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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Foma Gordyeff, by Maxim Gorky
+
+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: Foma Gordyeff
+       (The Man Who Was Afraid)
+
+Author: Maxim Gorky
+
+Translator: Herman Bernstein
+
+Posting Date: December 13, 2008 [EBook #2709]
+Release Date: July, 2001
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOMA GORDYEFF ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Martin Adamson
+
+
+
+
+
+FOMA GORDYEFF
+
+(The Man Who Was Afraid)
+
+By Maxim Gorky
+
+
+Translated by Herman Bernstein
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
+
+OUT of the darkest depths of life, where vice and crime and misery
+abound, comes the Byron of the twentieth century, the poet of the
+vagabond and the proletariat, Maxim Gorky. Not like the beggar, humbly
+imploring for a crust in the name of the Lord, nor like the jeweller
+displaying his precious stones to dazzle and tempt the eye, he comes to
+the world,--nay, in accents of Tyrtaeus this commoner of Nizhni Novgorod
+spurs on his troops of freedom-loving heroes to conquer, as it were,
+the placid, self-satisfied literatures of to-day, and bring new life to
+pale, bloodless frames.
+
+Like Byron's impassioned utterances, "borne on the tones of a wild and
+quite artless melody," is Gorky's mad, unbridled, powerful voice, as he
+sings of the "madness of the brave," of the barefooted dreamers, who are
+proud of their idleness, who possess nothing and fear nothing, who are
+gay in their misery, though miserable in their joy.
+
+Gorky's voice is not the calm, cultivated, well-balanced voice
+of Chekhov, the Russian De Maupassant, nor even the apostolic,
+well-meaning, but comparatively faint voice of Tolstoy, the preacher: it
+is the roaring of a lion, the crash of thunder. In its elementary power
+is the heart rending cry of a sincere but suffering soul that saw the
+brutality of life in all its horrors, and now flings its experiences
+into the face of the world with unequalled sympathy and the courage of a
+giant.
+
+For Gorky, above all, has courage; he dares to say that he finds the
+vagabond, the outcast of society, more sublime and significant than
+society itself.
+
+His Bosyak, the symbolic incarnation of the Over-man, is as naive and
+as bold as a child--or as a genius. In the vehement passions of the
+magnanimous, compassionate hero in tatters, in the aristocracy of his
+soul, and in his constant thirst for Freedom, Gorky sees the rebellious
+and irreconcilable spirit of man, of future man,--in these he sees
+something beautiful, something powerful, something monumental, and is
+carried away by their strange psychology. For the barefooted dreamer's
+life is Gorky's life, his ideals are Gorky's ideals, his pleasures and
+pains, Gorky's pleasures and pains.
+
+And Gorky, though broken in health now, buffeted by the storms of fate,
+bruised and wounded in the battle-field of life, still like Byron and
+like Lermontov,
+
+     "--seeks the storm
+     As though the storm contained repose."
+
+And in a leonine voice he cries defiantly:
+
+     "Let the storm rage with greater force and fury!"
+
+HERMAN BERNSTEIN.
+
+September 20, 1901.
+
+
+
+
+FOMA GORDYEEF
+
+     Dedicated to
+
+     ANTON P. CHEKHOV
+
+     By
+
+     Maxim Gorky
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ABOUT sixty years ago, when fortunes of millions had been made on the
+Volga with fairy-tale rapidity, Ignat Gordyeeff, a young fellow, was
+working as water-pumper on one of the barges of the wealthy merchant
+Zayev.
+
+Built like a giant, handsome and not at all stupid, he was one of those
+people whom luck always follows everywhere--not because they are gifted
+and industrious, but rather because, having an enormous stock of energy
+at their command, they cannot stop to think over the choice of means
+when on their way toward their aims, and, excepting their own will,
+they know no law. Sometimes they speak of their conscience with fear,
+sometimes they really torture themselves struggling with it, but
+conscience is an unconquerable power to the faint-hearted only; the
+strong master it quickly and make it a slave to their desires, for
+they unconsciously feel that, given room and freedom, conscience would
+fracture life. They sacrifice days to it; and if it should happen
+that conscience conquered their souls, they are never wrecked, even in
+defeat--they are just as healthy and strong under its sway as when they
+lived without conscience.
+
+At the age of forty Ignat Gordyeeff was himself the owner of three
+steamers and ten barges. On the Volga he was respected as a rich and
+clever man, but was nicknamed "Frantic," because his life did not flow
+along a straight channel, like that of other people of his kind, but
+now and again, boiling up turbulently, ran out of its rut, away from
+gain--the prime aim of his existence. It looked as though there were
+three Gordyeeffs in him, or as though there were three souls in Ignat's
+body. One of them, the mightiest, was only greedy, and when Ignat lived
+according to its commands, he was merely a man seized with untamable
+passion for work. This passion burned in him by day and by night, he
+was completely absorbed by it, and, grabbing everywhere hundreds and
+thousands of roubles, it seemed as if he could never have enough of
+the jingle and sound of money. He worked about up and down the Volga,
+building and fastening nets in which he caught gold: he bought up grain
+in the villages, floated it to Rybinsk on his barges; he plundered,
+cheated, sometimes not noticing it, sometimes noticing, and, triumphant,
+be openly laughed at by his victims; and in the senselessness of his
+thirst for money, he rose to the heights of poetry. But, giving up so
+much strength to this hunt after the rouble, he was not greedy in
+the narrow sense, and sometimes he even betrayed an inconceivable but
+sincere indifference to his property. Once, when the ice was drifting
+down the Volga, he stood on the shore, and, seeing that the ice was
+breaking his new barge, having crushed it against the bluff shore, he
+ejaculated:
+
+"That's it. Again. Crush it! Now, once more! Try!"
+
+"Well, Ignat," asked his friend Mayakin, coming up to him, "the ice is
+crushing about ten thousand out of your purse, eh?"
+
+"That's nothing! I'll make another hundred. But look how the Volga is
+working! Eh? Fine? She can split the whole world, like curd, with a
+knife. Look, look! There you have my 'Boyarinya!' She floated but once.
+Well, we'll have mass said for the dead."
+
+The barge was crushed into splinters. Ignat and the godfather, sitting
+in the tavern on the shore, drank vodka and looked out of the window,
+watching the fragments of the "Boyarinya" drifting down the river
+together with the ice.
+
+"Are you sorry for the vessel, Ignat?" asked Mayakin.
+
+"Why should I be sorry for it? The Volga gave it to me, and the Volga
+has taken it back. It did not tear off my hand."
+
+"Nevertheless."
+
+"What--nevertheless? It is good at least that I saw how it was all done.
+It's a lesson for the future. But when my 'Volgar' was burned--I was
+really sorry--I didn't see it. How beautiful it must have looked when
+such a woodpile was blazing on the water in the dark night! Eh? It was
+an enormous steamer."
+
+"Weren't you sorry for that either?"
+
+"For the steamer? It is true, I did feel sorry for the steamer. But
+then it is mere foolishness to feel sorry! What's the use? I might have
+cried; tears cannot extinguish fire. Let the steamers burn. And even
+though everything be burned down, I'd spit upon it! If the soul is but
+burning to work, everything will be erected anew. Isn't it so?"
+
+"Yes," said Mayakin, smiling. "These are strong words you say. And
+whoever speaks that way, even though he loses all, will nevertheless be
+rich."
+
+Regarding losses of thousands of roubles so philosophically, Ignat knew
+the value of every kopeika; he gave to the poor very seldom, and only to
+those that were altogether unable to work. When a more or less healthy
+man asked him for alms, Ignat would say, sternly:
+
+"Get away! You can work yet. Go to my dvornik and help him to remove the
+dung. I'll pay you for it."
+
+Whenever he had been carried away by his work he regarded people
+morosely and piteously, nor did he give himself rest while hunting for
+roubles. And suddenly--it usually happened in spring, when everything on
+earth became so bewitchingly beautiful and something reproachfully wild
+was breathed down into the soul from the clear sky--Ignat Gordyeeff
+would feel that he was not the master of his business, but its low
+slave. He would lose himself in thought and, inquisitively looking about
+himself from under his thick, knitted eyebrows, walk about for days,
+angry and morose, as though silently asking something, which he feared
+to ask aloud. They awakened his other soul, the turbulent and lustful
+soul of a hungry beast. Insolent and cynical, he drank, led a depraved
+life, and made drunkards of other people. He went into ecstasy, and
+something like a volcano of filth boiled within him. It looked as though
+he was madly tearing the chains which he himself had forged and carried,
+and was not strong enough to tear them. Excited and very dirty, his face
+swollen from drunkenness and sleeplessness, his eyes wandering madly,
+and roaring in a hoarse voice, he tramped about the town from one tavern
+to another, threw away money without counting it, cried and danced
+to the sad tunes of the folk songs, or fought, but found no rest
+anywhere--in anything.
+
+It happened one day that a degraded priest, a short, stout little
+bald-headed man in a torn cassock, chanced on Ignat, and stuck to him,
+just as a piece of mud will stick to a shoe. An impersonal, deformed and
+nasty creature, he played the part of a buffoon: they smeared his
+bald head with mustard, made him go upon all-fours, drink mixtures of
+different brandies and dance comical dances; he did all this in silence,
+an idiotic smile on his wrinkled face, and having done what he was told
+to do, he invariably said, outstretching his hand with his palm upward:
+
+"Give me a rouble."
+
+They laughed at him and sometimes gave him twenty kopeiks, sometimes
+gave him nothing, but it sometimes happened that they threw him a
+ten-rouble bill and even more.
+
+"You abominable fellow," cried Ignat to him one day. "Say, who are you?"
+
+The priest was frightened by the call, and bowing low to Ignat, was
+silent.
+
+"Who? Speak!" roared Ignat.
+
+"I am a man--to be abused," answered the priest, and the company burst
+out laughing at his words.
+
+"Are you a rascal?" asked Ignat, sternly.
+
+"A rascal? Because of need and the weakness of my soul?"
+
+"Come here!" Ignat called him. "Come and sit down by my side."
+
+Trembling with fear, the priest walked up to the intoxicated merchant
+with timid steps and remained standing opposite him.
+
+"Sit down beside me!" said Ignat, taking the frightened priest by the
+hand and seating him next to himself. "You are a very near man to me. I
+am also a rascal! You, because of need; I, because of wantonness. I am a
+rascal because of grief! Understand?"
+
+"I understand," said the priest, softly. All the company were giggling.
+
+"Do you know now what I am?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Well, say, 'You are a rascal, Ignat!'"
+
+The priest could not do it. He looked with terror at the huge figure of
+Ignat and shook his head negatively. The company's laughter was now like
+the rattling of thunder. Ignat could not make the priest abuse him. Then
+he asked him:
+
+"Shall I give you money?"
+
+"Yes," quickly answered the priest.
+
+"And what do you need it for?"
+
+He did not care to answer. Then Ignat seized him by the collar, and
+shook out of his dirty lips the following speech, which he spoke almost
+in a whisper, trembling with fear:
+
+"I have a daughter sixteen years old in the seminary. I save for her,
+because when she comes out there won't be anything with which to cover
+her nakedness."
+
+"Ah," said Ignat, and let go the priest's collar. Then he sat for a long
+time gloomy and lost in thought, and now and again stared at the priest.
+Suddenly his eyes began to laugh, and he said:
+
+"Aren't you a liar, drunkard?"
+
+The priest silently made the sign of the cross and lowered his head on
+his breast.
+
+"It is the truth!" said one of the company, confirming the priest's
+words.
+
+"True? Very well!" shouted Ignat, and, striking the table with his fist,
+he addressed himself to the priest:
+
+"Eh, you! Sell me your daughter! How much will you take?"
+
+The priest shook his head and shrank back.
+
+"One thousand!"
+
+The company giggled, seeing that the priest was shrinking as though cold
+water was being poured on him.
+
+"Two!" roared Ignat, with flashing eyes.
+
+"What's the matter with you? How is it?" muttered the priest, stretching
+out both hands to Ignat.
+
+"Three!"
+
+"Ignat Matveyich!" cried the priest, in a thin, ringing voice. "For
+God's sake! For Christ's sake! Enough! I'll sell her! For her own sake
+I'll sell her!"
+
+In his sickly, sharp voice was heard a threat to someone, and his eyes,
+unnoticed by anybody before, flashed like coals. But the intoxicated
+crowd only laughed at him foolishly.
+
+"Silence!" cried Ignat, sternly, straightening himself to his full
+length and flashing his eyes.
+
+"Don't you understand, devils, what's going on here? It's enough to make
+one cry, while you giggle."
+
+He walked up to the priest, went down on his knees before him, and said
+to him firmly:
+
+"Father now you see what a rascal I am. Well, spit into my face!"
+
+Something ugly and ridiculous took place. The priest too, knelt before
+Ignat, and like a huge turtle, crept around near his feet, kissed his
+knees and muttered something, sobbing. Ignat bent over him, lifted him
+from the floor and cried to him, commanding and begging:
+
+"Spit! Spit right into my shameless eyes!"
+
+The company, stupefied for a moment by Ignat's stern voice, laughed
+again so that the panes rattled in the tavern windows.
+
+"I'll give you a hundred roubles. Spit!"
+
+And the priest crept over the floor and sobbed for fear, or for
+happiness, to hear that this man was begging him to do something
+degrading to himself.
+
+Finally Ignat arose from the floor, kicked the priest, and, flinging at
+him a package of money, said morosely, with a smile:
+
+"Rabble! Can a man repent before such people? Some are afraid to hear
+of repentance, others laugh at a sinner. I was about to unburden myself
+completely; the heart trembled. Let me, I thought. No, I didn't think at
+all. Just so! Get out of here! And see that you never show yourself to
+me again. Do you hear?"
+
+"Oh, a queer fellow!" said the crowd, somewhat moved.
+
+Legends were composed about his drinking bouts in town; everybody
+censured him strictly, but no one ever declined his invitation to those
+drinking bouts. Thus he lived for weeks.
+
+And unexpectedly he used to come home, not yet altogether freed from
+the odour of the kabaks, but already crestfallen and quiet. With humbly
+downcast eyes, in which shame was burning now, he silently listened to
+his wife's reproaches, and, humble and meek as a lamb, went away to his
+room and locked himself in. For many hours in succession he knelt before
+the cross, lowering his head on his breast; his hands hung helplessly,
+his back was bent, and he was silent, as though he dared not pray. His
+wife used to come up to the door on tiptoe and listen. Deep sighs were
+heard from behind the door--like the breathing of a tired and sickly
+horse.
+
+"God! You see," whispered Ignat in a muffled voice, firmly pressing the
+palms of his hands to his broad breast.
+
+During the days of repentance he drank nothing but water and ate only
+rye bread.
+
+In the morning his wife placed at the door of his room a big bottle of
+water, about a pound and a half of bread, and salt. He opened the door,
+took in these victuals and locked himself in again. During this time he
+was not disturbed in any way; everybody tried to avoid him. A few days
+later he again appeared on the exchange, jested, laughed, made contracts
+to furnish corn as sharp-sighted as a bird of prey, a rare expert at
+anything concerning his affairs.
+
+But in all the moods of Ignat's life there was one passionate desire
+that never left him--the desire to have a son; and the older he grew the
+greater was this desire. Very often such conversation as this took place
+between him and his wife. In the morning, at her tea, or at noon during
+dinner hour he gloomily glared at his wife, a stout, well-fed woman,
+with a red face and sleepy eyes, and asked her:
+
+"Well, don't you feel anything?"
+
+She knew what he meant, but she invariably replied:
+
+"How can I help feeling? Your fists are like dumb-bells."
+
+"You know what I'm talking about, you fool."
+
+"Can one become pregnant from such blows?"
+
+"It's not on account of the blows that you don't bear any children;
+it's because you eat too much. You fill your stomach with all sorts of
+food--and there's no room for the child to engender."
+
+"As if I didn't bear you any children?"
+
+"Those were girls," said Ignat, reproachfully. "I want a son! Do you
+understand? A son, an heir! To whom shall I give my capital after my
+death? Who shall pray for my sins? Shall I give it to a cloister? I have
+given them enough! Or shall I leave it to you? What a fine pilgrim you
+are! Even in church you think only of fish pies. If I die, you'll marry
+again, and my money will be turned over to some fool. Do you think this
+is what I am working for?"
+
+And he was seized with sardonic anguish, for he felt that his life was
+aimless if he should have no son to follow him.
+
+During the nine years of their married life his wife had borne him four
+daughters, all of whom had passed away. While Ignat had awaited their
+birth tremblingly, he mourned their death but little--at any rate they
+were unnecessary to him. He began to beat his wife during the second
+year of their married life; at first he did it while being intoxicated
+and without animosity, but just according to the proverb: "Love your
+wife like your soul and shake her like a pear-tree;" but after each
+confinement, deceived in his expectation, his hatred for his wife grew
+stronger, and he began to beat her with pleasure, in revenge for not
+bearing him a son.
+
+Once while on business in the province of Samarsk, he received a
+telegram from relatives at home, informing him of his wife's death.
+He made the sign of the cross, thought awhile and wrote to his friend
+Mayakin:
+
+"Bury her in my absence; look after my property."
+
+Then he went to the church to serve the mass for the dead, and, having
+prayed for the repose of the late Aquilina's soul, he began to think
+that it was necessary for him to marry as soon as possible.
+
+He was then forty-three years old, tall, broad-shouldered, with a heavy
+bass voice, like an arch-deacon; his large eyes looked bold and wise
+from under his dark eyebrows; in his sunburnt face, overgrown with a
+thick, black beard, and in all his mighty figure there was much truly
+Russian, crude and healthy beauty; in his easy motions as well as in
+his slow, proud walk, a consciousness of power was evident--a firm
+confidence in himself. He was liked by women and did not avoid them.
+
+Ere six months had passed after the death of his wife, he courted the
+daughter of an Ural Cossack. The father of the bride, notwithstanding
+that Ignat was known even in Ural as a "pranky" man, gave him his
+daughter in marriage, and toward autumn Ignat Gordyeeff came home with
+a young Cossack-wife. Her name was Natalya. Tall, well-built, with large
+blue eyes and with a long chestnut braid, she was a worthy match for the
+handsome Ignat. He was happy and proud of his wife and loved her with
+the passionate love of a healthy man, but he soon began to contemplate
+her thoughtfully, with a vigilant eye.
+
+Seldom did a smile cross the oval, demure face of his wife--she was
+always thinking of something foreign to life, and in her calm blue eyes
+something dark and misanthropic was flashing at times. Whenever she was
+free from household duties she seated herself in the most spacious room
+by the window, and sat there silently for two or three hours. Her
+face was turned toward the street, but the look of her eyes was so
+indifferent to everything that lived and moved there beyond the window,
+and at the same time it was so fixedly deep, as though she were looking
+into her very soul. And her walk, too, was queer. Natalya moved about
+the spacious room slowly and carefully, as if something invisible
+restrained the freedom of her movements. Their house was filled with
+heavy and coarsely boastful luxury; everything there was resplendent,
+screaming of the proprietor's wealth, but the Cossack-wife walked past
+the costly furniture and the silverware in a shy and somewhat frightened
+manner, as though fearing lest they might seize and choke her.
+Evidently, the noisy life of the big commercial town did not interest
+this silent woman, and whenever she went out driving with her husband,
+her eyes were fixed on the back of the driver. When her husband took
+her visiting she went and behaved there just as queerly as at home; when
+guests came to her house, she zealously served them refreshments, taking
+no interest whatever in what was said, and showing preference toward
+none. Only Mayakin, a witty, droll man, at times called forth on her
+face a smile, as vague as a shadow. He used to say of her:
+
+"It's a tree--not a woman! But life is like an inextinguishable
+wood-pile, and every one of us blazes up sometimes. She, too, will take
+fire; wait, give her time. Then we shall see how she will bloom."
+
+"Eh!" Ignat used to say to her jestingly. "What are you thinking about?
+Are you homesick? Brighten up a bit!"
+
+She would remain silent, calmly looking at him.
+
+"You go entirely too often to the church. You should wait. You have
+plenty of time to pray for your sins. Commit the sins first. You know,
+if you don't sin you don't repent; if you don't repent, you don't work
+out your salvation. You better sin while you are young. Shall we go out
+for a drive?"
+
+"I don't feel like going out."
+
+He used to sit down beside her and embrace her. She was cold, returning
+his caresses but sparingly. Looking straight into her eyes, he used to
+say:
+
+"Natalya! Tell me--why are you so sad? Do you feel lonesome here with
+me?"
+
+"No," she replied shortly.
+
+"What then is it? Are you longing for your people?"
+
+"No, it's nothing."
+
+"What are you thinking about?"
+
+"I am not thinking."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Oh, nothing!"
+
+Once he managed to get from her a more complete answer:
+
+"There is something confused in my heart. And also in my eyes. And it
+always seems to me that all this is not real."
+
+She waved her hand around her, pointing at the walls, the furniture and
+everything. Ignat did not reflect on her words, and, laughing, said to
+her:
+
+"That's to no purpose! Everything here is genuine. All these are costly,
+solid things. If you don't want these, I'll burn them, I'll sell them,
+I'll give them away--and I'll get new ones! Do you want me to?"
+
+"What for?" said she calmly.
+
+He wondered, at last, how one so young and healthy could live as though
+she were sleeping all the time, caring for nothing, going nowhere,
+except to the church, and shunning everybody. And he used to console
+her:
+
+"Just wait. You'll bear a son, and then an altogether different life
+will commence. You are so sad because you have so little anxiety, and he
+will give you trouble. You'll bear me a son, will you not?
+
+"If it pleases God," she answered, lowering her head.
+
+Then her mood began to irritate him.
+
+"Well, why do you wear such a long face? You walk as though on glass.
+You look as if you had ruined somebody's soul! Eh! You are such a
+succulent woman, and yet you have no taste for anything. Fool!"
+
+Coming home intoxicated one day, he began to ply her with caresses,
+while she turned away from him. Then he grew angry, and exclaimed:
+
+"Natalya! Don't play the fool, look out!"
+
+She turned her face to him and asked calmly:
+
+"What then?"
+
+Ignat became enraged at these words and at her fearless look.
+
+"What?" he roared, coming up close to her.
+
+"Do you wish to kill me?" asked she, not moving from her place, nor
+winking an eye.
+
+Ignat was accustomed to seeing people tremble before his wrath, and it
+was strange and offensive to him to see her calm.
+
+"There," he cried, lifting his hand to strike her. Slowly, but in time,
+she eluded the blow; then she seized his hand, pushed it away from her,
+and said in the same tone:
+
+"Don't you dare to touch me. I will not allow you to come near me!"
+
+Her eyes became smaller and their sharp, metallic glitter sobered Ignat.
+He understood by her face that she, too, was a strong beast, and if she
+chose to she wouldn't admit him to her, even though she were to lose her
+life.
+
+"Oh," he growled, and went away.
+
+But having retreated once, he would not do it again: he could not bear
+that a woman, and his wife at that, should not bow before him--this
+would have degraded him. He then began to realise that henceforth his
+wife would never yield to him in any matter, and that an obstinate
+strife for predominance must start between them.
+
+"Very well! We'll see who will conquer," he thought the next day,
+watching his wife with stern curiosity; and in his soul a strong desire
+was already raging to start the strife, that he might enjoy his victory
+the sooner.
+
+But about four days later, Natalya Fominichna announced to her husband
+that she was pregnant.
+
+Ignat trembled for joy, embraced her firmly, and said in a dull voice:
+
+"You're a fine fellow, Natalya! Natasha, if it should be a son! If you
+bear me a son I'll enrich you! I tell you plainly, I'll be your slave!
+By God! I'll lie down at your feet, and you may trample upon me, if you
+like!"
+
+"This is not within our power; it's the will of the Lord," said she in a
+low voice.
+
+"Yes, the Lord's!" exclaimed Ignat with bitterness and drooped his head
+sadly.
+
+From that moment he began to look after his wife as though she were a
+little child.
+
+"Why do you sit near the window? Look out. You'll catch cold in your
+side; you may take sick," he used to say to her, both sternly and
+mildly. "Why do you skip on the staircase? You may hurt yourself. And
+you had better eat more, eat for two, that he may have enough."
+
+And the pregnancy made Natalya more morose and silent, as though she
+were looking still deeper into herself, absorbed in the throbbing of new
+life within her. But the smile on her lips became clearer, and in her
+eyes flashed at times something new, weak and timid, like the first ray
+of the dawn.
+
+When, at last, the time of confinement came, it was early on an autumn
+morning. At the first cry of pain she uttered, Ignat turned pale and
+started to say something, but only waved his hand and left the bedroom,
+where his wife was shrinking convulsively, and went down to the little
+room which had served his late mother as a chapel. He ordered vodka,
+seated himself by the table and began to drink sternly, listening to the
+alarm in the house and to the moans of his wife that came from above. In
+the corner of the room, the images of the ikons, indifferent and dark,
+stood out confusedly, dimly illumined by the glimmering light of the
+image lamp. There was a stamping and scraping of feet over his head,
+something heavy was moved from one side of the floor to the other, there
+was a clattering of dishes, people were bustling hurriedly, up and down
+the staircase. Everything was being done in haste, yet time was creeping
+slowly. Ignat could hear a muffled voice from above,
+
+"As it seems, she cannot be delivered that way. We had better send to
+the church to open the gates of the Lord."
+
+Vassushka, one of the hangers-on in his house, entered the room next to
+Ignat's and began to pray in a loud whisper:
+
+"God, our Lord, descend from the skies in Thy benevolence, born of
+the Holy Virgin. Thou dost divine the helplessness of human creatures.
+Forgive Thy servant."
+
+And suddenly drowning all other sounds, a superhuman, soul-rending cry
+rang out, and a continuous moan floated softly over the room and died
+out in the corners, which were filled now with the twilight. Ignat cast
+stern glances at the ikons, heaved a deep sigh and thought:
+
+"Is it possible that it's again a daughter?"
+
+At times he arose, stupidly stood in the middle of the room, and crossed
+himself in silence, bowing before the ikons; then he went back to the
+table, drank the vodka, which had not made him dizzy during these hours,
+dozed off, and thus passed the whole night and following morning until
+noon.
+
+And then, at last, the midwife came down hastily, crying to him in a
+thin, joyous voice.
+
+"I congratulate you with a son, Ignat Matveyich!"
+
+"You lie!" said he in a dull voice. "What's the matter with you,
+batushka!" Heaving a sigh with all the strength of his massive chest,
+Ignat went down on his knees, and clasping his hands firmly to his
+breast, muttered in a trembling voice:
+
+"Thank God! Evidently Thou didst not want that my stem should be
+checked! My sins before Thee shall not remain without repentance. I
+thank Thee, Oh Lord. Oh!" and, rising to his feet, he immediately began
+to command noisily:
+
+"Eh! Let someone go to St. Nicholas for a priest. Tell him that Ignat
+Matveyich asked him to come! Let him come to make a prayer for the
+woman."
+
+The chambermaid appeared and said to him with alarm:
+
+"Ignat Matveyich, Natalya Fominichna is calling you. She is feeling
+bad."
+
+"Why bad? It'll pass!" he roared, his eyes flashing cheerfully. "Tell
+her I'll be there immediately! Tell her she's a fine fellow! I'll just
+get a present for her and I'll come! Hold on! Prepare something to eat
+for the priest. Send somebody after Mayakin!"
+
+His enormous figure looked as though it had grown bigger, and
+intoxicated with joy, he stupidly tossed about the room; he was smiling,
+rubbing his hands and casting fervent glances at the images; he crossed
+himself swinging his hand wide. At last he went up to his wife.
+
+His eyes first of all caught a glimpse of the little red body, which the
+midwife was bathing in a tub. Noticing him, Ignat stood up on tiptoes,
+and, folding his hands behind his back, walked up to him, stepping
+carefully and comically putting forth his lips. The little one was
+whimpering and sprawling in the water, naked, impotent and pitiful.
+
+"Look out there! Handle him more carefully! He hasn't got any bones
+yet," said Ignat to the midwife, softly.
+
+She began to laugh, opening her toothless mouth, and cleverly throwing
+the child over from one hand to the other.
+
+"You better go to your wife."
+
+He obediently moved toward the bed and asked on his way:
+
+"Well, how is it, Natalya?"
+
+Then, on reaching her, he drew back the bed curtain, which had thrown a
+shadow over the bed.
+
+"I'll not survive this," said she in a low, hoarse voice.
+
+Ignat was silent, fixedly staring at his wife's face, sunk in the white
+pillow, over which her dark locks were spread out like dead snakes.
+Yellow, lifeless, with black circles around her large, wide-open
+eyes--her face was strange to him. And the glance of those terrible
+eyes, motionlessly fixed somewhere in the distance through the
+wall--that, too, was unfamiliar to Ignat. His heart, compressed by a
+painful foreboding, slackened its joyous throbbing.
+
+"That's nothing. That's nothing. It's always like this," said he softly,
+bending over his wife to give her a kiss. But she moaned right into his
+face:
+
+"I'll not survive this."
+
+Her lips were gray and cold, and when he touched them with his own he
+understood that death was already within her.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" he uttered, in an alarmed whisper, feeling that fright was
+choking his throat and suppressing his breath.
+
+"Natasha? What will become of him? He must be nursed! What is the matter
+with you?"
+
+He almost began to cry at his wife. The midwife was bustling about him;
+shaking the crying child in the air. She spoke to him reassuringly, but
+he heard nothing--he could not turn his eyes away from the frightful
+face of his wife. Her lips were moving, and he heard words spoken in
+a low voice, but could not understand them. Sitting on the edge of the
+bed, he spoke in a dull and timid voice: "Just think of it! He cannot
+do without you; he's an infant! Gather strength! Drive this thought away
+from you! Drive it away."
+
+He talked, yet he understood he was speaking useless words. Tears welled
+up within him, and in his breast there came a feeling heavy as stone and
+cold as ice.
+
+"Forgive me. Goodbye! Take care. Look out. Don't drink," whispered
+Natalya, soundlessly.
+
+The priest came, and, covering her face with something, and sighing,
+began to read gentle, beseeching words:
+
+"Oh God, Almighty Lord, who cureth every disease, cure also Thy servant
+Natalya, who has just given birth to a child; and restore her from the
+bed on which she now lies, for in the words of David, 'We indulge in
+lawlessness and are wicked in Thine eyes."'
+
+The old man's voice was interrupted now and then, his thin face was
+stern and from his clothes came the odour of rock-rose.
+
+"Guard the infant born of her, guard him from all possible temptation,
+from all possible cruelty, from all possible storms, from evil spirits,
+night and day."
+
+Ignat listened to the prayer, and wept silently. His big, hot tears fell
+on the bare hand of his wife. But the hand, evidently, did not feel that
+the tears were dropping upon it: it remained motionless, and the skin
+did not tremble from the fall of the tears. After the prayer Natalya
+became unconscious and a day later she died, without saying another
+word--she died just as quietly as she had lived. Having arranged
+a pompous funeral, Ignat christened his son, named him Foma, and
+unwillingly gave his boy into the family of the godfather, his old
+friend Mayakin, whose wife, too, had given birth to a child not long
+before. The death of his wife had sown many gray hairs in Ignat's dark
+beard, but in the stern glitter of his eyes appeared a new expression,
+gentle, clear and mild.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+MAYAKIN lived in an enormous two-story house near a big palisade, where
+sturdy, old spreading linden trees were growing magnificently. The rank
+branches covered the windows with a dense, dark embroidery, and the sun
+in broken rays peeped into the small rooms, which were closely crowded
+with miscellaneous furniture and big trunks, wherefore a stern and
+melancholy semi-darkness always reigned there supreme. The family was
+devout--the odour of wax, of rock-rose and of image-lamp oil filled the
+house, and penitent sighs and prayers soared about in the air. Religious
+ceremonials were performed infallibly, with pleasure, absorbing all the
+free power of the souls of the dwellers of the house. Feminine figures
+almost noiselessly moved about the rooms in the half-dark, stifling,
+heavy atmosphere. They were dressed in black, wore soft slippers on
+their feet, and always had a penitent look on their faces.
+
+The family of Yakov Tarazovich Mayakin consisted of himself, his wife, a
+daughter and five kinswomen, the youngest of whom was thirty-four years
+old. These were alike devout and impersonal, and subordinate to Antonina
+Ivanovna, the mistress of the house. She was a tall, thin woman, with
+a dark face and with stern gray eyes, which had an imperious and
+intelligent expression. Mayakin also had a son Taras, but his name
+was never mentioned in the house; acquaintances knew that since the
+nineteen-year-old Taras had gone to study in Moscow--he married there
+three years later, against his father's will--Yakov disowned him. Taras
+disappeared without leaving any trace. It was rumoured that he had been
+sent to Siberia for something.
+
+Yakov Mayakin was very queerly built. Short, thin, lively, with a little
+red beard, sly greenish eyes, he looked as though he said to each and
+every one:
+
+"Never mind, sir, don't be uneasy. Even though I know you for what you
+are, if you don't annoy me I will not give you away."
+
+His beard resembled an egg in shape and was monstrously big. His high
+forehead, covered with wrinkles, joined his bald crown, and it seemed
+as though he really had two faces--one an open, penetrating and
+intellectual face, with a long gristle nose, and above this face another
+one, eyeless and mouthless, covered with wrinkles, behind which Mayakin
+seemed to hide his eyes and his lips until a certain time; and when that
+time had arrived, he would look at the world with different eyes and
+smile a different smile.
+
+He was the owner of a rope-yard and kept a store in town near the
+harbour. In this store, filled up to the ceiling with rope, twine, hemp
+and tow, he had a small room with a creaking glass door. In this room
+stood a big, old, dilapidated table, and near it a deep armchair,
+covered with oilcloth, in which Mayakin sat all day long, sipping
+tea and always reading the same "Moskovskiya Vedomosty," to which he
+subscribed, year in and year out, all his life. Among merchants he
+enjoyed the respect and reputation of a "brainy" man, and he was very
+fond of boasting of the antiquity of his race, saying in a hoarse voice:
+
+"We, the Mayakins, were merchants during the reign of 'Mother'
+Catherine, consequently I am a pure-blooded man."
+
+In this family Ignat Gordyeeff's son lived for six years. By the time
+he was seven years old Foma was a big-headed, broad-shouldered boy,
+seemingly older that his years, both in his size and in the serious look
+of his dark, almond-shaped eyes. Quiet, silent and persistent in his
+childish desires, he spent all his days over his playthings, with
+Mayakin's daughter, Luba, quietly looked after by one of the kinswomen,
+a stout, pock-marked old maid, who was, for some reason or other,
+nicknamed "Buzya." She was a dull, somewhat timid creature; and even to
+the children she spoke in a low voice, in words of monosyllables. Having
+devoted her time to learning prayers, she had no stories to tell Foma.
+
+Foma was on friendly terms with the little girl, but when she angered
+or teased him he turned pale, his nostrils became distended, his eyes
+stared comically and he beat her audaciously. She cried, ran to her
+mother and complained to her, but Antonina loved Foma and she paid but
+little attention to her daughter's complaints, which strengthened the
+friendship between the children still more. Foma's day was long and
+uniform. Getting out of bed and washing himself, he used to place
+himself before the image, and under the whispering of the pock-marked
+Buzya he recited long prayers. Then they drank tea and ate many
+biscuits, cakes and pies. After tea--during the summer--the children
+went to the big palisade, which ran down to a ravine, whose bottom
+always looked dark and damp, filling them with terror. The children were
+not allowed to go even to the edge of the ravine, and this inspired in
+them a fear of it. In winter, from tea time to dinner, they played in
+the house when it was very cold outside, or went out in the yard to
+slide down the big ice hill.
+
+They had dinner at noon, "in Russian style," as Mayakin said. At first a
+big bowl of fat, sour cabbage soup was served with rye biscuits in,
+but without meat, then the same soup was eaten with meat cut into small
+pieces; then they ate roast meat--pork, goose, veal or rennet, with
+gruel--then again a bowl of soup with vermicelli, and all this was
+usually followed by dessert. They drank kvass made of red bilberries,
+juniper-berries, or of bread--Antonina Ivanovna always carried a stock
+of different kinds of kvass. They ate in silence, only now and then
+uttering a sigh of fatigue; the children each ate out of a separate
+bowl, the adults eating out of one bowl. Stupefied by such a dinner,
+they went to sleep; and for two or three hours Mayakin's house was
+filled with snoring and with drowsy sighs.
+
+Awaking from sleep, they drank tea and talked about local news, the
+choristers, the deacons, weddings, or the dishonourable conduct of this
+or that merchant. After tea Mayakin used to say to his wife:
+
+"Well, mother, hand me the Bible."
+
+Yakov Tarasovich used to read the Book of Job more often than anything
+else. Putting his heavy, silver-framed spectacles on his big, ravenous
+nose, he looked around at his listeners to see whether all were in their
+places.
+
+They were all seated where he was accustomed to see them and on their
+faces was a familiar, dull and timid expression of piety.
+
+"There was a man in the land of Uz," began Mayakin, in a hoarse voice,
+and Foma, sitting beside Luba on the lounge in the corner of the room,
+knew beforehand that soon his godfather would become silent and pat his
+bald head with his hand. He sat and, listening, pictured to himself
+this man from the land of Uz. The man was tall and bare, his eyes were
+enormously large, like those of the image of the Saviour, and his voice
+was like a big brass trumpet on which the soldiers played in the camps.
+The man was constantly growing bigger and bigger; and, reaching the sky,
+he thrust his dark hands into the clouds, and, tearing them asunder,
+cried out in a terrible voice:
+
+"Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged
+in?"
+
+Dread fell on Foma, and he trembled, slumber fled from his eyes, he
+heard the voice of his godfather, who said, with a light smile, now and
+then pinching his beard:
+
+"See how audacious he was!"
+
+The boy knew that his godfather spoke of the man from the land of Uz,
+and the godfather's smile soothed the child. So the man would not break
+the sky; he would not rend it asunder with his terrible arms. And then
+Foma sees the man again--he sits on the ground, "his flesh is clothed
+with worms and clods of dust, his skin is broken." But now he is small
+and wretched, he is like a beggar at the church porch.
+
+Here he says:
+
+"What is man, that he should be clean? And he which is born of woman,
+that he should be righteous?" [These words attributed by Mayakin to Job
+are from Eliphaz the Temanite's reply--Translator's Note.]
+
+"He says this to God," explained Mayakin, inspired. "How, says he, can I
+be righteous, since I am made of flesh? That's a question asked of God.
+How is that?"
+
+And the reader, triumphantly and interrogatively looks around at his
+listeners.
+
+"He merited it, the righteous man," they replied with a sigh.
+
+Yakov Mayakin eyes them with a smile, and says:
+
+"Fools! You better put the children to sleep."
+
+Ignat visited the Mayakins every day, brought playthings for his son,
+caught him up into his arms and hugged him, but sometimes dissatisfied
+he said to him with ill-concealed uneasiness:
+
+"Why are you such a bugbear? Oh! Why do you laugh so little?"
+
+And he would complain to the lad's godfather:
+
+"I am afraid that he may turn out to be like his mother. His eyes are
+cheerless."
+
+"You disturb yourself rather too soon," Mayakin smilingly replied.
+
+He, too, loved his godson, and when Ignat announced to him one day that
+he would take Foma to his own house, Mayakin was very much grieved.
+
+"Leave him here," he begged. "See, the child is used to us; there! he's
+crying."
+
+"He'll cease crying. I did not beget him for you. The air of the
+place is disagreeable. It is as tedious here as in an old believer's
+hermitage. This is harmful to the child. And without him I am lonesome.
+I come home--it is empty. I can see nothing there. It would not do for
+me to remove to your house for his sake. I am not for him, he is for me.
+So. And now that my sister has come to my house there will be somebody
+to look after him."
+
+And the boy was brought to his father's house.
+
+There he was met by a comical old woman, with a long, hook-like nose and
+with a mouth devoid of teeth. Tall, stooping, dressed in gray, with gray
+hair, covered by a black silk cap, she did not please the boy at first;
+she even frightened him. But when he noticed on the wrinkled face her
+black eyes, which beamed so tenderly on him, he at once pressed his head
+close to her knees in confidence.
+
+"My sickly little orphan!" she said in a velvet-like voice that trembled
+from the fulness of sound, and quietly patted his face with her hand,
+"stay close to me, my dear child!"
+
+There was something particularly sweet and soft in her caresses,
+something altogether new to Foma, and he stared into the old woman's
+eyes with curiosity and expectation on his face. This old woman led him
+into a new world, hitherto unknown to him. The very first day, having
+put him to bed, she seated herself by his side, and, bending over the
+child, asked him:
+
+"Shall I tell you a story, Fomushka?"
+
+And after that Foma always fell asleep amid the velvet-like sounds of
+the old woman's voice, which painted before him a magic life. Giants
+defeating monsters, wise princesses, fools who turned out to be
+wise--troops of new and wonderful people were passing before the boy's
+bewitched imagination, and his soul was nourished by the wholesome
+beauty of the national creative power. Inexhaustible were the treasures
+of the memory and the fantasy of this old woman, who oftentimes,
+in slumber, appeared to the boy--now like the witch of the
+fairy-tales--only a kind and amiable old witch--now like the beautiful,
+all-wise Vasilisa. His eyes wide open, holding his breath, the boy
+looked into the darkness that filled his chamber and watched it as it
+slowly trembled in the light of the little lamp that was burning before
+the image. And Foma filled this darkness with wonderful pictures of
+fairy-tale life. Silent, yet living shadows, were creeping over the
+walls and across the floor; it was both pleasant and terrible to him to
+watch their life; to deal out unto them forms and colours, and, having
+endowed them with life, instantly to destroy them all with a single
+twinkle of the eyelashes. Something new appeared in his dark eyes,
+something more childish and naive, less grave; the loneliness and the
+darkness, awaking in him a painful feeling of expectation, stirred his
+curiosity, compelled him to go out to the dark corner and see what
+was hidden there beyond the thick veils of darkness. He went and found
+nothing, but he lost no hope of finding it out.
+
+He feared his father and respected him. Ignat's enormous size, his
+harsh, trumpet-like voice, his bearded face, his gray-haired head, his
+powerful, long arms and his flashing eyes--all these gave to Ignat the
+resemblance of the fairy-tale robbers.
+
+Foma shuddered whenever he heard his voice or his heavy, firm steps; but
+when the father, smiling kind-heartedly, and talking playfully in a loud
+voice, took him upon his knees or threw him high up in the air with his
+big hands the boy's fear vanished.
+
+Once, when the boy was about eight years old, he asked his father, who
+had returned from a long journey:
+
+"Papa, where were you?"
+
+"On the Volga."
+
+"Were you robbing there?" asked Foma, softly.
+
+"Wha-at?" Ignat drawled out, and his eyebrows contracted.
+
+"Aren't you a robber, papa? I know it," said Foma, winking his eyes
+slyly, satisfied that he had already read the secret of his father's
+life.
+
+"I am a merchant!" said Ignat, sternly, but after a moment's thought he
+smiled kind-heartedly and added: "And you are a little fool! I deal in
+corn, I run a line of steamers. Have you seen the 'Yermak'? Well, that
+is my steamer. And yours, too."
+
+"It is a very big one," said Foma with a sigh.
+
+"Well, I'll buy you a small one while you are small yourself. Shall I?"
+
+"Very well," Foma assented, but after a thoughtful silence he again
+drawled out regretfully: "But I thought you were a robber or a giant."
+
+"I tell you I am a merchant!" repeated Ignat, insinuatingly, and there
+was something discontented and almost timorous in his glance at the
+disenchanted face of his son.
+
+"Like Grandpa Fedor, the Kalatch baker?" asked Foma, having thought
+awhile.
+
+"Well, yes, like him. Only I am richer than he. I have more money than
+Fedor."
+
+"Have you much money?"
+
+"Well, some people have still more."
+
+"How many barrels do you have?"
+
+"Of what?"
+
+"Of money, I mean."
+
+"Fool! Is money counted by the barrel?"
+
+"How else?" exclaimed Foma, enthusiastically, and, turning his face
+toward his father, began to tell him quickly: "Maksimka, the robber,
+came once to a certain town and filled up twelve barrels with money
+belonging to some rich man there. And he took different silverware and
+robbed a church. And cut up a man with his sword and threw him down the
+steeple because he tried to sound an alarm."
+
+"Did your aunt tell you that?" asked Ignat admiring his son's
+enthusiasm.
+
+"Yes! Why?"
+
+"Nothing!" said Ignat, laughing. "So you thought your father was a
+robber."
+
+"And perhaps you were a robber long ago?"
+
+Foma again returned to his theme, and it was evident on his face that he
+would be very glad to hear an affirmative answer.
+
+"I was never a robber. Let that end it."
+
+"Never?"
+
+"I tell you I was not! What a queer little boy you are! Is it good to
+be a robber? They are all sinners, the robbers. They don't believe in
+God--they rob churches. They are all cursed in the churches. Yes. Look
+here, my son, you'll have to start to study soon. It is time; you'll
+soon be nine years old. Start with the help of God. You'll study during
+the winter and in spring I'll take you along with me on the Volga."
+
+"Will I go to school?" asked Foma, timidly.
+
+"First you'll study at home with auntie." Soon after the boy would sit
+down near the table in the morning and, fingering the Slavonic alphabet,
+repeat after his aunt:
+
+"Az, Buky, Vedy."
+
+When they reached "bra, vra, gra, dra" for a long time the boy could not
+read these syllables without laughter. Foma succeeded easily in gaining
+knowledge, almost without any effort, and soon he was reading the first
+psalm of the first section of the psalter: "Blessed is the man that
+walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly."
+
+"That's it, my darling! So, Fomushka, that's right!" chimed in his aunt
+with emotion, enraptured by his progress.
+
+"You're a fine fellow, Foma!" Ignat would approvingly say when informed
+of his son's progress. "We'll go to Astrakhan for fish in the spring,
+and toward autumn I'll send you to school!"
+
+The boy's life rolled onward, like a ball downhill. Being his teacher,
+his aunt was his playmate as well. Luba Mayakin used to come, and when
+with them, the old woman readily became one of them.
+
+They played at "hide and seek" and "blind man's buff;" the children
+were pleased and amused at seeing Anfisa, her eyes covered with a
+handkerchief, her arms outstretched, walking about the room carefully,
+and yet striking against chairs and tables, or looking for them in each
+and every commodious corner, saying:
+
+"Eh, little rascals. Eh, rogues. Where have they hidden themselves? Eh?"
+
+And the sun shone cheerfully and playfully upon the old worn-out body,
+which yet retained a youthful soul, and upon the old life, that was
+adorning, according to its strength and abilities, the life-path of two
+children.
+
+Ignat used to go to the Exchange early in the morning and sometimes
+stayed away until evening; in the evening he used to go to the
+town council or visiting or elsewhere. Sometimes he returned home
+intoxicated. At first Foma, on such occasions, ran from him and hid
+himself, then he became accustomed to it, and learned that his father
+was better when drunk than sober: he was kinder and plainer and was
+somewhat comical. If it happened at night, the boy was usually awakened
+by his trumpet-like voice:
+
+"Anfisa! Dear sister! Let me in to my son; let me in to my successor!"
+
+And auntie answered him in a crying and reproachful voice:
+
+"Go on. You better go to sleep, you cursed devil! Drunk again, eh? You
+are gray already?"
+
+"Anfisa! May I see my son, with one eye?" Foma knew that Anfisa would
+not let him in, and he again fell asleep in spite of the noise of
+their voices. But when Ignat came home intoxicated during the day he
+immediately seized his son with his enormous paws and carried him about
+the rooms, asking him with an intoxicated, happy laughter:
+
+"Fomka! What do you wish? Speak! Presents? Playthings? Ask! Because you
+must know there's nothing in this world that I wouldn't buy for you. I
+have a million! Ha, ha, ha! And I'll have still more! Understand? All's
+yours! Ha, ha!"
+
+And suddenly his enthusiasm was extinguished like a candle put out by
+a violent puff of the wind. His flushed face began to shake, his eyes,
+burning red, filled with tears, and his lips expanded into a sad and
+frightened smile.
+
+"Anfisa, in case he should die, what am I to do then?"
+
+And immediately after these words he was seized with fury.
+
+"I'd burn everything!" he roared, staring wildly into some dark corner
+of the room. "I'd destroy everything! I'd blow it up with dynamite!"
+
+"Enough, you ugly brute! Do you wish to frighten the child? Or do you
+want him to take sick?" interposed Anfisa, and that was sufficient for
+Ignat to rush off hastily, muttering:
+
+"Well, well, well! I am going, I am going, but don't cry! Don't make any
+noise. Don't frighten him."
+
+And when Foma was somewhat sick, his father, casting everything aside,
+did not leave the house for a moment, but bothered his sister and his
+son with stupid questions and advice; gloomy, sighing, and with fear in
+his eyes, he walked about the house quite out of sorts.
+
+"Why do you vex the Lord?" said Anfisa. "Beware, your grumblings will
+reach Him, and He will punish you for your complaints against His
+graces."
+
+"Eh, sister!" sighed Ignat. "And if it should happen? My entire life is
+crumbling away! Wherefore have I lived? No one knows."
+
+Similar scenes and the striking transitions of his father from one mood
+to another frightened the child at first, but he soon became accustomed
+to all this, and when he noticed through the window that his father,
+on coming home, was hardly able to get out of the sledge, Foma said
+indifferently:
+
+"Auntie, papa came home drunk again."
+
+.............................
+
+Spring came, and, fulfilling his promise, Ignat took his son along on
+one of his steamers, and here a new life, abounding in impressions, was
+opened before Foma's eyes.
+
+The beautiful and mighty "Yermak," Gordyeeff's steam tow-boat, was
+rapidly floating down the current, and on each side the shores of the
+powerful and beautiful Volga were slowly moving past him--the left side,
+all bathed in sunshine, stretching itself to the very end of the sky
+like a pompous carpet of verdure; the right shore, its high banks
+overgrown with woods, swung skyward, sinking in stern repose.
+
+The broad-bosomed river stretched itself majestically between the
+shores; noiselessly, solemnly and slowly flowed its waters, conscious of
+their invincible power; the mountainous shore is reflected in the water
+in a black shadow, while on the left side it is adorned with gold and
+with verdant velvet by a border of sand and the wide meadows. Here and
+there villages appear on mountain and on meadow, the sun shines bright
+on the window-panes of the huts and on the yellow roofs of straw, the
+church crosses sparkle amid the verdure of the trees, gray wind-mill
+wings revolve lazily in the air, smoke from the factory chimney rises
+skyward in thick, black curling clouds. Crowds of children in blue, red
+or white shirts, standing on the banks, shouted loudly at the sight of
+the steamer, which had disturbed the quiet of the river, and from under
+the steamer's wheels the cheerful waves are rushing toward the feet
+of the children and splash against the bank. Now a crowd of children,
+seated in a boat, rowed toward the middle of the river to rock there
+on the waves as in a cradle. Trees stood out above the water; sometimes
+many of them are drowned in the overflow of the banks, and these stand
+in the water like islands. From the shore a melancholy song is heard:
+
+"Oh, o-o-o, once more!"
+
+The steamer passes many rafts, splashing them with waves. The beams are
+in continual motion under the blows of the waves; the men on the rafts
+in blue shirts, staggering, look at the steamer and laugh and shout
+something. The big, beautiful vessel goes sidewise on the river; the
+yellow scantlings with which it is loaded sparkle like gold and are
+dimly reflected in the muddy, vernal water. A passenger steamer comes
+from the opposite side and whistles--the resounding echo of the whistle
+loses itself in the woods, in the gorges of the mountainous bank, and
+dies away there. In the middle of the river the waves stirred up by the
+two vessels strike against one another and splash against the steamers'
+sides, and the vessels are rocked upon the water. On the slope of the
+mountainous bank are verdant carpets of winter corn, brown strips of
+fallow ground and black strips of ground tilled for spring corn. Birds,
+like little dots, soar over them, and are clearly seen in the blue
+canopy of the sky; nearby a flock is grazing; in the distance they look
+like children's toys; the small figure of the shepherd stands leaning on
+a staff, and looks at the river.
+
+The glare of the water--freedom and liberty are everywhere, the meadows
+are cheerfully verdant and the blue sky is tenderly clear; a restrained
+power is felt in the quiet motion of the water; above it the generous
+May sun is shining, the air is filled with the exquisite odour of
+fir trees and of fresh foliage. And the banks keep on meeting them,
+caressing the eyes and the soul with their beauty, as new pictures
+constantly unfold themselves.
+
+Everything surrounding them bears the stamp of some kind of tardiness:
+all--nature as well as men--live there clumsily, lazily; but in that
+laziness there is an odd gracefulness, and it seems as though beyond the
+laziness a colossal power were concealed; an invincible power, but as
+yet deprived of consciousness, as yet without any definite desires and
+aims. And the absence of consciousness in this half-slumbering life
+throws shades of sadness over all the beautiful slope. Submissive
+patience, silent hope for something new and more inspiriting are heard
+even in the cry of the cuckoo, wafted to the river by the wind from the
+shore. The melancholy songs sound as though imploring someone for help.
+And at times there is in them a ring of despair. The river answers the
+songs with sighs. And the tree-tops shake, lost in meditation. Silence.
+
+Foma spent all day long on the captain's bridge beside his father.
+Without uttering a word, he stared wide-eyed at the endless panorama of
+the banks, and it seemed to him he was moving along a broad silver path
+in those wonderful kingdoms inhabited by the sorcerers and giants of his
+familiar fairy-tales. At times he would load his father with questions
+about everything that passed before them. Ignat answered him willingly
+and concisely, but the boy was not pleased with his answers; they
+contained nothing interesting and intelligible to him, and he did not
+hear what he longed to hear. Once he told his father with a sigh:
+
+"Auntie Anfisa knows better than you."
+
+"What does she know?" asked Ignat, smiling.
+
+"Everything," replied the boy, convincedly.
+
+No wonderful kingdom appeared before him. But often cities appeared on
+the banks of the river, just such cities as the one where Foma lived.
+Some of them were larger, some smaller, but the people, and the houses,
+and the churches--all were the same as in his own city. Foma examined
+them in company with his father, but was still unsatisfied and returned
+to the steamer gloomy and fatigued.
+
+"Tomorrow we shall be in Astrakhan," said Ignat one day.
+
+"And is it just the same as the other cities?"
+
+"Of course. How else should it be?"
+
+"And what is beyond Astrakhan?"
+
+"The sea. The Caspian Sea it is called."
+
+"And what is there?"
+
+"Fishes, queer fellow! What else can there be in the water?"
+
+"There's the city Kitezh standing in the water."
+
+"That's a different thing! That's Kitezh. Only righteous people live
+there."
+
+"And are there no righteous cities on the sea?"
+
+"No," said Ignat, and, after a moment's silence, added: "The sea water is
+bitter and nobody can drink it."
+
+"And is there more land beyond the sea?"
+
+"Certainly, the sea must have an end. It is like a cup."
+
+"And are there cities there too?"
+
+"Again cities. Of course! Only that land is not ours, it belongs to
+Persia. Did you see the Persians selling pistachio-nuts and apricots in
+the market?"
+
+"Yes, I saw them," replied Foma, and became pensive.
+
+One day he asked his father:
+
+"Is there much more land left?"
+
+"The earth is very big, my dear! If you should go on foot, you couldn't
+go around it even in ten years."
+
+Ignat talked for a long time with his son about the size of the earth,
+and said at length:
+
+"And yet no one knows for certain how big it really is, nor where it
+ends."
+
+"And is everything alike on earth?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"The cities and all?"
+
+"Well, of course, the cities are like cities. There are houses,
+streets--and everything that is necessary."
+
+After many similar conversations the boy no longer stared so often into
+the distance with the interrogative look of his black eyes.
+
+The crew of the steamer loved him, and he, too, loved those fine,
+sun-burnt and weather-beaten fellows, who laughingly played with him.
+They made fishing tackles for him, and little boats out of bark, played
+with him and rowed him about the anchoring place, when Ignat went to
+town on business. The boy often heard the men talking about his father,
+but he paid no attention to what they said, and never told his father
+what he heard about him. But one day, in Astrakhan, while the steamer
+was taking in a cargo of fuel, Foma heard the voice of Petrovich, the
+machinist:
+
+"He ordered such a lot of wood to be taken in. What an absurd man! First
+he loads the steamer up to the very deck, and then he roars. 'You
+break the machinery too often,' he says. 'You pour oil,' he says, 'at
+random.'"
+
+The voice of the gray and stern pilot replied:
+
+"It's all his exorbitant greediness. Fuel is cheaper here, so he is
+taking all he can. He is greedy, the devil!"
+
+"Oh, how greedy!"
+
+This word, repeated many times in succession, fixed itself in Foma's
+memory, and in the evening, at supper, he suddenly asked his father:
+
+"Papa!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Are you greedy?"
+
+In reply to his father's questions Foma told him of the conversation
+between the pilot and the machinist. Ignat's face became gloomy, and his
+eyes began to flash angrily.
+
+"That's how it is," ejaculated Ignat, shaking his head. "Well,
+you--don't you listen to them. They are not your equals; don't have
+so much to do with them. You are their master, they are your servants,
+understand that. If we choose to, we can put every one of them ashore.
+They are cheap and they can be found everywhere like dogs. Understand?
+They may say many bad things about me. But they say them, because I am
+their master. The whole thing arises because I am fortunate and rich,
+and the rich are always envied. A happy man is everybody's enemy."
+
+About two days later there was a new pilot and another machinist on the
+steamer.
+
+"And where is Yakov?" asked the boy.
+
+"I discharged him. I ordered him away."
+
+"For that?" queried Foma.
+
+"Yes, for that very thing."
+
+"And Petrovich, too?"
+
+"Yes, I sent him the same way."
+
+Foma was pleased with the fact that his father was able to change the
+men so quickly. He smiled to his father, and, coming out on the deck,
+walked up to a sailor, who sat on the floor, untwisting a piece of rope
+and making a swab.
+
+"We have a new pilot here," announced Foma.
+
+"I know. Good health to you, Foma Ignatich! How did you sleep?"
+
+"And a new machinist, too."
+
+"And a new machinist. Are you sorry for Petrovich?"
+
+"Really? And he was so good to you."
+
+"Well, why did he abuse my father?"
+
+"Oh? Did he abuse him?"
+
+"Of course he did. I heard it myself."
+
+"Mm--and your father heard it, too?"
+
+"No, I told him."
+
+"You--so"--drawled the sailor and became silent, taking up his work
+again.
+
+"And papa says to me: 'You,' he says, 'you are master here--you can
+drive them all away if you wish.'"
+
+"So," said the sailor, gloomily looking at the boy, who was so
+enthusiastically boasting to him of his supreme power. From that day
+on Foma noticed that the crew did not regard him as before. Some became
+more obliging and kind, others did not care to speak to him, and
+when they did speak to him, it was done angrily, and not at all
+entertainingly, as before. Foma liked to watch while the deck was being
+washed: their trousers rolled up to their knees, or sometimes taken off
+altogether, the sailors, with swabs and brushes in their hands, cleverly
+ran about the deck, emptying pails of water on it, besprinkling one
+another, laughing, shouting, falling. Streams of water ran in every
+direction, and the lively noise of the men intermingled with the gray
+splash of the water. Before, the boy never bothered the sailors in this
+playful and light work; nay, he took an active part, besprinkling them
+with water and laughingly running away, when they threatened to pour
+water over him. But after Yakov and Petrovich had been discharged, he
+felt that he was in everybody's way, that no one cared to play with him
+and that no one regarded him kindly. Surprised and melancholy, he left
+the deck, walked up to the wheel, sat down there, and, offended, he
+thoughtfully began to stare at the distant green bank and the dented
+strip of woods upon it. And below, on the deck, the water was splashing
+playfully, and the sailors were gaily laughing. He yearned to go down to
+them, but something held him back.
+
+"Keep away from them as much as possible," he recalled his father's
+words; "you are their master." Then he felt like shouting at the
+sailors--something harsh and authoritative, so his father would scold
+them. He thought a long time what to say, but could not think of
+anything. Another two, three days passed, and it became perfectly clear
+to him that the crew no longer liked him. He began to feel lonesome on
+the steamer, and amid the parti-coloured mist of new impressions, still
+more often there came up before Foma the image of his kind and gentle
+Aunt Anfisa, with her stories, and smiles, and soft, ringing laughter,
+which filled the boy's soul with a joyous warmth. He still lived in the
+world of fairy-tales, but the invisible and pitiless hand of reality
+was already at work tearing the beautiful, fine web of the wonderful,
+through which the boy had looked at everything about him. The incident
+with the machinist and the pilot directed his attention to his
+surroundings; Foma's eyes became more sharp-sighted. A conscious
+searchfulness appeared in them and in his questions to his father rang a
+yearning to understand which threads and springs were managing the deeds
+of men.
+
+One day a scene took place before him: the sailors were carrying wood,
+and one of them, the young, curly-haired and gay Yefim, passing the deck
+of the ship with hand-barrows, said loudly and angrily:
+
+"No, he has no conscience whatever! There was no agreement that I should
+carry wood. A sailor--well, one's business is clear--but to carry wood
+into the bargain--thank you! That means for me to take off the skin I
+have not sold. He is without conscience! He thinks it is clever to sap
+the life out of us."
+
+The boy heard this grumbling and knew that it was concerning his father.
+He also noticed that although Yefim was grumbling, he carried more wood
+on his stretcher than the others, and walked faster than the others.
+None of the sailors replied to Yefim's grumbling, and even the one who
+worked with him was silent, only now and then protesting against the
+earnestness with which Yefim piled up the wood on the stretchers.
+
+"Enough!" he would say, morosely, "you are not loading a horse, are
+you?"
+
+"And you had better keep quiet. You were put to the cart--cart it and
+don't kick--and should your blood be sucked--keep quiet again. What can
+you say?"
+
+Suddenly Ignat appeared, walked up to the sailor and, stopping in front
+of him, asked sternly:
+
+"What were you talking about?"
+
+"I am talking--I know," replied Yefim, hesitating. "There was no
+agreement--that I must say nothing."
+
+"And who is going to suck blood?" asked Ignat, stroking his beard.
+
+The sailor understood that he had been caught unawares, and seeing no
+way out of it, he let the log of wood fall from his hands, rubbed his
+palms against his pants, and, facing Ignat squarely, said rather boldly:
+
+"And am I not right? Don't you suck it?"
+
+"I?"
+
+"You."
+
+Foma saw that his father swung his hand. A loud blow resounded, and the
+sailor fell heavily on the wood. He arose immediately and worked on in
+silence. Blood was trickling from his bruised face on to the white bark
+of the birch wood; he wiped the blood off his face with the sleeve of
+his shirt, looked at his sleeve and, heaving a sigh, maintained silence,
+and when he went past Foma with the hand-harrows, two big, turbid
+tears were trembling on his face, near the bridge of his nose, and Foma
+noticed them.
+
+At dinner Foma was pensive and now and then glanced at his father with
+fear in his eyes.
+
+"Why do you frown?" asked his father, gently.
+
+"Frown?"
+
+"Are you ill, perhaps? Be careful. If there is anything, tell me."
+
+"You are strong," said Foma of a sudden musingly.
+
+"I? That's right. God has favoured me with strength."
+
+"How hard you struck him!" exclaimed the boy in a low voice, lowering
+his head.
+
+Ignat was about to put a piece of bread with caviar into his mouth,
+but his hand stopped, held back by his son's exclamation; he looked
+interrogatively at Foma's drooping head and asked:
+
+"You mean Yefim, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, he was bleeding. And how he walked afterward, how he cried," said
+the boy in a low voice.
+
+"Mm," roared Ignat, chewing a bite. "Well, are you sorry for him?"
+
+"It's a pity!" said Foma, with tears in his voice.
+
+"Yes. So that's the kind of a fellow you are," said Ignat.
+
+Then, after a moment's silence, he filled a wineglass with vodka,
+emptied it, and said sternly, in a slightly reprimanding tone:
+
+"There is no reason why you should pity him. He brawled at random,
+and therefore got what he deserved. I know him: he is a good fellow,
+industrious, strong and not a bit foolish. But to argue is not his
+business; I may argue, because I am the master. It isn't simple to be
+master. A punch wouldn't kill him, but will make him wiser. That's
+the way. Eh, Foma! You are an infant, and you do not understand these
+things. I must teach you how to live. It may be that my days on earth
+are numbered."
+
+Ignat was silent for awhile, drank some more vodka and went on
+instinctively:
+
+"It is necessary to have pity on men. You are right in doing so. But you
+must pity them sensibly. First look at a man, find out what good there
+is in him, and what use may be made of him! And if you find him to
+be strong and capable--pity and assist him. And if he is weak and
+not inclined to work--spit upon him, pass him by. Just keep this in
+mind--the man who complains against everything, who sighs and moans all
+the time--that man is worth nothing; he merits no compassion and you
+will do him no good whatever, even if you help him. Pity for such people
+makes them more morose, spoils them the more. In your godfather's house
+you saw various kinds of people--unfortunate travellers and hangers-on,
+and all sorts of rabble. Forget them. They are not men, they are just
+shells, and are good for nothing. They are like bugs, fleas and other
+unclean things. Nor do they live for God's sake--they have no God. They
+call His name in vain, in order to move fools to pity, and, thus pitied,
+to fill their bellies with something. They live but for their bellies,
+and aside from eating, drinking, sleeping and moaning they can do
+nothing. And all they accomplish is the soul's decay. They are in your
+way and you trip over them. A good man among them--like fresh apples
+among bad ones--may soon be spoilt, and no one will profit by it. You
+are young, that's the trouble. You cannot comprehend my words. Help him
+who is firm in misery. He may not ask you for assistance, but think of
+it yourself, and assist him without his request. And if he should happen
+to be proud and thus feel offended at your aid, do not allow him to see
+that you are lending him a helping hand. That's the way it should be
+done, according to common sense! Here, for example, two boards, let us
+say, fall into the mud--one of them is a rotten one, the other, a good
+sound board. What should you do? What good is there in the rotten board?
+You had better drop it, let it stay in the mud and step on it so as not
+to soil your feet. As to the sound board, lift it up and place it in the
+sun; if it can be of no use to you, someone else may avail himself of
+it. That's the way it is, my son! Listen to me and remember. There is no
+reason why Yefim should be pitied. He is a capable fellow, he knows his
+value. You cannot knock his soul out with a box on the ear. I'll just
+watch him for about a week, and then I'll put him at the helm. And
+there, I am quite sure, he'll be a good pilot. And if he should be
+promoted to captain, he wouldn't lose courage--he would make a clever
+captain! That's the way people grow. I have gone through this school
+myself, dear. I, too, received more than one box on the ear when I was
+of his age. Life, my son, is not a dear mother to all of us. It is our
+exacting mistress."
+
+Ignat talked with his son about two hours, telling him of his own youth,
+of his toils, of men; their terrible power, and of their weakness; of
+how they live, and sometimes pretend to be unfortunate in order to live
+on other people's money; and then he told him of himself, and of how he
+rose from a plain working man to be proprietor of a large concern. The
+boy listened to his words, looked at him and felt as though his father
+were coming nearer and nearer to him. And though his father's story
+did not contain the material of which Aunt Anfisa's fairy-tales were
+brimful, there was something new in it, something clearer and
+more comprehensible than in her fairy-tales, and something just as
+interesting. Something powerful and warm began to throb within his
+little heart, and he was drawn toward his father. Ignat, evidently,
+surmised his son's feelings by his eyes: he rose abruptly from his seat,
+seized him in his arms and pressed him firmly to his breast. And Foma
+embraced his neck, and, pressing his cheek to that of his father, was
+silent and breathed rapidly.
+
+"My son," whispered Ignat in a dull voice, "My darling! My joy! Learn
+while I am alive. Alas! it is hard to live."
+
+The child's heart trembled at this whisper; he set his teeth together,
+and hot tears gushed from his eyes.
+
+Until this day Ignat had never kindled any particular feeling in his
+son: the boy was used to him; he was tired of looking at his enormous
+figure, and feared him slightly, but was at the same time aware that his
+father would do anything for him that he wanted. Sometimes Ignat would
+stay away from home a day, two, a week, or possibly the entire summer.
+And yet Foma did not even notice his absence, so absorbed was he by his
+love for Aunt Anfisa. When Ignat returned the boy was glad, but he could
+hardly tell whether it was his father's arrival that gladdened him or
+the playthings he brought with him. But now, at the sight of Ignat, the
+boy ran to meet him, grasped him by the hand, laughed, stared into his
+eyes and felt weary if he did not see him for two or three hours: His
+father became interesting to him, and, rousing his curiosity, he fairly
+developed love and respect for himself. Every time that they were
+together Foma begged his father:
+
+"Papa, tell me about yourself."
+
+.........................
+
+The steamer was now going up the Volga. One suffocating night in July,
+when the sky was overcast with thick black clouds, and everything on the
+Volga was somewhat ominously calm, they reached Kazan and anchored near
+Uslon at the end of an enormous fleet of vessels. The clinking of the
+anchor chains and the shouting of the crew awakened Foma; he looked
+out of the window and saw, far in the distance, small lights glimmering
+fantastically: the water about the boat black and thick, like oil--and
+nothing else could be seen. The boy's heart trembled painfully and he
+began to listen attentively. A scarcely audible, melancholy song reached
+his ears--mournful and monotonous as a chant on the caravan the watchmen
+called to one another; the steamer hissed angrily getting up steam.
+And the black water of the river splashed sadly and quietly against the
+sides of the vessels. Staring fixedly into the darkness, until his eyes
+hurt, the boy discerned black piles and small lights dimly burning high
+above them. He knew that those were barges, but this knowledge did
+not calm him and his heart throbbed unevenly, and, in his imagination,
+terrifying dark images arose.
+
+"O-o-o," a drawling cry came from the distance and ended like a wail.
+
+Someone crossed the deck and went up to the side of the steamer.
+
+"O-o-o," was heard again, but nearer this time.
+
+"Yefim!" some one called in a low voice on the deck. "Yefimka!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Devil! Get up! Take the boat-hook."
+
+"O-o-o," someone moaned near by, and Foma, shuddering, stepped back from
+the window.
+
+The queer sound came nearer and nearer and grew in strength, sobbed and
+died out in the darkness. While on the deck they whispered with alarm:
+
+"Yefimka! Get up! A guest is floating!"
+
+"Where?" came a hasty question, then bare feet began to patter about the
+deck, a bustle was heard, and two boat-hooks slipped down past the boy's
+face and almost noiselessly plunged into the water.
+
+"A gue-e-est!" Some began to sob near by, and a quiet, but very queer
+splash resounded.
+
+The boy trembled with fright at this mournful cry, but he could not tear
+his hands from the window nor his eyes from the water.
+
+"Light the lantern. You can't see anything."
+
+"Directly."
+
+And then a spot of dim light fell over the water. Foma saw that the
+water was rocking calmly, that a ripple was passing over it, as though
+the water were afflicted, and trembled for pain.
+
+"Look! Look!" they whispered on the deck with fright.
+
+At the same time a big, terrible human face, with white teeth set
+together, appeared on the spot of light. It floated and rocked in the
+water, its teeth seemed to stare at Foma as though saying, with a smile:
+
+"Eh, boy, boy, it is cold. Goodbye!"
+
+The boat-hooks shook, were lifted in the air, were lowered again into
+the water and carefully began to push something there.
+
+"Shove him! Shove! Look out, he may be thrown under the wheel."
+
+"Shove him yourself then."
+
+The boat-hooks glided over the side of the steamer, and, scratching
+against it, produced a noise like the grinding of teeth. Foma could
+not close his eyes for watching them. The noise of feet stamping on the
+deck, over his head, was gradually moving toward the stern. And then
+again that moaning cry for the dead was heard:
+
+"A gue-e-est!"
+
+"Papa!" cried Foma in a ringing voice. "Papa!" His father jumped to his
+feet and rushed toward him.
+
+"What is that? What are they doing there?" cried Foma.
+
+Wildly roaring, Ignat jumped out of the cabin with huge bounds. He soon
+returned, sooner than Foma, staggering and looking around him, had time
+to reach his father's bed.
+
+"They frightened you? It's nothing!" said Ignat, taking him up in his
+arms. "Lie down with me."
+
+"What is it?" asked Foma, quietly.
+
+"It was nothing, my son. Only a drowned man. A man was drowned and he is
+floating. That's nothing! Don't be afraid, he has already floated clear
+of us."
+
+"Why did they push him?" interrogated the boy, firmly pressing close to
+his father, and shutting his eyes for fright.
+
+"It was necessary to do so. The water might have thrown him under the
+wheel. Under ours, for instance. Tomorrow the police would notice
+it, there would be trouble, inquests, and we would be held here for
+examination. That's why we shoved him along. What difference does it
+make to him? He is dead; it doesn't pain him; it doesn't offend him. And
+the living would be troubled on his account. Sleep, my son.
+
+"So he will float on that way?"
+
+"He will float. They'll take him out somewhere and bury him."
+
+"And will a fish devour him?"
+
+"Fish do not eat human bodies. Crabs eat them. They like them."
+
+Foma's fright was melting, from the heat of his father's body, but
+before his eyes the terrible sneering face was still rocking in the
+black water.
+
+"And who is he?"
+
+"God knows! Say to God about him: 'Oh Lord, rest his soul! '"
+
+"Lord, rest his soul!" repeated Foma, in a whisper.
+
+"That's right. Sleep now, don't fear. He is far away now! Floating on.
+See here, be careful as you go up to the side of the ship. You may fall
+overboard. God forbid! And--"
+
+"Did he fall overboard?"
+
+"Of course. Perhaps he was drunk, and that's his end! And maybe he threw
+himself into the water. There are people who do that. They go and throw
+themselves into the water and are drowned. Life, my dear, is so arranged
+that death is sometimes a holiday for one, sometimes it is a blessing
+for all."
+
+"Papa."
+
+"Sleep, sleep, dear."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DURING the very first day of his school life, stupefied by the lively
+and hearty noise of provoking mischiefs and of wild, childish games,
+Foma picked out two boys from the crowd who at once seemed more
+interesting to him than the others. One had a seat in front of him.
+Foma, looking askance, saw a broad back; a full neck, covered with
+freckles; big ears; and the back of the head closely cropped, covered
+with light-red hair which stood out like bristles.
+
+When the teacher, a bald-headed man, whose lower lip hung down, called
+out: "Smolin, African!" the red-headed boy arose slowly, walked up to
+the teacher, calmly stared into his face, and, having listened to the
+problem, carefully began to make big round figures on the blackboard
+with chalk.
+
+"Good enough!" said the teacher. "Yozhov, Nicolai. Proceed!"
+
+One of Foma's neighbours, a fidgety little boy with black little
+mouse-eyes, jumped up from his seat and passed through the aisle,
+striking against everything and turning his head on all sides. At the
+blackboard he seized the chalk, and, standing up on the toes of his
+boots, noisily began to mark the board with the chalk, creaking and
+filling with chalk dust, dashing off small, illegible marks.
+
+"Not so loud!" said the teacher, wrinkling his yellow face and
+contracting his fatigued eyes. Yozhov spoke quickly and in a ringing
+voice:
+
+"Now we know that the first peddler made 17k. profit."
+
+"Enough! Gordyeeff! Tell me what must we do in order to find out how
+much the second peddler gained?"
+
+Watching the conduct of the boys, so unlike each other, Foma was thus
+taken unawares by the question and he kept quiet.
+
+"Don't you know? How? Explain it to him, Smolin."
+
+Having carefully wiped his fingers, which had been soiled with chalk,
+Smolin put the rag away, and, without looking at Foma, finished the
+problem and again began to wipe his hands, while Yozhov, smiling and
+skipping along as he walked, returned to his seat.
+
+"Eh, you!" he whispered, seating himself beside Foma, incidentally
+striking his side with his fist. "Why don't you know it? What was the
+profit altogether? Thirty kopecks. And there were two peddlers. One of
+them got 17. Well, how much did the other one get?"
+
+"I know," replied Foma, in a whisper, feeling confused and examining the
+face of Smolin, who was sedately returning to his seat. He didn't like
+that round, freckled face, with the blue eyes, which were loaded with
+fat. And Yozhov pinched his leg and asked:
+
+"Whose son are you? The Frantic's?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So. Do you wish me to prompt you always?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And what will you give me for it?"
+
+Foma thought awhile and asked:
+
+"And do you know it all yourself?"
+
+"I? I am the best pupil. You'll see for yourself."
+
+"Hey, there! Yozhov, you are talking again?" cried the teacher, faintly.
+
+Yozhov jumped to his feet and said boldly:
+
+"It's not I, Ivan Andreyich--it's Gordyeeff."
+
+"Both of them were whispering," announced Smolin, serenely.
+
+Wrinkling his face mournfully and moving his big lip comically, the
+teacher reprimanded them all, but his words did not prevent Yozhov from
+whispering immediately:
+
+"Very well, Smolin! I'll remember you for telling."
+
+"Well, why do you blame it all on the new boy?" asked Smolin, in a low
+voice, without even turning his head to them.
+
+"All right, all right," hissed Yozhov.
+
+Foma was silent, looking askance at his brisk neighbour, who at once
+pleased him and roused in him a desire to get as far as possible away
+from him. During recess he learned from Yozhov that Smolin, too, was
+rich, being the son of a tan-yard proprietor, and that Yozhov himself
+was the son of a guard at the Court of Exchequer, and very poor. The
+last was clearly evident by the adroit boy's costume, made of gray
+fustian and adorned with patches on the knees and elbows; by his pale,
+hungry-looking face; and, by his small, angular and bony figure. This
+boy spoke in a metallic alto, elucidating his words with grimaces and
+gesticulations, and he often used words whose meaning was known but to
+himself.
+
+"We'll be friends," he announced to Foma.
+
+"Why did you complain to the teacher about me?" Gordyeeff reminded
+Yozhov, looking at him suspiciously.
+
+"There! What's the difference to you? You are a new scholar and rich.
+The teacher is not exacting with the rich. And I am a poor hanger-on; he
+doesn't like me, because I am impudent and because I never bring him any
+presents. If I had been a bad pupil he would have expelled me long ago.
+You know I'll go to the Gymnasium from here. I'll pass the second class
+and then I'll leave. Already a student is preparing me for the second
+class. There I'll study so that they can't hold me back! How many horses
+do you have?"
+
+"Three. What do you need to study so much for?" asked Foma.
+
+"Because I am poor. The poor must study hard so that they may become
+rich. They become doctors, functionaries, officers. I shall be a
+'tinkler.' A sword at my side, spur on my boots. Cling, cling! And what
+are you going to be?"
+
+"I don't know," said Foma, pensively, examining his companion.
+
+"You need not be anything. And are you fond of pigeons?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What a good-for-nothing you are! Oh! Eh!" Yozhov imitated Foma's slow
+way of speaking. "How many pigeons do you have?"
+
+"I have none."
+
+"Eh, you! Rich, and yet you have no pigeons. Even I have three. If my
+father had been rich I would have had a hundred pigeons and chased them
+all day long. Smolin has pigeons, too, fine ones! Fourteen. He made me
+a present of one. Only, he is greedy. All the rich are greedy. And you,
+are you greedy, too?"
+
+"I don't know," said Foma, irresolutely.
+
+"Come up to Smolin's and the three of us together will chase the
+pigeons."
+
+"Very well. If they let me."
+
+"Why, does not your father like you?"
+
+"He does like me."
+
+"Well, then, he'll let you go. Only don't tell him that I am coming.
+Perhaps he would not let you go with me. Tell him you want to go to
+Smolin's. Smolin!"
+
+A plump boy came up to them, and Yozhov accosted him, shaking his head
+reproachfully:
+
+"Eh, you red-headed slanderer! It isn't worth while to be friends with
+you, blockhead!"
+
+"Why do you abuse me?" asked Smolin, calmly, examining Foma fixedly.
+
+"I am not abusing you; I am telling the truth," Yozhov explained,
+straightening himself with animation. "Listen! Although you are a
+kissel, but--let it go! We'll come up to see you on Sunday after mass."
+
+"Come," Smolin nodded his head.
+
+"We'll come up. They'll ring the bell soon. I must run to sell the
+siskin," declared Yozhov, pulling out of his pocket a paper package,
+wherein some live thing was struggling. And he disappeared from the
+school-yard as mercury from the palm of a hand.
+
+"What a queer fellow he is!" said Foma, dumfounded by Yozhov's
+adroitness and looking at Smolin interrogatively.
+
+"He is always like this. He's very clever," the red-headed boy
+explained.
+
+"And cheerful, too," added Foma.
+
+"Cheerful, too," Smolin assented. Then they became silent, looking at
+each other.
+
+"Will you come up with him to my house?" asked the red-headed boy.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Come up. It's nice there."
+
+Foma said nothing to this. Then Smolin asked him:
+
+"Have you many friends?"
+
+"I have none."
+
+"Neither did I have any friends before I went to school. Only cousins.
+Now you'll have two friends at once."
+
+"Yes," said Foma.
+
+"Are you glad?"
+
+"I'm glad."
+
+"When you have lots of friends, it is lively. And it is easier to study,
+too--they prompt you."
+
+"And are you a good pupil?"
+
+"Of course! I do everything well," said Smolin, calmly.
+
+The bell began to bang as though it had been frightened and was hastily
+running somewhere.
+
+Sitting in school, Foma began to feel somewhat freer, and compared his
+friends with the rest of the boys. He soon learned that they both were
+the very best boys in school and that they were the first to attract
+everybody's attention, even as the two figures 5 and 7, which had not
+yet been wiped off the blackboard. And Foma felt very much pleased that
+his friends were better than any of the other boys.
+
+They all went home from school together, but Yozhov soon turned into
+some narrow side street, while Smolin walked with Foma up to his very
+house, and, departing, said:
+
+"You see, we both go home the same way, too."
+
+At home Foma was met with pomp: his father made him a present of a heavy
+silver spoon, with an ingenious monogram on it, and his aunt gave him
+a scarf knitted by herself. They were awaiting him for dinner, having
+prepared his favourite dishes for him, and as soon as he took off his
+coat, seated him at the table and began to ply him with questions.
+
+"Well, how was it? How did you like the school?" asked Ignat, looking
+lovingly at his son's rosy, animated face.
+
+"Pretty good. It's nice!" replied Foma.
+
+"My darling!" sighed his aunt, with feeling, "look out, hold your own
+with your friends. As soon as they offend you tell your teachers about
+it."
+
+"Go on. What else will you tell him?" Ignat smiled. "Never do that! Try
+to get square with every offender yourself, punish him with your own
+hand, not with somebody else's. Are there any good fellows there?"
+
+"There are two," Foma smiled, recalling Yozhov. "One of them is so
+bold--terrible!"
+
+"Whose is he?"
+
+"A guard's son."
+
+"Mm! Bold did you say?"
+
+"Dreadfully bold!"
+
+"Well, let him be! And the other?"
+
+"The other one is red-headed. Smolin."
+
+"Ah! Evidently Mitry Ivanovitch's son. Stick to him, he's good company.
+Mitry is a clever peasant. If the son takes after his father it is all
+right. But that other one--you know, Foma, you had better invite them
+to our house on Sunday. I'll buy some presents and you can treat them.
+We'll see what sort of boys they are."
+
+"Smolin asked me to come to him this Sunday," said Foma, looking up at
+his father questioningly.
+
+"So. Well, you may go! That's all right, go. Observe what kind of
+people there are in the world. You cannot pass your life alone, without
+friendship. Your godfather and I, for instance, have been friends for
+more than twenty years, and I have profited a great deal by his common
+sense. So you, too, try to be friendly with those that are better and
+wiser than you. Rub against a good man, like a copper coin against
+silver, and you may then pass for a silver coin yourself."
+
+And, bursting into laughter at his comparison, Ignat added seriously:
+
+"I was only jesting. Try to be, not artificial, but genuine. And have
+some common sense, no matter how little, but your own. Have you many
+lessons to do?"
+
+"Many!" sighed the boy, and to his sigh, like an echo, his aunt answered
+with a heavy sigh.
+
+"Well, study. Don't be worse than others at school. Although, I'll tell
+you, even if there were twenty-five classes in your school, they could
+never teach you there anything save reading, writing and arithmetic. You
+may also learn some naughty things, but God protect you! I shall give
+you a terrible spanking if you do. If you smoke tobacco I'll cut your
+lips off."
+
+"Remember God, Fomushka," said the aunt. "See that you don't forget our
+Lord."
+
+"That's true! Honour God and your father. But I wish to tell you that
+school books are but a trivial matter. You need these as a carpenter
+needs an adze and a pointer. They are tools, but the tools cannot teach
+you how to make use of them. Understand? Let us see: Suppose an adze
+were handed to a carpenter for him to square a beam with it. It's not
+enough to have hands and an adze; it is also necessary for him to know
+how to strike the wood so as not to hit his foot instead. To you the
+knowledge of reading and writing is given, and you must regulate your
+life with it. Thus it follows that books alone are but a trifle in this
+matter; it is necessary to be able to take advantage of them. And it is
+this ability that is more cunning than any books, and yet nothing about
+it is written in the books. This, Foma, you must learn from Life itself.
+A book is a dead thing, you may take it as you please, you may tear it,
+break it--it will not cry out. While should you but make a single wrong
+step in life, or wrongly occupy a place in it, Life will start to bawl
+at you in a thousand voices; it will deal you a blow, felling you to the
+ground."
+
+Foma, his elbows leaning on the table, attentively listened to his
+father, and under the sound of his powerful voice he pictured to himself
+now the carpenter squaring a beam, now himself, his hands outstretched,
+carefully and stealthily approaching some colossal and living thing, and
+desiring to grasp that terrible something.
+
+"A man must preserve himself for his work and must be thoroughly
+acquainted with the road to it. A man, dear, is like the pilot on a
+ship. In youth, as at high tide, go straight! A way is open to you
+everywhere. But you must know when it is time to steer. The waters
+recede--here you see a sandbank, there, a rock; it is necessary to know
+all this and to slip off in time, in order to reach the harbour safe and
+sound."
+
+"I will reach it!" said the boy, looking at his father proudly and with
+confidence.
+
+"Eh? You speak courageously!" Ignat burst into laughter. And the aunt
+also began to laugh kindly.
+
+Since his trip with his father on the Volga, Foma became more lively and
+talkative at home, with his father, with his aunt and with Mayakin. But
+on the street, in a new place, or in the presence of strangers, he was
+always gloomy, always looking about him with suspicion, as though he
+felt something hostile to him everywhere, something hidden from him
+spying on him.
+
+At nights he sometimes awoke of a sudden and listened for a long time
+to the silence about him, fixedly staring into the dark with wide-open
+eyes. And then his father's stories were transformed before him into
+images and pictures. Without being aware of it, he mixed up those
+stories with his aunt's fairy-tales, thus creating for himself a chaos
+of adventures wherein the bright colours of fantasy were whimsically
+intertwined with the stern shades of reality. This resulted in something
+colossal, incomprehensible; the boy closed his eyes and drove it all
+away from him and tried to check the play of his imagination, which
+frightened him. In vain he attempted to fall asleep, and the chamber
+became more and more crowded with dark images. Then he quietly roused
+his aunt.
+
+"Auntie! Auntie!"
+
+"What? Christ be with you."
+
+"I'll come to you," whispered Foma.
+
+"Why? Sleep, darling, sleep."
+
+"I am afraid," confessed the boy.
+
+"You better say to yourself, 'And the Lord will rise again,' then you
+won't be afraid."
+
+Foma lies with his eyes open and says the prayer. The silence of the
+night pictures itself before him in the form of an endless expanse
+of perfectly calm, dark water, which has overflowed everything and
+congealed; there is not a ripple on it, not a shadow of a motion, and
+neither is there anything within it, although it is bottomlessly deep.
+It is very terrible for one to look down from the dark at this dead
+water. But now the sound of the night watchman's mallet is heard, and
+the boy sees that the surface of the water is beginning to tremble, and,
+covering the surface with ripples, light little balls are dancing upon
+it. The sound of the bell on the steeple, with one mighty swing, brings
+all the water in agitation and it is slightly trembling from that sound;
+a big spot of light is also trembling, spreading light upon the water,
+radiating from its centre into the dark distance, there growing paler
+and dying out. Again there is weary and deathlike repose in this dark
+desert.
+
+"Auntie," whispers Foma, beseechingly.
+
+"Dearest?"
+
+"I am coming to you."
+
+"Come, then, come, my darling."
+
+Going over into auntie's bed, he presses close to her, begging:
+
+"Tell me something."
+
+"At night?" protests auntie, sleepily.
+
+"Please."
+
+He does not have to ask her long. Yawning, her eyes closed, the old
+woman begins slowly in a voice grown heavy with sleep:
+
+"Well, my dear sir, in a certain kingdom, in a certain empire, there
+lived a man and his wife, and they were very poor. They were so
+unfortunate that they had nothing to eat. They would go around begging,
+somebody would give them a crust of stale bread and that would keep them
+for awhile. And it came to pass that the wife begot a child--a child was
+born--it was necessary to christen it, but, being poor, they could not
+entertain the godparents and the guests, so nobody came to christen the
+child. They tried this and they tried that--yet nobody came. And they
+began to pray to the Lord, 'Oh Lord! Oh Lord!'"
+
+Foma knew this awful story about God's godchild. He had heard it more
+than once and was already picturing to himself this godchild riding on
+a white horse to his godfather and godmother; he was riding in the
+darkness, over the desert, and he saw there all the unbearable miseries
+to which sinners are condemned. And he heard their faint moans and
+requests:
+
+"Oh! Man! Ask the Lord yet how long are we to suffer here!"
+
+Then it appeared to Foma that it was he who was riding at night on the
+white horse, and that the moans and the implorings were addressed to
+him. His heart contracts with some incomprehensible desire; sorrow
+compressed his breast and tears gathered in his eyes, which he had
+firmly closed and now feared to open.
+
+He is tossing about in his bed restlessly.
+
+"Sleep, my child. Christ be with you!" says the old woman, interrupting
+her tale of men suffering for their sins.
+
+But in the morning after such a night Foma rose sound and cheerful,
+washed himself hastily, drank his tea in haste and ran off to school,
+provided with sweet cakes, which were awaited by the always hungry
+little Yozhov, who greedily subsisted on his rich friend's generosity.
+
+"Got anything to eat?" he accosted Foma, turning up his sharp-pointed
+nose. "Let me have it, for I left the house without eating anything. I
+slept too long, devil take it! I studied up to two o'clock last night.
+Have you solved your problems?"
+
+"No, I haven't."
+
+"Eh, you lazy bones! Well, I'll dash them off for you directly!"
+
+Driving his small, thin teeth into the cakes, he purred something like a
+kitten, stamped his left foot, beating time, and at the same time solved
+the problem, rattling off short phrases to Foma:
+
+"See? Eight bucketfuls leaked out in one hour. And how many hours did it
+leak--six? Eh, what good things they eat in your house! Consequently, we
+must multiply six by eight. Do you like cake with green onions? Oh, how
+I like it! So that in six hours forty-eight bucketfuls leaked out of
+the first gauge-cock. And altogether the tub contained ninety. Do you
+understand the rest?"
+
+Foma liked Yozhov better than Smolin, but he was more friendly with
+Smolin. He wondered at the ability and the sprightliness of the little
+fellow. He saw that Yozhov was more clever and better than himself; he
+envied him, and felt offended on that account, and at the same time he
+pitied him with the condescending compassion of a satisfied man for a
+hungry one. Perhaps it was this very compassion that prevented him from
+preferring this bright boy to the boring red-headed Smolin. Yozhov,
+fond of having a laugh at the expense of his well-fed friends, told them
+quite often: "Eh, you are little trunks full of cakes!"
+
+Foma was angry with him for his sneers, and one day, touched to the
+quick, said wickedly and with contempt:
+
+"And you are a beggar--a pauper!"
+
+Yozhov's yellow face became overcast, and he replied slowly:
+
+"Very well, so be it! I shall never prompt you again--and you'll be like
+a log of wood!"
+
+And they did not speak to each other for about three days, very much to
+the regret of the teacher, who during these days had to give the lowest
+markings to the son of the esteemed Ignat Matveyich.
+
+Yozhov knew everything: he related at school how the procurator's
+chambermaid gave birth to a child, and that for this the procurator's
+wife poured hot coffee over her husband; he could tell where and when it
+was best to catch perch; he knew how to make traps and cages for birds;
+he could give a detailed account of how the soldier had hanged himself
+in the garret of the armoury, and knew from which of the pupils' parents
+the teacher had received a present that day and precisely what sort of a
+present it was.
+
+The sphere of Smolin's knowledge and interests was confined to the
+merchant's mode of life, and, above all, the red-headed boy was fond of
+judging whether this man was richer than that, valuing and pricing their
+houses, their vessels and their horses. All this he knew to perfection,
+and spoke of it with enthusiasm.
+
+Like Foma, he regarded Yozhov with the same condescending pity, but more
+as a friend and equal. Whenever Gordyeeff quarrelled with Yozhov, Smolin
+hastened to reconcile them, and he said to Foma one day, on their way
+home:
+
+"Why do you always quarrel with Yozhov?"
+
+"Well, why is he so self-conceited?" said Foma, angrily.
+
+"He is proud because you never know your lessons, and he always helps
+you out. He is clever. And because he is poor--is he to blame for that?
+He can learn anything he wants to, and he will be rich, too."
+
+"He is like a mosquito," said Foma, disdainfully; "he will buzz and
+buzz, and then of a sudden will bite."
+
+But there was something in the life of these boys that united them all;
+there were hours when the consciousness of difference in their natures
+and positions was entirely lost. On Sundays they all gathered at
+Smolin's, and, getting up on the roof of the wing, where they had an
+enormous pigeon-house, they let the pigeons loose.
+
+The beautiful, well-fed birds, ruffling their snow-white wings, darted
+out of the pigeon-house one by one, and, seating themselves in a row
+on the ridge of the roof, and, illumined by the sun, cooing, flaunted
+before the boys.
+
+"Scare them!" implored Yozhov, trembling for impatience.
+
+Smolin swung a pole with a bast-wisp fastened to its end, and whistled.
+
+The frightened pigeons rushed into the air, filling it with the hurried
+flapping of their wings. And now, outlining big circles, they easily
+soar upwards, into the blue depths of the sky; they float higher and
+higher, their silver and snow-white feathers flashing. Some of them are
+striving to reach the dome of the skies with the light soaring of the
+falcon, their wings outstretched wide and almost motionless; others
+play, turn over in the air, now dropping downward in a snowy lump, now
+darting up like an arrow. Now the entire flock seems as though hanging
+motionless in the desert of the sky, and, growing smaller and smaller,
+seems to sink in it. With heads thrown back, the boys admire the birds
+in silence, without taking their eyes from them--their tired eyes, so
+radiant with calm joy, not altogether free from envying these winged
+creatures, which so freely took flight from earth up into the pure
+and calm atmosphere full of the glitter of the sun. The small group of
+scarcely visible dots, now mere specks in the azure of the sky, leads
+on the imagination of the children, and Yozhov expresses their common
+feeling when, in a low voice, he says thoughtfully:
+
+"That's the way we ought to fly, friends."
+
+While Foma, knowing that human souls, soaring heavenward, oftentimes
+assume the form of pigeons, felt in his breast the rising of a burning,
+powerful desire.
+
+Unified by their joy, attentively and mutely awaiting the return of
+their birds from the depths of the sky, the boys, pressing close to one
+another, drifted far away from the breath of life, even as their pigeons
+were far from earth; at this moment they are merely children, knowing
+neither envy nor anger; free from everything, they are near to one
+another, they are mute, judging their feelings by the light in their
+eyes--and they feel as happy as the birds in the sky.
+
+But now the pigeons come down on the roof again, and, tired out by their
+flight, are easily driven into the pigeon-house.
+
+"Friends, let's go for apples?" suggests Yozhov, the instigator of all
+games and adventures.
+
+His call drives out of the children's souls the peacefulness brought
+into them by the pigeons, and then, like plunderers, carefully listening
+for each and every sound, they steal quietly across the back yards
+toward the neighbouring garden. The fear of being caught is balanced by
+the hope of stealing with impunity. But stealing is work and dangerous
+work at that, and everything that is earned by your own labour is so
+sweet! And the more effort required to gain it, the sweeter it is.
+Carefully the boys climb over the fence of the garden, and, bending
+down, crawl toward the apple trees and, full of fright, look around
+vigilantly. Their hearts tremble and their throbbing slackens at the
+faintest rustle. They are alike afraid of being caught, and, if noticed,
+of being recognised, but in case they should only see them and yell
+at them, they would be satisfied. They would separate, each going in a
+different direction, and then, meeting again, their eyes aglow with joy
+and boldness, would laughingly tell one another how they felt when they
+heard some one giving chase to them, and what happened to them when they
+ran so quickly through the garden, as though the ground were burning
+under their feet.
+
+Such invasions were more to Foma's liking than all other adventures
+and games, and his behaviour during these invasions was marked with
+a boldness that at once astounded and angered his companions. He was
+intentionally careless in other people's gardens: he spoke loud, noisily
+broke the branches of apple trees, and, tearing off a worm-eaten apple,
+threw it in the direction of the proprietor's house. The danger of being
+caught in the act did not frighten him; it rather encouraged him--his
+eyes would turn darker, his teeth would clench, and his face would
+assume an expression of anger and pride.
+
+Smolin, distorting his big mouth contemptibly, would say to him:
+
+"You are making entirely too much fuss about yourself."
+
+"I am not a coward anyway!" replied Foma.
+
+"I know that you are not a coward, but why do you boast of it? One may
+do a thing as well without boasting."
+
+Yozhov blamed him from a different point of view:
+
+"If you thrust yourself into their hands willingly you can go to the
+devil! I am not your friend. They'll catch you and bring you to your
+father--he wouldn't do anything to you, while I would get such a
+spanking that all my bones would be skinned."
+
+"Coward!" Foma persisted, stubbornly.
+
+And it came to pass one day that Foma was caught by the second captain,
+Chumakov, a thin little old man. Noiselessly approaching the boy, who
+was hiding away in his bosom the stolen apples, the old man seized him
+by the shoulders and cried in a threatening voice:
+
+"Now I have you, little rogue! Aha!"
+
+Foma was then about fifteen years old, and he cleverly slipped out of
+the old man's hands. Yet he did not run from him, but, knitting his brow
+and clenching his fist, he said threateningly:
+
+"You dare to touch me!"
+
+"I wouldn't touch you. I'll just turn you over to the police! Whose son
+are you?"
+
+Foma did not expect this, and all his boldness and spitefulness suddenly
+left him.
+
+The trip to the police station seemed to him something which his father
+would never forgive him. He shuddered and said confusedly:
+
+"Gordyeeff."
+
+"Ignat Gordyeeff's?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Now the second captain was taken aback. He straightened himself,
+expanded his chest and for some reason or other cleared his throat
+impressively. Then his shoulders sank and he said to the boy in a
+fatherly tone:
+
+"It's a shame! The son of such a well-known and respected man! It is
+unbecoming your position. You may go. But should this happen again! Hm!
+I should be compelled to notify your father, to whom, by the way, I have
+the honour of presenting my respects."
+
+Foma watched the play of the old man's physiognomy and understood that
+he was afraid of his father. Like a young wolf, he looked askance at
+Chumakov; while the old man, with comical seriousness, twisted his
+gray moustache, hesitating before the boy, who did not go away,
+notwithstanding the given permission.
+
+"You may go," repeated the old man, pointing at the road leading to his
+house.
+
+"And how about the police?" asked Foma, sternly, and was immediately
+frightened at the possible answer.
+
+"I was but jesting," smiled the old man. "I just wanted to frighten
+you."
+
+"You are afraid of my father yourself," said Foma, and, turning his back
+to the old man, walked off into the depth of the garden.
+
+"I am afraid? Ah! Very well!" exclaimed Chumakov after him, and Foma
+knew by the sound of his voice that he had offended the old man. He felt
+sad and ashamed; he passed the afternoon in walking, and, coming home,
+he was met by his father's stern question:
+
+"Foma! Did you go to Chumakov's garden?"
+
+"Yes, I did," said the boy, calmly, looking into his father's eyes.
+
+Evidently Ignat did not expect such an answer and he was silent for
+awhile, stroking his beard.
+
+"Fool! Why did you do it? Have you not enough of your own apples?"
+
+Foma cast down his eyes and was silent, standing before his father.
+
+"See, you are shamed! Yozhishka must have incited you to this! I'll
+give it to him when he comes, or I'll make an end of your friendship
+altogether."
+
+"I did it myself," said Foma, firmly.
+
+"From bad to worse!" exclaimed Ignat. "But why did you do it?"
+
+"Because."
+
+"Because!" mocked the father. "Well, if you did it you ought to be
+able to explain to yourself and to others the reason for so doing. Come
+here!"
+
+Foma walked up to his father, who was sitting on a chair, and placed
+himself between his knees. Ignat put his hand on the boy's shoulders,
+and, smiling, looked into his eyes.
+
+"Are you ashamed?"
+
+"I am ashamed," sighed Foma.
+
+"There you have it, fool! You have disgraced me and yourself."
+
+Pressing his son's head to his breast, he stroked his hair and asked
+again:
+
+"Why should you do such a thing--stealing other people's apples?"
+
+"I--I don't know," said Foma, confusedly. "Perhaps because it is so
+lonesome. I play and play the same thing day after day. I am growing
+tired of it! While this is dangerous."
+
+"Exciting?" asked the father, smiling.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Mm, perhaps it is so. But, nevertheless, Foma, look out--drop this, or
+I shall deal with you severely."
+
+"I'll never climb anywhere again," said the boy with confidence.
+
+"And that you take all the blame on yourself--that is good. What will
+become of you in the future, only God knows, but meanwhile--it is pretty
+good. It is not a trifle if a man is willing to pay for his deeds with
+his own skin. Someone else in your place would have blamed his friends,
+while you say: 'I did it myself.' That's the proper way, Foma. You
+commit the sin, but you also account for it. Didn't Chumakov strike
+you?" asked Ignat, pausing as he spoke.
+
+"I would have struck him back," declared Foma, calmly.
+
+"Mm," roared his father, significantly.
+
+"I told him that he was afraid of you. That is why he complained.
+Otherwise he was not going to say anything to you about it."
+
+"Is that so?"
+
+"'By God! Present my respects to your father,' he said."
+
+"Did he?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ah! the dog! See what kind of people there are; he is robbed and yet he
+makes a bow and presents his respects! Ha, ha! It is true it might have
+been worth no more than a kopeck, but a kopeck is to him what a rouble
+is to me. And it isn't the kopeck, but since it is mine, no one dares
+touch it unless I throw it away myself. Eh! The devil take them! Well,
+tell me--where have you been, what have you seen?"
+
+The boy sat down beside his father and told him in detail all the
+impressions of that day. Ignat listened, fixedly watching the animated
+face of his son, and the eyebrows of the big man contracted pensively.
+
+"You are still but floating on the surface, dear. You are still but a
+child. Eh! Eh!"
+
+"We scared an owl in the ravine," related the boy. "That was fun! It
+began to fly about and struck against a tree--bang! It even began to
+squeak so pitifully. And we scared it again; again it rose and flew
+about here and there, and again it struck against something, so that its
+feathers were coming out. It flew about in the ravine and at last hid
+itself somewhere with difficulty. We did not try to look for it, we felt
+sorry it was all bruised. Papa, is an owl entirely blind in daytime?"
+
+"Blind!" said Ignat; "some men will toss about in life even as this owl
+in daytime. Ever searching for his place, he strives and strives--only
+feathers fly from him, but all to no purpose. He is bruised, sickened,
+stripped of everything, and then with all his might he thrusts himself
+anywhere, just to find repose from his restlessness. Woe to such people.
+Woe to them, dear!"
+
+"How painful is it to them?" said Foma in a low voice.
+
+"Just as painful as to that owl."
+
+"And why is it so?"
+
+"Why? It is hard to tell. Someone suffers because he is darkened by his
+pride--he desires much, but has but little strength. Another because of
+his foolishness. But then there are a thousand and one other reasons,
+which you cannot understand."
+
+"Come in and have some tea," Anfisa called to them. She had been
+standing in the doorway for quite a long while, and, folding her hands,
+lovingly admired the enormous figure of her brother, who bent over Foma
+with such friendliness, and the pensive pose of the boy, who clung to
+his father's shoulder.
+
+Thus day by day Foma's life developed slowly--a quiet, peaceful life,
+not at all brimful of emotions. Powerful impressions, rousing the boy's
+soul for an hour or for a day, sometimes stood out strikingly against
+the general background of this monotonous life, but these were soon
+obliterated. The boy's soul was as yet but a calm lake--a lake hidden
+from the stormy winds of life, and all that touched the surface of the
+lake either sank to the bottom, stirring the placid water for a moment,
+or gliding over the smooth surface, swam apart in big circles and
+disappeared.
+
+Having stayed at the district school for five years, Foma passed four
+classes tolerably well and came out a brave, dark-haired fellow, with
+a swarthy face, heavy eyebrows and dark down on the upper lip. His
+big dark eyes had a naive and pensive look, and his lips were like a
+child's, half-open; but when meeting with opposition to his desires
+or when irritated by something else, the pupils of his eyes would grow
+wide, his lips press tight, and his whole face assume a stubborn and
+resolute expression. His godfather, smiling sceptically, would often say
+to him:
+
+"To women, Foma, you'll be sweeter than honey, but as yet not much
+common sense can be seen in you."
+
+Ignat would heave a sigh at these words.
+
+"You had better start out your son as soon as possible."
+
+"There's time yet, wait."
+
+"Why wait? He'll go about the Volga for two or three years and then
+we'll have him married. There's my Lubov."
+
+Lubov Mayakina was now studying in the fifth class of some boarding
+school. Foma often met her on the street at which meeting she always
+bowed condescendingly, her fair head in a fashionable cap. Foma liked
+her, but her rosy cheeks, her cheerful brown eyes and crimson lips could
+not smooth the impression of offence given to him by her condescending
+bows. She was acquainted with some Gymnasium students, and although
+Yozhov, his old friend, was among them, Foma felt no inclination to be
+with them, and their company embarrassed him. It seemed to him that
+they were all boasting of their learning before him and that they were
+mocking his ignorance. Gathered together in Lubov's house they would
+read some books, and whenever he found them reading or loudly arguing,
+they became silent at his sight. All this removed them further from him.
+One day when he was at Mayakin's, Luba called him to go for a walk in
+the garden, and there, walking by his side, asked him with a grimace on
+her face:
+
+"Why are you so unsociable? You never talk about anything."
+
+"What shall I talk about, since I know nothing!" said Foma, plainly.
+
+"Study--read books."
+
+"I don't feel like doing it."
+
+"You see, the Gymnasium students know everything, and know how to talk
+about everything. Take Yozhov, for instance."
+
+"I know Yozhov--a chatterbox."
+
+"You simply envy him. He is very clever--yes. He will soon graduate from
+the Gymnasium--and then he'll go to Moscow to study in the University."
+
+"Well, what of it?" said Foma, indifferently.
+
+"And you'll remain just an ignorant man."
+
+"Well, be it so."
+
+"That will be nice!" exclaimed Luba, ironically.
+
+"I shall hold my ground without science," said Foma, sarcastically. "And
+I'll have a laugh at all the learned people. Let the hungry study. I
+don't need it."
+
+"Pshaw, how stupid you are, bad, disgusting!" said the girl with
+contempt and went away, leaving him alone in the garden. Offended and
+gloomy, he looked after her, moved his eyebrows and lowering his head,
+slowly walked off into the depth of the garden.
+
+He already began to recognise the beauty of solitude and the sweet
+poison of contemplation. Oftentimes, during summer evenings, when
+everything was coloured by the fiery tints of sunset, kindling the
+imagination, an uneasy longing for something incomprehensible penetrated
+his breast. Sitting somewhere in a dark corner of the garden or lying
+in bed, he conjured up before him the images of the fairy-tale
+princesses--they appeared with the face of Luba and of other young
+ladies of his acquaintance, noiselessly floating before him in the
+twilight and staring into his eyes with enigmatic looks. At times these
+visions awakened in him a mighty energy, as though intoxicating him--he
+would rise and, straightening his shoulders, inhale the perfumed air
+with a full chest; but sometimes these same visions brought to him a
+feeling of sadness--he felt like crying, but ashamed of shedding tears,
+he restrained himself and never wept in silence. Or suddenly his heart
+began to tremble with the desire to express his gratitude to God, to
+bow before Him; the words of the prayer flashed through his memory, and
+beholding the sky, he whispered them for a long time, one by one, and
+his heart grew lighter, breathing into prayer the excess of his power.
+
+The father patiently and carefully introduced him into commercial
+circles, took him on the Exchange, told him about his contracts and
+enterprises, about his co-associates, described to him how they had made
+their way, what fortunes they now possessed, what natures were theirs.
+Foma soon mastered it, regarding everything seriously and thoughtfully.
+
+"Our bud is blooming into a blood-red cup-rose!" Mayakin smiled, winking
+to Ignat.
+
+And yet, even when Foma was nineteen years old, there was something
+childish in him, something naive which distinguished him from the boys
+of his age. They were laughing at him, considering him stupid; he kept
+away from them, offended by their relations toward him. As for his
+father and Mayakin, who were watching him vigilantly, this uncertainty
+of Foma's character inspired them with serious apprehensions.
+
+"I cannot understand him!" Ignat would say with contrite heart. "He does
+not lead a dissipated life, he does not seem to run after the women,
+treats me and you with respect, listens to everything--he is more like a
+pretty girl than a fellow! And yet he does not seem to be stupid!"
+
+"No, there's nothing particularly stupid about him," said Mayakin.
+
+"It looks as though he were waiting for something--as though some kind
+of shroud were covering his eyes. His late mother groped on earth in the
+same way.
+
+"Just look, there's Afrikanka Smolin, but two years older than my
+boy--what a man he has become! That is, it is difficult to tell whether
+he is his father's head or his father his. He wants to go to some
+factory to study. He swears:
+
+"'Eh,' says he, 'papa, you have not taught me enough.' Yes. While mine
+does not express himself at all. Oh Lord!"
+
+"Look here," Mayakin advised him, "you had better push him head foremost
+into some active business! I assure you! Gold is tested in fire. We'll
+see what his inclinations are when at liberty. Send him out on the
+Kama--alone."
+
+"To give him a trial?"
+
+"Well, he'll do some mischief--you'll lose something--but then we'll
+know what stuff he is made of."
+
+"Indeed--I'll send him off," Ignat decided.
+
+And thus in the spring, Ignat sent his son off on the Kama with two
+barges laden with corn. The barges were led by Gordyeeff's steamer
+"Philezhny," under the command of Foma's old acquaintance, the former
+sailor Yefim--now, Yefim Ilyich, a squarely built man of about thirty
+with lynx-like eyes--a sober-minded, steady and very strict captain.
+
+They sailed fast and cheerfully, because all were contented. At first
+Foma was proud of the responsible commission with which he had been
+charged. Yefim was pleased with the presence of the young master, who
+did not rebuke or abuse him for each and every oversight; and the happy
+frame of mind of the two most important persons on the steamer reflected
+in straight rays on the entire crew. Having left the place where they
+had taken in their cargo of corn in April, the steamer reached the place
+of its destination in the beginning of May, and the barges were anchored
+near the shore with the steamer at their side. Foma's duty was to
+deliver the corn as soon as possible, and receiving the payments, start
+off for Perm, where a cargo of iron was awaiting him, which Ignat had
+undertaken to deliver at the market.
+
+The barges stood opposite a large village, near a pine forest, about two
+versts distant from the shore. On the very next day after their arrival,
+a big and noisy crowd of women and peasants, on foot and on horses,
+came up to the shore early in the morning. Shouting and singing, they
+scattered on the decks and in an instant work started expeditiously.
+Having descended into the holds, the women were filling the sacks with
+rye, the peasants, throwing the sacks upon their shoulders, ran over the
+gang-planks to the shore, and from the shore, carts, heavily laden with
+the long-expected corn, went off slowly to the village. The women sang
+songs; the peasants jested and gaily abused one another; the sailors
+representing the guardians of peace, scolded the working people now and
+then; the gang-planks, bending under the feet of the carriers, splashed
+against the water heavily; while on the shore the horses neighed, and
+the carts and the sand under the wheels were creaking.
+
+The sun had just risen, the air was fresh and invigorating and densely
+filled with the odour of pines; the calm water of the river, reflecting
+the clear sky, was gently murmuring, breaking against the sides of the
+vessels and the chains of the anchors. The loud and cheerful noise
+of toil, the youthful beauty of nature, gaily illumined by the
+sunbeams--all was full of a kind-hearted, somewhat crude, sound power,
+which pleasantly stirred Foma's soul, awakening in him new and perplexed
+sensations and desires. He was sitting by the table under the awning of
+the steamer and drinking tea, together with Yefim and the receiver of
+the corn, a provincial clerk--a redheaded, short-sighted gentleman in
+glasses. Nervously shrugging his shoulders the receiver was telling in
+a hoarse voice how the peasants were starving, but Foma paid little
+attention to his words, looking now at the work below, now at the other
+side of the river--a tall, yellow, sandy steep shore, whose edges were
+covered with pine trees. It was unpeopled and quiet.
+
+"I'll have to go over there," thought Foma. And as though from a
+distance the receiver's tiresome, unpleasant, harsh voice fell on his
+ears:
+
+"You wouldn't believe it--at last it became horrible! Such an incident
+took place! A peasant came up to a certain intelligent man in Osa and
+brought along with him a girl about sixteen years old.
+
+"'What do you wish?"
+
+"'Here,' he says, 'I've brought my daughter to your Honour.'
+
+"'What for?'
+
+"'Perhaps,' he says, 'you'll take her--you are a bachelor.'
+
+"'That is, how? What do you mean?'
+
+"'I took her around town,' he says. 'I wanted to hire her out as a
+servant--but nobody would have her--take her at least as your mistress!'
+
+"Do you understand? He offered his own daughter--just think of it! A
+daughter--as a mistress! The devil knows what that is! Eh? The man, of
+course, became indignant and began abusing the peasant. But the peasant
+spoke to him reasonably:
+
+"'Your Honour! Of what use is she to me at this time? Utterly useless.
+I have,' says he, 'three boys--they will be working men; it is necessary
+to keep them up. Give me,' says he, 'ten roubles for the girl, and that
+will improve my lot and that of my boys.'
+
+"How is that? Eh? It is simply terrible, I tell you."
+
+"No good!" sighed Yefim. "As they say--hunger will break through stone
+walls. The stomach, you see, has its own laws."
+
+This story called forth in Foma a great incomprehensible interest in the
+fate of the girl, and the youth hastened to enquire of the receiver:
+
+"Well, did the man buy her?"
+
+"Of course not!" exclaimed the receiver, reproachfully.
+
+"Well, and what became of her?"
+
+"Some good people took pity on her--and provided for her."
+
+"A-h!" drawled Foma, and suddenly he said firmly and angrily: "I would
+have given that peasant such a thrashing! I would have broken his head!"
+And he showed the receiver his big tightly-clenched fist.
+
+"Eh! What for?" cried the receiver in a sickly, loud voice, tearing his
+spectacles from his eyes. "You do not understand the motive."
+
+"I do understand it!" said Foma, with an obstinate shake of his head.
+
+"But what could he do? It came to his mind."
+
+"How can one allow himself to sell a human being?"
+
+"Ah! It is brutal, I agree with you."
+
+"And a girl at that! I would have given him the ten roubles!"
+
+The receiver waved his hand hopelessly and became silent. His gesture
+confused Foma. He arose from his seat, walked off to the railing
+and looked down at the deck of the barge, which was covered with an
+industriously working crowd of people. The noise intoxicated him, and
+the uneasy something, which was rambling in his soul, was now defined
+into a powerful desire to work, to have the strength of a giant, to
+possess enormous shoulders and put on them at one time a hundred bags of
+rye, that every one looking at him might be astonished.
+
+"Come now, hurry up there!" he shouted down in a ringing voice. A few
+heads were raised to him, some faces appeared before him, and one of
+them--the face of a dark-eyed woman--smiled at him a gentle and enticing
+smile. Something flared up in his breast at this smile and began to
+spread over his veins in a hot wave. He drew back from the railing and
+walked up to the table again, feeling that his cheeks were burning.
+
+"Listen!" said the receiver, addressing him, "wire to your father asking
+him to allow some grain for waste! Just see how much is lost here. And
+here every pound is precious! You should have understood this! What a
+fine father you have," he concluded with a biting grimace.
+
+"How much shall I allow?" asked Foma, boldly and disdainfully. "Do
+you want a hundred puds? [A pud is a weight of 40 Russian pounds.] Two
+hundred?"
+
+"I--I thank you!" exclaimed the receiver, overjoyed and confused, "if
+you have the right to do it."
+
+"I am the master!" said Foma, firmly. "And you must not speak that way
+about my father--nor make such faces."
+
+"Pardon me! I--I do not doubt that you have full power. I thank you
+heartily. And your father, too--in behalf of all these men--in behalf of
+the people!"
+
+Yefim looked cautiously at the young master, spreading out and smacking
+his lips, while the master with an air of pride on his face listened
+to the quick-witted speech of the receiver, who was pressing his hand
+firmly.
+
+"Two hundred puds! That is Russian-like, young man! I shall directly
+notify the peasants of your gift. You'll see how grateful they will
+be--how glad." And he shouted down:
+
+"Eh, boys! The master is giving away two hundred puds."
+
+"Three hundred!" interposed Foma.
+
+"Three hundred puds. Oh! Thank you! Three hundred puds of grain, boys!"
+
+But their response was weak. The peasants lifted up their heads and
+mutely lowered them again, resuming their work. A few voices said
+irresolutely and as though unwillingly:
+
+"Thanks. May God give you. We thank you very humbly."
+
+And some cried out gaily and disdainfully:
+
+"What's the use of that? If they had given each of us a glass of vodka
+instead--that would be a just favour. For the grain is not for us--but
+for the country Council."
+
+"Eh! They do not understand!" exclaimed the receiver, confused. "I'll go
+down and explain it to them."
+
+And he disappeared. But the peasants' regard for his gift did not
+interest Foma. He saw that the black eyes of the rosy-cheeked woman were
+looking at him so strangely and pleasingly. They seemed to thank him
+and caressingly beckoned him, and besides those eyes he saw nothing. The
+woman was dressed like the city women. She wore shoes, a calico waist,
+and over her black hair she had a peculiar kerchief. Tall and supple,
+seated on a pile of wood, she repaired sacks, quickly moving her hands,
+which were bare up to the elbows, and she smiled at Foma all the time.
+
+"Foma Ignatyich!" he heard Yefim's reproachful voice, "you've showed off
+too much. Well, if it were only about fifty puds! But why so much? Look
+out that we don't get a good scolding for this."
+
+"Leave me alone!" said Foma, shortly.
+
+"What is it to me? I'll keep quiet. But as you are so young, and as I
+was told to keep an eye on you, I may get a rap on the snout for being
+heedless."
+
+"I'll tell my father all about it. Keep quiet!" said Foma.
+
+"As for me--let it be so--so that you are master here."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"I have said this, Foma Ignatyich, for your own sake--because you are so
+young and simple-minded."
+
+"Leave me alone, Yefim!"
+
+Yefim heaved a sigh and became silent, while Foma stared at the woman
+and thought:
+
+"I wish they would bring such a woman for sale to me."
+
+His heart beat rapidly. Though as yet physically pure, he already knew
+from conversations the mysteries of intimate relations between men and
+women. He knew by rude and shameful names, and these names kindled in
+him an unpleasant, burning curiosity and shame; his imagination worked
+obstinately, for he could not picture it to himself in intelligible
+images. And in his soul he did not believe that those relations were
+really so simple and rude, as he had been told. When they had laughed
+at him and assured him that they were such, and, indeed, could not be
+otherwise, he smiled stupidly and confusedly, but thought nevertheless
+that the relations with women did not have to be in such a shameful form
+for everyone, and that, in all probability, there was something purer,
+less rude and abusive to a human being.
+
+Now looking at the dark-eyed working woman with admiration, Foma
+distinctly felt just that rude inclination toward her, and he was
+ashamed and afraid of something. And Yefim, standing beside him, said
+admonitively:
+
+"There you are staring at the woman, so that I cannot keep silence any
+longer. You do not know her, but when she winks at you, you may, because
+of your youth--and with a nature like yours--you may do such a thing
+that we'll have to go home on foot by the shore. And we'll have to thank
+God if our trousers at least remain with us."
+
+"What do you want?" asked Foma, red with confusion.
+
+"I want nothing. And you had better mind me. In regard to affairs with
+women I may perfectly well be a teacher. You must deal with a woman very
+plainly--give her a bottle of vodka, something to eat after it, then a
+couple of bottles of beer and after everything give her twenty kopecks
+in cash. For this price she will show you all her love in the best way
+possible."
+
+"You are lying," said Foma, softly.
+
+"I am lying? Why shall I lie to you since I have observed that same
+policy perhaps a hundred times? Just charge me to have dealings with
+her. Eh? I'll make you acquainted with her in a moment."
+
+"Very well," said Foma, feeling that he could hardly breathe and that
+something was choking his throat.
+
+"Well, then, I'll bring her up in the evening."
+
+And Yefim smiled approvingly into Foma's face and walked off. Until
+evening Foma walked about as though lost in mist, not noticing the
+respectful and beseeching glances with which the peasants greeted him
+at the receiver's instigation. Dread fell on him, he felt himself guilty
+before somebody, and to all those that addressed him he replied humbly
+and gently, as though excusing himself for something. Some of the
+working people went home toward evening, others gathered on the shore
+near a big, bright bonfire and began cooking their supper. Fragments of
+their conversation floated about in the stillness of the evening. The
+reflection of the fire fell on the river in red and yellow stripes,
+which trembled on the calm water and on the window panes of the cabin
+where Foma was sitting. He sat in the corner on a lounge, which was
+covered with oilcloth--and waited. On the table before him were a few
+bottles of vodka and beer, and plates with bread and dessert. He
+covered the windows and did not light the lamp; the faint light from
+the bonfire, penetrating through the curtains, fell on the table, on
+the bottles and on the wall, and trembled, now growing brighter, now
+fainter. It was quiet on the steamer and on the barges, only from
+the shore came indistinct sounds of conversation, and the river was
+splashing, scarcely audible, against the sides of the steamer. It seemed
+to Foma that somebody was hiding in the dark near by, listening to him
+and spying upon him. Now somebody is walking over the gang-plank of the
+barges with quick and heavy steps--the gang-plank strikes against the
+water clangously and angrily. Foma hears the muffled laughter of the
+captain and his lowered voice. Yefim stands by the cabin door and
+speaks softly, but somewhat reprimandingly, as though instructing. Foma
+suddenly felt like crying out:
+
+"It is not necessary!"
+
+And he arose from the lounge--but at this moment the cabin door was
+opened, the tall form of a woman appeared on the threshold, and,
+noiselessly closing the door behind her, she said in a low voice:
+
+"Oh dear! How dark it is! Is there a living soul somewhere around here?"
+
+"Yes," answered Foma, softly.
+
+"Well, then, good evening."
+
+And the woman moved forward carefully.
+
+"I'll light the lamp," said Foma in a broken voice, and, sinking on the
+lounge, he curled himself up in the corner.
+
+"It is good enough this way. When you get used to it you can see
+everything in the dark as well."
+
+"Be seated," said Foma.
+
+"I will."
+
+She sat down on the lounge about two steps away from him. Foma saw the
+glitter of her eyes, he saw a smile on her full lips. It seemed to
+him that this smile of hers was not at all like that other smile
+before--this smile seemed plaintive, sad. This smile encouraged him;
+he breathed with less difficulty at the sight of these eyes, which, on
+meeting his own, suddenly glanced down on the floor. But he did not know
+what to say to this woman and for about two minutes both were silent. It
+was a heavy, awkward silence. She began to speak:
+
+"You must be feeling lonesome here all alone?"
+
+"Yes," answered Foma.
+
+"And do you like our place here?" asked the woman in a low voice.
+
+"It is nice. There are many woods here."
+
+And again they became silent.
+
+"The river, if you like, is more beautiful than the Volga," uttered
+Foma, with an effort.
+
+"I was on the Volga."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In the city of Simbirsk."
+
+"Simbirsk?" repeated Foma like an echo, feeling that he was again unable
+to say a word.
+
+But she evidently understood with whom she had to deal, and she suddenly
+asked him in a bold whisper:
+
+"Why don't you treat me to something?"
+
+"Here!" Foma gave a start. "Indeed, how queer I am? Well, then, come up
+to the table."
+
+He bustled about in the dark, pushed the table, took up one bottle, then
+another, and again returned them to their place, laughing guiltily and
+confusedly as he did so. She came up close to him and stood by his side,
+and, smiling, looked at his face and at his trembling hands.
+
+"Are you bashful?" she suddenly whispered.
+
+He felt her breath on his cheek and replied just as softly:
+
+"Yes."
+
+Then she placed her hands on his shoulders and quietly drew him to her
+breast, saying in a soothing whisper:
+
+"Never mind, don't be bashful, my young, handsome darling. How I pity
+you!"
+
+And he felt like crying because of her whisper, his heart was melting
+in sweet fatigue; pressing his head close to her breast, he clasped
+her with his hands, mumbling to her some inarticulate words, which were
+unknown to himself.
+
+"Be gone!" said Foma in a heavy voice, staring at the wall with his eyes
+wide open.
+
+Having kissed him on the cheek she walked out of the cabin, saying to
+him:
+
+"Well, good-bye."
+
+Foma felt intolerably ashamed in her presence; but no sooner did she
+disappear behind the door than he jumped up and seated himself on the
+lounge. Then he arose, staggering, and at once he was seized with the
+feeling of having lost something very valuable, something whose presence
+he did not seem to have noticed in himself until the moment it was lost.
+But immediately a new, manly feeling of self-pride took possession of
+him. It drowned his shame, and, instead of the shame, pity for the woman
+sprang up within him--for the half-clad woman, who went out alone into
+the dark of the chilly May night. He hastily came out on the deck--it
+was a starlit, but moonless night; the coolness and the darkness
+embraced him. On the shore the golden-red pile of coals was still
+glimmering. Foma listened--an oppressive stillness filled the air, only
+the water was murmuring, breaking against the anchor chains. There was
+not a sound of footsteps to be heard. Foma now longed to call the woman,
+but he did not know her name. Eagerly inhaling the fresh air into his
+broad chest, he stood on deck for a few minutes. Suddenly, from beyond
+the roundhouse--from the prow--a moan reached his ears--a deep, loud
+moan, resembling a wail. He shuddered and went thither carefully,
+understanding that she was there.
+
+She sat on the deck close to the side of the steamer, and, leaning her
+head against a heap of ropes, she wept. Foma saw that her bare white
+shoulders were trembling, he heard her pitiful moans, and began to feel
+depressed. Bending over her, he asked her timidly:
+
+"What is it?"
+
+She nodded her head and said nothing in reply.
+
+"Have I offended you?"
+
+"Go away," she said.
+
+"But, how?" said Foma, alarmed and confused, touching her head with his
+hand. "Don't be angry. You came of your own free will."
+
+"I am not angry!" she replied in a loud whisper. "Why should I be angry
+at you? You are not a seducer. You are a pure soul! Eh, my darling! Be
+seated here by my side."
+
+And taking Foma by the hand, she made him sit down, like a child, in
+her lap, pressed his head close to her breast, and, bending over him,
+pressed her lips to his for a long time.
+
+"What are you crying about?" asked Foma, caressing her cheek with one
+hand, while the other clasped the woman's neck.
+
+"I am crying about myself. Why have you sent me away?" she asked
+plaintively.
+
+"I began to feel ashamed of myself," said Foma, lowering his head.
+
+"My darling! Tell me the truth--haven't you been pleased with me?" she
+asked with a smile, but her big, hot tears were still trickling down on
+Foma's breast.
+
+"Why should you speak like this?" exclaimed the youth, almost
+frightened, and hotly began to mumble to her some words about her
+beauty, about her kindness, telling her how sorry he was for her and
+how bashful in her presence. And she listened and kept on kissing his
+cheeks, his neck, his head and his uncovered breast.
+
+He became silent--then she began to speak--softly and mournfully as
+though speaking of the dead:
+
+"And I thought it was something else. When you said, 'Be gone!' I got
+up and went away. And your words made me feel sad, very sad. There was
+a time, I remembered, when they caressed me and fondled me unceasingly,
+without growing tired; for a single kind smile they used to do for me
+anything I pleased. I recalled all this and began to cry! I felt sorry
+for my youth, for I am now thirty years old, the last days for a woman!
+Eh, Foma Ignatyevich!" she exclaimed, lifting her voice louder, and
+reiterating the rhythm of her harmonious speech, whose accents rose and
+fell in unison with the melodious murmuring of the water.
+
+"Listen to me--preserve your youth! There is nothing in the world better
+than that. There is nothing more precious than youth. With youth, as
+with gold, you can accomplish anything you please. Live so that you
+shall have in old age something to remind you of your youth. Here I
+recalled myself, and though I cried, yet my heart blazed up at the very
+recollection of my past life. And again I was young, as though I drank
+of the water of life! My sweet child I'll have a good time with you, if
+I please you, we'll enjoy ourselves as much as we can. Eh! I'll burn to
+ashes, now that I have blazed up!"
+
+And pressing the youth close to herself, she greedily began to kiss him
+on the lips.
+
+"Lo-o-ok o-u-u-u-t!" the watch on the barge wailed mournfully, and,
+cutting short the last syllable, began to strike his mallet against the
+cast-iron board.
+
+The shrill, trembling sounds harshly broke the solemn quiet of the
+night.
+
+A few days later, when the barges had discharged their cargo and the
+steamer was ready to leave for Perm, Yefim noticed, to his great sorrow,
+that a cart came up to the shore and that the dark-eyed Pelageya, with a
+trunk and with some bundles, was in it.
+
+"Send a sailor to bring her things," ordered Foma, nodding his head
+toward the shore.
+
+With a reproachful shake of his head, Yefim carried out the order
+angrily, and then asked in a lowered voice:
+
+"So she, too, is coming with us?"
+
+"She is going with me," Foma announced shortly.
+
+"It is understood. Not with all of us. Oh, Lord!"
+
+"Why are you sighing?"
+
+"Yes. Foma Ignatyich! We are going to a big city. Are there not plenty
+of women of her kind?"
+
+"Well, keep quiet!" said Foma, sternly.
+
+"I will keep quiet, but this isn't right!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"This very wantonness of ours. Our steamer is perfect, clean--and
+suddenly there is a woman there! And if it were at least the right sort
+of a woman! But as it is, she merely bears the name of woman."
+
+Foma frowned insinuatingly and addressed the captain, imperiously
+emphasizing his words:
+
+"Yefim, I want you to bear it in mind, and to tell it to everybody here,
+that if anyone will utter an obscene word about her, I'll strike him on
+the head with a log of wood!"
+
+"How terrible!" said Yefim, incredulously, looking into the master's
+face with curiosity. But he immediately made a step backward. Ignat's
+son, like a wolf, showed his teeth, the apples of his eyes became wider,
+and he roared:
+
+"Laugh! I'll show you how to laugh!"
+
+Though Yefim lost courage, he nevertheless said with dignity:
+
+"Although you, Foma Ignatyich, are the master, yet as I was told,
+'Watch, Yefim,' and then I am the captain here."
+
+"The captain?" cried Foma, shuddering in every limb and turning pale.
+"And who am I?"
+
+"Well, don't bawl! On account of such a trifle as a woman."
+
+Red spots came out on Foma's pale face, he shifted from one foot to the
+other, thrust his hands into the pockets of his jacket with a convulsive
+motion and said in a firm and even voice:
+
+"You! Captain! See here, say another word against me--and you go to
+the devil! I'll put you ashore! I'll get along as well with the pilot!
+Understand? You cannot command me. Do you see?"
+
+Yefim was dumfounded. He looked at his master and comically winked his
+eyes, finding no reply to his words.
+
+"Do you understand, I say?"
+
+"Yes. I understand!" drawled Yefim. "But what is all this noise about?
+On account of--"
+
+"Silence!"
+
+Foma's eyes, which flashed wildly, and his face distorted with wrath,
+suggested to the captain the happy thought to leave his master as soon
+as possible and, turning around quickly, he walked off.
+
+"Pshaw! How terrible! As it seems the apple did not fall too far from
+the tree," he muttered sneeringly, walking on the deck. He was angry at
+Foma, and considered himself offended for nothing, but at the same time
+he began to feel over himself the real, firm hand of a master. For years
+accustomed to being subordinate, he rather liked this manifestation of
+power over him, and, entering the cabin of the old pilot, he related
+to him the scene between himself and his master, with a shade of
+satisfaction in his voice.
+
+"See?" he concluded his story. "A pup coming from a good breed is an
+excellent dog at the very first chase. From his exterior he is so-so. A
+man of rather heavy mind as yet. Well, never mind, let him have his
+fun. It seems now as though nothing wrong will come out of this. With a
+character like his, no. How he bawled at me! A regular trumpet, I tell
+you! And he appointed himself master at once. As though he had sipped
+power and strictness out of a ladle."
+
+Yefim spoke the truth: during these few days Foma underwent a striking
+transformation. The passion now kindled in him made him master of the
+soul and body of a woman; he eagerly absorbed the fiery sweetness of
+this power, and this burned out all that was awkward in him, all that
+gave him the appearance of a somewhat stupid, gloomy fellow, and,
+destroying it, filled his heart with youthful pride, with the
+consciousness of his human personality. Love for a woman is always
+fruitful to the man, be the love whatever it may; even though it were to
+cause but sufferings there is always much that is rich in it. Working
+as a powerful poison on those whose souls are afflicted, it is for the
+healthy man as fire for iron, which is to be transformed into steel.
+
+Foma's passion for the thirty-year-old woman, who lamented in his
+embraces her dead youth, did not tear him away from his affairs; he was
+never lost in the caresses, or in his affairs, bringing into both his
+whole self. The woman, like good wine, provoked in him alike a thirst
+for labour and for love, and she, too, became younger from the kisses of
+the youth.
+
+In Perm, Foma found a letter waiting for him. It was from his godfather,
+who notified him that Ignat, out of anxiety for his son, had begun to
+drink heavily, and that it was harmful to drink thus, for a man of his
+age. The letter concluded with advice to hurry up matters in order
+to return home the sooner. Foma felt alarmed over this advice, and it
+clouded the clear holiday of his heart. But this shadow soon melted in
+his worries over his affairs, and in the caresses of Pelageya. His life
+streamed on with the swiftness of a river wave, and each day brought to
+him new sensations, awakening in him new thoughts. Pelageya's relations
+with him contained all the passion of a mistress, all that power of
+feeling which women of her age put into their passion when drinking the
+last drops from the cup of life. But at times a different feeling awoke
+in her, a feeling not less powerful, and by which Foma became still more
+attached to her--something similar to a mother's yearning to guard her
+beloved son from errors, to teach him the wisdom of life. Oftentimes at
+night, sitting in his embraces on the deck, she spoke to him tenderly
+and sadly:
+
+"Mind me as an older sister of yours. I have lived, I know men. I have
+seen a great deal in my life! Choose your companions with care, for
+there are people just as contagious as a disease. At first you cannot
+tell them even when you see them; he looks to be a man like everybody
+else, and, suddenly, without being aware of it yourself, you will start
+to imitate him in life. You look around--and you find that you have
+contracted his scabs. I myself have lost everything on account of a
+friend. I had a husband and two children. We lived well. My husband was
+a clerk at a volost." She became silent and looked for a long time at
+the water, which was stirred by the vessel. Then she heaved a sigh and
+spoke to him again:
+
+"May the Holy Virgin guard you from women of my kind--be careful. You
+are tender as yet, your heart has not become properly hardened. And
+women are fond of such as you--strong, handsome, rich. And most of all
+beware of the quiet women. They stick to a man like blood-suckers, and
+suck and suck. And at the same time they are always so kind, so gentle.
+They will keep on sucking your juice, but will preserve themselves.
+They'll only break your heart in vain. You had better have dealings with
+those that are bold, like myself. These live not for the sake of gain."
+
+And she was indeed disinterested. In Perm Foma purchased for her
+different new things and what-not. She was delighted, but later, having
+examined them, she said sadly:
+
+"Don't squander your money too freely. See that your father does not get
+angry. I love you anyway, without all this."
+
+She had already told him that she would go with him only as far as
+Kazan, where she had a married sister. Foma could not believe that she
+would leave him, and when, on the eve of their arrival at Kazan, she
+repeated her words, he became gloomy and began to implore her not to
+forsake him.
+
+"Do not feel sorry in advance," she said. "We have a whole night before
+us. You will have time to feel sorry when I bid you good-bye, if you
+will feel sorry at all."
+
+But he still tried to persuade her not to forsake him, and,
+finally--which was to be expected--announced his desire to marry her.
+
+"So, so!" and she began to laugh. "Shall I marry you while my husband
+is still alive? My darling, my queer fellow! You have a desire to marry,
+eh? But do they marry such women as I am? You will have many, many
+mistresses. Marry then, when you have overflowed, when you have had your
+fill of all sweets and feel like having rye bread. Then you may marry!
+I have noticed that a healthy man, for his own peace, must not marry
+early. One woman will not be enough to satisfy him, and he'll go to
+other women. And for your own happiness, you should take a wife only
+when you know that she alone will suffice for you."
+
+But the more she spoke, the more persistent Foma became in his desire
+not to part with her.
+
+"Just listen to what I'll tell you," said the woman, calmly. "A splinter
+of wood is burning in your hand, and you can see well even without its
+light--you had better dip it into water, so that there will be no smell
+of smoke and your hand will not be burned."
+
+"I do not understand your words."
+
+"Do understand. You have done me no wrong, and I do not wish to do you
+any. And, therefore, I am going away."
+
+It is hard to say what might have been the result of this dispute if an
+accident had not interfered with it. In Kazan Foma received a telegram
+from Mayakin, who wrote to his godson briefly: "Come immediately on the
+passenger steamer." Foma's heart contracted nervously, and a few hours
+later, gloomy and pale, his teeth set together, he stood on the deck
+of the steamer, which was leaving the harbour, and clinging to the rail
+with his hands, he stared motionlessly into the face of his love, who
+was floating far away from him together with the harbour and the shore.
+Pelageya waved her handkerchief and smiled, but he knew that she was
+crying, shedding many painful tears. From her tears the entire front
+of Foma's shirt was wet, and from her tears, his heart, full of gloomy
+alarm, was sad and cold. The figure of the woman was growing smaller
+and smaller, as though melting away, and Foma, without lifting his eyes,
+stared at her and felt that aside from fear for his father and sorrow
+for the woman, some new, powerful and caustic sensation was awakening in
+his soul. He could not name it, but it seemed to him as something like a
+grudge against someone.
+
+The crowd in the harbour blended into a close, dark and dead spot,
+faceless, formless, motionless. Foma went away from the rail and began
+to pace the deck gloomily.
+
+The passengers, conversing aloud, seated themselves to drink tea; the
+porters bustled about on the gallery, setting the tables; somewhere
+below, on the stern, in the third class, a child was crying, a harmonica
+was wailing, the cook was chopping something with knives, the dishes
+were jarring--producing a rather harsh noise. Cutting the waves and
+making foam, shuddering under the strain and sighing heavily, the
+enormous steamer moved rapidly against the current. Foma looked at the
+wide strip of broken, struggling, and enraged waves at the stern of the
+steamer, and began to feel a wild desire to break or tear something;
+also to go, breast foremost, against the current and to mass its
+pressure against himself, against his breast and his shoulders.
+
+"Fate!" said someone beside him in a hoarse and weary voice.
+
+This word was familiar to him: his Aunt Anfisa had often used it as
+an answer to his questions, and he had invested in this brief word a
+conception of a power, similar to the power of God. He glanced at the
+speakers: one of them was a gray little old man, with a kind face;
+the other was younger, with big, weary eyes and with a little black
+wedge-shaped beard. His big gristly nose and his yellow, sunken cheeks
+reminded Foma of his godfather.
+
+"Fate!" The old man repeated the exclamation of his interlocutor with
+confidence, and began to smile. "Fate in life is like a fisherman on the
+river: it throws a baited hook toward us into the tumult of our life and
+we dart at it with greedy mouths. Then fate pulls up the rod--and the
+man is struggling, flopping on the ground, and then you see his heart is
+broken. That's how it is, my dear man."
+
+Foma closed his eyes, as if a ray of the sun had fallen full on them,
+and shaking his head, he said aloud:
+
+"True! That is true!"
+
+The companions looked at him fixedly: the old man, with a fine, wise
+smile; the large-eyed man, unfriendly, askance. This confused Foma; he
+blushed and walked away, thinking of Fate and wondering why it had first
+treated him kindly by giving him a woman, and then took back the gift
+from him, so simply and abusively? And he now understood that the vague,
+caustic feeling which he carried within him was a grudge against Fate
+for thus sporting with him. He had been too much spoiled by life, to
+regard more plainly the first drop of poison from the cup which was
+just started, and he passed all the time of the journey without sleep,
+pondering over the old man's words and fondling his grudge. This grudge,
+however, did not awaken in him despondency and sorrow, but rather a
+feeling of anger and revenge.
+
+Foma was met by his godfather, and to his hasty and agitated question,
+Mayakin, his greenish little eyes flashing excitedly, said when he
+seated himself in the carriage beside his godson:
+
+"Your father has grown childish."
+
+"Drinking?"
+
+"Worse--he has lost his mind completely."
+
+"Really? Oh Lord! Tell me."
+
+"Don't you understand? A certain lady is always around him."
+
+"What about her?" exclaimed Foma, recalling his Pelageya, and for some
+reason or other his heart was filled with joy.
+
+"She sticks to him and--bleeds him."
+
+"Is she a quiet one?"
+
+"She? Quiet as a fire. Seventy-five thousand roubles she blew out of his
+pocket like a feather!"
+
+"Oh! Who is she?"
+
+"Sonka Medinskaya, the architect's wife."
+
+"Great God! Is it possible that she--Did my father--Is it possible that
+he took her as his sweetheart?" asked Foma, with astonishment, in a low
+voice.
+
+His godfather drew back from him, and comically opening his eyes wide,
+said convincedly:
+
+"You are out of your mind, too! By God, you're out of your mind! Come to
+your senses! A sweetheart at the age of sixty-three! And at such a price
+as this. What are you talking about? Well, I'll tell this to Ignat."
+
+And Mayakin filled the air with a jarring, hasty laughter, at which his
+goat-like beard began to tremble in an uncomely manner. It took Foma a
+long time to obtain a categorical answer; the old man, contrary to his
+habit, was restless and irritated; his speech, usually fluent, was now
+interrupted; he was swearing and expectorating as he spoke, and it was
+with difficulty that Foma learned what the matter was. Sophya Pavlovna
+Medinskaya, the wealthy architect's wife, who was well known in the city
+for her tireless efforts in the line of arranging various charitable
+projects, persuaded Ignat to endow seventy-five thousand roubles for the
+erection of a lodging-house in the city and of a public library with
+a reading-room. Ignat had given the money, and already the newspapers
+lauded him for his generosity. Foma had seen the woman more than once
+on the streets; she was short; he knew that she was considered as one of
+the most beautiful women in the city, and that bad rumours were afoot as
+to her behaviour.
+
+"Is that all?" exclaimed Foma, when his godfather concluded the story.
+"And I thought God knows what!"
+
+"You? You thought?" cried Mayakin, suddenly grown angry. "You thought
+nothing, you beardless youngster!"
+
+"Why do you abuse me?" Foma said.
+
+"Tell me, in your opinion, is seventy-five thousand roubles a big sum or
+not?"
+
+"Yes, a big sum," said Foma, after a moment's thought.
+
+"Ah, ha!"
+
+"But my father has much money. Why do you make such a fuss about it?"
+
+Yakov Tarasovich was taken aback. He looked into the youth's face with
+contempt and asked him in a faint voice:
+
+"And you speak like this?"
+
+"I? Who then?"
+
+"You lie! It is your young foolishness that speaks. Yes! And my old
+foolishness--brought to test a million times by life--says that you are
+a young dog as yet, and it is too early for you to bark in a basso."
+
+Foma hearing this, had often been quite provoked by his godfather's too
+picturesque language.
+
+Mayakin always spoke to him more roughly than his father, but now the
+youth felt very much offended by the old man and said to him reservedly,
+but firmly:
+
+"You had better not abuse me without reflection, for I am no longer a
+small child."
+
+"Come, come!" exclaimed Mayakin, mockingly lifting his eyebrows and
+squinting.
+
+This roused Foma's indignation. He looked full into the old man's eyes
+and articulated with emphasis:
+
+"And I am telling you that I don't want to hear any more of that
+undeserved abuse of yours. Enough!"
+
+"Mm! So-o! Pardon me."
+
+Yakov Tarasovich closed his eyes, chewed a little with his lips, and,
+turning aside from his godson, kept silent for awhile. The carriage
+turned into a narrow street, and, noticing from afar the roof of his
+house, Foma involuntarily moved forward. At the same time Mayakin asked
+him with a roguish and gentle smile:
+
+"Foma! Tell me--on whom you have sharpened your teeth? Eh?"
+
+"Why, are they sharp?" asked Foma, pleased with the manner in which
+Mayakin now regarded him.
+
+"Pretty good. That's good, dear. That's very good! Your father and I
+were afraid lest you should be a laggard. Well, have you learned to
+drink vodka?"
+
+"I drank it."
+
+"Rather too soon! Did you drink much of it?"
+
+"Why much?"
+
+"Does it taste good?"
+
+"Not very."
+
+"So. Never mind, all this is not so bad. Only you are too outspoken.
+You are ready to confess all your sins to each and every pope that comes
+along. You must consider it isn't always necessary to do that. Sometimes
+by keeping silent you both please people and commit no sins. Yes. A
+man's tongue is very seldom sober. Here we are. See, your father does
+not know that you have arrived. Is he home yet, I wonder?"
+
+He was at home: his loud, somewhat hoarse laughter was heard from the
+open windows of the rooms. The noise of the carriage, which stopped at
+the house, caused Ignat to look out of the window, and at the sight of
+his son he cried out with joy:
+
+"Ah! You've come."
+
+After a while he pressed Foma to his breast with one hand, and, pressing
+the palm of his other hand against his son's forehead, thus bending
+his head back, he looked into his face with beaming eyes and spoke
+contentedly:
+
+"You are sunburnt. You've grown strong. You're a fine fellow! Madame!
+How's my son? Isn't he fine?"
+
+"Not bad looking," a gentle, silver voice was heard. Foma glanced from
+behind his father's shoulder and noticed that a slender woman with
+magnificent fair hair was sitting in the front corner of the room,
+resting her elbows on the table; her dark eyes, her thin eyebrows and
+plump, red lips strikingly defined on her pale face. Behind her armchair
+stood a large philodendron-plant whose big, figured leaves were hanging
+down in the air over her little golden head.
+
+"How do you do, Sophya Pavlovna," said Mayakin, tenderly, approaching
+her with his hand outstretched. "What, are you still collecting
+contributions from poor people like us?"
+
+Foma bowed to her mutely, not hearing her answer to Mayakin, nor what
+his father was saying to him. The lady stared at him steadfastly and
+smiled to him affably and serenely. Her childlike figure, clothed in
+some kind of dark fabric, was almost blended with the crimson stuff
+of the armchair, while her wavy, golden hair and her pale face shone
+against the dark background. Sitting there in the corner, beneath the
+green leaves, she looked at once like a flower, and like an ikon.
+
+"See, Sophya Pavlovna, how he is staring at you. An eagle, eh?" said
+Ignat.
+
+Her eyes became narrower, a faint blush leaped to her cheeks, and she
+burst into laughter. It sounded like the tinkling of a little silver
+bell. And she immediately arose, saying:
+
+"I wouldn't disturb you. Good-bye!"
+
+When she went past Foma noiselessly, the scent of perfume came to him,
+and he noticed that her eyes were dark blue, and her eyebrows almost
+black.
+
+"The sly rogue glided away," said Mayakin in a low voice, angrily
+looking after her.
+
+"Well, tell us how was the trip? Have you squandered much money?" roared
+Ignat, pushing his son into the same armchair where Medinskaya had been
+sitting awhile before. Foma looked at him askance and seated himself in
+another chair.
+
+"Isn't she a beautiful young woman, eh?" said Mayakin, smiling, feeling
+Foma with his cunning eyes. "If you keep on gaping at her she will eat
+away all your insides."
+
+Foma shuddered for some reason or other, and, saying nothing in reply,
+began to tell his father about the journey in a matter-of-fact tone. But
+Ignat interrupted him:
+
+"Wait, I'll ask for some cognac."
+
+"And you are keeping on drinking all the time, they say," said Foma,
+disapprovingly.
+
+Ignat glanced at his son with surprise and curiosity, and asked:
+
+"Is this the way to speak to your father?"
+
+Foma became confused and lowered his head.
+
+"That's it!" said Ignat, kind-heartedly, and ordered cognac to be
+brought to him.
+
+Mayakin, winking his eyes, looked at the Gordyeeffs, sighed, bid them
+good-bye, and, after inviting them to have tea with him in his raspberry
+garden in the evening, went away.
+
+"Where is Aunt Anfisa?" asked Foma, feeling that now, being alone with
+his father, he was somewhat ill at ease.
+
+"She went to the cloister. Well, tell me, and I will have some cognac."
+
+Foma told his father all about his affairs in a few minutes and he
+concluded his story with a frank confession:
+
+"I have spent much money on myself."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"About six hundred roubles."
+
+"In six weeks! That's a good deal. I see as a clerk you're too expensive
+for me. Where have you squandered it all?"
+
+"I gave away three hundred puds of grain."
+
+"To whom? How?"
+
+Foma told him all about it.
+
+"Hm! Well, that's all right!" Ignat approved. "That's to show what stuff
+we are made of. That's clear enough--for the father's honour--for the
+honour of the firm. And there is no loss either, because that gives a
+good reputation. And that, my dear, is the very best signboard for a
+business. Well, what else?"
+
+"And then, I somehow spent more."
+
+"Speak frankly. It's not the money that I am asking you about--I just
+want to know how you lived there," insisted Ignat, regarding his son
+attentively and sternly.
+
+"I was eating, drinking." Foma did not give in, bending his head
+morosely and confusedly.
+
+"Drinking vodka?"
+
+"Vodka, too."
+
+"Ah! So. Isn't it rather too soon?"
+
+"Ask Yefim whether I ever drank enough to be intoxicated."
+
+"Why should I ask Yefim? You must tell me everything yourself. So you
+are drinking? I don't like it."
+
+"But I can get along without drinking."
+
+"Come, come! Do you want some cognac?"
+
+Foma looked at his father and smiled broadly. And his father answered
+him with a kindly smile:
+
+"Eh, you. Devil! Drink, but look out--know your business. What can
+you do? A drunkard will sleep himself sober, a fool--never. Let us
+understand this much at least, for our own consolation. And did you have
+a good time with girls, too? Be frank! Are you afraid that I will beat
+you, or what?"
+
+"Yes. There was one on the steamer. I had her there from Perm to Kazan."
+
+"So," Ignat sighed heavily and said, frowning: "You've become defiled
+rather too soon."
+
+"I am twenty years old. And you yourself told me that in your days
+fellows married at the age of fifteen," replied Foma, confused.
+
+"Then they married. Very well, then, let us drop the subject.
+Well, you've had dealings with a woman. What of it? A woman is like
+vaccination, you cannot pass your life without her. As for myself, I
+cannot play the hypocrite. I began to go around with women when I was
+younger than you are now. But you must be on your guard with them."
+
+Ignat became pensive and was silent for a long time, sitting motionless,
+his head bent low on his breast.
+
+"Listen, Foma," he started again, sternly and firmly. "I shall die
+before long. I am old. Something oppresses my breast. I breathe with
+difficulty. I'll die. Then all my affairs will fall on your shoulders.
+At first your godfather will assist you--mind him! You started quite
+well; you attended to everything properly; you held the reins firmly
+in your hands. And though you did squander a big sum of money, it is
+evident that you did not lose your head. God grant the same in the
+future. You should know this: business is a living, strong beast; you
+must manage it ably; you must put a strong bridle on it or it will
+conquer you. Try to stand above your business. Place yourself so that it
+will all be under your feet; that each little tack shall be visible to
+you."
+
+Foma looked at his father's broad chest, heard his heavy voice and
+thought to himself:
+
+"Oh, but you won't die so soon!"
+
+This thought pleased him and awakened in him a kind, warm feeling for
+his father.
+
+"Rely upon your godfather. He has enough common sense in his head to
+supply the whole town with it. All he lacks is courage, or he would have
+risen high. Yes, I tell you my days on earth are numbered. Indeed, it
+is high time to prepare myself for death; to cast everything aside; to
+fast, and see to it that people bear me good-will."
+
+"They will!" said Foma with confidence.
+
+"If there were but a reason why they should."
+
+"And the lodging-house?"
+
+Ignat looked at his son and began to laugh.
+
+"Yakov has had time to tell it to you already! The old miser. He must
+have abused me?"
+
+"A little." Foma smiled.
+
+"Of course! Don't I know him?"
+
+"He spoke of it as though it were his own money."
+
+Ignat leaned back in his chair and burst into still louder laughter.
+
+"The old raven, eh? That's quite true. Whether it be his own money or
+mine, it is all the same to him. There he is trembling now. He has an
+aim in view, the bald-headed fellow. Can you tell me what it is?"
+
+Foma thought awhile and said:
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Eh, you're stupid. He wants to tell our fortunes."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"Come now, guess!"
+
+Foma looked at his father and--guessed it. His face became gloomy, he
+slightly raised himself from the armchair and said resolutely:
+
+"No, I don't want to. I shall not marry her!"
+
+"Oh? Why so? She is a strong girl; she is not foolish; she's his only
+child."
+
+"And Taras? The lost one? But I--I don't want to at all!"
+
+"The lost one is gone, consequently it is not worthwhile speaking of
+him. There is a will, dear, which says: 'All my movable and real estates
+shall go to my daughter, Lubov.' And as to the fact that she is your
+godfather's daughter, we'll set this right."
+
+"It is all the same," said Foma, firmly. "I shall not marry her!"
+
+"Well, it is rather early to speak of it now! But why do you dislike her
+so much?"
+
+"I do not like such as she is."
+
+"So-o! Just think of it! And which women are more to your liking, sir,
+may I ask?"
+
+"Those that are more simple. She's always busy with her Gymnasium
+students and with her books. She's become learned. She'll be laughing at
+my expense," said Foma, emotionally.
+
+"That is quite true. She is too bold. But that is a trifle. All sorts of
+rust can be removed if you try to do it. That's a matter for the future.
+And your godfather is a clever old man. His was a peaceful, sedentary
+life; sitting in one place he gave a thought to everything. It is
+worthwhile listening to him, for he can see the wrong side of each
+and every worldly affair. He is our aristocrat--descending from Mother
+Yekaterina--ha, ha! He understands a great deal about himself. And as
+his stem was cut off by Taras, he decided to put you in Taras's place,
+do you see?"
+
+"No, I'd rather select my place myself," said Foma, stubbornly.
+
+"You are foolish as yet." Ignat smiled in reply to his son's words.
+
+Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Aunt Anfisa.
+
+"Foma! You've come," she cried out, somewhere behind the doors. Foma
+rose and went to meet her, with a gentle smile.
+
+Again his life streamed on slowly, calmly, monotonously. Again the
+Exchange and his father's instructions. Retaining a kindly sarcastic and
+encouraging tone in his relation toward his son, Ignat began to treat
+him more strictly. He censured him for each and every trifle and
+constantly reminded him that he brought him up freely; that he was never
+in his way and that he never beat him.
+
+"Other fathers beat fellows like yourself with logs of wood. And I never
+even touched you with a finger."
+
+"Evidently I didn't deserve it," said Foma one day, calmly.
+
+Ignat became angry at his son for these words and for the tone.
+
+"Don't talk so much!" he roared. "You've picked up courage because of
+the softness of my hand. You find an answer to every word I say. Beware;
+though my hand was soft, it can nevertheless still squeeze you so that
+tears will gush forth from your heels. You've grown up too soon, like
+a toad-stool, just sprung up from the ground. You have a bad smell
+already."
+
+"Why are you so angry at me?" asked Foma, perplexed and offended, when
+his father chanced to be in a happy frame of mind.
+
+"Because you cannot tolerate it when your father grumbles at you. You're
+ready to quarrel immediately."
+
+"But it is offensive. I have not grown worse than I was before. Don't I
+see how others live at my age?"
+
+"Your head wouldn't fall off from my scolding you. And I scold you
+because I see there is something in you that is not mine. What it is,
+I do not know, but I see it is there. And that something is harmful to
+you."
+
+These words of Ignat made the son very thoughtful. Foma also felt
+something strange in himself, something which distinguished him from the
+youth of his age, but he, too, could not understand what it was. And he
+looked at himself with suspicion.
+
+Foma liked to be on the Exchange amid the bustle and talk of the sedate
+people who were making deals amounting to thousands of roubles; the
+respect with which the less well-to-do tradesmen greeted and spoke to
+him--to Foma, the son of the millionaire--flattered him greatly. He
+felt happy and proud whenever he successfully managed some part of his
+father's business, assuming all responsibility on his own shoulders, and
+received a smile of approval from his father for it. There was in him
+a great deal of ambition, yearning to appear as a grown-up man of
+business, but--just as before his trip to Perm--he lived as in solitude;
+he still felt no longing for friends, although he now came in contact
+everyday with the merchants' sons of his age. They had invited him
+more than once to join them in their sprees, but he rather rudely and
+disdainfully declined their invitations and even laughed at them.
+
+"I am afraid. Your fathers may learn of your sprees, and as they'll give
+you a drubbing, I might also come in for a share."
+
+What he did not like in them was that they were leading a dissipated and
+depraved life, without their fathers' knowledge, and that the money
+they were spending was either stolen from their parents or borrowed on
+long-termed promissory notes, to be paid with exorbitant interest.
+They in turn did not like him for this very reserve and aversion, which
+contained the pride so offensive to them. He was timid about speaking to
+people older than himself, fearing lest he should appear in their eyes
+stupid and thick-headed.
+
+He often recalled Pelageya, and at first he felt melancholy whenever her
+image flashed before his imagination. But time went on, and little by
+little rubbed off the bright colours of this woman; and before he
+was aware of it his thoughts were occupied by the slender, angel-like
+Medinskaya. She used to come up to Ignat almost every Sunday with
+various requests, all of which generally had but one aim--to hasten the
+building of the lodging-asylum. In her presence Foma felt awkward, huge,
+heavy; this pained him, and he blushed deeply under the endearing look
+of Sophya Pavlovna's large eyes. He noticed that every time she looked
+at him, her eyes would grow darker, while her upper lip would tremble
+and raise itself slightly, thus displaying very small white teeth. This
+always frightened him. When his father noticed how steadfastly he was
+staring at Medinskaya he told him one day:
+
+"Don't be staring so much at that face. Look out, she is like a
+birch ember: from the outside it is just as modest, smooth and
+dark--altogether cold to all appearances--but take it into your hand and
+it will burn you."
+
+Medinskaya did not kindle in the youth any sensual passion, for there
+was nothing in her that resembled Pelageya, and altogether she was not
+at all like other women. He knew that shameful rumours about her were
+in the air, but he did not believe any of them. But his relations to her
+were changed when he noticed her one day in a carriage beside a stout
+man in a gray hat and with long hair falling over his shoulders. His
+face was like a bladder--red and bloated; he had neither moustache nor
+beard, and altogether he looked like a woman in disguise. Foma was told
+that this was her husband. Then dark and contradicting feelings sprang
+up within him: he felt like insulting the architect, and at the same
+time he envied and respected him. Medinskaya now seemed to him less
+beautiful and more accessible; he began to feel sorry for her, and yet
+he thought malignantly:
+
+"She must surely feel disgusted when he kisses her."
+
+And after all this he sometimes perceived in himself some bottomless and
+oppressive emptiness, which could not be filled up by anything--neither
+by the impressions of the day just gone by nor by the recollection
+of the past; and the Exchange, and his affairs, and his thoughts of
+Medinskaya--all were swallowed up by this emptiness. It alarmed him: in
+the dark depth of this emptiness he suspected some hidden existence of
+a hostile power, as yet formless but already carefully and persistently
+striving to become incarnate.
+
+In the meantime Ignat, changing but little outwardly, was growing ever
+more restless and querulous and was complaining more often of being ill.
+
+"I lost my sleep. It used to be so sound that even though you had torn
+off my skin, I would not have felt it. While now I toss about from side
+to side, and I fall asleep only toward morning. And every now and then
+I awaken. My heart beats unevenly, now, though tired out; often thus:
+tuk-tuk-tuk. And sometimes it sinks of a sudden--and it seems as though
+it would soon tear itself away and fall somewhere into the deep; into
+the bosom. Oh Lord, have pity upon me through Thy great mercy." And
+heaving a penitent sigh, he would lift heavenward his stern eyes, grown
+dim now, devoid of their bright, sparkling glitter.
+
+"Death keeps an eye on me somewhere close by," he said one day morosely,
+but humbly. And indeed, it soon felled his big, sturdy body to the
+ground.
+
+This happened in August, early in the morning. Foma was sound asleep
+when suddenly he felt somebody shaking him by the shoulder, and a hoarse
+voice called at his ear:
+
+"Get up."
+
+He opened his eyes and saw that his father was seated in a chair near
+his bed, monotonously repeating in a dull voice:
+
+"Get up, get up."
+
+The sun had just risen, and its light, falling on Ignat's white linen
+shirt, had not yet lost its rosy tints.
+
+"It's early," said Foma, stretching himself.
+
+"Well, you'll sleep enough later."
+
+Lazily muffling himself in the blanket, Foma asked:
+
+"Why do you need me?"
+
+"Get up, dear, will you, please?" exclaimed Ignat, adding, somewhat
+offended: "It must be necessary, since I am waking you."
+
+When Foma looked closely at his father's face, he noticed that it was
+gray and weary.
+
+"Are you ill?"
+
+"Slightly."
+
+"Shall we send for a doctor?"
+
+"The devil take him!" Ignat waved his hand. "I am not a young man any
+longer. I know it as well without him."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Oh, I know it!" said the old man, mysteriously, casting a strange
+glance around the room. Foma was dressing himself, and his father, with
+lowered head, spoke slowly:
+
+"I am afraid to breathe. Something tells me that if I should now heave a
+deep sigh, my heart would burst. Today is Sunday! After the morning mass
+is over, send for the priest."
+
+"What are you talking about, papa?" Foma smiled.
+
+"Nothing. Wash yourself and go into the garden. I ordered the samovar
+to be brought there. We'll drink our tea in the morning coolness. I feel
+like drinking now hot, strong tea. Be quicker."
+
+The old man rose with difficulty from the chair, and, bent and
+barefooted, left the room in a staggering gait. Foma looked at his
+father, and a shooting chill of fear made his heart shrink. He washed
+himself in haste, and hurried out into the garden.
+
+There, under an old, spreading apple-tree sat Ignat in a big oaken
+armchair. The light of the sun fell in thin stripes through the
+branches of the trees upon the white figure of the old man clad in his
+night-garments. There was such a profound silence in the garden that
+even the rustle of a branch, accidentally touched by Foma's clothes,
+seemed to him like a loud sound and he shuddered. On the table, before
+his father, stood the samovar, purring like a well-fed tom-cat and
+exhaling a stream of steam into the air. Amid the silence and the fresh
+verdure of the garden, which had been washed by abundant rains the day
+before, this bright spot of the boldly shining, loud brass seemed to
+Foma as something unnecessary, as something which suited neither the
+time nor the place--nor the feeling that sprang up within him at the
+sight of the sickly, bent old man, who was dressed in white, and who sat
+alone underneath the mute, motionless, dark-green foliage, wherein red
+apples were modestly peeping.
+
+"Be seated," said Ignat.
+
+"We ought to send for a doctor." Foma advised him irresolutely, seating
+himself opposite him.
+
+"It isn't necessary. It's a little better now in the open air. And now
+I'll sip some tea and perhaps that will do me more good," said Ignat,
+pouring out tea into the glasses, and Foma noticed that the teapot was
+trembling in his father's hand.
+
+"Drink."
+
+Silently moving up one glass for himself, Foma bent over it, blowing the
+foam off the surface of the tea, and with pain in his heart, hearing the
+loud, heavy breathing of his father. Suddenly something struck against
+the table with such force that the dishes began to rattle.
+
+Foma shuddered, threw up his head and met the frightened, almost
+senseless look of his father's eyes. Ignat stared at his son and
+whispered hoarsely:
+
+"An apple fell down (the devil take it!). It sounded like the firing of
+a gun."
+
+"Won't you have some cognac in your tea?" Foma suggested.
+
+"It is good enough without it."
+
+They became silent. A flight of finches winged past over the garden,
+scattering a provokingly cheerful twittering in the air. And again the
+ripe beauty of the garden was bathed in solemn silence. The fright was
+still in Ignat's eyes.
+
+"Oh Lord, Jesus Christ!" said he in a low voice, making the sign of the
+cross. "Yes. There it is--the last hour of my life."
+
+"Stop, papa!" whispered Foma.
+
+"Why stop? We'll have our tea, and then send for the priest, and for
+Mayakin."
+
+"I'd rather send for them now."
+
+"They'll soon toll for the mass--the priest isn't home--and then there's
+no hurry, it may pass soon."
+
+And he noisily started to sip the tea out of the saucer.
+
+"I should live another year or two. You are young, and I am very much
+afraid for you. Live honestly and firmly; do not covet what belongs to
+other people, take good care of your own."
+
+It was hard for him to speak, he stopped short and rubbed his chest with
+his hand.
+
+"Do not rely upon others; expect but little from them. We all live in
+order to take, not to give. Oh Lord! Have mercy on the sinner!"
+
+Somewhere in the distance the deep sound of the bell fell on the silence
+of the morning. Ignat and Foma crossed themselves three times.
+
+After the first sound of the bell-tone came another, then a third, and
+soon the air was filled with sounds of the church-bells, coming from all
+sides--flowing, measured, calling aloud.
+
+"There, they are tolling for the mass," said Ignat, listening to the
+echo of the bell-metal. "Can you tell the bells by their sounds?"
+
+"No," answered Foma.
+
+"Just listen. This one now--do you hear? the bass--this is from the
+Nikola Church. It was presented by Peter Mitrich Vyagin--and this, the
+hoarse one--this is at the church of Praskeva Pyatnitza."
+
+The singing waves of the bell-tones agitated the air, which was filled
+with them, and they died away in the clear blue of the sky. Foma
+stared thoughtfully at his father's face and saw that the alarm was
+disappearing from his eyes, and that they were now brighter.
+
+But suddenly the old man's face turned very red, his eyes distended and
+rolled out of their orbits, his mouth opened with fright, and from it
+issued a strange, hissing sound:
+
+"F-F-A-A-ch."
+
+Immediately after this Ignat's head fell back on his shoulder, and his
+heavy body slowly slipped down from the chair to the ground as if the
+earth had dragged him imperiously unto itself. Foma was motionless and
+silent for awhile, then he rushed up to Ignat, lifted his head from the
+ground and looked into his face. The face was dark, motionless, and the
+wide-open eyes expressed nothing--neither pain, nor fear, nor joy.
+Foma looked around him. As before, nobody was in the garden, and the
+resounding chatter of the bells was still roaring in the air. Foma's
+hands began to tremble, he let go his father's head, and it struck
+heavily against the ground. Dark, thick blood began to gush in a narrow
+stream from his open mouth across his blue cheek.
+
+Foma struck his breast with both hands, and kneeling before the dead
+body, he wildly cried aloud. He was trembling with fright, and with eyes
+like those of a madman he was searching for someone in the verdure of
+the garden.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+HIS father's death stupefied Foma and filled him with a strange
+sensation; quiet was poured into his soul--a painful, immovable quiet,
+which absorbed all the sounds of life without accounting for it.
+All sorts of acquaintances were bustling about him; they appeared,
+disappeared, said something to him--his replies to them were untimely,
+and their words called forth no images in him, drowning, without leaving
+any trace, in the bottomless depths of the death-like silence which
+filled his soul. He neither cried, nor grieved, nor thought of anything;
+pale and gloomy, with knitted brow, he was attentively listening to this
+quiet, which had forced out all his feelings, benumbed his heart and
+tightly clutched his brains. He was conscious but of the purely physical
+sensation of heaviness in all his frame and particularly in his breast,
+and then it also seemed to him that it was always twilight, and even
+though the sun was still high in the sky--everything on earth looked
+dark and melancholy.
+
+The funeral was arranged by Mayakin. Hastily and briskly he was bustling
+about in the rooms, making much clatter with the heels of his boots;
+he cried at the household help imperiously, clapped his godson on the
+shoulder, consoling him:
+
+"And why are you petrified? Roar and you will feel relieved. Your father
+was old--old in body. Death is prepared for all of us, you cannot escape
+it--consequently you must not be prematurely torpid. You cannot bring
+him to life again with your sorrow, and your grief is unnecessary
+to him, for it is said: 'When the body is robbed of the soul by the
+terrible angels, the soul forgets all relatives and acquaintances,'
+which means that you are of no consequence to him now, whether you cry
+or laugh. But the living must care for the living. You had better cry,
+for this is human. It brings much relief to the heart."
+
+But neither did these words provoke anything in Foma's head or in his
+heart. He came to himself, however, on the day of the funeral, thanks to
+the persistence of his godfather, who was assiduously and oddly trying
+to rouse his sad soul.
+
+The day of the funeral was cloudy and dreary. Amid a heavy cloud of dust
+an enormous crowd of people, winding like a black ribbon, followed
+the coffin of Ignat Gordyeeff. Here and there flashed the gold of the
+priest's robes, and the dull noise of the slow movement of the crowd
+blended in harmony with the solemn music of the choir, composed of the
+bishop's choristers. Foma was pushed from behind and from the sides; he
+walked, seeing nothing but the gray head of his father, and the mournful
+singing resounded in his heart like a melancholy echo. And Mayakin,
+walking beside him, kept on intrusively whispering in his ears:
+
+"Look, what a crowd--thousands! The governor himself came out to
+accompany your father to the church, the mayor, and almost the entire
+city council. And behind you--just turn around! There goes Sophya
+Pavlovna. The town pays its respects to Ignat."
+
+At first Foma did not listen to his godfather's whisper, but when he
+mentioned Medinskaya, he involuntarily looked back and noticed the
+governor. A little drop of something pleasant fell into his heart at
+the sight of this important personage, with a bright ribbon across
+his shoulder, with orders on his breast, pacing after the coffin, an
+expression of sorrow on his stern countenance.
+
+"Blessed is the road where this soul goeth today," Yakov Tarasovich
+hummed softly, moving his nose, and he again whispered in his godson's
+ear:
+
+"Seventy-five thousand roubles is such a sum that you can demand so many
+escorts for it. Have you heard that Sonka is making arrangements for the
+laying of the corner-stone on the fifteenth? Just forty days after the
+death of your father."
+
+Foma again turned back, and his eyes met the eyes of Medinskaya. He
+heaved a deep sigh at her caressing glance, and felt relieved at once,
+as if a warm ray of light penetrated his soul and something melted
+there. And then and there he considered that it was unbecoming him to
+turn his head from side to side.
+
+At church Foma's head began to ache, and it seemed to him that
+everything around and underneath him was shaking. In the stifling air,
+filled with dust, with the breathing of the people and the smoke of
+the incense, the flames of the candles were timidly trembling. The meek
+image of Christ looked down at him from the big ikon, and the flames
+of the candles, reflected in the tarnished gold of the crown over the
+Saviour's brow, reminded him of drops of blood.
+
+Foma's awakened soul was greedily feeding itself on the solemn, gloomy
+poetry of the liturgy, and when the touching citation was heard, "Come,
+let us give him the last kiss," a loud, wailing sob escaped from Foma's
+chest, and the crowd in church was stirred to agitation by this outburst
+of grief.
+
+Having uttered the sob, Foma staggered. His godfather immediately caught
+him by his arms and began to push him forward to the coffin, singing
+quite loudly and with some anger:
+
+ "Kiss him who was but lately with us.
+ Kiss, Foma, kiss him--he is given over to the grave, covered with a stone.
+ He is settling down in darkness, and is buried with the dead."
+
+Foma touched his father's forehead with his lips and sprang back from
+the coffin with horror.
+
+"Hold your peace! You nearly knocked me down," Mayakin remarked to him,
+in a low voice, and these simple, calm words supported Foma better than
+his godfather's hands.
+
+"Ye that behold me mute and lifeless before you, weep for me, brethren
+and friends," begged Ignat through the mouth of the Church. But his son
+was not crying any longer; his horror was called forth by the black,
+swollen face of his father, and this horror somewhat sobered his soul,
+which had been intoxicated by the mournful music of the Church's lament
+for its sinful son. He was surrounded by acquaintances, who were kindly
+consoling him; he listened to them and understood that they all felt
+sorry for him and that he became dear to them. And his godfather
+whispered in his ear:
+
+"See, how they all fawn upon you. The tom-cats have smelt the fat."
+
+These words were unpleasant to Foma, but they were useful to him, as
+they caused him to answer at all events.
+
+At the cemetery, when they sang for Ignat's eternal memory, he cried
+again bitterly and loud. His godfather immediately seized him by the
+arms and led him away from the grave, speaking to him earnestly:
+
+"What a faint-hearted fellow you are! Do I not feel sorry for him? I
+have known his real value, while you were but his son. And yet, I do
+not cry. For more than thirty years we lived together in perfect
+harmony--how much had been spoken, how much thought--how much sorrow
+drunk. You are young; it is not for you to grieve! Your life is before
+you, and you will be rich in all sorts of friendship; while I am old,
+and now that I buried my only friend, I am like a pauper. I can no
+longer make a bosom friend!"
+
+The old man's voice began to jar and squeak queerly. His face was
+distorted, his lips were stretched into a big grimace and were
+quivering, and from his small eyes frequent tears were running over the
+now contracted wrinkles of his face. He looked so pitiful and so unlike
+himself, that Foma stopped short, pressed him close to his body with the
+tenderness of a strong man and cried with alarm:
+
+"Don't cry, father--darling! Don't cry."
+
+"There you have it!" said Mayakin, faintly, and, heaving a deep sigh, he
+suddenly turned again into a firm and clever old man.
+
+"You must not cry," said he, mysteriously, seating himself in the
+carriage beside his godson. "You are now the commander-in-chief in the
+war and you must command your soldiers bravely. Your soldiers are the
+roubles, and you have a great army of these. Make war incessantly!"
+
+Surprised at the quickness of his transformation, Foma listened to his
+words and for some reason or other they reminded him of those clods of
+earth, which the people threw into Ignat's grave upon his coffin.
+
+"On whom am I to make war?" said Foma with a sigh.
+
+"I'll teach you that! Did your father tell you that I was a clever old
+man and that you should mind me?"
+
+"He did."
+
+"Then do mind me! If my mind should be added to your youthful strength,
+a good victory might be won. Your father was a great man, but he did not
+look far before him and he could not take my advice. He gained success
+in life not with his mind, but more with his head. Oh, what will become
+of you? You had better move into my house, for you will feel lonesome in
+yours."
+
+"Aunt is there."
+
+"Aunt? She is sick. She will not live long."
+
+"Do not speak of it," begged Foma in a low voice.
+
+"And I will speak of it. You need not fear death--you are not an old
+woman on the oven. Live fearlessly and do what you were appointed to
+do. Man is appointed for the organisation of life on earth. Man is
+capital--like a rouble, he is made up of trashy copper groshes and
+copecks. From the dust of the earth, as it is said; and even as he
+has intercourse with the world, he absorbs grease and oil, sweat and
+tears--a soul and a mind form themselves in him. And from this he starts
+to grow upward and downward. Now, you see his price is a grosh, now a
+fifteen copeck silver piece, now a hundred roubles, and sometimes he is
+above any price. He is put into circulation and he must bring interests
+to life. Life knows the value of each of us and will not check our
+course before time. Nobody, dear, works to his own detriment, if he is
+wise. And life has saved up much wisdom. Are you listening?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"And what do you understand?"
+
+"Everything."
+
+"You are probably lying?" Mayakin doubted.
+
+"But, why must we die?" asked Foma in a low voice.
+
+Mayakin looked into his face with regret, smacked his lips and said:
+
+"A wise man would never ask such a question. A wise man knows for
+himself that if it is a river, it must be flowing somewhere, and if it
+were standing in one place, it would be a swamp."
+
+"You're simply mocking me at random," said Foma, sternly. "The sea is
+not flowing anywhere."
+
+"The sea receives all rivers into itself, and then, powerful storms rage
+in it at times. Then the sea of life also submits on agitation, stirred
+up by men, and death renovates the waters of the sea of life, that they
+might not become spoiled. No matter how many people are dying, they are
+nevertheless forever growing in number."
+
+"What of it? But my father is dead."
+
+"You will die as well."
+
+"Then what have I to do with the fact that people are growing in
+number?" Foma smiled sadly.
+
+"Eh, he, he!" sighed Mayakin. "That, indeed, concerns none of us. There,
+your trousers probably reason in the same way: what have we to do with
+the fact that there are all sorts of stuff in the world? But you do not
+mind them--you wear them out and throw them away."
+
+Foma glanced at his godfather reproachfully, and noticing that the old
+man was smiling, he was astonished and he asked respectfully:
+
+"Can it be true, father, that you do not fear death?"
+
+"Most of all I fear foolishness, my child," replied Mayakin with humble
+bitterness. "My opinion is this: if a fool give you honey, spit upon it;
+if a wise man give you poison, drink it! And I will tell you that the
+perch has a weak soul since his fins do not stand on end."
+
+The old man's mocking words offended and angered Foma. He turned aside
+and said:
+
+"You can never speak without these subterfuges."
+
+"I cannot!" exclaimed Mayakin, and his eyes began to sparkle with alarm.
+"Each man uses the very same tongue he has. Do I seem to be stern? Do
+I?"
+
+Foma was silent.
+
+"Eh, you. Know this--he loves who teaches. Remember this well. And as to
+death, do not think of it. It is foolish, dear, for a live man to think
+of death. 'Ecclesiastes' reflected on death better than anybody else
+reflected on it, and said that a living dog is better than a dead lion."
+
+They came home. The street near the house was crowded with carriages,
+and from the open windows came loud sounds of talk. As soon as Foma
+appeared in the hall, he was seized by the arms and led away to the
+table and there was urged to drink and eat something. A marketplace
+noise smote the air; the hall was crowded and suffocating. Silently,
+Foma drank a glass of vodka, then another, and a third. Around him they
+were munching and smacking their lips; the vodka poured out from the
+bottles was gurgling, the wine-glasses were tinkling. They were speaking
+of dried sturgeon and of the bass of the soloist of the bishop's choir,
+and then again of the dried sturgeon, and then they said that the mayor
+also wished to make a speech, but did not venture to do so after the
+bishop had spoken, fearing lest he should not speak so well as the
+bishop. Someone was telling with feeling:
+
+"The deceased one used to do thus: he would cut off a slice of salmon,
+pepper it thickly, cover it with another slice of salmon, and then send
+it down immediately after a drink."
+
+"Let us follow his example," roared a thick basso. Offended to the
+quick, Foma looked with a frown at the fat lips and at the jaws chewing
+the tasty food, and he felt like crying out and driving away all these
+people, whose sedateness had but lately inspired him with respect for
+them.
+
+"You had better be more kind, more sociable," said Mayakin in a low
+voice, coming up to him.
+
+"Why are they gobbling here? Is this a tavern?" cried Foma, angrily.
+
+"Hush," Mayakin remarked with fright and hastily turned to look around
+with a kind smile on his face.
+
+But it was too late; his smile was of no avail. Foma's words had been
+overheard, the noise and the talk was subsiding, some of the guests
+began to bustle about hurriedly, others, offended, frowned, put down
+their forks and knives and walked away from the table, all looking at
+Foma askance.
+
+Silent and angry, he met these glances without lowering his eyes.
+
+"I ask you to come up to the table!" cried Mayakin, gleaming amid the
+crowd of people like an ember amid ashes. "Be seated, pray! They're soon
+serving pancakes."
+
+Foma shrugged his shoulders and walked off toward the door, saying
+aloud:
+
+"I shall not eat."
+
+He heard a hostile rumbling behind him and his godfather's wheedling
+voice saying to somebody:
+
+"It's for grief. Ignat was at once father and mother to him."
+
+Foma came out in the garden and sat down on the same place where his
+father had died. The feeling of loneliness and grief oppressed his
+heart. He unbuttoned the collar of his shirt to make his breathing
+easier, rested his elbows on the table, and with his head tightly
+pressed between his hands, he sat motionless. It was drizzling and the
+leaves of the apple-tree were rustling mournfully under the drops of the
+rain. He sat there for a long time alone, motionless, watching how the
+small drops were falling from the apple-tree. His head was heavy from
+the vodka, and in his heart there was a growing grudge against men.
+Some indefinite, impersonal feelings and thoughts were springing up and
+vanishing within him; before him flashed the bald skull of his godfather
+with a little crown of silver hair and with a dark face, which resembled
+the faces of the ancient ikons. This face with the toothless mouth and
+the malicious smile, rousing in Foma hatred and fear, augmented in
+him the consciousness of solitude. Then he recalled the kind eyes of
+Medinskaya and her small, graceful figure; and beside her arose the
+tall, robust, and rosy-cheeked Lubov Mayakina with smiling eyes and with
+a big light golden-coloured braid. "Do not rely upon men, expect but
+little at their hands"--his father's words began to ring in his memory.
+He sighed sadly and cast a glance around him. The tree leaves were
+fluttering from the rain, and the air was full of mournful sounds. The
+gray sky seemed as though weeping, and on the trees cold tears were
+trembling. And Foma's soul was dry, dark; it was filled with a painful
+feeling of orphanhood. But this feeling gave birth to the question:
+
+"How shall I live now that I am alone?"
+
+The rain drenched his clothes, and when he felt that he was shivering
+with cold he arose and went into the house.
+
+Life was tugging him from all sides, giving him no chance to be
+concentrated in thinking of and grieving for his father, and on the
+fortieth day after Ignat's death Foma, attired in holiday clothes,
+with a pleasant feeling in his heart, went to the ceremony of the
+corner-stone laying of the lodging-asylum. Medinskaya notified him in
+a letter the day before, that he had been elected as a member of the
+building committee and also as honorary member of the society of which
+she was president. This pleased him and he was greatly agitated by the
+part he was to play today at the laying of the corner-stone. On his way
+he thought of how everything would be and how he should behave in order
+not to be confused before the people.
+
+"Eh, eh! Hold on!"
+
+He turned around. Mayakin came hastening to him from the sidewalk.
+He was in a frock-coat that reached his heels, in a high cap, and he
+carried a huge umbrella in his hand.
+
+"Come on, take me up there," said the old man, cleverly jumping into the
+carriage like a monkey. "To tell the truth, I was waiting for you. I was
+looking around, thinking it was time for you to go."
+
+"Are you going there?" asked Foma.
+
+"Of course! I must see how they will bury my friend's money in the
+ground."
+
+Foma looked at him askance and was silent. "Why do you frown upon me?
+Don't fear, you will also start out as a benefactor among men."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Foma, reservedly. "I've read in the newspaper
+this morning that you were elected as a member of the building committee
+and also as an honorary member of Sophya's society."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"This membership will eat into your pocket!" sighed Mayakin.
+
+"That wouldn't ruin me."
+
+"I don't know it," observed the old man, maliciously.
+
+"I speak of this more because there is altogether very little wisdom in
+this charity business, and I may even say that it isn't a business at
+all, but simply harmful nonsense."
+
+"Is it harmful to aid people?" asked Foma, hotly.
+
+"Eh, you cabbage head!" said Mayakin with a smile. "You had better come
+up to my house, I'll open your eyes in regard to this. I must teach you!
+Will you come?"
+
+"Very well, I will come!" replied Foma.
+
+"So. And in the meantime, hold yourself proud at the laying of the
+corner-stone. Stand in view of everybody. If I don't tell this to you,
+you might hide yourself behind somebody's back."
+
+"Why should I hide myself?" said Foma, displeased.
+
+"That's just what I say: there is no reason why. For the money was
+donated by your father and you are entitled to the honour as his heir.
+Honour is just the same as money. With honour a business man will get
+credit everywhere, and everywhere there is a way open to him. Then come
+forward, so that everybody may see you and that if you do five copecks'
+worth of work, you should get a rouble in return for it. And if you will
+hide yourself--nothing but foolishness will be the result."
+
+They arrived at their destination, where all the important people had
+gathered already, and an enormous crowd of people surrounded the piles
+of wood, bricks and earth. The bishop, the governor, the representatives
+of the city's aristocracy and the administration formed, together with
+the splendidly dressed ladies, a big bright group and looked at the
+efforts of the two stonemasons, who were preparing the bricks and the
+lime. Mayakin and his godson wended their way toward this group. He
+whispered to Foma:
+
+"Lose no courage, these people have robbed their bellies to cover
+themselves with silk."
+
+And he greeted the governor before the bishop, in a respectfully
+cheerful voice.
+
+"How do you do, your Excellency? Give me your blessing, your Holiness!"
+
+"Ah, Yakov Tarasovich!" exclaimed the governor with a friendly smile,
+shaking and squeezing Mayakin's hand, while the old man was at the same
+time kissing the bishop's hand. "How are you, deathless old man?"
+
+"I thank you humbly, your Excellency! My respects to Sophya Pavlovna!"
+Mayakin spoke fast, whirling like a peg-top amid the crowd of people.
+In a minute he managed to shake hands with the presiding justice of the
+court, with the prosecutor, with the mayor--in a word, with all those
+people whom he considered it necessary to greet first; such as these,
+however, were few. He jested, smiled and at once attracted everybody's
+attention to his little figure, and Foma with downcast head stood
+behind him, looking askance at these people wrapped in costly stuffs,
+embroidered with gold; he envied the old man's adroitness and lost his
+courage, and feeling that he was losing his courage--he grew still
+more timid. But now Mayakin seized him by the hand and drew him up to
+himself.
+
+"There, your Excellency, this is my godson, Foma, the late Ignat's only
+son."
+
+"Ah!" said the governor in his basso, "I'm very pleased. I sympathise
+with you in your misfortune, young man!" he said, shaking Foma's hand,
+and became silent; then he added resolutely and confidently: "To lose a
+father, that is a very painful misfortune."
+
+And, having waited about two seconds for Foma's answer, he turned away
+from him, addressing Mayakin approvingly:
+
+"I am delighted with the speech you made yesterday in the city hall!
+Beautiful, clever, Yakov Tarasovich. Proposing to use the money for this
+public club, they do not understand the real needs of the population."
+
+"And then, your Excellency, a small capital means that the city will
+have to add its own money."
+
+"Perfectly true! Perfectly true!"
+
+"Temperance, I say, is good! Would to God that all were sober! I don't
+drink, either, but what is the use of these performances, libraries and
+all that, since the people cannot even read?"
+
+The governor replied approvingly.
+
+"Here, I say, you better use this money for a technical institution. If
+it should be established on a small plan, this money alone will suffice,
+and in case it shouldn't, we can ask for more in St. Petersburg--they'll
+give it to us. Then the city wouldn't have to add of its own money, and
+the whole affair would be more sensible."
+
+"Precisely! I fully agree with you! But how the liberals began to cry at
+you! Eh? Ha, ha!"
+
+"That has always been their business, to cry."
+
+The deep cough of the archdeacon of the cathedral announced the
+beginning of the divine service.
+
+Sophya Pavlovna came up to Foma, greeted him and said in a sad, low
+voice:
+
+"I looked at your face on the day of the funeral, and my heart saddened.
+My God, I thought, how he must suffer!"
+
+And Foma listened to her and felt as though he was drinking honey.
+
+"These cries of yours, they shook my soul, my poor child! I may speak to
+you this way, for I am an old woman already."
+
+"You!" exclaimed Foma, softly.
+
+"Isn't that so?" she asked, naively looking into his face.
+
+Foma was silent, his head bent on his breast.
+
+"Don't you believe that I am an old woman?"
+
+"I believe you; that is, I believe everything you may say; only this is
+not true!" said Foma, feelingly, in a low voice.
+
+"What is not true? What do you believe me?"
+
+"No! not this, but that. I--excuse me! I cannot speak!" said Foma,
+sadly, all aflush with confusion. "I am not cultured."
+
+"You need not trouble yourself on this account," said Medinskaya,
+patronisingly. "You are so young, and education is accessible
+to everybody. But there are people to whom education is not only
+unnecessary, but who can also be harmed by it. Those that are pure of
+heart, sanguine, sincere, like children, and you are of those people.
+You are, are you not?"
+
+What could Foma say in answer to this question? He said sincerely:
+
+"I thank you humbly!"
+
+And noticing that his words called forth a gay gleam in Medinskaya's
+eyes, Foma appeared ridiculous and stupid in his own eyes; he
+immediately became angry at himself and said in a muffled voice:
+
+"Yes, I am such. I always speak my mind. I cannot deceive. If I see
+something to laugh at, I laugh openly. I am stupid!"
+
+"What makes you speak that way?" said the woman, reproachfully, and
+adjusting her dress, she accidentally stroked Foma's hand, in which he
+held his hat. This made him look at his wrist and smile joyously and
+confusedly.
+
+"You will surely be present at the dinner, won't you?" asked Medinskaya.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And tomorrow at the meeting in my house?"
+
+"Without fail!"
+
+"And perhaps sometime you will drop in, simply on a visit, wouldn't
+you?"
+
+"I--I thank you! I'll come!"
+
+"I must thank you for the promise."
+
+They became silent. In the air soared the reverently soft voice of the
+bishop, who recited the prayer expressively, outstretching his hand over
+the place where the corner-stone of the house was laid:
+
+"May neither the wind, nor water, nor anything else bring harm unto it;
+may it be completed in thy benevolence, and free all those that are to
+live in it from all kinds of calumny."
+
+"How rich and beautiful our prayers are, are they not?" asked
+Medinskaya.
+
+"Yes," said Foma, shortly, without understanding her words and feeling
+that he was blushing again.
+
+"They will always be opponents of our commercial interests," Mayakin
+whispered loudly and convincingly, standing beside the city mayor, not
+far from Foma. "What is it to them? All they want is somehow to deserve
+the approval of the newspaper. But they cannot reach the main point.
+They live for mere display, not for the organisation of life; these
+are their only measures: the newspapers and Sweden! [Mayakin speaks of
+Sweden, meaning Switzerland.--Translator's note.] The doctor scoffed at
+me all day yesterday with this Sweden. The public education, says he,
+in Sweden, and everything else there is first-class! But what is Sweden,
+anyway? It may be that Sweden is but a fib, is but used as an example,
+and that there is no education whatever or any of the other things
+there. And then, we don't live for the sake of Sweden, and Sweden cannot
+put us to test. We have to make our lip according to our own last. Isn't
+it so?"
+
+And the archdeacon droned, his head thrown back:
+
+"Eternal me-emo-ory to the founder of this ho-ouse!"
+
+Foma shuddered, but Mayakin was already by his side, and pulling him by
+the sleeve, asked:
+
+"Are you going to the dinner?"
+
+And Medinskaya's velvet-like, warm little hand glided once more over
+Foma's hand.
+
+The dinner was to Foma a real torture. For the first time in his
+life among these uniformed people, he saw that they were eating and
+speaking--doing everything better than he, and he felt that between him
+and Medinskaya, who was seated just opposite him, was a high mountain,
+not a table. Beside him sat the secretary of the society of which Foma
+had been made an honorary member; he was a young court officer, bearing
+the odd name of Ookhtishchev. As if to make his name appear more
+absurd than it really was, he spoke in a loud, ringing tenor, and
+altogether--plump, short, round-faced and a lively talker--he looked
+like a brand new bell.
+
+"The very best thing in our society is the patroness; the most
+reasonable is what we are doing--courting the patroness; the most
+difficult is to tell the patroness such a compliment as would satisfy
+her; and the most sensible thing is to admire the patroness silently and
+hopelessly. So that in reality, you are a member not of 'the Society
+of Solicitude,' and so on, but of the Society of Tantaluses, which is
+composed of persons bent on pleasing Sophya Medinskaya."
+
+Foma listened to his chatter, now and then looking at the patroness, who
+was absorbed in a conversation with the chief of the police; Foma roared
+in reply to his interlocutor, pretending to be busy eating, and he
+wished that all this would end the sooner. He felt that he was wretched,
+stupid, ridiculous and he was certain that everybody was watching and
+censuring him. This tied him with invisible shackles, thus checking his
+words and his thoughts. At last he went so far, that the line of various
+physiognomies, stretched out by the table opposite him, seemed to him a
+long and wavy white strip besprinkled with laughing eyes, and all these
+eyes were pricking him unpleasantly and painfully.
+
+Mayakin sat near the city mayor, waved his fork in the air quickly,
+and kept on talking all the time, now contracting, now expanding the
+wrinkles of his face. The mayor, a gray-headed, red-faced, short-necked
+man, stared at him like a bull, with obstinate attention and at times he
+rapped on the edge of the table with his big finger affirmatively. The
+animated talk and laughter drowned his godfather's bold speech, and Foma
+was unable to hear a single word of it, much more so that the tenor of
+the secretary was unceasingly ringing in his ears:
+
+"Look, there, the archdeacon arose; he is filling his lungs with air; he
+will soon proclaim an eternal memory for Ignat Matveyich."
+
+"May I not go away?" asked Foma in a low voice.
+
+"Why not? Everybody will understand this."
+
+The deacon's resounding voice drowned and seemed to have crushed the
+noise in the hail; the eminent merchants fixed their eyes on the big,
+wide-open mouth, from which a deep sound was streaming forth, and
+availing himself of this moment, Foma arose from his seat and left the
+hall.
+
+After awhile he breathed freely and, sitting in his cab, thought sadly
+that there was no place for him amid these people. Inwardly, he called
+them polished. He did not like their brilliancy, their faces, their
+smiles or their words, but the freedom and the cleverness of their
+movements, their ability to speak much and on any subject, their pretty
+costumes--all this aroused in him a mixture of envy and respect for
+them. He felt sad and oppressed at the consciousness of being unable to
+talk so much and so fluently as all these people, and here he recalled
+that Luba Mayakina had more than once scoffed at him on this account.
+
+Foma did not like Mayakin's daughter, and since he had learned from his
+father of Mayakin's intention to marry him to Luba, the young Gordyeeff
+began to shun her. But after his father's death he was almost every day
+at the Mayakins, and somehow Luba said to him one day:
+
+"I am looking at you, and, do you know?--you do not resemble a merchant
+at all."
+
+"Nor do you look like a merchant's daughter," said Foma, and looked at
+her suspiciously. He did not understand the meaning of her words; did
+she mean to offend him, or did she say these words without any kind
+thoughts?
+
+"Thank God for this!" said she and smiled to him a kind, friendly smile.
+
+"What makes you so glad?" he asked.
+
+"The fact that we don't resemble our fathers."
+
+Foma glanced at her in astonishment and kept silent.
+
+"Tell me frankly," said she, lowering her voice, "you do not love my
+father, do you? You don't like him?"
+
+"Not very much," said Foma, slowly.
+
+"And I dislike him very much."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"For everything. When you grow wiser, you will know it yourself. Your
+father was a better man."
+
+"Of course!" said Foma, proudly.
+
+After this conversation an attachment sprang up between them almost
+immediately, and growing stronger from day to day, it soon developed
+into friendship, though a somewhat odd friendship it was.
+
+Though Luba was not older than her god-brother, she nevertheless treated
+him as an older person would treat a little boy. She spoke to him
+condescendingly, often jesting at his expense; her talk was always full
+of words which were unfamiliar to Foma; and she pronounced these
+words with particular emphasis and with evident satisfaction. She was
+especially fond of speaking about her brother Taras, whom she had never
+seen, but of whom she was telling such stories as would make him look
+like Aunt Anfisa's brave and noble robbers. Often, when complaining of
+her father, she said to Foma:
+
+"You will also be just such a skinflint."
+
+All this was unpleasant to the youth and stung his vanity. But at
+times she was straightforward, simple-minded, and particularly kind and
+friendly to him; then he would unburden his heart before her, and for a
+long time they would share each other's thoughts and feelings.
+
+Both spoke a great deal and spoke sincerely, but neither one understood
+the other; it seemed to Foma that whatever Luba had to say was foreign
+to him and unnecessary to her, and at the same time he clearly saw that
+his awkward words did not at all interest her, and that she did not care
+to understand them. No matter how long these conversations lasted, they
+gave both of them the sensation of discomfort and dissatisfaction. As
+if an invisible wall of perplexity had suddenly arisen and stood between
+them. They did not venture to touch this wall, or to tell each other
+that they felt it was there--they resumed their conversations, dimly
+conscious that there was something in each of them that might bind and
+unite them.
+
+When Foma arrived at his godfather's house, he found Luba alone. She
+came out to meet him, and it was evident that she was either ill or out
+of humour; her eyes were flashing feverishly and were surrounded with
+black circles. Feeling cold, she muffled herself in a warm shawl and
+said with a smile:
+
+"It is good that you've come! For I was sitting here alone; it is
+lonesome--I don't feel like going anywhere. Will you drink tea?"
+
+"I will. What is the matter with you, are you ill?"
+
+"Go to the dining-room, and I'll tell them to bring the samovar," she
+said, not answering his question.
+
+He went into one of the small rooms of the house, whose two windows
+overlooked the garden. In the middle of the room stood an oval table,
+surrounded with old-fashioned, leather-covered chairs; on one partition
+hung a clock in a long case with a glass door, in the corner was a
+cupboard for dishes, and opposite the windows, by the walls, was an
+oaken sideboard as big as a fair-sized room.
+
+"Are you coming from the banquet?" asked Luba, entering.
+
+Foma nodded his head mutely.
+
+"Well, how was it? Grand?"
+
+"It was terrible!" Foma smiled. "I sat there as if on hot coals. They
+all looked there like peacocks, while I looked like a barn-owl."
+
+Luba was taking out dishes from the cupboard and said nothing to Foma.
+
+"Really, why are you so sad?" asked Foma again, glancing at her gloomy
+face.
+
+She turned to him and said with enthusiasm and anxiety:
+
+"Ah, Foma! What a book I've read! If you could only understand it!"
+
+"It must be a good book, since it worked you up in this way," said Foma,
+smiling.
+
+"I did not sleep. I read all night long. Just think of it: you read--and
+it seems to you that the gates of another kingdom are thrown open
+before you. And the people there are different, and their language is
+different, everything different! Life itself is different there."
+
+"I don't like this," said Foma, dissatisfied. "That's all fiction,
+deceit; so is the theatre. The merchants are ridiculed there. Are they
+really so stupid? Of course! Take your father, for example."
+
+"The theatre and the school are one and the same, Foma," said Luba,
+instructively. "The merchants used to be like this. And what deceit can
+there be in books?"
+
+"Just as in fairy--tales, nothing is real."
+
+"You are wrong! You have read no books; how can you judge? Books are
+precisely real. They teach you how to live."
+
+"Come, come!" Foma waved his hand. "Drop it; no good will come out of
+your books! There, take your father, for example, does he read books?
+And yet he is clever! I looked at him today and envied him. His
+relations with everybody are so free, so clever, he has a word for each
+and every one. You can see at once that whatever he should desire he is
+sure to attain."
+
+"What is he striving for?" exclaimed Luba. "Nothing but money. But there
+are people that want happiness for all on earth, and to gain this end
+they work without sparing themselves; they suffer and perish! How can my
+father be compared with these?"
+
+"You need not compare them. They evidently like one thing, while your
+father likes another."
+
+"They do not like anything!"
+
+How's that?
+
+"They want to change everything."
+
+"So they do strive for something?" said Foma, thoughtfully. "They do
+wish for something?"
+
+"They wish for happiness for all!" cried Luba, hotly. "I can't
+understand this," said Foma, nodding his head. "Who cares there for my
+happiness? And then again, what happiness can they give me, since I,
+myself, do not know as yet what I want? No, you should have rather
+looked at those that were at the banquet."
+
+"Those are not men!" announced Luba, categorically.
+
+"I do not know what they are in your eyes, but you can see at once that
+they know their place. A clever, easy-going lot."
+
+"Ah, Foma!" exclaimed Luba, vexed. "You understand nothing! Nothing
+agitates you! You are an idler."
+
+"Now, that's going too far! I've simply not had time enough to see where
+I am."
+
+"You are simply an empty man," said Luba, resolutely and firmly.
+
+"You were not within my soul," replied Foma, calmly. "You cannot know my
+thoughts."
+
+"What is there that you should think of?" said Luba, shrugging her
+shoulders.
+
+"So? First of all, I am alone. Secondly, I must live. Don't I understand
+that it is altogether impossible for me to live as I am now? I do not
+care to be made the laughing-stock of others. I cannot even speak
+to people. No, nor can I think." Foma concluded his words and smiled
+confusedly.
+
+"It is necessary to read, to study," Luba advised him convincingly,
+pacing up and down the room.
+
+"Something is stirring within my soul," Foma went on, not looking at
+her, as though speaking to himself; "but I cannot tell what it is.
+I see, for instance, that whatever my godfather says is clever and
+reasonable. But that does not attract me. The other people are by far
+more interesting to me."
+
+"You mean the aristocrats?" asked Luba.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That's just the place for you!" said Luba, with a smile of contempt.
+"Eh, you! Are they men? Do they have souls?"
+
+"How do you know them? You are not acquainted with them."
+
+"And the books? Have I not read books about them?"
+
+The maid brought in the samovar, and the conversation was interrupted.
+Luba made tea in silence while Foma looked at her and thought of
+Medinskaya. He was wishing to have a talk with her.
+
+"Yes," said the girl, thoughtfully, "I am growing more and more
+convinced everyday that it is hard to live. What shall I do? Marry?
+Whom? Shall I marry a merchant who will do nothing but rob people all
+his life, nothing but drink and play cards? A savage? I do not want
+it! I want to be an individual. I am such, for I know how wrong the
+construction of life is. Shall I study? My father will not allow this.
+Oh Lord! Shall I run away? I have not enough courage. What am I to do?"
+
+She clasped her hands and bowed her head over the table.
+
+"If you knew but how repulsive everything is. There is not a living soul
+around here. Since my mother died, my father drove everyone away. Some
+went off to study. Lipa, too, left us. She writes me:
+
+'Read.' Ah, I am reading! I am reading!' she exclaimed, with despair in
+her voice, and after a moment's silence she went on sadly:
+
+"Books do not contain what the heart needs most, and there's much I
+cannot understand in them. And then, I feel weary to be reading all the
+time alone, alone! I want to speak to a man, but there is none to speak
+to! I feel disgusted. We live but once, and it is high time for me to
+live, and yet there is not a soul! Wherefore shall I live? Lipa tells
+me: 'Read and you will understand it.' I want bread and she gives me
+a stone. I understand what one must do--one must stand up for what he
+loves and believes. He must fight for it."
+
+And she concluded, uttering something like a moan:
+
+"But I am alone! Whom shall I fight? There are no enemies here. There
+are no men! I live here in a prison!"
+
+Foma listened to her words, fixedly examining the fingers of his hand;
+he felt that in her words was some great distress, but he could not
+understand her. And when she became silent, depressed and sad, he found
+nothing to tell her save a few words that were like a reproach:
+
+"There, you yourself say that books are worthless to you, and yet you
+instruct me to read."
+
+She looked into his face, and anger flashed in her eyes.
+
+"Oh, how I wish that all these torments would awaken within you, the
+torments that constantly oppress me. That your thoughts, like mine,
+would rob you of your sleep, that you, too, would be disgusted with
+everything, and with yourself as well! I despise every one of you. I
+hate you!"
+
+All aflush, she looked at him so angrily and spoke with so much
+spitefulness, that in his astonishment he did not even feel offended by
+her. She had never before spoken to him in such manner.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" he asked her.
+
+"I hate you, too! You, what are you? Dead, empty; how will you live?
+What will you give to mankind?" she said with malice, in a low voice.
+
+"I'll give nothing; let them strive for it themselves," answered Foma,
+knowing that these words would augment her anger.
+
+"Unfortunate creature!" exclaimed the girl with contempt.
+
+The assurance and the power of her reproaches involuntarily compelled
+Foma to listen attentively to her spiteful words; he felt there was
+common sense in them. He even came nearer to her, but she, enraged and
+exasperated, turned away from him and became silent.
+
+It was still light outside, and the reflection of the setting sun lay
+still on the branches of the linden-trees before the windows, but the
+room was already filled with twilight, and the sideboard, the clock and
+the cupboard seemed to have grown in size. The huge pendulum peeped
+out every moment from beneath the glass of the clock-case, and flashing
+dimly, was hiding with a weary sound now on the right side, now on
+the left. Foma looked at the pendulum and he began to feel awkward and
+lonesome. Luba arose and lighted the lamp which was hanging over the
+table. The girl's face was pale and stern.
+
+"You went for me," said Foma, reservedly. "What for? I can't
+understand."
+
+"I don't want to speak to you!" replied Luba, angrily.
+
+"That's your affair. But nevertheless, what wrong have I done to you?"
+
+"You?
+
+"I."
+
+"Understand me, I am suffocating! It is close here. Is this life? Is
+this the way how to live? What am I? I am a hanger-on in my father's
+house. They keep me here as a housekeeper. Then they'll marry me! Again
+housekeeping. It's a swamp. I am drowning, suffocating."
+
+"And what have I to do with it?" asked Foma.
+
+"You are no better than the others."
+
+"And therefore I am guilty before you?"
+
+"Yes, guilty! You must desire to be better."
+
+"But do I not wish it?" exclaimed Foma.
+
+The girl was about to tell him something, but at this time the bell
+began to ring somewhere, and she said in a low voice, leaning back in
+her chair:
+
+"It's father."
+
+"I would not feel sorry if he stayed away a little longer," said Foma.
+"I wish I could listen to you some more. You speak so very oddly."
+
+"Ah! my children, my doves!" exclaimed Yakov Tarasovich, appearing in
+the doorway. "You're drinking tea? Pour out some tea for me, Lugava!"
+
+Sweetly smiling, and rubbing his hands, he sat down near Foma and asked,
+playfully jostling him in the side:
+
+"What have you been cooing about?"
+
+"So--about different trifles," answered Luba.
+
+"I haven't asked you, have I?" said her father to her, with a grimace.
+"You just sit there, hold your tongue, and mind your woman's affairs."
+
+"I've been telling her about the dinner," Foma interrupted his
+godfather's words.
+
+"Aha! So-o-o. Well, then, I'll also speak about the dinner. I have been
+watching you of late. You don't behave yourself sensibly!"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Foma, knitting his brow, ill pleased.
+
+"I just mean that your behaviour is preposterous, and that's all. When
+the governor, for instance, speaks to you, you keep quiet."
+
+"What should I tell him? He says that it is a misfortune to lose a
+father. Well, I know it. What could I tell him?"
+
+"But as the Lord willed it so, I do not grumble, your Excellency. That's
+what you should have said, or something in this spirit. Governors, my
+dear, are very fond of meekness in a man."
+
+"Was I to look at him like a lamb?" said Foma, with a smile.
+
+"You did look like a lamb, and that was unnecessary. You must look
+neither like a lamb, nor like a wolf, but just play off before him as
+though saying: 'You are our father, we are your children,' and he will
+immediately soften."
+
+"And what is this for?"
+
+"For any event. A governor, my dear, can always be of use somewhere."
+
+"What do you teach him, papa?" said Luba, indignantly, in a low voice.
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+"To dance attendance."
+
+"You lie, you learned fool! I teach him politics, not dancing
+attendance; I teach him the politics of life. You had better leave us
+alone! Depart from evil, and prepare some lunch for us. Go ahead!"
+
+Luba rose quickly and throwing the towel across the back of the chair,
+left the room. Mayakin, winking his eyes, looked after her, tapped the
+table with his fingers and said:
+
+"I shall instruct you, Foma. I shall teach you the most genuine, true
+knowledge and philosophy, and if you understand them, your life will be
+faultless."
+
+Foma saw how the wrinkles on the old man's forehead were twitching, and
+they seemed to him like lines of Slavonic letters.
+
+"First of all, Foma, since you live on this earth, it is your duty to
+think over everything that takes place about you. Why? That you may
+not suffer for your own senselessness, and may not harm others by your
+folly. Now, every act of man is double-faced, Foma. One is visible to
+all--this is the wrong side; the other is concealed--and that is the
+real one. It is that one that you must be able to find in order to
+understand the sense of the thing. Take for example the lodging-asylums,
+the work-houses, the poor-houses and other similar institutions. Just
+consider, what are they for?"
+
+"What is there to consider here?" said Foma, wearily "Everybody knows
+what they are for--for the poor and feeble."
+
+"Eh, dear! Sometimes everybody knows that a certain man is a rascal and
+a scoundrel, and yet all call him Ivan or Peter, and instead of abusing
+him they respectfully add his father's name to his own."
+
+"What has this to do with it?"
+
+"It's all to the point. So you say that these houses are for the poor,
+for beggars, consequently, in accordance with Christ's commandment.
+Very well! But who is the beggar? The beggar is a man, forced by fate
+to remind us of Christ; he is a brother of Christ; he is the bell of the
+Lord and he rings in life to rouse our conscience, to arouse the satiety
+of the flesh of man. He stands by the window and sings out: 'For the
+sake of Christ!' and by his singing he reminds us of Christ, of His holy
+commandment to help the neighbour. But men have so arranged their life
+that it is impossible for them to act according to the teachings of
+Christ, and Jesus Christ has become altogether unnecessary to us. Not
+one time, but perhaps a hundred thousand times have we turned Him
+over to the cross, and yet we cannot drive Him altogether out of life,
+because His poor brethren sing His Holy name on the streets and thus
+remind us of Him. And now we have arranged to lock up these beggars
+in separate houses that they should not walk around on the streets and
+should not rouse our conscience.
+
+"Cle-ver!" whispered Foma, amazed, staring fixedly at his godfather.
+
+"Aha!" exclaimed Mayakin, his eyes beaming with triumph.
+
+"How is it that my father did not think of this?" asked Foma, uneasily.
+
+"Just wait! Listen further, it is still worse. So you see, we have
+arranged to lock them up in all sorts of houses and that they might be
+kept there cheaply, we have compelled those old and feeble beggars
+to work and we need give no alms now, and since our streets have been
+cleared of the various ragged beggars, we do not see their terrible
+distress and poverty, and we may, therefore, think that all men on earth
+are well-fed, shod and clothed. That's what all these different houses
+are for, for the concealment of the truth, for the banishment of Christ
+from our life! Is this clear to you?"
+
+"Yes!" said Foma, confused by the old man's clever words.
+
+"And this is not all. The pool is not yet baled out to the bottom!"
+exclaimed Mayakin, swinging his hand in the air with animation.
+
+The wrinkles of his face were in motion; his long, ravenous nose was
+stirring, and in his voice rang notes of irritability and emotion.
+
+"Now, let us look at this thing from the other side. Who contributes
+most in favour of the poor, for the support of these houses, asylums,
+poor-houses? The rich people, the merchants, our body of merchants.
+Very well! And who commands our life and regulates it? The nobles, the
+functionaries and all sorts of other people, not belonging to our class.
+From them come the laws, the newspapers, science--everything from them.
+Before, they were land-owners, now their land was snatched away from
+them--and they started out in service. Very well! But who are the most
+powerful people today? The merchant is the supreme power in an empire,
+because he has the millions on his side! Isn't that so?"
+
+"True!" assented Foma, eager to hear the sooner that which was to
+follow, and which was already sparkling in the eyes of his godfather.
+
+"Just mark this," the old man went on distinctly and impressively. "We
+merchants had no hand in the arrangement of life, nor do we have a voice
+or a hand in it today. Life was arranged by others, and it is they that
+multiplied all sorts of scabs in life--idlers and poor unfortunates;
+and since by multiplying them they obstructed life and spoilt it--it is,
+justly judging, now their duty to purify it. But we are purifying it,
+we contribute money for the poor, we look after them--we, judge it for
+yourself, why should we mend another's rags, since we did not tear them?
+Why should we repair a house, since others have lived in it and since
+it belongs to others? Were it not wiser for us to step aside and watch
+until a certain time how rottenness is multiplying and choking those
+that are strangers to us? They cannot conquer it, they have not the
+means to do it. Then they will turn to us and say: 'Pray, help us,
+gentlemen!' and we'll tell them: 'Let us have room for our work! Rank us
+among the builders of this same life!' And as soon as they do this we,
+too, will have to clear life at one sweep of all sorts of filth and
+chaff. Then the Emperor will see with his clear eyes who are really his
+faithful servants, and how much wisdom they have saved up while their
+hands were idle. Do you understand?"
+
+"Of course, I do!" exclaimed Foma.
+
+When his godfather spoke of the functionaries, Foma reminded himself
+of the people that were present at the dinner; he recalled the brisk
+secretary, and a thought flashed through his mind that this stout little
+man has in all probability an income of no more than a thousand roubles
+a year, while he, Foma, has a million. But that man lives so easily and
+freely, while he, Foma, does not know how to live, is indeed abashed to
+live. This comparison and his godfather's speech roused in him a whirl
+of thoughts, but he had time to grasp and express only one of them:
+
+"Indeed, do we work for the sake of money only? What's the use of money
+if it can give us no power?"
+
+"Aha!" said Mayakin, winking his eyes.
+
+"Eh!" exclaimed Foma, offended. "How about my father? Have you spoken to
+him?"
+
+"I spoke to him for twenty years."
+
+"Well, how about him?"
+
+"My words did not reach him. The crown of your father's head was rather
+thick. His soul was open to all, while his mind was hidden away far
+within him. Yes, he made a blunder, and I am very sorry about the
+money."
+
+"I am not sorry for the money."
+
+"You should have tried to earn even a tenth part of it, then speak."
+
+"May I come in?" came Luba's voice from behind the door.
+
+"Yes, step right in," said the father.
+
+"Will you have lunch now?" she asked, entering.
+
+"Let us have it."
+
+She walked up to the sideboard and soon the dishes were rattling. Yakov
+Tarasovich looked at her, moved his lips, and suddenly striking Foma's
+knee with his hand, he said to him:
+
+"That's the way, my godson! Think."
+
+Foma responded with a smile and thought: "But he's clever--cleverer than
+my father."
+
+But another voice within him immediately replied:
+
+"Cleverer, but worse."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+FOMA'S dual relation toward Mayakin grew stronger and stronger as time
+went on; listening to his words attentively and with eager curiosity, he
+felt that each meeting with his godfather was strengthening in him the
+feeling of hostility toward the old man. Sometimes Yakov Tarasovich
+roused in his godson a feeling akin to fear, sometimes even physical
+aversion. The latter usually came to Foma whenever the old man was
+pleased with something and laughed. From laughter the old man's wrinkles
+would tremble, thus changing the expression of his face every now
+and then; his dry, thin lips would stretch out and move nervously,
+displaying black broken teeth, and his red little beard was as though
+aflame. His laughter sounded like the squeaking of rusty hinges, and
+altogether the old man looked like a lizard at play. Unable to conceal
+his feelings, Foma often expressed them to Mayakin rather rudely, both
+in words and in gesture, but the old man, pretending not to notice it,
+kept a vigilant eye on him, directing his each and every step. Wholly
+absorbed by the steamship affairs of the young Gordyeeff, he even
+neglected his own little shop, and allowed Foma considerable leisure
+time. Thanks to Mayakin's important position in town and to his
+extensive acquaintance on the Volga, business was splendid, but
+Mayakin's zealous interest in his affairs strengthened Foma's suspicions
+that his godfather was firmly resolved to marry him to Luba, and this
+made the old man more repulsive to him.
+
+He liked Luba, but at the same time she seemed suspicious and dangerous
+for him. She did not marry, and Mayakin never said a word about it; he
+gave no evening parties, invited none of the youths to his house and did
+not allow Luba to leave the house. And all her girl friends were married
+already. Foma admired her words and listened to her just as eagerly as
+to her father; but whenever she started to speak of Taras with love and
+anguish, it seemed to him that she was hiding another man under that
+name, perhaps that same Yozhov, who according to her words, had to leave
+the university for some reason or other, and go to Moscow. There was a
+great deal of simplemindedness and kindness in her, which pleased Foma,
+and ofttimes her words awakened in him a feeling of pity for her; it
+seemed to him that she was not alive, that she was dreaming though
+awake.
+
+His conduct at the funeral feast for his father became known to all the
+merchants and gave him a bad reputation. On the Exchange, he noticed,
+everybody looked at him sneeringly, malevolently, and spoke to him in
+some peculiar way. One day he heard behind him a low exclamation, full
+of contempt:
+
+"Gordyeeff! Milksop!"
+
+He felt that this was said of him, but he did not turn around to see who
+it was that flung those words at him. The rich people, who had inspired
+him with timidity before, were now losing in his eyes the witchery of
+their wealth and wisdom. They had more than once snatched out of his
+hands this or that profitable contract; he clearly saw that they would
+do it again, and they all seemed to him alike--greedy for money, always
+ready to cheat one another. When he imparted to his godfather his
+observation, the old man said:
+
+"How then? Business is just the same as war--a hazardous affair. There
+they fight for the purse, and in the purse is the soul."
+
+"I don't like this," announced Foma.
+
+"Neither do I like everything--there's too much fraud.
+
+"But to be fair in business matters is utterly impossible; you must be
+shrewd! In business, dear, on approaching a man you must hold honey in
+your left hand, and clutch a knife in your right. Everybody would like
+to buy five copecks' worth for a half a copeck."
+
+"Well, this isn't too good," said Foma, thoughtfully. "But it will be
+good later. When you have taken the upper hand, then it will be good.
+Life, dear Foma, is very simple: either bite everybody, or lie in the
+gutter."
+
+The old man smiled, and the broken teeth in his mouth roused in Foma the
+keen thought:
+
+"You have bitten many, it seems."
+
+"There's but one word--battle!" repeated the old man.
+
+"Is this the real one?" asked Foma, looking at Mayakin searchingly.
+
+"That is, what do you mean--the real?"
+
+"Is there nothing better than this? Does this contain everything?"
+
+"Where else should it be? Everybody lives for himself. Each of us wishes
+the best for himself. And what is the best? To go in front of others, to
+stand above them. So that everybody is trying to attain the first place
+in life--one by this means, another by that means. But everyone is
+positively anxious to be seen from afar, like a tower. And man was
+indeed appointed to go upward. Even the Book of Job says: 'Man is born
+unto trouble, as the sparks, to fly upward.' Just see: even children at
+play always wish to surpass one another. And each and every game has its
+climax, which makes it interesting. Do you understand?"
+
+"I understand this!" said Foma, firmly and confidently.
+
+"But you must also feel this. With understanding alone you cannot go
+far, and you must desire, and desire so that a big mountain should seem
+to you but a hillock, and the sea but a puddle. Eh! When I was of your
+age I had an easy life, while you are only taking aim. But then, good
+fruit does not ripen early."
+
+The old man's monotonous speeches soon accomplished what they were
+intended to do. Foma listened to them and made clear to himself the aim
+of life. He must be better than others, he resolved, and the ambition,
+kindled by the old man, took deep root in his heart. It took root
+within his heart, but did not fill it up, for Foma's relations toward
+Medinskaya assumed that character, which they were bound to assume. He
+longed for her, he always yearned to see her; while in her presence
+he became timid, awkward and stupid; he knew it and suffered on this
+account. He frequently visited her, but it was hard to find her at home
+alone; perfumed dandies like flies over a piece of sugar--were always
+flitting about her. They spoke to her in French, sang and laughed, while
+he looked at them in silence, tortured by anger and jealousy. His
+legs crossed, he sat somewhere in a corner of her richly furnished
+drawing-room, where it was extremely difficult to walk without
+overturning or at least striking against something--Foma sat and watched
+them sternly.
+
+Over the soft rugs she was noiselessly passing hither and thither,
+casting to him kind glances and smiles, while her admirers were fawning
+upon her, and they all, like serpents, were cleverly gliding by the
+various little tables, chairs, screens, flower-stands--a storehouse
+full of beautiful and frail things, scattered about the room with a
+carelessness equally dangerous to them and to Foma. But when he walked
+there, the rugs did not drown his footsteps, and all these things caught
+at his coat, trembled and fell. Beside the piano stood a sailor made of
+bronze, whose hand was lifted, ready to throw the life-saving ring; on
+this ring were ropes of wire, and these always pulled Foma by the hair.
+All this provoked laughter among Sophya Pavlovna and her admirers, and
+Foma suffered greatly, changing from heat to cold.
+
+But he felt no less uncomfortable even when alone with her. Greeting him
+with a kindly smile, she would take a seat beside him in one of the cosy
+corners of her drawing-room and would usually start her conversation by
+complaining to him of everybody:
+
+"You wouldn't believe how glad I am to see you!" Bending like a cat,
+she would gaze into his eyes with her dark glance, in which something
+avidious would now flash up.
+
+"I love to speak to you," she said, musically drawling her words. "I've
+grown tired of all the rest of them. They're all so boring, ordinary
+and worn-out, while you are fresh, sincere. You don't like those people
+either, do you?"
+
+"I can't bear them!" replied Foma, firmly.
+
+"And me?" she asked softly.
+
+Foma turned his eyes away from her and said, with a sigh:
+
+"How many times have you asked me that?"
+
+"Is it hard for you to tell me?"
+
+"It isn't hard, but what for?"
+
+"I must know it."
+
+"You are making sport of me," said Foma, sternly. And she opened her
+eyes wide and inquired in a tone of great astonishment:
+
+"How do I make sport of you? What does it mean to make sport?"
+
+And her face looked so angelic that he could not help believing her.
+
+"I love you! I love you! It is impossible not to love you!" said he
+hotly, and immediately added sadly, lowering his voice: "But you don't
+need it!"
+
+"There you have it!" sighed Medinskaya, satisfied, drawing back from
+him. "I am always extremely pleased to hear you say this, with so much
+youthfulness and originality. Would you like to kiss my hand?"
+
+Without saying a word he seized her thin, white little hand and
+carefully bending down to it, he passionately kissed it for a long time.
+Smiling and graceful, not in the least moved by his passion, she freed
+her hand from his. Pensively, she looked at him with that strange
+glitter in her eyes, which always confused Foma; she examined him as
+something rare and extremely curious, and said:
+
+"How much strength and power and freshness of soul you possess! Do you
+know? You merchants are an altogether new race, an entire race with
+original traditions, with an enormous energy of body and soul. Take you,
+for instance--you are a precious stone, and you should be polished. Oh!"
+
+Whenever she told him: "You," or "according to your merchant fashion,"
+it seemed to Foma that she was pushing him away from her with these
+words. This at once saddened and offended him. He was silent, looking
+at her small maidenly figure, which was always somehow particularly well
+dressed, always sweet-scented like a flower. Sometimes he was seized
+with a wild, coarse desire to embrace and kiss her. But her beauty
+and the fragility of her thin, supple body awakened in him a fear of
+breaking and disfiguring her, and her calm, caressing voice and the
+clear, but somewhat cautious look of her eyes chilled his passion;
+it seemed to him as though she were looking straight into his soul,
+divining all his thoughts. But these bursts of emotion were rare.
+Generally the youth regarded Medinskaya with adoration, admiring
+everything in her--her beauty, her words, her dresses. And beside
+this adoration there was in him a painfully keen consciousness of his
+remoteness from her, of her supremacy over him.
+
+These relations were established between them within a short time; after
+two or three meetings Medinskaya was in full possession of the youth and
+she slowly began to torture him. Evidently she liked to have a healthy,
+strong youth at her mercy; she liked to rouse and tame the animal in
+him merely with her voice and glance, and confident of the power of her
+superiority, she found pleasure in thus playing with him. On leaving
+her, he was usually half-sick from excitement, bearing her a grudge,
+angry with himself, filled with many painful and intoxicating
+sensations. And about two days later he would come to undergo the same
+torture again.
+
+One day he asked her timidly:
+
+"Sophya Pavlovna! Have you ever had any children?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I thought not!" exclaimed Foma with delight.
+
+She cast at him the look of a very naive little girl, and said:
+
+"What made you think so? And why do you want to know whether I had any
+children or not?"
+
+Foma blushed, and, bending his head, began to speak to her in a heavy
+voice, as though he was lifting every word from the ground and as though
+each word weighed a few puds.
+
+"You see--a woman who--has given birth to children--such a woman has
+altogether different eyes."
+
+"So? What kind are they then?"
+
+"Shameless!" Foma blurted out.
+
+Medinskaya broke into her silver laughter, and Foma, looking at her,
+also began to laugh.
+
+"Excuse me!" said he, at length. "Perhaps I've said something wrong,
+improper."
+
+"Oh, no, no! You cannot say anything improper. You are a pure, amiable
+boy. And so, my eyes are not shameless?"
+
+"Yours are like an angel's!" announced Foma with enthusiasm, looking
+at her with beaming eyes. And she glanced at him, as she had never done
+before; her look was that of a mother, a sad look of love mingled with
+fear for the beloved.
+
+"Go, dear one. I am tired; I need a rest," she said to him, as she rose
+without looking at him. He went away submissively.
+
+For some time after this incident her attitude toward him was stricter
+and more sincere, as though she pitied him, but later their relations
+assumed the old form of the cat-and-mouse play.
+
+Foma's relation toward Medinskaya could not escape his godfather's
+notice, and one day the old man asked him, with a malicious grimace:
+
+"Foma! You had better feel your head more often so that you may not lose
+it by accident."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Foma.
+
+"I speak of Sonka. You are going to see her too often."
+
+"What has that to do with you?" said Foma, rather rudely. "And why do
+you call her Sonka?"
+
+"It's nothing to me. I would lose nothing if you should be fleeced.
+And as to calling her Sonka--everybody knows that is her name. So does
+everybody know that she likes to rake up the fire with other people's
+hands."
+
+"She is clever!" announced Foma, firmly, frowning and hiding his hands
+in his pockets. "She is intelligent."
+
+"Clever, that's true! How cleverly she arranged that entertainment;
+there was an income of two thousand four hundred roubles, the
+expenses--one thousand nine hundred; the expenses really did not even
+amount to a thousand roubles, for everybody does everything for her for
+nothing. Intelligent! She will educate you, and especially will those
+idlers that run around her."
+
+"They're not idlers, they are clever people!" replied Foma, angrily,
+contradicting himself now. "And I learn from them. What am I? I know
+nothing. What was I taught? While there they speak of everything--and
+each one has his word to say. Do not hinder me from being like a man."
+
+"Pooh! How you've learned to speak! With so much anger, like the hail
+striking against the roof! Very well, be like a man, but in order to be
+like a man it might be less dangerous for you to go to the tavern; the
+people there are after all better than Sophya's people. And you, young
+man, you should have learned to discriminate one person from another.
+Take Sophya, for instance: What does she represent? An insect for the
+adornment of nature and nothing more!"
+
+Intensely agitated, Foma set his teeth together and walked away from
+Mayakin, thrusting his hands still deeper into his pockets. But the old
+man soon started again a conversation about Medinskaya.
+
+They were on their way back from the bay after an inspection of
+the steamers, and seated in a big and commodious sledge, they were
+enthusiastically discussing business matters in a friendly way. It was
+in March. The water under the sledge-runners was bubbling, the snow was
+already covered with a rather dirty fleece, and the sun shone warmly and
+merrily in the clear sky.
+
+"Will you go to your lady as soon as we arrive?" asked Mayakin,
+unexpectedly, interrupting their business talk.
+
+"I will," said Foma, shortly, and with displeasure.
+
+"Mm. Tell me, how often do you give her presents?" asked Mayakin,
+plainly and somewhat intimately.
+
+"What presents? What for?" Foma wondered.
+
+"You make her no presents? You don't say. Does she live with you then
+merely so, for love's sake?"
+
+Foma boiled up with anger and shame, turned abruptly toward the old man
+and said reproachfully:
+
+"Eh! You are an old man, and yet you speak so that it is a shame to
+listen to you! To say such a thing! Do you think she would come down to
+this?"
+
+Mayakin smacked his lips and sang out in a mournful voice:
+
+"What a blockhead you are! What a fool!" and suddenly grown angry, he
+spat out: "Shame upon you! All sorts of brutes drank out of the pot,
+nothing but the dregs remained, and now a fool has made a god unto
+himself of this dirty pot. Devil! You just go up to her and tell her
+plainly: 'I want to be your lover. I am a young man, don't charge me
+much for it.'"
+
+"Godfather!" said Foma, sternly, in a threatening voice, "I cannot bear
+to hear such words. If it were someone else."
+
+"But who except myself would caution you? Good God!" Mayakin cried out,
+clasping his hands. "So she has led you by the nose all winter long!
+What a nose! What a beast she is!"
+
+The old man was agitated; in his voice rang vexation, anger, even tears
+Foma had never before seen him in such a state, and looking at him, he
+was involuntarily silent.
+
+"She will ruin you! Oh Lord! The Babylonian prostitute!"
+
+Mayakin's eyes were blinking, his lips were trembling, and in rude,
+cynical words he began to speak of Medinskaya, irritated, with a
+wrathful jar in his voice.
+
+Foma felt that the old man spoke the truth. He now began to breathe with
+difficulty and he felt that his mouth had a dry, bitter taste.
+
+"Very well, father, enough," he begged softly and sadly, turning aside
+from Mayakin.
+
+"Eh, you ought to get married as soon as possible!" exclaimed the old
+man with alarm.
+
+"For Christ's sake, do not speak," uttered Foma in a dull voice.
+
+Mayakin glanced at his godson and became silent. Foma's face looked
+drawn; he grew pale, and there was a great deal of painful, bitter
+stupor in his half-open lips and in his sad look. On the right and on
+the left of the road a field stretched itself, covered here and there
+with patches of winter-raiment. Rooks were hopping busily about over
+the black spots, where the snow had melted. The water under the
+sledge-runners was splashing, the muddy snow was kicked up by the hoofs
+of the horses.
+
+"How foolish man is in his youth!" exclaimed Mayakin, in a low voice.
+Foma did not look at him.
+
+"Before him stands the stump of a tree, and yet he sees the snout of a
+beast--that's how he frightens himself. Oh, oh!"
+
+"Speak more plainly," said Foma, sternly.
+
+"What is there to say? The thing is clear: girls are cream; women are
+milk; women are near, girls are far. Consequently, go to Sonka, if
+you cannot do without it, and tell her plainly. That's how the matter
+stands. Fool! If she is a sinner, you can get her more easily. Why are
+you so angry, then? Why so bristled up?"
+
+"You don't understand," said Foma, in a low voice.
+
+"What is it I do not understand? I understand everything!"
+
+"The heart. Man has a heart," sighed the youth.
+
+Mayakin winked his eyes and said:
+
+"Then he has no mind."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+WHEN Foma arrived in the city he was seized with sad, revengeful anger.
+He was burning with a passionate desire to insult Medinskaya, to abuse
+her. His teeth firmly set together, his hands thrust deep into his
+pockets, he walked for a few hours in succession about the deserted
+rooms of his house, he sternly knitted his brow, and constantly threw
+his chest forward. His breast was too narrow to hold his heart, which
+was filled with wrath. He stamped the floor with heavy and measured
+steps, as though he were forging his anger.
+
+"The vile wretch--disguised herself as an angel!" Pelageya vividly arose
+in his memory, and he whispered malignantly and bitterly:
+
+"Though a fallen woman, she is better. She did not play the hypocrite.
+She at once unfolded her soul and her body, and her heart is surely just
+as her breast--white and sound."
+
+Sometimes Hope would whisper timidly in his ear:
+
+"Perhaps all that was said of her was a lie."
+
+But he recalled the eager certainty of his godfather, and the power
+of his words, and this thought perished. He set his teeth more firmly
+together and threw his chest still more forward. Evil thoughts like
+splinters of wood stuck into his heart, and his heart was shattered by
+the acute pain they caused.
+
+By disparaging Medinskaya, Mayakin made her more accessible to his
+godson, and Foma soon understood this. A few days passed, and Foma's
+agitated feelings became calm, absorbed by the spring business cares.
+The sorrow for the loss of the individual deadened the spite he owed
+the woman, and the thought of the woman's accessibility increased his
+passion for her. And somehow, without perceiving it himself, he suddenly
+understood and resolved that he ought to go up to Sophya Pavlovna and
+tell her plainly, openly, just what he wanted of her--that's all! He
+even felt a certain joy at this resolution, and he boldly started off to
+Medinskaya, thinking on the way only how to tell her best all that was
+necessary.
+
+The servants of Medinskaya were accustomed to his visits, and to his
+question whether the lady was at home the maid replied:
+
+"Please go into the drawing-room. She is there alone."
+
+He became somewhat frightened, but noticing in the mirror his stately
+figure neatly clad with a frock-coat, and his swarthy, serious face in
+a frame of a downy black beard, set with large dark eyes--he raised his
+shoulders and confidently stepped forward through the parlour. Strange
+sounds of a string instrument were calmly floating to meet him;
+they seemed to burst into quiet, cheerless laughter, complaining of
+something, tenderly stirring the heart, as though imploring it for
+attention and having no hopes of getting it. Foma did not like to hear
+music--it always filled him with sadness. Even when the "machine" in the
+tavern played some sad tune, his heart filled with melancholy anguish,
+and he would either ask them to stop the "machine" or would go away some
+little distance feeling that he could not listen calmly to these
+tunes without words, but full of lamentation and tears. And now he
+involuntarily stopped short at the door of the drawing-room.
+
+A curtain of long strings of parti-coloured glass beads hung over the
+door. The beads had been strung so as to form a fantastic figure of some
+kind of plants; the strings were quietly shaking and it seemed that pale
+shadows of flowers were soaring in the air. This transparent curtain did
+not hide the inside of the drawing-room from Foma's eyes. Seated on a
+couch in her favourite corner, Medinskaya played the mandolin. A large
+Japanese umbrella, fastened up to the wall, shaded the little woman
+in black by its mixture of colours; the high bronze lamp under a red
+lamp-shade cast on her the light of sunset. The mild sounds of the
+slender strings were trembling sadly in the narrow room, which was
+filled with soft and fragrant twilight. Now the woman lowered the
+mandolin on her knees and began running her fingers over the strings,
+also to examine fixedly something before her. Foma heaved a sigh.
+
+A soft sound of music soared about Medinskaya, and her face was forever
+changing as though shadows were falling on it, falling and melting away
+under the flash of her eyes.
+
+Foma looked at her and saw that when alone she was not quite so
+good-looking as in the presence of people--now her face looked
+older, more serious--her eyes had not the expression of kindness and
+gentleness, they had a rather tired and weary look. And her pose,
+too, was weary, as if the woman were about to stir but could not. Foma
+noticed that the feeling which prompted him to come to her was now
+changing in his heart into some other feeling. He scraped with his foot
+along the floor and coughed.
+
+"Who is that?" asked the woman, starting with alarm. And the strings
+trembled, issuing an alarmed sound.
+
+"It is I," said Foma, pushing aside the strings of the beads.
+
+"Ah! But how quietly you've entered. I am glad to see you. Be seated!
+Why didn't you come for such a long time?"
+
+Holding out her hand to him, she pointed with the other at a small
+armchair beside her, and her eyes were gaily smiling.
+
+"I was out on the bay inspecting my steamers," said Foma, with
+exaggerated ease, moving his armchair nearer to the couch.
+
+"Is there much snow yet on the fields?"
+
+"As much as one may want. But it is already melting considerably. There
+is water on the roads everywhere."
+
+He looked at her and smiled. Evidently Medinskaya noticed the ease of
+his behaviour and something new in his smile, for she adjusted her dress
+and drew farther away from him. Their eyes met--and Medinskaya lowered
+her head.
+
+"Melting!" said she, thoughtfully, examining the ring on her little
+finger.
+
+"Ye-es, streams everywhere." Foma informed her, admiring his boots.
+
+"That's good. Spring is coming."
+
+"Now it won't be delayed long."
+
+"Spring is coming," repeated Medinskaya, softly, as if listening to the
+sounds of her words.
+
+"People will start to fall in love," said Foma, with a smile, and for
+some reason or other firmly rubbed his hands.
+
+"Are you preparing yourself?" asked Medinskaya, drily.
+
+"I have no need for it. I have been ready long ago. I am already in love
+for all my life."
+
+She cast a glance at him, and started to play again, looking at the
+strings and saying pensively:
+
+"Spring. How good it is that you are but beginning to live. The heart is
+full of power, and there is nothing dark in it."
+
+"Sophya Pavlovna!" exclaimed Foma, softly. She interrupted him with a
+caressing gesture.
+
+"Wait, dearest! Today I can tell you something good. Do you know, a
+person who has lived long has such moments that when he looks into his
+heart he unexpectedly finds there something long forgotten. For years it
+lay somewhere in the depth of his heart, but lost none of the fragrance
+of youth, and when memory touches it, then spring comes over that
+person, breathing upon him the vivifying freshness of the morning of his
+life. This is good, though it is very sad."
+
+The strings trembled and wept under the touch of her fingers, and it
+seemed to Foma that their sounds and the soft voice of the woman were
+touching his heart gently and caressingly. But, still firm in his
+decision, he listened to her words and, not knowing their meaning,
+thought:
+
+"You may speak! And I won't believe anything you may say."
+
+This thought irritated him. And he felt sorry that he could not listen
+to her words as attentively and trustfully as before.
+
+"Are you thinking of how it is necessary to live?" asked the woman.
+
+"Sometimes I think of it, and then I forget again. I have no time for
+it!" said Foma and smiled. "And then, what is there to think of? It is
+simple. You see how others live. Well, consequently, you must imitate
+them."
+
+"Ah, don't do this! Spare yourself. You are so good! There is something
+peculiar in you; what--I do not know. But it can be felt. And it seems
+to me, it will be very hard for you to get along in life. I am sure, you
+will not go along the usual way of the people of your circle. No! You
+cannot be pleased with a life which is wholly devoted to gain, to hunts
+after the rouble, to this business of yours. Oh, no! I know, you will
+have a desire for something else, will you not?"
+
+She spoke quickly, with a look of alarm in her eyes. Looking at her,
+Foma thought:
+
+"What is she driving at?"
+
+And he answered her slowly:
+
+"Perhaps I will have a desire for something else. Perhaps I have it
+already."
+
+Drawing up closer to him, she looked into his face and spoke
+convincingly:
+
+"Listen! Do not live like all other people! Arrange your life somehow
+differently. You are strong, young. You are good!"
+
+"And if I am good then there must be good for me!" exclaimed Foma,
+feeling that he was seized with agitation, and that his heart was
+beginning to beat with anxiety.
+
+"Ah, but that is not the case! Here on earth it is worse for the good
+people than for the bad ones!" said Medinskaya, sadly.
+
+And again the trembling notes of music began to dance at the touch of
+her fingers. Foma felt that if he did not start to say at once what was
+necessary, he would tell her nothing later.
+
+"God bless me!" he said to himself, and in a lowered voice,
+strengthening his heart, began:
+
+"Sophya Pavlovna! Enough! I have something to say. I have come to tell
+you: 'Enough!' We must deal fairly, openly. At first you have attracted
+me to yourself, and now you are fencing away from me. I cannot
+understand what you say. My mind is dull, but I can feel that you wish
+to hide yourself. I can see it--do you understand now what brought me
+here?"
+
+His eyes began to flash and with each word his voice became warmer and
+louder. She moved her body forward and said with alarm:
+
+"Oh, cease."
+
+"No, I won't, I will speak!"
+
+"I know what you want to say."
+
+"You don't know it all!" said Foma, threateningly, rising to his feet.
+"But I know everything about you--everything."
+
+"Yes? Then the better it is for me," said Medinskaya, calmly.
+
+She also arose from the couch, as though about to go away somewhere, but
+after a few seconds she again seated herself on the couch. Her face was
+serious, her lips were tightly compressed, but her eyes were lowered,
+and Foma could not see their expression. He thought that when he told
+her, "I know everything about you!" she would be frightened, she would
+feel ashamed and confused, would ask his forgiveness for having made
+sport of him. Then he would embrace her and forgive her. But that was
+not the case; it was he who was confused by her calmness. He looked at
+her, searching for words to resume his speech, but found them not.
+
+"It is better," she repeated firmly and drily. "So you have learned
+everything, have you? And, of course, you've censured me, as I deserve.
+I understand. I am guilty before you. But no, I cannot justify myself."
+
+She became silent and suddenly, lifting her hands with a nervous
+gesture, clasped her head, and began to adjust her hair.
+
+Foma heaved a deep sigh. Her words had killed in him a certain hope--a
+hope, whose presence in his heart he only felt now that it was dead. And
+shaking his head, he said, with bitter reproach:
+
+"There was a time when I looked at you and thought, 'How beautiful she
+is, how good, the dove!' And now you say yourself, 'I am guilty.' Ah!"
+
+The voice of the youth broke down. And the woman began to laugh softly.
+
+"How fine and how ridiculous you are, and what a pity that you cannot
+understand all this!"
+
+The youth looked at her, feeling himself disarmed by her caressing words
+and melancholy smile. That cold, harsh something, which he had in his
+heart against her, was now melting before the warm light of her eyes.
+The woman now seemed to him small, defenseless, like a child. She was
+saying something in a gentle voice as though imploring, and forever
+smiling, but he paid no attention to her words.
+
+"I've come to you," said he, interrupting her words, "without pity. I
+meant to tell you everything. And yet I said nothing. I don't feel like
+doing it. My heart sank. You are breathing upon me so strangely. Eh, I
+should not have seen you! What are you to me? It would be better for me
+to go away, it seems."
+
+"Wait, dearest, don't go away!" said the woman, hastily, holding out her
+hand to him. "Why so severe? Do not be angry at me! What am I to
+you? You need a different friend, a woman just as simple-minded and
+sound-souled as you are. She must be gay, healthy. I--I am already an
+old woman. I am forever worrying. My life is so empty and so weary, so
+empty! Do you know, when a person has grown accustomed to live merrily,
+and then cannot be merry, he feels bad! He desires to live cheerfully,
+he desires to laugh, yet he does not laugh--it is life that is laughing
+at him. And as to men. Listen! Like a mother, I advise you, I beg and
+implore you--obey no one except your own heart! Live in accordance with
+its promptings. Men know nothing, they cannot tell you anything that is
+true. Do not heed them."
+
+Trying to speak as plainly and intelligibly as possible, she was
+agitated, and her words came incoherently hurriedly one after another.
+A pitiful smile played on her lips all the time, and her face was not
+beautiful.
+
+"Life is very strict. It wants all people to submit to its requests,
+and only the very strong ones can resist it with impunity. It is yet
+questionable whether they can do it! Oh, if you knew how hard it is to
+live. Man goes so far that he begins to fear his own self. He is split
+into judge and criminal--he judges his own self and seeks justification
+before himself. And he is willing to pass days and nights with those
+that despise him, and that are repulsive to him--just to avoid being
+alone with himself."
+
+Foma lifted his head and said distrustfully, with surprise:
+
+"I cannot understand what it is! Lubov also says the same."
+
+"Which Lubov? What does she say?"
+
+"My foster-sister. She says the same,--she is forever complaining of
+life. It is impossible to live, she says."
+
+"Oh, she is yet young! And it is a great happiness that she already
+speaks of this."
+
+"Happiness!" Foma drawled out mockingly. "It must be a fine happiness
+that makes people sigh and complain."
+
+"You'd better listen to complaints. There is always much wisdom in these
+complaints of men. Oh! There is more wisdom in these complaints than
+anywhere else. You listen to these,--they will teach you to find your
+way."
+
+Foma heard the woman's voice, which sounded convincing; and perplexed,
+looked about him. Everything had long been familiar to him, but today it
+looked somewhat new to him. A mass of trifles filled the room, all
+the walls were covered with pictures and shelves, bright and beautiful
+objects were staring from every corner. The reddish light of the lamp
+filled one with melancholy. Twilight wrapped everything in the room, and
+only here and there the gold of the frames, or the white spots of marble
+flashed dimly. Heavy fabrics were motionlessly hanging before the doors.
+All this embarrassed and almost choked Foma; he felt as though he had
+lost his way. He was sorry for the woman. But she also irritated him.
+
+"Do you hear how I speak to you? I wish I were your mother, or your
+sister. Never before did anybody awaken in me so warm and kindred a
+feeling as you have done. And you, you look at me in such an unfriendly
+way. Do you believe me? Yes? No?"
+
+He looked at her and said with a sigh:
+
+"I don't know. I used to believe you."
+
+"And now?" she asked hastily.
+
+"And now--it is best for me to go! I don't understand anything, and yet
+I long to understand. I do not even understand myself. On my way to you
+I knew what to say, and here all is confused. You have put me up on the
+rack, you have set me on edge. And then you tell me--'I am as a mother
+to you'--which means--begone!"
+
+"Understand me, I feel sorry for you!" the woman exclaimed softly.
+
+Foma's irritation against her was growing stronger and stronger, and as
+he went on speaking to her, his words became absurd. While he spoke, he
+kept on moving his shoulders as though tearing something that entangled
+him.
+
+"Sorry? What for? I do not need it. Eh, I cannot speak well! It is
+bad to be dumb. But--I would have told you! You did not treat me
+properly--indeed, why have you so enticed a man? Am I a plaything for
+you?"
+
+"I only wanted to see you by my side," said the woman simply, in a
+guilty voice.
+
+He did not hear these words.
+
+"And when it came to the point, you were frightened and you shut
+yourself off from me. You began to repent. Ha, ha! Life is bad! And why
+are you always complaining of some life? What life? Man is life, and
+except man there is no life. You have invented some other monster. You
+have done this to deceive the eye, to justify yourself. You do some
+mischief, you lose yourself in different inventions and foolishnesses
+and then you sigh! Ah, life! Oh, life! And have you not done it
+yourself? And covering yourself with complaints, you confuse others. You
+have lost your way, very well, but why do you want to lead me astray? Is
+it wickedness that speaks in you: 'I feel bad,' you say, 'let him also
+feel bad--there, I'll besprinkle his heart with my poisonous tears!'
+Isn't that so? Eh! God has given you the beauty of an angel, but your
+heart--where is it?"
+
+Standing before her, he trembled in every limb, and examined her from
+head to foot with reproachful looks. Now his words came freely from his
+heart, he spoke not loud, but with power and pleasure. Her head raised,
+the woman stared into his face, with wide-open eyes. Her lips were
+trembling and deep wrinkles appeared at the corners of her mouth.
+
+"A beautiful person should lead a good life. While of you they say
+things." Foma's voice broke down; he raised his hand and concluded in a
+dull voice:
+
+"Goodbye!"
+
+"Goodbye!" said Medinskaya, softly.
+
+He did not give her his hand, but, turning abruptly, he walked away from
+her. But already at the door he felt that he was sorry for her, and
+he glanced at her across his shoulder. There, in the corner, she stood
+alone, her head bent, her hands hanging motionless.
+
+Understanding that he could not leave her thus, he became confused, and
+said softly, but without repenting:
+
+"Perhaps I said something offensive--forgive me! For after all I love
+you," and he heaved a deep sigh.
+
+The woman burst into soft, nervous laughter.
+
+"No, you have not offended me. God speed you."
+
+"Well, then goodbye!" repeated Foma in a still lower voice.
+
+"Yes," replied the woman, also in a low voice.
+
+Foma pushed aside the strings of beads with his hand; they swung back
+noisily and touched his cheeks. He shuddered at this cold touch and went
+out, carrying away a heavy, perplexed feeling in his breast, with his
+heart beating as though a soft but strong net were cast over it.
+
+It was night by this time; the moon was shining and the frost covered
+the puddles with coatings of dull silver. Foma walked along the
+sidewalk, he broke these with his cane, and they cracked mournfully. The
+shadows of the houses fell on the road in black squares, and the shadows
+of the trees--in wonderful patterns. And some of them looked like thin
+hands, helplessly clutching the ground.
+
+"What is she doing now?" thought Foma, picturing to himself the woman,
+alone, in the corner of a narrow room, in the reddish half-light.
+
+"It is best for me to forget her," he decided. But he could not forget
+her; she stood before him, provoking in him now intense pity, now
+irritation and even anger. And her image was so clear, and the thoughts
+of her were so painful, as though he was carrying this woman in his
+breast. A cab was coming from the opposite side, filling the silence of
+the night with the jarring of the wheels on the cobble-stones and with
+their creaking on the ice. When the cab was passing across a moonlit
+strip, the noise was louder and more brisk, and in the shadows it was
+heavier and duller. The driver and the passenger in it were shaking
+and hopping about; for some reason or other they both bent forward
+and together with the horse formed one big, black mass. The street was
+speckled with spots of light and shade, but in the distance the darkness
+seemed thick as though the street were fenced off by a wall, rising from
+earth to the skies. Somehow it occurred to Foma that these people did
+not know whither they were going. And he, too, did not know whither he
+was going. His house rose before his imagination--six big rooms, where
+he lived alone. Aunt Anfisa had gone to the cloister, perhaps never to
+return--she might die there. At home were Ivan, the old deaf dvornik,
+the old maid, Sekleteya, his cook and servant, and a black, shaggy dog,
+with a snout as blunt as that of a sheat-fish. And the dog, too, was
+old.
+
+"Perhaps I really ought to get married," thought Foma, with a sigh.
+
+But the very thought of how easy it was for him to get married made him
+ill at ease, and even ridiculous in his own eyes. It were but necessary
+to ask his godfather tomorrow for a bride,--and before a month would
+pass, a woman would live with him in his house. And she would be near
+him day and night. He would say to her: "Let's go for a walk!" and she
+would go. He would tell her: "Let's go to sleep!" and again she would
+go. Should she desire to kiss him, she would kiss him, even though he
+did not like it. And if he should tell her: "Go away, I don't want it,"
+she would feel offended. What would he speak to her about? What would
+she tell him? He thought and pictured to himself young ladies of his
+acquaintance, daughters of merchants. Some of them were very pretty, and
+he knew that any one of them would marry him willingly. But he did not
+care to have any of them as his wife. How awkward and shameful it must
+be when a girl becomes a wife. And what does the newly-married couple
+say to each other after the wedding, in the bedroom? Foma tried to
+think what he would say in such a case, and confused, he began to laugh,
+finding no appropriate words. Then he recalled Luba Mayakin. She would
+surely be first to say something, uttering some unintelligible words,
+which were foreign to herself. Somehow it seemed to him that all her
+words were foreign, and she did not speak as was proper for a girl of
+her age, appearance and descent.
+
+And here his thoughts rested on Lubov's complaints. His gait became
+slower; he was now astounded by the fact that all the people that were
+near to him and with whom he talked a great deal, always spoke to him of
+life. His father, his aunt, his godfather, Lubov, Sophya Pavlovna, all
+these either taught him to understand life, or complained of it. He
+recalled the words said by the old man on the steamer about Fate, and
+many other remarks on life, reproaches and bitter complaints against it,
+which he happened to hear from all sorts of people.
+
+"What does it mean?" he thought, "what is life, if it is not man? And
+man always speaks as if life were something else, something outside
+of man, and that something hinders him from living. Perhaps it is the
+devil?"
+
+A painful feeling of fear fell on the youth; he shuddered and hastily
+looked around. The street was deserted and quiet; the dark windows of
+the houses stared dimly into the dark of night, and along the walls and
+fences Foma's shadow followed him.
+
+"Driver!" he cried out aloud, quickening his steps. The shadow started
+and crawled after him, frightened, black, silent. It seemed to Foma that
+there was a cold breath behind him, and that something huge, invisible,
+and terrible was overtaking him. Frightened, he almost ran to meet
+the cab, which appeared noisily from the darkness, and when he seated
+himself in the cab, he dared not look back, though he wished to do so.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ABOUT a week passed since Foma spoke to Medinskaya. And her image
+stood fixedly before Foma by night and by day, awakening in his heart
+a gnawing feeling of anxiety. He longed to go to her, and was so much
+afflicted over her that even his bones were aching from the desire of
+his heart to be near her again. But he was sternly silent; he frowned
+and did not care to yield to this desire, industriously occupying
+himself with his affairs and provoking in himself a feeling of anger
+against the woman. He felt that if he went up to her, he would no longer
+find her to be the same as he had left her; something must have changed
+within her after that conversation, and she would no longer receive him
+as cordially as before, would not smile at him the clear smile that used
+to awaken in him strange thoughts and hopes. Fearing that all this was
+lost and that something else must have taken its place, he restrained
+himself and suffered.
+
+His work and his longing for the woman did not hinder him from thinking
+of life. He did not philosophize about this enigma, which was already
+stirring a feeling of alarm in his heart; he was not able to argue, but
+he began to listen attentively to everything that men said of life, and
+he tried to remember their words. They did not make anything clear to
+him; nay, they increased his perplexity and prompted him to regard them
+suspiciously. They were clever, cunning and sensible--he saw it; in
+dealings with them it was always necessary to be on one's guard; he knew
+already that in important matters none of them spoke as they thought.
+And watching them carefully, he felt that their sighs and their
+complaints of life awakened in him distrust. Silently he looked at
+everybody with suspicion, and a thin wrinkle masked his forehead.
+
+One morning his godfather said to him on the Exchange:
+
+"Anany has arrived. He would like to see you. Go up to him toward
+evening, and see that you hold your tongue. Anany will try to loosen it
+in order to make you talk on business matters. He is cunning, the
+old devil; he is a holy fox; he'll lift his eyes toward heaven, and
+meanwhile will put his paw into your pocket and grab your purse. Be on
+your guard."
+
+"Do we owe him anything?" asked Foma.
+
+"Of course! We haven't paid yet for the barge, and then fifty
+five-fathom beams were taken from him not long ago. If he wants
+everything at once--don't give. A rouble is a sticky thing; the longer
+it turns about in your hand, the more copecks will stick to it. A
+rouble is like a good pigeon--it goes up in the air, you turn around and
+see--it has brought a whole flock with it into the pigeon-house."
+
+"But how can we help paying it now, if he demands it?"
+
+"Let him cry and ask for it--and you roar--but don't give it to him."
+
+"I'll go up there soon."
+
+Anany Savvich Shchurov was a rich lumber-dealer, had a big saw-mill,
+built barges and ran rafts. He had had dealings with Ignat, and Foma had
+more than once seen this tall, heavily-bearded, long-armed, white-haired
+old man, who kept himself as erect as a pine-tree. His big, handsome
+figure, his open face and his clear eyes called forth in Foma a feeling
+of respect for Shchurov, although he heard it rumoured that this
+lumber-dealer had gained his wealth not by honest toil and that he
+was leading an evil life at home, in an obscure village of the forest
+district; and Ignat had told Foma that when Shchurov was young and was
+but a poor peasant, he sheltered a convict in the bath-house, in his
+garden, and that there the convict made counterfeit money for him. Since
+that time Anany began to grow rich. One day his bathhouse burned down,
+and in the ashes they discovered the corpse of a man with a fractured
+skull. There was a rumour in the village that Shchurov himself had
+killed his workman--killed and then burned him. Such things had happened
+more than once with the good-looking old man; but similar rumours were
+on foot with reference to many a rich man in town--they had all, it
+was said, hoarded up their millions by way of robberies, murders and,
+mainly, by passing counterfeit money. Foma had heard such stories in his
+childhood and he never before considered whether they were true or not.
+
+He also knew that Shchurov had got rid of two wives--one of them died
+during the first night of the wedding, in Anany's embraces. Then he took
+his son's wife away from him, and his son took to drink for grief and
+would have perished in drunkenness had he not come to himself in time
+and gone off to save himself in a hermitage, in Irgiz. And when his
+mistress-daughter-in-law had passed away, Shchurov took into his house
+a dumb beggar-girl, who was living with him to this day, and who had
+recently borne him a dead child. On his way to the hotel, where Anany
+stayed, Foma involuntarily recalled all this, and felt that Shchurov had
+become strangely interesting to him.
+
+When Foma opened the door and stopped respectfully on the threshold
+of the small room, whose only window overlooked the rusty roof of the
+neighbouring house, he noticed that the old Shchurov had just risen from
+sleep, and sitting on his bed, leaning his hands against it, he stared
+at the ground; and he was so bent that his long, white beard fell over
+his knees. But even bent, he was large.
+
+"Who entered?" asked Anany in a hoarse and angry voice, without lifting
+his head.
+
+"I. How do you do, Anany Savvich?"
+
+The old man raised his head slowly and, winking his large eyes, looked
+at Foma.
+
+"Ignat's son, is that right?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"Well, come over here, sit down by the window. Let me see how you've
+grown up. Will you not have a glass of tea with me?"
+
+"I wouldn't mind."
+
+"Waiter!" cried the old man, expanding his chest, and, taking his beard
+in his hand, he began to examine Foma in silence. Foma also looked at
+him stealthily.
+
+The old man's lofty forehead was all covered with wrinkles, and its skin
+was dark. Gray, curly locks covered his temples and his sharp-pointed
+ears; his calm blue eyes lent the upper part of his face a wise and good
+expression. But his cheeks and his lips were thick and red, and seemed
+out of place on his face. His thin, long nose was turned downward as
+though it wished to hide itself in his white moustache; the old man
+moved his lips, and from beneath them small, yellow teeth were gleaming.
+He had on a pink calico shirt, a silk belt around his waist, and black,
+loose trousers, which were tucked into his boots. Foma stared at his
+lips and thought that the old man was surely such as he was said to be.
+
+"As a boy you looked more like your father," said Shchurov suddenly, and
+sighed. Then, after a moment's silence, he asked: "Do you remember your
+father? Do you ever pray for him? You must, you must pray!" he went on,
+after he heard Foma's brief answer. "Ignat was a terrible sinner, and he
+died without repentance, taken unawares. He was a great sinner!"
+
+"He was not more sinful than others," replied Foma, angrily, offended in
+his father's behalf.
+
+"Than who, for instance?" demanded Shchurov, strictly.
+
+"Are there not plenty of sinners?"
+
+"There is but one man on earth more sinful than was the late Ignat--and
+that is that cursed heathen, your godfather Yashka," ejaculated the old
+man.
+
+"Are you sure of it?" inquired Foma, smiling.
+
+"I? Of course, I am!" said Shchurov, confidently, nodding his head, and
+his eyes became somewhat darker. "I will also appear before the Lord,
+and that not sinless. I shall bring with me a heavy burden before His
+holy countenance. I have been pleasing the devil myself, only I trust to
+God for His mercy, while Yashka believes in nothing, neither in dreams,
+nor in the singing of birds. Yashka does not believe in God, this I
+know! And for his non-belief he will yet receive his punishment on
+earth."
+
+"Are you sure of this, too?"
+
+"Yes, I am. And don't you think I also know that you consider it
+ludicrous to listen to me. What a sagacious fellow, indeed! But he who
+has committed many sins is always wise. Sin is a teacher. That's why
+Yashka Mayakin is extraordinarily clever."
+
+Listening to the old man's hoarse and confident voice, Foma thought:
+
+"He is scenting death, it seems."
+
+The waiter, a small man, with a face which was pale and characterless,
+brought in the samovar and quickly hastened out of the room, with short
+steps. The old man was undoing some bundles on the window-sill and said,
+without looking at Foma:
+
+"You are bold, and the look of your eyes is dark. Before, there used to
+be more light-eyed people, because then the souls used to be brighter.
+Before, everything was simpler--both the people and the sins, and now
+everything has become complicated. Eh, eh!"
+
+He made tea, seated himself opposite Foma and went on again:
+
+"Your father at your age was a water-pumper and stayed with the fleet
+near our village. At your age Ignat was as clear to me as glass. At a
+single glance you could tell what sort of a man he was. While you--here
+I am looking at you, but cannot see what you are. Who are you? You
+don't know it yourself, my lad, and that's why you'll suffer. Everybody
+nowadays must suffer, because they do not know themselves. Life is
+a mass of wind-fallen trees, and you must know how to find your
+way through it. Where is it? All are going astray, and the devil is
+delighted. Are you married?"
+
+"Not yet," said Foma.
+
+"There again, you are not married, and yet, I'm quite sure, you are not
+pure any longer. Well, are you working hard in your business?"
+
+"Sometimes. Meanwhile I am with my godfather."
+
+"What sort of work is it you have nowadays?" said the old man, shaking
+his head, and his eyes were constantly twinkling, now turning dark,
+now brightening up again. "You have no labour now! In former years
+the merchant travelled with horses on business. Even at night, in
+snowstorms, he used to go! Murderers used to wait for him on the road
+and kill him. And he died a martyr, washing his sins away with blood.
+Now they travel by rail; they are sending telegrams, or they've even
+invented something that a man may speak in his office and you can hear
+him five miles away. There the devil surely has a hand in it! A man
+sits, without motion, and commits sins merely because he feels lonesome,
+because he has nothing to do: the machine does all his work. He has
+no work, and without toil man is ruined! He has provided himself with
+machines and thinks it is good! While the machine is the devil's trap
+for you. He thus catches you in it. While toiling, you find no time for
+sin, but having a machine--you have freedom. Freedom kills a man,
+even as the sunbeams kill the worm, the dweller of the depth of earth.
+Freedom kills man!"
+
+And pronouncing his words distinctly and positively, the old
+Anany struck the table four times with his finger. His face beamed
+triumphantly, his chest rose high, and over it the silver hair of his
+beard shook noiselessly. Dread fell on Foma as he looked at him and
+listened to his words, for there was a ring of firm faith in them,
+and it was the power of this faith that confused Foma. He had already
+forgotten all he knew about the old man, all of which he had but a while
+ago believed to be true.
+
+"Whoever gives freedom to his body, kills his soul!" said Anany, looking
+at Foma so strangely as if he saw behind him somebody, who was grieved
+and frightened by his words; and whose fear and pain delighted him. "All
+you people of today will perish through freedom. The devil has captured
+you--he has taken toil away from you, and slipped machines and telegrams
+into your hands. How freedom eats into the souls of men! Just tell me,
+why are the children worse than their fathers? Because of their freedom,
+yes. That's why they drink and lead depraved lives with women. They have
+less strength because they have less work, and they have not the spirit
+of cheerfulness because they have no worries. Cheerfulness comes in time
+of rest, while nowadays no one is getting tired."
+
+"Well," said Foma, softly, "they were leading depraved lives and
+drinking just as much in former days as now, I suppose."
+
+"Do you know it? You should keep silence!" cried Anany, flashing his
+eyes sternly. "In former days man had more strength, and the sins were
+according to his strength. While you, of today, have less strength,
+and more sins, and your sins are more disgusting. Then men were like
+oak-trees. And God's judgment will also be in accordance with their
+strength. Their bodies will be weighed, and angels will measure their
+blood, and the angels of God will see that the weight of the sins does
+not exceed the weight of the body and the blood. Do you understand? God
+will not condemn the wolf for devouring a sheep, but if a miserable rat
+should be guilty of the sheep's death, God will condemn the rat!"
+
+"How can a man tell how God will judge man?" asked Foma, thoughtfully.
+"A visible trial is necessary."
+
+"Why a visible trial?"
+
+"That people might understand."
+
+"Who, but the Lord, is my judge?"
+
+Foma glanced at the old man and lowering his head, became silent.
+He again recalled the fugitive convict, who was killed and burnt
+by Shchurov, and again he believed that it really was so. And the
+women--his wives and his mistresses--had surely been hastened toward
+their graves by this old man's caresses; he had crushed them with his
+bony chest, drunk the sap of their life with these thick lips of his
+which were scarlet yet from the clotted blood of the women, who died in
+the embraces of his long sinewy arms. And now, awaiting death, which
+was already somewhere beside him, he counts his sins, judges others, and
+perhaps judges himself, and says:
+
+"Who, but the Lord, is my judge?"
+
+"Is he afraid or not?" Foma asked himself and became pensive, stealthily
+scrutinising the old man.
+
+"Yes, my lad! Think," spoke Shchurov, shaking his head, "think, how you
+are to live. The capital in your heart is small, and your habits are
+great, see that you are not reduced to bankruptcy before your own self!
+Ho-ho-ho!"
+
+"How can you tell what and how much I have within my heart?" said Foma,
+gloomily, offended by his laughter.
+
+"I can see it! I know everything, because I have lived long! Oh-ho-ho!
+How long I have lived! Trees have grown up and been cut down, and houses
+built out of them, and even the houses have grown old. While I have seen
+all this and am still alive, and when, at times, I recall my life, I
+think, 'Is it possible that one man could accomplish so much? Is it
+possible that I have witnessed all this?'" The old man glanced at Foma
+sternly, shook his head and became silent.
+
+It became quiet. Outside the window something was softly rustling on
+the roof of the house; the rattle of wheels and the muffled sounds of
+conversation were heard from below, from the street. The samovar on the
+table sang a sad tune. Shchurov was fixedly staring into his glass of
+tea, stroking his beard, and one could hear that something rattled in
+his breast, as if some burden was turning about in it.
+
+"It's hard for you to live without your father, isn't it?" said he.
+
+"I am getting used to it," replied Foma.
+
+"You are rich, and when Yakov dies, you will be richer still. He'll
+leave everything to you."
+
+"I don't need it."
+
+"To whom else should he leave it? He has but one daughter, and you
+ought to marry that daughter, and that she is your godsister and
+foster-sister--no matter! That can be arranged--and then you would be
+married. What good is there in the life you are now leading? I suppose
+you are forever running about with the girls?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You don't say! Eh, eh, eh! the merchant is passing away. A certain
+forester told me--I don't know whether he lied or not--that in former
+days the dogs were wolves, and then degenerated into dogs. It is the
+same with our calling; we will soon also be dogs. We will take up
+science, put stylish hats on our heads, we'll do everything that is
+necessary in order to lose our features, and there will be nothing by
+which to distinguish us from other people. It has become a custom to
+make Gymnasium students of all children. The merchants, the nobles, the
+commoners--all are adjusted to match the same colour. They dress them
+in gray and teach them all the same subjects. They grow man even as they
+grow a tree. Why do they do it? No one knows. Even a log could be told
+from another by its knot at least, while here they want to plane the
+people over so that all of them should look alike. The coffin is already
+waiting for us old people. Ye-es! It may be that about fifty years
+hence, no one will believe that I lived in this world. I, Anany, the son
+of Savva, by the surname of Shchurov. So! And that I, Anany, feared no
+one, save God. And that in my youth I was a peasant, that all the land I
+possessed then was two desyatins and a quarter; while toward my old age
+I have hoarded up eleven thousand desyatins, all forests, and perhaps
+two millions in cash."
+
+"There, they always speak of money!" said Foma, with dissatisfaction.
+"What joy does man derive from money?" "Mm," bellowed Shchurov. "You will
+make a poor merchant, if you do not understand the power of money."
+
+"Who does understand it?" asked Foma.
+
+"I!" said Shchurov, with confidence. "And every clever man. Yashka
+understands it. Money? That is a great deal, my lad! Just spread it out
+before you and think, 'What does it contain?' Then will you know that
+all this is human strength, human mind. Thousands of people have put
+their life into your money and thousands more will do it. And you can
+throw it all into the fire and see how the money is burning, and at that
+moment you will consider yourself master."
+
+"But nobody does this."
+
+"Because fools have no money. Money is invested in business. Business
+gives bread to the masses. And you are master over all those masses.
+Wherefore did God create man? That man should pray to Him. He was
+alone and He felt lonesome, so He began to desire power, and as man was
+created in the image of the Lord, man also desires power. And what, save
+money, can give power? That's the way. Well, and you--have you brought
+me money?"
+
+"No," answered Foma. From the words of the old man Foma's head was heavy
+and troubled, and he was glad that the conversation had, at last, turned
+to business matters.
+
+"That isn't right," said Shchurov, sternly knitting his brow. "It is
+overdue--you must pay.
+
+"You'll get a half of it tomorrow."
+
+"Why a half? Why not all?"
+
+"We are badly in need of money now."
+
+"And haven't you any? But I also need it."
+
+"Wait a little."
+
+"Eh, my lad, I will not wait! You are not your father. Youngsters like
+you, milksops, are an unreliable lot. In a month you may break up the
+whole business. And I would be the loser for it. You give me all the
+money tomorrow, or I'll protest the notes. It wouldn't take me long to
+do it!"
+
+Foma looked at Shchurov, with astonishment. It was not at all that same
+old man, who but a moment ago spoke so sagaciously about the devil. Then
+his face and his eyes seemed different, and now he looked fierce, his
+lips smiled pitilessly, and the veins on his cheeks, near his nostrils,
+were eagerly trembling. Foma saw that if he did not pay him at once,
+Shchurov would indeed not spare him and would dishonour the firm by
+protesting the notes.
+
+"Evidently business is poor?" grinned Shchurov. "Well, tell the
+truth--where have you squandered your father's money?"
+
+Foma wanted to test the old man:
+
+"Business is none too brisk," said he, with a frown. "We have no
+contracts. We have received no earnest money, and so it is rather hard."
+
+"So-o! Shall I help you out?"
+
+"Be so kind. Postpone the day of payment," begged Foma, modestly
+lowering his eyes.
+
+"Mm. Shall I assist you out of my friendship for your father? Well, be
+it so, I'll do it."
+
+"And for how long will you postpone it?" inquired Foma.
+
+"For six months."
+
+"I thank you humbly."
+
+"Don't mention it. You owe me eleven thousand six hundred roubles. Now
+listen: rewrite the notes for the amount of fifteen thousand, pay me the
+interest on this sum in advance. And as security I'll take a mortgage on
+your two barges."
+
+Foma rose from the chair and said, with a smile:
+
+"Send me the notes tomorrow. I'll pay you in full."
+
+Shchurov also rose from his chair and, without lowering his eyes at
+Foma's sarcastic look, said, calmly scratching his chest:
+
+"That's all right."
+
+"Thank you for your kindness."
+
+"That's nothing! You don't give me a chance, or I would have shown you
+my kindness!" said the old man lazily, showing his teeth.
+
+"Yes! If one should fall into your hands--"
+
+"He'd find it warm--"
+
+"I am sure you'd make it warm for him."
+
+"Well, my lad, that will do!" said Shchurov, sternly. "Though you
+consider yourself quite clever, it is rather too soon. You've gained
+nothing, and already you began to boast! But you just win from me--then
+you may shout for joy. Goodbye. Have all the money for tomorrow."
+
+"Don't let that trouble you. Goodbye!"
+
+"God be with you!"
+
+When Foma came out of the room he heard that the old man gave a slow,
+loud yawn, and then began to hum in a rather hoarse bass:
+
+"Open for us the doors of mercy. Oh blessed Virgin Mary!"
+
+Foma carried away with him from the old man a double feeling. Shchurov
+pleased him and at the same time was repulsive to him.
+
+He recalled the old man's words about sin, thought of the power of
+his faith in the mercy of the Lord, and the old man aroused in Foma a
+feeling akin to respect.
+
+"He, too, speaks of life; he knows his sins; but does not weep over
+them, does not complain of them. He has sinned--and he is willing to
+stand the consequences. Yes. And she?" He recalled Medinskaya, and his
+heart contracted with pain.
+
+"And she is repenting. It is hard to tell whether she does it purposely,
+in order to hide from justice, or whether her heart is really aching.
+'Who, but the Lord,' says he, 'is to judge me?' That's how it is."
+
+It seemed to Foma that he envied Anany, and the youth hastened to recall
+Shchurov's attempts to swindle him. This called forth in him an aversion
+for the old man He could not reconcile his feelings and, perplexed, he
+smiled.
+
+"Well, I have just been at Shchurov's," he said, coming to Mayakin and
+seating himself by the table.
+
+Mayakin, in a greasy morning-gown, a counting-board in his hand, began
+to move about in his leather-covered arm-chair impatiently, and said
+with animation:
+
+"Pour out some tea for him, Lubava! Tell me, Foma, I must be in the City
+Council at nine o'clock; tell me all about it, make haste!"
+
+Smiling, Foma related to him how Shchurov suggested to rewrite the
+notes.
+
+"Eh!" exclaimed Yakov Tarasovich regretfully, with a shake of the
+head. "You've spoilt the whole mass for me, dear! How could you be so
+straightforward in your dealings with the man? Psha! The devil drove me
+to send you there! I should have gone myself. I would have turned him
+around my finger!"
+
+"Hardly! He says, 'I am an oak.'"
+
+"An oak? And I am a saw. An oak! An oak is a good tree, but its fruits
+are good for swine only. So it comes out that an oak is simply a
+blockhead."
+
+"But it's all the same, we have to pay, anyway."
+
+"Clever people are in no hurry about this; while you are ready to run as
+fast as you can to pay the money. What a merchant you are!"
+
+Yakov Tarasovich was positively dissatisfied with his godson. He frowned
+and in an angry manner ordered his daughter, who was silently pouring
+out tea:
+
+"Push the sugar nearer to me. Don't you see that I can't reach it?"
+
+Lubov's face was pale, her eyes seemed troubled, and her hands moved
+lazily and awkwardly. Foma looked at her and thought:
+
+"How meek she is in the presence of her father."
+
+"What did he speak to you about?" asked Mayakin.
+
+"About sins."
+
+"Well, of course! His own affair is dearest to each and every man. And
+he is a manufacturer of sins. Both in the galleys and in hell they have
+long been weeping and longing for him, waiting for him impatiently."
+
+"He speaks with weight," said Foma, thoughtfully, stirring his tea.
+
+"Did he abuse me?" inquired Mayakin, with a malicious grimace.
+
+"Somewhat."
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"I listened."
+
+"Mm! And what did you hear?"
+
+"'The strong,' he says, 'will be forgiven; but there is no forgiveness
+for the weak.'"
+
+"Just think of it! What wisdom! Even the fleas know that."
+
+For some reason or another, the contempt with which Mayakin regarded
+Shchurov, irritated Foma, and, looking into the old man's face, he said
+with a grin:
+
+"But he doesn't like you."
+
+"Nobody likes me, my dear," said Mayakin, proudly. "There is no reason
+why they should like me. I am no girl. But they respect me. And they
+respect only those they fear." And the old man winked at his godson
+boastfully.
+
+"He speaks with weight," repeated Foma. "He is complaining. 'The real
+merchant,' says he, 'is passing away. All people are taught the same
+thing,' he says: 'so that all may be equal, looking alike."'
+
+"Does he consider it wrong?"
+
+"Evidently so."
+
+"Fo-o-o-l!" Mayakin drawled out, with contempt.
+
+"Why? Is it good?" asked Foma, looking at his godfather suspiciously.
+
+"We do not know what is good; but we can see what is wise. When we see
+that all sorts of people are driven together in one place and are all
+inspired there with one and the same idea--then must we acknowledge that
+it is wise. Because--what is a man in the empire? Nothing more than
+a simple brick, and all bricks must be of the same size. Do you
+understand? And those people that are of equal height and weight--I can
+place in any position I like."
+
+"And whom does it please to be a brick?" said Foma, morosely.
+
+"It is not a question of pleasing, it is a matter of fact. If you are
+made of hard material, they cannot plane you. It is not everybody's phiz
+that you can rub off. But some people, when beaten with a hammer, turn
+into gold. And if the head happens to crack--what can you do? It merely
+shows it was weak."
+
+"He also spoke about toil. 'Everything,' he says, 'is done by machinery,
+and thus are men spoiled."'
+
+"He is out of his wits!" Mayakin waved his hand disdainfully. "I am
+surprised, what an appetite you have for all sorts of nonsense! What
+does it come from?"
+
+"Isn't that true, either?" asked Foma, breaking into stern laughter.
+
+"What true thing can he know? A machine! The old blockhead should have
+thought--'what is the machine made of?' Of iron! Consequently, it need
+not be pitied; it is wound up--and it forges roubles for you. Without
+any words, without trouble, you set it into motion and it revolves.
+While a man, he is uneasy and wretched; he is often very wretched. He
+wails, grieves, weeps, begs. Sometimes he gets drunk. Ah, how much there
+is in him that is superfluous to me! While a machine is like an arshin
+(yardstick), it contains exactly so much as the work required. Well, I
+am going to dress. It is time."
+
+He rose and went away, loudly scraping with his slippers along the
+floor. Foma glanced after him and said softly, with a frown:
+
+"The devil himself could not see through all this. One says this, the
+other, that."
+
+"It is precisely the same with books," said Lubov in a low voice.
+
+Foma looked at her, smiling good-naturedly. And she answered him with a
+vague smile.
+
+Her eyes looked fatigued and sad.
+
+"You still keep on reading?" asked Foma.
+
+"Yes," the girl answered sadly.
+
+"And are you still lonesome?"
+
+"I feel disgusted, because I am alone. There's no one here to say a word
+to."
+
+"That's bad."
+
+She said nothing to this, but, lowering her head, she slowly began to
+finger the fringes of the towel.
+
+"You ought to get married," said Foma, feeling that he pitied her.
+
+"Leave me alone, please," answered Lubov, wrinkling her forehead.
+
+"Why leave you alone? You will get married, I am sure."
+
+"There!" exclaimed the girl softly, with a sigh. "That's just what I
+am thinking of--it is necessary. That is, I'll have to get married. But
+how? Do you know, I feel now as though a mist stood between other people
+and myself--a thick, thick mist!"
+
+"That's from your books," Foma interposed confidently.
+
+"Wait! And I cease to understand what is going on about me. Nothing
+pleases me. Everything has become strange to me. Nothing is as it should
+be. Everything is wrong. I see it. I understand it, yet I cannot say
+that it is wrong, and why it is so."
+
+"It is not so, not so," muttered Foma. "That's from your books. Yes.
+Although I also feel that it's wrong. Perhaps that is because we are so
+young and foolish."
+
+"At first it seemed to me," said Lubov, not listening to him, "that
+everything in the books was clear to me. But now--"
+
+"Drop your books," suggested Foma, with contempt.
+
+"Ah, don't say that! How can I drop them? You know how many different
+ideas there are in the world! O Lord! They're such ideas that set your
+head afire. According to a certain book everything that exists on earth
+is rational."
+
+"Everything?" asked Foma.
+
+"Everything! While another book says the contrary is true."
+
+"Wait! Now isn't this nonsense?"
+
+"What were you discussing?" asked Mayakin, appearing at the door, in a
+long frock-coat and with several medals on his collar and his breast.
+
+"Just so," said Lubov, morosely.
+
+"We spoke about books," added Foma.
+
+"What kind of books?"
+
+"The books she is reading. She read that everything on earth is
+rational."
+
+"Really!"
+
+"Well, and I say it is a lie!"
+
+"Yes." Yakov Tarasovich became thoughtful, he pinched his beard and
+winked his eyes a little.
+
+"What kind of a book is it?" he asked his daughter, after a pause.
+
+"A little yellow-covered book," said Lubov, unwillingly.
+
+"Just put that book on my table. That is said not without
+reflection--everything on earth is rational! See someone thought of it.
+Yes. It is even very cleverly expressed. And were it not for the fools,
+it might have been perfectly correct. But as fools are always in the
+wrong place, it cannot be said that everything on earth is rational. And
+yet, I'll look at the book. Maybe there is common sense in it. Goodbye,
+Foma! Will you stay here, or do you want to drive with me?"
+
+"I'll stay here a little longer."
+
+"Very well."
+
+Lubov and Foma again remained alone.
+
+"What a man your father is," said Foma, nodding his head toward the
+direction of his godfather.
+
+"Well, what kind of a man do you think he is?"
+
+"He retorts every call, and wants to cover everything with his words."
+
+"Yes, he is clever. And yet he does not understand how painful my life
+is," said Lubov, sadly.
+
+"Neither do I understand it. You imagine too much."
+
+"What do I imagine?" cried the girl, irritated.
+
+"Why, all these are not your own ideas. They are someone else's."
+
+"Someone else's. Someone else's."
+
+She felt like saying something harsh; but broke down and became silent.
+Foma looked at her and, setting Medinskaya by her side, thought sadly:
+
+"How different everything is--both men and women--and you never feel
+alike."
+
+They sat opposite each other; both were lost in thought, and neither one
+looked at the other. It was getting dark outside, and in the room it
+was quite dark already. The wind was shaking the linden-trees, and their
+branches seemed to clutch at the walls of the house, as though they felt
+cold and implored for shelter in the rooms.
+
+"Luba!" said Foma, softly.
+
+She raised her head and looked at him.
+
+"Do you know, I have quarrelled with Medinskaya."
+
+"Why?" asked Luba, brightening up.
+
+"So. It came about that she offended me. Yes, she offended me."
+
+"Well, it's good that you've quarrelled with her," said the girl,
+approvingly, "for she would have turned your head. She is a vile
+creature; she is a coquette, even worse than that. Oh, what things I
+know about her!"
+
+"She's not at all a vile creature," said Foma, morosely. "And you don't
+know anything about her. You are all lying!"
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon!"
+
+"No. See here, Luba," said Foma, softly, in a beseeching tone, "don't
+speak ill of her in my presence. It isn't necessary. I know everything.
+By God! She told me everything herself."
+
+"Herself!" exclaimed Luba, in astonishment. "What a strange woman she
+is! What did she tell you?"
+
+"That she is guilty," Foma ejaculated with difficulty, with a wry smile.
+
+"Is that all?" There was a ring of disappointment in the girl's
+question; Foma heard it and asked hopefully:
+
+"Isn't that enough?"
+
+"What will you do now?"
+
+"That's just what I am thinking about."
+
+"Do you love her very much?"
+
+Foma was silent. He looked into the window and answered confusedly:
+
+"I don't know. But it seems to me that now I love her more than before."
+
+"Than before the quarrel?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I wonder how one can love such a woman!" said the girl, shrugging her
+shoulders.
+
+"Love such a woman? Of course! Why not?" exclaimed Foma.
+
+"I can't understand it. I think, you have become attached to her just
+because you have not met a better woman."
+
+"No, I have not met a better one!" Foma assented, and after a moment's
+silence said shyly, "Perhaps there is none better."
+
+"Among our people," Lubov interposed.
+
+"I need her very badly! Because, you see, I feel ashamed before her."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Oh, in general, I fear her; that is, I would not want her to think ill
+of me, as of others. Sometimes I feel disgusted. I think--wouldn't it
+be a great idea to go out on such a spree that all my veins would start
+tingling. And then I recall her and I do not venture. And so everything
+else, I think of her, 'What if she finds it out?' and I am afraid to do
+it."
+
+"Yes," the girl drawled out thoughtfully, "that shows that you love her.
+I would also be like this. If I loved, I would think of him--of what he
+might say..."
+
+"And everything about her is so peculiar," Foma related softly. "She
+speaks in a way all her own. And, God! How beautiful she is! And then
+she is so small, like a child."
+
+"And what took place between you?" asked Lubov.
+
+Foma moved his chair closer to her, and stooping, he lowered his voice
+for some reason or other, and began to relate to her all that had taken
+place between him and Medinskaya. He spoke, and as he recalled the words
+he said to Medinskaya, the sentiments that called forth the words were
+also awakened in him.
+
+"I told her, 'Oh, you! why did you make sport of me?'" he said angrily
+and with reproach.
+
+And Luba, her cheeks aflame with animation, spurred him on, nodding her
+head approvingly:
+
+"That's it! That's good! Well, and she?"
+
+"She was silent!" said Foma, sadly, with a shrug of the shoulders. "That
+is, she said different things; but what's the use?"
+
+He waved his hand and became silent. Luba, playing with her braid, was
+also silent. The samovar had already become cold. And the dimness in the
+room was growing thicker and thicker, outside the window it was heavy
+with darkness, and the black branches of the linden-trees were shaking
+pensively.
+
+"You might light the lamp," Foma went on.
+
+"How unhappy we both are," said Luba, with a sigh.
+
+Foma did not like this.
+
+"I am not unhappy," he objected in a firm voice. "I am simply--not yet
+accustomed to life."
+
+"He who knows not what he is going to do tomorrow, is unhappy," said
+Luba, sadly. "I do not know it, neither do you. Whither go? Yet go we
+must, Why is it that my heart is never at ease? Some kind of a longing
+is always quivering within it."
+
+"It is the same with me," said Foma. "I start to reflect, but on what?
+I cannot make it clear to myself. There is also a painful gnawing in my
+heart. Eh! But I must go up to the club."
+
+"Don't go away," Luba entreated.
+
+"I must. Somebody is waiting there for me. I am going. Goodbye!"
+
+"Till we meet again!" She held out her hand to him and sadly looked into
+his eyes.
+
+"Will you go to sleep now?" asked Foma, firmly shaking her hand.
+
+"I'll read a little."
+
+"You're to your books as the drunkard to his whisky," said the youth,
+with pity.
+
+"What is there that is better?"
+
+Walking along the street he looked at the windows of the house and in
+one of them he noticed Luba's face. It was just as vague as everything
+that the girl told him, even as vague as her longings. Foma nodded his
+head toward her and with a consciousness of his superiority over her,
+thought:
+
+"She has also lost her way, like the other one."
+
+At this recollection he shook his head, as though he wanted to frighten
+away the thought of Medinskaya, and quickened his steps.
+
+Night was coming on, and the air was fresh. A cold, invigorating wind
+was violently raging in the street, driving the dust along the sidewalks
+and throwing it into the faces of the passers-by. It was dark, and
+people were hastily striding along in the darkness. Foma wrinkled his
+face, for the dust filled his eyes, and thought:
+
+"If it is a woman I meet now--then it will mean that Sophya Pavlovna
+will receive me in a friendly way, as before. I am going to see her
+tomorrow. And if it is a man--I won't go tomorrow, I'll wait."
+
+But it was a dog that came to meet him, and this irritated Foma to such
+an extent that he felt like striking him with his cane.
+
+In the refreshment-room of the club, Foma was met by the jovial
+Ookhtishchev. He stood at the door, and chatted with a certain stout,
+whiskered man; but, noticing Gordyeeff, he came forward to meet him,
+saying, with a smile:
+
+"How do you do, modest millionaire!" Foma rather liked him for his jolly
+mood, and was always pleased to meet him.
+
+Firmly and kind-heartedly shaking Ookhtishchev's hand, Foma asked him:
+
+"And what makes you think that I am modest?"
+
+"What a question! A man, who lives like a hermit, who neither
+drinks, nor plays, nor likes any women. By the way, do you know, Foma
+Ignatyevich, that peerless patroness of ours is going abroad tomorrow
+for the whole summer?"
+
+"Sophya Pavlovna?" asked Foma, slowly. "Of course! The sun of my life is
+setting. And, perhaps, of yours as well?"
+
+Ookhtishchev made a comical, sly grimace and looked into Foma's face.
+
+And Foma stood before him, feeling that his head was lowering on his
+breast, and that he was unable to hinder it.
+
+"Yes, the radiant Aurora."
+
+"Is Medinskaya going away?" a deep bass voice asked. "That's fine! I am
+glad."
+
+"May I know why?" exclaimed Ookhtishchev. Foma smiled sheepishly and
+stared in confusion at the whiskered man, Ookhtishchev's interlocutor.
+
+That man was stroking his moustache with an air of importance, and deep,
+heavy, repulsive words fell from his lips on Foma's ears.
+
+"Because, you see, there will be one co-cot-te less in town."
+
+"Shame, Martin Nikitich!" said Ookhtishchev, reproachfully, knitting his
+brow.
+
+"How do you know that she is a coquette?" asked Foma, sternly, coming
+closer to the whiskered man. The man measured him with a scornful look,
+turned aside and moving his thigh, drawled out:
+
+"I didn't say--coquette."
+
+"Martin Nikitich, you mustn't speak that way about a woman who--" began
+Ookhtishchev in a convincing tone, but Foma interrupted him:
+
+"Excuse me, just a moment! I wish to ask the gentleman, what is the
+meaning of the word he said?"
+
+And as he articulated this firmly and calmly, Foma thrust his hands deep
+into his trousers-pockets, threw his chest forward, which at once gave
+his figure an attitude of defiance. The whiskered gentleman again eyed
+Foma with a sarcastic smile.
+
+"Gentlemen!" exclaimed Ookhtishchev, softly.
+
+"I said, co-cot-te," pronounced the whiskered man, moving his lips as if
+he tasted the word. "And if you don't understand it, I can explain it to
+you."
+
+"You had better explain it," said Foma, with a deep sigh, not lifting
+his eyes off the man.
+
+Ookhtishchev clasped his hands and rushed aside.
+
+"A cocotte, if you want to know it, is a prostitute," said the whiskered
+man in a low voice, moving his big, fat face closer to Foma.
+
+Foma gave a soft growl and, before the whiskered man had time to move
+away, he clutched with his right hand his curly, grayish hair. With a
+convulsive movement of the hand, Foma began to shake the man's head and
+his big, solid body; lifting up his left hand, he spoke in a dull voice,
+keeping time to the punishment:
+
+"Don't abuse a person--in his absence. Abuse him--right in his
+face--straight in his eyes."
+
+He experienced a burning delight, seeing how comically the stout arms
+were swinging in the air, and how the legs of the man, whom he was
+shaking, were bending under him, scraping against the floor. His gold
+watch fell out of the pocket and dangled on the chain, over his round
+paunch. Intoxicated with his own strength and with the degradation of
+the sedate man, filled with the burning feeling of malignancy, trembling
+with the happiness of revenge, Foma dragged him along the floor and in
+a dull voice, growled wickedly, in wild joy. In these moments he
+experienced a great feeling--the feeling of emancipation from the
+wearisome burden which had long oppressed his heart with grief and
+morbidness. He felt that he was seized by the waist and shoulders from
+behind, that someone seized his hand and bent it, trying to break it;
+that someone was crushing his toes; but he saw nothing, following with
+his bloodshot eyes the dark, heavy mass moaning and wriggling in his
+hand. Finally, they tore him away and downed him, and, as through a
+reddish mist, he noticed before him on the floor, at his feet, the man
+he had thrashed. Dishevelled, he was moving his legs over the floor,
+attempting to rise; two dark men were holding him by the arms, his hands
+were dangling in the air like broken wings, and, in a voice that was
+choking with sobs, he cried to Foma:
+
+"You mustn't beat me! You mustn't! I have an...
+
+"Order. You rascal! Oh, rascal! I have children.
+
+"Everybody knows me! Scoundrel! Savage, O--O--O! You may expect a duel!"
+
+And Ookhtishchev spoke loudly in Foma's ear:
+
+"Come, my dear boy, for God's sake!"
+
+"Wait, I'll give him a kick in the face," begged Foma. But he was
+dragged off. There was a buzzing in his ears, his heart beat fast, but
+he felt relieved and well. At the entrance of the club he heaved a deep
+sigh of relief and said to Ookhtishchev, with a good-natured smile:
+
+"I gave him a sound drubbing, didn't I?"
+
+"Listen!" exclaimed the gay secretary, indignantly. "You must pardon me
+but that was the act of a savage! The devil take it. I never witnessed
+such a thing before!"
+
+"My dear man!" said Foma, friendly, "did he not deserve the drubbing? Is
+he not a scoundrel? How can he speak like that behind a person's back?
+No! Let him go to her and tell it plainly to her alone."
+
+"Excuse me. The devil take you! But it wasn't for her alone that you
+gave him the drubbing?"
+
+"That is, what do you mea,--not for her alone? For whom then?" asked
+Foma, amazed.
+
+"For whom? I don't know. Evidently you had old accounts to settle! Oh
+Lord! That was a scene! I shall not forget it in all my life!"
+
+"He--that man--who is he?" asked Foma, and suddenly burst out laughing.
+"How he roared, the fool!"
+
+Ookhtishchev looked fixedly into his face and asked:
+
+"Tell me, is it true, that you don't know whom you've thrashed? And is
+it really only for Sophya Pavlovna?"
+
+"It is, by God!" avowed Foma.
+
+"So, the devil knows what the result may be!" He stopped short, shrugged
+his shoulders perplexedly, waved his hand, and again began to pace
+the sidewalk, looking at Foma askance. "You'll pay for this, Foma
+Ignatyevich."
+
+"Will he take me to court?"
+
+"Would to God he does. He is the Vice-Governor's son-in-law."
+
+"Is that so?" said Foma, slowly, and made a long face.
+
+"Yes. To tell the truth, he is a scoundrel and a rascal. According to
+this fact I must admit, that he deserves a drubbing. But taking into
+consideration the fact that the lady you defended is also--"
+
+"Sir!" said Foma, firmly, placing his hand on Ookhtishchev's shoulder,
+"I have always liked you, and you are now walking with me. I understand
+it and can appreciate it. But do not speak ill of her in my presence.
+Whatever she may be in your opinion, in my opinion, she is dear to me.
+To me she is the best woman. So I am telling you frankly. Since you are
+going with me, do not touch her. I consider her good, therefore she is
+good."
+
+There was great emotion in Foma's voice. Ookhtishchev looked at him and
+said thoughtfully:
+
+"You are a queer man, I must confess."
+
+"I am a simple man--a savage. I have given him a thrashing and now I
+feel jolly, and as to the result, let come what will.'
+
+"I am afraid that it will result in something bad. Do you know--to be
+frank, in return for your frankness--I also like you, although--Mm! It
+is rather dangerous to be with you. Such a knightly temper may come over
+you and one may get a thrashing at your hands."
+
+"How so? This was but the first time. I am not going to beat people
+every day, am I?" said Foma, confused. His companion began to laugh.
+
+"What a monster you are! Listen to me--it is savage to fight--you must
+excuse me, but it is abominable. Yet, I must tell you, in this case you
+made a happy selection. You have thrashed a rake, a cynic, a parasite--a
+man who robbed his nephews with impunity."
+
+"Well, thank God for that!" said Foma with satisfaction. "Now I have
+punished him a little."
+
+"A little? Very well, let us suppose it was a little. But listen to me,
+my child, permit me to give you advice. I am a man of the law. He, that
+Kayazev, is a rascal! True! But you must not thrash even a rascal, for
+he is a social being, under the paternal custody of the law. You cannot
+touch him until he transgresses the limits of the penal code. But even
+then, not you, but we, the judges, will give him his due. While you must
+have patience."
+
+"And will he soon fall into your hands?" inquired Foma, naively.
+
+"It is hard to tell. Being far from stupid, he will probably never be
+caught, and to the end of his days he will live with you and me in the
+same degree of equality before the law. Oh God, what I am telling you!"
+said Ookhtishchev, with a comical sigh.
+
+"Betraying secrets?" grinned Foma.
+
+"It isn't secrets; but I ought not to be frivolous. De-e-evil! But then,
+this affair enlivened me. Indeed, Nemesis is even then true to herself
+when she simply kicks like a horse."
+
+Foma stopped suddenly, as though he had met an obstacle on his way.
+
+"Nemesis--the goddess of Justice," babbled Ookhtishchev. "What's the
+matter with you?"
+
+"And it all came about," said Foma, slowly, in a dull voice, "because
+you said that she was going away."
+
+"Who?
+
+"Sophya Pavlovna."
+
+"Yes, she is going away. Well?"
+
+He stood opposite Foma and stared at him, with a smile in his eyes.
+Gordyeeff was silent, with lowered head, tapping the stone of the
+sidewalk with his cane.
+
+"Come," said Ookhtishchev.
+
+Foma started, saying indifferently:
+
+"Well, let her go. And I am alone." Ookhtishchev, waving his cane, began
+to whistle, looking at his companion.
+
+"Sha'n't I be able to get along without her?" asked Foma, looking
+somewhere in front of him and then, after a pause, he answered himself
+softly and irresolutely:
+
+"Of course, I shall."
+
+"Listen to me!" exclaimed Ookhtishchev. "I'll give you some good advice.
+A man must be himself. While you, you are an epic man, so to say, and
+the lyrical is not becoming to you. It isn't your genre."
+
+"Speak to me more simply, sir," said Foma, having listened attentively
+to his words.
+
+"More simply? Very well. I want to say, give up thinking of this little
+lady. She is poisonous food for you."
+
+"She told me the same," put in Foma, gloomily.
+
+"She told you?" Ookhtishchev asked and became thoughtful. "Now, I'll
+tell you, shouldn't we perhaps go and have supper?"
+
+"Let's go," Foma assented. And he suddenly roared obdurately, clinching
+his fists and waving them in the air: "Well, let us go, and I'll get
+wound up; I'll break loose, after all this, so you can't hold me back!"
+
+"What for? We'll do it modestly."
+
+"No! wait!" said Foma, anxiously, seizing him by the shoulder. "What's
+that? Am I worse than other people? Everybody lives, whirls, hustles
+about, has his own point. While I am weary. Everybody is satisfied with
+himself. And as to their complaining, they lie, the rascals! They are
+simply pretending for beauty's sake. I have no reason to pretend. I am
+a fool. I don't understand anything, my dear fellow. I simply wish to
+live! I am unable to think. I feel disgusted; one says this, another
+that! Pshaw! But she, eh! If you knew. My hope was in her. I expected of
+her--just what I expected, I cannot tell; but she is the best of women!
+And I had so much faith in her--when sometimes she spoke such peculiar
+words, all her own. Her eyes, my dear boy, are so beautiful! Oh Lord! I
+was ashamed to look upon them, and as I am telling you, she would say a
+few words, and everything would become clear to me. For I did not come
+to her with love alone--I came to her with all my soul! I sought--I
+thought that since she was so beautiful, consequently, I might become a
+man by her side!"
+
+Ookhtishchev listened to the painful, unconnected words that burst from
+his companion's lips. He saw how the muscles of his face contracted with
+the effort to express his thoughts, and he felt that behind this bombast
+there was a great, serious grief. There was something intensely pathetic
+in the powerlessness of this strong and savage youth, who suddenly
+started to pace the sidewalk with big, uneven steps. Skipping along
+after him with his short legs, Ookhtishchev felt it his duty somehow to
+calm Foma. Everything Foma had said and done that evening awakened in
+the jolly secretary a feeling of lively curiosity toward Foma, and
+then he felt flattered by the frankness of the young millionaire. This
+frankness confused him with its dark power; he was disconcerted by its
+pressure, and though, in spite of his youth, he had a stock of words
+ready for all occasions in life, it took him quite awhile to recall
+them.
+
+"I feel that everything is dark and narrow about me," said Gordyeeff. "I
+feel that a burden is falling on my shoulders, but what it is I cannot
+understand! It puts a restraint on me, and it checks the freedom of my
+movements along the road of life. Listening to people, you hear that
+each says a different thing. But she could have said--"
+
+"Eh, my dear boy!" Ookhtishchev interrupted Foma, gently taking his arm.
+"That isn't right! You have just started to live and already you are
+philosophizing! No, that is not right! Life is given us to live! Which
+means--live and let others live. That's the philosophy! And that woman.
+Bah! Is she then the only one in the world? The world is large enough.
+If you wish, I'll introduce you to such a virile woman, that even the
+slightest trace of your philosophy would at once vanish from your soul!
+Oh, a remarkable woman! And how well she knows how to avail herself
+of life! Do you know, there's also something epic about her? She is
+beautiful; a Phryne, I may say, and what a match she would be to you!
+Ah, devil! It is really a splendid idea. I'll make you acquainted with
+her! We must drive one nail out with another."
+
+"My conscience does not allow it," said Foma, sadly and sternly. "So
+long as she is alive, I cannot even look at women."
+
+"Such a robust and healthy young man. Ho, ho!" exclaimed Ookhtishchev,
+and in the tone of a teacher began to argue with Foma that it was
+essential for him to give his passion an outlet in a good spree, in the
+company of women.
+
+"This will be magnificent, and it is indispensable to you. You may
+believe me. And as to conscience, you must excuse me. You don't define
+it quite properly. It is not conscience that interferes with you, but
+timidity, I believe. You live outside of society. You are bashful,
+and awkward. Youare dimly conscious of all this, and it is this
+consciousness that you mistake for conscience. In this case there can be
+no question about conscience. What has conscience to do here, since it
+is natural for man to enjoy himself, since it is his necessity and his
+right?"
+
+Foma walked on, regulating his steps to those of his companion, and
+staring along the road, which lay between two rows of buildings,
+resembled an enormous ditch, and was filled with darkness. It seemed
+that there was no end to the road and that something dark, inexhaustible
+and suffocating was slowly flowing along it in the distance.
+Ookhtishchev's kind, suasive voice rang monotonously in Foma's ears,
+and though he was not listening to his words, he felt that they were
+tenacious in their way; that they adhered to him, and that he was
+involuntarily memorizing them. Notwithstanding that a man walked beside
+him, he felt as though he were alone, straying in the dark. And the
+darkness seized him and slowly drew him along, and he felt that he was
+drawn somewhere, and yet had no desire to stop. Some sort of fatigue
+hindered his thinking; there was no desire in him to resist the
+admonitions of his companion--and why should he resist them?
+
+"It isn't for everyone to philosophize," said Ookhtishchev, swinging
+his cane in the air, and somewhat carried away by his wisdom. "For if
+everybody were to philosophize, who would live? And we live but once!
+And therefore it were best to make haste to live. By God! That's true!
+But what's the use of talking? Would you permit me to give you a shaking
+up? Let's go immediately to a pleasure-house I know. Two sisters live
+there. Ah, how they live! You will come?"
+
+"Well, I'll go," said Foma, calmly, and yawned. "Isn't it rather late?"
+he asked, looking up at the sky which was covered with clouds.
+
+"It's never too late to go to see them!" exclaimed Ookhtishchev,
+merrily.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+ON the third day after the scene in the club, Foma found himself
+about seven versts from the town, on the timber-wharf of the merchant
+Zvantzev, in the company of the merchant's son of Ookhtishchev--a
+sedate, bald-headed and red-nosed gentleman with side whiskers--and four
+ladies. The young Zvantzev wore eyeglasses, was thin and pale, and when
+he stood, the calves of his legs were forever trembling as though they
+were disgusted at supporting the feeble body, clad in a long, checked
+top-coat with a cape, in whose folds a small head in a jockey cap was
+comically shaking. The gentleman with the side whiskers called him Jean
+and pronounced this name as though he was suffering from an inveterate
+cold. Jean's lady was a tall, stout woman with a showy bust. Her
+head was compressed on the sides, her low forehead receded, her long,
+sharp-pointed nose gave her face an expression somewhat bird-like. And
+this ugly face was perfectly motionless, and the eyes alone, small,
+round and cold, were forever smiling a penetrating and cunning smile.
+Ookhtishchev's lady's name was Vera; she was a tall, pale woman with red
+hair. She had so much hair, that it seemed as though the woman had put
+on her head an enormous cap which was coming down over her ears, her
+cheeks and her high forehead, from under which her large blue eyes
+looked forth calmly and lazily.
+
+The gentleman with the side whiskers sat beside a young, plump, buxom
+girl, who constantly giggled in a ringing voice at something which he
+whispered in her ear as he leaned over her shoulder.
+
+And Foma's lady was a stately brunette, clad all in black.
+Dark-complexioned, with wavy locks, she kept her head so erect and high
+and looked at everything about her with such condescending haughtiness,
+that it was at once evident that she considered herself the most
+important person there.
+
+The company were seated on the extreme link of the raft, extending far
+into the smooth expanse of the river. Boards were spread out on the
+raft and in the centre stood a crudely constructed table; empty bottles,
+provision baskets, candy-wrappers and orange peels were scattered about
+everywhere. In the corner of the raft was a pile of earth, upon which
+a bonfire was burning, and a peasant in a short fur coat, squatting,
+warmed his hands over the fire, and cast furtive glances at the people
+seated around the table. They had just finished eating their sturgeon
+soup, and now wines and fruits were before them on the table.
+
+Fatigued with a two-days' spree and with the dinner that had just been
+finished, the company was in a weary frame of mind. They all gazed
+at the river, chatting, but their conversation was now and again
+interrupted by long pauses.
+
+The day was clear and bright and young, as in spring. The cold,
+clear sky stretched itself majestically over the turbid water of the
+gigantically-wide, overflowing river, which was as calm as the sky and
+as vast as the sea. The distant, mountainous shore was tenderly bathed
+in bluish mist. Through it, there, on the mountain tops, the crosses
+of churches were flashing like big stars. The river was animated at the
+mountainous shore; steamers were going hither and thither, and their
+noise came in deep moans toward the rafts and into the meadows, where
+the calm flow of the waves filled the air with soft and faint sounds.
+Gigantic barges stretched themselves one after another against the
+current, like huge pigs, tearing asunder the smooth expanse of the
+river. Black smoke came in ponderous puffs from the chimneys of the
+steamers, slowly melting in the fresh air, which was full of bright
+sunshine. At times a whistle resounded--it was like the roar of some
+huge, enraged animal, embittered by toil. And on the meadows near the
+rafts, all was calm and silent. Solitary trees that had been drowned
+by the flood, were now already covered with light-green spangles of
+foliage. Covering their roots and reflecting their tops, the water gave
+them the appearance of globes, and it seemed as though the slightest
+breeze would send them floating, fantastically beautiful, down the
+mirror-like bosom of the river.
+
+The red-haired woman, pensively gazing into the distance, began to sing
+softly and sadly:
+
+"Along the Volga river A little boat is flo-o-oating."
+
+The brunette, snapping her large, stern eyes with contempt, said,
+without looking at her: "We feel gloomy enough without this."
+
+"Don't touch her. Let her sing!" entreated Foma, kindly, looking into
+his lady's face. He was pale some spark seemed to flash up in his eyes
+now and then, and an indefinite, indolent smile played about his lips.
+
+"Let us sing in chorus!" suggested the man with the side whiskers.
+
+"No, let these two sing!" exclaimed Ookhtishchev with enthusiasm.
+"Vera, sing that song! You know, 'I will go at dawn.' How is it? Sing,
+Pavlinka!"
+
+The giggling girl glanced at the brunette and asked her respectfully:
+
+"Shall I sing, Sasha?"
+
+"I shall sing myself," announced Foma's companion, and turning toward
+the lady with the birdlike face, she ordered:
+
+"Vassa, sing with me!"
+
+Vassa immediately broke off her conversation with Zvantzev, stroked her
+throat a little with her hand and fixed her round eyes on the face of
+her sister. Sasha rose to her feet, leaned her hand against the table,
+and her head lifted haughtily, began to declaim in a powerful, almost
+masculine voice:
+
+"Life on earth is bright to him, Who knows no cares or woe, And whose
+heart is not consumed By passion's ardent glow!"
+
+Her sister nodded her head and slowly, plaintively began to moan in a
+deep contralto:
+
+"Ah me! Of me the maiden fair."
+
+Flashing her eyes at her sister, Sasha exclaimed in her low-pitched
+notes:
+
+"Like a blade of grass my heart has withered."
+
+The two voices mingled and floated over the water in melodious, full
+sounds, which quivered from excess of power. One of them was complaining
+of the unbearable pain in the heart, and intoxicated by the poison
+of its plaint, it sobbed with melancholy and impotent grief; sobbed,
+quenching with tears the fire of the suffering. The other--the lower,
+more masculine voice--rolled powerfully through the air, full of the
+feeling of bloody mortification and of readiness to avenge. Pronouncing
+the words distinctly, the voice came from her breast in a deep stream,
+and each word reeked with boiling blood, stirred up by outrage, poisoned
+by offence and mightily demanding vengeance.
+
+     "I will requite him,"
+
+sang Vassa, plaintively, closing her eyes.
+
+     "I will inflame him,
+     I'll dry him up,"
+
+Sasha promised sternly and confidently, wafting into the air strong,
+powerful tones, which sounded like blows. And suddenly, changing the
+tempo of the song and striking a higher pitch, she began to sing, as
+slowly as her sister, voluptuous and exultant threats:
+
+"Drier than the raging wind, Drier than the mown-down grass, Oi, the
+mown and dried-up grass."
+
+Resting his elbows on the table, Foma bent his head, and with knitted
+brow, gazed into the face of the woman, into her black, half-shut eyes
+Staring fixedly into the distance, her eyes flashed so brightly and
+malignantly that, because of their light, the velvety voice, that burst
+from the woman's chest, seemed to him also black and flashing, like her
+eyes. He recalled her caresses and thought:
+
+"How does she come to be such as she is? It is even fearful to be with
+her."
+
+Ookhtishchev, sitting close to his lady, an expression of happiness on
+his face, listened to the song and was radiant with satisfaction. The
+gentleman with the side whiskers and Zvantzev were drinking wine, softly
+whispering something as they leaned toward each other. The red-headed
+woman was thoughtfully examining the palm of Ookhtishchev's hand,
+holding it in her own, and the jolly girl became sad. She drooped her
+head low and listened to the song, motionless, as though bewitched
+by it. From the fire came the peasant. He stepped carefully over the
+boards, on tiptoe; his hands were clasped behind his back, and his
+broad, bearded face was now transformed into a smile of astonishment and
+of a naive delight.
+
+"Eh! but feel, my kind, brave man!"
+
+entreated Vassa, plaintively, nodding her head. And her sister, her
+chest bent forward, her hand still higher, wound up the song in powerful
+triumphant notes:
+
+"The yearning and the pangs of love!"
+
+When she finished singing, she looked haughtily about her, and seating
+herself by Foma's side, clasped his neck with a firm and powerful hand.
+
+"Well, was it a nice song?"
+
+"It's capital!" said Foma with a sigh, as he smiled at her.
+
+The song filled his heart with thirst for tenderness and, still full
+of charming sounds, it quivered, but at the touch of her arm he felt
+awkward and ashamed before the other people.
+
+"Bravo-o! Bravo, Aleksandra Sarelyevna!" shouted Ookhtishchev, and the
+others were clapping their hands. But she paid no attention to them, and
+embracing Foma authoritatively, said:
+
+"Well, make me a present of something for the song."
+
+"Very well, I will," Foma assented.
+
+"What?"
+
+"You tell me."
+
+"I'll tell you when we come to town. And if you'll give me what I
+like--Oh, how I will love you!"
+
+"For the present?" asked Foma, smiling suspiciously. "You ought to love
+me anyway."
+
+She looked at him calmly and, after a moment's thought, said resolutely:
+
+"It's too soon to love you anyway. I will not lie. Why should I lie
+to you? I am telling you frankly. I love you for money, for presents.
+Because aside from money, men have nothing. They cannot give anything
+more than money. Nothing of worth. I know it well already. One can love
+merely so. Yes, wait a little--I'll know you better and then, perhaps, I
+may love you free of charge. And meanwhile, you mustn't take me amiss. I
+need much money in my mode of life."
+
+Foma listened to her, smiled and now and then quivered from the nearness
+of her sound, well-shaped body. Zvantzev's sour, cracked and boring
+voice was falling on his ears. "I don't like it. I cannot understand the
+beauty of this renowned Russian song. What is it that sounds in it? Eh?
+The howl of a wolf. Something hungry, wild. Eh! it's the groan of a sick
+dog--altogether something beastly. There's nothing cheerful, there's no
+chic to it; there are no live and vivifying sounds in it. No, you ought
+to hear what and how the French peasant sings. Ah! or the Italian."
+
+"Excuse me, Ivan Nikolayevich," cried Ookhtishchev, agitated.
+
+"I must agree with you, the Russian song is monotonous and gloomy. It
+has not, you know, that brilliancy of culture," said the man with the
+side whiskers wearily, as he sipped some wine out of his glass.
+
+"But nevertheless, there is always a warm heart in it," put in the
+red-haired lady, as she peeled an orange.
+
+The sun was setting. Sinking somewhere far beyond the forest, on the
+meadow shore, it painted the entire forest with purple tints and cast
+rosy and golden spots over the dark cold water. Foma gazed in that
+direction at this play of the sunbeams, watched how they quivered as
+they were transposed over the placid and vast expanse of waters, and
+catching fragments of conversation, he pictured to himself the words as
+a swarm of dark butterflies, busily fluttering in the air. Sasha,
+her head resting on his shoulder, was softly whispering into his ear
+something at which he blushed and was confused, for he felt that she
+was kindling in him the desire to embrace this woman and kiss her
+unceasingly. Aside from her, none of those assembled there interested
+him--while Zvantzev and the gentleman with the side whiskers were
+actually repulsive to him.
+
+"What are you staring at? Eh?" he heard Ookhtishchev's jestingly-stern
+voice.
+
+The peasant, at whom Ookhtishchev shouted, drew the cap from his head,
+clapped it against his knee and answered, with a smile:
+
+"I came over to listen to the lady's song."
+
+"Well, does she sing well?"
+
+"What a question! Of course," said the peasant, looking at Sasha, with
+admiration in his eyes.
+
+"That's right!" exclaimed Ookhtishchev.
+
+"There is a great power of voice in that lady's breast," said the
+peasant, nodding his head.
+
+At his words, the ladies burst out laughing and the men made some
+double-meaning remarks about Sasha.
+
+After she had calmly listened to these and said nothing in reply, Sasha
+asked the peasant:
+
+"Do you sing?"
+
+"We sing a little!" and he waved his hand, "What songs do you know?"
+
+"All kinds. I love singing." And he smiled apologetically.
+
+"Come, let's sing something together, you and I."
+
+"How can we? Am I a match for you?"
+
+"Well, strike up!"
+
+"May I sit down?"
+
+"Come over here, to the table."
+
+"How lively this is!" exclaimed Zvantzev, wrinkling his face.
+
+"If you find it tedious, go and drown yourself," said Sasha, angrily
+flashing her eyes at him.
+
+"No, the water is cold," replied Zvantzev, shrinking at her glance.
+
+"As you please!" The woman shrugged her shoulders. "But it is about
+time you did it, and then, there's also plenty of water now, so that you
+wouldn't spoil it all with your rotten body."
+
+"Fie, how witty!" hissed the youth, turning away from her, and added
+with contempt: "In Russia even the prostitutes are rude."
+
+He addressed himself to his neighbour, but the latter gave him only an
+intoxicated smile in return. Ookhtishchev was also drunk. Staring
+into the face of his companion, with his eyes grown dim, he muttered
+something and heard nothing. The lady with the bird-like face was
+pecking candy, holding the box under her very nose. Pavlinka went away
+to the edge of the raft and, standing there, threw orange peels into the
+water.
+
+"I never before participated in such an absurd outing and--company,"
+said Zvantzev, to his neighbour, plaintively.
+
+And Foma watched him with a smile, delighted that this feeble and
+ugly-looking man felt bored, and that Sasha had insulted him. Now and
+then he cast at her a kind glance of approval. He was pleased with the
+fact that she was so frank with everybody and that she bore herself
+proudly, like a real gentlewoman.
+
+The peasant seated himself on the boards at her feet, clasped his knees
+in his hands, lifted his face to her and seriously listened to her
+words.
+
+"You must raise your voice, when I lower mine, understand?"
+
+"I understand; but, Madam, you ought to hand me some just to give me
+courage!"
+
+"Foma, give him a glass of brandy!"
+
+And when the peasant emptied it, cleared his throat with pleasure,
+licked his lips and said: "Now, I can do it," she ordered, knitting her
+brow:
+
+"Begin!"
+
+The peasant made a wry mouth, lifted his eyes to her face, and started
+in a high-pitched tenor:
+
+"I cannot drink, I cannot eat."
+
+Trembling in every limb, the woman sobbed out tremulously, with strange
+sadness:
+
+"Wine cannot gladden my soul."
+
+The peasant smiled sweetly, tossed his head to and fro, and closing his
+eyes, poured out into the air a tremulous wave of high-pitched notes:
+
+"Oh, time has come for me to bid goodbye!"
+
+And the woman, shuddering and writhing, moaned and wailed:
+
+"Oi, from my kindred I must part."
+
+Lowering his voice and swaying to and fro, the peasant declaimed in a
+sing-song with a remarkably intense expression of anguish:
+
+"Alas, to foreign lands I must depart."
+
+When the two voices, yearning and sobbing, poured forth into the silence
+and freshness of the evening, everything about them seemed warmer and
+better; everything seemed to smile the sorrowful smile of sympathy on
+the anguish of the man whom an obscure power is tearing away from his
+native soil into some foreign place, where hard labour and degradation
+are in store for him. It seemed as though not the sounds, nor the song,
+but the burning tears of the human heart in which the plaint had surged
+up--it seemed as though these tears moistened the air. Wild grief and
+pain from the sores of body and soul, which were wearied in the struggle
+with stern life; intense sufferings from the wounds dealt to man by the
+iron hand of want--all this was invested in the simple, crude words and
+was tossed in ineffably melancholy sounds toward the distant, empty sky,
+which has no echo for anybody or anything.
+
+Foma had stepped aside from the singers, and stared at them with a
+feeling akin to fright, and the song, in a huge wave, poured forth
+into his breast, and the wild power of grief, with which it had been
+invested, clutched his heart painfully. He felt that tears would soon
+gush from his breast, something was clogging his throat and his face
+was quivering. He dimly saw Sasha's black eyes; immobile and flashing
+gloomily, they seemed to him enormous and still growing larger and
+larger. And it seemed to him that it was not two persons who were
+singing--that everything about him was singing and sobbing, quivering
+and palpitating in torrents of sorrow, madly striving somewhere,
+shedding burning tears, and all--and all things living seemed clasped in
+one powerful embrace of despair. And it seemed to him that he, too, was
+singing in unison with all of them--with the people, the river and the
+distant shore, whence came plaintive moans that mingled with the song.
+
+Now the peasant went down on his knees, and gazing at Sasha, waved his
+hands, and she bent down toward him and shook her head, keeping time
+to the motions of his hands. Both were now singing without words, with
+sounds only, and Foma still could not believe that only two voices were
+pouring into the air these moans and sobs with such mighty power.
+
+When they had finished singing, Foma, trembling with excitement, with a
+tear-stained face, gazed at them and smiled sadly.
+
+"Well, did it move you?" asked Sasha. Pale with fatigue, she breathed
+quickly and heavily.
+
+Foma glanced at the peasant. The latter was wiping the sweat off his
+brow and looking around him with such a wandering look as though he
+could not make out what had taken place.
+
+All was silence. All were motionless and speechless.
+
+"Oh Lord!" sighed Foma, rising to his feet. "Eh, Sasha! Peasant! Who are
+you?" he almost shouted.
+
+"I am--Stepan," said the peasant, smiling confusedly, and also rose to
+his feet. "I'm Stepan. Of course!"
+
+"How you sing! Ah!" Foma exclaimed in astonishment, uneasily shifting
+from foot to foot.
+
+"Eh, your Honour!" sighed the peasant and added softly and convincingly:
+"Sorrow can compel an ox to sing like a nightingale. And what makes
+the lady sing like this, only God knows. And she sings, with all her
+veins--that is to say, so you might just lie down and die with sorrow!
+Well, that's a lady."
+
+"That was sung very well!" said Ookhtishchev in a drunken voice.
+
+"No, the devil knows what this is!" Zvantzev suddenly shouted, almost
+crying, irritated as he jumped up from the table. "I've come out here
+for a good time. I want to enjoy myself, and here they perform a funeral
+service for me! What an outrage! I can't stand this any longer. I'm
+going away!"
+
+"Jean, I am also going. I'm weary, too," announced the gentleman with
+the side whiskers.
+
+"Vassa," cried Zvantzev to his lady, "dress yourself!"
+
+"Yes, it's time to go," said the red-haired lady to Ookhtishchev. "It is
+cold, and it will soon be dark."
+
+"Stepan! Clear everything away!" commanded Vassa.
+
+All began to bustle about, all began to speak of something. Foma stared
+at them in suspense and shuddered. Staggering, the crowd walked
+along the rafts. Pale and fatigued, they said to one another stupid,
+disconnected things. Sasha jostled them unceremoniously, as she was
+getting her things together.
+
+"Stepan! Call for the horses!"
+
+"And I'll drink some more cognac. Who wants some more cognac with
+me?" drawled the gentleman with the side whiskers in a beatific voice,
+holding a bottle in his hands.
+
+Vassa was muffling Zvantzev's neck with a scarf. He stood in front of
+her, frowning, dissatisfied, his lips curled capriciously, the calves of
+his legs shivering. Foma became disgusted as he looked at them, and
+he went off to the other raft. He was astonished that all these people
+behaved as though they had not heard the song at all. In his breast
+the song was alive and there it called to life a restless desire to do
+something, to say something. But he had no one there to speak to.
+
+The sun had set and the distance was enveloped in blue mist. Foma
+glanced thither and turned away. He did not feel like going to town with
+these people, neither did he care to stay here with them. And they were
+still pacing the raft with uneven steps, shaking from side to side and
+muttering disconnected words. The women were not quite as drunk as the
+men, and only the red-haired one could not lift herself from the bench
+for a long time, and finally, when she rose, she declared:
+
+"Well, I'm drunk."
+
+Foma sat down on a log of wood, and lifting the axe, with which the
+peasant had chopped wood for the fire, he began to play with it, tossing
+it up in the air and catching it.
+
+"Oh, my God! How mean this is!" Zvantzev's capricious voice was heard.
+
+Foma began to feel that he hated it, and him, and everybody, except
+Sasha, who awakened in him a certain uneasy feeling, which contained
+at once admiration for her and a fear lest she might do something
+unexpected and terrible.
+
+"Brute!" shouted Zvantzev in a shrill voice, and Foma noticed that he
+struck the peasant on the chest, after which the peasant removed his cap
+humbly and stepped aside.
+
+"Fo-o-ol!" cried Zvantzev, walking after him and lifting his hand.
+
+Foma jumped to his feet and said threateningly, in a loud voice:
+
+"Eh, you! Don't touch him!"
+
+"Wha-a-at?" Zvantzev turned around toward him.
+
+"Stepan, come over here," called Foma.
+
+"Peasant!" Zvantzev hurled with contempt, looking at Foma.
+
+Foma shrugged his shoulders and made a step toward him; but suddenly
+a thought flashed vividly through his mind! He smiled maliciously and
+inquired of Stepan, softly:
+
+"The string of rafts is moored in three places, isn't it?
+
+"In three, of course!"
+
+"Cut the connections!"
+
+"And they?"
+
+"Keep quiet! Cut!"
+
+"But--"
+
+"Cut! Quietly, so they don't notice it!"
+
+The peasant took the axe in his hands, slowly walked up to the place
+where one link was well fastened to another link, struck a few times
+with his axe, and returned to Foma.
+
+"I'm not responsible, your Honour," he said.
+
+"Don't be afraid."
+
+"They've started off," whispered the peasant with fright, and hastily
+made the sign of the cross. And Foma gazed, laughing softly, and
+experienced a painful sensation that keenly and sharply stung his heart
+with a certain strange, pleasant and sweet fear.
+
+The people on the raft were still pacing to and fro, moving about
+slowly, jostling one another, assisting the ladies with their wraps,
+laughing and talking, and the raft was meanwhile turning slowly and
+irresolutely in the water.
+
+"If the current carries them against the fleet," whispered the
+peasant, "they'll strike against the bows--and they'll be smashed into
+splinters."
+
+"Keep quiet!"
+
+"They'll drown!"
+
+"You'll get a boat, and overtake them."
+
+"That's it! Thank you. What then? They're after all human beings.
+And we'll be held responsible for them." Satisfied now, laughing with
+delight, the peasant dashed in bounds across the rafts to the shore. And
+Foma stood by the water and felt a passionate desire to shout something,
+but he controlled himself, in order to give time for the raft to float
+off farther, so that those drunken people would not be able to jump
+across to the moored links. He experienced a pleasant caressing
+sensation as he saw the raft softly rocking upon the water and floating
+off farther and farther from him every moment. The heavy and dark
+feeling, with which his heart had been filled during this time, now
+seemed to float away together with the people on the raft. Calmly he
+inhaled the fresh air and with it something sound that cleared his
+brain. At the very edge of the floating raft stood Sasha, with her
+back toward Foma; he looked at her beautiful figure and involuntarily
+recalled Medinskaya. The latter was smaller in size. The recollection of
+her stung him, and he cried out in a loud, mocking voice:
+
+"Eh, there! Good-bye! Ha! ha! ha!"
+
+Suddenly the dark figures of the people moved toward him and crowded
+together in one group, in the centre of the raft. But by this time a
+clear strip of water, about three yards wide, was flashing between them
+and Foma.
+
+There was a silence lasting for a few seconds.
+
+Then suddenly a hurricane of shrill, repulsively pitiful sounds, which
+were full of animal fright, was hurled at Foma, and louder than all and
+more repulsive than all, Zvantzev's shrill, jarring cry pierced the ear:
+
+"He-e-elp!"
+
+Some one--in all probability, the sedate gentleman with the side
+whiskers--roared in his basso:
+
+"Drowning! They're drowning people!"
+
+"Are you people?" cried Foma, angrily, irritated by their screams which
+seemed to bite him. And the people ran about on the raft in the madness
+of fright; the raft rocked under their feet, floated faster on account
+of this, and the agitated water was loudly splashing against and under
+it. The screams rent the air, the people jumped about, waving their
+hands, and the stately figure of Sasha alone stood motionless and
+speechless on the edge of the raft.
+
+"Give my regards to the crabs!" cried Foma. Foma felt more and more
+cheerful and relieved in proportion as the raft was floating away from
+him.
+
+"Foma Ignatyevich!" said Ookhtishchev in a faint, but sober voice, "look
+out, this is a dangerous joke. I'll make a complaint."
+
+"When you are drowned? You may complain!" answered Foma, cheerfully.
+
+"You are a murderer!" exclaimed Zvantzev, sobbing. But at this time a
+ringing splash of water was heard as though it groaned with fright or
+with astonishment. Foma shuddered and became as though petrified.
+Then rang out the wild, deafening shrieks of the women, and the
+terror-stricken screams of men, and all the figures on the raft remained
+petrified in their places. And Foma, staring at the water, felt
+as though he really were petrified. In the water something black,
+surrounded with splashes, was floating toward him.
+
+Rather instinctively than consciously, Foma threw himself with his chest
+on the beams of the raft, and stretched out his hands, his head hanging
+down over the water. Several incredibly long seconds passed. Cold,
+wet arms clasped his neck and dark eyes flashed before him. Then he
+understood that it was Sasha.
+
+The dull horror, which had suddenly seized him, vanished, replaced now
+by wild, rebellious joy. Having dragged the woman out of the water, he
+grasped her by the waist, clasped her to his breast, and, not knowing
+what to say to her, he stared into her eyes with astonishment. She
+smiled at him caressingly.
+
+"I am cold," said Sasha, softly, and quivered in every limb.
+
+Foma laughed gaily at the sound of her voice, lifted her into his arms
+and quickly, almost running, dashed across the rafts to the shore. She
+was wet and cold, but her breathing was hot, it burned Foma's cheek and
+filled his breast with wild joy.
+
+"You wanted to drown me?" said she, firmly, pressing close to him. "It
+was rather too early. Wait!"
+
+"How well you have done it," muttered Foma, as he ran.
+
+"You're a fine, brave fellow! And your device wasn't bad, either, though
+you seem to be so peaceable."
+
+"And they are still roaring there, ha! ha!"
+
+"The devil take them! If they are drowned, we'll be sent to Siberia,"
+said the woman, as though she wanted to console and encourage him by
+this. She began to shiver, and the shudder of her body, felt by Foma,
+made him hasten his pace.
+
+Sobs and cries for help followed them from the river. There, on the
+placid water, floated in the twilight a small island, withdrawing from
+the shore toward the stream of the main current of the river, and on
+that little island dark human figures were running about.
+
+Night was closing down upon them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+ONE Sunday afternoon, Yakov Tarasovich Mayakin was drinking tea in his
+garden and talking to his daughter. The collar of his shirt unbuttoned,
+a towel wound round his neck, he sat on a bench under a canopy of
+verdant cherry-trees, waved his hands in the air, wiped the perspiration
+off his face, and incessantly poured forth into the air his brisk
+speech.
+
+"The man who permits his belly to have the upper hand over him is a
+fool and a rogue! Is there nothing better in the world than eating and
+drinking? Upon what will you pride yourself before people, if you are
+like a hog?"
+
+The old man's eyes sparkled irritably and angrily, his lips twisted with
+contempt, and the wrinkles of his gloomy face quivered.
+
+"If Foma were my own son, I would have made a man of him!"
+
+Playing with an acacia branch, Lubov mutely listened to her father's
+words, now and then casting a close and searching look in his agitated,
+quivering face. Growing older, she changed, without noticing it, her
+suspicious and cold relation toward the old man. In his words she now
+began to find the same ideas that were in her books, and this won her
+over on her father's side, involuntarily causing the girl to prefer
+his live words to the cold letters of the book. Always overwhelmed with
+business affairs, always alert and clever, he went his own way alone,
+and she perceived his solitude, knew how painful it was, and her
+relations toward her father grew in warmth. At times she even entered
+into arguments with the old man; he always regarded her remarks
+contemptuously and sarcastically; but more tenderly and attentively from
+time to time.
+
+"If the deceased Ignat could read in the newspapers of the indecent life
+his son is leading, he would have killed Foma!" said Mayakin, striking
+the table with his fists. "How they have written it up! It's a
+disgrace!"
+
+"He deserves it," said Lubov.
+
+"I don't say it was done at random! They've barked at him, as was
+necessary. And who was it that got into such a fit of anger?"
+
+"What difference does it make to you?" asked the girl.
+
+"It's interesting to know. How cleverly the rascal described Foma's
+behaviour. Evidently he must have been with him and witnessed all the
+indecency himself."
+
+"Oh, no, he wouldn't go with Foma on a spree!' said Lubov, confidently,
+and blushed deeply at her father's searching look.
+
+"So! You have fine acquaintances, Lubka!" said Mayakin with humorous
+bitterness. "Well, who wrote it?"
+
+"What do you wish to know it for, papa?"
+
+"Come, tell me!"
+
+She had no desire to tell, but the old man persisted, and his voice was
+growing more and more dry and angry. Then she asked him uneasily:
+
+"And you will not do him any ill for it?"
+
+"I? I will--bite his head off! Fool! What can I do to him? They, these
+writers, are not a foolish lot and are therefore a power--a power, the
+devils! And I am not the governor, and even he cannot put one's hand out
+of joint or tie one's tongue. Like mice, they gnaw us little by little.
+And we have to poison them not with matches, but with roubles. Yes!
+Well, who is it?"
+
+"Do you remember, when I was going to school, a Gymnasium student used
+to come up to us. Yozhov? Such a dark little fellow!"
+
+"Mm! Of course, I saw him. I know him. So it's he?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The little mouse! Even at that time one could see already that
+something wrong would come out of him. Even then he stood in the way of
+other people. A bold boy he was. I should have looked after him then.
+Perhaps, I might have made a man of him."
+
+Lubov looked at her father, smiled inimically, and asked hotly:
+
+"And isn't he who writes for newspapers a man?"
+
+For a long while, the old man did not answer his daughter. Thoughtfully,
+he drummed with his fingers against the table and examined his face,
+which was reflected in the brightly polished brass of the samovar. Then
+he raised his head, winked his eyes and said impressively and irritably:
+
+"They are not men, they are sores! The blood of the Russian people has
+become mixed, it has become mixed and spoiled, and from the bad
+blood have come all these book and newspaper-writers, these terrible
+Pharisees. They have broken out everywhere, and they are still breaking
+out, more and more. Whence comes this spoiling of the blood? From
+slowness of motion. Whence the mosquitoes, for instance? From the swamp.
+All sorts of uncleanliness multiply in stagnant waters. The same is true
+of a disordered life."
+
+"That isn't right, papa!" said Lubov, softly.
+
+"What do you mean by--not right?"
+
+"Writers are the most unselfish people, they are noble personalities!
+They don't want anything--all they strive for is justice--truth! They're
+not mosquitoes."
+
+Lubov grew excited as she lauded her beloved people; her face was
+flushed, and her eyes looked at her father with so much feeling, as
+though imploring him to believe her, being unable to convince him.
+
+"Eh, you!" said the old man, with a sigh, interrupting her. "You've read
+too much! You've been poisoned! Tell me--who are they? No one knows!
+That Yozhov--what is he? Only God knows. All they want is the truth, you
+say? What modest people they are! And suppose truth is the very dearest
+thing there is? Perhaps everybody is seeking it in silence? Believe
+me--man cannot be unselfish. Man will not fight for what belongs not to
+him, and if he does fight--his name is 'fool,' and he is of no use to
+anybody. A man must be able to stand up for himself, for his own, then
+will he attain something! Here you have it! Truth! Here I have been
+reading the same newspaper for almost forty years, and I can see
+well--here is my face before you, and before me, there on the samovar is
+again my face, but it is another face. You see, these newspapers give
+a samovar face to everything, and do not see the real one. And yet you
+believe them. But I know that my face on the samovar is distorted. No
+one can tell the real truth; man's throat is too delicate for this. And
+then, the real truth is known to nobody."
+
+"Papa!" exclaimed Lubov, sadly, "But in books and in newspapers they
+defend the general interests of all the people."
+
+"And in what paper is it written that you are weary of life, and that
+it was time for you to get married? So, there your interest is not
+defended! Eh! You! Neither is mine defended. Who knows what I need? Who,
+but myself, understands my interests?"
+
+"No, papa, that isn't right, that isn't right! I cannot refute you, but
+I feel that this isn't right!" said Lubov almost with despair.
+
+"It is right!" said the old man, firmly. "Russia is confused, and there
+is nothing steadfast in it; everything is staggering! Everybody lives
+awry, everybody walks on one side, there's no harmony in life. All are
+yelling out of tune, in different voices. And not one understands what
+the other is in need of! There is a mist over everything--everybody
+inhales that mist, and that's why the blood of the people has become
+spoiled--hence the sores. Man is given great liberty to reason, but is
+not permitted to do anything--that's why man does not live; but rots and
+stinks."
+
+"What ought one to do, then?" asked Lubov, resting her elbows on the
+table and bending toward her father.
+
+"Everything!" cried the old man, passionately. "Do everything. Go ahead!
+Let each man do whatever he knows best! But for that liberty must
+be given to man--complete freedom! Since there has come a time, when
+everyraw youth believes that he knows everything and was created for the
+complete arrangement of life--give him, give the rogue freedom! Here,
+Carrion, live! Come, come, live! Ah! Then such a comedy will follow;
+feeling that his bridle is off, man will then rush up higher than his
+ears, and like a feather will fly hither and thither. He'll believe
+himself to be a miracle worker, and then he'll start to show his
+spirit."
+
+The old man paused awhile and, lowering his voice, went on, with a
+malicious smile:
+
+"But there is very little of that creative spirit in him! He'll bristle
+up for a day or two, stretch himself on all sides--and the poor fellow
+will soon grow weak. For his heart is rotten--he, he, he! Here, he, he,
+he! The dear fellow will be caught by the real, worthy people, by those
+real people who are competent to be the actual civil masters, who will
+manage life not with a rod nor with a pen, but with a finger and with
+brains.
+
+"What, they will say. Have you grown tired, gentlemen? What, they will
+say, your spleens cannot stand a real fire, can they? So--" and, raising
+his voice, the old man concluded his speech in an authoritative tone:
+
+"Well, then, now, you rabble, hold your tongues, and don't squeak! Or
+we'll shake you off the earth, like worms from a tree! Silence, dear
+fellows! Ha, ha, ha! That's how it's going to happen, Lubavka! He, he,
+he!"
+
+The old man was in a merry mood. His wrinkles quivered, and carried away
+by his words, he trembled, closed his eyes now and then, and smacked his
+lips as though tasting his own wisdom.
+
+"And then those who will take the upper hand in the confusion will
+arrange life wisely, after their own fashion. Then things won't go at
+random, but as if by rote. It's a pity that we shall not live to see
+it!"
+
+The old man's words fell one after another upon Lubov like meshes of a
+big strong net--they fell and enmeshed her, and the girl, unable to free
+herself from them, maintained silence, dizzied by her father's words.
+Staring into his face with an intense look, she sought support for
+herself in his words and heard in them something similar to what she
+had read in books, and which seemed to her the real truth. But the
+malignant, triumphant laughter of her father stung her heart, and the
+wrinkles, which seemed to creep about on his face like so many dark
+little snakes, inspired her with a certain fear for herself in his
+presence. She felt that he was turning her aside from what had seemed so
+simple and so easy in her dreams.
+
+"Papa!" she suddenly asked the old man, in obedience to a thought and a
+desire that unexpectedly flashed through her mind. "Papa! and what sort
+of a man--what in your opinion is Taras?"
+
+Mayakin shuddered. His eyebrows began to move angrily, he fixed his
+keen, small eyes on his daughter's face and asked her drily:
+
+"What sort of talk is this?"
+
+"Must he not even be mentioned?" said Lubov, softly and confusedly.
+
+I don't want to speak of him--and I also advise you not to speak of him!
+"--the old man threatened her with his finger and lowered his head with
+a gloomy frown. But when he said that he did not want to speak of his
+son, he evidently did not understand himself correctly, for after a
+minute's silence he said sternly and angrily:
+
+"Taraska, too, is a sore. Life is breathing upon you, milksops, and you
+cannot discriminate its genuine scents, and you swallow all sorts of
+filth, wherefore there is trouble in your heads. That's why you are
+not competent to do anything, and you are unhappy because of this
+incompetence. Taraska. Yes. He must be about forty now. He is lost to
+me! A galley-slave--is that my son? A blunt-snouted young pig. He would
+not speak to his father, and--he stumbled."
+
+"What did he do?" asked Lubov, eagerly listening to the old man's words.
+
+"Who knows? It may be that now he cannot understand himself, if he
+became sensible, and he must have become a sensible man; he's the son of
+a father who's not stupid, and then he must have suffered not a little.
+They coddle them, the nihilists! They should have turned them over
+to me. I'd show them what to do. Into the desert! Into the isolated
+places--march! Come, now, my wise fellows, arrange life there according
+to your own will! Go ahead! And as authorities over them I'd station the
+robust peasants. Well, now, honourable gentlemen, you were given to eat
+and to drink, you were given an education--what have you learned? Pay
+your debts, pray. Yes, I would not spend a broken grosh on them. I would
+squeeze all the price out of them--give it up! You must not set a man at
+naught. It is not enough to imprison him! You transgressed the law, and
+are a gentleman? Never mind, you must work. Out of a single seed comes
+an ear of corn, and a man ought not be permitted to perish without being
+of use! An economical carpenter finds a place for each and every chip of
+wood--just so must every man be profitably used up, and used up entire,
+to the very last vein. All sorts of trash have a place in life, and man
+is never trash. Eh! it is bad when power lives without reason, nor is
+it good when reason lives without power. Take Foma now. Who is coming
+there--give a look."
+
+Turning around, Lubov noticed the captain of the "Yermak," Yefim, coming
+along the garden path. He had respectfully removed his cap and bowed to
+her. There was a hopelessly guilty expression on his face and he seemed
+abashed. Yakov Tarasovich recognized him and, instantly grown alarmed,
+he cried:
+
+"Where are you coming from? What has happened?"
+
+"I--I have come to you!" said Yefim, stopping short at the table, with a
+low bow.
+
+"Well, I see, you've come to me. What's the matter? Where's the
+steamer?"
+
+"The steamer is there!" Yefim thrust his hand somewhere into the air and
+heavily shifted from one foot to the other.
+
+"Where is it, devil? Speak coherently--what has happened?" cried the old
+man, enraged.
+
+"So--a misfortune, Yakov."
+
+"Have you been wrecked?"
+
+"No, God saved us."
+
+"Burned up? Well, speak more quickly."
+
+Yefim drew air into his chest and said slowly:
+
+"Barge No. 9 was sunk--smashed up. One man's back was broken, and one is
+altogether missing, so that he must have drowned. About five more were
+injured, but not so very badly, though some were disabled."
+
+"So-o!" drawled out Mayakin, measuring the captain with an ill-omened
+look.
+
+"Well, Yefimushka, I'll strip your skin off."
+
+"It wasn't I who did it!" said Yefim, quickly.
+
+"Not you?" cried the old man, shaking with rage. "Who then?"
+
+"The master himself."
+
+"Foma? And you. Where were you?"
+
+"I was lying in the hatchway."
+
+"Ah! You were lying."
+
+"I was bound there."
+
+"Wha-at?" screamed the old man in a shrill voice.
+
+"Allow me to tell you everything as it happened. He was drunk and he
+shouted: "'Get away! I'll take command myself!' I said 'I can't! I am
+the captain.' 'Bind him!' said he. And when they had bound me, they
+lowered me into the hatchway, with the sailors. And as the master was
+drunk, he wanted to have some fun. A fleet of boats was coming toward
+us. Six empty barges towed by 'Cheruigorez.' So Foma Ignatyich blocked
+their way. They whistled. More than once. I must tell the truth--they
+whistled!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, and they couldn't manage it--the two barges in front crashed into
+us. And as they struck the side of our ninth, we were smashed to pieces.
+And the two barges were also smashed. But we fared much worse."
+
+Mayakin rose from the chair and burst into jarring, angry laughter.
+And Yefim sighed, and, outstretching his hands, said: "He has a very
+violent character. When he is sober he is silent most of the time, and
+walks around thoughtfully, but when he wets his springs with
+wine--then he breaks loose. Then he is not master of himself and of his
+business--but their wild enemy--you must excuse me! And I want to leave,
+Yakov Tarasovich! I am not used to being without a master, I cannot live
+without a master!"
+
+"Keep quiet!" said Mayakin, sternly. "Where's Foma?"
+
+"There; at the same place. Immediately after the accident, he came to
+himself and at once sent for workmen. They'll lift the barge. They may
+have started by this time."
+
+"Is he there alone?" asked Mayakin, lowering his head.
+
+"Not quite," replied Yefim, softly, glancing stealthily at Lubov.
+
+"Really?"
+
+"There's a lady with him. A dark one."
+
+"So."
+
+"It looks as though the woman is out of her wits," said Yefim, with
+a sigh. "She's forever singing. She sings very well. It's very
+captivating."
+
+"I am not asking you about her!" cried Mayakin, angrily. The wrinkles
+of his face were painfully quivering, and it seemed to Lubov that her
+father was about to weep.
+
+"Calm yourself, papa!" she entreated caressingly. "Maybe the loss isn't
+so great."
+
+"Not great?" cried Yakov Tarasovich in a ringing voice. "What do you
+understand, you fool? Is it only that the barge was smashed? Eh, you! A
+man is lost! That's what it is! And he is essential to me! I need him,
+dull devils that you are!" The old man shook his head angrily and with
+brisk steps walked off along the garden path leading toward the house.
+
+And Foma was at this time about four hundred versts away from his
+godfather, in a village hut, on the shore of the Volga. He had just
+awakened from sleep, and lying on the floor, on a bed of fresh hay, in
+the middle of the hut, he gazed gloomily out of the window at the sky,
+which was covered with gray, scattered clouds.
+
+The wind was tearing them asunder and driving them somewhere; heavy and
+weary, one overtaking another, they were passing across the sky in an
+enormous flock. Now forming a solid mass, now breaking into fragments,
+now falling low over the earth, in silent confusion, now again rising
+upward, one swallowed by another.
+
+Without moving his head, which was heavy from intoxication, Foma looked
+long at the clouds and finally began to feel as though silent clouds
+were also passing through his breast,--passing, breathing a damp
+coldness upon his heart and oppressing him. There was something impotent
+in the motion of the clouds across the sky. And he felt the same within
+him. Without thinking, he pictured to himself all he had gone through
+during the past months. It seemed to him as though he had fallen into a
+turbid, boiling stream, and now he had been seized by dark waves, that
+resembled these clouds in the sky; had been seized and carried away
+somewhere, even as the clouds were carried by the wind. In the darkness
+and the tumult which surrounded him, he saw as though through a mist
+that certain other people were hastening together with him--to-day not
+those of yesterday, new ones each day, yet all looking alike--equally
+pitiful and repulsive. Intoxicated, noisy, greedy, they flew about
+him as in a whirlwind, caroused at his expense, abused him, fought,
+screamed, and even wept more than once. And he beat them. He remembered
+that one day he had struck somebody on the face, torn someone's coat off
+and thrown it into the water and that some one had kissed his hands with
+wet, cold lips as disgusting as frogs. Had kissed and wept, imploring
+him not to kill. Certain faces flashed through his memory, certain
+sounds and words rang in it. A woman in a yellow silk waist, unfastened
+at the breast, had sung in a loud, sobbing voice:
+
+     "And so let us live while we can
+     And then--e'en grass may cease to grow."
+
+All these people, like himself, grown wild and beastlike, were seized by
+the same dark wave and carried away like rubbish. All these people,
+like himself, must have been afraid to look forward to see whither this
+powerful, wild wave was carrying them. And drowning their fear in wine,
+they were rushing forward down the current struggling, shouting, doing
+something absurd, playing the fool, clamouring, clamouring, without ever
+being cheerful. He was doing the same, whirling in their midst. And now
+it seemed to him, that he was doing all this for fear of himself, in
+order to pass the sooner this strip of life, or in order not to think of
+what would be afterward.
+
+Amid the burning turmoil of carouses, in the crowd of people, seized by
+debauchery, perplexed by violent passions, half-crazy in their longing
+to forget themselves--only Sasha was calm and contained. She never drank
+to intoxication, always addressed people in a firm, authoritative voice,
+and all her movements were equally confident, as though this stream had
+not taken possession of her, but she was herself mastering its violent
+course. She seemed to Foma the cleverest person of all those that
+surrounded him, and the most eager for noise and carouse; she held them
+all in her sway, forever inventing something new and speaking in one and
+the same manner to everybody; for the driver, the lackey and the sailor
+she had the same tone and the same words as for her friends and for
+Foma. She was younger and prettier than Pelageya, but her caresses were
+silent, cold. Foma imagined that deep in her heart she was concealing
+from everybody something terrible, that she would never love anyone,
+never reveal herself entire. This secrecy in the woman attracted him
+toward her with a feeling of timorous curiosity, of a great, strained
+interest in her calm, cold soul, which seemed even as dark as her eyes.
+
+Somehow Foma said to her one day:
+
+"But what piles of money you and I have squandered!"
+
+She glanced at him, and asked:
+
+"And why should we save it?"
+
+"Indeed, why?" thought Foma, astonished by the fact that she reasoned so
+simply.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked her at another occasion.
+
+"Why, have you forgotten my name?"
+
+"Well, the idea!"
+
+"What do you wish to know then?"
+
+"I am asking you about your origin."
+
+"Ah! I am a native of the province of Yaroslavl. I'm from Ooglich. I was
+a harpist. Well, shall I taste sweeter to you, now that you know who I
+am?"
+
+"Do I know it?" asked Foma, laughing.
+
+"Isn't that enough for you? I shall tell you nothing more about it. What
+for? We all come from the same place, both people and beasts. And what
+is there that I can tell you about myself? And what for? All this talk
+is nonsense. Let's rather think a little as to how we shall pass the
+day."
+
+On that day they took a trip on a steamer, with an orchestra of music,
+drank champagne, and every one of them got terribly drunk. Sasha sang
+a peculiar, wonderfully sad song, and Foma, moved by her singing, wept
+like a child. Then he danced with her the "Russian dance," and finally,
+perspiring and fatigued, threw himself overboard in his clothes and was
+nearly drowned.
+
+Now, recalling all this and a great deal more, he felt ashamed of
+himself and dissatisfied with Sasha. He looked at her well-shaped
+figure, heard her even breathing and felt that he did not love this
+woman, and that she was unnecessary to him. Certain gray, oppressive
+thoughts were slowly springing up in his heavy, aching head. It seemed
+to him as though everything he had lived through during this time was
+twisted within him into a heavy and moist ball, and that now this ball
+was rolling about in his breast, unwinding itself slowly, and the thin
+gray cords were binding him.
+
+"What is going on in me?" he thought. "I've begun to carouse. Why? I
+don't know how to live. I don't understand myself. Who am I?"
+
+He was astonished by this question, and he paused over it, attempting
+to make it clear to himself--why he was unable to live as firmly and
+confidently as other people do. He was now still more tortured. by
+conscience. More uneasy at this thought, he tossed about on the hay and
+irritated, pushed Sasha with his elbow.
+
+"Be careful!" said she, although nearly asleep.
+
+"It's all right. You're not such a lady of quality!" muttered Foma.
+
+"What's the matter with you?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+She turned her back to him, and said lazily, with a lazy yawn:
+
+"I dreamed that I became a harpist again. It seemed to me that I was
+singing a solo, and opposite me stood a big, dirty dog, snarling and
+waiting for me to finish the song. And I was afraid of the dog. And I
+knew that it would devour me, as soon as I stopped singing. So I kept
+singing, singing. And suddenly it seemed my voice failed me. Horrible!
+And the dog is gnashing his teeth. Oh Lord, have mercy on me! What does
+it mean?"
+
+"Stop your idle talk!" Foma interrupted her sternly. "You better tell me
+what you know about me."
+
+"I know, for instance, that you are awake now," she answered, without
+turning to him.
+
+"Awake? That's true. I've awakened," said Foma, thoughtfully and,
+throwing his arm behind his head, went on: "That's why I am asking you.
+What sort of man do you think I am?"
+
+"A man with a drunken headache," answered Sasha, yawning.
+
+"Aleksandra!" exclaimed Foma, beseechingly, "don't talk nonsense! Tell
+me conscientiously, what do you think of me?"
+
+"I don't think anything!" she said drily. "Why are you bothering me with
+nonsense?"
+
+"Is this nonsense?" said Foma, sadly. "Eh, you devils! This is the
+principal thing. The most essential thing to me."
+
+He heaved a deep sigh and became silent. After a minute's silence, Sasha
+began to speak in her usual, indifferent voice:
+
+"Tell him who he is, and why he is such as he is? Did you ever see! Is
+it proper to ask such questions of our kind of women? And on what ground
+should I think about each and every man? I have not even time to think
+about myself, and, perhaps, I don't feel like doing it at all."
+
+Foma laughed drily and said:
+
+"I wish I were like this--and had no desires for anything."
+
+Then the woman raised her head from the pillow, looked into Foma's face
+and lay down again, saying:
+
+"You are musing too much. Look out--no good will come of it to you.
+I cannot tell you anything about yourself. It is impossible to say
+anything true about a man. Who can understand him? Man does not know
+himself. Well, here, I'll tell you--you are better than others. But what
+of it?"
+
+"And in what way am I better?" asked Foma, thoughtfully.
+
+"So! When one sings a good song--you weep. When one does some mean
+thing--you beat him. With women you are simple, you are not impudent to
+them. You are peaceable. And you can also be daring, sometimes."
+
+Yet all this did not satisfy Foma.
+
+"You're not telling me the right thing!" said he, softly. "Well, I don't
+know what you want. But see here, what are we going to do after they
+have raised the barge?"
+
+"What can we do?" asked Foma.
+
+"Shall we go to Nizhni or to Kazan?"
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To carouse."
+
+"I don't want to carouse any more."
+
+"What else are you going to do?"
+
+"What? Nothing."
+
+And both were silent for a long time, without looking at each other.
+
+"You have a disagreeable character," said Sasha, "a wearisome
+character."
+
+"But nevertheless I won't get drunk any more!" said Foma, firmly and
+confidently.
+
+"You are lying!" retorted Sasha, calmly.
+
+"You'll see! What do you think--is it good to lead such a life as this?"
+
+"I'll see."
+
+"No, just tell me--is it good?"
+
+"But what is better?"
+
+Foma looked at her askance and, irritated, said:
+
+"What repulsive words you speak."
+
+"Well, here again I haven't pleased him!" said Sasha, laughing.
+
+"What a fine crowd!" said Foma, painfully wrinkling his face. "They're
+like trees. They also live, but how? No one understands. They are
+crawling somewhere. And can give no account either to themselves or to
+others. When the cockroach crawls, he knows whither and wherefore he
+wants to go? And you? Whither are you going?"
+
+"Hold on!" Sasha interrupted him, and asked him calmly: "What have you
+to do with me? You may take from me all that you want, but don't you
+creep into my soul!"
+
+"Into your so-o-ul!" Foma drawled out, with contempt. "Into what soul?
+He, he!"
+
+She began to pace the room, gathering together the clothes that were
+scattered everywhere. Foma watched her and was displeased because she
+did not get angry at him for his words about her soul. Her face looked
+calm and indifferent, as usual, but he wished to see her angry or
+offended; he wished for something human from the woman.
+
+"The soul!" he exclaimed, persisting in his aim. "Can one who has a soul
+live as you live? A soul has fire burning in it, there is a sense of
+shame in it."
+
+By this time she was sitting on a bench, putting on her stockings, but
+at his words she raised her head and sternly fixed her eyes upon his
+face.
+
+"What are you staring at?" asked Foma.
+
+"Why do you speak that way?" said she, without lifting her eyes from
+him.
+
+"Because I must."
+
+"Look out--must you really?"
+
+There was something threatening in her question. Foma felt intimidated
+and said, this time without provocation in his voice:
+
+"How could I help speaking?"
+
+"Oh, you!" sighed Sasha and resumed dressing herself
+
+"And what about me?"
+
+"Merely so. You seem as though you were born of two fathers. Do you know
+what I have observed among people?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"If a man cannot answer for himself, it means that he is afraid of
+himself, that his price is a grosh!"
+
+"Do you refer to me?" asked Foma, after a pause.
+
+"To you, too."
+
+She threw a pink morning gown over her shoulders and, standing in the
+centre of the room, stretched out her hand toward Foma, who lay at her
+feet, and said to him in a low, dull voice:
+
+"You have no right to speak about my soul. You have nothing to do with
+it! And therefore hold your tongue! I may speak! If I please, I could
+tell something to all of you. Eh, how I could tell it! Only,--who will
+dare to listen to me, if I should speak at the top of my voice? And I
+have some words about you,--they're like hammers! And I could knock you
+all on your heads so that you would lose your wits. And although you are
+all rascals--you cannot be cured by words. You should be burned in the
+fire--just as frying-pans are burned out on the first Monday of Lent."
+
+Raising her hands she abruptly loosened her hair, and when it fell over
+her shoulders in heavy, black locks--the woman shook her head haughtily
+and said, with contempt:
+
+"Never mind that I am leading a loose life! It often happens, that the
+man who lives in filth is purer than he who goes about in silks. If you
+only knew what I think of you, you dogs, what wrath I bear against you!
+And because of this wrath--I am silent! For I fear that if I should sing
+it to you--my soul would become empty. I would have nothing to live on."
+Foma looked at her, and now he was pleased with her. In her words there
+was something akin to his frame of mind. Laughing, he said to her, with
+satisfaction on his face and in his voice:
+
+"And I also feel that something is growing within my soul. Eh, I too
+shall have my say, when the time comes."
+
+"Against whom?" asked Sasha, carelessly.
+
+"I--against everybody!" exclaimed Foma, jumping to his feet. "Against
+falsehood. I shall ask--"
+
+"Ask whether the samovar is ready," Sasha ordered indifferently.
+
+Foma glanced at her and cried, enraged:
+
+"Go to the devil! Ask yourself."
+
+"Well, all right, I shall. What are you snarling about?"
+
+And she stepped out of the hut.
+
+In piercing gusts the wind blew across the river, striking against its
+bosom, and covered with troubled dark waves, the river was spasmodically
+rushing toward the wind with a noisy splash, and all in the froth of
+wrath. The willow bushes on the shore bent low to the ground--trembling,
+they now were about to lie down on the ground, now, frightened, they
+thrust themselves away from it, driven by the blows of the wind. In the
+air rang a whistling, a howling, and a deep groaning sound, that burst
+from dozens of human breasts:
+
+"It goes--it goes--it goes!"
+
+This exclamation, abrupt as a blow, and heavy as the breath from an
+enormous breast, which is suffocating from exertion, was soaring over
+the river, falling upon the waves, as if encouraging their mad play with
+the wind, and they struck the shores with might.
+
+Two empty barges lay anchored by the mountainous shore, and their tall
+masts, rising skyward, rocked in commotion from side to side, as though
+describing some invisible pattern in the air. The decks of both barges
+were encumbered with scaffolds, built of thick brown beams; huge sheaves
+were hanging everywhere; chains and ropes were fastened to them, and
+rocking in the air; the links of the chains were faintly clanging. A
+throng of peasants in blue and in red blouses pulled a large beam across
+the dock and, heavily stamping their feet, groaned with full chest:
+
+"It goes--it goes--it goes!"
+
+Here and there human figures clung to the scaffoldings, like big lumps
+of blue and red; the wind, blowing their blouses and their trousers,
+gave the men odd forms, making them appear now hump-backed, now round
+and puffed up like bladders. The people on the scaffolds and on the
+decks of the barges were making fast, hewing, sawing, driving in nails;
+and big arms, with shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows were seen
+everywhere. The wind scattered splinters of wood, and a varied, lively,
+brisk noise in the air; the saw gnawed the wood, choking with wicked
+joy; the beams, wounded by the axes, moaned and groaned drily; the
+boards cracked sickly as they split from the blows they received; the
+jointer squeaked maliciously. The iron clinking of the chains and the
+groaning creaking of the sheaves joined the wrathful roaring of the
+waves, and the wind howled loudly, scattering over the river the noise
+of toil and drove the clouds across the sky.
+
+"Mishka-a! The deuce take you!" cried someone from the top of the
+scaffolding. And from the deck, a large-formed peasant, with his head
+thrown upward, answered:
+
+"Wh-a-at?" And the wind, playing with his long, flaxen beard, flung it
+into his face.
+
+"Hand us the end."
+
+A resounding basso shouted as through a speaking-trumpet:
+
+"See how you've fastened this board, you blind devil? Can't you see?
+I'll rub your eyes for you!"
+
+"Pull, my boys, come on!"
+
+"Once more--brave--boys!" cried out some one in a loud, beseeching
+voice.
+
+Handsome and stately, in a short cloth jacket and high boots, Foma
+stood, leaning his back against a mast, and stroking his beard with his
+trembling hand, admired the daring work of the peasants. The noise about
+him called forth in him a persistent desire to shout, to work together
+with the peasants, to hew wood, to carry burdens, to command--to compel
+everybody to pay attention to him, and to show them his strength, his
+skill, and the live soul within him. But he restrained himself.
+And standing speechless, motionless, he felt ashamed and afraid of
+something. He was embarrassed by the fact that he was master over
+everybody there, and that if he were to start to work himself, no one
+would believe that he was working merely to satisfy his desire, and not
+to spur them on in their work; to set them an example. And then, the
+peasants might laugh at him, in all probability.
+
+A fair and curly-headed fellow, with his shirt collar unbuttoned, was
+now and again running past him, now carrying a log on his shoulder,
+now an axe in his hands; he was skipping along, like a frolicsome goat,
+scattering about him cheerful, ringing laughter, jests, violent oaths,
+and working unceasingly, now assisting one, now another, as he was
+cleverly and quickly running across the deck, which was obstructed with
+timber and shavings. Foma watched him closely, and envied this merry
+fellow, who was radiant with something healthy and inspiring.
+
+"Evidently he is happy," thought Foma, and this thought provoked in him
+a keen, piercing desire to insult him somehow, to embarrass him. All
+those about him were seized with the zest of pressing work, all were
+unanimously and hastily fastening the scaffoldings, arranging the
+pulleys, preparing to raise the sunken barge from the bottom of the
+river; all were sound and merry--they all lived. While he stood alone,
+aside from them, not knowing what to do, not knowing how to do anything,
+feeling himself superfluous to this great toil. It vexed him to feel
+that he was superfluous among men, and the more closely he watched them,
+the more intense was this vexation. And he was stung most by the thought
+that all this was being done for him. And yet he was out of place there.
+
+"Where is my place, then?" he thought gloomily. "Where is my work? Am I,
+then, some deformed being? I have just as much strength as any of them.
+But of what use is it to me?" The chains clanged, the pulleys groaned,
+the blows of the axes resounded loud over the river, and the barges
+rocked from the shocks of the waves, but to Foma it seemed that he was
+rocking not because the barge was rocking under his feet, but rather
+because he was not able to stand firmly anywhere, he was not destined to
+do so.
+
+The contractor, a small-sized peasant with a small pointed gray beard,
+and with narrow little eyes on his gray wrinkled face, came up to him
+and said, not loud, but pronouncing his words with a certain tone from
+the bottom of the river. He wished that they might not succeed, that
+they might feel embarrassed in his presence, and a wicked thought
+flashed through his mind:
+
+"Perhaps the chains will break."
+
+"Boys! Attention!" shouted the contractor. "Start all together. God
+bless us!" And suddenly, clasping his hands in the air, he cried in a
+shrill voice:
+
+"Let--her--go-o-o!"
+
+The labourers took up his shout, and all cried out in one voice, with
+excitement and exertion:
+
+"Let her go! She moves."
+
+The pulleys squeaked and creaked, the chains clanked, strained under the
+heavy weight that suddenly fell upon them; and the labourers, bracing
+their chests against the handle of the windlasses, roared and tramped
+heavily. The waves splashed noisily between the barges as though
+unwilling to give up their prize to the men. Everywhere about Foma,
+chains and ropes were stretched and they quivered from the strain--they
+were creeping somewhere across the deck, past his feet, like huge gray
+worms; they were lifted upward, link after link, falling back with
+a rattling noise, and all these sounds were drowned by the deafening
+roaring of the labourers.
+
+"It goes, it goes, it goes," they all sang in unison, triumphantly.
+But the ringing voice of the contractor pierced the deep wave of their
+voices, and cut it even as a knife cuts bread.
+
+"My boys! Go ahead, all at once, all at once."
+
+Foma was seized with a strange emotion; passionately he now longed to
+mingle with this excited roaring of the labourers, which was as broad
+and as powerful as the river--to blend with this irritating, creaking,
+squeaking, clanging of iron and turbulent splashing of waves.
+Perspiration came out on his face from the intensity of his desire, and
+suddenly pale from agitation, he tore himself away from the mast, and
+rushed toward the windlasses with big strides.
+
+"All at once! At once!" he cried in a fierce voice. When he reached
+the lever of the windlass, he dashed his chest against it with all his
+might, and not feeling the pain, he began to go around the windlass,
+roaring, and firmly stamping his feet against the deck. Something
+powerful and burning rushed into his breast, replacing the efforts
+which he spent while turning the windlass-lever! Inexpressible joy raged
+within him and forced itself outside in an agitated cry. It seemed to
+him that he alone, that only his strength was turning the lever, thus
+raising the weight, and that his strength was growing and growing.
+Stooping, and lowering his head, like a bull he massed the power of the
+weight, which threw him back, but yielded to him, nevertheless. Each
+step forward excited him the more, each expended effort was immediately
+replaced in him by a flood of burning and vehement pride. His head
+reeled, his eyes were blood-shot, he saw nothing, he only felt that
+they were yielding to him, that he would soon conquer, that he would
+overthrow with his strength something huge which obstructed his
+way--would overthrow, conquer and then breathe easily and freely, full
+of proud delight. For the first time in his life he experienced such
+a powerful, spiritualizing sensation, and he drank it with all the
+strength of a hungry, thirsty soul; he was intoxicated by it and he gave
+vent to his joy in loud, exulting cries in unison with the workers:
+
+"It goes--it goes--it goes."
+
+"Hold on! Fasten! Hold on, boys!"
+
+Something dashed against Foma's chest, and he was hurled backward.
+
+"I congratulate you on a successful result, Foma Ignatyich!" the
+contractor congratulated him and the wrinkles quivered on his face in
+cheerful beams.
+
+"Thank God! You must be quite tired now?"
+
+Cold wind blew in Foma's face. A contented, boastful bustle was in the
+air about him; swearing at one another in a friendly way, merry, with
+smiles on their perspiring brows, the peasants approached him and
+surrounded him closely. He smiled in embarrassment: the excitement
+within him had not yet calmed down and this hindered him from
+understanding what had happened and why all those who surrounded him
+were so merry and contented.
+
+"We've raised a hundred and seventy thousand puds as if we plucked a
+radish from a garden-bed!" said some one.
+
+"We ought to get a vedro of whisky from our master."
+
+Foma, standing on a heap of cable, looked over the heads of the workers
+and saw; between the barges, side by side with them, stood a third
+barge, black, slippery, damaged, wrapped in chains. It was warped all
+over, it seemed as though it swelled from some terrible disease and,
+impotent, clumsy, it was suspended between its companions, leaning
+against them. Its broken mast stood out mournfully in the centre;
+reddish streams of water, like blood, were running across the deck,
+which was covered with stains of rust. Everywhere on the deck lay heaps
+of iron, of black, wet stumps of wood, and of ropes.
+
+"Raised?" asked Foma, not knowing what to say at the sight of this ugly,
+heavy mass, and again feeling offended at the thought that merely for
+the sake of raising this dirty, bruised monster from the water, his soul
+had foamed up with such joy.
+
+"How's the barge?" asked Foma, indefinitely, addressing the contractor.
+
+"It's pretty good! We must unload right away, and put a company of about
+twenty carpenters to work on it--they'll bring it quickly into shape,"
+said the contractor in a consoling tone.
+
+And the light-haired fellow, gaily and broadly smiling into Foma's face,
+asked:
+
+"Are we going to have any vodka?"
+
+"Can't you wait? You have time!" said the contractor, sternly. "Don't
+you see--the man is tired."
+
+Then the peasants began to speak:
+
+"Of course, he is tired!
+
+"That wasn't easy work!"
+
+"Of course, one gets tired if he isn't used to work."
+
+"It is even hard to eat gruel if you are not used to it."
+
+"I am not tired," said Foma, gloomily, and again were heard the
+respectful exclamations of the peasants, as they surrounded him more
+closely.
+
+"Work, if one likes it, is a pleasant thing."
+
+"It's just like play."
+
+"It's like playing with a woman."
+
+But the light-haired fellow persisted in his request:
+
+"Your Honour! You ought to treat us to a vedro of vodka, eh?" he said,
+smiling and sighing.
+
+Foma looked at the bearded faces before him and felt like saying
+something offensive to them. But somehow everything became confused
+in his brain, he found no thoughts in it and, finally, without giving
+himself an account of his words, said angrily:
+
+"All you want is to drink all the time! It makes no difference to you
+what you do! You should have thought--why? to what purpose? Eh, you!"
+
+There was an expression of perplexity on the faces of those that
+surrounded him, blue and red, bearded figures began to sigh, scratch
+themselves, shift themselves from one foot to another. Others cast a
+hopeless glance at Foma and turned away.
+
+"Yes, yes!" said the contractor, with a sigh. "That wouldn't harm! That
+is--to think--why and how. These are words of wisdom."
+
+The light-haired fellow had a different opinion on the matter; smiling
+kind-heartedly, he waved his hand and said:
+
+"We don't have to think over our work! If we have it--we do it! Our
+business is simple! When a rouble is earned--thank God! we can do
+everything."
+
+"And do you know what's necessary to do?" questioned Foma, irritated by
+the contradiction.
+
+"Everything is necessary--this and that."
+
+"But where's the sense?"
+
+"There's but one and the same sense in everything for our class--when
+you have earned for bread and taxes--live! And when there's something to
+drink, into the bargain."
+
+"Eh, you!" exclaimed Foma, with contempt. "You're also talking! What do
+you understand?"
+
+"Is it our business to understand?" said the light-haired fellow, with a
+nod of the head. It now bored him to speak to Foma. He suspected that he
+was unwilling to treat them to vodka and he was somewhat angry.
+
+"That's it!" said Foma, instructively, pleased that the fellow yielded
+to him, and not noticing the cross, sarcastic glances. "And he who
+understands feels that it is necessary to do everlasting work!"
+
+"That is, for God!" explained the contractor, eyeing the peasants, and
+added, with a devout sigh:
+
+"That's true. Oh, how true that is!"
+
+And Foma was inspired with the desire to say something correct and
+important, after which these people might regard him in a different
+light, for he was displeased with the fact that all, save the
+light-haired fellow, kept silent and looked at him askance, surlily,
+with such weary, gloomy eyes.
+
+"It is necessary to do such work," he said, moving his eyebrows. "Such
+work that people may say a thousand years hence: 'This was done by the
+peasants of Bogorodsk--yes!'"
+
+The light-haired fellow glanced at Foma with astonishment and asked:
+
+"Are we, perhaps, to drink the Volga dry?" Then he sniffed and, nodding
+his head, announced: "We can't do that--we should all burst."
+
+Foma became confused at his words and looked about him; the peasants
+were smiling morosely, disdainfully, sarcastically. And these smiles
+stung him like needles. A serious-looking peasant, with a big gray
+beard, who had not yet opened his mouth up to that time, suddenly opened
+it now, came closer to Foma and said slowly:
+
+"And even if we were to drink the Volga dry, and eat up that mountain,
+into the bargain--that too would be forgotten, your Honour. Everything
+will be forgotten. Life is long. It is not for us to do such deeds
+as would stand out above everything else. But we can put up
+scaffoldings--that we can!"
+
+He spoke and sceptically spitting at his feet, indifferently walked off
+from Foma, and slipped into the crowd, as a wedge into a tree. His
+words crushed Foma completely; he felt, that the peasants considered him
+stupid and ridiculous. And in order to save his importance as master in
+their eyes, to attract again the now exhausted attention of the peasants
+to himself, he bristled up, comically puffed up his cheeks and blurted
+out in an impressive voice:
+
+"I make you a present of three buckets of vodka."
+
+Brief speeches have always the most meaning and are always apt to
+produce a strong impression. The peasants respectfully made way for
+Foma, making low bows to him, and, smiling merrily and gratefully,
+thanked him for his generosity in a unanimous roar of approval.
+
+"Take me over to the shore," said Foma, feeling that the excitement that
+had just been aroused in him would not last long. A worm was gnawing his
+heart, and he was weary.
+
+"I feel disgusted!" he said, entering the hut where Sasha, in a
+smart, pink gown, was bustling about the table, arranging wines and
+refreshments. "I feel disgusted, Aleksandra! If you could only do
+something with me, eh?"
+
+She looked at him attentively and, seating herself on the bench,
+shoulder to shoulder with him, said:
+
+"Since you feel disgusted--it means that you want something. What is it
+you want?"
+
+"I don't know!" replied Foma, nodding his head mournfully.
+
+"Think of it--search."
+
+"I am unable to think. Nothing comes out of my thinking."
+
+"Eh, you, my child!" said Sasha, softly and disdainfully, moving away
+from him. "Your head is superfluous to you."
+
+Foma neither caught her tone nor noticed her movement. Leaning his hands
+against the bench, he bent forward, looked at the floor, and, swaying
+his body to and fro, said:
+
+"Sometimes I think and think--and the whole soul is stuck round with
+thoughts as with tar. And suddenly everything disappears, without
+leaving any trace. Then it is dark in the soul as in a cellar--dark,
+damp and empty--there is nothing at all in it! It is even terrible--I
+feel then as though I were not a man, but a bottomless ravine. You ask
+me what I want?"
+
+Sasha looked at him askance and pensively began to sing softly:
+
+"Eh, when the wind blows--mist comes from the sea."
+
+"I don't want to carouse--it is repulsive! Always the same--the people,
+the amusements, the wine. When I grow malicious--I'd thrash everybody.
+I am not pleased with men--what are they? It is impossible to understand
+them--why do they keep on living? And when they speak the truth--to whom
+are we to listen? One says this, another that. While I--I cannot say
+anything."
+
+     "Eh, without thee, dear, my life is weary,"
+
+sang Sasha, staring at the wall before her. And Foma kept on rocking and
+said:
+
+"There are times when I feel guilty before men. Everybody lives, makes
+noise, while I am frightened, staggered--as if I did not feel the earth
+under me. Was it, perhaps, my mother that endowed me with apathy?
+My godfather says that she was as cold as ice--that she was forever
+yearning towards something. I am also yearning. Toward men I am
+yearning. I'd like to go to them and say: 'Brethren, help me! Teach me!
+I know not how to live!. And if I am guilty--forgive me!' But looking
+about, I see there's no one to speak to. No one wants it--they are all
+rascals! And it seems they are even worse than I am. For I am, at least,
+ashamed of living as I am, while they are not! They go on."
+
+Foma uttered some violent, unbecoming invectives and became silent.
+Sasha broke off her song and moved still farther away from him. The wind
+was raging outside the window, hurling dust against the window-panes.
+Cockroaches were rustling on the oven as they crawled over a bunch of
+pine wood splinters. Somewhere in the yard a calf was lowing pitifully.
+
+Sasha glanced at Foma, with a sarcastic smile, and said:
+
+"There's another unfortunate creature lowing. You ought to go to him;
+perhaps you could sing in unison. And placing her hand on his curly head
+she jestingly pushed it on the side.
+
+"What are people like yourself good for? That's what you ought to
+think of. What are you groaning about? You are disgusted with being
+idle--occupy yourself, then, with business."
+
+"Oh Lord!" Foma nodded his head. "It is hard for one to make himself
+understood. Yes, it is hard!" And irritated, he almost cried out: "What
+business? I have no yearning toward business! What is business? Business
+is merely a name--and if you should look into the depth, into the root
+of it--you'll find it is nothing but absurdity! Do I not understand it?
+I understand everything, I see everything, I feel everything! Only my
+tongue is dumb. What aim is there in business? Money? I have plenty
+of it! I could choke you to death with it, cover you with it. All this
+business is nothing but fraud. I meet business people--well, and what
+about them? Their greediness is immense, and yet they purposely
+whirl about in business that they might not see themselves. They hide
+themselves, the devils. Try to free them from this bustle--what will
+happen? Like blind men they will grope about hither and thither; they'll
+lose their mind--they'll go mad! I know it! Do you think that business
+brings happiness into man? No, that's not so--something else is missing
+here. This is not everything yet! The river flows that men may sail on
+it; the tree grows--to be useful; the dog--to guard the house. There is
+justification for everything in the world! And men, like cockroaches,
+are altogether superfluous on earth. Everything is for them, and
+they--what are they for? Aha! Wherein is their justification? Ha, ha,
+ha!"
+
+Foma was triumphant. It seemed to him that he had found something good
+for himself, something severe against men. And feeling that, because of
+this, there was great joy in him, he laughed loudly.
+
+"Does not your head ache?" inquired Sasha, anxiously, scrutinizing his
+face.
+
+"My soul aches!" exclaimed Foma, passionately. "And it aches because it
+is upright--because it is not to be satisfied with trifles. Answer it,
+how to live? To what purpose? There--take my godfather--he is wise! He
+says--create life! But he's the only one like this. Well, I'll ask him,
+wait! And everybody says--life has usurped us! Life has choked us. I
+shall ask these, too. And how can we create life? You must keep it in
+your hands to do this, you must be master over it. You cannot make even
+a pot, without taking the clay into your hands."
+
+"Listen!" said Sasha, seriously. "I think you ought to get married,
+that's all!"
+
+"What for?" asked Foma, shrugging his shoulders.
+
+"You need a bridle."
+
+"All right! I am living with you--you are all of a kind, are you not?
+One is not sweeter than the other. I had one before you, of the same
+kind as you. No, but that one did it for love's sake. She had taken a
+liking to me--and consented; she was good--but, otherwise, she was in
+every way the same as you--though you are prettier than she. But I took
+a liking to a certain lady--a lady of noble birth! They said she led a
+loose life, but I did not get her. Yes, she was clever, intelligent;
+she lived in luxury. I used to think--that's where I'll taste the real
+thing! I did not get her--and, it may be, if I had succeeded, all would
+have taken a different turn. I yearned toward her. I thought--I could
+not tear myself away. While now that I have given myself to drink, I've
+drowned her in wine--I am forgetting her--and that also is wrong. O man!
+You are a rascal, to be frank."
+
+Foma became silent and sank into meditation. And Sasha rose from the
+bench and paced the hut to and fro, biting her lips. Then she stopped
+short before him, and, clasping her hands to her head, said:
+
+"Do you know what? I'll leave you."
+
+"Where will you go?" asked Foma, without lifting his head.
+
+"I don't know--it's all the same!"
+
+"But why?"
+
+"You're always saying unnecessary things. It is lonesome with you. You
+make me sad."
+
+Foma lifted his head, looked at her and burst into mournful laughter.
+
+"Really? Is it possible?"
+
+"You do make me sad! Do you know? If I should reflect on it, I would
+understand what you say and why you say it--for I am also of that
+sort--when the time comes, I shall also think of all this. And then I
+shall be lost. But now it is too early for me. No, I want to live yet,
+and then, later, come what will!"
+
+"And I--will I, too, be lost?" asked Foma, indifferently, already
+fatigued by his words.
+
+"Of course!" replied Sasha, calmly and confidently. "All such people
+are lost. He, whose character is inflexible, and who has no brains--what
+sort of a life is his? We are like this."
+
+"I have no character at all," said Foma, stretching himself. Then after
+a moment's silence he added:
+
+"And I have no brains, either."
+
+They were silent for a minute, eyeing each other.
+
+"What are we going to do?" asked Foma.
+
+"We must have dinner."
+
+"No, I mean, in general? Afterward?"
+
+"Afterward? I don't know?"
+
+"So you are leaving me?"
+
+"I am. Come, let's carouse some more before we part. Let's go to Kazan,
+and there we'll have a spree--smoke and flame! I'll sing your farewell
+song."
+
+"Very well," assented Foma. "It's quite proper at leave taking. Eh, you
+devil! That's a merry life! Listen, Sasha. They say that women of your
+kind are greedy for money; are even thieves."
+
+"Let them say," said Sasha, calmly.
+
+"Don't you feel offended?" asked Foma, with curiosity. "But you are not
+greedy. It's advantageous to you to be with me. I am rich, and yet you
+are going away; that shows you're not greedy."
+
+"I?" Sasha thought awhile and said with a wave of the hand: "Perhaps
+I am not greedy--what of it? I am not of the very lowest of the street
+women. And against whom shall I feel a grudge? Let them say whatever
+they please. It will be only human talk, not the bellowing of bulls. And
+human holiness and honesty are quite familiar to me! Eh, how well I know
+them! If I were chosen as a judge, I would acquit the dead only l" and
+bursting into malicious laughter, Sasha said: "Well, that will do, we've
+spoken enough nonsense. Sit down at the table!"
+
+On the morning of the next day Foma and Sasha stood side by side on
+the gangway of a steamer which was approaching a harbour on the Ustye.
+Sasha's big black hat attracted everybody's attention by its deftly
+bent brim, and its white feathers, and Foma was ill at ease as he stood
+beside her, and felt as though inquisitive glances crawled over his
+perplexed face. The steamer hissed and quivered as it neared the
+landing-bridge, which was sprinkled by a waiting crowd of people attired
+in bright summer clothes, and it seemed to Foma that he noticed among
+the crowd of various faces and figures a person he knew, who now seemed
+to be hiding behind other people's backs, and yet lifted not his eye
+from him.
+
+"Let's go into the cabin!" said he to his companion uneasily.
+
+"Don't acquire the habit of hiding your sins from people," replied
+Sasha, with a smile. "Have you perhaps noticed an acquaintance there?"
+
+"Mm. Yes. Somebody is watching me."
+
+"A nurse with a milk bottle? Ha, ha, ha!"
+
+"Well, there you're neighing!" said Foma, enraged, looking at her
+askance. "Do you think I am afraid?"
+
+"I can see how brave you are."
+
+"You'll see. I'll face anybody," said Foma, angrily, but after a close
+look at the crowd in the harbour his face suddenly assumed another
+expression, and he added softly:
+
+"Oh, it's my godfather."
+
+At the very edge of the landing-stage stood Yakov Tarasovich, squeezed
+between two stout women, with his iron-like face lifted upward, and he
+waved his cap in the air with malicious politeness. His beard shook, his
+bald crown flashed, and his small eye pierced Foma like borers.
+
+"What a vulture!" muttered Foma, raising his cap and nodding his head to
+his godfather.
+
+His bow evidently afforded great pleasure to Mayakin. The old man
+somehow coiled himself up, stamped his feet, and his face seemed beaming
+with a malicious smile.
+
+"The little boy will get money for nuts, it seems!" Sasha teased Foma.
+Her words together with his godfather's smile seemed to have kindled a
+fire in Foma's breast.
+
+"We shall see what is going to happen," hissed Foma, and suddenly he
+became as petrified in malicious calm. The steamer made fast, and the
+people rushed in a wave to the landing-place. Pressed by the crowd,
+Mayakin disappeared for awhile from the sight of his godson and appeared
+again with a maliciously triumphant smile. Foma stared at him fixedly,
+with knitted brow, and came toward him slowly pacing the gang planks.
+They jostled him in the back, they leaned on him, they squeezed him,
+and this provoked Foma still more. Now he came face to face with the old
+man, and the latter greeted him with a polite bow, and asked:
+
+"Whither are you travelling, Foma Ignatyich?"
+
+"About my affairs," replied Foma, firmly, without greeting his
+godfather.
+
+"That's praiseworthy, my dear sir!" said Yakov Tarasovich, all beaming
+with a smile. "The lady with the feathers--what is she to you, may I
+ask?"
+
+"She's my mistress," said Foma, loud, without lowering his eyes at the
+keen look of his godfather.
+
+Sasha stood behind him calmly examining over his shoulder the little
+old man, whose head hardly reached Foma's chin. Attracted by Foma's loud
+words, the public looked at them, scenting a scandal. And Mayakin,
+too, perceived immediately the possibility of a scandal and instantly
+estimated correctly the quarrelsome mood of his godson. He contracted
+his wrinkles, bit his lips, and said to Foma, peaceably:
+
+"I have something to speak to you about. Will you come with me to the
+hotel?"
+
+"Yes; for a little while."
+
+"You have no time, then? It's a plain thing, you must be making haste
+to wreck another barge, eh?" said the old man, unable to contain himself
+any longer.
+
+"And why not wreck them, since they can be wrecked?" retorted Foma,
+passionately and firmly.
+
+"Of course, you did not earn them yourself; why should you spare them?
+Well, come. And couldn't we drown that lady in the water for awhile?"
+said Mayakin, softly.
+
+"Drive to the town, Sasha, and engage a room at the Siberian Inn.
+I'll be there shortly!" said Foma and turning to Mayakin, he announced
+boldly:
+
+"I am ready! Let us go!"
+
+Neither of them spoke on their way to the hotel. Foma, seeing that his
+godfather had to skip as he went in order to keep up with him, purposely
+took longer strides, and the fact that the old man could not keep step
+with him supported and strengthened in him the turbulent feeling of
+protest which he was by this time scarcely able to master.
+
+"Waiter!" said Mayakin, gently, on entering the hall of the hotel,
+and turning toward a remote corner, "let us have a bottle of moorberry
+kvass."
+
+"And I want some cognac," ordered Foma.
+
+"So-o! When you have poor cards you had better always play the lowest
+trump first!" Mayakin advised him sarcastically.
+
+"You don't know my game!" said Foma, seating himself by the table.
+
+"Really? Come, come! Many play like that."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I mean as you do--boldly, but foolishly."
+
+"I play so that either the head is smashed to pieces, or the wall broken
+in half," said Foma, hotly, and struck the table with his fist.
+
+"Haven't you recovered from your drunkenness yet?" asked Mayakin with a
+smile.
+
+Foma seated himself more firmly in his chair, and, his face distorted
+with wrathful agitation, he said:
+
+"Godfather, you are a sensible man. I respect you for your common
+sense."
+
+"Thank you, my son!" and Mayakin bowed, rising slightly, and leaning his
+hands against the table.
+
+"Don't mention it. I want to tell you that I am no longer twenty. I am
+not a child any longer."
+
+"Of course not!" assented Mayakin. "You've lived a good while, that goes
+without saying! If a mosquito had lived as long it might have grown as
+big as a hen."
+
+"Stop your joking!" Foma warned him, and he did it so calmly that
+Mayakin started back, and the wrinkles on his face quivered with alarm.
+
+"What did you come here for?" asked Foma.
+
+"Ah! you've done some nasty work here. So I want to find out whether
+there's much damage in it! You see, I am a relative of yours. And then,
+I am the only one you have."
+
+"You are troubling yourself in vain. Do you know, papa, what I'll tell
+you? Either give me full freedom, or take all my business into your own
+hands. Take everything! Everything--to the last rouble!"
+
+This proposition burst forth from Foma altogether unexpectedly to
+himself; he had never before thought of anything like it. But now that
+he uttered such words to his godfather it suddenly became clear to him
+that if his godfather were to take from him all his property he would
+become a perfectly free man, he could go wherever he pleased, do
+whatever he pleased. Until this moment he had been bound and enmeshed
+with something, but he knew not his fetters and was unable to break
+them, while now they were falling off of themselves so simply, so
+easily. Both an alarming and a joyous hope blazed up within his breast,
+as though he noticed that suddenly light had begun to flash upon his
+turbid life, that a wide, spacious road lay open now before him. Certain
+images sprang up in his mind, and, watching their shiftings, he muttered
+incoherently:
+
+"Here, this is better than anything! Take everything, and be done with
+it! And--as for me--I shall be free to go anywhere in the wide world! I
+cannot live like this. I feel as though weights were hanging on me, as
+though I were all bound. There--I must not go, this I must not do. I
+want to live in freedom, that I may know everything myself. I shall
+search life for myself. For, otherwise, what am I? A prisoner! Be kind,
+take everything. The devil take it all! Give me freedom, pray! What
+kind of a merchant am I? I do not like anything. And so--I would forsake
+men--everything. I would find a place for myself, I would find some kind
+of work, and would work. By God! Father! set me at liberty! For now, you
+see, I am drinking. I'm entangled with that woman."
+
+Mayakin looked at him, listened attentively to his words, and his face
+was stern, immobile as though petrified. A dull, tavern noise smote
+the air, some people went past them, they greeted Mayakin, but he saw
+nothing, staring fixedly at the agitated face of his godson, who smiled
+distractedly, both joyously and pitifully.
+
+"Eh, my sour blackberry!" said Mayakin, with a sigh, interrupting Foma's
+speech. "I see you've lost your way. And you're prating nonsense. I
+would like to know whether the cognac is to blame for it, or is it your
+foolishness?"
+
+"Papa!" exclaimed Foma, "this can surely be done. There were cases where
+people have cast away all their possessions and thus saved themselves."
+
+"That wasn't in my time. Not people that are near to me!" said Mayakin,
+sternly, "or else I would have shown them how to go away!"
+
+"Many have become saints when they went away."
+
+"Mm! They couldn't have gone away from me! The matter is simple--you
+know how to play at draughts, don't you? Move from one place to another
+until you are beaten, and if you're not beaten then you have the queen.
+Then all ways are open to you. Do you understand? And why am I talking
+to you seriously? Psha!"
+
+"Papa! why don't you want it?" exclaimed Foma, angrily.
+
+"Listen to me! If you are a chimney-sweep, go, carrion, on the roof! If
+you are a fireman, stand on the watch-tower! And each and every sort of
+men must have its own mode of life. Calves cannot roar like bears! If
+you live your own life; go on, live it! And don't talk nonsense,
+and don't creep where you don't belong. Arrange your life after your
+pattern." And from the dark lips of the old man gushed forth in a
+trembling, glittering stream the jarring, but confident and bold words
+so familiar to Foma. Seized with the thought of freedom, which seemed to
+him so easily possible, Foma did not listen to his words. This idea had
+eaten into his brains, and in his heart the desire grew stronger and
+stronger to sever all his connections with this empty and wearisome
+life, with his godfather, with the steamers, the barges and the
+carouses, with everything amidst which it was narrow and stifling for
+him to live.
+
+The old man's words seemed to fall on him from afar; they were blended
+with the clatter of the dishes, with the scraping of the lackey's feet
+along the floor, with some one's drunken shouting. Not far from them sat
+four merchants at a table and argued loudly:
+
+"Two and a quarter--and thank God!"
+
+"Luka Mitrich! How can I?"
+
+"Give him two and a half!"
+
+"That's right! You ought to give it, it's a good steamer, it tows
+briskly."
+
+"My dear fellows, I can't. Two and a quarter!"
+
+"And all this nonsense came to your head from your youthful passion!"
+said Mayakin, importantly, accompanying his words with a rap on the
+table. "Your boldness is stupidity; all these words of yours are
+nonsense. Would you perhaps go to the cloister? or have you perhaps a
+longing to go on the highways?"
+
+Foma listened in silence. The buzzing noise about him now seemed to move
+farther away from him. He pictured himself amid a vast restless crowd
+of people; without knowing why they bustled about hither and thither,
+jumped on one another; their eyes were greedily opened wide; they were
+shouting, cursing, falling, crushing one another, and they were all
+jostling about on one place. He felt bad among them because he did not
+understand what they wanted, because he had no faith in their words,
+and he felt that they had no faith in themselves, that they understood
+nothing. And if one were to tear himself away from their midst to
+freedom, to the edge of life, and thence behold them--then all would
+become clear to him. Then he would also understand what they wanted, and
+would find his own place among them.
+
+"Don't I understand," said Mayakin, more gently, seeing Foma lost in
+thought, and assuming that he was reflecting on his words--"I understand
+that you want happiness for yourself. Well, my friend, it is not to be
+easily seized. You must seek happiness even as they search for mushrooms
+in the wood, you must bend your back in search of it, and finding it,
+see whether it isn't a toad-stool."
+
+"So you will set me free?" asked Foma, suddenly lifting his head, and
+Mayakin turned his eyes away from his fiery look.
+
+"Father! at least for a short time! Let me breathe, let me step aside
+from everything!" entreated Foma. "I will watch how everything goes on.
+And then--if not--I shall become a drunkard."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense. Why do you play the fool?" cried Mayakin, angrily.
+
+"Very well, then!" replied Foma, calmly. "Very well! You do not want it?
+Then there will be nothing! I'll squander it all! And there is nothing
+more for us to speak of. Goodbye! I'll set out to work, you'll see! It
+will afford you joy. Everything will go up in smoke!" Foma was calm, he
+spoke with confidence; it seemed to him that since he had thus decided,
+his godfather could not hinder him. But Mayakin straightened himself in
+his chair and said, also plainly and calmly:
+
+"And do you know how I can deal with you?"
+
+"As you like!" said Foma, with a wave of the hand. "Well then. Now I
+like the following: I'll return to town and will see to it that you are
+declared insane, and put into a lunatic asylum."
+
+"Can this be done?" asked Foma, distrustfully, but with a tone of fright
+in his voice.
+
+"We can do everything, my dear."
+
+Foma lowered his head, and casting a furtive glance at his godfather's
+face, shuddered, thinking:
+
+"He'll do it; he won't spare me."
+
+"If you play the fool seriously I must also deal with you seriously.
+I promised your father to make a man of you, and I will do it; if you
+cannot stand on your feet, I'll put you in irons. Then you will stand.
+Though I know all these holy words of yours are but ugly caprices that
+come from excessive drinking. But if you do not give that up, if
+you keep on behaving indecently, if you ruin, out of wantonness, the
+property accumulated by your father, I'll cover you all up. I'll have a
+bell forged over you. It is very inconvenient to fool with me."
+
+Mayakin spoke gently. The wrinkles of his cheeks all rose upward, and
+his small eyes in their dark sockets were smiling sarcastically, coldly.
+And the wrinkles on his forehead formed an odd pattern, rising up to his
+bald crown. His face was stern and merciless, and breathed melancholy
+and coldness upon Foma's soul.
+
+"So there's no way out for me?" asked Foma, gloomily. "You are blocking
+all my ways?"
+
+"There is a way. Go there! I shall guide you. Don't worry, it will be
+right! You will come just to your proper place."
+
+This self-confidence, this unshakable boastfulness aroused Foma's
+indignation. Thrusting his hands into his pockets in order not to strike
+the old man, he straightened himself in his chair and clinching his
+teeth, said, facing Mayakin closely:
+
+"Why are you boasting? What are you boasting of? Your own son, where is
+he? Your daughter, what is she? Eh, you--you life-builder! Well, you are
+clever. You know everything. Tell me, what for do you live? What for
+are you accumulating money? Do you think you are not going to die? Well,
+what then? You've captured me. You've taken hold of me, you've conquered
+me. But wait, I may yet tear myself away from you! It isn't the end yet!
+Eh, you! What have you done for life? By what will you be remembered?
+My father, for instance, donated a lodging-house, and you--what have you
+done?"
+
+Mayakin's wrinkles quivered and sank downward, wherefore his face
+assumed a sickly, weeping expression.
+
+"How will you justify yourself?" asked Foma, softly, without lifting his
+eyes from him.
+
+"Hold your tongue, you puppy!" said the old man in a low voice, casting
+a glance of alarm about the room.
+
+"I've said everything! And now I'm going! Hold me back!"
+
+Foma rose from his chair, thrust his cap on his head, and measured the
+old man with abhorrence.
+
+"You may go; but I'll--I'll catch you! It will come out as I say!" said
+Yakov Tarasovich in a broken voice.
+
+"And I'll go on a spree! I'll squander all!"
+
+"Very well, we'll see!"
+
+"Goodbye! you hero," Foma laughed.
+
+"Goodbye, for a short while! I'll not go back on my own. I love it. I
+love you, too. Never mind, you're a good fellow!" said Mayakin, softly,
+and as though out of breath.
+
+"Do not love me, but teach me. But then, you cannot teach me the right
+thing!" said Foma, as he turned his back on the old man and left the
+hall.
+
+Yakov Tarasovich Mayakin remained in the tavern alone. He sat by the
+table, and, bending over it, made drawings of patterns on the tray,
+dipping his trembling finger in the spilt kvass, and his sharp-pointed
+head was sinking lower and lower over the table, as though he did not
+decipher, and could not make out what his bony finger was drawing on the
+tray.
+
+Beads of perspiration glistened on his bald crown, and as usual the
+wrinkles on his cheeks quivered with frequent, irritable starts.
+
+In the tavern a resounding tumult smote the air so that the window-panes
+were rattling. From the Volga were wafted the whistlings of steamers,
+the dull beating of the wheels upon the water, the shouting of the
+loaders--life was moving onward unceasingly and unquestionably.
+
+Summoning the waiter with a nod Yakov Tarasovich asked him with peculiar
+intensity and impressiveness,
+
+"How much do I owe for all this?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+PREVIOUS to his quarrel with Mayakin, Foma had caroused because of the
+weariness of life, out of curiosity, and half indifferently; now he led
+a dissipated life out of spite, almost in despair; now he was filled
+with a feeling of vengeance and with a certain insolence toward men, an
+insolence which astonished even himself at times. He saw that the people
+about him, like himself, lacked support and reason, only they did not
+understand this, or purposely would not understand it, so as not to
+hinder themselves from living blindly, and from giving themselves
+completely, without a thought, to their dissolute life. He found
+nothing firm in them, nothing steadfast; when sober, they seemed to him
+miserable and stupid; when intoxicated, they were repulsive to him, and
+still more stupid. None of them inspired him with respect, with deep,
+hearty interest; he did not even ask them what their names were; he
+forgot where and when he made their acquaintance, and regarding them
+with contemptuous curiosity, always longed to say and do something that
+would offend them. He passed days and nights with them in different
+places of amusement, and his acquaintances always depended just upon
+the category of each of these places. In the expensive and elegant
+restaurants certain sharpers of the better class of society surrounded
+him--gamblers, couplet singers, jugglers, actors, and property-holders
+who were ruined by leading depraved lives. At first these people treated
+him with a patronizing air, and boasted before him of their refined
+tastes, of their knowledge of the merits of wine and food, and then they
+courted favours of him, fawned upon him, borrowed of him money which he
+scattered about without counting, drawing it from the banks, and already
+borrowing it on promissory notes. In the cheap taverns hair-dressers,
+markers, clerks, functionaries and choristers surrounded him like
+vultures; and among these people he always felt better--freer. In these
+he saw plain people, not so monstrously deformed and distorted as that
+"clean society" of the elegant restaurants; these were less depraved,
+cleverer, better understood by him. At times they evinced wholesome,
+strong emotions, and there was always something more human in them.
+But, like the "clean society," these were also eager for money, and
+shamelessly fleeced him, and he saw it and rudely mocked them.
+
+To be sure, there were women. Physically healthy, but not sensual, Foma
+bought them, the dear ones and the cheap ones, the beautiful and the
+ugly, gave them large sums of money, changed them almost every week,
+and in general, he treated the women better than the men. He laughed at
+them, said to them disgraceful and offensive words, but he could never,
+even when half-drunk, rid himself of a certain bashfulness in their
+presence. They all, even the most brazen-faced, the strongest and the
+most shameless, seemed to him weak and defenseless, like small children.
+Always ready to thrash any man, he never laid a hand on women, although
+when irritated by something he sometimes abused them indecently. He felt
+that he was immeasurably stronger than any woman, and every woman seemed
+to him immeasurably more miserable than he was. Those of the women who
+led their dissolute lives audaciously, boasting of their depravity,
+called forth in Foma a feeling of bashfulness, which made him timid
+and awkward. One evening, during supper hour, one of these women,
+intoxicated and impudent, struck Foma on the cheek with a melon-rind.
+Foma was half-drunk. He turned pale with rage, rose from his chair,
+and thrusting his hands into his pockets, said in a fierce voice which
+trembled with indignation:
+
+"You carrion, get out. Begone! Someone else would have broken your head
+for this. And you know that I am forbearing with you, and that my arm is
+never raised against any of your kind. Drive her away to the devil!"
+
+A few days after her arrival in Kazan, Sasha became the mistress of a
+certain vodka-distiller's son, who was carousing together with Foma.
+Going away with her new master to some place on the Kama, she said to
+Foma:
+
+"Goodbye, dear man! Perhaps we may meet again. We're both going the same
+way! But I advise you not to give your heart free rein. Enjoy yourself
+without looking back at anything. And then, when the gruel is eaten up,
+smash the bowl on the ground. Goodbye!"
+
+And she impressed a hot kiss upon his lips, at which her eyes looked
+still darker.
+
+Foma was glad that she was leaving him, he had grown tired of her and
+her cold indifference frightened him. But now something trembled within
+him, he turned aside from her and said in a low voice:
+
+"Perhaps you will not live well together, then come back to me."
+
+"Thank you!" she replied, and for some reason or other burst into hoarse
+laughter, which was uncommon with her.
+
+Thus lived Foma, day in and day out, always turning around on one
+and the same place, amid people who were always alike, and who never
+inspired him with any noble feelings. And then he considered himself
+superior to them, because the thoughts of the possibility of freeing
+himself from this life was taking deeper and deeper root in his mind,
+because the yearning for freedom held him in an ever firmer embrace,
+because ever brighter were the pictures as he imagined himself drifting
+away to the border of life, away from this tumult and confusion. More
+than once, by night, remaining all by himself, he would firmly close his
+eyes and picture to himself a dark throng of people, innumerably great
+and even terrible in its immenseness. Crowded together somewhere in a
+deep valley, which was surrounded by hillocks, and filled with a
+dusty mist, this throng jostled one another on the same place in noisy
+confusion, and looked like grain in a hopper. It was as though an
+invisible millstone, hidden beneath the feet of the crowd, were grinding
+it, and people moved about it like waves--now rushing downward to be
+ground the sooner and disappear, now bursting upward in the effort to
+escape the merciless millstone. There were also people who resembled
+crabs just caught and thrown into a huge basket--clutching at one
+another, they twined about heavily, crawled somewhere and interfered
+with one another, and could do nothing to free themselves from
+captivity.
+
+Foma saw familiar faces amid the crowd: there his father is walking
+boldly, sturdily pushing aside and overthrowing everybody on his way;
+he is working with his long paws, massing everything with his chest, and
+laughing in thundering tones. And then he disappears, sinking somewhere
+in the depth, beneath the feet of the people. There, wriggling like
+a snake, now jumping on people's shoulders, now gliding between their
+feet, his godfather is working with his lean, but supple and sinewy
+body. Here Lubov is crying and struggling, following her father, with
+abrupt but faint movements, now remaining behind him, now nearing him
+again. Striding softly with a kind smile on her face, stepping aside
+from everybody, and making way for everyone, Aunt Anfisa is slowly
+moving along. Her image quivers in the darkness before Foma, like the
+modest flame of a wax candle. And it dies out and disappears in the
+darkness. Pelagaya is quickly going somewhere along a straight road.
+There Sophya Pavlovna Medinskaya is standing, her hands hanging
+impotently, just as she stood in her drawing-room when he saw her last.
+Her eyes were large, but some great fright gleams in them. Sasha,
+too, is here. Indifferent, paying no attention to the jostling, she is
+stoutly going straight into the very dregs of life, singing her songs
+at the top of her voice, her dark eyes fixed in the distance before her.
+Foma hears tumult, howls, laughter, drunken shouts, irritable disputes
+about copecks--songs and sobs hover over this enormous restless heap of
+living human bodies crowded into a pit. They jump, fall, crawl, crush
+one another, leap on one another's shoulders, grope everywhere like
+blind people, stumbling everywhere over others like themselves,
+struggle, and, falling, disappear from sight. Money rustles, soaring
+like bats over the heads of the people, and the people greedily stretch
+out their hands toward it, the gold and silver jingles, bottles rattle,
+corks pop, someone sobs, and a melancholy female voice sings:
+
+"And so let us live while we can, And then--e'en grass may cease to
+grow!"
+
+This wild picture fastened itself firmly in Foma's mind, and growing
+clearer, larger and more vivid with each time it arose before him,
+rousing in his breast something chaotic, one great indefinite feeling
+into which fell, like streams into a river, fear and revolt and
+compassion and wrath and many another thing. All this boiled up within
+his breast into strained desire, which was thrusting it asunder into a
+desire whose power was choking him, and his eyes were filled with tears;
+he longed to shout, to howl like a beast, to frighten all the people,
+to check their senseless bustle, to pour into the tumult and vanity of
+their life something new, his own--to tell them certain loud firm words,
+to guide them all into one direction, and not one against another.
+He desired to seize them by their heads, to tear them apart one from
+another, to thrash some, to fondle others, to reproach them all, to
+illumine them with a certain fire.
+
+There was nothing in him, neither the necessary words, nor the fire;
+all he had was the longing which was clear to him, but impossible of
+fulfillment. He pictured himself above life outside of the deep valley,
+wherein people were bustling about; he saw himself standing firmly on
+his feet and--speechless. He might have cried to the people:
+
+"See how you live! Aren't you ashamed?"
+
+And he might have abused them. But if they were to ask on hearing his
+voice:
+
+"And how ought we to live?"
+
+It was perfectly clear to him that after such a question he would have
+to fly down head foremost from the heights there, beneath the feet of
+the throng, upon the millstone. And laughter would accompany him to his
+destruction.
+
+Sometimes he was delirious under the pressure of this nightmare. Certain
+meaningless and unconnected words burst from his lips; he even perspired
+from this painful struggle within him. At times it occurred to him that
+he was going mad from intoxication, and that that was the reason why
+this terrible and gloomy picture was forcing itself into his mind. With
+a great effort of will he brushed aside these pictures and excitements;
+but as soon as he was alone and not very drunk, he was again seized by
+his delirium and again grew faint under its weight. And his thirst for
+freedom was growing more and more intense, torturing him by its force.
+But tear himself away from the shackles of his wealth he could not.
+Mayakin, who had Foma's full power of attorney to manage his affairs,
+acted now in such a way that Foma was bound to feel almost every day the
+burden of the obligations which rested upon him. People were
+constantly applying to him for payments, proposing to him terms for the
+transportation of freight. His employees overwhelmed him in person and
+by letter with trifles with which he had never before concerned himself,
+as they used to settle these trifles at their own risk. They looked for
+him and found him in the taverns, questioned him as to what and how
+it should be done; he would tell them sometimes without at all
+understanding in what way this or that should be done. He noticed their
+concealed contempt for him, and almost always saw that they did not do
+the work as he had ordered, but did it in a different and better way. In
+this he felt the clever hand of his godfather, and understood that the
+old man was thus pressing him in order to turn him to his way. And at
+the same time he noticed that he was not the master of his business,
+but only a component part of it, and an insignificant part at that. This
+irritated him and moved him farther away from the old man, it augumented
+his longing to tear himself away from his business, even at the cost of
+his own ruin. Infuriated, he flung money about the taverns and dives,
+but this did not last long. Yakov Tarasovich closed his accounts in the
+banks, withdrawing all deposits. Soon Foma began to feel that even on
+promissory notes, they now gave him the money not quite as willingly as
+before. This stung his vanity; and his indignation was roused, and
+he was frightened when he learned that his godfather had circulated a
+rumour in the business world that he, Foma, was out of his mind, and
+that, perhaps, it might become necessary to appoint a guardian for
+him. Foma did not know the limits of his godfather's power, and did not
+venture to take anyone's counsel in this matter. He was convinced that
+in the business world the old man was a power, and that he could do
+anything he pleased. At first it was painful for him to feel Mayakin's
+hand over him, but later he became reconciled to this, renounced
+everything, and resumed his restless, drunken life, wherein there was
+only one consolation--the people. With each succeeding day he became
+more and more convinced that they were more irrational and altogether
+worse than he--that they were not the masters of life, but its slaves,
+and that it was turning them around, bending and breaking them at its
+will, while they succumbed to it unfeelingly and resignedly, and none
+of them but he desired freedom. But he wanted it, and therefore proudly
+elevated himself above his drinking companions, not desiring to see in
+them anything but wrong.
+
+One day in a tavern a certain half-intoxicated man complained to him of
+his life. This was a small-sized, meagre man, with dim, frightened eyes,
+unshaven, in a short frock coat, and with a bright necktie. He blinked
+pitifully, his ears quivered spasmodically, and his soft little voice
+also trembled.
+
+"I've struggled hard to make my way among men; I've tried everything,
+I've worked like a bull. But life jostled me aside, crushed me under
+foot, gave me no chance. All my patience gave way. Eh! and so I've taken
+to drink. I feel that I'll be ruined. Well, that's the only way open to
+me!"
+
+"Fool!" said Foma with contempt. "Why did you want to make your way
+among men? You should have kept away from them, to the right. Standing
+aside, you might have seen where your place was among them, and then
+gone right to the point!"
+
+"I don't understand your words." The little man shook his close-cropped,
+angular head.
+
+Foma laughed, self-satisfied.
+
+"Is it for you to understand it?" "No; do you know, I think that he whom
+God decreed--"
+
+"Not God, but man arranges life!" Foma blurted out, and was even himself
+astonished at the audacity of his words. And the little man glancing at
+him askance also shrank timidly.
+
+"Has God given you reason?" asked Foma, recovering from his
+embarrassment.
+
+"Of course; that is to say, as much as is the share of a small man,"
+said Foma's interlocutor irresolutely.
+
+"Well, and you have no right to ask of Him a single grain more! Make
+your own life by your own reason. And God will judge you. We are all in
+His service. And in His eyes we are all of equal value. Understand?"
+
+It happened very often that Foma would suddenly say something which
+seemed audacious even to himself, and which, at the same time, elevated
+him in his own eyes. There were certain unexpected, daring thoughts
+and words, which suddenly flashed like sparks, as though an impression
+produced them from Foma's brains. And he noticed more than once that
+whatever he had carefully thought out beforehand was expressed by him
+not quite so well, and more obscure, than that which suddenly flashed up
+in his heart.
+
+Foma lived as though walking in a swamp, in danger of sinking at each
+step in the mire and slime, while his godfather, like a river loach,
+wriggled himself on a dry, firm little spot, vigilantly watching the
+life of his godson from afar.
+
+After his quarrel with Foma, Yakov Tarasovich returned home, gloomy
+and pensive. His eyes flashed drily, and he straightened himself like a
+tightly-stretched string. His wrinkles shrank painfully, his face seemed
+to have become smaller and darker, and when Lubov saw him in this state
+it appeared to her that he was seriously ill, but that he was forcing
+and restraining himself. Mutely and nervously the old man flung himself
+about the room, casting in reply to his daughter's questions, dry curt
+words, and finally shouted to her:
+
+"Leave me alone! You see it has nothing to do with you."
+
+She felt sorry for him when she noticed the gloomy and melancholy
+expression of his keen, green eyes; she made it her duty to question
+him as to what had happened to him, and when he seated himself at
+the dinner-table she suddenly approached him, placed her hands on
+his shoulders, and looking down into his face, asked him tenderly and
+anxiously:
+
+"Papa, are you ill? tell me!"
+
+Her caresses were extremely rare; they always softened the lonely old
+man, and though he did not respond to them for some reason or other he
+nevertheless could not help appreciating them. And now he shrugged his
+shoulders, thus throwing off her hands and said:
+
+"Go, go to your place. How the itching curiosity of Eve gives you no
+rest."
+
+But Lubov did not go away; persistingly looking into his eyes, she
+asked, with an offended tone in her voice:
+
+"Papa, why do you always speak to me in such a way as though I were a
+small child, or very stupid?"
+
+"Because you are grown up and yet not very clever. Yes! That's the whole
+story! Go, sit down and eat!"
+
+She walked away and silently seated herself opposite her father,
+compressing her lips for affront. Contrary to his habits Mayakin ate
+slowly, stirring his spoon in his plate of cabbage-soup for a long time,
+and examining the soup closely.
+
+"If your obstructed mind could but comprehend your father's thoughts!"
+said he, suddenly, as he sighed with a sort of whistling sound.
+
+Lubov threw her spoon aside and almost with tears in her voice, said:
+
+"Why do you insult me, papa? You see that I am alone, always alone! You
+understand how difficult my life is, and you never say a single kind
+word to me. You never say anything to me! And you are also lonely; life
+is difficult for you too, I can see it. You find it very hard to live,
+but you alone are to blame for it! You alone!
+
+"Now Balaam's she-ass has also started to talk!" said the old man,
+laughing. "Well! what will be next?"
+
+"You are very proud of your wisdom, papa."
+
+"And what else?"
+
+"That isn't good; and it pains me greatly. Why do you repulse me? You
+know that, save you, I have no one."
+
+Tears leaped to her eyes; her father noticed them, and his face
+quivered.
+
+"If you were not a girl!" he exclaimed. "If you had as much brains as
+Marfa Poosadnitza, for instance. Eh, Lubov? Then I'd laugh at everybody,
+and at Foma. Come now, don't cry!"
+
+She wiped her eyes and asked:
+
+"What about Foma?"
+
+"He's rebellious. Ha! ha! he says: 'Take away my property, give me
+freedom!' He wants to save his soul in the kabak. That's what entered
+Foma's head."
+
+"Well, what is this?" asked Lubov, irresolutely. She wanted to say that
+Foma's desire was good, that it was a noble desire if it were earnest,
+but she feared to irritate her father with her words, and she only gazed
+at him questioningly.
+
+"What is it?" said Mayakin, excitedly, trembling. "That either comes to
+him from excessive drinking, or else--Heaven forbid--from his mother,
+the orthodox spirit. And if this heathenish leaven is going to rise in
+him I'll have to struggle hard with him! There will be a great conflict
+between us. He has come out, breast foremost, against me; he has at once
+displayed great audacity. He's young--there's not much cunning in him
+as yet. He says: 'I'll drink away everything, everything will go up in
+smoke! I'll show you how to drink!'"
+
+Mayakin lifted his hand over his head, and, clenching his fist,
+threatened furiously.
+
+"How dare you? Who established the business? Who built it up? You? Your
+father. Forty years of labour were put into it, and you wish to destroy
+it? We must all go to our places here all together as one man, there
+cautiously, one by one. We merchants, tradesmen, have for centuries
+carried Russia on our shoulders, and we are still carrying it. Peter the
+Great was a Czar of divine wisdom, he knew our value. How he supported
+us! He had printed books for the express purpose of teaching us
+business. There I have a book which was printed at his order by Polidor
+Virgily Oorbansky, about inventory, printed in 1720. Yes, one must
+understand this. He understood it, and cleared the way for us. And now
+we stand on our own feet, and we feel our place. Clear the way for us!
+We have laid the foundation of life, instead of bricks we have laid
+ourselves in the earth. Now we must build the stories. Give us freedom
+of action! That's where we must hold our course. That's where the
+problem lies; but Foma does not comprehend this. But he must understand
+it, must resume the work. He has his father's means. When I die mine
+will be added to his. Work, you puppy! And he is raving. No, wait! I'll
+lift you up to the proper point!"
+
+The old man was choking with agitation and with flashing eyes looked at
+his daughter so furiously as though Foma were sitting in her place. His
+agitation frightened Lubov, but she lacked the courage to interrupt her
+father, and she looked at his stern and gloomy face in silence.
+
+"The road has been paved by our fathers, and you must walk on it. I have
+worked for fifty years to what purpose? That my children may resume it
+after I am gone. My children! Where are my children?"
+
+The old man drooped his head mournfully, his voice broke down, and he
+said sadly, as if he were speaking unto himself:
+
+"One is a convict, utterly ruined; the other, a drunkard. I have little
+hope in him. My daughter, to whom, then, shall I leave my labour before
+my death? If I had but a son-in-law. I thought Foma would become a man
+and would be sharpened up, then I would give you unto him, and with you
+all I have--there! But Foma is good for nothing, and I see no one else
+in his stead. What sort of people we have now! In former days the
+people were as of iron, while now they are of india-rubber. They are all
+bending now. And nothing--they have no firmness in them. What is it? Why
+is it so?"
+
+Mayakin looked at his daughter with alarm. She was silent.
+
+"Tell me," he asked her, "what do you need? How, in your opinion, is it
+proper to live? What do you want? You have studied, read, tell me what
+is it that you need?"
+
+The questions fell on Lubov's head quite unexpectedly to her, and she
+was embarrassed. She was pleased that her father asked her about this
+matter, and was at the same time afraid to reply, lest she should
+be lowered in his estimation. And then, gathering courage, as though
+preparing to jump across the table, she said irresolutely and in a
+trembling voice:
+
+"That all the people should be happy and contented; that all the people
+should be equal, all the people have an equal right to life, to the
+bliss of life, all must have freedom, even as they have air. And
+equality in everything!"
+
+At the beginning of her agitated speech her father looked at her face
+with anxious curiosity in his eyes, but as she went on hastily hurling
+her words at him his eyes assumed an altogether different expression,
+and finally he said to her with calm contempt:
+
+"I knew it before--you are a gilded fool!"
+
+She lowered her head, but immediately raised it and exclaimed sadly:
+
+"You have said so yourself--freedom."
+
+"You had better hold your tongue!" the old man shouted at her rudely.
+"You cannot see even that which is visibly forced outside of each man.
+How can all the people be happy and equal, since each one wants to be
+above the other? Even the beggar has his pride and always boasts of
+something or other before other people. A small child, even he wants to
+be first among his playmates. And one man will never yield to another;
+only fools believe in it. Each man has his own soul, and his own face;
+only those who love not their souls and care not for their faces can
+be planed down to the same size. Eh, you! You've read much trash, and
+you've devoured it!"
+
+Bitter reproach and biting contempt were expressed on the old man's
+face. He noisily pushed his chair away from the table, jumped up, and
+folding his hands behind his back, began to dart about in the room with
+short steps, shaking his head and saying something to himself in an
+angry, hissing whisper. Lubov, pale with emotion and anger, feeling
+herself stupid and powerless before him, listening to his whisper, and
+her heart palpitated wildly.
+
+"I am left alone, alone, like Job. Oh Lord! What shall I do? Oh, alone!
+Am I not wise? Am I not clever? But life has outwitted me also. What
+does it love? Whom does it fondle? It beats the good, and suffers not
+the bad to go unpunished, and no one understands life's justice."
+
+The girl began to feel painfully sorry for the old man; she was seized
+with an intense yearning to help him; she longed to be of use to him.
+
+Following him with burning eyes, she suddenly said in a low voice:
+
+"Papa, dear! do not grieve. Taras is still alive. Perhaps he--"
+
+Mayakin stopped suddenly as though nailed to the spot, and he slowly
+lifted his head.
+
+"The tree that grew crooked in its youth and could not hold out will
+certainly break when it's old. But nevertheless, even Taras is a straw
+to me now. Though I doubt whether he is better than Foma. Gordyeeff has
+a character, he has his father's daring. He can take a great deal on
+himself. But Taraska, you recalled him just in time. Yes!"
+
+And the old man, who a moment ago had lost his courage to the point of
+complaining, and, grief-stricken had run about the room like a mouse
+in a trap, now calmly and firmly walked up with a careworn face to the
+table, carefully adjusted his chair, and seated himself, saying:
+
+"We'll have to sound Taraska. He lives in Usolye at some factory. I was
+told by some merchants--they're making soda there, I believe. I'll find
+out the particulars. I'll write to him."
+
+"Allow me to write to him, papa!" begged Lubov, softly, flushing,
+trembling with joy.
+
+"You?" asked Mayakin, casting a brief glance at her; he then became
+silent, thought awhile and said:
+
+"That's all right. That's even better! Write to him. Ask him whether he
+isn't married, how he lives, what he thinks. But then I'll tell you what
+to write when the time has come."
+
+"Do it at once, papa," said the girl.
+
+"It is necessary to marry you off the sooner. I am keeping an eye on
+a certain red-haired fellow. He doesn't seem to be stupid. He's been
+polished abroad, by the way.
+
+"Is it Smolin, papa?" asked Lubov, inquisitively and anxiously.
+
+"And supposing it is he, what of it?" inquired Yakov Tarasovich in a
+business-like tone.
+
+"Nothing, I don't know him," replied Lubov, indefinitely.
+
+"We'll make you acquainted. It's time, Lubov, it's time. Our hopes for
+Foma are poor, although I do not give him up."
+
+"I did not reckon on Foma--what is he to me?"
+
+"That's wrong. If you had been cleverer perhaps he wouldn't have gone
+astray! Whenever I used to see you together, I thought: 'My girl will
+attract the fellow to herself! That will be a fine affair!' But I was
+wrong. I thought that you would know what is to your advantage
+without being told of it. That's the way, my girl!" said the father,
+instructively.
+
+She became thoughtful as she listened to his impressive speech. Robust
+and strong, Lubov was thinking of marriage more and more frequently
+of late, for she saw no other way out of her loneliness. The desire to
+forsake her father and go away somewhere in order to study something,
+to do something. This desire she had long since overcome, even as she
+conquered in herself many another longing just as keen, but shallow
+and indefinite. From the various books she had read a thick sediment
+remained within her, and though it was something live it had the life
+of a protoplasm. This sediment developed in the girl a feeling of
+dis-satisfaction with her life, a yearning toward personal independence,
+a longing to be freed from the heavy guardianship of her father, but she
+had neither the power to realize these desires, nor the clear conception
+of their realization. But nature had its influence on her, and at the
+sight of young mothers with children in their arms Lubov often felt a
+sad and mournful languor within her. At times stopping before the mirror
+she sadly scrutinized in it her plump, fresh face with dark circles
+around her eyes, and she felt sorry for herself. She felt that life was
+going past her, forgetting her somewhere on the side. Now listening to
+her father's words she pictured to herself what sort of man Smolin might
+be. She had met him when he was yet a Gymnasium student, his face was
+covered with freckles, he was snub-nosed, always clean, sedate and
+tiresome. He danced heavily, awkwardly, he talked uninterestingly.
+A long time had passed since then, he had been abroad, had studied
+something there, how was he now? From Smolin her thoughts darted to
+her brother, and with a sinking heart she thought: what would he say in
+reply to her letter? What sort of a man was he? The image of her brother
+as she had pictured it to herself prevented her from seeing both her
+father and Smolin, and she had already made up her mind not to consent
+to marry before meeting Taras, when suddenly her father shouted to her:
+
+"Eh, Lubovka! Why are you thoughtful? What are you thinking of mostly?"
+
+"So, everything goes so swiftly," replied Luba, with a smile.
+
+"What goes swiftly?"
+
+"Everything. A week ago it was impossible to speak with you about Taras,
+while now--"
+
+"'Tis need, my girl! Need is a power, it bends a steel rod into a
+spring. And steel is stubborn. Taras, we'll see what he is! Man is to
+be appreciated by his resistance to the power of life; if it isn't life
+that wrings him, but he that wrings life to suit himself, my respects to
+that man! Allow me to shake your hand, let's run our business together.
+Eh, I am old. And how very brisk life has become now! With each
+succeeding year there is more and more interest in it, more and more
+relish to it! I wish I could live forever, I wish I could act all the
+time!" The old man smacked his lips, rubbed his hands, and his small
+eyes gleamed greedily.
+
+"But you are a thin-blooded lot! Ere you have grown up you are already
+overgrown and withered. You live like an old radish. And the fact that
+life is growing fairer and fairer is incomprehensible to you. I have
+lived sixty-seven years on this earth, and though I am now standing
+close to my grave I can see that in former years, when I was young,
+there were fewer flowers on earth, and the flowers were not quite as
+beautiful as they are now. Everything is growing more beautiful! What
+buildings we have now! What different trade implements. What huge
+steamers! A world of brains has been put into everything! You look and
+think; what clever fellows you are--Oh people! You merit reward and
+respect! You've arranged life cleverly. Everything is good, everything
+is pleasant. Only you, our successors, you are devoid of all live
+feelings! Any little charlatan from among the commoners is cleverer than
+you! Take that Yozhov, for instance, what is he? And yet he represents
+himself as judge over us, and even over life itself--he has courage. But
+you, pshaw! You live like beggars! In your joy you are beasts, in your
+misfortune vermin! You are rotten! They ought to inject fire into your
+veins, they ought to take your skin off and strew salt upon your raw
+flesh, then you would have jumped!"
+
+Yakov Tarasovich, small-sized, wrinkled and bony, with black, broken
+teeth in his mouth, bald-headed and dark, as though burned by the heat
+of life and smoked in it, trembled in vehement agitation, showering
+jarring words of contempt upon his daughter, who was young, well-grown
+and plump. She looked at him with a guilty expression in her eyes,
+smiled confusedly, and in her heart grew a greater and greater respect
+for the live old man who was so steadfast in his desires.
+
+.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+
+And Foma went on straying and raving, passing his days and nights
+in taverns and dens, and mastering more and more firmly his
+contemptuously-hateful bearing toward the people that surrounded him. At
+times they awakened in him a sad yearning to find among them some sort
+of resistance to his wicked feeling, to meet a worthy and courageous man
+who would cause him to blush with shame by his burning reproach. This
+yearning became clearer--each time it sprang up in him it was a longing
+for assistance on the part of a man who felt that he had lost his way
+and was perishing.
+
+"Brethren!" he cried one day, sitting by the table in a tavern,
+half-intoxicated, and surrounded by certain obscure and greedy people,
+who ate and drank as though they had not had a piece of bread in their
+mouths for many a long day before.
+
+"Brethren! I feel disgusted. I am tired of you! Beat me unmercifully,
+drive me away! You are rascals, but you are nearer to one another than
+to me. Why? Am I not a drunkard and a rascal as well? And yet I am a
+stranger to you! I can see I am a stranger. You drink out of me and
+secretly you spit upon me. I can feel it! Why do you do it?"
+
+To be sure, they could treat him in a different way. In the depth of his
+soul perhaps not one of them considered himself lower than Foma, but he
+was rich, and this hindered them from treating him more as a companion,
+and then he always spoke certain comically wrathful, conscience-rending
+words, and this embarrassed them. Moreover, he was strong and ready to
+fight, and they dared not say a word against him. And that was just what
+he wanted. He wished more and more intensely that one of these people
+he despised would stand up against him, face to face, and would tell
+him something strong, which, like a lever, would turn him aside from the
+sloping road, whose danger he felt, and whose filth he saw, being filled
+with helpless aversion for it.
+
+And Foma found what he needed.
+
+One day, irritated by the lack of attention for him, he cried to his
+drinking-companions:
+
+"You boys, keep quiet, every one of you! Who gives you to drink and to
+eat? Have you forgotten it? I'll bring you in order! I'll show you how
+to respect me! Convicts! When I speak you must all keep quiet!"
+
+And, indeed, all became silent; either for fear lest they might lose his
+good will, or, perhaps, afraid that he, that healthy and strong beast,
+might beat them. They sat in silence about a minute, concealing their
+anger at him, bending over the plates and attempting to hide from him
+their fright and embarrassment. Foma measured them with a self-satisfied
+look, and gratified by their slavish submissiveness, said boastfully:
+
+"Ah! You've grown dumb now, that's the way! I am strict! I--"
+
+"You sluggard!" came some one's calm, loud exclamation.
+
+"Wha-at?" roared Foma, jumping up from his chair. "Who said that?"
+
+Then a certain, strange, shabby-looking man arose at the end of the
+table; he was tall, in a long frock-coat, with a heap of grayish hair
+on his large head. His hair was stiff, standing out in all directions in
+thick locks, his face was yellow, unshaven, with a long, crooked nose.
+To Foma it seemed that he resembled a swab with which the steamer decks
+are washed, and this amused the half-intoxicated fellow.
+
+"How fine!" said he, sarcastically. "What are you snarling at, eh? Do
+you know who I am?"
+
+With the gesture of a tragic actor the man stretched out to Foma his
+hand, with its long, pliant fingers like those of a juggler, and he said
+in a deep hoarse basso:
+
+"You are the rotten disease of your father, who, though he was a
+plunderer, was nevertheless a worthy man in comparison with you."
+
+Because of the unexpectedness of this, and because of his wrath, Foma's
+heart shrank. He fiercely opened his eyes wide and kept silent, finding
+no words to reply to this insolence. And the man, standing before him,
+went on hoarsely, with animation, beastlike rolling his large, but dim
+and swollen, eyes:
+
+"You demand of us respect for you, you fool! How have you merited it?
+Who are you? A drunkard, drinking away the fortune of your father. You
+savage! You ought to be proud that I, a renowned artist, a disinterested
+and faithful worshipper at the shrine of art, drink from the same
+bottle with you! This bottle contains sandal and molasses, infused with
+snuff-tobacco, while you think it is port wine. It is your license for
+the name of savage and ass."
+
+"Eh, you jailbird!" roared Foma, rushing toward the artist. But he was
+seized and held back. Struggling in the arms of those that seized him,
+he was compelled to listen without replying, to the thundering, deep and
+heavy bass of the man who resembled a swab.
+
+"You have thrown to men a few copecks out of the stolen roubles, and
+you consider yourself a hero! You are twice a thief. You have stolen the
+roubles and now you are stealing gratitude for your few copecks! But
+I shall not give it to you! I, who have devoted all my life to the
+condemnation of vice, I stand before you and say openly: 'You are a fool
+and a beggar because you are too rich! Here lies the wisdom: all the
+rich are beggars.' That's how the famous coupletist, Rimsky-Kannibalsky,
+serves Truth!"
+
+Foma was now standing meekly among the people that had closely
+surrounded him, and he eagerly listened to the coupletist's thundering
+words, which now aroused in him a sensation as though somebody was
+scratching a sore spot, and thus soothing the acute itching of the pain.
+The people were excited; some attempted to check the coupletist's flow
+of eloquence, others wanted to lead Foma away somewhere. Without saying
+a word he pushed them aside and listened, more and more absorbed by the
+intense pleasure of humiliation which he felt in the presence of these
+people. The pain irritated by the words of the coupletist, caressed
+Foma's soul more and more passionately, and the coupletist went on
+thundering, intoxicated with the impurity of his accusation:
+
+"You think that you are the master of life? You are the low slave of the
+rouble."
+
+Someone in the crowd hiccoughed, and, evidently displeased with himself
+for this, cursed each time he hiccoughed:
+
+"Oh devil."
+
+And a certain, unshaven, fat-faced man took pity on Foma, or, perhaps,
+became tired of witnessing that scene, and, waving his hands, he drawled
+out plaintively:
+
+"Gentlemen, drop that! It isn't good! For we are all sinners! Decidedly
+all, believe me!"
+
+"Well, speak on!" muttered Foma. "Say everything! I won't touch you."
+
+The mirrors on the walls reflected this drunken confusion, and the
+people, as reflected in the mirrors, seemed more disgusting and hideous
+than they were in reality.
+
+"I do not want to speak!" exclaimed the coupletist, "I do not want to
+cast the pearls of truth and of my wrath before you."
+
+He rushed forward, and raising his head majestically, turned toward the
+door with tragic footsteps.
+
+"You lie!" said Foma, attempting to follow him. "Hold on! you have made
+me agitated, now calm me."
+
+They seized him, surrounded him and shouted something to him while
+he was rushing forward, overturning everybody. When he met tactile
+obstacles on his way the struggle with them gave him ease, uniting all
+his riotous feelings into one yearning to overthrow that which hindered
+him. And now, after he had jostled them all aside and rushed out into
+the street, he was already less agitated. Standing on the sidewalk he
+looked about the street and thought with shame:
+
+"How could I permit that swab to mock me and abuse my father as a
+thief?"
+
+It was dark and quiet about him, the moon was shining brightly, and
+a light refreshing breeze was blowing. Foma held his face to the cool
+breeze as he walked against the wind with rapid strides, timidly looking
+about on all sides, and wishing that none of the company from the tavern
+would follow him. He understood that he had lowered himself in the eyes
+of all these people. As he walked he thought of what he had come to: a
+sharper had publicly abused him in disgraceful terms, while he, the
+son of a well-known merchant, had not been able to repay him for his
+mocking.
+
+"It serves me right!" thought Foma, sadly and bitterly. "That serves
+me right! Don't lose your head, understand. And then again, I wanted
+it myself. I interfered with everybody, so now, take your share!" These
+thoughts made him feel painfully sorry for himself. Seized and sobered
+by them he kept on strolling along the streets, and searching for
+something strong and firm in himself. But everything within him was
+confused; it merely oppressed his heart, without assuming any definite
+forms. As in a painful dream he reached the river, seated himself on the
+beams by the shore, and began to look at the calm dark water, which was
+covered with tiny ripples. Calmly and almost noiselessly flowed on the
+broad, mighty river, carrying enormous weights upon its bosom. The river
+was all covered with black vessels, the signal lights and the stars were
+reflected in its water; the tiny ripples, murmuring softly, were
+gently breaking against the shore at the very feet of Foma. Sadness was
+breathed down from the sky, the feeling of loneliness oppressed Foma.
+
+"Oh Lord Jesus Christ!" thought he, sadly gazing at the sky. "What a
+failure I am. There is nothing in me. God has put nothing into me. Of
+what use am I? Oh Lord Jesus!"
+
+At the recollection of Christ Foma felt somewhat better--his loneliness
+seemed alleviated, and heaving a deep sigh, he began to address God in
+silence:
+
+"Oh Lord Jesus Christ! Other people do not understand anything either,
+but they think that all is known to them, and therefore it is easier for
+them to live. While I--I have no justification. Here it is night, and I
+am alone, I have no place to go, I am unable to say anything to anybody.
+I love no one--only my godfather, and he is soulless. If Thou hadst but
+punished him somehow! He thinks there is none cleverer and better on
+earth than himself. While Thou sufferest it. And the same with me. If
+some misfortune were but sent to me. If some illness were to overtake
+me. But here I am as strong as iron. I am drinking, leading a gay life.
+I live in filth, but the body does not even rust, and only my soul
+aches. Oh Lord! To what purpose is such a life?"
+
+Vague thoughts of protest flashed one after another through the mind
+of the lonely, straying man, while the silence about him was growing
+deeper, and night ever darker and darker. Not far from the shore lay a
+boat at anchor; it rocked from side to side, and something was creaking
+in it as though moaning.
+
+"How am I to free myself from such a life as this?" reflected Foma,
+staring at the boat. "And what occupation is destined to be mine?
+Everybody is working."
+
+And suddenly he was struck by a thought which appeared great to him:
+
+"And hard work is cheaper than easy work! Some man will give himself up
+entire to his work for a rouble, while another takes a thousand with one
+finger."
+
+He was pleasantly roused by this thought. It seemed to him that he
+discovered another falsehood in the life of man, another fraud which
+they conceal. He recalled one of his stokers, the old man Ilya, who,
+for ten copecks, used to be on watch at the fireplace out of his turn,
+working for a comrade eight hours in succession, amid suffocating heat.
+One day, when he had fallen sick on account of overwork, he was lying on
+the bow of the steamer, and when Foma asked him why he was thus ruining
+himself, Ilya replied roughly and sternly:
+
+"Because every copeck is more necessary to me than a hundred roubles to
+you. That's why!"
+
+And, saying this, the old man turned his body, which was burning with
+pain, with its back to Foma.
+
+Reflecting on the stoker his thoughts suddenly and without any effort,
+embraced all those petty people that were doing hard work. He wondered,
+Why do they live? What pleasure is it for them to live on earth? They
+constantly do but their dirty, hard work, they eat poorly, are poorly
+clad, they drink. One man is sixty years old, and yet he keeps on
+toiling side by side with the young fellows. And they all appeared to
+Foma as a huge pile of worms, which battled about on earth just to
+get something to eat. In his memory sprang up his meetings with these
+people, one after another--their remarks about life--now sarcastic and
+mournful, now hopelessly gloomy remarks--their wailing songs. And now he
+also recalled how one day in the office Yefim had said to the clerk who
+hired the sailors:
+
+"Some Lopukhin peasants have come here to hire themselves out, so don't
+give them more than ten roubles a month. Their place was burned down to
+ashes last summer, and they are now in dire need--they'll work for ten
+roubles."
+
+Sitting on the beams, Foma rocked his whole body to and fro, and out of
+the darkness, from the river, various human figures appeared silently
+before him--sailors, stokers, clerks, waiters, half-intoxicated painted
+women, and tavern-loungers. They floated in the air like shadows;
+something damp and brackish came from them, and the dark, dense throng
+moved on slowly, noiselessly and swiftly, like clouds in an autumn sky.
+The soft splashing of the waves poured into his soul like sadly sighing
+music. Far away, somewhere on the other bank of the river, burned a
+wood-pile; embraced by the darkness on all sides, it was at times almost
+absorbed by it, and in the darkness it trembled, a reddish spot scarcely
+visible to the eye. But now the fire flamed up again, the darkness
+receded, and it was evident that the flame was striving upward. And then
+it sank again.
+
+"Oh Lord, Oh Lord!" thought Foma, painfully and bitterly, feeling that
+grief was oppressing his heart with ever greater power. "Here I am,
+alone, even as that fire. Only no light comes from me, nothing but fumes
+and smoke. If I could only meet a wise man! Someone to speak to. It is
+utterly impossible for me to live alone. I cannot do anything. I wish I
+might meet a man."
+
+Far away, on the river, two large purple fires appeared, and high above
+them was a third. A dull noise resounded in the distance, something
+black was moving toward Foma.
+
+"A steamer going up stream," he thought. "There may be more than a
+hundred people aboard, and none of them give a single thought to me.
+They all know whither they are sailing. Every one of them has something
+that is his own. Every one, I believe, understands what he wants. But
+what do I want? And who will tell it to me? Where is such a man?"
+
+The lights of the steamer were reflected in the river, quivering in
+it; the illumined water rushed away from it with a dull murmur, and the
+steamer looked like a huge black fish with fins of fire.
+
+A few days elapsed after this painful night, and Foma caroused again. It
+came about by accident and against his will. He had made up his mind to
+restrain himself from drinking, and so went to dinner in one of the
+most expensive hotels in town, hoping to find there none of his
+familiar drinking-companions, who always selected the cheaper and less
+respectable places for their drinking bouts. But his calculation proved
+to be wrong; he at once came into the friendly joyous embrace of the
+brandy-distiller's son, who had taken Sasha as mistress.
+
+He ran up to Foma, embraced him and burst into merry laughter.
+
+"Here's a meeting! This is the third day I have eaten here, and I am
+wearied by this terrible lonesomeness. There is not a decent man in the
+whole town, so I have had to strike up an acquaintance with newspaper
+men. They're a gay lot, although at first they played the aristocrat and
+kept sneering at me. After awhile we all got dead drunk. They'll be here
+again today--I swear by the fortune of my father! I'll introduce you to
+them. There is one writer of feuilletons here; you know, that some one
+who always lauded you, what's his name? An amusing fellow, the devil
+take him! Do you know it would be a good thing to hire one like that for
+personal use! Give him a certain sum of money and order him to amuse!
+How's that? I had a certain coupletist in my employ,--it was rather
+entertaining to be with him. I used to say to him sometimes: 'Rimsky!
+give us some couplets!' He would start, I tell you, and he'd make you
+split your sides with laughter. It's a pity, he ran off somewhere. Have
+you had dinner?"
+
+"Not yet. And how's Aleksandra?" asked Foma, somewhat deafened by the
+loud speech of this tall, frank, red-faced fellow clad in a motley
+costume.
+
+"Well, do you know," said the latter with a frown, "that Aleksandra of
+yours is a nasty woman! She's so obscure, it's tiresome to be with her,
+the devil take her! She's as cold as a frog,--brrr! I guess I'll send
+her away."
+
+"Cold--that's true," said Foma and became pensive. "Every person must
+do his work in a first class manner," said the distiller's son,
+instructively. "And if you become some one's s mistress you must perform
+your duty in the best way possible, if you are a decent woman. Well,
+shall we have a drink?"
+
+They had a drink. And naturally they got drunk. A large and noisy
+company gathered in the hotel toward evening. And Foma, intoxicated, but
+sad and calm, spoke to them with heavy voice:
+
+"That's the way I understand it: some people are worms, others sparrows.
+The sparrows are the merchants. They peck the worms. Such is their
+destined lot. They are necessary But I and you--all of you--are to no
+purpose. We live so that we cannot be compared to anything--without
+justification, merely at random. And we are utterly unnecessary. But
+even these here, and everybody else, to what purpose are they? You must
+understand that. Brethren! We shall all burst! By God! And why shall
+we burst? Because there is always something superfluous in us, there
+is something superfluous in our souls. And all our life is superfluous!
+Comrades! I weep. To what purpose am I? I am unnecessary! Kill me, that
+I may die; I want to die."
+
+And he wept, shedding many drunken tears. A drunken, small-sized,
+swarthy man sat down close to him, began to remind him of something,
+tried to kiss him, and striking a knife against the table, shouted:
+
+"True! Silence! These are powerful words! Let the elephants and the
+mammoths of the disorder of life speak! The raw Russian conscience
+speaks holy words! Roar on, Gordyeeff! Roar at everything!" And again
+he clutched at Foma's shoulders, flung himself on his breast, raising
+to Foma's face his round, black, closely-cropped head, which was
+ceaselessly turning about on his shoulders on all sides, so that Foma
+was unable to see his face, and he was angry at him for this, and kept
+on pushing him aside, crying excitedly:
+
+"Get away! Where is your face? Go on!"
+
+A deafening, drunken laughter smote the air about them, and choking with
+laughter, the son of the brandy-distiller roared to someone hoarsely:
+
+"Come to me! A hundred roubles a month with board and lodging! Throw the
+paper to the dogs. I'll give you more!"
+
+And everything rocked from side to side in rhythmic, wave-like movement.
+Now the people moved farther away from Foma, now they came nearer to
+him, the ceiling descended, the floor rose, and it seemed to Foma that
+he would soon be flattened and crushed. Then he began to feel that he
+was floating somewhere over an immensely wide and stormy river, and,
+staggering, he cried out in fright:
+
+"Where are we floating? Where is the captain?"
+
+He was answered by the loud, senseless laughter of the drunken crowd,
+and by the shrill, repulsive shout of the swarthy little man:
+
+"True! we are all without helm and sails. Where is the captain? What?
+Ha, ha, ha!"
+
+Foma awakened from this nightmare in a small room with two windows, and
+the first thing his eyes fell upon was a withered tree. It stood near
+the window; its thick trunk, barkless, with a rotten heart, prevented
+the light from entering the room; the bent, black branches, devoid of
+leaves, stretched themselves mournfully and helplessly in the air,
+and shaking to and fro, they creaked softly, plaintively. A rain was
+falling; streams of water were beating against the window-panes, and
+one could hear how the water was falling to the ground from the roof,
+sobbing there. This sobbing sound was joined by another sound--a shrill,
+often interrupted, hasty scratching of a pen over paper, and then by a
+certain spasmodic grumbling.
+
+When he turned with difficulty his aching, heavy head on the pillow,
+Foma noticed a small, swarthy man, who sat by the table hastily
+scratching with his pen over the paper, shaking his round head
+approvingly, wagging it from side to side, shrugging his shoulders,
+and, with all his small body clothed in night garments only, constantly
+moving about in his chair, as though he were sitting on fire, and could
+not get up for some reason or other. His left hand, lean and thin, was
+now firmly rubbing his forehead, now making certain incomprehensible
+signs in the air; his bare feet scraped along the floor, a certain vein
+quivered on his neck, and even his ears were moving. When he turned
+toward Foma, Foma saw his thin lips whispering something, his
+sharp-pointed nose turned down to his thin moustache, which twitched
+upward each time the little man smiled. His face was yellow, bloated,
+wrinkled, and his black, vivacious small sparkling eyes did not seem to
+belong to him.
+
+Having grown tired of looking at him, Foma slowly began to examine the
+room with his eyes. On the large nails, driven into the walls, hung
+piles of newspapers, which made the walls look as though covered with
+swellings. The ceiling was pasted with paper which had been white once
+upon a time; now it was puffed up like bladders, torn here and there,
+peeled off and hanging in dirty scraps; clothing, boots, books, torn
+pieces of paper lay scattered on the floor. Altogether the room gave one
+the impression that it had been scalded with boiling water.
+
+The little man dropped the pen, bent over the table, drummed briskly on
+its edge with his fingers and began to sing softly in a faint voice:
+
+"Take the drum and fear not,--And kiss the sutler girl aloud--That's the
+sense of learning--And that's philosophy."
+
+Foma heaved a deed sigh and said:
+
+"May I have some seltzer?"
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed the little man, and jumping up from his chair, appeared
+at the wide oilcloth-covered lounge, where Foma lay. "How do you do,
+comrade! Seltzer? Of course! With cognac or plain?"
+
+"Better with cognac," said Foma, shaking the lean, burning hand which
+was outstretched to him, and staring fixedly into the face of the little
+man.
+
+"Yegorovna!" cried the latter at the door, and turning to Foma, asked:
+"Don't you recognise me, Foma Ignatyevich?"
+
+"I remember something. It seems to me we had met somewhere before."
+
+"That meeting lasted for four years, but that was long ago! Yozhov."
+
+"Oh Lord!" exclaimed Foma, in astonishment, slightly rising from the
+lounge. "Is it possible that it is you?"
+
+"There are times, dear, when I don't believe it myself, but a real fact
+is something from which doubt jumps back as a rubber ball from iron."
+
+Yozhov's face was comically distorted, and for some reason or other his
+hands began to feel his breast.
+
+"Well, well!" drawled out Foma. "But how old you have grown! Ah-ah! How
+old are you?"
+
+"Thirty."
+
+"And you look as though you were fifty, lean, yellow. Life isn't sweet
+to you, it seems? And you are drinking, too, I see."
+
+Foma felt sorry to see his jolly and brisk schoolmate so worn out,
+and living in this dog-hole, which seemed to be swollen from burns. He
+looked at him, winked his eyes mournfully and saw that Yozhov's face
+was for ever twitching, and his small eyes were burning with irritation.
+Yozhov was trying to uncork the bottle of water, and thus occupied, was
+silent; he pressed the bottle between his knees and made vain efforts to
+take out the cork. And his impotence moved Foma.
+
+"Yes; life has sucked you dry. And you have studied. Even science seems
+to help man but little," said Gordyeeff plaintively.
+
+"Drink!" said Yozhov, turning pale with fatigue, and handing him the
+glass. Then he wiped his forehead, seated himself on the lounge beside
+Foma, and said:
+
+"Leave science alone! Science is a drink of the gods; but it has not yet
+fermented sufficiently, and, therefore is not fit for use, like vodka
+which has not yet been purified from empyreumatic oil. Science is not
+ready for man's happiness, my friend. And those living people that use
+it get nothing but headaches. Like those you and I have at present. Why
+do you drink so rashly?"
+
+"I? What else am I to do?" asked Foma, laughing. Yozhov looked at Foma
+searchingly with his eyes half closed, and he said:
+
+"Connecting your question with everything you jabbered last night, I
+feel within my troubled soul that you, too, my friend, do not amuse
+yourself because life is cheerful to you."
+
+"Eh!" sighed Foma, heavily, rising from the lounge. "What is my life?
+It is something meaningless. I live alone. I understand nothing. And yet
+there is something I long for. I yearn to spit on all and then disappear
+somewhere! I would like to run away from everything. I am so weary!"
+
+"That's interesting!" said Yozhov, rubbing his hands and turning about
+in all directions. "This is interesting, if it is true and deep, for
+it shows that the holy spirit of dissatisfaction with life has already
+penetrated into the bed chambers of the merchants, into the death
+chambers of souls drowned in fat cabbage soup, in lakes of tea and other
+liquids. Give me a circumstantial account of it. Then, my dear, I shall
+write a novel."
+
+"I have been told that you have already written something about me?"
+inquired Foma, with curiosity, and once more attentively scrutinized his
+old friend unable to understand what so wretched a creature could write.
+
+"Of course I have! Did you read it?"
+
+"No, I did not have the chance."
+
+"And what have they told you?"
+
+"That you gave me a clever scolding."
+
+"Hm! And doesn't it interest you to read it yourself?" inquired Yozhov,
+scrutinizing Gordyeeff closely.
+
+"I'll read it!" Foma assured him, feeling embarrassed before Yozhov, and
+that Yozhov was offended by such regard for his writings. "Indeed, it is
+interesting since it is about myself," he added, smiling kindheartedly
+at his comrade.
+
+In saying this he was not at all interested, and he said it merely out
+of pity for Yozhov. There was quite another feeling in him; he wished to
+know what sort of a man Yozhov was, and why he had become so worn
+out. This meeting with Yozhov gave rise in him to a tranquil and kind
+feeling; it called forth recollections of his childhood, and these
+flashed now in his memory,--flashed like modest little lights, timidly
+shining at him from the distance of the past. Yozhov walked up to the
+table on which stood a boiling samovar, silently poured out two glasses
+of tea as strong as tar, and said to Foma:
+
+"Come and drink tea. And tell me about yourself."
+
+"I have nothing to tell you. I have not seen anything in life. Mine is
+an empty life! You had better tell me about yourself. I am sure you know
+more than I do, at any rate."
+
+Yozhov became thoughtful, not ceasing to turn his whole body and to
+waggle his head. In thoughtfulness his face became motionless, all its
+wrinkles gathered near his eyes and seemed to surround them with rays,
+and because of this his eyes receded deeper under his forehead.
+
+"Yes, my dear, I have seen a thing or two, and I know a great deal," he
+began, with a shake of the head. "And perhaps I know even more than it
+is necessary for me to know, and to know more than it is necessary is
+just as harmful to man as it is to be ignorant of what it is essential
+to know. Shall I tell you how I have lived? Very well; that is, I'll
+try. I have never told any one about myself, because I have never
+aroused interest in anyone. It is most offensive to live on earth
+without arousing people's interest in you!"
+
+"I can see by your face and by everything else that your life has not
+been a smooth one!" said Foma, feeling pleased with the fact that, to
+all appearances, life was not sweet to his comrade as well. Yozhov drank
+his tea at one draught, thrust the glass on the saucer, placed his feet
+on the edge of the chair, and clasping his knees in his hands, rested
+his chin upon them. In this pose, small sized and flexible as rubber, he
+began:
+
+"The student Sachkov, my former teacher, who is now a doctor of
+medicine, a whist-player and a mean fellow all around, used to tell me
+whenever I knew my lesson well: 'You're a fine fellow, Kolya! You are
+an able boy. We proletariats, plain and poor people, coming from the
+backyard of life, we must study and study, in order to come to the
+front, ahead of everybody. Russia is in need of wise and honest people.
+Try to be such, and you will be master of your fate and a useful member
+of society. On us commoners rest the best hopes of the country. We are
+destined to bring into it light, truth,' and so on. I believed him, the
+brute. And since then about twenty years have elapsed. We proletariats
+have grown up, but have neither appropriated any wisdom, nor brought
+light into life. As before, Russia is still suffering from its chronic
+disease--a superabundance of rascals; while we, the proletariats, take
+pleasure in filling their dense throngs. My teacher, I repeat, is a
+lackey, a characterless and dumb creature, who must obey the orders of
+the mayor. While I am a clown in the employ of society. Fame pursues me
+here in town, dear. I walk along the street and I hear one driver say to
+another: 'There goes Yozhov! How cleverly he barks, the deuce take him!'
+Yes! Even this cannot be so easily attained."
+
+Yozhov's face wrinkled into a bitter grimace, and he began to laugh,
+noiselessly, with his lips only. Foma did not understand his words, and,
+just to say something, he remarked at random:
+
+"You didn't hit, then, what you aimed at?"
+
+"Yes, I thought I would grow up higher. And so I should! So I should, I
+say!"
+
+He jumped up from his chair and began to run about in the room,
+exclaiming briskly in a shrill voice:
+
+"But to preserve one's self pure for life and to be a free man in it,
+one must have vast powers! I had them. I had elasticity, cleverness.
+I have spent all these in order to learn something which is absolutely
+unnecessary to me now. I have wasted the whole of myself in order to
+preserve something within myself. Oh devil! I myself and many others
+with me, we have all robbed ourselves for the sake of saving up
+something for life. Just think of it: desiring to make of myself a
+valuable man, I have underrated my individuality in every way possible.
+In order to study, and not die of starvation, I have for six years in
+succession taught blockheads how to read and write, and had to bear
+a mass of abominations at the hands of various papas and mammas, who
+humiliated me without any constraint. Earning my bread and tea, I
+could not, I had not the time to earn my shoes, and I had to turn to
+charitable institutions with humble petitions for loans on the strength
+of my poverty. If the philanthropists could only reckon up how much of
+the spirit they kill in man while supporting the life of his body! If
+they only knew that each rouble they give for bread contains ninety-nine
+copecks' worth of poison for the soul! If they could only burst from
+excess of their kindness and pride, which they draw from their holy
+activity! There is none on earth more disgusting and repulsive than he
+who gives alms, even as there is none more miserable than he who accepts
+it!"
+
+Yozhov staggered about in the room like a drunken man, seized with
+madness, and the paper under his feet was rustling, tearing, flying in
+scraps. He gnashed his teeth, shook his head, his hands waved in the air
+like broken wings of a bird, and altogether it seemed as though he
+were being boiled in a kettle of hot water. Foma looked at him with a
+strange, mixed sensation; he pitied Yozhov, and at the same time he was
+pleased to see him suffering.
+
+"I am not alone, he is suffering, too," thought Foma, as Yozhov spoke.
+And something clashed in Yozhov's throat, like broken glass, and creaked
+like an unoiled hinge.
+
+"Poisoned by the kindness of men, I was ruined through the fatal
+capacity of every poor fellow during the making of his career, through
+the capacity of being reconciled with little in the expectation of
+much. Oh! Do you know, more people perish through lack of proper
+self-appreciation than from consumption, and perhaps that is why the
+leaders of the masses serve as district inspectors!"
+
+"The devil take the district inspectors!" said Foma, with a wave of the
+hand. "Tell me about yourself."
+
+"About myself! I am here entire!" exclaimed Yozhov, stopping short in
+the middle of the room, and striking his chest with his hands. "I have
+already accomplished all I could accomplish. I have attained the rank of
+the public's entertainer--and that is all I can do! To know what should
+be done, and not to be able to do it, not to have the strength for your
+work--that is torture!"
+
+"That's it! Wait awhile!" said Foma, enthusiastically. "Now tell me what
+one should do in order to live calmly; that is, in order to be satisfied
+with one's self."
+
+To Foma these words sounded loud, but empty, and their sounds died away
+without stirring any emotion in his heart, without giving rise to a
+single thought in his mind.
+
+"You must always be in love with something unattainable to you. A man
+grows in height by stretching himself upwards."
+
+Now that he had ceased speaking of himself, Yozhov began to talk more
+calmly, in a different voice. His voice was firm and resolute, and his
+face assumed an expression of importance and sternness. He stood in the
+centre of the room, his hand with outstretched fingers uplifted, and
+spoke as though he were reading:
+
+"Men are base because they strive for satiety. The well-fed man is an
+animal because satiety is the self-contentedness of the body. And the
+self-contentedness of the spirit also turns man into animal."
+
+Again he started as though all his veins and muscles were suddenly
+strained, and again he began to run about the room in seething
+agitation.
+
+"A self-contented man is the hardened swelling on the breast of society.
+He is my sworn enemy. He fills himself up with cheap truths, with gnawed
+morsels of musty wisdom, and he exists like a storeroom where a stingy
+housewife keeps all sorts of rubbish which is absolutely unnecessary to
+her, and worthless. If you touch such a man, if you open the door into
+him, the stench of decay will be breathed upon you, and a stream of some
+musty trash will be poured into the air you breathe. These unfortunate
+people call themselves men of firm character, men of principles and
+convictions. And no one cares to see that convictions are to them but
+the clothes with which they cover the beggarly nakedness of their souls.
+On the narrow brows of such people there always shines the inscription
+so familiar to all: calmness and confidence. What a false inscription!
+Just rub their foreheads with firm hand and then you will see the real
+sign-board, which reads: 'Narrow mindedness and weakness of soul!'"
+
+Foma watched Yozhov bustling about the room, and thought mournfully:
+
+"Whom is he abusing? I can't understand; but I can see that he has been
+terribly wounded."
+
+"How many such people have I seen!" exclaimed Yozhov, with wrath and
+terror. "How these little retail shops have multiplied in life! In
+them you will find calico for shrouds, and tar, candy and borax for the
+extermination of cockroaches, but you will not find anything fresh, hot,
+wholesome! You come to them with an aching soul exhausted by loneliness;
+you come, thirsting to hear something that has life in it. And they
+offer to you some worm cud, ruminated book-thoughts, grown sour with
+age. And these dry, stale thoughts are always so poor that, in order
+to give them expression, it is necessary to use a vast number of
+high-sounding and empty words. When such a man speaks I say to myself:
+'There goes a well-fed, but over-watered mare, all decorated with bells;
+she's carting a load of rubbish out of the town, and the miserable
+wretch is content with her fate.'"
+
+"They are superfluous people, then," said Foma. Yozhov stopped short in
+front of him and said with a biting smile on his lips:
+
+"No, they are not superfluous, oh no! They exist as an example, to show
+what man ought not to be. Speaking frankly, their proper place is
+the anatomical museums, where they preserve all sorts of monsters and
+various sickly deviations from the normal. In life there is nothing that
+is superfluous, dear. Even I am necessary! Only those people, in whose
+souls dwells a slavish cowardice before life, in whose bosoms there are
+enormous ulcers of the most abominable self-adoration, taking the places
+of their dead hearts--only those people are superfluous; but even they
+are necessary, if only for the sake of enabling me to pour my hatred
+upon them."
+
+All day long, until evening, Yozhov was excited, venting his blasphemy
+on men he hated, and his words, though their contents were obscure to
+Foma, infected him with their evil heat, and infecting called forth in
+him an eager desire for combat. At times there sprang up in him distrust
+of Yozhov, and in one of these moments he asked him plainly:
+
+"Well! And can you speak like that in the face of men?"
+
+"I do it at every convenient occasion. And every Sunday in the
+newspaper. I'll read some to you if you like."
+
+Without waiting for Foma's reply, he tore down from the wall a few
+sheets of paper, and still continuing to run about the room, began to
+read to him. He roared, squeaked, laughed, showed his teeth and looked
+like an angry dog trying to break the chain in powerless rage. Not
+grasping the ideals in his friend's creations, Foma felt their daring
+audacity, their biting sarcasm, their passionate malice, and he was as
+well pleased with them as though he had been scourged with besoms in a
+hot bath.
+
+"Clever!" he exclaimed, catching some separate phrase. "That's cleverly
+aimed!"
+
+Every now and again there flashed before him the familiar names of
+merchants and well-known citizens, whom Yozhov had stung, now stoutly
+and sharply, now respectfully and with a fine needle-like sting.
+
+Foma's approbation, his eyes burning with satisfaction, and his excited
+face gave Yozhov still more inspiration, and he cried and roared ever
+louder and louder, now falling on the lounge from exhaustion, now
+jumping up again and rushing toward Foma.
+
+"Come, now, read about me!" exclaimed Foma, longing to hear it. Yozhov
+rummaged among a pile of papers, tore out one sheet, and holding it
+in both hands, stopped in front of Foma, with his legs straddled wide
+apart, while Foma leaned back in the broken-seated armchair and listened
+with a smile.
+
+The notice about Foma started with a description of the spree on the
+rafts, and during the reading of the notice Foma felt that certain
+particular words stung him like mosquitoes. His face became more
+serious, and he bent his head in gloomy silence. And the mosquitoes went
+on multiplying.
+
+"Now that's too much!" said he, at length, confused and dissatisfied.
+"Surely you cannot gain the favour of God merely because you know how to
+disgrace a man."
+
+"Keep quiet! Wait awhile!" said Yozhov, curtly, and went on reading.
+
+Having established in his article that the merchant rises beyond doubt
+above the representatives of other classes of society in the matter
+of nuisance and scandal-making, Yozhov asked: "Why is this so?" and
+replied:
+
+"It seems to me that this predilection for wild pranks comes from the
+lack of culture in so far as it is dependent upon the excess of energy
+and upon idleness. There cannot be any doubt that our merchant class,
+with but few exceptions, is the healthiest and, at the same time, most
+inactive class."
+
+"That's true!" exclaimed Foma, striking the table with his fist. "That's
+true! I have the strength of a bull and do the work of a sparrow."
+
+"Where is the merchant to spend his energy? He cannot spend much of it
+on the Exchange, so he squanders the excess of his muscular capital in
+drinking-bouts in kabaky; for he has no conception of other applications
+of his strength, which are more productive, more valuable to life. He is
+still a beast, and life has already become to him a cage, and it is
+too narrow for him with his splendid health and predilection for
+licentiousness. Hampered by culture he at once starts to lead a
+dissolute life. The debauch of a merchant is always the revolt of a
+captive beast. Of course this is bad. But, ah! it will be worse yet,
+when this beast, in addition to his strength, shall have gathered some
+sense and shall have disciplined it. Believe me, even then he will not
+cease to create scandals, but they will be historical events. Heaven
+deliver us from such events! For they will emanate from the merchant's
+thirst for power; their aim will be the omnipotence of one class,
+and the merchant will not be particular about the means toward the
+attainment of this aim.
+
+"Well, what do you say, is it true?" asked Yozhov, when he had finished
+reading the newspaper, and thrown it aside.
+
+"I don't understand the end," replied Foma. "And as to strength, that is
+true! Where am I to make use of my strength since there is no demand for
+it! I ought to fight with robbers, or turn a robber myself. In general
+I ought to do something big. And that should be done not with the
+head, but with the arms and the breast. While here we have to go to the
+Exchange and try to aim well to make a rouble. What do we need it for?
+And what is it, anyway? Has life been arranged in this form forever?
+What sort of life is it, if everyone is grieved and finds it too narrow
+for him? Life ought to be according to the taste of man. If it is narrow
+for me, I must move it asunder that I may have more room. I must break
+it and reconstruct it. But nod? That's where the trouble lies! What
+ought to be done that life may be freer? That I do not understand, and
+that's all there is to it."
+
+"Yes!" drawled out Yozhov. "So that's where you've gone! That, dear, is
+a good thing! Ah, you ought to study a little! How are you about books?
+Do you read any?"
+
+"No, I don't care for them. I haven't read any."
+
+"That's just why you don't care for them." "I am even afraid to read
+them. I know one--a certain girl--it's worse than drinking with her! And
+what sense is there in books? One man imagines something and prints it,
+and others read it. If it is interesting, it's all right. But learn from
+a book how to live!--that is something absurd. It was written by man,
+not by God, and what laws and examples can man establish for himself?"
+
+"And how about the Gospels? Were they not written by men?"
+
+"Those were apostles. Now there are none."
+
+"Good, your refutation is sound! It is true, dear, there are no
+apostles. Only the Judases remained, and miserable ones at that."
+
+Foma felt very well, for he saw that Yozhov was attentively listening
+to his words and seemed to be weighing each and every word he uttered.
+Meeting such bearing toward him for the first time in his life, Foma
+unburdened himself boldly and freely before his friend, caring nothing
+for the choice of words, and feeling that he would be understood because
+Yozhov wanted to understand him.
+
+"You are a curious fellow!" said Yozhov, about two days after their
+meeting. "And though you speak with difficulty, one feels that there is
+a great deal in you--great daring of heart! If you only knew a little
+about the order of life! Then you would speak loud enough, I think.
+Yes!"
+
+"But you cannot wash yourself clean with words, nor can you then free
+yourself," remarked Foma, with a sigh. "You have said something about
+people who pretend that they know everything, and can do everything. I
+also know such people. My godfather, for instance. It would be a
+good thing to set out against them, to convict them; they're a pretty
+dangerous set!"
+
+"I cannot imagine, Foma, how you will get along in life if you preserve
+within you that which you now have," said Yozhov, thoughtfully.
+
+"It's very hard. I lack steadfastness. Of a sudden I could perhaps do
+something. I understand very well that life is difficult and narrow for
+every one of us. I know that my godfather sees that, too! But he profits
+by this narrowness. He feels well in it; he is sharp as a needle, and
+he'll make his way wherever he pleases. But I am a big, heavy man,
+that's why I am suffocating! That's why I live in fetters. I could free
+myself from everything with a single effort: just to move my body with
+all my strength, and then all the fetters will burst!"
+
+"And what then?" asked Yozhov.
+
+"Then?" Foma became pensive, and, after a moment's thought, waved his
+hand. "I don't know what will be then. I shall see!"
+
+"We shall see!" assented Yozhov.
+
+He was given to drink, this little man who was scalded by life. His
+day began thus: in the morning at his tea he looked over the local
+newspapers and drew from the news notices material for his feuilleton,
+which he wrote right then and there on the corner of the table. Then he
+ran to the editorial office, where he made up "Provincial Pictures"
+out of clippings from country newspapers. On Friday he had to write
+his Sunday feuilleton. For all they paid him a hundred and twenty-five
+roubles a month; he worked fast, and devoted all his leisure time to
+the "survey and study of charitable institutions." Together with Foma he
+strolled about the clubs, hotels and taverns till late at night, drawing
+material everywhere for his articles, which he called "brushes for
+the cleansing of the conscience of society." The censor he styled as
+"superintendent of the diffusion of truth and righteousness in life," the
+newspaper he called "the go-between, engaged in introducing the reader
+to dangerous ideas," and his own work, "the sale of a soul in retail,"
+and "an inclination to audacity against holy institutions."
+
+Foma could hardly make out when Yozhov jested and when he was in
+earnest. He spoke of everything enthusiastically and passionately, he
+condemned everything harshly, and Foma liked it. But often, beginning to
+argue enthusiastically, he refuted and contradicted himself with equal
+enthusiasm or wound up his speech with some ridiculous turn. Then it
+appeared to Foma that that man loved nothing, that nothing was firmly
+rooted within him, that nothing guided him. Only when speaking of
+himself he talked in a rather peculiar voice, and the more impassioned
+he was in speaking of himself, the more merciless and enraged was he
+in reviling everything and everybody. And his relation toward Foma was
+dual; sometimes he gave him courage and spoke to him hotly, quivering in
+every limb.
+
+"Go ahead! Refute and overthrow everything you can! Push forward with
+all your might. There is nothing more valuable than man, know this! Cry
+at the top of your voice: 'Freedom! Freedom!"
+
+But when Foma, warmed up by the glowing sparks of these words, began to
+dream of how he should start to refute and overthrow people who, for the
+sake of personal profit, do not want to broaden life, Yozhov would often
+cut him short:
+
+"Drop it! You cannot do anything! People like you are not needed. Your
+time, the time of the strong but not clever, is past, my dear! You are
+too late! There is no place for you in life."
+
+"No? You are lying!" cried Foma, irritated by contradiction.
+
+"Well, what can you accomplish?"
+
+"I?"
+
+"You!"
+
+"Why, I can kill you!" said Foma, angrily, clenching his fist.
+
+"Eh, you scarecrow!" said Yozhov, convincingly and pitifully, with a
+shrug of the shoulder. "Is there anything in that? Why, I am anyway half
+dead already from my wounds."
+
+And suddenly inflamed with melancholy malice, he stretched himself and
+said:
+
+"My fate has wronged me. Why have I lowered myself, accepting the sops
+of the public? Why have I worked like a machine for twelve years in
+succession in order to study? Why have I swallowed for twelve long years
+in the Gymnasium and the University the dry and tedious trash and the
+contradictory nonsense which is absolutely useless to me? In order
+to become feuilleton-writer, to play the clown from day to day,
+entertaining the public and convincing myself that that is necessary and
+useful to them. Where is the powder of my youth? I have fired off
+all the charge of my soul at three copecks a shot. What faith have I
+acquired for myself? Only faith in the fact that everything in this life
+is worthless, that everything must be broken, destroyed. What do I love?
+Myself. And I feel that the object of my love does not deserve my love.
+What can I accomplish?"
+
+He almost wept, and kept on scratching his breast and his neck with his
+thin, feeble hands.
+
+But sometimes he was seized with a flow of courage, and then he spoke in
+a different spirit:
+
+"I? Oh, no, my song is not yet sung to the end! My breast has imbibed
+something, and I'll hiss like a whip! Wait, I'll drop the newspaper,
+I'll start to do serious work, and write one small book, which I will
+entitle 'The Passing of the Soul'; there is a prayer by that name, it
+is read for the dying. And before its death this society, cursed by the
+anathema of inward impotence, will receive my book like incense."
+
+Listening to each and every word of his, watching him and comparing his
+remarks, Foma saw that Yozhov was just as weak as he was, that he, too,
+had lost his way. But Yozhov's mood still infected Foma, his speeches
+enriched Foma's vocabulary, and sometimes he noticed with joyous delight
+how cleverly and forcibly he had himself expressed this or that idea. He
+often met in Yozhov's house certain peculiar people, who, it seemed to
+him, knew everything, understood everything, contradicted everything,
+and saw deceit and falsehood in everything. He watched them in silence,
+listened to their words; their audacity pleased him, but he was
+embarrassed and repelled by their condescending and haughty bearing
+toward him. And then he clearly saw that in Yozhov's room they were all
+cleverer and better than they were in the street and in the hotels. They
+held peculiar conversations, words and gestures for use in the room,
+and all this was changed outside the room, into the most commonplace and
+human. Sometimes, in the room, they all blazed up like a huge woodpile,
+and Yozhov was the brightest firebrand among them; but the light of this
+bonfire illuminated but faintly the obscurity of Foma Gordyeeff's soul.
+
+One day Yozhov said to him:
+
+"Today we will carouse! Our compositors have formed a union, and they
+are going to take all the work from the publisher on a contract. There
+will be some drinking on this account, and I am invited. It was I who
+advised them to do it. Let us go? You will give them a good treat."
+
+"Very well!" said Foma, to whom it was immaterial with whom he passed
+the time, which was a burden to him.
+
+In the evening of that day Foma and Yozhov sat in the company of
+rough-faced people, on the outskirts of a grove, outside the town.
+There were twelve compositors there, neatly dressed; they treated Yozhov
+simply, as a comrade, and this somewhat surprised and embarrassed Foma,
+in whose eyes Yozhov was after all something of a master or superior
+to them, while they were really only his servants. They did not seem to
+notice Gordyeeff, although, when Yozhov introduced Foma to them, they
+shook hands with him and said that they were glad to see him. He
+lay down under a hazel-bush, and watched them all, feeling himself a
+stranger in this company, and noticing that even Yozhov seemed to have
+got away from him deliberately, and was paying but little attention
+to him. He perceived something strange about Yozhov; the little
+feuilleton-writer seemed to imitate the tone and the speech of the
+compositors. He bustled about with them at the woodpile, uncorked
+bottles of beer, cursed, laughed loudly and tried his best to resemble
+them. He was even dressed more simply than usual.
+
+"Eh, brethren!" he exclaimed, with enthusiasm. "I feel well with you!
+I'm not a big bird, either. I am only the son of the courthouse guard,
+and noncommissioned officer, Matvey Yozhov!"
+
+"Why does he say that?" thought Foma. "What difference does it make
+whose son a man is? A man is not respected on account of his father, but
+for his brains."
+
+The sun was setting like a huge bonfire in the sky, tinting the clouds
+with hues of gold and of blood. Dampness and silence were breathed from
+the forest, while at its outskirts dark human figures bustled about
+noisily. One of them, short and lean, in a broad-brimmed straw hat,
+played the accordion; another one, with dark moustache and with his cap
+on the back of his head, sang an accompaniment softly. Two others tugged
+at a stick, testing their strength. Several busied themselves with the
+basket containing beer and provisions; a tall man with a grayish beard
+threw branches on the fire, which was enveloped in thick, whitish
+smoke. The damp branches, falling on the fire, crackled and rustled
+plaintively, and the accordion teasingly played a lively tune, while the
+falsetto of the singer reinforced and completed its loud tones.
+
+Apart from them all, on the brink of a small ravine, lay three young
+fellows, and before them stood Yozhov, who spoke in a ringing voice:
+
+"You bear the sacred banner of labour. And I, like yourselves, am a
+private soldier in the same army. We all serve Her Majesty, the Press.
+And we must live in firm, solid friendship."
+
+"That's true, Nikolay Matveyich!" some one's thick voice interrupted
+him. "And we want to ask you to use your influence with the publisher!
+Use your influence with him! Illness and drunkenness cannot be treated
+as one and the same thing. And, according to his system, it comes out
+thus; if one of us gets drunk he is fined to the amount of his day's
+earnings; if he takes sick the same is done. We ought to be permitted
+to present the doctor's certificate, in case of sickness, to make it
+certain; and he, to be just, ought to pay the substitute at least half
+the wages of the sick man. Otherwise, it is hard for us. What if three
+of us should suddenly be taken sick at once?"
+
+"Yes; that is certainly reasonable," assented Yozhov. "But, my friends,
+the principle of cooperation--"
+
+Foma ceased listening to the speech of his friend, for his attention was
+diverted by the conversation of others. Two men were talking; one was
+a tall consumptive, poorly dressed and angry-looking man; the other a
+fair-haired and fair-bearded young man.
+
+"In my opinion," said the tall man sternly, and coughing, "it is
+foolish! How can men like us marry? There will be children. Do we have
+enough to support them? The wife must be clothed--and then you can't
+tell what sort of a woman you may strike."
+
+"She's a fine girl," said the fair-haired man, softly. "Well, it's now
+that she is fine. A betrothed girl is one thing, a wife quite another.
+But that isn't the main point. You can try--perhaps she will really be
+good. But then you'll be short of means. You will kill yourself with
+work, and you will ruin her, too. Marriage is an impossible thing for
+us. Do you mean to say that we can support a family on such earnings?
+Here, you see, I have only been married four years, and my end is near.
+I have seen no joy--nothing but worry and care."
+
+He began to cough, coughed for a long time, with a groan, and when he
+had ceased, he said to his comrade in a choking voice:
+
+"Drop it, nothing will come of it!"
+
+His interlocutor bent his head mournfully, while Foma thought:
+
+"He speaks sensibly. It's evident he can reason well."
+
+The lack of attention shown to Foma somewhat offended him and aroused in
+him at the same time a feeling of respect for these men with dark faces
+impregnated with lead-dust. Almost all of them were engaged in practical
+serious conversation, and their remarks were studded with certain
+peculiar words. None of them fawned upon him, none bothered him with
+love, with his back to the fire, and he saw before him a row of brightly
+illuminated, cheerful and simple faces. They were all excited from
+drinking, but were not yet intoxicated; they laughed, jested, tried to
+sing, drank, and ate cucumbers, white bread and sausages. All this had
+for Foma a particularly pleasant flavour; he grew bolder, seized by
+the general good feeling, and he longed to say something good to these
+people, to please them all in some way or other. Yozhov, sitting by
+his side, moved about on the ground, jostled him with his shoulder and,
+shaking his head, muttered something indistinctly.
+
+"Brethren!" shouted the stout fellow. "Let's strike up the student song.
+Well, one, two!"
+
+     "Swift as the waves,"
+
+Someone roared in his bass voice:
+
+     "Are the days of our life."
+
+"Friends!" said Yozhov, rising to his feet, a glass in his hand. He
+staggered, and leaned his other hand against Foma's head. The started
+song was broken off, and all turned their heads toward him.
+
+"Working men! Permit me to say a few words, words from the heart. I am
+happy in your company! I feel well in your midst. That is because you
+are men of toil, men whose right to happiness is not subject to doubt,
+although it is not recognised. In your ennobling midst, Oh honest
+people, the lonely man, who is poisoned by life, breathes so easily, so
+freely."
+
+Yozhov's voice quivered and quaked, and his head began to shake. Foma
+felt that something warm trickled down on his hand, and he looked up at
+the wrinkled face of Yozhov, who went on speaking, trembling in every
+limb:
+
+"I am not the only one. There are many like myself, intimidated by fate,
+broken and suffering. We are more unfortunate than you are, because
+we are weaker both in body and in soul, but we are stronger than you
+because we are armed with knowledge, which we have no opportunity to
+apply. We are gladly ready to come to you and resign ourselves to you
+and help you to live. There is nothing else for us to do! Without you
+we are without ground to stand on; without us, you are without light!
+Comrades! we were created by Fate itself to complete one another!"
+
+"What does he beg of them?" thought Foma, listening to Yozhov's words
+with perplexity. And examining the faces of the compositors he saw that
+they also looked at the orator inquiringly, perplexedly, wearily.
+
+"The future is yours, my friends!" said Yozhov, faintly, shaking his
+head mournfully as though feeling sorry for the future, and yielding
+to these people against his will the predominance over it. "The future
+belongs to the men of honest toil. You have a great task before you! You
+have to create a new culture, everything free, vital and bright! I, who
+am one of you in flesh and in spirit; who am the son of a soldier; I
+propose a toast to your future! Hurrah!"
+
+Yozhov emptied his glass and sank heavily to the ground. The compositors
+unanimously took up his broken exclamation, and a powerful, thundering
+shout rolled through the air, causing the leaves on the trees to
+tremble.
+
+"Let's start a song now," proposed the stout fellow again.
+
+"Come on!" chimed in two or three voices. A noisy dispute ensued as to
+what to sing. Yozhov listened to the noise, and, turning his head from
+one side to another, scrutinized them all.
+
+"Brethren," Yozhov suddenly cried again, "answer me. Say a few words in
+reply to my address of welcome."
+
+Again--though not at once--all became silent, some looking at him with
+curiosity, others concealing a grin, still others with an expression of
+dissatisfaction plainly written on their faces. And he again rose from
+the ground and said, hotly:
+
+"Two of us here are cast away by life--I and that other one. We both
+desire the same regard for man and the happiness of feeling ourselves
+useful unto others. Comrades! And that big, stupid man--"
+
+"Nikolay Matveyich, you had better not insult our guest!" said someone
+in a deep, displeased voice.
+
+"Yes, that's unnecessary," affirmed the stout fellow, who had invited
+Foma to the fireside. "Why use offensive language?"
+
+A third voice rang out loudly and distinctly:
+
+"We have come together to enjoy ourselves--to take a rest."
+
+"Fools!" laughed Yozhov, faintly. "Kind-hearted fools! Do you pity him?
+But do you know who he is? He is of those people who suck your blood."
+
+"That will do, Nikolay Matveyich!" they cried to Yozhov. And all began
+to talk, paying no further attention to him. Foma felt so sorry for his
+friend that he did not even take offence. He saw that these people
+who defended him from Yozhov's attacks were now purposely ignoring the
+feuilleton-writer, and he understood that this would pain Yozhov if he
+were to notice it. And in order to take his friend away from possible
+unpleasantness, he nudged him in the side and said, with a kind-hearted
+laugh:
+
+"Well, you grumbler, shall we have a drink? Or is it time to go home?"
+
+"Home? Where is the home of the man who has no place among men?" asked
+Yozhov, and shouted again: "Comrades!"
+
+Unanswered, his shout was drowned in the general murmur. Then he drooped
+his head and said to Foma:
+
+"Let's go from here."
+
+"Let's go. Though I don't mind sitting a little longer. It's
+interesting. They behave so nobly, the devils. By God!"
+
+"I can't bear it any longer. I feel cold. I am suffocating."
+
+"Well, come then."
+
+Foma rose to his feet, removed his cap, and, bowing to the compositors,
+said loudly and cheerfully:
+
+"Thank you, gentlemen, for your hospitality! Good-bye!"
+
+They immediately surrounded him and spoke to him persuasively:
+
+"Stay here! Where are you going? We might sing all together, eh?"
+
+"No, I must go, it would be disagreeable to my friend to go alone. I am
+going to escort him. I wish you a jolly feast!"
+
+"Eh, you ought to wait a little!" exclaimed the stout fellow, and then
+whispered:
+
+"Some one will escort him home!"
+
+The consumptive also remarked in a low voice:
+
+"You stay here. We'll escort him to town, and get him into a cab
+and--there you are!"
+
+Foma felt like staying there, and at the same time was afraid of
+something. While Yozhov rose to his feet, and, clutching at the sleeves
+of his overcoat, muttered:
+
+"Come, the devil take them!"
+
+"Till we meet again, gentlemen! I'm going!" said Foma and departed amid
+exclamations of polite regret.
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" Yozhov burst out laughing when he had got about twenty
+steps away from the fire. "They see us off with sorrow, but they are
+glad that I am going away. I hindered them from turning into beasts."
+
+"It's true, you did disturb them," said Foma. "Why do you make such
+speeches? People have come out to enjoy themselves, and you obtrude
+yourself upon them. That bores them!"
+
+"Keep quiet! You don't understand anything!" cried Yozhov, harshly.
+"You think I am drunk? It's my body that is intoxicated, but my soul is
+sober, it is always sober; it feels everything. Oh, how much meanness
+there is in the world, how much stupidity and wretchedness! And
+men--these stupid, miserable men."
+
+Yozhov paused, and, clasping his head with his hands, stood for awhile,
+staggering.
+
+"Yes!" drawled out Foma. "They are very much unlike one another.
+Now these men, how polite they are, like gentlemen. And they reason
+correctly, too, and all that sort of thing. They have common sense. Yet
+they are only labourers."
+
+In the darkness behind them the men struck up a powerful choral song.
+Inharmonious at first, it swelled and grew until it rolled in a huge,
+powerful wave through the invigorating nocturnal air, above the deserted
+field.
+
+"My God!" said Yozhov, sadly and softly, heaving a sigh. "Whereby are
+we to live? Whereon fasten our soul? Who shall quench its thirsts for
+friendship brotherhood, love, for pure and sacred toil?"
+
+"These simple people," said Foma, slowly and pensively, without
+listening to his companion s words, absorbed as he was in his own
+thoughts, "if one looks into these people, they're not so bad! It's even
+very--it is interesting. Peasants, labourers, to look at them plainly,
+they are just like horses. They carry burdens, they puff and blow."
+
+"They carry our life on their backs," exclaimed Yozhov with irritation.
+"They carry it like horses, submissively, stupidly. And this
+submissiveness of theirs is our misfortune, our curse!"
+
+And Foma, carried away by his own thought, argued:
+
+"They carry burdens, they toil all their life long for mere trifles.
+And suddenly they say something that wouldn't come into your mind in a
+century. Evidently they feel. Yes, it is interesting to be with them."
+
+Staggering, Yozhov walked in silence for a long time, and suddenly he
+waved his hand in the air and began to declaim in a dull, choking voice,
+which sounded as though it issued from his stomach:
+
+"Life has cruelly deceived me, I have suffered so much pain."
+
+"These, dear boy, are my own verses," said he, stopping short and
+nodding his head mournfully. "How do they run? I've forgotten. There is
+something there about dreams, about sacred and pure longings, which are
+smothered within my breast by the vapour of life. Oh!"
+
+"The buried dreams within my breast Will never rise again."
+
+"Brother! You are happier than I, because you are stupid. While I--"
+
+"Don't be rude!" said Foma, irritated. "You would better listen how they
+are singing."
+
+"I don't want to listen to other people's songs," said Yozhov, with
+a shake of the head. "I have my own, it is the song of a soul rent in
+pieces by life."
+
+And he began to wail in a wild voice:
+
+"The buried dreams within my breast Will never rise again... How great
+their number is!"
+
+"There was a whole flower garden of bright, living dreams and hopes.
+They perished, withered and perished. Death is within my heart. The
+corpses of my dreams are rotting there. Oh! oh!"
+
+Yozhov burst into tears, sobbing like a woman. Foma pitied him, and felt
+uncomfortable with him. He jerked at his shoulder impatiently, and said:
+
+"Stop crying! Come, how weak you are, brother!" Clasping his head in
+his hand Yozhov straightened up his stooping frame, made an effort and
+started again mournfully and wildly:
+
+"How great their number is! Their sepulchre how narrow! I clothed them
+all in shrouds of rhyme And many sad and solemn songs O'er them I sang
+from time to time!"
+
+"Oh, Lord!" sighed Foma in despair. "Stop that, for Christ's sake! By
+God, how sad!"
+
+In the distance the loud choral song was rolling through the darkness
+and the silence. Some one was whistling, keeping time to the refrain,
+and this shrill sound, which pierced the ear, ran ahead of the billow of
+powerful voices. Foma looked in that direction and saw the tall, black
+wall of forest, the bright fiery spot of the bonfire shining upon it,
+and the misty figures surrounding the fire. The wall of forest was like
+a breast, and the fire like a bloody wound in it. It seemed as though
+the breast was trembling, as the blood coursed down in burning streams.
+Embraced in dense gloom from all sides the people seemed on the
+background of the forest, like little children; they, too, seemed to
+burn, illuminated by the blaze of the bonfire. They waved their hands
+and sang their songs loudly, powerfully.
+
+And Yozhov, standing beside Foma, spoke excitedly:
+
+"You hard-hearted blockhead! Why do you repulse me? You ought to
+listen to the song of the dying soul, and weep over it, for, why was it
+wounded, why is it dying? Begone from me, begone! You think I am drunk?
+I am poisoned, begone!"
+
+Without lifting his eyes off the forest and the fire, so beautiful in
+the darkness, Foma made a few steps aside from Yozhov and said to him in
+a low voice:
+
+"Don't play the fool. Why do you abuse me at random?"
+
+"I want to remain alone, and finish singing my song."
+
+Staggering, he, too, moved aside from Foma, and after a few seconds
+again exclaimed in a sobbing voice:
+
+     "My song is done! And nevermore
+     Shall I disturb their sleep of death,
+     Oh Lord, Oh Lord, repose my soul!
+     For it is hopeless in its wounds,
+     Oh Lord, repose my soul."
+
+Foma shuddered at the sounds of their gloomy wailing, and he hurried
+after Yozhov; but before he overtook him the little feuilleton-writer
+uttered a hysterical shriek, threw himself chest down upon the ground
+and burst out sobbing plaintively and softly, even as sickly children
+cry.
+
+"Nikolay!" said Foma, lifting him by the shoulders. "Cease crying;
+what's the matter? Oh Lord. Nikolay! Enough, aren't you ashamed?"
+
+But Yozhov was not ashamed; he struggled on the ground, like a fish
+just taken from the water, and when Foma had lifted him to his feet, he
+pressed close to Foma's breast, clasping his sides with his thin arms,
+and kept on sobbing.
+
+"Well, that's enough!" said Foma, with his teeth tightly clenched.
+"Enough, dear."
+
+And agitated by the suffering of the man who was wounded by the
+narrowness of life, filled with wrath on his account, he turned his face
+toward the gloom where the lights of the town were glimmering, and, in
+an outburst of wrathful grief, roared in a deep, loud voice:
+
+"A-a-ana-thema! Be cursed! Just wait. You, too, shall choke! Be cursed!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+"LUBAVKA!" said Mayakin one day when he came home from the Exchange,
+"prepare yourself for this evening. I am going to bring you a
+bridegroom! Prepare a nice hearty little lunch for us. Put out on the
+table as much of our old silverware as possible, also bring out the
+fruit-vases, so that he is impressed by our table! Let him see that each
+and everything we have is a rarity!"
+
+Lubov was sitting by the window darning her father's socks, and her head
+was bent low over her work.
+
+"What is all this for, papa?" she asked, dissatisfied and offended.
+
+"Why, for sauce, for flavour. And then, it's in due order. For a girl is
+not a horse; you can't dispose of her without the harness."
+
+All aflush with offence, Lubov tossed her head nervously, and flinging
+her work aside, cast a glance at her father; and, taking up the socks
+again, she bent her head still lower over them. The old man paced the
+room to and fro, plucking at his fiery beard with anxiety; his eyes
+stared somewhere into the distance, and it was evident that he was all
+absorbed in some great complicated thought. The girl understood that he
+would not listen to her and would not care to comprehend how degrading
+his words were for her. Her romantic dreams of a husband-friend, an
+educated man, who would read with her wise books and help her to find
+herself in her confused desires, these dreams were stifled by her
+father's inflexible resolution to marry her to Smolin. They had been
+killed and had become decomposed, settling down as a bitter sediment in
+her soul. She had been accustomed to looking upon herself as better and
+higher than the average girl of the merchant class, than the empty and
+stupid girl who thinks of nothing but dresses, and who marries almost
+always according to the calculation of her parents, and but seldom in
+accordance with the free will of her heart. And now she herself is about
+to marry merely because it was time, and also because her father needed
+a son-in-law to succeed him in his business. And her father evidently
+thought that she, by herself, was hardly capable of attracting the
+attention of a man, and therefore adorned her with silver. Agitated,
+she worked nervously, pricked her fingers, broke needles, but maintained
+silence, being aware that whatever she should say would not reach her
+father's heart.
+
+And the old man kept on pacing the room to and fro, now humming psalms
+softly, now impressively instructing his daughter how to behave with the
+bridegroom. And then he also counted something on his fingers, frowned
+and smiled.
+
+"Mm! So! Try me, Oh Lord, and judge me. From the unjust and the false
+man, deliver me. Yes! Put on your mother's emeralds, Lubov."
+
+"Enough, papa!" exclaimed the girl, sadly. "Pray, leave that alone."
+
+"Don't you kick! Listen to what I'm telling you."
+
+And he was again absorbed in his calculations, snapping his green eyes
+and playing with his fingers in front of his face.
+
+"That makes thirty-five percent. Mm! The fellow's a rogue. Send down thy
+light and thy truth."
+
+"Papa!" exclaimed Lubov, mournfully and with fright.
+
+"What?"
+
+"You--are you pleased with him?"
+
+"With whom?
+
+"Smolin."
+
+"Smolin? Yes, he's a rogue, he's a clever fellow, a splendid merchant!
+Well, I'm off now. So be on your guard, arm yourself."
+
+When Lubov remained alone she flung her work aside and leaned against
+the back of her chair, closing her eyes tightly. Her hands firmly
+clasped together lay on her knees, and their fingers twitched. Filled
+with the bitterness of offended vanity, she felt an alarming fear of the
+future, and prayed in silence:
+
+"My God! Oh Lord! If he were only a kind man! Make him kind, sincere. Oh
+Lord! A strange man comes, examines you, and takes you unto himself
+for years, if you please him! How disgraceful that is, how terrible. Oh
+Lord, my God! If I could only run away! If I only had someone to advise
+me what to do! Who is he? How can I learn to know him? I cannot do
+anything! And I have thought, ah, how much I have thought! I have read.
+To what purpose have I read? Why should I know that it is possible to
+live otherwise, so as I cannot live? And it may be that were it not for
+the books my life would be easier, simpler. How painful all this is!
+What a wretched, unfortunate being I am! Alone. If Taras at least were
+here."
+
+At the recollection of her brother she felt still more grieved, still
+more sorry for herself. She had written to Taras a long, exultant
+letter, in which she had spoken of her love for him, of her hope in him;
+imploring her brother to come as soon as possible to see his father, she
+had pictured to him plans of arranging to live together, assuring Taras
+that their father was extremely clever and understood everything; she
+told about his loneliness, had gone into ecstasy over his aptitude for
+life and had, at the same time, complained of his attitude toward her.
+
+For two weeks she impatiently expected a reply, and when she had
+received and read it she burst out sobbing for joy and disenchantment.
+The answer was dry and short; in it Taras said that within a month he
+would be on the Volga on business and would not fail to call on his
+father, if the old man really had no objection to it. The letter was
+cold, like a block of ice; with tears in her eyes she perused it over
+and over again, rumpled it, creased it, but it did not turn warmer on
+this account, it only became wet. From the sheet of stiff note paper
+which was covered with writing in a large, firm hand, a wrinkled and
+suspiciously frowning face, thin and angular like that of her father,
+seemed to look at her.
+
+On Yakov Tarasovich the letter of his son made a different impression.
+On learning the contents of Taras's reply the old man started and
+hastily turned to his daughter with animation and with a peculiar smile:
+
+"Well, let me see it! Show it to me! He-he! Let's read how wise men
+write. Where are my spectacles? Mm! 'Dear sister!' Yes."
+
+The old man became silent; he read to himself the message of his son,
+put it on the table, and, raising his eyebrows, silently paced the room
+to and fro, with an expression of amazement on his countenance. Then
+he read the letter once more, thoughtfully tapped the table with his
+fingers and spoke:
+
+"That letter isn't bad--it is sound, without any unnecessary words.
+Well? Perhaps the man has really grown hardened in the cold. The cold is
+severe there. Let him come, we'll take a look at him. It's interesting.
+Yes. In the psalm of David concerning the mysteries of his son it is
+said: 'When Thou hast returned my enemy'--I've forgotten how it reads
+further. 'My enemy's weapons have weakened in the end, and his memory
+hath perished amid noise. Well, we'll talk it over with him without
+noise."
+
+The old man tried to speak calmly and with a contemptuous smile, but the
+smile did not come; his wrinkles quivered irritably, and his small eyes
+had a particularly clear brilliancy.
+
+"Write to him again, Lubovka. 'Come along!' write him, 'don't be afraid
+to come!'"
+
+Lubov wrote Taras another letter, but this time it was shorter and more
+reserved, and now she awaited a reply from day to day, attempting to
+picture to herself what sort of man he must be, this mysterious brother
+of hers. Before she used to think of him with sinking heart, with that
+solemn respect with which believers think of martyrs, men of upright
+life; now she feared him, for he had acquired the right to be judge
+over men and life at the price of painful sufferings, at the cost of his
+youth, which was ruined in exile. On coming, he would ask her:
+
+"You are marrying of your own free will, for love, are you not?"
+
+What should she tell him? Would he forgive her faint-heartedness? And
+why does she marry? Can it really be possible that this is all she can
+do in order to change her life?
+
+Gloomy thoughts sprang up one after another in the head of the girl and
+confused and tortured her, impotent as she was to set up against them
+some definite, all-conquering desire. Though she was in an anxious and
+compressing her lips. Smolin rose from his chair, made a step toward her
+and bowed respectfully. She was rather pleased with this low and polite
+bow, also with the costly frock coat, which fitted Smolin's supple
+figure splendidly. He had changed but slightly--he was the same
+red-headed, closely-cropped, freckled youth; only his moustache had
+become long, and his eyes seemed to have grown larger.
+
+"Now he's changed, eh?" exclaimed Mayakin to his daughter, pointing at
+the bridegroom. And Smolin shook hands with her, and smiling, said in a
+ringing baritone voice:
+
+"I venture to hope that you have not forgotten your old friend?"
+
+"It's all right! You can talk of this later," said the old man, scanning
+his daughter with his eyes.
+
+"Lubova, you can make your arrangements here, while we finish our little
+conversation. Well then, African Mitrich, explain yourself."
+
+"You will pardon me, Lubov Yakovlevna, won't you?" asked Smolin, gently.
+
+"Pray do not stand upon ceremony," said Lubov. "He's polite and clever,"
+she remarked to herself; and, as she walked about in the room from the
+table to the sideboard, she began to listen attentively to Smolin's
+words. He spoke softly, confidently, with a simplicity, in which was
+felt condescendence toward the interlocutor. "Well then, for four years
+I have carefully studied the condition of Russian leather in foreign
+markets. It's a sad and horrid condition! About thirty years ago our
+leather was considered there as the standard, while now the demand for
+it is constantly falling off, and, of course, the price goes hand in
+hand with it. And that is perfectly natural. Lacking the capital and
+knowledge all these small leather producers are not able to raise their
+product to the proper standard, and, at the same time, to reduce the
+price. Their goods are extremely bad and dear. And they are all to
+blame for having spoiled Russia's reputation as manufacturer of the best
+leather. In general, the petty producer, lacking the technical knowledge
+and capital, is consequently placed in a position where he is unable to
+improve his products in proportion to the development of the technical
+side. Such a producer is a misfortune for the country, the parasite of
+her commerce."
+
+"Hm!" bellowed the old man, looking at his guest with one eye, and
+watching his daughter with the other. "So that now your intention is to
+build such a great factory that all the others will go to the dogs?"
+
+"Oh, no!" exclaimed Smolin, warding off the old man's words with an easy
+wave of the hand. "Why wrong others? What right have I to do so? My aim
+is to raise the importance and price of Russian leather abroad, and so
+equipped with the knowledge as to the manufacture, I am building a model
+factory, and fill the markets with model goods. The commercial honour of
+the country!"
+
+"Does it require much capital, did you say?" asked Mayakin,
+thoughtfully.
+
+"About three hundred thousand."
+
+"Father won't give me such a dowry," thought Lubov.
+
+"My factory will also turn out leather goods, such as trunks, foot-wear,
+harnesses, straps and so forth."
+
+"And of what per cent, are you dreaming?"
+
+"I am not dreaming, I am calculating with all the exactness possible
+under conditions in Russia," said Smolin, impressively. "The
+manufacturer should be as strictly practical as the mechanic who is
+creating a machine. The friction of the tiniest screw must be taken into
+consideration, if you wish to do a serious thing seriously. I can let
+you read a little note which I have drawn up, based upon my personal
+study of cattle-breeding and of the consumption of meat in Russia."
+
+"How's that!" laughed Mayakin. "Bring me that note, it's interesting!
+It seems you did not spend your time for nothing in Western Europe. And
+now, let's eat something, after the Russian fashion."
+
+"How are you passing the time, Lubov Yakovlevna?" asked Smolin, arming
+himself with knife and fork.
+
+"She is rather lonesome here with me," replied Mayakin for his daughter.
+"My housekeeper, all the household is on her shoulders, so she has no
+time to amuse herself."
+
+"And no place, I must add," said Lubov. "I am not fond of the balls and
+entertainments given by the merchants."
+
+"And the theatre?" asked Smolin.
+
+"I seldom go there. I have no one to go with."
+
+"The theatre!" exclaimed the old man. "Tell me, pray, why has it become
+the fashion then to represent the merchant as a savage idiot? It is very
+amusing, but it is incomprehensible, because it is false! Am I a fool,
+if I am master in the City Council, master in commerce, and also owner
+of that same theatre? You look at the merchant on the stage and
+you see--he isn't life-life! Of course, when they present something
+historical, such as: 'Life for the Czar,' with song and dance, or
+'Hamlet,' 'The Sorceress,' or 'Vasilisa,' truthful reproduction is not
+required, because they're matters of the past and don't concern us.
+Whether true or not, it matters little so long as they're good, but
+when you represent modern times, then don't lie! And show the man as he
+really is."
+
+Smolin listened to the old man's words with a covetous smile on his
+lips, and cast at Lubov glances which seemed to invite her to refute her
+father. Somewhat embarrassed, she said:
+
+"And yet, papa, the majority of the merchant class is uneducated and
+savage."
+
+"Yes," remarked Smolin with regret, nodding his head affirmatively,
+"that is the sad truth."
+
+"Take Foma, for instance," went on the girl.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Mayakin. "Well, you are young folks, you can have books
+in your hands."
+
+"And do you not take interest in any of the societies?" Smolin asked
+Lubov. "You have so many different societies here."
+
+"Yes," said Lubov with a sigh, "but I live rather apart from
+everything."
+
+"Housekeeping!" interposed the father. "We have here such a store
+of different things, everything has to be kept clean, in order, and
+complete as to number."
+
+With a self-satisfied air he nodded first at the table, which was set
+with brilliant crystal and silverware, and then at the sideboard, whose
+shelves were fairly breaking under the weight of the articles, and which
+reminded one of the display in a store window. Smolin noted all these
+and an ironical smile began to play upon his lips. Then he glanced at
+Lubov's face: in his look she caught something friendly, sympathetic
+to her. A faint flush covered her cheeks, and she said to herself with
+timid joy:
+
+"Thank God!"
+
+The light of the heavy bronze lamp now seemed to flash more brilliantly
+on the sides of the crystal vases, and it became brighter in the room.
+
+"I like our dear old town!" said Smolin, looking at the girl with a
+kindly smile, "it is so beautiful, so vigorous; there is cheerfulness
+about it that inspires one to work. Its very picturesqueness is somewhat
+stimulating. In it one feels like leading a dashing life. One feels like
+working much and seriously. And then, it is an intelligent town. Just
+see what a practical newspaper is published here. By the way, we intend
+to purchase it."
+
+"Whom do you mean by You?" asked Mayakin.
+
+"I, Urvantzov, Shchukin--"
+
+"That's praiseworthy!" said the old man, rapping the table with his
+hand. "That's very practical! It is time to stop their mouths, it was
+high time long ago! Particularly that Yozhov; he's like a sharp-toothed
+saw. Just put the thumb-screw on him! And do it well!"
+
+Smolin again cast at Lubov a smiling glance, and her heart trembled
+with joy once more. With flushing face she said to her father, inwardly
+addressing herself to the bridegroom:
+
+"As far as I can understand, African Dmitreivich, he wishes to buy the
+newspaper not at all for the sake of stopping its mouth as you say."
+
+"What then can be done with it?" asked the old man, shrugging his
+shoulders. "There's nothing in it but empty talk and agitation. Of
+course, if the practical people, the merchants themselves, take to
+writing for it--"
+
+"The publication of a newspaper," began Smolin, instructively,
+interrupting the old man, "looked at merely from the commercial point
+of view, may be a very profitable enterprise. But aside from this, a
+newspaper has another more important aim--that is, to protect the right
+of the individual and the interests of industry and commerce."
+
+"That's just what I say, if the merchant himself will manage the
+newspaper, then it will be useful."
+
+"Excuse me, papa," said Lubov.
+
+She began to feel the need of expressing herself before Smolin; she
+wanted to assure him that she understood the meaning of his words, that
+she was not an ordinary merchant-daughter, interested in dresses and
+balls only. Smolin pleased her. This was the first time she had seen
+a merchant who had lived abroad for a long time, who reasoned so
+impressively, who bore himself so properly, who was so well dressed,
+and who spoke to her father, the cleverest man in town, with the
+condescending tone of an adult towards a minor.
+
+"After the wedding I'll persuade him to take me abroad," thought Lubov,
+suddenly, and, confused at this thought she forgot what she was about
+to say to her father. Blushing deeply, she was silent for a few seconds,
+seized with fear lest Smolin might interpret this silence in a way
+unflattering to her.
+
+"On account of your conversation, you have forgotten to offer some wine
+to our guest," she said at last, after a few seconds of painful silence.
+
+"That's your business. You are hostess," retorted the old man.
+
+"Oh, don't disturb yourself!" exclaimed Smolin, with animation. "I
+hardly drink at all."
+
+"Really?" asked Mayakin.
+
+"I assure you! Sometimes I drink a wine glass or two in case of fatigue
+or illness. But to drink wine for pleasure's sake is incomprehensible to
+me. There are other pleasures more worthy of a man of culture."
+
+"You mean ladies, I suppose?" asked the old man with a wink.
+
+Smolin's cheeks and neck became red with the colour which leaped to his
+face. With apologetic eyes he glanced at Lubov, and said to her father
+drily:
+
+"I mean the theatre, books, music."
+
+Lubov became radiant with joy at his words.
+
+The old man looked askance at the worthy young man, smiled keenly and
+suddenly blurted out:
+
+"Eh, life is going onward! Formerly the dog used to relish a crust, now
+the pug dog finds the cream too thin; pardon me for my sour remark, but
+it is very much to the point. It does not exactly refer to yourself, but
+in general."
+
+Lubov turned pale and looked at Smolin with fright. He was calm,
+scrutinising an ancient salt box, decorated with enamel; he twisted his
+moustache and looked as though he had not heard the old man's words. But
+his eyes grew darker, and his lips were compressed very tightly, and his
+clean-shaven chin obstinately projected forward.
+
+"And so, my future leading manufacturer," said Mayakin, as though
+nothing had happened, "three hundred thousand roubles, and your business
+will flash up like a fire?"
+
+"And within a year and a half I shall send out the first lot of goods,
+which will be eagerly sought for," said Smolin, simply, with unshakable
+confidence, and he eyed the old man with a cold and firm look.
+
+"So be it; the firm of Smolin and Mayakin, and that's all? So. Only it
+seems rather late for me to start a new business, doesn't it? I presume
+the grave has long been prepared for me; what do you think of it?"
+
+Instead of an answer Smolin burst into a rich, but indifferent and cold
+laughter, and then said:
+
+"Oh, don't say that."
+
+The old man shuddered at his laughter, and started back with fright,
+with a scarcely perceptible movement of his body. After Smolin's words
+all three maintained silence for about a minute.
+
+"Yes," said Mayakin, without lifting his head, which was bent low. "It
+is necessary to think of that. I must think of it." Then, raising his
+head, he closely scrutinised his daughter and the bridegroom, and,
+rising from his chair, he said sternly and brusquely: "I am going away
+for awhile to my little cabinet. You surely won't feel lonesome without
+me."
+
+And he went out with bent back and drooping head, heavily scraping with
+his feet.
+
+The young people, thus left alone, exchanged a few empty phrases, and,
+evidently conscious that these only helped to remove them further from
+each other, they maintained a painful, awkward and expectant silence.
+Taking an orange, Lubov began to peel it with exaggerated attention,
+while Smolin, lowering his eyes, examined his moustaches, which he
+carefully stroked with his left hand, toyed with a knife and suddenly
+asked the girl in a lowered voice:
+
+"Pardon me for my indiscretion. It is evidently really difficult
+for you, Lubov Yakovlevna, to live with your father. He's a man with
+old-fashioned views and, pardon me, he's rather hard-hearted!"
+
+Lubov shuddered, and, casting at the red-headed man a grateful look,
+said:
+
+"It isn't easy, but I have grown accustomed to it. He also has his good
+qualities."
+
+"Oh, undoubtedly! But to you who are so young, beautiful and educated,
+to you with your views... You see, I have heard something about you."
+
+He smiled so kindly and sympathetically, and his voice was so soft, a
+breath of soul-cheering warmth filled the room. And in the heart of the
+girl there blazed up more and more brightly the timid hope of finding
+happiness, of being freed from the close captivity of solitude.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A DENSE, grayish fog lay over the river, and a steamer, now and then
+uttering a dull whistle, was slowly forging up against the current. Damp
+and cold clouds, of a monotone pallor, enveloped the steamer from
+all sides and drowned all sounds, dissolving them in their troubled
+dampness. The brazen roaring of the signals came out in a muffled,
+melancholy drone, and was oddly brief as it burst forth from the
+whistle. The sound seemed to find no place for itself in the air, which
+was soaked with heavy dampness, and fell downward, wet and choked. And
+the splashing of the steamer's wheels sounded so fantastically dull that
+it seemed as though it were not begotten near by, at the sides of the
+vessel, but somewhere in the depth, on the dark bottom of the river.
+From the steamer one could see neither the water, nor the shore, nor
+the sky; a leaden-gray gloominess enwrapped it on all sides; devoid
+of shadings, painfully monotonous, the gloominess was motionless, it
+oppressed the steamer with immeasurable weight, slackened its movements
+and seemed as though preparing itself to swallow it even as it was
+swallowing the sounds. In spite of the dull blows of the paddles upon
+the water and the measured shaking of the body of the vessel, it seemed
+that the steamer was painfully struggling on one spot, suffocating in
+agony, hissing like a fairy tale monster breathing his last, howling in
+the pangs of death, howling with pain, and in the fear of death.
+
+Lifeless were the steamer lights. About the lantern on the mast a yellow
+motionless spot had formed; devoid of lustre, it hung in the fog over
+the steamer, illuminating nothing save the gray mist. The red starboard
+light looked like a huge eye crushed out by some one's cruel fist,
+blinded, overflowing with blood. Pale rays of light fell from the
+steamer's windows into the fog, and only tinted its cold, cheerless
+dominion over the vessel, which was pressed on all sides by the
+motionless mass of stifling dampness.
+
+The smoke from the funnel fell downwards, and, together with fragments
+of the fog, penetrated into all the cracks of the deck, where the
+third-class passengers were silently muffling themselves in their rags,
+and forming groups, like sheep. From near the machinery were wafted
+deep, strained groans, the jingling of bells, the dull sounds of orders
+and the abrupt words of the machinist:
+
+"Yes--slow! Yes--half speed!"
+
+On the stern, in a corner, blocked up by barrels of salted fish, a group
+of people was assembled, illuminated by a small electric lamp. Those
+were sedate, neatly and warmly clad peasants. One of them lay on a
+bench, face down; another sat at his feet, still another stood, leaning
+his back against a barrel, while two others seated themselves flat
+on the deck. Their faces, pensive and attentive, were turned toward a
+round-shouldered man in a short cassock, turned yellow, and a torn fur
+cap. That man sat on some boxes with his back bent, and staring at his
+feet, spoke in a low, confident voice:
+
+"There will come an end to the long forbearance of the Lord, and then
+His wrath will burst forth upon men. We are like worms before Him, and
+how are we then to ward off His wrath, with what wailing shall we appeal
+to His mercy?"
+
+Oppressed by his gloominess, Foma had come down on the deck from his
+cabin, and, for some time, had been standing in the shadow of some wares
+covered with tarpaulin, and listened to the admonitive and gentle voice
+of the preacher. Pacing the deck he had chanced upon this group, and
+attracted by the figure of the pilgrim, had paused near it. There was
+something familiar to him in that large, strong body, in that stern,
+dark face, in those large, calm eyes. The curly, grayish hair, falling
+from under the skull-cap, the unkempt bushy beard, which fell apart in
+thick locks, the long, hooked nose, the sharp-pointed ears, the thick
+lips--Foma had seen all these before, but could not recall when and
+where.
+
+"Yes, we are very much in arrears before the Lord!" remarked one of the
+peasants, heaving a deep sigh.
+
+"We must pray," whispered the peasant who lay on the bench, in a
+scarcely audible voice.
+
+"Can you scrape your sinful wretchedness off your soul with words of
+prayer?" exclaimed someone loudly, almost with despair in his voice.
+
+No one of those that formed the group around the pilgrim turned at this
+voice, only their heads sank lower on their breasts, and for a long time
+these people sat motionless and speechless:
+
+The pilgrim measured his audience with a serious and meditative glance
+of his blue eyes, and said softly:
+
+"Ephraim the Syrian said: 'Make thy soul the central point of thy
+thoughts and strengthen thyself with thy desire to be free from sin.'"
+
+And again he lowered his head, slowly fingering the beads of the rosary.
+
+"That means we must think," said one of the peasants; "but when has a
+man time to think during his life on earth?"
+
+"Confusion is all around us."
+
+"We must flee to the desert," said the peasant who lay on the bench.
+
+"Not everybody can afford it."
+
+The peasants spoke, and became silent again. A shrill whistle resounded,
+a little bell began to jingle at the machine. Someone's loud exclamation
+rang out:
+
+"Eh, there! To the water-measuring poles."
+
+"Oh Lord! Oh Queen of Heaven!"--a deep sigh was heard.
+
+And a dull, half-choked voice shouted:
+
+"Nine! nine!"
+
+Fragments of the fog burst forth upon the deck and floated over it like
+cold, gray smoke.
+
+"Here, kind people, give ear unto the words of King David," said the
+pilgrim, and shaking his head, began to read distinctly: "'Lead me,
+Oh Lord, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way
+straight before my face. For there is no faithfulness in their mouths;
+their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre;
+they flatter with their tongue. Destroy thou them, Oh God; let them fall
+by their own counsels.'"
+
+"Eight! seven!" Like moans these exclamations resounded in the distance.
+
+The steamer began to hiss angrily, and slackened its speed. The noise of
+the hissing of the steam deafened the pilgrim's words, and Foma saw only
+the movement of his lips.
+
+"Get off!" a loud, angry shout was heard. "It's my place!"
+
+"Yours?"
+
+"Here you have yours!"
+
+"I'll rap you on the jaw; then you'll find your place. What a lord!"
+
+"Get away!"
+
+An uproar ensued. The peasants who were listening to the pilgrim turned
+their heads toward the direction where the row was going on, and the
+pilgrim heaved a sigh and became silent. Near the machine a loud and
+lively dispute blazed up as though dry branches, thrown upon a dying
+bonfire, had caught the flame.
+
+"I'll give it to you, devils! Get away, both of you."
+
+"Take them away to the captain."
+
+"Ha! ha! ha! That's a fine settlement for you!"
+
+"That was a good rap he gave him on the neck!"
+
+"The sailors are a clever lot."
+
+"Eight! nine!" shouted the man with the measuring pole.
+
+"Yes, increase speed!" came the loud exclamation of the engineer.
+
+Swaying because of the motion of the steamer, Foma stood leaning against
+the tarpaulin, and attentively listened to each and every sound about
+him. And everything was blended into one picture, which was familiar
+to him. Through fog and uncertainty, surrounded on all sides by gloom
+impenetrable to the eye, life of man is moving somewhere slowly and
+heavily. And men are grieved over their sins, they sigh heavily, and
+then fight for a warm place, and asking each other for the sake of
+possessing the place, they also receive blows from those who strive for
+order in life. They timidly search for a free road toward the goal.
+
+"Nine! eight!"
+
+The wailing cry is softly wafted over the vessel. "And the holy prayer
+of the pilgrim is deafened by the tumult of life. And there is no relief
+from sorrow, there is no joy for him who reflects on his fate."
+
+Foma felt like speaking to this pilgrim, in whose softly uttered words
+there rang sincere fear of God, and all manner of fear for men before
+His countenance. The kind, admonitive voice of the pilgrim possessed a
+peculiar power, which compelled Foma to listen to its deep tones.
+
+"I'd like to ask him where he lives," thought Foma, fixedly scrutinizing
+the huge stooping figure. "And where have I seen him before? Or does he
+resemble some acquaintance of mine?"
+
+Suddenly it somehow struck Foma with particular vividness that the
+humble preacher before him was no other than the son of old Anany
+Shchurov. Stunned by this conjecture, he walked up to the pilgrim and
+seating himself by his side, inquired freely:
+
+"Are you from Irgiz, father?"
+
+The pilgrim raised his head, turned his face toward Foma slowly and
+heavily, scrutinized him and said in a calm and gentle voice:
+
+"I was on the Irgiz, too."
+
+"Are you a native of that place?"
+
+"Are you now coming from there?"
+
+"No, I am coming from Saint Stephen."
+
+The conversation broke off. Foma lacked the courage to ask the pilgrim
+whether he was not Shchurov.
+
+"We'll be late on account of the fog," said some one.
+
+"How can we help being late!"
+
+All were silent, looking at Foma. Young, handsome, neatly and richly
+dressed, he aroused the curiosity of the bystanders by his sudden
+appearance among them; he was conscious of this curiosity, he understood
+that they were all waiting for his words, that they wanted to understand
+why he had come to them, and all this confused and angered him.
+
+"It seems to me that I've met you before somewhere, father," said he at
+length.
+
+The pilgrim replied, without looking at him:
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"I would like to speak to you," announced Foma, timidly, in a low voice.
+
+"Well, then, speak."
+
+"Come with me."
+
+"Whither?"
+
+"To my cabin."
+
+The pilgrim looked into Foma's face, and, after a moment's silence,
+assented:
+
+"Come."
+
+On leaving, Foma felt the looks of the peasants on his back, and now he
+was pleased to know that they were interested in him.
+
+In the cabin he asked gently:
+
+"Would you perhaps eat something? Tell me. I will order it."
+
+"God forbid. What do you wish?"
+
+This man, dirty and ragged, in a cassock turned red with age, and
+covered with patches, surveyed the cabin with a squeamish look, and when
+he seated himself on the plush-covered lounge, he turned the skirt of
+the cassock as though afraid to soil it by the plush.
+
+"What is your name, father?" asked Foma, noticing the expression of
+squeamishness on the pilgrim's face.
+
+"Miron."
+
+"Not Mikhail?"
+
+"Why Mikhail?" asked the pilgrim.
+
+"There was in our town the son of a certain merchant Shchurov, he also
+went off to the Irgiz. And his name was Mikhail."
+
+Foma spoke and fixedly looked at Father Miron; but the latter was as
+calm as a deaf-mute--
+
+"I never met such a man. I don't remember, I never met him," said he,
+thoughtfully. "So you wished to inquire about him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"No, I never met Mikhail Shchurov. Well, pardon me for Christ's sake!"
+and rising from the lounge, the pilgrim bowed to Foma and went toward
+the door.
+
+"But wait awhile, sit down, let's talk a little!" exclaimed Foma,
+rushing at him uneasily. The pilgrim looked at him searchingly and sank
+down on the lounge. From the distance came a dull sound, like a deep
+groan, and immediately after it the signal whistle of the steamer
+drawled out as in a frightened manner over Foma's and his guest's heads.
+From the distance came a more distant reply, and the whistle overhead
+again gave out abrupt, timorous sounds. Foma opened the window. Through
+the fog, not far from their steamer, something was moving along with
+deep noise; specks of fantastic lights floated by, the fog was agitated
+and again sank into dead immobility.
+
+"How terrible!" exclaimed Foma, shutting the window.
+
+"What is there to be afraid of?" asked the pilgrim. "You see! It is
+neither day nor night, neither darkness nor light! We can see nothing,
+we are sailing we know not whither, we are straying on the river."
+
+"Have inward fire within you, have light within your soul, and you shall
+see everything," said the pilgrim, sternly and instructively.
+
+Foma was displeased with these cold words and looked at the pilgrim
+askance. The latter sat with drooping head, motionless, as though
+petrified in thought and prayer. The beads of his rosary were softly
+rustling in his hands.
+
+The pilgrim's attitude gave birth to easy courage in Foma's breast, and
+he said:
+
+"Tell me, Father Miron, is it good to live, having full freedom, without
+work, without relatives, a wanderer, like yourself?"
+
+Father Miron raised his head and softly burst into the caressing
+laughter of a child. All his face, tanned from wind and sunburn,
+brightened up with inward joy, was radiant with tranquil joy; he touched
+Foma's knee with his hand and said in a sincere tone:
+
+"Cast aside from you all that is worldly, for there is no sweetness
+in it. I am telling you the right word--turn away from evil. Do you
+remember it is said:
+
+'Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,
+nor standeth in the way of sinners.' Turn away, refresh your soul with
+solitude and fill yourself with the thought of God. For only by the
+thought of Him can man save his soul from profanation."
+
+"That isn't the thing!" said Foma. "I have no need of working out my
+salvation. Have I sinned so much? Look at others. What I would like is
+to comprehend things."
+
+"And you will comprehend if you turn away from the world. Go forth upon
+the free road, on the fields, on the steppes, on the plains, on the
+mountains. Go forth and look at the world from afar, from your freedom."
+
+"That's right!" cried Foma. "That's just what I think. One can see
+better from the side!"
+
+And Miron, paying no attention to his words, spoke softly, as though of
+some great mystery, known only to him, the pilgrim:
+
+"The thick slumbering forests around you will start to rustle in sweet
+voices about the wisdom of the Lord; God's little birds will sing before
+you of His holy glory, and the grasses of the steppe will burn incense
+to the Holy Virgin."
+
+The pilgrim's voice now rose and quivered from excess of emotion, now
+sank to a mysterious whisper. He seemed as though grown younger; his
+eyes beamed so confidently and clearly, and all his face was radiant
+with the happy smile of a man who has found expression for his joy and
+was delighted while he poured it forth.
+
+"The heart of God throbs in each and every blade of grass; each and
+every insect of the air and of the earth, breathes His holy spirit. God,
+the Lord, Jesus Christ, lives everywhere! What beauty there is on earth,
+in the fields and in the forests! Have you ever been on the Kerzhenz?
+An incomparable silence reigns there supreme, the trees, the grass there
+are like those of paradise."
+
+Foma listened, and his imagination, captivated by the quiet, charming
+narrative, pictured to him those wide fields and dense forests, full of
+beauty and soul-pacifying silence.
+
+"You look at the sky, as you rest somewhere under a little bush, and
+the sky seems to descend upon you as though longing to embrace you. Your
+soul is warm, filled with tranquil joy, you desire nothing, you envy
+nothing. And it actually seems to you that there is no one on earth save
+you and God."
+
+The pilgrim spoke, and his voice and sing-song speech reminded Foma of
+the wonderful fairy-tales of Aunt Anfisa. He felt as though, after a
+long journey on a hot day, he drank the clear, cold water of a forest
+brook, water that had the fragrance of the grasses and the flowers it
+has bathed. Even wider and wider grew the pictures as they unfolded
+upon him; here is a path through the thick, slumbering forest; the fine
+sunbeams penetrate through the branches of the trees, and quiver in
+the air and under the feet of the wanderer. There is a savoury odour of
+fungi and decaying foliage; the honeyed fragrance of the flowers, the
+intense odour of the pine-tree invisibly rise in the air and penetrate
+the breast in a warm, rich stream. All is silence: only the birds are
+singing, and the silence is so wonderful that it seems as though even
+the birds were singing in your breast. You go, without haste, and your
+life goes on like a dream. While here everything is enveloped in a gray,
+dead fog, and we are foolishly struggling about in it, yearning for
+freedom and light. There below they have started to sing something in
+scarcely audible voices; it was half song, half prayer. Again someone is
+shouting, scolding. And still they seek the way:
+
+"Seven and a half. Seven!"
+
+"And you have no care," spoke the pilgrim, and his voice murmured like
+a brook. "Anybody will give you a crust of bread; and what else do
+you need in your freedom? In the world, cares fall upon the soul like
+fetters."
+
+"You speak well," said Foma with a sigh.
+
+"My dear brother!" exclaimed the pilgrim, softly, moving still closer
+toward him. "Since the soul has awakened, since it yearns toward
+freedom, do not lull it to sleep by force; hearken to its voice. The
+world with its charms has no beauty and holiness whatever, wherefore,
+then, obey its laws? In John Chrysostom it is said: 'The real shechinah
+is man!' Shechinah is a Hebrew word and it means the holy of holies.
+Consequently--"
+
+A prolonged shrill sound of the whistle drowned his voice. He listened,
+rose quickly from the lounge and said:
+
+"We are nearing the harbour. That's what the whistle meant. I must be
+off! Well, goodbye, brother! May God give you strength and firmness to
+act according to the will of your soul! Goodbye, my dear boy!"
+
+He made a low bow to Foma. There was something feminine, caressing and
+soft in his farewell words and bow. Foma also bowed low to him, bowed
+and remained as though petrified, standing with drooping head, his hand
+leaning against the table.
+
+"Come to see me when you are in town," he asked the pilgrim, who was
+hastily turning the handle of the cabin door.
+
+"I will! I will come! Goodbye! Christ save you!"
+
+When the steamer's side touched the wharf Foma came out on the deck
+and began to look downward into the fog. From the steamer people were
+walking down the gang-planks, but Foma could not discern the pilgrim
+among those dark figures enveloped in the dense gloom. All those
+that left the steamer looked equally indistinct, and they all quickly
+disappeared from sight, as though they had melted in the gray dampness.
+One could see neither the shore nor anything else solid; the landing
+bridge rocked from the commotion caused by the steamer; above it the
+yellow spot of the lantern was swaying; the noise of the footsteps and
+the bustle of the people were dull.
+
+The steamer put off and slowly moved along into the clouds. The pilgrim,
+the harbour, the turmoil of people's voices--all suddenly disappeared
+like a dream, and again there remained only the dense gloom and the
+steamer heavily turning about in it. Foma stared before him into the
+dead sea of fog and thought of the blue, cloudless and caressingly warm
+sky--where was it?
+
+On the next day, about noon, he sat In Yozhov's small room and listened
+to the local news from the mouth of his friend. Yozhov had climbed on
+the table, which was piled with newspapers, and, swinging his feet,
+narrated:
+
+"The election campaign has begun. The merchants are putting your
+godfather up as mayor--that old devil! Like the devil, he is immortal,
+although he must be upwards of a hundred and fifty years old already.
+He marries his daughter to Smolin. You remember that red-headed fellow.
+They say that he is a decent man, but nowadays they even call clever
+scoundrels decent men, because there are no men. Now Africashka plays
+the enlightened man; he has already managed to get into intelligent
+society, donated something to some enterprise or another and thus at
+once came to the front. Judging from his face, he is a sharper of the
+highest degree, but he will play a prominent part, for he knows how
+to adapt himself. Yes, friend, Africashka is a liberal. And a liberal
+merchant is a mixture of a wolf and a pig with a toad and a snake."
+
+"The devil take them all!" said Foma, waving his hand indifferently.
+"What have I to do with them? How about yourself--do you still keep on
+drinking?"
+
+"I do! Why shouldn't I drink?"
+
+Half-clad and dishevelled, Yozhov looked like a plucked bird, which had
+just had a fight and had not yet recovered from the excitement of the
+conflict.
+
+"I drink because, from time to time, I must quench the fire of my
+wounded heart. And you, you damp stump, you are smouldering little by
+little?"
+
+"I have to go to the old man," said Foma, wrinkling his face.
+
+"Chance it!"
+
+"I don't feel like going. He'll start to lecture me."
+
+"Then don't go!"
+
+"But I must."
+
+"Then go!"
+
+"Why do you always play the buffoon?" said Foma, with displeasure, "as
+though you were indeed merry."
+
+"By God, I feel merry!" exclaimed Yozhov, jumping down from the table.
+"What a fine roasting I gave a certain gentleman in the paper yesterday!
+And then--I've heard a clever anecdote: A company was sitting on the
+sea-shore philosophizing at length upon life. And a Jew said to them:
+'Gentlemen, why do you employ so many different words? I'll tell it to
+you all at once: Our life is not worth a single copeck, even as this
+stormy sea! '"
+
+"Eh, the devil take you!" said Foma. "Good-bye. I am going."
+
+"Go ahead! I am in a fine frame of mind to-day and I will not moan with
+you. All the more so considering you don't moan, but grunt."
+
+Foma went away, leaving Yozhov singing at the top of his voice:
+
+"Beat the drum and fear not."
+
+"Drum? You are a drum yourself;" thought Foma, with irritation, as he
+slowly came out on the street.
+
+At the Mayakins he was met by Luba. Agitated and animated, she suddenly
+appeared before him, speaking quickly:
+
+"You? My God! How pale you are! How thin you've grown! It seems you have
+been leading a fine life."
+
+Then her face became distorted with alarm and she exclaimed almost in a
+whisper:
+
+"Ah, Foma. You don't know. Do you hear? Someone is ringing the bell.
+Perhaps it is he."
+
+And she rushed out of the room, leaving behind her in the air the rustle
+of her silk gown, and the astonished Foma, who had not even had a chance
+to ask her where her father was. Yakov Tarasovich was at home. Attired
+in his holiday clothes, in a long frock coat with medals on his breast,
+he stood on the threshold with his hands outstretched, clutching at the
+door posts. His green little eyes examined Foma, and, feeling their look
+upon him, Foma raised his head and met them.
+
+"How do you do, my fine gentleman?" said the old man, shaking his head
+reproachfully. "Where has it pleased you to come from, may I ask? Who
+has sucked off that fat of yours? Or is it true that a pig looks for a
+puddle, and Foma for a place which is worse?"
+
+"Have you no other words for me?" asked Foma, sternly, looking straight
+into the old man's face. And suddenly he noticed that his godfather
+shuddered, his legs trembled, his eyes began to blink repeatedly, and
+his hands clutched the door posts with an effort. Foma advanced toward
+him, presuming that the old man was feeling ill, but Yakov Tarasovich
+said in a dull and angry voice:
+
+"Stand aside. Get out of the way."
+
+And his face assumed its usual expression.
+
+Foma stepped back and found himself side by side with a rather short,
+stout man, who bowed to Mayakin, and said in a hoarse voice:
+
+"How do you do, papa?"
+
+"How are you, Taras Yakovlich, how are you?" said the old man, bowing,
+smiling distractedly, and still clinging to the door posts.
+
+Foma stepped aside in confusion, seated himself in an armchair, and,
+petrified with curiosity, wide-eyed, began to watch the meeting of
+father and son.
+
+The father, standing in the doorway, swayed his feeble body, leaning his
+hands against the door posts, and, with his head bent on one side and
+eyes half shut, stared at his son in silence. The son stood about three
+steps away from him; his head already gray, was lifted high; he knitted
+his brow and gazed at his father with large dark eyes. His small, black,
+pointed beard and his small moustache quivered on his meagre face, with
+its gristly nose, like that of his father. And the hat, also, quivered
+in his hand. From behind his shoulder Foma saw the pale, frightened and
+joyous face of Luba--she looked at her father with beseeching eyes and
+it seemed she was on the point of crying out. For a few moments all were
+silent and motionless, crushed as they were by the immensity of their
+emotions. The silence was broken by the low, but dull and quivering
+voice of Yakov Tarasovich:
+
+"You have grown old, Taras."
+
+The son laughed in his father's face silently, and, with a swift glance,
+surveyed him from head to foot.
+
+The father tearing his hands from the door posts, made a step toward his
+son and suddenly stopped short with a frown. Then Taras Mayakin, with
+one huge step, came up to his father and gave him his hand.
+
+"Well, let us kiss each other," suggested the father, softly.
+
+The two old men convulsively clasped each other in their arms, exchanged
+warm kisses and then stepped apart. The wrinkles of the older man
+quivered, the lean face of the younger was immobile, almost stern. The
+kisses had changed nothing in the external side of this scene, only
+Lubov burst into a sob of joy, and Foma awkwardly moved about in his
+seat, feeling as though his breath were failing him.
+
+"Eh, children, you are wounds to the heart--you are not its joy,"
+complained Yakov Tarasovich in a ringing voice, and he evidently
+invested a great deal in these words, for immediately after he had
+pronounced them he became radiant, more courageous, and he said briskly,
+addressing himself to his daughter:
+
+"Well, have you melted with joy? You had better go and prepare something
+for us--tea and so forth. We'll entertain the prodigal son. You must
+have forgotten, my little old man, what sort of a man your father is?"
+
+Taras Mayakin scrutinized his parent with a meditative look of his large
+eyes and he smiled, speechless, clad in black, wherefore the gray hair
+on his head and in his beard told more strikingly.
+
+"Well, be seated. Tell me--how have you lived, what have you done? What
+are you looking at? Ah! That's my godson. Ignat Gordyeeff's son, Foma.
+Do you remember Ignat?"
+
+"I remember everything," said Taras.
+
+"Oh! That's good, if you are not bragging. Well, are you married?"
+
+"I am a widower."
+
+"Have you any children?"
+
+"They died. I had two."
+
+"That's a pity. I would have had grandchildren."
+
+"May I smoke?" asked Taras.
+
+"Go ahead. Just look at him, you're smoking cigars."
+
+"Don't you like them?"
+
+"I? Come on, it's all the same to me. I say that it looks rather
+aristocratic to smoke cigars."
+
+"And why should we consider ourselves lower than the aristocrats?" said
+Taras, laughing.
+
+"Do, I consider ourselves lower?" exclaimed the old man. "I merely said
+it because it looked ridiculous to me, such a sedate old fellow, with
+beard trimmed in foreign fashion, cigar in his mouth. Who is he? My
+son--he-he-he!" the old man tapped Taras on the shoulder and sprang away
+from him, as though frightened lest he were rejoicing too soon, lest
+that might not be the proper way to treat that half gray man. And he
+looked searchingly and suspiciously into his son's large eyes, which
+were surrounded by yellowish swellings.
+
+Taras smiled in his father's face an affable and warm smile, and said to
+him thoughtfully:
+
+"That's the way I remember you--cheerful and lively. It looks as though
+you had not changed a bit during all these years."
+
+The old man straightened himself proudly, and, striking his breast with
+his fist, said:
+
+"I shall never change, because life has no power over him who knows his
+own value. Isn't that so?"
+
+"Oh! How proud you are!"
+
+"I must have taken after my son," said the old man with a cunning
+grimace. "Do you know, dear, my son was silent for seventeen years out
+of pride."
+
+"That's because his father would not listen to him," Taras reminded him.
+
+"It's all right now. Never mind the past. Only God knows which of us is
+to blame. He, the upright one, He'll tell it to you--wait! I shall keep
+silence. This is not the time for us to discuss that matter. You better
+tell me--what have you been doing all these years? How did you come to
+that soda factory? How have you made your way?"
+
+"That's a long story," said Taras with a sigh; and emitting from his
+mouth a great puff of smoke, he began slowly: "When I acquired
+the possibility to live at liberty, I entered the office of the
+superintendent of the gold mines of the Remezovs."
+
+"I know; they're very rich. Three brothers. I know them all. One is a
+cripple, the other a fool, and the third a miser. Go on!"
+
+"I served under him for two years. And then I married his daughter,"
+narrated Mayakin in a hoarse voice.
+
+"The superintendent's? That wasn't foolish at all." Taras became
+thoughtful and was silent awhile. The old man looked at his sad face and
+understood his son.
+
+"And so you lived with your wife happily," he said. "Well, what can you
+do? To the dead belongs paradise, and the living must live on. You are
+not so very old as yet. Have you been a widower long?"
+
+"This is the third year."
+
+"So? And how did you chance upon the soda factory?"
+
+"That belongs to my father-in-law."
+
+"Aha! What is your salary?"
+
+"About five thousand."
+
+"Mm. That's not a stale crust. Yes, that's a galley slave for you!"
+
+Taras glanced at his father with a firm look and asked him drily:
+
+"By the way, what makes you think that I was a convict?"
+
+The old man glanced at his son with astonishment, which was quickly
+changed into joy:
+
+"Ah! What then? You were not? The devil take them! Then--how was it?
+Don't take offence! How could I know? They said you were in Siberia!
+Well, and there are the galleys!"
+
+"To make an end of this once for all," said Taras, seriously and
+impressively, clapping his hand on his knee, "I'll tell you right now
+how it all happened. I was banished to Siberia to settle there for
+six years, and, during all the time of my exile, I lived in the mining
+region of the Lena. In Moscow I was imprisoned for about nine months.
+That's all!"
+
+"So-o! But what does it mean?" muttered Yakov Tarasovich, with confusion
+and joy.
+
+"And here they circulated that absurd rumour."
+
+"That's right--it is absurd indeed!" said the old man, distressed.
+
+"And it did a pretty great deal of harm on a certain occasion."
+
+"Really? Is that possible?"
+
+"Yes. I was about to go into business for myself, and my credit was
+ruined on account of--"
+
+"Pshaw!" said Yakov Tarasovich, as he spat angrily. "Oh, devil! Come,
+come, is that possible?"
+
+Foma sat all this time in his corner, listening to the conversation
+between the Mayakins, and, blinking perplexedly, he fixedly examined the
+newcomer. Recalling Lubov's bearing toward her brother, and influenced,
+to a certain degree, by her stories about Taras, he expected to see
+in him something unusual, something unlike the ordinary people. He had
+thought that Taras would speak in some peculiar way, would dress in
+a manner peculiar to himself; and in general he would be unlike other
+people. While before him sat a sedate, stout man, faultlessly dressed,
+with stern eyes, very much like his father in face, and the only
+difference between them was that the son had a cigar in his mouth and
+a black beard. He spoke briefly in a business-like way of everyday
+things--where was, then, that peculiar something about him? Now he began
+to tell his father of the profits in the manufacture of soda. He had not
+been a galley slave--Lubov had lied! And Foma was very much pleased when
+he pictured to himself how he would speak to Lubov about her brother.
+
+Now and then she appeared in the doorway during the conversation between
+her father and her brother. Her face was radiant with happiness, and her
+eyes beamed with joy as she looked at the black figure of Taras, clad in
+such a peculiarly thick frock coat, with pockets on the sides and with
+big buttons. She walked on tiptoe, and somehow always stretched her neck
+toward her brother. Foma looked at her questioningly, but she did not
+notice him, constantly running back and forth past the door, with plates
+and bottles in her hands.
+
+It so happened that she glanced into the room just when her brother was
+telling her father about the galleys. She stopped as though petrified,
+holding a tray in her outstretched hands and listened to everything her
+brother said about the punishment inflicted upon him. She listened, and
+slowly walked away, without catching Foma's astonished and sarcastic
+glance. Absorbed in his reflections on Taras, slightly offended by the
+lack of attention shown him, and by the fact that since the handshake
+at the introduction Taras had not given him a single glance, Foma ceased
+for awhile to follow the conversation of the Mayakins, and suddenly he
+felt that someone seized him by the shoulder. He trembled and sprang
+to his feet, almost felling his godfather, who stood before him with
+excited face:
+
+"There--look! That is a man! That's what a Mayakin is! They have seven
+times boiled him in lye; they have squeezed oil out of him, and yet he
+lives! Understand? Without any aid--alone--he made his way and found his
+place and--he is proud! That means Mayakin! A Mayakin means a man who
+holds his fate in his own hands. Do you understand? Take a lesson from
+him! Look at him! You cannot find another like him in a hundred; you'd
+have to look for one in a thousand. What? Just bear this in mind: You
+cannot forge a Mayakin from man into either devil or angel."
+
+Stupefied by this tempestuous shock, Foma became confused and did not
+know what to say in reply to the old man's noisy song of praise. He saw
+that Taras, calmly smoking his cigar, was looking at his father, and
+that the corners of his lips were quivering with a smile. His
+face looked condescendingly contented, and all his figure somewhat
+aristocratic and haughty. He seemed to be amused by the old man's joy.
+
+And Yakov Tarasovich tapped Foma on the chest with his finger and said:
+
+"I do not know him, my own son. He has not opened his soul to me. It
+may be that such a difference had grown up between us that not only
+an eagle, but the devil himself cannot cross it. Perhaps his blood has
+overboiled; that there is not even the scent of the father's blood in
+it. But he is a Mayakin! And I can feel it at once! I feel it and say:
+'Today thou forgivest Thy servant, Oh Lord!'"
+
+The old man was trembling with the fever of his exultation, and fairly
+hopped as he stood before Foma.
+
+"Calm yourself, father!" said Taras, slowly rising from his chair and
+walking up to his father. "Why confuse the young man? Come, let us sit
+down."
+
+He gave Foma a fleeting smile, and, taking his father by the arm, led
+him toward the table.
+
+"I believe in blood," said Yakov Tarasovich; "in hereditary blood.
+Therein lies all power! My father, I remember, told me: 'Yashka, you
+are my genuine blood!' There. The blood of the Mayakins is thick--it is
+transferred from father to father and no woman can ever weaken it. Let
+us drink some champagne! Shall we? Very well, then! Tell me more--tell
+me about yourself. How is it there in Siberia?"
+
+And again, as though frightened and sobered by some thought, the old
+man fixed his searching eyes upon the face of his son. And a few minutes
+later the circumstantial but brief replies of his son again aroused in
+him a noisy joy. Foma kept on listening and watching, as he sat quietly
+in his corner.
+
+"Gold mining, of course, is a solid business," said Taras, calmly, with
+importance, "but it is a rather risky operation and one requiring a
+large capital. The earth says not a word about what it contains within
+it. It is very profitable to deal with foreigners. Dealings with
+them, under any circumstances, yield an enormous percentage. That is a
+perfectly infallible enterprise. But a weary one, it must be admitted.
+It does not require much brains; there is no room in it for an
+extraordinary man; a man with great enterprising power cannot develop in
+it."
+
+Lubov entered and invited them all into the dining-room. When the
+Mayakins stepped out Foma imperceptibly tugged Lubov by the sleeve, and
+she remained with him alone, inquiring hastily:
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Nothing," said Foma, with a smile. "I want to ask you whether you are
+glad?"
+
+"Of course I am!" exclaimed Lubov.
+
+"And what about?"
+
+"That is, what do you mean?"
+
+"Just so. What about?"
+
+"You're queer!" said Lubov, looking at him with astonishment. "Can't you
+see?"
+
+"What?" asked Foma, sarcastically.
+
+"What's the trouble with you?" said Lubov, looking at him uneasily.
+
+"Eh, you!" drawled out Foma, with contemptuous pity. "Can your father,
+can the merchant class beget anything good? Can you expect a radish to
+bring forth raspberries? And you lied to me. Taras is this, Taras is
+that. What is in him? A merchant, like the other merchants, and his
+paunch is also that of the real merchant. He-he!" He was satisfied,
+seeing that the girl, confused by his words, was biting her lips, now
+flushing, now turning pale.
+
+"You--you, Foma," she began, in a choking voice, and suddenly stamping
+her foot, she cried:
+
+"Don't you dare to speak to me!"
+
+On reaching the threshold of the room, she turned her angry face to him,
+and ejaculated in a low voice, emphatically:
+
+"Oh, you malicious man!"
+
+Foma burst into laughter. He did not feel like going to the table, where
+three happy people were engaged in a lively conversation. He heard their
+merry voices, their contented laughter, the rattle of the dishes, and he
+understood that, with that burden on his heart, there was no place for
+him beside them. Nor was there a place for him anywhere. If all people
+only hated him, even as Lubov hated him now, he would feel more at ease
+in their midst, he thought. Then he would know how to behave with them,
+would find something to say to them. While now he could not understand
+whether they were pitying him or whether they were laughing at him,
+because he had lost his way and could not conform himself to anything.
+As he stood awhile alone in the middle of the room, he unconsciously
+resolved to leave this house where people were rejoicing and where he
+was superfluous. On reaching the street, he felt himself offended by the
+Mayakins. After all, they were the only people near to him in the world.
+Before him arose his godfather's face, on which the wrinkles quivered
+with agitation, and illuminated by the merry glitter of his green eyes,
+seemed to beam with phosphoric light.
+
+"Even a rotten trunk of a tree stands out in the dark!" reflected Foma,
+savagely. Then he recalled the calm and serious face of Taras and beside
+it the figure of Lubov bowing herself hastily toward him. That aroused
+in him feelings of envy and sorrow.
+
+"Who will look at me like that? There is not a soul to do it."
+
+He came to himself from his broodings on the shore, at the
+landing-places, aroused by the bustle of toil. All sorts of articles
+and wares were carried and carted in every direction; people moved about
+hastily, care-worn, spurring on their horses excitedly, shouting at one
+another, filling the street with unintelligible bustle and deafening
+noise of hurried work. They busied themselves on a narrow strip of
+ground, paved with stone, built up on one side with tall houses, and the
+other side cut off by a steep ravine at the river, and their seething
+bustle made upon Foma an impression as though they had all prepared
+themselves to flee from this toil amid filth and narrowness and
+tumult--prepared themselves to flee and were now hastening to complete
+the sooner the unfinished work which would not release them. Huge
+steamers, standing by the shore and emitting columns of smoke from their
+funnels, were already awaiting them. The troubled water of the river,
+closely obstructed with vessels, was softly and plaintively splashing
+against the shore, as though imploring for a minute of rest and repose.
+
+"Your Honour!" a hoarse cry rang out near Foma's ears, "contribute some
+brandy in honour of the building!"
+
+Foma glanced at the petitioner indifferently; he was a huge, bearded
+fellow, barefooted, with a torn shirt and a bruised, swollen face.
+
+"Get away!" muttered Foma, and turned away from him.
+
+"Merchant! When you die you can't take your money with you. Give me
+for one glass of brandy, or are you too lazy to put your hand into your
+pocket?"
+
+Foma again looked at the petitioner; the latter stood before
+him, covered more with mud than with clothes, and, trembling with
+intoxication, waited obstinately, staring at Foma with blood-shot,
+swollen eyes.
+
+"Is that the way to ask?" inquired Foma.
+
+"How else? Would you want me to go down on my knees before you for a
+ten-copeck piece?" asked the bare-footed man, boldly.
+
+"There!" and Foma gave him a coin.
+
+"Thanks! Fifteen copecks. Thanks! And if you give me fifteen more I'll
+crawl on all fours right up to that tavern. Do you want me to?" proposed
+the barefooted man.
+
+"Go, leave me alone!" said Foma, waving him off with his hand.
+
+"He who gives not when he may, when he fain would, shall have nay," said
+the barefooted man, and stepped aside.
+
+Foma looked at him as he departed, and said to himself:
+
+"There is a ruined man and yet how bold he is. He asks alms as though
+demanding a debt. Where do such people get so much boldness?"
+
+And heaving a deep sigh, he answered himself:
+
+"From freedom. The man is not fettered. What is there that he should
+regret? What does he fear? And what do I fear? What is there that I
+should regret?"
+
+These two questions seemed to strike Foma's heart and called forth in
+him a dull perplexity. He looked at the movement of the working people
+and kept on thinking: What did he regret? What did he fear?
+
+"Alone, with my own strength, I shall evidently never come out anywhere.
+Like a fool I shall keep on tramping about among people, mocked and
+offended by all. If they would only jostle me aside; if they would only
+hate me, then--then--I would go out into the wide world! Whether I liked
+or not, I would have to go!"
+
+From one of the landing wharves the merry "dubinushka" ["Dubinushka,"
+or the "Oaken Cudgel," is a song popular with the Russian workmen.] had
+already been smiting the air for a long time. The carriers were doing a
+certain work, which required brisk movements, and were adapting the song
+and the refrain to them.
+
+     "In the tavern sit great merchants
+     Drinking liquors strong,"
+
+narrated the leader, in a bold recitative. The company joined in unison:
+
+     "Oh, dubinushka, heave-ho!"
+
+And then the bassos smote the air with deep sounds:
+
+     "It goes, it goes."
+
+And the tenors repeated:
+
+     "It goes, it goes."
+
+Foma listened to the song and directed his footsteps toward it, on the
+wharf. There he noticed that the carriers, formed in two rows, were
+rolling out of the steamer's hold huge barrels of salted fish. Dirty,
+clad in red blouses, unfastened at the collar, with mittens on their
+hands, with arms bare to the elbow, they stood over the hold, and,
+merrily jesting, with faces animated by toil, they pulled the ropes,
+all together, keeping time to their song. And from the hold rang out the
+high, laughing voice of the invisible leader:
+
+     "But for our peasant throats
+     There is not enough vodka."
+
+And the company, like one huge pair of lungs, heaved forth loudly and in
+unison:
+
+     "Oh, dubinushka, heave-ho!"
+
+Foma felt pleased and envious as he looked at this work, which was as
+harmonious as music. The slovenly faces of the carriers beamed with
+smiles, the work was easy, it went on smoothly, and the leader of the
+chorus was in his best vein. Foma thought that it would be fine to work
+thus in unison, with good comrades, to the tune of a cheerful song, to
+get tired from work to drink a glass of vodka and eat fat cabbage soup,
+prepared by the stout, sprightly matron of the company.
+
+"Quicker, boys, quicker!" rang out beside him someone's unpleasant,
+hoarse voice.
+
+Foma turned around. A stout man, with an enormous paunch, tapped on the
+boards of the landing bridge with his cane, as he looked at the carriers
+with his small eyes and said:
+
+"Bawl less and work faster."
+
+His face and neck were covered with perspiration; he wiped it off every
+now and then with his left hand and breathed heavily, as though he were
+going uphill.
+
+Foma cast at the man a hostile look and thought:
+
+"Others are working and he is sweating. And I am still worse than he.
+I'm like a crow on the fence, good for nothing."
+
+From each and every impression there immediately stood out in his mind
+the painful thought of his unfitness for life. Everything that attracted
+his attention contained something offensive to him, and this something
+fell like a brick upon his breast. At one side of him, by the freight
+scales, stood two sailors, and one of them, a square-built, red-faced
+fellow, was telling the other:
+
+"As they rushed on me it began for fair, my dear chap! There were four
+of them--I was alone! But I didn't give in to them, because I saw that
+they would beat me to death! Even a ram will kick out if you fleece
+it alive. How I tore myself away from them! They all rolled away in
+different directions."
+
+"But you came in for a sound drubbing all the same?" inquired the other
+sailor.
+
+"Of course! I caught it. I swallowed about five blows. But what's the
+difference? They didn't kill me. Well, thank God for it!"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"To the stern, devils, to the stern, I'm telling you!" roared the
+perspiring man in a ferocious voice at two carriers who were rolling a
+barrel of fish along the deck.
+
+"What are you yelling for?" Foma turned to him sternly, as he had
+started at the shout.
+
+"Is that any of your business?" asked the perspiring man, casting a
+glance at Foma.
+
+"It is my business! The people are working and your fat is melting away.
+So you think you must yell at them?" said Foma, threateningly, moving
+closer toward him.
+
+"You--you had better keep your temper."
+
+The perspiring man suddenly rushed away from his place and went into his
+office. Foma looked after him and also went away from the wharf; filled
+with a desire to abuse some one, to do something, just to divert his
+thoughts from himself at least for a short while. But his thoughts took
+a firmer hold on him.
+
+"That sailor there, he tore himself away, and he's safe and sound! Yes,
+while I--"
+
+In the evening he again went up to the Mayakins. The old man was not at
+home, and in the dining-room sat Lubov with her brother, drinking tea.
+On reaching the door Foma heard the hoarse voice of Taras:
+
+"What makes father bother himself about him?"
+
+At the sight of Foma he stopped short, staring at his face with a
+serious, searching look. An expression of agitation was clearly depicted
+on Lubov's face, and she said with dissatisfaction and at the same time
+apologetically:
+
+"Ah! So it's you?"
+
+"They've been speaking of me," thought Foma, as he seated himself at
+the table. Taras turned his eyes away from him and sank deeper in the
+armchair. There was an awkward silence lasting for about a minute, and
+this pleased Foma.
+
+"Are you going to the banquet?"
+
+"What banquet?"
+
+"Don't you know? Kononov is going to consecrate his new steamer. A mass
+will be held there and then they are going to take a trip up the Volga."
+
+"I was not invited," said Foma.
+
+"Nobody was invited. He simply announced on the Exchange: 'Anybody who
+wishes to honour me is welcome!
+
+"I don't care for it."
+
+"Yes? But there will be a grand drinking bout," said Lubov, looking at
+him askance.
+
+"I can drink at my own expense if I choose to do so."
+
+"I know," said Lubov, nodding her head expressively.
+
+Taras toyed with his teaspoon, turning it between his fingers and
+looking at them askance.
+
+"And where's my godfather?" asked Foma.
+
+"He went to the bank. There's a meeting of the board of directors today.
+Election of officers is to take place.
+
+"They'll elect him again."
+
+"Of course."
+
+And again the conversation broke off. Foma began to watch the brother
+and the sister. Having dropped the spoon, Taras slowly drank his tea in
+big sips, and silently moving the glass over to his sister, smiled to
+her. She, too, smiled joyously and happily, seized the glass and began
+to rinse it assiduously. Then her face assumed a strained expression;
+she seemed to prepare herself for something and asked her brother in a
+low voice, almost reverently:
+
+"Shall we return to the beginning of our conversation?"
+
+"If you please," assented Taras, shortly.
+
+"You said something, but I didn't understand. What was it? I asked: 'If
+all this is, as you say, Utopia, if it is impossible, dreams, then what
+is he to do who is not satisfied with life as it is?'"
+
+The girl leaned her whole body toward her brother, and her eyes, with
+strained expectation, stopped on the calm face of her brother. He
+glanced at her in a weary way, moved about in his seat, and, lowering
+his head, said calmly and impressively:
+
+"We must consider from what source springs that dissatisfaction with
+life. It seems to me that, first of all, it comes from the inability
+to work; from the lack of respect for work. And, secondly, from a wrong
+conception of one's own powers. The misfortune of most of the people
+is that they consider themselves capable of doing more than they really
+can. And yet only little is required of man: he must select for himself
+an occupation to suit his powers and must master it as well as possible,
+as attentively as possible. You must love what you are doing, and then
+labour, be it ever so rough, rises to the height of creativeness. A
+chair, made with love, will always be a good, beautiful and solid chair.
+And so it is with everything. Read Smiles. Haven't you read him? It is
+a very sensible book. It is a sound book. Read Lubbock. In general,
+remember that the English people constitute the nation most qualified
+for labour, which fact explains their astonishing success in the domain
+of industry and commerce. With them labour is almost a cult. The height
+of culture stands always directly dependent upon the love of labour. And
+the higher the culture the more satisfied are the requirements of man,
+the fewer the obstacles on the road toward the further development
+of man's requirements. Happiness is possible--it is the complete
+satisfaction of requirements. There it is. And, as you see, man's
+happiness is dependent upon his relation toward his work."
+
+Taras Mayakin spoke slowly and laboriously, as though it were unpleasant
+and tedious for him to speak. And Lubov, with knitted brow, leaning
+toward him, listened to his words with eager attention in her eyes,
+ready to accept everything and imbibe it into her soul.
+
+"Well, and suppose everything is repulsive to a man?" asked Foma,
+suddenly, in a deep voice, casting a glance at Taras's face.
+
+"But what, in particular, is repulsive to the man?" asked Mayakin,
+calmly, without looking at Foma.
+
+Foma bent his head, leaned his arms against the table and thus, like a
+bull, went on to explain himself:
+
+"Nothing pleases him--business, work, all people and deeds. Suppose I
+see that all is deceit, that business is not business, but merely a
+plug that we prop up with it the emptiness of our souls; that some work,
+while others only give orders and sweat, but get more for that. Why is
+it so? Eh?"
+
+"I cannot grasp your idea," announced Taras, when Foma paused, feeling
+on himself Lubov's contemptuous and angry look.
+
+"You do not understand?" asked Foma, looking at Taras with a smile.
+"Well, I'll put it in this way:
+
+A man is sailing in a boat on the river. The boat may be good, but under
+it there is always a depth all the same. The boat is sound, but if the
+man feels beneath him this dark depth, no boat can save him."
+
+Taras looked at Foma indifferently and calmly. He looked in silence, and
+softly tapped his fingers on the edge of the table. Lubov was uneasily
+moving about in her chair. The pendulum of the clock told the seconds
+with a dull, sighing sound. And Foma's heart throbbed slowly and
+painfully, as though conscious that here no one would respond with a
+warm word to its painful perplexity.
+
+"Work is not exactly everything for a man," said he, more to himself
+than to these people who had no faith in the sincerity of his words. "It
+is not true that in work lies justification. There are people who do not
+work at all during all their lives long, and yet they live better
+than those that do work. How is that? And the toilers--they are merely
+unfortunate--horses! Others ride on them, they suffer and that's all.
+But they have their justification before God. They will be asked: 'To
+what purpose did you live?' Then they will say: 'We had no time to think
+of that. We worked all our lives.' And I--what justification have I? And
+all those people who give orders--how will they justify themselves? To
+what purpose have they lived? It is my idea that everybody necessarily
+ought to know, to know firmly what he is living for."
+
+He became silent, and, tossing his head up, exclaimed in a heavy voice:
+
+"Can it be that man is born merely to work, acquire money, build a
+house, beget children and--die? No, life means something. A man is born,
+he lives and dies. What for? It is necessary, by God, it is necessary
+for all of us to consider what we are living for. There is no sense in
+our life. No sense whatever! Then things are not equal, that can be seen
+at once. Some are rich--they have money enough for a thousand people,
+and they live in idleness. Others bend their backs over their work all
+their lives, and yet they have not even a grosh. And the difference
+in people is very insignificant. There are some that have not even any
+trousers and yet they reason as though they were attired in silks."
+
+Carried away by his thoughts, Foma would have continued to give them
+utterance, but Taras moved his armchair away from the table, rose and
+said softly, with a sigh:
+
+"No, thank you! I don't want any more."
+
+Foma broke off his speech abruptly, shrugged his shoulders and looked at
+Lubov with a smile.
+
+"Where have you picked up such philosophy?" she asked, suspiciously and
+drily.
+
+"That is not philosophy. That is simply torture!" said Foma in an
+undertone. "Open your eyes and look at everything. Then you will think
+so yourself."
+
+"By the way, Luba, turn your attention to the fact," began Taras,
+standing with his back toward the table and scrutinizing the clock,
+"that pessimism is perfectly foreign to the Anglo-Saxon race. That
+which they call pessimism in Swift and in Byron is only a burning, sharp
+protest against the imperfection of life and man. But you cannot find
+among them the cold, well weighed and passive pessimism."
+
+Then, as though suddenly recalling Foma, he turned to him, clasping his
+hands behind his back, and, wriggling his thigh, said:
+
+"You raise very important questions, and if you are seriously interested
+in them you must read books. In them will you find many very valuable
+opinions as to the meaning of life. How about you--do you read books?"
+
+"No!" replied Foma, briefly.
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"I don't like them."
+
+"Aha! But they might nevertheless be of some help to you," said Taras,
+and a smile passed across his lips.
+
+"Books? Since men cannot help me in my thoughts books can certainly do
+nothing for me," ejaculated Foma, morosely.
+
+He began to feel awkward and weary with this indifferent man. He felt
+like going away, but at the same time he wished to tell Lubov something
+insulting about her brother, and he waited till Taras would leave the
+room. Lubov washed the dishes; her face was concentrated and thoughtful;
+her hands moved lazily. Taras was pacing the room, now and then
+he stopped short before the sideboard on which was the silverware,
+whistled, tapped his fingers against the window-panes and examined the
+articles with his eyes half shut. The pendulum of the clock flashed
+beneath the glass door of the case like some broad, grinning face, and
+monotonously told the seconds. When Foma noticed that Lubov glanced
+at him a few times questioningly, with expectant and hostile looks, he
+understood that he was in her way and that she was impatiently expecting
+him to leave.
+
+"I am going to stay here over night," said he, with a smile. "I must
+speak with my godfather. And then it is rather lonesome in my house
+alone."
+
+"Then go and tell Marfusha to make the bed for you in the corner room,"
+Lubov hastened to advise him.
+
+"I shall."
+
+He arose and went out of the dining-room. And he soon heard that Taras
+asked his sister about something in a low voice.
+
+"About me!" he thought. Suddenly this wicked thought flashed through
+his mind: "It were but right to listen and hear what wise people have to
+say."
+
+He laughed softly, and, stepping on tiptoe, went noiselessly into the
+other room, also adjoining the dining-room. There was no light there,
+and only a thin band of light from the dining-room, passing through the
+unclosed door, lay on the dark floor. Softly, with sinking heart and
+malicious smile, Foma walked up close to the door and stopped.
+
+"He's a clumsy fellow," said Taras.
+
+Then came Lubov's lowered and hasty speech:
+
+"He was carousing here all the time. He carried on dreadfully! It all
+started somehow of a sudden. The first thing he did was to thrash
+the son-in-law of the Vice-Governor at the Club. Papa had to take the
+greatest pains to hush up the scandal, and it was a good thing that
+the Vice-Governor's son-in-law is a man of very bad reputation. He is a
+card-sharper and in general a shady personality, yet it cost father more
+than two thousand roubles. And while papa was busying himself about that
+scandal Foma came near drowning a whole company on the Volga."
+
+"Ha-ha! How monstrous! And that same man busies himself with
+investigating as to the meaning of life."
+
+"On another occasion he was carousing on a steamer with a company of
+people like himself. Suddenly he said to them: 'Pray to God! I'll fling
+every one of you overboard!' He is frightfully strong. They screamed,
+while he said: 'I want to serve my country. I want to clear the earth of
+base people.'"
+
+"Really? That's clever!"
+
+"He's a terrible man! How many wild pranks he has perpetrated during
+these years! How much money he has squandered!"
+
+"And, tell me, on what conditions does father manage his affairs for
+him? Do you know?"
+
+"No, I don't. He has a full power of attorney. Why do you ask?"
+
+"Simply so. It's a solid business. Of course it is conducted in purely
+Russian fashion; in other words, it is conducted abominably. But it is a
+splendid business, nevertheless. If it were managed properly it would be
+a most profitable gold mine."
+
+"Foma does absolutely nothing. Everything is in father's hands."
+
+"Yes? That's fine."
+
+"Do you know, sometimes it occurs to me that his thoughtful frame of
+mind--that these words of his are sincere, and that he can be very
+decent. But I cannot reconcile his scandalous life with his words and
+arguments. I cannot do it under any circumstances!"
+
+"It isn't even worthwhile to bother about it. The stripling and lazy
+bones seeks to justify his laziness."
+
+"No. You see, at times he is like a child. He was particularly so
+before."
+
+"Well, that's what I have said: he's a stripling. Is it worth while
+talking about an ignoramus and a savage, who wishes to remain an
+ignoramus and a savage, and does not conceal the fact? You see: he
+reasons as the bear in the fable bent the shafts."
+
+"You are very harsh."
+
+"Yes, I am harsh! People require that. We Russians are all desperately
+loose. Happily, life is so arranged that, whether we will it or not, we
+gradually brace up. Dreams are for the lads and maidens, but for serious
+people there is serious business."
+
+"Sometimes I feel very sorry for Foma. What will become of him?"
+
+"That does not concern me. I believe that nothing in particular will
+become of him--neither good nor bad. The insipid fellow will squander
+his money away, and will be ruined. What else? Eh, the deuce take him!
+Such people as he is are rare nowadays. Now the merchant knows the power
+of education. And he, that foster-brother of yours, he will go to ruin."
+
+"That's true, sir!" said Foma, opening the door and appearing on the
+threshold.
+
+Pale, with knitted brow and quivering lips, he stared straight into
+Taras's face and said in a dull voice: "True! I will go to ruin
+and--amen! The sooner the better!"
+
+Lubov sprang up from the chair with frightened face, and ran up to
+Taras, who stood calmly in the middle of the room, with his hands thrust
+in his pockets.
+
+"Foma! Oh! Shame! You have been eavesdropping. Oh, Foma!" said she in
+confusion.
+
+"Keep quiet, you lamb!" said Foma to her.
+
+"Yes, eavesdropping is wrong!" ejaculated Taras, slowly, without lifting
+from Foma his look of contempt.
+
+"Let it be wrong!" said Foma, with a wave of the hand. "Is it my fault
+that the truth can be learned by eavesdropping only?"
+
+"Go away, Foma, please!" entreated Lubov, pressing close to her brother.
+
+"Perhaps you have something to say to me?" asked Taras, calmly.
+
+"I?" exclaimed Foma. "What can I say? I cannot say anything. It is you
+who--you, I believe, know everything."
+
+"You have nothing then to discuss with me?" asked Taras again.
+
+"I am very pleased."
+
+He turned sideways to Foma and inquired of Lubov:
+
+"What do you think--will father return soon?"
+
+Foma looked at him, and, feeling something akin to respect for the man,
+deliberately left the house. He did not feel like going to his own huge
+empty house, where each step of his awakened a ringing echo, he strolled
+along the street, which was enveloped in the melancholy gray twilight of
+late autumn. He thought of Taras Mayakin.
+
+"How severe he is. He takes after his father. Only he's not so restless.
+He's also a cunning rogue, I think, while Lubka regarded him almost as a
+saint. That foolish girl! What a sermon he read to me! A regular judge.
+And she--she was kind toward me." But all these thoughts stirred in
+him no feelings--neither hatred toward Taras nor sympathy for Lubov.
+He carried with him something painful and uncomfortable, something
+incomprehensible to him, that kept growing within his breast, and it
+seemed to him that his heart was swollen and was gnawing as though from
+an abscess. He hearkened to that unceasing and indomitable pain, noticed
+that it was growing more and more acute from hour to hour, and, not
+knowing how to allay it, waited for the results.
+
+Then his godfather's trotter passed him. Foma saw in the carriage the
+small figure of Yakov Mayakin, but even that aroused no feeling in him.
+A lamplighter ran past Foma, overtook him, placed his ladder against the
+lamp post and went up. The ladder suddenly slipped under his weight, and
+he, clasping the lamp post, cursed loudly and angrily. A girl jostled
+Foma in the side with her bundle and said:
+
+"Excuse me."
+
+He glanced at her and said nothing. Then a drizzling rain began to fall
+from the sky--tiny, scarcely visible drops of moisture overcast the
+lights of the lanterns and the shop windows with grayish dust. This dust
+made him breathe with difficulty.
+
+"Shall I go to Yozhov and pass the night there? I might drink with him,"
+thought Foma and went away to Yozhov, not having the slightest desire
+either to see the feuilleton-writer or to drink with him.
+
+At Yozhov's he found a shaggy fellow sitting on the lounge. He had on a
+blouse and gray pantaloons. His face was swarthy, as though smoked, his
+eyes were large, immobile and angry, his thick upper lip was covered
+with a bristle-like, soldier moustache. He was sitting on the lounge,
+with his feet clasped in his huge arms and his chin resting on his
+knees. Yozhov sat sideways in a chair, with his legs thrown across the
+arm of the chair. Among books and newspapers on the table stood a bottle
+of vodka and there was an odour of something salty in the room.
+
+"Why are you tramping about?" Yozhov asked Foma, and, nodding at him,
+said to the man on the lounge: "Gordyeeff!"
+
+The man glanced at the newcomer and said in a harsh, shrill voice:
+"Krasnoshchokov."
+
+Foma seated himself on a corner of the lounge and said to Yozhov:
+
+"I have come to stay here over night."
+
+"Well? Go on, Vasily."
+
+The latter glanced at Foma askance and went on in a creaking voice:
+
+"In my opinion, you are attacking the stupid people in vain. Masaniello
+was a fool, but what had to be performed was done in the best way
+possible. And that Winkelried was certainly a fool also, and yet had he
+not thrust the imperial spears into himself the Swiss would have been
+thrashed. Have there not been many fools like that? Yet they are the
+heroes. And the clever people are the cowards. Where they ought to deal
+the obstacle a blow with all their might they stop to reflect: 'What
+will come of it? Perhaps we may perish in vain?' And they stand there
+like posts--until they breathe their last. And the fool is brave! He
+rushes headforemost against the wall--bang! If his skull breaks--what of
+it? Calves' heads are not dear. And if he makes a crack in the wall
+the clever people will pick it open into gates, will pass and credit
+themselves with the honour. No, Nikolay Matveyich, bravery is a good
+thing even though it be without reason."
+
+"Vasily, you are talking nonsense!" said Yozhov, stretching his hand
+toward him.
+
+"Ah, of course!" assented Vasily. "How am I to sip cabbage soup with a
+bast shoe? And yet I am not blind. I can see. There is plenty of brains,
+but no good comes of it. During the time the clever people think and
+reflect as to how to act in the wisest way, the fools will down them.
+That's all."
+
+"Wait a little!" said Yozhov.
+
+"I can't! I am on duty today. I am rather late as it is. I'll drop in
+tomorrow--may I?"
+
+"Come! I'll give a roasting!"
+
+"That's exactly your business."
+
+Vasily adjusted himself slowly, rose from the lounge, took Yozhov's
+yellow, thin little hand in his big, swarthy paw and pressed it.
+
+"Goodbye!"
+
+Then he nodded toward Foma and went through the door sideways.
+
+"Have you seen?" Yozhov asked Foma, pointing his hand at the door,
+behind which the heavy footsteps still resounded.
+
+"What sort of a man is he?"
+
+"Assistant machinist, Vaska Krasnoshchokov. Here, take an example from
+him: At the age of fifteen he began to study, to read and write, and at
+twenty-eight he has read the devil knows how many good books, and has
+mastered two languages to perfection. Now he's going abroad."
+
+"What for?" inquired Foma.
+
+"To study. To see how people live there, while you languish here--what
+for?"
+
+"He spoke sensibly of the fools," said Foma, thoughtfully.
+
+"I don't know, for I am not a fool."
+
+"That was well said. The stupid man ought to act at once. Rush forward
+and overturn."
+
+"There, he's broken loose!" exclaimed Yozhov. "You better tell me
+whether it is true that Mayakin's son has returned?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"I can see by your face that there is something."
+
+"We know all about his son; we've heard about him."
+
+"But I have seen him."
+
+"Well? What sort of man is he?"
+
+"The devil knows him! What have I to do with him?"
+
+"Is he like his father?"
+
+"He's stouter, plumper; there is more seriousness about him; he is so
+cold."
+
+"Which means that he will be even worse than Yashka. Well, now, my dear,
+be on your guard or they will suck you dry."
+
+"Well, let them do it!"
+
+"They'll rob you. You'll become a pauper. That Taras fleeced his
+father-in-law in Yekateringburg so cleverly."
+
+"Let him fleece me too, if he likes. I shall not say a word to him
+except 'thanks.'"
+
+"You are still singing that same old tune?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"To be set at liberty."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Drop it! What do you want freedom for? What will you do with it? Don't
+you know that you are not fit for anything, that you are illiterate,
+that you certainly cannot even split a log of wood? Now, if I could only
+free myself from the necessity of drinking vodka and eating bread!"
+
+Yozhov jumped to his feet, and, stopping in front of Foma, began to
+speak in a loud voice, as though declaiming:
+
+"I would gather together the remains of my wounded soul, and together
+with the blood of my heart I would spit them into the face of our
+intelligent society, the devil take it! I would say to them:
+
+'You insects, you are the best sap of my country! The fact of your
+existence has been repaid by the blood and the tears of scores of
+generations of Russian people. O, you nits! How dearly your country
+has paid for you! What are you doing for its sake in return? Have you
+transformed the tears of the past into pearls? What have you contributed
+toward life? What have you accomplished? You have permitted yourselves
+to be conquered? What are you doing? You permit yourselves to be
+mocked.'"
+
+He stamped his feet with rage, and setting his teeth together stared at
+Foma with burning, angry looks, and resembled an infuriated wild beast.
+
+"I would say to them: 'You! You reason too much, but you are not very
+wise, and you are utterly powerless, and you are all cowards! Your
+hearts are filled up with morality and noble intentions, but they are as
+soft and warm as feather beds; the spirit of creativeness sleeps within
+them a profound and calm sleep, and your hearts do not throb, they
+merely rock slowly, like cradles.' Dipping my finger in the blood of my
+heart, I would smear upon their brows the brands of my reproaches, and
+they, paupers in spirit, miserable in their self-contentment, they would
+suffer. Oh, how they would suffer! My scourge is sharp, my hand is firm!
+And I love too deeply to have compassion! They would suffer! And now
+they do not suffer, for they speak of their sufferings too much, too
+often, and too loud! They lie! Genuine suffering is mute, and genuine
+passion knows no bounds! Passions, passions! When will they spring up in
+the hearts of men? We are all miserable because of apathy."
+
+Short of breath he burst into a fit of coughing, he coughed for a long
+time, hopping about hither and thither, waving his hands like a madman.
+And then he again stopped in front of Foma with pale face and blood-shot
+eyes. He breathed heavily, his lips trembled now and then, displaying
+his small, sharp teeth. Dishevelled, with his head covered with short
+heir, he looked like a perch just thrown out of the water. This was
+not the first time Foma saw him in such a state, and, as always, he was
+infected by his agitation. He listened to the fiery words of the small
+man, silently, without attempting to understand their meaning, having
+no desire to know against whom they were directed, absorbing their force
+only. Yozhov's words bubbled on like boiling water, and heated his soul.
+
+"I will say to them, to those miserable idlers:
+
+'Look! Life goes onward, leaving you behind!'"
+
+"Eh! That's fine!" exclaimed Foma, ecstatically, and began to move about
+on the lounge. "You're a hero, Nikolay! Oh! Go ahead! Throw it right
+into their faces!"
+
+But Yozhov was not in need of encouragement, it seemed even as though he
+had not heard at all Foma's exclamations, and he went on:
+
+"I know the limitations of my powers. I know they'll shout at me: 'Hold
+your peace!' They'll tell me: 'Keep silence!' They will say it wisely,
+they will say it calmly, mocking me, they will say it from the height
+of their majesty. I know I am only a small bird, Oh, I am not a
+nightingale! Compared with them I am an ignorant man, I am only a
+feuilleton-writer, a man to amuse the public. Let them cry and silence
+me, let them do it! A blow will fall on my cheek, but the heart will
+nevertheless keep on throbbing! And I will say to them:
+
+"'Yes, I am an ignorant man! And my first advantage over you is that
+I do not know a single book-truth dearer to me than a man! Man is the
+universe, and may he live forever who carries the whole world within
+him! And you,'I will say, 'for the sake of a word which, perhaps, does
+not always contain a meaning comprehensible to you, for the sake of a
+word you often inflict sores and wounds on one another, for the sake of
+a word you spurt one another with bile, you assault the soul. For this,
+believe me, life will severely call you to account: a storm will break
+loose, and it will whisk and wash you off the earth, as wind and rain
+whisk and wash the dust off a tree I There is in human language only one
+word whose meaning is clear and dear to everybody, and when that word is
+pronounced, it sounds thus: 'Freedom!'"
+
+"Crush on!" roared Foma, jumping up from the lounge and grasping Yozhov
+by the shoulders. With flashing eyes he gazed into Yozhov's face,
+bending toward him, and almost moaned with grief and affliction: "Oh!
+Nikolay! My dear fellow, I am mortally sorry for you! I am more sorry
+than words can tell!"
+
+"What's this? What's the matter with you?" cried Yozhov, pushing him
+away, amazed and shifted from his position by Foma's unexpected outburst
+and strange words.
+
+"Oh, brother!" said Foma, lowering his voice, which thus sounded deeper,
+more persuasive. "Oh, living soul, why do you sink to ruin?"
+
+"Who? I? I sink? You lie!"
+
+"My dear boy! You will not say anything to anybody! There is no one to
+speak to! Who will listen to you? Only I!"
+
+"Go to the devil!" shouted Yozhov, angrily, jumping away from him as
+though he had been scorched.
+
+And Foma went toward him, and spoke convincingly, with intense sorrow:
+
+"Speak! speak to me! I shall carry away your words to the proper place.
+I understand them. And, ah! how I will scorch the people! Just wait! My
+opportunity will come."
+
+"Go away!" screamed Yozhov, hysterically, squeezing his back to the
+wall, under Foma's pressure. Perplexed, crushed, and infuriated he stood
+and waved off Foma's arms outstretched toward him. And at this time the
+door of the room opened, and on the threshold appeared a woman all in
+black. Her face was angry-looking and excited, her cheek was tied up
+with a kerchief. She tossed her head back, stretched out her hand toward
+Yozhov and said, in a hissing and shrill voice:
+
+"Nikolay Matveyich! Excuse me, but this is impossible! Such beast-like
+howling and roaring. Guests everyday. The police are coming. No, I can't
+bear it any longer! I am nervous. Please vacate the lodgings to-morrow.
+You are not living in a desert, there are people about you here. And
+an educated man at that! A writer! All people require rest. I have a
+toothache. I request you to move tomorrow. I'll paste up a notice, I'll
+notify the police."
+
+She spoke rapidly, and the majority of her words were lost in the
+hissing and whistling of her voice; only those words were distinct,
+which she shrieked out in a shrill, irritated tone. The corners of her
+kerchief protruded on her head like small horns, and shook from the
+movement of her jaws. At the sight of her agitated and comical figure
+Foma gradually retreated toward the lounge, while Yozhov stood, and
+wiping his forehead, stared at her fixedly, and listened to her words:
+
+"So know it now!" she screamed, and behind the door, she said once more:
+
+"Tomorrow! What an outrage."
+
+"Devil!" whispered Yozhov, staring dully at the door.
+
+"Yes! what a woman! How strict!" said Foma, looking at him in amazement,
+as he seated himself on the lounge.
+
+Yozhov, raising his shoulders, walked up to the table, poured out a half
+a tea-glass full of vodka, emptied it and sat down by the table, bowing
+his head low. There was silence for about a minute. Then Foma said,
+timidly and softly:
+
+"How it all happened! We had no time even to wink an eye, and, suddenly,
+such an outcome. Ah!"
+
+"You!" said Yozhov in an undertone, tossing up his head, and staring at
+Foma angrily and wildly. "Keep quiet! You, the devil take you. Lie down
+and sleep! You monster. Nightmare. Oh!"
+
+And he threatened Foma with his fist. Then he filled the glass with more
+brandy, and emptied it again.
+
+A few minutes later Foma lay undressed on the lounge, and, with
+half-shut eyes, followed Yozhov who sat by the table in an awkward
+pose. He stared at the floor, and his lips were quietly moving. Foma was
+astonished, he could not make out why Yozhov had become angry at him.
+It could not be because he had been ordered to move out. For it was he
+himself who had been shouting.
+
+"Oh devil!" whispered Yozhov, and gnashed his teeth.
+
+Foma quietly lifted his head from the pillow. Yozhov deeply and noisily
+sighing, again stretched out his hand toward the bottle. Then Foma said
+to him softly:
+
+"Let's go to some hotel. It isn't late yet."
+
+Yozhov looked at him, and, rubbing his head with his hands, began to
+laugh strangely. Then he rose from his chair and said to Foma curtly:
+
+"Dress yourself!"
+
+And seeing how clumsily and slowly he turned on the lounge, Yozhov
+shouted with anger and impatience:
+
+"Well, be quicker! You personification of stupidity. You symbolical
+cart-shaft."
+
+"Don't curse!" said Foma, with a peaceable smile. "Is it worthwhile to
+be angry because a woman has cackled?"
+
+Yozhov glanced at him, spat and burst into harsh laughter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+"ARE all here?" asked Ilya Yefimovich Kononov, standing on the bow of
+his new steamer, and surveying the crowd of guests with beaming eyes.
+
+"It seems to be all!"
+
+And raising upward his stout, red, happy-looking face, he shouted to
+the captain, who was already standing on the bridge, beside the
+speaking-tube:
+
+"Cast off, Petrukha!"
+
+"Yes, sir!"
+
+The captain bared his huge, bald head, made the sign of the cross,
+glancing up at the sky, passed his hand over his wide, black beard,
+cleared his throat, and gave the command:
+
+"Back!"
+
+The guests watched the movements of the captain silently and
+attentively, and, emulating his example, they also began to cross
+themselves, at which performance their caps and high hats flashed
+through the air like a flock of black birds.
+
+"Give us Thy blessing, Oh Lord!" exclaimed Kononov with emotion.
+
+"Let go astern! Forward!" ordered the captain. The massive "Ilya
+Murometz," heaving a mighty sigh, emitted a thick column of white steam
+toward the side of the landing-bridge, and started upstream easily, like
+a swan.
+
+"How it started off," enthusiastically exclaimed commercial counsellor
+Lup Grigoryev Reznikov, a tall, thin, good-looking man. "Without a
+quiver! Like a lady in the dance!"
+
+"Half speed!"
+
+"It's not a ship, it's a Leviathan!" remarked with a devout sigh the
+pock-marked and stooping Trofim Zubov, cathedral-warden and principal
+usurer in town.
+
+It was a gray day. The sky, overcast with autumn clouds, was reflected
+in the water of the river, thus giving it a cold leaden colouring.
+Flashing in the freshness of its paint the steamer sailed along the
+monotonous background of the river like a huge bright spot, and the
+black smoke of its breath hung in the air like a heavy cloud. All white,
+with pink paddle-boxes and bright red blades, the steamer easily cut
+through the cold water with its bow and drove it apart toward the
+shores, and the round window-panes on the sides of the steamer and
+the cabin glittered brilliantly, as though smiling a self-satisfied,
+triumphant smile.
+
+"Gentlemen of this honourable company!" exclaimed Kononov, removing his
+hat, and making a low bow to the guests. "As we have now rendered unto
+God, so to say, what is due to God, would you permit that the musicians
+render now unto the Emperor what is due to the Emperor?"
+
+And, without waiting for an answer from his guests, he placed his fist
+to his mouth, and shouted:
+
+"Musicians! Play 'Be Glorious!'"
+
+The military orchestra, behind the engine, thundered out the march.
+
+And Makar Bobrov, the director and founder of the local commercial bank,
+began to hum in a pleasant basso, beating time with his fingers on his
+enormous paunch:
+
+"Be glorious, be glorious, our Russian Czar--tra-rata! Boom!"
+
+"I invite you to the table, gentlemen! Please! Take pot-luck, he, he!
+I entreat you humbly," said Kononov, pushing himself through the dense
+group of guests.
+
+There were about thirty of them, all sedate men, the cream of the
+local merchants. The older men among them, bald-headed and gray, wore
+old-fashioned frock-coats, caps and tall boots. But there were only few
+of these; high silk hats, shoes and stylish coats reigned supreme.
+They were all crowded on the bow of the steamer, and little by little,
+yielding to Kononov's requests, moved towards the stern covered with
+sailcloth, where stood tables spread with lunch. Lup Reznikov walked
+arm in arm with Yakov Mayakin, and, bending over to his ear, whispered
+something to him, while the latter listened and smiled. Foma, who had
+been brought to the festival by his godfather, after long admonitions,
+found no companion for himself among these people who were repulsive to
+him, and, pale and gloomy, held himself apart from them. During the
+past two days he had been drinking heavily with Yozhov, and now he had
+a terrible headache. He felt ill at ease in the sedate and yet jolly
+company; the humming of the voices, the thundering of the music and the
+clamour of the steamer, all these irritated him.
+
+He felt a pressing need to doze off, and he could find no rest from the
+thought as to why his godfather was so kind to him today, and why he
+brought him hither into the company of the foremost merchants of the
+town. Why had he urged so persuasively, and even entreated him to attend
+Kononov's mass and banquet?
+
+"Don't be foolish, come!" Foma recalled his godfather's admonitions.
+"Why do you fight shy of people? Man gets his character from nature,
+and in riches you are lower than very few. You must keep yourself on an
+equal footing with the others. Come!"
+
+"But when are you going to speak seriously with me, papa?" Foma had
+asked, watching the play of his godfather's face and green eyes.
+
+"You mean about setting you free from the business? Ha, ha! We'll talk
+it over, we'll talk it over, my friend! What a queer fellow you are.
+Well? Will you enter a monastery when you have thrown away your wealth?
+After the example of the saints? Eh?"
+
+"I'll see then!" Foma had answered.
+
+"So. Well, and meanwhile, before you go to the monastery, come along
+with me! Get ready quickly. Rub your phiz with something wet, for it is
+very much swollen. Sprinkle yourself with cologne, get it from Lubov, to
+drive away the smell of the kabak. Go ahead!"
+
+Arriving on the steamer while the mass was in progress, Foma took up a
+place on the side and watched the merchants during the whole service.
+
+They stood in solemn silence; their faces had an expression of devout
+concentration; they prayed with fervour, deeply sighing, bowing low,
+devoutly lifting their eyes heavenward. And Foma looked now at one, now
+at another, and recalled what he knew about them.
+
+There was Lup Reznikov; he had begun his career as a brothel-keeper, and
+had become rich all of a sudden. They said he had strangled one of
+his guests, a rich Siberian. Zubov's business in his youth had been to
+purchase thread from the peasants. He had failed twice. Kononov had been
+tried twenty years ago for arson, and even now he was indicted for the
+seduction of a minor. Together with him, for the second time already,
+on a similar charge, Zakhar Kirillov Robustov had been dragged to court.
+Robustov was a stout, short merchant with a round face and cheerful blue
+eyes. Among these people there was hardly one about whom Foma did not
+know something disgraceful.
+
+And he knew that they were all surely envying the successful Kononov,
+who was constantly increasing the number of his steamers from year to
+year. Many of those people were at daggers' points with one another,
+none of them would show mercy to the others in the battlefield of
+business, and all knew wicked and dishonest things about one another.
+But now, when they gathered around Kononov, who was triumphant and
+happy, they blended in one dense, dark mass, and stood and breathed as
+one man, concentrated and silent, surrounded by something invisible yet
+firm, by something which repulsed Foma from them, and which inspired him
+with fear of them.
+
+"Impostors!" thought he, thus encouraging himself.
+
+And they coughed gently, sighed, crossed themselves, bowed, and,
+surrounding the clergy in a thick wall, stood immovable and firm, like
+big, black rocks.
+
+"They are pretending!" Foma exclaimed to himself. Beside him stood the
+hump-backed, one-eyed Pavlin Gushchin--he who, not long before, had
+turned the children of his half-witted brother into the street as
+beggars--he stood there and whispered penetratingly as he looked at the
+gloomy sky with his single eye:
+
+"Oh Lord! Do not convict me in Thy wrath, nor chastise me in Thy
+indignation."
+
+And Foma felt that that man was addressing the Lord with the most
+profound and firm faith in His mercy.
+
+"Oh Lord, God of our fathers, who hadst commanded Noah, Thy servant, to
+build an ark for the preservation of the world," said the priest in his
+deep bass voice, lifting his eyes and outstretching his hands skyward,
+"protect also this vessel and give unto it a guarding angel of good and
+peace. Guard those that will sail upon it."
+
+The merchants in unison made the sign of the cross, with wide swings
+of their arms, and all their faces bore the expression of one
+sentiment--faith in the power of prayer. All these pictures took root
+in Foma's memory and awakened in him perplexity as to these people, who,
+being able to believe firmly in the mercy of God, were, nevertheless,
+so cruel unto man. He watched them persistently, wishing to detect their
+fraud, to convince himself of their falsehood.
+
+Their grave firmness angered him, their unanimous self-confidence, their
+triumphant faces, their loud voices, their laughter. They were already
+seated by the tables, covered with luncheon, and were hungrily admiring
+the huge sturgeon, almost three yards in length, nicely sprinkled over
+with greens and large crabs. Trofim Zubov, tying a napkin around his
+neck, looked at the monster fish with happy, sweetly half-shut eyes, and
+said to his neighbour, the flour merchant, Yona Yushkov:
+
+"Yona Nikiforich! Look, it's a regular whale! It's big enough to serve
+as a casket for your person, eh? Ha, ha! You could creep into it as a
+foot into a boot, eh? Ha, ha!"
+
+The small-bodied and plump Yona carefully stretched out his short little
+hand toward the silver pail filled with fresh caviar, smacked his lips
+greedily, and squinted at the bottles before him, fearing lest he might
+overturn them.
+
+Opposite Kononov, on a trestle, stood a half-vedro barrel of old vodka,
+imported from Poland; in a huge silver-mounted shell lay oysters, and a
+certain particoloured cake, in the shape of a tower, stood out above all
+the viands.
+
+"Gentlemen! I entreat you! Help yourselves to whatever you please!"
+cried Kononov. "I have here everything at once to suit the taste of
+everyone. There is our own, Russian stuff, and there is foreign, all
+at once! That's the best way! Who wishes anything? Does anybody want
+snails, or these crabs, eh? They're from India, I am told."
+
+And Zubov said to his neighbour, Mayakin:
+
+"The prayer 'At the Building of a Vessel' is not suitable for steam-tugs
+and river steamers, that is, not that it is not suitable, it isn't
+enough alone. A river steamer is a place of permanent residence for the
+crew, and therefore it ought to be considered as a house. Consequently
+it is necessary to make the prayer 'At the Building of a House,' in
+addition to that for the vessel. But what will you drink?"
+
+"I am not much of a wine fiend. Pour me out some cumin vodka," replied
+Yakov Tarasovich.
+
+Foma, seated at the end of the table among some timid and modest men who
+were unfamiliar to him, now and again felt on himself the sharp glances
+of the old man.
+
+"He's afraid I'll make a scandal," thought Foma. "Brethren!" roared the
+monstrously stout ship builder Yashchurov, in a hoarse voice, "I can't
+do without herring! I must necessarily begin with herring, that's my
+nature."
+
+"Musicians! strike up 'The Persian March!'"
+
+"Hold on! Better 'How Glorious!'"
+
+"Strike up 'How Glorious.'"
+
+The puffing of the engine and the clatter of the steamer's wheels,
+mingling with the sounds of the music, produced in the air something
+which sounded like the wild song of a snow-storm. The whistle of the
+flute, the shrill singing of the clarionets, the heavy roaring of the
+basses, the ruffling of the little drum and the drones of the blows
+on the big one, all this fell on the monotonous and dull sounds of the
+wheels, as they cut the water apart, smote the air rebelliously, drowned
+the noise of the human voices and hovered after the steamer, like a
+hurricane, causing the people to shout at the top of their voices. At
+times an angry hissing of steam rang out within the engine, and there
+was something irritable and contemptuous in this sound as it burst
+unexpectedly upon the chaos of the drones and roars and shouts.
+
+"I shall never forget, even unto my grave, that you refused to discount
+the note for me," cried some one in a fierce voice.
+
+"That will do! Is this a place for accounts?" rang out Bobrov's bass.
+
+"Brethren! Let us have some speeches!"
+
+"Musicians, bush!"
+
+"Come up to the bank and I'll explain to you why I didn't discount it."
+
+"A speech! Silence!"
+
+"Musicians, cease playing!"
+
+"Strike up 'In the Meadows.'"
+
+"Madame Angot!"
+
+"No! Yakov Tarasovich, we beg of you!"
+
+"That's called Strassburg pastry."
+
+"We beg of you! We beg of you!"
+
+"Pastry? It doesn't look like it, but I'll taste it all the same."
+
+"Tarasovich! Start."
+
+"Brethren! It is jolly! By God."
+
+"And in 'La Belle Helene' she used to come out almost naked, my dear,"
+suddenly Robustov's shrill and emotional voice broke through the noise.
+
+"Look out! Jacob cheated Esau? Aha!"
+
+"I can't! My tongue is not a hammer, and I am no longer young.
+
+"Yasha! We all implore you!"
+
+"Do us the honour!"
+
+"We'll elect you mayor!"
+
+"Tarasovich! don't be capricious!"
+
+"Sh! Silence! Gentlemen! Yakov Tarasovich will say a few words!"
+
+"Sh!"
+
+And just at the moment the noise subsided some one's loud, indignant
+whisper was heard:
+
+"How she pinched me, the carrion."
+
+And Bobrov inquired in his deep basso:
+
+"Where did she pinch you?"
+
+All burst into ringing laughter, but soon fell silent, for Yakov
+Tarasovich Mayakin, rising to his feet, cleared his throat, and,
+stroking his bald crown, surveyed the merchants with a serious look
+expecting attention.
+
+"Well, brethren, open your ears!" shouted Kononov, with satisfaction.
+
+"Gentlemen of the merchant class!" began Mayakin with a smile. "There
+is a certain foreign word in the language of intelligent and learned
+people, and that word is 'culture.' So now I am going to talk to you
+about that word in all the simplicity of my soul."
+
+"So, that's where he is aiming to!" some ones satisfied exclamation was
+heard.
+
+"Sh! Silence!"
+
+"Dear gentlemen!" said Mayakin, raising his voice, "in the newspapers
+they keep writing about us merchants, that we are not acquainted with
+this 'culture,' that we do not want it, and do not understand it. And
+they call us savage, uncultured people. What is culture? It pains me,
+old man as I am, to hear such words, and one day I made it my business
+to look up that word, to see what it really contains." Mayakin became
+silent, surveyed the audience with his eyes, and went on distinctly,
+with a triumphant smile:
+
+"It proved, upon my researches, that this word means worship, that
+is, love, great love for business and order in life. 'That's right!' I
+thought, 'that's right!' That means that he is a cultured man who loves
+business and order, who, in general, loves to arrange life, loves to
+live, knows the value of himself and of life. Good!" Yakov Tarasovich
+trembled, his wrinkles spread over his face like beams, from his smiling
+eyes to his lips, and his bald head looked like some dark star.
+
+The merchants stared silently and attentively at his mouth, and all
+faces bespoke intense attention. The people seemed petrified in the
+attitudes in which Mayakin's speech had overtaken them.
+
+"But if that word is to be interpreted precisely thus, and not
+otherwise, if such is the case--then the people who call us uncultured
+and savage, slander and blaspheme us! For they love only the word, but
+not its meaning; while we love the very root of the word, we love its
+real essence, we love activity. We have within us the real cult toward
+life, that is, the worship of life; we, not they! They love reasoning'
+we love action. And here, gentlemen of the merchant class, here is an
+example of our culture, of our love for action. Take the Volga! Here she
+is, our dear own mother! With each and every drop of her water she can
+corroborate our honour and refute the empty blasphemy spattered on us.
+Only one hundred years have elapsed, my dear sirs, since Emperor Peter
+the Great launched decked barks on this river, and now thousands of
+steamships sail up and down the river. Who has built them? The Russian
+peasant, an utterly unlettered man! All these enormous steamers,
+barges--whose are they? Ours! Who has invented them? We! Everything
+here is ours, everything here is the fruit of our minds, of our Russian
+shrewdness, and our great love for action! Nobody has assisted us in
+anything! We ourselves exterminated piracy on the Volga; at our own
+expense we hired troops; we exterminated piracy and sent out on the
+Volga thousands of steamers and various vessels over all the thousands
+of miles of her course. Which is the best town on the Volga? The one
+that has the most merchants. Whose are the best houses in town? The
+merchants! Who takes the most care of the poor? The merchant! He
+collects groshes and copecks, and donates hundreds of thousands of
+roubles. Who has erected the churches? We! Who contributes the most
+money to the government? The merchants! Gentlemen! to us alone is the
+work dear for its own sake, for the sake of our love for the arrangement
+of life, and we alone love order and life! And he who talks about us
+merely talks, and that's all! Let him talk! When the wind blows the
+willow rustles; when the wind subsides the willow is silent; and neither
+a cart-shaft, nor a broom can be made out of the willow; it is a useless
+tree! And from this uselessness comes the noise. What have they, our
+judges, accomplished; how have they adorned life? We do not know it.
+While our work is clearly evident! Gentlemen of the merchant class!
+Seeing in you the foremost men in life, most industrious and loving your
+labours, seeing in you the men who can accomplish and have accomplished
+everything, I now heartily, with respect and love for you, lift my
+brimming goblet, to the glorious, strong-souled, industrious Russian
+merchant class. Long may you live! May you succeed for the glory of
+Mother Russia! Hurrah!"
+
+The shrill, jarring shout of Mayakin called forth a deafening,
+triumphant roar from the merchants. All these big, fleshy bodies,
+aroused by wine and by the old man's words, stirred and uttered from
+their chests such a unanimous, massive shout that everything around them
+seemed to tremble and to quake.
+
+"Yakov! you are the trumpet of the Lord!" cried Zubov, holding out his
+goblet toward Mayakin.
+
+Overturning the chairs, jostling the tables, thus causing the dishes and
+the bottles to rattle and fall, the merchants, agitated, delighted, some
+with tears in their eyes, rushed toward Mayakin with goblets in their
+hands.
+
+"Ah! Do you understand what has been said here?" asked Kononov, grasping
+Robustov by the shoulder and shaking him. "Understand it! That was a
+great speech!"
+
+"Yakov Tarasovich! Come, let me embrace you!"
+
+"Let's toss, Mayakin!
+
+"Strike up the band."
+
+"Sound a flourish! A march. 'The Persian March."'
+
+"We don't want any music! The devil take it!"
+
+"Here is the music! Eh, Yakov Tarasovich! What a mind!"
+
+"I was small among my brethren, but I was favoured with understanding."
+
+"You lie, Trofim!"
+
+"Yakov! you'll die soon. Oh, what a pity! Words can't express how sorry
+we are!"
+
+"But what a funeral that is going to be!"
+
+"Gentlemen! Let us establish a Mayakin fund! I put up a thousand!"
+
+"Silence! Hold on!"
+
+"Gentlemen!" Yakov Tarasovich began to speak again, quivering in every
+limb. "And, furthermore, we are the foremost men in life and the real
+masters in our fatherland because we are--peasants!'
+
+"Corr-rect!"
+
+"That's right! Dear mother! That's an old man for you!"
+
+"Hold on! Let him finish."
+
+"We are primitive Russian people, and everything that comes from us is
+truly Russian! Consequently it is the most genuine, the most useful and
+obligatory."
+
+"As true as two and two make four!"
+
+"It's so simple."
+
+"He is as wise as a serpent!"
+
+"And as meek as a--"
+
+"As a hawk. Ha, ha, ha!"
+
+The merchants encircled their orator in a close ring, they looked at
+him with their oily eyes, and were so agitated that they could no longer
+listen to his words calmly. Around him a tumult of voices smote the air,
+and mingling with the noise of the engine, and the beating of the
+wheels upon the water, it formed a whirlwind of sounds which drowned
+the jarring voice of the old man. The excitement of the merchants was
+growing more and more intense; all faces were radiant with triumph;
+hands holding out goblets were outstretched toward Mayakin; the
+merchants clapped him on the shoulder, jostled him, kissed him, gazed
+with emotion into his face. And some screamed ecstatically:
+
+"The kamarinsky. The national dance!"
+
+"We have accomplished all that!" cried Yakov Tarasovich, pointing at the
+river. "It is all ours! We have built up life!"
+
+Suddenly rang out a loud exclamation which drowned all sounds:
+
+"Ah! So you have done it? Ah, you."
+
+And immediately after this, a vulgar oath resounded through the air,
+pronounced distinctly with great rancour, in a dull but powerful voice.
+Everyone heard it and became silent for a moment, searching with their
+eyes the man who had abused them. At this moment nothing was heard save
+the deep sighs of the engines and the clanking of the rudder chains.
+
+"Who's snarling there?" asked Kononov with a frown.
+
+"We can't get along without scandals!" said Reznikov, with a contrite
+sigh.
+
+"Who was swearing here at random?"
+
+The faces of the merchants mirrored alarm, curiosity, astonishment,
+reproach, and all the people began to bustle about stupidly. Only
+Yakov Tarasovich alone was calm and seemed even satisfied with what
+had occurred. Rising on tiptoe, with his neck outstretched, he stared
+somewhere toward the end of the table, and his eyes flashed strangely,
+as though he saw there something which was pleasing to him.
+
+"Gordyeeff," said Yona Yushkov, softly.
+
+And all heads were turned toward the direction in which Yakov Tarasovich
+was staring.
+
+There, with his hands resting on the table, stood Foma. His face
+distorted with wrath, his teeth firmly set together, he silently
+surveyed the merchants with his burning, wide-open eyes. His lower jaw
+was trembling, his shoulders were quivering, and the fingers of his
+hands, firmly clutching the edge of the table, were nervously scratching
+the tablecloth. At the sight of his wolf-like, angry face and his
+wrathful pose, the merchants again became silent for a moment.
+
+"What are you gaping at?" asked Foma, and again accompanied his question
+with a violent oath.
+
+"He's drunk!" said Bobrov, with a shake of the head.
+
+"And why was he invited?" whispered Reznikov, softly.
+
+"Foma Ignatyevich!" said Kononov, sedately, "you mustn't create
+any scandals. If your head is reeling--go, my dear boy, quietly and
+peacefully into the cabin and lie down! Lie down, and--"
+
+"Silence, you!" roared Foma, and turned his eye at him. "Do not dare to
+speak to me! I am not drunk. I am soberer than any one of you here! Do
+you understand?"
+
+"But wait awhile, my boy. Who invited you here?" asked Kononov,
+reddening with offence.
+
+"I brought him!" rang out Mayakin's voice.
+
+"Ah! Well, then, of course. Excuse me, Foma Ignatyevich. But as you
+brought him, Yakov, you ought to subdue him. Otherwise it's no good."
+
+Foma maintained silence and smiled. And the merchants, too, were silent,
+as they looked at him.
+
+"Eh, Fomka!" began Mayakin. "Again you disgrace my old age."
+
+"Godfather!" said Foma, showing his teeth, "I have not done anything as
+yet, so it is rather early to read me a lecture. I am not drunk, I have
+drunk nothing, but I have heard everything. Gentlemen merchants! Permit
+me to make a speech! My godfather, whom you respect so much, has spoken.
+Now listen to his godson."
+
+"What--speeches?" said Reznikov. "Why have any discourses? We have come
+together to enjoy ourselves."
+
+"Come, you had better drop that, Foma Ignatyevich."
+
+"Better drink something."
+
+"Let's have a drink! Ah, Foma, you're the son of a fine father!"
+
+Foma recoiled from the table, straightened himself and continuously
+smiling, listened to the kind, admonitory words. Among all those sedate
+people he was the youngest and the handsomest. His well-shaped figure,
+in a tight-fitting frock coat, stood out, to his advantage, among the
+mass of stout bodies with prominent paunches. His swarthy face with
+large eyes was more regularly featured, more full of life than the
+shrivelled or red faces of those who stood before him with astonishment
+and expectancy. He threw his chest forward, set his teeth together, and
+flinging the skirts of his frock coat apart, thrust his hands into his
+pockets.
+
+"You can't stop up my mouth now with flattery and caresses!" said he,
+firmly and threateningly, "Whether you will listen or not, I am going to
+speak all the same. You cannot drive me away from here."
+
+He shook his head, and, raising his shoulders, announced calmly:
+
+"But if any one of you dare to touch me, even with a finger, I'll kill
+him! I swear it by the Lord. I'll kill as many as I can!"
+
+The crowd of people that stood opposite him swayed back, even as bushes
+rocked by the wind. They began to talk in agitated whispers. Foma's face
+grew darker, his eyes became round.
+
+"Well, it has been said here that you have built up life, and that you
+have done the most genuine and proper things."
+
+Foma heaved a deep sigh, and with inexpressible aversion scrutinized his
+listeners' faces, which suddenly became strangely puffed up, as though
+they were swollen. The merchants were silent, pressing closer and closer
+to one another. Some one in the back rows muttered:
+
+"What is he talking about? Ah! From a paper, or by heart?"
+
+"Oh, you rascals!" exclaimed Gordyeeff, shaking his head. "What have you
+made? It is not life that you have made, but a prison. It is not
+order that you have established, you have forged fetters on man. It is
+suffocating, it is narrow, there is no room for a living soul to turn.
+Man is perishing! You are murderers! Do you understand that you exist
+today only through the patience of mankind?"
+
+"What does this mean?" exclaimed Reznikov, clasping his hands in rage
+and indignation. "Ilya Yefimov, what's this? I can't bear to hear such
+words."
+
+"Gordyeeff!" cried Bobrov. "Look out, you speak improper words."
+
+"For such words you'll get--oi, oi, oi!" said Zubov, insinuatingly.
+
+"Silence!" roared Foma, with blood-shot eyes. "Now they're grunting."
+
+"Gentlemen!" rang out Mayakin's calm, malicious voice, like the screech
+of a smooth-file on iron. "Don't touch him! I entreat you earnestly, do
+not hinder him. Let him snarl. Let him amuse himself. His words cannot
+harm you."
+
+"Well, no, I humbly thank you!" cried Yushkov. And close at Foma's side
+stood Smolin and whispered in his ear:
+
+"Stop, my dear boy! What's the matter with you? Are you out of your
+wits? They'll do you--!"
+
+"Get away!" said Foma, firmly, flashing his angry eyes at him. "You go
+to Mayakin and flatter him, perhaps something will come your way!"
+
+Smolin whistled through his teeth and stepped aside. And the merchants
+began to disperse on the steamer, one by one. This irritated Foma still
+more he wished he could chain them to the spot by his words, but he
+could not find such powerful words.
+
+"You have built up life!" he shouted. "Who are you? Swindlers, robbers."
+
+A few men turned toward Foma, as if he had called them.
+
+"Kononov! are they soon going to try you for that little girl? They'll
+convict you to the galleys. Goodbye, Ilya! You are building your
+steamers in vain. They'll transport you to Siberia on a government
+vessel."
+
+Kononov sank into a chair; his blood leaped to his face, and he shook
+his fist in silence. Foma said hoarsely:
+
+"Very well. Good. I shall not forget it."
+
+Foma saw his distorted face with its trembling lips, and understood with
+what weapons he could deal these men the most forcible blows.
+
+"Ha, ha, ha! Builders of life! Gushchin, do you give alms to your little
+nephews and nieces? Give them at least a copeck a day. You have stolen
+sixty-seven thousand roubles from them. Bobrov! why did you lie about
+that mistress of yours, saying that she had robbed you, and then send
+her to prison? If you had grown tired of her, you might have given her
+over to your son. Anyway he has started an intrigue with that other
+mistress of yours. Didn't you know it? Eh, you fat pig, ha, ha! And you,
+Lup, open again a brothel, and fleece your guests there as before. And
+then the devil will fleece you, ha, ha! It is good to be a rascal with a
+pious face like yours! Whom did you kill then, Lup?"
+
+Foma spoke, interrupting his speech with loud, malevolent laughter, and
+saw that his words were producing an impression on these people. Before,
+when he had spoken to all of them they turned away from him, stepping
+aside, forming groups, and looking at their accuser from afar with
+anger and contempt. He saw smiles on their faces, he felt in their every
+movement something scornful, and understood that while his words angered
+them they did not sting as deep as he wished them to. All this had
+chilled his wrath, and within him there was already arising the bitter
+consciousness of the failure of his attack on them. But as soon as he
+began to speak of each one separately, there was a swift and striking
+change in the relation of his hearers toward him.
+
+When Kononov sank heavily in the chair, as though he were unable to
+withstand the weight of Foma's harsh words, Foma noticed that bitter and
+malicious smiles crossed the faces of some of the merchants. He heard
+some one's whisper of astonishment and approval:
+
+"That's well aimed!"
+
+This whisper gave strength to Foma, and he confidently and passionately
+began to hurl reproaches, jeers and abuses at those who met his eyes.
+He growled joyously, seeing that his words were taking effect. He was
+listened to silently, attentively; several men moved closer toward him.
+
+Exclamations of protest were heard, but these were brief, not loud, and
+each time Foma shouted some one's name, all became silent, listening,
+casting furtive, malicious glances in the direction of their accused
+comrade.
+
+Bobrov laughed perplexedly, but his small eyes bored into Foma as
+gimlets. And Lup Reznikov, waving his hands, hopped about awkwardly and,
+short of breath, said:
+
+"Be my witnesses. What's this! No-o! I will not forgive this! I'll go
+to court. What's that?" and suddenly he screamed in a shrill voice,
+out-stretching his hand toward Foma:
+
+"Bind him!"
+
+Foma was laughing.
+
+"You cannot bind the truth, you can't do it! Even bound, truth will not
+grow dumb!"
+
+"Go-o-od!" drawled out Kononov in a dull, broken voice.
+
+"See here, gentlemen of the merchant class!" rang out Mayakin's voice.
+"I ask! you to admire him, that's the kind of a fellow he is!"
+
+One after another the merchants moved toward Foma, and on their faces
+he saw wrath, curiosity, a malicious feeling of satisfaction, fear. Some
+one of those modest people among whom Foma was sitting, whispered to
+him:
+
+"Give it to them. God bless you. Go ahead! That will be to your credit."
+
+"Robustov!" cried Foma. "What are you laughing at? What makes you glad?
+You will also go to the galleys."
+
+"Put him ashore!" suddenly roared Robustov, springing to his feet.
+
+And Kononov shouted to the captain:
+
+"Back! To the town! To the Governor."
+
+And someone insinuatingly, in a voice trembling with feeling:
+
+"That's a collusive agreement. That was done on purpose. He was
+instigated, and made drunk to give him courage."
+
+"No, it's a revolt!"
+
+"Bind him! Just bind him!"
+
+Foma grasped a champagne bottle and swung it in the air.
+
+"Come on now! No, it seems that you will have to listen to me."
+
+With renewed fury, frantic with joy at seeing these people shrinking and
+quailing under the blows of his words, Foma again started to shout names
+and vulgar oaths, and the exasperated tumult was hushed once more. The
+men, whom Foma did not know, gazed at him with eager curiosity, with
+approval, while some looked at him even with joyous surprise. One of
+them, a gray-haired little old man with rosy cheeks and small mouse
+eyes, suddenly turned toward the merchants, who had been abused by Foma,
+and said in a sweet voice:
+
+"These are words from the conscience! That's nothing! You must endure
+it. That's a prophetic accusation. We are sinful. To tell the truth we
+are very--"
+
+He was hissed, and Zubov even jostled him on the shoulder. He made a low
+bow and disappeared in the crowd.
+
+"Zubov!" cried Foma. "How many people have you fleeced and turned to
+beggars? Do you ever dream of Ivan Petrov Myakinnikov, who strangled
+himself because of you? Is it true that you steal at every mass ten
+roubles out of the church box?"
+
+Zubov had not expected the attack, and he remained as petrified, with
+his hand uplifted. But he immediately began to scream in a shrill voice,
+as he jumped up quickly:
+
+"Ah! You turn against me also? Against me, too?"
+
+And suddenly he puffed up his cheeks and furiously began to shake his
+fist at Foma, as he screamed in a shrill voice:
+
+"The fool says in his heart there is no God! I'll go to the bishop!
+Infidel! You'll get the galleys!"
+
+The tumult on the steamer grew, and at the sight of these enraged,
+perplexed and insulted people, Foma felt himself a fairy-tale giant,
+slaying monsters. They bustled about, waving their arms, talking to one
+another--some red with anger, others pale, yet all equally powerless to
+check the flow of his jeers at them.
+
+"Send the sailors over here!" cried Reznikov, tugging Kononov by the
+shoulder. "What's the matter with you, Ilya? Ah? Have you invited us to
+be ridiculed?"
+
+"Against one puppy," screamed Zubov.
+
+A crowd had gathered around Yakov Tarasovitch Mayakin, and listened to
+his quiet speech with anger, and nodded their heads affirmatively.
+
+"Act, Yakov!" said Robustov, loudly. "We are all witnesses. Go ahead!"
+
+And above the general tumult of voices rang out Foma's loud, accusing
+voice:
+
+"It was not life that you have built--you have made a cesspool! You have
+bred filth and putrefaction by your deeds! Have you a conscience? Do
+you remember God? Money--that's your God! And your conscience you have
+driven away. Whither have you driven it away? Blood-suckers! You live
+on the strength of others. You work with other people's hands! You shall
+pay for all this! When you perish, you will be called to account for
+everything! For everything, even to a teardrop. How many people have
+wept blood at those great deeds of yours? And according to your deserts,
+even hell is too good a place for you, rascals. Not in fire, but in
+boiling mud you shall be scorched. Your sufferings shall last for
+centuries. The devils will hurl you into a boiler and will pour into
+it--ha, ha, ha! they'll pour into it--ha, ha, ha! Honourable merchant
+class! Builders of Life. Oh, you devils!"
+
+Foma burst into ringing laughter, and, holding his sides, staggered,
+tossing his head up high.
+
+At that moment several men quickly exchanged glances, simultaneously
+rushed on Foma and downed him with their weight. A racket ensued.
+
+"Now you're caught!" ejaculated some one in a suffocating voice.
+
+"Ah! Is that the way you're doing it?" cried Foma, hoarsely.
+
+For about a half a minute a whole heap of black bodies bustled about on
+one spot, heavily stamping their feet, and dull exclamations were heard:
+
+"Throw him to the ground!"
+
+"Hold his hand, his hand! Oh!"
+
+"By the beard?"
+
+"Get napkins, bind him with napkins."
+
+"You'll bite, will you?"
+
+"So! Well, how's it? Aha!"
+
+"Don't strike! Don't dare to strike."
+
+"Ready!"
+
+"How strong he is!"
+
+"Let's carry him over there toward the side."
+
+"Out in the fresh air, ha, ha!"
+
+They dragged Foma away to one side, and having placed him against the
+wall of the captain's cabin, walked away from him, adjusting their
+costumes, and mopping their sweat-covered brows. Fatigued by the
+struggle, and exhausted by the disgrace of his defeat, Foma lay there in
+silence, tattered, soiled with something, firmly bound, hand and foot,
+with napkins and towels. With round, blood-shot eyes he gazed at the
+sky; they were dull and lustreless, as those of an idiot, and his chest
+heaved unevenly and with difficulty.
+
+Now came their turn to mock him. Zubov began. He walked up to him,
+kicked him in the side and asked in a soft voice, all trembling with the
+pleasure of revenge:
+
+"Well, thunder-like prophet, how is it? Now you can taste the sweetness
+of Babylonian captivity, he, he, he!"
+
+"Wait," said Foma, hoarsely, without looking at him. "Wait until I'm
+rested. You have not tied up my tongue."
+
+But saying this, Foma understood that he could no longer do anything,
+nor say anything. And that not because they had bound him, but because
+something had burned out within him, and his soul had become dark and
+empty.
+
+Zubov was soon joined by Reznikov. Then one after another the others
+began to draw near. Bobrov, Kononov and several others preceded by Yakov
+Mayakin went to the cabin, anxiously discussing something in low tones.
+
+The steamer was sailing toward the town at full speed. The bottles on
+the tables trembled and rattled from the vibration of the steamer, and
+Foma heard this jarring, plaintive sound above everything else. Near him
+stood a throng of people, saying malicious, offensive things.
+
+But Foma saw them as though through a fog, and their words did not touch
+him to the quick. A vast, bitter feeling was now springing up within
+him, from the depth of his soul; he followed its growth and though he
+did not yet understand it, he already experienced something melancholy
+and degrading.
+
+"Just think, you charlatan! What have you done to yourself?" said
+Reznikov. "What sort of a life is now possible to you? Do you know that
+now no one of us would care even as much as to spit on you?"
+
+"What have I done?" Foma tried to understand. The merchants stood around
+him in a dense, dark mass.
+
+"Well," said Yashchurov, "now, Fomka, your work is done."
+
+"Wait, we'll see," bellowed Zubov in a low voice.
+
+"Let me free!" said Foma.
+
+"Well, no! we thank you humbly!"
+
+"Untie me."
+
+"It's all right! You can lie that way as well."
+
+"Call up my godfather."
+
+But Yakov Tarasovich came up at this moment. He came up, stopped near
+Foma, sternly surveyed with his eyes the outstretched figure of his
+godson, and heaved a deep sigh.
+
+"Well, Foma," he began.
+
+"Order them to unbind me," entreated Foma, softly, in a mournful voice.
+
+"So you can be turbulent again? No, no, you'd better lie this way," his
+godfather replied.
+
+"I won't say another word. I swear it by God! Unbind me. I am ashamed!
+For Christ's sake. You see I am not drunk. Well, you needn't untie my
+hands."
+
+"You swear that you'll not be troublesome?" asked Mayakin.
+
+"Oh Lord! I will not, I will not," moaned Foma.
+
+They untied his feet, but left his hands bound. When he rose, he looked
+at them all, and said softly with a pitiful smile:
+
+"You won."
+
+"We always shall!" replied his godfather, smiling sternly.
+
+Foma bent, with his hands tied behind his back, advanced toward the
+table silently, without lifting his eyes to anyone. He seemed shorter
+in stature and thinner. His dishevelled hair fell on his forehead and
+temples; the torn and crumpled bosom of his shirt protruding from under
+his vest, and the collar covered his lips. He turned his head to push
+the collar down under his chin, and was unable to do it. Then the
+gray-headed little old man walked up to him, adjusted what was
+necessary, looked into his eyes with a smile and said:
+
+"You must endure it."
+
+Now, in Mayakin's presence, those who had mocked Foma were silent,
+looking at the old man questioningly, with curiosity and expectancy.
+He was calm but his eyes gleamed in a way not at all becoming to the
+occasion, contentedly and brightly.
+
+"Give me some vodka," begged Foma, seating himself at the table, and
+leaning his chest against its edge. His bent figure look piteous and
+helpless. Around they were talking in whispers, passing this way and
+that cautiously. And everyone looked now at him, now at Mayakin, who had
+seated himself opposite him. The old man did not give Foma the vodka at
+once. First he surveyed him fixedly, then he slowly poured out a wine
+glassful, and finally, without saying a word, raised it to Foma's lips.
+Foma drank the vodka, and asked:
+
+"Some more!"
+
+"That's enough!" replied Mayakin.
+
+And immediately after this there fell a minute of perfect, painful
+silence. People were coming up to the table noiselessly, on tiptoe, and
+when they were near they stretched their necks to see Foma.
+
+"Well, Fomka, do you understand now what you have done?" asked Mayakin.
+He spoke softly, but all heard his question.
+
+Foma nodded his head and maintained silence.
+
+"There's no forgiveness for you!" Mayakin went on firmly, and raising
+his voice. "Though we are all Christians, yet you will receive no
+forgiveness at our hands. Just know this."
+
+Foma lifted his head and said pensively:
+
+"I have quite forgotten about you, godfather. You have not heard
+anything from me."
+
+"There you have it!" exclaimed Mayakin, bitterly, pointing at his
+godson. "You see?"
+
+A dull grumble of protest burst forth.
+
+"Well, it's all the same!" resumed Foma with a sigh. "It's all the same!
+Nothing--no good came out of it anyway."
+
+And again he bent over the table.
+
+"What did you want?" asked Mayakin, sternly.
+
+"What I wanted?" Foma raised his head, looked at the merchants and
+smiled. "I wanted--"
+
+"Drunkard! Nasty scamp!"
+
+"I am not drunk!" retorted Foma, morosely. "I have drank only two
+glasses. I was perfectly sober."
+
+"Consequently," said Bobrov, "you are right, Yakov Tarasovich, he is
+insane."
+
+"I?" exclaimed Foma.
+
+But they paid no attention to him. Reznikov, Zubov and Bobrov leaned
+over to Mayakin and began to talk in low tones.
+
+"Guardianship!" Foma's ears caught this one word. "I am in my right
+mind!" he said, leaning back in his chair and staring at the merchants
+with troubled eyes. "I understand what I wanted. I wanted to speak the
+truth. I wanted to accuse you."
+
+He was again seized with emotion, and he suddenly jerked his hands in an
+effort to free them.
+
+"Eh! Hold on!" exclaimed Bobrov, seizing him by the shoulders. "Hold
+him."
+
+"Well, hold me!" said Foma with sadness and bitterness. "Hold me--what
+do you need me for?"
+
+"Sit still!" cried his godfather, sternly.
+
+Foma became silent. He now understood that what he had done was of no
+avail, that his words had not staggered the merchants. Here they stood,
+surrounding him in a dense throng, and he could not see anything for
+them. They were calm, firm, treating him as a drunkard and a turbulent
+fellow, and were plotting something against him. He felt himself
+pitiful, insignificant, crushed by that dark mass of strong-souled,
+clever and sedate people. It seemed to him that a long time had passed
+since he had abused them, so long a time that he himself seemed as a
+stranger, incapable of comprehending what he had done to these people,
+and why he had done it. He even experienced in himself a certain feeling
+of offence, which resembled shame at himself in his own eyes. There
+was a tickling sensation in his throat, and he felt there was something
+foreign in his breast, as though some dust or ashes were strewn upon his
+heart, and it throbbed unevenly and with difficulty. Wishing to explain
+to himself his act, he said slowly and thoughtfully, without looking at
+anyone:
+
+"I wanted to speak the truth. Is this life?"
+
+"Fool!" said Mayakin, contemptuously. "What truth can you speak? What do
+you understand?"
+
+"My heart is wounded, that I understand! What justification have you all
+in the eyes of God? To what purpose do you live? Yes, I feel--I felt the
+truth!"
+
+"He is repenting!" said Reznikov, with a sarcastic smile.
+
+"Let him!" replied Bobrov, with contempt.
+
+Some one added:
+
+"It is evident, from his words, that he is out of his wits."
+
+"To speak the truth, that's not given to everyone!" said Yakov
+Tarasovich, sternly and instructively, lifting his hand upward. "It is
+not the heart that grasps truth; it is the mind; do you understand that?
+And as to your feeling, that's nonsense! A cow also feels when they
+twist her tail. But you must understand, understand everything!
+Understand also your enemy. Guess what he thinks even in his dreams, and
+then go ahead!"
+
+According to his wont, Mayakin was carried away by the exposition of his
+practical philosophy, but he realised in time that a conquered man is
+not to be taught how to fight, and he stopped short. Foma cast at him a
+dull glance, and shook his head strangely.
+
+"Lamb!" said Mayakin.
+
+"Leave me alone!" entreated Foma, plaintively. "It's all yours! Well,
+what else do you want? Well, you crushed me, bruised me, that serves me
+right! Who am I? O Lord!"
+
+All listened attentively to his words, and in that attention there was
+something prejudiced, something malicious.
+
+"I have lived," said Foma in a heavy voice. "I have observed. I have
+thought; my heart has become wounded with thoughts! And here--the
+abscess burst. Now I am utterly powerless! As though all my blood had
+gushed out. I have lived until this day, and still thought that now I
+will speak the truth. Well, I have spoken it."
+
+He talked monotonously, colourlessly, and his speech resembled that of
+one in delirium.
+
+"I have spoken it, and I have only emptied myself, that's all. Not
+a trace have my words left behind them. Everything is uninjured. And
+within me something blazed up; it has burned out, and there's nothing
+more there. What have I to hope for now? And everything remains as it
+was."
+
+Yakov Tarasovich burst into bitter laughter.
+
+"What then, did you think to lick away a mountain with your tongue? You
+armed yourself with malice enough to fight a bedbug, and you started out
+after a bear, is that it? Madman! If your father were to see you now.
+Eh!"
+
+"And yet," said Foma, suddenly, loudly, with assurance, and his eyes
+again flared up, "and yet it is all your fault! You have spoiled life!
+You have made everything narrow. We are suffocating because of you! And
+though my truth against you is weak, it is truth, nevertheless! You are
+godless wretches! May you all be cursed!"
+
+He moved about in his chair, attempting to free his hands, and cried
+out, flashing his eyes with fury:
+
+"Unbind my hands!"
+
+They came closer to him; the faces of the merchants became more severe,
+and Reznikov said to him impressively:
+
+"Don't make a noise, don't be bothersome! We'll soon be in town. Don't
+disgrace yourself, and don't disgrace us either. We are not going to
+take you direct from the wharf to the insane asylum."
+
+"So!" exclaimed Foma. "So you are going to put me into an insane
+asylum?"
+
+No one replied. He looked at their faces and hung his head.
+
+"Behave peacefully! We'll unbind you!" said someone.
+
+"It's not necessary!" said Foma in a low voice. "It's all the same. I
+spit on it! Nothing will happen."
+
+And his speech again assumed the nature of a delirium.
+
+"I am lost, I know it! Only not because of your power, but rather
+because of my weakness. Yes! You, too, are only worms in the eyes of
+God. And, wait! You shall choke. I am lost through blindness. I saw much
+and I became blind, like an owl. As a boy, I remember, I chased an owl
+in a ravine; it flew about and struck against something. The sun blinded
+it. It was all bruised and it disappeared, and my father said to me
+then: 'It is the same with man; some man bustles about to and fro,
+bruises himself, exhausts himself, and then throws himself anywhere,
+just to rest.' Hey I unbind my hands."
+
+His face turned pale, his eyes closed, his shoulders quivered. Tattered
+and crumpled he rocked about in the chair, striking his chest against
+the edge of the table, and began to whisper something.
+
+The merchants exchanged significant glances. Some, nudging one another
+in the sides, shook their heads at Foma in silence. Yakov Mayakin's face
+was dark and immobile as though hewn out of stone.
+
+"Shall we perhaps unbind him?" whispered Bobrov.
+
+"When we get a little nearer."
+
+"No, it's not necessary," said Mayakin in an undertone-"We'll leave him
+here. Let someone send for a carriage. We'll take him straight to the
+asylum."
+
+"And where am I to rest?" Foma muttered again. "Whither shall I fling
+myself?" And he remained as though petrified in a broken, uncomfortable
+attitude, all distorted, with an expression of pain on his face.
+
+Mayakin rose from his seat and went to the cabin, saying softly:
+
+"Keep an eye on him, he might fling himself overboard."
+
+"I am sorry for the fellow," said Bobrov, looking at Yakov Tarasovich as
+he departed.
+
+"No one is to blame for his madness," replied Reznikov, morosely.
+
+"And Yakov," whispered Zubov, nodding his head in the direction of
+Mayakin.
+
+"What about Yakov? He loses nothing through it."
+
+"Yes, now he'll, ha, ha!"
+
+"He'll be his guardian, ha, ha, ha!"
+
+Their quiet laughter and whisper mingled with the groaning of the
+engine did not seem to reach Foma's ear. Motionlessly he stared into
+the distance before him with a dim look, and only his lips were slightly
+quivering.
+
+"His son has returned," whispered Bobrov.
+
+"I know his son," said Yashchurov. "I met him in Perm."
+
+"What sort of a man is he?"
+
+"A business-like, clever fellow."
+
+"Is that so?"
+
+"He manages a big business in Oosolye."
+
+"Consequently Yakov does not need this one. Yes. So that's it."
+
+"Look, he's weeping!"
+
+"Oh?"
+
+Foma was sitting leaning against the back of the chair, and drooping
+his head on the shoulder. His eyes were shut, and from under his eyelids
+tears were trickling one after another. They coursed down his cheeks
+into his moustache. Foma's lips quivered convulsively, and the tears
+fell from his moustache upon his breast. He was silent and motionless,
+only his chest heaved unevenly, and with difficulty. The merchants
+looked at his pale, tear-stained face, grown lean with suffering, with
+the corners of his lips lowered downward, and walked away from him
+quietly and mutely.
+
+And then Foma remained alone, with his hands tied behind his back,
+sitting at the table which was covered with dirty dishes and different
+remains of the feast. At times he slowly opened his heavy, swollen
+eyelids, and his eyes, through tears, looked dimly and mournfully at the
+table where everything was dirty, upset, ruined.
+
+.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+
+Three years have passed.
+
+About a year ago Yakov Tarasovich Mayakin died. He died in full
+consciousness, and remained true to himself; a few hours before his
+death he said to his son, daughter and son-in-law:
+
+"Well, children, live in richness! Yakov has tasted everything, so
+now it is time for Yakov to go. You see, I am dying, yet I am not
+despondent; and the Lord will set that down to my credit. I have
+bothered Him, the Most Gracious One, with jests only, but never
+with moans and complaints! Oh Lord! I am glad that I have lived with
+understanding through Thy mercy! Farewell, my children. Live in harmony,
+and don't philosophize too much. Know this, not he is holy who hides
+himself from sin and lies calm. With cowardice you cannot defend
+yourself against sin, thus also says the parable of the talents. But he
+who wants to attain his goal in life fears not sin. God will pardon
+him an error. God has appointed man as the builder of life, but has not
+endowed him with too much wisdom. Consequently, He will not call in his
+outstanding debts severely. For He is holy and most merciful."
+
+He died after a short but very painful agony.
+
+Yozhov was for some reason or other banished from the town soon after
+the occurrence on the steamer.
+
+A great commercial house sprang up in the town under the firm-name of
+"Taras Mayakin & African Smolin."
+
+Nothing had been heard of Foma during these three years. It was rumoured
+that upon his discharge from the asylum Mayakin had sent him away to
+some relatives of his mother in the Ural.
+
+Not long ago Foma appeared in the streets of the town. He is worn
+out, shabby and half-witted. Almost always intoxicated, he appears now
+gloomy, with knitted brow, and with head bent down on his breast, now
+smiling the pitiful and melancholy smile of a silly fanatic.
+Sometimes he is turbulent, but that happens rarely. He lives with his
+foster-sister in a little wing in the yard. His acquaintances among
+the merchants and citizens often ridicule him. As Foma walks along the
+street, suddenly someone shouts to him:
+
+"Eh, you prophet, come here!"
+
+Yet he rarely goes to those who call him; he shuns people and does not
+care to speak with them. But when he does approach them they say to him:
+
+"Well, tell us something about doomsday, won't you? Ha, ha, ha!
+Prophet!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Foma Gordyeff, by Maxim Gorky
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