +has no mother, no one to rejoice over her! I say, Borenka, does she +. . . does she know how I am living? Eh?"</p> + +<p id="id00864">Boris made no answer. Five minutes passed in profound silence. The +old man gave a sob, wiped his face with a rag and said:</p> + +<p id="id00865">"I love her, Borenka! She is my only daughter, you know, and in +one's old age there is no comfort like a daughter. Could I see her, +Borenka?"</p> + +<p id="id00866">"Of course, when you like."</p> + +<p id="id00867">"Really? And she won't mind?"</p> + +<p id="id00868">"Of course not, she has been trying to find you so as to see you."</p> + +<p id="id00869">"Upon my soul! What children! Cabman, eh? Arrange it, Borenka +darling! She is a young lady now, <i>delicatesse, consommé</i>, and all +the rest of it in a refined way, and I don't want to show myself +to her in such an abject state. I'll tell you how we'll contrive +to work it. For three days I will keep away from spirits, to get +my filthy, drunken phiz into better order. Then I'll come to you, +and you shall lend me for the time some suit of yours; I'll shave +and have my hair cut, then you go and bring her to your flat. Will +you?"</p> + +<p id="id00870">"Very well."</p> + +<p id="id00871">"Cabman, stop!"</p> + +<p id="id00872">The old man sprang out of the cab again and ran into a tavern. While +Boris was driving with him to his lodging he jumped out twice again, +while his son sat silent and waited patiently for him. When, after +dismissing the cab, they made their way across a long, filthy yard +to the "virago's" lodging, the old man put on an utterly shamefaced +and guilty air, and began timidly clearing his throat and clicking +with his lips.</p> + +<p id="id00873">"Borenka," he said in an ingratiating voice, "if my virago begins +saying anything, don't take any notice . . . and behave to her, you +know, affably. She is ignorant and impudent, but she's a good +baggage. There is a good, warm heart beating in her bosom!"</p> + +<p id="id00874">The long yard ended, and Boris found himself in a dark entry. The +swing door creaked, there was a smell of cooking and a smoking +samovar. There was a sound of harsh voices. Passing through the +passage into the kitchen Boris could see nothing but thick smoke, +a line with washing on it, and the chimney of the samovar through +a crack of which golden sparks were dropping.</p> + +<p id="id00875">"And here is my cell," said the old man, stooping down and going +into a little room with a low-pitched ceiling, and an atmosphere +unbearably stifling from the proximity of the kitchen.</p> + +<p id="id00876">Here three women were sitting at the table regaling themselves. +Seeing the visitors, they exchanged glances and left off eating.</p> + +<p id="id00877">"Well, did you get it?" one of them, apparently the "virago" herself, +asked abruptly.</p> + +<p id="id00878">"Yes, yes," muttered the old man. "Well, Boris, pray sit down. +Everything is plain here, young man . . . we live in a simple way."</p> + +<p id="id00879">He bustled about in an aimless way. He felt ashamed before his son, +and at the same time apparently he wanted to keep up before the +women his dignity as cock of the walk, and as a forsaken, unhappy +father.</p> + +<p id="id00880">"Yes, young man, we live simply with no nonsense," he went on +muttering. "We are simple people, young man. . . . We are not like +you, we don't want to keep up a show before people. No! . . . Shall +we have a drink of vodka?"</p> + +<p id="id00881">One of the women (she was ashamed to drink before a stranger) heaved +a sigh and said:</p> + +<p id="id00882">"Well, I'll have another drink on account of the mushrooms. . . . +They are such mushrooms, they make you drink even if you don't want +to. Ivan Gerasimitch, offer the young gentleman, perhaps he will +have a drink!"</p> + +<p id="id00883">The last word she pronounced in a mincing drawl.</p> + +<p id="id00884">"Have a drink, young man!" said the father, not looking at his son. +"We have no wine or liqueurs, my boy, we live in a plain way."</p> + +<p id="id00885">"He doesn't like our ways," sighed the "virago." "Never mind, never +mind, he'll have a drink."</p> + +<p id="id00886">Not to offend his father by refusing, Boris took a wineglass and +drank in silence. When they brought in the samovar, to satisfy the +old man, he drank two cups of disgusting tea in silence, with a +melancholy face. Without a word he listened to the virago dropping +hints about there being in this world cruel, heartless children who +abandon their parents.</p> + +<p id="id00887">"I know what you are thinking now!" said the old man, after drinking +more and passing into his habitual state of drunken excitement. +"You think I have let myself sink into the mire, that I am to be +pitied, but to my thinking, this simple life is much more normal +than your life, . . . I don't need anybody, and . . . and I don't +intend to eat humble pie. . . . I can't endure a wretched boy's +looking at me with compassion."</p> + +<p id="id00888">After tea he cleaned a herring and sprinkled it with onion, with +such feeling, that tears of emotion stood in his eyes. He began +talking again about the races and his winnings, about some Panama +hat for which he had paid sixteen roubles the day before. He told +lies with the same relish with which he ate herring and drank. His +son sat on in silence for an hour, and began to say good-bye.</p> + +<p id="id00889">"I don't venture to keep you," the old man said, haughtily. "You +must excuse me, young man, for not living as you would like!"</p> + +<p id="id00890">He ruffled up his feathers, snorted with dignity, and winked at the +women.</p> + +<p id="id00891">"Good-bye, young man," he said, seeing his son into the entry. +"Attendez."</p> + +<p id="id00892">In the entry, where it was dark, he suddenly pressed his face against +the young man's sleeve and gave a sob.</p> + +<p id="id00893">"I should like to have a look at Sonitchka," he whispered. "Arrange +it, Borenka, my angel. I'll shave, I'll put on your suit . . . I'll +put on a straight face . . . I'll hold my tongue while she is there. +Yes, yes, I will hold my tongue!"</p> + +<p id="id00894">He looked round timidly towards the door, through which the women's +voices were heard, checked his sobs, and said aloud:</p> + +<p id="id00895">"Good-bye, young man! Attendez."</p> + +<h4 id="id00896" style="margin-top: 2em">ON THE ROAD</h4> + +<p id="id00897"><i>"Upon the breast of a gigantic crag, +A golden cloudlet rested for one night."</i></p> + +<h5 id="id00898">LERMONTOV.</h5> + +<p id="id00899">IN the room which the tavern keeper, the Cossack Semyon Tchistopluy, +called the "travellers' room," that is kept exclusively for travellers, +a tall, broad-shouldered man of forty was sitting at the big unpainted +table. He was asleep with his elbows on the table and his head +leaning on his fist. An end of tallow candle, stuck into an old +pomatum pot, lighted up his light brown beard, his thick, broad +nose, his sunburnt cheeks, and the thick, black eyebrows overhanging +his closed eyes. . . . The nose and the cheeks and the eyebrows, +all the features, each taken separately, were coarse and heavy, +like the furniture and the stove in the "travellers' room," but +taken all together they gave the effect of something harmonious and +even beautiful. Such is the lucky star, as it is called, of the +Russian face: the coarser and harsher its features the softer and +more good-natured it looks. The man was dressed in a gentleman's +reefer jacket, shabby, but bound with wide new braid, a plush +waistcoat, and full black trousers thrust into big high boots.</p> + +<p id="id00900">On one of the benches, which stood in a continuous row along the +wall, a girl of eight, in a brown dress and long black stockings, +lay asleep on a coat lined with fox. Her face was pale, her hair +was flaxen, her shoulders were narrow, her whole body was thin and +frail, but her nose stood out as thick and ugly a lump as the man's. +She was sound asleep, and unconscious that her semi-circular comb +had fallen off her head and was cutting her cheek.</p> + +<p id="id00901">The "travellers' room" had a festive appearance. The air was full +of the smell of freshly scrubbed floors, there were no rags hanging +as usual on the line that ran diagonally across the room, and a +little lamp was burning in the corner over the table, casting a +patch of red light on the ikon of St. George the Victorious. From +the ikon stretched on each side of the corner a row of cheap +oleographs, which maintained a strict and careful gradation in the +transition from the sacred to the profane. In the dim light of the +candle end and the red ikon lamp the pictures looked like one +continuous stripe, covered with blurs of black. When the tiled +stove, trying to sing in unison with the weather, drew in the air +with a howl, while the logs, as though waking up, burst into bright +flame and hissed angrily, red patches began dancing on the log +walls, and over the head of the sleeping man could be seen first +the Elder Seraphim, then the Shah Nasir-ed-Din, then a fat, brown +baby with goggle eyes, whispering in the ear of a young girl with +an extraordinarily blank, and indifferent face. . . .</p> + +<p id="id00902">Outside a storm was raging. Something frantic and wrathful, but +profoundly unhappy, seemed to be flinging itself about the tavern +with the ferocity of a wild beast and trying to break in. Banging +at the doors, knocking at the windows and on the roof, scratching +at the walls, it alternately threatened and besought, then subsided +for a brief interval, and then with a gleeful, treacherous howl +burst into the chimney, but the wood flared up, and the fire, like +a chained dog, flew wrathfully to meet its foe, a battle began, and +after it—sobs, shrieks, howls of wrath. In all of this there was +the sound of angry misery and unsatisfied hate, and the mortified +impatience of something accustomed to triumph.</p> + +<p id="id00903">Bewitched by this wild, inhuman music the "travellers' room" seemed +spellbound for ever, but all at once the door creaked and the potboy, +in a new print shirt, came in. Limping on one leg, and blinking his +sleepy eyes, he snuffed the candle with his fingers, put some more +wood on the fire and went out. At once from the church, which was +three hundred paces from the tavern, the clock struck midnight. The +wind played with the chimes as with the snowflakes; chasing the +sounds of the clock it whirled them round and round over a vast +space, so that some strokes were cut short or drawn out in long, +vibrating notes, while others were completely lost in the general +uproar. One stroke sounded as distinctly in the room as though it +had chimed just under the window. The child, sleeping on the fox-skin, +started and raised her head. For a minute she stared blankly at the +dark window, at Nasir-ed-Din over whom a crimson glow from the fire +flickered at that moment, then she turned her eyes upon the sleeping +man.</p> + +<p id="id00904">"Daddy," she said.</p> + +<p id="id00905">But the man did not move. The little girl knitted her brow angrily, +lay down, and curled up her legs. Someone in the tavern gave a loud, +prolonged yawn. Soon afterwards there was the squeak of the swing +door and the sound of indistinct voices. Someone came in, shaking +the snow off, and stamping in felt boots which made a muffled thud.</p> + +<p id="id00906">"What is it?" a woman's voice asked languidly.</p> + +<p id="id00907">"Mademoiselle Ilovaisky has come, . . ." answered a bass voice.</p> + +<p id="id00908">Again there was the squeak of the swing door. Then came the roar +of the wind rushing in. Someone, probably the lame boy, ran to the +door leading to the "travellers' room," coughed deferentially, and +lifted the latch.</p> + +<p id="id00909">"This way, lady, please," said a woman's voice in dulcet tones. +"It's clean in here, my beauty. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00910">The door was opened wide and a peasant with a beard appeared in the +doorway, in the long coat of a coachman, plastered all over with +snow from head to foot, and carrying a big trunk on his shoulder. +He was followed into the room by a feminine figure, scarcely half +his height, with no face and no arms, muffled and wrapped up like +a bundle and also covered with snow. A damp chill, as from a cellar, +seemed to come to the child from the coachman and the bundle, and +the fire and the candles flickered.</p> + +<p id="id00911">"What nonsense!" said the bundle angrily, "We could go perfectly +well. We have only nine more miles to go, mostly by the forest, and +we should not get lost. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00912">"As for getting lost, we shouldn't, but the horses can't go on, +lady!" answered the coachman. "And it is Thy Will, O Lord! As though +I had done it on purpose!"</p> + +<p id="id00913">"God knows where you have brought me. . . . Well, be quiet. . . . +There are people asleep here, it seems. You can go. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00914">The coachman put the portmanteau on the floor, and as he did so, a +great lump of snow fell off his shoulders. He gave a sniff and went +out.</p> + +<p id="id00915">Then the little girl saw two little hands come out from the middle +of the bundle, stretch upwards and begin angrily disentangling the +network of shawls, kerchiefs, and scarves. First a big shawl fell +on the ground, then a hood, then a white knitted kerchief. After +freeing her head, the traveller took off her pelisse and at once +shrank to half the size. Now she was in a long, grey coat with big +buttons and bulging pockets. From one pocket she pulled out a paper +parcel, from the other a bunch of big, heavy keys, which she put +down so carelessly that the sleeping man started and opened his +eyes. For some time he looked blankly round him as though he didn't +know where he was, then he shook his head, went to the corner and +sat down. . . . The newcomer took off her great coat, which made +her shrink to half her size again, she took off her big felt boots, +and sat down, too.</p> + +<p id="id00916">By now she no longer resembled a bundle: she was a thin little +brunette of twenty, as slim as a snake, with a long white face and +curly hair. Her nose was long and sharp, her chin, too, was long +and sharp, her eyelashes were long, the corners of her mouth were +sharp, and, thanks to this general sharpness, the expression of her +face was biting. Swathed in a closely fitting black dress with a +mass of lace at her neck and sleeves, with sharp elbows and long +pink fingers, she recalled the portraits of mediæval English ladies. +The grave concentration of her face increased this likeness.</p> + +<p id="id00917">The lady looked round at the room, glanced sideways at the man and +the little girl, shrugged her shoulders, and moved to the window. +The dark windows were shaking from the damp west wind. Big flakes +of snow glistening in their whiteness, lay on the window frame, but +at once disappeared, borne away by the wind. The savage music grew +louder and louder. . . .</p> + +<p id="id00918">After a long silence the little girl suddenly turned over, and said +angrily, emphasizing each word:</p> + +<p id="id00919">"Oh, goodness, goodness, how unhappy I am! Unhappier than anyone!"</p> + +<p id="id00920">The man got up and moved with little steps to the child with a +guilty air, which was utterly out of keeping with his huge figure +and big beard.</p> + +<p id="id00921">"You are not asleep, dearie?" he said, in an apologetic voice. "What +do you want?"</p> + +<p id="id00922">"I don't want anything, my shoulder aches! You are a wicked man, +Daddy, and God will punish you! You'll see He will punish you."</p> + +<p id="id00923">"My darling, I know your shoulder aches, but what can I do, dearie?" +said the man, in the tone in which men who have been drinking excuse +themselves to their stern spouses. "It's the journey has made your +shoulder ache, Sasha. To-morrow we shall get there and rest, and +the pain will go away. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00924">"To-morrow, to-morrow. . . . Every day you say to-morrow. We shall +be going on another twenty days."</p> + +<p id="id00925">"But we shall arrive to-morrow, dearie, on your father's word of +honour. I never tell a lie, but if we are detained by the snowstorm +it is not my fault."</p> + +<p id="id00926">"I can't bear any more, I can't, I can't!"</p> + +<p id="id00927">Sasha jerked her leg abruptly and filled the room with an unpleasant +wailing. Her father made a despairing gesture, and looked hopelessly +towards the young lady. The latter shrugged her shoulders, and +hesitatingly went up to Sasha.</p> + +<p id="id00928">"Listen, my dear," she said, "it is no use crying. It's really +naughty; if your shoulder aches it can't be helped."</p> + +<p id="id00929">"You see, Madam," said the man quickly, as though defending himself, +"we have not slept for two nights, and have been travelling in a +revolting conveyance. Well, of course, it is natural she should be +ill and miserable, . . . and then, you know, we had a drunken driver, +our portmanteau has been stolen . . . the snowstorm all the time, +but what's the use of crying, Madam? I am exhausted, though, by +sleeping in a sitting position, and I feel as though I were drunk. +Oh, dear! Sasha, and I feel sick as it is, and then you cry!"</p> + +<p id="id00930">The man shook his head, and with a gesture of despair sat down.</p> + +<p id="id00931">"Of course you mustn't cry," said the young lady. "It's only little +babies cry. If you are ill, dear, you must undress and go to +sleep. . . . Let us take off your things!"</p> + +<p id="id00932">When the child had been undressed and pacified a silence reigned +again. The young lady seated herself at the window, and looked round +wonderingly at the room of the inn, at the ikon, at the stove. . . . +Apparently the room and the little girl with the thick nose, in +her short boy's nightgown, and the child's father, all seemed strange +to her. This strange man was sitting in a corner; he kept looking +about him helplessly, as though he were drunk, and rubbing his face +with the palm of his hand. He sat silent, blinking, and judging +from his guilty-looking figure it was difficult to imagine that he +would soon begin to speak. Yet he was the first to begin. Stroking +his knees, he gave a cough, laughed, and said:</p> + +<p id="id00933">"It's a comedy, it really is. . . . I look and I cannot believe my +eyes: for what devilry has destiny driven us to this accursed inn? +What did she want to show by it? Life sometimes performs such <i>'salto +mortale,'</i> one can only stare and blink in amazement. Have you come +from far, Madam?"</p> + +<p id="id00934">"No, not from far," answered the young lady. "I am going from our +estate, fifteen miles from here, to our farm, to my father and +brother. My name is Ilovaisky, and the farm is called Ilovaiskoe. +It's nine miles away. What unpleasant weather!"</p> + +<p id="id00935">"It couldn't be worse."</p> + +<p id="id00936">The lame boy came in and stuck a new candle in the pomatum pot.</p> + +<p id="id00937">"You might bring us the samovar, boy," said the man, addressing +him.</p> + +<p id="id00938">"Who drinks tea now?" laughed the boy. "It is a sin to drink tea +before mass. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00939">"Never mind boy, you won't burn in hell if we do. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00940">Over the tea the new acquaintances got into conversation.</p> + +<p id="id00941">Mlle. Ilovaisky learned that her companion was called Grigory +Petrovitch Liharev, that he was the brother of the Liharev who was +Marshal of Nobility in one of the neighbouring districts, and he +himself had once been a landowner, but had "run through everything +in his time." Liharev learned that her name was Marya Mihailovna, +that her father had a huge estate, but that she was the only one +to look after it as her father and brother looked at life through +their fingers, were irresponsible, and were too fond of harriers.</p> + +<p id="id00942">"My father and brother are all alone at the farm," she told him, +brandishing her fingers (she had the habit of moving her fingers +before her pointed face as she talked, and after every sentence +moistened her lips with her sharp little tongue). "They, I mean +men, are an irresponsible lot, and don't stir a finger for themselves. +I can fancy there will be no one to give them a meal after the fast! +We have no mother, and we have such servants that they can't lay +the tablecloth properly when I am away. You can imagine their +condition now! They will be left with nothing to break their fast, +while I have to stay here all night. How strange it all is."</p> + +<p id="id00943">She shrugged her shoulders, took a sip from her cup, and said:</p> + +<p id="id00944">"There are festivals that have a special fragrance: at Easter, +Trinity and Christmas there is a peculiar scent in the air. Even +unbelievers are fond of those festivals. My brother, for instance, +argues that there is no God, but he is the first to hurry to Matins +at Easter."</p> + +<p id="id00945">Liharev raised his eyes to Mlle. Ilovaisky and laughed.</p> + +<p id="id00946">"They argue that there is no God," she went on, laughing too, "but +why is it, tell me, all the celebrated writers, the learned men, +clever people generally, in fact, believe towards the end of their +life?"</p> + +<p id="id00947">"If a man does not know how to believe when he is young, Madam, he +won't believe in his old age if he is ever so much of a writer."</p> + +<p id="id00948">Judging from Liharev's cough he had a bass voice, but, probably +from being afraid to speak aloud, or from exaggerated shyness, he +spoke in a tenor. After a brief pause he heaved a sign and said:</p> + +<p id="id00949">"The way I look at it is that faith is a faculty of the spirit. It +is just the same as a talent, one must be born with it. So far as +I can judge by myself, by the people I have seen in my time, and +by all that is done around us, this faculty is present in Russians +in its highest degree. Russian life presents us with an uninterrupted +succession of convictions and aspirations, and if you care to know, +it has not yet the faintest notion of lack of faith or scepticism. +If a Russian does not believe in God, it means he believes in +something else."</p> + +<p id="id00950">Liharev took a cup of tea from Mlle. Ilovaisky, drank off half in +one gulp, and went on:</p> + +<p id="id00951">"I will tell you about myself. Nature has implanted in my breast +an extraordinary faculty for belief. Whisper it not to the night, +but half my life I was in the ranks of the Atheists and Nihilists, +but there was not one hour in my life in which I ceased to believe. +All talents, as a rule, show themselves in early childhood, and so +my faculty showed itself when I could still walk upright under the +table. My mother liked her children to eat a great deal, and when +she gave me food she used to say: 'Eat! Soup is the great thing in +life!' I believed, and ate the soup ten times a day, ate like a +shark, ate till I was disgusted and stupefied. My nurse used to +tell me fairy tales, and I believed in house-spirits, in wood-elves, +and in goblins of all kinds. I used sometimes to steal corrosive +sublimate from my father, sprinkle it on cakes, and carry them up +to the attic that the house-spirits, you see, might eat them and +be killed. And when I was taught to read and understand what I read, +then there was a fine to-do. I ran away to America and went off to +join the brigands, and wanted to go into a monastery, and hired +boys to torture me for being a Christian. And note that my faith +was always active, never dead. If I was running away to America I +was not alone, but seduced someone else, as great a fool as I was, +to go with me, and was delighted when I was nearly frozen outside +the town gates and when I was thrashed; if I went to join the +brigands I always came back with my face battered. A most restless +childhood, I assure you! And when they sent me to the high school +and pelted me with all sorts of truths—that is, that the earth +goes round the sun, or that white light is not white, but is made +up of seven colours—my poor little head began to go round! +Everything was thrown into a whirl in me: Navin who made the sun +stand still, and my mother who in the name of the Prophet Elijah +disapproved of lightning conductors, and my father who was indifferent +to the truths I had learned. My enlightenment inspired me. I wandered +about the house and stables like one possessed, preaching my truths, +was horrified by ignorance, glowed with hatred for anyone who saw +in white light nothing but white light. . . . But all that's nonsense +and childishness. Serious, so to speak, manly enthusiasms began +only at the university. You have, no doubt, Madam, taken your degree +somewhere?"</p> + +<p id="id00952">"I studied at Novotcherkask at the Don Institute."</p> + +<p id="id00953">"Then you have not been to a university? So you don't know what +science means. All the sciences in the world have the same passport, +without which they regard themselves as meaningless . . . the +striving towards truth! Every one of them, even pharmacology, has +for its aim not utility, not the alleviation of life, but truth. +It's remarkable! When you set to work to study any science, what +strikes you first of all is its beginning. I assure you there is +nothing more attractive and grander, nothing is so staggering, +nothing takes a man's breath away like the beginning of any science. +From the first five or six lectures you are soaring on wings of the +brightest hopes, you already seem to yourself to be welcoming truth +with open arms. And I gave myself up to science, heart and soul, +passionately, as to the woman one loves. I was its slave; I found +it the sun of my existence, and asked for no other. I studied day +and night without rest, ruined myself over books, wept when before +my eyes men exploited science for their own personal ends. But my +enthusiasm did not last long. The trouble is that every science has +a beginning but not an end, like a recurring decimal. Zoology has +discovered 35,000 kinds of insects, chemistry reckons 60 elements. +If in time tens of noughts can be written after these figures, +Zoology and chemistry will be just as far from their end as now, +and all contemporary scientific work consists in increasing these +numbers. I saw through this trick when I discovered the 35,001-st +and felt no satisfaction. Well, I had no time to suffer from +disillusionment, as I was soon possessed by a new faith. I plunged +into Nihilism, with its manifestoes, its 'black divisions,' and all +the rest of it. I 'went to the people,' worked in factories, worked +as an oiler, as a barge hauler. Afterwards, when wandering over +Russia, I had a taste of Russian life, I turned into a fervent +devotee of that life. I loved the Russian people with poignant +intensity; I loved their God and believed in Him, and in their +language, their creative genius. . . . And so on, and so on. . . . +I have been a Slavophile in my time, I used to pester Aksakov with +letters, and I was a Ukrainophile, and an archæologist, and a +collector of specimens of peasant art. . . . I was enthusiastic +over ideas, people, events, places . . . my enthusiasm was endless! +Five years ago I was working for the abolition of private property; +my last creed was non-resistance to evil."</p> + +<p id="id00954">Sasha gave an abrupt sigh and began moving. Liharev got up and went +to her.</p> + +<p id="id00955">"Won't you have some tea, dearie?" he asked tenderly.</p> + +<p id="id00956">"Drink it yourself," the child answered rudely. Liharev was +disconcerted, and went back to the table with a guilty step.</p> + +<p id="id00957">"Then you have had a lively time," said Mlle. Ilovaisky; "you have +something to remember."</p> + +<p id="id00958">"Well, yes, it's all very lively when one sits over tea and chatters +to a kind listener, but you should ask what that liveliness has +cost me! What price have I paid for the variety of my life? You +see, Madam, I have not held my convictions like a German doctor of +philosophy, <i>zierlichmännerlich</i>, I have not lived in solitude, but +every conviction I have had has bound my back to the yoke, has torn +my body to pieces. Judge, for yourself. I was wealthy like my +brothers, but now I am a beggar. In the delirium of my enthusiasm +I smashed up my own fortune and my wife's—a heap of other people's +money. Now I am forty-two, old age is close upon me, and I am +homeless, like a dog that has dropped behind its waggon at night. +All my life I have not known what peace meant, my soul has been in +continual agitation, distressed even by its hopes . . . I have been +wearied out with heavy irregular work, have endured privation, have +five times been in prison, have dragged myself across the provinces +of Archangel and of Tobolsk . . . it's painful to think of it! I +have lived, but in my fever I have not even been conscious of the +process of life itself. Would you believe it, I don't remember a +single spring, I never noticed how my wife loved me, how my children +were born. What more can I tell you? I have been a misfortune to +all who have loved me. . . . My mother has worn mourning for me all +these fifteen years, while my proud brothers, who have had to wince, +to blush, to bow their heads, to waste their money on my account, +have come in the end to hate me like poison."</p> + +<p id="id00959">Liharev got up and sat down again.</p> + +<p id="id00960">"If I were simply unhappy I should thank God," he went on without +looking at his listener. "My personal unhappiness sinks into the +background when I remember how often in my enthusiasms I have been +absurd, far from the truth, unjust, cruel, dangerous! How often I +have hated and despised those whom I ought to have loved, and <i>vice +versa</i>, I have changed a thousand times. One day I believe, fall +down and worship, the next I flee like a coward from the gods and +friends of yesterday, and swallow in silence the 'scoundrel!' they +hurl after me. God alone has seen how often I have wept and bitten +my pillow in shame for my enthusiasms. Never once in my life have +I intentionally lied or done evil, but my conscience is not clear! +I cannot even boast, Madam, that I have no one's life upon my +conscience, for my wife died before my eyes, worn out by my reckless +activity. Yes, my wife! I tell you they have two ways of treating +women nowadays. Some measure women's skulls to prove woman is +inferior to man, pick out her defects to mock at her, to look +original in her eyes, and to justify their sensuality. Others do +their utmost to raise women to their level, that is, force them to +learn by heart the 35,000 species, to speak and write the same +foolish things as they speak and write themselves."</p> + +<p id="id00961">Liharev's face darkened.</p> + +<p id="id00962">"I tell you that woman has been and always will be the slave of +man," he said in a bass voice, striking his fist on the table. "She +is the soft, tender wax which a man always moulds into anything he +likes. . . . My God! for the sake of some trumpery masculine +enthusiasm she will cut off her hair, abandon her family, die among +strangers! . . . among the ideas for which she has sacrificed herself +there is not a single feminine one. . . . An unquestioning, devoted +slave! I have not measured skulls, but I say this from hard, bitter +experience: the proudest, most independent women, if I have succeeded +in communicating to them my enthusiasm, have followed me without +criticism, without question, and done anything I chose; I have +turned a nun into a Nihilist who, as I heard afterwards, shot a +gendarme; my wife never left me for a minute in my wanderings, and +like a weathercock changed her faith in step with my changing +enthusiasms."</p> + +<p id="id00963">Liharev jumped up and walked up and down the room.</p> + +<p id="id00964">"A noble, sublime slavery!" he said, clasping his hands. "It is +just in it that the highest meaning of woman's life lies! Of all +the fearful medley of thoughts and impressions accumulated in my +brain from my association with women my memory, like a filter, has +retained no ideas, no clever saying, no philosophy, nothing but +that extraordinary, resignation to fate, that wonderful mercifulness, +forgiveness of everything."</p> + +<p id="id00965">Liharev clenched his fists, stared at a fixed point, and with a +sort of passionate intensity, as though he were savouring each word +as he uttered it, hissed through his clenched teeth:</p> + +<p id="id00966">"That . . . that great-hearted fortitude, faithfulness unto death, +poetry of the heart. . . . The meaning of life lies in just that +unrepining martyrdom, in the tears which would soften a stone, in +the boundless, all-forgiving love which brings light and warmth +into the chaos of life. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00967">Mlle. Ilovaisky got up slowly, took a step towards Liharev, and +fixed her eyes upon his face. From the tears that glittered on his +eyelashes, from his quivering, passionate voice, from the flush on +his cheeks, it was clear to her that women were not a chance, not +a simple subject of conversation. They were the object of his new +enthusiasm, or, as he said himself, his new faith! For the first +time in her life she saw a man carried away, fervently believing. +With his gesticulations, with his flashing eyes he seemed to her +mad, frantic, but there was a feeling of such beauty in the fire +of his eyes, in his words, in all the movements of his huge body, +that without noticing what she was doing she stood facing him as +though rooted to the spot, and gazed into his face with delight.</p> + +<p id="id00968">"Take my mother," he said, stretching out his hand to her with an +imploring expression on his face, "I poisoned her existence, according +to her ideas disgraced the name of Liharev, did her as much harm +as the most malignant enemy, and what do you think? My brothers +give her little sums for holy bread and church services, and outraging +her religious feelings, she saves that money and sends it in secret +to her erring Grigory. This trifle alone elevates and ennobles the +soul far more than all the theories, all the clever sayings and the +35,000 species. I can give you thousands of instances. Take you, +even, for instance! With tempest and darkness outside you are going +to your father and your brother to cheer them with your affection +in the holiday, though very likely they have forgotten and are not +thinking of you. And, wait a bit, and you will love a man and follow +him to the North Pole. You would, wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p id="id00969">"Yes, if I loved him."</p> + +<p id="id00970">"There, you see," cried Liharev delighted, and he even stamped with +his foot. "Oh dear! How glad I am that I have met you! Fate is kind +to me, I am always meeting splendid people. Not a day passes but +one makes acquaintance with somebody one would give one's soul for. +There are ever so many more good people than bad in this world. +Here, see, for instance, how openly and from our hearts we have +been talking as though we had known each other a hundred years. +Sometimes, I assure you, one restrains oneself for ten years and +holds one's tongue, is reserved with one's friends and one's wife, +and meets some cadet in a train and babbles one's whole soul out +to him. It is the first time I have the honour of seeing you, and +yet I have confessed to you as I have never confessed in my life. +Why is it?"</p> + +<p id="id00971">Rubbing his hands and smiling good-humouredly Liharev walked up and +down the room, and fell to talking about women again. Meanwhile +they began ringing for matins.</p> + +<p id="id00972">"Goodness," wailed Sasha. "He won't let me sleep with his talking!"</p> + +<p id="id00973">"Oh, yes!" said Liharev, startled. "I am sorry, darling, sleep, +sleep. . . . I have two boys besides her," he whispered. "They are +living with their uncle, Madam, but this one can't exist a day +without her father. She's wretched, she complains, but she sticks +to me like a fly to honey. I have been chattering too much, Madam, +and it would do you no harm to sleep. Wouldn't you like me to make +up a bed for you?"</p> + +<p id="id00974">Without waiting for permission he shook the wet pelisse, stretched +it on a bench, fur side upwards, collected various shawls and +scarves, put the overcoat folded up into a roll for a pillow, and +all this he did in silence with a look of devout reverence, as +though he were not handling a woman's rags, but the fragments of +holy vessels. There was something apologetic, embarrassed about his +whole figure, as though in the presence of a weak creature he felt +ashamed of his height and strength. . . .</p> + +<p id="id00975">When Mlle. Ilovaisky had lain down, he put out the candle and sat +down on a stool by the stove.</p> + +<p id="id00976">"So, Madam," he whispered, lighting a fat cigarette and puffing the +smoke into the stove. "Nature has put into the Russian an extraordinary +faculty for belief, a searching intelligence, and the gift of +speculation, but all that is reduced to ashes by irresponsibility, +laziness, and dreamy frivolity. . . . Yes. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id00977">She gazed wonderingly into the darkness, and saw only a spot of red +on the ikon and the flicker of the light of the stove on Liharev's +face. The darkness, the chime of the bells, the roar of the storm, +the lame boy, Sasha with her fretfulness, unhappy Liharev and his +sayings—all this was mingled together, and seemed to grow into +one huge impression, and God's world seemed to her fantastic, full +of marvels and magical forces. All that she had heard was ringing +in her ears, and human life presented itself to her as a beautiful +poetic fairy-tale without an end.</p> + +<p id="id00978">The immense impression grew and grew, clouded consciousness, and +turned into a sweet dream. She was asleep, though she saw the little +ikon lamp and a big nose with the light playing on it.</p> + +<p id="id00979">She heard the sound of weeping.</p> + +<p id="id00980">"Daddy, darling," a child's voice was tenderly entreating, "let's +go back to uncle! There is a Christmas-tree there! Styopa and Kolya +are there!"</p> + +<p id="id00981">"My darling, what can I do?" a man's bass persuaded softly. "Understand +me! Come, understand!"</p> + +<p id="id00982">And the man's weeping blended with the child's. This voice of human +sorrow, in the midst of the howling of the storm, touched the girl's +ear with such sweet human music that she could not bear the delight +of it, and wept too. She was conscious afterwards of a big, black +shadow coming softly up to her, picking up a shawl that had dropped +on to the floor and carefully wrapping it round her feet.</p> + +<p id="id00983">Mlle. Ilovaisky was awakened by a strange uproar. She jumped up and +looked about her in astonishment. The deep blue dawn was looking +in at the window half-covered with snow. In the room there was a +grey twilight, through which the stove and the sleeping child and +Nasir-ed-Din stood out distinctly. The stove and the lamp were both +out. Through the wide-open door she could see the big tavern room +with a counter and chairs. A man, with a stupid, gipsy face and +astonished eyes, was standing in the middle of the room in a puddle +of melting snow, holding a big red star on a stick. He was surrounded +by a group of boys, motionless as statues, and plastered over with +snow. The light shone through the red paper of the star, throwing +a glow of red on their wet faces. The crowd was shouting in disorder, +and from its uproar Mlle. Ilovaisky could make out only one couplet:</p> + +<p id="id00984">"Hi, you Little Russian lad,<br/> + +Bring your sharp knife,<br/> + +We will kill the Jew, we will kill him,<br/> + +The son of tribulation. . ."<br/> +</p> + +<p id="id00985">Liharev was standing near the counter, looking feelingly at the +singers and tapping his feet in time. Seeing Mlle. Ilovaisky, he +smiled all over his face and came up to her. She smiled too.</p> + +<p id="id00986">"A happy Christmas!" he said. "I saw you slept well."</p> + +<p id="id00987">She looked at him, said nothing, and went on smiling.</p> + +<p id="id00988">After the conversation in the night he seemed to her not tall and +broad shouldered, but little, just as the biggest steamer seems to +us a little thing when we hear that it has crossed the ocean.</p> + +<p id="id00989">"Well, it is time for me to set off," she said. "I must put on my +things. Tell me where you are going now?"</p> + +<p id="id00990">"I? To the station of Klinushki, from there to Sergievo, and from +Sergievo, with horses, thirty miles to the coal mines that belong +to a horrid man, a general called Shashkovsky. My brothers have got +me the post of superintendent there. . . . I am going to be a coal +miner."</p> + +<p id="id00991">"Stay, I know those mines. Shashkovsky is my uncle, you know. But +. . . what are you going there for?" asked Mlle. Ilovaisky, looking +at Liharev in surprise.</p> + +<p id="id00992">"As superintendent. To superintend the coal mines."</p> + +<p id="id00993">"I don't understand!" she shrugged her shoulders. "You are going +to the mines. But you know, it's the bare steppe, a desert, so +dreary that you couldn't exist a day there! It's horrible coal, no +one will buy it, and my uncle's a maniac, a despot, a bankrupt +. . . . You won't get your salary!"</p> + +<p id="id00994">"No matter," said Liharev, unconcernedly, "I am thankful even for +coal mines."</p> + +<p id="id00995">She shrugged her shoulders, and walked about the room in agitation.</p> + +<p id="id00996">"I don't understand, I don't understand," she said, moving her +fingers before her face. "It's impossible, and . . . and irrational! +You must understand that it's . . . it's worse than exile. It is a +living tomb! O Heavens!" she said hotly, going up to Liharev and +moving her fingers before his smiling face; her upper lip was +quivering, and her sharp face turned pale, "Come, picture it, the +bare steppe, solitude. There is no one to say a word to there, and +you . . . are enthusiastic over women! Coal mines . . . and women!"</p> + +<p id="id00997">Mlle. Ilovaisky was suddenly ashamed of her heat and, turning away +from Liharev, walked to the window.</p> + +<p id="id00998">"No, no, you can't go there," she said, moving her fingers rapidly +over the pane.</p> + +<p id="id00999">Not only in her heart, but even in her spine she felt that behind +her stood an infinitely unhappy man, lost and outcast, while he, +as though he were unaware of his unhappiness, as though he had not +shed tears in the night, was looking at her with a kindly smile. +Better he should go on weeping! She walked up and down the room +several times in agitation, then stopped short in a corner and sank +into thought. Liharev was saying something, but she did not hear +him. Turning her back on him she took out of her purse a money note, +stood for a long time crumpling it in her hand, and looking round +at Liharev, blushed and put it in her pocket.</p> + +<p id="id01000">The coachman's voice was heard through the door. With a stern, +concentrated face she began putting on her things in silence. Liharev +wrapped her up, chatting gaily, but every word he said lay on her +heart like a weight. It is not cheering to hear the unhappy or the +dying jest.</p> + +<p id="id01001">When the transformation of a live person into a shapeless bundle +had been completed, Mlle. Ilovaisky looked for the last time round +the "travellers' room," stood a moment in silence, and slowly walked +out. Liharev went to see her off. . . .</p> + +<p id="id01002">Outside, God alone knows why, the winter was raging still. Whole +clouds of big soft snowflakes were whirling restlessly over the +earth, unable to find a resting-place. The horses, the sledge, the +trees, a bull tied to a post, all were white and seemed soft and +fluffy.</p> + +<p id="id01003">"Well, God help you," muttered Liharev, tucking her into the sledge. +"Don't remember evil against me . . . ."</p> + +<p id="id01004">She was silent. When the sledge started, and had to go round a huge +snowdrift, she looked back at Liharev with an expression as though +she wanted to say something to him. He ran up to her, but she did +not say a word to him, she only looked at him through her long +eyelashes with little specks of snow on them.</p> + +<p id="id01005">Whether his finely intuitive soul were really able to read that +look, or whether his imagination deceived him, it suddenly began +to seem to him that with another touch or two that girl would have +forgiven him his failures, his age, his desolate position, and would +have followed him without question or reasonings. He stood a long +while as though rooted to the spot, gazing at the tracks left by +the sledge runners. The snowflakes greedily settled on his hair, +his beard, his shoulders. . . . Soon the track of the runners had +vanished, and he himself covered with snow, began to look like a +white rock, but still his eyes kept seeking something in the clouds +of snow.</p> + +<h4 id="id01006" style="margin-top: 2em">ROTHSCHILD'S FIDDLE</h4> + +<p id="id01007">THE town was a little one, worse than a village, and it was inhabited +by scarcely any but old people who died with an infrequency that +was really annoying. In the hospital and in the prison fortress +very few coffins were needed. In fact business was bad. If Yakov +Ivanov had been an undertaker in the chief town of the province he +would certainly have had a house of his own, and people would have +addressed him as Yakov Matveyitch; here in this wretched little +town people called him simply Yakov; his nickname in the street was +for some reason Bronze, and he lived in a poor way like a humble +peasant, in a little old hut in which there was only one room, and +in this room he and Marfa, the stove, a double bed, the coffins, +his bench, and all their belongings were crowded together.</p> + +<p id="id01008">Yakov made good, solid coffins. For peasants and working people he +made them to fit himself, and this was never unsuccessful, for there +were none taller and stronger than he, even in the prison, though +he was seventy. For gentry and for women he made them to measure, +and used an iron foot-rule for the purpose. He was very unwilling +to take orders for children's coffins, and made them straight off +without measurements, contemptuously, and when he was paid for the +work he always said:</p> + +<p id="id01009">"I must confess I don't like trumpery jobs."</p> + +<p id="id01010">Apart from his trade, playing the fiddle brought him in a small +income.</p> + +<p id="id01011">The Jews' orchestra conducted by Moisey Ilyitch Shahkes, the tinsmith, +who took more than half their receipts for himself, played as a +rule at weddings in the town. As Yakov played very well on the +fiddle, especially Russian songs, Shahkes sometimes invited him to +join the orchestra at a fee of half a rouble a day, in addition to +tips from the visitors. When Bronze sat in the orchestra first of +all his face became crimson and perspiring; it was hot, there was +a suffocating smell of garlic, the fiddle squeaked, the double bass +wheezed close to his right ear, while the flute wailed at his left, +played by a gaunt, red-haired Jew who had a perfect network of red +and blue veins all over his face, and who bore the name of the +famous millionaire Rothschild. And this accursed Jew contrived to +play even the liveliest things plaintively. For no apparent reason +Yakov little by little became possessed by hatred and contempt for +the Jews, and especially for Rothschild; he began to pick quarrels +with him, rail at him in unseemly language and once even tried to +strike him, and Rothschild was offended and said, looking at him +ferociously:</p> + +<p id="id01012">"If it were not that I respect you for your talent, I would have +sent you flying out of the window."</p> + +<p id="id01013">Then he began to weep. And because of this Yakov was not often asked +to play in the orchestra; he was only sent for in case of extreme +necessity in the absence of one of the Jews.</p> + +<p id="id01014">Yakov was never in a good temper, as he was continually having to +put up with terrible losses. For instance, it was a sin to work on +Sundays or Saints' days, and Monday was an unlucky day, so that in +the course of the year there were some two hundred days on which, +whether he liked it or not, he had to sit with his hands folded. +And only think, what a loss that meant. If anyone in the town had +a wedding without music, or if Shahkes did not send for Yakov, that +was a loss, too. The superintendent of the prison was ill for two +years and was wasting away, and Yakov was impatiently waiting for +him to die, but the superintendent went away to the chief town of +the province to be doctored, and there took and died. There's a +loss for you, ten roubles at least, as there would have been an +expensive coffin to make, lined with brocade. The thought of his +losses haunted Yakov, especially at night; he laid his fiddle on +the bed beside him, and when all sorts of nonsensical ideas came +into his mind he touched a string; the fiddle gave out a sound in +the darkness, and he felt better.</p> + +<p id="id01015">On the sixth of May of the previous year Marfa had suddenly been +taken ill. The old woman's breathing was laboured, she drank a great +deal of water, and she staggered as she walked, yet she lighted the +stove in the morning and even went herself to get water. Towards +evening she lay down. Yakov played his fiddle all day; when it was +quite dark he took the book in which he used every day to put down +his losses, and, feeling dull, he began adding up the total for the +year. It came to more than a thousand roubles. This so agitated him +that he flung the reckoning beads down, and trampled them under his +feet. Then he picked up the reckoning beads, and again spent a long +time clicking with them and heaving deep, strained sighs. His face +was crimson and wet with perspiration. He thought that if he had +put that lost thousand roubles in the bank, the interest for a year +would have been at least forty roubles, so that forty roubles was +a loss too. In fact, wherever one turned there were losses and +nothing else.</p> + +<p id="id01016">"Yakov!" Marfa called unexpectedly. "I am dying."</p> + +<p id="id01017">He looked round at his wife. Her face was rosy with fever, unusually +bright and joyful-looking. Bronze, accustomed to seeing her face +always pale, timid, and unhappy-looking, was bewildered. It looked +as if she really were dying and were glad that she was going away +for ever from that hut, from the coffins, and from Yakov. . . . And +she gazed at the ceiling and moved her lips, and her expression was +one of happiness, as though she saw death as her deliverer and were +whispering with him.</p> + +<p id="id01018">It was daybreak; from the windows one could see the flush of dawn. +Looking at the old woman, Yakov for some reason reflected that he +had not once in his life been affectionate to her, had had no feeling +for her, had never once thought to buy her a kerchief, or to bring +her home some dainty from a wedding, but had done nothing but shout +at her, scold her for his losses, shake his fists at her; it is +true he had never actually beaten her, but he had frightened her, +and at such times she had always been numb with terror. Why, he had +forbidden her to drink tea because they spent too much without that, +and she drank only hot water. And he understood why she had such a +strange, joyful face now, and he was overcome with dread.</p> + +<p id="id01019">As soon as it was morning he borrowed a horse from a neighbour and +took Marfa to the hospital. There were not many patients there, and +so he had not long to wait, only three hours. To his great satisfaction +the patients were not being received by the doctor, who was himself +ill, but by the assistant, Maxim Nikolaitch, an old man of whom +everyone in the town used to say that, though he drank and was +quarrelsome, he knew more than the doctor.</p> + +<p id="id01020">"I wish you good-day," said Yakov, leading his old woman into the +consulting room. "You must excuse us, Maxim Nikolaitch, we are +always troubling you with our trumpery affairs. Here you see my +better half is ailing, the partner of my life, as they say, excuse +the expression. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id01021">Knitting his grizzled brows and stroking his whiskers the assistant +began to examine the old woman, and she sat on a stool, a wasted, +bent figure with a sharp nose and open mouth, looking like a bird +that wants to drink.</p> + +<p id="id01022">"H———m . . . Ah! . . ." the assistant said slowly, and he heaved +a sigh. "Influenza and possibly fever. There's typhus in the town +now. Well, the old woman has lived her life, thank God. . . . How +old is she?"</p> + +<p id="id01023">"She'll be seventy in another year, Maxim Nikolaitch."</p> + +<p id="id01024">"Well, the old woman has lived her life, it's time to say good-bye."</p> + +<p id="id01025">"You are quite right in what you say, of course, Maxim Nikolaitch," +said Yakov, smiling from politeness, "and we thank you feelingly +for your kindness, but allow me to say every insect wants to live."</p> + +<p id="id01026">"To be sure," said the assistant, in a tone which suggested that +it depended upon him whether the woman lived or died. "Well, then, +my good fellow, put a cold compress on her head, and give her these +powders twice a day, and so good-bye. Bonjour."</p> + +<p id="id01027">From the expression of his face Yakov saw that it was a bad case, +and that no sort of powders would be any help; it was clear to him +that Marfa would die very soon, if not to-day, to-morrow. He nudged +the assistant's elbow, winked at him, and said in a low voice:</p> + +<p id="id01028">"If you would just cup her, Maxim Nikolaitch."</p> + +<p id="id01029">"I have no time, I have no time, my good fellow. Take your old woman +and go in God's name. Goodbye."</p> + +<p id="id01030">"Be so gracious," Yakov besought him. "You know yourself that if, +let us say, it were her stomach or her inside that were bad, then +powders or drops, but you see she had got a chill! In a chill the +first thing is to let blood, Maxim Nikolaitch."</p> + +<p id="id01031">But the assistant had already sent for the next patient, and a +peasant woman came into the consulting room with a boy.</p> + +<p id="id01032">"Go along! go along," he said to Yakov, frowning. "It's no use +to—"</p> + +<p id="id01033">"In that case put on leeches, anyway! Make us pray for you for +ever."</p> + +<p id="id01034">The assistant flew into a rage and shouted:</p> + +<p id="id01035">"You speak to me again! You blockhead. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id01036">Yakov flew into a rage too, and he turned crimson all over, but he +did not utter a word. He took Marfa on his arm and led her out of +the room. Only when they were sitting in the cart he looked morosely +and ironically at the hospital, and said:</p> + +<p id="id01037">"A nice set of artists they have settled here! No fear, but he would +have cupped a rich man, but even a leech he grudges to the poor. +The Herods!"</p> + +<p id="id01038">When they got home and went into the hut, Marfa stood for ten minutes +holding on to the stove. It seemed to her that if she were to lie +down Yakov would talk to her about his losses, and scold her for +lying down and not wanting to work. Yakov looked at her drearily +and thought that to-morrow was St. John the Divine's, and next day +St. Nikolay the Wonder-worker's, and the day after that was Sunday, +and then Monday, an unlucky day. For four days he would not be able +to work, and most likely Marfa would die on one of those days; so +he would have to make the coffin to-day. He picked up his iron rule, +went up to the old woman and took her measure. Then she lay down, +and he crossed himself and began making the coffin.</p> + +<p id="id01039">When the coffin was finished Bronze put on his spectacles and wrote +in his book: "Marfa Ivanov's coffin, two roubles, forty kopecks."</p> + +<p id="id01040">And he heaved a sigh. The old woman lay all the time silent with +her eyes closed. But in the evening, when it got dark, she suddenly +called the old man.</p> + +<p id="id01041">"Do you remember, Yakov," she asked, looking at him joyfully. "Do +you remember fifty years ago God gave us a little baby with flaxen +hair? We used always to be sitting by the river then, singing songs +. . . under the willows," and laughing bitterly, she added: "The +baby girl died."</p> + +<p id="id01042">Yakov racked his memory, but could not remember the baby or the +willows.</p> + +<p id="id01043">"It's your fancy," he said.</p> + +<p id="id01044">The priest arrived; he administered the sacrament and extreme +unction. Then Marfa began muttering something unintelligible, and +towards morning she died. Old women, neighbours, washed her, dressed +her, and laid her in the coffin. To avoid paying the sacristan, +Yakov read the psalms over the body himself, and they got nothing +out of him for the grave, as the grave-digger was a crony of his. +Four peasants carried the coffin to the graveyard, not for money, +but from respect. The coffin was followed by old women, beggars, +and a couple of crazy saints, and the people who met it crossed +themselves piously. . . . And Yakov was very much pleased that it +was so creditable, so decorous, and so cheap, and no offence to +anyone. As he took his last leave of Marfa he touched the coffin +and thought: "A good piece of work!"</p> + +<p id="id01045">But as he was going back from the cemetery he was overcome by acute +depression. He didn't feel quite well: his breathing was laboured +and feverish, his legs felt weak, and he had a craving for drink. +And thoughts of all sorts forced themselves on his mind. He remembered +again that all his life he had never felt for Marfa, had never been +affectionate to her. The fifty-two years they had lived in the same +hut had dragged on a long, long time, but it had somehow happened +that in all that time he had never once thought of her, had paid +no attention to her, as though she had been a cat or a dog. And +yet, every day, she had lighted the stove, had cooked and baked, had +gone for the water, had chopped the wood, had slept with him in the +same bed, and when he came home drunk from the weddings always +reverently hung his fiddle on the wall and put him to bed, and all +this in silence, with a timid, anxious expression.</p> + +<p id="id01046">Rothschild, smiling and bowing, came to meet Yakov.</p> + +<p id="id01047">"I was looking for you, uncle," he said. "Moisey Ilyitch sends you +his greetings and bids you come to him at once."</p> + +<p id="id01048">Yakov felt in no mood for this. He wanted to cry.</p> + +<p id="id01049">"Leave me alone," he said, and walked on.</p> + +<p id="id01050">"How can you," Rothschild said, fluttered, running on in front. +"Moisey Ilyitch will be offended! He bade you come at once!"</p> + +<p id="id01051">Yakov was revolted at the Jew's gasping for breath and blinking, +and having so many red freckles on his face. And it was disgusting +to look at his green coat with black patches on it, and all his +fragile, refined figure.</p> + +<p id="id01052">"Why are you pestering me, garlic?" shouted Yakov. "Don't persist!"</p> + +<p id="id01053">The Jew got angry and shouted too:</p> + +<p id="id01054">"Not so noisy, please, or I'll send you flying over the fence!"</p> + +<p id="id01055">"Get out of my sight!" roared Yakov, and rushed at him with his +fists. "One can't live for you scabby Jews!"</p> + +<p id="id01056">Rothschild, half dead with terror, crouched down and waved his hands +over his head, as though to ward off a blow; then he leapt up and +ran away as fast as his legs could carry him: as he ran he gave +little skips and kept clasping his hands, and Yakov could see how +his long thin spine wriggled. Some boys, delighted at the incident, +ran after him shouting "Jew! Jew!" Some dogs joined in the chase +barking. Someone burst into a roar of laughter, then gave a whistle; +the dogs barked with even more noise and unanimity. Then a dog must +have bitten Rothschild, as a desperate, sickly scream was heard.</p> + +<p id="id01057">Yakov went for a walk on the grazing ground, then wandered on at +random in the outskirts of the town, while the street boys shouted:</p> + +<p id="id01058">"Here's Bronze! Here's Bronze!"</p> + +<p id="id01059">He came to the river, where the curlews floated in the air uttering +shrill cries and the ducks quacked. The sun was blazing hot, and +there was a glitter from the water, so that it hurt the eyes to +look at it. Yakov walked by a path along the bank and saw a plump, +rosy-cheeked lady come out of the bathing-shed, and thought about +her: "Ugh! you otter!"</p> + +<p id="id01060">Not far from the bathing-shed boys were catching crayfish with bits +of meat; seeing him, they began shouting spitefully, "Bronze! +Bronze!" And then he saw an old spreading willow-tree with a big +hollow in it, and a crow's nest on it. . . . And suddenly there +rose up vividly in Yakov's memory a baby with flaxen hair, and the +willow-tree Marfa had spoken of. Why, that is it, the same willow-tree—green, +still, and sorrowful. . . . How old it has grown, poor +thing!</p> + +<p id="id01061">He sat down under it and began to recall the past. On the other +bank, where now there was the water meadow, in those days there +stood a big birchwood, and yonder on the bare hillside that could +be seen on the horizon an old, old pine forest used to be a bluish +patch in the distance. Big boats used to sail on the river. But now +it was all smooth and unruffled, and on the other bank there stood +now only one birch-tree, youthful and slender like a young lady, +and there was nothing on the river but ducks and geese, and it +didn't look as though there had ever been boats on it. It seemed +as though even the geese were fewer than of old. Yakov shut his +eyes, and in his imagination huge flocks of white geese soared, +meeting one another.</p> + +<p id="id01062">He wondered how it had happened that for the last forty or fifty +years of his life he had never once been to the river, or if he had +been by it he had not paid attention to it. Why, it was a decent +sized river, not a trumpery one; he might have gone in for fishing +and sold the fish to merchants, officials, and the bar-keeper at +the station, and then have put money in the bank; he might have +sailed in a boat from one house to another, playing the fiddle, and +people of all classes would have paid to hear him; he might have +tried getting big boats afloat again—that would be better than +making coffins; he might have bred geese, killed them and sent them +in the winter to Moscow. Why, the feathers alone would very likely +mount up to ten roubles in the year. But he had wasted his time, +he had done nothing of this. What losses! Ah! What losses! And if +he had gone in for all those things at once—catching fish and +playing the fiddle, and running boats and killing geese—what a +fortune he would have made! But nothing of this had happened, even +in his dreams; life had passed uselessly without any pleasure, had +been wasted for nothing, not even a pinch of snuff; there was nothing +left in front, and if one looked back—there was nothing there +but losses, and such terrible ones, it made one cold all over. And +why was it a man could not live so as to avoid these losses and +misfortunes? One wondered why they had cut down the birch copse and +the pine forest. Why was he walking with no reason on the grazing +ground? Why do people always do what isn't needful? Why had Yakov +all his life scolded, bellowed, shaken his fists, ill-treated his +wife, and, one might ask, what necessity was there for him to +frighten and insult the Jew that day? Why did people in general +hinder each other from living? What losses were due to it! what +terrible losses! If it were not for hatred and malice people would +get immense benefit from one another.</p> + +<p id="id01063">In the evening and the night he had visions of the baby, of the +willow, of fish, of slaughtered geese, and Marfa looking in profile +like a bird that wants to drink, and the pale, pitiful face of +Rothschild, and faces moved down from all sides and muttered of +losses. He tossed from side to side, and got out of bed five times +to play the fiddle.</p> + +<p id="id01064">In the morning he got up with an effort and went to the hospital. +The same Maxim Nikolaitch told him to put a cold compress on his +head, and gave him some powders, and from his tone and expression +of face Yakov realized that it was a bad case and that no powders +would be any use. As he went home afterwards, he reflected that +death would be nothing but a benefit; he would not have to eat or +drink, or pay taxes or offend people, and, as a man lies in his +grave not for one year but for hundreds and thousands, if one +reckoned it up the gain would be enormous. A man's life meant loss: +death meant gain. This reflection was, of course, a just one, but +yet it was bitter and mortifying; why was the order of the world +so strange, that life, which is given to man only once, passes away +without benefit?</p> + +<p id="id01065">He was not sorry to die, but at home, as soon as he saw his fiddle, +it sent a pang to his heart and he felt sorry. He could not take +the fiddle with him to the grave, and now it would be left forlorn, +and the same thing would happen to it as to the birch copse and the +pine forest. Everything in this world was wasted and would be wasted! +Yakov went out of the hut and sat in the doorway, pressing the +fiddle to his bosom. Thinking of his wasted, profitless life, he +began to play, he did not know what, but it was plaintive and +touching, and tears trickled down his cheeks. And the harder he +thought, the more mournfully the fiddle wailed.</p> + +<p id="id01066">The latch clicked once and again, and Rothschild appeared at the +gate. He walked across half the yard boldly, but seeing Yakov he +stopped short, and seemed to shrink together, and probably from +terror, began making signs with his hands as though he wanted to +show on his fingers what o'clock it was.</p> + +<p id="id01067">"Come along, it's all right," said Yakov in a friendly tone, and +he beckoned him to come up. "Come along!"</p> + +<p id="id01068">Looking at him mistrustfully and apprehensively, Rothschild began +to advance, and stopped seven feet off.</p> + +<p id="id01069">"Be so good as not to beat me," he said, ducking. "Moisey Ilyitch +has sent me again. 'Don't be afraid,' he said; 'go to Yakov again +and tell him,' he said, 'we can't get on without him.' There is a +wedding on Wednesday. . . . Ye—-es! Mr. Shapovalov is marrying his +daughter to a good man. . . . And it will be a grand wedding, oo-oo!" +added the Jew, screwing up one eye.</p> + +<p id="id01070">"I can't come," said Yakov, breathing hard. "I'm ill, brother."</p> + +<p id="id01071">And he began playing again, and the tears gushed from his eyes on +to the fiddle. Rothschild listened attentively, standing sideways +to him and folding his arms on his chest. The scared and perplexed +expression on his face, little by little, changed to a look of woe +and suffering; he rolled his eyes as though he were experiencing +an agonizing ecstasy, and articulated, "Vachhh!" and tears slowly +ran down his cheeks and trickled on his greenish coat.</p> + +<p id="id01072">And Yakov lay in bed all the rest of the day grieving. In the +evening, when the priest confessing him asked, Did he remember any +special sin he had committed? straining his failing memory he thought +again of Marfa's unhappy face, and the despairing shriek of the Jew +when the dog bit him, and said, hardly audibly, "Give the fiddle +to Rothschild."</p> + +<p id="id01073">"Very well," answered the priest.</p> + +<p id="id01074">And now everyone in the town asks where Rothschild got such a fine +fiddle. Did he buy it or steal it? Or perhaps it had come to him +as a pledge. He gave up the flute long ago, and now plays nothing +but the fiddle. As plaintive sounds flow now from his bow, as came +once from his flute, but when he tries to repeat what Yakov played, +sitting in the doorway, the effect is something so sad and sorrowful +that his audience weep, and he himself rolls his eyes and articulates +"Vachhh! . . ." And this new air was so much liked in the town that +the merchants and officials used to be continually sending for +Rothschild and making him play it over and over again a dozen times.</p> + +<h4 id="id01075" style="margin-top: 2em">IVAN MATVEYITCH</h4> + +<p id="id01076">BETWEEN five and six in the evening. A fairly well-known man of +learning—we will call him simply the man of learning—is sitting +in his study nervously biting his nails.</p> + +<p id="id01077">"It's positively revolting," he says, continually looking at his +watch. "It shows the utmost disrespect for another man's time and +work. In England such a person would not earn a farthing, he would +die of hunger. You wait a minute, when you do come . . . ."</p> + +<p id="id01078">And feeling a craving to vent his wrath and impatience upon someone, +the man of learning goes to the door leading to his wife's room and +knocks.</p> + +<p id="id01079">"Listen, Katya," he says in an indignant voice. "If you see Pyotr +Danilitch, tell him that decent people don't do such things. It's +abominable! He recommends a secretary, and does not know the sort +of man he is recommending! The wretched boy is two or three hours +late with unfailing regularity every day. Do you call that a +secretary? Those two or three hours are more precious to me than +two or three years to other people. When he does come I will swear +at him like a dog, and won't pay him and will kick him out. It's +no use standing on ceremony with people like that!"</p> + +<p id="id01080">"You say that every day, and yet he goes on coming and coming."</p> + +<p id="id01081">"But to-day I have made up my mind. I have lost enough through him. +You must excuse me, but I shall swear at him like a cabman."</p> + +<p id="id01082">At last a ring is heard. The man of learning makes a grave face; +drawing himself up, and, throwing back his head, he goes into the +entry. There his amanuensis Ivan Matveyitch, a young man of eighteen, +with a face oval as an egg and no moustache, wearing a shabby, mangy +overcoat and no goloshes, is already standing by the hatstand. He +is in breathless haste, and scrupulously wipes his huge clumsy boots +on the doormat, trying as he does so to conceal from the maidservant +a hole in his boot through which a white sock is peeping. Seeing +the man of learning he smiles with that broad, prolonged, somewhat +foolish smile which is seen only on the faces of children or very +good-natured people.</p> + +<p id="id01083">"Ah, good evening!" he says, holding out a big wet hand. "Has your +sore throat gone?"</p> + +<p id="id01084">"Ivan Matveyitch," says the man of learning in a shaking voice, +stepping back and clasping his hands together. "Ivan Matveyitch."</p> + +<p id="id01085">Then he dashes up to the amanuensis, clutches him by the shoulders, +and begins feebly shaking him.</p> + +<p id="id01086">"What a way to treat me!" he says with despair in his voice. "You +dreadful, horrid fellow, what a way to treat me! Are you laughing +at me, are you jeering at me? Eh?"</p> + +<p id="id01087">Judging from the smile which still lingered on his face Ivan +Matveyitch had expected a very different reception, and so, seeing +the man of learning's countenance eloquent of indignation, his oval +face grows longer than ever, and he opens his mouth in amazement.</p> + +<p id="id01088">"What is . . . what is it?" he asks.</p> + +<p id="id01089">"And you ask that?" the man of learning clasps his hands. "You know +how precious time is to me, and you are so late. You are two hours +late! . . . Have you no fear of God?"</p> + +<p id="id01090">"I haven't come straight from home," mutters Ivan Matveyitch, untying +his scarf irresolutely. "I have been at my aunt's name-day party, +and my aunt lives five miles away. . . . If I had come straight +from home, then it would have been a different thing."</p> + +<p id="id01091">"Come, reflect, Ivan Matveyitch, is there any logic in your conduct? +Here you have work to do, work at a fixed time, and you go flying +off after name-day parties and aunts! But do make haste and undo +your wretched scarf! It's beyond endurance, really!"</p> + +<p id="id01092">The man of learning dashes up to the amanuensis again and helps him +to disentangle his scarf.</p> + +<p id="id01093">"You are done up like a peasant woman, . . . Come along, . . . +Please make haste!"</p> + +<p id="id01094">Blowing his nose in a dirty, crumpled-up handkerchief and pulling +down his grey reefer jacket, Ivan Matveyitch goes through the hall +and the drawing-room to the study. There a place and paper and even +cigarettes had been put ready for him long ago.</p> + +<p id="id01095">"Sit down, sit down," the man of learning urges him on, rubbing his +hands impatiently. "You are an unsufferable person. . . . You know +the work has to be finished by a certain time, and then you are so +late. One is forced to scold you. Come, write, . . . Where did we +stop?"</p> + +<p id="id01096">Ivan Matveyitch smooths his bristling cropped hair and takes up his +pen. The man of learning walks up and down the room, concentrates +himself, and begins to dictate:</p> + +<p id="id01097">"The fact is . . . comma . . . that so to speak fundamental forms +. . . have you written it? . . . forms are conditioned entirely by +the essential nature of those principles . . . comma . . . which +find in them their expression and can only be embodied in them +. . . . New line, . . . There's a stop there, of course. . . . More +independence is found . . . is found . . . by the forms which have +not so much a political . . . comma . . . as a social character . ."</p> + +<p id="id01098">"The high-school boys have a different uniform now . . . a grey +one," said Ivan Matveyitch, "when I was at school it was better: +they used to wear regular uniforms."</p> + +<p id="id01099">"Oh dear, write please!" says the man of learning wrathfully. +"Character . . . have you written it? Speaking of the forms relating +to the organization . . . of administrative functions, and not to +the regulation of the life of the people . . . comma . . . it cannot +be said that they are marked by the nationalism of their forms . . . +the last three words in inverted commas. . . . Aie, aie . . . +tut, tut . . . so what did you want to say about the high school?"</p> + +<p id="id01100">"That they used to wear a different uniform in my time."</p> + +<p id="id01101">"Aha! . . . indeed, . . . Is it long since you left the high school?"</p> + +<p id="id01102">"But I told you that yesterday. It is three years since I left +school. . . . I left in the fourth class."</p> + +<p id="id01103">"And why did you give up high school?" asks the man of learning, +looking at Ivan Matveyitch's writing.</p> + +<p id="id01104">"Oh, through family circumstances."</p> + +<p id="id01105">"Must I speak to you again, Ivan Matveyitch? When will you get over +your habit of dragging out the lines? There ought not to be less +than forty letters in a line."</p> + +<p id="id01106">"What, do you suppose I do it on purpose?" says Ivan Matveyitch, +offended. "There are more than forty letters in some of the other +lines. . . . You count them. And if you think I don't put enough +in the line, you can take something off my pay."</p> + +<p id="id01107">"Oh dear, that's not the point. You have no delicacy, really. . . . +At the least thing you drag in money. The great thing is to be +exact, Ivan Matveyitch, to be exact is the great thing. You ought +to train yourself to be exact."</p> + +<p id="id01108">The maidservant brings in a tray with two glasses of tea on it, and +a basket of rusks. . . . Ivan Matveyitch takes his glass awkwardly +with both hands, and at once begins drinking it. The tea is too +hot. To avoid burning his mouth Ivan Matveyitch tries to take a +tiny sip. He eats one rusk, then a second, then a third, and, looking +sideways, with embarrassment, at the man of learning, timidly +stretches after a fourth. . . . The noise he makes in swallowing, +the relish with which he smacks his lips, and the expression of +hungry greed in his raised eyebrows irritate the man of learning.</p> + +<p id="id01109">"Make haste and finish, time is precious."</p> + +<p id="id01110">"You dictate, I can drink and write at the same time. . . . I must +confess I was hungry."</p> + +<p id="id01111">"I should think so after your walk!"</p> + +<p id="id01112">"Yes, and what wretched weather! In our parts there is a scent of +spring by now. . . . There are puddles everywhere; the snow is +melting."</p> + +<p id="id01113">"You are a southerner, I suppose?"</p> + +<p id="id01114">"From the Don region. . . . It's quite spring with us by March. +Here it is frosty, everyone's in a fur coat, . . . but there you +can see the grass . . . it's dry everywhere, and one can even catch +tarantulas."</p> + +<p id="id01115">"And what do you catch tarantulas for?"</p> + +<p id="id01116">"Oh! . . . to pass the time . . ." says Ivan Matveyitch, and he +sighs. "It's fun catching them. You fix a bit of pitch on a thread, +let it down into their hole and begin hitting the tarantula on the +back with the pitch, and the brute gets cross, catches hold of the +pitch with his claws, and gets stuck. . . . And what we used to do +with them! We used to put a basinful of them together and drop a +bihorka in with them."</p> + +<p id="id01117">"What is a bihorka?"</p> + +<p id="id01118">"That's another spider, very much the same as a tarantula. In a +fight one of them can kill a hundred tarantulas."</p> + +<p id="id01119">"H'm! . . . But we must write, . . . Where did we stop?"</p> + +<p id="id01120">The man of learning dictates another twenty lines, then sits plunged +in meditation.</p> + +<p id="id01121">Ivan Matveyitch, waiting while the other cogitates, sits and, craning +his neck, puts the collar of his shirt to rights. His tie will not +set properly, the stud has come out, and the collar keeps coming +apart.</p> + +<p id="id01122">"H'm! . . ." says the man of learning. "Well, haven't you found a +job yet, Ivan Matveyitch?"</p> + +<p id="id01123">"No. And how is one to find one? I am thinking, you know, of +volunteering for the army. But my father advises my going into a +chemist's."</p> + +<p id="id01124">"H'm! . . . But it would be better for you to go into the university. +The examination is difficult, but with patience and hard work you +could get through. Study, read more. . . . Do you read much?"</p> + +<p id="id01125">"Not much, I must own . . ." says Ivan Matveyitch, lighting a +cigarette.</p> + +<p id="id01126">"Have you read Turgenev?"</p> + +<p id="id01127">"N-no. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id01128">"And Gogol?"</p> + +<p id="id01129">"Gogol. H'm! . . . Gogol. . . . No, I haven't read him!"</p> + +<p id="id01130">"Ivan Matveyitch! Aren't you ashamed? Aie! aie! You are such a nice +fellow, so much that is original in you . . . you haven't even read +Gogol! You must read him! I will give you his works! It's essential +to read him! We shall quarrel if you don't!"</p> + +<p id="id01131">Again a silence follows. The man of learning meditates, half reclining +on a soft lounge, and Ivan Matveyitch, leaving his collar in peace, +concentrates his whole attention on his boots. He has not till then +noticed that two big puddles have been made by the snow melting off +his boots on the floor. He is ashamed.</p> + +<p id="id01132">"I can't get on to-day . . ." mutters the man of learning. "I suppose +you are fond of catching birds, too, Ivan Matveyitch?"</p> + +<p id="id01133">"That's in autumn, . . . I don't catch them here, but there at home +I always did."</p> + +<p id="id01134">"To be sure . . . very good. But we must write, though."</p> + +<p id="id01135">The man of learning gets up resolutely and begins dictating, but +after ten lines sits down on the lounge again.</p> + +<p id="id01136">"No. . . . Perhaps we had better put it off till to-morrow morning," +he says. "Come to-morrow morning, only come early, at nine o'clock. +God preserve you from being late!"</p> + +<p id="id01137">Ivan Matveyitch lays down his pen, gets up from the table and sits +in another chair. Five minutes pass in silence, and he begins to +feel it is time for him to go, that he is in the way; but in the +man of learning's study it is so snug and light and warm, and the +impression of the nice rusks and sweet tea is still so fresh that +there is a pang at his heart at the mere thought of home. At home +there is poverty, hunger, cold, his grumbling father, scoldings, +and here it is so quiet and unruffled, and interest even is taken +in his tarantulas and birds.</p> + +<p id="id01138">The man of learning looks at his watch and takes up a book.</p> + +<p id="id01139">"So you will give me Gogol?' says Ivan Matveyitch, getting up.</p> + +<p id="id01140">"Yes, yes! But why are you in such a hurry, my dear boy? Sit down +and tell me something . . ."</p> + +<p id="id01141">Ivan Matveyitch sits down and smiles broadly. Almost every evening +he sits in this study and always feels something extraordinarily +soft, attracting him, as it were akin, in the voice and the glance +of the man of learning. There are moments when he even fancies that +the man of learning is becoming attached to him, used to him, and +that if he scolds him for being late, it's simply because he misses +his chatter about tarantulas and how they catch goldfinches on the +Don.</p> + +<h4 id="id01142" style="margin-top: 2em">ZINOTCHKA</h4> + +<p id="id01143">THE party of sportsmen spent the night in a peasant's hut on some +newly mown hay. The moon peeped in at the window; from the street +came the mournful wheezing of a concertina; from the hay came a +sickly sweet, faintly troubling scent. The sportsmen talked about +dogs, about women, about first love, and about snipe. After all the +ladies of their acquaintance had been picked to pieces, and hundreds +of stories had been told, the stoutest of the sportsmen, who looked +in the darkness like a haycock, and who talked in the mellow bass +of a staff officer, gave a loud yawn and said:</p> + +<p id="id01144">"It is nothing much to be loved; the ladies are created for the +purpose of loving us men. But, tell me, has any one of you fellows +been hated—passionately, furiously hated? Has any one of you +watched the ecstasies of hatred? Eh?"</p> + +<p id="id01145">No answer followed.</p> + +<p id="id01146">"Has no one, gentlemen?" asked the staff officer's bass voice. "But +I, now, have been hated, hated by a pretty girl, and have been able +to study the symptoms of first hatred directed against myself. It +was the first, because it was something exactly the converse of +first love. What I am going to tell, however, happened when I knew +nothing about love or hate. I was eight at the time, but that made +no difference; in this case it was not <i>he</i> but <i>she</i> that mattered. +Well, I beg your attention. One fine summer evening, just before +sunset, I was sitting in the nursery, doing my lesson with my +governess, Zinotchka, a very charming and poetical creature who had +left boarding school not long before. Zinotchka looked absent-mindedly +towards the window and said:</p> + +<p id="id01147">"'Yes. We breathe in oxygen; now tell me, Petya, what do we breathe +out?'</p> + +<p id="id01148">"'Carbonic acid gas,' I answered, looking towards the same window.</p> + +<p id="id01149">"'Right,' assented Zinotchka. 'Plants, on the contrary, breathe +in carbonic acid gas, and breathe out oxygen. Carbonic acid gas is +contained in seltzer water, and in the fumes from the samovar. . . . +It is a very noxious gas. Near Naples there is the so-called Cave +of Dogs, which contains carbonic acid gas; a dog dropped into it +is suffocated and dies.'</p> + +<p id="id01150">"This luckless Cave of Dogs near Naples is a chemical marvel beyond +which no governess ventures to go. Zinotchka always hotly maintained +the usefulness of natural science, but I doubt if she knew any +chemistry beyond this Cave.</p> + +<p id="id01151">"Well, she told me to repeat it. I repeated it. She asked me what +was meant by the horizon. I answered. And meantime, while we were +ruminating over the horizon and the Cave, in the yard below, my +father was just getting ready to go shooting. The dogs yapped, the +trace horses shifted from one leg to another impatiently and coquetted +with the coachman, the footman packed the waggonette with parcels +and all sorts of things. Beside the waggonette stood a brake in +which my mother and sisters were sitting to drive to a name-day +party at the Ivanetskys'. No one was left in the house but Zinotchka, +me, and my eldest brother, a student, who had toothache. You can +imagine my envy and my boredom.</p> + +<p id="id01152">"'Well, what do we breathe in?' asked Zinotchka, looking at the +window.</p> + +<p id="id01153">"'Oxygen. . .'</p> + +<p id="id01154">"'Yes. And the horizon is the name given to the place where it +seems to us as though the earth meets the sky.'</p> + +<p id="id01155">"Then the waggonette drove off, and after it the brake. . . . I saw +Zinotchka take a note out of her pocket, crumple it up convulsively +and press it to her temple, then she flushed crimson and looked at +her watch.</p> + +<p id="id01156">"'So, remember,' she said, 'that near Naples is the so-called Cave +of Dogs. . . .' She glanced at her watch again and went on: 'where +the sky seems to us to meet the earth. . . .'</p> + +<p id="id01157">"The poor girl in violent agitation walked about the room, and once +more glanced at her watch. There was another half-hour before the +end of our lesson.</p> + +<p id="id01158">"'Now arithmetic,' she said, breathing hard and turning over the +pages of the sum-book with a trembling hand. 'Come, you work out +problem 325 and I . . . will be back directly.'</p> + +<p id="id01159">"She went out. I heard her scurry down the stairs, and then I saw +her dart across the yard in her blue dress and vanish through the +garden gate. The rapidity of her movements, the flush on her cheeks +and her excitement, aroused my curiosity. Where had she run, and +what for? Being intelligent beyond my years I soon put two and two +together, and understood it all: she had run into the garden, taking +advantage of the absence of my stern parents, to steal in among the +raspberry bushes, or to pick herself some cherries. If that were +so, dash it all, I would go and have some cherries too. I threw +aside the sum-book and ran into the garden. I ran to the cherry +orchard, but she was not there. Passing by the raspberries, the +gooseberries, and the watchman's shanty, she crossed the kitchen +garden and reached the pond, pale, and starting at every sound. I +stole after her, and what I saw, my friends, was this. At the edge +of the pond, between the thick stumps of two old willows, stood my +elder brother, Sasha; one could not see from his face that he had +toothache. He looked towards Zinotchka as she approached him, and +his whole figure was lighted up by an expression of happiness as +though by sunshine. And Zinotchka, as though she were being driven +into the Cave of Dogs, and were being forced to breathe carbonic +acid gas, walked towards him, scarcely able to move one leg before +the other, breathing hard, with her head thrown back. . . . To judge +from appearances she was going to a rendezous for the first time +in her life. But at last she reached him. . . . For half a minute +they gazed at each other in silence, as though they could not believe +their eyes. Thereupon some force seemed to shove Zinotchka; she +laid her hands on Sasha's shoulders and let her head droop upon his +waistcoat. Sasha laughed, muttered something incoherent, and with +the clumsiness of a man head over ears in love, laid both hands on +Zinotchka's face. And the weather, gentlemen, was exquisite. . . . +The hill behind which the sun was setting, the two willows, the +green bank, the sky—all together with Sasha and Zinotchka were +reflected in the pond . . . perfect stillness . . . you can imagine +it. Millions of butterflies with long whiskers gleamed golden above +the reeds; beyond the garden they were driving the cattle. In fact, +it was a perfect picture.</p> + +<p id="id01160">"Of all I had seen the only thing I understood was that Sasha was +kissing Zinotchka. That was improper. If <i>maman</i> heard of it they +would both catch it. Feeling for some reason ashamed I went back +to the nursery, not waiting for the end of the rendezvous. There I +sat over the sum-book, pondered and reflected. A triumphant smile +strayed upon my countenance. On one side it was agreeable to be the +possessor of another person's secret; on the other it was also very +agreeable that such authorities as Sasha and Zinotchka might at any +moment be convicted by me of ignorance of the social proprieties. +Now they were in my power, and their peace was entirely dependent +on my magnanimity. I'd let them know.</p> + +<p id="id01161">"When I went to bed, Zinotchka came into the nursery as usual to +find out whether I had dropped asleep without undressing and whether +I had said my prayers. I looked at her pretty, happy face and +grinned. I was bursting with my secret and itching to let it out. +I had to drop a hint and enjoy the effect.</p> + +<p id="id01162">"'I know,' I said, grinning. 'Gy—y.'</p> + +<p id="id01163">"'What do you know?'</p> + +<p id="id01164">"'Gy—y! I saw you near the willows kissing Sasha. I followed you +and saw it all.'</p> + +<p id="id01165">"Zinotchka started, flushed all over, and overwhelmed by 'my hint' +she sank down on the chair, on which stood a glass of water and a +candlestick.</p> + +<p id="id01166">"'I saw you . . . kissing . . .' I repeated, sniggering and enjoying +her confusion. 'Aha! I'll tell mamma!'</p> + +<p id="id01167">"Cowardly Zinotchka gazed at me intently, and convincing herself +that I really did know all about it, clutched my hand in despair +and muttered in a trembling whisper:</p> + +<p id="id01168">"'Petya, it is low. . . . I beg of you, for God's sake. . . . Be +a man . . . don't tell anyone. . . . Decent people don't spy +. . . . It's low. . . . I entreat you.'</p> + +<p id="id01169">"The poor girl was terribly afraid of my mother, a stern and virtuous +lady—that was one thing; and the second was that my grinning +countenance could not but outrage her first love so pure and poetical, +and you can imagine the state of her heart. Thanks to me, she did +not sleep a wink all night, and in the morning she appeared at +breakfast with blue rings round her eyes. When I met Sasha after +breakfast I could not refrain from grinning and boasting:</p> + +<p id="id01170">"'I know! I saw you yesterday kissing Mademoiselle Zina!'</p> + +<p id="id01171">"Sasha looked at me and said:</p> + +<p id="id01172">"'You are a fool.'</p> + +<p id="id01173">"He was not so cowardly as Zinotchka, and so my effect did not come +off. That provoked me to further efforts. If Sasha was not frightened +it was evident that he did not believe that I had seen and knew all +about it; wait a bit, I would show him.</p> + +<p id="id01174">"At our lessons before dinner Zinotchka did not look at me, and her +voice faltered. Instead of trying to scare me she tried to propitiate +me in every way, giving me full marks, and not complaining to my +father of my naughtiness. Being intelligent beyond my years I +exploited her secret: I did not learn my lessons, walked into the +schoolroom on my head, and said all sorts of rude things. In fact, +if I had remained in that vein till to-day I should have become a +famous blackmailer. Well, a week passed. Another person's secret +irritated and fretted me like a splinter in my soul. I longed at +all costs to blurt it out and gloat over the effect. And one day +at dinner, when we had a lot of visitors, I gave a stupid snigger, +looked fiendishly at Zinotchka and said:</p> + +<p id="id01175">"'I know. Gy—y! I saw! . . .'</p> + +<p id="id01176">"'What do you know?' asked my mother.</p> + +<p id="id01177">"I looked still more fiendishly at Zinotchka and Sasha. You ought +to have seen how the girl flushed up, and how furious Sasha's eyes +were! I bit my tongue and did not go on. Zinotchka gradually turned +pale, clenched her teeth, and ate no more dinner. At our evening +lessons that day I noticed a striking change in Zinotchka's face. +It looked sterner, colder, as it were, more like marble, while her +eyes gazed strangely straight into my face, and I give you my word +of honour I have never seen such terrible, annihilating eyes, even +in hounds when they overtake the wolf. I understood their expression +perfectly, when in the middle of a lesson she suddenly clenched her +teeth and hissed through them:</p> + +<p id="id01178">"'I hate you! Oh, you vile, loathsome creature, if you knew how I +hate you, how I detest your cropped head, your vulgar, prominent +ears!'</p> + +<p id="id01179">"But at once she took fright and said:</p> + +<p id="id01180">"'I am not speaking to you, I am repeating a part out of a +play. . . .'</p> + +<p id="id01181">"Then, my friends, at night I saw her come to my bedside and gaze +a long time into my face. She hated me passionately, and could not +exist away from me. The contemplation of my hated pug of a face had +become a necessity to her. I remember a lovely summer evening . . . +with the scent of hay, perfect stillness, and so on. The moon was +shining. I was walking up and down the avenue, thinking of cherry +jam. Suddenly Zinotchka, looking pale and lovely, came up to me, +she caught hold of my hand, and breathlessly began expressing +herself:</p> + +<p id="id01182">"'Oh, how I hate you! I wish no one harm as I do you! Let me tell +you that! I want you to understand that!'</p> + +<p id="id01183">"You understand, moonlight, her pale face, breathless with passion, +the stillness . . . little pig as I was I actually enjoyed it. I +listened to her, looked at her eyes. . . . At first I liked it, and +enjoyed the novelty. Then I was suddenly seized with terror, I gave +a scream, and ran into the house at breakneck speed.</p> + +<p id="id01184">"I made up my mind that the best thing to do was to complain to +<i>maman</i>. And I did complain, mentioning incidentally how Sasha had +kissed Zinotchka. I was stupid, and did not know what would follow, +or I should have kept the secret to myself. . . . After hearing my +story <i>maman</i> flushed with indignation and said:</p> + +<p id="id01185">"'It is not your business to speak about that, you are still very +young. . . . But, what an example for children.'</p> + +<p id="id01186">"My <i>maman</i> was not only virtuous but diplomatic. To avoid a scandal +she did not get rid of Zinotchka at once, but set to work gradually, +systematically, to pave the way for her departure, as one does with +well-bred but intolerable people. I remember that when Zinotchka +did leave us the last glance she cast at the house was directed at +the window at which I was sitting, and I assure you, I remember +that glance to this day.</p> + +<p id="id01187">"Zinotchka soon afterwards became my brother's wife. She is the +Zinaida Nikolaevna whom you know. The next time I met her I was +already an ensign. In spite of all her efforts she could not recognize +the hated Petya in the ensign with his moustache, but still she did +not treat me quite like a relation. . . . And even now, in spite +of my good-humoured baldness, meek corpulence, and unassuming air, +she still looks askance at me, and feels put out when I go to see +my brother. Hatred it seems can no more be forgotten than +love. . . .</p> + +<p id="id01188">"Tchoo! I hear the cock crowing! Good-night. Milord! Lie down!"</p> + +<h4 id="id01189" style="margin-top: 2em">BAD WEATHER</h4> + +<p id="id01190">BIG raindrops were pattering on the dark windows. It was one of +those disgusting summer holiday rains which, when they have begun, +last a long time—for weeks, till the frozen holiday maker grows +used to it, and sinks into complete apathy. It was cold; there was +a feeling of raw, unpleasant dampness. The mother-in-law of a lawyer, +called Kvashin, and his wife, Nadyezhda Filippovna, dressed in +waterproofs and shawls, were sitting over the dinner table in the +dining-room. It was written on the countenance of the elder lady +that she was, thank God, well-fed, well-clothed and in good health, +that she had married her only daughter to a good man, and now could +play her game of patience with an easy conscience; her daughter, a +rather short, plump, fair young woman of twenty, with a gentle +anæmic face, was reading a book with her elbows on the table; judging +from her eyes she was not so much reading as thinking her own +thoughts, which were not in the book. Neither of them spoke. There +was the sound of the pattering rain, and from the kitchen they could +hear the prolonged yawns of the cook.</p> + +<p id="id01191">Kvashin himself was not at home. On rainy days he did not come to +the summer villa, but stayed in town; damp, rainy weather affected +his bronchitis and prevented him from working. He was of the opinion +that the sight of the grey sky and the tears of rain on the windows +deprived one of energy and induced the spleen. In the town, where +there was greater comfort, bad weather was scarcely noticed.</p> + +<p id="id01192">After two games of patience, the old lady shuffled the cards and +took a glance at her daughter.</p> + +<p id="id01193">"I have been trying with the cards whether it will be fine to-morrow, +and whether our Alexey Stepanovitch will come," she said. "It is +five days since he was here. . . . The weather is a chastisement +from God."</p> + +<p id="id01194">Nadyezhda Filippovna looked indifferently at her mother, got up, +and began walking up and down the room.</p> + +<p id="id01195">"The barometer was rising yesterday," she said doubtfully, "but +they say it is falling again to-day."</p> + +<p id="id01196">The old lady laid out the cards in three long rows and shook her +head.</p> + +<p id="id01197">"Do you miss him?" she asked, glancing at her daughter.</p> + +<p id="id01198">"Of course."</p> + +<p id="id01199">"I see you do. I should think so. He hasn't been here for five days. +In May the utmost was two, or at most three days, and now it is +serious, five days! I am not his wife, and yet I miss him. And +yesterday, when I heard the barometer was rising, I ordered them +to kill a chicken and prepare a carp for Alexey Stepanovitch. He +likes them. Your poor father couldn't bear fish, but he likes it. +He always eats it with relish."</p> + +<p id="id01200">"My heart aches for him," said the daughter. "We are dull, but it +is duller still for him, you know, mamma."</p> + +<p id="id01201">"I should think so! In the law-courts day in and day out, and in +the empty flat at night alone like an owl."</p> + +<p id="id01202">"And what is so awful, mamma, he is alone there without servants; +there is no one to set the samovar or bring him water. Why didn't +he engage a valet for the summer months? And what use is the summer +villa at all if he does not care for it? I told him there was no +need to have it, but no, 'It is for the sake of your health,' he +said, and what is wrong with my health? It makes me ill that he +should have to put up with so much on my account."</p> + +<p id="id01203">Looking over her mother's shoulder, the daughter noticed a mistake +in the patience, bent down to the table and began correcting it. A +silence followed. Both looked at the cards and imagined how their +Alexey Stepanovitch, utterly forlorn, was sitting now in the town +in his gloomy, empty study and working, hungry, exhausted, yearning +for his family. . . .</p> + +<p id="id01204">"Do you know what, mamma?" said Nadyezhda Filippovna suddenly, and +her eyes began to shine. "If the weather is the same to-morrow I'll +go by the first train and see him in town! Anyway, I shall find out +how he is, have a look at him, and pour out his tea."</p> + +<p id="id01205">And both of them began to wonder how it was that this idea, so +simple and easy to carry out, had not occurred to them before. It +was only half an hour in the train to the town, and then twenty +minutes in a cab. They said a little more, and went off to bed in +the same room, feeling more contented.</p> + +<p id="id01206">"Oho-ho-ho. . . . Lord, forgive us sinners!" sighed the old lady +when the clock in the hall struck two. "There is no sleeping."</p> + +<p id="id01207">"You are not asleep, mamma?" the daughter asked in a whisper. "I +keep thinking of Alyosha. I only hope he won't ruin his health in +town. Goodness knows where he dines and lunches. In restaurants and +taverns."</p> + +<p id="id01208">"I have thought of that myself," sighed the old lady. "The Heavenly +Mother save and preserve him. But the rain, the rain!"</p> + +<p id="id01209">In the morning the rain was not pattering on the panes, but the sky +was still grey. The trees stood looking mournful, and at every gust +of wind they scattered drops. The footprints on the muddy path, the +ditches and the ruts were full of water. Nadyezhda Filippovna made +up her mind to go.</p> + +<p id="id01210">"Give him my love," said the old lady, wrapping her daughter up. +"Tell him not to think too much about his cases. . . . And he must +rest. Let him wrap his throat up when he goes out: the weather—God +help us! And take him the chicken; food from home, even if cold, +is better than at a restaurant."</p> + +<p id="id01211">The daughter went away, saying that she would come back by an evening +train or else next morning.</p> + +<p id="id01212">But she came back long before dinner-time, when the old lady was +sitting on her trunk in her bedroom and drowsily thinking what to +cook for her son-in-law's supper.</p> + +<p id="id01213">Going into the room her daughter, pale and agitated, sank on the +bed without uttering a word or taking off her hat, and pressed her +head into the pillow.</p> + +<p id="id01214">"But what is the matter," said the old lady in surprise, "why back +so soon? Where is Alexey Stepanovitch?"</p> + +<p id="id01215">Nadyezhda Filippovna raised her head and gazed at her mother with +dry, imploring eyes.</p> + +<p id="id01216">"He is deceiving us, mamma," she said.</p> + +<p id="id01217">"What are you saying? Christ be with you!" cried the old lady in +alarm, and her cap slipped off her head. "Who is going to deceive +us? Lord, have mercy on us!"</p> + +<p id="id01218">"He is deceiving us, mamma!" repeated her daughter, and her chin +began to quiver.</p> + +<p id="id01219">"How do you know?" cried the old lady, turning pale.</p> + +<p id="id01220">"Our flat is locked up. The porter tells me that Alyosha has not +been home once for these five days. He is not living at home! He +is not at home, not at home!"</p> + +<p id="id01221">She waved her hands and burst into loud weeping, uttering nothing +but: "Not at home! Not at home!"</p> + +<p id="id01222">She began to be hysterical.</p> + +<p id="id01223">"What's the meaning of it?" muttered the old woman in horror. "Why, +he wrote the day before yesterday that he never leaves the flat! +Where is he sleeping? Holy Saints!"</p> + +<p id="id01224">Nadyezhda Filippovna felt so faint that she could not take off her +hat. She looked about her blankly, as though she had been drugged, +and convulsively clutched at her mother's arms.</p> + +<p id="id01225">"What a person to trust: a porter!" said the old lady, fussing round +her daughter and crying. "What a jealous girl you are! He is not +going to deceive you, and how dare he? We are not just anybody. +Though we are of the merchant class, yet he has no right, for you +are his lawful wife! We can take proceedings! I gave twenty thousand +roubles with you! You did not want for a dowry!"</p> + +<p id="id01226">And the old lady herself sobbed and gesticulated, and she felt +faint, too, and lay down on her trunk. Neither of them noticed that +patches of blue had made their appearance in the sky, that the +clouds were more transparent, that the first sunbeam was cautiously +gliding over the wet grass in the garden, that with renewed gaiety +the sparrows were hopping about the puddles which reflected the +racing clouds.</p> + +<p id="id01227">Towards evening Kvashin arrived. Before leaving town he had gone +to his flat and had learned from the porter that his wife had come +in his absence.</p> + +<p id="id01228">"Here I am," he said gaily, coming into his mother-in-law's room +and pretending not to notice their stern and tear-stained faces. +"Here I am! It's five days since we have seen each other!"</p> + +<p id="id01229">He rapidly kissed his wife's hand and his mother-in-law's, and with +the air of a man delighted at having finished a difficult task, he +lolled in an arm-chair.</p> + +<p id="id01230">"Ough!" he said, puffing out all the air from his lungs. "Here I +have been worried to death. I have scarcely sat down. For almost +five days now I have been, as it were, bivouacking. I haven't been +to the flat once, would you believe it? I have been busy the whole +time with the meeting of Shipunov's and Ivantchikov's creditors; I +had to work in Galdeyev's office at the shop. . . . I've had nothing +to eat or to drink, and slept on a bench, I was chilled through +. . . . I hadn't a free minute. I hadn't even time to go to the flat. +That's how I came not to be at home, Nadyusha. . . And Kvashin, +holding his sides as though his back were aching, glanced stealthily +at his wife and mother-in-law to see the effect of his lie, or as +he called it, diplomacy. The mother-in-law and wife were looking +at each other in joyful astonishment, as though beyond all hope and +expectation they had found something precious, which they had +lost. . . . Their faces beamed, their eyes glowed. . . .</p> + +<p id="id01231">"My dear man," cried the old lady, jumping up, "why am I sitting +here? Tea! Tea at once! Perhaps you are hungry?"</p> + +<p id="id01232">"Of course he is hungry," cried his wife, pulling off her head a +bandage soaked in vinegar. "Mamma, bring the wine, and the savouries. +Natalya, lay the table! Oh, my goodness, nothing is ready!"</p> + +<p id="id01233">And both of them, frightened, happy, and bustling, ran about the +room. The old lady could not look without laughing at her daughter +who had slandered an innocent man, and the daughter felt +ashamed. . . .</p> + +<p id="id01234">The table was soon laid. Kvashin, who smelt of madeira and liqueurs +and who could scarcely breathe from repletion, complained of being +hungry, forced himself to munch and kept on talking of the meeting +of Shipunov's and Ivantchikov's creditors, while his wife and +mother-in-law could not take their eyes off his face, and both +thought:</p> + +<p id="id01235">"How clever and kind he is! How handsome!"</p> + +<p id="id01236">"All serene," thought Kvashin, as he lay down on the well-filled +feather bed. "Though they are regular tradesmen's wives, though +they are Philistines, yet they have a charm of their own, and one +can spend a day or two of the week here with enjoyment. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id01237">He wrapped himself up, got warm, and as he dozed off, he said to +himself:</p> + +<p id="id01238">"All serene!"</p> + +<h4 id="id01239" style="margin-top: 2em">A GENTLEMAN FRIEND</h4> + +<p id="id01240">THE charming Vanda, or, as she was described in her passport, the +"Honourable Citizen Nastasya Kanavkin," found herself, on leaving +the hospital, in a position she had never been in before: without +a home to go to or a farthing in her pocket. What was she to do?</p> + +<p id="id01241">The first thing she did was to visit a pawn-broker's and pawn her +turquoise ring, her one piece of jewellery. They gave her a rouble +for the ring . . . but what can you get for a rouble? You can't buy +for that sum a fashionable short jacket, nor a big hat, nor a pair +of bronze shoes, and without those things she had a feeling of +being, as it were, undressed. She felt as though the very horses +and dogs were staring and laughing at the plainness of her dress. +And clothes were all she thought about: the question what she should +eat and where she should sleep did not trouble her in the least.</p> + +<p id="id01242">"If only I could meet a gentleman friend," she thought to herself, +"I could get some money. . . . There isn't one who would refuse me, +I know. . ."</p> + +<p id="id01243">But no gentleman she knew came her way. It would be easy enough to +meet them in the evening at the "Renaissance," but they wouldn't +let her in at the "Renaissance" in that shabby dress and with no +hat. What was she to do?</p> + +<p id="id01244">After long hesitation, when she was sick of walking and sitting and +thinking, Vanda made up her mind to fall back on her last resource: +to go straight to the lodgings of some gentleman friend and ask for +money.</p> + +<p id="id01245">She pondered which to go to. "Misha is out of the question; he's a +married man. . . . The old chap with the red hair will be at his +office at this time. . ."</p> + +<p id="id01246">Vanda remembered a dentist, called Finkel, a converted Jew, who six +months ago had given her a bracelet, and on whose head she had once +emptied a glass of beer at the supper at the German Club. She was +awfully pleased at the thought of Finkel.</p> + +<p id="id01247">"He'll be sure to give it me, if only I find him at home," she +thought, as she walked in his direction. "If he doesn't, I'll smash +all the lamps in the house."</p> + +<p id="id01248">Before she reached the dentist's door she thought out her plan of +action: she would run laughing up the stairs, dash into the dentist's +room and demand twenty-five roubles. But as she touched the bell, +this plan seemed to vanish from her mind of itself. Vanda began +suddenly feeling frightened and nervous, which was not at all her +way. She was bold and saucy enough at drinking parties, but now, +dressed in everyday clothes, feeling herself in the position of an +ordinary person asking a favour, who might be refused admittance, +she felt suddenly timid and humiliated. She was ashamed and frightened.</p> + +<p id="id01249">"Perhaps he has forgotten me by now," she thought, hardly daring +to pull the bell. "And how can I go up to him in such a dress, +looking like a beggar or some working girl?"</p> + +<p id="id01250">And she rang the bell irresolutely.</p> + +<p id="id01251">She heard steps coming: it was the porter.</p> + +<p id="id01252">"Is the doctor at home?" she asked.</p> + +<p id="id01253">She would have been glad now if the porter had said "No," but the +latter, instead of answering ushered her into the hall, and helped +her off with her coat. The staircase impressed her as luxurious, +and magnificent, but of all its splendours what caught her eye most +was an immense looking-glass, in which she saw a ragged figure +without a fashionable jacket, without a big hat, and without bronze +shoes. And it seemed strange to Vanda that, now that she was humbly +dressed and looked like a laundress or sewing girl, she felt ashamed, +and no trace of her usual boldness and sauciness remained, and in +her own mind she no longer thought of herself as Vanda, but as the +Nastasya Kanavkin she used to be in the old days. . . .</p> + +<p id="id01254">"Walk in, please," said a maidservant, showing her into the +consulting-room. "The doctor will be here in a minute. Sit down."</p> + +<p id="id01255">Vanda sank into a soft arm-chair.</p> + +<p id="id01256">"I'll ask him to lend it me," she thought; "that will be quite +proper, for, after all, I do know him. If only that servant would +go. I don't like to ask before her. What does she want to stand +there for?"</p> + +<p id="id01257">Five minutes later the door opened and Finkel came in. He was a +tall, dark Jew, with fat cheeks and bulging eyes. His cheeks, his +eyes, his chest, his body, all of him was so well fed, so loathsome +and repellent! At the "Renaissance" and the German Club he had +usually been rather tipsy, and would spend his money freely on +women, and be very long-suffering and patient with their pranks +(when Vanda, for instance, poured the beer over his head, he simply +smiled and shook his finger at her): now he had a cross, sleepy +expression and looked solemn and frigid like a police captain, and +he kept chewing something.</p> + +<p id="id01258">"What can I do for you?" he asked, without looking at Vanda.</p> + +<p id="id01259">Vanda looked at the serious countenance of the maid and the smug +figure of Finkel, who apparently did not recognize her, and she +turned red.</p> + +<p id="id01260">"What can I do for you?" repeated the dentist a little irritably.</p> + +<p id="id01261">"I've got toothache," murmured Vanda.</p> + +<p id="id01262">"Aha! . . . Which is the tooth? Where?"</p> + +<p id="id01263">Vanda remembered she had a hole in one of her teeth.</p> + +<p id="id01264">"At the bottom . . . on the right . . ." she said.</p> + +<p id="id01265">"Hm! . . . Open your mouth."</p> + +<p id="id01266">Finkel frowned and, holding his breath, began examining the tooth.</p> + +<p id="id01267">"Does it hurt?" he asked, digging into it with a steel instrument.</p> + +<p id="id01268">"Yes," Vanda replied, untruthfully.</p> + +<p id="id01269">"Shall I remind him?" she was wondering. "He would be sure to +remember me. But that servant! Why will she stand there?"</p> + +<p id="id01270">Finkel suddenly snorted like a steam-engine right into her mouth, +and said:</p> + +<p id="id01271">"I don't advise you to have it stopped. That tooth will never be +worth keeping anyhow."</p> + +<p id="id01272">After probing the tooth a little more and soiling Vanda's lips and +gums with his tobacco-stained fingers, he held his breath again, +and put something cold into her mouth. Vanda suddenly felt a sharp +pain, cried out, and clutched at Finkel's hand.</p> + +<p id="id01273">"It's all right, it's all right," he muttered; "don't you be +frightened! That tooth would have been no use to you, anyway . . . +you must be brave. . ."</p> + +<p id="id01274">And his tobacco-stained fingers, smeared with blood, held up the +tooth to her eyes, while the maid approached and put a basin to her +mouth.</p> + +<p id="id01275">"You wash out your mouth with cold water when you get home, and +that will stop the bleeding," said Finkel.</p> + +<p id="id01276">He stood before her with the air of a man expecting her to go, +waiting to be left in peace.</p> + +<p id="id01277">"Good-day," she said, turning towards the door.</p> + +<p id="id01278">"Hm! . . . and how about my fee?" enquired Finkel, in a jesting +tone.</p> + +<p id="id01279">"Oh, yes!" Vanda remembered, blushing, and she handed the Jew the +rouble that had been given her for her ring.</p> + +<p id="id01280">When she got out into the street she felt more overwhelmed with +shame than before, but now it was not her poverty she was ashamed +of. She was unconscious now of not having a big hat and a fashionable +jacket. She walked along the street, spitting blood, and brooding +on her life, her ugly, wretched life, and the insults she had +endured, and would have to endure to-morrow, and next week, and all +her life, up to the very day of her death.</p> + +<p id="id01281">"Oh! how awful it is! My God, how fearful!"</p> + +<p id="id01282">Next day, however, she was back at the "Renaissance," and dancing +there. She had on an enormous new red hat, a new fashionable jacket, +and bronze shoes. And she was taken out to supper by a young merchant +up from Kazan.</p> + +<h4 id="id01283" style="margin-top: 2em">A TRIVIAL INCIDENT</h4> + +<p id="id01284">IT was a sunny August midday as, in company with a Russian prince +who had come down in the world, I drove into the immense so-called +Shabelsky pine-forest where we were intending to look for woodcocks. +In virtue of the part he plays in this story my poor prince deserves +a detailed description. He was a tall, dark man, still youngish, +though already somewhat battered by life; with long moustaches like +a police captain's; with prominent black eyes, and with the manners +of a retired army man. He was a man of Oriental type, not very +intelligent, but straightforward and honest, not a bully, not a +fop, and not a rake—virtues which, in the eyes of the general +public, are equivalent to a certificate of being a nonentity and a +poor creature. People generally did not like him (he was never +spoken of in the district, except as "the illustrious duffer"). I +personally found the poor prince extremely nice with his misfortunes +and failures, which made up indeed his whole life. First of all he +was poor. He did not play cards, did not drink, had no occupation, +did not poke his nose into anything, and maintained a perpetual +silence but yet he had somehow succeeded in getting through thirty +to forty thousand roubles left him at his father's death. God only +knows what had become of the money. All that I can say is that owing +to lack of supervision a great deal was stolen by stewards, bailiffs, +and even footmen; a great deal went on lending money, giving bail, +and standing security. There were few landowners in the district +who did not owe him money. He gave to all who asked, and not so +much from good nature or confidence in people as from exaggerated +gentlemanliness as though he would say: "Take it and feel how <i>comme +il faut</i> I am!" By the time I made his acquaintance he had got into +debt himself, had learned what it was like to have a second mortgage +on his land, and had sunk so deeply into difficulties that there +was no chance of his ever getting out of them again. There were +days when he had no dinner, and went about with an empty cigar-holder, +but he was always seen clean and fashionably dressed, and always +smelt strongly of ylang-ylang.</p> + +<p id="id01285">The prince's second misfortune was his absolute solitariness. He +was not married, he had no friends nor relations. His silent and +reserved character and his <i>comme il faut</i> deportment, which became +the more conspicuous the more anxious he was to conceal his poverty, +prevented him from becoming intimate with people. For love affairs +he was too heavy, spiritless, and cold, and so rarely got on with +women. . . .</p> + +<p id="id01286">When we reached the forest this prince and I got out of the chaise +and walked along a narrow woodland path which was hidden among huge +ferns. But before we had gone a hundred paces a tall, lank figure +with a long oval face, wearing a shabby reefer jacket, a straw hat, +and patent leather boots, rose up from behind a young fir-tree some +three feet high, as though he had sprung out of the ground. The +stranger held in one hand a basket of mushrooms, with the other he +playfully fingered a cheap watch-chain on his waistcoat. On seeing +us he was taken aback, smoothed his waistcoat, coughed politely, +and gave an agreeable smile, as though he were delighted to see +such nice people as us. Then, to our complete surprise, he came up +to us, scraping with his long feet on the grass, bending his whole +person, and, still smiling agreeably, lifted his hat and pronounced +in a sugary voice with the intonations of a whining dog:</p> + +<p id="id01287">"Aie, aie . . . gentlemen, painful as it is, it is my duty to warn +you that shooting is forbidden in this wood. Pardon me for venturing +to disturb you, though unacquainted, but . . . allow me to present +myself. I am Grontovsky, the head clerk on Madame Kandurin's estate."</p> + +<p id="id01288">"Pleased to make your acquaintance, but why can't we shoot?"</p> + +<p id="id01289">"Such is the wish of the owner of this forest!"</p> + +<p id="id01290">The prince and I exchanged glances. A moment passed in silence. The +prince stood looking pensively at a big fly agaric at his feet, +which he had crushed with his stick. Grontovsky went on smiling +agreeably. His whole face was twitching, exuding honey, and even +the watch-chain on his waistcoat seemed to be smiling and trying +to impress us all with its refinement. A shade of embarrassment +passed over us like an angel passing; all three of us felt awkward.</p> + +<p id="id01291">"Nonsense!" I said. "Only last week I was shooting here!"</p> + +<p id="id01292">"Very possible!" Grontovsky sniggered through his teeth. "As a +matter of fact everyone shoots here regardless of the prohibition. +But once I have met you, it is my duty . . . my sacred duty to warn +you. I am a man in a dependent position. If the forest were mine, +on the word of honour of a Grontovsky, I should not oppose your +agreeable pleasure. But whose fault is it that I am in a dependent +position?"</p> + +<p id="id01293">The lanky individual sighed and shrugged his shoulders. I began +arguing, getting hot and protesting, but the more loudly and +impressively I spoke the more mawkish and sugary Grontovsky's face +became. Evidently the consciousness of a certain power over us +afforded him the greatest gratification. He was enjoying his +condescending tone, his politeness, his manners, and with peculiar +relish pronounced his sonorous surname, of which he was probably +very fond. Standing before us he felt more than at ease, but judging +from the confused sideway glances he cast from time to time at his +basket, only one thing was spoiling his satisfaction—the mushrooms, +womanish, peasantish, prose, derogatory to his dignity.</p> + +<p id="id01294">"We can't go back!" I said. "We have come over ten miles!"</p> + +<p id="id01295">"What's to be done?" sighed Grontovsky. "If you had come not ten +but a hundred thousand miles, if the king even had come from America +or from some other distant land, even then I should think it my +duty . . . sacred, so to say, obligation . . ."</p> + +<p id="id01296">"Does the forest belong to Nadyezhda Lvovna?" asked the prince.</p> + +<p id="id01297">"Yes, Nadyezhda Lvovna . . ."</p> + +<p id="id01298">"Is she at home now?"</p> + +<p id="id01299">"Yes . . . I tell you what, you go to her, it is not more than half +a mile from here; if she gives you a note, then I. . . . I needn't +say! Ha—ha . . . he—he—!"</p> + +<p id="id01300">"By all means," I agreed. "It's much nearer than to go back. . . . +You go to her, Sergey Ivanitch," I said, addressing the prince. +"You know her."</p> + +<p id="id01301">The prince, who had been gazing the whole time at the crushed agaric, +raised his eyes to me, thought a minute, and said:</p> + +<p id="id01302">"I used to know her at one time, but . . . it's rather awkward for +me to go to her. Besides, I am in shabby clothes. . . . You go, you +don't know her. . . . It's more suitable for you to go."</p> + +<p id="id01303">I agreed. We got into our chaise and, followed by Grontovsky's +smiles, drove along the edge of the forest to the manor house. I +was not acquainted with Nadyezhda Lvovna Kandurin, née Shabelsky. +I had never seen her at close quarters, and knew her only by hearsay. +I knew that she was incredibly wealthy, richer than anyone else in +the province. After the death of her father, Shabelsky, who was a +landowner with no other children, she was left with several estates, +a stud farm, and a lot of money. I had heard that, though she was +only twenty-five or twenty-six, she was ugly, uninteresting, and +as insignificant as anybody, and was only distinguished from the +ordinary ladies of the district by her immense wealth.</p> + +<p id="id01304">It has always seemed to me that wealth is felt, and that the rich +must have special feelings unknown to the poor. Often as I passed +by Nadyezhda Lvovna's big fruit garden, in which stood the large, +heavy house with its windows always curtained, I thought: "What is +she thinking at this moment? Is there happiness behind those blinds?" +and so on. Once I saw her from a distance in a fine light cabriolet, +driving a handsome white horse, and, sinful man that I am, I not +only envied her, but even thought that in her poses, in her movements, +there was something special, not to be found in people who are not +rich, just as persons of a servile nature succeed in discovering +"good family" at the first glance in people of the most ordinary +exterior, if they are a little more distinguished than themselves. +Nadyezhda Lvovna's inner life was only known to me by scandal. It +was said in the district that five or six years ago, before she was +married, during her father's lifetime, she had been passionately +in love with Prince Sergey Ivanitch, who was now beside me in the +chaise. The prince had been fond of visiting her father, and used +to spend whole days in his billiard room, where he played pyramids +indefatigably till his arms and legs ached. Six months before the +old man's death he had suddenly given up visiting the Shabelskys. +The gossip of the district having no positive facts to go upon +explained this abrupt change in their relations in various ways. +Some said that the prince, having observed the plain daughter's +feeling for him and being unable to reciprocate it, considered it +the duty of a gentleman to cut short his visits. Others maintained +that old Shabelsky had discovered why his daughter was pining away, +and had proposed to the poverty-stricken prince that he should marry +her; the prince, imagining in his narrow-minded way that they were +trying to buy him together with his title, was indignant, said +foolish things, and quarrelled with them. What was true and what +was false in this nonsense was difficult to say. But that there was +a portion of truth in it was evident, from the fact that the prince +always avoided conversation about Nadyezhda Lvovna.</p> + +<p id="id01305">I knew that soon after her father's death Nadyezhda Lvovna had +married one Kandurin, a bachelor of law, not wealthy, but adroit, +who had come on a visit to the neighbourhood. She married him not +from love, but because she was touched by the love of the legal +gentleman who, so it was said, had cleverly played the love-sick +swain. At the time I am describing, Kandurin was for some reason +living in Cairo, and writing thence to his friend, the marshal of +the district, "Notes of Travel," while she sat languishing behind +lowered blinds, surrounded by idle parasites, and whiled away her +dreary days in petty philanthropy.</p> + +<p id="id01306">On the way to the house the prince fell to talking.</p> + +<p id="id01307">"It's three days since I have been at home," he said in a half +whisper, with a sidelong glance at the driver. "I am not a child, +nor a silly woman, and I have no prejudices, but I can't stand the +bailiffs. When I see a bailiff in my house I turn pale and tremble, +and even have a twitching in the calves of my legs. Do you know +Rogozhin refused to honour my note?"</p> + +<p id="id01308">The prince did not, as a rule, like to complain of his straitened +circumstances; where poverty was concerned he was reserved and +exceedingly proud and sensitive, and so this announcement surprised +me. He stared a long time at the yellow clearing, warmed by the +sun, watched a long string of cranes float in the azure sky, and +turned facing me.</p> + +<p id="id01309">"And by the sixth of September I must have the money ready for the +bank . . . the interest for my estate," he said aloud, by now +regardless of the coachman. "And where am I to get it? Altogether, +old man, I am in a tight fix! An awfully tight fix!"</p> + +<p id="id01310">The prince examined the cock of his gun, blew on it for some reason, +and began looking for the cranes which by now were out of sight.</p> + +<p id="id01311">"Sergey Ivanitch," I asked, after a minute's silence, "imagine if +they sell your Shatilovka, what will you do?"</p> + +<p id="id01312">"I? I don't know! Shatilovka can't be saved, that's clear as daylight, +but I cannot imagine such a calamity. I can't imagine myself without +my daily bread secure. What can I do? I have had hardly any education; +I have not tried working yet; for government service it is late to +begin, . . . Besides, where could I serve? Where could I be of use? +Admitting that no great cleverness is needed for serving in our +Zemstvo, for example, yet I suffer from . . . the devil knows what, +a sort of faintheartedness, I haven't a ha'p'orth of pluck. If I +went into the Service I should always feel I was not in my right +place. I am not an idealist; I am not a Utopian; I haven't any +special principles; but am simply, I suppose, stupid and thoroughly +incompetent, a neurotic and a coward. Altogether not like other +people. All other people are like other people, only I seem to be +something . . . a poor thing. . . . I met Naryagin last Wednesday—you +know him?—drunken, slovenly . . . doesn't pay his debts, +stupid" (the prince frowned and tossed his head) . . . "a horrible +person! He said to me, staggering: 'I'm being balloted for as a +justice of the peace!' Of course, they won't elect him, but, you +see, he believes he is fit to be a justice of the peace and considers +that position within his capacity. He has boldness and self-confidence. +I went to see our investigating magistrate too. The man gets two +hundred and fifty roubles a month, and does scarcely anything. All +he can do is to stride backwards and forwards for days together in +nothing but his underclothes, but, ask him, he is convinced he is +doing his work and honourably performing his duty. I couldn't go +on like that! I should be ashamed to look the clerk in the face."</p> + +<p id="id01313">At that moment Grontovsky, on a chestnut horse, galloped by us with +a flourish. On his left arm the basket bobbed up and down with the +mushrooms dancing in it. As he passed us he grinned and waved his +hand, as though we were old friends.</p> + +<p id="id01314">"Blockhead!" the prince filtered through his teeth, looking after +him. "It's wonderful how disgusting it sometimes is to see satisfied +faces. A stupid, animal feeling due to hunger, I expect. . . . What +was I saying? Oh, yes, about going into the Service, . . . I should +be ashamed to take the salary, and yet, to tell the truth, it is +stupid. If one looks at it from a broader point of view, more +seriously, I am eating what isn't mine now. Am I not? But why am I +not ashamed of that. . . . It is a case of habit, I suppose . . . +and not being able to realize one's true position. . . . But that +position is most likely awful. . ."</p> + +<p id="id01315">I looked at him, wondering if the prince were showing off. But his +face was mild and his eyes were mournfully following the movements +of the chestnut horse racing away, as though his happiness were +racing away with it.</p> + +<p id="id01316">Apparently he was in that mood of irritation and sadness when women +weep quietly for no reason, and men feel a craving to complain of +themselves, of life, of God. . . .</p> + +<p id="id01317">When I got out of the chaise at the gates of the house the prince +said to me:</p> + +<p id="id01318">"A man once said, wanting to annoy me, that I have the face of a +cardsharper. I have noticed that cardsharpers are usually dark. Do +you know, it seems that if I really had been born a cardsharper I +should have remained a decent person to the day of my death, for I +should never have had the boldness to do wrong. I tell you frankly +I have had the chance once in my life of getting rich if I had told +a lie, a lie to myself and one woman . . . and one other person +whom I know would have forgiven me for lying; I should have put +into my pocket a million. But I could not. I hadn't the pluck!"</p> + +<p id="id01319">From the gates we had to go to the house through the copse by a +long road, level as a ruler, and planted on each side with thick, +lopped lilacs. The house looked somewhat heavy, tasteless, like a +façade on the stage. It rose clumsily out of a mass of greenery, +and caught the eye like a great stone thrown on the velvety turf. +At the chief entrance I was met by a fat old footman in a green +swallow-tail coat and big silver-rimmed spectacles; without making +any announcement, only looking contemptuously at my dusty figure, +he showed me in. As I mounted the soft carpeted stairs there was, +for some reason, a strong smell of india-rubber. At the top I was +enveloped in an atmosphere found only in museums, in signorial +mansions and old-fashioned merchant houses; it seemed like the smell +of something long past, which had once lived and died and had left +its soul in the rooms. I passed through three or four rooms on my +way from the entry to the drawing-room. I remember bright yellow, +shining floors, lustres wrapped in stiff muslin, narrow, striped +rugs which stretched not straight from door to door, as they usually +do, but along the walls, so that not venturing to touch the bright +floor with my muddy boots I had to describe a rectangle in each +room. In the drawing-room, where the footman left me, stood +old-fashioned ancestral furniture in white covers, shrouded in +twilight. It looked surly and elderly, and, as though out of respect +for its repose, not a sound was audible.</p> + +<p id="id01320">Even the clock was silent . . . it seemed as though the Princess +Tarakanov had fallen asleep in the golden frame, and the water and +the rats were still and motionless through magic. The daylight, +afraid of disturbing the universal tranquillity, scarcely pierced +through the lowered blinds, and lay on the soft rugs in pale, +slumbering streaks.</p> + +<p id="id01321">Three minutes passed and a big, elderly woman in black, with her +cheek bandaged up, walked noiselessly into the drawing-room. She +bowed to me and pulled up the blinds. At once, enveloped in the +bright sunlight, the rats and water in the picture came to life and +movement, Princess Tarakanov was awakened, and the old chairs frowned +gloomily.</p> + +<p id="id01322">"Her honour will be here in a minute, sir . . ." sighed the old +lady, frowning too.</p> + +<p id="id01323">A few more minutes of waiting and I saw Nadyezhda Lvovna. What +struck me first of all was that she certainly was ugly, short, +scraggy, and round-shouldered. Her thick, chestnut hair was +magnificent; her face, pure and with a look of culture in it, was +aglow with youth; there was a clear and intelligent expression in +her eyes; but the whole charm of her head was lost through the +thickness of her lips and the over-acute facial angle.</p> + +<p id="id01324">I mentioned my name, and announced the object of my visit.</p> + +<p id="id01325">"I really don't know what I am to say!" she said, in hesitation, +dropping her eyes and smiling. "I don't like to refuse, and at the +same time. . . ."</p> + +<p id="id01326">"Do, please," I begged.</p> + +<p id="id01327">Nadyezhda Lvovna looked at me and laughed. I laughed too. She was +probably amused by what Grontovsky had so enjoyed—that is, the +right of giving or withholding permission; my visit suddenly struck +me as queer and strange.</p> + +<p id="id01328">"I don't like to break the long-established rules," said Madame +Kandurin. "Shooting has been forbidden on our estate for the last +six years. No!" she shook her head resolutely. "Excuse me, I must +refuse you. If I allow you I must allow others. I don't like +unfairness. Either let all or no one."</p> + +<p id="id01329">"I am sorry!" I sighed. "It's all the sadder because we have come +more than ten miles. I am not alone," I added, "Prince Sergey +Ivanitch is with me."</p> + +<p id="id01330">I uttered the prince's name with no <i>arrière pensée</i>, not prompted +by any special motive or aim; I simply blurted it out without +thinking, in the simplicity of my heart. Hearing the familiar name +Madame Kandurin started, and bent a prolonged gaze upon me. I noticed +her nose turn pale.</p> + +<p id="id01331">"That makes no difference . . ." she said, dropping her eyes.</p> + +<p id="id01332">As I talked to her I stood at the window that looked out on the +shrubbery. I could see the whole shrubbery with the avenues and the +ponds and the road by which I had come. At the end of the road, +beyond the gates, the back of our chaise made a dark patch. Near +the gate, with his back to the house, the prince was standing with +his legs apart, talking to the lanky Grontovsky.</p> + +<p id="id01333">Madame Kandurin had been standing all the time at the other window. +She looked from time to time towards the shrubbery, and from the +moment I mentioned the prince's name she did not turn away from the +window.</p> + +<p id="id01334">"Excuse me," she said, screwing up her eyes as she looked towards +the road and the gate, "but it would be unfair to allow you only +to shoot. . . . And, besides, what pleasure is there in shooting +birds? What's it for? Are they in your way?"</p> + +<p id="id01335">A solitary life, immured within four walls, with its indoor twilight +and heavy smell of decaying furniture, disposes people to sentimentality. +Madame Kandurin's idea did her credit, but I could not resist saying:</p> + +<p id="id01336">"If one takes that line one ought to go barefoot. Boots are made +out of the leather of slaughtered animals."</p> + +<p id="id01337">"One must distinguish between a necessity and a caprice," Madame +Kandurin answered in a toneless voice.</p> + +<p id="id01338">She had by now recognized the prince, and did not take her eyes off +his figure. It is hard to describe the delight and the suffering +with which her ugly face was radiant! Her eyes were smiling and +shining, her lips were quivering and laughing, while her face craned +closer to the panes. Keeping hold of a flower-pot with both hands, +with bated breath and with one foot slightly lifted, she reminded +me of a dog pointing and waiting with passionate impatience for +"Fetch it!"</p> + +<p id="id01339">I looked at her and at the prince who could not tell a lie once in +his life, and I felt angry and bitter against truth and falsehood, +which play such an elemental part in the personal happiness of men.</p> + +<p id="id01340">The prince started suddenly, took aim and fired. A hawk, flying +over him, fluttered its wings and flew like an arrow far away.</p> + +<p id="id01341">"He aimed too high!" I said. "And so, Nadyezhda Lvovna," I sighed, +moving away from the window, "you will not permit . . ."—Madame +Kandurin was silent.</p> + +<p id="id01342">"I have the honour to take my leave," I said, "and I beg you to +forgive my disturbing you. . ."</p> + +<p id="id01343">Madame Kandurin would have turned facing me, and had already moved +through a quarter of the angle, when she suddenly hid her face +behind the hangings, as though she felt tears in her eyes that she +wanted to conceal.</p> + +<p id="id01344">"Good-bye. . . . Forgive me . . ." she said softly.</p> + +<p id="id01345">I bowed to her back, and strode away across the bright yellow floors, +no longer keeping to the carpet. I was glad to get away from this +little domain of gilded boredom and sadness, and I hastened as +though anxious to shake off a heavy, fantastic dream with its +twilight, its enchanted princess, its lustres. . . .</p> + +<p id="id01346">At the front door a maidservant overtook me and thrust a note into +my hand: "Shooting is permitted on showing this. N. K.," I read.</p> + +<p id="id01347" style="margin-top: 6em">End of Project Gutenberg's The Chorus Girl and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov</p> + +<p id="id01348">*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHORUS GIRL AND OTHER STORIES ***</p> + +<p id="id01349">***** This file should be named 13418-8.txt or 13418-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/1/13418/</p> + +<p id="id01350">Produced by James Rusk</p> + +<p id="id01351">Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p id="id01352">Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.</p> + +<p id="id01399" style="margin-top: 2em">Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:</p> + +<p id="id01400">     https://www.gutenberg.org<br/> +</p> + +<p id="id01401">This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.</p> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/13418.txt b/13418.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1723b78 --- /dev/null +++ b/13418.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8396 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Chorus Girl and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Chorus Girl and Other Stories + +Author: Anton Chekhov + +Release Date: September 9, 2004 [EBook #13418] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHORUS GIRL AND OTHER STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by James Rusk + + + + + +THE TALES OF CHEKHOV + +VOLUME 8 + +THE CHORUS GIRL AND OTHER STORIES + +BY + +ANTON TCHEKHOV + +Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE CHORUS GIRL +VEROTCHKA +MY LIFE +AT A COUNTRY HOUSE +A FATHER +ON THE ROAD +ROTHSCHILD'S FIDDLE +IVAN MATVEYITCH +ZINOTCHKA +BAD WEATHER +A GENTLEMAN FRIEND +A TRIVIAL INCIDENT + + + + +THE CHORUS GIRL + +ONE day when she was younger and better-looking, and when her voice +was stronger, Nikolay Petrovitch Kolpakov, her adorer, was sitting +in the outer room in her summer villa. It was intolerably hot and +stifling. Kolpakov, who had just dined and drunk a whole bottle of +inferior port, felt ill-humoured and out of sorts. Both were bored +and waiting for the heat of the day to be over in order to go for +a walk. + +All at once there was a sudden ring at the door. Kolpakov, who was +sitting with his coat off, in his slippers, jumped up and looked +inquiringly at Pasha. + +"It must be the postman or one of the girls," said the singer. + +Kolpakov did not mind being found by the postman or Pasha's lady +friends, but by way of precaution gathered up his clothes and went +into the next room, while Pasha ran to open the door. To her great +surprise in the doorway stood, not the postman and not a girl friend, +but an unknown woman, young and beautiful, who was dressed like a +lady, and from all outward signs was one. + +The stranger was pale and was breathing heavily as though she had +been running up a steep flight of stairs. + +"What is it?" asked Pasha. + +The lady did not at once answer. She took a step forward, slowly +looked about the room, and sat down in a way that suggested that +from fatigue, or perhaps illness, she could not stand; then for a +long time her pale lips quivered as she tried in vain to speak. + +"Is my husband here?" she asked at last, raising to Pasha her big +eyes with their red tear-stained lids. + +"Husband?" whispered Pasha, and was suddenly so frightened that her +hands and feet turned cold. "What husband?" she repeated, beginning +to tremble. + +"My husband, . . . Nikolay Petrovitch Kolpakov." + +"N . . . no, madam. . . . I . . . I don't know any husband." + +A minute passed in silence. The stranger several times passed her +handkerchief over her pale lips and held her breath to stop her +inward trembling, while Pasha stood before her motionless, like a +post, and looked at her with astonishment and terror. + +"So you say he is not here?" the lady asked, this time speaking +with a firm voice and smiling oddly. + +"I . . . I don't know who it is you are asking about." + +"You are horrid, mean, vile . . ." the stranger muttered, scanning +Pasha with hatred and repulsion. "Yes, yes . . . you are horrid. I +am very, very glad that at last I can tell you so!" + +Pasha felt that on this lady in black with the angry eyes and white +slender fingers she produced the impression of something horrid and +unseemly, and she felt ashamed of her chubby red cheeks, the pock-mark +on her nose, and the fringe on her forehead, which never could be +combed back. And it seemed to her that if she had been thin, and +had had no powder on her face and no fringe on her forehead, then +she could have disguised the fact that she was not "respectable," +and she would not have felt so frightened and ashamed to stand +facing this unknown, mysterious lady. + +"Where is my husband?" the lady went on. "Though I don't care whether +he is here or not, but I ought to tell you that the money has been +missed, and they are looking for Nikolay Petrovitch. . . . They +mean to arrest him. That's your doing!" + +The lady got up and walked about the room in great excitement. Pasha +looked at her and was so frightened that she could not understand. + +"He'll be found and arrested to-day," said the lady, and she gave +a sob, and in that sound could be heard her resentment and vexation. +"I know who has brought him to this awful position! Low, horrid +creature! Loathsome, mercenary hussy!" The lady's lips worked and +her nose wrinkled up with disgust. "I am helpless, do you hear, you +low woman? . . . I am helpless; you are stronger than I am, but +there is One to defend me and my children! God sees all! He is just! +He will punish you for every tear I have shed, for all my sleepless +nights! The time will come; you will think of me! . . ." + +Silence followed again. The lady walked about the room and wrung +her hands, while Pasha still gazed blankly at her in amazement, not +understanding and expecting something terrible. + +"I know nothing about it, madam," she said, and suddenly burst into +tears. + +"You are lying!" cried the lady, and her eyes flashed angrily at +her. "I know all about it! I've known you a long time. I know that +for the last month he has been spending every day with you!" + +"Yes. What then? What of it? I have a great many visitors, but I +don't force anyone to come. He is free to do as he likes." + +"I tell you they have discovered that money is missing! He has +embezzled money at the office! For the sake of such a . . . creature +as you, for your sake he has actually committed a crime. Listen," +said the lady in a resolute voice, stopping short, facing Pasha. +"You can have no principles; you live simply to do harm--that's +your object; but one can't imagine you have fallen so low that you +have no trace of human feeling left! He has a wife, children. . . . +If he is condemned and sent into exile we shall starve, the +children and I. . . . Understand that! And yet there is a chance +of saving him and us from destitution and disgrace. If I take them +nine hundred roubles to-day they will let him alone. Only nine +hundred roubles!" + +"What nine hundred roubles?" Pasha asked softly. "I . . . I don't +know. . . . I haven't taken it." + +"I am not asking you for nine hundred roubles. . . . You have no +money, and I don't want your money. I ask you for something else. +. . . Men usually give expensive things to women like you. Only +give me back the things my husband has given you!" + +"Madam, he has never made me a present of anything!" Pasha wailed, +beginning to understand. + +"Where is the money? He has squandered his own and mine and other +people's. . . . What has become of it all? Listen, I beg you! I was +carried away by indignation and have said a lot of nasty things to +you, but I apologize. You must hate me, I know, but if you are +capable of sympathy, put yourself in my position! I implore you to +give me back the things!" + +"H'm!" said Pasha, and she shrugged her shoulders. "I would with +pleasure, but God is my witness, he never made me a present of +anything. Believe me, on my conscience. However, you are right, +though," said the singer in confusion, "he did bring me two little +things. Certainly I will give them back, if you wish it." + +Pasha pulled out one of the drawers in the toilet-table and took +out of it a hollow gold bracelet and a thin ring with a ruby in it. + +"Here, madam!" she said, handing the visitor these articles. + +The lady flushed and her face quivered. She was offended. + +"What are you giving me?" she said. "I am not asking for charity, +but for what does not belong to you . . . what you have taken +advantage of your position to squeeze out of my husband . . . that +weak, unhappy man. . . . On Thursday, when I saw you with my husband +at the harbour you were wearing expensive brooches and bracelets. +So it's no use your playing the innocent lamb to me! I ask you for +the last time: will you give me the things, or not?" + +"You are a queer one, upon my word," said Pasha, beginning to feel +offended. "I assure you that, except the bracelet and this little +ring, I've never seen a thing from your Nikolay Petrovitch. He +brings me nothing but sweet cakes." + +"Sweet cakes!" laughed the stranger. "At home the children have +nothing to eat, and here you have sweet cakes. You absolutely refuse +to restore the presents?" + +Receiving no answer, the lady sat, down and stared into space, +pondering. + +"What's to be done now?" she said. "If I don't get nine hundred +roubles, he is ruined, and the children and I am ruined, too. Shall +I kill this low woman or go down on my knees to her?" + +The lady pressed her handkerchief to her face and broke into sobs. + +"I beg you!" Pasha heard through the stranger's sobs. "You see you +have plundered and ruined my husband. Save him. . . . You have no +feeling for him, but the children . . . the children . . . What +have the children done?" + +Pasha imagined little children standing in the street, crying with +hunger, and she, too, sobbed. + +"What can I do, madam?" she said. "You say that I am a low woman +and that I have ruined Nikolay Petrovitch, and I assure you . . . +before God Almighty, I have had nothing from him whatever. . . . +There is only one girl in our chorus who has a rich admirer; all +the rest of us live from hand to mouth on bread and kvass. Nikolay +Petrovitch is a highly educated, refined gentleman, so I've made +him welcome. We are bound to make gentlemen welcome." + +"I ask you for the things! Give me the things! I am crying. . . . +I am humiliating myself. . . . If you like I will go down on my +knees! If you wish it!" + +Pasha shrieked with horror and waved her hands. She felt that this +pale, beautiful lady who expressed herself so grandly, as though +she were on the stage, really might go down on her knees to her, +simply from pride, from grandeur, to exalt herself and humiliate +the chorus girl. + +"Very well, I will give you things!" said Pasha, wiping her eyes +and bustling about. "By all means. Only they are not from Nikolay +Petrovitch. . . . I got these from other gentlemen. As you +please. . . ." + +Pasha pulled out the upper drawer of the chest, took out a diamond +brooch, a coral necklace, some rings and bracelets, and gave them +all to the lady. + +"Take them if you like, only I've never had anything from your +husband. Take them and grow rich," Pasha went on, offended at the +threat to go down on her knees. "And if you are a lady . . . his +lawful wife, you should keep him to yourself. I should think so! I +did not ask him to come; he came of himself." + +Through her tears the lady scrutinized the articles given her and +said: + +"This isn't everything. . . . There won't be five hundred roubles' +worth here." + +Pasha impulsively flung out of the chest a gold watch, a cigar-case +and studs, and said, flinging up her hands: + +"I've nothing else left. . . . You can search!" + +The visitor gave a sigh, with trembling hands twisted the things +up in her handkerchief, and went out without uttering a word, without +even nodding her head. + +The door from the next room opened and Kolpakov walked in. He was +pale and kept shaking his head nervously, as though he had swallowed +something very bitter; tears were glistening in his eyes. + +"What presents did you make me?" Pasha asked, pouncing upon him. +"When did you, allow me to ask you?" + +"Presents . . . that's no matter!" said Kolpakov, and he tossed his +head. "My God! She cried before you, she humbled herself. . . ." + +"I am asking you, what presents did you make me?" Pasha cried. + +"My God! She, a lady, so proud, so pure. . . . She was ready to go +down on her knees to . . . to this wench! And I've brought her to +this! I've allowed it!" + +He clutched his head in his hands and moaned. + +"No, I shall never forgive myself for this! I shall never forgive +myself! Get away from me . . . you low creature!" he cried with +repulsion, backing away from Pasha, and thrusting her off with +trembling hands. "She would have gone down on her knees, and . . . +and to you! Oh, my God!" + +He rapidly dressed, and pushing Pasha aside contemptuously, made +for the door and went out. + +Pasha lay down and began wailing aloud. She was already regretting +her things which she had given away so impulsively, and her feelings +were hurt. She remembered how three years ago a merchant had beaten +her for no sort of reason, and she wailed more loudly than ever. + + +VEROTCHKA + +IVAN ALEXEYITCH OGNEV remembers how on that August evening he opened +the glass door with a rattle and went out on to the verandah. He +was wearing a light Inverness cape and a wide-brimmed straw hat, +the very one that was lying with his top-boots in the dust under +his bed. In one hand he had a big bundle of books and notebooks, +in the other a thick knotted stick. + +Behind the door, holding the lamp to show the way, stood the master +of the house, Kuznetsov, a bald old man with a long grey beard, in +a snow-white pique jacket. The old man was smiling cordially and +nodding his head. + +"Good-bye, old fellow!" said Ognev. + +Kuznetsov put the lamp on a little table and went out to the verandah. +Two long narrow shadows moved down the steps towards the flower-beds, +swayed to and fro, and leaned their heads on the trunks of the +lime-trees. + +"Good-bye and once more thank you, my dear fellow!" said Ivan +Alexeyitch. "Thank you for your welcome, for your kindness, for +your affection. . . . I shall never forget your hospitality as long +as I live. You are so good, and your daughter is so good, and +everyone here is so kind, so good-humoured and friendly . . . Such +a splendid set of people that I don't know how to say what I feel!" + +From excess of feeling and under the influence of the home-made +wine he had just drunk, Ognev talked in a singing voice like a +divinity student, and was so touched that he expressed his feelings +not so much by words as by the blinking of his eyes and the twitching +of his shoulders. Kuznetsov, who had also drunk a good deal and was +touched, craned forward to the young man and kissed him. + +"I've grown as fond of you as if I were your dog," Ognev went on. +"I've been turning up here almost every day; I've stayed the night +a dozen times. It's dreadful to think of all the home-made wine +I've drunk. And thank you most of all for your co-operation and +help. Without you I should have been busy here over my statistics +till October. I shall put in my preface: 'I think it my duty to +express my gratitude to the President of the District Zemstvo of +N----, Kuznetsov, for his kind co-operation.' There is a brilliant +future before statistics! My humble respects to Vera Gavrilovna, +and tell the doctors, both the lawyers and your secretary, that I +shall never forget their help! And now, old fellow, let us embrace +one another and kiss for the last time!" + +Ognev, limp with emotion, kissed the old man once more and began +going down the steps. On the last step he looked round and asked: +"Shall we meet again some day?" + +"God knows!" said the old man. "Most likely not!" + +"Yes, that's true! Nothing will tempt you to Petersburg and I am +never likely to turn up in this district again. Well, good-bye!" + +"You had better leave the books behind!" Kuznetsov called after +him. "You don't want to drag such a weight with you. I would send +them by a servant to-morrow!" + +But Ognev was rapidly walking away from the house and was not +listening. His heart, warmed by the wine, was brimming over with +good-humour, friendliness, and sadness. He walked along thinking +how frequently one met with good people, and what a pity it was +that nothing was left of those meetings but memories. At times one +catches a glimpse of cranes on the horizon, and a faint gust of +wind brings their plaintive, ecstatic cry, and a minute later, +however greedily one scans the blue distance, one cannot see a speck +nor catch a sound; and like that, people with their faces and their +words flit through our lives and are drowned in the past, leaving +nothing except faint traces in the memory. Having been in the N---- +District from the early spring, and having been almost every day +at the friendly Kuznetsovs', Ivan Alexeyitch had become as much at +home with the old man, his daughter, and the servants as though +they were his own people; he had grown familiar with the whole house +to the smallest detail, with the cosy verandah, the windings of the +avenues, the silhouettes of the trees over the kitchen and the +bath-house; but as soon as he was out of the gate all this would +be changed to memory and would lose its meaning as reality for ever, +and in a year or two all these dear images would grow as dim in his +consciousness as stories he had read or things he had imagined. + +"Nothing in life is so precious as people!" Ognev thought in his +emotion, as he strode along the avenue to the gate. "Nothing!" + +It was warm and still in the garden. There was a scent of the +mignonette, of the tobacco-plants, and of the heliotrope, which +were not yet over in the flower-beds. The spaces between the bushes +and the tree-trunks were filled with a fine soft mist soaked through +and through with moonlight, and, as Ognev long remembered, coils +of mist that looked like phantoms slowly but perceptibly followed +one another across the avenue. The moon stood high above the garden, +and below it transparent patches of mist were floating eastward. +The whole world seemed to consist of nothing but black silhouettes +and wandering white shadows. Ognev, seeing the mist on a moonlight +August evening almost for the first time in his life, imagined he +was seeing, not nature, but a stage effect in which unskilful +workmen, trying to light up the garden with white Bengal fire, hid +behind the bushes and let off clouds of white smoke together with +the light. + +When Ognev reached the garden gate a dark shadow moved away from +the low fence and came towards him. + +"Vera Gavrilovna!" he said, delighted. "You here? And I have been +looking everywhere for you; wanted to say good-bye. . . . Good-bye; +I am going away!" + +"So early? Why, it's only eleven o'clock." + +"Yes, it's time I was off. I have a four-mile walk and then my +packing. I must be up early to-morrow." + +Before Ognev stood Kuznetsov's daughter Vera, a girl of one-and-twenty, +as usual melancholy, carelessly dressed, and attractive. Girls who +are dreamy and spend whole days lying down, lazily reading whatever +they come across, who are bored and melancholy, are usually careless +in their dress. To those of them who have been endowed by nature +with taste and an instinct of beauty, the slight carelessness adds +a special charm. When Ognev later on remembered her, he could not +picture pretty Verotchka except in a full blouse which was crumpled +in deep folds at the belt and yet did not touch her waist; without +her hair done up high and a curl that had come loose from it on her +forehead; without the knitted red shawl with ball fringe at the +edge which hung disconsolately on Vera's shoulders in the evenings, +like a flag on a windless day, and in the daytime lay about, crushed +up, in the hall near the men's hats or on a box in the dining-room, +where the old cat did not hesitate to sleep on it. This shawl and +the folds of her blouse suggested a feeling of freedom and laziness, +of good-nature and sitting at home. Perhaps because Vera attracted +Ognev he saw in every frill and button something warm, naive, cosy, +something nice and poetical, just what is lacking in cold, insincere +women that have no instinct for beauty. + +Verotchka had a good figure, a regular profile, and beautiful curly +hair. Ognev, who had seen few women in his life, thought her a +beauty. + +"I am going away," he said as he took leave of her at the gate. +"Don't remember evil against me! Thank you for everything!" + +In the same singing divinity student's voice in which he had talked +to her father, with the same blinking and twitching of his shoulders, +he began thanking Vera for her hospitality, kindness, and friendliness. + +"I've written about you in every letter to my mother," he said. "If +everyone were like you and your dad, what a jolly place the world +would be! You are such a splendid set of people! All such genuine, +friendly people with no nonsense about you." + +"Where are you going to now?" asked Vera. + +"I am going now to my mother's at Oryol; I shall be a fortnight +with her, and then back to Petersburg and work." + +"And then?" + +"And then? I shall work all the winter and in the spring go somewhere +into the provinces again to collect material. Well, be happy, live +a hundred years . . . don't remember evil against me. We shall not +see each other again." + +Ognev stooped down and kissed Vera's hand. Then, in silent emotion, +he straightened his cape, shifted his bundle of books to a more +comfortable position, paused, and said: + +"What a lot of mist!" + +"Yes. Have you left anything behind?" + +"No, I don't think so. . . ." + +For some seconds Ognev stood in silence, then he moved clumsily +towards the gate and went out of the garden. + +"Stay; I'll see you as far as our wood," said Vera, following him +out. + +They walked along the road. Now the trees did not obscure the view, +and one could see the sky and the distance. As though covered with +a veil all nature was hidden in a transparent, colourless haze +through which her beauty peeped gaily; where the mist was thicker +and whiter it lay heaped unevenly about the stones, stalks, and +bushes or drifted in coils over the road, clung close to the earth +and seemed trying not to conceal the view. Through the haze they +could see all the road as far as the wood, with dark ditches at the +sides and tiny bushes which grew in the ditches and caught the +straying wisps of mist. Half a mile from the gate they saw the dark +patch of Kuznetsov's wood. + +"Why has she come with me? I shall have to see her back," thought +Ognev, but looking at her profile he gave a friendly smile and said: +"One doesn't want to go away in such lovely weather. It's quite a +romantic evening, with the moon, the stillness, and all the etceteras. +Do you know, Vera Gavrilovna, here I have lived twenty-nine years +in the world and never had a romance. No romantic episode in my +whole life, so that I only know by hearsay of rendezvous, 'avenues +of sighs,' and kisses. It's not normal! In town, when one sits in +one's lodgings, one does not notice the blank, but here in the fresh +air one feels it. . . . One resents it!" + +"Why is it?" + +"I don't know. I suppose I've never had time, or perhaps it was I +have never met women who. . . . In fact, I have very few acquaintances +and never go anywhere." + +For some three hundred paces the young people walked on in silence. +Ognev kept glancing at Verotchka's bare head and shawl, and days +of spring and summer rose to his mind one after another. It had +been a period when far from his grey Petersburg lodgings, enjoying +the friendly warmth of kind people, nature, and the work he loved, +he had not had time to notice how the sunsets followed the glow of +dawn, and how, one after another foretelling the end of summer, +first the nightingale ceased singing, then the quail, then a little +later the landrail. The days slipped by unnoticed, so that life +must have been happy and easy. He began calling aloud how reluctantly +he, poor and unaccustomed to change of scene and society, had come +at the end of April to the N---- District, where he had expected +dreariness, loneliness, and indifference to statistics, which he +considered was now the foremost among the sciences. When he arrived +on an April morning at the little town of N---- he had put up at +the inn kept by Ryabuhin, the Old Believer, where for twenty kopecks +a day they had given him a light, clean room on condition that he +should not smoke indoors. After resting and finding who was the +president of the District Zemstvo, he had set off at once on foot +to Kuznetsov. He had to walk three miles through lush meadows and +young copses. Larks were hovering in the clouds, filling the air +with silvery notes, and rooks flapping their wings with sedate +dignity floated over the green cornland. + +"Good heavens!" Ognev had thought in wonder; "can it be that there's +always air like this to breathe here, or is this scent only to-day, +in honour of my coming?" + +Expecting a cold business-like reception, he went in to Kuznetsov's +diffidently, looking up from under his eyebrows and shyly pulling +his beard. At first Kuznetsov wrinkled up his brows and could not +understand what use the Zemstvo could be to the young man and his +statistics; but when the latter explained at length what was material +for statistics and how such material was collected, Kuznetsov +brightened, smiled, and with childish curiosity began looking at +his notebooks. On the evening of the same day Ivan Alexeyitch was +already sitting at supper with the Kuznetsovs, was rapidly becoming +exhilarated by their strong home-made wine, and looking at the calm +faces and lazy movements of his new acquaintances, felt all over +that sweet, drowsy indolence which makes one want to sleep and +stretch and smile; while his new acquaintances looked at him +good-naturedly and asked him whether his father and mother were +living, how much he earned a month, how often he went to the +theatre. . . . + +Ognev recalled his expeditions about the neighbourhood, the picnics, +the fishing parties, the visit of the whole party to the convent +to see the Mother Superior Marfa, who had given each of the visitors +a bead purse; he recalled the hot, endless typically Russian arguments +in which the opponents, spluttering and banging the table with their +fists, misunderstand and interrupt one another, unconsciously +contradict themselves at every phrase, continually change the +subject, and after arguing for two or three hours, laugh and say: +"Goodness knows what we have been arguing about! Beginning with one +thing and going on to another!" + +"And do you remember how the doctor and you and I rode to Shestovo?" +said Ivan Alexeyitch to Vera as they reached the copse. "It was +there that the crazy saint met us: I gave him a five-kopeck piece, +and he crossed himself three times and flung it into the rye. Good +heavens! I am carrying away such a mass of memories that if I could +gather them together into a whole it would make a good nugget of +gold! I don't understand why clever, perceptive people crowd into +Petersburg and Moscow and don't come here. Is there more truth and +freedom in the Nevsky and in the big damp houses than here? Really, +the idea of artists, scientific men, and journalists all living +crowded together in furnished rooms has always seemed to me a +mistake." + +Twenty paces from the copse the road was crossed by a small narrow +bridge with posts at the corners, which had always served as a +resting-place for the Kuznetsovs and their guests on their evening +walks. From there those who liked could mimic the forest echo, and +one could see the road vanish in the dark woodland track. + +"Well, here is the bridge!" said Ognev. "Here you must turn back." + +Vera stopped and drew a breath. + +"Let us sit down," she said, sitting down on one of the posts. +"People generally sit down when they say good-bye before starting +on a journey." + +Ognev settled himself beside her on his bundle of books and went +on talking. She was breathless from the walk, and was looking, not +at Ivan Alexeyitch, but away into the distance so that he could not +see her face. + +"And what if we meet in ten years' time?" he said. "What shall we +be like then? You will be by then the respectable mother of a family, +and I shall be the author of some weighty statistical work of no +use to anyone, as thick as forty thousand such works. We shall meet +and think of old days. . . . Now we are conscious of the present; +it absorbs and excites us, but when we meet we shall not remember +the day, nor the month, nor even the year in which we saw each other +for the last time on this bridge. You will be changed, perhaps +. . . . Tell me, will you be different?" + +Vera started and turned her face towards him. + +"What?" she asked. + +"I asked you just now. . . ." + +"Excuse me, I did not hear what you were saying." + +Only then Ognev noticed a change in Vera. She was pale, breathing +fast, and the tremor in her breathing affected her hands and lips +and head, and not one curl as usual, but two, came loose and fell +on her forehead. . . . Evidently she avoided looking him in the +face, and, trying to mask her emotion, at one moment fingered her +collar, which seemed to be rasping her neck, at another pulled her +red shawl from one shoulder to the other. + +"I am afraid you are cold," said Ognev. "It's not at all wise to +sit in the mist. Let me see you back _nach-haus_." + +Vera sat mute. + +"What is the matter?" asked Ognev, with a smile. "You sit silent +and don't answer my questions. Are you cross, or don't you feel +well?" + +Vera pressed the palm of her hand to the cheek nearest to Ognev, +and then abruptly jerked it away. + +"An awful position!" she murmured, with a look of pain on her face. +"Awful!" + +"How is it awful?" asked Ognev, shrugging his shoulders and not +concealing his surprise. "What's the matter?" + +Still breathing hard and twitching her shoulders, Vera turned her +back to him, looked at the sky for half a minute, and said: + +"There is something I must say to you, Ivan Alexeyitch. . . ." + +"I am listening." + +"It may seem strange to you. . . . You will be surprised, but I +don't care. . . ." + +Ognev shrugged his shoulders once more and prepared himself to +listen. + +"You see . . ." Verotchka began, bowing her head and fingering a +ball on the fringe of her shawl. "You see . . . this is what I +wanted to tell you. . . . You'll think it strange . . . and silly, +but I . . . can't bear it any longer." + +Vera's words died away in an indistinct mutter and were suddenly +cut short by tears. The girl hid her face in her handkerchief, bent +lower than ever, and wept bitterly. Ivan Alexeyitch cleared his +throat in confusion and looked about him hopelessly, at his wits' +end, not knowing what to say or do. Being unused to the sight of +tears, he felt his own eyes, too, beginning to smart. + +"Well, what next!" he muttered helplessly. "Vera Gavrilovna, what's +this for, I should like to know? My dear girl, are you . . . are +you ill? Or has someone been nasty to you? Tell me, perhaps I could, +so to say . . . help you. . . ." + +When, trying to console her, he ventured cautiously to remove her +hands from her face, she smiled at him through her tears and said: + +"I . . . love you!" + +These words, so simple and ordinary, were uttered in ordinary human +language, but Ognev, in acute embarrassment, turned away from Vera, +and got up, while his confusion was followed by terror. + +The sad, warm, sentimental mood induced by leave-taking and the +home-made wine suddenly vanished, and gave place to an acute and +unpleasant feeling of awkwardness. He felt an inward revulsion; he +looked askance at Vera, and now that by declaring her love for him +she had cast off the aloofness which so adds to a woman's charm, +she seemed to him, as it were, shorter, plainer, more ordinary. + +"What's the meaning of it?" he thought with horror. "But I . . . +do I love her or not? That's the question!" + +And she breathed easily and freely now that the worst and most +difficult thing was said. She, too, got up, and looking Ivan +Alexeyitch straight in the face, began talking rapidly, warmly, +irrepressibly. + +As a man suddenly panic-stricken cannot afterwards remember the +succession of sounds accompanying the catastrophe that overwhelmed +him, so Ognev cannot remember Vera's words and phrases. He can only +recall the meaning of what she said, and the sensation her words +evoked in him. He remembers her voice, which seemed stifled and +husky with emotion, and the extraordinary music and passion of her +intonation. Laughing, crying with tears glistening on her eyelashes, +she told him that from the first day of their acquaintance he had +struck her by his originality, his intelligence, his kind intelligent +eyes, by his work and objects in life; that she loved him passionately, +deeply, madly; that when coming into the house from the garden in +the summer she saw his cape in the hall or heard his voice in the +distance, she felt a cold shudder at her heart, a foreboding of +happiness; even his slightest jokes had made her laugh; in every +figure in his note-books she saw something extraordinarily wise and +grand; his knotted stick seemed to her more beautiful than the +trees. + +The copse and the wisps of mist and the black ditches at the side +of the road seemed hushed listening to her, whilst something strange +and unpleasant was passing in Ognev's heart. . . . Telling him of +her love, Vera was enchantingly beautiful; she spoke eloquently and +passionately, but he felt neither pleasure nor gladness, as he would +have liked to; he felt nothing but compassion for Vera, pity and +regret that a good girl should be distressed on his account. Whether +he was affected by generalizations from reading or by the insuperable +habit of looking at things objectively, which so often hinders +people from living, but Vera's ecstasies and suffering struck him +as affected, not to be taken seriously, and at the same time +rebellious feeling whispered to him that all he was hearing and +seeing now, from the point of view of nature and personal happiness, +was more important than any statistics and books and truths. . . . +And he raged and blamed himself, though he did not understand exactly +where he was in fault. + +To complete his embarrassment, he was absolutely at a loss what to +say, and yet something he must say. To say bluntly, "I don't love +you," was beyond him, and he could not bring himself to say "Yes," +because however much he rummaged in his heart he could not find one +spark of feeling in it. . . . + +He was silent, and she meanwhile was saying that for her there was +no greater happiness than to see him, to follow him wherever he +liked this very moment, to be his wife and helper, and that if he +went away from her she would die of misery. + +"I cannot stay here!" she said, wringing her hands. "I am sick of +the house and this wood and the air. I cannot bear the everlasting +peace and aimless life, I can't endure our colourless, pale people, +who are all as like one another as two drops of water! They are all +good-natured and warm-hearted because they are all well-fed and +know nothing of struggle or suffering, . . . I want to be in those +big damp houses where people suffer, embittered by work and +need. . ." + +And this, too, seemed to Ognev affected and not to be taken seriously. +When Vera had finished he still did not know what to say, but it +was impossible to be silent, and he muttered: + +"Vera Gavrilovna, I am very grateful to you, though I feel I've +done nothing to deserve such . . . feeling . . . on your part. +Besides, as an honest man I ought to tell you that . . . happiness +depends on equality--that is, when both parties are . . . equally +in love. . . ." + +But he was immediately ashamed of his mutterings and ceased. He +felt that his face at that moment looked stupid, guilty, blank, +that it was strained and affected. . . . Vera must have been able +to read the truth on his countenance, for she suddenly became grave, +turned pale, and bent her head. + +"You must forgive me," Ognev muttered, not able to endure the +silence. "I respect you so much that . . . it pains me. . . ." + +Vera turned sharply and walked rapidly homewards. Ognev followed +her. + +"No, don't!" said Vera, with a wave of her hand. "Don't come; I can +go alone." + +"Oh, yes . . . I must see you home anyway." + +Whatever Ognev said, it all to the last word struck him as loathsome +and flat. The feeling of guilt grew greater at every step. He raged +inwardly, clenched his fists, and cursed his coldness and his +stupidity with women. Trying to stir his feelings, he looked at +Verotchka's beautiful figure, at her hair and the traces of her +little feet on the dusty road; he remembered her words and her +tears, but all that only touched his heart and did not quicken his +pulse. + +"Ach! one can't force oneself to love," he assured himself, and at +the same time he thought, "But shall I ever fall in love without? +I am nearly thirty! I have never met anyone better than Vera and I +never shall. . . . Oh, this premature old age! Old age at thirty!" + +Vera walked on in front more and more rapidly, without looking back +at him or raising her head. It seemed to him that sorrow had made +her thinner and narrower in the shoulders. + +"I can imagine what's going on in her heart now!" he thought, looking +at her back. "She must be ready to die with shame and mortification! +My God, there's so much life, poetry, and meaning in it that it +would move a stone, and I . . . I am stupid and absurd!" + +At the gate Vera stole a glance at him, and, shrugging and wrapping +her shawl round her walked rapidly away down the avenue. + +Ivan Alexeyitch was left alone. Going back to the copse, he walked +slowly, continually standing still and looking round at the gate +with an expression in his whole figure that suggested that he could +not believe his own memory. He looked for Vera's footprints on the +road, and could not believe that the girl who had so attracted him +had just declared her love, and that he had so clumsily and bluntly +"refused" her. For the first time in his life it was his lot to +learn by experience how little that a man does depends on his own +will, and to suffer in his own person the feelings of a decent +kindly man who has against his will caused his neighbour cruel, +undeserved anguish. + +His conscience tormented him, and when Vera disappeared he felt as +though he had lost something very precious, something very near and +dear which he could never find again. He felt that with Vera a part +of his youth had slipped away from him, and that the moments which +he had passed through so fruitlessly would never be repeated. + +When he reached the bridge he stopped and sank into thought. He +wanted to discover the reason of his strange coldness. That it was +due to something within him and not outside himself was clear to +him. He frankly acknowledged to himself that it was not the +intellectual coldness of which clever people so often boast, not +the coldness of a conceited fool, but simply impotence of soul, +incapacity for being moved by beauty, premature old age brought on +by education, his casual existence, struggling for a livelihood, +his homeless life in lodgings. From the bridge he walked slowly, +as it were reluctantly, into the wood. Here, where in the dense +black darkness glaring patches of moonlight gleamed here and there, +where he felt nothing except his thoughts, he longed passionately +to regain what he had lost. + +And Ivan Alexeyitch remembers that he went back again. Urging himself +on with his memories, forcing himself to picture Vera, he strode +rapidly towards the garden. There was no mist by then along the +road or in the garden, and the bright moon looked down from the sky +as though it had just been washed; only the eastern sky was dark +and misty. . . . Ognev remembers his cautious steps, the dark +windows, the heavy scent of heliotrope and mignonette. His old +friend Karo, wagging his tail amicably, came up to him and sniffed +his hand. This was the one living creature who saw him walk two or +three times round the house, stand near Vera's dark window, and +with a deep sigh and a wave of his hand walk out of the garden. + +An hour later he was in the town, and, worn out and exhausted, +leaned his body and hot face against the gatepost of the inn as he +knocked at the gate. Somewhere in the town a dog barked sleepily, +and as though in response to his knock, someone clanged the hour +on an iron plate near the church. + +"You prowl about at night," grumbled his host, the Old Believer, +opening the door to him, in a long nightgown like a woman's. "You +had better be saying your prayers instead of prowling about." + +When Ivan Alexeyitch reached his room he sank on the bed and gazed +a long, long time at the light. Then he tossed his head and began +packing. + + +MY LIFE + +THE STORY OF A PROVINCIAL + +I + +THE Superintendent said to me: "I only keep you out of regard for +your worthy father; but for that you would have been sent flying +long ago." I replied to him: "You flatter me too much, your Excellency, +in assuming that I am capable of flying." And then I heard him say: +"Take that gentleman away; he gets upon my nerves." + +Two days later I was dismissed. And in this way I have, during the +years I have been regarded as grown up, lost nine situations, to +the great mortification of my father, the architect of our town. I +have served in various departments, but all these nine jobs have +been as alike as one drop of water is to another: I had to sit, +write, listen to rude or stupid observations, and go on doing so +till I was dismissed. + +When I came in to my father he was sitting buried in a low arm-chair +with his eyes closed. His dry, emaciated face, with a shade of dark +blue where it was shaved (he looked like an old Catholic organist), +expressed meekness and resignation. Without responding to my greeting +or opening his eyes, he said: + +"If my dear wife and your mother were living, your life would have +been a source of continual distress to her. I see the Divine +Providence in her premature death. I beg you, unhappy boy," he +continued, opening his eyes, "tell me: what am I to do with you?" + +In the past when I was younger my friends and relations had known +what to do with me: some of them used to advise me to volunteer for +the army, others to get a job in a pharmacy, and others in the +telegraph department; now that I am over twenty-five, that grey +hairs are beginning to show on my temples, and that I have been +already in the army, and in a pharmacy, and in the telegraph +department, it would seem that all earthly possibilities have been +exhausted, and people have given up advising me, and merely sigh +or shake their heads. + +"What do you think about yourself?" my father went on. "By the time +they are your age, young men have a secure social position, while +look at you: you are a proletarian, a beggar, a burden on your +father!" + +And as usual he proceeded to declare that the young people of to-day +were on the road to perdition through infidelity, materialism, and +self-conceit, and that amateur theatricals ought to be prohibited, +because they seduced young people from religion and their duties. + +"To-morrow we shall go together, and you shall apologize to the +superintendent, and promise him to work conscientiously," he said +in conclusion. "You ought not to remain one single day with no +regular position in society." + +"I beg you to listen to me," I said sullenly, expecting nothing +good from this conversation. "What you call a position in society +is the privilege of capital and education. Those who have neither +wealth nor education earn their daily bread by manual labour, and +I see no grounds for my being an exception." + +"When you begin talking about manual labour it is always stupid and +vulgar!" said my father with irritation. "Understand, you dense +fellow--understand, you addle-pate, that besides coarse physical +strength you have the divine spirit, a spark of the holy fire, which +distinguishes you in the most striking way from the ass or the +reptile, and brings you nearer to the Deity! This fire is the fruit +of the efforts of the best of mankind during thousands of years. +Your great-grandfather Poloznev, the general, fought at Borodino; +your grandfather was a poet, an orator, and a Marshal of Nobility; +your uncle is a schoolmaster; and lastly, I, your father, am an +architect! All the Poloznevs have guarded the sacred fire for you +to put it out!" + +"One must be just," I said. "Millions of people put up with manual +labour." + +"And let them put up with it! They don't know how to do anything +else! Anybody, even the most abject fool or criminal, is capable +of manual labour; such labour is the distinguishing mark of the +slave and the barbarian, while the holy fire is vouchsafed only to +a few!" + +To continue this conversation was unprofitable. My father worshipped +himself, and nothing was convincing to him but what he said himself. +Besides, I knew perfectly well that the disdain with which he talked +of physical toil was founded not so much on reverence for the sacred +fire as on a secret dread that I should become a workman, and should +set the whole town talking about me; what was worse, all my +contemporaries had long ago taken their degrees and were getting +on well, and the son of the manager of the State Bank was already +a collegiate assessor, while I, his only son, was nothing! To +continue the conversation was unprofitable and unpleasant, but I +still sat on and feebly retorted, hoping that I might at last be +understood. The whole question, of course, was clear and simple, +and only concerned with the means of my earning my living; but the +simplicity of it was not seen, and I was talked to in mawkishly +rounded phrases of Borodino, of the sacred fire, of my uncle a +forgotten poet, who had once written poor and artificial verses; I +was rudely called an addlepate and a dense fellow. And how I longed +to be understood! In spite of everything, I loved my father and my +sister and it had been my habit from childhood to consult them-- +a habit so deeply rooted that I doubt whether I could ever have got +rid of it; whether I were in the right or the wrong, I was in +constant dread of wounding them, constantly afraid that my father's +thin neck would turn crimson and that he would have a stroke. + +"To sit in a stuffy room," I began, "to copy, to compete with a +typewriter, is shameful and humiliating for a man of my age. What +can the sacred fire have to do with it?" + +"It's intellectual work, anyway," said my father. "But that's enough; +let us cut short this conversation, and in any case I warn you: if +you don't go back to your work again, but follow your contemptible +propensities, then my daughter and I will banish you from our hearts. +I shall strike you out of my will, I swear by the living God!" + +With perfect sincerity to prove the purity of the motives by which +I wanted to be guided in all my doings, I said: + +"The question of inheritance does not seem very important to me. I +shall renounce it all beforehand." + +For some reason or other, quite to my surprise, these words were +deeply resented by my father. He turned crimson. + +"Don't dare to talk to me like that, stupid!" he shouted in a thin, +shrill voice. "Wastrel!" and with a rapid, skilful, and habitual +movement he slapped me twice in the face. "You are forgetting +yourself." + +When my father beat me as a child I had to stand up straight, with +my hands held stiffly to my trouser seams, and look him straight +in the face. And now when he hit me I was utterly overwhelmed, and, +as though I were still a child, drew myself up and tried to look +him in the face. My father was old and very thin but his delicate +muscles must have been as strong as leather, for his blows hurt a +good deal. + +I staggered back into the passage, and there he snatched up his +umbrella, and with it hit me several times on the head and shoulders; +at that moment my sister opened the drawing-room door to find out +what the noise was, but at once turned away with a look of horror +and pity without uttering a word in my defence. + +My determination not to return to the Government office, but to +begin a new life of toil, was not to be shaken. All that was left +for me to do was to fix upon the special employment, and there was +no particular difficulty about that, as it seemed to me that I was +very strong and fitted for the very heaviest labour. I was faced +with a monotonous life of toil in the midst of hunger, coarseness, +and stench, continually preoccupied with earning my daily bread. +And--who knows?--as I returned from my work along Great Dvoryansky +Street, I might very likely envy Dolzhikov the, engineer, who lived +by intellectual work, but, at the moment, thinking over all my +future hardships made me light-hearted. At times I had dreamed of +spiritual activity, imagining myself a teacher, a doctor, or a +writer, but these dreams remained dreams. The taste for intellectual +pleasures--for the theatre, for instance, and for reading--was +a passion with me, but whether I had any ability for intellectual +work I don't know. At school I had had an unconquerable aversion +for Greek, so that I was only in the fourth class when they had to +take me from school. For a long while I had coaches preparing me +for the fifth class. Then I served in various Government offices, +spending the greater part of the day in complete idleness, and I +was told that was intellectual work. My activity in the scholastic +and official sphere had required neither mental application nor +talent, nor special qualifications, nor creative impulse; it was +mechanical. Such intellectual work I put on a lower level than +physical toil; I despise it, and I don't think that for one moment +it could serve as a justification for an idle, careless life, as +it is indeed nothing but a sham, one of the forms of that same +idleness. Real intellectual work I have in all probability never +known. + +Evening came on. We lived in Great Dvoryansky Street; it was the +principal street in the town, and in the absence of decent public +gardens our _beau monde_ used to use it as a promenade in the +evenings. This charming street did to some extent take the place +of a public garden, as on each side of it there was a row of poplars +which smelt sweet, particularly after rain, and acacias, tall bushes +of lilac, wild-cherries and apple-trees hung over the fences and +palings. The May twilight, the tender young greenery with its +shifting shades, the scent of the lilac, the buzzing of the insects, +the stillness, the warmth--how fresh and marvellous it all is, +though spring is repeated every year! I stood at the garden gate +and watched the passers-by. With most of them I had grown up and +at one time played pranks; now they might have been disconcerted +by my being near them, for I was poorly and unfashionably dressed, +and they used to say of my very narrow trousers and huge, clumsy +boots that they were like sticks of macaroni stuck in boats. Besides, +I had a bad reputation in the town because I had no decent social +position, and used often to play billiards in cheap taverns, and +also, perhaps, because I had on two occasions been hauled up before +an officer of the police, though I had done nothing whatever to +account for this. + +In the big house opposite someone was playing the piano at Dolzhikov's. +It was beginning to get dark, and stars were twinkling in the sky. +Here my father, in an old top-hat with wide upturned brim, walked +slowly by with my sister on his arm, bowing in response to greetings. + +"Look up," he said to my sister, pointing to the sky with the same +umbrella with which he had beaten me that afternoon. "Look up at +the sky! Even the tiniest stars are all worlds! How insignificant +is man in comparison with the universe!" + +And he said this in a tone that suggested that it was particularly +agreeable and flattering to him that he was so insignificant. How +absolutely devoid of talent and imagination he was! Sad to say, he +was the only architect in the town, and in the fifteen to twenty +years that I could remember not one single decent house had been +built in it. When any one asked him to plan a house, he usually +drew first the reception hall and drawing-room: just as in old days +the boarding-school misses always started from the stove when they +danced, so his artistic ideas could only begin and develop from the +hall and drawing-room. To them he tacked on a dining-room, a nursery, +a study, linking the rooms together with doors, and so they all +inevitably turned into passages, and every one of them had two or +even three unnecessary doors. His imagination must have been lacking +in clearness, extremely muddled, curtailed. As though feeling that +something was lacking, he invariably had recourse to all sorts of +outbuildings, planting one beside another; and I can see now the +narrow entries, the poky little passages, the crooked staircases +leading to half-landings where one could not stand upright, and +where, instead of a floor, there were three huge steps like the +shelves of a bath-house; and the kitchen was invariably in the +basement with a brick floor and vaulted ceilings. The front of the +house had a harsh, stubborn expression; the lines of it were stiff +and timid; the roof was low-pitched and, as it were, squashed down; +and the fat, well-fed-looking chimneys were invariably crowned by +wire caps with squeaking black cowls. And for some reason all these +houses, built by my father exactly like one another, vaguely reminded +me of his top-hat and the back of his head, stiff and stubborn-looking. +In the course of years they have grown used in the town to the +poverty of my father's imagination. It has taken root and become +our local style. + +This same style my father had brought into my sister's life also, +beginning with christening her Kleopatra (just as he had named me +Misail). When she was a little girl he scared her by references to +the stars, to the sages of ancient times, to our ancestors, and +discoursed at length on the nature of life and duty; and now, when +she was twenty-six, he kept up the same habits, allowing her to +walk arm in arm with no one but himself, and imagining for some +reason that sooner or later a suitable young man would be sure to +appear, and to desire to enter into matrimony with her from respect +for his personal qualities. She adored my father, feared him, and +believed in his exceptional intelligence. + +It was quite dark, and gradually the street grew empty. The music +had ceased in the house opposite; the gate was thrown wide open, +and a team with three horses trotted frolicking along our street +with a soft tinkle of little bells. That was the engineer going for +a drive with his daughter. It was bedtime. + +I had my own room in the house, but I lived in a shed in the yard, +under the same roof as a brick barn which had been built some time +or other, probably to keep harness in; great hooks were driven into +the wall. Now it was not wanted, and for the last thirty years my +father had stowed away in it his newspapers, which for some reason +he had bound in half-yearly volumes and allowed nobody to touch. +Living here, I was less liable to be seen by my father and his +visitors, and I fancied that if I did not live in a real room, and +did not go into the house every day to dinner, my father's words +that I was a burden upon him did not sound so offensive. + +My sister was waiting for me. Unseen by my father, she had brought +me some supper: not a very large slice of cold veal and a piece of +bread. In our house such sayings as: "A penny saved is a penny +gained," and "Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care +of themselves," and so on, were frequently repeated, and my sister, +weighed down by these vulgar maxims, did her utmost to cut down the +expenses, and so we fared badly. Putting the plate on the table, +she sat down on my bed and began to cry. + +"Misail," she said, "what a way to treat us!" + +She did not cover her face; her tears dropped on her bosom and +hands, and there was a look of distress on her face. She fell back +on the pillow, and abandoned herself to her tears, sobbing and +quivering all over. + +"You have left the service again . . ." she articulated. "Oh, how +awful it is!" + +"But do understand, sister, do understand . . . ." I said, and I +was overcome with despair because she was crying. + +As ill-luck would have it, the kerosene in my little lamp was +exhausted; it began to smoke, and was on the point of going out, +and the old hooks on the walls looked down sullenly, and their +shadows flickered. + +"Have mercy on us," said my sister, sitting up. "Father is in +terrible distress and I am ill; I shall go out of my mind. What +will become of you?" she said, sobbing and stretching out her arms +to me. "I beg you, I implore you, for our dear mother's sake, I beg +you to go back to the office!" + +"I can't, Kleopatra!" I said, feeling that a little more and I +should give way. "I cannot!" + +"Why not?" my sister went on. "Why not? Well, if you can't get on +with the Head, look out for another post. Why shouldn't you get a +situation on the railway, for instance? I have just been talking +to Anyuta Blagovo; she declares they would take you on the railway-line, +and even promised to try and get a post for you. For God's sake, +Misail, think a little! Think a little, I implore you." + +We talked a little longer and I gave way. I said that the thought +of a job on the railway that was being constructed had never occurred +to me, and that if she liked I was ready to try it. + +She smiled joyfully through her tears and squeezed my hand, and +then went on crying because she could not stop, while I went to the +kitchen for some kerosene. + +II + +Among the devoted supporters of amateur theatricals, concerts and +_tableaux vivants_ for charitable objects the Azhogins, who lived +in their own house in Great Dvoryansky Street, took a foremost +place; they always provided the room, and took upon themselves all +the troublesome arrangements and the expenses. They were a family +of wealthy landowners who had an estate of some nine thousand acres +in the district and a capital house, but they did not care for the +country, and lived winter and summer alike in the town. The family +consisted of the mother, a tall, spare, refined lady, with short +hair, a short jacket, and a flat-looking skirt in the English +fashion, and three daughters who, when they were spoken of, were +called not by their names but simply: the eldest, the middle, and +the youngest. They all had ugly sharp chins, and were short-sighted +and round-shouldered. They were dressed like their mother, they +lisped disagreeably, and yet, in spite of that, infallibly took +part in every performance and were continually doing something with +a charitable object--acting, reciting, singing. They were very +serious and never smiled, and even in a musical comedy they played +without the faintest trace of gaiety, with a businesslike air, as +though they were engaged in bookkeeping. + +I loved our theatricals, especially the numerous, noisy, and rather +incoherent rehearsals, after which they always gave a supper. In +the choice of the plays and the distribution of the parts I had no +hand at all. The post assigned to me lay behind the scenes. I painted +the scenes, copied out the parts, prompted, made up the actors' +faces; and I was entrusted, too, with various stage effects such +as thunder, the singing of nightingales, and so on. Since I had no +proper social position and no decent clothes, at the rehearsals I +held aloof from the rest in the shadows of the wings and maintained +a shy silence. + +I painted the scenes at the Azhogins' either in the barn or in the +yard. I was assisted by Andrey Ivanov, a house painter, or, as he +called himself, a contractor for all kinds of house decorations, a +tall, very thin, pale man of fifty, with a hollow chest, with sunken +temples, with blue rings round his eyes, rather terrible to look +at in fact. He was afflicted with some internal malady, and every +autumn and spring people said that he wouldn't recover, but after +being laid up for a while he would get up and say afterwards with +surprise: "I have escaped dying again." + +In the town he was called Radish, and they declared that this was +his real name. He was as fond of the theatre as I was, and as soon +as rumours reached him that a performance was being got up he threw +aside all his work and went to the Azhogins' to paint scenes. + +The day after my talk with my sister, I was working at the Azhogins' +from morning till night. The rehearsal was fixed for seven o'clock +in the evening, and an hour before it began all the amateurs were +gathered together in the hall, and the eldest, the middle, and the +youngest Azhogins were pacing about the stage, reading from manuscript +books. Radish, in a long rusty-red overcoat and a scarf muffled +round his neck, already stood leaning with his head against the +wall, gazing with a devout expression at the stage. Madame Azhogin +went up first to one and then to another guest, saying something +agreeable to each. She had a way of gazing into one's face, and +speaking softly as though telling a secret. + +"It must be difficult to paint scenery," she said softly, coming +up to me. "I was just talking to Madame Mufke about superstitions +when I saw you come in. My goodness, my whole life I have been +waging war against superstitions! To convince the servants what +nonsense all their terrors are, I always light three candles, and +begin all my important undertakings on the thirteenth of the month." + +Dolzhikov's daughter came in, a plump, fair beauty, dressed, as +people said, in everything from Paris. She did not act, but a chair +was set for her on the stage at the rehearsals, and the performances +never began till she had appeared in the front row, dazzling and +astounding everyone with her fine clothes. As a product of the +capital she was allowed to make remarks during the rehearsals; and +she did so with a sweet indulgent smile, and one could see that she +looked upon our performance as a childish amusement. It was said +she had studied singing at the Petersburg Conservatoire, and even +sang for a whole winter in a private opera. I thought her very +charming, and I usually watched her through the rehearsals and +performances without taking my eyes off her. + +I had just picked up the manuscript book to begin prompting when +my sister suddenly made her appearance. Without taking off her cloak +or hat, she came up to me and said: + +"Come along, I beg you." + +I went with her. Anyuta Blagovo, also in her hat and wearing a dark +veil, was standing behind the scenes at the door. She was the +daughter of the Assistant President of the Court, who had held that +office in our town almost ever since the establishment of the circuit +court. Since she was tall and had a good figure, her assistance was +considered indispensable for _tableaux vivants_, and when she +represented a fairy or something like Glory her face burned with +shame; but she took no part in dramatic performances, and came to +the rehearsals only for a moment on some special errand, and did +not go into the hall. Now, too, it was evident that she had only +looked in for a minute. + +"My father was speaking about you," she said drily, blushing and +not looking at me. "Dolzhikov has promised you a post on the +railway-line. Apply to him to-morrow; he will be at home." + +I bowed and thanked her for the trouble she had taken. + +"And you can give up this," she said, indicating the exercise book. + +My sister and she went up to Madame Azhogin and for two minutes +they were whispering with her looking towards me; they were consulting +about something. + +"Yes, indeed," said Madame Azhogin, softly coming up to me and +looking intently into my face. "Yes, indeed, if this distracts you +from serious pursuits"--she took the manuscript book from my hands +--"you can hand it over to someone else; don't distress yourself, +my friend, go home, and good luck to you." + +I said good-bye to her, and went away overcome with confusion. As +I went down the stairs I saw my sister and Anyuta Blagovo going +away; they were hastening along, talking eagerly about something, +probably about my going into the railway service. My sister had +never been at a rehearsal before, and now she was most likely +conscience-stricken, and afraid her father might find out that, +without his permission, she had been to the Azhogins'! + +I went to Dolzhikov's next day between twelve and one. The footman +conducted me into a very beautiful room, which was the engineer's +drawing-room, and, at the same time, his working study. Everything +here was soft and elegant, and, for a man so unaccustomed to luxury +as I was, it seemed strange. There were costly rugs, huge arm-chairs, +bronzes, pictures, gold and plush frames; among the photographs +scattered about the walls there were very beautiful women, clever, +lovely faces, easy attitudes; from the drawing-room there was a +door leading straight into the garden on to a verandah: one could +see lilac-trees; one could see a table laid for lunch, a number of +bottles, a bouquet of roses; there was a fragrance of spring and +expensive cigars, a fragrance of happiness--and everything seemed +as though it would say: "Here is a man who has lived and laboured, +and has attained at last the happiness possible on earth." The +engineer's daughter was sitting at the writing-table, reading a +newspaper. + +"You have come to see my father?" she asked. "He is having a shower +bath; he will be here directly. Please sit down and wait." + +I sat down. + +"I believe you live opposite?" she questioned me, after a brief +silence. + +"Yes." + +"I am so bored that I watch you every day out of the window; you +must excuse me," she went on, looking at the newspaper, "and I often +see your sister; she always has such a look of kindness and +concentration." + +Dolzhikov came in. He was rubbing his neck with a towel. + +"Papa, Monsieur Poloznev," said his daughter. + +"Yes, yes, Blagovo was telling me," he turned briskly to me without +giving me his hand. "But listen, what can I give you? What sort of +posts have I got? You are a queer set of people!" he went on aloud +in a tone as though he were giving me a lecture. "A score of you +keep coming to me every day; you imagine I am the head of a department! +I am constructing a railway-line, my friends; I have employment for +heavy labour: I need mechanics, smiths, navvies, carpenters, +well-sinkers, and none of you can do anything but sit and write! +You are all clerks." + +And he seemed to me to have the same air of happiness as his rugs +and easy chairs. He was stout and healthy, ruddy-cheeked and +broad-chested, in a print cotton shirt and full trousers like a toy +china sledge-driver. He had a curly, round beard--and not a single +grey hair--a hooked nose, and clear, dark, guileless eyes. + +"What can you do?" he went on. "There is nothing you can do! I am +an engineer. I am a man of an assured position, but before they +gave me a railway-line I was for years in harness; I have been a +practical mechanic. For two years I worked in Belgium as an oiler. +You can judge for yourself, my dear fellow, what kind of work can +I offer you?" + +"Of course that is so . . ." I muttered in extreme confusion, unable +to face his clear, guileless eyes. + +"Can you work the telegraph, any way?" he asked, after a moment's +thought. + +"Yes, I have been a telegraph clerk." + +"Hm! Well, we will see then. Meanwhile, go to Dubetchnya. I have +got a fellow there, but he is a wretched creature." + +"And what will my duties consist of?" I asked. + +"We shall see. Go there; meanwhile I will make arrangements. Only +please don't get drunk, and don't worry me with requests of any +sort, or I shall send you packing." + +He turned away from me without even a nod. + +I bowed to him and his daughter who was reading a newspaper, and +went away. My heart felt so heavy, that when my sister began asking +me how the engineer had received me, I could not utter a single +word. + +I got up early in the morning, at sunrise, to go to Dubetchnya. +There was not a soul in our Great Dvoryansky Street; everyone was +asleep, and my footsteps rang out with a solitary, hollow sound. +The poplars, covered with dew, filled the air with soft fragrance. +I was sad, and did not want to go away from the town. I was fond +of my native town. It seemed to be so beautiful and so snug! I loved +the fresh greenery, the still, sunny morning, the chiming of our +bells; but the people with whom I lived in this town were boring, +alien to me, sometimes even repulsive. I did not like them nor +understand them. + +I did not understand what these sixty-five thousand people lived +for and by. I knew that Kimry lived by boots, that Tula made samovars +and guns, that Odessa was a sea-port, but what our town was, and +what it did, I did not know. Great Dvoryansky Street and the two +other smartest streets lived on the interest of capital, or on +salaries received by officials from the public treasury; but what +the other eight streets, which ran parallel for over two miles and +vanished beyond the hills, lived upon, was always an insoluble +riddle to me. And the way those people lived one is ashamed to +describe! No garden, no theatre, no decent band; the public library +and the club library were only visited by Jewish youths, so that +the magazines and new books lay for months uncut; rich and well-educated +people slept in close, stuffy bedrooms, on wooden bedsteads infested +with bugs; their children were kept in revoltingly dirty rooms +called nurseries, and the servants, even the old and respected ones, +slept on the floor in the kitchen, covered with rags. On ordinary +days the houses smelt of beetroot soup, and on fast days of sturgeon +cooked in sunflower oil. The food was not good, and the drinking +water was unwholesome. In the town council, at the governor's, at +the head priest's, on all sides in private houses, people had been +saying for years and years that our town had not a good and cheap +water-supply, and that it was necessary to obtain a loan of two +hundred thousand from the Treasury for laying on water; very rich +people, of whom three dozen could have been counted up in our town, +and who at times lost whole estates at cards, drank the polluted +water, too, and talked all their lives with great excitement of a +loan for the water-supply--and I did not understand that; it +seemed to me it would have been simpler to take the two hundred +thousand out of their own pockets and lay it out on that object. + +I did not know one honest man in the town. My father took bribes, +and imagined that they were given him out of respect for his moral +qualities; at the high school, in order to be moved up rapidly from +class to class, the boys went to board with their teachers, who +charged them exorbitant sums; the wife of the military commander +took bribes from the recruits when they were called up before the +board and even deigned to accept refreshments from them, and on one +occasion could not get up from her knees in church because she was +drunk; the doctors took bribes, too, when the recruits came up for +examination, and the town doctor and the veterinary surgeon levied +a regular tax on the butchers' shops and the restaurants; at the +district school they did a trade in certificates, qualifying for +partial exemption from military service; the higher clergy took +bribes from the humbler priests and from the church elders; at the +Municipal, the Artisans', and all the other Boards every petitioner +was pursued by a shout: "Don't forget your thanks!" and the petitioner +would turn back to give sixpence or a shilling. And those who did +not take bribes, such as the higher officials of the Department of +Justice, were haughty, offered two fingers instead of shaking hands, +were distinguished by the frigidity and narrowness of their judgments, +spent a great deal of time over cards, drank to excess, married +heiresses, and undoubtedly had a pernicious corrupting influence +on those around them. It was only the girls who had still the fresh +fragrance of moral purity; most of them had higher impulses, pure +and honest hearts; but they had no understanding of life, and +believed that bribes were given out of respect for moral qualities, +and after they were married grew old quickly, let themselves go +completely, and sank hopelessly in the mire of vulgar, petty bourgeois +existence. + +III + +A railway-line was being constructed in our neighbourhood. On the +eve of feast days the streets were thronged with ragged fellows +whom the townspeople called "navvies," and of whom they were afraid. +And more than once I had seen one of these tatterdemalions with a +bloodstained countenance being led to the police station, while a +samovar or some linen, wet from the wash, was carried behind by way +of material evidence. The navvies usually congregated about the +taverns and the market-place; they drank, ate, and used bad language, +and pursued with shrill whistles every woman of light behaviour who +passed by. To entertain this hungry rabble our shopkeepers made +cats and dogs drunk with vodka, or tied an old kerosene can to a +dog's tail; a hue and cry was raised, and the dog dashed along the +street, jingling the can, squealing with terror; it fancied some +monster was close upon its heels; it would run far out of the town +into the open country and there sink exhausted. There were in the +town several dogs who went about trembling with their tails between +their legs; and people said this diversion had been too much for +them, and had driven them mad. + +A station was being built four miles from the town. It was said +that the engineers asked for a bribe of fifty thousand roubles for +bringing the line right up to the town, but the town council would +only consent to give forty thousand; they could not come to an +agreement over the difference, and now the townspeople regretted +it, as they had to make a road to the station and that, it was +reckoned, would cost more. The sleepers and rails had been laid +throughout the whole length of the line, and trains ran up and down +it, bringing building materials and labourers, and further progress +was only delayed on account of the bridges which Dolzhikov was +building, and some of the stations were not yet finished. + +Dubetchnya, as our first station was called, was a little under +twelve miles from the town. I walked. The cornfields, bathed in the +morning sunshine, were bright green. It was a flat, cheerful country, +and in the distance there were the distinct outlines of the station, +of ancient barrows, and far-away homesteads. . . . How nice it was +out there in the open! And how I longed to be filled with the sense +of freedom, if only for that one morning, that I might not think +of what was being done in the town, not think of my needs, not feel +hungry! Nothing has so marred my existence as an acute feeling of +hunger, which made images of buckwheat porridge, rissoles, and baked +fish mingle strangely with my best thoughts. Here I was standing +alone in the open country, gazing upward at a lark which hovered +in the air at the same spot, trilling as though in hysterics, and +meanwhile I was thinking: "How nice it would be to eat a piece of +bread and butter!" + +Or I would sit down by the roadside to rest, and shut my eyes to +listen to the delicious sounds of May, and what haunted me was the +smell of hot potatoes. Though I was tall and strongly built, I had +as a rule little to eat, and so the predominant sensation throughout +the day was hunger, and perhaps that was why I knew so well how it +is that such multitudes of people toil merely for their daily bread, +and can talk of nothing but things to eat. + +At Dubetchnya they were plastering the inside of the station, and +building a wooden upper storey to the pumping shed. It was hot; +there was a smell of lime, and the workmen sauntered listlessly +between the heaps of shavings and mortar rubble. The pointsman lay +asleep near his sentry box, and the sun was blazing full on his +face. There was not a single tree. The telegraph wire hummed faintly +and hawks were perching on it here and there. I, wandering, too, +among the heaps of rubbish, and not knowing what to do, recalled +how the engineer, in answer to my question what my duties would +consist in, had said: "We shall see when you are there"; but what +could one see in that wilderness? + +The plasterers spoke of the foreman, and of a certain Fyodot Vasilyev. +I did not understand, and gradually I was overcome by depression +--the physical depression in which one is conscious of one's arms +and legs and huge body, and does not know what to do with them or +where to put them. + +After I had been walking about for at least a couple of hours, I +noticed that there were telegraph poles running off to the right +from the station, and that they ended a mile or a mile and a half +away at a white stone wall. The workmen told me the office was +there, and at last I reflected that that was where I ought to go. + +It was a very old manor house, deserted long ago. The wall round +it, of porous white stone, was mouldering and had fallen away in +places, and the lodge, the blank wall of which looked out on the +open country, had a rusty roof with patches of tin-plate gleaming +here and there on it. Within the gates could be seen a spacious +courtyard overgrown with rough weeds, and an old manor house with +sunblinds on the windows, and a high roof red with rust. Two lodges, +exactly alike, stood one on each side of the house to right and to +left: one had its windows nailed up with boards; near the other, +of which the windows were open, there was washing on the line, and +there were calves moving about. The last of the telegraph poles +stood in the courtyard, and the wire from it ran to the window of +the lodge, of which the blank wall looked out into the open country. +The door stood open; I went in. By the telegraph apparatus a gentleman +with a curly dark head, wearing a reefer coat made of sailcloth, +was sitting at a table; he glanced at me morosely from under his +brows, but immediately smiled and said: + +"Hullo, Better-than-nothing!" + +It was Ivan Tcheprakov, an old schoolfellow of mine, who had been +expelled from the second class for smoking. We used at one time, +during autumn, to catch goldfinches, finches, and linnets together, +and to sell them in the market early in the morning, while our +parents were still in their beds. We watched for flocks of migrating +starlings and shot at them with small shot, then we picked up those +that were wounded, and some of them died in our hands in terrible +agonies (I remember to this day how they moaned in the cage at +night); those that recovered we sold, and swore with the utmost +effrontery that they were all cocks. On one occasion at the market +I had only one starling left, which I had offered to purchasers in +vain, till at last I sold it for a farthing. "Anyway, it's better +than nothing," I said to comfort myself, as I put the farthing in +my pocket, and from that day the street urchins and the schoolboys +called after me: "Better-than-nothing"; and to this day the street +boys and the shopkeepers mock at me with the nickname, though no +one remembers how it arose. + +Tcheprakov was not of robust constitution: he was narrow-chested, +round-shouldered, and long-legged. He wore a silk cord for a tie, +had no trace of a waistcoat, and his boots were worse than mine, +with the heels trodden down on one side. He stared, hardly even +blinking, with a strained expression, as though he were just going +to catch something, and he was always in a fuss. + +"You wait a minute," he would say fussily. "You listen. . . . +Whatever was I talking about?" + +We got into conversation. I learned that the estate on which I now +was had until recently been the property of the Tcheprakovs, and +had only the autumn before passed into the possession of Dolzhikov, +who considered it more profitable to put his money into land than +to keep it in notes, and had already bought up three good-sized +mortgaged estates in our neighbourhood. At the sale Tcheprakov's +mother had reserved for herself the right to live for the next two +years in one of the lodges at the side, and had obtained a post for +her son in the office. + +"I should think he could buy!" Tcheprakov said of the engineer. +"See what he fleeces out of the contractors alone! He fleeces +everyone!" + +Then he took me to dinner, deciding fussily that I should live with +him in the lodge, and have my meals from his mother. + +"She is a bit stingy," he said, "but she won't charge you much." + +It was very cramped in the little rooms in which his mother lived; +they were all, even the passage and the entry, piled up with furniture +which had been brought from the big house after the sale; and the +furniture was all old-fashioned mahogany. Madame Tcheprakov, a very +stout middle-aged lady with slanting Chinese eyes, was sitting in +a big arm-chair by the window, knitting a stocking. She received +me ceremoniously. + +"This is Poloznev, mamma," Tcheprakov introduced me. "He is going +to serve here." + +"Are you a nobleman?" she asked in a strange, disagreeable voice: +it seemed to me to sound as though fat were bubbling in her throat. + +"Yes," I answered. + +"Sit down." + +The dinner was a poor one. Nothing was served but pies filled with +bitter curd, and milk soup. Elena Nikiforovna, who presided, kept +blinking in a queer way, first with one eye and then with the other. +She talked, she ate, but yet there was something deathly about her +whole figure, and one almost fancied the faint smell of a corpse. +There was only a glimmer of life in her, a glimmer of consciousness +that she had been a lady who had once had her own serfs, that she +was the widow of a general whom the servants had to address as "your +Excellency"; and when these feeble relics of life flickered up in +her for an instant she would say to her son: + +"Jean, you are not holding your knife properly!" + +Or she would say to me, drawing a deep breath, with the mincing air +of a hostess trying to entertain a visitor: + +"You know we have sold our estate. Of course, it is a pity, we are +used to the place, but Dolzhikov has promised to make Jean stationmaster +of Dubetchnya, so we shall not have to go away; we shall live here +at the station, and that is just the same as being on our own +property! The engineer is so nice! Don't you think he is very +handsome?" + +Until recently the Tcheprakovs had lived in a wealthy style, but +since the death of the general everything had been changed. Elena +Nikiforovna had taken to quarrelling with the neighbours, to going +to law, and to not paying her bailiffs or her labourers; she was +in constant terror of being robbed, and in some ten years Dubetchnya +had become unrecognizable. + +Behind the great house was an old garden which had already run wild, +and was overgrown with rough weeds and bushes. I walked up and down +the verandah, which was still solid and beautiful; through the glass +doors one could see a room with parquetted floor, probably the +drawing-room; an old-fashioned piano and pictures in deep mahogany +frames--there was nothing else. In the old flower-beds all that +remained were peonies and poppies, which lifted their white and +bright red heads above the grass. Young maples and elms, already +nibbled by the cows, grew beside the paths, drawn up and hindering +each other's growth. The garden was thickly overgrown and seemed +impassable, but this was only near the house where there stood +poplars, fir-trees, and old limetrees, all of the same age, relics +of the former avenues. Further on, beyond them the garden had been +cleared for the sake of hay, and here it was not moist and stuffy, +and there were no spiders' webs in one's mouth and eyes. A light +breeze was blowing. The further one went the more open it was, and +here in the open space were cherries, plums, and spreading apple-trees, +disfigured by props and by canker; and pear-trees so tall that one +could not believe they were pear-trees. This part of the garden was +let to some shopkeepers of the town, and it was protected from +thieves and starlings by a feeble-minded peasant who lived in a +shanty in it. + +The garden, growing more and more open, till it became definitely +a meadow, sloped down to the river, which was overgrown with green +weeds and osiers. Near the milldam was the millpond, deep and full +of fish; a little mill with a thatched roof was working away with +a wrathful sound, and frogs croaked furiously. Circles passed from +time to time over the smooth, mirror-like water, and the water-lilies +trembled, stirred by the lively fish. On the further side of the +river was the little village Dubetchnya. The still, blue millpond +was alluring with its promise of coolness and peace. And now all +this--the millpond and the mill and the snug-looking banks-- +belonged to the engineer! + +And so my new work began. I received and forwarded telegrams, wrote +various reports, and made fair copies of the notes of requirements, +the complaints, and the reports sent to the office by the illiterate +foremen and workmen. But for the greater part of the day I did +nothing but walk about the room waiting for telegrams, or made a +boy sit in the lodge while I went for a walk in the garden, until +the boy ran to tell me that there was a tapping at the operating +machine. I had dinner at Madame Tcheprakov's. Meat we had very +rarely: our dishes were all made of milk, and Wednesdays and Fridays +were fast days, and on those days we had pink plates which were +called Lenten plates. Madame Tcheprakov was continually blinking +--it was her invariable habit, and I always felt ill at ease in +her presence. + +As there was not enough work in the lodge for one, Tcheprakov did +nothing, but simply dozed, or went with his gun to shoot ducks on +the millpond. In the evenings he drank too much in the village or +the station, and before going to bed stared in the looking-glass +and said: "Hullo, Ivan Tcheprakov." + +When he was drunk he was very pale, and kept rubbing his hands and +laughing with a sound like a neigh: "hee-hee-hee!" By way of bravado +he used to strip and run about the country naked. He used to eat +flies and say they were rather sour. + +IV + +One day, after dinner, he ran breathless into the lodge and said: +"Go along, your sister has come." + +I went out, and there I found a hired brake from the town standing +before the entrance of the great house. My sister had come in it +with Anyuta Blagovo and a gentleman in a military tunic. Going up +closer I recognized the latter: it was the brother of Anyuta Blagovo, +the army doctor. + +"We have come to you for a picnic," he said; "is that all right?" + +My sister and Anyuta wanted to ask how I was getting on here, but +both were silent, and simply gazed at me. I was silent too. They +saw that I did not like the place, and tears came into my sister's +eyes, while Anyuta Blagovo turned crimson. + +We went into the garden. The doctor walked ahead of us all and said +enthusiastically: + +"What air! Holy Mother, what air!" + +In appearance he was still a student. And he walked and talked like +a student, and the expression of his grey eyes was as keen, honest, +and frank as a nice student's. Beside his tall and handsome sister +he looked frail and thin; and his beard was thin too, and his voice, +too, was a thin but rather agreeable tenor. He was serving in a +regiment somewhere, and had come home to his people for a holiday, +and said he was going in the autumn to Petersburg for his examination +as a doctor of medicine. He was already a family man, with a wife +and three children, he had married very young, in his second year +at the University, and now people in the town said he was unhappy +in his family life and was not living with his wife. + +"What time is it?" my sister asked uneasily. "We must get back in +good time. Papa let me come to see my brother on condition I was +back at six." + +"Oh, bother your papa!" sighed the doctor. + +I set the samovar. We put down a carpet before the verandah of the +great house and had our tea there, and the doctor knelt down, drank +out of his saucer, and declared that he now knew what bliss was. +Then Tcheprakov came with the key and opened the glass door, and +we all went into the house. There it was half dark and mysterious, +and smelt of mushrooms, and our footsteps had a hollow sound as +though there were cellars under the floor. The doctor stopped and +touched the keys of the piano, and it responded faintly with a +husky, quivering, but melodious chord; he tried his voice and sang +a song, frowning and tapping impatiently with his foot when some +note was mute. My sister did not talk about going home, but walked +about the rooms and kept saying: + +"How happy I am! How happy I am!" + +There was a note of astonishment in her voice, as though it seemed +to her incredible that she, too, could feel light-hearted. It was +the first time in my life I had seen her so happy. She actually +looked prettier. In profile she did not look nice; her nose and +mouth seemed to stick out and had an expression as though she were +pouting, but she had beautiful dark eyes, a pale, very delicate +complexion, and a touching expression of goodness and melancholy, +and when she talked she seemed charming and even beautiful. We both, +she and I, took after our mother, were broad shouldered, strongly +built, and capable of endurance, but her pallor was a sign of +ill-health; she often had a cough, and I sometimes caught in her +face that look one sees in people who are seriously ill, but for +some reason conceal the fact. There was something naive and childish +in her gaiety now, as though the joy that had been suppressed and +smothered in our childhood by harsh education had now suddenly +awakened in her soul and found a free outlet. + +But when evening came on and the horses were brought round, my +sister sank into silence and looked thin and shrunken, and she got +into the brake as though she were going to the scaffold. + +When they had all gone, and the sound had died away . . . I remembered +that Anyuta Blagovo had not said a word to me all day. + +"She is a wonderful girl!" I thought. "Wonderful girl!" + +St. Peter's fast came, and we had nothing but Lenten dishes every +day. I was weighed down by physical depression due to idleness and +my unsettled position, and dissatisfied with myself. Listless and +hungry, I lounged about the garden and only waited for a suitable +mood to go away. + +Towards evening one day, when Radish was sitting in the lodge, +Dolzhikov, very sunburnt and grey with dust, walked in unexpectedly. +He had been spending three days on his land, and had come now to +Dubetchnya by the steamer, and walked to us from the station. While +waiting for the carriage, which was to come for him from the town, +he walked round the grounds with his bailiff, giving orders in a +loud voice, then sat for a whole hour in our lodge, writing letters. +While he was there telegrams came for him, and he himself tapped +off the answers. We three stood in silence at attention. + +"What a muddle!" he said, glancing contemptuously at a record book. +"In a fortnight I am transferring the office to the station, and I +don't know what I am to do with you, my friends." + +"I do my best, your honour," said Tcheprakov. + +"To be sure, I see how you do your best. The only thing you can do +is to take your salary," the engineer went on, looking at me; "you +keep relying on patronage to _faire le carriere_ as quickly and as +easily as possible. Well, I don't care for patronage. No one took +any trouble on my behalf. Before they gave me a railway contract I +went about as a mechanic and worked in Belgium as an oiler. And +you, Panteley, what are you doing here?" he asked, turning to Radish. +"Drinking with them?" + +He, for some reason, always called humble people Panteley, and such +as me and Tcheprakov he despised, and called them drunkards, beasts, +and rabble to their faces. Altogether he was cruel to humble +subordinates, and used to fine them and turn them off coldly without +explanations. + +At last the horses came for him. As he said good-bye he promised +to turn us all off in a fortnight; he called his bailiff a blockhead; +and then, lolling at ease in his carriage, drove back to the town. + +"Andrey Ivanitch," I said to Radish, "take me on as a workman." + +"Oh, all right!" + +And we set off together in the direction of the town. When the +station and the big house with its buildings were left behind I +asked: "Andrey Ivanitch, why did you come to Dubetchnya this evening?" + +"In the first place my fellows are working on the line, and in the +second place I came to pay the general's lady my interest. Last +year I borrowed fifty roubles from her, and I pay her now a rouble +a month interest." + +The painter stopped and took me by the button. + +"Misail Alexeyitch, our angel," he went on. "The way I look at it +is that if any man, gentle or simple, takes even the smallest +interest, he is doing evil. There cannot be truth and justice in +such a man." + +Radish, lean, pale, dreadful-looking, shut his eyes, shook his head, +and, in the tone of a philosopher, pronounced: + +"Lice consume the grass, rust consumes the iron, and lying the soul. +Lord, have mercy upon us sinners." + +V + +Radish was not practical, and was not at all good at forming an +estimate; he took more work than he could get through, and when +calculating he was agitated, lost his head, and so was almost always +out of pocket over his jobs. He undertook painting, glazing, +paperhanging, and even tiling roofs, and I can remember his running +about for three days to find tilers for the sake of a paltry job. +He was a first-rate workman; he sometimes earned as much as ten +roubles a day; and if it had not been for the desire at all costs +to be a master, and to be called a contractor, he would probably +have had plenty of money. + +He was paid by the job, but he paid me and the other workmen by the +day, from one and twopence to two shillings a day. When it was fine +and dry we did all kinds of outside work, chiefly painting roofs. +When I was new to the work it made my feet burn as though I were +walking on hot bricks, and when I put on felt boots they were hotter +than ever. But this was only at first; later on I got used to it, +and everything went swimmingly. I was living now among people to +whom labour was obligatory, inevitable, and who worked like +cart-horses, often with no idea of the moral significance of labour, +and, indeed, never using the word "labour" in conversation at all. +Beside them I, too, felt like a cart-horse, growing more and more +imbued with the feeling of the obligatory and inevitable character +of what I was doing, and this made my life easier, setting me free +from all doubt and uncertainty. + +At first everything interested me, everything was new, as though I +had been born again. I could sleep on the ground and go about +barefoot, and that was extremely pleasant; I could stand in a crowd +of the common people and be no constraint to anyone, and when a cab +horse fell down in the street I ran to help it up without being +afraid of soiling my clothes. And the best of it all was, I was +living on my own account and no burden to anyone! + +Painting roofs, especially with our own oil and colours, was regarded +as a particularly profitable job, and so this rough, dull work was +not disdained, even by such good workmen as Radish. In short breeches, +and wasted, purple-looking legs, he used to go about the roofs, +looking like a stork, and I used to hear him, as he plied his brush, +breathing heavily and saying: "Woe, woe to us sinners!" + +He walked about the roofs as freely as though he were upon the +ground. In spite of his being ill and pale as a corpse, his agility +was extraordinary: he used to paint the domes and cupolas of the +churches without scaffolding, like a young man, with only the help +of a ladder and a rope, and it was rather horrible when standing +on a height far from the earth; he would draw himself up erect, and +for some unknown reason pronounce: + +"Lice consume grass, rust consumes iron, and lying the soul!" + +Or, thinking about something, would answer his thoughts aloud: + +"Anything may happen! Anything may happen!" + +When I went home from my work, all the people who were sitting on +benches by the gates, all the shopmen and boys and their employers, +made sneering and spiteful remarks after me, and this upset me at +first and seemed to be simply monstrous. + +"Better-than-nothing!" I heard on all sides. "House painter! Yellow +ochre!" + +And none behaved so ungraciously to me as those who had only lately +been humble people themselves, and had earned their bread by hard +manual labour. In the streets full of shops I was once passing an +ironmonger's when water was thrown over me as though by accident, +and on one occasion someone darted out with a stick at me, while a +fishmonger, a grey-headed old man, barred my way and said, looking +at me angrily: + +"I am not sorry for you, you fool! It's your father I am sorry for." + +And my acquaintances were for some reason overcome with embarrassment +when they met me. Some of them looked upon me as a queer fish and +a comic fool; others were sorry for me; others did not know what +attitude to take up to me, and it was difficult to make them out. +One day I met Anyuta Blagovo in a side street near Great Dvoryansky +Street. I was going to work, and was carrying two long brushes and +a pail of paint. Recognizing me Anyuta flushed crimson. + +"Please do not bow to me in the street," she said nervously, harshly, +and in a shaking voice, without offering me her hand, and tears +suddenly gleamed in her eyes. "If to your mind all this is necessary, +so be it . . . so be it, but I beg you not to meet me!" + +I no longer lived in Great Dvoryansky Street, but in the suburb +with my old nurse Karpovna, a good-natured but gloomy old woman, +who always foreboded some harm, was afraid of all dreams, and even +in the bees and wasps that flew into her room saw omens of evil, +and the fact that I had become a workman, to her thinking, boded +nothing good. + +"Your life is ruined," she would say, mournfully shaking her head, +"ruined." + +Her adopted son Prokofy, a huge, uncouth, red-headed fellow of +thirty, with bristling moustaches, a butcher by trade, lived in the +little house with her. When he met me in the passage he would make +way for me in respectful silence, and if he was drunk he would +salute me with all five fingers at once. He used to have supper in +the evening, and through the partition wall of boards I could hear +him clear his throat and sigh as he drank off glass after glass. + +"Mamma," he would call in an undertone. + +"Well," Karpovna, who was passionately devoted to her adopted son, +would respond: "What is it, sonny?" + +"I can show you a testimony of my affection, mamma. All this earthly +life I will cherish you in your declining years in this vale of +tears, and when you die I will bury you at my expense; I have said +it, and you can believe it." + +I got up every morning before sunrise, and went to bed early. We +house painters ate a great deal and slept soundly; the only thing +amiss was that my heart used to beat violently at night. I did not +quarrel with my mates. Violent abuse, desperate oaths, and wishes +such as, "Blast your eyes," or "Cholera take you," never ceased all +day, but, nevertheless, we lived on very friendly terms. The other +fellows suspected me of being some sort of religious sectary, and +made good-natured jokes at my expense, saying that even my own +father had disowned me, and thereupon would add that they rarely +went into the temple of God themselves, and that many of them had +not been to confession for ten years. They justified this laxity +on their part by saying that a painter among men was like a jackdaw +among birds. + +The men had a good opinion of me, and treated me with respect; it +was evident that my not drinking, not smoking, but leading a quiet, +steady life pleased them very much. It was only an unpleasant shock +to them that I took no hand in stealing oil and did not go with +them to ask for tips from people on whose property we were working. +Stealing oil and paints from those who employed them was a house +painter's custom, and was not regarded as theft, and it was remarkable +that even so upright a man as Radish would always carry away a +little white lead and oil as he went home from work. And even the +most respectable old fellows, who owned the houses in which they +lived in the suburb, were not ashamed to ask for a tip, and it made +me feel vexed and ashamed to see the men go in a body to congratulate +some nonentity on the commencement or the completion of the job, +and thank him with degrading servility when they had received a few +coppers. + +With people on whose work they were engaged they behaved like wily +courtiers, and almost every day I was reminded of Shakespeare's +Polonius. + +"I fancy it is going to rain," the man whose house was being painted +would say, looking at the sky. + +"It is, there is not a doubt it is," the painters would agree. + +"I don't think it is a rain-cloud, though. Perhaps it won't rain +after all." + +"No, it won't, your honour! I am sure it won't." + +But their attitude to their patrons behind their backs was usually +one of irony, and when they saw, for instance, a gentleman sitting +in the verandah reading a newspaper, they would observe: + +"He reads the paper, but I daresay he has nothing to eat." + +I never went home to see my own people. When I came back from work +I often found waiting for me little notes, brief and anxious, in +which my sister wrote to me about my father; that he had been +particularly preoccupied at dinner and had eaten nothing, or that +he had been giddy and staggering, or that he had locked himself in +his room and had not come out for a long time. Such items of news +troubled me; I could not sleep, and at times even walked up and +down Great Dvoryansky Street at night by our house, looking in at +the dark windows and trying to guess whether everything was well +at home. On Sundays my sister came to see me, but came in secret, +as though it were not to see me but our nurse. And if she came in +to see me she was very pale, with tear-stained eyes, and she began +crying at once. + +"Our father will never live through this," she would say. "If +anything should happen to him--God grant it may not--your +conscience will torment you all your life. It's awful, Misail; for +our mother's sake I beseech you: reform your ways." + +"My darling sister," I would say, "how can I reform my ways if I +am convinced that I am acting in accordance with my conscience? Do +understand!" + +"I know you are acting on your conscience, but perhaps it could be +done differently, somehow, so as not to wound anybody." + +"Ah, holy Saints!" the old woman sighed through the door. "Your +life is ruined! There will be trouble, my dears, there will be +trouble!" + +VI + +One Sunday Dr. Blagovo turned up unexpectedly. He was wearing a +military tunic over a silk shirt and high boots of patent leather. + +"I have come to see you," he began, shaking my hand heartily like +a student. "I am hearing about you every day, and I have been meaning +to come and have a heart-to-heart talk, as they say. The boredom +in the town is awful, there is not a living soul, no one to say a +word to. It's hot, Holy Mother," he went on, taking off his tunic +and sitting in his silk shirt. "My dear fellow, let me talk to you." + +I was dull myself, and had for a long time been craving for the +society of someone not a house painter. I was genuinely glad to see +him. + +"I'll begin by saying," he said, sitting down on my bed, "that I +sympathize with you from the bottom of my heart, and deeply respect +the life you are leading. They don't understand you here in the +town, and, indeed, there is no one to understand, seeing that, as +you know, they are all, with very few exceptions, regular Gogolesque +pig faces here. But I saw what you were at once that time at the +picnic. You are a noble soul, an honest, high-minded man! I respect +you, and feel it a great honour to shake hands with you!" he went +on enthusiastically. "To have made such a complete and violent +change of life as you have done, you must have passed through a +complicated spiritual crisis, and to continue this manner of life +now, and to keep up to the high standard of your convictions +continually, must be a strain on your mind and heart from day to +day. Now to begin our talk, tell me, don't you consider that if you +had spent your strength of will, this strained activity, all these +powers on something else, for instance, on gradually becoming a +great scientist, or artist, your life would have been broader and +deeper and would have been more productive?" + +We talked, and when we got upon manual labour I expressed this idea: +that what is wanted is that the strong should not enslave the weak, +that the minority should not be a parasite on the majority, nor a +vampire for ever sucking its vital sap; that is, all, without +exception, strong and weak, rich and poor, should take part equally +in the struggle for existence, each one on his own account, and +that there was no better means for equalizing things in that way +than manual labour, in the form of universal service, compulsory +for all. + +"Then do you think everyone without exception ought to engage in +manual labour?" asked the doctor. + +"Yes." + +"And don't you think that if everyone, including the best men, the +thinkers and great scientists, taking part in the struggle for +existence, each on his own account, are going to waste their time +breaking stones and painting roofs, may not that threaten a grave +danger to progress?" + +"Where is the danger?" I asked. "Why, progress is in deeds of love, +in fulfilling the moral law; if you don't enslave anyone, if you +don't oppress anyone, what further progress do you want?" + +"But, excuse me," Blagovo suddenly fired up, rising to his feet. +"But, excuse me! If a snail in its shell busies itself over perfecting +its own personality and muddles about with the moral law, do you +call that progress?" + +"Why muddles?" I said, offended. "If you don't force your neighbour +to feed and clothe you, to transport you from place to place and +defend you from your enemies, surely in the midst of a life entirely +resting on slavery, that is progress, isn't it? To my mind it is +the most important progress, and perhaps the only one possible and +necessary for man." + +"The limits of universal world progress are in infinity, and to +talk of some 'possible' progress limited by our needs and temporary +theories is, excuse my saying so, positively strange." + +"If the limits of progress are in infinity as you say, it follows +that its aims are not definite," I said. "To live without knowing +definitely what you are living for!" + +"So be it! But that 'not knowing' is not so dull as your 'knowing.' +I am going up a ladder which is called progress, civilization, +culture; I go on and up without knowing definitely where I am going, +but really it is worth living for the sake of that delightful ladder; +while you know what you are living for, you live for the sake of +some people's not enslaving others, that the artist and the man who +rubs his paints may dine equally well. But you know that's the +petty, bourgeois, kitchen, grey side of life, and surely it is +revolting to live for that alone? If some insects do enslave others, +bother them, let them devour each other! We need not think about +them. You know they will die and decay just the same, however +zealously you rescue them from slavery. We must think of that great +millennium which awaits humanity in the remote future." + +Blagovo argued warmly with me, but at the same time one could see +he was troubled by some irrelevant idea. + +"I suppose your sister is not coming?" he said, looking at his +watch. "She was at our house yesterday, and said she would be seeing +you to-day. You keep saying slavery, slavery . . ." he went on. +"But you know that is a special question, and all such questions +are solved by humanity gradually." + +We began talking of doing things gradually. I said that "the question +of doing good or evil every one settles for himself, without waiting +till humanity settles it by the way of gradual development. Moreover, +this gradual process has more than one aspect. Side by side with +the gradual development of human ideas the gradual growth of ideas +of another order is observed. Serfdom is no more, but the capitalist +system is growing. And in the very heyday of emancipating ideas, +just as in the days of Baty, the majority feeds, clothes, and defends +the minority while remaining hungry, inadequately clad, and +defenceless. Such an order of things can be made to fit in finely +with any tendencies and currents of thought you like, because the +art of enslaving is also gradually being cultivated. We no longer +flog our servants in the stable, but we give to slavery refined +forms, at least, we succeed in finding a justification for it in +each particular case. Ideas are ideas with us, but if now, at the +end of the nineteenth century, it were possible to lay the burden +of the most unpleasant of our physiological functions upon the +working class, we should certainly do so, and afterwards, of course, +justify ourselves by saying that if the best people, the thinkers +and great scientists, were to waste their precious time on these +functions, progress might be menaced with great danger." + +But at this point my sister arrived. Seeing the doctor she was +fluttered and troubled, and began saying immediately that it was +time for her to go home to her father. + +"Kleopatra Alexyevna," said Blagovo earnestly, pressing both hands +to his heart, "what will happen to your father if you spend half +an hour or so with your brother and me?" + +He was frank, and knew how to communicate his liveliness to others. +After a moment's thought, my sister laughed, and all at once became +suddenly gay as she had been at the picnic. We went out into the +country, and lying in the grass went on with our talk, and looked +towards the town where all the windows facing west were like +glittering gold because the sun was setting. + +After that, whenever my sister was coming to see me Blagovo turned +up too, and they always greeted each other as though their meeting +in my room was accidental. My sister listened while the doctor and +I argued, and at such times her expression was joyfully enthusiastic, +full of tenderness and curiosity, and it seemed to me that a new +world she had never dreamed of before, and which she was now striving +to fathom, was gradually opening before her eyes. When the doctor +was not there she was quiet and sad, and now if she sometimes shed +tears as she sat on my bed it was for reasons of which she did not +speak. + +In August Radish ordered us to be ready to go to the railway-line. +Two days before we were "banished" from the town my father came to +see me. He sat down and in a leisurely way, without looking at me, +wiped his red face, then took out of his pocket our town _Messenger_, +and deliberately, with emphasis on each word, read out the news +that the son of the branch manager of the State Bank, a young man +of my age, had been appointed head of a Department in the Exchequer. + +"And now look at you," he said, folding up the newspaper, "a beggar, +in rags, good for nothing! Even working-class people and peasants +obtain education in order to become men, while you, a Poloznev, +with ancestors of rank and distinction, aspire to the gutter! But +I have not come here to talk to you; I have washed my hands of you +--" he added in a stifled voice, getting up. "I have come to find +out where your sister is, you worthless fellow. She left home after +dinner, and here it is nearly eight and she is not back. She has +taken to going out frequently without telling me; she is less dutiful +--and I see in it your evil and degrading influence. Where is she?" + +In his hand he had the umbrella I knew so well, and I was already +flustered and drew myself up like a schoolboy, expecting my father +to begin hitting me with it, but he noticed my glance at the umbrella +and most likely that restrained him. + +"Live as you please!" he said. "I shall not give you my blessing!" + +"Holy Saints!" my nurse muttered behind the door. "You poor, unlucky +child! Ah, my heart bodes ill!" + +I worked on the railway-line. It rained without stopping all August; +it was damp and cold; they had not carried the corn in the fields, +and on big farms where the wheat had been cut by machines it lay +not in sheaves but in heaps, and I remember how those luckless heaps +of wheat turned blacker every day and the grain was sprouting in +them. It was hard to work; the pouring rain spoiled everything we +managed to do. We were not allowed to live or to sleep in the railway +buildings, and we took refuge in the damp and filthy mud huts in +which the navvies had lived during the summer, and I could not sleep +at night for the cold and the woodlice crawling on my face and +hands. And when we worked near the bridges the navvies used to come +in the evenings in a gang, simply in order to beat the painters-- +it was a form of sport to them. They used to beat us, to steal our +brushes. And to annoy us and rouse us to fight they used to spoil +our work; they would, for instance, smear over the signal boxes +with green paint. To complete our troubles, Radish took to paying +us very irregularly. All the painting work on the line was given +out to a contractor; he gave it out to another; and this subcontractor +gave it to Radish after subtracting twenty per cent. for himself. +The job was not a profitable one in itself, and the rain made it +worse; time was wasted; we could not work while Radish was obliged +to pay the fellows by the day. The hungry painters almost came to +beating him, called him a cheat, a blood-sucker, a Judas, while he, +poor fellow, sighed, lifted up his hand to Heaven in despair, and +was continually going to Madame Tcheprakov for money. + +VII + +Autumn came on, rainy, dark, and muddy. The season of unemployment +set in, and I used to sit at home out of work for three days at a +stretch, or did various little jobs, not in the painting line. For +instance, I wheeled earth, earning about fourpence a day by it. Dr. +Blagovo had gone away to Petersburg. My sister had given up coming +to see me. Radish was laid up at home ill, expecting death from day +to day. + +And my mood was autumnal too. Perhaps because, having become a +workman, I saw our town life only from the seamy side, it was my +lot almost every day to make discoveries which reduced me almost +to despair. Those of my fellow-citizens, about whom I had no opinion +before, or who had externally appeared perfectly decent, turned out +now to be base, cruel people, capable of any dirty action. We common +people were deceived, cheated, and kept waiting for hours together +in the cold entry or the kitchen; we were insulted and treated with +the utmost rudeness. In the autumn I papered the reading-room and +two other rooms at the club; I was paid a penny three-farthings the +piece, but had to sign a receipt at the rate of twopence halfpenny, +and when I refused to do so, a gentleman of benevolent appearance +in gold-rimmed spectacles, who must have been one of the club +committee, said to me: + +"If you say much more, you blackguard, I'll pound your face into a +jelly!" + +And when the flunkey whispered to him what I was, the son of Poloznev +the architect, he became embarrassed, turned crimson, but immediately +recovered himself and said: "Devil take him." + +In the shops they palmed off on us workmen putrid meat, musty flour, +and tea that had been used and dried again; the police hustled us +in church, the assistants and nurses in the hospital plundered us, +and if we were too poor to give them a bribe they revenged themselves +by bringing us food in dirty vessels. In the post-office the pettiest +official considered he had a right to treat us like animals, and +to shout with coarse insolence: "You wait!" "Where are you shoving +to?" Even the housedogs were unfriendly to us, and fell upon us +with peculiar viciousness. But the thing that struck me most of all +in my new position was the complete lack of justice, what is defined +by the peasants in the words: "They have forgotten God." Rarely did +a day pass without swindling. We were swindled by the merchants who +sold us oil, by the contractors and the workmen and the people who +employed us. I need not say that there could never be a question +of our rights, and we always had to ask for the money we earned as +though it were a charity, and to stand waiting for it at the back +door, cap in hand. + +I was papering a room at the club next to the reading-room; in the +evening, when I was just getting ready to go, the daughter of +Dolzhikov, the engineer, walked into the room with a bundle of books +under her arm. + +I bowed to her. + +"Oh, how do you do!" she said, recognizing me at once, and holding +out her hand. "I'm very glad to see you." + +She smiled and looked with curiosity and wonder at my smock, my +pail of paste, the paper stretched on the floor; I was embarrassed, +and she, too, felt awkward. + +"You must excuse my looking at you like this," she said. "I have +been told so much about you. Especially by Dr. Blagovo; he is simply +in love with you. And I have made the acquaintance of your sister +too; a sweet, dear girl, but I can never persuade her that there +is nothing awful about your adopting the simple life. On the contrary, +you have become the most interesting man in the town." + +She looked again at the pail of paste and the wallpaper, and went +on: + +"I asked Dr. Blagovo to make me better acquainted with you, but +apparently he forgot, or had not time. Anyway, we are acquainted +all the same, and if you would come and see me quite simply I should +be extremely indebted to you. I so long to have a talk. I am a +simple person," she added, holding out her hand to me, "and I hope +that you will feel no constraint with me. My father is not here, +he is in Petersburg." + +She went off into the reading-room, rustling her skirts, while I +went home, and for a long time could not get to sleep. + +That cheerless autumn some kind soul, evidently wishing to alleviate +my existence, sent me from time to time tea and lemons, or biscuits, +or roast game. Karpovna told me that they were always brought by a +soldier, and from whom they came she did not know; and the soldier +used to enquire whether I was well, and whether I dined every day, +and whether I had warm clothing. When the frosts began I was presented +in the same way in my absence with a soft knitted scarf brought by +the soldier. There was a faint elusive smell of scent about it, and +I guessed who my good fairy was. The scarf smelt of lilies-of-the-valley, +the favourite scent of Anyuta Blagovo. + +Towards winter there was more work and it was more cheerful. Radish +recovered, and we worked together in the cemetery church, where we +were putting the ground-work on the ikon-stand before gilding. It +was a clean, quiet job, and, as our fellows used to say, profitable. +One could get through a lot of work in a day, and the time passed +quickly, imperceptibly. There was no swearing, no laughter, no loud +talk. The place itself compelled one to quietness and decent +behaviour, and disposed one to quiet, serious thoughts. Absorbed +in our work we stood or sat motionless like statues; there was a +deathly silence in keeping with the cemetery, so that if a tool +fell, or a flame spluttered in the lamp, the noise of such sounds +rang out abrupt and resonant, and made us look round. After a long +silence we would hear a buzzing like the swarming of bees: it was +the requiem of a baby being chanted slowly in subdued voices in the +porch; or an artist, painting a dove with stars round it on a cupola +would begin softly whistling, and recollecting himself with a start +would at once relapse into silence; or Radish, answering his thoughts, +would say with a sigh: "Anything is possible! Anything is possible!" +or a slow disconsolate bell would begin ringing over our heads, and +the painters would observe that it must be for the funeral of some +wealthy person. . . . + +My days I spent in this stillness in the twilight of the church, +and in the long evenings I played billiards or went to the theatre +in the gallery wearing the new trousers I had bought out of my own +earnings. Concerts and performances had already begun at the +Azhogins'; Radish used to paint the scenes alone now. He used to +tell me the plot of the plays and describe the _tableaux vivants_ +which he witnessed. I listened to him with envy. I felt greatly +drawn to the rehearsals, but I could not bring myself to go to the +Azhogins'. + +A week before Christmas Dr. Blagovo arrived. And again we argued +and played billiards in the evenings. When he played he used to +take off his coat and unbutton his shirt over his chest, and for +some reason tried altogether to assume the air of a desperate rake. +He did not drink much, but made a great uproar about it, and had a +special faculty for getting through twenty roubles in an evening +at such a poor cheap tavern as the _Volga_. + +My sister began coming to see me again; they both expressed surprise +every time on seeing each other, but from her joyful, guilty face +it was evident that these meetings were not accidental. One evening, +when we were playing billiards, the doctor said to me: + +"I say, why don't you go and see Miss Dolzhikov? You don't know +Mariya Viktorovna; she is a clever creature, a charmer, a simple, +good-natured soul." + +I described how her father had received me in the spring. + +"Nonsense!" laughed the doctor, "the engineer's one thing and she's +another. Really, my dear fellow, you mustn't be nasty to her; go +and see her sometimes. For instance, let's go and see her tomorrow +evening. What do you say?" + +He persuaded me. The next evening I put on my new serge trousers, +and in some agitation I set off to Miss Dolzhikov's. The footman +did not seem so haughty and terrible, nor the furniture so gorgeous, +as on that morning when I had come to ask a favour. Mariya Viktorovna +was expecting me, and she received me like an old acquaintance, +shaking hands with me in a friendly way. She was wearing a grey +cloth dress with full sleeves, and had her hair done in the style +which we used to call "dogs' ears," when it came into fashion in +the town a year before. The hair was combed down over the ears, and +this made Mariya Viktorovna's face look broader, and she seemed to +me this time very much like her father, whose face was broad and +red, with something in its expression like a sledge-driver. She was +handsome and elegant, but not youthful looking; she looked thirty, +though in reality she was not more than twenty-five. + +"Dear Doctor, how grateful I am to you," she said, making me sit +down. "If it hadn't been for him you wouldn't have come to see me. +I am bored to death! My father has gone away and left me alone, and +I don't know what to do with myself in this town." + +Then she began asking me where I was working now, how much I earned, +where I lived. + +"Do you spend on yourself nothing but what you earn?" she asked. + +"No." + +"Happy man!" she sighed. "All the evil in life, it seems to me, +comes from idleness, boredom, and spiritual emptiness, and all this +is inevitable when one is accustomed to living at other people's +expense. Don't think I am showing off, I tell you truthfully: it +is not interesting or pleasant to be rich. 'Make to yourselves +friends of the mammon of unrighteousness' is said, because there +is not and cannot be a mammon that's righteous." + +She looked round at the furniture with a grave, cold expression, +as though she wanted to count it over, and went on: + +"Comfort and luxury have a magical power; little by little they +draw into their clutches even strong-willed people. At one time +father and I lived simply, not in a rich style, but now you see +how! It is something monstrous," she said, shrugging her shoulders; +"we spend up to twenty thousand a year! In the provinces!" + +"One comes to look at comfort and luxury as the invariable privilege +of capital and education," I said, "and it seems to me that the +comforts of life may be combined with any sort of labour, even the +hardest and dirtiest. Your father is rich, and yet he says himself +that it has been his lot to be a mechanic and an oiler." + +She smiled and shook her head doubtfully: "My father sometimes eats +bread dipped in kvass," she said. "It's a fancy, a whim!" + +At that moment there was a ring and she got up. + +"The rich and well-educated ought to work like everyone else," she +said, "and if there is comfort it ought to be equal for all. There +ought not to be any privileges. But that's enough philosophizing. +Tell me something amusing. Tell me about the painters. What are +they like? Funny?" + +The doctor came in; I began telling them about the painters, but, +being unaccustomed to talking, I was constrained, and described +them like an ethnologist, gravely and tediously. The doctor, too, +told us some anecdotes of working men: he staggered about, shed +tears, dropped on his knees, and, even, mimicking a drunkard, lay +on the floor; it was as good as a play, and Mariya Viktorovna laughed +till she cried as she looked at him. Then he played on the piano +and sang in his thin, pleasant tenor, while Mariya Viktorovna stood +by and picked out what he was to sing, and corrected him when he +made a mistake. + +"I've heard that you sing, too?" I enquired. + +"Sing, too!" cried the doctor in horror. "She sings exquisitely, a +perfect artist, and you talk of her 'singing too'! What an idea!" + +"I did study in earnest at one time," she said, answering my question, +"but now I have given it up." + +Sitting on a low stool she told us of her life in Petersburg, and +mimicked some celebrated singers, imitating their voice and manner +of singing. She made a sketch of the doctor in her album, then of +me; she did not draw well, but both the portraits were like us. She +laughed, and was full of mischief and charming grimaces, and this +suited her better than talking about the mammon of unrighteousness, +and it seemed to me that she had been talking just before about +wealth and luxury, not in earnest, but in imitation of someone. She +was a superb comic actress. I mentally compared her with our young +ladies, and even the handsome, dignified Anyuta Blagovo could not +stand comparison with her; the difference was immense, like the +difference between a beautiful, cultivated rose and a wild briar. + +We had supper together, the three of us. The doctor and Mariya +Viktorovna drank red wine, champagne, and coffee with brandy in it; +they clinked glasses and drank to friendship, to enlightenment, to +progress, to liberty, and they did not get drunk but only flushed, +and were continually, for no reason, laughing till they cried. So +as not to be tiresome I drank claret too. + +"Talented, richly endowed natures," said Miss Dolzhikov, "know how +to live, and go their own way; mediocre people, like myself for +instance, know nothing and can do nothing of themselves; there is +nothing left for them but to discern some deep social movement, and +to float where they are carried by it." + +"How can one discern what doesn't exist?" asked the doctor. + +"We think so because we don't see it." + +"Is that so? The social movements are the invention of the new +literature. There are none among us." + +An argument began. + +"There are no deep social movements among us and never have been," +the doctor declared loudly. "There is no end to what the new +literature has invented! It has invented intellectual workers in +the country, and you may search through all our villages and find +at the most some lout in a reefer jacket or a black frock-coat who +will make four mistakes in spelling a word of three letters. Cultured +life has not yet begun among us. There's the same savagery, the +same uniform boorishness, the same triviality, as five hundred years +ago. Movements, currents there have been, but it has all been petty, +paltry, bent upon vulgar and mercenary interests--and one cannot +see anything important in them. If you think you have discerned a +deep social movement, and in following it you devote yourself to +tasks in the modern taste, such as the emancipation of insects from +slavery or abstinence from beef rissoles, I congratulate you, Madam. +We must study, and study, and study and we must wait a bit with our +deep social movements; we are not mature enough for them yet; and +to tell the truth, we don't know anything about them." + +"You don't know anything about them, but I do," said Mariya Viktorovna. +"Goodness, how tiresome you are to-day!" + +"Our duty is to study and to study, to try to accumulate as much +knowledge as possible, for genuine social movements arise where +there is knowledge; and the happiness of mankind in the future lies +only in knowledge. I drink to science!" + +"There is no doubt about one thing: one must organize one's life +somehow differently," said Mariya Viktorovna, after a moment's +silence and thought. "Life, such as it has been hitherto, is not +worth having. Don't let us talk about it." + +As we came away from her the cathedral clock struck two. + +"Did you like her?" asked the doctor; "she's nice, isn't she?" + +On Christmas day we dined with Mariya Viktorovna, and all through +the holidays we went to see her almost every day. There was never +anyone there but ourselves, and she was right when she said that +she had no friends in the town but the doctor and me. We spent our +time for the most part in conversation; sometimes the doctor brought +some book or magazine and read aloud to us. In reality he was the +first well-educated man I had met in my life: I cannot judge whether +he knew a great deal, but he always displayed his knowledge as +though he wanted other people to share it. When he talked about +anything relating to medicine he was not like any one of the doctors +in our town, but made a fresh, peculiar impression upon me, and I +fancied that if he liked he might have become a real man of science. +And he was perhaps the only person who had a real influence upon +me at that time. Seeing him, and reading the books he gave me, I +began little by little to feel a thirst for the knowledge which +would have given significance to my cheerless labour. It seemed +strange to me, for instance, that I had not known till then that +the whole world was made up of sixty elements, I had not known what +oil was, what paints were, and that I could have got on without +knowing these things. My acquaintance with the doctor elevated me +morally too. I was continually arguing with him and, though I usually +remained of my own opinion, yet, thanks to him, I began to perceive +that everything was not clear to me, and I began trying to work out +as far as I could definite convictions in myself, that the dictates +of conscience might be definite, and that there might be nothing +vague in my mind. Yet, though he was the most cultivated and best +man in the town, he was nevertheless far from perfection. In his +manners, in his habit of turning every conversation into an argument, +in his pleasant tenor, even in his friendliness, there was something +coarse, like a divinity student, and when he took off his coat and +sat in his silk shirt, or flung a tip to a waiter in the restaurant, +I always fancied that culture might be all very well, but the Tatar +was fermenting in him still. + +At Epiphany he went back to Petersburg. He went off in the morning, +and after dinner my sister came in. Without taking off her fur coat +and her cap she sat down in silence, very pale, and kept her eyes +fixed on the same spot. She was chilled by the frost and one could +see that she was upset by it. + +"You must have caught cold," I said. + +Her eyes filled with tears; she got up and went out to Karpovna +without saying a word to me, as though I had hurt her feelings. And +a little later I heard her saying, in a tone of bitter reproach: + +"Nurse, what have I been living for till now? What? Tell me, haven't +I wasted my youth? All the best years of my life to know nothing +but keeping accounts, pouring out tea, counting the halfpence, +entertaining visitors, and thinking there was nothing better in the +world! Nurse, do understand, I have the cravings of a human being, +and I want to live, and they have turned me into something like a +housekeeper. It's horrible, horrible!" + +She flung her keys towards the door, and they fell with a jingle +into my room. They were the keys of the sideboard, of the kitchen +cupboard, of the cellar, and of the tea-caddy, the keys which my +mother used to carry. + +"Oh, merciful heavens!" cried the old woman in horror. "Holy Saints +above!" + +Before going home my sister came into my room to pick up the keys, +and said: + +"You must forgive me. Something queer has happened to me lately." + +VIII + +On returning home late one evening from Mariya Viktorovna's I found +waiting in my room a young police inspector in a new uniform; he +was sitting at my table, looking through my books. + +"At last," he said, getting up and stretching himself. "This is the +third time I have been to you. The Governor commands you to present +yourself before him at nine o'clock in the morning. Without fail." + +He took from me a signed statement that I would act upon his +Excellency's command, and went away. This late visit of the police +inspector and unexpected invitation to the Governor's had an +overwhelmingly oppressive effect upon me. From my earliest childhood +I have felt terror-stricken in the presence of gendarmes, policemen, +and law court officials, and now I was tormented by uneasiness, as +though I were really guilty in some way. And I could not get to +sleep. My nurse and Prokofy were also upset and could not sleep. +My nurse had earache too; she moaned, and several times began crying +with pain. Hearing that I was awake, Prokofy came into my room with +a lamp and sat down at the table. + +"You ought to have a drink of pepper cordial," he said, after a +moment's thought. "If one does have a drink in this vale of tears +it does no harm. And if Mamma were to pour a little pepper cordial +in her ear it would do her a lot of good." + +Between two and three he was going to the slaughter-house for the +meat. I knew I should not sleep till morning now, and to get through +the time till nine o'clock I went with him. We walked with a lantern, +while his boy Nikolka, aged thirteen, with blue patches on his +cheeks from frostbites, a regular young brigand to judge by his +expression, drove after us in the sledge, urging on the horse in a +husky voice. + +"I suppose they will punish you at the Governor's," Prokofy said +to me on the way. "There are rules of the trade for governors, and +rules for the higher clergy, and rules for the officers, and rules +for the doctors, and every class has its rules. But you haven't +kept to your rules, and you can't be allowed." + +The slaughter-house was behind the cemetery, and till then I had +only seen it in the distance. It consisted of three gloomy barns, +surrounded by a grey fence, and when the wind blew from that quarter +on hot days in summer, it brought a stifling stench from them. Now +going into the yard in the dark I did not see the barns; I kept +coming across horses and sledges, some empty, some loaded up with +meat. Men were walking about with lanterns, swearing in a disgusting +way. Prokofy and Nikolka swore just as revoltingly, and the air was +in a continual uproar with swearing, coughing, and the neighing of +horses. + +There was a smell of dead bodies and of dung. It was thawing, the +snow was changing into mud; and in the darkness it seemed to me +that I was walking through pools of blood. + +Having piled up the sledges full of meat we set off to the butcher's +shop in the market. It began to get light. Cooks with baskets and +elderly ladies in mantles came along one after another, Prokofy, +with a chopper in his hand, in a white apron spattered with blood, +swore fearful oaths, crossed himself at the church, shouted aloud +for the whole market to hear, that he was giving away the meat at +cost price and even at a loss to himself. He gave short weight and +short change, the cooks saw that, but, deafened by his shouts, did +not protest, and only called him a hangman. Brandishing and bringing +down his terrible chopper he threw himself into picturesque attitudes, +and each time uttered the sound "Geck" with a ferocious expression, +and I was afraid he really would chop off somebody's head or hand. + +I spent all the morning in the butcher's shop, and when at last I +went to the Governor's, my overcoat smelt of meat and blood. My +state of mind was as though I were being sent spear in hand to meet +a bear. I remember the tall staircase with a striped carpet on it, +and the young official, with shiny buttons, who mutely motioned me +to the door with both hands, and ran to announce me. I went into a +hall luxuriously but frigidly and tastelessly furnished, and the +high, narrow mirrors in the spaces between the walls, and the bright +yellow window curtains, struck the eye particularly unpleasantly. +One could see that the governors were changed, but the furniture +remained the same. Again the young official motioned me with both +hands to the door, and I went up to a big green table at which a +military general, with the Order of Vladimir on his breast, was +standing. + +"Mr. Poloznev, I have asked you to come," he began, holding a letter +in his hand, and opening his mouth like a round "o," "I have asked +you to come here to inform you of this. Your highly respected father +has appealed by letter and by word of mouth to the Marshal of the +Nobility begging him to summon you, and to lay before you the +inconsistency of your behaviour with the rank of the nobility to +which you have the honour to belong. His Excellency Alexandr +Pavlovitch, justly supposing that your conduct might serve as a bad +example, and considering that mere persuasion on his part would not +be sufficient, but that official intervention in earnest was +essential, presents me here in this letter with his views in regard +to you, which I share." + +He said this, quietly, respectfully, standing erect, as though I +were his superior officer and looking at me with no trace of severity. +His face looked worn and wizened, and was all wrinkles; there were +bags under his eyes; his hair was dyed; and it was impossible to +tell from his appearance how old he was--forty or sixty. + +"I trust," he went on, "that you appreciate the delicacy of our +honoured Alexandr Pavlovitch, who has addressed himself to me not +officially, but privately. I, too, have asked you to come here +unofficially, and I am speaking to you, not as a Governor, but from +a sincere regard for your father. And so I beg you either to alter +your line of conduct and return to duties in keeping with your rank, +or to avoid setting a bad example, remove to another district where +you are not known, and where you can follow any occupation you +please. In the other case, I shall be forced to take extreme +measures." + +He stood for half a minute in silence, looking at me with his mouth +open. + +"Are you a vegetarian?" he asked. + +"No, your Excellency, I eat meat." + +He sat down and drew some papers towards him. I bowed and went out. + +It was not worth while now to go to work before dinner. I went home +to sleep, but could not sleep from an unpleasant, sickly feeling, +induced by the slaughter house and my conversation with the Governor, +and when the evening came I went, gloomy and out of sorts, to Mariya +Viktorovna. I told her how I had been at the Governor's, while she +stared at me in perplexity as though she did not believe it, then +suddenly began laughing gaily, loudly, irrepressibly, as only +good-natured laughter-loving people can. + +"If only one could tell that in Petersburg!" she brought out, almost +falling over with laughter, and propping herself against the table. +"If one could tell that in Petersburg!" + +IX + +Now we used to see each other often, sometimes twice a day. She +used to come to the cemetery almost every day after dinner, and +read the epitaphs on the crosses and tombstones while she waited +for me. Sometimes she would come into the church, and, standing by +me, would look on while I worked. The stillness, the naive work of +the painters and gilders, Radish's sage reflections, and the fact +that I did not differ externally from the other workmen, and worked +just as they did in my waistcoat with no socks on, and that I was +addressed familiarly by them--all this was new to her and touched +her. One day a workman, who was painting a dove on the ceiling, +called out to me in her presence: + +"Misail, hand me up the white paint." + +I took him the white paint, and afterwards, when I let myself down +by the frail scaffolding, she looked at me, touched to tears and +smiling. + +"What a dear you are!" she said. + +I remembered from my childhood how a green parrot, belonging to one +of the rich men of the town, had escaped from its cage, and how for +quite a month afterwards the beautiful bird had haunted the town, +flying from garden to garden, homeless and solitary. Mariya Viktorovna +reminded me of that bird. + +"There is positively nowhere for me to go now but the cemetery," +she said to me with a laugh. "The town has become disgustingly dull. +At the Azhogins' they are still reciting, singing, lisping. I have +grown to detest them of late; your sister is an unsociable creature; +Mademoiselle Blagovo hates me for some reason. I don't care for the +theatre. Tell me where am I to go?" + +When I went to see her I smelt of paint and turpentine, and my hands +were stained--and she liked that; she wanted me to come to her +in my ordinary working clothes; but in her drawing-room those clothes +made me feel awkward. I felt embarrassed, as though I were in +uniform, so I always put on my new serge trousers when I went to +her. And she did not like that. + +"You must own you are not quite at home in your new character," she +said to me one day. "Your workman's dress does not feel natural to +you; you are awkward in it. Tell me, isn't that because you haven't +a firm conviction, and are not satisfied? The very kind of work you +have chosen--your painting--surely it does not satisfy you, +does it?" she asked, laughing. "I know paint makes things look nicer +and last longer, but those things belong to rich people who live +in towns, and after all they are luxuries. Besides, you have often +said yourself that everybody ought to get his bread by the work of +his own hands, yet you get money and not bread. Why shouldn't you +keep to the literal sense of your words? You ought to be getting +bread, that is, you ought to be ploughing, sowing, reaping, threshing, +or doing something which has a direct connection with agriculture, +for instance, looking after cows, digging, building huts of +logs. . . ." + +She opened a pretty cupboard that stood near her writing-table, and +said: + +"I am saying all this to you because I want to let you into my +secret. _Voila!_ This is my agricultural library. Here I have fields, +kitchen garden and orchard, and cattleyard and beehives. I read +them greedily, and have already learnt all the theory to the tiniest +detail. My dream, my darling wish, is to go to our Dubetchnya as +soon as March is here. It's marvellous there, exquisite, isn't it? +The first year I shall have a look round and get into things, and +the year after I shall begin to work properly myself, putting my +back into it as they say. My father has promised to give me Dubetchnya +and I shall do exactly what I like with it." + +Flushed, excited to tears, and laughing, she dreamed aloud how she +would live at Dubetchnya, and what an interesting life it would be! +I envied her. March was near, the days were growing longer and +longer, and on bright sunny days water dripped from the roofs at +midday, and there was a fragrance of spring; I, too, longed for the +country. + +And when she said that she should move to Dubetchnya, I realized +vividly that I should remain in the town alone, and I felt that I +envied her with her cupboard of books and her agriculture. I knew +nothing of work on the land, and did not like it, and I should have +liked to have told her that work on the land was slavish toil, but +I remembered that something similar had been said more than once +by my father, and I held my tongue. + +Lent began. Viktor Ivanitch, whose existence I had begun to forget, +arrived from Petersburg. He arrived unexpectedly, without even a +telegram to say he was coming. When I went in, as usual in the +evening, he was walking about the drawing-room, telling some story +with his face freshly washed and shaven, looking ten years younger: +his daughter was kneeling on the floor, taking out of his trunks +boxes, bottles, and books, and handing them to Pavel the footman. +I involuntarily drew back a step when I saw the engineer, but he +held out both hands to me and said, smiling, showing his strong +white teeth that looked like a sledge-driver's: + +"Here he is, here he is! Very glad to see you, Mr. House-painter! +Masha has told me all about it; she has been singing your praises. +I quite understand and approve," he went on, taking my arm. "To be +a good workman is ever so much more honest and more sensible than +wasting government paper and wearing a cockade on your head. I +myself worked in Belgium with these very hands and then spent two +years as a mechanic. . . ." + +He was wearing a short reefer jacket and indoor slippers; he walked +like a man with the gout, rolling slightly from side to side and +rubbing his hands. Humming something he softly purred and hugged +himself with satisfaction at being at home again at last, and able +to have his beloved shower bath. + +"There is no disputing," he said to me at supper, "there is no +disputing; you are all nice and charming people, but for some reason, +as soon as you take to manual labour, or go in for saving the +peasants, in the long run it all comes to no more than being a +dissenter. Aren't you a dissenter? Here you don't take vodka. What's +the meaning of that if it is not being a dissenter?" + +To satisfy him I drank some vodka and I drank some wine, too. We +tasted the cheese, the sausage, the pates, the pickles, and the +savouries of all sorts that the engineer had brought with him, and +the wine that had come in his absence from abroad. The wine was +first-rate. For some reason the engineer got wine and cigars from +abroad without paying duty; the caviare and the dried sturgeon +someone sent him for nothing; he did not pay rent for his flat as +the owner of the house provided the kerosene for the line; and +altogether he and his daughter produced on me the impression that +all the best in the world was at their service, and provided for +them for nothing. + +I went on going to see them, but not with the same eagerness. The +engineer made me feel constrained, and in his presence I did not +feel free. I could not face his clear, guileless eyes, his reflections +wearied and sickened me; I was sickened, too, by the memory that +so lately I had been in the employment of this red-faced, well-fed +man, and that he had been brutally rude to me. It is true that he +put his arm round my waist, slapped me on the shoulder in a friendly +way, approved my manner of life, but I felt that, as before, he +despised my insignificance, and only put up with me to please his +daughter, and I couldn't now laugh and talk as I liked, and I behaved +unsociably and kept expecting that in another minute he would address +me as Panteley as he did his footman Pavel. How my pride as a +provincial and a working man was revolted. I, a proletarian, a house +painter, went every day to rich people who were alien to me, and +whom the whole town regarded as though they were foreigners, and +every day I drank costly wines with them and ate unusual dainties +--my conscience refused to be reconciled to it! On my way to the +house I sullenly avoided meeting people, and looked at them from +under my brows as though I really were a dissenter, and when I was +going home from the engineer's I was ashamed of my well-fed condition. + +Above all I was afraid of being carried away. Whether I was walking +along the street, or working, or talking to the other fellows, I +was all the time thinking of one thing only, of going in the evening +to see Mariya Viktorovna and was picturing her voice, her laugh, +her movements. When I was getting ready to go to her I always spent +a long time before my nurse's warped looking-glass, as I fastened +my tie; my serge trousers were detestable in my eyes, and I suffered +torments, and at the same time despised myself for being so trivial. +When she called to me out of the other room that she was not dressed +and asked me to wait, I listened to her dressing; it agitated me, +I felt as though the ground were giving way under my feet. And when +I saw a woman's figure in the street, even at a distance, I invariably +compared it. It seemed to me that all our girls and women were +vulgar, that they were absurdly dressed, and did not know how to +hold themselves; and these comparisons aroused a feeling of pride +in me: Mariya Viktorovna was the best of them all! And I dreamed +of her and myself at night. + +One evening at supper with the engineer we ate a whole lobster As +I was going home afterwards I remembered that the engineer twice +called me "My dear fellow" at supper, and I reflected that they +treated me very kindly in that house, as they might an unfortunate +big dog who had been kicked out by its owners, that they were amusing +themselves with me, and that when they were tired of me they would +turn me out like a dog. I felt ashamed and wounded, wounded to the +point of tears as though I had been insulted, and looking up at the +sky I took a vow to put an end to all this. + +The next day I did not go to the Dolzhikov's. Late in the evening, +when it was quite dark and raining, I walked along Great Dvoryansky +Street, looking up at the windows. Everyone was asleep at the +Azhogins', and the only light was in one of the furthest windows. +It was Madame Azhogin in her own room, sewing by the light of three +candles, imagining that she was combating superstition. Our house +was in darkness, but at the Dolzhikovs', on the contrary, the windows +were lighted up, but one could distinguish nothing through the +flowers and the curtains. I kept walking up and down the street; +the cold March rain drenched me through. I heard my father come +home from the club; he stood knocking at the gate. A minute later +a light appeared at the window, and I saw my sister, who was hastening +down with a lamp, while with the other hand she was twisting her +thick hair together as she went. Then my father walked about the +drawing-room, talking and rubbing his hands, while my sister sat +in a low chair, thinking and not listening to what he said. + +But then they went away; the light went out. . . . I glanced round +at the engineer's, and there, too, all was darkness now. In the +dark and the rain I felt hopelessly alone, abandoned to the whims +of destiny; I felt that all my doings, my desires, and everything +I had thought and said till then were trivial in comparison with +my loneliness, in comparison with my present suffering, and the +suffering that lay before me in the future. Alas, the thoughts and +doings of living creatures are not nearly so significant as their +sufferings! And without clearly realizing what I was doing, I pulled +at the bell of the Dolzhikovs' gate, broke it, and ran along the +street like some naughty boy, with a feeling of terror in my heart, +expecting every moment that they would come out and recognize me. +When I stopped at the end of the street to take breath I could hear +nothing but the sound of the rain, and somewhere in the distance a +watchman striking on a sheet of iron. + +For a whole week I did not go to the Dolzhikovs'. My serge trousers +were sold. There was nothing doing in the painting trade. I knew +the pangs of hunger again, and earned from twopence to fourpence a +day, where I could, by heavy and unpleasant work. Struggling up to +my knees in the cold mud, straining my chest, I tried to stifle my +memories, and, as it were, to punish myself for the cheeses and +preserves with which I had been regaled at the engineer's. But all +the same, as soon as I lay in bed, wet and hungry, my sinful +imagination immediately began to paint exquisite, seductive pictures, +and with amazement I acknowledged to myself that I was in love, +passionately in love, and I fell into a sound, heavy sleep, feeling +that hard labour only made my body stronger and younger. + +One evening snow began falling most inappropriately, and the wind +blew from the north as though winter had come back again. When I +returned from work that evening I found Mariya Viktorovna in my +room. She was sitting in her fur coat, and had both hands in her +muff. + +"Why don't you come to see me?" she asked, raising her clear, clever +eyes, and I was utterly confused with delight and stood stiffly +upright before her, as I used to stand facing my father when he was +going to beat me; she looked into my face and I could see from her +eyes that she understood why I was confused. + +"Why don't you come to see me?" she repeated. "If you don't want +to come, you see, I have come to you." + +She got up and came close to me. + +"Don't desert me," she said, and her eyes filled with tears. "I am +alone, utterly alone." + +She began crying; and, hiding her face in her muff, articulated: + +"Alone! My life is hard, very hard, and in all the world I have no +one but you. Don't desert me!" + +Looking for a handkerchief to wipe her tears she smiled; we were +silent for some time, then I put my arms round her and kissed her, +scratching my cheek till it bled with her hatpin as I did it. + +And we began talking to each other as though we had been on the +closest terms for ages and ages. + +X + +Two days later she sent me to Dubetchnya and I was unutterably +delighted to go. As I walked towards the station and afterwards, +as I was sitting in the train, I kept laughing from no apparent +cause, and people looked at me as though I were drunk. Snow was +falling, and there were still frosts in the mornings, but the roads +were already dark-coloured and rooks hovered over them, cawing. + +At first I had intended to fit up an abode for us two, Masha and +me, in the lodge at the side opposite Madame Tcheprakov's lodge, +but it appeared that the doves and the ducks had been living there +for a long time, and it was impossible to clean it without destroying +a great number of nests. There was nothing for it but to live in +the comfortless rooms of the big house with the sunblinds. The +peasants called the house the palace; there were more than twenty +rooms in it, and the only furniture was a piano and a child's +arm-chair lying in the attic. And if Masha had brought all her +furniture from the town we should even then have been unable to get +rid of the impression of immense emptiness and cold. I picked out +three small rooms with windows looking into the garden, and worked +from early morning till night, setting them to rights, putting in +new panes, papering the walls, filling up the holes and chinks in +the floors. It was easy, pleasant work. I was continually running +to the river to see whether the ice were not going; I kept fancying +that starlings were flying. And at night, thinking of Masha, I +listened with an unutterably sweet feeling, with clutching delight +to the noise of the rats and the wind droning and knocking above +the ceiling. It seemed as though some old house spirit were coughing +in the attic. + +The snow was deep; a great deal had fallen even at the end of March, +but it melted quickly, as though by magic, and the spring floods +passed in a tumultuous rush, so that by the beginning of April the +starlings were already noisy, and yellow butterflies were flying +in the garden. It was exquisite weather. Every day, towards evening, +I used to walk to the town to meet Masha, and what a delight it was +to walk with bare feet along the gradually drying, still soft road. +Half-way I used to sit down and look towards the town, not venturing +to go near it. The sight of it troubled me. I kept wondering how +the people I knew would behave to me when they heard of my love. +What would my father say? What troubled me particularly was the +thought that my life was more complicated, and that I had completely +lost all power to set it right, and that, like a balloon, it was +bearing me away, God knows whither. I no longer considered the +problem how to earn my daily bread, how to live, but thought about +--I really don't know what. + +Masha used to come in a carriage; I used to get in with her, and +we drove to Dubetchnya, feeling light-hearted and free. Or, after +waiting till the sun had set, I would go back dissatisfied and +dreary, wondering why Masha had not come; at the gate or in the +garden I would be met by a sweet, unexpected apparition--it was +she! It would turn out that she had come by rail, and had walked +from the station. What a festival it was! In a simple woollen dress +with a kerchief on her head, with a modest sunshade, but laced in, +slender, in expensive foreign boots--it was a talented actress +playing the part of a little workgirl. We looked round our domain +and decided which should be her room, and which mine, where we would +have our avenue, our kitchen garden, our beehives. + +We already had hens, ducks, and geese, which we loved because they +were ours. We had, all ready for sowing, oats, clover, timothy +grass, buckwheat, and vegetable seeds, and we always looked at all +these stores and discussed at length the crop we might get; and +everything Masha said to me seemed extraordinarily clever, and fine. +This was the happiest time of my life. + +Soon after St. Thomas's week we were married at our parish church +in the village of Kurilovka, two miles from Dubetchnya. Masha wanted +everything to be done quietly; at her wish our "best men" were +peasant lads, the sacristan sang alone, and we came back from the +church in a small, jolting chaise which she drove herself. Our only +guest from the town was my sister Kleopatra, to whom Masha sent a +note three days before the wedding. My sister came in a white dress +and wore gloves. During the wedding she cried quietly from joy and +tenderness. Her expression was motherly and infinitely kind. She +was intoxicated with our happiness, and smiled as though she were +absorbing a sweet delirium, and looking at her during our wedding, +I realized that for her there was nothing in the world higher than +love, earthly love, and that she was dreaming of it secretly, +timidly, but continually and passionately. She embraced and kissed +Masha, and, not knowing how to express her rapture, said to her of +me: "He is good! He is very good!" + +Before she went away she changed into her ordinary dress, and drew +me into the garden to talk to me alone. + +"Father is very much hurt," she said, "that you have written nothing +to him. You ought to have asked for his blessing. But in reality +he is very much pleased. He says that this marriage will raise you +in the eyes of all society, and that under the influence of Mariya +Viktorovna you will begin to take a more serious view of life. We +talk of nothing but you in the evenings now, and yesterday he +actually used the expression: 'Our Misail.' That pleased me. It +seems as though he had some plan in his mind, and I fancy he wants +to set you an example of magnanimity and be the first to speak of +reconciliation. It is very possible he may come here to see you in +a day or two." + +She hurriedly made the sign of the cross over me several times and +said: + +"Well, God be with you. Be happy. Anyuta Blagovo is a very clever +girl; she says about your marriage that God is sending you a fresh +ordeal. To be sure--married life does not bring only joy but +suffering too. That's bound to be so." + +Masha and I walked a couple of miles to see her on her way; we +walked back slowly and in silence, as though we were resting. Masha +held my hand, my heart felt light, and I had no inclination to talk +about love; we had become closer and more akin now that we were +married, and we felt that nothing now could separate us. + +"Your sister is a nice creature," said Masha, "but it seems as +though she had been tormented for years. Your father must be a +terrible man." + +I began telling her how my sister and I had been brought up, and +what a senseless torture our childhood had really been. When she +heard how my father had so lately beaten me, she shuddered and drew +closer to me. + +"Don't tell me any more," she said. "It's horrible!" + +Now she never left me. We lived together in the three rooms in the +big house, and in the evenings we bolted the door which led to the +empty part of the house, as though someone were living there whom +we did not know, and were afraid of. I got up early, at dawn, and +immediately set to work of some sort. I mended the carts, made paths +in the garden, dug the flower beds, painted the roof of the house. +When the time came to sow the oats I tried to plough the ground +over again, to harrow and to sow, and I did it all conscientiously, +keeping up with our labourer; I was worn out, the rain and the cold +wind made my face and feet burn for hours afterwards. I dreamed of +ploughed land at night. But field labour did not attract me. I did +not understand farming, and I did not care for it; it was perhaps +because my forefathers had not been tillers of the soil, and the +very blood that flowed in my veins was purely of the city. I loved +nature tenderly; I loved the fields and meadows and kitchen gardens, +but the peasant who turned up the soil with his plough and urged +on his pitiful horse, wet and tattered, with his craning neck, was +to me the expression of coarse, savage, ugly force, and every time +I looked at his uncouth movements I involuntarily began thinking +of the legendary life of the remote past, before men knew the use +of fire. The fierce bull that ran with the peasants' herd, and the +horses, when they dashed about the village, stamping their hoofs, +moved me to fear, and everything rather big, strong, and angry, +whether it was the ram with its horns, the gander, or the yard-dog, +seemed to me the expression of the same coarse, savage force. This +mood was particularly strong in me in bad weather, when heavy clouds +were hanging over the black ploughed land. Above all, when I was +ploughing or sowing, and two or three people stood looking how I +was doing it, I had not the feeling that this work was inevitable +and obligatory, and it seemed to me that I was amusing myself. I +preferred doing something in the yard, and there was nothing I liked +so much as painting the roof. + +I used to walk through the garden and the meadow to our mill. It +was let to a peasant of Kurilovka called Stepan, a handsome, dark +fellow with a thick black beard, who looked very strong. He did not +like the miller's work, and looked upon it as dreary and unprofitable, +and only lived at the mill in order not to live at home. He was a +leather-worker, and was always surrounded by a pleasant smell of +tar and leather. He was not fond of talking, he was listless and +sluggish, and was always sitting in the doorway or on the river +bank, humming "oo-loo-loo." His wife and mother-in-law, both +white-faced, languid, and meek, used sometimes to come from Kurilovka +to see him; they made low bows to him and addressed him formally, +"Stepan Petrovitch," while he went on sitting on the river bank, +softly humming "oo-loo-loo," without responding by word or movement +to their bows. One hour and then a second would pass in silence. +His mother-in-law and wife, after whispering together, would get +up and gaze at him for some time, expecting him to look round; then +they would make a low bow, and in sugary, chanting voices, say: + +"Good-bye, Stepan Petrovitch!" + +And they would go away. After that Stepan, picking up the parcel +they had left, containing cracknels or a shirt, would heave a sigh +and say, winking in their direction: + +"The female sex!" + +The mill with two sets of millstones worked day and night. I used +to help Stepan; I liked the work, and when he went off I was glad +to stay and take his place. + +XI + +After bright warm weather came a spell of wet; all May it rained +and was cold. The sound of the millwheels and of the rain disposed +one to indolence and slumber. The floor trembled, there was a smell +of flour, and that, too, induced drowsiness. My wife in a short +fur-lined jacket, and in men's high golosh boots, would make her +appearance twice a day, and she always said the same thing: + +"And this is called summer! Worse than it was in October!" + +We used to have tea and make the porridge together, or we would sit +for hours at a stretch without speaking, waiting for the rain to +stop. Once, when Stepan had gone off to the fair, Masha stayed all +night at the mill. When we got up we could not tell what time it +was, as the rainclouds covered the whole sky; but sleepy cocks were +crowing at Dubetchnya, and landrails were calling in the meadows; +it was still very, very early. . . . My wife and I went down to the +millpond and drew out the net which Stepan had thrown in over night +in our presence. A big pike was struggling in it, and a cray-fish +was twisting about, clawing upwards with its pincers. + +"Let them go," said Masha. "Let them be happy too." + +Because we got up so early and afterwards did nothing, that day +seemed very long, the longest day in my life. Towards evening Stepan +came back and I went home. + +"Your father came to-day," said Masha. + +"Where is he?" I asked. + +"He has gone away. I would not see him." + +Seeing that I remained standing and silent, that I was sorry for +my father, she said: + +"One must be consistent. I would not see him, and sent word to him +not to trouble to come and see us again." + +A minute later I was out at the gate and walking to the town to +explain things to my father. It was muddy, slippery, cold. For the +first time since my marriage I felt suddenly sad, and in my brain +exhausted by that long, grey day, there was stirring the thought +that perhaps I was not living as I ought. I was worn out; little +by little I was overcome by despondency and indolence, I did not +want to move or think, and after going on a little I gave it up +with a wave of my hand and turned back. + +The engineer in a leather overcoat with a hood was standing in the +middle of the yard. + +"Where's the furniture? There used to be lovely furniture in the +Empire style: there used to be pictures, there used to be vases, +while now you could play ball in it! I bought the place with the +furniture. The devil take her!" + +Moisey, a thin pock-marked fellow of twenty-five, with insolent +little eyes, who was in the service of the general's widow, stood +near him crumpling up his cap in his hands; one of his cheeks was +bigger than the other, as though he had lain too long on it. + +"Your honour was graciously pleased to buy the place without the +furniture," he brought out irresolutely; "I remember." + +"Hold your tongue!" shouted the engineer; he turned crimson and +shook with anger . . . and the echo in the garden loudly repeated +his shout. + +XII + +When I was doing anything in the garden or the yard, Moisey would +stand beside me, and folding his arms behind his back he would stand +lazily and impudently staring at me with his little eyes. And this +irritated me to such a degree that I threw up my work and went away. + +From Stepan we heard that Moisey was Madame Tcheprakov's lover. I +noticed that when people came to her to borrow money they addressed +themselves first to Moisey, and once I saw a peasant, black from +head to foot--he must have been a coalheaver--bow down at +Moisey's feet. Sometimes, after a little whispering, he gave out +money himself, without consulting his mistress, from which I concluded +that he did a little business on his own account. + +He used to shoot in our garden under our windows, carried off +victuals from our cellar, borrowed our horses without asking +permission, and we were indignant and began to feel as though +Dubetchnya were not ours, and Masha would say, turning pale: + +"Can we really have to go on living with these reptiles another +eighteen months?" + +Madame Tcheprakov's son, Ivan, was serving as a guard on our +railway-line. He had grown much thinner and feebler during the +winter, so that a single glass was enough to make him drunk, and +he shivered out of the sunshine. He wore the guard's uniform with +aversion and was ashamed of it, but considered his post a good one, +as he could steal the candles and sell them. My new position excited +in him a mixed feeling of wonder, envy, and a vague hope that +something of the same sort might happen to him. He used to watch +Masha with ecstatic eyes, ask me what I had for dinner now, and his +lean and ugly face wore a sad and sweetish expression, and he moved +his fingers as though he were feeling my happiness with them. + +"Listen, Better-than-nothing," he said fussily, relighting his +cigarette at every instant; there was always a litter where he +stood, for he wasted dozens of matches, lighting one cigarette. +"Listen, my life now is the nastiest possible. The worst of it is +any subaltern can shout: 'Hi, there, guard!' I have overheard all +sorts of things in the train, my boy, and do you know, I have learned +that life's a beastly thing! My mother has been the ruin of me! A +doctor in the train told me that if parents are immoral, their +children are drunkards or criminals. Think of that!" + +Once he came into the yard, staggering; his eyes gazed about blankly, +his breathing was laboured; he laughed and cried and babbled as +though in a high fever, and the only words I could catch in his +muddled talk were, "My mother! Where's my mother?" which he uttered +with a wail like a child who has lost his mother in a crowd. I led +him into our garden and laid him down under a tree, and Masha and +I took turns to sit by him all that day and all night. He was very +sick, and Masha looked with aversion at his pale, wet face, and +said: + +"Is it possible these reptiles will go on living another year and +a half in our yard? It's awful! it's awful!" + +And how many mortifications the peasants caused us! How many bitter +disappointments in those early days in the spring months, when we +so longed to be happy. My wife built a school. I drew a plan of a +school for sixty boys, and the Zemstvo Board approved of it, but +advised us to build the school at Kurilovka the big village which +was only two miles from us. Moreover, the school at Kurilovka in +which children--from four villages, our Dubetchnya being one of +the number--were taught, was old and too small, and the floor was +scarcely safe to walk upon. At the end of March at Masha's wish, +she was appointed guardian of the Kurilovka school, and at the +beginning of April we three times summoned the village assembly, +and tried to persuade the peasants that their school was old and +overcrowded, and that it was essential to build a new one. A member +of the Zemstvo Board and the Inspector of Peasant Schools came, and +they, too, tried to persuade them. After each meeting the peasants +surrounded us, begging for a bucket of vodka; we were hot in the +crowd; we were soon exhausted, and returned home dissatisfied and +a little ill at ease. In the end the peasants set apart a plot of +ground for the school, and were obliged to bring all the building +material from the town with their own horses. And the very first +Sunday after the spring corn was sown carts set off from Kurilovka +and Dubetchnya to fetch bricks for the foundations. They set off +as soon as it was light, and came back late in the evening; the +peasants were drunk, and said they were worn out. + +As ill-luck would have it, the rain and the cold persisted all +through May. The road was in an awful state: it was deep in mud. +The carts usually drove into our yard when they came back from the +town--and what a horrible ordeal it was. A potbellied horse would +appear at the gate, setting its front legs wide apart; it would +stumble forward before coming into the yard; a beam, nine yards +long, wet and slimy-looking, crept in on a waggon. Beside it, muffled +up against the rain, strode a peasant with the skirts of his coat +tucked up in his belt, not looking where he was going, but stepping +through the puddles. Another cart would appear with boards, then a +third with a beam, a fourth . . . and the space before our house +was gradually crowded up with horses, beams, and planks. Men and +women, with their heads muffled and their skirts tucked up, would +stare angrily at our windows, make an uproar, and clamour for the +mistress to come out to them; coarse oaths were audible. Meanwhile +Moisey stood at one side, and we fancied he was enjoying our +discomfiture. + +"We are not going to cart any more," the peasants would shout. "We +are worn out! Let her go and get the stuff herself." + +Masha, pale and flustered, expecting every minute that they would +break into the house, would send them out a half-pail of vodka; +after that the noise would subside and the long beams, one after +another, would crawl slowly out of the yard. + +When I was setting off to see the building my wife was worried and +said: + +"The peasants are spiteful; I only hope they won't do you a mischief. +Wait a minute, I'll come with you." + +We drove to Kurilovka together, and there the carpenters asked us +for a drink. The framework of the house was ready. It was time to +lay the foundation, but the masons had not come; this caused delay, +and the carpenters complained. And when at last the masons did come, +it appeared that there was no sand; it had been somehow overlooked +that it would be needed. Taking advantage of our helpless position, +the peasants demanded thirty kopecks for each cartload, though the +distance from the building to the river where they got the sand was +less than a quarter of a mile, and more than five hundred cartloads +were found to be necessary. There was no end to the misunderstandings, +swearing, and importunity; my wife was indignant, and the foreman +of the masons, Tit Petrov, an old man of seventy, took her by the +arm, and said: + +"You look here! You look here! You only bring me the sand; I set +ten men on at once, and in two days it will be done! You look here!" + +But they brought the sand and two days passed, and four, and a week, +and instead of the promised foundations there was still a yawning +hole. + +"It's enough to drive one out of one's senses," said my wife, in +distress. "What people! What people!" + +In the midst of these disorderly doings the engineer arrived; he +brought with him parcels of wine and savouries, and after a prolonged +meal lay down for a nap in the verandah and snored so loudly that +the labourers shook their heads and said: "Well!" + +Masha was not pleased at his coming, she did not trust him, though +at the same time she asked his advice. When, after sleeping too +long after dinner, he got up in a bad humour and said unpleasant +things about our management of the place, or expressed regret that +he had bought Dubetchnya, which had already been a loss to him, +poor Masha's face wore an expression of misery. She would complain +to him, and he would yawn and say that the peasants ought to be +flogged. + +He called our marriage and our life a farce, and said it was a +caprice, a whim. + +"She has done something of the sort before," he said about Masha. +"She once fancied herself a great opera singer and left me; I was +looking for her for two months, and, my dear soul, I spent a thousand +roubles on telegrams alone." + +He no longer called me a dissenter or Mr. Painter, and did not as +in the past express approval of my living like a workman, but said: + +"You are a strange person! You are not a normal person! I won't +venture to prophesy, but you will come to a bad end!" + +And Masha slept badly at night, and was always sitting at our bedroom +window thinking. There was no laughter at supper now, no charming +grimaces. I was wretched, and when it rained, every drop that fell +seemed to pierce my heart, like small shot, and I felt ready to +fall on my knees before Masha and apologize for the weather. When +the peasants made a noise in the yard I felt guilty also. For hours +at a time I sat still in one place, thinking of nothing but what a +splendid person Masha was, what a wonderful person. I loved her +passionately, and I was fascinated by everything she did, everything +she said. She had a bent for quiet, studious pursuits; she was fond +of reading for hours together, of studying. Although her knowledge +of farming was only from books she surprised us all by what she +knew; and every piece of advice she gave was of value; not one was +ever thrown away; and, with all that, what nobility, what taste, +what graciousness, that graciousness which is only found in +well-educated people. + +To this woman, with her sound, practical intelligence, the disorderly +surroundings with petty cares and sordid anxieties in which we were +living now were an agony: I saw that and could not sleep at night; +my brain worked feverishly and I had a lump in my throat. I rushed +about not knowing what to do. + +I galloped to the town and brought Masha books, newspapers, sweets, +flowers; with Stepan I caught fish, wading for hours up to my neck +in the cold water in the rain to catch eel-pout to vary our fare; +I demeaned myself to beg the peasants not to make a noise; I plied +them with vodka, bought them off, made all sorts of promises. And +how many other foolish things I did! + +At last the rain ceased, the earth dried. One would get up at four +o'clock in the morning; one would go out into the garden--where +there was dew sparkling on the flowers, the twitter of birds, the +hum of insects, not one cloud in the sky; and the garden, the +meadows, and the river were so lovely, yet there were memories of +the peasants, of their carts, of the engineer. Masha and I drove +out together in the racing droshky to the fields to look at the +oats. She used to drive, I sat behind; her shoulders were raised +and the wind played with her hair. + +"Keep to the right!" she shouted to those she met. + +"You are like a sledge-driver," I said to her one day. + +"Maybe! Why, my grandfather, the engineer's father, was a sledge-driver. +Didn't you know that?" she asked, turning to me, and at once she +mimicked the way sledge-drivers shout and sing. + +"And thank God for that," I thought as I listened to her. "Thank +God." + +And again memories of the peasants, of the carts, of the engineer. . . . + +XIII + +Dr. Blagovo arrived on his bicycle. My sister began coming often. +Again there were conversations about manual labour, about progress, +about a mysterious millennium awaiting mankind in the remote future. +The doctor did not like our farmwork, because it interfered with +arguments, and said that ploughing, reaping, grazing calves were +unworthy of a free man, and all these coarse forms of the struggle +for existence men would in time relegate to animals and machines, +while they would devote themselves exclusively to scientific +investigation. My sister kept begging them to let her go home +earlier, and if she stayed on till late in the evening, or spent +the night with us, there would be no end to the agitation. + +"Good Heavens, what a baby you are still!" said Masha reproachfully. +"It is positively absurd." + +"Yes, it is absurd," my sister agreed, "I know it's absurd; but +what is to be done if I haven't the strength to get over it? I keep +feeling as though I were doing wrong." + +At haymaking I ached all over from the unaccustomed labour; in the +evening, sitting on the verandah and talking with the others, I +suddenly dropped asleep, and they laughed aloud at me. They waked +me up and made me sit down to supper; I was overpowered with +drowsiness and I saw the lights, the faces, and the plates as it +were in a dream, heard the voices, but did not understand them. And +getting up early in the morning, I took up the scythe at once, or +went to the building and worked hard all day. + +When I remained at home on holidays I noticed that my sister and +Masha were concealing something from me, and even seemed to be +avoiding me. My wife was tender to me as before, but she had thoughts +of her own apart, which she did not share with me. There was no +doubt that her exasperation with the peasants was growing, the life +was becoming more and more distasteful to her, and yet she did not +complain to me. She talked to the doctor now more readily than she +did to me, and I did not understand why it was so. + +It was the custom in our province at haymaking and harvest time for +the labourers to come to the manor house in the evening and be +regaled with vodka; even young girls drank a glass. We did not keep +up this practice; the mowers and the peasant women stood about in +our yard till late in the evening expecting vodka, and then departed +abusing us. And all the time Masha frowned grimly and said nothing, +or murmured to the doctor with exasperation: "Savages! Petchenyegs!" + +In the country newcomers are met ungraciously, almost with hostility, +as they are at school. And we were received in this way. At first +we were looked upon as stupid, silly people, who had bought an +estate simply because we did not know what to do with our money. +We were laughed at. The peasants grazed their cattle in our wood +and even in our garden; they drove away our cows and horses to the +village, and then demanded money for the damage done by them. They +came in whole companies into our yard, and loudly clamoured that +at the mowing we had cut some piece of land that did not belong to +us; and as we did not yet know the boundaries of our estate very +accurately, we took their word for it and paid damages. Afterwards +it turned out that there had been no mistake at the mowing. They +barked the lime-trees in our wood. One of the Dubetchnya peasants, +a regular shark, who did a trade in vodka without a licence, bribed +our labourers, and in collaboration with them cheated us in a most +treacherous way. They took the new wheels off our carts and replaced +them with old ones, stole our ploughing harness and actually sold +them to us, and so on. But what was most mortifying of all was what +happened at the building; the peasant women stole by night boards, +bricks, tiles, pieces of iron. The village elder with witnesses +made a search in their huts; the village meeting fined them two +roubles each, and afterwards this money was spent on drink by the +whole commune. + +When Masha heard about this, she would say to the doctor or my +sister indignantly: + +"What beasts! It's awful! awful!" + +And I heard her more than once express regret that she had ever +taken it into her head to build the school. + +"You must understand," the doctor tried to persuade her, "that if +you build this school and do good in general, it's not for the sake +of the peasants, but in the name of culture, in the name of the +future; and the worse the peasants are the more reason for building +the school. Understand that!" + +But there was a lack of conviction in his voice, and it seemed to +me that both he and Masha hated the peasants. + +Masha often went to the mill, taking my sister with her, and they +both said, laughing, that they went to have a look at Stepan, he +was so handsome. Stepan, it appeared, was torpid and taciturn only +with men; in feminine society his manners were free and easy, and +he talked incessantly. One day, going down to the river to bathe, +I accidentally overheard a conversation. Masha and Kleopatra, both +in white dresses, were sitting on the bank in the spreading shade +of a willow, and Stepan was standing by them with his hands behind +his back, and was saying: + +"Are peasants men? They are not men, but, asking your pardon, wild +beasts, impostors. What life has a peasant? Nothing but eating and +drinking; all he cares for is victuals to be cheaper and swilling +liquor at the tavern like a fool; and there's no conversation, no +manners, no formality, nothing but ignorance! He lives in filth, +his wife lives in filth, and his children live in filth. What he +stands up in, he lies down to sleep in; he picks the potatoes out +of the soup with his fingers; he drinks kvass with a cockroach in +it, and doesn't bother to blow it away!" + +"It's their poverty, of course," my sister put in. + +"Poverty? There is want to be sure, there's different sorts of want, +Madam. If a man is in prison, or let us say blind or crippled, that +really is trouble I wouldn't wish anyone, but if a man's free and +has all his senses, if he has his eyes and his hands and his strength +and God, what more does he want? It's cockering themselves, and +it's ignorance, Madam, it's not poverty. If you, let us suppose, +good gentlefolk, by your education, wish out of kindness to help +him he will drink away your money in his low way; or, what's worse, +he will open a drinkshop, and with your money start robbing the +people. You say poverty, but does the rich peasant live better? He, +too, asking your pardon, lives like a swine: coarse, loud-mouthed, +cudgel-headed, broader than he is long, fat, red-faced mug, I'd +like to swing my fist and send him flying, the scoundrel. There's +Larion, another rich one at Dubetchnya, and I bet he strips the +bark off your trees as much as any poor one; and he is a foul-mouthed +fellow; his children are the same, and when he has had a drop too +much he'll topple with his nose in a puddle and sleep there. They +are all a worthless lot, Madam. If you live in a village with them +it is like hell. It has stuck in my teeth, that village has, and +thank the Lord, the King of Heaven, I've plenty to eat and clothes +to wear, I served out my time in the dragoons, I was village elder +for three years, and now I am a free Cossack, I live where I like. +I don't want to live in the village, and no one has the right to +force me. They say--my wife. They say you are bound to live in +your cottage with your wife. But why so? I am not her hired man." + +"Tell me, Stepan, did you marry for love?" asked Masha. + +"Love among us in the village!" answered Stepan, and he gave a +laugh. "Properly speaking, Madam, if you care to know, this is my +second marriage. I am not a Kurilovka man, I am from Zalegoshtcho, +but afterwards I was taken into Kurilovka when I married. You see +my father did not want to divide the land among us. There were five +of us brothers. I took my leave and went to another village to live +with my wife's family, but my first wife died when she was young." + +"What did she die of?" + +"Of foolishness. She used to cry and cry and cry for no reason, and +so she pined away. She was always drinking some sort of herbs to +make her better looking, and I suppose she damaged her inside. And +my second wife is a Kurilovka woman too, there is nothing in her. +She's a village woman, a peasant woman, and nothing more. I was +taken in when they plighted me to her. I thought she was young and +fair-skinned, and that they lived in a clean way. Her mother was +just like a Flagellant and she drank coffee, and the chief thing, +to be sure, they were clean in their ways. So I married her, and +next day we sat down to dinner; I bade my mother-in-law give me a +spoon, and she gives me a spoon, and I see her wipe it out with her +finger. So much for you, thought I; nice sort of cleanliness yours +is. I lived a year with them and then I went away. I might have +married a girl from the town," he went on after a pause. "They say +a wife is a helpmate to her husband. What do I want with a helpmate? +I help myself; I'd rather she talked to me, and not clack, clack, +clack, but circumstantially, feelingly. What is life without good +conversation?" + +Stepan suddenly paused, and at once there was the sound of his +dreary, monotonous "oo-loo-loo-loo." This meant that he had seen +me. + +Masha used often to go to the mill, and evidently found pleasure +in her conversations with Stepan. Stepan abused the peasants with +such sincerity and conviction, and she was attracted to him. Every +time she came back from the mill the feeble-minded peasant, who +looked after the garden, shouted at her: + +"Wench Palashka! Hulla, wench Palashka!" and he would bark like a +dog: "Ga! Ga!" + +And she would stop and look at him attentively, as though in that +idiot's barking she found an answer to her thoughts, and probably +he attracted her in the same way as Stepan's abuse. At home some +piece of news would await her, such, for instance, as that the geese +from the village had ruined our cabbage in the garden, or that +Larion had stolen the reins; and shrugging her shoulders, she would +say with a laugh: + +"What do you expect of these people?" + +She was indignant, and there was rancour in her heart, and meanwhile +I was growing used to the peasants, and I felt more and more drawn +to them. For the most part they were nervous, irritable, downtrodden +people; they were people whose imagination had been stifled, ignorant, +with a poor, dingy outlook on life, whose thoughts were ever the +same--of the grey earth, of grey days, of black bread, people who +cheated, but like birds hiding nothing but their head behind the +tree--people who could not count. They would not come to mow for +us for twenty roubles, but they came for half a pail of vodka, +though for twenty roubles they could have bought four pails. There +really was filth and drunkenness and foolishness and deceit, but +with all that one yet felt that the life of the peasants rested on +a firm, sound foundation. However uncouth a wild animal the peasant +following the plough seemed, and however he might stupefy himself +with vodka, still, looking at him more closely, one felt that there +was in him what was needed, something very important, which was +lacking in Masha and in the doctor, for instance, and that was that +he believed the chief thing on earth was truth and justice, and +that his salvation, and that of the whole people, was only to be +found in truth and justice, and so more than anything in the world +he loved just dealing. I told my wife she saw the spots on the +glass, but not the glass itself; she said nothing in reply, or +hummed like Stepan "oo-loo-loo-loo." When this good-hearted and +clever woman turned pale with indignation, and with a quiver in her +voice spoke to the doctor of the drunkenness and dishonesty, it +perplexed me, and I was struck by the shortness of her memory. How +could she forget that her father the engineer drank too, and drank +heavily, and that the money with which Dubetchnya had been bought +had been acquired by a whole series of shameless, impudent dishonesties? +How could she forget it? + +XIV + +My sister, too, was leading a life of her own which she carefully +hid from me. She was often whispering with Masha. When I went up +to her she seemed to shrink into herself, and there was a guilty, +imploring look in her eyes; evidently there was something going on +in her heart of which she was afraid or ashamed. So as to avoid +meeting me in the garden, or being left alone with me, she always +kept close to Masha, and I rarely had an opportunity of talking to +her except at dinner. + +One evening I was walking quietly through the garden on my way back +from the building. It was beginning to get dark. Without noticing +me, or hearing my step, my sister was walking near a spreading old +apple-tree, absolutely noiselessly as though she were a phantom. +She was dressed in black, and was walking rapidly backwards and +forwards on the same track, looking at the ground. An apple fell +from the tree; she started at the sound, stood still and pressed +her hands to her temples. At that moment I went up to her. + +In a rush of tender affection which suddenly flooded my heart, with +tears in my eyes, suddenly remembering my mother and our childhood, +I put my arm round her shoulders and kissed her. + +"What is the matter?" I asked her. "You are unhappy; I have seen +it for a long time. Tell me what's wrong?" + +"I am frightened," she said, trembling. + +"What is it?" I insisted. "For God's sake, be open!" + +"I will, I will be open; I will tell you the whole truth. To hide +it from you is so hard, so agonizing. Misail, I love . . ." she +went on in a whisper, "I love him . . . I love him. . . . I am +happy, but why am I so frightened?" + +There was the sound of footsteps; between the trees appeared Dr. +Blagovo in his silk shirt with his high top boots. Evidently they +had arranged to meet near the apple-tree. Seeing him, she rushed +impulsively towards him with a cry of pain as though he were being +taken from her. + +"Vladimir! Vladimir!" + +She clung to him and looked greedily into his face, and only then +I noticed how pale and thin she had become of late. It was particularly +noticeable from her lace collar which I had known for so long, and +which now hung more loosely than ever before about her thin, long +neck. The doctor was disconcerted, but at once recovered himself, +and, stroking her hair, said: + +"There, there. . . . Why so nervous? You see, I'm here." + +We were silent, looking with embarrassment at each other, then we +walked on, the three of us together, and I heard the doctor say to +me: + +"Civilized life has not yet begun among us. Old men console themselves +by making out that if there is nothing now, there was something in +the forties or the sixties; that's the old: you and I are young; +our brains have not yet been touched by _marasmus senilis_; we +cannot comfort ourselves with such illusions. The beginning of +Russia was in 862, but the beginning of civilized Russia has not +come yet." + +But I did not grasp the meaning of these reflections. It was somehow +strange, I could not believe it, that my sister was in love, that +she was walking and holding the arm of a stranger and looking +tenderly at him. My sister, this nervous, frightened, crushed, +fettered creature, loved a man who was married and had children! I +felt sorry for something, but what exactly I don't know; the presence +of the doctor was for some reason distasteful to me now, and I could +not imagine what would come of this love of theirs. + +XV + +Masha and I drove to Kurilovka to the dedication of the school. + +"Autumn, autumn, autumn, . . ." said Masha softly, looking away. +"Summer is over. There are no birds and nothing is green but the +willows." + +Yes, summer was over. There were fine, warm days, but it was fresh +in the morning, and the shepherds went out in their sheepskins +already; and in our garden the dew did not dry off the asters all +day long. There were plaintive sounds all the time, and one could +not make out whether they came from the shutters creaking on their +rusty hinges, or from the flying cranes--and one's heart felt +light, and one was eager for life. + +"The summer is over," said Masha. "Now you and I can balance our +accounts. We have done a lot of work, a lot of thinking; we are the +better for it--all honour and glory to us--we have succeeded +in self-improvement; but have our successes had any perceptible +influence on the life around us, have they brought any benefit to +anyone whatever? No. Ignorance, physical uncleanliness, drunkenness, +an appallingly high infant mortality, everything remains as it was, +and no one is the better for your having ploughed and sown, and my +having wasted money and read books. Obviously we have been working +only for ourselves and have had advanced ideas only for ourselves." +Such reasonings perplexed me, and I did not know what to think. + +"We have been sincere from beginning to end," said I, "and if anyone +is sincere he is right." + +"Who disputes it? We were right, but we haven't succeeded in properly +accomplishing what we were right in. To begin with, our external +methods themselves--aren't they mistaken? You want to be of use +to men, but by the very fact of your buying an estate, from the +very start you cut yourself off from any possibility of doing +anything useful for them. Then if you work, dress, eat like a peasant +you sanctify, as it were, by your authority, their heavy, clumsy +dress, their horrible huts, their stupid beards. . . . On the other +hand, if we suppose that you work for long, long years, your whole +life, that in the end some practical results are obtained, yet what +are they, your results, what can they do against such elemental +forces as wholesale ignorance, hunger, cold, degeneration? A drop +in the ocean! Other methods of struggle are needed, strong, bold, +rapid! If one really wants to be of use one must get out of the +narrow circle of ordinary social work, and try to act direct upon +the mass! What is wanted, first of all, is a loud, energetic +propaganda. Why is it that art--music, for instance--is so +living, so popular, and in reality so powerful? Because the musician +or the singer affects thousands at once. Precious, precious art!" +she went on, looking dreamily at the sky. "Art gives us wings and +carries us far, far away! Anyone who is sick of filth, of petty, +mercenary interests, anyone who is revolted, wounded, and indignant, +can find peace and satisfaction only in the beautiful." + +When we drove into Kurilovka the weather was bright and joyous. +Somewhere they were threshing; there was a smell of rye straw. A +mountain ash was bright red behind the hurdle fences, and all the +trees wherever one looked were ruddy or golden. They were ringing +the bells, they were carrying the ikons to the school, and we could +hear them sing: "Holy Mother, our Defender," and how limpid the air +was, and how high the doves were flying. + +The service was being held in the classroom. Then the peasants of +Kurilovka brought Masha the ikon, and the peasants of Dubetchnya +offered her a big loaf and a gilt salt cellar. And Masha broke into +sobs. + +"If anything has been said that shouldn't have been or anything +done not to your liking, forgive us," said an old man, and he bowed +down to her and to me. + +As we drove home Masha kept looking round at the school; the green +roof, which I had painted, and which was glistening in the sun, +remained in sight for a long while. And I felt that the look Masha +turned upon it now was one of farewell. + +XVI + +In the evening she got ready to go to the town. Of late she had +taken to going often to the town and staying the night there. In +her absence I could not work, my hands felt weak and limp; our huge +courtyard seemed a dreary, repulsive, empty hole. The garden was +full of angry noises, and without her the house, the trees, the +horses were no longer "ours." + +I did not go out of the house, but went on sitting at her table +beside her bookshelf with the books on land work, those old favourites +no longer wanted and looking at me now so shamefacedly. For whole +hours together, while it struck seven, eight, nine, while the autumn +night, black as soot, came on outside, I kept examining her old +glove, or the pen with which she always wrote, or her little scissors. +I did nothing, and realized clearly that all I had done before, +ploughing, mowing, chopping, had only been because she wished it. +And if she had sent me to clean a deep well, where I had to stand +up to my waist in deep water, I should have crawled into the well +without considering whether it was necessary or not. And now when +she was not near, Dubetchnya, with its ruins, its untidiness, its +banging shutters, with its thieves by day and by night, seemed to +me a chaos in which any work would be useless. Besides, what had I +to work for here, why anxiety and thought about the future, if I +felt that the earth was giving way under my feet, that I had played +my part in Dubetchnya, and that the fate of the books on farming +was awaiting me too? Oh, what misery it was at night, in hours of +solitude, when I was listening every minute in alarm, as though I +were expecting someone to shout that it was time for me to go away! +I did not grieve for Dubetchnya. I grieved for my love which, too, +was threatened with its autumn. What an immense happiness it is to +love and be loved, and how awful to feel that one is slipping down +from that high pinnacle! + +Masha returned from the town towards the evening of the next day. +She was displeased with something, but she concealed it, and only +said, why was it all the window frames had been put in for the +winter it was enough to suffocate one. I took out two frames. We +were not hungry, but we sat down to supper. + +"Go and wash your hands," said my wife; "you smell of putty." + +She had brought some new illustrated papers from the town, and we +looked at them together after supper. There were supplements with +fashion plates and patterns. Masha looked through them casually, +and was putting them aside to examine them properly later on; but +one dress, with a flat skirt as full as a bell and large sleeves, +interested her, and she looked at it for a minute gravely and +attentively. + +"That's not bad," she said. + +"Yes, that dress would suit you beautifully," I said, "beautifully." + +And looking with emotion at the dress, admiring that patch of grey +simply because she liked it, I went on tenderly: + +"A charming, exquisite dress! Splendid, glorious, Masha! My precious +Masha!" + +And tears dropped on the fashion plate. + +"Splendid Masha . . ." I muttered; "sweet, precious Masha. . . ." + +She went to bed, while I sat another hour looking at the illustrations. + +"It's a pity you took out the window frames," she said from the +bedroom, "I am afraid it may be cold. Oh, dear, what a draught there +is!" + +I read something out of the column of odds and ends, a receipt for +making cheap ink, and an account of the biggest diamond in the +world. I came again upon the fashion plate of the dress she liked, +and I imagined her at a ball, with a fan, bare shoulders, brilliant, +splendid, with a full understanding of painting, music, literature, +and how small and how brief my part seemed! + +Our meeting, our marriage, had been only one of the episodes of +which there would be many more in the life of this vital, richly +gifted woman. All the best in the world, as I have said already, +was at her service, and she received it absolutely for nothing, and +even ideas and the intellectual movement in vogue served simply for +her recreation, giving variety to her life, and I was only the +sledge-driver who drove her from one entertainment to another. Now +she did not need me. She would take flight, and I should be alone. + +And as though in response to my thought, there came a despairing +scream from the garden. + +"He-e-elp!" + +It was a shrill, womanish voice, and as though to mimic it the wind +whistled in the chimney on the same shrill note. Half a minute +passed, and again through the noise of the wind, but coming, it +seemed, from the other end of the yard: + +"He-e-elp!" + +"Misail, do you hear?" my wife asked me softly. "Do you hear?" + +She came out from the bedroom in her nightgown, with her hair down, +and listened, looking at the dark window. + +"Someone is being murdered," she said. "That is the last straw." + +I took my gun and went out. It was very dark outside, the wind was +high, and it was difficult to stand. I went to the gate and listened, +the trees roared, the wind whistled and, probably at the feeble-minded +peasant's, a dog howled lazily. Outside the gates the darkness was +absolute, not a light on the railway-line. And near the lodge, which +a year before had been the office, suddenly sounded a smothered +scream: + +"He-e-elp!" + +"Who's there?" I called. + +There were two people struggling. One was thrusting the other out, +while the other was resisting, and both were breathing heavily. + +"Leave go," said one, and I recognized Ivan Tcheprakov; it was he +who was shrieking in a shrill, womanish voice: "Let go, you damned +brute, or I'll bite your hand off." + +The other I recognized as Moisey. I separated them, and as I did +so I could not resist hitting Moisey two blows in the face. He fell +down, then got up again, and I hit him once more. + +"He tried to kill me," he muttered. "He was trying to get at his +mamma's chest. . . . I want to lock him up in the lodge for security." + +Tcheprakov was drunk and did not recognize me; he kept drawing deep +breaths, as though he were just going to shout "help" again. + +I left them and went back to the house; my wife was lying on her +bed; she had dressed. I told her what had happened in the yard, and +did not conceal the fact that I had hit Moisey. + +"It's terrible to live in the country," she said. + +"And what a long night it is. Oh dear, if only it were over!" + +"He-e-elp!" we heard again, a little later. + +"I'll go and stop them," I said. + +"No, let them bite each other's throats," she said with an expression +of disgust. + +She was looking up at the ceiling, listening, while I sat beside +her, not daring to speak to her, feeling as though I were to blame +for their shouting "help" in the yard and for the night's seeming +so long. + +We were silent, and I waited impatiently for a gleam of light at +the window, and Masha looked all the time as though she had awakened +from a trance and now was marvelling how she, so clever, and +well-educated, so elegant, had come into this pitiful, provincial, +empty hole among a crew of petty, insignificant people, and how she +could have so far forgotten herself as ever to be attracted by one +of these people, and for more than six months to have been his wife. +It seemed to me that at that moment it did not matter to her whether +it was I, or Moisey, or Tcheprakov; everything for her was merged +in that savage drunken "help"--I and our marriage, and our work +together, and the mud and slush of autumn, and when she sighed or +moved into a more comfortable position I read in her face: "Oh, +that morning would come quickly!" + +In the morning she went away. I spent another three days at Dubetchnya +expecting her, then I packed all our things in one room, locked it, +and walked to the town. It was already evening when I rang at the +engineer's, and the street lamps were burning in Great Dvoryansky +Street. Pavel told me there was no one at home; Viktor Ivanitch had +gone to Petersburg, and Mariya Viktorovna was probably at the +rehearsal at the Azhogins'. I remember with what emotion I went on +to the Azhogins', how my heart throbbed and fluttered as I mounted +the stairs, and stood waiting a long while on the landing at the +top, not daring to enter that temple of the muses! In the big room +there were lighted candles everywhere, on a little table, on the +piano, and on the stage, everywhere in threes; and the first +performance was fixed for the thirteenth, and now the first rehearsal +was on a Monday, an unlucky day. All part of the war against +superstition! All the devotees of the scenic art were gathered +together; the eldest, the middle, and the youngest sisters were +walking about the stage, reading their parts in exercise books. +Apart from all the rest stood Radish, motionless, with the side of +his head pressed to the wall as he gazed with adoration at the +stage, waiting for the rehearsal to begin. Everything as it used +to be. + +I was making my way to my hostess; I had to pay my respects to her, +but suddenly everyone said "Hush!" and waved me to step quietly. +There was a silence. The lid of the piano was raised; a lady sat +down at it screwing up her short-sighted eyes at the music, and my +Masha walked up to the piano, in a low-necked dress, looking +beautiful, but with a special, new sort of beauty not in the least +like the Masha who used to come and meet me in the spring at the +mill. She sang: "Why do I love the radiant night?" + +It was the first time during our whole acquaintance that I had heard +her sing. She had a fine, mellow, powerful voice, and while she +sang I felt as though I were eating a ripe, sweet, fragrant melon. +She ended, the audience applauded, and she smiled, very much pleased, +making play with her eyes, turning over the music, smoothing her +skirts, like a bird that has at last broken out of its cage and +preens its wings in freedom. Her hair was arranged over her ears, +and she had an unpleasant, defiant expression in her face, as though +she wanted to throw down a challenge to us all, or to shout to us +as she did to her horses: "Hey, there, my beauties!" + +And she must at that moment have been very much like her grandfather +the sledge-driver. + +"You here too?" she said, giving me her hand. "Did you hear me sing? +Well, what did you think of it?" and without waiting for my answer +she went on: "It's a very good thing you are here. I am going +to-night to Petersburg for a short time. You'll let me go, won't +you?" + +At midnight I went with her to the station. She embraced me +affectionately, probably feeling grateful to me for not asking +unnecessary questions, and she promised to write to me, and I held +her hands a long time, and kissed them, hardly able to restrain my +tears and not uttering a word. + +And when she had gone I stood watching the retreating lights, +caressing her in imagination and softly murmuring: + +"My darling Masha, glorious Masha. . . ." + +I spent the night at Karpovna's, and next morning I was at work +with Radish, re-covering the furniture of a rich merchant who was +marrying his daughter to a doctor. + +XVII + +My sister came after dinner on Sunday and had tea with me. + +"I read a great deal now," she said, showing me the books which she +had fetched from the public library on her way to me. "Thanks to +your wife and to Vladimir, they have awakened me to self-realization. +They have been my salvation; they have made me feel myself a human +being. In old days I used to lie awake at night with worries of all +sorts, thinking what a lot of sugar we had used in the week, or +hoping the cucumbers would not be too salt. And now, too, I lie +awake at night, but I have different thoughts. I am distressed that +half my life has been passed in such a foolish, cowardly way. I +despise my past; I am ashamed of it. And I look upon our father now +as my enemy. Oh, how grateful I am to your wife! And Vladimir! He +is such a wonderful person! They have opened my eyes!" + +"That's bad that you don't sleep at night," I said. + +"Do you think I am ill? Not at all. Vladimir sounded me, and said +I was perfectly well. But health is not what matters, it is not so +important. Tell me: am I right?" + +She needed moral support, that was obvious. Masha had gone away. +Dr. Blagovo was in Petersburg, and there was no one left in the +town but me, to tell her she was right. She looked intently into +my face, trying to read my secret thoughts, and if I were absorbed +or silent in her presence she thought this was on her account, and +was grieved. I always had to be on my guard, and when she asked me +whether she was right I hastened to assure her that she was right, +and that I had a deep respect for her. + +"Do you know they have given me a part at the Azhogins'?" she went +on. "I want to act on the stage, I want to live--in fact, I mean +to drain the full cup. I have no talent, none, and the part is only +ten lines, but still this is immeasurably finer and loftier than +pouring out tea five times a day, and looking to see if the cook +has eaten too much. Above all, let my father see I am capable of +protest." + +After tea she lay down on my bed, and lay for a little while with +her eyes closed, looking very pale. + +"What weakness," she said, getting up. "Vladimir says all city-bred +women and girls are anaemic from doing nothing. What a clever man +Vladimir is! He is right, absolutely right. We must work!" + +Two days later she came to the Azhogins' with her manuscript for +the rehearsal. She was wearing a black dress with a string of coral +round her neck, and a brooch that in the distance was like a pastry +puff, and in her ears earrings sparkling with brilliants. When I +looked at her I felt uncomfortable. I was struck by her lack of +taste. That she had very inappropriately put on earrings and +brilliants, and that she was strangely dressed, was remarked by +other people too; I saw smiles on people's faces, and heard someone +say with a laugh: "Kleopatra of Egypt." + +She was trying to assume society manners, to be unconstrained and +at her ease, and so seemed artificial and strange. She had lost +simplicity and sweetness. + +"I told father just now that I was going to the rehearsal," she +began, coming up to me, "and he shouted that he would not give me +his blessing, and actually almost struck me. Only fancy, I don't +know my part," she said, looking at her manuscript. "I am sure to +make a mess of it. So be it, the die is cast," she went on in intense +excitement. "The die is cast. . . ." + +It seemed to her that everyone was looking at her, and that all +were amazed at the momentous step she had taken, that everyone was +expecting something special of her, and it would have been impossible +to convince her that no one was paying attention to people so petty +and insignificant as she and I were. + +She had nothing to do till the third act, and her part, that of a +visitor, a provincial crony, consisted only in standing at the door +as though listening, and then delivering a brief monologue. In the +interval before her appearance, an hour and a half at least, while +they were moving about on the stage reading their parts, drinking +tea and arguing, she did not leave my side, and was all the time +muttering her part and nervously crumpling up the manuscript. And +imagining that everyone was looking at her and waiting for her +appearance, with a trembling hand she smoothed back her hair and +said to me: + +"I shall certainly make a mess of it. . . . What a load on my heart, +if only you knew! I feel frightened, as though I were just going +to be led to execution." + +At last her turn came. + +"Kleopatra Alexyevna, it's your cue!" said the stage manager. + +She came forward into the middle of the stage with an expression +of horror on her face, looking ugly and angular, and for half a +minute stood as though in a trance, perfectly motionless, and only +her big earrings shook in her ears. + +"The first time you can read it," said someone. + +It was clear to me that she was trembling, and trembling so much +that she could not speak, and could not unfold her manuscript, and +that she was incapable of acting her part; and I was already on the +point of going to her and saying something, when she suddenly dropped +on her knees in the middle of the stage and broke into loud sobs. + +All was commotion and hubbub. I alone stood still, leaning against +the side scene, overwhelmed by what had happened, not understanding +and not knowing what to do. I saw them lift her up and lead her +away. I saw Anyuta Blagovo come up to me; I had not seen her in the +room before, and she seemed to have sprung out of the earth. She +was wearing her hat and veil, and, as always, had an air of having +come only for a moment. + +"I told her not to take a part," she said angrily, jerking out each +word abruptly and turning crimson. "It's insanity! You ought to +have prevented her!" + +Madame Azhogin, in a short jacket with short sleeves, with cigarette +ash on her breast, looking thin and flat, came rapidly towards me. + +"My dear, this is terrible," she brought out, wringing her hands, +and, as her habit was, looking intently into my face. "This is +terrible! Your sister is in a condition. . . . She is with child. +Take her away, I implore you. . . ." + +She was breathless with agitation, while on one side stood her three +daughters, exactly like her, thin and flat, huddling together in a +scared way. They were alarmed, overwhelmed, as though a convict had +been caught in their house. What a disgrace, how dreadful! And yet +this estimable family had spent its life waging war on superstition; +evidently they imagined that all the superstition and error of +humanity was limited to the three candles, the thirteenth of the +month, and to the unluckiness of Monday! + +"I beg you. . . I beg," repeated Madame Azhogin, pursing up her +lips in the shape of a heart on the syllable "you." "I beg you to +take her home." + +XVIII + +A little later my sister and I were walking along the street. I +covered her with the skirts of my coat; we hastened, choosing back +streets where there were no street lamps, avoiding passers-by; it +was as though we were running away. She was no longer crying, but +looked at me with dry eyes. To Karpovna's, where I took her, it was +only twenty minutes' walk, and, strange to say, in that short time +we succeeded in thinking of our whole life; we talked over everything, +considered our position, reflected. . . . + +We decided we could not go on living in this town, and that when I +had earned a little money we would move to some other place. In +some houses everyone was asleep, in others they were playing cards; +we hated these houses; we were afraid of them. We talked of the +fanaticism, the coarseness of feeling, the insignificance of these +respectable families, these amateurs of dramatic art whom we had +so alarmed, and I kept asking in what way these stupid, cruel, lazy, +and dishonest people were superior to the drunken and superstitious +peasants of Kurilovka, or in what way they were better than animals, +who in the same way are thrown into a panic when some incident +disturbs the monotony of their life limited by their instincts. +What would have happened to my sister now if she had been left to +live at home? + +What moral agonies would she have experienced, talking with my +father, meeting every day with acquaintances? I imagined this to +myself, and at once there came into my mind people, all people I +knew, who had been slowly done to death by their nearest relations. +I remembered the tortured dogs, driven mad, the live sparrows plucked +naked by boys and flung into the water, and a long, long series of +obscure lingering miseries which I had looked on continually from +early childhood in that town; and I could not understand what these +sixty thousand people lived for, what they read the gospel for, why +they prayed, why they read books and magazines. What good had they +gained from all that had been said and written hitherto if they +were still possessed by the same spiritual darkness and hatred of +liberty, as they were a hundred and three hundred years ago? A +master carpenter spends his whole life building houses in the town, +and always, to the day of his death, calls a "gallery" a "galdery." +So these sixty thousand people have been reading and hearing of +truth, of justice, of mercy, of freedom for generations, and yet +from morning till night, till the day of their death, they are +lying, and tormenting each other, and they fear liberty and hate +it as a deadly foe. + +"And so my fate is decided," said my sister, as we arrived home. +"After what has happened I cannot go back _there_. Heavens, how +good that is! My heart feels lighter." + +She went to bed at once. Tears were glittering on her eyelashes, +but her expression was happy; she fell into a sound sweet sleep, +and one could see that her heart was lighter and that she was +resting. It was a long, long time since she had slept like that. + +And so we began our life together. She was always singing and saying +that her life was very happy, and the books I brought her from the +public library I took back unread, as now she could not read; she +wanted to do nothing but dream and talk of the future, mending my +linen, or helping Karpovna near the stove; she was always singing, +or talking of her Vladimir, of his cleverness, of his charming +manners, of his kindness, of his extraordinary learning, and I +assented to all she said, though by now I disliked her doctor. She +wanted to work, to lead an independent life on her own account, and +she used to say that she would become a school-teacher or a doctor' +s assistant as soon as her health would permit her, and would herself +do the scrubbing and the washing. Already she was passionately +devoted to her child; he was not yet born, but she knew already the +colour of his eyes, what his hands would be like, and how he would +laugh. She was fond of talking about education, and as her Vladimir +was the best man in the world, all her discussion of education could +be summed up in the question how to make the boy as fascinating as +his father. There was no end to her talk, and everything she said +made her intensely joyful. Sometimes I was delighted, too, though +I could not have said why. + +I suppose her dreaminess infected me. I, too, gave up reading, and +did nothing but dream. In the evenings, in spite of my fatigue, I +walked up and down the room, with my hands in my pockets, talking +of Masha. + +"What do you think?" I would ask of my sister. "When will she come +back? I think she'll come back at Christmas, not later; what has +she to do there?" + +"As she doesn't write to you, it's evident she will come back very +soon. + +"That's true," I assented, though I knew perfectly well that Masha +would not return to our town. + +I missed her fearfully, and could no longer deceive myself, and +tried to get other people to deceive me. My sister was expecting +her doctor, and I--Masha; and both of us talked incessantly, +laughed, and did not notice that we were preventing Karpovna from +sleeping. She lay on the stove and kept muttering: + +"The samovar hummed this morning, it did hum! Oh, it bodes no good, +my dears, it bodes no good!" + +No one ever came to see us but the postman, who brought my sister +letters from the doctor, and Prokofy, who sometimes came in to see +us in the evening, and after looking at my sister without speaking +went away, and when he was in the kitchen said: + +"Every class ought to remember its rules, and anyone, who is so +proud that he won't understand that, will find it a vale of tears." + +He was very fond of the phrase "a vale of tears." One day--it was +in Christmas week, when I was walking by the bazaar--he called +me into the butcher's shop, and not shaking hands with me, announced +that he had to speak to me about something very important. His face +was red from the frost and vodka; near him, behind the counter, +stood Nikolka, with the expression of a brigand, holding a bloodstained +knife in his hand. + +"I desire to express my word to you," Prokofy began. "This incident +cannot continue, because, as you understand yourself that for such +a vale, people will say nothing good of you or of us. Mamma, through +pity, cannot say something unpleasant to you, that your sister +should move into another lodging on account of her condition, but +I won't have it any more, because I can't approve of her behaviour." + +I understood him, and I went out of the shop. The same day my sister +and I moved to Radish's. We had no money for a cab, and we walked +on foot; I carried a parcel of our belongings on my back; my sister +had nothing in her hands, but she gasped for breath and coughed, +and kept asking whether we should get there soon. + +XIX + +At last a letter came from Masha. + +"Dear, good M. A." (she wrote), "our kind, gentle 'angel' as the +old painter calls you, farewell; I am going with my father to America +for the exhibition. In a few days I shall see the ocean--so far +from Dubetchnya, it's dreadful to think! It's far and unfathomable +as the sky, and I long to be there in freedom. I am triumphant, I +am mad, and you see how incoherent my letter is. Dear, good one, +give me my freedom, make haste to break the thread, which still +holds, binding you and me together. My meeting and knowing you was +a ray from heaven that lighted up my existence; but my becoming +your wife was a mistake, you understand that, and I am oppressed +now by the consciousness of the mistake, and I beseech you, on my +knees, my generous friend, quickly, quickly, before I start for the +ocean, telegraph that you consent to correct our common mistake, +to remove the solitary stone from my wings, and my father, who will +undertake all the arrangements, promised me not to burden you too +much with formalities. And so I am free to fly whither I will? Yes? + +"Be happy, and God bless you; forgive me, a sinner. + +"I am well, I am wasting money, doing all sorts of silly things, +and I thank God every minute that such a bad woman as I has no +children. I sing and have success, but it's not an infatuation; no, +it's my haven, my cell to which I go for peace. King David had a +ring with an inscription on it: 'All things pass.' When one is sad +those words make one cheerful, and when one is cheerful it makes +one sad. I have got myself a ring like that with Hebrew letters on +it, and this talisman keeps me from infatuations. All things pass, +life will pass, one wants nothing. Or at least one wants nothing +but the sense of freedom, for when anyone is free, he wants nothing, +nothing, nothing. Break the thread. A warm hug to you and your +sister. Forgive and forget your M." + +My sister used to lie down in one room, and Radish, who had been +ill again and was now better, in another. Just at the moment when +I received this letter my sister went softly into the painter's +room, sat down beside him and began reading aloud. She read to him +every day, Ostrovsky or Gogol, and he listened, staring at one +point, not laughing, but shaking his head and muttering to himself +from time to time: + +"Anything may happen! Anything may happen!" + +If anything ugly or unseemly were depicted in the play he would say +as though vindictively, thrusting his finger into the book: + +"There it is, lying! That's what it does, lying does." + +The plays fascinated him, both from their subjects and their moral, +and from their skilful, complex construction, and he marvelled at +"him," never calling the author by his name. How neatly _he_ has +put it all together. + +This time my sister read softly only one page, and could read no +more: her voice would not last out. Radish took her hand and, moving +his parched lips, said, hardly audibly, in a husky voice: + +"The soul of a righteous man is white and smooth as chalk, but the +soul of a sinful man is like pumice stone. The soul of a righteous +man is like clear oil, but the soul of a sinful man is gas tar. We +must labour, we must sorrow, we must suffer sickness," he went on, +"and he who does not labour and sorrow will not gain the Kingdom +of Heaven. Woe, woe to them that are well fed, woe to the mighty, +woe to the rich, woe to the moneylenders! Not for them is the Kingdom +of Heaven. Lice eat grass, rust eats iron. . ." + +"And lying the soul," my sister added laughing. I read the letter +through once more. At that moment there walked into the kitchen a +soldier who had been bringing us twice a week parcels of tea, French +bread and game, which smelt of scent, from some unknown giver. I +had no work. I had had to sit at home idle for whole days together, +and probably whoever sent us the French bread knew that we were in +want. + +I heard my sister talking to the soldier and laughing gaily. Then, +lying down, she ate some French bread and said to me: + +"When you wouldn't go into the service, but became a house painter, +Anyuta Blagovo and I knew from the beginning that you were right, +but we were frightened to say so aloud. Tell me what force is it +that hinders us from saying what one thinks? Take Anyuta Blagovo +now, for instance. She loves you, she adores you, she knows you are +right, she loves me too, like a sister, and knows that I am right, +and I daresay in her soul envies me, but some force prevents her +from coming to see us, she shuns us, she is afraid." + +My sister crossed her arms over her breast, and said passionately: + +"How she loves you, if only you knew! She has confessed her love +to no one but me, and then very secretly in the dark. She led me +into a dark avenue in the garden, and began whispering how precious +you were to her. You will see, she'll never marry, because she loves +you. Are you sorry for her?" + +"Yes." + +"It's she who has sent the bread. She is absurd really, what is the +use of being so secret? I used to be absurd and foolish, but now I +have got away from that and am afraid of nobody. I think and say +aloud what I like, and am happy. When I lived at home I hadn't a +conception of happiness, and now I wouldn't change with a queen." + +Dr. Blagovo arrived. He had taken his doctor's degree, and was now +staying in our town with his father; he was taking a rest, and said +that he would soon go back to Petersburg again. He wanted to study +anti-toxins against typhus, and, I believe, cholera; he wanted to +go abroad to perfect his training, and then to be appointed a +professor. He had already left the army service, and wore a roomy +serge reefer jacket, very full trousers, and magnificent neckties. +My sister was in ecstasies over his scarfpin, his studs, and the +red silk handkerchief which he wore, I suppose from foppishness, +sticking out of the breast pocket of his jacket. One day, having +nothing to do, she and I counted up all the suits we remembered him +wearing, and came to the conclusion that he had at least ten. It +was clear that he still loved my sister as before, but he never +once even in jest spoke of taking her with him to Petersburg or +abroad, and I could not picture to myself clearly what would become +of her if she remained alive and what would become of her child. +She did nothing but dream endlessly, and never thought seriously +of the future; she said he might go where he liked, and might abandon +her even, so long as he was happy himself; that what had been was +enough for her. + +As a rule he used to sound her very carefully on his arrival, and +used to insist on her taking milk and drops in his presence. It was +the same on this occasion. He sounded her and made her drink a glass +of milk, and there was a smell of creosote in our room afterwards. + +"That's a good girl," he said, taking the glass from her. "You +mustn't talk too much now; you've taken to chattering like a magpie +of late. Please hold your tongue." + +She laughed. Then he came into Radish's room where I was sitting +and affectionately slapped me on the shoulder. + +"Well, how goes it, old man?" he said, bending down to the invalid. + +"Your honour," said Radish, moving his lips slowly, "your honour, +I venture to submit. . . . We all walk in the fear of God, we all +have to die. . . . Permit me to tell you the truth. . . . Your +honour, the Kingdom of Heaven will not be for you!" + +"There's no help for it," the doctor said jestingly; "there must +be somebody in hell, you know." + +And all at once something happened with my consciousness; as though +I were in a dream, as though I were standing on a winter night in +the slaughterhouse yard, and Prokofy beside me, smelling of pepper +cordial; I made an effort to control myself, and rubbed my eyes, +and at once it seemed to me that I was going along the road to the +interview with the Governor. Nothing of the sort had happened to +me before, or has happened to me since, and these strange memories +that were like dreams, I ascribed to overexhaustion of my nerves. +I lived through the scene at the slaughterhouse, and the interview +with the Governor, and at the same time was dimly aware that it was +not real. + +When I came to myself I saw that I was no longer in the house, but +in the street, and was standing with the doctor near a lamp-post. + +"It's sad, it's sad," he was saying, and tears were trickling down +his cheeks. "She is in good spirits, she's always laughing and +hopeful, but her position's hopeless, dear boy. Your Radish hates +me, and is always trying to make me feel that I have treated her +badly. He is right from his standpoint, but I have my point of view +too; and I shall never regret all that has happened. One must love; +we ought all to love--oughtn't we? There would be no life without +love; anyone who fears and avoids love is not free." + +Little by little he passed to other subjects, began talking of +science, of his dissertation which had been liked in Petersburg. +He was carried away by his subject, and no longer thought of my +sister, nor of his grief, nor of me. Life was of absorbing interest +to him. She has America and her ring with the inscription on it, I +thought, while this fellow has his doctor's degree and a professor's +chair to look forward to, and only my sister and I are left with +the old things. + +When I said good-bye to him, I went up to the lamp-post and read +the letter once more. And I remembered, I remembered vividly how +that spring morning she had come to me at the mill, lain down and +covered herself with her jacket--she wanted to be like a simple +peasant woman. And how, another time--it was in the morning also +--we drew the net out of the water, and heavy drops of rain fell +upon us from the riverside willows, and we laughed. + +It was dark in our house in Great Dvoryansky Street. I got over the +fence and, as I used to do in the old days, went by the back way +to the kitchen to borrow a lantern. There was no one in the kitchen. +The samovar hissed near the stove, waiting for my father. "Who pours +out my father's tea now?" I thought. Taking the lantern I went out +to the shed, built myself up a bed of old newspapers and lay down. +The hooks on the walls looked forbidding, as they used to of old, +and their shadows flickered. It was cold. I felt that my sister +would come in in a minute, and bring me supper, but at once I +remembered that she was ill and was lying at Radish's, and it seemed +to me strange that I should have climbed over the fence and be lying +here in this unheated shed. My mind was in a maze, and I saw all +sorts of absurd things. + +There was a ring. A ring familiar from childhood: first the wire +rustled against the wall, then a short plaintive ring in the kitchen. +It was my father come back from the club. I got up and went into +the kitchen. Axinya the cook clasped her hands on seeing me, and +for some reason burst into tears. + +"My own!" she said softly. "My precious! O Lord!" + +And she began crumpling up her apron in her agitation. In the window +there were standing jars of berries in vodka. I poured myself out +a teacupful and greedily drank it off, for I was intensely thirsty. +Axinya had quite recently scrubbed the table and benches, and there +was that smell in the kitchen which is found in bright, snug kitchens +kept by tidy cooks. And that smell and the chirp of the cricket +used to lure us as children into the kitchen, and put us in the +mood for hearing fairy tales and playing at "Kings" . . . + +"Where's Kleopatra?" Axinya asked softly, in a fluster, holding her +breath; "and where is your cap, my dear? Your wife, you say, has +gone to Petersburg?" + +She had been our servant in our mother's time, and used once to +give Kleopatra and me our baths, and to her we were still children +who had to be talked to for their good. For a quarter of an hour +or so she laid before me all the reflections which she had with the +sagacity of an old servant been accumulating in the stillness of +that kitchen, all the time since we had seen each other. She said +that the doctor could be forced to marry Kleopatra; he only needed +to be thoroughly frightened; and that if an appeal were promptly +written the bishop would annul the first marriage; that it would +be a good thing for me to sell Dubetchnya without my wife's knowledge, +and put the money in the bank in my own name; that if my sister and +I were to bow down at my father's feet and ask him properly, he +might perhaps forgive us; that we ought to have a service sung to +the Queen of Heaven. . . . + +"Come, go along, my dear, and speak to him," she said, when she +heard my father's cough. "Go along, speak to him; bow down, your +head won't drop off." + +I went in. My father was sitting at the table sketching a plan of +a summer villa, with Gothic windows, and with a fat turret like a +fireman's watch tower--something peculiarly stiff and tasteless. +Going into the study I stood still where I could see this drawing. +I did not know why I had gone in to my father, but I remember that +when I saw his lean face, his red neck, and his shadow on the wall, +I wanted to throw myself on his neck, and as Axinya had told me, +bow down at his feet; but the sight of the summer villa with the +Gothic windows, and the fat turret, restrained me. + +"Good evening," I said. + +He glanced at me, and at once dropped his eyes on his drawing. + +"What do you want?" he asked, after waiting a little. + +"I have come to tell you my sister's very ill. She can't live very +long," I added in a hollow voice. + +"Well," sighed my father, taking off his spectacles, and laying +them on the table. "What thou sowest that shalt thou reap. What +thou sowest," he repeated, getting up from the table, "that shalt +thou reap. I ask you to remember how you came to me two years ago, +and on this very spot I begged you, I besought you to give up your +errors; I reminded you of your duty, of your honour, of what you +owed to your forefathers whose traditions we ought to preserve as +sacred. Did you obey me? You scorned my counsels, and obstinately +persisted in clinging to your false ideals; worse still you drew +your sister into the path of error with you, and led her to lose +her moral principles and sense of shame. Now you are both in a bad +way. Well, as thou sowest, so shalt thou reap!" + +As he said this he walked up and down the room. He probably imagined +that I had come to him to confess my wrong doings, and he probably +expected that I should begin begging him to forgive my sister and +me. I was cold, I was shivering as though I were in a fever, and +spoke with difficulty in a husky voice. + +"And I beg you, too, to remember," I said, "on this very spot I +besought you to understand me, to reflect, to decide with me how +and for what we should live, and in answer you began talking about +our forefathers, about my grandfather who wrote poems. One tells +you now that your only daughter is hopelessly ill, and you go on +again about your forefathers, your traditions. . . . And such +frivolity in your old age, when death is close at hand, and you +haven't more than five or ten years left!" + +"What have you come here for?" my father asked sternly, evidently +offended at my reproaching him for his frivolity. + +"I don't know. I love you, I am unutterably sorry that we are so +far apart--so you see I have come. I love you still, but my sister +has broken with you completely. She does not forgive you, and will +never forgive you now. Your very name arouses her aversion for the +past, for life." + +"And who is to blame for it?" cried my father. "It's your fault, +you scoundrel!" + +"Well, suppose it is my fault?" I said. "I admit I have been to +blame in many things, but why is it that this life of yours, which +you think binding upon us, too--why is it so dreary, so barren? +How is it that in not one of these houses you have been building +for the last thirty years has there been anyone from whom I might +have learnt how to live, so as not to be to blame? There is not one +honest man in the whole town! These houses of yours are nests of +damnation, where mothers and daughters are made away with, where +children are tortured. . . . My poor mother!" I went on in despair. +"My poor sister! One has to stupefy oneself with vodka, with cards, +with scandal; one must become a scoundrel, a hypocrite, or go on +drawing plans for years and years, so as not to notice all the +horrors that lie hidden in these houses. Our town has existed for +hundreds of years, and all that time it has not produced one man +of service to our country--not one. You have stifled in the germ +everything in the least living and bright. It's a town of shopkeepers, +publicans, counting-house clerks, canting hypocrites; it's a useless, +unnecessary town, which not one soul would regret if it suddenly +sank through the earth." + +"I don't want to listen to you, you scoundrel!" said my father, and +he took up his ruler from the table. "You are drunk. Don't dare +come and see your father in such a state! I tell you for the last +time, and you can repeat it to your depraved sister, that you'll +get nothing from me, either of you. I have torn my disobedient +children out of my heart, and if they suffer for their disobedience +and obstinacy I do not pity them. You can go whence you came. It +has pleased God to chastise me with you, but I will bear the trial +with resignation, and, like Job, I will find consolation in my +sufferings and in unremitting labour. You must not cross my threshold +till you have mended your ways. I am a just man, all I tell you is +for your benefit, and if you desire your own good you ought to +remember all your life what I say and have said to you. . . ." + +I waved my hand in despair and went away. I don't remember what +happened afterwards, that night and next day. + +I am told that I walked about the streets bareheaded, staggering, +and singing aloud, while a crowd of boys ran after me, shouting: + +"Better-than-nothing!" + +XX + +If I wanted to order a ring for myself, the inscription I should +choose would be: "Nothing passes away." I believe that nothing +passes away without leaving a trace, and that every step we take, +however small, has significance for our present and our future +existence. + +What I have been through has not been for nothing. My great troubles, +my patience, have touched people's hearts, and now they don't call +me "Better-than-nothing," they don't laugh at me, and when I walk +by the shops they don't throw water over me. They have grown used +to my being a workman, and see nothing strange in my carrying a +pail of paint and putting in windows, though I am of noble rank; +on the contrary, people are glad to give me orders, and I am now +considered a first-rate workman, and the best foreman after Radish, +who, though he has regained his health, and though, as before, he +paints the cupola on the belfry without scaffolding, has no longer +the force to control the workmen; instead of him I now run about +the town looking for work, I engage the workmen and pay them, borrow +money at a high rate of interest, and now that I myself am a +contractor, I understand how it is that one may have to waste three +days racing about the town in search of tilers on account of some +twopenny-halfpenny job. People are civil to me, they address me +politely, and in the houses where I work, they offer me tea, and +send to enquire whether I wouldn't like dinner. Children and young +girls often come and look at me with curiosity and compassion. + +One day I was working in the Governor's garden, painting an arbour +there to look like marble. The Governor, walking in the garden, +came up to the arbour and, having nothing to do, entered into +conversation with me, and I reminded him how he had once summoned +me to an interview with him. He looked into my face intently for a +minute, then made his mouth like a round "O," flung up his hands, +and said: "I don't remember!" + +I have grown older, have become silent, stern, and austere, I rarely +laugh, and I am told that I have grown like Radish, and that like +him I bore the workmen by my useless exhortations. + +Mariya Viktorovna, my former wife, is living now abroad, while her +father is constructing a railway somewhere in the eastern provinces, +and is buying estates there. Dr. Blagovo is also abroad. Dubetchnya +has passed again into the possession of Madame Tcheprakov, who has +bought it after forcing the engineer to knock the price down twenty +per cent. Moisey goes about now in a bowler hat; he often drives +into the town in a racing droshky on business of some sort, and +stops near the bank. They say he has already bought up a mortgaged +estate, and is constantly making enquiries at the bank about +Dubetchnya, which he means to buy too. Poor Ivan Tcheprakov was for +a long while out of work, staggering about the town and drinking. +I tried to get him into our work, and for a time he painted roofs +and put in window-panes in our company, and even got to like it, +and stole oil, asked for tips, and drank like a regular painter. +But he soon got sick of the work, and went back to Dubetchnya, and +afterwards the workmen confessed to me that he had tried to persuade +them to join him one night and murder Moisey and rob Madame Tcheprakov. + +My father has greatly aged; he is very bent, and in the evenings +walks up and down near his house. I never go to see him. + +During an epidemic of cholera Prokofy doctored some of the shopkeepers +with pepper cordial and pitch, and took money for doing so, and, +as I learned from the newspapers, was flogged for abusing the doctors +as he sat in his shop. His shop boy Nikolka died of cholera. Karpovna +is still alive and, as always, she loves and fears her Prokofy. +When she sees me, she always shakes her head mournfully, and says +with a sigh: "Your life is ruined." + +On working days I am busy from morning till night. On holidays, in +fine weather, I take my tiny niece (my sister reckoned on a boy, +but the child is a girl) and walk in a leisurely way to the cemetery. +There I stand or sit down, and stay a long time gazing at the grave +that is so dear to me, and tell the child that her mother lies here. + +Sometimes, by the graveside, I find Anyuta Blagovo. We greet each +other and stand in silence, or talk of Kleopatra, of her child, of +how sad life is in this world; then, going out of the cemetery we +walk along in silence and she slackens her pace on purpose to walk +beside me a little longer. The little girl, joyous and happy, pulls +at her hand, laughing and screwing up her eyes in the bright sunlight, +and we stand still and join in caressing the dear child. + +When we reach the town Anyuta Blagovo, agitated and flushing crimson, +says good-bye to me and walks on alone, austere and respectable. . . . +And no one who met her could, looking at her, imagine that she +had just been walking beside me and even caressing the child. + + +AT A COUNTRY HOUSE + +PAVEL ILYITCH RASHEVITCH walked up and down, stepping softly on the +floor covered with little Russian plaids, and casting a long shadow +on the wall and ceiling while his guest, Meier, the deputy examining +magistrate, sat on the sofa with one leg drawn up under him smoking +and listening. The clock already pointed to eleven, and there were +sounds of the table being laid in the room next to the study. + +"Say what you like," Rashevitch was saying, "from the standpoint +of fraternity, equality, and the rest of it, Mitka, the swineherd, +is perhaps a man the same as Goethe and Frederick the Great; but +take your stand on a scientific basis, have the courage to look +facts in the face, and it will be obvious to you that blue blood +is not a mere prejudice, that it is not a feminine invention. Blue +blood, my dear fellow, has an historical justification, and to +refuse to recognize it is, to my thinking, as strange as to refuse +to recognize the antlers on a stag. One must reckon with facts! You +are a law student and have confined your attention to the humane +studies, and you can still flatter yourself with illusions of +equality, fraternity, and so on; I am an incorrigible Darwinian, +and for me words such as lineage, aristocracy, noble blood, are not +empty sounds." + +Rashevitch was roused and spoke with feeling. His eyes sparkled, +his pince-nez would not stay on his nose, he kept nervously shrugging +his shoulders and blinking, and at the word "Darwinian" he looked +jauntily in the looking-glass and combed his grey beard with both +hands. He was wearing a very short and shabby reefer jacket and +narrow trousers; the rapidity of his movements, his jaunty air, and +his abbreviated jacket all seemed out of keeping with him, and his +big comely head, with long hair suggestive of a bishop or a veteran +poet, seemed to have been fixed on to the body of a tall, lanky, +affected youth. When he stood with his legs wide apart, his long +shadow looked like a pair of scissors. + +He was fond of talking, and he always fancied that he was saying +something new and original. In the presence of Meier he was conscious +of an unusual flow of spirits and rush of ideas. He found the +examining magistrate sympathetic, and was stimulated by his youth, +his health, his good manners, his dignity, and, above all, by his +cordial attitude to himself and his family. Rashevitch was not a +favourite with his acquaintances; as a rule they fought shy of him, +and, as he knew, declared that he had driven his wife into her grave +with his talking, and they called him, behind his back, a spiteful +creature and a toad. Meier, a man new to the district and unprejudiced, +visited him often and readily and had even been known to say that +Rashevitch and his daughters were the only people in the district +with whom he felt as much at home as with his own people. Rashevitch +liked him too, because he was a young man who might be a good match +for his elder daughter, Genya. + +And now, enjoying his ideas and the sound of his own voice, and +looking with pleasure at the plump but well-proportioned, neatly +cropped, correct Meier, Rashevitch dreamed of how he would arrange +his daughter's marriage with a good man, and then how all his worries +over the estate would pass to his son-in-law. Hateful worries! The +interest owing to the bank had not been paid for the last two +quarters, and fines and arrears of all sorts had mounted up to more +than two thousand. + +"To my mind there can be no doubt," Rashevitch went on, growing +more and more enthusiastic, "that if a Richard Coeur-de-Lion, or +Frederick Barbarossa, for instance, is brave and noble those qualities +will pass by heredity to his son, together with the convolutions +and bumps of the brain, and if that courage and nobility of soul +are preserved in the son by means of education and exercise, and +if he marries a princess who is also noble and brave, those qualities +will be transmitted to his grandson, and so on, until they become +a generic characteristic and pass organically into the flesh and +blood. Thanks to a strict sexual selection, to the fact that high-born +families have instinctively guarded themselves against marriage +with their inferiors, and young men of high rank have not married +just anybody, lofty, spiritual qualities have been transmitted from +generation to generation in their full purity, have been preserved, +and as time goes on have, through exercise, become more exalted and +lofty. For the fact that there is good in humanity we are indebted +to nature, to the normal, natural, consistent order of things, which +has throughout the ages scrupulously segregated blue blood from +plebeian. Yes, my dear boy, no low lout, no cook's son has given +us literature, science, art, law, conceptions of honour and duty +. . . . For all these things mankind is indebted exclusively to the +aristocracy, and from that point of view, the point of view of +natural history, an inferior Sobakevitch by the very fact of his +blue blood is superior and more useful than the very best merchant, +even though the latter may have built fifteen museums. Say what you +like! And when I refuse to shake hands with a low lout or a cook's +son, or to let him sit down to table with me, by that very act I +am safeguarding what is the best thing on earth, and am carrying +out one of Mother Nature's finest designs for leading us up to +perfection. . ." + +Rashevitch stood still, combing his beard with both hands; his +shadow, too, stood still on the wall, looking like a pair of scissors. + +"Take Mother-Russia now," he went on, thrusting his hands in his +pockets and standing first on his heels and then on his toes. "Who +are her best people? Take our first-rate painters, writers, composers +. . . . Who are they? They were all of aristocratic origin. Pushkin, +Lermontov, Turgenev, Gontcharov, Tolstoy, they were not sexton's +children." + +"Gontcharov was a merchant," said Meier. + +"Well, the exception only proves the rule. Besides, Gontcharov's +genius is quite open to dispute. But let us drop names and turn to +facts. What would you say, my good sir, for instance, to this +eloquent fact: when one of the mob forces his way where he has not +been permitted before, into society, into the world of learning, +of literature, into the Zemstvo or the law courts, observe, Nature +herself, first of all, champions the higher rights of humanity, and +is the first to wage war on the rabble. As soon as the plebeian +forces himself into a place he is not fit for he begins to ail, to +go into consumption, to go out of his mind, and to degenerate, and +nowhere do we find so many puny, neurotic wrecks, consumptives, and +starvelings of all sorts as among these darlings. They die like +flies in autumn. If it were not for this providential degeneration +there would not have been a stone left standing of our civilization, +the rabble would have demolished everything. Tell me, if you please, +what has the inroad of the barbarians given us so far? What has the +rabble brought with it?" Rashevitch assumed a mysterious, frightened +expression, and went on: "Never has literature and learning been +at such low ebb among us as now. The men of to-day, my good sir, +have neither ideas nor ideals, and all their sayings and doings are +permeated by one spirit--to get all they can and to strip someone +to his last thread. All these men of to-day who give themselves out +as honest and progressive people can be bought at a rouble a piece, +and the distinguishing mark of the 'intellectual' of to-day is that +you have to keep strict watch over your pocket when you talk to +him, or else he will run off with your purse." Rashevitch winked +and burst out laughing. "Upon my soul, he will! he said, in a thin, +gleeful voice. "And morals! What of their morals?" Rashevitch looked +round towards the door. "No one is surprised nowadays when a wife +robs and leaves her husband. What's that, a trifle! Nowadays, my +dear boy, a chit of a girl of twelve is scheming to get a lover, +and all these amateur theatricals and literary evenings are only +invented to make it easier to get a rich merchant to take a girl +on as his mistress. . . . Mothers sell their daughters, and people +make no bones about asking a husband at what price he sells his +wife, and one can haggle over the bargain, you know, my +dear. . . ." + +Meier, who had been sitting motionless and silent all the time, +suddenly got up from the sofa and looked at his watch. + +"I beg your pardon, Pavel Ilyitch," he said, "it is time for me to +be going." + +But Pavel Ilyitch, who had not finished his remarks, put his arm +round him and, forcibly reseating him on the sofa, vowed that he +would not let him go without supper. And again Meier sat and listened, +but he looked at Rashevitch with perplexity and uneasiness, as +though he were only now beginning to understand him. Patches of red +came into his face. And when at last a maidservant came in to tell +them that the young ladies asked them to go to supper, he gave a +sigh of relief and was the first to walk out of the study. + +At the table in the next room were Rashevitch's daughters, Genya +and Iraida, girls of four-and-twenty and two-and-twenty respectively, +both very pale, with black eyes, and exactly the same height. Genya +had her hair down, and Iraida had hers done up high on her head. +Before eating anything they each drank a wineglassful of bitter +liqueur, with an air as though they had drunk it by accident for +the first time in their lives and both were overcome with confusion +and burst out laughing. + +"Don't be naughty, girls," said Rashevitch. + +Genya and Iraida talked French with each other, and Russian with +their father and their visitor. Interrupting one another, and mixing +up French words with Russian, they began rapidly describing how +just at this time in August, in previous years, they had set off +to the hoarding school and what fun it had been. Now there was +nowhere to go, and they had to stay at their home in the country, +summer and winter without change. Such dreariness! + +"Don't be naughty, girls," Rashevitch said again. + +He wanted to be talking himself. If other people talked in his +presence, he suffered from a feeling like jealousy. + +"So that's how it is, my dear boy," he began, looking affectionately +at Meier. "In the simplicity and goodness of our hearts, and from +fear of being suspected of being behind the times, we fraternize +with, excuse me, all sorts of riff-raff, we preach fraternity and +equality with money-lenders and innkeepers; but if we would only +think, we should see how criminal that good-nature is. We have +brought things to such a pass, that the fate of civilization is +hanging on a hair. My dear fellow, what our forefathers gained in +the course of ages will be to-morrow, if not to-day, outraged and +destroyed by these modern Huns. . . ." + +After supper they all went into the drawing-room. Genya and Iraida +lighted the candles on the piano, got out their music. . . . But +their father still went on talking, and there was no telling when +he would leave off. They looked with misery and vexation at their +egoist-father, to whom the pleasure of chattering and displaying +his intelligence was evidently more precious and important than his +daughters' happiness. Meier, the only young man who ever came to +their house, came--they knew--for the sake of their charming, +feminine society, but the irrepressible old man had taken possession +of him, and would not let him move a step away. + +"Just as the knights of the west repelled the invasions of the +Mongols, so we, before it is too late, ought to unite and strike +together against our foe," Rashevitch went on in the tone of a +preacher, holding up his right hand. "May I appear to the riff-raff +not as Pavel Ilyitch, but as a mighty, menacing Richard Coeur-de-Lion. +Let us give up sloppy sentimentality; enough of it! Let us all make +a compact, that as soon as a plebeian comes near us we fling some +careless phrase straight in his ugly face: 'Paws off! Go back to +your kennel, you cur!' straight in his ugly face," Rashevitch went +on gleefully, flicking his crooked finger in front of him. "In his +ugly face!" + +"I can't do that," Meier brought out, turning away. + +"Why not?" Rashevitch answered briskly, anticipating a prolonged +and interesting argument. "Why not?" + +"Because I am of the artisan class myself!" + +As he said this Meier turned crimson, and his neck seemed to swell, +and tears actually gleamed in his eyes. + +"My father was a simple workman," he said, in a rough, jerky voice, +"but I see no harm in that." + +Rashevitch was fearfully confused. Dumbfoundered, as though he had +been caught in the act of a crime, he gazed helplessly at Meier, +and did not know what to say. Genya and Iraida flushed crimson, and +bent over their music; they were ashamed of their tactless father. +A minute passed in silence, and there was a feeling of unbearable +discomfort, when all at once with a sort of painful stiffness and +inappropriateness, there sounded in the air the words: + +"Yes, I am of the artisan class, and I am proud of it!" + +Thereupon Meier, stumbling awkwardly among the furniture, took his +leave, and walked rapidly into the hall, though his carriage was +not yet at the door. + +"You'll have a dark drive to-night," Rashevitch muttered, following +him. "The moon does not rise till late to-night." + +They stood together on the steps in the dark, and waited for the +horses to be brought. It was cool. + +"There's a falling star," said Meier, wrapping himself in his +overcoat. + +"There are a great many in August." + +When the horses were at the door, Rashevitch gazed intently at the +sky, and said with a sigh: + +"A phenomenon worthy of the pen of Flammarion. . . ." + +After seeing his visitor off, he walked up and down the garden, +gesticulating in the darkness, reluctant to believe that such a +queer, stupid misunderstanding had only just occurred. He was ashamed +and vexed with himself. In the first place it had been extremely +incautious and tactless on his part to raise the damnable subject +of blue blood, without finding out beforehand what his visitor's +position was. Something of the same sort had happened to him before; +he had, on one occasion in a railway carriage, begun abusing the +Germans, and it had afterwards appeared that all the persons he had +been conversing with were German. In the second place he felt that +Meier would never come and see him again. These intellectuals who +have risen from the people are morbidly sensitive, obstinate and +slow to forgive. + +"It's bad, it's bad," muttered Rashevitch, spitting; he had a feeling +of discomfort and loathing as though he had eaten soap. "Ah, it's +bad!" + +He could see from the garden, through the drawing-room window, Genya +by the piano, very pale, and looking scared, with her hair down. +She was talking very, very rapidly. . . . Iraida was walking up and +down the room, lost in thought; but now she, too, began talking +rapidly with her face full of indignation. They were both talking +at once. Rashevitch could not hear a word, but he guessed what they +were talking about. Genya was probably complaining that her father +drove away every decent person from the house with his talk, and +to-day he had driven away from them their one acquaintance, perhaps +a suitor, and now the poor young man would not have one place in +the whole district where he could find rest for his soul. And judging +by the despairing way in which she threw up her arms, Iraida was +talking probably on the subject of their dreary existence, their +wasted youth. . . . + +When he reached his own room, Rashevitch sat down on his bed and +began to undress. He felt oppressed, and he was still haunted by +the same feeling as though he had eaten soap. He was ashamed. As +he undressed he looked at his long, sinewy, elderly legs, and +remembered that in the district they called him the "toad," and +after every long conversation he always felt ashamed. Somehow or +other, by some fatality, it always happened that he began mildly, +amicably, with good intentions, calling himself an old student, an +idealist, a Quixote, but without being himself aware of it, gradually +passed into abuse and slander, and what was most surprising, with +perfect sincerity criticized science, art and morals, though he had +not read a book for the last twenty years, had been nowhere farther +than their provincial town, and did not really know what was going +on in the world. If he sat down to write anything, if it were only +a letter of congratulation, there would somehow be abuse in the +letter. And all this was strange, because in reality he was a man +of feeling, given to tears, Could he be possessed by some devil +which hated and slandered in him, apart from his own will? + +"It's bad," he sighed, as he lay down under the quilt. "It's bad." + +His daughters did not sleep either. There was a sound of laughter +and screaming, as though someone was being pursued; it was Genya +in hysterics. A little later Iraida was sobbing too. A maidservant +ran barefoot up and down the passage several times. . . . + +"What a business! Good Lord! . . ." muttered Rashevitch, sighing +and tossing from side to side. "It's bad." + +He had a nightmare. He dreamt he was standing naked, as tall as a +giraffe, in the middle of the room, and saying, as he flicked his +finger before him: + +"In his ugly face! his ugly face! his ugly face!" + +He woke up in a fright, and first of all remembered that a +misunderstanding had happened in the evening, and that Meier would +certainly not come again. He remembered, too, that he had to pay +the interest at the bank, to find husbands for his daughters, that +one must have food and drink, and close at hand were illness, old +age, unpleasantnesses, that soon it would be winter, and that there +was no wood. . . . + +It was past nine o'clock in the morning. Rashevitch slowly dressed, +drank his tea and ate two hunks of bread and butter. His daughters +did not come down to breakfast; they did not want to meet him, and +that wounded him. He lay down on his sofa in his study, then sat +down to his table and began writing a letter to his daughters. His +hand shook and his eyes smarted. He wrote that he was old, and no +use to anyone and that nobody loved him, and he begged his daughters +to forget him, and when he died to bury him in a plain, deal coffin +without ceremony, or to send his body to Harkov to the dissecting +theatre. He felt that every line he wrote reeked of malice and +affectation, but he could not stop, and went on writing and writing. + +"The toad!" he suddenly heard from the next room; it was the voice +of his elder daughter, a voice with a hiss of indignation. "The +toad!" + +"The toad!" the younger one repeated like an echo. "The toad!" + + +A FATHER + +"I ADMIT I have had a drop. . . . You must excuse me. I went into +a beer shop on the way here, and as it was so hot had a couple of +bottles. It's hot, my boy." + +Old Musatov took a nondescript rag out of his pocket and wiped his +shaven, battered face with it. + +"I have come only for a minute, Borenka, my angel," he went on, not +looking at his son, "about something very important. Excuse me, +perhaps I am hindering you. Haven't you ten roubles, my dear, you +could let me have till Tuesday? You see, I ought to have paid for +my lodging yesterday, and money, you see! . . . None! Not to save +my life!" + +Young Musatov went out without a word, and began whispering the +other side of the door with the landlady of the summer villa and +his colleagues who had taken the villa with him. Three minutes later +he came back, and without a word gave his father a ten-rouble note. +The latter thrust it carelessly into his pocket without looking at +it, and said: + +"_Merci._ Well, how are you getting on? It's a long time since we +met." + +"Yes, a long time, not since Easter." + +"Half a dozen times I have been meaning to come to you, but I've +never had time. First one thing, then another. . . . It's simply +awful! I am talking nonsense though. . . . All that's nonsense. +Don't you believe me, Borenka. I said I would pay you back the ten +roubles on Tuesday, don't believe that either. Don't believe a word +I say. I have nothing to do at all, it's simply laziness, drunkenness, +and I am ashamed to be seen in such clothes in the street. You must +excuse me, Borenka. Here I have sent the girl to you three times +for money and written you piteous letters. Thanks for the money, +but don't believe the letters; I was telling fibs. I am ashamed to +rob you, my angel; I know that you can scarcely make both ends meet +yourself, and feed on locusts, but my impudence is too much for me. +I am such a specimen of impudence--fit for a show! . . . You must +excuse me, Borenka. I tell you the truth, because I can't see your +angel face without emotion." + +A minute passed in silence. The old man heaved a deep sigh and said: + +"You might treat me to a glass of beer perhaps." + +His son went out without a word, and again there was a sound of +whispering the other side of the door. When a little later the beer +was brought in, the old man seemed to revive at the sight of the +bottles and abruptly changed his tone. + +"I was at the races the other day, my boy," he began telling him, +assuming a scared expression. "We were a party of three, and we +pooled three roubles on Frisky. And, thanks to that Frisky, we got +thirty-two roubles each for our rouble. I can't get on without the +races, my boy. It's a gentlemanly diversion. My virago always gives +me a dressing over the races, but I go. I love it, and that's all +about it." + +Boris, a fair-haired young man with a melancholy immobile face, was +walking slowly up and down, listening in silence. When the old man +stopped to clear his throat, he went up to him and said: + +"I bought myself a pair of boots the other day, father, which turn +out to be too tight for me. Won't you take them? I'll let you have +them cheap." + +"If you like," said the old man with a grimace, "only for the price +you gave for them, without any cheapening." + +"Very well, I'll let you have them on credit." + +The son groped under the bed and produced the new boots. The father +took off his clumsy, rusty, evidently second-hand boots and began +trying on the new ones. + +"A perfect fit," he said. "Right, let me keep them. And on Tuesday, +when I get my pension, I'll send you the money for them. That's not +true, though," he went on, suddenly falling into the same tearful +tone again. "And it was a lie about the races, too, and a lie about +the pension. And you are deceiving me, Borenka. . . . I feel your +generous tactfulness. I see through you! Your boots were too small, +because your heart is too big. Ah, Borenka, Borenka! I understand +it all and feel it!" + +"Have you moved into new lodgings?" his son interrupted, to change +the conversation. + +"Yes, my boy. I move every month. My virago can't stay long in the +same place with her temper." + +"I went to your lodgings, I meant to ask you to stay here with me. +In your state of health it would do you good to be in the fresh +air." + +"No," said the old man, with a wave of his hand, "the woman wouldn't +let me, and I shouldn't care to myself. A hundred times you have +tried to drag me out of the pit, and I have tried myself, but nothing +came of it. Give it up. I must stick in my filthy hole. This minute, +here I am sitting, looking at your angel face, yet something is +drawing me home to my hole. Such is my fate. You can't draw a +dung-beetle to a rose. But it's time I was going, my boy. It's +getting dark." + +"Wait a minute then, I'll come with you. I have to go to town to-day +myself." + +Both put on their overcoats and went out. When a little while +afterwards they were driving in a cab, it was already dark, and +lights began to gleam in the windows. + +"I've robbed you, Borenka!" the father muttered. "Poor children, +poor children! It must be a dreadful trouble to have such a father! +Borenka, my angel, I cannot lie when I see your face. You must +excuse me. . . . What my depravity has come to, my God. Here I have +just been robbing you, and put you to shame with my drunken state; +I am robbing your brothers, too, and put them to shame, and you +should have seen me yesterday! I won't conceal it, Borenka. Some +neighbours, a wretched crew, came to see my virago; I got drunk, +too, with them, and I blackguarded you poor children for all I was +worth. I abused you, and complained that you had abandoned me. I +wanted, you see, to touch the drunken hussies' hearts, and pose as +an unhappy father. It's my way, you know, when I want to screen my +vices I throw all the blame on my innocent children. I can't tell +lies and hide things from you, Borenka. I came to see you as proud +as a peacock, but when I saw your gentleness and kind heart, my +tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, and it upset my conscience +completely." + +"Hush, father, let's talk of something else." + +"Mother of God, what children I have," the old man went on, not +heeding his son. "What wealth God has bestowed on me. Such children +ought not to have had a black sheep like me for a father, but a +real man with soul and feeling! I am not worthy of you!" + +The old man took off his cap with a button at the top and crossed +himself several times. + +"Thanks be to Thee, O Lord!" he said with a sigh, looking from side +to side as though seeking for an ikon. "Remarkable, exceptional +children! I have three sons, and they are all like one. Sober, +steady, hard-working, and what brains! Cabman, what brains! Grigory +alone has brains enough for ten. He speaks French, he speaks German, +and talks better than any of your lawyers--one is never tired of +listening. My children, my children, I can't believe that you are +mine! I can't believe it! You are a martyr, my Borenka, I am ruining +you, and I shall go on ruining you. . . . You give to me endlessly, +though you know your money is thrown away. The other day I sent you +a pitiful letter, I described how ill I was, but you know I was +lying, I wanted the money for rum. And you give to me because you +are afraid to wound me by refusing. I know all that, and feel it. +Grisha's a martyr, too. On Thursday I went to his office, drunk, +filthy, ragged, reeking of vodka like a cellar . . . I went straight +up, such a figure, I pestered him with nasty talk, while his +colleagues and superiors and petitioners were standing round. I +have disgraced him for life. And he wasn't the least confused, only +turned a bit pale, but smiled and came up to me as though there +were nothing the matter, even introduced me to his colleagues. Then +he took me all the way home, and not a word of reproach. I rob him +worse than you. Take your brother Sasha now, he's a martyr too! He +married, as you know, a colonel's daughter of an aristocratic circle, +and got a dowry with her. . . . You would think he would have nothing +to do with me. No, brother, after his wedding he came with his young +wife and paid me the first visit . . . in my hole. . . . Upon my +soul!" + +The old man gave a sob and then began laughing. + +"And at that moment, as luck would have it, we were eating grated +radish with kvass and frying fish, and there was a stink enough in +the flat to make the devil sick. I was lying down--I'd had a drop +--my virago bounced out at the young people with her face crimson, +. . . It was a disgrace in fact. But Sasha rose superior to it all." + +"Yes, our Sasha is a good fellow," said Boris. + +"The most splendid fellow! You are all pure gold, you and Grisha +and Sasha and Sonya. I worry you, torment you, disgrace you, rob +you, and all my life I have not heard one word of reproach from +you, you have never given me one cross look. It would be all very +well if I had been a decent father to you--but as it is! You have +had nothing from me but harm. I am a bad, dissipated man. . . . +Now, thank God, I am quieter and I have no strength of will, but +in old days when you were little I had determination, will. Whatever +I said or did I always thought it was right. Sometimes I'd come +home from the club at night, drunk and ill-humoured, and scold at +your poor mother for spending money. The whole night I would be +railing at her, and think it the right thing too; you would get up +in the morning and go to school, while I'd still be venting my +temper upon her. Heavens! I did torture her, poor martyr! When you +came back from school and I was asleep you didn't dare to have +dinner till I got up. At dinner again there would be a flare up. I +daresay you remember. I wish no one such a father; God sent me to +you for a trial. Yes, for a trial! Hold out, children, to the end! +Honour thy father and thy days shall be long. Perhaps for your noble +conduct God will grant you long life. Cabman, stop!" + +The old man jumped out of the cab and ran into a tavern. Half an +hour later he came back, cleared his throat in a drunken way, and +sat down beside his son. + +"Where's Sonya now?" he asked. "Still at boarding-school?" + +"No, she left in May, and is living now with Sasha's mother-in-law." + +"There!" said the old man in surprise. "She is a jolly good girl! +So she is following her brother's example. . . . Ah, Borenka, she +has no mother, no one to rejoice over her! I say, Borenka, does she +. . . does she know how I am living? Eh?" + +Boris made no answer. Five minutes passed in profound silence. The +old man gave a sob, wiped his face with a rag and said: + +"I love her, Borenka! She is my only daughter, you know, and in +one's old age there is no comfort like a daughter. Could I see her, +Borenka?" + +"Of course, when you like." + +"Really? And she won't mind?" + +"Of course not, she has been trying to find you so as to see you." + +"Upon my soul! What children! Cabman, eh? Arrange it, Borenka +darling! She is a young lady now, _delicatesse, consomme_, and all +the rest of it in a refined way, and I don't want to show myself +to her in such an abject state. I'll tell you how we'll contrive +to work it. For three days I will keep away from spirits, to get +my filthy, drunken phiz into better order. Then I'll come to you, +and you shall lend me for the time some suit of yours; I'll shave +and have my hair cut, then you go and bring her to your flat. Will +you?" + +"Very well." + +"Cabman, stop!" + +The old man sprang out of the cab again and ran into a tavern. While +Boris was driving with him to his lodging he jumped out twice again, +while his son sat silent and waited patiently for him. When, after +dismissing the cab, they made their way across a long, filthy yard +to the "virago's" lodging, the old man put on an utterly shamefaced +and guilty air, and began timidly clearing his throat and clicking +with his lips. + +"Borenka," he said in an ingratiating voice, "if my virago begins +saying anything, don't take any notice . . . and behave to her, you +know, affably. She is ignorant and impudent, but she's a good +baggage. There is a good, warm heart beating in her bosom!" + +The long yard ended, and Boris found himself in a dark entry. The +swing door creaked, there was a smell of cooking and a smoking +samovar. There was a sound of harsh voices. Passing through the +passage into the kitchen Boris could see nothing but thick smoke, +a line with washing on it, and the chimney of the samovar through +a crack of which golden sparks were dropping. + +"And here is my cell," said the old man, stooping down and going +into a little room with a low-pitched ceiling, and an atmosphere +unbearably stifling from the proximity of the kitchen. + +Here three women were sitting at the table regaling themselves. +Seeing the visitors, they exchanged glances and left off eating. + +"Well, did you get it?" one of them, apparently the "virago" herself, +asked abruptly. + +"Yes, yes," muttered the old man. "Well, Boris, pray sit down. +Everything is plain here, young man . . . we live in a simple way." + +He bustled about in an aimless way. He felt ashamed before his son, +and at the same time apparently he wanted to keep up before the +women his dignity as cock of the walk, and as a forsaken, unhappy +father. + +"Yes, young man, we live simply with no nonsense," he went on +muttering. "We are simple people, young man. . . . We are not like +you, we don't want to keep up a show before people. No! . . . Shall +we have a drink of vodka?" + +One of the women (she was ashamed to drink before a stranger) heaved +a sigh and said: + +"Well, I'll have another drink on account of the mushrooms. . . . +They are such mushrooms, they make you drink even if you don't want +to. Ivan Gerasimitch, offer the young gentleman, perhaps he will +have a drink!" + +The last word she pronounced in a mincing drawl. + +"Have a drink, young man!" said the father, not looking at his son. +"We have no wine or liqueurs, my boy, we live in a plain way." + +"He doesn't like our ways," sighed the "virago." "Never mind, never +mind, he'll have a drink." + +Not to offend his father by refusing, Boris took a wineglass and +drank in silence. When they brought in the samovar, to satisfy the +old man, he drank two cups of disgusting tea in silence, with a +melancholy face. Without a word he listened to the virago dropping +hints about there being in this world cruel, heartless children who +abandon their parents. + +"I know what you are thinking now!" said the old man, after drinking +more and passing into his habitual state of drunken excitement. +"You think I have let myself sink into the mire, that I am to be +pitied, but to my thinking, this simple life is much more normal +than your life, . . . I don't need anybody, and . . . and I don't +intend to eat humble pie. . . . I can't endure a wretched boy's +looking at me with compassion." + +After tea he cleaned a herring and sprinkled it with onion, with +such feeling, that tears of emotion stood in his eyes. He began +talking again about the races and his winnings, about some Panama +hat for which he had paid sixteen roubles the day before. He told +lies with the same relish with which he ate herring and drank. His +son sat on in silence for an hour, and began to say good-bye. + +"I don't venture to keep you," the old man said, haughtily. "You +must excuse me, young man, for not living as you would like!" + +He ruffled up his feathers, snorted with dignity, and winked at the +women. + +"Good-bye, young man," he said, seeing his son into the entry. +"Attendez." + +In the entry, where it was dark, he suddenly pressed his face against +the young man's sleeve and gave a sob. + +"I should like to have a look at Sonitchka," he whispered. "Arrange +it, Borenka, my angel. I'll shave, I'll put on your suit . . . I'll +put on a straight face . . . I'll hold my tongue while she is there. +Yes, yes, I will hold my tongue!" + +He looked round timidly towards the door, through which the women's +voices were heard, checked his sobs, and said aloud: + +"Good-bye, young man! Attendez." + + +ON THE ROAD + +_"Upon the breast of a gigantic crag, +A golden cloudlet rested for one night."_ + +LERMONTOV. + +IN the room which the tavern keeper, the Cossack Semyon Tchistopluy, +called the "travellers' room," that is kept exclusively for travellers, +a tall, broad-shouldered man of forty was sitting at the big unpainted +table. He was asleep with his elbows on the table and his head +leaning on his fist. An end of tallow candle, stuck into an old +pomatum pot, lighted up his light brown beard, his thick, broad +nose, his sunburnt cheeks, and the thick, black eyebrows overhanging +his closed eyes. . . . The nose and the cheeks and the eyebrows, +all the features, each taken separately, were coarse and heavy, +like the furniture and the stove in the "travellers' room," but +taken all together they gave the effect of something harmonious and +even beautiful. Such is the lucky star, as it is called, of the +Russian face: the coarser and harsher its features the softer and +more good-natured it looks. The man was dressed in a gentleman's +reefer jacket, shabby, but bound with wide new braid, a plush +waistcoat, and full black trousers thrust into big high boots. + +On one of the benches, which stood in a continuous row along the +wall, a girl of eight, in a brown dress and long black stockings, +lay asleep on a coat lined with fox. Her face was pale, her hair +was flaxen, her shoulders were narrow, her whole body was thin and +frail, but her nose stood out as thick and ugly a lump as the man's. +She was sound asleep, and unconscious that her semi-circular comb +had fallen off her head and was cutting her cheek. + +The "travellers' room" had a festive appearance. The air was full +of the smell of freshly scrubbed floors, there were no rags hanging +as usual on the line that ran diagonally across the room, and a +little lamp was burning in the corner over the table, casting a +patch of red light on the ikon of St. George the Victorious. From +the ikon stretched on each side of the corner a row of cheap +oleographs, which maintained a strict and careful gradation in the +transition from the sacred to the profane. In the dim light of the +candle end and the red ikon lamp the pictures looked like one +continuous stripe, covered with blurs of black. When the tiled +stove, trying to sing in unison with the weather, drew in the air +with a howl, while the logs, as though waking up, burst into bright +flame and hissed angrily, red patches began dancing on the log +walls, and over the head of the sleeping man could be seen first +the Elder Seraphim, then the Shah Nasir-ed-Din, then a fat, brown +baby with goggle eyes, whispering in the ear of a young girl with +an extraordinarily blank, and indifferent face. . . . + +Outside a storm was raging. Something frantic and wrathful, but +profoundly unhappy, seemed to be flinging itself about the tavern +with the ferocity of a wild beast and trying to break in. Banging +at the doors, knocking at the windows and on the roof, scratching +at the walls, it alternately threatened and besought, then subsided +for a brief interval, and then with a gleeful, treacherous howl +burst into the chimney, but the wood flared up, and the fire, like +a chained dog, flew wrathfully to meet its foe, a battle began, and +after it--sobs, shrieks, howls of wrath. In all of this there was +the sound of angry misery and unsatisfied hate, and the mortified +impatience of something accustomed to triumph. + +Bewitched by this wild, inhuman music the "travellers' room" seemed +spellbound for ever, but all at once the door creaked and the potboy, +in a new print shirt, came in. Limping on one leg, and blinking his +sleepy eyes, he snuffed the candle with his fingers, put some more +wood on the fire and went out. At once from the church, which was +three hundred paces from the tavern, the clock struck midnight. The +wind played with the chimes as with the snowflakes; chasing the +sounds of the clock it whirled them round and round over a vast +space, so that some strokes were cut short or drawn out in long, +vibrating notes, while others were completely lost in the general +uproar. One stroke sounded as distinctly in the room as though it +had chimed just under the window. The child, sleeping on the fox-skin, +started and raised her head. For a minute she stared blankly at the +dark window, at Nasir-ed-Din over whom a crimson glow from the fire +flickered at that moment, then she turned her eyes upon the sleeping +man. + +"Daddy," she said. + +But the man did not move. The little girl knitted her brow angrily, +lay down, and curled up her legs. Someone in the tavern gave a loud, +prolonged yawn. Soon afterwards there was the squeak of the swing +door and the sound of indistinct voices. Someone came in, shaking +the snow off, and stamping in felt boots which made a muffled thud. + +"What is it?" a woman s voice asked languidly. + +"Mademoiselle Ilovaisky has come, . . ." answered a bass voice. + +Again there was the squeak of the swing door. Then came the roar +of the wind rushing in. Someone, probably the lame boy, ran to the +door leading to the "travellers' room," coughed deferentially, and +lifted the latch. + +"This way, lady, please," said a woman's voice in dulcet tones. +"It's clean in here, my beauty. . . ." + +The door was opened wide and a peasant with a beard appeared in the +doorway, in the long coat of a coachman, plastered all over with +snow from head to foot, and carrying a big trunk on his shoulder. +He was followed into the room by a feminine figure, scarcely half +his height, with no face and no arms, muffled and wrapped up like +a bundle and also covered with snow. A damp chill, as from a cellar, +seemed to come to the child from the coachman and the bundle, and +the fire and the candles flickered. + +"What nonsense!" said the bundle angrily, "We could go perfectly +well. We have only nine more miles to go, mostly by the forest, and +we should not get lost. . . ." + +"As for getting lost, we shouldn't, but the horses can't go on, +lady!" answered the coachman. "And it is Thy Will, O Lord! As though +I had done it on purpose!" + +"God knows where you have brought me. . . . Well, be quiet. . . . +There are people asleep here, it seems. You can go. . . ." + +The coachman put the portmanteau on the floor, and as he did so, a +great lump of snow fell off his shoulders. He gave a sniff and went +out. + +Then the little girl saw two little hands come out from the middle +of the bundle, stretch upwards and begin angrily disentangling the +network of shawls, kerchiefs, and scarves. First a big shawl fell +on the ground, then a hood, then a white knitted kerchief. After +freeing her head, the traveller took off her pelisse and at once +shrank to half the size. Now she was in a long, grey coat with big +buttons and bulging pockets. From one pocket she pulled out a paper +parcel, from the other a bunch of big, heavy keys, which she put +down so carelessly that the sleeping man started and opened his +eyes. For some time he looked blankly round him as though he didn't +know where he was, then he shook his head, went to the corner and +sat down. . . . The newcomer took off her great coat, which made +her shrink to half her size again, she took off her big felt boots, +and sat down, too. + +By now she no longer resembled a bundle: she was a thin little +brunette of twenty, as slim as a snake, with a long white face and +curly hair. Her nose was long and sharp, her chin, too, was long +and sharp, her eyelashes were long, the corners of her mouth were +sharp, and, thanks to this general sharpness, the expression of her +face was biting. Swathed in a closely fitting black dress with a +mass of lace at her neck and sleeves, with sharp elbows and long +pink fingers, she recalled the portraits of mediaeval English ladies. +The grave concentration of her face increased this likeness. + +The lady looked round at the room, glanced sideways at the man and +the little girl, shrugged her shoulders, and moved to the window. +The dark windows were shaking from the damp west wind. Big flakes +of snow glistening in their whiteness, lay on the window frame, but +at once disappeared, borne away by the wind. The savage music grew +louder and louder. . . . + +After a long silence the little girl suddenly turned over, and said +angrily, emphasizing each word: + +"Oh, goodness, goodness, how unhappy I am! Unhappier than anyone!" + +The man got up and moved with little steps to the child with a +guilty air, which was utterly out of keeping with his huge figure +and big beard. + +"You are not asleep, dearie?" he said, in an apologetic voice. "What +do you want?" + +"I don't want anything, my shoulder aches! You are a wicked man, +Daddy, and God will punish you! You'll see He will punish you." + +"My darling, I know your shoulder aches, but what can I do, dearie?" +said the man, in the tone in which men who have been drinking excuse +themselves to their stern spouses. "It's the journey has made your +shoulder ache, Sasha. To-morrow we shall get there and rest, and +the pain will go away. . . ." + +"To-morrow, to-morrow. . . . Every day you say to-morrow. We shall +be going on another twenty days." + +"But we shall arrive to-morrow, dearie, on your father's word of +honour. I never tell a lie, but if we are detained by the snowstorm +it is not my fault." + +"I can't bear any more, I can't, I can't!" + +Sasha jerked her leg abruptly and filled the room with an unpleasant +wailing. Her father made a despairing gesture, and looked hopelessly +towards the young lady. The latter shrugged her shoulders, and +hesitatingly went up to Sasha. + +"Listen, my dear," she said, "it is no use crying. It's really +naughty; if your shoulder aches it can't be helped." + +"You see, Madam," said the man quickly, as though defending himself, +"we have not slept for two nights, and have been travelling in a +revolting conveyance. Well, of course, it is natural she should be +ill and miserable, . . . and then, you know, we had a drunken driver, +our portmanteau has been stolen . . . the snowstorm all the time, +but what's the use of crying, Madam? I am exhausted, though, by +sleeping in a sitting position, and I feel as though I were drunk. +Oh, dear! Sasha, and I feel sick as it is, and then you cry!" + +The man shook his head, and with a gesture of despair sat down. + +"Of course you mustn't cry," said the young lady. "It's only little +babies cry. If you are ill, dear, you must undress and go to +sleep. . . . Let us take off your things!" + +When the child had been undressed and pacified a silence reigned +again. The young lady seated herself at the window, and looked round +wonderingly at the room of the inn, at the ikon, at the stove. . . . +Apparently the room and the little girl with the thick nose, in +her short boy's nightgown, and the child's father, all seemed strange +to her. This strange man was sitting in a corner; he kept looking +about him helplessly, as though he were drunk, and rubbing his face +with the palm of his hand. He sat silent, blinking, and judging +from his guilty-looking figure it was difficult to imagine that he +would soon begin to speak. Yet he was the first to begin. Stroking +his knees, he gave a cough, laughed, and said: + +"It's a comedy, it really is. . . . I look and I cannot believe my +eyes: for what devilry has destiny driven us to this accursed inn? +What did she want to show by it? Life sometimes performs such _'salto +mortale,'_ one can only stare and blink in amazement. Have you come +from far, Madam?" + +"No, not from far," answered the young lady. "I am going from our +estate, fifteen miles from here, to our farm, to my father and +brother. My name is Ilovaisky, and the farm is called Ilovaiskoe. +It's nine miles away. What unpleasant weather!" + +"It couldn't be worse." + +The lame boy came in and stuck a new candle in the pomatum pot. + +"You might bring us the samovar, boy," said the man, addressing +him. + +"Who drinks tea now?" laughed the boy. "It is a sin to drink tea +before mass. . . ." + +"Never mind boy, you won't burn in hell if we do. . . ." + +Over the tea the new acquaintances got into conversation. + +Mlle. Ilovaisky learned that her companion was called Grigory +Petrovitch Liharev, that he was the brother of the Liharev who was +Marshal of Nobility in one of the neighbouring districts, and he +himself had once been a landowner, but had "run through everything +in his time." Liharev learned that her name was Marya Mihailovna, +that her father had a huge estate, but that she was the only one +to look after it as her father and brother looked at life through +their fingers, were irresponsible, and were too fond of harriers. + +"My father and brother are all alone at the farm," she told him, +brandishing her fingers (she had the habit of moving her fingers +before her pointed face as she talked, and after every sentence +moistened her lips with her sharp little tongue). "They, I mean +men, are an irresponsible lot, and don't stir a finger for themselves. +I can fancy there will be no one to give them a meal after the fast! +We have no mother, and we have such servants that they can't lay +the tablecloth properly when I am away. You can imagine their +condition now! They will be left with nothing to break their fast, +while I have to stay here all night. How strange it all is." + +She shrugged her shoulders, took a sip from her cup, and said: + +"There are festivals that have a special fragrance: at Easter, +Trinity and Christmas there is a peculiar scent in the air. Even +unbelievers are fond of those festivals. My brother, for instance, +argues that there is no God, but he is the first to hurry to Matins +at Easter." + +Liharev raised his eyes to Mlle. Ilovaisky and laughed. + +"They argue that there is no God," she went on, laughing too, "but +why is it, tell me, all the celebrated writers, the learned men, +clever people generally, in fact, believe towards the end of their +life?" + +"If a man does not know how to believe when he is young, Madam, he +won't believe in his old age if he is ever so much of a writer." + +Judging from Liharev's cough he had a bass voice, but, probably +from being afraid to speak aloud, or from exaggerated shyness, he +spoke in a tenor. After a brief pause he heaved a sign and said: + +"The way I look at it is that faith is a faculty of the spirit. It +is just the same as a talent, one must be born with it. So far as +I can judge by myself, by the people I have seen in my time, and +by all that is done around us, this faculty is present in Russians +in its highest degree. Russian life presents us with an uninterrupted +succession of convictions and aspirations, and if you care to know, +it has not yet the faintest notion of lack of faith or scepticism. +If a Russian does not believe in God, it means he believes in +something else." + +Liharev took a cup of tea from Mlle. Ilovaisky, drank off half in +one gulp, and went on: + +"I will tell you about myself. Nature has implanted in my breast +an extraordinary faculty for belief. Whisper it not to the night, +but half my life I was in the ranks of the Atheists and Nihilists, +but there was not one hour in my life in which I ceased to believe. +All talents, as a rule, show themselves in early childhood, and so +my faculty showed itself when I could still walk upright under the +table. My mother liked her children to eat a great deal, and when +she gave me food she used to say: 'Eat! Soup is the great thing in +life!' I believed, and ate the soup ten times a day, ate like a +shark, ate till I was disgusted and stupefied. My nurse used to +tell me fairy tales, and I believed in house-spirits, in wood-elves, +and in goblins of all kinds. I used sometimes to steal corrosive +sublimate from my father, sprinkle it on cakes, and carry them up +to the attic that the house-spirits, you see, might eat them and +be killed. And when I was taught to read and understand what I read, +then there was a fine to-do. I ran away to America and went off to +join the brigands, and wanted to go into a monastery, and hired +boys to torture me for being a Christian. And note that my faith +was always active, never dead. If I was running away to America I +was not alone, but seduced someone else, as great a fool as I was, +to go with me, and was delighted when I was nearly frozen outside +the town gates and when I was thrashed; if I went to join the +brigands I always came back with my face battered. A most restless +childhood, I assure you! And when they sent me to the high school +and pelted me with all sorts of truths--that is, that the earth +goes round the sun, or that white light is not white, but is made +up of seven colours--my poor little head began to go round! +Everything was thrown into a whirl in me: Navin who made the sun +stand still, and my mother who in the name of the Prophet Elijah +disapproved of lightning conductors, and my father who was indifferent +to the truths I had learned. My enlightenment inspired me. I wandered +about the house and stables like one possessed, preaching my truths, +was horrified by ignorance, glowed with hatred for anyone who saw +in white light nothing but white light. . . . But all that's nonsense +and childishness. Serious, so to speak, manly enthusiasms began +only at the university. You have, no doubt, Madam, taken your degree +somewhere?" + +"I studied at Novotcherkask at the Don Institute." + +"Then you have not been to a university? So you don't know what +science means. All the sciences in the world have the same passport, +without which they regard themselves as meaningless . . . the +striving towards truth! Every one of them, even pharmacology, has +for its aim not utility, not the alleviation of life, but truth. +It's remarkable! When you set to work to study any science, what +strikes you first of all is its beginning. I assure you there is +nothing more attractive and grander, nothing is so staggering, +nothing takes a man's breath away like the beginning of any science. +From the first five or six lectures you are soaring on wings of the +brightest hopes, you already seem to yourself to be welcoming truth +with open arms. And I gave myself up to science, heart and soul, +passionately, as to the woman one loves. I was its slave; I found +it the sun of my existence, and asked for no other. I studied day +and night without rest, ruined myself over books, wept when before +my eyes men exploited science for their own personal ends. But my +enthusiasm did not last long. The trouble is that every science has +a beginning but not an end, like a recurring decimal. Zoology has +discovered 35,000 kinds of insects, chemistry reckons 60 elements. +If in time tens of noughts can be written after these figures. +Zoology and chemistry will be just as far from their end as now, +and all contemporary scientific work consists in increasing these +numbers. I saw through this trick when I discovered the 35,001-st +and felt no satisfaction. Well, I had no time to suffer from +disillusionment, as I was soon possessed by a new faith. I plunged +into Nihilism, with its manifestoes, its 'black divisions,' and all +the rest of it. I 'went to the people,' worked in factories, worked +as an oiler, as a barge hauler. Afterwards, when wandering over +Russia, I had a taste of Russian life, I turned into a fervent +devotee of that life. I loved the Russian people with poignant +intensity; I loved their God and believed in Him, and in their +language, their creative genius. . . . And so on, and so on. . . . +I have been a Slavophile in my time, I used to pester Aksakov with +letters, and I was a Ukrainophile, and an archaeologist, and a +collector of specimens of peasant art. . . . I was enthusiastic +over ideas, people, events, places . . . my enthusiasm was endless! +Five years ago I was working for the abolition of private property; +my last creed was non-resistance to evil." + +Sasha gave an abrupt sigh and began moving. Liharev got up and went +to her. + +"Won't you have some tea, dearie?" he asked tenderly. + +"Drink it yourself," the child answered rudely. Liharev was +disconcerted, and went back to the table with a guilty step. + +"Then you have had a lively time," said Mlle. Ilovaisky; "you have +something to remember." + +"Well, yes, it's all very lively when one sits over tea and chatters +to a kind listener, but you should ask what that liveliness has +cost me! What price have I paid for the variety of my life? You +see, Madam, I have not held my convictions like a German doctor of +philosophy, _zierlichmaennerlich_, I have not lived in solitude, but +every conviction I have had has bound my back to the yoke, has torn +my body to pieces. Judge, for yourself. I was wealthy like my +brothers, but now I am a beggar. In the delirium of my enthusiasm +I smashed up my own fortune and my wife's--a heap of other people's +money. Now I am forty-two, old age is close upon me, and I am +homeless, like a dog that has dropped behind its waggon at night. +All my life I have not known what peace meant, my soul has been in +continual agitation, distressed even by its hopes . . . I have been +wearied out with heavy irregular work, have endured privation, have +five times been in prison, have dragged myself across the provinces +of Archangel and of Tobolsk . . . it's painful to think of it! I +have lived, but in my fever I have not even been conscious of the +process of life itself. Would you believe it, I don't remember a +single spring, I never noticed how my wife loved me, how my children +were born. What more can I tell you? I have been a misfortune to +all who have loved me. . . . My mother has worn mourning for me all +these fifteen years, while my proud brothers, who have had to wince, +to blush, to bow their heads, to waste their money on my account, +have come in the end to hate me like poison." + +Liharev got up and sat down again. + +"If I were simply unhappy I should thank God," he went on without +looking at his listener. "My personal unhappiness sinks into the +background when I remember how often in my enthusiasms I have been +absurd, far from the truth, unjust, cruel, dangerous! How often I +have hated and despised those whom I ought to have loved, and _vice +versa_, I have changed a thousand times. One day I believe, fall +down and worship, the next I flee like a coward from the gods and +friends of yesterday, and swallow in silence the 'scoundrel!' they +hurl after me. God alone has seen how often I have wept and bitten +my pillow in shame for my enthusiasms. Never once in my life have +I intentionally lied or done evil, but my conscience is not clear! +I cannot even boast, Madam, that I have no one's life upon my +conscience, for my wife died before my eyes, worn out by my reckless +activity. Yes, my wife! I tell you they have two ways of treating +women nowadays. Some measure women's skulls to prove woman is +inferior to man, pick out her defects to mock at her, to look +original in her eyes, and to justify their sensuality. Others do +their utmost to raise women to their level, that is, force them to +learn by heart the 35,000 species, to speak and write the same +foolish things as they speak and write themselves." + +Liharev's face darkened. + +"I tell you that woman has been and always will be the slave of +man," he said in a bass voice, striking his fist on the table. "She +is the soft, tender wax which a man always moulds into anything he +likes. . . . My God! for the sake of some trumpery masculine +enthusiasm she will cut off her hair, abandon her family, die among +strangers! . . . among the ideas for which she has sacrificed herself +there is not a single feminine one. . . . An unquestioning, devoted +slave! I have not measured skulls, but I say this from hard, bitter +experience: the proudest, most independent women, if I have succeeded +in communicating to them my enthusiasm, have followed me without +criticism, without question, and done anything I chose; I have +turned a nun into a Nihilist who, as I heard afterwards, shot a +gendarme; my wife never left me for a minute in my wanderings, and +like a weathercock changed her faith in step with my changing +enthusiasms." + +Liharev jumped up and walked up and down the room. + +"A noble, sublime slavery!" he said, clasping his hands. "It is +just in it that the highest meaning of woman's life lies! Of all +the fearful medley of thoughts and impressions accumulated in my +brain from my association with women my memory, like a filter, has +retained no ideas, no clever saying, no philosophy, nothing but +that extraordinary, resignation to fate, that wonderful mercifulness, +forgiveness of everything." + +Liharev clenched his fists, stared at a fixed point, and with a +sort of passionate intensity, as though he were savouring each word +as he uttered it, hissed through his clenched teeth: + +"That . . . that great-hearted fortitude, faithfulness unto death, +poetry of the heart. . . . The meaning of life lies in just that +unrepining martyrdom, in the tears which would soften a stone, in +the boundless, all-forgiving love which brings light and warmth +into the chaos of life. . . ." + +Mlle. Ilovaisky got up slowly, took a step towards Liharev, and +fixed her eyes upon his face. From the tears that glittered on his +eyelashes, from his quivering, passionate voice, from the flush on +his cheeks, it was clear to her that women were not a chance, not +a simple subject of conversation. They were the object of his new +enthusiasm, or, as he said himself, his new faith! For the first +time in her life she saw a man carried away, fervently believing. +With his gesticulations, with his flashing eyes he seemed to her +mad, frantic, but there was a feeling of such beauty in the fire +of his eyes, in his words, in all the movements of his huge body, +that without noticing what she was doing she stood facing him as +though rooted to the spot, and gazed into his face with delight. + +"Take my mother," he said, stretching out his hand to her with an +imploring expression on his face, "I poisoned her existence, according +to her ideas disgraced the name of Liharev, did her as much harm +as the most malignant enemy, and what do you think? My brothers +give her little sums for holy bread and church services, and outraging +her religious feelings, she saves that money and sends it in secret +to her erring Grigory. This trifle alone elevates and ennobles the +soul far more than all the theories, all the clever sayings and the +35,000 species. I can give you thousands of instances. Take you, +even, for instance! With tempest and darkness outside you are going +to your father and your brother to cheer them with your affection +in the holiday, though very likely they have forgotten and are not +thinking of you. And, wait a bit, and you will love a man and follow +him to the North Pole. You would, wouldn't you?" + +"Yes, if I loved him." + +"There, you see," cried Liharev delighted, and he even stamped with +his foot. "Oh dear! How glad I am that I have met you! Fate is kind +to me, I am always meeting splendid people. Not a day passes but +one makes acquaintance with somebody one would give one's soul for. +There are ever so many more good people than bad in this world. +Here, see, for instance, how openly and from our hearts we have +been talking as though we had known each other a hundred years. +Sometimes, I assure you, one restrains oneself for ten years and +holds one's tongue, is reserved with one's friends and one's wife, +and meets some cadet in a train and babbles one's whole soul out +to him. It is the first time I have the honour of seeing you, and +yet I have confessed to you as I have never confessed in my life. +Why is it?" + +Rubbing his hands and smiling good-humouredly Liharev walked up and +down the room, and fell to talking about women again. Meanwhile +they began ringing for matins. + +"Goodness," wailed Sasha. "He won't let me sleep with his talking!" + +"Oh, yes!" said Liharev, startled. "I am sorry, darling, sleep, +sleep. . . . I have two boys besides her," he whispered. "They are +living with their uncle, Madam, but this one can't exist a day +without her father. She's wretched, she complains, but she sticks +to me like a fly to honey. I have been chattering too much, Madam, +and it would do you no harm to sleep. Wouldn't you like me to make +up a bed for you?" + +Without waiting for permission he shook the wet pelisse, stretched +it on a bench, fur side upwards, collected various shawls and +scarves, put the overcoat folded up into a roll for a pillow, and +all this he did in silence with a look of devout reverence, as +though he were not handling a woman's rags, but the fragments of +holy vessels. There was something apologetic, embarrassed about his +whole figure, as though in the presence of a weak creature he felt +ashamed of his height and strength. . . . + +When Mlle. Ilovaisky had lain down, he put out the candle and sat +down on a stool by the stove. + +"So, Madam," he whispered, lighting a fat cigarette and puffing the +smoke into the stove. "Nature has put into the Russian an extraordinary +faculty for belief, a searching intelligence, and the gift of +speculation, but all that is reduced to ashes by irresponsibility, +laziness, and dreamy frivolity. . . . Yes. . . ." + +She gazed wonderingly into the darkness, and saw only a spot of red +on the ikon and the flicker of the light of the stove on Liharev's +face. The darkness, the chime of the bells, the roar of the storm, +the lame boy, Sasha with her fretfulness, unhappy Liharev and his +sayings--all this was mingled together, and seemed to grow into +one huge impression, and God's world seemed to her fantastic, full +of marvels and magical forces. All that she had heard was ringing +in her ears, and human life presented itself to her as a beautiful +poetic fairy-tale without an end. + +The immense impression grew and grew, clouded consciousness, and +turned into a sweet dream. She was asleep, though she saw the little +ikon lamp and a big nose with the light playing on it. + +She heard the sound of weeping. + +"Daddy, darling," a child's voice was tenderly entreating, "let's +go back to uncle! There is a Christmas-tree there! Styopa and Kolya +are there!" + +"My darling, what can I do?" a man's bass persuaded softly. "Understand +me! Come, understand!" + +And the man's weeping blended with the child's. This voice of human +sorrow, in the midst of the howling of the storm, touched the girl's +ear with such sweet human music that she could not bear the delight +of it, and wept too. She was conscious afterwards of a big, black +shadow coming softly up to her, picking up a shawl that had dropped +on to the floor and carefully wrapping it round her feet. + +Mile. Ilovaisky was awakened by a strange uproar. She jumped up and +looked about her in astonishment. The deep blue dawn was looking +in at the window half-covered with snow. In the room there was a +grey twilight, through which the stove and the sleeping child and +Nasir-ed-Din stood out distinctly. The stove and the lamp were both +out. Through the wide-open door she could see the big tavern room +with a counter and chairs. A man, with a stupid, gipsy face and +astonished eyes, was standing in the middle of the room in a puddle +of melting snow, holding a big red star on a stick. He was surrounded +by a group of boys, motionless as statues, and plastered over with +snow. The light shone through the red paper of the star, throwing +a glow of red on their wet faces. The crowd was shouting in disorder, +and from its uproar Mile. Ilovaisky could make out only one couplet: + +"Hi, you Little Russian lad, +Bring your sharp knife, +We will kill the Jew, we will kill him, +The son of tribulation. . ." + +Liharev was standing near the counter, looking feelingly at the +singers and tapping his feet in time. Seeing Mile. Ilovaisky, he +smiled all over his face and came up to her. She smiled too. + +"A happy Christmas!" he said. "I saw you slept well." + +She looked at him, said nothing, and went on smiling. + +After the conversation in the night he seemed to her not tall and +broad shouldered, but little, just as the biggest steamer seems to +us a little thing when we hear that it has crossed the ocean. + +"Well, it is time for me to set off," she said. "I must put on my +things. Tell me where you are going now?" + +"I? To the station of Klinushki, from there to Sergievo, and from +Sergievo, with horses, thirty miles to the coal mines that belong +to a horrid man, a general called Shashkovsky. My brothers have got +me the post of superintendent there. . . . I am going to be a coal +miner." + +"Stay, I know those mines. Shashkovsky is my uncle, you know. But +. . . what are you going there for?" asked Mlle. Ilovaisky, looking +at Liharev in surprise. + +"As superintendent. To superintend the coal mines." + +"I don't understand!" she shrugged her shoulders. "You are going +to the mines. But you know, it's the bare steppe, a desert, so +dreary that you couldn't exist a day there! It's horrible coal, no +one will buy it, and my uncle's a maniac, a despot, a bankrupt +. . . . You won't get your salary!" + +"No matter," said Liharev, unconcernedly, "I am thankful even for +coal mines." + +She shrugged her shoulders, and walked about the room in agitation. + +"I don't understand, I don't understand," she said, moving her +fingers before her face. "It's impossible, and . . . and irrational! +You must understand that it's . . . it's worse than exile. It is a +living tomb! O Heavens!" she said hotly, going up to Liharev and +moving her fingers before his smiling face; her upper lip was +quivering, and her sharp face turned pale, "Come, picture it, the +bare steppe, solitude. There is no one to say a word to there, and +you . . . are enthusiastic over women! Coal mines . . . and women!" + +Mlle. Ilovaisky was suddenly ashamed of her heat and, turning away +from Liharev, walked to the window. + +"No, no, you can't go there," she said, moving her fingers rapidly +over the pane. + +Not only in her heart, but even in her spine she felt that behind +her stood an infinitely unhappy man, lost and outcast, while he, +as though he were unaware of his unhappiness, as though he had not +shed tears in the night, was looking at her with a kindly smile. +Better he should go on weeping! She walked up and down the room +several times in agitation, then stopped short in a corner and sank +into thought. Liharev was saying something, but she did not hear +him. Turning her back on him she took out of her purse a money note, +stood for a long time crumpling it in her hand, and looking round +at Liharev, blushed and put it in her pocket. + +The coachman's voice was heard through the door. With a stern, +concentrated face she began putting on her things in silence. Liharev +wrapped her up, chatting gaily, but every word he said lay on her +heart like a weight. It is not cheering to hear the unhappy or the +dying jest. + +When the transformation of a live person into a shapeless bundle +had been completed, Mlle. Ilovaisky looked for the last time round +the "travellers' room," stood a moment in silence, and slowly walked +out. Liharev went to see her off. . . . + +Outside, God alone knows why, the winter was raging still. Whole +clouds of big soft snowflakes were whirling restlessly over the +earth, unable to find a resting-place. The horses, the sledge, the +trees, a bull tied to a post, all were white and seemed soft and +fluffy. + +"Well, God help you," muttered Liharev, tucking her into the sledge. +"Don't remember evil against me . . . ." + +She was silent. When the sledge started, and had to go round a huge +snowdrift, she looked back at Liharev with an expression as though +she wanted to say something to him. He ran up to her, but she did +not say a word to him, she only looked at him through her long +eyelashes with little specks of snow on them. + +Whether his finely intuitive soul were really able to read that +look, or whether his imagination deceived him, it suddenly began +to seem to him that with another touch or two that girl would have +forgiven him his failures, his age, his desolate position, and would +have followed him without question or reasonings. He stood a long +while as though rooted to the spot, gazing at the tracks left by +the sledge runners. The snowflakes greedily settled on his hair, +his beard, his shoulders. . . . Soon the track of the runners had +vanished, and he himself covered with snow, began to look like a +white rock, but still his eyes kept seeking something in the clouds +of snow. + + +ROTHSCHILD'S FIDDLE + +THE town was a little one, worse than a village, and it was inhabited +by scarcely any but old people who died with an infrequency that +was really annoying. In the hospital and in the prison fortress +very few coffins were needed. In fact business was bad. If Yakov +Ivanov had been an undertaker in the chief town of the province he +would certainly have had a house of his own, and people would have +addressed him as Yakov Matveyitch; here in this wretched little +town people called him simply Yakov; his nickname in the street was +for some reason Bronze, and he lived in a poor way like a humble +peasant, in a little old hut in which there was only one room, and +in this room he and Marfa, the stove, a double bed, the coffins, +his bench, and all their belongings were crowded together. + +Yakov made good, solid coffins. For peasants and working people he +made them to fit himself, and this was never unsuccessful, for there +were none taller and stronger than he, even in the prison, though +he was seventy. For gentry and for women he made them to measure, +and used an iron foot-rule for the purpose. He was very unwilling +to take orders for children's coffins, and made them straight off +without measurements, contemptuously, and when he was paid for the +work he always said: + +"I must confess I don't like trumpery jobs." + +Apart from his trade, playing the fiddle brought him in a small +income. + +The Jews' orchestra conducted by Moisey Ilyitch Shahkes, the tinsmith, +who took more than half their receipts for himself, played as a +rule at weddings in the town. As Yakov played very well on the +fiddle, especially Russian songs, Shahkes sometimes invited him to +join the orchestra at a fee of half a rouble a day, in addition to +tips from the visitors. When Bronze sat in the orchestra first of +all his face became crimson and perspiring; it was hot, there was +a suffocating smell of garlic, the fiddle squeaked, the double bass +wheezed close to his right ear, while the flute wailed at his left, +played by a gaunt, red-haired Jew who had a perfect network of red +and blue veins all over his face, and who bore the name of the +famous millionaire Rothschild. And this accursed Jew contrived to +play even the liveliest things plaintively. For no apparent reason +Yakov little by little became possessed by hatred and contempt for +the Jews, and especially for Rothschild; he began to pick quarrels +with him, rail at him in unseemly language and once even tried to +strike him, and Rothschild was offended and said, looking at him +ferociously: + +"If it were not that I respect you for your talent, I would have +sent you flying out of the window." + +Then he began to weep. And because of this Yakov was not often asked +to play in the orchestra; he was only sent for in case of extreme +necessity in the absence of one of the Jews. + +Yakov was never in a good temper, as he was continually having to +put up with terrible losses. For instance, it was a sin to work on +Sundays or Saints' days, and Monday was an unlucky day, so that in +the course of the year there were some two hundred days on which, +whether he liked it or not, he had to sit with his hands folded. +And only think, what a loss that meant. If anyone in the town had +a wedding without music, or if Shahkes did not send for Yakov, that +was a loss, too. The superintendent of the prison was ill for two +years and was wasting away, and Yakov was impatiently waiting for +him to die, but the superintendent went away to the chief town of +the province to be doctored, and there took and died. There's a +loss for you, ten roubles at least, as there would have been an +expensive coffin to make, lined with brocade. The thought of his +losses haunted Yakov, especially at night; he laid his fiddle on +the bed beside him, and when all sorts of nonsensical ideas came +into his mind he touched a string; the fiddle gave out a sound in +the darkness, and he felt better. + +On the sixth of May of the previous year Marfa had suddenly been +taken ill. The old woman's breathing was laboured, she drank a great +deal of water, and she staggered as she walked, yet she lighted the +stove in the morning and even went herself to get water. Towards +evening she lay down. Yakov played his fiddle all day; when it was +quite dark he took the book in which he used every day to put down +his losses, and, feeling dull, he began adding up the total for the +year. It came to more than a thousand roubles. This so agitated him +that he flung the reckoning beads down, and trampled them under his +feet. Then he picked up the reckoning beads, and again spent a long +time clicking with them and heaving deep, strained sighs. His face +was crimson and wet with perspiration. He thought that if he had +put that lost thousand roubles in the bank, the interest for a year +would have been at least forty roubles, so that forty roubles was +a loss too. In fact, wherever one turned there were losses and +nothing else. + +"Yakov!" Marfa called unexpectedly. "I am dying." + +He looked round at his wife. Her face was rosy with fever, unusually +bright and joyful-looking. Bronze, accustomed to seeing her face +always pale, timid, and unhappy-looking, was bewildered. It looked +as if she really were dying and were glad that she was going away +for ever from that hut, from the coffins, and from Yakov. . . . And +she gazed at the ceiling and moved her lips, and her expression was +one of happiness, as though she saw death as her deliverer and were +whispering with him. + +It was daybreak; from the windows one could see the flush of dawn. +Looking at the old woman, Yakov for some reason reflected that he +had not once in his life been affectionate to her, had had no feeling +for her, had never once thought to buy her a kerchief, or to bring +her home some dainty from a wedding, but had done nothing but shout +at her, scold her for his losses, shake his fists at her; it is +true he had never actually beaten her, but he had frightened her, +and at such times she had always been numb with terror. Why, he had +forbidden her to drink tea because they spent too much without that, +and she drank only hot water. And he understood why she had such a +strange, joyful face now, and he was overcome with dread. + +As soon as it was morning he borrowed a horse from a neighbour and +took Marfa to the hospital. There were not many patients there, and +so he had not long to wait, only three hours. To his great satisfaction +the patients were not being received by the doctor, who was himself +ill, but by the assistant, Maxim Nikolaitch, an old man of whom +everyone in the town used to say that, though he drank and was +quarrelsome, he knew more than the doctor. + +"I wish you good-day," said Yakov, leading his old woman into the +consulting room. "You must excuse us, Maxim Nikolaitch, we are +always troubling you with our trumpery affairs. Here you see my +better half is ailing, the partner of my life, as they say, excuse +the expression. . . ." + +Knitting his grizzled brows and stroking his whiskers the assistant +began to examine the old woman, and she sat on a stool, a wasted, +bent figure with a sharp nose and open mouth, looking like a bird +that wants to drink. + +"H------m . . . Ah! . . ." the assistant said slowly, and he heaved +a sigh. "Influenza and possibly fever. There's typhus in the town +now. Well, the old woman has lived her life, thank God. . . . How +old is she?" + +"She'll be seventy in another year, Maxim Nikolaitch." + +"Well, the old woman has lived her life, it's time to say good-bye." + +"You are quite right in what you say, of course, Maxim Nikolaitch," +said Yakov, smiling from politeness, "and we thank you feelingly +for your kindness, but allow me to say every insect wants to live." + +"To be sure," said the assistant, in a tone which suggested that +it depended upon him whether the woman lived or died. "Well, then, +my good fellow, put a cold compress on her head, and give her these +powders twice a day, and so good-bye. Bonjour." + +From the expression of his face Yakov saw that it was a bad case, +and that no sort of powders would be any help; it was clear to him +that Marfa would die very soon, if not to-day, to-morrow. He nudged +the assistant's elbow, winked at him, and said in a low voice: + +"If you would just cup her, Maxim Nikolaitch." + +"I have no time, I have no time, my good fellow. Take your old woman +and go in God's name. Goodbye." + +"Be so gracious," Yakov besought him. "You know yourself that if, +let us say, it were her stomach or her inside that were bad, then +powders or drops, but you see she had got a chill! In a chill the +first thing is to let blood, Maxim Nikolaitch." + +But the assistant had already sent for the next patient, and a +peasant woman came into the consulting room with a boy. + +"Go along! go along," he said to Yakov, frowning. "It's no use to +--" + +"In that case put on leeches, anyway! Make us pray for you for +ever." + +The assistant flew into a rage and shouted: + +"You speak to me again! You blockhead. . . ." + +Yakov flew into a rage too, and he turned crimson all over, but he +did not utter a word. He took Marfa on his arm and led her out of +the room. Only when they were sitting in the cart he looked morosely +and ironically at the hospital, and said: + +"A nice set of artists they have settled here! No fear, but he would +have cupped a rich man, but even a leech he grudges to the poor. +The Herods!" + +When they got home and went into the hut, Marfa stood for ten minutes +holding on to the stove. It seemed to her that if she were to lie +down Yakov would talk to her about his losses, and scold her for +lying down and not wanting to work. Yakov looked at her drearily +and thought that to-morrow was St. John the Divine's, and next day +St. Nikolay the Wonder-worker's, and the day after that was Sunday, +and then Monday, an unlucky day. For four days he would not be able +to work, and most likely Marfa would die on one of those days; so +he would have to make the coffin to-day. He picked up his iron rule, +went up to the old woman and took her measure. Then she lay down, +and he crossed himself and began making the coffin. + +When the coffin was finished Bronze put on his spectacles and wrote +in his book: "Marfa Ivanov's coffin, two roubles, forty kopecks." + +And he heaved a sigh. The old woman lay all the time silent with +her eyes closed. But in the evening, when it got dark, she suddenly +called the old man. + +"Do you remember, Yakov," she asked, looking at him joyfully. "Do +you remember fifty years ago God gave us a little baby with flaxen +hair? We used always to be sitting by the river then, singing songs +. . . under the willows," and laughing bitterly, she added: "The +baby girl died." + +Yakov racked his memory, but could not remember the baby or the +willows. + +"It's your fancy," he said. + +The priest arrived; he administered the sacrament and extreme +unction. Then Marfa began muttering something unintelligible, and +towards morning she died. Old women, neighbours, washed her, dressed +her, and laid her in the coffin. To avoid paying the sacristan, +Yakov read the psalms over the body himself, and they got nothing +out of him for the grave, as the grave-digger was a crony of his. +Four peasants carried the coffin to the graveyard, not for money, +but from respect. The coffin was followed by old women, beggars, +and a couple of crazy saints, and the people who met it crossed +themselves piously. . . . And Yakov was very much pleased that it +was so creditable, so decorous, and so cheap, and no offence to +anyone. As he took his last leave of Marfa he touched the coffin +and thought: "A good piece of work!" + +But as he was going back from the cemetery he was overcome by acute +depression. He didn't feel quite well: his breathing was laboured +and feverish, his legs felt weak, and he had a craving for drink. +And thoughts of all sorts forced themselves on his mind. He remembered +again that all his life he had never felt for Marfa, had never been +affectionate to her. The fifty-two years they had lived in the same +hut had dragged on a long, long time, but it had somehow happened +that in all that time he had never once thought of her, had paid +no attention to her, as though she had been a cat or a dog. And +yet, every day, she had lighted the stove had cooked and baked, had +gone for the water, had chopped the wood, had slept with him in the +same bed, and when he came home drunk from the weddings always +reverently hung his fiddle on the wall and put him to bed, and all +this in silence, with a timid, anxious expression. + +Rothschild, smiling and bowing, came to meet Yakov. + +"I was looking for you, uncle," he said. "Moisey Ilyitch sends you +his greetings and bids you come to him at once." + +Yakov felt in no mood for this. He wanted to cry. + +"Leave me alone," he said, and walked on. + +"How can you," Rothschild said, fluttered, running on in front. +"Moisey Ilyitch will be offended! He bade you come at once!" + +Yakov was revolted at the Jew's gasping for breath and blinking, +and having so many red freckles on his face. And it was disgusting +to look at his green coat with black patches on it, and all his +fragile, refined figure. + +"Why are you pestering me, garlic?" shouted Yakov. "Don't persist!" + +The Jew got angry and shouted too: + +"Not so noisy, please, or I'll send you flying over the fence!" + +"Get out of my sight!" roared Yakov, and rushed at him with his +fists. "One can't live for you scabby Jews!" + +Rothschild, half dead with terror, crouched down and waved his hands +over his head, as though to ward off a blow; then he leapt up and +ran away as fast as his legs could carry him: as he ran he gave +little skips and kept clasping his hands, and Yakov could see how +his long thin spine wriggled. Some boys, delighted at the incident, +ran after him shouting "Jew! Jew!" Some dogs joined in the chase +barking. Someone burst into a roar of laughter, then gave a whistle; +the dogs barked with even more noise and unanimity. Then a dog must +have bitten Rothschild, as a desperate, sickly scream was heard. + +Yakov went for a walk on the grazing ground, then wandered on at +random in the outskirts of the town, while the street boys shouted: + +"Here's Bronze! Here's Bronze!" + +He came to the river, where the curlews floated in the air uttering +shrill cries and the ducks quacked. The sun was blazing hot, and +there was a glitter from the water, so that it hurt the eyes to +look at it. Yakov walked by a path along the bank and saw a plump, +rosy-cheeked lady come out of the bathing-shed, and thought about +her: "Ugh! you otter!" + +Not far from the bathing-shed boys were catching crayfish with bits +of meat; seeing him, they began shouting spitefully, "Bronze! +Bronze!" And then he saw an old spreading willow-tree with a big +hollow in it, and a crow's nest on it. . . . And suddenly there +rose up vividly in Yakov's memory a baby with flaxen hair, and the +willow-tree Marfa had spoken of. Why, that is it, the same willow-tree +--green, still, and sorrowful. . . . How old it has grown, poor +thing! + +He sat down under it and began to recall the past. On the other +bank, where now there was the water meadow, in those days there +stood a big birchwood, and yonder on the bare hillside that could +be seen on the horizon an old, old pine forest used to be a bluish +patch in the distance. Big boats used to sail on the river. But now +it was all smooth and unruffled, and on the other bank there stood +now only one birch-tree, youthful and slender like a young lady, +and there was nothing on the river but ducks and geese, and it +didn't look as though there had ever been boats on it. It seemed +as though even the geese were fewer than of old. Yakov shut his +eyes, and in his imagination huge flocks of white geese soared, +meeting one another. + +He wondered how it had happened that for the last forty or fifty +years of his life he had never once been to the river, or if he had +been by it he had not paid attention to it. Why, it was a decent +sized river, not a trumpery one; he might have gone in for fishing +and sold the fish to merchants, officials, and the bar-keeper at +the station, and then have put money in the bank; he might have +sailed in a boat from one house to another, playing the fiddle, and +people of all classes would have paid to hear him; he might have +tried getting big boats afloat again--that would be better than +making coffins; he might have bred geese, killed them and sent them +in the winter to Moscow Why, the feathers alone would very likely +mount up to ten roubles in the year. But he had wasted his time, +he had done nothing of this. What losses! Ah! What losses! And if +he had gone in for all those things at once--catching fish and +playing the fiddle, and running boats and killing geese--what a +fortune he would have made! But nothing of this had happened, even +in his dreams; life had passed uselessly without any pleasure, had +been wasted for nothing, not even a pinch of snuff; there was nothing +left in front, and if one looked back--there was nothing there +but losses, and such terrible ones, it made one cold all over. And +why was it a man could not live so as to avoid these losses and +misfortunes? One wondered why they had cut down the birch copse and +the pine forest. Why was he walking with no reason on the grazing +ground? Why do people always do what isn't needful? Why had Yakov +all his life scolded, bellowed, shaken his fists, ill-treated his +wife, and, one might ask, what necessity was there for him to +frighten and insult the Jew that day? Why did people in general +hinder each other from living? What losses were due to it! what +terrible losses! If it were not for hatred and malice people would +get immense benefit from one another. + +In the evening and the night he had visions of the baby, of the +willow, of fish, of slaughtered geese, and Marfa looking in profile +like a bird that wants to drink, and the pale, pitiful face of +Rothschild, and faces moved down from all sides and muttered of +losses. He tossed from side to side, and got out of bed five times +to play the fiddle. + +In the morning he got up with an effort and went to the hospital. +The same Maxim Nikolaitch told him to put a cold compress on his +head, and gave him some powders, and from his tone and expression +of face Yakov realized that it was a bad case and that no powders +would be any use. As he went home afterwards, he reflected that +death would be nothing but a benefit; he would not have to eat or +drink, or pay taxes or offend people, and, as a man lies in his +grave not for one year but for hundreds and thousands, if one +reckoned it up the gain would be enormous. A man's life meant loss: +death meant gain. This reflection was, of course, a just one, but +yet it was bitter and mortifying; why was the order of the world +so strange, that life, which is given to man only once, passes away +without benefit? + +He was not sorry to die, but at home, as soon as he saw his fiddle, +it sent a pang to his heart and he felt sorry. He could not take +the fiddle with him to the grave, and now it would be left forlorn, +and the same thing would happen to it as to the birch copse and the +pine forest. Everything in this world was wasted and would be wasted! +Yakov went out of the hut and sat in the doorway, pressing the +fiddle to his bosom. Thinking of his wasted, profitless life, he +began to play, he did not know what, but it was plaintive and +touching, and tears trickled down his cheeks. And the harder he +thought, the more mournfully the fiddle wailed. + +The latch clicked once and again, and Rothschild appeared at the +gate. He walked across half the yard boldly, but seeing Yakov he +stopped short, and seemed to shrink together, and probably from +terror, began making signs with his hands as though he wanted to +show on his fingers what o'clock it was. + +"Come along, it's all right," said Yakov in a friendly tone, and +he beckoned him to come up. "Come along!" + +Looking at him mistrustfully and apprehensively, Rothschild began +to advance, and stopped seven feet off. + +"Be so good as not to beat me," he said, ducking. "Moisey Ilyitch +has sent me again. 'Don't be afraid,' he said; 'go to Yakov again +and tell him,' he said, 'we can't get on without him.' There is a +wedding on Wednesday. . . . Ye---es! Mr. Shapovalov is marrying his +daughter to a good man. . . . And it will be a grand wedding, oo-oo!" +added the Jew, screwing up one eye. + +"I can't come," said Yakov, breathing hard. "I'm ill, brother." + +And he began playing again, and the tears gushed from his eyes on +to the fiddle. Rothschild listened attentively, standing sideways +to him and folding his arms on his chest. The scared and perplexed +expression on his face, little by little, changed to a look of woe +and suffering; he rolled his eyes as though he were experiencing +an agonizing ecstasy, and articulated, "Vachhh!" and tears slowly +ran down his cheeks and trickled on his greenish coat. + +And Yakov lay in bed all the rest of the day grieving. In the +evening, when the priest confessing him asked, Did he remember any +special sin he had committed? straining his failing memory he thought +again of Marfa's unhappy face, and the despairing shriek of the Jew +when the dog bit him, and said, hardly audibly, "Give the fiddle +to Rothschild." + +"Very well," answered the priest. + +And now everyone in the town asks where Rothschild got such a fine +fiddle. Did he buy it or steal it? Or perhaps it had come to him +as a pledge. He gave up the flute long ago, and now plays nothing +but the fiddle. As plaintive sounds flow now from his bow, as came +once from his flute, but when he tries to repeat what Yakov played, +sitting in the doorway, the effect is something so sad and sorrowful +that his audience weep, and he himself rolls his eyes and articulates +"Vachhh! . . ." And this new air was so much liked in the town that +the merchants and officials used to be continually sending for +Rothschild and making him play it over and over again a dozen times. + + +IVAN MATVEYITCH + +BETWEEN five and six in the evening. A fairly well-known man of +learning--we will call him simply the man of learning--is sitting +in his study nervously biting his nails. + +"It's positively revolting," he says, continually looking at his +watch. "It shows the utmost disrespect for another man's time and +work. In England such a person would not earn a farthing, he would +die of hunger. You wait a minute, when you do come . . . ." + +And feeling a craving to vent his wrath and impatience upon someone, +the man of learning goes to the door leading to his wife's room and +knocks. + +"Listen, Katya," he says in an indignant voice. "If you see Pyotr +Danilitch, tell him that decent people don't do such things. It's +abominable! He recommends a secretary, and does not know the sort +of man he is recommending! The wretched boy is two or three hours +late with unfailing regularity every day. Do you call that a +secretary? Those two or three hours are more precious to me than +two or three years to other people. When he does come I will swear +at him like a dog, and won't pay him and will kick him out. It's +no use standing on ceremony with people like that!" + +"You say that every day, and yet he goes on coming and coming." + +"But to-day I have made up my mind. I have lost enough through him. +You must excuse me, but I shall swear at him like a cabman." + +At last a ring is heard. The man of learning makes a grave face; +drawing himself up, and, throwing back his head, he goes into the +entry. There his amanuensis Ivan Matveyitch, a young man of eighteen, +with a face oval as an egg and no moustache, wearing a shabby, mangy +overcoat and no goloshes, is already standing by the hatstand. He +is in breathless haste, and scrupulously wipes his huge clumsy boots +on the doormat, trying as he does so to conceal from the maidservant +a hole in his boot through which a white sock is peeping. Seeing +the man of learning he smiles with that broad, prolonged, somewhat +foolish smile which is seen only on the faces of children or very +good-natured people. + +"Ah, good evening!" he says, holding out a big wet hand. "Has your +sore throat gone?" + +"Ivan Matveyitch," says the man of learning in a shaking voice, +stepping back and clasping his hands together. "Ivan Matveyitch." + +Then he dashes up to the amanuensis, clutches him by the shoulders, +and begins feebly shaking him. + +"What a way to treat me!" he says with despair in his voice. "You +dreadful, horrid fellow, what a way to treat me! Are you laughing +at me, are you jeering at me? Eh?" + +Judging from the smile which still lingered on his face Ivan +Matveyitch had expected a very different reception, and so, seeing +the man of learning's countenance eloquent of indignation, his oval +face grows longer than ever, and he opens his mouth in amazement. + +"What is . . . what is it?" he asks. + +"And you ask that?" the man of learning clasps his hands. "You know +how precious time is to me, and you are so late. You are two hours +late! . . . Have you no fear of God?" + +"I haven't come straight from home," mutters Ivan Matveyitch, untying +his scarf irresolutely. "I have been at my aunt's name-day party, +and my aunt lives five miles away. . . . If I had come straight +from home, then it would have been a different thing." + +"Come, reflect, Ivan Matveyitch, is there any logic in your conduct? +Here you have work to do, work at a fixed time, and you go flying +off after name-day parties and aunts! But do make haste and undo +your wretched scarf! It's beyond endurance, really!" + +The man of learning dashes up to the amanuensis again and helps him +to disentangle his scarf. + +"You are done up like a peasant woman, . . . Come along, . . . +Please make haste!" + +Blowing his nose in a dirty, crumpled-up handkerchief and pulling +down his grey reefer jacket, Ivan Matveyitch goes through the hall +and the drawing-room to the study. There a place and paper and even +cigarettes had been put ready for him long ago. + +"Sit down, sit down," the man of learning urges him on, rubbing his +hands impatiently. "You are an unsufferable person. . . . You know +the work has to be finished by a certain time, and then you are so +late. One is forced to scold you. Come, write, . . . Where did we +stop?" + +Ivan Matveyitch smooths his bristling cropped hair and takes up his +pen. The man of learning walks up and down the room, concentrates +himself, and begins to dictate: + +"The fact is . . . comma . . . that so to speak fundamental forms +. . . have you written it? . . . forms are conditioned entirely by +the essential nature of those principles . . . comma . . . which +find in them their expression and can only be embodied in them +. . . . New line, . . . There's a stop there, of course. . . . More +independence is found . . . is found . . . by the forms which have +not so much a political . . . comma . . . as a social character . ." + +"The high-school boys have a different uniform now . . . a grey +one," said Ivan Matveyitch, "when I was at school it was better: +they used to wear regular uniforms." + +"Oh dear, write please!" says the man of learning wrathfully. +"Character . . . have you written it? Speaking of the forms relating +to the organization . . . of administrative functions, and not to +the regulation of the life of the people . . . comma . . . it cannot +be said that they are marked by the nationalism of their forms . . . +the last three words in inverted commas. . . . Aie, aie . . . +tut, tut . . . so what did you want to say about the high school?" + +"That they used to wear a different uniform in my time." + +"Aha! . . . indeed, . . . Is it long since you left the high school?" + +"But I told you that yesterday. It is three years since I left +school. . . . I left in the fourth class." + +"And why did you give up high school?" asks the man of learning, +looking at Ivan Matveyitch's writing. + +"Oh, through family circumstances." + +"Must I speak to you again, Ivan Matveyitch? When will you get over +your habit of dragging out the lines? There ought not to be less +than forty letters in a line." + +"What, do you suppose I do it on purpose?" says Ivan Matveyitch, +offended. "There are more than forty letters in some of the other +lines. . . . You count them. And if you think I don't put enough +in the line, you can take something off my pay." + +"Oh dear, that's not the point. You have no delicacy, really. . . . +At the least thing you drag in money. The great thing is to be +exact, Ivan Matveyitch, to be exact is the great thing. You ought +to train yourself to be exact." + +The maidservant brings in a tray with two glasses of tea on it, and +a basket of rusks. . . . Ivan Matveyitch takes his glass awkwardly +with both hands, and at once begins drinking it. The tea is too +hot. To avoid burning his mouth Ivan Matveyitch tries to take a +tiny sip. He eats one rusk, then a second, then a third, and, looking +sideways, with embarrassment, at the man of learning, timidly +stretches after a fourth. . . . The noise he makes in swallowing, +the relish with which he smacks his lips, and the expression of +hungry greed in his raised eyebrows irritate the man of learning. + +"Make haste and finish, time is precious." + +"You dictate, I can drink and write at the same time. . . . I must +confess I was hungry." + +"I should think so after your walk!" + +"Yes, and what wretched weather! In our parts there is a scent of +spring by now. . . . There are puddles everywhere; the snow is +melting." + +"You are a southerner, I suppose?" + +"From the Don region. . . . It's quite spring with us by March. +Here it is frosty, everyone's in a fur coat, . . . but there you +can see the grass . . . it's dry everywhere, and one can even catch +tarantulas." + +"And what do you catch tarantulas for?" + +"Oh! . . . to pass the time . . ." says Ivan Matveyitch, and he +sighs. "It's fun catching them. You fix a bit of pitch on a thread, +let it down into their hole and begin hitting the tarantula on the +back with the pitch, and the brute gets cross, catches hold of the +pitch with his claws, and gets stuck. . . . And what we used to do +with them! We used to put a basinful of them together and drop a +bihorka in with them." + +"What is a bihorka?" + +"That's another spider, very much the same as a tarantula. In a +fight one of them can kill a hundred tarantulas." + +"H'm! . . . But we must write, . . . Where did we stop?" + +The man of learning dictates another twenty lines, then sits plunged +in meditation. + +Ivan Matveyitch, waiting while the other cogitates, sits and, craning +his neck, puts the collar of his shirt to rights. His tie will not +set properly, the stud has come out, and the collar keeps coming +apart. + +"H'm! . . ." says the man of learning. "Well, haven't you found a +job yet, Ivan Matveyitch?" + +"No. And how is one to find one? I am thinking, you know, of +volunteering for the army. But my father advises my going into a +chemist's." + +"H'm! . . . But it would be better for you to go into the university. +The examination is difficult, but with patience and hard work you +could get through. Study, read more. . . . Do you read much?" + +"Not much, I must own . . ." says Ivan Matveyitch, lighting a +cigarette. + +"Have you read Turgenev?" + +"N-no. . . ." + +"And Gogol?" + +"Gogol. H'm! . . . Gogol. . . . No, I haven't read him!" + +"Ivan Matveyitch! Aren't you ashamed? Aie! aie! You are such a nice +fellow, so much that is original in you . . . you haven't even read +Gogol! You must read him! I will give you his works! It's essential +to read him! We shall quarrel if you don't!" + +Again a silence follows. The man of learning meditates, half reclining +on a soft lounge, and Ivan Matveyitch, leaving his collar in peace, +concentrates his whole attention on his boots. He has not till then +noticed that two big puddles have been made by the snow melting off +his boots on the floor. He is ashamed. + +"I can't get on to-day . . ." mutters the man of learning. "I suppose +you are fond of catching birds, too, Ivan Matveyitch?" + +"That's in autumn, . . . I don't catch them here, but there at home +I always did." + +"To be sure . . . very good. But we must write, though." + +The man of learning gets up resolutely and begins dictating, but +after ten lines sits down on the lounge again. + +"No. . . . Perhaps we had better put it off till to-morrow morning," +he says. "Come to-morrow morning, only come early, at nine o'clock. +God preserve you from being late!" + +Ivan Matveyitch lays down his pen, gets up from the table and sits +in another chair. Five minutes pass in silence, and he begins to +feel it is time for him to go, that he is in the way; but in the +man of learning's study it is so snug and light and warm, and the +impression of the nice rusks and sweet tea is still so fresh that +there is a pang at his heart at the mere thought of home. At home +there is poverty, hunger, cold, his grumbling father, scoldings, +and here it is so quiet and unruffled, and interest even is taken +in his tarantulas and birds. + +The man of learning looks at his watch and takes up a book. + +"So you will give me Gogol?' says Ivan Matveyitch, getting up. + +"Yes, yes! But why are you in such a hurry, my dear boy? Sit down +and tell me something . . ." + +Ivan Matveyitch sits down and smiles broadly. Almost every evening +he sits in this study and always feels something extraordinarily +soft, attracting him, as it were akin, in the voice and the glance +of the man of learning. There are moments when he even fancies that +the man of learning is becoming attached to him, used to him, and +that if he scolds him for being late, it's simply because he misses +his chatter about tarantulas and how they catch goldfinches on the +Don. + + +ZINOTCHKA + +THE party of sportsmen spent the night in a peasant's hut on some +newly mown hay. The moon peeped in at the window; from the street +came the mournful wheezing of a concertina; from the hay came a +sickly sweet, faintly troubling scent. The sportsmen talked about +dogs, about women, about first love, and about snipe. After all the +ladies of their acquaintance had been picked to pieces, and hundreds +of stories had been told, the stoutest of the sportsmen, who looked +in the darkness like a haycock, and who talked in the mellow bass +of a staff officer, gave a loud yawn and said: + +"It is nothing much to be loved; the ladies are created for the +purpose of loving us men. But, tell me, has any one of you fellows +been hated--passionately, furiously hated? Has any one of you +watched the ecstasies of hatred? Eh?" + +No answer followed. + +"Has no one, gentlemen?" asked the staff officer's bass voice. "But +I, now, have been hated, hated by a pretty girl, and have been able +to study the symptoms of first hatred directed against myself. It +was the first, because it was something exactly the converse of +first love. What I am going to tell, however, happened when I knew +nothing about love or hate. I was eight at the time, but that made +no difference; in this case it was not _he_ but _she_ that mattered. +Well, I beg your attention. One fine summer evening, just before +sunset, I was sitting in the nursery, doing my lesson with my +governess, Zinotchka, a very charming and poetical creature who had +left boarding school not long before. Zinotchka looked absent-mindedly +towards the window and said: + +"'Yes. We breathe in oxygen; now tell me, Petya, what do we breathe +out?' + +"'Carbonic acid gas,' I answered, looking towards the same window. + +"'Right,' assented Zinotchka. 'Plants, on the contrary, breathe +in carbonic acid gas, and breathe out oxygen. Carbonic acid gas is +contained in seltzer water, and in the fumes from the samovar. . . . +It is a very noxious gas. Near Naples there is the so-called Cave +of Dogs, which contains carbonic acid gas; a dog dropped into it +is suffocated and dies.' + +"This luckless Cave of Dogs near Naples is a chemical marvel beyond +which no governess ventures to go. Zinotchka always hotly maintained +the usefulness of natural science, but I doubt if she knew any +chemistry beyond this Cave. + +"Well, she told me to repeat it. I repeated it. She asked me what +was meant by the horizon. I answered. And meantime, while we were +ruminating over the horizon and the Cave, in the yard below, my +father was just getting ready to go shooting. The dogs yapped, the +trace horses shifted from one leg to another impatiently and coquetted +with the coachman, the footman packed the waggonette with parcels +and all sorts of things. Beside the waggonette stood a brake in +which my mother and sisters were sitting to drive to a name-day +party at the Ivanetskys'. No one was left in the house but Zinotchka, +me, and my eldest brother, a student, who had toothache. You can +imagine my envy and my boredom. + +"'Well, what do we breathe in?' asked Zinotchka, looking at the +window. + +"'Oxygen. . .' + +"'Yes. And the horizon is the name given to the place where it +seems to us as though the earth meets the sky.' + +"Then the waggonette drove off, and after it the brake. . . . I saw +Zinotchka take a note out of her pocket, crumple it up convulsively +and press it to her temple, then she flushed crimson and looked at +her watch. + +"'So, remember,' she said, 'that near Naples is the so-called Cave +of Dogs. . . .' She glanced at her watch again and went on: 'where +the sky seems to us to meet the earth. . . .' + +"The poor girl in violent agitation walked about the room, and once +more glanced at her watch. There was another half-hour before the +end of our lesson. + +"'Now arithmetic,' she said, breathing hard and turning over the +pages of the sum-book with a trembling hand. 'Come, you work out +problem 325 and I . . . will be back directly.' + +"She went out. I heard her scurry down the stairs, and then I saw +her dart across the yard in her blue dress and vanish through the +garden gate. The rapidity of her movements, the flush on her cheeks +and her excitement, aroused my curiosity. Where had she run, and +what for? Being intelligent beyond my years I soon put two and two +together, and understood it all: she had run into the garden, taking +advantage of the absence of my stern parents, to steal in among the +raspberry bushes, or to pick herself some cherries. If that were +so, dash it all, I would go and have some cherries too. I threw +aside the sum-book and ran into the garden. I ran to the cherry +orchard, but she was not there. Passing by the raspberries, the +gooseberries, and the watchman's shanty, she crossed the kitchen +garden and reached the pond, pale, and starting at every sound. I +stole after her, and what I saw, my friends, was this. At the edge +of the pond, between the thick stumps of two old willows, stood my +elder brother, Sasha; one could not see from his face that he had +toothache. He looked towards Zinotchka as she approached him, and +his whole figure was lighted up by an expression of happiness as +though by sunshine. And Zinotchka, as though she were being driven +into the Cave of Dogs, and were being forced to breathe carbonic +acid gas, walked towards him, scarcely able to move one leg before +the other, breathing hard, with her head thrown back. . . . To judge +from appearances she was going to a rendezous for the first time +in her life. But at last she reached him. . . . For half a minute +they gazed at each other in silence, as though they could not believe +their eyes. Thereupon some force seemed to shove Zinotchka; she +laid her hands on Sasha's shoulders and let her head droop upon his +waistcoat. Sasha laughed, muttered something incoherent, and with +the clumsiness of a man head over ears in love, laid both hands on +Zinotchka's face. And the weather, gentlemen, was exquisite. . . . +The hill behind which the sun was setting, the two willows, the +green bank, the sky--all together with Sasha and Zinotchka were +reflected in the pond . . . perfect stillness . . . you can imagine +it. Millions of butterflies with long whiskers gleamed golden above +the reeds; beyond the garden they were driving the cattle. In fact, +it was a perfect picture. + +"Of all I had seen the only thing I understood was that Sasha was +kissing Zinotchka. That was improper. If _maman_ heard of it they +would both catch it. Feeling for some reason ashamed I went back +to the nursery, not waiting for the end of the rendezvous. There I +sat over the sum-book, pondered and reflected. A triumphant smile +strayed upon my countenance. On one side it was agreeable to be the +possessor of another person's secret; on the other it was also very +agreeable that such authorities as Sasha and Zinotchka might at any +moment be convicted by me of ignorance of the social proprieties. +Now they were in my power, and their peace was entirely dependent +on my magnanimity. I'd let them know. + +"When I went to bed, Zinotchka came into the nursery as usual to +find out whether I had dropped asleep without undressing and whether +I had said my prayers. I looked at her pretty, happy face and +grinned. I was bursting with my secret and itching to let it out. +I had to drop a hint and enjoy the effect. + +"'I know,' I said, grinning. 'Gy--y.' + +"'What do you know?' + +"'Gy--y! I saw you near the willows kissing Sasha. I followed you +and saw it all.' + +"Zinotchka started, flushed all over, and overwhelmed by 'my hint' +she sank down on the chair, on which stood a glass of water and a +candlestick. + +"'I saw you . . . kissing . . .' I repeated, sniggering and enjoying +her confusion. 'Aha! I'll tell mamma!' + +"Cowardly Zinotchka gazed at me intently, and convincing herself +that I really did know all about it, clutched my hand in despair +and muttered in a trembling whisper: + +"'Petya, it is low. . . . I beg of you, for God's sake. . . . Be +a man . . . don't tell anyone. . . . Decent people don't spy +. . . . It's low. . . . I entreat you.' + +"The poor girl was terribly afraid of my mother, a stern and virtuous +lady--that was one thing; and the second was that my grinning +countenance could not but outrage her first love so pure and poetical, +and you can imagine the state of her heart. Thanks to me, she did +not sleep a wink all night, and in the morning she appeared at +breakfast with blue rings round her eyes. When I met Sasha after +breakfast I could not refrain from grinning and boasting: + +"'I know! I saw you yesterday kissing Mademoiselle Zina!' + +"Sasha looked at me and said: + +"'You are a fool.' + +"He was not so cowardly as Zinotchka, and so my effect did not come +off. That provoked me to further efforts. If Sasha was not frightened +it was evident that he did not believe that I had seen and knew all +about it; wait a bit, I would show him. + +"At our lessons before dinner Zinotchka did not look at me, and her +voice faltered. Instead of trying to scare me she tried to propitiate +me in every way, giving me full marks, and not complaining to my +father of my naughtiness. Being intelligent beyond my years I +exploited her secret: I did not learn my lessons, walked into the +schoolroom on my head, and said all sorts of rude things. In fact, +if I had remained in that vein till to-day I should have become a +famous blackmailer. Well, a week passed. Another person's secret +irritated and fretted me like a splinter in my soul. I longed at +all costs to blurt it out and gloat over the effect. And one day +at dinner, when we had a lot of visitors, I gave a stupid snigger, +looked fiendishly at Zinotchka and said: + +"'I know. Gy--y! I saw! . . .' + +"'What do you know?' asked my mother. + +"I looked still more fiendishly at Zinotchka and Sasha. You ought +to have seen how the girl flushed up, and how furious Sasha's eyes +were! I bit my tongue and did not go on. Zinotchka gradually turned +pale, clenched her teeth, and ate no more dinner. At our evening +lessons that day I noticed a striking change in Zinotchka's face. +It looked sterner, colder, as it were, more like marble, while her +eyes gazed strangely straight into my face, and I give you my word +of honour I have never seen such terrible, annihilating eyes, even +in hounds when they overtake the wolf. I understood their expression +perfectly, when in the middle of a lesson she suddenly clenched her +teeth and hissed through them: + +"'I hate you! Oh, you vile, loathsome creature, if you knew how I +hate you, how I detest your cropped head, your vulgar, prominent +ears!' + +"But at once she took fright and said: + +"'I am not speaking to you, I am repeating a part out of a +play. . . .' + +"Then, my friends, at night I saw her come to my bedside and gaze +a long time into my face. She hated me passionately, and could not +exist away from me. The contemplation of my hated pug of a face had +become a necessity to her. I remember a lovely summer evening . . . +with the scent of hay, perfect stillness, and so on. The moon was +shining. I was walking up and down the avenue, thinking of cherry +jam. Suddenly Zinotchka, looking pale and lovely, came up to me, +she caught hold of my hand, and breathlessly began expressing +herself: + +"'Oh, how I hate you! I wish no one harm as I do you! Let me tell +you that! I want you to understand that!' + +"You understand, moonlight, her pale face, breathless with passion, +the stillness . . . little pig as I was I actually enjoyed it. I +listened to her, looked at her eyes. . . . At first I liked it, and +enjoyed the novelty. Then I was suddenly seized with terror, I gave +a scream, and ran into the house at breakneck speed. + +"I made up my mind that the best thing to do was to complain to +_maman_. And I did complain, mentioning incidentally how Sasha had +kissed Zinotchka. I was stupid, and did not know what would follow, +or I should have kept the secret to myself. . . . After hearing my +story _maman_ flushed with indignation and said: + +"'It is not your business to speak about that, you are still very +young. . . . But, what an example for children.' + +"My _maman_ was not only virtuous but diplomatic. To avoid a scandal +she did not get rid of Zinotchka at once, but set to work gradually, +systematically, to pave the way for her departure, as one does with +well-bred but intolerable people. I remember that when Zinotchka +did leave us the last glance she cast at the house was directed at +the window at which I was sitting, and I assure you, I remember +that glance to this day. + +"Zinotchka soon afterwards became my brother's wife. She is the +Zinaida Nikolaevna whom you know. The next time I met her I was +already an ensign. In spite of all her efforts she could not recognize +the hated Petya in the ensign with his moustache, but still she did +not treat me quite like a relation. . . . And even now, in spite +of my good-humoured baldness, meek corpulence, and unassuming air, +she still looks askance at me, and feels put out when I go to see +my brother. Hatred it seems can no more be forgotten than +love. . . . + +"Tchoo! I hear the cock crowing! Good-night. Milord! Lie down!" + + +BAD WEATHER + +BIG raindrops were pattering on the dark windows. It was one of +those disgusting summer holiday rains which, when they have begun, +last a long time--for weeks, till the frozen holiday maker grows +used to it, and sinks into complete apathy. It was cold; there was +a feeling of raw, unpleasant dampness. The mother-in-law of a lawyer, +called Kvashin, and his wife, Nadyezhda Filippovna, dressed in +waterproofs and shawls, were sitting over the dinner table in the +dining-room. It was written on the countenance of the elder lady +that she was, thank God, well-fed, well-clothed and in good health, +that she had married her only daughter to a good man, and now could +play her game of patience with an easy conscience; her daughter, a +rather short, plump, fair young woman of twenty, with a gentle +anaemic face, was reading a book with her elbows on the table; judging +from her eyes she was not so much reading as thinking her own +thoughts, which were not in the book. Neither of them spoke. There +was the sound of the pattering rain, and from the kitchen they could +hear the prolonged yawns of the cook. + +Kvashin himself was not at home. On rainy days he did not come to +the summer villa, but stayed in town; damp, rainy weather affected +his bronchitis and prevented him from working. He was of the opinion +that the sight of the grey sky and the tears of rain on the windows +deprived one of energy and induced the spleen. In the town, where +there was greater comfort, bad weather was scarcely noticed. + +After two games of patience, the old lady shuffled the cards and +took a glance at her daughter. + +"I have been trying with the cards whether it will be fine to-morrow, +and whether our Alexey Stepanovitch will come," she said. "It is +five days since he was here. . . . The weather is a chastisement +from God." + +Nadyezhda Filippovna looked indifferently at her mother, got up, +and began walking up and down the room. + +"The barometer was rising yesterday," she said doubtfully, "but +they say it is falling again to-day." + +The old lady laid out the cards in three long rows and shook her +head. + +"Do you miss him?" she asked, glancing at her daughter. + +"Of course." + +"I see you do. I should think so. He hasn't been here for five days. +In May the utmost was two, or at most three days, and now it is +serious, five days! I am not his wife, and yet I miss him. And +yesterday, when I heard the barometer was rising, I ordered them +to kill a chicken and prepare a carp for Alexey Stepanovitch. He +likes them. Your poor father couldn't bear fish, but he likes it. +He always eats it with relish." + +"My heart aches for him," said the daughter. "We are dull, but it +is duller still for him, you know, mamma." + +"I should think so! In the law-courts day in and day out, and in +the empty flat at night alone like an owl." + +"And what is so awful, mamma, he is alone there without servants; +there is no one to set the samovar or bring him water. Why didn't +he engage a valet for the summer months? And what use is the summer +villa at all if he does not care for it? I told him there was no +need to have it, but no, 'It is for the sake of your health,' he +said, and what is wrong with my health? It makes me ill that he +should have to put up with so much on my account." + +Looking over her mother's shoulder, the daughter noticed a mistake +in the patience, bent down to the table and began correcting it. A +silence followed. Both looked at the cards and imagined how their +Alexey Stepanovitch, utterly forlorn, was sitting now in the town +in his gloomy, empty study and working, hungry, exhausted, yearning +for his family. . . . + +"Do you know what, mamma?" said Nadyezhda Filippovna suddenly, and +her eyes began to shine. "If the weather is the same to-morrow I'll +go by the first train and see him in town! Anyway, I shall find out +how he is, have a look at him, and pour out his tea." + +And both of them began to wonder how it was that this idea, so +simple and easy to carry out, had not occurred to them before. It +was only half an hour in the train to the town, and then twenty +minutes in a cab. They said a little more, and went off to bed in +the same room, feeling more contented. + +"Oho-ho-ho. . . . Lord, forgive us sinners!" sighed the old lady +when the clock in the hall struck two. "There is no sleeping." + +"You are not asleep, mamma?" the daughter asked in a whisper. "I +keep thinking of Alyosha. I only hope he won't ruin his health in +town. Goodness knows where he dines and lunches. In restaurants and +taverns." + +"I have thought of that myself," sighed the old lady. "The Heavenly +Mother save and preserve him. But the rain, the rain!" + +In the morning the rain was not pattering on the panes, but the sky +was still grey. The trees stood looking mournful, and at every gust +of wind they scattered drops. The footprints on the muddy path, the +ditches and the ruts were full of water. Nadyezhda Filippovna made +up her mind to go. + +"Give him my love," said the old lady, wrapping her daughter up. +"Tell him not to think too much about his cases. . . . And he must +rest. Let him wrap his throat up when he goes out: the weather-- +God help us! And take him the chicken; food from home, even if cold, +is better than at a restaurant." + +The daughter went away, saying that she would come back by an evening +train or else next morning. + +But she came back long before dinner-time, when the old lady was +sitting on her trunk in her bedroom and drowsily thinking what to +cook for her son-in-law's supper. + +Going into the room her daughter, pale and agitated, sank on the +bed without uttering a word or taking off her hat, and pressed her +head into the pillow. + +"But what is the matter," said the old lady in surprise, "why back +so soon? Where is Alexey Stepanovitch?" + +Nadyezhda Filippovna raised her head and gazed at her mother with +dry, imploring eyes. + +"He is deceiving us, mamma," she said. + +"What are you saying? Christ be with you!" cried the old lady in +alarm, and her cap slipped off her head. "Who is going to deceive +us? Lord, have mercy on us!" + +"He is deceiving us, mamma!" repeated her daughter, and her chin +began to quiver. + +"How do you know?" cried the old lady, turning pale. + +"Our flat is locked up. The porter tells me that Alyosha has not +been home once for these five days. He is not living at home! He +is not at home, not at home!" + +She waved her hands and burst into loud weeping, uttering nothing +but: "Not at home! Not at home!" + +She began to be hysterical. + +"What's the meaning of it?" muttered the old woman in horror. "Why, +he wrote the day before yesterday that he never leaves the flat! +Where is he sleeping? Holy Saints!" + +Nadyezhda Filippovna felt so faint that she could not take off her +hat. She looked about her blankly, as though she had been drugged, +and convulsively clutched at her mother's arms. + +"What a person to trust: a porter!" said the old lady, fussing round +her daughter and crying. "What a jealous girl you are! He is not +going to deceive you, and how dare he? We are not just anybody. +Though we are of the merchant class, yet he has no right, for you +are his lawful wife! We can take proceedings! I gave twenty thousand +roubles with you! You did not want for a dowry!" + +And the old lady herself sobbed and gesticulated, and she felt +faint, too, and lay down on her trunk. Neither of them noticed that +patches of blue had made their appearance in the sky, that the +clouds were more transparent, that the first sunbeam was cautiously +gliding over the wet grass in the garden, that with renewed gaiety +the sparrows were hopping about the puddles which reflected the +racing clouds. + +Towards evening Kvashin arrived. Before leaving town he had gone +to his flat and had learned from the porter that his wife had come +in his absence. + +"Here I am," he said gaily, coming into his mother-in-law's room +and pretending not to notice their stern and tear-stained faces. +"Here I am! It's five days since we have seen each other!" + +He rapidly kissed his wife's hand and his mother-in-law's, and with +the air of man delighted at having finished a difficult task, he +lolled in an arm-chair. + +"Ough!" he said, puffing out all the air from his lungs. "Here I +have been worried to death. I have scarcely sat down. For almost +five days now I have been, as it were, bivouacking. I haven't been +to the flat once, would you believe it? I have been busy the whole +time with the meeting of Shipunov's and Ivantchikov's creditors; I +had to work in Galdeyev's office at the shop. . . . I've had nothing +to eat or to drink, and slept on a bench, I was chilled through +. . . . I hadn't a free minute. I hadn't even time to go to the flat. +That's how I came not to be at home, Nadyusha, . . And Kvashin, +holding his sides as though his back were aching, glanced stealthily +at his wife and mother-in-law to see the effect of his lie, or as +he called it, diplomacy. The mother-in-law and wife were looking +at each other in joyful astonishment, as though beyond all hope and +expectation they had found something precious, which they had +lost. . . . Their faces beamed, their eyes glowed. . . . + +"My dear man," cried the old lady, jumping up, "why am I sitting +here? Tea! Tea at once! Perhaps you are hungry?" + +"Of course he is hungry," cried his wife, pulling off her head a +bandage soaked in vinegar. "Mamma, bring the wine, and the savouries. +Natalya, lay the table! Oh, my goodness, nothing is ready!" + +And both of them, frightened, happy, and bustling, ran about the +room. The old lady could not look without laughing at her daughter +who had slandered an innocent man, and the daughter felt +ashamed. . . . + +The table was soon laid. Kvashin, who smelt of madeira and liqueurs +and who could scarcely breathe from repletion, complained of being +hungry, forced himself to munch and kept on talking of the meeting +of Shipunov's and Ivantchikov's creditors, while his wife and +mother-in-law could not take their eyes off his face, and both +thought: + +"How clever and kind he is! How handsome!" + +"All serene," thought Kvashin, as he lay down on the well-filled +feather bed. "Though they are regular tradesmen's wives, though +they are Philistines, yet they have a charm of their own, and one +can spend a day or two of the week here with enjoyment. . . ." + +He wrapped himself up, got warm, and as he dozed off, he said to +himself: + +"All serene!" + + +A GENTLEMAN FRIEND + +THE charming Vanda, or, as she was described in her passport, the +"Honourable Citizen Nastasya Kanavkin," found herself, on leaving +the hospital, in a position she had never been in before: without +a home to go to or a farthing in her pocket. What was she to do? + +The first thing she did was to visit a pawn-broker's and pawn her +turquoise ring, her one piece of jewellery. They gave her a rouble +for the ring . . . but what can you get for a rouble? You can't buy +for that sum a fashionable short jacket, nor a big hat, nor a pair +of bronze shoes, and without those things she had a feeling of +being, as it were, undressed. She felt as though the very horses +and dogs were staring and laughing at the plainness of her dress. +And clothes were all she thought about: the question what she should +eat and where she should sleep did not trouble her in the least. + +"If only I could meet a gentleman friend," she thought to herself, +"I could get some money. . . . There isn't one who would refuse me, +I know. . ." + +But no gentleman she knew came her way. It would be easy enough to +meet them in the evening at the "Renaissance," but they wouldn't +let her in at the "Renaissance" in that shabby dress and with no +hat. What was she to do? + +After long hesitation, when she was sick of walking and sitting and +thinking, Vanda made up her mind to fall back on her last resource: +to go straight to the lodgings of some gentleman friend and ask for +money. + +She pondered which to go to. "Misha is out of the question; he's a +married man. . . . The old chap with the red hair will be at his +office at this time. . ." + +Vanda remembered a dentist, called Finkel, a converted Jew, who six +months ago had given her a bracelet, and on whose head she had once +emptied a glass of beer at the supper at the German Club. She was +awfully pleased at the thought of Finkel. + +"He'll be sure to give it me, if only I find him at home," she +thought, as she walked in his direction. "If he doesn't, I'll smash +all the lamps in the house." + +Before she reached the dentist's door she thought out her plan of +action: she would run laughing up the stairs, dash into the dentist's +room and demand twenty-five roubles. But as she touched the bell, +this plan seemed to vanish from her mind of itself. Vanda began +suddenly feeling frightened and nervous, which was not at all her +way. She was bold and saucy enough at drinking parties, but now, +dressed in everyday clothes, feeling herself in the position of an +ordinary person asking a favour, who might be refused admittance, +she felt suddenly timid and humiliated. She was ashamed and frightened. + +"Perhaps he has forgotten me by now," she thought, hardly daring +to pull the bell. "And how can I go up to him in such a dress, +looking like a beggar or some working girl?" + +And she rang the bell irresolutely. + +She heard steps coming: it was the porter. + +"Is the doctor at home?" she asked. + +She would have been glad now if the porter had said "No," but the +latter, instead of answering ushered her into the hall, and helped +her off with her coat. The staircase impressed her as luxurious, +and magnificent, but of all its splendours what caught her eye most +was an immense looking-glass, in which she saw a ragged figure +without a fashionable jacket, without a big hat, and without bronze +shoes. And it seemed strange to Vanda that, now that she was humbly +dressed and looked like a laundress or sewing girl, she felt ashamed, +and no trace of her usual boldness and sauciness remained, and in +her own mind she no longer thought of herself as Vanda, but as the +Nastasya Kanavkin she used to be in the old days. . . . + +"Walk in, please," said a maidservant, showing her into the +consulting-room. "The doctor will be here in a minute. Sit down." + +Vanda sank into a soft arm-chair. + +"I'll ask him to lend it me," she thought; "that will be quite +proper, for, after all, I do know him. If only that servant would +go. I don't like to ask before her. What does she want to stand +there for?" + +Five minutes later the door opened and Finkel came in. He was a +tall, dark Jew, with fat cheeks and bulging eyes. His cheeks, his +eyes, his chest, his body, all of him was so well fed, so loathsome +and repellent! At the "Renaissance" and the German Club he had +usually been rather tipsy, and would spend his money freely on +women, and be very long-suffering and patient with their pranks +(when Vanda, for instance, poured the beer over his head, he simply +smiled and shook his finger at her): now he had a cross, sleepy +expression and looked solemn and frigid like a police captain, and +he kept chewing something. + +"What can I do for you?" he asked, without looking at Vanda. + +Vanda looked at the serious countenance of the maid and the smug +figure of Finkel, who apparently did not recognize her, and she +turned red. + +"What can I do for you?" repeated the dentist a little irritably. + +"I've got toothache," murmured Vanda. + +"Aha! . . . Which is the tooth? Where?" + +Vanda remembered she had a hole in one of her teeth. + +"At the bottom . . . on the right . . ." she said. + +"Hm! . . . Open your mouth." + +Finkel frowned and, holding his breath, began examining the tooth. + +"Does it hurt?" he asked, digging into it with a steel instrument. + +"Yes," Vanda replied, untruthfully. + +"Shall I remind him?" she was wondering. "He would be sure to +remember me. But that servant! Why will she stand there?" + +Finkel suddenly snorted like a steam-engine right into her mouth, +and said: + +"I don't advise you to have it stopped. That tooth will never be +worth keeping anyhow." + +After probing the tooth a little more and soiling Vanda's lips and +gums with his tobacco-stained fingers, he held his breath again, +and put something cold into her mouth. Vanda suddenly felt a sharp +pain, cried out, and clutched at Finkel's hand. + +"It's all right, it's all right," he muttered; "don't you be +frightened! That tooth would have been no use to you, anyway . . . +you must be brave. . ." + +And his tobacco-stained fingers, smeared with blood, held up the +tooth to her eyes, while the maid approached and put a basin to her +mouth. + +"You wash out your mouth with cold water when you get home, and +that will stop the bleeding," said Finkel. + +He stood before her with the air of a man expecting her to go, +waiting to be left in peace. + +"Good-day," she said, turning towards the door. + +"Hm! . . . and how about my fee?" enquired Finkel, in a jesting +tone. + +"Oh, yes!" Vanda remembered, blushing, and she handed the Jew the +rouble that had been given her for her ring. + +When she got out into the street she felt more overwhelmed with +shame than before, but now it was not her poverty she was ashamed +of. She was unconscious now of not having a big hat and a fashionable +jacket. She walked along the street, spitting blood, and brooding +on her life, her ugly, wretched life, and the insults she had +endured, and would have to endure to-morrow, and next week, and all +her life, up to the very day of her death. + +"Oh! how awful it is! My God, how fearful!" + +Next day, however, she was back at the "Renaissance," and dancing +there. She had on an enormous new red hat, a new fashionable jacket, +and bronze shoes. And she was taken out to supper by a young merchant +up from Kazan. + + +A TRIVIAL INCIDENT + +IT was a sunny August midday as, in company with a Russian prince +who had come down in the world, I drove into the immense so-called +Shabelsky pine-forest where we were intending to look for woodcocks. +In virtue of the part he plays in this story my poor prince deserves +a detailed description. He was a tall, dark man, still youngish, +though already somewhat battered by life; with long moustaches like +a police captain's; with prominent black eyes, and with the manners +of a retired army man. He was a man of Oriental type, not very +intelligent, but straightforward and honest, not a bully, not a +fop, and not a rake--virtues which, in the eyes of the general +public, are equivalent to a certificate of being a nonentity and a +poor creature. People generally did not like him (he was never +spoken of in the district, except as "the illustrious duffer"). I +personally found the poor prince extremely nice with his misfortunes +and failures, which made up indeed his whole life. First of all he +was poor. He did not play cards, did not drink, had no occupation, +did not poke his nose into anything, and maintained a perpetual +silence but yet he had somehow succeeded in getting through thirty +to forty thousand roubles left him at his father's death. God only +knows what had become of the money. All that I can say is that owing +to lack of supervision a great deal was stolen by stewards, bailiffs, +and even footmen; a great deal went on lending money, giving bail, +and standing security. There were few landowners in the district +who did not owe him money. He gave to all who asked, and not so +much from good nature or confidence in people as from exaggerated +gentlemanliness as though he would say: "Take it and feel how _comme +il faut_ I am!" By the time I made his acquaintance he had got into +debt himself, had learned what it was like to have a second mortgage +on his land, and had sunk so deeply into difficulties that there +was no chance of his ever getting out of them again. There were +days when he had no dinner, and went about with an empty cigar-holder, +but he was always seen clean and fashionably dressed, and always +smelt strongly of ylang-ylang. + +The prince's second misfortune was his absolute solitariness. He +was not married, he had no friends nor relations. His silent and +reserved character and his _comme il faut_ deportment, which became +the more conspicuous the more anxious he was to conceal his poverty, +prevented him from becoming intimate with people. For love affairs +he was too heavy, spiritless, and cold, and so rarely got on with +women. . . . + +When we reached the forest this prince and I got out of the chaise +and walked along a narrow woodland path which was hidden among huge +ferns. But before we had gone a hundred paces a tall, lank figure +with a long oval face, wearing a shabby reefer jacket, a straw hat, +and patent leather boots, rose up from behind a young fir-tree some +three feet high, as though he had sprung out of the ground. The +stranger held in one hand a basket of mushrooms, with the other he +playfully fingered a cheap watch-chain on his waistcoat. On seeing +us he was taken aback, smoothed his waistcoat, coughed politely, +and gave an agreeable smile, as though he were delighted to see +such nice people as us. Then, to our complete surprise, he came up +to us, scraping with his long feet on the grass, bending his whole +person, and, still smiling agreeably, lifted his hat and pronounced +in a sugary voice with the intonations of a whining dog: + +"Aie, aie . . . gentlemen, painful as it is, it is my duty to warn +you that shooting is forbidden in this wood. Pardon me for venturing +to disturb you, though unacquainted, but . . . allow me to present +myself. I am Grontovsky, the head clerk on Madame Kandurin's estate." + +"Pleased to make your acquaintance, but why can't we shoot?" + +"Such is the wish of the owner of this forest!" + +The prince and I exchanged glances. A moment passed in silence. The +prince stood looking pensively at a big fly agaric at his feet, +which he had crushed with his stick. Grontovsky went on smiling +agreeably. His whole face was twitching, exuding honey, and even +the watch-chain on his waistcoat seemed to be smiling and trying +to impress us all with its refinement. A shade of embarrassment +passed over us like an angel passing; all three of us felt awkward. + +"Nonsense!" I said. "Only last week I was shooting here!" + +"Very possible!" Grontovsky sniggered through his teeth. "As a +matter of fact everyone shoots here regardless of the prohibition. +But once I have met you, it is my duty . . . my sacred duty to warn +you. I am a man in a dependent position. If the forest were mine, +on the word of honour of a Grontovsky, I should not oppose your +agreeable pleasure. But whose fault is it that I am in a dependent +position?" + +The lanky individual sighed and shrugged his shoulders. I began +arguing, getting hot and protesting, but the more loudly and +impressively I spoke the more mawkish and sugary Grontovsky's face +became. Evidently the consciousness of a certain power over us +afforded him the greatest gratification. He was enjoying his +condescending tone, his politeness, his manners, and with peculiar +relish pronounced his sonorous surname, of which he was probably +very fond. Standing before us he felt more than at ease, but judging +from the confused sideway glances he cast from time to time at his +basket, only one thing was spoiling his satisfaction--the mushrooms, +womanish, peasantish, prose, derogatory to his dignity. + +"We can't go back!" I said. "We have come over ten miles!" + +"What's to be done?" sighed Grontovsky. "If you had come not ten +but a hundred thousand miles, if the king even had come from America +or from some other distant land, even then I should think it my +duty . . . sacred, so to say, obligation . . ." + +"Does the forest belong to Nadyezhda Lvovna?" asked the prince. + +"Yes, Nadyezhda Lvovna . . ." + +"Is she at home now?" + +"Yes . . . I tell you what, you go to her, it is not more than half +a mile from here; if she gives you a note, then I. . . . I needn't +say! Ha--ha . . . he--he--!" + +"By all means," I agreed. "It's much nearer than to go back. . . . +You go to her, Sergey Ivanitch," I said, addressing the prince. +"You know her." + +The prince, who had been gazing the whole time at the crushed agaric, +raised his eyes to me, thought a minute, and said: + +"I used to know her at one time, but . . . it's rather awkward for +me to go to her. Besides, I am in shabby clothes. . . . You go, you +don't know her. . . . It's more suitable for you to go." + +I agreed. We got into our chaise and, followed by Grontovsky's +smiles, drove along the edge of the forest to the manor house. I +was not acquainted with Nadyezhda Lvovna Kandurin, nee Shabelsky. +I had never seen her at close quarters, and knew her only by hearsay. +I knew that she was incredibly wealthy, richer than anyone else in +the province. After the death of her father, Shabelsky, who was a +landowner with no other children, she was left with several estates, +a stud farm, and a lot of money. I had heard that, though she was +only twenty-five or twenty-six, she was ugly, uninteresting, and +as insignificant as anybody, and was only distinguished from the +ordinary ladies of the district by her immense wealth. + +It has always seemed to me that wealth is felt, and that the rich +must have special feelings unknown to the poor. Often as I passed +by Nadyezhda Lvovna's big fruit garden, in which stood the large, +heavy house with its windows always curtained, I thought: "What is +she thinking at this moment? Is there happiness behind those blinds?" +and so on. Once I saw her from a distance in a fine light cabriolet, +driving a handsome white horse, and, sinful man that I am, I not +only envied her, but even thought that in her poses, in her movements, +there was something special, not to be found in people who are not +rich, just as persons of a servile nature succeed in discovering +"good family" at the first glance in people of the most ordinary +exterior, if they are a little more distinguished than themselves. +Nadyezhda Lvovna's inner life was only known to me by scandal. It +was said in the district that five or six years ago, before she was +married, during her father's lifetime, she had been passionately +in love with Prince Sergey Ivanitch, who was now beside me in the +chaise. The prince had been fond of visiting her father, and used +to spend whole days in his billiard room, where he played pyramids +indefatigably till his arms and legs ached. Six months before the +old man's death he had suddenly given up visiting the Shabelskys. +The gossip of the district having no positive facts to go upon +explained this abrupt change in their relations in various ways. +Some said that the prince, having observed the plain daughter's +feeling for him and being unable to reciprocate it, considered it +the duty of a gentleman to cut short his visits. Others maintained +that old Shabelsky had discovered why his daughter was pining away, +and had proposed to the poverty-stricken prince that he should marry +her; the prince, imagining in his narrow-minded way that they were +trying to buy him together with his title, was indignant, said +foolish things, and quarrelled with them. What was true and what +was false in this nonsense was difficult to say. But that there was +a portion of truth in it was evident, from the fact that the prince +always avoided conversation about Nadyezhda Lvovna. + +I knew that soon after her father's death Nadyezhda Lvovna had +married one Kandurin, a bachelor of law, not wealthy, but adroit, +who had come on a visit to the neighbourhood. She married him not +from love, but because she was touched by the love of the legal +gentleman who, so it was said, had cleverly played the love-sick +swain. At the time I am describing, Kandurin was for some reason +living in Cairo, and writing thence to his friend, the marshal of +the district, "Notes of Travel," while she sat languishing behind +lowered blinds, surrounded by idle parasites, and whiled away her +dreary days in petty philanthropy. + +On the way to the house the prince fell to talking. + +"It's three days since I have been at home," he said in a half +whisper, with a sidelong glance at the driver. "I am not a child, +nor a silly woman, and I have no prejudices, but I can't stand the +bailiffs. When I see a bailiff in my house I turn pale and tremble, +and even have a twitching in the calves of my legs. Do you know +Rogozhin refused to honour my note?" + +The prince did not, as a rule, like to complain of his straitened +circumstances; where poverty was concerned he was reserved and +exceedingly proud and sensitive, and so this announcement surprised +me. He stared a long time at the yellow clearing, warmed by the +sun, watched a long string of cranes float in the azure sky, and +turned facing me. + +"And by the sixth of September I must have the money ready for the +bank . . . the interest for my estate," he said aloud, by now +regardless of the coachman. "And where am I to get it? Altogether, +old man, I am in a tight fix! An awfully tight fix!" + +The prince examined the cock of his gun, blew on it for some reason, +and began looking for the cranes which by now were out of sight. + +"Sergey Ivanitch," I asked, after a minute's silence, "imagine if +they sell your Shatilovka, what will you do?" + +"I? I don't know! Shatilovka can't be saved, that's clear as daylight, +but I cannot imagine such a calamity. I can't imagine myself without +my daily bread secure. What can I do? I have had hardly any education; +I have not tried working yet; for government service it is late to +begin, . . . Besides, where could I serve? Where could I be of use? +Admitting that no great cleverness is needed for serving in our +Zemstvo, for example, yet I suffer from . . . the devil knows what, +a sort of faintheartedness, I haven't a ha'p'orth of pluck. If I +went into the Service I should always feel I was not in my right +place. I am not an idealist; I am not a Utopian; I haven't any +special principles; but am simply, I suppose, stupid and thoroughly +incompetent, a neurotic and a coward. Altogether not like other +people. All other people are like other people, only I seem to be +something . . . a poor thing. . . . I met Naryagin last Wednesday +--you know him?--drunken, slovenly . . . doesn't pay his debts, +stupid" (the prince frowned and tossed his head) . . . "a horrible +person! He said to me, staggering: 'I'm being balloted for as a +justice of the peace!' Of course, they won't elect him, but, you +see, he believes he is fit to be a justice of the peace and considers +that position within his capacity. He has boldness and self-confidence. +I went to see our investigating magistrate too. The man gets two +hundred and fifty roubles a month, and does scarcely anything. All +he can do is to stride backwards and forwards for days together in +nothing but his underclothes, but, ask him, he is convinced he is +doing his work and honourably performing his duty. I couldn't go +on like that! I should be ashamed to look the clerk in the face." + +At that moment Grontovsky, on a chestnut horse, galloped by us with +a flourish. On his left arm the basket bobbed up and down with the +mushrooms dancing in it. As he passed us he grinned and waved his +hand, as though we were old friends. + +"Blockhead!" the prince filtered through his teeth, looking after +him. "It's wonderful how disgusting it sometimes is to see satisfied +faces. A stupid, animal feeling due to hunger, I expect. . . . What +was I saying? Oh, yes, about going into the Service, . . . I should +be ashamed to take the salary, and yet, to tell the truth, it is +stupid. If one looks at it from a broader point of view, more +seriously, I am eating what isn't mine now. Am I not? But why am I +not ashamed of that. . . . It is a case of habit, I suppose . . . +and not being able to realize one's true position. . . . But that +position is most likely awful. . ." + +I looked at him, wondering if the prince were showing off. But his +face was mild and his eyes were mournfully following the movements +of the chestnut horse racing away, as though his happiness were +racing away with it. + +Apparently he was in that mood of irritation and sadness when women +weep quietly for no reason, and men feel a craving to complain of +themselves, of life, of God. . . . + +When I got out of the chaise at the gates of the house the prince +said to me: + +"A man once said, wanting to annoy me, that I have the face of a +cardsharper. I have noticed that cardsharpers are usually dark. Do +you know, it seems that if I really had been born a cardsharper I +should have remained a decent person to the day of my death, for I +should never have had the boldness to do wrong. I tell you frankly +I have had the chance once in my life of getting rich if I had told +a lie, a lie to myself and one woman . . . and one other person +whom I know would have forgiven me for lying; I should have put +into my pocket a million. But I could not. I hadn't the pluck!" + +From the gates we had to go to the house through the copse by a +long road, level as a ruler, and planted on each side with thick, +lopped lilacs. The house looked somewhat heavy, tasteless, like a +facade on the stage. It rose clumsily out of a mass of greenery, +and caught the eye like a great stone thrown on the velvety turf. +At the chief entrance I was met by a fat old footman in a green +swallow-tail coat and big silver-rimmed spectacles; without making +any announcement, only looking contemptuously at my dusty figure, +he showed me in. As I mounted the soft carpeted stairs there was, +for some reason, a strong smell of india-rubber. At the top I was +enveloped in an atmosphere found only in museums, in signorial +mansions and old-fashioned merchant houses; it seemed like the smell +of something long past, which had once lived and died and had left +its soul in the rooms. I passed through three or four rooms on my +way from the entry to the drawing-room. I remember bright yellow, +shining floors, lustres wrapped in stiff muslin, narrow, striped +rugs which stretched not straight from door to door, as they usually +do, but along the walls, so that not venturing to touch the bright +floor with my muddy boots I had to describe a rectangle in each +room. In the drawing-room, where the footman left me, stood +old-fashioned ancestral furniture in white covers, shrouded in +twilight. It looked surly and elderly, and, as though out of respect +for its repose, not a sound was audible. + +Even the clock was silent . . . it seemed as though the Princess +Tarakanov had fallen asleep in the golden frame, and the water and +the rats were still and motionless through magic. The daylight, +afraid of disturbing the universal tranquillity, scarcely pierced +through the lowered blinds, and lay on the soft rugs in pale, +slumbering streaks. + +Three minutes passed and a big, elderly woman in black, with her +cheek bandaged up, walked noiselessly into the drawing-room. She +bowed to me and pulled up the blinds. At once, enveloped in the +bright sunlight, the rats and water in the picture came to life and +movement, Princess Tarakanov was awakened, and the old chairs frowned +gloomily. + +"Her honour will be here in a minute, sir . . ." sighed the old +lady, frowning too. + +A few more minutes of waiting and I saw Nadyezhda Lvovna. What +struck me first of all was that she certainly was ugly, short, +scraggy, and round-shouldered. Her thick, chestnut hair was +magnificent; her face, pure and with a look of culture in it, was +aglow with youth; there was a clear and intelligent expression in +her eyes; but the whole charm of her head was lost through the +thickness of her lips and the over-acute facial angle. + +I mentioned my name, and announced the object of my visit. + +"I really don't know what I am to say!" she said, in hesitation, +dropping her eyes and smiling. "I don't like to refuse, and at the +same time. . . ." + +"Do, please," I begged. + +Nadyezhda Lvovna looked at me and laughed. I laughed too. She was +probably amused by what Grontovsky had so enjoyed--that is, the +right of giving or withholding permission; my visit suddenly struck +me as queer and strange. + +"I don't like to break the long-established rules," said Madame +Kandurin. "Shooting has been forbidden on our estate for the last +six years. No!" she shook her head resolutely. "Excuse me, I must +refuse you. If I allow you I must allow others. I don't like +unfairness. Either let all or no one." + +"I am sorry!" I sighed. "It's all the sadder because we have come +more than ten miles. I am not alone," I added, "Prince Sergey +Ivanitch is with me." + +I uttered the prince's name with no _arriere pensee_, not prompted +by any special motive or aim; I simply blurted it out without +thinking, in the simplicity of my heart. Hearing the familiar name +Madame Kandurin started, and bent a prolonged gaze upon me. I noticed +her nose turn pale. + +"That makes no difference . . ." she said, dropping her eyes. + +As I talked to her I stood at the window that looked out on the +shrubbery. I could see the whole shrubbery with the avenues and the +ponds and the road by which I had come. At the end of the road, +beyond the gates, the back of our chaise made a dark patch. Near +the gate, with his back to the house, the prince was standing with +his legs apart, talking to the lanky Grontovsky. + +Madame Kandurin had been standing all the time at the other window. +She looked from time to time towards the shrubbery, and from the +moment I mentioned the prince's name she did not turn away from the +window. + +"Excuse me," she said, screwing up her eyes as she looked towards +the road and the gate, "but it would be unfair to allow you only +to shoot. . . . And, besides, what pleasure is there in shooting +birds? What's it for? Are they in your way?" + +A solitary life, immured within four walls, with its indoor twilight +and heavy smell of decaying furniture, disposes people to sentimentality. +Madame Kandurin's idea did her credit, but I could not resist saying: + +"If one takes that line one ought to go barefoot. Boots are made +out of the leather of slaughtered animals." + +"One must distinguish between a necessity and a caprice," Madame +Kandurin answered in a toneless voice. + +She had by now recognized the prince, and did not take her eyes off +his figure. It is hard to describe the delight and the suffering +with which her ugly face was radiant! Her eyes were smiling and +shining, her lips were quivering and laughing, while her face craned +closer to the panes. Keeping hold of a flower-pot with both hands, +with bated breath and with one foot slightly lifted, she reminded +me of a dog pointing and waiting with passionate impatience for +"Fetch it!" + +I looked at her and at the prince who could not tell a lie once in +his life, and I felt angry and bitter against truth and falsehood, +which play such an elemental part in the personal happiness of men. + +The prince started suddenly, took aim and fired. A hawk, flying +over him, fluttered its wings and flew like an arrow far away. + +"He aimed too high!" I said. "And so, Nadyezhda Lvovna," I sighed, +moving away from the window, "you will not permit . . ."--Madame +Kandurin was silent. + +"I have the honour to take my leave," I said, "and I beg you to +forgive my disturbing you. . ." + +Madame Kandurin would have turned facing me, and had already moved +through a quarter of the angle, when she suddenly hid her face +behind the hangings, as though she felt tears in her eyes that she +wanted to conceal. + +"Good-bye. . . . Forgive me . . ." she said softly. + +I bowed to her back, and strode away across the bright yellow floors, +no longer keeping to the carpet. I was glad to get away from this +little domain of gilded boredom and sadness, and I hastened as +though anxious to shake off a heavy, fantastic dream with its +twilight, its enchanted princess, its lustres. . . . + +At the front door a maidservant overtook me and thrust a note into +my hand: "Shooting is permitted on showing this. N. K.," I read. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Chorus Girl and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHORUS GIRL AND OTHER STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 13418.txt or 13418.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/1/13418/ + +Produced by James Rusk + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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