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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56456 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THREE MEN
+
+A NOVEL
+
+
+
+BY
+
+MAXIM GORKY
+
+_Author of "Foma Gordyeeff," etc._
+
+
+
+TRANSLATED BY
+
+CHARLES HORNE
+
+
+
+
+LONDON
+
+ISBISTER AND COMPANY LIMITED
+
+15 & 16 TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN
+
+1902
+
+
+
+
+THREE MEN
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+There are many solitary graves amid the woods of Kerschentz; within
+them moulder the bones of old men, men of an ancient piety, and of
+one of these old men, Antipa, this tale is told in the villages of
+Kerschentz.
+
+Antipa Lunev, a rich peasant of austere disposition, lived to his
+fiftieth year, sunken in worldly sins, then was moved to profound
+self-examination, and seized with agony of soul, forsook his family
+and buried himself in the loneliness of the forest. There on the edge
+of a ravine he built his hermit's cell, and lived for eight years,
+summer and winter. He let no one approach him, neither acquaintances
+nor kindred. Sometimes people who had lost their way in the woods came
+by chance on his hut and saw Antipa kneeling on the threshold, praying.
+He was terrible to see--worn with fasting and prayer, and covered with
+hair like a wild beast. If he caught sight of any one, he rose up and
+bowed himself to the ground before him. If he were asked the way out
+of the forest, he indicated the path with his hand without speaking,
+bowed to the ground again, went into his cell and shut himself in.
+He was seen many times during the eight years, but no man ever heard
+his voice. His wife and children used to visit him, he took food and
+clothing from them, bowed himself before them as before others, but,
+during the time of his anchorite life, spoke no word with them any more
+than with strangers.
+
+He died the same year that the hermitages of the wood were swept away,
+and his death came in this fashion.
+
+The Chief of Police came through the forest with a detachment of
+soldiers, and saw Antipa kneeling, silently praying in his cell.
+
+"You there!" shouted the officer. "Clear out of this, we're going to
+smash up this den of yours!"
+
+But Antipa heard nothing, and however loudly the captain shouted, the
+pious hermit answered him never a word. Then the officer ordered his
+men to drag Antipa out of his cell. But the soldiers were troubled
+before the gaze of the old man, who continued in prayer so steadfastly
+and earnestly, and paid no heed to them, and, shaken by such strength
+of soul, they hesitated to carry out the command. Then the captain
+ordered them to break up the hut, and they began to remove the roof
+silently and very carefully, to avoid hurting the worshipper within.
+
+The axes rang over Antipa's head, the boards split and fell to the
+ground, the dull echo of the blows sounded through the wood, the birds
+terrified by the noise fluttered uneasily round the cell, and the
+leaves trembled on the trees. But the old man prayed on as though he
+neither saw nor heard. They began to break up the flooring of the hut,
+and still its owner knelt undisturbed, and only when the last timbers
+were thrown aside and the captain himself went up to Antipa and caught
+him by the hair, only then did he speak, his eyes lifted to heaven,
+quietly, to God, "Merciful Father, forgive them."
+
+Then he fell back and died.
+
+When this happened, Jakov, the eldest son of Antipa, was twenty-three
+years old, and Terenti, the youngest, eighteen. Jakov, handsome and
+strong, gained the name of "scatter-brain," while still a youngster,
+and by the time his father died, was already the chief loafer and bully
+in the country-side. All complained of him--his mother, the Starost,
+the neighbours: he was imprisoned, he was whipped, with and without
+legal condemnation, but nothing tamed his wild disposition, and day
+by day he felt more stifled and constrained in the village among the
+pious people, busy and hard working as moles, scorners of every new
+thing, holding fast to the precepts of their ancient faith. Jakov
+smoked tobacco, drank brandy, wore clothes of German cut, and went to
+no prayers or religious services, and if decent folk admonished him and
+reminded him of his father, he would say scornfully, "Wait a bit, good
+people, all in good time. When I have sinned enough, I will think of
+repentance. It's too early yet; you need not hold up my father as an
+example to me--he sinned for fifty years, and repented only for eight
+after all. My sins now are nothing but as the down on the young bird,
+but when my full feathers are grown, then I may think of repentance."
+
+"An evil heretic," was Jakov Lunev's name in the village, where they
+hated and feared him.
+
+Some two years after his father's death, he married. The farm that his
+father established by thirty years strenuous labour, he had thoroughly
+ruined by his spendthrift life, and no one in the village would give
+him a daughter in marriage. But somewhere in a distant village he found
+a pretty orphan-girl, and he sold a pair of horses and his father's
+bee-farm, to raise the money to celebrate his wedding. His brother
+Terenti, a timid, silent, humpbacked youth, with unusually long arms,
+was no hindrance to his mode of life; his mother lay sick on the
+stove, and from there only called to him with hoarse foreboding voice,
+"Accursed one! Take heed to your soul. Come to your senses."
+
+"Don't worry yourself, my dear mother," answered Jakov. "Father will
+put in a word for me with the Almighty."
+
+At first, for close on a year, Jakov lived in peace and content with
+his wife, and even took to working, but then began to loaf again,
+disappeared from the house for a month at a time, and came back to his
+wife, worn out, bruised and hungry.
+
+Jakov's mother died; at the funeral, in a drunken fit he assaulted
+the Starost, his old enemy, and was arrested in consequence, and
+imprisoned. His term of imprisonment at an end, he reappeared in the
+village, gloomy and ill-tempered. The village people hated him still
+more and extended their hatred to his family, especially to the silent,
+hump-backed Terenti who had been the sport of the boys and girls from
+his childhood. They called Jakov jail-bird and thief, but Terenti,
+monster and wizard. Terenti endured insult and mockery silently, but
+Jakov broke out in open threats, "All right, just wait a bit, I'll
+teach you."
+
+He was close on forty years of age when a conflagration broke out in
+the village; he was accused of incendiarism and sent, a prisoner, to
+Siberia.
+
+Jakov's wife, who lost her reason at the time of the fire, was left in
+the care of Terenti, and with her, her son Ilya, a boy of ten, sturdy,
+black-eyed, and serious beyond his years. Whenever the lad appeared in
+the village streets, the other children ran after him, throwing stones
+at him, and the bigger ones would shout, "Ah! the young devil the
+prison brat, bad luck to you!"
+
+Terenti, unfitted for laborious work, dealt up to the time of the fire
+in tar, needles and thread, and such small wares, but the catastrophe
+which destroyed half the village made an end both of the Lunevs'
+house and Terenti's whole stock-in-trade, so that all the Lunevs then
+possessed in the world amounted to one horse and thirty-three roubles
+in money.
+
+As soon as Terenti found that his native village would offer him no way
+whatever to earn a living, he entrusted his sister-in-law to the care
+of an old peasant woman at fifty kopecks a month, bought a ricketty old
+cart, and placed his nephew in it, determined to make for the chief
+town of the district, where he hoped for some assistance from a distant
+relative, Petrusha Filimonov, a servant in a small tavern.
+
+Secretly and like a thief in the night, Terenti left his home. He
+guided his horse silently, often looking back with his large dark
+eyes. The horse trotted on, the cart jolted from side to side and Ilya
+nestled into the hay, and soon slept the deep sleep of childhood.
+
+In the middle of the night the boy was awakened by a strange terrifying
+sound, like the howl of a wolf. It was a clear night, the cart was
+standing at the outskirts of a wood, and the horse moved round it
+cropping the dewy grass. A great pine tree, its highest branches
+scorched, stood far apart in the plain, as though driven out from
+the forest. The boy's eager eyes looked anxiously for his uncle; but
+through the quiet night from time to time the only distant sound was
+the dull thud of the horse's hoofs, or the noise of its breathing like
+heavy sighs, and the same mysterious terrifying sound filled the air,
+and frightened the lad.
+
+"Uncle?" he called softly.
+
+"What is it?" answered Terenti, at once, and the doleful sound ceased
+suddenly.
+
+"Where are you?"
+
+"Here. Go to sleep again."
+
+Then Ilya saw his uncle, sitting on a mound at the edge of the wood,
+like a black tree-stump rising out of the earth.
+
+"I'm frightened," said the boy.
+
+"What then--frightened? Why? there's nothing here."
+
+"Some one was crying."
+
+"You've been dreaming," said the hunchback softly.
+
+"No! truly, he _was_ crying."
+
+"A wolf perhaps, far away. Go to sleep again."
+
+But Ilya could sleep no more. He was frightened at the clear stillness,
+and in his ears the mournful sound still rang. He looked cautiously
+at the country round, and then saw that his uncle was gazing in the
+direction where, over the mountain, far in the midst of the wood, stood
+a white church with five towers, the large round moon shining brightly
+above it. Ilya knew that this was the church of Romodanov, and that two
+versts from it nearer to them, in the wood above the valley, lay their
+village Kitschnaja.
+
+"We haven't come far," he said, thoughtfully.
+
+"What?" asked his uncle.
+
+"We must get on further, I said, some one might come."
+
+Ilya nodded in the direction of the village with a look of hate.
+
+"We'll get on presently," replied his uncle.
+
+And again all was quiet round about. Ilya squatted with his knees up to
+his chin, supported himself against the front of the cart and began to
+gaze in the same direction as his uncle. The village was not visible in
+the dense black shadow of the forest, but it seemed to him that he saw
+clearly every house and all its people, and the old white willow by the
+well in the middle of the street. Against the willow's roots lay his
+father bound with a rope, his shirt torn to rags, his hands tied behind
+his back, his naked breast thrust forward, and his head as though it
+had grown to the willow stem. He lay motionless as a dead man, and
+looked with terrible eyes at the peasants, crowding before the house
+of the Starost, There were very many, all angry, they shouted, cursed
+him----. The memory troubled the boy, and a lump came in his throat. He
+felt he must soon cry for sorrow and the coldness of the night, but he
+did not wish to disturb his uncle, and mastering himself he huddled his
+little body closer together.
+
+Suddenly a low wail sounded again. First a deep sigh, then sobs, then
+loud, unspeakable lamentation.
+
+"Oh--oh! oh--oh--oh!"
+
+The boy shivered with terror and stared round him. But the sound
+quivered again through the air and grew in volume.
+
+"Uncle! Is it you crying?" called Ilya.
+
+Terenti neither spoke nor moved.
+
+Then the boy sprang from the cart, ran to his uncle, fell in front of
+him, clasped his knees, and burst into tears. He heard his uncle's
+voice broken by sobs.
+
+"They've driven us out--driven us out. Oh! God! Where shall we go?
+Where? oh!"
+
+But the boy said, swallowing down his tears:
+
+"Wait--when I grow up--I'll show them--just wait."
+
+He cried his sorrow out and then fell asleep. His uncle lifted him in
+his arms and laid him in the cart, but he himself went apart again and
+cried aloud once more, lamenting in bitter agony.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+Ilya remembered quite clearly in after life his arrival at the town.
+He awoke early one morning and saw before him a broad, muddy river,
+and on the further side on a lofty hill a heap of houses, with red and
+green roofs and tall trees with dark foliage between them. The houses
+crowded picturesquely up the slopes of the hill, and above on the
+summit stretched out in a straight line and looked proudly down and
+away across the river. The golden crosses and domes of the churches
+stood out above the roofs up into the sky. The sun was newly risen;
+its slanting rays glanced back from the windows of the houses, and the
+whole town blazed in bright colour and glittered in shining gold.
+
+"Ah! how beautiful it is. Look, look," said the boy, half aloud,
+staring with wide eyes at the wonderful picture, and gazed in silent
+delight for a long time.
+
+Then the anxious thought arose in his mind, where he should live in
+that heap of houses--he, the little, black-haired, touzled youngster,
+in worn breeches of hemp-linen, and his clumsy humpbacked uncle. Would
+they even be admitted into this clean, rich, golden city? He thought
+that the little cart must be standing still on the river's bank just
+because no such poor, ragged, wretched folk might enter the town, and
+his uncle, no doubt, had gone on to beg permission to come in.
+
+Ilya looked for his uncle with troubled eyes. In front of their cart
+and behind it stood many waggons; on one, wooden tubs full of milk, on
+another great baskets of poultry, cucumbers, or onions, bark baskets
+full of berries, sacks of potatoes. On the waggons and round about
+them sat or stood peasants and peasant women, and they were people
+of a strange kind. They spoke loudly with clear intonations and were
+not dressed in blue linen, but in clothes of gay-coloured calico and
+bright red cotton. Nearly all of them wore boots, and when a man with a
+sword at his side, a police officer or sergeant, went up and down past
+them, they were not in the least disturbed, and did not once salute
+him, and that seemed very strange to Ilya; he sat on the cart, staring
+at the lively scene, steeped in bright sunshine, and dreamed of the
+time when he too should wear boots and a shirt of red cotton. Far off,
+in the midst of the peasants, uncle Terenti came, as it were, to the
+surface. He advanced across the deep sand with big, confident strides,
+and held his head high; his face wore an expression of gaiety, and he
+smiled at Ilya from a long way off, and stretched out his hand to show
+him something.
+
+"The Lord is good to us, Ilya! Don't be frightened any more! I've found
+uncle Petrusha straight off. There--catch--get your teeth into that!"
+and he held out a cake to Ilya.
+
+The boy took it almost reverently, put it inside his shirt, and asked
+anxiously:
+
+"Won't they let us into the town?"
+
+"They'll let us in this very minute.... The ferry-boats will come and
+then we'll get over the river."
+
+"They'll take us too?"
+
+"Of course, we can't stay here."
+
+"Oh! and I thought they'd never let us in--and where shall we live over
+there?"
+
+"I don't know yet. The Lord will show us the way."
+
+"Perhaps we'll live in the big house there with the red----"
+
+"Oh! you silly boy; that's the barracks where the soldiers live."
+
+"In that one then--there--that one?"
+
+"Hardly, it's a bit too high up for us."
+
+"That doesn't matter," said Ilya, in a tone of conviction. "We'll
+manage to crawl up to it."
+
+"Oh you----!" sighed uncle Terenti, and disappeared again somewhere.
+
+They found shelter, quite at the end of the town, near the
+market-place, in a big grey house; all round its walls leant
+outbuildings of every kind, some comparatively recent, others as old
+as the house itself, and of the same dirty grey colour. The doors and
+windows were warped, and everything in the house creaked and cracked.
+The outbuildings, the fence, the gates, everything was falling to
+pieces together, and the whole formed a mass of half-rotten wood
+overgrown with greenish moss. The window panes were dim with age; a
+couple of beams in the front wall bulged right out, and altogether the
+house was an image of its owner, who used it as a tavern. He, too, was
+old and grey; the eyes in his worn face were like the glass panes in
+the windows; as he walked, he leant heavily on a thick staff--evidently
+it was not easy for him to carry his big paunch--and he, too, creaked
+and cracked all the time.
+
+Uncle Terenti established himself in one of the countless corners of
+the building--in a cellar, on a bench by a window opening on a corner
+of the courtyard. In this corner lay a great rubbish heap, and an old
+sweet-scented lime tree stood there between two elder bushes. It was
+three days after their arrival before the proprietor of the house
+noticed Ilya for the first time, as he tried to hide behind the rubbish
+heap and stared with terrified eyes.
+
+"Where do you belong, youngster? Hey!" he asked in his creaking voice,
+pointing at Ilya with his stick. "How did you come here? Hey!"
+
+Ilya blinked and said nothing.
+
+"Hullo, where does this youngster belong here? Send him off! out with
+you, you rascal! Wait a bit, I'll show you!--Hey!--Oh, you scamp!
+What--you belong to the man who does the washing up, do you? Are you
+his son? Not? Oh! a relation are you? The humpbacked rascal might have
+said he had a relation with him! Now then, Peter, what are you looking
+at? The humpback has a relation with him! What's the meaning of that?
+That won't do!"
+
+The potman Petrusha put his red face out of the bar window opening on
+the courtyard and shouted, shaking his curly head:
+
+"He's only got the youngster for a little while. Take, care Vassily
+Dorimendontytch--he's a poor orphan--I know about it--but if you don't
+like it, he shall clear out at once."
+
+When Ilya heard that he was to go away, he began to scream with all his
+might, then darted across like an arrow and slipped through the window
+into the cellar like a mouse into its hole. There he threw himself
+on the bench, buried his head in his uncle's coat and began to cry,
+quivering from head to foot. But his uncle came and soothed him:
+
+"No! No! don't be frightened! He only shouts like that to make
+pretence. He's going silly with age; he isn't the chief person
+here--it's Petrusha. Petrusha settles everything here. Just be friendly
+with him, be very polite to him! And as for the landlord--he doesn't
+count for anything!"
+
+In the early days that Ilya lived in the house, he crept everywhere
+and examined everything. The place pleased him and astonished him
+with its extraordinary roominess. It was crammed so full that Ilya
+truly believed more people lived there than in the whole village of
+Kiteshnaja, and it was as noisy inside as in a market place.
+
+Both storeys of the house were used for the tavern, which was visited
+by a constant stream of customers--whilst in the attics lodged sundry
+women apparently always drunk, one of whom, Matiza, big and dark, with
+a deep bass voice, drove fear into the heart of the lad with her wild,
+staring black eyes. In the cellar lived the cobbler Perfishka, with his
+crippled, ailing wife and his seven-year-old daughter; also an old rag
+picker, "grandfather" Jeremy; a lean old beggar-woman, called in the
+courtyard by no name but "Screamer," because of her habit of shrieking
+out loud at all times and seasons, and the tavern cab driver, Makar
+Stepanitsh, a grave, silent man, advanced in years. In one corner of
+the courtyard was a smithy; here from morning to night the fire flamed,
+wheel tires were welded, horses shod, while the hammers clinked and
+the tall sinewy smith, Savel Gratschev, for ever sang long-drawn songs
+in a deep, sorrowful voice. Sometimes Savel's wife appeared in the
+smithy, a little round, fair-haired woman, with blue eyes. She always
+wore a white kerchief round her head, and by this white head stood
+out often quite strangely against the dark hollow of the smithy. She
+laughed almost all the time a little silvery laugh, while Savel chimed
+in at times loudly as though with a hammer stroke. But more often his
+answer to her laughter was a kind of growl. Men said that he loved his
+wife passionately, while she led a wanton life.
+
+In every cranny of the house there was some one, and from early morning
+to late at night the whole place quivered with noise and outcry as
+though it were an old rusty kettle in which something seethed and
+boiled. In the evening all these people crept from their holes into
+the courtyard, to the bench that stood by the house door; the cobbler
+Perfishka played on his harmonica, Savel hummed his songs and Matiza,
+if she were drunk, sang something very strange, very mournful with
+words that no one understood, sang and wept bitterly at the same time.
+
+In one corner of the courtyard all the children of the house crowded in
+a circle round grandfather Jeremy, and begged him:
+
+"Grandfather dear! Tell us a story!"
+
+The old rag picker looked at them with his bleared red eyes, from which
+tears constantly ran down over his wrinkled cheeks, and then pulling
+his foxy old cap further over his forehead, began in a thin, quavering
+voice.
+
+"Once in a land, I don't know where, a heretic child was born of
+unknown parents, who were punished for their sins by Almighty God with
+this child...."
+
+Grandfather Jeremy's long, grey beard shook when he opened his black,
+toothless mouth, his head nodded to and fro and one tear after another
+rolled over the wrinkles on his cheeks.
+
+"And this heretic child was altogether wicked; he did not believe in
+Christ the Lord, did not love the mother of God, always went past the
+church without lifting his cap, would not obey his father and mother."
+
+The children listened to the thin, quavering voice of the old man and
+looked silently into his face.
+
+The fair-haired Jashka, son of the potman Petrusha, listened and looked
+more attentively than all the rest. He was a lean, sharp-nosed boy,
+with a big head on a thin neck. When he ran, his head always rolled
+from one side to the other as though it would shake loose from his
+body. His eyes were big and strangely restless. They shifted anxiously
+over everything as if they were afraid to rest anywhere, and when at
+last they rested on anything they rolled oddly in their sockets, and
+gave the lad a sheepish expression. He stood out from the rest also
+by his delicate bloodless face, and his clean, respectable clothes.
+Ilya quickly made friends with him, and the very first day of their
+acquaintance Jashka asked his new playmate with a mysterious air:
+
+"Are there many wizards in your village?"
+
+"Of course," answered Ilya, "several, and witches too--our neighbour
+could work magic."
+
+"Had he red hair?" asked Jakov, in a trembling voice.
+
+"No, grey. They always have grey hair."
+
+"The grey ones are not wicked, they are good-hearted. But the
+red-haired ones--ah, I tell you, they drink blood."
+
+They were sitting in the prettiest, pleasantest corner of the courtyard
+behind the rubbish heap under the lime tree and the elder bushes. It
+was reached through a narrow crack between the sheds and the house;
+it was always quiet there, and nothing could be seen but the sky over
+their heads and the house wall with three windows, two of them boarded
+up. It became the favourite corner of the two friends. The sparrows
+hopped twittering about the lime-tree branches, and the boys sat on the
+ground at its root and chattered of everything that interested them.
+
+All day long before Ilya's eyes whirled a great, gay something, noisy
+and shouting, that blinded and deafened him. At first he was quite
+confused by the wild pell-mell of this life. In the bar Ilya would
+often stand by the table where uncle Terenti, dripping with sweat, and
+wet with water, rinsed the dishes and glasses and saw how people came,
+and ate, and drank, shouted and sang, kissed and fought. They were
+covered with sweat, dirty and tired; clouds of tobacco smoke enwrapped
+them, and in this fog they rioted like madmen.
+
+"Hullo!" his uncle would say to him, while his humpback shook, and he
+bustled unceasingly with the glasses. "What do you want here? Get along
+into the yard, else the landlord will see you and pitch into you."
+
+Deafened with the noise of the bar, Ilya betook himself to the
+courtyard. Here Savel was striking great blows on the anvil with his
+hammer and quarrelling with his mates. Out of the cellar the jolly
+song of the cobbler Perfishka rang out into the open, and from above
+came the scolding and shrieking of the drunken women. Savel's son
+Pashka, called "the rowdy," was riding round the yard on a stick
+shouting angrily to his steed: "Get on you devil." His round, pert
+face was covered with dirt and soot; there was a boil on his forehead;
+his strong healthy body shone through the countless holes in his
+shirt. Pashka was the leading bully and brawler in the courtyard;
+twice already he had thrashed Ilya soundly, and when Ilya complained
+tearfully, his uncle shrugged his shoulders and said:
+
+"What can I do? You must bear it. It'll pass off."
+
+"I'll give it to him next time though, see if I don't," threatened Ilya
+through his tears.
+
+"No, don't do that," said his uncle decidedly. "You mustn't do that,
+anyway."
+
+"Then he may do it and I'm not to?"
+
+"He!--he belongs here, d'you see, and you're a stranger."
+
+Ilya went on pouring out threats against Pashka, but his uncle became
+angry all at once, and stormed at him, a thing that very rarely
+happened. So the consciousness dawned in Ilya, that he was not the
+equal of the children who belonged to the place, and while from that
+time he hid his enmity to Pashka, he clung all the closer to Jakov.
+
+Jakov always behaved himself very well; he never fought the other
+boys and seldom so much as shouted at them. Even in the games, he
+hardly ever joined the others though he loved to speak of the games
+the children of the rich played in the town park. Jakov's only friend
+among the other children of the house, excepting Ilya, was Mashka, the
+seven-year-old daughter of the cobbler Perfishka. Mashka was a dirty,
+delicate, sickly child. Her little head of black curls flitted about
+the court from morning to night. Her mother sat almost all the time in
+the doorway leading to the cellar. She was tall, with a long plait of
+hair down her back, and sewed incessantly, bent double over her work.
+Whenever she raised her head to look after her daughter, Ilya could see
+her face. It was a purplish, expressionless, bloated face--like the
+face of a corpse. Even her pleasant black eyes had about them something
+fixed, immovable. She spoke to no one, even to her daughter she used to
+beckon if she wanted her. Only very rarely she would cry in a hoarse,
+half-choked voice:
+
+"Mashka!"
+
+At first, something about this woman took Ilya's fancy. But later, when
+he learnt that she had been a cripple for three years and would soon
+die, he grew afraid of her.
+
+Once, as Ilya passed close to her, she stretched out an arm, caught him
+by the sleeve and drew him, terrified, up to her.
+
+"Please, please, my son," she said, "be good to our Mashka! Be good to
+her." Speech came from her with difficulty, she struggled for breath
+after it. "Be--very good to her, my dear."
+
+She looked with imploring eyes in his face and let him go. Ilya from
+that time took charge of the cobbler's daughter with Jakov, and looked
+after her carefully. He liked to fulfil the request of a grown-up
+person the more, as most of them only spoke to him to order him about.
+The men and women were always very harsh to the children. Makar, the
+coachman, kicked at them, or struck them in the face with wet cloths if
+they wanted to look on at the cleaning of the carriages. Savel raged at
+every one who looked with curiosity into his smithy and threw coal-grit
+at the children. The cobbler flung the first thing that came handy at
+the head of any one who stood in front of his cellar window and blocked
+out the light. Sometimes they would strike the children for want of
+any other occupation or by way of playing with them. Only grandfather
+Jeremy never struck them.
+
+Ilya was soon convinced that life in the village was far pleasanter
+than life in town. In the village he could go where he liked, but here
+his uncle forbade him to leave the courtyard. In the village there were
+cucumbers and peas, or anything you liked, to eat on the sly. But here
+there was no garden, and nothing to be had without paying for it. There
+it was spacious and still, and every one did just the same work; here
+every one quarrels and fights; every one does what he likes, and all
+are poor and eat strange bread and are half starved. Day after day Ilya
+drifted on, round about in the courtyard, and it became dreary to him
+to live in this hateful grey house with the dim windows.
+
+One morning at the midday meal, Terenti said to his nephew with a deep
+sigh, "The autumn's drawing on, Ilyusha. Oh dear! that's when the pinch
+will come for us, come with a vengeance. My God!"
+
+He was silent for a long time, lost in thought, looking sadly into his
+dish of cabbage soup. The boy, too, was thoughtful. They both took
+their meals at the table where the hunchback washed the dishes. A wild
+tumult filled the bar room.
+
+"Petrusha thinks you ought to go to school with your friend Jashka.
+Ah--yes--it's very important. I see that in this place being without
+education is like being without eyes. You're fairly lost! But you'll
+need new shoes and new clothes if you go to school, and where are they
+to come from out of my five roubles a month ... Oh God! in Thee I set
+my trust."
+
+His uncle's sighs and sad countenance made Ilya's heart sink, and he
+said gently, "Come, uncle! We'll get out of this place!"
+
+"But where," asked the hunchback gloomily, "where can we go?"
+
+"Why not into the wood?" said Ilya, gleefully excited at his idea in a
+moment, "grandfather lived ever so many years in the wood you used to
+tell me. And there are two of us. We could strip bark from the trees,
+and catch foxes and squirrels. You'll get a gun, and I'll catch birds
+in traps. Yes, and there are berries there and mushrooms. Shall we go
+there uncle?"
+
+His uncle looked on him kindly and said with a smile:
+
+"And what about wolves? and bears?"
+
+"But we'd have a gun," cried Ilya boldly. "I won't be afraid of wild
+beasts when I'm grown up! I'll strangle them with my hands! I'm not
+afraid now--not of anything. Life is no joke here. If I am little I can
+see that, and they knock you about here worse than in the village. Yes!
+I can feel it, I'm not made of wood. When the smith gives me a whack on
+the head, it sings for the whole day. All the people here look as if
+they'd been beaten, even if they do put on airs."
+
+"Ah! poor laddie!" said Terenti feebly, then put down his spoon and
+went away--went very quickly.
+
+In the evening of this same day, Ilya sat on the floor beside
+his uncle's table tired out with his voyages of discovery in the
+courtyard, where there was never anything new. Half asleep, he heard
+a conversation between Terenti and grandfather Jeremy, who came to
+drink a glass of tea at the bar. The old rag-picker had struck up
+a friendship with the hunchback, and always when he came from work
+settled himself near Terenti to drink his tea.
+
+"It don't matter," Ilya heard Jeremy's creaking voice, "only trust in
+God! See! Think only one thing, God! You're just His slave, for it says
+in the Bible a servant! So make sure of that! God's servant, that's
+what you are, and everything you have belongs to God; good or bad,
+everything is God's. He will know how to decide for you. He sees your
+life. He, our Father, sees--everything.... And a glorious day will come
+for you when He says to His angel, 'Go down, my servant in Heaven and
+lighten the burden of my servant Terenti!' And then your good fortune
+will come to you--believe it--it will come!"
+
+"I do trust in the Lord, grandfather. What else have I left?" said
+Terenti gently. "I believe in Him. He will help."
+
+"He? He will never leave a man in the lurch on this earth, I promise
+you. The earth is given to us by God, to try us, to see if we fulfil
+His commands. He looks down from above and gives heed. 'Children of
+men, do you love one another, even as I bade you?' and when He sees
+that life weighs heavy on Terenti, He sends a good message to old
+Jeremy. 'Jeremy, help my true servant!'" Then suddenly the voice of
+the old man altered, till it was almost like the voice of Petrusha the
+potman when he was angry, and he said to Terenti:
+
+"I will give you some money, so that Ilyusha can have clothes for
+school. I'll give you five roubles. I'll scrape it together somehow.
+I'll borrow it for you. But if you are ever rich, you'll give it me
+back."
+
+"Grandfather," cried Terenti.
+
+"Sh! Don't say anything! Besides you can let me have the boy, he hasn't
+anything to do here anyhow. He can help me, instead of interest on
+the money; he can pick me up a bone or a bit of rag. I shan't need to
+double up my old back so often."
+
+"Ah! God bless you," cried the hunchback with a shaking voice.
+
+"The Lord gives to me, I to you; you to the lad and the lad to the Lord
+again. So it goes round the circle, and no one of us owes anything to
+the others. Hey! Isn't that good? Eh? Ah! my brother. I have lived and
+lived and seen--seen, and have seen nothing but God. Everything is
+His, everything belongs to Him, everything comes from Him and is for
+Him!"
+
+Ilya went to sleep while they talked. But next morning early, old
+Jeremy waked him with the joyful summons:
+
+"Now then, up with you, Ilyusha, you're to come with me. So cheerily!
+cheerily! rub the sleep out of your peepers!"
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+Ilya's daily work arranged itself fairly comfortably under the friendly
+hand of old Jeremy. Every morning he roused the boy early, and from
+then till late at night both tramped round the town and collected rags,
+bones, old paper, old iron, scraps of leather, and anything else of a
+similar kind. The town was large and there were many remarkable things
+to be seen in it, so that at first Ilya only half helped the old man,
+while he gazed constantly at the people and the houses, marvelled at
+everything, and questioned the grandfather unceasingly.
+
+Jeremy was glad to chatter. With head bent forward and eyes searching
+the ground he passed from courtyard to courtyard, tapped the pavement
+with the iron ferule of his stick, wiped the tears from his eyes with
+his torn sleeve or the point of the dirty rag bag, and told all kinds
+of histories to his small companion, without ceasing, in a sing-song
+monotonous voice.
+
+"This house belongs to the merchant Sava Petrovitch Ptschelin--a rich
+man is the merchant Ptschelin ... his house is full of silver and
+crystal."
+
+"Grandfather, dear," asked Ilya, "tell me, how does a man get rich?"
+
+"He must work for it, toil for it, that's the way. They work day and
+night and pile gold on gold, and when they have piled up enough, then
+they build themselves houses and get themselves horses, and all kinds
+of belongings, and everything the heart can wish, bright, new things.
+And then they hire clerks, and servants, and people who work for them,
+and they rest and enjoy the day. When any one has managed like that,
+men say of him, he has become rich by honest work. Ah! But there are
+some who grow rich through sin. People say of the merchant Ptschelin,
+that he destroyed his soul while he was quite young. Perhaps it is
+only envy that makes them say it, perhaps it is true. He is a wicked
+man, this Ptschelin, and his eyes look so frightened, they are always
+wandering here and there as if they wanted to hide. But perhaps it is
+all lies, as I said, that they tell of Ptschelin. It happens lots of
+times that a man becomes rich all at once quite easily, if he just
+is lucky, if fortune smiles on him. Ah! only God lives in the Truth,
+and we men know nothing! We are only men, and men are the seed God
+sows--grains of corn, my dear boy! God has sown them on the earth.
+'Grow! and I will see what kind of bread you will make!' That's how
+it is! And that house there belongs to a certain Mitri Pavlovitch
+Sabaneyev. He is even richer than Ptschelin, and he is really a
+downright swindler. I know it! I don't judge him, for judgment is for
+God, but I know it right enough--as a matter of fact, he was overseer
+in our village, and robbed us all, cheated us!--God had patience with
+him for a long time, but in time He began to make up His account. First
+Mitri Pavlov became deaf, then his son was killed by a horse, and just
+lately I heard that his daughter had run away."
+
+The old man knew everything and everybody in the town and spoke of them
+all quite simply without malice. Everything he told seemed to have been
+purified, as if all his histories were cleansed in his never ceasing
+tears.
+
+Ilya listened attentively while at the same time he looked at the big
+houses, and said now and then:
+
+"If I could only have half a look inside!"
+
+"You'll soon see inside, wait a bit! Learn diligently and work!
+Wait till you grow up, then you'll soon see what is inside there.
+Perhaps some day you'll be rich too. Learn first to live and to see.
+Yes--yes--I have lived and lived and seen and seen. That's how I have
+ruined my eyes. Now the tears keep flowing, and so I have grown so thin
+and feeble. My strength has flowed away, I think, with my tears, my
+blood is all dried up."
+
+It was pleasant to Ilya to hear the old man speak of God with such
+conviction and love. Through hearing him speak, there grew up in his
+heart a strong, invigorating feeling of hope for something good and
+joyful awaiting him somewhere in the future. He was gayer and more of a
+child at this time than when first he found a resting-place in the town.
+
+He helped the old man zealously to rummage in the dust heaps. He found
+it most exciting to burrow into these heaps of every kind of rubbish
+with a stick, and specially pleasant to see the old man's joy when
+he made an unusual find among the rubbish. One day, Ilya found a big
+silver spoon in a drain, and the old man bought him half a pound of
+ginger bread for it. Then once he dug out a little purse covered with
+green mould, with more than a rouble in money inside it. More often
+he found knives, forks, metal rings, broken brasswork, pretty tin
+boxes--formerly full of blacking or pickled fish--and once, in the
+valley where the refuse of the whole town was unloaded, he grubbed out
+a heavy brass candlestick quite uninjured. For every valuable find of
+this sort Ilya received some dainty or other from the old man as a
+reward.
+
+Whenever Ilya found anything out of the common, he would cry out
+gleefully: "Grandfather! Look! See here! this is something like!"
+
+Then the old man would look anxiously all round him and say in a
+warning whisper:
+
+"But don't shout so--don't shout for any sake!"
+
+He was always anxious if they made any unusual discovery, and would
+take it quickly out of Ilya's hands and conceal it in the big sack.
+
+"Ha! Ha! I've hooked another big fish!" Ilya would cry, delighted with
+his success.
+
+"Be quiet, youngster! Quiet, my boy," the old man would say in a
+friendly tone, while the tears ran and ran from his red swollen eyes.
+
+"But look grandfather," Ilya would break out again, "what a tremendous
+big bone!"
+
+Bones and rags did not excite the old man. He took them from the bag,
+wiped off the dirt with wood shavings and stuffed them quietly into the
+sack. He had sewed for Ilya a little sack and given him a stick with an
+iron point, and the youngster was not a little proud of this equipment.
+In his sack he collected all kinds of small boxes, broken toys, pretty
+potsherds, and it filled him with joy to feel all these things in the
+bag on his back, and to hear how they rattled and rustled. Old Jeremy
+made it the lad's business to collect all these trifles.
+
+"Do you collect just these pretty things and carry them home. You can
+share them with the children and make them happy. God is pleased when a
+man makes his brothers happy. Ah! my son, all men long for happiness,
+and yet there is so little. So very little in all the world. So little
+that many a man never meets happiness all his life, never."
+
+Ilya preferred rummaging in the town refuse heaps to pottering about
+courtyards. There in the open space, there was nobody except two or
+three old people like Jeremy who searched the rubbish as he did. In
+the courtyard, on the contrary, there was need of constant anxious
+attention, lest a house servant should come out, broom in hand, and
+chase them away with angry words, or even with blows. Every day Jeremy
+said to his companion when they had searched for about two hours:
+
+"That's enough just now, Ilya, that's enough, laddie! We'll sit down a
+while and rest, and have a bit to eat."
+
+He took a piece of bread out of his pocket, made the sign of the cross
+over it, and divided it. They both made a meal, and after eating,
+rested full half an hour, camped on the edge of the valley. The valley
+opened on to the river, and they could see the stream quite plainly.
+It swept slowly past the valley in broad, silver-shining streaks, and
+when Ilya followed the flow of the water, he felt in his heart a keen
+desire to glide away with it--somewhere, anywhere. On the further side
+of the river, the green, newly-mown meadows stretched away and away,
+haystacks rising up among them like grey towers, and far on the horizon
+the dark jagged line of the forest stood out against the blue sky. A
+sense of rest and kindliness brooded over the meadow lands, inspiring
+the thought that a pure, transparent, sweet-smelling air drifted over
+them, while here it was so suffocating with the reek of the rotting
+refuse; the stench of it gripped the lungs and irritated the nose, and
+tears ran from Ilya's eyes as well as from the old man's.
+
+"See, Ilya, how great and wide the world is!" said Jeremy; "and
+everywhere in it there are men living--living and tormenting
+themselves--and the Lord looks down out of Heaven and He sees
+everything and knows everything. All that a man so much as thinks,
+is known to Him, wherefore He is also called by the Holy Name, Lord
+God of Sabaoth, Jesus Christ. He knows everything, counts everything,
+thinks of everything. The spots of sin upon your soul you may conceal
+from men, but never from Him. He sees all. He thinks of you. 'Ah! thou
+sinner, thou miserable sinner! Wait, I must chastise thee.' And when
+the time comes, then He punishes--punishes you grievously! He gave
+command to men, 'Love ye one another,' and He has so ordered it that
+he who does not love his fellow-men is loved by no one. Such men live
+lonely in the world and their lot is heavy, and they have no gladness."
+
+Ilya lay on his back, and looked up into the blue sky, whose limits
+he could not determine. Melancholy and sleepiness fell on him, vague,
+confused pictures drifted before his soul. It seemed to him as if far
+above in the sky, there hovered a mighty being, transparently clear,
+gentle and comforting, at once good and powerful, and that he, the
+little boy, might raise himself, with the old grandfather Jeremy and
+the whole earth, up into the boundless space, the blue ocean of light
+and shining purity, and his heart was full of peaceful, quiet joy. In
+the evening, when they returned home, Ilya trod the courtyard with the
+important self-assured gait of a man who has completed a good day's
+work. In the well-earned desire for rest, he retained not the least
+pleasure in such foolish things as other little boys and girls delight
+in. By his serious demeanour and the sack on his back, stuffed full of
+rare and fascinating things, he inspired a decided respect in all the
+children.
+
+The grandfather smiled in a friendly way at the youngsters and chaffed
+them:
+
+"Here children, see! the Lazaruses have come home again. They have
+hunted through the whole town and shoved their noses in everywhere. Run
+along Ilya, wash your face and come into the bar for tea."
+
+Ilya went to his corner in the cellar with important strides, and a
+crowd of children followed him, keenly curious as to the contents of
+the sack. Only Pashka stood in his path and asked him pertly:
+
+"Hullo! Rag-picker! Show us what you've brought."
+
+"You'll have to wait," answered Ilya with decision. "Let me have my
+tea, then I'll show you."
+
+In the bar, uncle Terenti met him with a friendly smile.
+
+"Ha! Ha! little workman, back again? Tramped yourself tired, eh,
+young'un?"
+
+Ilya liked to be called a little workman, and he received the title
+from others besides his uncle. Once when Pashka had played some pranks,
+his father Savel took his head between his knees and thrashed him
+soundly.
+
+"I'll teach you, you rascal! You'll play your tricks again, will you?
+Take that then--and that--and one more! Other children no older than
+you earn their own bread, and you can do nothing--nothing but stuff
+yourself and tear your clothes!"
+
+Pashka screamed till the whole house rang, and kicked hard while the
+rope's end whistled about his back. At first Ilya heard his enemy's
+cries of pain with a certain sense of satisfaction, and at the same
+time the words of the smith, which he took to himself, filled him with
+a consciousness of his superiority to Pashka. Then the thought roused
+compassion in him for the victim.
+
+"Uncle Savel, please stop!" he called out suddenly. "Uncle Savel!"
+
+The smith gave his son one cut more, then looked at Ilya and said
+crossly:
+
+"Shut up! You! Speak up for him, will you? Look out for yourself!"
+
+Then he swung his son on to one side and went into the smithy. Pashka
+got on to his feet and tottered with wavering steps into a dark corner
+of the courtyard. Ilya followed him pityingly. Pashka knelt down in the
+corner, pressed his head against the fence and began to scream more
+loudly than ever, rubbing his back with his hands. Ilya felt a wish to
+say something friendly to his humbled enemy; presently he asked:
+
+"Does it hurt much?"
+
+"Get away! Get out!" screamed Pashka.
+
+The ill-tempered tone angered Ilya, and he said in a prim way:
+
+"You used to be always knocking the others about, and now----"
+
+Before he could finish Pashka flung himself upon him and dragged him to
+the ground. Ilya was immediately filled with rage, gripped fast hold of
+his antagonist and both rolled on the earth in a knot. Pashka bit and
+scratched while Ilya, with his hand twisted firmly in his adversary's
+hair, bumped his head vigorously against the ground till Pashka cried:
+
+"Let go!"
+
+"There! you see!" said Ilya, proud of his victory, as he got on to his
+feet, "you see, I'm stronger than you. So don't try that game on me
+again, unless you want another licking!"
+
+He walked off wiping the blood from his scratched face with his sleeve.
+The smith was standing in the middle of the yard with lowering brows.
+When Ilya saw him, he shivered and stood still, convinced that the
+smith would take vengeance on him for Pashka's defeat. But the smith
+only shrugged his shoulders and said: "Now then, what are you glowering
+at? Never seen me before? Get along with you!"
+
+But the same evening as Ilya stepped through the door, he met Savel
+again; the smith flipped him lightly on the head with his finger and
+said smiling:
+
+"Hullo! young dust-grubber, how goes business? Eh?"
+
+Ilya giggled happily; he was delighted. The gloomy smith, the strongest
+man in the yard, who inspired every one with fear and respect had joked
+with him. The smith gripped the lad's shoulder with his iron hand, and
+increased his delight still further by saying:
+
+"Eh, you're a sturdy youngster! It's not so easy to bowl you over. When
+you grow a bit I'll take you on in the smithy."
+
+Ilya caught the smith round his huge thigh and pressed against him. The
+giant must have felt the tumultuous beating of that little heart, that
+his clumsy kindness had set going. He laid a heavy hand on Ilya's head,
+and after a moment's silence said in his deep voice:
+
+"Ah! poor motherless lad. There! there!"
+
+Beaming with happiness, Ilya set to at his usual evening's task, the
+distribution of the treasures he had collected in the day. The children
+had been waiting for him for ever so long. They sat in a circle on the
+ground about him and gazed with greedy eyes at the dirty sack. Ilya
+fetched out of the bag a couple of strips of calico, a wooden soldier,
+bleached by wind and weather, a blacking pot, a pomade box, and a
+teacup with a broken rim and no handle:
+
+"That is for me!--for me--for me!" came the children's voices, and from
+all sides little dirty hands caught at the rare treasures.
+
+"Wait! Wait! No grabbing!" commanded Ilya. "Do you call that playing
+fair if you all snatch at once? Now then, I'll open the shop. First,
+I'll sell this piece of calico, quite wonderful calico, the price is
+half a rouble. Mashka, buy it!"
+
+"It's bought," shouted Jakov instead of the cobbler's daughter, and
+drew out of his pocket a potsherd he had held in readiness and pressed
+it into the merchant's hand. But Ilya would not take it. "What sort of
+a game's that? You must bargain--my goodness! You never bargain. In the
+market you must bargain!"
+
+"I forgot," Jakov excused himself, and now began an obstinate haggling.
+Seller and buyers grew wildly excited, and while they chaffered, Pashka
+quickly snatched what he wanted out of the heap, and ran off, dancing
+and shouting in mockery:
+
+"Ha! ha! I've got it! I've got it! You sleepyheads, you silly duffers!"
+
+At first Pashka's thievish ways enraged all the children. The little
+ones cried and howled, while Jakov and Ilya chased the robber, but
+usually without success. By degrees they became accustomed to his
+knavery, looked for nothing better from him and paid him out by
+refusing angrily to play with him. Pashka lived for himself, and
+thought of nothing but how to play his evil tricks. The big-headed
+Jakov, on the other hand, was a kind of nursemaid for the curly-haired
+daughter of the cobbler. She took his care for her interest as
+something quite natural, and if she called him always coaxingly
+"Jashetschka," she also scratched and struck him fairly often. Jakov's
+friendship with Ilya grew from day to day and he was always telling his
+friend his most wonderful dreams.
+
+"I dreamed last night that I had a heap of money--bright roubles, a
+whole sackful, and I carried the sack into the wood on my back. Then
+all at once some robbers came at me with knives--horrible! I ran away,
+of course, and then in a minute the sack seemed alive. I threw it away
+and--you'll never guess--all sorts of birds flew out of it. Whirr!
+Whirr! Siskins and tits and finches, oh such a tremendous lot! They
+lifted me up and carried me through the air--high, ever so high."
+
+He broke off and looked at Ilya with his prominent eyes, while a
+sheepish look came into his face.
+
+"Well, what next?" Ilya prompted him, eager to hear the end.
+
+"Oh! I flew right away," Jakov ended his tale thoughtfully.
+
+"But where?"
+
+"Where? Oh--just--just right away."
+
+"Oh you!" said Ilya disappointed and contemptuous. "You never remember
+anything."
+
+Grandfather Jeremy came out from the bar and called, shading his eyes
+with his hand:
+
+"Ilyusha! Where are you? Come to bed it's getting late."
+
+Ilya followed the old man obediently and went to his bed, made of a
+sack full of hay. He slept soundly on his sack, and lived happily with
+the old rag-picker, but all too fast this pleasant easy life slipped
+away.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+Grandfather Jeremy kept his word; he bought Ilya a pair of boots, a
+thick heavy coat and a cap, and thus equipped, the youngster was sent
+to school. Full at once of curiosity and anxiety he went, and gloomy
+and sick, with tears in his eyes he came home. The boys had recognised
+him as old Jeremy's companion and had jeered at him in chorus:
+
+"Rag-picker! Stinking rag-picker!"
+
+Some pinched him, others put their tongues out at him, and one
+specially impudent boy went up to him, sniffed the air, and shouted,
+turning away with a grimace of disgust:
+
+"Ah! how beastly the lout smells!"
+
+"Why do they laugh at me?" Ilya asked his uncle, full of wrath and
+doubt. "Is there any shame in being a rag-picker?"
+
+"No! No!" answered Terenti, stroking his nephew's hair, and trying
+to hide his face from the boy's inquiring eyes. "They only do it--oh
+just--because they're ill-mannered. Don't worry! Try to bear it!
+They'll soon have enough of it, and you'll get used to it."
+
+"But they laugh at my boots, too, and my overcoat; they said they were
+odds and ends dug out of a rubbish heap!"
+
+Grandfather Jeremy comforted him, blinking in a friendly way.
+
+"Bear it, dear lad! There's One will soon make it up to you: He!
+There's no one else that matters."
+
+The old man spoke of God with such joy, such confidence in his justice,
+as though he knew well all the mind of God, and was initiated into all
+His intentions. And Jeremy's words relieved a little the boy's feeling
+of heart-sickness. But the next day the feeling rose up in him stronger
+than ever. Ilya had become accustomed to regard himself as a person of
+importance, a real workman. Why, Savel the smith spoke in a friendly
+way with him, and these school-boys laughed and mocked at him. He could
+get no peace, no respite. Every day the bitter insulting expressions
+of the school became more marked, and drove deeper into his soul. The
+school hours were for him a heavy, burdensome duty. He kept himself
+apart, held no intercourse with the others. Through his quickness of
+comprehension he attracted the attention of the teacher, and being held
+up as an example to the others, his relations with his schoolfellows
+became, if possible, more strained than before. He sat on the front
+bench, and never lost the sense of his enemies at his back. They had
+him constantly before their eyes, and readily discovered anything about
+him that might appear ridiculous. And they laughed at him all the time.
+Jakov attended the same school and was at once tarred with the same
+brush as his comrade. They usually called him "Muttonhead." He was
+absent-minded, learnt with difficulty, and was punished almost every
+day, but remained absolutely indifferent to all punishments. Mostly
+he seemed hardly to notice what went on round about him, and lived in
+a world of his own, at school as at home. He had his own thoughts,
+and by his odd questions moved Ilya to astonishment nearly every day.
+For instance, he would say, casually, gazing meditatively before him,
+"Tell me, Ilya, how is it that such little eyes as men have can see
+everything? One can see the whole street, the whole town; how can
+anything so big get into our little eyes?"
+
+Or he would stare up into the sky and say suddenly:
+
+"Ah! the sun."
+
+"Well--what?" asked Ilya.
+
+"How it blazes away!"
+
+"Well, what then?"
+
+"Oh nothing. D'you know what I was thinking? The sun and moon must be
+parents and the stars are their children."
+
+At first Ilya pondered deeply over his odd sayings, but by degrees
+these fancies began to worry him, because they took his mind off the
+things that were happening close to him. And there were many things
+happening, and the boy had soon learnt to take good heed of them.
+
+One day he came home from school and said with scorn to old Jeremy:
+
+"Our teacher--ah!--he's a good one! Yesterday the son of Malafyeyev the
+merchant, smashed a window, and he let him off very easy, and to-day
+he's had the window mended and paid for it out of his own pocket."
+
+"But see then, how good he is!" answered Jeremy.
+
+"Good? Oh yes--very good! A little time ago Vanika Klutscharev broke
+a window, and he made him go without his dinner, and then he sent for
+Vanika's father and said: Here, pay me forty kopecks; and so Vanika got
+a licking from his father--that's how good he is!"
+
+"You mustn't trouble over things like that, Ilyusha," said the old man,
+blinking nervously. "Try and think that it doesn't concern you. It's
+for God to decide what is wrong and not for us. We don't understand,
+we can only find out the bad things, and we're not quick to see the
+good. But He can weigh everything. He knows the measure and the value
+of everything. Look at me, I have lived so long and seen so much and no
+one could count how much wrong-doing I've seen. But I have never seen
+the truth. Eighty years have gone over my head, and it cannot be in all
+that long time that the truth has not come near me. But I have never
+seen it, I don't know it."
+
+"Ah!" said Ilya doubtfully, "What's there to know in this? If this one
+must pay forty kopecks so ought the other, that's the truth."
+
+But the old man would not agree. He said many things about himself,
+about the blindness of men, and how they are not fit to judge one
+another rightly, and how only the judgment of God is just.
+
+Ilya listened attentively, but his face grew darker and his eyes more
+gloomy.
+
+"When will God come and judge us?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"No man knows; when the hour strikes, then He will come down from the
+clouds to judge the living and the dead: but no man knows when it will
+come to pass. But on Saturday we will both go to the holy service."
+
+"Yes, let's go."
+
+"All right."
+
+On Saturday Ilya stood with the old man on the church steps between the
+two doors, with the beggars. Whenever the outer door was opened, Ilya
+felt the cold air blowing in from the street, his feet were numbed,
+and he moved gently with short steps up and down on the pavement.
+But he saw through the glass panes of the church door how the candle
+flames made beautiful patterns of quivering points of gold, and lit up
+the glimmering metal on the priest's garments, the dark heads of the
+reverent multitude, the faces in the sacred pictures and the splendid
+carving of the holy shrines.
+
+People seemed better and kinder in the church than in the street. They
+looked more beautiful too in the golden candlelight that illuminated
+their dark forms, standing in reverent silence. Whenever the inner
+door opened there streamed out on the steps the solemn, deep-toned
+waves of song, warm, heavy with incense; gently they wrapped the lad
+round, and he breathed in the sweet-scented air, with delight. It was
+good to him to stand there beside old Jeremy, as he murmured prayers.
+He heard the glorious, solemn song that flooded the house of God, and
+waited impatiently for the door to open again and let the loud, joyful
+sound sweep over him, and the warm balsam-laden air cling round his
+being. He knew that up there in the church choir Grishka Bubnov was
+singing, one of the worst of his tormentors in the school, and Fedka
+Dolganov, too, a strong, quarrelsome lout, who had thrashed him more
+than once. But now he felt no hate towards them nor desire for revenge,
+only a little envy. He would have liked to sing in the choir and see
+the faces of the people. It must be so beautiful to sing there at the
+middle door by the altar, high above the people, and see their quiet,
+peaceful faces. When he left the church, he felt as though he had
+grown better and was ready to be reconciled to Bubnov and Dolganov and
+all his schoolfellows. But on the following Monday, he came home from
+school sombre and affronted even as before.
+
+Everywhere, where men are gathered together in any numbers, there will
+be one who is ill at ease among them, and it is not at all necessary
+that he should be either worse or better than the rest. The ill-will
+of a crowd can be aroused by a lack of intelligence or by a ridiculous
+nose. It simply chooses some one as the object of its sport, inspired
+by nothing but the wish to amuse itself. In this case the lot had
+fallen on Ilya Lunev. No doubt in the course of time, he would have
+ceased to fill the _rôle_ that his comrades had allotted to him, but
+now there came into Ilya's life, events that shook his soul profoundly
+with their terrible impressions, and so far lessened his interest in
+the school, that he became indifferent to its small unpleasantnesses.
+
+The beginning came one day when Ilya, returning with Jakov from an
+excursion, noticed a crowd in the gateway of the house.
+
+"Look!" said Jakov to his friend, "they're fighting again. Come along,
+let's get in quick!"
+
+They hurried full speed to the house, and as they came into the
+courtyard, saw that there were strange men gathered there who called
+out:
+
+"Send for the police! Tie his hands!"
+
+Pressing round the smithy was a dense crowd of men, silent, motionless,
+with frightened faces. Children who had crept to the front, struggled
+away terrified. At their feet on the snow lay a woman, with her face
+to the ground. Her neck and the back of her head were covered with
+blood, and a pasty mass of something, and the snow round about her was
+reddened with blood. By her lay a crumpled white kerchief and a pair of
+big smith's tongs. Savel crouched in the smithy door and stared dumbly
+at the woman's hands. They were outstretched, buried deep in the snow,
+and the head lay between them as though she had tried to take refuge
+from him in the earth and hide there. The smith's brows were drawn
+gloomily, his face convulsed, his teeth clenched fast, the cheek bones
+stood out like great swellings. He supported himself with his right
+hand against the door post, his black fingers moved quiveringly like a
+cat's claws, and except for his fingers he was motionless. But to Ilya
+it seemed as though his close-locked lips must open, and his mighty
+breast cry out with all its strength. The crowd gazed without a sound;
+their faces were stern and earnest and though noise and tumult filled
+the courtyard, by the smithy all was still and motionless.
+
+Suddenly old Jeremy crept with heavy steps from the crowd, all torn and
+covered with sweat, with trembling hand he held out to the smith a cup
+of water and said: "There! drink!"
+
+"Don't give him water, the murderer! It's a rope round his neck he
+deserves," said some one, half aloud.
+
+Savel took the cup in his left hand and drank--drank deep, and when
+all was gone, he looked into the empty vessel and said in a dull voice:
+
+"I warned her. Let be, you harlot," I said, "or I'll strike you dead.
+I forgave her--how many times I forgave her. But she would not leave
+it--and so--now--it has come to pass. My Pashka is an orphan now, look
+to him, grandfather. God loves you, look to my boy!"
+
+"Ah! ah! you----" lamented the old man bitterly and gripped the smith
+by the shoulder with his trembling hand, while some one in the crowd
+called out: "Listen to the villain! _He_ talks of God."
+
+The smith cast a terrifying glance on the bystanders and suddenly
+roared like a wild beast.
+
+"What do you want? Off with you--all!" His cry fell on the crowd like a
+whip stroke. They recoiled from him with a dull murmur. The smith rose
+up and made a stride towards his dead wife, but turned at once and made
+for the smithy, drawn straight up to his full height. All could see
+how, there in his workshop, he sat down on the anvil, caught his head
+in his hands as though he suddenly felt an unbearable pain, and slowly
+rocked his body to and fro. Ilya was filled with compassion for the
+smith; he walked away as if in a dream, and wandered round the court,
+from one group to another, without comprehending a word of what was
+said near him. A great red stain swam before his eyes, and his heart
+was oppressed within him.
+
+The police appeared on the scene and dispersed the crowd. Then they
+arrested the smith and led him away.
+
+"Good-bye--good-bye, grandfather," cried Savel as he strode out of the
+gate.
+
+"Good-bye, Savel Ivanitsch, good-bye, my friend," called out old Jeremy
+in his thin voice, hastily, as though he would hurry after him.
+
+No one except the old man bade farewell to the smith.
+
+The people stood about the yard in little groups, speaking of the
+event, and looking furtively at the place where the body of the
+murdered woman lay under a coarse mat. In the door of the smithy, where
+Savel had crouched, a policeman now settled himself, pipe in mouth. He
+smoked, spitting to one side, and listened to old Jeremy and looked at
+him with dull eyes.
+
+"Was it he, then, who committed murder?" said the old man, slowly and
+mysteriously. "The power of darkness has done it, and that alone. Man
+cannot murder man--man in himself is good, and God is in his heart. It
+is not he who murders--do not believe it!"
+
+Jeremy laid his hands on his breast, as though to ward off something
+from himself, and went on to make clear to the bystanders the
+significance of what had happened.
+
+"Long ago the Dark One whispered in his heart, 'Kill her!'" he said,
+turning to the watchman.
+
+"Ah! Long ago, you say?" said the other importantly.
+
+"Long--long ago! 'She belongs to you,' he said, and that is not true;
+a horse, that may belong to me, a dog may be mine, but a woman belongs
+to God. She is one of the children of men. She has received from God in
+Heaven all her troubles and burdens, and bears them even as we. But the
+Dark One never ceases to whisper, 'Kill her, she is yours.' He longs
+that men should strive against God. He himself struggles against God,
+and he seeks for companions among men."
+
+"But it wasn't the Devil who used the tongs, but the smith," said the
+policeman, and spat on the ground.
+
+"But who put it into his mind?" cried the old man. "Remember that! who
+put the thought in his mind?"
+
+"Look here," said the policeman, "what have you to do with the smith?
+Is he your son?"
+
+"No, No! Indeed."
+
+"But you're related to him, eh?"
+
+"No. I have no relations."
+
+"Well then, what are you so excited about?"
+
+"I--Ah God----!"
+
+"I'll tell you," said the policeman roughly; "you chatter because
+you're a silly old man. Now then, clear out!"
+
+He blew a thick smoke cloud from the corner of his mouth, and turned
+his back on the old man. But Jeremy was not to be kept back, and spoke
+on quickly, tearfully, gesticulating with his hands.
+
+Ilya, pale, with wide eyes, had wandered about the court, and now stood
+beside a group composed of the coachman, Makar, the cobbler, Perfishka,
+and Matiza, and a couple of other women from the attics.
+
+"Before she was married even she used to carry on with the others, my
+dear," said one of the women. "I know well enough. Why, Pashka isn't
+Savel's son, his father was a teacher, who lived with Malafyeyev the
+merchant--he was always drunk."
+
+"You mean the one who shot himself?" asked Perfishka.
+
+"Right. She got herself mixed up with him."
+
+"All the same, he had no right to kill her," said Makar judicially;
+"that is a bit too much. Suppose he kills his wife, and I kill mine,
+and every one----"
+
+"That would be jolly work for the police," said the cobbler. "My old
+woman's been no good for ever so long, but I put up with it."
+
+"Put up with it, do you? you devil!" snarled Matiza.
+
+Even Perfishka's crippled wife had crept out of the cellar and sat
+huddled up in rags in her usual place in the doorway. Her hands rested
+still on her knees; she held her head up and gazed at the sky with her
+dark eyes. Her lips were firmly pressed together, and the corners of
+her mouth drawn down. Ilya looked first at her dusky eyes, then, like
+her, at the sky, and thought to himself that perhaps Perfishka's wife
+saw the Lord God up there, and was silently praying for something.
+
+By degrees all the children of the house collected by the cellar door.
+They pulled their clothes closer about them, and sat on the cellar
+steps pressed close together, listening with fearful curiosity to what
+Savel's son was telling them of the crime. Pashka's face was troubled,
+and his eyes, generally so saucy, looked uncertainly and waveringly
+round about him. But he felt himself the hero of the day; never had
+people paid him so much attention as to-day. Now for the tenth time he
+retold the same history, and his tale sounded quite indifferent, quite
+unmoved.
+
+"When she went away yesterday, father gnashed his teeth, and raged more
+and more, and growled all the time. He pulled my hair every minute. I
+soon saw something was up, and then she came back. The house was shut
+up, we were in the smithy, and I was standing by the bellows. All at
+once I saw her come nearer, and stand in the door. 'Give me the key,'
+she said. But father took the tongs and went at her. He went quite
+slowly--creeping slowly. I shut my eyes, it was awful. I wanted to
+cry out 'Run, mother!' but I couldn't. When I looked again, he was
+still going slowly towards her, and his eyes burned! Then she tried to
+go--she turned her back--she tried to run----"
+
+Pashka's face quivered and his thin angular body began to shudder. He
+drew in a deep breath, then breathed out again, and said:
+
+"Then he hit her on the head with the tongs."
+
+A movement ran through the children, who had not stirred hitherto.
+
+"She stretched out her arms and fell forward, as if she were diving
+into the water."
+
+He stopped speaking, picked up a shaving, looked at it carefully, and
+threw it away over the heads of the children. They all sat still,
+silent and motionless, as if they expected him to speak again. But he
+said no more, and let his head fall on to his breast.
+
+"Did he kill her quite dead?" asked Masha in her thin, trembling voice.
+
+"Silly!" said Pashka, without raising his head.
+
+Jakov put his arms round the little one and drew her close to him,
+while Ilya moved nearer to Pashka and asked him gently:
+
+"Does it hurt you?"
+
+"What's that to do with you?" answered Pashka, crossly.
+
+All the children looked at him silently.
+
+"She was always idling about," said Mashka's clear voice, but Jakov
+interrupted her uneasily.
+
+"Idling? But think what the smith was like, always so cross and
+grumbling, enough to make any one afraid, and she so lively, like
+Perfishka--it was dull for her with the smith."
+
+Pashka looked at him and spoke solemnly and gloomily like a grown-up
+person.
+
+"I always said to her, 'Mother,' I said, 'look out for yourself, he'll
+kill you,' but she wouldn't listen. She always told me not to say
+anything to him. She bought me sweets and things, and the sergeant gave
+me five kopecks every time--every time I took him a letter from her--I
+got five kopecks. He's a good fellow, and so strong, and he's got a big
+moustache."
+
+"Has he a sword?" asked Mashka.
+
+"Rather," said Pashka, and added proudly, "Once I drew it out of the
+sheath--my word! it was heavy!"
+
+"Now you're an orphan like Ilyushka," said Jakov thoughtfully, after a
+pause.
+
+"Hardly," answered Pashka angrily. "Do you mean I've got to go and be a
+rag-picker? I should think not."
+
+"I don't mean that."
+
+"I shall just live as I like," went on Pashka proudly, with his head
+held up and his eyes sparkling. "I'm not an orphan, I'm only just alone
+in the world, and I will just live for myself, my father wouldn't send
+me to school, and now they'll put him in prison, and I shall just go to
+school and learn more than you."
+
+"Where will you get the clothes?" said Ilya, and looked triumphantly at
+Pashka, "you can't go there in rags."
+
+"Clothes? I will sell the smithy!"
+
+All looked respectfully at Pashka, and Ilya felt himself beaten. Pashka
+observed the impression his words produced, and held himself still
+straighter.
+
+"Yes, and I'll buy a horse, a real live horse, and I'll ride to
+school."
+
+This idea pleased him so much that he even smiled, only a very, very
+shy smile that flitted over his mouth and was gone in a moment.
+
+"No one will beat you now," said Mashka suddenly to Pashka, and looked
+at him enviously.
+
+"He'll soon find some one willing," said Ilya in a tone of conviction.
+
+Pashka looked at him, then spat to one side and said,
+
+"What do you mean by that? Just you try it on with me!"
+
+Jakov joined again in the conversation.-"How strange it is, children!
+there was some one--walked about and talked--and so on--full of life
+like all the rest, and one blow on the head with the tongs--and that's
+the end."
+
+The children looked attentively at Jakov whose eyes stood out oddly
+under his brows.
+
+"Yes, I thought of that, too," said Ilya.
+
+"People say dead," went on Jakov slowly and mysteriously, "but then
+what is it to be dead?"
+
+"The soul has flown away," explained Pashka moodily.
+
+"To Heaven," added Masha, and looked up into the sky, while she nestled
+closer to Jakov. The stars were already flaming; one of them a great
+bright star that did not twinkle, seemed nearer to the earth than the
+rest and looked down on them like a cold unmoving eye. The three boys
+turned their faces upwards like Mashka. Pashka glanced up and at once
+slipped away. Ilya looked up long and keenly, with an expression of
+fear, always at the one point, and Jakov's big eyes wandered here and
+there over the deep blue heavens as if they were seeking something
+there.
+
+"Jakov!" called out his friend, looking down again.
+
+"What?"
+
+"I was thinking----" Ilya broke off.
+
+"What were you thinking?" asked Jakov, speaking softly too.
+
+"About the people here."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"How they----I can't bear it. Here is some one killed, and they all
+run about the place and seem so busy and talk all the time; but no one
+cried, not one."
+
+"Yes, Jeremy did."
+
+"He always has tears in his eyes. But Pashka, how he behaves--as if he
+were telling a tale."
+
+"It isn't that, really. It pains him, but he's ashamed to cry before
+us; but now he's gone away, and is crying--as he's reason enough to."
+
+Huddled close together, they sat still for a minute or two. Mashka had
+fallen asleep on Jakov's knees, her face still turned to the sky.
+
+"Are you afraid?" asked Jakov very softly.
+
+"A little," replied Ilya, in the same tone. "Now her soul is wandering
+round here. Yes--yes, and Masha is asleep; we must take her into the
+house, and I'm so afraid to go away from here."
+
+"Let's go together."
+
+Jakov laid the head of the sleeping child against his shoulder, put his
+arms round her slender body and rose with an effort, while he whispered
+to Ilya, who stood in the way, "Hold on, let me go in front!"
+
+He stepped down into the cellar, staggering under his burden, while
+Ilya followed so close that he almost trod on his friend's heels. It
+seemed to Ilya that an invisible shape glided behind him, that he felt
+its cold breath on his neck, and he feared every moment to be gripped
+by it. He touched his friend on the back and called to him in a barely
+audible voice:
+
+"Go quicker!"
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+Old Jeremy's health began to fail soon after these events. He went out
+collecting rags more and more seldom, and stayed at home most of the
+time, moving languidly about the courtyard, or lying in bed in his dark
+cabin.
+
+The spring came on, and as the sun's rays streamed down from the blue
+sky with more warmth, the old man would sit in a sunny corner and count
+something on his fingers in an absorbed way, while his lips moved
+soundlessly. More and more seldom could he tell the children stories,
+his tongue moved with more and more difficulty. He had hardly begun to
+speak before a fit of coughing stopped him. Something rattled hoarsely
+in his chest, as though it wanted to be free.
+
+"Please go on," Masha would command, who loved stories beyond
+everything.
+
+"Wait--wait!" the old man would reply, drawing his breath with
+difficulty. "Wait--in a minute--it'll stop in a minute."
+
+But the cough would not stop, but shook the exhausted frame more and
+more fiercely.
+
+Sometimes the children would go away without waiting for the end of
+the story; as they went they would look at the old man with a strange
+sorrowful expression.
+
+Ilya observed that the rag-picker's illness caused unusual anxiety both
+to the potman Petrusha and his uncle Terenti. Several times a day,
+Petrusha would appear on the steps leading from the court to the bar,
+take a look with his cunning grey eyes at the old man and ask:
+
+"Now then, how goes it, grandfather? Better, eh?"
+
+He would swagger about in his pink cotton shirt, his hands in the
+pockets of his wide linen trousers, whose ends were tucked into
+brilliantly polished boots. He was always chinking the money in his
+pockets. His round head was beginning to go bald already above the
+forehead, but there was still a good thick tuft of fair, curly hair
+on it, and he loved to throw it back in a foppish way. Ilya had never
+taken kindly to him, and now his feeling of aversion grew stronger
+every day. He knew that Petrusha did not like Jeremy. One day he heard
+the potman giving Terenti instructions concerning the old man.
+
+"Keep an eye on him, Terenti! He's an old miser. He's got a pretty
+store of cash sewed up in his pillow somewhere. Keep your eyes open! He
+isn't long for this world, the old mole; you're a friend of his and he
+hasn't a living soul left him in the world! Remember that, my boy!"
+
+In the evenings Jeremy came into the bar to Terenti as before; he
+conversed with the hunchback about God and Truth and the concerns of
+mankind. Since he had lived in the town the hunchback had become still
+more deformed; he seemed to have been bleached by his occupation.
+His eyes had got a dull, shy expression, and his body was as though
+melted in the hot vapours of the bar. His dirty shirt used to slip up
+on to his hump and leave his naked loins visible. All the time he was
+speaking with any one he kept both his hands behind his back, trying
+constantly to draw his shirt into its place, and this habit gave him
+the air of trying to stuff away his big hump.
+
+When Jeremy sat outside in the courtyard, Terenti would come out
+frequently on to the steps and look at him, and his eyes twitched as
+he shaded them with his hand. The straw-coloured beard quivered on his
+pointed face as he asked the old man in his weak voice, embarrassed as
+from a guilty conscience, "Grandfather! do you want anything?"
+
+"Many thanks. No--nothing. I don't need anything," the old man would
+answer.
+
+The hunchback turned slowly on his withered legs and went back into the
+bar. But the old man felt himself growing weaker every day.
+
+"It'll soon be all over with me," he said one day to Ilya, who was
+sitting near him. "It's time for me to die--there's only one thing
+still----"
+
+He peered round the courtyard mistrustfully and went on in a whisper:
+
+"I'm dying too soon, Ilyushka! My work is not done. I haven't had time.
+I've stored up money--money. I've pinched and saved for seventeen
+years; I wanted to build a church with it. I meant to make a temple for
+the Lord in the village--my home. Ah! there's need of it--such need
+for men to have a temple to God; our only refuge is with God. It's too
+little, all I've saved, it won't do it, and what shall I do with what
+I have? I don't know. O God! show me the way. And the ravens already
+flutter about me, and croak and smell a fat morsel. Listen, Ilyushka,
+I've got money; don't say a word to any one, but listen."
+
+Ilya listened; he felt himself uplifted as the sharer of a great
+important secret, and understood very well whom the old man spoke of as
+the ravens.
+
+A couple of days later when Ilya came back from school and went to
+his accustomed corner, he heard strange sounds in the old man's room.
+It was like some one murmuring--sobbing with a hoarse rattle in his
+throat, as though he were being strangled. Every now and then a whisper
+was audible.
+
+"Ksch! Ksch! Go away!"
+
+Full of anxiety the lad went to the door of the room, but it was fast
+shut. Then he cried out in a trembling voice:
+
+"Grandfather!"
+
+Behind the door the only answer he heard was a painful breathless
+whisper:
+
+"Tsch! Ksch! O Lord, have mercy--have mercy--have mercy!"
+
+And suddenly all was still. Ilya sprang back from the door, and
+hesitated a moment what to do; then he went to part of the wooden
+partition, and, quivering with excitement, looked through a crack in
+it. It was dark and obscure in the old man's little room. The light
+could hardly penetrate the little dirty window. The sound of a spring
+shower was heard, as the rain drops struck the pane and the water ran
+down into a hollow in the yard outside the window. Ilya looked closely
+into the room and saw the old man lying in bed stretched out on his
+back and fighting the air above him with his hands.
+
+"Grandfather!" cried the boy again, full of terror.
+
+The old man started, lifted his head, and murmured aloud:
+
+"Ksch! Petrusha--let it alone, think of God, it belongs to Him! I must
+build Him a temple with it. Ksch! Go away! Off! you raven. O God! it is
+Thine--Thine--guard it, take it for Thyself. Have mercy! have mercy!"
+
+Ilya shivered with fear and was unable to stir from the spot. He saw
+Jeremy's black, withered hands move feebly in the air, and threaten
+some invisible person with his crooked fingers.
+
+"See! it belongs to God, don't touch it!" and then the old man raised
+himself up and his hair bristled. Suddenly he sat upright in his bed.
+His white beard quivered like the wings of a flying dove. He stretched
+out his arms, as if to thrust some one away from him with a last
+effort, and fell on the ground.
+
+Ilya shrieked and ran away. In his ears rang the whisper, "Ksch! Ksch!"
+
+He burst into the bar room and cried breathlessly: "Uncle--he's dead!"
+
+Terenti gave an "Ah!" of astonishment, then moved nervously up and
+down, pulling at his shirt and looking at Petrusha behind the bar.
+
+"Uncle, go to him!--go quick!"
+
+"There, what are you waiting for," said Petrusha, decidedly. "Go along.
+God have mercy on his soul! He was a sturdy old man. I'll go with you
+to see him. Ilya, you stay here. If anything is wanted, fetch me, d'you
+hear? Jakov, look after the bar, I shan't be a minute."
+
+Petrusha left the bar room without undue haste, putting his feet down
+noisily. The two boys heard him speak again to the hunchback behind the
+door:
+
+"Get on--get on--you lout!"
+
+Ilya was seized with a great fear, from all he had seen and heard,
+but it did not prevent him from seeing quite exactly all that went on
+around him.
+
+"Did you see how he died?" asked Jakov, who had taken his place behind
+the bar.
+
+Ilya looked at him and answered with another question: "Why have they
+gone there?"
+
+"To look at him--you called them."
+
+Ilya was silent. Then he closed his eyes and said,
+
+"It was awful. How he pushed them away!"
+
+"Who?" asked Jakov, stretching his head forward with curiosity.
+
+"The Devil," answered Ilya, after a short thoughtful pause.
+
+"Did you see him?"
+
+"What do you say?"
+
+"Did you see the Devil, I say?" cried Jakov, devoured with curiosity,
+going quickly up to Ilya. But Ilya shut his eyes again and said nothing.
+
+"Are you very frightened?" questioned Jakov further, and plucked Ilya
+by the sleeve.
+
+"Wait," said Ilya, becoming mysterious all of a sudden, "I'll go after
+them for a minute, eh? But don't tell your father, will you?"
+
+"I won't say a word. But come back soon."
+
+Spurred by suspicion, Ilya hurried from the bar and in a moment was
+down again in the cellar. He stole, carefully, noiselessly as a mouse
+to the chink in the partition and looked through again. The old man was
+still alive, he could hear the rattle in his throat. But Ilya could not
+see him; the dying man's body lay on the floor at the feet of two dark
+figures, that in the darkness seemed grown into one enormous mis-shaped
+creature. Then Ilya saw how his uncle knelt beside the bed, and held
+the pillow which he was hurriedly sewing up. He heard the threads drawn
+through the stuff quite clearly; Petrusha stood behind Terenti and bent
+over him. He threw back his hair and whispered angrily:
+
+"Get on--get on! you abortion! I always told you--keep needle and
+thread ready! But no! you haven't even a needle threaded. Oh you! Silly
+fool! You've made a nice mess of it--there--that'll do. God have mercy
+on his soul! It'll do. What's that? Pull yourself together, coward!"
+
+The low whispering of Petrusha, the gurgling sighs of the dying man,
+the sound of the needle, and the monotonous rush of the water that ran
+into the hole in front of the window, all combined into a dull noise
+beneath which Ilya felt his senses wavering. He left the wall, where he
+had listened, and crept out of the cellar. A great black patch whirled
+before his eyes like a wheel, making him sick and giddy. He had to
+cling to the railing as he climbed the stairs to the bar room, and felt
+his limbs drag heavily. When at last he reached the tap-room door, he
+stood still and began to weep. Jakov hurried to him and spoke cheerily
+to him. Then he felt a slap on the back and heard Perfishka's voice,
+"Hullo! What's up? Speak up man! Is he dead? Ah!"
+
+And pushing Ilya aside, he ran down the steps again so fast that they
+shook beneath his feet. But at the bottom he stood on the last step and
+cried out loudly and complainingly:
+
+"Ah! these sharpers!"
+
+Then Ilya heard his uncle and Petrusha come up the stairs; he did not
+want to cry before them, but he could not hold back the tears.
+
+"Jakov," called Petrusha, "run down to the police station; say the old
+rag-picker has gone to his God--make haste!"
+
+"Oh you," cried Perfishka, who had come up again with them, "So you've
+been there already, eh?"
+
+Terenti passed by his nephew and could not look him in the face; but
+Petrusha laid his hand on Ilya's shoulder and said:
+
+"Crying, lad? Cry away! that's right, it shows you have a grateful
+heart, and understood what the old fellow did for you. He was very,
+very good to you."
+
+After a while he took Ilya by the hand and led him aside saying:
+
+"But you needn't stand right in the doorway, all the same."
+
+Ilya wiped away the tears with his shirt sleeve and let his glance
+stray over the bystanders. Petrusha had gone behind the bar again and
+was throwing back his curls. In front of him stood Perfishka, looking
+at him with a mocking grin. His face had an expression as though he had
+just lost his last five-kopeck piece at pitch and toss.
+
+"Well, what's the matter, Perfishka?" asked Petrusha as he drew the
+drink.
+
+"Matter? Oh! Aren't you going to give me a fee?" he answered suddenly.
+
+"How d'you mean? For what?" asked the potman, indifferently.
+
+"Oh you scoundrel!" cried the cobbler crossly, and stamped on the
+ground. "My mouth's wide open, but the roast pigeon is not for me.
+Well, well, that's done, anyhow. Here's luck, Peter Sakinytsch."
+
+"What's the matter? What are you jawing about?" asked Petrusha and
+smiled as unconcernedly as he could.
+
+"I only mean--I'm speaking quite simply----"
+
+"Ah! you want a drink, that's it, eh?"
+
+"Ha! Ha!" the cobbler's gay laugh sounded loudly.
+
+Ilya tossed his head as though to shake off something and went outside.
+
+That night he lay down to sleep very late, and not in his corner of the
+cellar but in the tap room under the table where his uncle washed the
+glasses. The hunchback made a bed there for his nephew, then began to
+wash down the tables. A lamp burned on the bar, lighting up the bulging
+teapots and the bottles in the cupboards against the wall. In the room
+it was dark. The black night came close up to the window; a fine rain
+pattered on the panes and the wind rustled softly.
+
+Like a great hedgehog, Terenti crept about between the tables, sighing
+frequently. Whenever he came near the lamp his figure threw a great
+black shadow on the floor. It seemed to Ilya that the soul of old
+Jeremy glided behind his uncle and whispered in his ear:
+
+"Ksh--Kshsh."
+
+The boy was frightened and shivered. The damp atmosphere of the bar
+oppressed him. It was Saturday. The floor was newly washed, and smelt
+mouldy. Ilya wanted to beg his uncle to lie down beside him as soon as
+possible, yet a painful, perverse feeling held him back from speaking.
+In his mind he saw the bent figure of old Jeremy with his white beard,
+and his friendly words rang in his ears all the time.
+
+"Mind my son--God knows the measure of all things--mark that!"
+
+"Oh, come and lie down!" Ilya burst out at last.
+
+The hunchback started and looked up terrified.
+
+Then he said, softly, fearfully:
+
+"What? Who is there?"
+
+"It is I. Come and lie down, I say."
+
+"Soon--soon--soon," cried the hunchback quickly, and began to twist
+about the tables like a top. Ilya perceived that his uncle was afraid
+of him and thought in the stillness with a feeling of pleasure:
+
+"Right--that's right."
+
+The rain drummed on the window panes and from all round came dull
+sounds. The lamp flame flickered up. Ilya covered his head with his
+uncle's fur jacket and lay there holding his breath. Suddenly something
+moved near him. A paroxysm of terror seized him; trembling, he put his
+head out and saw Terenti kneeling on the ground, his head bent, so that
+his chin touched his breast. And Ilya heard him praying in a whisper:
+
+"O Lord, our Father in Heaven, O Lord----!"
+
+The whisper reminded him of the death rattle of the old man. The
+darkness in the room began to move, the floor seemed to go round and
+round, and the wind howled in the chimney: "Hu--u--u----!"
+
+"Stop that praying!" called Ilya's clear voice.
+
+"What? What is it?" said the hunchback half aloud. "Go to sleep, for
+Christ's sake."
+
+"Stop praying," repeated the boy, commandingly.
+
+"Yes--yes. I'll stop."
+
+The dampness and the darkness in the room weighed more and more heavily
+on Ilya, his breathing was oppressed and his soul was filled with fear
+and sorrow for the dead old man, and with a deep ill-will against his
+uncle. At last he sat up and groaned aloud.
+
+"What is the matter? What is it?" called out his uncle frightened, and
+put an arm round him. But Ilya pushed him back, and spoke in a voice
+choked with tears, but ringing with bitter pain and horror.
+
+"O God! If only I could go away and hide from it all. O God!"
+
+He could not speak for tears. His breathing was laboured in the heavy
+air of the tap room, and, sobbing, he hid his face on the floor.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+Ilya's character underwent a great change as a result of these
+experiences. Formerly it was only from his school fellows that he
+had held aloof, as he had never become accustomed to their behaviour
+towards him or felt the smallest inclination to yield to it. In the
+house, on the contrary, he had always been frank and trustful, and had
+felt a singular joy, if any one of the grown-up people took any notice
+of him. Now, however, he kept away from every one, and grew serious
+beyond his years. His face wore an unfriendly expression, his lips
+were compressed, he observed his elders with attention and listened to
+their conversations with a searching look in his eyes. The memory of
+all he saw on the day that old Jeremy died weighed heavy on him, and it
+seemed to him that not only Petrusha and his uncle, but also he himself
+was guilty before the old man. Perhaps Jeremy had thought as he lay
+there dying and saw his store rifled, that he, Ilya, had betrayed the
+treasure. This fear had arisen in Ilya quite suddenly, but had grown in
+strength and filled his soul with doubt and torturing pain. He locked
+his thoughts in his heart and thereby there grew in him a mistrust of
+all the world, and as often as he noticed anything wicked in any one,
+his heart was a little easier, as though his own guilt towards the dead
+were lessened thereby. And he found so much evil among men and women.
+Every one called Petrusha a hypocrite and a liar, but all flattered
+him to his face, bowed respectfully to him, and addressed him with
+humility as Peter Akimytsch. Every one called big Matiza of the attics
+by a hateful name; when she was drunk they all pushed or struck her,
+and once as she sat below the kitchen window, the cook poured a pail
+of dirty water right over her, and yet they all took from her endless
+small kindnesses and services, and gave her no thanks but foul names
+and blows. Perfishka would call her to watch his ailing wife, Petrusha
+would get her to wash down the bar room before holidays for nothing,
+and she was always mending shirts for Terenti. She went everywhere and
+did everything without a complaint and very handily, tended the sick
+devotedly and loved to play with the children.
+
+Ilya saw that the most hard-working man in the whole house, the cobbler
+Perfishka, was looked upon universally as a ridiculous figure, and
+that no notice was taken of him except when he sat on the bench in the
+bar room with his harmonica, half drunk, or reeled about the courtyard
+singing his jolly little songs.
+
+No one could see how carefully he carried his crippled wife up the
+stairs, how he put his little daughter to bed, tucked her in, and made
+all sorts of droll faces to entertain her. No one noticed him when he
+taught Masha, with laughter and fun, to cook the dinner and clean the
+room, then settled to his work, sitting far into the night bent over a
+dirty shapeless boot.
+
+When the smith was taken off to prison, no one but the cobbler troubled
+about his boy. But he took Pashka at once, and the unruly lad waxed the
+thread, swept the room, fetched water, and went to the shop for bread,
+kvass and onions. Every one had seen the cobbler drunk on holidays,
+but no one heard him next day, when, sober once more, he excused
+himself to his wife:
+
+"Forgive me, Dunya, I'm not really a drunkard, I only took a mouthful
+to cheer me up. I work all the week--it's very weary, and then I just
+go and have a drink, and----"
+
+"But do I complain of you? My God, I'm only so sorry for you," answered
+his wife in her hoarse voice, that sounded like a sob in her throat.
+"D'you think I don't see how you slave? The Lord has put me like a
+heavy stone round your neck. If only I could die! then you'd be free of
+me!"
+
+"Don't talk like that! I won't have you say such things. It's I who
+trouble you, and not you, me, but I don't do it out of wickedness, only
+I'm so weak. See now, we'll move into another street. Everything shall
+be different, door and windows and everything. The windows shall look
+out on the street, and we'll cut out a boot in paper and stick it on
+them. That'll be our sign. Everybody will come to us in a crowd, and
+the business will flourish. Ah! then! work--work--that's the way to
+fill the cupboard!"
+
+Ilya knew every detail of Perfishka's life. He saw how he toiled like
+a fish that tries to break the ice closing round it, and respected him
+the more because he jested all the time with every one and had a smile
+for all occasions, and played so beautifully on the harmonica.
+
+Meanwhile Petrusha sat behind the bar, played cards with an
+acquaintance now and again, drank tea from morning to night, and
+scolded the lads who waited on the customers. Soon after Jeremy's death
+he installed Terenti as barman, while he amused himself by strolling
+about the court whistling, observing the house from all sides and
+tapping the walls with his fists.
+
+Ilya observed many other things, and everything was hateful and
+depressing, and repelled him from his fellows more and more. Sometimes
+all the thoughts and impressions that accumulated in him roused a
+strong desire to pour out his soul to some one. But he had no desire
+to talk to his uncle. After the death of Jeremy, there grew up as it
+were an invisible wall between them, which prevented the boy from
+approaching Terenti as often and as frankly as before. Even Jakov could
+throw little, if any, light for him on the experiences of his soul; for
+he lived apart from every one in his own special way. The death of old
+Jeremy troubled him, he often thought sadly.
+
+"How dull everything is--if only grandfather Jeremy was alive, he used
+to tell us stories; there's nothing so nice as stories, and he could
+tell them so well."
+
+"He could do everything well," answered Ilya gloomily.
+
+One day Jakov said to his friend, mysteriously:
+
+"Shall I show you something? Shall I?"
+
+"Yes--do."
+
+"But promise you'll never say a word."
+
+"I promise."
+
+"Say--may I be damned in Hell, if I do."
+
+Ilya repeated the formula, whereupon Jakov led him to the old lime-tree
+in the furthest corner of the courtyard. There he lifted from the stem
+a strip of bark, cunningly fastened, and behind it Ilya saw a big
+hollow in the tree. It was a space cleverly scooped out with a knife,
+and adorned with gay rags, scraps of paper, and bits of tin foil. In
+the depth of the hollow stood a small figure, cast in bronze, and a wax
+candle end was fixed upright before it.
+
+"Did you see it?" asked Jakov, putting the bark again over the opening.
+
+"Yes, I saw. What is it?"
+
+"It's a chapel," explained Jakov. "At night I can always come out very
+quietly and light the candle and pray. Isn't it beautiful?"
+
+Ilya liked his friend's idea, but at once perceived the danger.
+
+"Suppose any one saw the light. You'd get a fine thrashing!"
+
+"Who's going to see it in the night? They're all asleep, the world is
+all quiet. I'm very little and God can't hear my prayer at the end of
+the day, but He'll hear it at night when it's quiet, don't you think?"
+
+"I don't know, perhaps He will," said Ilya thoughtfully, looking into
+the pale, big-eyed face of his comrade.
+
+"And you? Will you come and pray too?"
+
+"What will you pray for?" asked Ilya. "I should ask God to make me very
+clever, and after that, to give me everything I want. What will you ask
+for?"
+
+"I? I should ask for that too," answered Jakov. After a moment he
+added: "I should just pray without asking for anything special, just
+pray, that's all, and He can give what He likes, but if you think the
+other way's better, then I'll do the same as you."
+
+"All right," said Ilya.
+
+They decided to start praying the next night at the lime-tree, and
+both went to bed firmly determined to wake and meet at the corner.
+But neither then nor on the following night could they wake, and they
+overslept on many other occasions; then new impressions came to bear on
+Ilya and the thought of the chapel fell into the background.
+
+In the twigs of this same lime-tree where Jakov had established his
+chapel, Pashka set bird snares, to catch finches and siskins. He had
+grown clumsy and thin, and his eyes looked this way and that like the
+eyes of a beast of prey. He had now no time to loaf about the court. He
+was kept busy with Perfishka all day, and the friends only saw him on
+holidays, when the cobbler was drunk. Pashka used to ask them what they
+were learning at school, and would look gloomy and envious when they
+gave accounts coloured with a consciousness of their superiority.
+
+"You needn't be so stuck up, anyhow," he said once. "I'll learn
+something, too, some day."
+
+"But Perfishka won't let you."
+
+"Then I'll run away," answered Pashka, shortly and decidedly.
+
+And as a matter of fact soon after this speech the cobbler went round
+the courtyard saying with a laugh:
+
+"My young companion has run away, the young devil! Couldn't get on with
+my leather science!"
+
+It was a rainy day. Ilya looked at the worried cobbler and then at the
+dull grey skies, and felt pity for the froward Pashka who might now be
+wandering God knows where. He stood by Perfishka under a shed, leant
+against the wall and looked across at the house. It seemed to him that
+day by day it became lower, as though it were sinking into the earth
+under the burden of the years. Its old ribs stood out more and more
+sharply, as though the dirt that had accumulated within them for years
+could no longer find room, and were pushing them asunder. Saturated
+with misery, wild riot and mournful drunken songs its only abundance,
+pounded and bruised by never-ceasing footsteps, the house could no
+longer endure its life, and slowly crumbled to decay, while its dim
+windows stared mournfully upon God's world.
+
+"Heigh-ho!" began the cobbler, "the old shop'll soon smash up and strew
+its spawn over the earth, and we that live in it, we'll scatter to the
+four winds, we'll seek out new holes somewhere else--we'll soon find
+'em, as good as these. Then we'll begin a new life--new windows and
+new doors, and new bugs to bite us. Well, let's have it soon, I've had
+enough of this pig-sty--only in the end one gets used to it, devil take
+it!"
+
+But the shoemaker's dream was not to be fulfilled. The house did not
+crumble down, but was bought by Petrusha. As soon as the sale was
+complete, Petrusha spent two days creeping into every hole and corner,
+and feeling and testing the old box of rubbish. Then came bricks and
+boards, scaffolding surrounded the whole house, and for three months on
+end it creaked and quivered under the blows of the workmen's hatchets.
+All round there was sawing and chopping, nails were driven in, old
+beams torn out with loud crackings and whirls of dust, and new ones put
+in the places, till at last the old shanty had received a new clothing
+of planks, and its façade was widened by a new outbuilding. Broad and
+thickset, the house rose now from the ground straight and sturdy, as
+though it had driven new roots far into the earth; along its front just
+below the roof, Petrusha had a big hanging sign put up, which bore the
+statement in golden letters on a blue ground:
+
+"The Jolly Companions Tavern, P. S. Filimonov."
+
+"And inside it's rotten through and through," said Perfishka mockingly.
+
+Ilya, to whom he made this comment, smiled in sympathy. To him,
+too, this house, after its rebuilding, seemed a gigantic fraud. He
+remembered Pashka, who must now be living in another place, and seeing
+quite different things.
+
+Ilya dreamed, like the cobbler, of other doors and windows and men.
+Now life in the house became even more unpleasant than before. The old
+lime-tree fell a victim to the axe, the intimate little corner in its
+shadow disappeared, and a new outbuilding occupied its place, and all
+the other favourite places where the children used to sit together and
+chatter, existed no longer. Only where once the smithy stood, there was
+one quiet little corner left, behind a heap of old chips and rotten
+wood. But to sit there was to court uncanny feelings, as though beneath
+the pile of wood lay Savel's wife with a shattered skull.
+
+Petrusha set aside a new place for Terenti--a tiny little room next the
+big bar room. Through the thin partition with green paper penetrated
+all the noise, the smell of brandy and the reek of tobacco. It was
+clean and dry in Terenti's new room, and yet it was more uncomfortable
+there than in the cellar. The window looked on the grey wall of the
+shed, which concealed the sky with the sun and stars, whereas, from
+the old cellar window, any one kneeling down could see them all quite
+easily.
+
+Terenti henceforth wore a lilac-coloured shirt, and over it a coat that
+hung on him as it might have done over a box. From early morning till
+late at night he took his place behind the bar. He spoke distantly now
+to every one and held few conversations, and these in a dull, snappy
+way, as though he were barking, and looked at his acquaintances across
+the counter with the eyes of a faithful dog that guards his master's
+property. He bought Ilya a grey cloth jacket, boots, an overcoat, and
+a cap. When the lad put them on for the first time, the memory of
+the old rag-picker came vividly before him. He hardly ever spoke to
+his uncle and his life passed by, monotonous and still; and although
+the unusual unchildlike feelings and thoughts which had grown in him
+kept his mind busy, he was burdened with the weight of a suffocating
+dreariness. More and more often his thoughts turned back to the
+village. Now it seemed to him quite clear and definite, how much better
+it had been to live there. Everything there was quieter, simpler, more
+intelligible. He remembered the dense woods of Kerschenez, and his
+uncle's tales of the hermit Antipa, and the thought of Antipa aroused
+the memory of another lonely soul--of Pashka. Where was he now? Perhaps
+he, too, had fled to the woods, and there dug out a cave to live in.
+The storm-wind rages through the forest, the wolves howl; it is so
+terrifying, and yet so good to listen. And in the winter everything
+shines in the sun like silver, and all is so still, so quiet, that
+nothing can be heard but the crunch of the snow under foot, and if
+you stand a moment motionless, you hear only the beating of your own
+heart. But in the town, it is always wild and noisy, and even the night
+is filled with clamour. Men sing songs, shout for the police, groan
+aloud, the carriages pass to and fro, and shake the window-panes with
+their rattling. Even in school there is much the same confusion; the
+boys cry out and do all sorts of mischief, and the grown-up people in
+the streets roar and insult one another and fight and get drunk. And
+all this not only causes unrest, at times it is absolutely horrible.
+Mankind here is mad, some are liars, like Petrusha, some evil-tempered
+and passionate like Savel, others miserably wretched like Perfishka or
+Uncle Terenti or Matiza. Ilya was specially surprised and provoked at
+the hateful conduct which the cobbler had lately displayed.
+
+One morning, as Ilya was getting ready for school, Perfishka came
+into the bar, all dishevelled and heavy with want of sleep. He stood
+silently at the counter and looked at Terenti. His left eyelid quivered
+and blinked constantly and his underlip hung down in a strange manner.
+Terenti looked at him, smiled, and poured him out a small glass, three
+kopecks worth, Perfishka's usual morning allowance.
+
+Perfishka took it with a shaking hand and tossed it off, but neither
+smacked his lips after it as usual, nor showed his approval by an oath,
+and forgot entirely to take his accustomed morsel of food. With his
+blinking left eye he looked once more at the new barman searchingly,
+while his right eye remained dull and motionless and seemed to see
+nothing.
+
+"What's wrong with your eye?" asked Terenti.
+
+Perfishka rubbed his eye with his hand, then looked at his hand and
+said loudly and emphatically:
+
+"My wife, Avdotya Petrovna is dead."
+
+"What? Truly?" asked Terenti, crossing himself with a glance at the
+sacred image. "The Lord have mercy on her soul!"
+
+"Eh?" said Perfishka sharply, still gazing into Terenti's face.
+
+"I said, 'The Lord have mercy on her soul!'"
+
+"Oh!--yes--yes! She is dead," said the cobbler. Then he turned suddenly
+on his heel and went out.
+
+"A strange man," muttered Terenti, shaking his head. Ilya, too, found
+the cobbler's behaviour very strange. On his way to school he went for
+a moment into the cellar to see the dead woman. It was all dark and
+stuffy; the women had come from the attics and were talking half aloud
+in a group round the death-bed. Matiza was dressing the little Masha
+and asked her:
+
+"Does it catch you under the arm?"
+
+And Masha, standing with her arms stretched out sideways said crossly:
+
+"Yes--ye--es!"
+
+The cobbler sat bent forward at the table and looked at his daughter,
+his eye blinking all the time. Ilya gave a glance at the pale, swollen
+face of the dead; he remembered her dark eyes, now closed for ever, and
+went out with a painful gnawing feeling at his heart.
+
+When he returned from school and went into the bar room, he heard
+Perfishka playing the harmonica and singing in a merry tone:
+
+    "Ah, my bride, my only dear,
+    My heart is gone, I sadly fear,
+    Why have you stolen it away,
+    And where on earth is it to-day?"
+
+"Oh yes! the women have turned me out!--get out, you villain, they
+screamed--old tippler, they called me. But I don't mind a bit. I'm
+a patient lamb. Blackguard me as much as you like, hit me if you
+like. Only let me live a little--just a little if you please. Aha! my
+brothers, every man likes to enjoy his life, eh? Call it Vaska, call it
+Jakov, the soul's the same all the time."
+
+    "Tell me who is weeping there?
+    What does he want, in this affair?
+    Be still my friend and don't complain,
+    But stuff your mouth with bread again."
+
+Perfishka's face wore an expression of idiotic happiness. Ilya looked
+at him and felt disgust and fear. He thought in his heart that without
+a doubt God would punish the cobbler heavily for such behaviour on the
+day of his wife's death. But Perfishka was drunk the next day too, even
+behind his wife's coffin he reeled as he walked and winked and laughed.
+All held his conduct blameworthy, he was even struck in the face.
+
+"Do you know," said Ilya to Jakov the day of the funeral, "Perfishka is
+a downright unbeliever!"
+
+"Oh! bother him!" answered Jakov indifferently.
+
+Ilya had noticed already that Jakov had altered considerably. He hardly
+ever appeared in the courtyard, but sat indoors all the time and seemed
+to take pains to avoid Ilya. At first Ilya thought that Jakov envied
+him his success at school and was sitting indoors over his school work.
+But he soon showed that he learned with even more difficulty than
+before; constantly his teacher had to reprove him for his inattention
+and his failure to understand the simplest things. Ilya did not wonder
+at Jakov's indifference over Perfishka, for Jakov took no special
+interest in the affairs of the house, but he did wish to understand
+what was passing in his friend's mind and he asked him:
+
+"Why are you so down on me now? Don't you want to be friends?"
+
+"I? Not be your friend? What on earth are you saying?" said Jakov taken
+aback, and then called quickly with an eager expression:
+
+"See now, go into the house. I'm coming in a moment--I'll show you."
+
+He jumped up and ran off, while Ilya went to his room in great
+perplexity.
+
+Jakov soon appeared. He closed the door behind him, went to the window,
+and took a red book from his coat pocket.
+
+"Come here!" he said, softly, with an important air, sitting down on
+Terenti's bed and making room for Ilya beside him. Then he opened
+the book, laid it on his knee, bent over it and began to read aloud,
+following the words along the grey paper with his finger:
+
+"And sudden--suddenly the bold knight saw a mountain a long way off,
+so high that it reached to heaven, and midway up its slope was an iron
+tower. There the fire of his courage flamed up in his brave heart. He
+put his lance in rest and charged forward with a mighty shout, and
+sp--spurring his horse, he rushed with all his-gi--gigantic strength
+against the door. There was a--fearful clap of thunder--the iron tower
+flew into fragments, and at the same time there streamed out of the
+mountain fire and v--va--vapour, and a voice of thunder was heard, at
+which the earth trembled and the stones rolled from the mountain down
+to the horse's feet. 'Ha! Ha! Is it thou, bold madcap. Death and I have
+long awaited thee.' The knight was blinded with the fire and smoke."
+
+"But who--who is this?" asked Ilya, amazed at the excitement that
+quivered in his friend's voice.
+
+"What?" said Jakov, lifting his pale face from the book.
+
+"Who is this--this knight?"
+
+"He's a man, that rides a horse, with a spear, his name is Raoul the
+Fearless--a dragon has carried off his bride, the beautiful Louise--but
+listen," Jakov broke off impatiently.
+
+"Hold on a minute--tell me, what's a dragon?"
+
+"Oh! it's a snake with wings and feet with iron claws, and it has three
+heads, and breathes fire, and--d'you see?"
+
+"My word!" cried Ilya, opening his eyes wide, "that'll be a handful to
+tackle!"
+
+"Yes, just listen."
+
+Sitting close together, trembling with curiosity and a strange
+delightful excitement, the two boys made their entry into a new
+wonder-world where huge evil monsters met their death beneath the
+mighty strokes of brave knights, where all was glorious and lovely and
+wonderful, and nothing resembled the dull monotony of daily life. There
+were no drunken, stupid, dwarfed little men, and instead of half-rotten
+wooden barracks, were gold-gleaming palaces and impregnable mountains
+of iron soaring to heaven, and while in thought they wandered through
+this wondrous fantasy realm of romance, at their backs the mad cobbler
+played his harmonica and sang his rhyming couplets:
+
+    "I'll serve the devil only
+    While my life is whole,
+    So when I am done for,
+    He cannot catch my soul."
+
+"That's the way, my brothers," he went on, "keep it up every day. God
+loves the happy men."
+
+The harmonica began to whimper again as though it taxed it to overtake
+the hurrying voice of the cobbler, then he sang a jolly dance tune, his
+voice as it were running a race with the accompaniment:
+
+    "Never mind if in your youth
+    Your lot be cold and rough,
+    Once you make your way to Hell,
+    You'll find it hot enough."
+
+Every verse gained laughter and applause from the audience. The sounds
+of the harmonica mingled with the clatter of glasses, the heavy tread
+of the drinkers, and the noise of the benches dragged here and there,
+and the whole blended into a wild tumult, not unlike the howling of the
+winter storm through the forest.
+
+But in the little cabin, shut off from this chaos of noise only by a
+thin partition of wood, the two boys sat bent over the book, and one
+read aloud softly,
+
+"The knight caught the monster in his iron embrace, and it bellowed
+like thunder with wrath and pain."
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+
+After the book of the Knight and the dragon came other wonderful works
+of the same kind--"Guak, or Invincible Loyalty," then "The History of
+the Brave Prince Franzil of Venice and the Young Queen Renzivena," and
+all impressions of reality in Ilya's mind gave way before the knights
+and ladies. The comrades in turn stole twenty kopeck pieces out of the
+bar till, and so had no lack of books. They became acquainted with
+the adventurous journeys of "Jashka Sinentensky," they delighted in
+"Japantsha the Tartar Robber-chief," and more and more they deserted
+the harsh pitiless realities of life for a realm where man at all
+times could tear asunder the bonds of Fate and make a prize of
+happiness. They lived long in the thrall of these fairy tales. Ilya
+retained the memory of only one event of his daily life during this
+time. One day Perfishka was summoned to the police station. He went
+in fear and trembling, but came joyfully back, and with him, Pashka
+Gratshev, whom he held fast by the hand lest he should run away again.
+Pashka's eyes looked as quick and bright as ever, but he had become
+terribly thin and yellow, and his face had no longer its former froward
+expression. The cobbler brought him into the bar, and began to relate,
+his left eye twitching rapidly.
+
+"Behold, my friends, here we have Mr. Pavlusha Gratshev back again as
+large as life--just back from the town of Pensa conveyed by favour of
+the police. Ah! what people there are in the world! No staying happily
+at home for them! When they're hardly able to stand upright they're off
+into the wide world to seek their fortune."
+
+Pashka stood by, one hand in the pocket of his tattered trousers, while
+he strove to detach the other from the cobbler's hold, looking at him
+sideways, darkly.
+
+Some one advised Perfishka to give him a good sound thrashing, but the
+cobbler answered seriously, letting the boy go:
+
+"What for? let him wander a bit, perhaps he'll find his happiness."
+
+"He'll get jolly hungry, anyway," threw in Terenti, then added in a
+friendly tone, giving Pashka a bit of bread.
+
+"Here, eat it, Pashka."
+
+Pashka took the bread quietly and went towards the tap-room door.
+
+"Whew!" the cobbler whistled after him, "going off again? Good-bye
+then, my friend."
+
+Ilya, who had witnessed this scene from the door of his room, called
+Pashka back.
+
+The lad stayed a moment before answering, then went up to Ilya and
+asked, looking suspiciously round the little room:
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"Only to say how d'ye do."
+
+"All right, good day to you."
+
+"Sit down a minute."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh, we'll have a chat."
+
+The short sulky questions, and the hoarse, harsh voice made a painful
+impression on Ilya. He wanted to ask Pashka where he had been all the
+summer and what he had seen. But Pashka, who had found a chair and
+begun to gnaw his bread, started questioning on his own account.
+
+"Finished school?"
+
+"Early next year I'm done."
+
+"Well, I've done my learning too!"
+
+"Why--how?" said Ilya, incredulously.
+
+"I've been pretty quick, eh?"
+
+"Where did you learn?"
+
+"In prison, with the prisoners."
+
+Ilya approached him and asked, looking respectfully into the thin face,
+"How long were you in? Was it bad?"
+
+"Oh, not so bad--four months I had of it in several prisons and
+different towns. I got to know some fine people there, my boy, ladies
+too--real swells! Spoke different languages and knew everything. I
+always swept out their cells. Very nice people they were, if they were
+in gaol."
+
+"Were they thieves?"
+
+"No, regular villains," answered Pashka, proudly.
+
+Ilya blinked and his respect for Pashka increased still more.
+
+"Russians?"
+
+"A couple of Jews too--fine fellows! I tell you, my lad, they knew
+their way about. Stripped everyone that they got a hand on--properly.
+Got caught in the end, and now going to Siberia!"
+
+"But how did you learn things there?"
+
+"Oh! I just said 'teach me to read,' and they did."
+
+"Have you learnt to write too?"
+
+"Writing I'm not so good at, but I'll read as much as you like. I've
+read lots of books already."
+
+Ilya became excited now the conversation turned on books.
+
+"I read with Jakov, too," he said, "and such books!"
+
+Both began to name all the books they had read, in rivalry. Pashka had
+to admit with a sigh:
+
+"I see, you've read the most, you lucky devil, and your books are nicer
+too. I've read mostly poetry. They had a lot of books there, but nearly
+all verses."
+
+Jakov came in at this point, he raised his eyebrows and laughed:
+
+"Now then sheep, what are you laughing at?" Pashka greeted him.
+
+"Hullo! Where have you been?"
+
+"Where you'll never be able to go."
+
+"Just think," put in Ilya, "he's been reading books, too!"
+
+"Really?" said Jakov, and came nearer in a more friendly way.
+
+The three boys sat close together, in lively desultory conversation.
+
+"I've seen such things, I couldn't even tell you!" cried Pashka, proud
+and excited. "Once I went two days without eating--not a bite! I've
+spent a night in the forest, alone."
+
+"Was it bad?" asked Ilya.
+
+"You go and try it, then you'll know. And once the dogs nearly killed
+me. That was in Kazan, where they put up a monument to a man, just
+because he made verses. A great, big man he was--his legs, I tell you,
+as thick as that, and his fist as big as your head, Jakov. I'll make
+you some poetry, boys--I know how, a bit."
+
+He suddenly sat straight up, drew his legs in, and, looking steadily at
+one point, he said, quickly, with a serious, important air:----
+
+    "Men, well fed and richly dressed
+       Pass through the streets all day,
+    But if I beg a bit of bread
+       They answer--go away!"
+
+He stopped, looked at the other two, and hung his head down. For a
+minute they all stared in an embarrassed silence, then Ilya asked,
+hesitatingly:----
+
+"Is that poetry?"
+
+"Can't you hear?" replied Pashka, crossly. "It rhymes--day, away--so of
+course it's poetry."
+
+"Of course," chimed in Jakov, quickly. "You're always finding fault,
+Ilya."
+
+"I've made more poetry than that!" Pashka turned to Jakov and went on
+again:----
+
+    "The earth is wet and the clouds are grey,
+    The autumn draws nearer, day by day,
+    And I--have no house for the winter's cold
+    And my clothes are tattered and worn and old."
+
+"Ah!" said Jakov, and looked at Pashka with round eyes.
+
+"That was regular poetry," admitted Ilya.
+
+A fleeting blush passed over Pashka's face and he screwed up his eyes
+as if the smoke had got into the room.
+
+"I shall make a long poem," he boasted. "It's not so very difficult.
+You go out and look about you--stream, dream, tree, free--the rhymes
+come up by themselves."
+
+"And what will you do now?" asked Ilya.
+
+Pashka let his glance wander round; there was a pause, then he said,
+slowly and vaguely, "oh, something or other," then added decidedly, "If
+I don't like it, I'll run away again."
+
+For the time being, however, he lived with the cobbler, and every
+evening the children gathered there. It was quieter and more cosy in
+the cellar than in Terenti's room. Perfishka was seldom at home. He had
+sold for drink all that could be sold, and now worked by the day in
+various workshops, and if there was no work to be got, he sat in the
+bar-room. He went about half-clothed and barefoot, and his beloved old
+harmonica was always under his arm. It had come to be almost a part of
+his body, it had absorbed a portion of his cheerful disposition. The
+two were very much alike, out at elbows and worn, but full of jolly
+songs and tunes. In all the workshops of the town, Perfishka was known
+as a tireless singer of gay rollicking rhymes and dance tunes. Wherever
+he appeared he was a welcome guest, and all liked him because he could
+lighten the heavy weary load of existence, with his drolleries tales
+and anecdotes.
+
+Whenever he earned a couple of kopecks, he gave his daughter the half.
+His only care now was for her. For the rest, Masha was mistress of her
+own fate. She had grown tall, her black hair fell below her shoulders,
+her big dark eyes looked out on the world seriously, and she played
+the hostess in the underground room most excellently. She collected
+shavings from the places where new building was in progress, and tried
+to cook the soup with them, and up to midday went about with her skirts
+tucked up, quite black, and wet, and busy. But once her meal was
+prepared, then she cleaned up the room, washed, put on a clean dress,
+and settled herself at the table before the window to mend her clothes.
+While she cobbled away with her needle at the rags, she would sing a
+gay song, and in her liveliness and activity, she was like a titmouse
+in a cage.
+
+Matiza would often pay her a visit, and bring her rolls of bread, tea,
+and sugar, and once even gave her a blue dress. Masha received the
+visit quite like a grown-up person, a proper housewife. She would put
+the little samovar on the table and serve Matiza with tea, and while
+they enjoyed the hot stimulating drink, they would chat of the events
+of the day and Perfishka's conduct. Matiza used to get quite carried
+away with anger over the cobbler, while Masha, in her clear little
+voice, would not dispute, out of politeness to her guest, but still
+would speak of Perfishka without a trace of resentment. In everything
+that she said of her father, a resolute forbearance was always present.
+
+"Quite true," she would say, in an old-fashioned way, "it is not
+reasonable for a man to drink so. But he loves gaiety, and only drinks
+to cheer himself up. While mother was alive, he did not drink much."
+
+"Serve him right, if his liver dries up," grumbled Matiza, in her deep
+bass, contracting her eyebrows fiercely. "Does the soaker forget he has
+a child sitting at home? Disgusting brute! He'll die like a dog!"
+
+"He knows that I'm grown up, and can look after myself," answered Masha.
+
+"My God! my God!" Matiza would say, with a big sigh, "the things that
+go on in this world of God's! What'll happen to the girl? I had a
+little girl just like you. She stayed at home there, in the town of
+Chorol, and it is so far to Chorol that if I wanted to go, I couldn't
+find the way. That's the way with people, they live on the earth, and
+forget the home where they were born."
+
+Masha liked to hear the deep voice and see the big face and the brown
+eyes, like those of a cow. And, even if Matiza constantly smelt of
+brandy, none the less Masha would sit on her lap, nestle against her
+big, swelling bosom, and kiss the full lips of the well-formed mouth.
+Matiza used to come in the morning, and in the evening the children
+gathered in Masha's room. They sometimes played card games of various
+sorts, but more often sat over a book. Masha listened always with great
+interest while they read aloud, and would give a little scream at any
+peculiarly terrifying places.
+
+Jakov was more careful of the child than ever. He brought her from the
+house bread and meat, tea and sugar, and oil in beer bottles. Sometimes
+even he gave her any money that was left from the purchases of books.
+It had become an established thing for him to do all this, and he
+managed it all so quietly that no one noticed. Masha, for her part,
+took his labours as a matter of course, and made little to do over
+them.
+
+"Jakov," she would say, "I've no more coals."
+
+"All right." And presently he would either bring some coal or give her
+a two-kopeck bit and say, "You'll have to buy some--I couldn't steal
+any."
+
+He brought Masha a slate and began to teach her in the evenings. They
+got on slowly, but at the end of two months Masha could read all the
+letters, and write them on the slate.
+
+Ilya had become accustomed to these relations between the two, and
+everyone in the house seemed also to overlook them. Many a time Ilya,
+commissioned by his friend, would himself steal something from the
+kitchen or the counter and get it secretly down to the cellar. He
+liked the slender brown girl, who was an orphan, like himself, but he
+liked her specially because she knew how to face the world alone, and
+conducted all her affairs like a full-grown woman. He loved to see her
+laugh, and would always try to amuse her, and if he did not succeed, he
+grew cross and teased her.
+
+"Dirty blackbird!" he would cry, scornfully.
+
+She would blink her eyes, and reply jeeringly, "Skinny devil!"
+
+One word would lead to another, and soon they would be quarrelling in
+real earnest. Masha was hot tempered and would fly at Ilya to scratch
+him, but he readily escaped laughing.
+
+One day, while they were playing cards, he saw her cheat, and in his
+rage, called at her:
+
+"You--Jashka's darling!" and followed it with an ugly word, whose
+significance he understood already. Jakov, who was present, laughed
+at first, then seeing his little friend's face contract with pain at
+the insult, and her eyes shine with tears, he became pale and dumb.
+Suddenly he sprang from his chair, flung himself on Ilya, struck
+him on the nose with his fist, grasped him by the hair and threw
+him to the ground. It all happened so quickly that Ilya had no time
+to defend himself, then he picked himself up and rushed headlong at
+Jakov, blind with wrath and pain. "Wait, my boy, I'll teach you," he
+shouted furiously. But he saw Jakov with his elbow on the table, crying
+bitterly, and Masha beside him saying to him with a voice choked with
+tears:
+
+"Let him alone, the beast--the brute--they're a bad lot, his father's
+a convict, and his uncle's a hunchback--and a hump'll grow on you too,
+you beast," she cried, attacking Ilya quite furiously.
+
+"You beastly dirt-grabber--rag-picker! Come here--just you come here,
+and I'll scratch your face for you--you dare touch me!"
+
+Ilya did not stir. He was much distressed at the sight of Jakov crying,
+for he had not meant to hurt him, and he was ashamed to scuffle with
+a girl--though she was ready enough he could see. Without a word he
+left the cellar and paced the courtyard for a long time, his heart
+tortured with bitter feelings. At last he went to the window and
+looked carefully in from above. Jakov was playing cards again with his
+friend, Masha, the lower part of her face concealed with her cards held
+fanwise, seemed to be laughing, while Jakov looked at his cards and
+touched first one then the other. Ilya's heart was heavy. He walked up
+and down a while longer, then boldly and decidedly went back to the
+cellar.
+
+"Let me come in again," he said, going up to the table.
+
+His heart thumped, his face burned and his eyes were downcast. Jakov
+and Masha said nothing.
+
+"I'll never insult you so again, by God, I won't any more," he went on,
+and looked at them.
+
+"Well, sit down then--you!" said Masha, and Jakov added:
+
+"Silly! You're big enough now to know what you're saying."
+
+"No no, we're all little--just children," Masha put in, and struck the
+table with her fist, "and that's why we don't need any low words."
+
+"You gave me a jolly good licking, all the same," said Ilya to Jakov
+reproachfully.
+
+"You deserved it, don't complain!" said Masha, sententiously, and with
+a darkened face.
+
+"All right--all right I'm not angry, it was my fault," and Ilya smiled
+at Petrusha's son. "We'll make it up, shall we?"
+
+"All right, take your cards."
+
+"You wild devil!" said Masha.
+
+And with that peace was made. A moment later, Ilya was deep in the
+game, thoughtfully wrinkling his brow. He always arranged to play next
+to Masha; he disliked her to lose, and thought of little else all
+through the game. But the child played quite cleverly, and generally it
+was Jakov who lost.
+
+"Oh you goggle eyes!" Masha would say, pityingly, "You've lost again."
+
+"Devil take the cards!" answered Jakov, "it's jolly dull, nothing but
+playing cards. Let's read some more Kamtchadalky."
+
+They got out a torn and dirty book and read the sorrowful history of
+the amorous and unfortunate Kamtchadalky.
+
+When Pashka saw the three children amuse themselves so pleasantly, he
+used to say in the tone of a world explorer:
+
+"You lead a pleasant life here, you cunning ones."
+
+Then he would look at Jakov and Masha and smile, then add seriously:
+
+"Go on all the same! and later on you can marry Masha, eh Jakov?"
+
+"Silly," Masha would say, laughing, and then they all four laughed
+together.
+
+Pashka was generally with them. If they had finished a book or if there
+was a pause in the reading, he would relate his experiences, and his
+tales were no less interesting than the books.
+
+"When I found, lads, that I couldn't travel easily without a passport,
+I had to be very cunning. When I saw a policeman, I used to walk
+faster, as if some one had sent me on an errand, or I'd get up
+alongside the nearest grown up person, as if he was my master or my
+father, or some one; the policeman would look at me and let me go on,
+he didn't notice anything.
+
+"It was jolly in the villages. They don't have policemen, only old men,
+and old women and children, peasants that work on the fields. If any
+one asks me who I am, I say a beggar; whom I do belong to? No one, got
+no relations. Where do I come from? From the town. That's all. They'd
+give me things to eat and drink--good things. And then you can go where
+you like, can run as fast as you like or crawl if you want to. And the
+fields and the woods are everywhere, the larks sing, you feel as if you
+could fly up with them. When you're full, then you don't want anything
+else; feel as if you could go to the end of the world. It's just as
+if someone was coaxing you on, like a mother with a child. But lots
+of times I've been jolly hungry. Oho! and my stomach wasted inside,
+it was so dried up. I could have eaten the dirt, my head was giddy;
+but then if I got a bit of bread and got my teeth in it--ah--aah--that
+was good--I could have eaten all day and all night. That was something
+like! All the same I was glad when I got into prison. At first I was
+frightened, but soon I was quite pleased.
+
+"I was always so frightened of the police. I thought when they first
+got hold of me and began to cuff me, they'd kill me. But what d'you
+think it was like really? He just came softly behind and nipped me by
+the collar--snap!--I was looking at the watches in a jeweller's window.
+Oh, such a lot. Gold ones and others. All at once--snap! I began to
+howl, and he says quite friendly, 'who are you? Where do you come
+from?' So I just told him--they found it out, they know everything.
+'Where do you want to go?' they ask you then. I said 'I'm wandering
+about'--they laughed. Then I went to gaol. They all laughed there, and
+then the young gentlemen took me--they were devils if you like--oho!"
+
+Pashka never spoke of the "gentlemen" without interjections--evidently
+they had made a deep impression on him, though their aspect had become
+vague in his memory like a big, dark spot. Pashka remained a month with
+the cobbler, then disappeared again. Later on Perfishka found out that
+he had entered a printing works as an apprentice and was living in a
+distant quarter of the town. When Ilya heard it he was filled with envy
+and said to Jakov with a sigh:
+
+"And we two have got to stay rotting here!"
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+
+At first after Pashka's disappearance Ilya felt as though he missed
+something, but soon he slipped back into his unreal wonderworld. The
+book-reading proceeded busily and Ilya's soul fell into a pleasant
+half-asleep condition.
+
+The awakening was sudden and unexpected. Ilya was just starting for
+school one day when his uncle said to him:
+
+"You'll soon be done with learning now. You're fourteen years old.
+You'll have to look out for a place for yourself."
+
+"Of course," added Petrusha, "that won't be difficult among all our
+acquaintances. There's a place ready for Jashka--another year and he
+goes behind the counter. And for you, Terenti, I'll open another place
+close by, you can run it on account, and be your own master. H'm, yes!
+I may well thank the Lord. He has cared for me."
+
+Ilya heard these speeches as though they came from somewhere a great
+way off. They bore no relation to anything that he was busied with
+then, and left him completely cold. But one day his uncle waked him
+early in the morning and said:----
+
+"Get up and wash yourself--but be quick."
+
+"Why, what's the matter?" asked Ilya, sleepily.
+
+"It's a place for you. Something has turned up, thank God! You're to go
+into a fishmonger's."
+
+Ilya's heart sank with unpleasant anticipation. The wish to leave this
+house, where he knew everything and was used to everything, suddenly
+disappeared, and Terenti's room, which he had never liked, all at
+once seemed so clean and bright. With downcast eyes he sat on his bed
+and had no inclination to dress. Jakov came in, unkempt and grey in
+the face, his head bent towards his left shoulder. He gave a fleeting
+glance at his friend, and said:
+
+"Come on! Father's waiting. You'll come here often?"
+
+"Of course, I'll come."
+
+"Now, go and say good-bye to Masha!"
+
+"But I'm not going away for altogether," cried Ilya, crossly.
+
+Masha came in herself at this point. She stood by the door, looked at
+Ilya, and said sorrowfully:----
+
+"Good-bye, Ilya"
+
+Ilya tugged at his jacket, got into it somehow, and swore. Masha and
+Jakov both sighed deeply.
+
+"Come and see us soon."
+
+"All right, all right!" answered Ilya, crossly.
+
+"See how he begins to stick it on--mister shopman!" remarked Masha.
+
+"Oh you silly goose!" answered Ilya, softly and reproachfully.
+
+Two minutes later he was going along the street beside Petrusha, who
+was dressed in his best clothes, with a long overcoat and creaking
+boots.
+
+"I'm taking you to a most worthy man, that all the town respects,"
+said Petrusha, in an impressive tone, "to Kiril Ivanitch Strogany. He
+has been decorated and all sorts of things for his goodness and his
+benevolence; he is on the Town Council, and may be chosen Burgomaster.
+Serve him well and properly, and he may do something for you. You're a
+serious lad, and not a spoiled darling, and for him to do anyone a good
+turn's as easy as spitting."
+
+Ilya listened, and tried to picture the merchant Strogany. He imagined
+in an odd way that he must be like Jeremy, as withered up and as
+good-hearted and sociable. But when he reached the fish-shop, he saw
+behind the desk a tall man with a big belly. There was not a single
+hair on his head, but from his eyes to his neck, his face was covered
+with a thick red beard. His eyebrows too, were red and thick, and from
+underneath them a pair of little greenish eyes looked angrily round
+about.
+
+"Bow to him," whispered Petrusha to Ilya, indicating the red-bearded
+man with his eyes. Disillusioned, Ilya let his head sink on his breast.
+
+"What's his name?" a deep bass voice boomed through the shop.
+
+"He's called Ilya," answered Petrusha.
+
+"Well, Ilya, open your eyes and listen to me. From now, there's no one
+in the world for you but your employer--no relations, no friends, d'you
+see? I'm your father and mother--and that's all I've got to say to you."
+
+Ilya's eyes wandered furtively about the shop. Huge sturgeons and shad
+were in baskets with ice, against the walls; on shelves were piled
+up dried perch and carp, and everywhere gleamed small tin boxes. A
+penetrating reek of brine filled the air, and all was stuffy and close
+and damp in the shop. In great tubs on the floor swam the live fish,
+slowly and noiselessly--sterlet, eel-pout, perch, and tench. In one a
+little pike dashed angrily and quickly through the water, hustling the
+other fish, and splashing water on to the ground with great strokes of
+its tail. Ilya felt sorry for the poor thing. One of the shopmen, a
+little fat man, with round eyes and a hooked nose, very like an owl,
+told Ilya to take the dead fish out of the tubs. The lad tucked up his
+sleeve and plunged his arm carefully into the water.
+
+"Take 'em by the head, stupid," said the shopman, in a low voice.
+Sometimes by mistake Ilya caught hold of a live fish that was not
+moving. It would slip through his fingers, dart through the water
+wildly hither and thither, and strike its head against the sides of
+the barrel.
+
+"Get on! get on!" commanded the shopman, but Ilya had got a fin bone
+stuck in his finger, and put his hand to his mouth and began to suck
+the place.
+
+"Take your finger out of your mouth," resounded the bass voice of his
+employer. Next a big heavy hatchet was given to the boy, and he was
+ordered to go to the cellar and smash up ice into even-sized pieces.
+The ice splinters flew in his face and slipped down his neck; it was
+cold and dark in the cellar, and if he did not handle the axe carefully
+it struck the ceiling. At the end of a few minutes, Ilya, wet from head
+to foot, came up out of the cellar, and said to his employer, "I've
+broken one of the bowls somehow."
+
+His employer looked at him attentively, then said:
+
+"The first time I forgive you, especially as you came and told me, but
+next time I'll pull your ears off."
+
+Quite mechanically Ilya adapted himself to his new surroundings, like
+a little screw fitting into a big noisy machine. He got up at five
+o'clock every morning, cleaned the boots of his master and the family
+and the shopman, then went into the shop, cleaned it out, and washed
+down the tables and the scales. As the customers came, he fetched the
+goods out, and carried them to the different houses, then returned to
+the mid-day meal. In the afternoon there was little to do, and unless
+he were sent anywhere on an errand, he used to stand in the shop door
+and look at the busy marketing, and marvel what a number of people
+there were in the world, and what vast quantities of fish and meat and
+fruit they consumed. One day he asked the shopman, who was so like an
+owl:----
+
+"Michael Ignatish!"
+
+"Well--what is it?"
+
+"What will people eat when they've caught all the fish there are, and
+killed all the cattle?"
+
+"Stupid!" answered the shopman.
+
+Another time he took a sheet of newspaper from the table, and settled
+himself in the shop door to read. But the shopman tore it out of his
+hand, tweaked his nose, and said crossly:
+
+"Who said you could do that, fool!"
+
+This shopman did not please Ilya at all. When he spoke to his employer,
+he said every word through his teeth, with a respectful hissing sound,
+but behind his back he called him a liar, a hypocrite, and a red-headed
+devil. Every Saturday and the eve of every saint's day, when his chief
+had gone to evening service, the shopman had a visit from his wife or
+his sister, and used to give them a big parcel of fish and caviare and
+preserves. He thought it a great joke to banter the poor beggars, among
+whom many an old man would remind Ilya very strongly of Grandfather
+Jeremy. If such an old man came to the shop door and begged for alms,
+the shopman would take a little fish by the head and hold it out, and
+as soon as the beggar took hold of it, the back fin would stick into
+his palm till the blood came. The beggar would shrink with the pain,
+but the shopman would laugh scornfully, and cry out:----
+
+"Don't want it, eh? Not enough? Get out of this!"
+
+Once an old beggar-woman took a dried perch quietly and hid it among
+her rags. The shopman saw. He seized the old woman by the neck, took
+away her stolen prize, then, bending her head back, he struck her in
+the face with his right hand. She made no sound of pain nor said a
+word, but went out silently with bent head, and Ilya saw how the dark
+blood ran from her nostrils.
+
+"Had enough?" the shopman called after her, and, turning to Karp, the
+other shopman, he said:----
+
+"I hate these beggars, idlers! Beg? Yes, and make a good thing of it!
+They know how to get along. Christ's brothers they call them. And I,
+what am I, then? A stranger to Christ, I suppose. I twist and turn all
+my life, like a worm in the sun, and get no peace and no respect."
+
+Karp, the other shopman, was a silent, pious fellow. He talked of
+nothing but churches, church music, and church worship, and every
+Saturday was greatly distressed at the thought that he would be late
+for evening service. For the rest, he was deeply interested in all
+sorts of jugglery, and whenever a magician and wonder-worker appeared in
+the town, off went Karp for certain to see him. He was tall and thin
+and very agile. When customers thronged the shop, he would wind in and
+out among them like a snake, with a smile for all and a word for all,
+and the whole time keeping an eye on the fat face of his employer,
+as though to show off his quickness before him. He treated Ilya with
+little consideration, and the boy accordingly was not at all devoted
+to him. But his employer Ilya liked. From morning till night he stood
+behind his desk, opening the till and throwing in money. Ilya observed
+that he did it quite indifferently, without covetousness, and it gave
+him a pleasant feeling to see it. He liked, too, that his master spoke
+to him more often and in a more friendly way than to the shopmen. In
+the quiet times when there were no customers, he would often talk to
+Ilya as he stood in the shop-door, sunk in thought.
+
+"Now, Ilya. Asleep, eh?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh, aren't you? What are you so solemn about, then?"
+
+"I--I don't know."
+
+"Find it dull here, eh?"
+
+"Ye--es."
+
+"Well, never mind, never mind. There was a time when I found life dull,
+too, from nineteen to thirty-two. I found it very tedious working for
+strangers, and now ever since then, I see what a bore others find it,"
+and he nodded his head, as much as to say:
+
+"So it is and it can't be helped."
+
+After two or three speeches of this kind the question began to busy
+Ilya, why this rich and respected man should stay all day in a dirty
+shop and breathe the sharp, unpleasant reek of salt fish, when he
+owned such a big, clean house. It was quite a remarkable house; in
+it all was quiet and austere, and everything was ordered by fixed
+immutable rules. And yet in its two stories, there lived no one beyond
+the owner, his wife and his three daughters, except a cook, who was
+also housemaid, and a manservant, who acted also as coachman, so there
+was little life in it. All who dwelt there spoke in an undertone, and
+if they had to cross the big, clean courtyard, they would keep to
+the sides as if they feared to walk across the wide open space. When
+Ilya compared this quiet, solid house with Petrusha's, against his
+expectations he had to admit that the life in the latter was more to
+be preferred, poor, noisy and dirty though it were. He marvelled at
+this conviction of his, and could hardly believe in it; but thoughts
+of this kind filled his brain more and more frequently and distinctly,
+and the fact that his employer lived so little in his own house,
+strengthened Ilya still more in his preference. He would have liked to
+ask the merchant just why he spent the whole day in the unrest, noise
+and clamour of the market and not in his house, where it was still and
+peaceful. One day when Karp had gone on some errand, and Michael was in
+the cellar picking out the dead fish for the almshouse, the master fell
+again into conversation with Ilya, and in the course of it the boy said
+with a sudden impulse:
+
+"You might give up your business, sir--you're so rich--it's so lovely
+in your house and so--so dull here."
+
+Strogany rested his elbows on the desk supporting his head and looked
+attentively at his apprentice. His red beard twitched oddly.
+
+"Well," he asked, as Ilya stopped, "Said all you want to?"
+
+"Ye--ss, yes," stammered Ilya, a little frightened.
+
+"Come here!"
+
+Ilya went nearer to the desk. His master caught hold of his chin,
+turned his face up, looked him in the face with screwed-up eyes, then
+asked:
+
+"Have you heard any one say that or did you think it yourself?"
+
+"I thought of it--really and truly."
+
+"Oh! If you thought it yourself, all right, but I'll just tell you one
+thing, in future have the goodness not to talk to your employer like
+that, you understand--your employer. Bear that in mind, and now get to
+your work!"
+
+And when Karp returned, the merchant began suddenly to speak to him,
+for no apparent reason, constantly looking sideways at Ilya, so openly,
+that the boy quickly noticed it:
+
+"A man must follow his business all his life--all--his--life! Whoever
+does not is an ass. How can a man live without something to do? A man
+who isn't absorbed in his business, is good for nothing."
+
+"Of course, I quite agree, Kiril Ivanovitch," said the shopman, letting
+his glance travel round the shop as if he was seeking something more
+to do. Ilya looked at his employer and fell into deep thought. Life to
+him among these men became more and more tedious. The days dragged on
+one after the other like long grey threads, unrolling from some mighty
+unseen skein. And it seemed to him that these days would never come to
+an end, but that all his life long he would stand at this shop door
+and listen to the tumult of the market-place. But his intelligence,
+already awakened by early experience and by the reading of books, was
+not hampered by the drowsy influence of this monotonous life, and
+worked on without a pause, though perhaps more slowly. Every day the
+lad's soul received new impressions which simmered within him, and
+filled his head with a cloud of ideas concerning all that passed around
+him. He had no one to whom he could pour out his thoughts, which were
+therefore hidden, in his own breast. They were many, very many--they
+tortured him often, but they were without definite form, they melted
+one into the other, or contended in opposition and lay on brain and
+heart like a heavy load. Sometimes it was so painful to this serious
+silent lad to look on at the concourse of men that he would most gladly
+have closed his eyes or gone somewhere far, far away--farther than
+Pashka Gratschev had gone--never to return to this grey dulness and
+incomprehensible human worthlessness.
+
+On holy days they sent him to church. He came back always with the
+sense that his heart had been washed clean in the sweet-smelling,
+warm stream that flowed through the house of God. In half a year he
+was only able to visit his uncle twice. There, all went on as of old.
+The hunchback grew thinner and Petrusha whistled louder, and his face
+once rosy, was now red. Jakov complained that his father treated him
+harshly: "He's always growling that I must begin to be reasonable,
+that he can't stand a book-worm: but I can't stand serving at the bar,
+nothing but noise and quarrels and rows, you can't hear yourself speak.
+I say, 'put me out as an apprentice, say in a shop where they sell
+eikons and things, there isn't much to do, and I like eikons.'"
+
+Jakov's eyes blinked mournfully; the skin on his forehead looked very
+yellow and shone like the bald patch on his father's head.
+
+"Do you still read books?" asked Ilya.
+
+"Rather! It's my only comfort--as long as I can read, I feel as if I
+were in another place, and when I come to the end I feel as if I had
+pitched off a church tower."
+
+Ilya looked at him and said:
+
+"How old you look--and where is Mashutka?"
+
+"She's gone to the almshouse for some things. I can't help her much
+now, father keeps too sharp a look out, and Perfishka is ill all the
+time, so she has to go to the almshouse. They give away cabbage soup
+there and that sort of thing. Matiza helps her a bit, but it's hard
+lines for her, poor Masha!"
+
+"It's dull here--with you--too," said Ilya, thoughtfully.
+
+"Is it dull in business?"
+
+"Frightfully. You've got books at least, and in our whole house there's
+only one book, the 'Book of Newest Magic and Jugglery,' and the shopman
+keeps that in his box; and what d'you think, the beast won't let me
+have it. I hate him. Ah, my lad, it's a beastly life for both of us,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Looks like it!"
+
+They chatted a while and parted, both very sad and thoughtful.
+
+Another fortnight passed in this same way, when suddenly there came a
+sharp turning in the course of Ilya's life. One morning, while business
+was proceeding in a lively manner, the chief suddenly began to look for
+something in his desk very eagerly. An angry red covered his forehead,
+and the veins of his neck swelled up.
+
+"Ilya," he shouted, "come and look here on the floor, if you can't find
+a ten-rouble piece!"
+
+Ilya looked at his master, then glanced quickly over the floor, and
+said quietly: "No, there's nothing."
+
+"I tell you, look--look properly!" growled his employer, in his harsh
+bass voice.
+
+"I have looked already."
+
+"Ah, ah! Wait a bit, you impudent rascal!" And as soon as the customers
+were gone he called Ilya, seized the boy's ear in his strong fat
+fingers and twisted it, snarling in his harsh voice, "When you're told
+to look, look! When you're told to look, look!"
+
+Ilya pressed with both hands against his master's body, released his
+ear from the fingers, and cried loudly and angrily, his whole frame
+quivering with excitement:
+
+"Why do you bully me? Michael stole the money. Yes, he did. It's in his
+left waistcoat pocket."
+
+The owl face of the shopman suddenly lengthened; he looked very
+disturbed, and began to tremble. Then suddenly he let out with his
+right arm, and struck Ilya on the ear. The boy sprang suddenly up, fell
+to the ground with a loud groan, and crying, crept on all fours into a
+corner of the shop. As one in a dream, he heard the threatening voice
+of his master:----
+
+"Stay, there, give up that money!"
+
+"It's a lie," squeaked the shopman.
+
+"Come here!"
+
+"I swear--I----"
+
+"I'll throw the weight at your head!"
+
+"Kiril Ivanitch, it's my own money, may God strike me dead if it isn't."
+
+"Hold your tongue!"
+
+Then silence. The chief went to his room, and from there came at once
+the loud rattle of the balls on the counting frame. Ilya sat on the
+floor, holding his head, and looking with hatred at the shopman, who
+stood in another corner of the shop, and on his side, cast threatening
+looks at the boy.
+
+"Ah, you vagabond, shall I give you any more?" he asked in a low voice,
+showing his teeth.
+
+Ilya shrugged his shoulders, and said nothing.
+
+"Wait, my boy. I'll give you something, just in case you forget me."
+
+The shopman strode slowly across to the boy, and looked in his face
+with round, malignant eyes.
+
+Ilya got up, and with a rapid movement took a long, thin knife from the
+counter, and said "Come on!"
+
+The shopman stood still, measuring with a fixed glance the strong
+sturdy figure, with long arms and the knife in one hand, then murmured
+scornfully: "Pooh, you convict's brat!"
+
+"Just come on, come on!" repeated the boy, and advanced a step.
+Everything whirled before his eyes, but in his breast he felt a great
+strength which urged him bravely forward.
+
+"Drop that knife!" said his master's voice.
+
+Ilya shuddered when he saw the red beard and livid face of his master,
+but did not move.
+
+"Put down that knife, I tell you," repeated the merchant quietly.
+
+Ilya, who felt as though he were moving through a dark cloud, put the
+knife down on the counter, gave a loud sob, and sat down again on the
+floor. He felt giddy. His head and his damaged ear pained him. A heavy
+weight that lay on his breast hindered his breathing, pressed on his
+heart, and rose up slowly in his throat, choking his speech. He heard
+his employer's voice as though he were far away.
+
+"Here is your salary due, Mishka."
+
+"But let me----" the shopman tried to explain.
+
+"Out you go, else I'll call the police."
+
+"All right, I'll go, but keep an eye on that young cub, I advise you.
+He goes at people with a knife--he, he! His dear father is in Siberia,
+a convict--he, he!"
+
+"Get out!"
+
+There was stillness again in the shop. Ilya had an unpleasant feeling,
+as though something were crawling over his face. He wiped off his tears
+with his hand, looked about him, and saw his master behind his desk,
+examining him with a sharp searching look. Ilya got up and went towards
+his place at the door, staggering uncertainly.
+
+"Stop! Hold on a minute," called out his master. "Would you really have
+put that knife in him?"
+
+"Yes, I would," answered the boy, quietly, but with assurance.
+
+"Oh, oh! What's your father in Siberia for? Murder?"
+
+"No. Setting fire to a house."
+
+"Good enough."
+
+Karp, the other shopman, came back from an errand at this moment. He
+sat down on a stool near the door, and looked out at the street.
+
+"Listen, Karpushka," began the master, with smile. "I've just sent
+Mishka packing."
+
+"It's your right, Kiril Ivanovitch."
+
+"Think! He robbed me."
+
+"Impossible!" cried Karp, softly, but evidently frightened, "Is that
+true? The villain!"
+
+The chief laughed behind his desk till he had to hold his sides and his
+red beard shook.
+
+"Ho! ho! ho!" he laughed. "Ah, Karpushka, you conjuror, modest soul!"
+
+Then he stopped laughing suddenly, gave a deep sigh, and said, sternly
+and thoughtfully, "Ah, men, men! All want to live, all want to eat,
+and every one better than his neighbour."
+
+He shook his head and was silent.
+
+Ilya, standing by the desk, felt hurt that his master paid no further
+attention to him.
+
+"Well, Ilya," said the merchant finally, after a long, painful silence,
+"let's have a chat. Tell me, though, have you ever seen Michael steal
+before?"
+
+"Yes, rather! He stole all the time. Fish and all the rest."
+
+"And why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"I--I----" stammered Ilya, after a short pause.
+
+"Afraid of him, eh?"
+
+"No, I wasn't afraid."
+
+"So--then why didn't you say 'Master, you're being robbed'?"
+
+"I don't know. I didn't want to."
+
+"H'm! You only told me just now out of temper?"
+
+"Yes," said Ilya, defiantly.
+
+"There, see! What a young cub!"
+
+The merchant stroked his red beard for a while, and looked earnestly at
+Ilya without speaking.
+
+"And you, Ilya, have you ever stolen."
+
+"No."
+
+"I believe you--you have not stolen, but Karp now--this fellow Karp
+here, does he steal?"
+
+"Yes, he steals," answered Ilya curtly.
+
+Karp looked at him in astonishment, blinked his eyes and turned away
+as if the matter did not concern him in the least. The master's brows
+contracted darkly, and again he began to stroke his beard. Ilya felt
+clearly that something out of the common was impending and awaited the
+end, strung to the pitch of nervousness. The flies hovered about in the
+sharp, reeking air of the shop. The water in the tubs of live fishes
+splashed.
+
+"Karpushka!" the chief addressed the shopman who was standing
+motionless in the door and looking attentively at the streets.
+
+"What can I do, sir?" answered Karp, and hurried to his employer,
+looking at his face with submissive, friendly eyes.
+
+"Do you hear what is said of you?"
+
+"Yes, I heard."
+
+"Well, what have you to say?"
+
+"Nothing," said Karp, and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Nothing! What d'you mean by that?"
+
+"It's quite simple, Kiril Ivanovitch. I am a man that respects himself
+and so I don't feel that my character can be hurt by a boy. You see
+yourself how absolutely stupid he is, and doesn't understand anything.
+So I can forgive his wicked slander with a light heart."
+
+"Stop, my friend! Let's have none of your juggling, but kindly tell me,
+has he spoken the truth?"
+
+"What is truth?" answered Karp slowly, shrugging his shoulders and
+holding his head on one side. "Every one understands the truth in his
+own way--if you like, you can take his words for truth, but if you
+don't like, it's just as you wish."
+
+Karp ended with a sigh, bowed to his employer, and made a gesture that
+indicated how deeply hurt he felt.
+
+"H'm! so you leave it to me--you think the youngster silly?"
+
+"Uncommonly silly," said Karp with brusque conviction.
+
+"No, my lad, that's a lie," said Strogany, and laughed outright. "How
+he came out with the truth right in your face! Ho! Ho! Does Karp steal?
+Yes, he steals. Ho! Ho! Ho!"
+
+Ilya had gone from the desk to the door and from there had listened to
+this conversation, which he felt clearly had in it something insulting
+to him. When he heard his master laugh, a joyful sense of revenge
+flooded his heart, he looked triumphantly at Karp and gratefully at his
+employer. Strogany screwed up his eyes and laughed heartily and Karp
+hearing his laugh, followed with a dry anxious "He! he! he!"
+
+At the sound of this thin bleating, Strogany ordered sharply:
+
+"Shut up the shop."
+
+On the way to the merchant's house, Karp said to Ilya, shaking his head:
+
+"A fool you are, an utter fool! starting all that rigmarole! d'you
+suppose that's the way to curry favour? You young ass! d'you think he
+doesn't know that Mishka and I, both of us, stole from him--he was a
+young man once--he! he! As he's sent off Mishka, I've that to thank you
+for to tell the truth, but for telling tales of me--I'll never forgive
+that, I tell you straight; it's stupid and wrong, too, to say a thing
+like that--in my presence too. No, I can't forget that; it showed that
+you don't respect me!"
+
+Ilya listened, not understanding clearly, and said nothing. He had
+expected Karp to approach him very differently, probably to give him a
+good thrashing on the way home, and consequently he had been afraid to
+start. But in Karp's words sounded contempt more than anger, and for
+his mere threats Ilya cared nothing. It was the evening of that day
+before the meaning of the speech was clear to Ilya, when his employer
+sent for him to go upstairs.
+
+"Ah! now you see! go on!" Karp called after him in a voice presaging
+evil.
+
+Ilya went upstairs and stood at the door of a big room, with a long
+table under a hanging lamp, and a samovar on the table. His master sat
+there with his wife and three daughters, all red-haired and freckled.
+
+When Ilya came in they crowded closer together and looked at him
+timidly out of their blue eyes.
+
+"That's the boy," said his employer.
+
+"You don't say so--such a young rascal," said the wife anxiously and
+looked at Ilya as if she had never seen him before.
+
+Strogany smiled, stroked his beard, drummed on the table with his
+fingers, and said impressively:
+
+"I've sent for you, Ilya, to tell you I don't need you any more, so get
+your things together and start off."
+
+Ilya started and opened his mouth in astonishment, but could not get
+out a word, then turned and went out of the room.
+
+"Stop!" called the merchant, stretching one arm out after him, and
+striking the table with his palm, "Stop!"
+
+Then he held up one finger and went on slowly and composedly: "It's
+not only for that that I sent for you. No. I want to give you a lesson
+to take away with you. I wish to explain to you why I don't need you
+any more. You've done all right as far as I am concerned, you're a
+youngster that has had some education, you're industrious and honest
+and strong--yes, you've all those trump cards in your hand, and yet you
+won't suit me any more. I can't do with you in my business. Why? you
+ask--h'm--yes."
+
+Ilya understood this much, that he seemed at the same time to be
+praised and dismissed. The contradiction would not come clear in his
+mind, but roused in him a strange double sensation and brought him to
+the idea that his employer himself did not know what he was doing.
+Strogany's face seemed to the lad to confirm this impression; on it
+there was an expression of tension, as though he were struggling in his
+mind with a thought for which he could not clearly find words. The boy
+stepped forward and said quietly and respectfully.
+
+"You dismiss me because I took the knife to him?"
+
+"Heavens!" cried his employer's wife. "Heavens! how insolent!"
+
+"That is it," said the merchant complacently, while he smiled at Ilya,
+and tapped him with his forefinger, "you are insolent. That is the
+word--insolent. But a lad that goes out to work must be humble--humble
+and modest; the Scriptures teach it. He must sink himself in his
+master. Everything--his intelligence, his honesty, must be used for his
+master's advantage, and you take a stand of your own, and that won't do
+at all, you see, and that's why you're insolent; for instance, you tell
+a man to his face that he's a thief. That isn't good, it is insolent;
+if you are so honest yourself you might tell me what the man does, but
+quite privately. I would easily have settled the business, because I am
+the master. But you say right out--he steals. No, no, that won't do.
+If there's only one honest out of three that matters nothing; in these
+cases one must reckon according to circumstances. Suppose there's one
+honest and nine rascals, that's no good to anyone, generally the one
+goes to the wall, but if there are seven honest to three rascals, then
+you're right to speak out, d'you see? right goes with the majority, and
+one honest, what's the good of him? That's how it stands with honesty,
+my boy. Don't force your righteousness on people, but find out first if
+they want it."
+
+Strogany wiped the sweat off his brow with his hand, sighed,
+and continued with an expression of compassion mingled with
+self-satisfaction:
+
+"And then you take to the knife."
+
+"O Lord!" cried his wife, and the three girls crowded closer together.
+
+"It is written in the Scriptures, 'He who takes the sword shall perish
+by the sword.' H'm--yes--for this reason I can't keep you any more,
+that's the truth. Here take this half rouble and go--go your way, you
+need have no grudge against me, any more than I have against you. See,
+I give you half a rouble, take it, and I have spoken to you as one
+seldom speaks to a boy, quite seriously, that you may take it to heart,
+and so forth. Perhaps I'm sorry for you, but you're no good to me;
+if the linch pin does not fit, the wise man throws it away before he
+starts his journey. So, go your way!"
+
+"Good-bye," said Ilya. He had listened with attention and explained the
+matter to himself quite simply; he was dismissed because the merchant
+could not get rid of Karp and leave himself without a shopman.
+
+This thought cheered him and made him content, and his master seemed to
+him a very unusual man, simple and friendly.
+
+"Take your money!" called Strogany.
+
+"Good-bye," repeated Ilya, and held the little silver coin tight in his
+hand. "Thank you very much."
+
+"There, he never cried a bit!" Ilya heard his master's wife say
+reproachfully.
+
+When Ilya, bundle on back, came out of the heavy house door, it seemed
+to him as though he were leaving a grey, far-off land, that he had
+read of in some book, where there was nothing, no people, no villages,
+but only stones, and among these stones lived a good old magician, who
+showed the way out to wayfarers lost in the desert land.
+
+It was the evening of a clear spring day. The sun was setting and the
+windows flamed red. Ilya remembered that other day when first he saw
+the town from the river shore. The bundle, heavy with all his worldly
+goods, weighed on his back and he slackened his speed. People on the
+pavements hurried by and struck against his load; carriages rolled
+noisily past him; the dust danced in the slanting sun rays, and over
+everything prevailed a sense of noisy, gay, lively activity. All that
+he had experienced during the year in the town was vivid in his memory.
+He felt like a grown-up man, his heart beat proudly and free, and in
+his ears rang the words of his master:
+
+"You are a youngster that has had some education, you're not stupid,
+you're strong and not lazy; these are the trump cards in your hand."
+
+"Well then, we'll try again," said Ilya to himself while he slackened
+his pace still more. A stirring feeling of joy possessed him, and
+involuntarily he smiled at the thought that to-morrow he would not have
+to go to the fish shop.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+
+When Ilya returned to the house of Petrusha Filimonov, he discovered
+with pleasure that he had grown considerably during the time he
+had spent in the shop. Every one made a point of greeting him with
+flattering curiosity, and Perfishka held out a hand to him. "My
+respects to my lord the shopman. Well brother, have you served your
+time? I've heard of your bold strokes. Ha! ha! Ah, brother, men will
+let you use your tongue to lick their boots, but not to tell them the
+truth."
+
+When Mashka saw Ilya, she cried joyfully, "Ah, how tall you've grown!"
+
+And Jakov was delighted to see his comrade again.
+
+"This is good," he said, "now we can live together again like we used
+to. Do you know, I've got a book called 'The Albigenses,' such a story,
+I tell you! There's a man in it, Simon Montfort, he's a real monster."
+
+And Jakov, in his vague, hurried way, started to tell his friend the
+contents of the book. Ilya looked at him and thought with a peaceful
+content, that his big-headed comrade had stayed just as he was before.
+Jakov saw nothing at all unusual in Ilya's conduct towards the merchant
+Strogany. He listened to the whole story, then said simply, "That was
+all right." This unmoved reception of his experience by Jakov was not
+to Ilya's taste. Even Petrusha, when he had heard Ilya's account of
+what took place in the shop, had applauded the boy's behaviour and not
+stinted his approval.
+
+"You gave it him very well, my lad, very cleverly. Of course, Kiril
+Ivanovitch couldn't send off Karp for you. Karp knows the business,
+and it wouldn't be easy to replace him. But after such a scene, you
+couldn't stay on with him. You stuck to the truth, and played with the
+cards on the table, you must have come off the better."
+
+However, a day or two after, Terenti said to his nephew softly:
+
+"Listen. Don't be too open with Petrusha. Be careful. He doesn't like
+you. He abuses you behind your back. He says, 'See how the boy loves
+the truth, but why is it? out of sheer stupidity.' H'm, yes. That's
+what he says."
+
+Ilya listened and laughed.
+
+"And yesterday, he praised me; said I'd managed cleverly. Men are
+all like that, they'll praise you to your face, but behind your back
+they'll say things."
+
+Petrusha's duplicity did not in the least lessen Ilya's heightened
+self-confidence. He felt exactly like a hero, and was convinced that
+he had behaved very well with regard to the merchant--better than any
+other had ever behaved under similar circumstances.
+
+Two months later, when a new place had been sought for Ilya, zealously
+but in vain, this conversation took place between the uncle and nephew:
+
+"Yes, it's bad," said the hunchback, gloomily, "not a place to be found
+for you. Everywhere it's the same thing--he's too big! What shall we
+do, my boy? What I do you think?"
+
+Ilya answered decidedly and with conviction: "I'm fifteen years old. I
+can read and write. I'm not stupid, and if I'm insolent they'll only
+send me away from any other place I get. Who can do with an insolent
+man?"
+
+"But then, what shall we do?" asked Terenti, anxiously, sitting on his
+bed and supporting himself on it with his hands.
+
+"I'll tell you. Let me have a big box and buy me some goods--soap and
+scent, needles and books, all sorts of small things, and I'll go round
+about with them and do business for myself."
+
+"What?--What do you mean, Ilusha? I don't quite understand. In the bar
+room here, in the noise, it always goes tchk!--tchk! tchk! So that my
+head's got weak, and then there's something never lets me alone, always
+the same thing, I can't think of anything else!"
+
+A strange tortured expression showed in the hunchback's eyes, as though
+he wanted to reckon up something and could not get it right.
+
+"Try it, uncle; let me go once any way."
+
+Ilya entreated, excited by his idea which promised him freedom.
+
+"Well, God help us! we might try."
+
+"Ah! splendid! you'll see how it'll go," cried Ilya delighted.
+
+"Oh dear!" Terenti sighed deeply, and went on sorrowfully: "If only you
+were quite grown up! Ah! then I could go away, but now you're just an
+anchor to hold me, it's only for your sake I stay in this beastly hole,
+and go down, down. I might go to some holy men and say: 'Servants of
+God! doers of good! interceders! I have sinned, accursed that I am, my
+heart is heavy, save me, pray for pardon for me to my Father!'"
+
+And the hunchback began to weep quietly.
+
+Ilya knew well what sin oppressed his uncle and remembered it clearly.
+His heart was uplifted; he pitied, but could find no words of
+consolation and was silent, till he saw the tears flow from the sunken,
+introspective eyes of his uncle, then he said: "There--there, don't
+cry any more! See! Wait till I get on a bit in business, then you can
+get away from here." After a moment's silence he resumed consolingly,
+"There--you'll see, you'll be forgiven."
+
+"Do you think so really?" asked Terenti softly, and the lad repeated in
+a tone of conviction:
+
+"Of course you'll be forgiven, worse things than that have been
+pardoned, I'm sure of it."
+
+So it came about that Ilya took to the pedlar's trade. From morning
+to night he traversed the streets, with his box at his breast, while
+his black eyebrows contracted, and he looked out on the world full
+of self-confidence with his nose in the air. With his cap drawn down
+on his forehead, he held up his head and cried with his boyish voice
+beginning to break:
+
+"Soap! blacking! pomade! hairpins! needles and thread, pins!
+books--beautiful books!"
+
+Life flowed round him in a gay and tumultuous stream, and he swam with
+it, free and light-hearted, and felt himself to be a man even as all
+the others were. He drove a trade round the bazaars, went to the inns,
+and would order his tea importantly, drink it slowly, and eat a piece
+of white bread like a man who knows his worth. Life seemed to him
+simple, easy and pleasant.
+
+His dreams took on clear and simple forms. He imagined how in two or
+three years he would sit in a clean little shop of his own, somewhere
+in a good street, not too noisy, and in this shop he would deal in
+all sorts of clean and pretty wares, that were clean to handle and
+did not spoil the clothes. He himself would look clean and healthy
+and handsome. Every one in the street would respect him and the girls
+would look at him with friendly glances. When his shop was shut he
+would sit in a clean bright little room near it and drink his tea,
+and read books. Cleanliness in everything seemed to him the essential
+determining factor of a well-ordered life. So he dreamed when trade was
+good and no one hurt him by rough behaviour. But if he had sold nothing
+and was sitting tired in the bar or somewhere in the street, then all
+the harshness and hustling of the police, the insulting remarks of
+customers, the abuse and mockery of his fellows the other pedlars,
+weighed on his soul and he felt within him a painful sense of unrest.
+His eyes opened wide and looked deeper into the web of life, and his
+memory, so rich in impressions, pushed into the wheels of his thought
+one impression after another. He saw clearly how all men strove for
+the same goal as he, how all longed for the same quiet, full and clean
+life on which his desire was set. Yet no one scrupled to thrust aside
+whomsoever was in his way; all were so greedy, so pitiless, and harmed
+one another, with no necessity, with no advantage to themselves, out of
+sheer pleasure in another's pain. They often laughed when they could
+hurt most deeply and seldom had pity on those whom they made to suffer.
+
+Such images made his work seem hateful. The dream of a clean little
+shop vanished away, and he felt in his heart an enervating weariness.
+It seemed to him that he would never save enough money out of his
+trading to open the shop, and that right on into his old age he must
+wander about the hot, dusty streets, his box on his breast, and the
+straps galling his shoulders. But every success in his undertaking
+awakened new courage and gave new life to his dreams.
+
+One day in a busy street Ilya quite unexpectedly met Pashka Gratschev.
+The smith's son tramped along the pavement with the assured stride of
+one free of all care, his hands in the pockets of his torn trousers,
+wearing a blue blouse, also torn and dirty, which was much too big for
+him. The heels of his big, well-worn boots clumped on the pavement at
+every step. His cap with a broken peak rested jauntily over his left
+ear, leaving half of his close-cropped head exposed to the rays of
+the summer sun. Face and neck alike were covered with thick greasy
+black dirt. He recognised Ilya from a distance, and nodded to him in a
+friendly way, without hastening his easy pace.
+
+"Good luck," said Ilya. "Fancy meeting you!"
+
+Pashka took his hand, pressed it and laughed. His teeth and eyes shone
+bright and dear for a moment under his black mask.
+
+"How goes it?" asked Ilya.
+
+"It goes as it can. When there's anything to bite at, I bite, and when
+there's nothing I whine and lie curled up. Ha! ha! I'm jolly glad to
+meet you anyhow!"
+
+"Why do you never come to see us?" asked Ilya, smiling. It was pleasant
+to him to see an old comrade glad to meet him in spite of his dirty
+face. He looked at Pashka's worn boots and then at his own new, shining
+pair that had cost nine roubles, and smiled complacently.
+
+"How should I know where you live?" said Pashka.
+
+"With Filimonov, just the same."
+
+"Oh! Jashka said you were in some fish shop or other."
+
+Ilya related with pride his experiences in the house of Strogany, and
+how now he was keeping himself.
+
+"That's the way," cried Gratschev approvingly, "they turned me out of
+the printing works just the same way, for insolence. Then I was with
+a painter, mixed the colours and that sort of thing, till one day I
+sat down on a fresh-painted signboard, and then of course there was a
+row, they all went for me, master and mistress, and pupils, till their
+arms were tired out and then sent me to the devil. Now I'm with a
+well-sinker, six roubles a month. I've just had dinner and I'm going
+back to work."
+
+"You don't seem in a hurry with your job."
+
+"Oh! devil take it! Whoever knows what work is doesn't get excited over
+it. I must come and look you up some time."
+
+"Yes! do come."
+
+"Do you still read books?"
+
+"Rather. And you?"
+
+"Yes, when I can."
+
+"And do you still make poetry?"
+
+"Yes, I make poetry."
+
+Pashka laughed again happily.
+
+"You'll come then, won't you? And don't forget the poems."
+
+"I'll come right enough. I'll bring some brandy, too."
+
+"Have you taken to drinking then?"
+
+"Oh, just a little--but now, good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye," said Ilya.
+
+He passed on his way, thinking deeply of Pashka. To him it seemed
+strange that this ragged fellow had showed no envy of his own shining
+boots and clean clothes, indeed had hardly appeared to notice them.
+Again, Pashka had rejoiced openly when Ilya spoke of his independent
+untrammelled life. His thoughts filled Ilya with an incomprehensible
+unrest, and he said to himself: "Doesn't this Gratschev, then, want the
+same things as all the rest. What is there to wish for in life but a
+clean, peaceful, independent existence?"
+
+Melancholy and unrest of this kind possessed Ilya, especially after he
+had visited the church. He seldom missed a service, midday or evening.
+He used not to pray, but would simply stand in some corner and look,
+without any definite thought, at the worshipping crowd and listen to
+the singing of the choir. Men stood there, silent and motionless, and
+there was a certain sense of unanimity in the stillness, as though each
+were endeavouring to think as all the others thought. Waves of song,
+blended with waves of incense, swept through the house of God, and
+often Ilya felt as though he were borne upwards on the stream of sound
+to float in the warm caressing air above. There was something that
+comforted the soul in the earnest, solemn voice that filled the church,
+so different from the hubbub of life and not to be reconciled with it.
+At first this feeling remained apart from everyday impressions, did not
+mingle with them and left him undisturbed; but later it came to him to
+feel as though there was something living in his heart, ceaselessly
+observing him; shy and anxious it dwelt concealed in a corner of
+his heart as he went about his accustomed business, but grew in his
+soul whenever he entered the church and aroused in him a strange,
+disquieting thought, opposing his dream of a clean, sheltered life. At
+such times the tales of the hermit Antipa rose in his mind, and the
+talk of the pious old rag-picker concerning a loving God. "The Lord
+sees all things, knows all things, beside Him there is nothing."
+
+Ilya would return home full of unrest and perplexity, feeling his
+dreams of the future fade, and recognising that hidden in him lay
+something that cared not at all for his little business. But life
+renewed its claims on him, and this something dived quickly down again
+to the depths of his soul.
+
+Jakov, with whom Ilya discussed almost everything, knew nothing of this
+division in his friend's soul. Indeed, Ilya came to the consciousness
+of it against his will, and never voluntarily let his thoughts run on
+this incomprehensible sensation.
+
+His evenings were spent pleasantly. As soon as he returned, he went
+straight to the cellar and said to Masha quite as if he were the master
+in his own home:
+
+"Now Masha, is the samovar ready?" and the samovar would be already
+prepared and standing on the table steaming and singing. Ilya always
+brought some delicacy with him, almond or honey cakes, or gingerbread
+or syrup, and for this Masha supplied him with tea. Besides, the girl
+had begun to earn money for herself; Matiza had taught her to make
+paper flowers, and Masha loved to shape red roses out of the thin
+rustling sheets. She could earn ten kopecks a day. Her father had
+contracted typhus, and lay for two months in hospital, returning thin
+and meagre with beautiful dark curls. His tousled, untrimmed beard was
+shaved off, and in spite of his yellow sunken cheeks, he looked five
+years younger. As before he worked in various shops, frequently did
+not even sleep at home and left all care and management of his home to
+Masha. She patched his clothes and called her father "Perfishka" like
+all the rest. The shoemaker made great fun of her demeanour to him, but
+felt an evident respect for his little curly-headed girl, who could
+laugh as heartily and cheerfully as himself.
+
+Ilya and Jakov took their tea in the evenings with Masha as a regular
+custom. The three children sat at table, and drank long and deeply,
+chattering of everything that interested them. Ilya related all that
+he had seen in the town, and Jakov, who read all day long, told of his
+books, the scenes in the tap room, complained of his father and many
+times poured out a screed, quite confused and unintelligible to the
+other two. Masha sat all day in her underground room, worked and sang,
+listened to the conversation of the lads, speaking herself seldom and
+laughing when she felt inclined. To them all the tea tasted admirable,
+and the samovar covered with a thick layer of rust grinned at them
+in a friendly cunning way with its funny old face. Almost every day,
+just when the children had arranged things to their liking, it would
+begin to murmur and hum, pretending anger, and it would appear that
+there was no water in it, Masha must take it out and fill it, and this
+performance had to be repeated several times every evening. When the
+moon rode in the heavens, her light would share the festival, falling
+through the windows into the little room in great, glimmering streaks.
+This little cave, shut in with a low, heavy ceiling, and half-rotten
+walls, almost always lacked air and light, water and bread, and sugar
+and many things, but life went all the more merrily, and every night
+many generous feelings and many naïve youthful thoughts were born there.
+
+From time to time Perfishka joined the company. Generally he sat on a
+kind of bench in a dark corner near the sturdy stove, half buried in
+the ground, or else he climbed on to the stove itself, and his head
+hung down into the room, so that if he spoke or laughed his little
+white teeth glimmered in the darkness. His daughter passed him a big
+mug of tea and a piece of sugar and bread, he would take them, laughing
+and say: "Many thanks Maria Perfilyevna, I am overwhelmed with your
+kindness." Many a time he would say with a sigh of envy, "You have
+a fine life, children--confound you! first rate, just like men and
+women," and then laughing and sighing he would go on:
+
+"Life gets better and better--it's jollier every year; at your age I
+got nothing but the strap. It was always on my back, and I howled for
+pleasure as loud as I could. When it stopped, my back began to hurt
+and grumble and sulk, because it missed its old friend; but it didn't
+have to wait long for it--it was a most sympathetic strap. That was
+all the company I had in my young days. You'll soon be growing up now,
+and will want to look back at things--the talks, and all the different
+things that have happened and all this jolly life, and I'm grown big
+and old--thirty-six--and have nothing I want to remember. Not a spark;
+nothing has remained in my memory, as if I'd been deaf and blind all
+my young days, I only remember how my teeth chattered for hunger and
+cold, and the blue patches on my face; how my bones and my ears and
+my hair stayed healthy I can't understand. They didn't quite hit me
+with the stove, but on the stove, bless you, they thrashed me to their
+hearts' content. That was an education for you; they twisted me about
+like a bit of thread; but flog me as they liked, and hack me to pieces,
+and suck my blood as they liked, the Russian in me clung to his life!
+tough fellows these Russians! Pound them to bits, and they'll come
+up smiling! See me! they ground me to powder and cut me to ribbons,
+and here I live happily like the cuckoo in the wood, flutter from one
+alehouse to another, and am at peace with all the world. God loves me,
+you know; if he saw me, He'd just say: 'Oh! it's you,' He'd say, and
+let me go on."
+
+The youngsters listened and laughed. Ilya laughed with the others,
+though Perfishka's sing-song voice awakened in him a thought which
+always came back and back obstinately and occupied him greatly. One
+day he tried to get clear about it and asked the cobbler with an
+incredulous laugh: "And is there really nothing in all the world that
+you want, Perfishka?"
+
+"Oh! I don't say that. A mouthful of brandy, for instance, I'm always
+wanting."
+
+"No, tell me the truth! There must be something in the world that you
+want," persisted Ilya.
+
+"Want to know the truth, do you? Well then, I should like a new
+harmonica, a right-down good harmonica, say twenty-five roubles. Ha!
+ha! _then_ I'd play to you!"
+
+He stopped and laughed comfortably. Suddenly a thought pricked him, he
+became serious and said to Ilya, gravely:
+
+"N--no, brother! I don't want a new one! In the first place, it's
+dear and I should pawn it for drink, for sure, and secondly, suppose
+it turned out worse than the one I have, what then? She's a real
+beauty, the one I've got. Beyond all money. My soul's gone into her,
+she understands me so well, just my finger on the keys and away she
+sings! She's a rare treasure--perhaps there's not another like her in
+the world. A harmonica, she's like a wife. Once I had a wife too, an
+angel--not a woman, and if I wanted to marry again--how could I? I'd
+never find another like my dear. Whether you like it or not, you get
+measuring the new one by the old, and if she isn't enough, it's bad,
+for me and for her. That's the way of things. Ah! brother, a thing
+isn't good when it's good, but when it pleases you."
+
+Ilya could readily agree with Perfishka's praise of his instrument. No
+one who heard it but wondered at its ringing, tender tone. But he could
+not reconcile himself with the thought that the cobbler had no desire
+in the world. Clear and sharp, the question met him--can a man live his
+whole life in dirt, go about in rags, drink brandy, play the harmonica
+and never long for anything different, better? He had no wish to regard
+the contented Perfishka as half silly. He observed him constantly with
+the greatest interest, and was convinced that the cobbler at heart was
+better than all the other people in the house, tippler and good for
+nothing though he were.
+
+Sometimes the young people ventured to approach those great and
+far-reaching questions, which open fathomless abysses before mankind,
+and draw down by force into their mysterious depths man's eagerly
+inquiring spirit and his heart. It was always Jakov who began on these
+questions. He had acquired an odd habit of leaning against everything
+as though his legs felt insecure. If he were sitting, he either held on
+to the nearest fixed object with his hands or supported his shoulder
+against it. If he were walking along the street with his quick,
+irregular strides, he would grasp the stone posts by the way as though
+he were counting them, or try the fences with his hand as though to
+test their stability. At tea in Masha's room, he sat generally at the
+window, his back against the wall and his long fingers holding fast to
+the chair or the edge of the table. Holding his big head sideways, with
+its fine, smooth, tow-coloured hair, he would look at the speaker and
+the blue eyes in his pale face were either wide open or half closed.
+He loved, as of old, to relate his dreams, and could never re-tell the
+story of a book he had been reading without adding something singular
+and incomprehensible. Ilya reproached him for this habit, but Jakov was
+undisturbed and said simply:
+
+"It's better as I tell it. One mustn't alter the Holy Scriptures, but
+any other books, one can do as one likes about. They're written by
+men and I'm a man too. I can improve them if I want to. But tell me
+something different. When you're asleep, where is your soul?"
+
+"How should I know?" answered Ilya, who disliked questions that roused
+a painful disquiet in him.
+
+"I believe they just fly away," Jakov explained.
+
+"Of course they fly away," Masha confirmed him in a tone of conviction.
+
+"How do you know that?" asked Ilya sternly.
+
+"Oh! I just think so."
+
+"Yes, that's it, they fly away," said Jakov thoughtfully, smiling,
+"They must rest some time, that's how the dreams come."
+
+Ilya did not know how to answer this observation, and said nothing
+in spite of a keen wish to reply. For a time all were silent. It
+became darker in the dim cave of a cellar; the lamp smouldered, a
+strong-smelling vapour came from the charcoal under the samovar. From
+far away a dull mysterious noise rolled down to them; it came from
+the bar room in wild riot and confusion above their heads, and again
+Jakov's voice was heard:
+
+"See, men make a row, and work, all that sort of thing. They call that
+living, and then all at once--bang! and the man's dead. What does that
+mean? What do you think, Ilya?"
+
+"It doesn't mean anything, they're old and they've got to die."
+
+"That won't do, young people die, and children--healthy people die too."
+
+"If they die, they're not healthy."
+
+"What do men live for, anyway?"
+
+"That's a clever question!" cried Ilya, mockingly, since he felt able
+to reply to this. "They live, just to live; they work and try to be
+happy. Every one wants to live well, and tries to get on; they all look
+out for chances to get rich and live comfortably."
+
+"Yes, poor people. But rich people, they've got everything to start
+with, they've nothing to look out for."
+
+"Ain't you clever! Rich. If there weren't any rich, whom would the poor
+work for?"
+
+Jakov thought a little and then asked:
+
+"You think then that every one lives just to work?"
+
+"Yes, certainly, that is--not quite all. Some work and the rest just
+live. They worked before, saved money, and now they just enjoy their
+life."
+
+"And what do people live for, anyhow?"
+
+"Oh! get out with you! Because they want to. Perhaps you don't want
+to?" cried Ilya out of all patience. He could not have said exactly why
+he was annoyed, whether that Jakov raised these questions at all, or
+whether that he asked so stupidly. He felt definite doubts arise in him
+under the interrogations, and he could find no clear answer.
+
+"Why do you live yourself? tell me that, then, why?" he shouted at
+Jakov.
+
+"I don't know," answered Jakov resignedly. "I'd just as soon die. It
+must be beastly; still I'd like to know what it's like."
+
+Then suddenly he began in a tone of friendly reproach:
+
+"There's no reason to get cross. Just think; men live to work, and work
+comes because of men; it's just like turning a wheel, always in the
+same place, and you can't see why it goes round. But where does God
+come in? He's the axle of it all. He said to Adam and Eve, 'Be fruitful
+and multiply and people the earth,' but why?"
+
+He bent over towards Ilya, and whispered mysteriously with an
+expression of fear in his blue eyes:
+
+"Do you know, I believe the good God told them why; but then some one
+came and stole the explanation, stole it and hid it away, and that was
+Satan; who else could it be? and that's why no man knows why he is
+alive."
+
+Ilya listened to the disconnected sentences, felt them possess his
+soul and was silent. But Jakov continued faster and more softly, fear
+quivered on his pale face, and his speech became more confused:
+
+"What does God want of you? Do you know? Aha!" It sounded like a
+cry of triumph out of the flood of his trembling words. Then again
+they poured out of his mouth tumultuously in disconnected whispers.
+Masha gazed astounded, open-mouthed at her friend and protector. Ilya
+wrinkled his brows. He was pained that he could not follow Jakov's
+words. He considered himself the cleverer, but Jakov constantly reduced
+him to wonder by his wonderful memory and the fluency with which he
+spoke on all kinds of difficult questions. If he became weary of
+listening silently, and too straitly caught by the heavy cloud that
+Jakov's words begot in him, then he used to interrupt the speaker
+angrily:
+
+"Oh! shut up for any sake! What are you babbling of? You've read too
+much, that's the truth--do you understand yourself what you say?"
+
+"But that's just what I'm saying, that I don't understand at all,"
+answered Jakov, wounded and obstinate.
+
+"Then say straight out I don't understand anything, instead of
+chattering like a maniac, while I've got to listen to you!"
+
+"No, wait a minute," Jakov went on. "Everything is beyond our
+understanding. Take the lamp, for instance--I see there is fire in it,
+but where does the fire come from? One minute it's there and the next
+it's gone. You strike a match, it burns--then the fire must be in it
+all the time--or does it fly about in the air, invisible?"
+
+Ilya let himself be attracted by this new question. His face lost its
+contemptuous expression, and looking at the lamp, he said:
+
+"If it were in the air, then it would always be warm. But the match
+burns just the same in the frost, so it can't be in the air."
+
+"But then, where is it?" and Jakov looked expectantly at his friend.
+
+"It's in the match," Masha's voice struck in. But the two friends,
+absorbed in the weighty argument, let Masha's remark pass unperceived.
+She was quite used to the treatment and did not resent it.
+
+"Where is it?" cried Jakov again excitedly.
+
+"I don't know, and I don't want to know! I only know you'd better not
+put your hand in it, and that it is warm when you're near it. That's
+enough for me."
+
+"Oh! how clever!" cried Jakov with lively displeasure. "I don't want
+to know. I can say that, any fool can. No, explain to me, where does
+the fire come from? Bread I can understand, the corn gives the grain,
+and from the grain comes the flour, and the dough from the flour, and
+there's the bread. But what is man born for?"
+
+Ilya looked with astonishment and envy at the big head of his friend.
+Sometimes when Jakov's questions drove him into a corner, he sprang
+up and uttered harsh, insulting words, more often he drew back to the
+stove, leant his broad, sturdy figure against it, and said, shaking his
+curly head and accentuating his words:
+
+"You make my head go round with your topsy-turvy talk. What sort of
+a life do you live? To stand behind a counter--that's not so very
+difficult. You want to see the whole of life stand before you like a
+statue; you ought to wander about the town from morning to night, day
+after day like I do and earn your own bread, then you wouldn't worry
+your head over such silly things, you'd think all the time how to
+manage things so as to get on. Your head's so big that all this trash
+spreads about in it. Clever thoughts are small, they don't drive your
+head silly."
+
+Jakov sat silent, bent over his chair, gripping the table. From time to
+time his lips moved soundlessly, and his eyes blinked. But when Ilya
+had finished and sat down again, Jakov began to philosophise anew:
+
+"They say there's a book--a science--called 'Black Magic.' Everything
+is explained in it, how and why and wherefore. I'd like to find that
+book and read it, wouldn't you? It must be very horrible."
+
+During the conversation, Masha had sat down on her bed and looked with
+her dark eyes first at one and then at the other. Then she began to
+yawn, swayed wearily, and finally stretched herself out on her couch.
+
+"Now then, time for bed," said Ilya.
+
+"Wait, I'll just say good-night to Masha and put out the lamp."
+
+Then seeing Ilya stretch out a hand to open the door, he cried
+pettishly:
+
+"Oh do wait. I'm frightened in the dark alone."
+
+"What a fellow you are!" said Ilya contemptuously. "Sixteen, and like a
+little child. I'm not afraid of anything, if the devil came in my way,
+I wouldn't budge an inch. But you----"
+
+He made a scornful gesture. Jakov looked once like an anxious nurse at
+Masha, and turned the lamp down. The flame flickered and went out and
+the darkness of night invaded the room silently from all sides, or on
+the nights when the moon stood high in the heavens, her gentle silver
+light streamed through the window on to the floor.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+
+One day on a holiday, Ilya Lunev returned home, pale, with clenched
+teeth, and threw himself fully dressed on his bed. Wrath lay on his
+heart like a cold immovable lump, an aching pain in his neck kept him
+from moving his head, and he felt as though his whole body suffered
+from the bitter wrong he had undergone.
+
+That morning a policeman had permitted him, at the price of a piece of
+soap and a dozen hooks, to take his stand in front of the circus, where
+a performance was to be given, and Ilya had placed himself conveniently
+close to the entrance. Then the assistant district superintendent came
+by, struck him on the neck, overthrew the stand that supported his box,
+and scattered his wares over the ground. Some things were lost, others
+fell in the dirt and were spoiled. Ilya picked up what he could and
+said: "That is not fair, sir."
+
+"Wha--at?" said the other, stroking his red moustache.
+
+"You've no right to strike me."
+
+"Oh! is that it? Migunov, take him off to the station," said the
+assistant quietly.
+
+And the same policeman who had given Ilya leave to stand there, took
+him to the station, where he was detained till the evening.
+
+Before this Ilya had had slight conflicts with the police, but this
+was the first time he had been detained, and his soul was filled with
+shame and hate. He lay on his bed with his arms locked, and hugged the
+torturing sensation of pain that weighed on his heart. Behind the wall
+that separated his room from the bar came a confused noise of bustle
+and the talking of many voices, like the sound of swift turbid brooks,
+dashing down from the mountains in autumn.
+
+He heard the rattle of the tin plates, the clink of glasses, the loud
+calling of the customers for brandy or tea or beer, the waiters'
+answers. "One minute! coming! coming!" and, piercing the noise like
+a steel string vibrating, a high, throaty voice sang dismally, "I
+never thought that I should lose thee." Another voice, a deep bass,
+that blended with the chaos, sang softly and harmoniously, "Oh, youth
+that passes quickly by." Then both voices united in a clear stream of
+melancholy notes that mastered the tumult for a second or two:
+
+    "No riches were ever my portion.
+    And lonely my pathway through life."
+
+Some one cried aloud, with a voice that sounded as though it came from
+a larynx of dry cracked wood:
+
+"Do not lie! for it is written, 'Be patient and abide, and I will
+strengthen thee in the hour of trial.'"
+
+"Liar yourself," struck in another voice sharply and briskly, "for it
+is also written, 'Since thou art neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee
+out of my mouth.' D'you see? what have you proved?"
+
+Loud laughter followed and then a squeaking voice: "So I gave her one
+in her silly face, and one on the ear, and one on the teeth, smack!
+smack! smack!"
+
+"Ha! ha! ha! the devil! and what then?"
+
+The squeaking voice went on, shrilly and rapidly. "She toppled over on
+to the ground and I hit her again on her pretty mouth--there's one for
+you, I kissed you once, and now I'll beat you."
+
+"Hullo, you Bible reader!" cried a voice mockingly.
+
+"No. I can't contain myself, I'm so hot-tempered. How can a fellow help
+it!"
+
+"I love, I accuse, and I punish--have you forgotten? And then again,
+'Judge not that ye be not judged,' and the words of King David--have
+you forgotten?"
+
+Ilya listened to the quarrelling, the song and the laughter for a long
+time, but all fell alike on his soul and roused no familiar images.
+Before him in the darkness swam the lean face of the police officer
+who had so hurt him, with a big hooked nose, greenish, evil, twinkling
+eyes, and a quivering red moustache. He stared at the face and clenched
+his teeth harder. But behind the wall the song rose louder as the
+singers were carried away and let their voices ring out louder and more
+freely. The warm, melancholy notes found a way to Ilya's heart, and
+melted the icy lump of rage and bitterness that lay there.
+
+"I wandered on so bravely," sang the high voice, "From mountain land to
+sea," went on the second, and then joined again:
+
+    "Siberia I have traversed
+    To seek the pathway home."
+
+Ilya sighed and began to attend to the sad words of the song. They
+stood out against the tumult of the tap room like little stars in a
+cloudy sky. The clouds hurry on and the stars alternately shine out and
+vanish.
+
+    "My tongue was tortured with hunger,
+    My limbs were stiffened with frost."
+
+"Sing away, nightingales!" a voice shouted encouragingly.
+
+"They're singing so beautifully," thought Ilya, "that it catches hold
+of one's heart, and presently they'll get drunk and fight most likely;
+man never holds on to the good very long."
+
+"Ah! cruel, cruel fate," lamented the tenor, and the bass, deep and
+powerful, intoned:
+
+    "Thou load of iron weight."
+
+Suddenly, before Ilya's mind flashed the vision of old Jeremy. The old
+man shook his head and spoke while the tears flowed down his cheeks:
+
+"I have seen--I have seen, but have never perceived the truth."
+
+Ilya thought that Jeremy, who loved God from his heart, had saved money
+in secret; and Terenti feared God, and had stolen it. And all men alike
+are thus divided in their souls, in their breasts is a balance and the
+heart inclines like the indicator of the scales, now to one side, now
+to the other and weighs the good and the bad.
+
+"Aha--a!" some one roared in the bar room, and at once something fell
+to the ground with a crash that shook Ilya's bed beneath him.
+
+"Stop! for God's sake."
+
+"Hold him! Ah!"
+
+"Help! Police!"
+
+Every moment the noise grew stronger and more vehement, a confused
+medley of new sounds was added to it, and roared in a wild whirling
+howl through the air like a pack of evil, hungry, close-chained hounds.
+Individual voices were lost in the chaos of uproar. Ilya listened
+with a certain pleasure; it pleased him to find that occur that he
+had foreseen. It was an exact confirmation of his opinion of mankind.
+He rolled over on his bed, put his hands under his head and abandoned
+himself again to his thoughts:
+
+"My grandfather Antipa must have sinned greatly, if he repented in
+silence for eight whole years, and every one forgave him, spoke of him
+with respect, and called him righteous; but they drove his children to
+ruin. One son they sent to Siberia, the other they hunted out of the
+village.
+
+"Here one must reckon in a special way." The words of the merchant
+Strogany returned to Ilya's mind. "If there is one honest man to nine
+rogues, no one is any the better, and the one goes to the wall--it is
+the majority that is right."
+
+Ilya laughed involuntarily. Through his heart glided a cold, evil
+feeling of anger against men, like an adder. Well-known pictures rose
+before him--big, fat Matiza turned in the mud in the midst of the court
+and groaned:
+
+"A--ah! my dearest mother--my darling mother--if only you would forgive
+me."
+
+Perfishka, quite drunk, was standing by, swaying to and fro, and said
+reproachfully:
+
+"How drunk she is! the pig!"
+
+And Petrusha, healthy and red-cheeked, stood on the steps and laughed
+contemptuously.
+
+Ilya thought of all these things, and his heart contracted, and became
+even more sober, more hardened.
+
+The disturbance was over in the bar room. Three voices, those of two
+women and a man, were attempting to sing a song, but without great
+success. Some one had brought a harmonica; he played a little, very
+badly, then stopped. By the wall against Ilya's bed, two people
+conversed half aloud with frequent heavy sighs. Ilya listened with a
+strange sense of enmity:
+
+"One lives, and works, and toils all one's life; there isn't any sense
+in it, and all the others live, and our sort goes hungry; we can't
+stand fast, brother, for all we straddle our legs."
+
+"It's a fact."
+
+"And one can't see how it's ever going to get better. Honest work's no
+good; builds no stone houses. How long can a man stand such a jolly
+life? His bit of strength's gone before he knows, then, that means the
+end."
+
+"Ah! yes--yes--but what's a man to do?"
+
+"And one isn't strong enough or quick enough, for dishonest work. The
+frog would like to taste the nut, but he's no teeth."
+
+"O God, our Father."
+
+Ilya sighed involuntarily. Suddenly he recognised Perfishka's voice,
+ringing clearly through the bustle and noise. The cobbler shouted in
+his quick, sing-song way:
+
+"Fill your cup! fill it up to the brim. 'Tis your master pays, leave it
+to him. Let us drink, let us love! Through the world let us rove. And
+who ever says no, to the devil may go."
+
+Cheerful laughter and applause followed. Then again the low voice near
+the wall:
+
+"I've worked since I was a youngster. I'm near forty. Never once I've
+earned enough to eat. Sweat comes every day, but not soup, and at
+home it's all misery and crying. The children whimper, and the wife
+grumbles; a fellow can't stand it--you just lose your patience and go
+out and get properly drunk, and when you're sober, all you see is that
+the trouble's got worse."
+
+"Yes--yes, it's true."
+
+"One prays, 'Father in Heaven, have mercy. Why dost Thou send this
+misery?' but it looks as if He didn't hear."
+
+"No, He doesn't seem to hear."
+
+Ilya was weary of this mournful lamentation, and the monotonous
+assenting voice, which sounded even more melancholy than the other that
+complained. He turned on his bed, and knocked against the wall loudly.
+The two voices were silent.
+
+He could no longer endure his couch; a torturing restlessness drove him
+to get up. He stood up, went out into the courtyard and stood on the
+steps full of a longing to fly somewhere away--where--he did not know.
+
+It was late; Masha was asleep. It was no use to talk to an odd fellow
+like Jakov, and besides, he, too, was inside the house, in bed. Ilya
+never cared to go to Jakov's room, for every time Petrusha saw him
+there he seemed angered and his brows contracted. A cold autumn wind
+was blowing; a dense, almost black, darkness filled the court and the
+sky was invisible. All the sheds and outbuildings looked like great
+masses of darkness solidified by the wind. Strange sounds came through
+the damp air--a hurrying, a rustling, a low murmuring, like the lament
+of men over the misery of life. The wind whipped his breast, smote
+his face, blew a damp, cold breath down his back, a cold shudder ran
+through him, but he did not move. "I can't go on so," he thought. "I
+can't. Get out of all this dirt, and restlessness and confusion, live
+alone somewhere, clean and quiet."
+
+"Who's there?" said a muffled voice suddenly.
+
+"I--Ilya. Who's speaking?"
+
+"I--Matiza."
+
+"Where are you?"
+
+"Here, on the wood pile."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Only because----"
+
+Both were silent.
+
+"To-day's the day my mother died," after a moment, said Matiza's voice
+out of the darkness.
+
+"Is it long ago?" asked Ilya, just to say something.
+
+"Oh! ever so long--fifteen years--more. And your mother, is she alive?"
+
+"No. She's dead too. How old are you then?"
+
+"Close on thirty," said Matiza, after a pause. "I'm old already, my
+foot hurts so, it's swollen as big as a melon and it hurts. I've rubbed
+it and rubbed it with all sorts of things, but it's no better."
+
+"Why don't you go to the hospital?"
+
+"Too far. I can't go so far."
+
+"Take a cab."
+
+"No money."
+
+Some one opened the bar room door; a torrent of loud sounds poured into
+the court. The wind caught them up and strewed them hither and thither
+in the darkness.
+
+"And you, why are you here?" asked Matiza.
+
+"Oh! I was dull."
+
+"Same as I. Up in my room it's like a coffin."
+
+Ilya heard a deep sigh. Then Matiza said, "Shall we go to my room?"
+
+Ilya looked in the direction of the voice and answered indifferently:
+"All right."
+
+Matiza went first up the stair to her garret. She set always the right
+foot on each step and dragged the left slowly after with a low moaning.
+Ilya followed, unthinking, equally slowly, as though his depression of
+soul hindered his ascent as much as Matiza's foot delayed her.
+
+Matiza's room was long and narrow, and the ceiling was actually the
+shape of a coffin lid. Near the door stood a Dutch stove, and along
+the wall, with its head against the stove a wide bed; opposite the bed
+a table and two chairs; a third chair stood in front of the window
+that appeared as a dark spot in the grey wall. Up here the howling and
+rushing of the wind was heard very distinctly. Ilya sat down in the
+chair by the window, looked round the walls and asked, pointing to a
+little eikon in one corner:
+
+"What picture is that?"
+
+"Saint Anna," said Matiza softly and devoutly.
+
+"And what's your own name?"
+
+"Anna, too, didn't you know?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nobody knows!" said Matiza, and sat down heavily on the bed. Ilya
+looked at her but felt no desire to speak; Matiza also was silent and
+so they sat for a space, three minutes or so, dumb, with no indication
+that they noticed one another. Finally Matiza asked: "Well, what shall
+we do?"
+
+"I don't know," answered Ilya, undecidedly.
+
+"Well, that's good," said the woman, and laughed scornfully.
+
+"What then?"
+
+"First you can treat me; go and get a jug of beer. No--buy me something
+to eat. Nothing else, just something to eat."
+
+She faltered, coughed, and then added in a shamefaced way:
+
+"You see, since my leg's been bad, I've earned nothing--because I can't
+go out; all I had is used up; to-day's the fifth day I've sat at home,
+so it's no wonder. Yesterday it was a near thing, and to-day I've eaten
+nothing; it's true, by God, it's true."
+
+For the first time Ilya became conscious that Matiza was a prostitute.
+He looked close into her big face and saw that her eyes smiled a
+little, and her lips moved as though they were sucking something
+invisible. He felt a certain awkwardness before her, and yet a strange
+interest that he could not explain.
+
+"I'll get you something, and beer too." He got up quickly, hurried
+downstairs and stood a moment before the kitchen door. Suddenly he felt
+a disinclination to go back to the garret; but it only flickered like
+a tiny spark in the melancholy darkness of his soul and at once faded
+out. He went into the kitchen, bought some scraps of meat from the cook
+for ten kopecks, a couple of slices of bread, and other odds and ends
+of eatables. The cook put it all in a dirty sieve. Ilya took it in
+both hands like a dish, went out into the passage and stood a moment,
+wondering how to get the beer. Terenti would question him if he fetched
+it himself from the bar. He called the dish-cleaner from the kitchen
+and bade him get it. The man ran off, was back in a moment and gave him
+the bottles without a word, and lifted the latch of the kitchen door.
+
+"Hold on," said Ilya, "it isn't for myself; a friend is paying me a
+visit, it's for him."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"I'm treating a friend."
+
+"Oh, well, what's the odds?"
+
+Ilya felt that he had no need to lie and was a little uncomfortable.
+He went upstairs, slowly, listening attentively lest any one should
+call to him. But there was no sound, save the roar of the storm, no
+one called him back and he returned to the woman in the garret, with a
+distinct, though shy, feeling of pleasure.
+
+Matiza set the sieve on her lap, and with her big fingers picked out
+the grey fragments of meat without a word, stuffed them into her mouth
+and began to eat noisily. Her teeth were large and sharp, and before
+she took a bite she looked at the morsel all round as though to select
+the most tasty side.
+
+Ilya looked at her insolently and tried to imagine how he would embrace
+her and kiss her, then again feared to conduct himself awkwardly and
+be laughed at. He turned hot and cold with the thoughts as they came.
+The wind swept over the house. It forced a way through the window in
+the roof, and rattled the door, and every time the door shook, Ilya
+trembled with anxiety lest any one should enter and surprise him.
+
+"Mayn't I bolt the door?" he said.
+
+Matiza nodded silently. Then she put the sieve on the stove, crossed
+herself before the picture of Saint Anna, and said devoutly:
+
+"Praise to thee, at least my hunger is satisfied. Ah! how little is
+enough for the children of men!"
+
+Ilya said nothing. She looked at him, sighed, and went on:
+
+"And who desires much, from him also much shall be desired."
+
+"Who will desire it?"
+
+"Why, God! Don't you know that?"
+
+Again Ilya did not reply. The name of God from her lips roused in him a
+sudden feeling, vague and not to be expressed in words, that resisted
+the desire of his mind. Matiza supported herself on the bed with her
+hands, raised up her big body and propped herself against the wall.
+Then she said in a careless voice:
+
+"Just now, while I was eating, I was thinking of Perfishka's daughter.
+I've thought about her for a long time. She lives there, with you and
+Jakov; it won't be good for her, I'm afraid; you will ruin the girl
+before her time, and then she'll be started on the road I travel, and
+my road is a foul, a damnable road, and the women and girls that go
+along it don't go upright as men should, but crawl like worms."
+
+She was silent for a while, looked at her hands as they lay on her
+knees, then went on again:
+
+"The girl is growing tall. I've asked all my acquaintances, cooks, and
+other women, to see if I could get a place for the child. No, they say
+there's no place; they say, 'sell her, it will be better for her,' they
+say, 'she'll get money and clothes, and somewhere to live'--it seems
+as though they're right. Many a rich man whose body is failing and his
+mind filthy, will buy a young girl, when women won't look at him any
+more, and will ruin her--the beast. Perhaps she has a good time with
+him, but it's disgusting, all the same, really, and it's better without
+that. Better for her to live hungry and in honour, than----"
+
+She began to cough, as though a word had stuck in her throat, and then
+finished her sentence with evident effort, but in the same indifferent
+voice:
+
+"Than in shame and hungry all the same, like me, for instance."
+
+The wind whistled along the floor and rattled fiercely at the door.
+A fine rain drummed on the galvanised iron roof, and outside in the
+darkness in front of the window a soft whistling sound was heard.
+"E--e--e!"
+
+The indifferent tone, and Matiza's plump, inexpressive face, made a
+barrier to the feelings surging up in Ilya, and took from him the
+courage to express his desire. Matiza pushed him away, he thought, and
+he grew angry with her.
+
+"O God! O God!" she sighed softly. "Holy Mother."
+
+Ilya jerked his chair backwards and forwards crossly, and said:
+
+"You call yourself impure, and all the time you're saying: 'God--God.'
+Do you think He cares, that His name's always on your lips?"
+
+Matiza looked at him, then after a pause, shaking her head:
+
+"I don't understand," she said.
+
+"There's nothing to understand," Ilya burst out, getting up from his
+chair. "You're all alike! first you let your sinfulness drive you--then
+it's 'O God!' If you want God, then leave your sin!"
+
+"What!" cried Matiza, troubled. "What do you mean? Who should call to
+God if not sinners? Who else?"
+
+"I don't know who else," cried Ilya, feeling an unconquerable desire
+to wound this woman and the whole human race, deeply and cruelly. "I
+only know it doesn't belong to you to speak of Him, not you, at any
+rate. You take Him as a cover for your sins--I see. I'm not a child
+now. I can use my eyes. Every one laments, every one complains, but
+why are they all so worthless? Why do they lie, and rob one another?
+Why are they so greedy for a scrap of bread? Ha! ha! First the sin
+is committed, then it's 'O Lord, have mercy!' I see through you, you
+liars, you devils! you lie to yourselves, and you lie to your God."
+
+Matiza said nothing, but looked at him with her mouth open, and her
+neck outstretched, and an expression of dull-witted astonishment in
+her eyes. Ilya strode to the door, drew back the bolt with a jerk and
+went out slamming the door to behind him. He felt that he had insulted
+Matiza grossly, and he was glad of it; his heart was lighter and his
+head clearer. He descended the stairs with a firm step and whistled
+as he went through his teeth; but his wrath still supplied him with
+hard, contemptuous words. He felt that all these words glowed in him
+like flames, and illumined the darkness of his soul, and showed the way
+which led him apart from mankind. The words fitted not only Matiza, but
+Terenti, too, and Petrusha, and Strogany, and in short, every one.
+
+"That's it," he thought, as he reached the court again. "Just to stand
+no nonsense from you rabble!"
+
+The wind chased round the court howling and whistling. Somewhere some
+one was knocking and the air was full of short detached sounds, like
+horrible, cold-blooded laughter.
+
+Soon after his visit to Matiza, Ilya began to go after women. The first
+time it happened in this way. He was going home one evening when a girl
+spoke to him:
+
+"Won't you come with me?"
+
+He looked at her, then walked along beside her silently. He hung his
+head as he went, and looked round frequently, fearing all the time to
+meet an acquaintance. After a few paces side by side, the girl said,
+warningly: "You must give me a rouble."
+
+"All right," said Ilya, "only hurry."
+
+And till they reached the girl's house they exchanged no further word;
+that was all.
+
+Acquaintance with women led him at once into great expense, and more
+and more often Ilya came to the conclusion that his pedlar's trade only
+wasted his time and strength to no purpose and would never help him to
+the peaceful life he desired to lead. He meditated long, whether to
+establish lotteries like the other pedlars, and so cheat the public as
+they did. But further consideration convinced him that these methods
+were too small and full of anxiety. He would have either to bribe the
+police or hide from them, and both courses were distasteful to him.
+He liked to look all men straight in the face and felt it a constant
+pleasure to be always cleaner and better dressed than the other
+pedlars, to drink no brandy and practise no deceptions. Self-controlled
+and self-respecting, he walked the streets, and his clean-cut face
+with its high cheek-bones had always a serious, sober expression. When
+he spoke he drew his dark eyebrows together, but he spoke seldom and
+always deliberately.
+
+Often he dreamed how splendid it would be if he could find a thousand
+roubles or more. All thieves' tales roused in him a burning interest.
+He bought newspapers and read attentively all details of robberies and
+then looked for days to know if the thieves were discovered or no. If
+they were caught, Ilya would rage and say to Jakov: "Asses! to let
+themselves be caught, better let it alone, if they don't understand
+the business. Fools!" One day he was sitting in his room with Jakov
+when he said:
+
+"The knaves have a better time in the world than the honest people."
+
+A mysterious expression came into Jakov's face. His eyes blinked and he
+said in the subdued tone that he always had when he spoke of unusual
+things:
+
+"The day before yesterday, your uncle had tea in the bar with an old
+man; he must have been a Bible preacher, and this old man said that in
+the Bible it was written: 'The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they
+that provoke God are secure; into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.'"
+
+"You're inventing," said Ilya, and looked attentively at Jakov.
+
+"They're not my words," answered Jakov, and stretched out his hands as
+though to catch something in the air. "I don't believe that it is in
+the Bible; perhaps he made it up, the old fox. I asked him once and
+twice, and each time he said the words the same as before exactly. And
+there's something in the words sounds right; we must have a look and
+see if it really is in the Bible." He bent towards Ilya and went on in
+a low voice: "Take my father, for instance, how peacefully he lives,
+and yet he does things fit to rouse the anger of God."
+
+"How?" cried Ilya.
+
+"Now they've elected him town councillor."
+
+Jakov let his head fall on his breast, sighed deeply, and said again:
+
+"Everything that concerns man ought to be as clear as spring water
+to the conscience, and here----Oh! it disgusts me. I don't know any
+longer what to think. I don't know how to fit myself for this life. I
+don't want to. Father's always on at me, 'it's time,' he says, 'to stop
+your child's play, you must be reasonable at last, and make yourself
+useful.' But how can I make myself useful. I wait behind the counter
+often when Terenti isn't there, and though I hate it, I do it anyway.
+But to start something for myself, I don't know how."
+
+"You must learn," said Ilya decidedly.
+
+"Life is so difficult," said Jakov softly.
+
+"Difficult for you? don't talk nonsense," cried Ilya, and sprang from
+his bed and went over to his friend, who was sitting at the window.
+"My life is difficult if you like, but yours, what do you want? When
+your father's old or dead, you'll take over the business, and be your
+own master, but I--I fag about the streets all day long and see in the
+shop windows stockings and vests, and watches, and all sorts of things,
+and I look at myself and think, I can't buy a watch like that. D'you
+understand? And I should like to ever so much, but what I want most is
+for people to respect me. Why am I worse than the rest? I'm better,
+really! Perhaps I'm a rascal, eh? I know people who think no end of
+themselves and are just rascals, and they get elected town councillors.
+They've houses and inns; why do such swindlers have all the luck, and I
+none? I'll get on, too. I'll get hold of my luck."
+
+Jakov looked at his friend and said quietly, but with emphasis:
+
+"God grant that you never get your luck!"
+
+"What! why?" cried Ilya, and stood still in the middle of the room and
+looked angrily at Jakov.
+
+"You're too greedy, you'll never get enough." Ilya laughed drily and
+evilly.
+
+"I'll never get enough? Just tell your father to give me half the money
+he and my uncle stole from old Jeremy, that'll be enough! Yes--I'm
+greedy am I?--and your father first."
+
+Jakov got up and went quietly with bowed head to the door. Ilya saw his
+shoulders twitch and his head bend as though he had received a painful
+blow in the neck.
+
+"Stop," cried Ilya, confused, and grasped his friend's hand. "Where are
+you going?"
+
+"Let go, brother," half whispered Jakov, then stood still and looked at
+Ilya. His face was pale, his lips pressed together and his whole figure
+bowed as though by a heavy load.
+
+"Oh! don't be angry, stay a minute," said Ilya, penitent, and led Jakov
+from the door back to his chair. "Don't get cross with me--it's true,
+anyhow."
+
+"I know."
+
+"You know? Who told you?"
+
+"Everybody says it."
+
+"H'm--yes; but those who say it are rascals too." Jakov looked at him
+mournfully and sighed.
+
+"I didn't believe it; I thought all the time they said it just out of
+meanness, out of spite. But then, I began to believe, and if you say
+it, too--then----"
+
+He made a gesture to express his despair, turned away and stood
+motionless, his hands grasping the chair, and his head sunk on his
+breast; Ilya sat on his bed in the same mood and said nothing, for
+he did not know how to comfort his friend. Behind the wall there was
+outcry and noise, till the glasses rattled and the voice of a drunken
+woman sang:
+
+    "I cannot sleep, I cannot rest,
+    For slumber will not come to me."
+
+"And this is where one has to live!" said Jakov, half aloud.
+
+"Oh yes!" answered Ilya, in the same tone, "I can easily understand,
+brother, that you don't like it here. The only consolation is, it's the
+same everywhere, men are all alike in the long run."
+
+"Do you know that really for a fact; that about my father and Jeremy?"
+asked Jakov timidly, without looking at his friend.
+
+"I? I saw it myself; do you remember how I ran out? I looked through a
+chink and saw them sewing up the pillow--the old man was still gasping."
+
+Jakov shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. They sat in silence
+for a long time, both in the same position, one on the bed, the other
+on the chair. Then Jakov got up, went to the door, and said to Ilya,
+"Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, brother--take it easy; what can you do after all?"
+
+"I? Nothing, unfortunately," said Jakov, as he opened the door.
+
+Ilya looked after him, then sank heavily on his bed. He was sorry for
+Jakov, and again hatred welled up in him against his uncle, against
+Petrusha, against all mankind. He saw that a being as weak as Jakov
+could not live among them, such a good, quiet, clean-minded fellow.
+Ilya let his thoughts run freely over men and in his mind different
+memories rose up showing him mankind as evil, horrible, lying
+creatures. The times, in truth, were many in which he had seen them so,
+and it relieved him to let his scorn loose on them; and the blacker
+they seemed to him, the heavier weighed on him a strange feeling,
+partly a vague desire, partly a malignant joy at other's suffering,
+partly a fear at remaining so alone in the midst of this dark wretched
+existence, that raged round him like a mad whirlpool.
+
+Finally he lost patience at lying alone in the little room, where the
+noise and reek pressed through the wall, and he got up and went out in
+the open. Till late that night he roamed the streets, bearing the heavy
+load of dull torturing thought. He felt as though even behind him in
+the darkness, some enemy strode and pushed him imperceptibly to all
+places that were wearisome and melancholy. All that his unseen enemy
+showed him roused rancour and bitterness in his soul. There is good in
+the world, good men, and happy events, and cheerfulness; why did he
+see nothing of this, but come in contact only with what was gloomy and
+evil? Who guided him constantly to the soiled, the wretched, and the
+wicked things of life? In the grip of his thoughts he strode through
+the fields along the stone wall of a cloister outside the town, and
+looked about him. Heavy and slow the clouds drifted towards him out of
+a vast dim distance. Here and there above his head the sky glimmered
+between the dark masses of cloud, and little stars looked shyly down.
+From time to time the metallic tones of the bell rang through the still
+night from the tower of the cloister church; it was the only sound in
+the deathly quiet that enfolded the earth. Even from the dark mass of
+houses behind Ilya came no sound of noisy bustle, though it was not yet
+late. It was a cold, frosty night. As he walked Ilya's feet struck the
+frozen mud. An uneasy sense of isolation and the fear that his brooding
+evoked, brought him to a standstill. He leaned his back against the
+stone cloister wall, and thought again who it might be who guided him
+through life, and full of mischief let loose on him always evil and
+hateful things. A cold shudder ran through his frame, and almost with a
+premonition of something awful before him, he started from the wall and
+hurried back to the town, stumbling more and more often over the frozen
+mud. His arms pressed close to his sides, he ran forward, and full of
+fear did not once dare to cast a look behind.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+
+Two days later Ilya met Pashka Gratschev. It was evening, little flakes
+of snow danced in the air and glimmered in the light of the lamps. In
+spite of the cold, Pavel wore nothing thicker than a cotton shirt,
+without a belt. He walked slowly, his head on his breast, his hands in
+his pockets, and his back bent as though he were looking for something.
+When Ilya stopped him and spoke to him, Pashka raised his head, looked
+into Ilya's face, and said indifferently:
+
+"Oh, it's you!"
+
+"How goes it?" asked Ilya, falling into step.
+
+"It's just possible things might be worse. And you?"
+
+"Oh, rubbing along."
+
+"Not very grandly, it seems."
+
+They walked along together silently, their elbows touching.
+
+"Why didn't you come to see us?" asked Ilya. "I'm always inviting you."
+
+"No opportunity, brother. You know people like us don't get much time."
+
+"You could come if you wanted to."
+
+"Don't be cross. You're always saying I ought to come, and for all
+that, you've never asked me where I live, much less thought of paying
+me a visit."
+
+"You're right; it's a fact!" said Ilya, laughing. "But tell me now."
+
+Pavel looked at him, laughed too, and went on more cheerfully:
+
+"I live for myself. I've no friends, can't find any who can put up with
+me. I've been ill--three months in hospital. Not a soul came to see me
+all the time."
+
+"What was wrong?"
+
+"Caught cold once, when I was drunk. Typhus it was. When I was better,
+that was the worst. I lay alone all day and all night. You feel dumb
+and blind, like a puppy they throw into a pond. Thanks to the doctor, I
+had some books at least, else I should have been bored to death."
+
+"Were they nice books?" asked Ilya.
+
+"Ye-es, they were jolly good, mostly poems--Lermontov, Nekrassov,
+Pushkin. Lots of times, reading was like drinking milk. Verses,
+brother! To read verses is like your sweetheart kissing you. A line
+sometimes goes through your heart and makes the sparks fly--you feel on
+fire."
+
+"And I've given up reading books," said Ilya, with a sigh.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh, what's the good of them, after all? You read books, and things
+seem to go one way, and you look at the real thing, and it's all
+different."
+
+"You're right there! Shall we turn in anywhere? We might have a bit
+of a talk. There's somewhere I must go, but there's plenty of time.
+Perhaps you'll come along?"
+
+Ilya agreed and took Pashka's arm. Pavel looked him in the face, and
+said, smiling:
+
+"We were never really friends, but I'm always very glad to meet you."
+
+"That's your look-out," said Ilya, jokingly. "Don't be glad on my
+account."
+
+"Ah, brother," Pavel interrupted him, "it's all very well to joke! I
+had something very different in my mind when you stopped me. But never
+mind that."
+
+They entered the first public house they came to, sat down in a corner
+and ordered some beer. Ilya saw in the lamp-light that Pavel's face
+was thin and sunken. His eyes had a restless look, and his lips, that
+so often before were half-open in gay mockery, were now pressed close
+together.
+
+"Where are you working now?" asked Ilya.
+
+"In a printing works again," said Pavel, gloomily.
+
+"Hard work?"
+
+"Oh, no; more play than work."
+
+Ilya felt a vague pleasure to see Pashka, once so gay and assertive,
+now sad and careworn. He wanted to find out what had changed his
+friend, and, filling Pashka's glass, began to question him.
+
+"Well, and how does the poetry get on?"
+
+"I let it alone now. But I made a lot of poems a while ago. I showed
+them to the doctor, he praised them. He got one of them printed in a
+paper. I got thirty-nine kopecks for it."
+
+"Oho!" cried Ilya. "That's something like! What sort of verses were
+they? Let's hear them!"
+
+Ilya's eager curiosity and a couple of glasses of beer brought
+Gratschev into the right mood. His eyes shone and his yellow cheeks
+reddened. "What shall I say to you?" he said, rubbing his forehead.
+"I've forgotten it all; by God, I've forgotten it. Wait, perhaps
+something'll come back to me. I've always a head full of this sort of
+stuff, like a swarm of bees inside, humming. Often when I sit down to
+compose, I'm in a fever, something boils away in my soul and tears come
+into my eyes."
+
+"I say! How does that happen?" asked Ilya, astonished and suspicious.
+
+"Oh! something burns and blazes in you, and you want to express it
+cleverly and you can't find words, and then it makes you rage." He
+sighed, shook his head, and went on:
+
+"Before it comes out, it seems tremendous, and when it's written down,
+it's nothing."
+
+"Say a verse or two now."
+
+The more closely Ilya observed Pavel, the keener grew his curiosity,
+and following the curiosity another warm, friendly, and at the same
+time sorrowful feeling.
+
+"Generally I make funny poems, about my own life," said Gratschev, and
+laughed constrainedly.
+
+"All right, say a funny poem."
+
+Gratschev looked round, coughed, rubbed his chest, and began to declaim
+hurriedly, in a dull voice, without looking at his friend:
+
+    "It is night, and so sad--but piercing the gloom,
+    The moon throws its beams into my little room.
+    It beckons and laughs in the friendliest way
+    And paints a blue pattern so cheerful and gay,
+    On the dull stone wall, that is damp and so cold,
+    And over the carpet, all tattered and old.
+    I sit there, fast bound by the spell of my thought
+    And sleep never comes, though it's longed for and sought."
+
+Pavel paused, sighed deeply, then went on more slowly, and in a lower
+voice:
+
+    "Grim fate has close gripped me in shuddering pain,
+    It tears at my heart, and it strikes at my brain;
+    It robbed me of all, when it caught at my dear,
+    And leaves me for comfort--this brandy-flask here.
+    See there, where it stands and gleams through the night,
+    And beckons and smiles in the moon's faint light.
+    The brandy shall heal me, my heart shall be well,
+    It shall cloud o'er my brain with the power of its spell.
+    Thoughts vanish in vapour, see, sleep is at hand,
+    Another glass, come! and all trouble is banned.
+    I drink yet again--who sleeps can endure,
+    I build against trouble a stronghold sure."
+
+As Gratschev ended, he looked inquiringly at Ilya, then let his head
+fall lower and said softly:
+
+"That's the kind of thing generally--you see, it's silly enough."
+
+He drummed on the edge of the table with his fingers, and shifted his
+chair uneasily to and fro. For a moment, Ilya looked at him with a
+searching glance and his face expressed incredulous astonishment. The
+bitter, smooth running lines yet rang in his ears, and it seemed to him
+hardly credible that this thin beardless lad, with restless eyes, in an
+old cotton shirt and heavy boots, should have composed this poem.
+
+"Well, brother, I shouldn't call that silly," he said slowly and
+thoughtfully, while he still looked curiously at Pavel. "On the
+contrary, it's beautiful, it touched my heart--say it again, will you?"
+
+Pavel raised his head, looked delightedly at his listener, and coming
+closer, asked in a whisper, "No--really--do you like it?"
+
+"Good Lord, what a queer fellow you are. I shouldn't lie to you."
+
+"Well, I'll believe you, you're honest; you're straight, anyhow."
+
+"Say it again!"
+
+Pavel softly declaimed it in melancholy tones, often stammering and
+sighing deeply when his voice failed him. When he had finished, Ilya's
+suspicion was strengthened, that Pavel was not really the author of the
+verses.
+
+"And the others?" he said to Pavel.
+
+"Ah! do you know," said the other, "I'd rather bring my book to you,
+for most of my poems are long, and I haven't any time now. I can't
+remember them properly, the beginnings and ends get muddled up; there's
+one ends like this: I'm going through the wood at night, and I've lost
+my way and I'm tired--yes, and then I get frightened, it's so quiet all
+round. I am alone and now I'm looking for some escape from my misery
+and I lament:
+
+    "My feet are heavy,
+    My heart is weary,
+    No way is clear;
+    O Earth my mother,
+    Guide me and tell me
+    What course to steer.
+    Anxious I nestle,
+    Close to thy bosom;
+    I listen, I peer--
+    And out of the dark depths
+    Comes a soft whisper--
+    'Hide thy grief here!'"
+
+"Not so bad, eh? That's the way of things. One goes, as it were,
+through a break in a forest, sees a light all of a sudden, then finds
+no way that'll lead to it. Listen, Ilya. Will you come with me? Come! I
+don't want to say good-bye yet." Gratschev got up suddenly, caught Ilya
+by the sleeve, and looked in his face in a friendly way.
+
+"I'll come," said Ilya. "I'd like some more talk with you. To tell the
+truth, I hardly know how to believe you made those verses yourself."
+
+"You don't believe? Doesn't matter. You'll see right enough that I
+did," said Pavel, as they came out into the street.
+
+"If they are your verses, then you're a fine fellow," cried Ilya, in
+downright bewilderment. "Only stick to it! Show people what life is
+really like!"
+
+"Right, brother. Once I've learnt properly how, then I'll write. They
+shall hear it."
+
+"Good! good! Plan it out well! Let 'em know!"
+
+"Often I think, when things are quiet, 'Ah, you people, you're full and
+warmly clothed, and I----'"
+
+"It's not fair."
+
+"Am I not a man too?"
+
+"We're all equal."
+
+    "He who walks in brave attire
+    Also eats and drinks his fill,
+    But he whose only clothes are rags
+    Has an empty stomach still."
+
+"Ah, the hypocrites!"
+
+"Yes, they are hypocrites, all the lot!"
+
+They strode quickly through the streets, and caught up eagerly the
+passionate scattered words each threw to the other. The more excited
+they became the closer together they walked. Each felt a deep pure
+joy that the other thought as he did, and the joy heightened their
+mood still further. The snow, falling in great flakes, melted on their
+glowing faces, settled on their clothes, clung to their boots. They
+marched on through a thick slush that settled noiselessly on the earth.
+
+"I see the state of things quite clearly," cried Pavel, in a tone of
+conviction.
+
+"One can't go on living like this," Ilya seconded him.
+
+"If you've ever been to the High School, then you're reckoned a
+gentleman, even if your father was a water-carrier."
+
+"That's it; and how can I help it that I didn't go there, eh?"
+
+"They're to have all the learning, and I--I'm to have nothing!" cried
+Gratschev, full of wrath. "Just wait a bit!"
+
+"Oh, curse it!" cried Ilya, who that moment stepped into a mud puddle.
+
+"Keep more to the left."
+
+"Where are we going, anyhow--to the hangman?"
+
+"To Sidorisha."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"To Sidorisha. Don't you know her?"
+
+"N--no," said Ilya, after a moment's pause, and took two or three steps
+onward. "It's a good long way, we're going."
+
+"Oh!" said Pavel quietly, "I must go, I've something to do."
+
+"Oh! don't mind me! of course, I'll come too."
+
+"I'll tell you Ilya, though it's hard to speak of it."
+
+He spat into the road and was silent for a moment or two.
+
+"What is it?" asked Lunev, pricking up his ears.
+
+"You see," began Pavel, hesitatingly, "it's about a girl. Well, you'll
+see her. She can search a fellow's heart; she was a servant at the
+doctor's house, who cured me. I got books from him after I was better.
+I'd go, and then I'd have to sit in the kitchen and wait, and she was
+there skipping about like a squirrel and laughing; for me, I was like
+a wood shaving in the fire. Well, we were alone, things went quickly,
+without many words. Ah! the happiness! as if heaven had come down to
+us. I flew to her like a feather into the fire; we kissed till our lips
+smarted. Ah! she was as pretty and dainty as a toy. If I caught her in
+my arms, she seemed to disappear. She was like a little bird that flew
+into my heart and sang and sang there."
+
+He stopped, and a strange sound like a sob came from his lips.
+
+"And what then?" asked Ilya, carried away by the story.
+
+"The doctor's wife surprised us, devil take her! She was pretty too,
+and used to speak quite kindly to me before, but now of course, there
+was a scene. Vyerka was turned out of doors and I with her, and they
+blackguarded us both horribly, my word! Vyerka stayed with me. I hadn't
+any work and we starved and sold everything to the last thread. But
+Vyerka is a girl of spirit. She went off--was away a fortnight and came
+back dressed like a swell lady--bracelets, money in her pocket." Pashka
+ground his teeth and said gloomily: "I thrashed her, I tell you."
+
+"Did she run away?" asked Ilya.
+
+"N--No! If she'd left me I'd have thrown myself in the river. 'Kill me
+if you like,' she said 'but let me alone! I know I'm a burden to you.
+No one shall have my soul,' she said."
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"Do? I struck her once more, then I cried. What could I do; I can't
+find food for her."
+
+"Why didn't she find a new place?"
+
+"The devil knows. She said, 'it would be better this way.' If children
+came, what could we do with them, and so----"
+
+Ilya thought for a little, then said: "A sensible girl."
+
+Pashka went on a step or two in silence. Then he wheeled sharp round,
+stood in front of Ilya, and said in a dull hissing voice:
+
+"When I think that other men kiss her, then it's like molten lead
+driving through my limbs."
+
+"Why don't you let her go?"
+
+"Let her go?" cried Pavel in the highest astonishment. Ilya understood
+afterwards when he saw the girl.
+
+They came to a one-storied house on the outskirts of the town. Its six
+windows were fast shut with thick shutters so that the house had the
+look of an old straggling granary. The wet, sloppy snow clung to roof
+and walls, as though it would conceal or smother the house.
+
+Pashka knocked at the door and said:
+
+"This is where they're looked after. Sidorisha gives her girls board
+and lodging and takes fifty roubles from each of them for it; she has
+only four altogether. Of course she keeps wine too, and beer, and
+sweetmeats, and all that you want, for the rest she lets the girls do
+what they want to, go out if they like, or stop at home if they like,
+only pay the fifty every month. They are all jolly girls; they make
+money as easily as----One of them, Olympiada, never takes less than
+four roubles."
+
+There was a rustling the other side of the door. A yellow streak of
+light quivered in the air.
+
+"Who is there?"
+
+"I, Vassa Sidorovna--Gratschev."
+
+"Oh! The door opened and a little dried-up old woman, with a big nose
+in her shrivelled face, held the candle up to Pavel's face, and said in
+a friendly way:
+
+"Good evening, Pashka. Vyerunka has been waiting for you for a long
+time, and is quite cross. Who's that with you?"
+
+"A friend."
+
+"Who is it?" came a pleasant voice out of a long, dark corridor.
+
+"A visitor for Vyera," said the old woman.
+
+"Vyera, here's your sweetheart," cried the same clear voice, ringing
+through the corridor. At once at the end of the passage a door opened
+and the dainty figure of a girl, dressed in white, appeared in the
+bright patch of light, with her thick fair hair streaming round her
+face.
+
+"How late you are!" she said, in a deep alto voice, pouting. Then she
+stood on the tips of her toes, put her hands on Pavel's shoulders, and
+looked at Ilya out of her soft brown eyes.
+
+"This is my friend, Ilya Lunev. I met him, and that's how I'm a bit
+late."
+
+"Welcome," she said, giving Ilya her hand, so that the wide sleeve of
+her loose white dress fell back almost up to the shoulder. Ilya pressed
+her hot, dry little hand respectfully, without a word. He looked at
+Pavel's sweetheart, with that feeling of joyful surprise with which
+a man greets a slender fragrant birch-tree in a thick wood full of
+brambles and marshy thickets. As she stood aside to let him enter, he
+stepped back, bowed, and said politely:
+
+"Please, after you."
+
+"How polite!" she laughed.
+
+Her laughter was pleasant, gay and clear. Pavel laughed too, and said:
+
+"You've turned his head already, Vyerka. See, how he stands there, like
+a bear in front of the honey jar."
+
+"Is that true?" asked the girl, mischievously.
+
+"Of course," answered Ilya, laughing. "I'm quite bewildered by your
+beauty."
+
+"Here, you, listen! You just fall in love with her and I'll kill you,"
+Pavel threatened, jokingly. It pleased him that his lady's beauty
+should make such an impression on his friend, and his eyes shone with
+pride as he looked at her. She, too, paraded her charms with a naïve
+coquetry, convinced of their power. She wore nothing but a bodice with
+sleeves, over a vest and a shining white petticoat; her healthy,
+sound, snow-white body showed through the bodice-opening. A childish,
+self-contented smile twitched at the corners of her red lips; it was
+as though she took pleasure in herself, like a child with a toy it is
+not yet tired of. Ilya could not take his eyes off her. He saw how
+gracefully she moved up and down in the room, and how she wrinkled up
+her little nose, and laughed and chattered, and looked tenderly at
+Pavel every now and then; his heart was heavy to think he had no such
+friend. He sat silently and looked about him. A table covered with a
+white cloth, stood in the middle of the little, tidy, brightly-lighted
+room; on the table the samovar bubbled cheerily, and everything round
+about it was fresh and gay; the cups, the wine-bottle, the plate with
+bread and sausage--everything had a clean new look; it struck Ilya as
+unusual, and moved him to envy Pavel, who sat there, quite blissful,
+and began to rhyme extempore:
+
+    "The sight of you, like bright sunshine,
+    Streams over this poor heart of mine.
+    Forgotten all my grief and pain,
+    My heart begins to hope again.
+    To call a beautiful girl one's own
+    Is the greatest joy that can ever be known."
+
+"Pashka, dear, how nice it is!" cried Vyera, delighted.
+
+"Ah! it's hot! Hullo, you there, Ilya, leave off! Can't you look
+enough? Get one for yourself!"
+
+"But she must be pretty," said Vyera, with a strange emphasis, looking
+Ilya in the eyes.
+
+"Prettier than you can't be found," sighed Ilya, and laughed.
+
+"Don't talk of things you don't understand," said Vyera, softly.
+
+"He knows his way about," said Pashka. Then, turning to Ilya, went on,
+wrinkling his brow: "Here, now, everything is so clean and jolly, and
+then, all of a sudden--one thinks--It cuts one's heart."
+
+"Don't think then!" cried Vyera, and bent over the table. Ilya looked
+at her, and saw how her ears grew red.
+
+"You must think--" she went on, softly but firmly--"if I have only a
+day, still it's mine! It isn't easy for me, either, but I don't mix up
+the joy and the trouble; I keep it, like the song says: 'The sorrow I
+alone will bear, the joy together we shall share.'"
+
+Pavel listened, but hardened his heart, in his sulky mood. Ilya longed
+to say something comforting, encouraging, and, after a pause, began:
+
+"What's to be done when the knots won't be loosened? If I had lots of
+money, a thousand or ten thousand roubles, I'd give it to you, and say:
+'There, take it, take it because of your love,' for I see it and feel
+it; for you it's a real true heart affair, and that is always pure to
+the conscience, and all the rest you can spit at."
+
+A warm feeling flamed up and thrilled through him. He stood up when
+he saw the girl lift her head and look at him gratefully, while Pavel
+smiled, as though he waited for him to say more.
+
+"It's the first time in my life I've seen such a beautiful thing,"
+Ilya went on. "It's the first time I have seen how people can love
+one another; and, Pavel, it's the first time I've really got to know
+you--I've looked into your soul. I sit here and say frankly, I envy
+you; I'm sad and merry at the same time. God grant that all may be well
+with you! And--and as for the rest, let me say something. Suppose--I
+dislike Chuvashai and Mordvij, they're dirty and blear-eyed. But I
+bathe in the same river and drink the same water as they do. Am I to
+avoid the river because they are objectionable? Why should I? God
+cleanses it again."
+
+"That's it, Ilya! You're a good fellow," cried Pavel, excitedly.
+
+"But do you drink out of the river?" said Vyera, softly.
+
+"I must find it first," laughed Ilya. "Pour me out a glass of tea to go
+on with, Vyera!"
+
+"You're a nice boy!" cried the girl.
+
+"Many thanks," said Ilya, seriously, bowed to her, and sat down again.
+
+His words and the whole scene acted on Pavel like wine. His animated
+face reddened, his eyes shone with excitement, he sprang from his
+chair and paced the room joyously. "Ah, devil take it!" he cried, "the
+world's a jolly place, if men are as simple as children. It was a good
+thing I did when I brought you along, Ilya! Drink, brother! Fill up,
+Vyerunka!"
+
+"Now there's no holding him," said the girl, and smiled at him
+tenderly. Then, turning to Ilya, "he's always like that, either as gay
+and shining as a rainbow, or dull, and grey, and cross."
+
+"That's not good," said Lunev decidedly. Then all three began to
+chatter gaily and cheerfully, breaking into careless laughter every now
+and then.
+
+There was a knock at the door, and a voice asked: "Vyera, may I come
+in?"
+
+"Come in! come in! Ilya Jakovlevitsch, this is my friend, Lipa."
+
+Ilya rose from his chair, and turned towards the door. A tall, stately
+woman stood before him, and looked in his face with calm blue eyes.
+From her dress came a sweet perfume, her cheeks were fresh and red, and
+her head was adorned with a crown-like mass of hair that made her look
+even taller.
+
+"I was sitting alone in my room, so bored, and then, all at once I
+heard you talking and laughing, and so--well, I came here. You don't
+mind I hope? There's a gentleman without a lady. I will entertain
+him--shall I?"
+
+With a graceful gesture, she placed her chair near Ilya's, seated
+herself, and asked: "You're rather bored with them, aren't you? They
+kiss and hug one another, and you're envious, eh?"
+
+"I'm not bored with them," said Ilya, confused by feeling her so near.
+
+"That's a pity," she said quietly, then turned from Ilya and went over
+to Vyera.
+
+"Just think, I went to Mass yesterday at the nunnery, and I saw such
+a pretty nun in the choir, such a dear. I couldn't take my eyes off
+her, and thought why on earth did she go into the nunnery. I felt quite
+sorry."
+
+"Why? I shouldn't pity her," said Vyera.
+
+"Oh! Who's going to believe that!"
+
+Ilya breathed in the costly perfume that floated round this woman,
+he looked sidelong at her and listened to her voice. She spoke with
+extraordinary calm and self-possession, there was something drowsy in
+her voice and it seemed as though a powerful, delightful scent streamed
+from her words also.
+
+"D'you know, Vyera, I'm still considering if I shall go to Poluektov or
+not."
+
+"I can't advise you."
+
+"Perhaps I will. He's old and rich, and those are two important points.
+But he's miserly. I want five thousand roubles in my name in the bank,
+and a hundred and fifty roubles a month, and he only offers three
+thousand and a hundred."
+
+"Don't talk of it now, Lipotshka!"
+
+"All right, as you like," said Lipa, quietly, and turned again to Ilya.
+"Now, young man, let us talk a little. I like you, you've a nice face
+and serious eyes. What will you say to that?"
+
+"I? I shan't say anything," said he, laughing carelessly, but feeling
+clearly how this woman ensnared him with her magic.
+
+"Nothing? oh! you're bored;--what are you?"
+
+"Pedlar."
+
+"R--really? I thought you were a clerk in a bank, or in some shop. You
+look very good form."
+
+"I like cleanliness," said Ilya. He felt oppressively hot, and his head
+was in a whirl with the perfume.
+
+"You like cleanliness?--that's very nice. Are you a good hand at
+guessing?"
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"Can't you guess that you're in the way here, eh;" and she looked right
+through him with her blue eyes.
+
+"Oh! of course. I'll go," said Ilya confused.
+
+"Wait a minute! Vyera, may I take this youngster away?"
+
+"Of course, if he wants to go," answered Vyera, laughing.
+
+"But where?" asked Ilya, in great excitement.
+
+"Oh! go along you silly fellow!" cried Pashka.
+
+Ilya stood there dazed and laughed vaguely, but the beautiful lady took
+his hand and led him out, saying in her quiet way: "You're not tamed
+yet, and I'm capricious and obstinate. If I made up my mind to put out
+the sun, I'd climb on the roof and blow at it till I'd used my last
+breath. Now you know what I'm like."
+
+Ilya went with her hand in hand, hardly hearing her words and not
+understanding at all: he only felt she was so warm, and soft and
+fragrant.
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+
+His intimacy with Olympiada, so unexpectedly begun from a woman's whim,
+rendered Ilya at first quite arrogant. A proud self-confident feeling
+awakened in him, healing the little wounds that life had dealt his
+heart.
+
+The thought that a lovely well-dressed lady gave him her precious
+kisses out of pure affection and demanded nothing in return, raised him
+more and more in his own eyes, and he felt as though he were floating
+in a broad stream, borne along by a peaceful flood that caressed his
+body tenderly and waked strength and courage in his limbs.
+
+"My dear lad," said Olympiada to him, as she played with his hair
+or passed her finger over the dark down that covered his upper lip.
+"You're nicer every day, you've such a bold, confident heart, and I can
+see you're sure to get what you want. I like that. I'm made that way,
+too. If I were younger, I'd marry you and together we'd have a splendid
+time."
+
+Ilya treated her with great respect. She seemed so sensible, and he
+liked her for the way she respected herself in spite of her vicious
+life. She never drank and used no foul words like the other women that
+he knew. Her body was as supple and strong as her full deep voice,
+and as tense as her character. Even her frugality, her love of order
+and cleanliness, and the readiness with which she could speak on any
+subject and ward off anything that irritated her pride, delighted
+him. Sometimes though, if he visited her and found her lying with
+dishevelled hair and pale, languid face, a bitter feeling of disgust
+would arise, and then as he looked gloomily into her wearied eyes he
+could bring no greeting from his lips. She must have understood his
+feeling readily, for she would wrap the coverlet round her and say:
+
+"Off with you!--go and see Vyera--tell the old woman to bring me some
+snow-water!"
+
+He would go to the clean little room and Vyera would laugh guiltily at
+the sight of his gloomy, displeased face. One day she asked him:
+
+"Well, Ilya Jakovlevitsch, how are you getting on? How do you like it
+here?"
+
+"Ah, Vyerotchka, sin can't stick to you; if you only smile it melts
+away like snow."
+
+"I'm so sorry for you, both of you, poor fellows."
+
+Ilya liked Vyera very much. He treated her as a little child, was very
+disturbed if she quarrelled with Pashka, and made the peace between
+them every time. He liked to sit in her room and watch her comb her
+golden hair, or sew at something, singing softly. Often he surprised
+in her eyes a gnawing pain, and sometimes her face twitched with a
+hopeless weary smile. At such a time he felt even more drawn to her,
+the misery of this little girl touched him more keenly and he would
+comfort her as well as he could. But she said:
+
+"No, no, Ilya, we can't go on like this, it's quite impossible;
+think--I--I must live on in this filth, but Pavel, what place is there
+for him near me?"
+
+"But he chooses it," said Ilya.
+
+"Chooses?" came like an echo from her lips.
+
+Olympiada interrupted the conversation, entering noiselessly in a wide
+blue cloak, like a cold moonbeam.
+
+"Come to tea, my lad, and you come in too, presently, Vyerotchka."
+
+Fresh and rosy from the cold water, clean, neat and calm, she took Ilya
+to her room without many words, and he followed, marvelling that this
+could be the same Olympiada he had seen before, faded and soiled by
+lustful hands.
+
+While they drank their tea, she said to him: "It's a pity you're only
+a peasant lad and have learned so little, that'll make it harder for
+you in life, but anyhow you must drop your present business and try
+something else. Wait, I'll look out for a place for you--you must be
+looked after. As soon as I've fixed things up with Poluektov, I'll
+manage it."
+
+"Is he going to give you the five thousand?"
+
+"Of course," she answered with conviction.
+
+"Well, if I ever meet him near you, I'll pull his head off," cried Ilya
+jealously.
+
+"Why? he doesn't get in your way."
+
+"He does, most decidedly, get in my way."
+
+"But he's old and horrid," said Olympiada, laughing.
+
+"Laugh away! I'll never believe that it's anything but a great sin to
+caress such a dirty beast."
+
+"Wait a little, at least, till I get hold of his money."
+
+The merchant did everything for her that she desired. Soon Ilya was
+sitting in her new house, seeing the thick carpets and the heavy
+plush-covered furniture, and listening to his lady's business-like
+remarks. He found in her no special pleasure in her altered
+surroundings, she was as calm and self-contained as ever. It was as
+though only the clothes were changed, nothing else.
+
+"I am now twenty-seven,--when I am thirty, I shall have ten thousand
+roubles. Then I'll throw over the old man and be free; learn from me,
+my lad, how to deal with life."
+
+Ilya learnt from her obstinate perseverance to attain a predetermined
+goal, but often the thought tortured him, that he shared her caresses
+with another, and a painful sense of degradation and weakness. At such
+times the vision would rise again of his shop, with the clean room,
+where he might entertain his lady. He didn't believe that he loved
+Olympiada, but she seemed quite necessary to him, as a sensible good
+comrade.
+
+In this way, two months--three months passed away. One day, when he
+returned home, he betook himself to Perfishka's cellar, and saw with
+amazement Perfishka at the table with a bottle of brandy, and opposite
+him, Jakov sat, leaning heavily on the table, his head swaying, and
+said unsteadily:
+
+"Splendid! If God sees everything and knows everything, then He sees me
+too. Every one has forsaken me, brother. I'm all alone. My father hates
+me, he's a scoundrel! He's a robber and a cheat, isn't he, Perfishka?"
+
+"Right, Jakov. It's a pity, but it's true."
+
+"Well, then, how am I to live? What am I to believe in?" asked Jakov,
+stammering and shaking his dishevelled hair. "I can't believe in my
+father. Ilya goes his own way. Masha is a child. Where is there a man?
+Perfishka, I tell you, there's not a man left in the world."
+
+Ilya stood in the doorway, and heard his friend's drunken speech. His
+heart sank painfully. He saw Jakov's head loll, drooping and weak,
+on his thin neck, saw Perfishka's thin, yellow face lighted up with
+a pleased smile, and he would not believe that this could really be
+Jakov, the quiet, modest Jakov.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he said reproachfully as he entered.
+
+Jakov started, looked with startled eyes into Ilya's face, and said,
+with a despairing smile: "Ah, Ilya--is that all! I thought--my
+father----"
+
+"What's all this about, tell me," Ilya interrupted.
+
+"You let him alone, Ilya," cried Perfishka, and rose swaying from his
+chair. "He can please himself. Thank God that he still likes brandy."
+
+"Ilya," cried Jakov convulsively, "my father thrashed me."
+
+"That's so. I was a witness," explained Perfishka, and smote his breast
+with his fist. "I saw everything. I can take my oath! He knocked his
+teeth out, and made his nose bleed."
+
+In fact, Jakov's face was swollen and his upper lip covered with blood.
+He stood in front of his comrade, and said, smiling mournfully:
+
+"How dare he beat me? I'm nineteen, and I'd done nothing wrong."
+
+"Why did he beat you, then?"
+
+Jakov's lips twitched as though he was about to speak, but he said
+nothing. His bruised face quivered. He sank heavily on a chair, took
+his head in his hands, and began to sob aloud, so that his whole body
+shook. Perfishka, who had supported him as he sank down, poured out
+a glass of brandy, and said: "Let him cry. It's good when a man can.
+Mashutka, too, was in a state, quite bathed in tears. 'I'll scratch his
+eyes out,' she screamed right on, till I took her to Matiza."
+
+"But what happened?"
+
+"I can tell you exactly. It was quite a crazy business. Terenti, that
+uncle of yours, he began the thing. All at once he said to Petrusha,
+'Let me go to Kiev,' he said, 'to the holy men!' Petrusha was
+delighted; that hump of Terenti's has worried his eyes, and to tell
+the truth, he's jolly glad to see Terenti's back; it's not nice to
+have some one about who knows a secret of yours--he! he! 'All right,'
+he says. 'Go along, and put in a little word for me too with the holy
+men.' And then Jakov starts in all of a sudden: 'Let me go too,' he
+says."
+
+Perfishka began to roll his eyes, made a fierce grimace, and cried in a
+hoarse voice, imitating Petrusha:
+
+"'Wha--a--at do you want to do?'"
+
+"'I want to go with uncle to the holy men.'
+
+"'What do you mean?'
+
+"Jakov says, 'I could pray for you too.' Then Petrusha begins to roar,
+'I'll teach you to pray!' Jakov sticks to his point. 'Let me go. God is
+pleased with the prayers of sons for their fathers' sins.' My word, how
+Petrusha hit him in the mouth, and again and again."
+
+"I can't live with him," cried Jakov. "I'll go away. I'll hang myself.
+Why did he beat me--why? All I said came from my heart."
+
+Ilya's heart sank at this outcry, and with a despairing shrug of his
+shoulders, he left the cellar. He was glad to hear that his uncle was
+going on a pilgrimage. Once Terenti was gone, he would finally leave
+this house, take a little room somewhere for himself, and be his own
+master. As he entered his room, Terenti appeared, following him. His
+eyes shone, his face wore an expression of joy. He approached Ilya and
+said: "Well, I'm going. O Lord, how glad I am! To step out of a cave, a
+cellar, into God's world. Surely He will not despise my prayer, since
+He lets me get away from this place."
+
+"Do you know what's happened to Jakov?" said Ilya, drily.
+
+"What?"
+
+"He's got drunk."
+
+"What do you say? That is wrong of him! Silly boy! And just now he was
+begging his father to let him go with me."
+
+"Were you there when his father beat him?"
+
+"Yes, of course. Why?"
+
+"Why, can't you understand? That's why he's got drunk."
+
+"Because of that? It's not possible!"
+
+Ilya saw clearly that Jakov's fate was a matter of indifference to
+his uncle, and that strengthened his feeling of enmity against the
+hunchback. He had never seen Terenti so overjoyed, and the sight of
+this happiness, coming right after Jakov's misery, moved him strangely.
+He sat down at the window and said:
+
+"Go on into the bar."
+
+"Petrusha is there. I want to talk to you."
+
+"Oh! what about?"
+
+The hunchback came up to him and said mysteriously:
+
+"I'm getting away. You're staying behind and that means--well----"
+
+"Hurry up," said Ilya.
+
+"Yes--yes, I want to; it isn't easy to say," said Terenti, in a subdued
+way, while his eyes blinked.
+
+"Do you want to talk about me? eh?"
+
+"Yes--yes--about you, too, but presently. I've saved some money."
+
+Ilya looked at him and laughed maliciously.
+
+"What d'you mean? Why d'you laugh?" cried his uncle, frightened.
+
+"Oh, nothing. Well, then, you've _saved_ some money, have you?"
+
+Ilya emphasised "saved."
+
+"Yes, that's it," said Terenti, avoiding his look. "I shall give two
+hundred roubles to the monastery."
+
+"O!"
+
+"And a hundred to you."
+
+"A hundred?" asked Ilya, suddenly, and at once he knew that in his
+soul for a long time the hope had lived that his uncle would give him
+not a hundred roubles, but a much bigger sum. He was angered against
+himself that his heart could entertain so hateful, calculating, an
+expectation, and against his uncle that the sum was so small. He got
+up, straightened himself, and said, full of scorn and insolence:
+
+"I'll have none of your stolen money, d'you understand."
+
+The hunchback recoiled in fear and sank on his bed, pale and wretched,
+his hair bristled, his mouth stood open, and he gazed at Ilya silently
+with stupid terror in his eyes.
+
+"Well, why do you look like that? I don't want your money."
+
+"Christ!" Terenti groaned hoarsely. "Why not, my dear, why not? Ilusha,
+you've been like a son to me." Then presently he went on in a whisper.
+"It was just--for you--for fear of what should happen to you, that I
+took the sin on my soul; take the money, take it, else the Lord won't
+forgive me."
+
+"So," cried Ilya, mockingly, "you'll go to your God with an account
+book! Oh! you! did I ask you to steal old Jeremy's money; think what a
+good man he was you robbed!"
+
+"Ilusha, you didn't ask to be born, either," said the uncle, and
+stretched out his hand to Ilya with an odd gesture. "No, take the
+money, quietly, for Christ's sake, to save my soul; if I come back,
+then you'll get it all, and meantime take this, my dear boy. God will
+not forgive my sins, if you don't take the money!"
+
+He was actually begging, his lips quivered, and in his eyes was an
+expression of fear. Ilya looked at him and could not determine if his
+uncle really distressed him or no.
+
+"Well, all right, I'll take it," he said at last, and went straight
+out of the room. He was sorry that he had yielded finally, he felt
+degraded. What was a hundred roubles to him after all? What big thing
+could he undertake with that? If his uncle had given him a thousand
+roubles now instead of a hundred, then he would have been enabled to
+change his dull uneasy life into a better, that should glide along in
+peaceful solitude far from mankind.
+
+How would it be to ask his uncle, just how much he had obtained from
+the rag-picker's hoard? But this thought was too repugnant to him. Ever
+since Ilya had made Olympiada's acquaintance the house of Filimonov
+appeared to him dirtier and stuffier than ever. The dirt and the close
+atmosphere roused in him a physical nausea, as though cold, slimy
+hands were laid on his body. To-day this feeling was more painful than
+usual, he could find no spot in the house to suit him, and, without any
+definite motive, he climbed the stairs to Matiza's garret. As he went,
+he felt as though this house would somehow, at some time or other, deal
+him an unexpected terrible injury.
+
+Busy with such thoughts he entered Matiza's room and saw her sitting
+on a chair beside her bed. She cast a glance at him, warned him with a
+finger, and whispered in a deep bass voice, like a far-off storm-wind:
+
+"Sh! She's asleep."
+
+Masha lay on the bed, huddled in a heap.
+
+"What kind of a thing d'you call this?" Matiza whispered, and rolled
+her big eyes angrily. "Thrash children to ribbons, do they, the cursed
+villains! to lay hands on children! curse them! the scoundrels!"
+
+Ilya stood by the stove and listened, while he gazed at the delicate
+form of the cobbler's daughter, wrapped in a grey shawl.
+
+"What's to become of the poor things?" rang in his head.
+
+"D'you know that the blackguard struck Masha, too?" went on Matiza.
+"Tore her hair, the cursed scoundrel, the old bar loafer! Beat his son,
+and the girl, and he's going to turn them both out of doors, d'you know
+that? Where are they to go, poor orphans? How----"
+
+"Perhaps I can find her a place," said Ilya, thoughtfully, remembering
+that Olympiada needed a housemaid.
+
+"You!" whispered Matiza, reproachfully. "You come in always now as
+if you were a fine gentleman. You get on and grow for yourself like
+a young oak-tree, give no shadow and no acorns. You might have done
+something for her long ago. Aren't you sorry for the child?"
+
+"Wait a bit and don't jaw!" said Ilya, crossly. It was an excuse for
+him to visit Olympiada at once, and he asked: "How old's Mashutka?"
+
+"Fifteen! Why? What's her age got to do with it? She looks barely
+twelve, she's so slender and delicate. Heaven knows, she's just a child
+still. She's fit for nothing, nothing! What is to become of her? It
+would be better if she never waked again till the last day."
+
+A vague cloud of ideas filled Ilya's head when he left the garret.
+An hour later he was standing before the door of Olympiada's house,
+waiting to be admitted. He waited a long time in the cold, till at
+last from behind the door a thin, peevish voice asked: "Who is there?"
+
+"I----" answered Lunev, not very clear who was speaking. Olympiada's
+servant, a plump, pock-marked person, had a loud harsh voice, and
+always opened the door without question.
+
+"Whom do you want?" asked the voice again.
+
+"Is Olympiada Danilovna at home?"
+
+The door opened suddenly, and a strong light fell on Ilya's face. The
+lad fell back a step, half shut his eyes, and looked perplexedly at the
+door, as though what he saw appeared an illusion. Before him, lamp in
+hand, stood a little old man, in a wide heavy dressing-gown, the colour
+of raspberries. His head was all but entirely bald, only a thin crown
+of grey hair ran from one ear to the other, and on his chin a short
+thin grey beard quivered uneasily. He looked at Ilya's face, and his
+keen, piercing eyes blinked evilly, and his upper lip, with its scanty
+hairs, twitched up and down. The lamp shook and trembled in his thin,
+swarthy hand.
+
+"Who are you, then? Well, come in. Who are you?"
+
+Ilya understood. He felt the blood mount to his head and an untoward
+feeling of disgust and wrath filled his heart. This was the rival who
+shared with him the favours of the stately, beautiful lady!
+
+"I am--a pedlar," he said, in a dull voice, as he crossed the
+threshhold.
+
+The old man winked at him with his left eye, and smiled. His eyes were
+red with inflammation, without eyelashes, and instead of teeth, a
+couple of yellow, pointed pegs showed in his mouth.
+
+"Oh, ho! A pedlar, eh? What sort of a pedlar?" asked the old man, with
+a cunning smile, and held the lamp up to illumine Ilya's face.
+
+"I deal in all sorts of little things--scent and ribbons, and so on,"
+said Ilya, and hung his head. A giddiness seized him and red spots
+danced before his eyes.
+
+"Oh, oh! Ribbons and scent. Yes, yes! Ribbons and laces to deck pretty
+faces. But what do you want here, my young pedlar? Eh?"
+
+"I want to see Olympiada Danilovna."
+
+"Eh, to see her? What do you want of her, now?"
+
+"I have to get some money for things she's had," Ilya brought out, with
+difficulty.
+
+He felt an incomprehensible fear of this horrible old man and hated
+him. In his thin, soft voice and in his evil eyes lay something that
+penetrated within Ilya's heart and took away his courage, and cast him
+down.
+
+"Money, eh? A little debt. All right, my lad."
+
+Suddenly the old man took the lamp away from Ilya's face, put it down,
+brought his yellow, withered face close to Ilya's ear, and asked him
+softly, with another, cunning smile: "Where's the bill? Give me the
+bill."
+
+"What bill?" said Ilya, recoiling, frightened.
+
+"Why, from your master. The bill for Olympiada Danilovna. You've got
+it, I suppose? What? Give it here! I'll take it to her. Quick, be
+quick!"
+
+The old man moved nearer, while Ilya retreated towards the door. His
+mouth was dry with fear.
+
+"I have no bill," he said loudly in despair, feeling that something
+terrible must happen the next moment.
+
+The tall, stately figure of Olympiada appeared behind the old man.
+Calmly, without the trembling of an eyelash, she looked at Ilya over
+the head of the old man, and said in her measured way: "What is the
+matter?"
+
+"It's a pedlar, he says you owe him money; you've bought ribbons, eh?
+and not paid for them? He! He! Well, here he is and wants his money."
+
+He paced with short steps to and fro and blinked suspiciously first at
+Olympiada, then at Ilya. With a commanding gesture, she waved him to
+one side, put her hand in the pocket of her cloak, and said to Ilya in
+a severe tone: "What is it? Could you not come another time?"
+
+"Quite right," squeaked the old man. "Silly fool, isn't he?"
+
+"Coming when he's least wanted--donkey!"
+
+Ilya stood as though turned to stone.
+
+"Don't scream so, Vassili Gavrilovitsch, it doesn't sound well," said
+Olympiada, and turning to Ilya, "How much? three roubles forty kopecks
+isn't it? here, take it!"
+
+"And now clear out!" squeaked the old man again. "Allow me. I'll bolt
+the door myself. I'll do it."
+
+He drew his dressing-gown round him, opened the door, and cried:
+
+"Now then, go along!"
+
+Ilya stood in the frost before the closed door, and stared stupidly at
+it. He could not yet decide if all that he had just seen were reality,
+or a hateful dream. In one hand he held his cap, in the other the money
+Olympiada had given him. He stood there so long that he felt the frost
+round his head like a ring of ice, and his legs were stiff with cold.
+Then he put on his cap, put the money in his pocket, tucked his hands
+into the sleeves of his overcoat, drew in his shoulders, and went
+slowly down the street with bowed head. His heart seemed ice and in his
+head a couple of balls rolled here and there and knocked against his
+temples. Before his eyes swam the dusky face of the old man, the yellow
+skull illuminated by the cold lamp-light.
+
+And the face of the old man smiled evilly, cunningly, triumphantly.
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+
+On the day following his encounter with Olympiada's aged lover, Ilya
+walked to and fro along the main street of the town, slowly and
+silently. He did not call his wares as usual, but looked at his box
+gloomily, and hidden in his heart there lay immovable, a heavy leaden
+feeling. He never ceased to see before him the scornful face of the
+old man, Olympiada's calm blue eyes and the gesture with which she had
+given him the money. Sharp little snowflakes drove through the dry,
+frosty air, stinging his face like needles.
+
+He had just passed a little shop, half-concealed in a niche between a
+church and the big house of a rich merchant. Over the entrance hung an
+old rusty sign with the inscription:
+
+"Bureau de Change. W. G. Poluektov. Old gold and silver, ornaments for
+shrines, rarities of every kind, old coins."
+
+As Ilya passed the door, he thought he saw behind the window panes
+the old man's face, grinning and nodding at him mockingly. He felt
+an irresistible desire to see the old man closer. He easily found an
+excuse. Like all pedlars, he collected the old coins that came into
+his hands, and sold them to the money-changers at an advance of twenty
+kopecks to the rouble. He had a few at that moment in his wallet. He
+turned back, opened the shop door boldly, went in with his box, took
+off his cap and said, "Good-day!"
+
+The old man was sitting behind a small counter, and at the moment
+removing the metal clasps from an eikon, loosening the little nails
+with a small chisel. He was deep in his work. He shot a hasty glance at
+the lad as he came in, then turned again to his work, and said drily
+without looking up:
+
+"Good day! What can I do for you?"
+
+"Did you recognise me?" asked Ilya.
+
+The old man looked at him again.
+
+"Perhaps. What d'you want?"
+
+"You buy old coins?"
+
+"Show me."
+
+Ilya shifted his box towards his back, and felt for the pocket where he
+had his purse with the coins--his hand failed to find it; it trembled
+like his heart, which beat furiously with hate of the old man, fear of
+him, and a vague impulse to achieve something decisive. Whilst with his
+hand he felt under the flap of his overcoat, he looked steadily at the
+little bald head of the money-changer, and a cold shiver ran down his
+back.
+
+"Well, have you got them?" the old man addressed him crossly.
+
+"One moment," answered Ilya softly.
+
+At last he succeeded in getting out his purse; he went close up to the
+counter and shook the coins out on to it. The old man gave one look at
+them.
+
+"That's all, eh?"
+
+He took the silver coins up in his thin yellow fingers, and looked at
+them one at a time, murmuring to himself:
+
+"Katherine the Second, Anna, Catherine, Paul, another Paul, a
+cross-rouble, a thirty-two piece. H'm, who's to see what this is? This
+is no good, it's all worn away."
+
+"But the size shows it's a quarter rouble," said Ilya, harshly.
+
+"Fifteen kopecks you can have for it, no more."
+
+The old man pushed the coins aside, drew out the drawer of his till
+with a quick movement, and began to feel about in it. A fierce,
+stabbing rage took possession of Ilya, piercing through him like a
+frost-cold iron. He struck out with his arm, and his powerful fist
+caught the old man on the temple. The money-changer fell against
+the wall and struck his head hard upon it, but braced himself with
+his breast against the counter, held fast to it with his hands and
+stretched out his thin neck towards Ilya. Lunev saw the terrified eyes
+blinking in the dusky little face and the lips quiver, and he heard a
+penetrating, groaning whisper:
+
+"My darling--my darling."
+
+"Ah! you beast!" cried Ilya in a low voice, and crushed the old man's
+neck with his hands in disgust. He throttled and pressed him and
+began to shake him, while the old man's throat rattled, and he tried
+convulsively to get away. His eyes filled with blood, became bigger and
+bigger, and gushed with tears. His tongue protruded from his dark mouth
+and moved to and fro as though mocking the murderer. The warm saliva
+dropped on Ilya's hand, and a hoarse, whistling, gurgling sound came
+from the old man's throat. The cold crooked fingers caught at Lunev's
+neck, but he clenched his teeth, threw back his head, and shook the
+frail body more fiercely and dragged it over the counter; he would not
+have loosed his hold on the yielding throat, had any one come behind
+him and struck him. Filled with rigid fear and glowing hate, he saw
+Poluektov's dim eyes grow bigger and bigger, and still he gripped him
+more fiercely, more passionately, and ever as the old man's body grew
+heavier the weighty load on Ilya's heart was lightened. At last he let
+go of the body and pushed it away, and the money-changer's corpse sunk
+slackly to the ground.
+
+Now Lunev looked round him; the shop was deserted and still, behind the
+door in the street snow was falling thickly. On the floor at his feet
+lay two pieces of soap, a purse, and a roll of ribbon. He perceived
+that these objects had fallen from his box, picked them up and replaced
+them. Then he leant over the counter and looked once more at the old
+man. He was crumpled in the small space between the counter and the
+wall. His head hung down on his breast, nothing could be seen but the
+yellow, bald patch at the back of it. Then Lunev looked at the open
+till--gold and silver coins shone back at him, packets of paper money
+met his eyes; he trembled with joy, hastily caught a packet, then a
+second and a third, stuffed them under his shirt, and looked once more
+anxiously round.
+
+Carefully, without haste, he stepped back into the street, stopped
+three paces from the shop, covered his wares with the oil-cloth
+cover, and then went on in the midst of the thick snow that fell from
+invisible heights. Round him, even as in him, floated a cold, misty
+cloud; his eyes strove to pierce it with tense alertness. Suddenly he
+felt a dull pain in his eyes, he touched them with a finger of his
+right hand, and stood still, gripped by terror, as though his feet
+were suddenly frozen fast to the ground. He felt as though his eyes
+were coming out of their sockets, like those of old Poluektov, and he
+feared lest they should remain for ever thus protruded, never to be
+closed, for all men to read in them the crime he had committed. They
+felt as though they were lifeless. He touched the pupils with a finger,
+felt a sudden pain in them, and tried for a long time vainly to close
+the lids. Fear caught the breath in his throat. At last he managed to
+close them. He rejoiced at the darkness that suddenly enclosed him, and
+stood motionless, seeing nothing, breathing deep breaths of the cold
+air. Some one ran against him. He looked quickly round, and saw a tall
+man, in a short fur coat, passing. Ilya looked after the unknown till
+he vanished in the thick drifting snow. Then he straightened his cap
+and strode on, feeling still the pain in his eyes and a weight at his
+head. His shoulders twitched, his fingers involuntarily clenched, and a
+daring boldness awakened in his heart and banished his fear.
+
+He went on till the road divided, there saw the grey figure of a
+policeman, and went, as if by accident, slowly, quite slowly, straight
+up to him. His heart stopped as he drew near. "Here's weather," said
+Ilya, going close to the policeman and looking boldly into his face.
+
+"Ye--es! Snowing pretty well! Thank heaven, it'll be warmer now,"
+answered the policeman, with a good-natured expression on his big, red,
+bearded face.
+
+"What's the time, by the way?" asked Ilya.
+
+"I'll have a look." The policeman knocked the snow from his sleeve, and
+put his hand under his cloak.
+
+Lunev felt both relieved and again made anxious by the proximity of
+this man. Suddenly he laughed, in a dry, forced way.
+
+"What are you laughing at?" asked the policeman, opening the front of
+his watch with his nail.
+
+"If you could see yourself. It's as though some one had tipped a cart
+of snow over you!"
+
+"No need for that; it's coming down in bucketsful. Just half-past one,
+all but five minutes. Yes, brother, it's bad for men of my trade this
+weather. You'll go into the public house, in the warm, and I must stick
+about here till six. Oh, just see; your box is full of snow!"
+
+The policeman sighed and snapped his watch to.
+
+"Yes, I'm off to the alehouse," said Ilya, with a forced laugh, and
+added, for no particular reason: "That one, up there, that's where I'm
+going."
+
+"Don't chaff me!" cried the policeman, sulkily.
+
+In the alehouse Ilya took a seat near the window. From this window, as
+he knew, the church could be seen next to Poluektov's shop. But now
+all was covered with a white curtain. Ilya watched attentively how the
+flakes slowly slid past the window and settled on the ground, covering
+the footsteps of the wayfarers as with a thick carpet. His heart beat
+strongly and full of life, but easily. He sat and waited for what
+should befall, and the time seemed to pass slowly.
+
+When the waiter brought him tea he could not refrain from asking,
+"Well, how goes the neighbourhood? anything new?"
+
+"It's got warmer, much warmer," answered the other quickly and hurried
+away.
+
+Ilya waited and waited, he felt as though he were weary and fell into
+a doze. He poured out a glass of tea, but did not drink it, sat still,
+and thought of nothing. Suddenly he felt hot; he unbuttoned the collar
+of his overcoat, and shuddered as his hands touched his chin. It felt
+as though these were not his hands but the strange cold hands of an
+enemy that had touched him. He held them up and observed his fingers
+attentively--his hands were clean, but the thought came to him that he
+must wash them very carefully with soap.
+
+"Poluektov has been murdered!" cried some one suddenly in the bar. Ilya
+sprang up from his chair as though the cry had been addressed to him.
+But all the other customers also were in commotion and rushed to the
+door, pulling on their caps.
+
+Ilya threw a ten-kopeck piece on the counter, slung his box over his
+shoulder, and followed in the same haste as the others.
+
+Already a big crowd had collected before the shop of the money-changer.
+Policemen moved up and down, and full of officious zeal shouted at the
+people; the bearded one with whom Ilya had spoken was there too. He
+stood in the doorway, keeping back the crowd that pressed towards it,
+regarded every one with troubled eyes, and passed his hand constantly
+over his left cheek that seemed redder than the right.
+
+Ilya found a place near him and listened to the remarks of the crowd.
+Next him stood a tall, black-bearded merchant with a stern face, who
+listened with knitted brows to an old man in a fox-skin coat, who was
+relating in a lively way:
+
+"The errand boy comes to the house and thinks his master has fainted.
+He runs to Peter Stepanovitch. 'Ah!' he says, 'come quick to our house,
+the master is ill.' Naturally Peter hurries off, and when he comes
+in he sees the old man is dead. A pretty business! and think of the
+audacity, in broad day, in such a busy street, it's past belief!"
+
+The black-bearded merchant gave a low cough, and said severely:
+
+"It is the finger of God! Evidently the Lord would not receive his
+repentance."
+
+Lunev pressed forward to look again at the face of the merchant and
+struck him with his box. The merchant called out, pushing him away with
+his elbow and regarding him angrily:
+
+"Where are you coming with that box of yours?" Then he turned again to
+the old man: "It is written, 'not a hair falls from the head of a man
+except by the will of God.'"
+
+"What's one to say?" said the old man, and nodded in agreement: then he
+added, half aloud, his eyes twinkling, "It is well known that God marks
+the wicked. The Lord forgive me, it's wrong to speak of it, but it's
+difficult also to be silent."
+
+"And you'll see," went on the stern merchant, "they'll never find the
+guilty one; mark my words."
+
+Lunev laughed right out. The sound of this conversation seemed to send
+new strength and courage streaming through him. If any one at this
+moment had asked him: "Did you murder him?" he would have answered
+"yes" boldly and fearlessly. With this feeling in his breast he pushed
+through the crowd, close up to the policeman.
+
+The man looked at him, gave him a push on the shoulder, and said
+loudly: "Now then, what are you doing here? Be off!"
+
+Ilya backed away and struck against a bystander. He received another
+push and a voice cried: "Give him one over the head!"
+
+Then he left the crowd, sat on the church steps and laughed in his
+heart at all these men. He heard the snow scrunch under their feet and
+the muttered conversation, fragments of which reached his ears.
+
+"Why must the rascal do his dirty work just when I'm on duty?"
+
+"In all the town he took the biggest discount, he always was a thief."
+
+"It'll never stop snowing to-day, you can't see the shop at all."
+
+"He used to fleece his debtors properly."
+
+"He was a man after all--one can't help pitying him."
+
+"They're all greedy--think of nothing but their profits."
+
+"Look! there's his wife."
+
+"Ah! poor thing!" sighed a ragged peasant.
+
+Lunev stood up and saw a stout, elderly woman in a loosely-fitting
+dress and a black veil, getting heavily out of a wide sledge covered
+with a bear's skin. The police officer and a man with a red moustache
+helped her.
+
+"Ah! my dear, my husband." As her trembling, frightened voice was
+heard, silence fell on all the bystanders.
+
+Ilya looked at her and thought of Olympiada.
+
+"Where's the son?" said some one, softly.
+
+"He's in Moscow, they say."
+
+"He'll get the bad news soon enough."
+
+"That's true."
+
+Lunev heard, and his heart sank. He preferred to hear that no one
+lamented Poluektov; although at the same time, he thought all these
+men stupid and unreasoning, except the black-bearded merchant. This
+man had an air of strength and of firm faith, but the others stood
+like trees in a wood, and chattered in their silly way, pleased
+at the suffering of others. He waited until the frail body of the
+money-changer was carried from the shop, and then went home, cold,
+tired, but calm. Reaching home, he bolted himself in his room, and
+began to count his money: in two thick packets there were five hundred
+roubles in small notes, in the third packet, eight hundred and fifty
+roubles. There was also a little bundle of coupons which he did not
+count. He wrapped all the money up in paper, and considered where to
+hide it. As he thought, he felt that his head was heavy and that he was
+sleepy. He determined to hide the money in the attic, and started out
+there, holding the parcel in his hand. In the passage he met Jakov.
+
+"Ah, you're back," said Jakov.
+
+"Yes, I'm back."
+
+"How pale you are. Are you ill?"
+
+"I'm not feeling up to much."
+
+"What have you got there?"
+
+"What have----" Ilya began; then suddenly he shivered in fear lest he
+should babble away his secret, and said hurriedly, swinging his parcel
+to and fro:
+
+"It's ribbon, that's all, out of my box."
+
+"Coming to tea?" said Jakov.
+
+"I? Oh, yes, in a minute."
+
+He went quickly through the passage. He trod unsteadily, and his head
+was dizzy, as though he were drunk. As he mounted the attic stairs,
+he went carefully, in constant fear lest he should make a noise or
+meet some one. While he buried the money under the flooring, near
+the chimney, he thought all of a sudden that some one was hidden in
+the darkness in the corner, watching him; he felt a wish to throw a
+stone in that direction, but mastered his feelings, and came slowly
+downstairs again. Now he had no fears. It was as though he had left
+them with the money; but a fresh doubt waked in his heart: "Why did I
+kill him?"
+
+Masha greeted him joyfully in the cellar, where she was busy at the
+stove with the samovar.
+
+"Ah, how early you are to-day!"
+
+"That's the snow," he said; then added, crossly: "What d'you call
+early? I've come, as usual, when it's time. Can't you see how dark it
+is, you little goose?"
+
+"It's dark here in the morning; and what are you shouting at?"
+
+"I'm shouting, as you call it, because you talk like the police.
+'You're very early--Where are you going?--What have you got there?'
+What business is it of yours?"
+
+Masha looked searchingly at him, and said, reproachfully:
+
+"How high and mighty you've grown!"
+
+"Oh, go to the devil!" snarled Lunev, and sat down at the table.
+
+Masha felt insulted, and turned away. Looking small and delicate, she
+shook back her dark hair from time to time, coughing and blinking when
+the smoke from the samovar she was tending irritated her eyes. Her face
+was thin, and the eyes shone all the more brightly for the dark circles
+round them. She was like the flowers that spring up amid grass and
+weeds in an overgrown garden.
+
+Ilya looked at her and thought how the child lived all alone in this
+underground cave, working like a full-grown woman, how there was not,
+and perhaps never would be, any joy in life for her, condemned always
+to live in this straitened, dirty place. But he might live now as he
+had always desired, in peace and cleanliness. The thought filled him
+with happiness. Then at once he felt his unkindness to Masha.
+
+"Masha!" he cried.
+
+"Well, what now, cross-patch?"
+
+"D'you know, I'm a bad lot," said Lunev, and his voice shook, while he
+wondered in his heart if he should tell her or no.
+
+Masha turned towards him with a smile:
+
+"Pity there's no one to give you a beating, that's what you want, you
+bad fellow!"
+
+"Oh! have a little patience."
+
+"No--no--you don't deserve any," said Masha, then approaching him
+quickly, she said in a tone of entreaty: "Ilya dear, ask your uncle to
+take me with him, will you? Ask him! I'll go on my knees and thank you."
+
+"Where do you want to go?" asked Lunev, tired and too busy with his own
+thoughts to attend.
+
+"To the holy places. Dear Ilya, ask him."
+
+With hands clasped and eyes streaming, she stood in front of him, as
+though before a shrine.
+
+"It would be so lovely, in spring, through the fields and woods. I'd go
+on and on, ever so far. I think of it every day--I dream that I'm going
+there, how good it would be; speak to your uncle, tell him to take me!
+He listens to you--I won't be a trouble to him. I'll beg for myself.
+I'm so little, they'll give to me. Will you, Ilusha? I'll kiss your
+hand."
+
+Suddenly she seized his hand and bent over it. He sprang up, pushing
+her back.
+
+"Silly girl," he cried, "what are you doing? I've strangled a man!"
+
+His own words terrified him and he added at once: "Perhaps--perhaps for
+all you know, I've done something terrible with these hands, and you'll
+kiss them."
+
+"No, let me," said Masha, pressing closer to him. "What does it matter?
+I'll kiss them! Petrusha is worse than you, and I kiss his hand for
+every bit of bread. I hate it, but he wants it, so I do it, and then he
+pinches me and touches me, the beast!"
+
+Ilya's heart sprang up joyfully in a moment, perhaps because he had
+said the terrible thing, perhaps because he had not said everything.
+
+He smiled and spoke gently to the child. "All right, I'll fix it up
+with uncle, I'll manage it, you shall go on your pilgrimage. I'll give
+you some money for the journey."
+
+"You dear!" cried Masha, and fell on his neck.
+
+"Here let go! Stop it," said Lunev, seriously. "I promise you shall go.
+Will you pray for me, Mashutka?"
+
+"Pray for you! My God!"
+
+Jakov appeared in the door, and said wonderingly:
+
+"What on earth are you screaming at? Can hear you in the courtyard."
+
+"Jakov!" cried the girl joyfully, eager to tell him. "I'm going away,
+on the pilgrimage. Ilya's promised to speak to the hunchback, he'll
+take me with him," and she laughed delightedly.
+
+"Will he do it?" Jakov asked thoughtfully.
+
+"Why not? She won't get in the way, and it's a good thing for her. Look
+at her, her eyes are shining, hardly like a live person."
+
+"Yes--yes," said Jakov. After a moment's pause, he began to whistle
+softly.
+
+"What's up," asked Ilya.
+
+"Now I'm done for, all alone here, like the moon in the sky."
+
+"Oh, hire a nurse," said Ilya laughing.
+
+"I'll take to drink," said Jakov, shaking his head.
+
+Masha looked at him, hung her head, and went towards the door; from
+there she spoke in a reproachful, sad voice:
+
+"How weak you are, Jakov!"
+
+"And you're very strong, aren't you? leaving a friend in the lurch.
+Nice way you treat me--how shall I endure it without you?"
+
+He sat down at the table opposite Ilya with a gloomy face, and said:
+
+"Suppose I just go with Terenti, too, eh! on the quiet?"
+
+"Do it! I would," advised Ilya.
+
+"Yes, but my father'll put the police on me!"
+
+All were silent. Jakov began with forced gaiety:
+
+"It's jolly to get drunk! You think of nothing, you understand nothing,
+and it's jolly."
+
+Masha put the samovar on the table, and said, shaking her head:
+
+"Oh, you Aren't you ashamed to talk like that?"
+
+"You can't talk," cried Jakov, crossly. "Your father doesn't worry
+you--let's you do as you like. You live as you please."
+
+"A nice sort of life!" answered Masha. "I'd run away to get rid of it."
+
+"It's bad for us all," said Ilya softly, and fell to brooding again.
+
+Jakov began looking thoughtfully out of the window.
+
+"If one could get away, anywhere, out of all this, sit in a wood, by a
+river, and think about things."
+
+"That would be silly, to run away from life," said Ilya, peevishly.
+Jakov looked at him inquiringly, and said shyly:
+
+"D'you know, I've found a book."
+
+"What sort of book?"
+
+"Very old. It's bound in leather. It looks like a psalter, and it's
+really a heretic book. I bought it of a Tartar for seventy kopecks."
+
+"What's it called?" asked Ilya. He had no wish for conversation, but
+felt that silence might be perilous for him, and compelled himself to
+keep talking.
+
+"The title's torn out," answered Jakov, sinking his voice, "but
+it's all about the very beginning of things. It's difficult, and so
+horrible. It says that Thales, of Miletus, first of all said: 'All
+life proceeds from the water, and God dwells in matter as the power of
+life.' And then there was a wicked man called Diagoras, who taught that
+there were more gods than one, and he didn't believe in God properly.
+And Epicurus is talked about, and he said that there is a God, but He
+troubles about no one, and cares for no one. That's to say that if
+there is a God, men have nothing to do with Him; at least, that's how
+I understand it. Live just as you please, there's no one who takes any
+heed what you do."
+
+Ilya got up out of his chair with wrinkled brow, and interrupted his
+friend's discourse.
+
+"It'd be a good thing to take that book and thump you on the head with
+it."
+
+"Whatever for?" cried Jakov, hurt at Ilya's comment.
+
+"So's you won't read any more, stupid! And the man who wrote that
+book's a stupid too." He went round the table, bent over his friend,
+full of anger, shouting at Jakov, as though hammering his big head with
+the words.
+
+"There is a God! He sees everything. He knows everything. There's no
+one beside Him. Life is given to you to try you, and sin to prove you.
+Can you stand firm or no? If you can't then comes the punishment, be
+sure of it. Not from men; from Him, d'you see? It'll come; it won't
+fail."
+
+"Stop!" cried Jakov. "Did I say anything about that?"
+
+"I don't care. Your punishment'll come. How can you judge me, eh?"
+cried Ilya, pale with excitement, mastered by a quite incomprehensible
+passion that had caught him all of a sudden. "Not a hair falls from
+your head, except by His will, d'you hear? And if I have fallen into
+sin, it was by His will, you fool!"
+
+"Are you crazy or what is it?" cried Jakov, terrified, and leaning
+against the wall. "What sin have you fallen into?"
+
+Ilya heard the question through the buzzing and roaring in his ears,
+and it was like a cold breath blowing upon him. He looked suspiciously
+at Jakov and at Masha, who was also disturbed by his excitement and
+outcry.
+
+"I was only speaking by way of example," he said, in a dull way, and
+sat down again.
+
+"You don't seem well," remarked Masha shyly.
+
+"Your eyes are so heavy," added Jakov, and examined him attentively.
+
+Ilya passed his hand involuntarily over his eyes and said, quietly:
+
+"It's nothing; it'll pass off."
+
+A few minutes later he felt he could not endure this painful,
+distressing association with his friends, and went to his own room
+without waiting for tea. He had scarcely lain down on his bed before
+Terenti appeared. Ever since the hunchback had decided to go to the
+Holy Cities to seek forgiveness for his sins, his face wore a clearer,
+happier expression, as though he experienced already a foretaste of
+the joy that release from his weight of guilt would achieve for him.
+Gently he approached his nephew's bed, and said, smiling and friendly,
+stroking his beard:
+
+"I saw you come in, and I thought, I'll go and have a chat. We shan't
+be here together much longer."
+
+"You're really going?" asked Ilya, drily.
+
+"As soon as it's warmer, off I go. I want to be in Kiev for Easter."
+
+"Look here! Couldn't you take little Masha with you?"
+
+"What? No; that's impossible," cried the hunchback, with a gesture of
+refusal.
+
+"Listen," Ilya went on, obstinately. "She's nothing to do here; and now
+she's just the age--Jakov, Petrusha, and all the rest, you understand?
+This house is like a gulf of destruction for every one, a damnable
+place! Let her go. Perhaps she'll never come back."
+
+"But how can I take her with me?"
+
+"Take her--just take her!" said Ilya, persisting. "You can spend for
+her the hundred roubles you were going to give me. I don't need your
+money. And she will pray for you. Her prayers will be worth a good
+deal."
+
+The hunchback came nearer, and said, after a pause: "A good
+deal--That's true--You're right. But I can't take the money from you.
+We'll leave it as we settled. And for Masha, I'll see to it." His eyes
+shone with joy, and he whispered: "Do you know whom I got to know
+yesterday? A famous man, Peter Vassilitsch. Have you never heard of the
+Bible preacher, a man of wisdom! God must have sent him to me, to free
+my soul from doubt concerning the Lord's forgiveness of a sinner like
+me."
+
+Ilya said nothing. He only wished that his uncle would leave him alone.
+With half-shut eyes he looked out of the window.
+
+"We talked of sin and the salvation of the soul," whispered Terenti.
+"He said to me: 'As the chisel needs the stone to gain its sharpness,
+so man heeds sin, to wear away his soul, and bring it to the dust at
+the feet of all-merciful God.'"
+
+Ilya looked at his uncle, and said, with a mocking laugh:
+
+"Tell me, is this preacher like Satan, by any chance?"
+
+"How can you talk like that?" and Terenti recoiled a step. "He's a
+God-fearing man, he's more famous than Antipa, your grandfather--yes."
+
+"Oh! all right, what else did he say?"
+
+Suddenly Ilya laughed, a dry, unpleasant laugh; his uncle turned away
+surprised and asked: "What's the matter with you?"
+
+"Nothing. He was quite right, that preacher. Yes--the devil! I think so
+too, word for word."
+
+"He said, too," Terenti began with relish, "that sin gives the soul
+wings--wings of repentance to fly to the throne of the Almighty."
+
+"Do you know," interrupted Ilya, "you're rather like Satan, too!"
+
+The hunchback stretched out his arms like a great bird spreading its
+wings, and stood paralysed with fear and anger.
+
+Ilya sat up on his bed, pushed his uncle aside, and said, gloomily:
+
+"Get away!"
+
+Terenti stood in the middle of the room; he looked darkly at his nephew
+who sat on the bed, his head on his breast, and his shoulders up to his
+ears.
+
+"Suppose I won't repent," said Ilya boldly. "Suppose I think I didn't
+want to sin--everything happened of itself, everything is by God's
+will, why should I trouble? He knows all, and guides all; if He hadn't
+willed it, He would have held me back. So I was right in all I did. All
+men live in unrighteousness and sin, but how many repent?--Well, what
+do you say to that?"
+
+"I don't understand; God help you!" said Terenti sadly and sighed.
+
+"You don't understand? Then let me alone!"
+
+He stretched himself again on his bed; after a pause, he added:
+
+"Really, I believe I'm ill."
+
+"It looks like it."
+
+"I must get to sleep; go, let me alone. I want to sleep."
+
+When he was alone, Ilya felt a whirlpool raging in his head. All the
+extraordinary experiences he had lived through in a few short hours,
+grew to a dense hot mist, and weighed on his brain. He felt as though
+he had endured the torture for ever so long, as though he had killed
+the old man not to-day, but many days ago.
+
+He shut his eyes and did not move. In his ears rang the old man's
+squeaking voice: "Now then, your coins, quick!" and again came that
+hoarse cry of anguish: "My darling! My darling." The harsh voice of
+the black-bearded merchant, Masha's entreaty, the words of the heretic
+book, the pious talk of the preacher, all blended into one wild
+confused sound. Everything reeled around him, and in swift, ungoverned
+movement, swept him down. Fear left him, he needed only rest, sleep,
+forgetfulness. He slept.
+
+In the morning when he waked, he saw by the light on the wall opposite
+the window that it was a clear, frosty day. His head was dull and
+confused, but his heart was peaceful. He recalled the events of
+yesterday, watched the course of his own thought and felt convinced
+that he would know how to conduct himself. Half an hour later he
+went down the sunny street, his box against his breast, blinking his
+eyes before the dazzle of the snow, and calmly contemplating the
+folk he met. If he passed a church he took off his cap and crossed
+himself. Even before the church near the closed shop of Poluektov he
+crossed himself and went on without a trace of fear or remorse or any
+disturbing feeling. At his mid-day meal in an ale-house, he read in a
+paper the account of the daring murder of the money-changer. At the
+end of the article was written: "The police are taking active steps
+to arrest the criminal." As he read these words he shook his head with
+an incredulous smile, he was firmly convinced that the murderer would
+never be arrested, unless he himself desired to be taken.
+
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+
+In the evening of this day Olympiada sent a letter to Ilya by her
+servant:
+
+"Be at the corner of Kusnezkaya Street, by the Public Baths, at nine
+o'clock."
+
+As Ilya read the words, he felt his body contract internally, and he
+shivered as if with cold. Once more he saw the contemptuous expression
+on the face of his mistress, and in his ears rang her rough, insulting
+words: "Couldn't you come some other time?"
+
+He looked the letter all over, and could not determine why Olympiada
+had appointed this particular meeting place. Then all at once, he
+feared to understand, and his heart beat fiercely. He was punctual. The
+sight of Olympiada's tall figure among the many women who were walking,
+singly or in couples, near the public baths, increased his anxiety and
+restlessness. She wore an old fur jacket and a veil. He could only see
+her eyes. He stood before her in silence.
+
+"Come!" she said, and added, softly: "Turn up your coat-collar!"
+
+They walked through the passage of the building, keeping their faces
+turned aside, and disappeared quickly into a private room. Olympiada
+quickly threw aside her veil, and Ilya took new courage at the sight of
+her calm face, its colour heightened by the cold. Almost immediately he
+felt, however, that he disliked to see her so unmoved. She sat down on
+the divan, and said, looking in his face in a friendly way:
+
+"Well, my lad! We'll soon appear together before the police?"
+
+"Why?" asked Ilya, and wiped the hoar frost from his moustache.
+
+"How stupid you can seem! As if you didn't know!" cried Olympiada
+quietly, with a tinge of mockery. Then her brows contracted, and she
+said, seriously, in a low tone:
+
+"D'you know the police agent was at my house to-day. What d'you say to
+that?"
+
+Ilya looked at her, and said, drily:
+
+"What's that to me? Don't trouble me with your police, or anything
+else. Tell me simply why you've brought me here, with all this
+precaution."
+
+Olympiada looked at him searchingly, then said, with a mocking laugh:
+"Oh, you'll still play the innocent--but there's no time for that.
+Listen. When the police officer examines you and asks you when you
+got to know me, and whether you visited me often, say just the plain
+truth--exactly--do you hear?"
+
+"I hear," said Ilya, and smiled.
+
+"And if he asks you about the old man, say you never saw him, never;
+that you know nothing of him, that you never heard that any one was
+keeping me--d'you understand?"
+
+She looked Ilya through and through with an air of command. He felt an
+evil thought push up in him, that yet gave him pleasure. He thought
+that Olympiada feared him, and he found in himself a desire to torture
+her. He knit his brows and looked in her face with a furtive smile, but
+said nothing. A spasm of fear twitched her features, and she stepped
+back a pace, pale, whispering softly: "What is the matter? Why do you
+look like that? Ilya, Ilya!"
+
+"Tell me, why should I lie?" he asked, showing his teeth scornfully. "I
+have seen the old man at your house."
+
+Then, resting his elbows on the marble-topped table, he went on slowly
+and quietly, with a sudden access of bitter anger:
+
+"I did see him once, and I thought: 'This is the man who stands in my
+way and has spoilt my life;' and if I did not strangle him then and
+there----"
+
+"Don't tell lies!" cried Olympiada, loudly, and struck the table. "It
+is a lie! He was not in your way."
+
+"How was he not?"
+
+"He did nothing to you. You had only to wish it, and I'd have given him
+the go-by. Didn't I tell you I'd show him the door right away, if you
+wanted it? You smile there and you don't say anything. You never really
+loved me. It was your own choice to share with him. You worthless----"
+
+"Stop! Be quiet!" cried Ilya. He sprang up, but at once sat down again,
+as though the woman had crushed him by her accusation.
+
+"I will not be quiet!" she cried aloud. "I loved you because you were
+good-looking and wholesome; and you, what have you done to me? Did
+you ever say: 'Choose--him or me!' Did you ever say it? No! You were
+nothing but a love-sick tom-cat, like all the others."
+
+Ilya started at this insulting reproach. There was a darkness before
+his eyes, and with clenched fist he sprang up again.
+
+"Stop! How dare you?"
+
+"You'll strike me, will you? Well, then, do it!" and her eyes flashed
+threateningly and she ground her teeth. "Strike me, and I'll tear the
+door open and cry out that you killed him and planned it with me. Well,
+do it!"
+
+For a moment Ilya was paralysed with fear, but the feeling only touched
+his heart and vanished at once. Only he breathed with difficulty, as
+though unseen hands had him by the throat.
+
+Again he sank back on the divan, was silent for a while, then gave a
+forced laugh. He saw Olympiada bite her lips and look as if seeking
+something round the dirty room, full of a damp, soapy vapour. Then she
+sat down on the divan close to the door, let her head fall, and said:
+
+"Laugh away, you devil!"
+
+"I will, certainly."
+
+"When I saw you, I said 'that's the man for me, he'll help me, save
+me.'"
+
+"Lipa," said Ilya gently.
+
+She sat motionless and did not answer.
+
+"Lipa," he repeated, and then with a sense as of hurling himself into
+an abyss, he said slowly, clearly:
+
+"I did strangle the old man, by God!"
+
+She shuddered, lifted her head and looked at him with wide eyes. Her
+lips began to tremble and she stammered:
+
+"Silly boy, how frightened you are!"
+
+Ilya understood that it was she who felt the fear, and did not want to
+believe his words. He got up, moved nearer, and sat down beside her,
+smiling vaguely. She caught his head to her breast, and whispered in
+her deep voice, as she kissed his hair: "Ilushka! Ilushka! Why do you
+hurt me so? I was so glad you killed him, the old sneak."
+
+"Yes, I did it," he said, and nodded his head.
+
+"Sh!" said the woman, anxiously. "I'm glad he's out of the way. That's
+what should happen to them all--all who ever touched me. You are the
+only man I ever met. You are the first, my dear one."
+
+Her words drew him closer to her. He nestled with his face against her
+breast, till he could hardly breathe, but would not loosen his embrace,
+for he felt she was the only human being that was really near to him,
+and that more than ever now he needed her.
+
+"When you stand there fresh and healthy, and look at me angrily, then I
+feel the degradation of my life, and I love you even for that, because
+of your pride."
+
+Great tears fell on Ilya's face, and as their falling moved him, over
+his own cheeks flowed a stream that freed his soul. She took his head
+in her hands, kissed eyes and cheeks, and lips, and said:
+
+"I know it's only my beauty holds you--your heart doesn't love me, and
+it condemns me. You can't forgive me my life, and that old man."
+
+"Don't speak of him," said Ilya. He dried his face with her kerchief
+and rose up calm.
+
+"Let come what may," he said slowly and firmly. "If God means to
+punish, He finds the way. I thank you, Lipa, for your words, what you
+say is right. I am guilty towards you. I thought you were--only such a
+one as----and you are----forgive me dear!"
+
+He stammered with dry lips and dim eyes. Slowly, he smoothed his
+disordered hair with a trembling hand, and said in a dull, hopeless way:
+
+"I am guilty of everything. Why? Why? Oh! Satan!"
+
+"Olympiada caught his hand; he sank on the divan beside her and said,
+not heeding her whispered words:
+
+"Do you understand? I strangled him; do you believe it?"
+
+"Sh!" cried Olympiada, in an anxious muffled voice. "What are you
+saying?"
+
+She embraced him closely, and looked into his face with troubled eyes.
+
+"Let me go! it--it happened all of a sudden--God knows I didn't mean to
+do it. I only wanted to see his hateful face again, that's why I went
+into the shop. I had no intention,--and then it came in a moment, the
+devil urged me and God did not hold me back. I shouldn't have taken the
+money, that was silly, ah!"
+
+He sighed deeply, and the hard rind of his heart seemed to loosen.
+Olympiada was quivering at his story, she held him even closer and
+whispered brokenly, disconnectedly. Presently she said: "It was a good
+thing you took the money, they'll think now it was for robbery, and not
+for jealousy; that would be worse for us."
+
+"I don't feel sorry," said Ilya thoughtfully. "I won't repent. God may
+punish me! Men are not my judges; what sort of judges would they be! I
+know no men without sin, not one. I'll wait."
+
+"O God," stammered Olympiada. "What is it? What will happen? Dear, I'm
+quite stupid. I can't think clearly--but let's go away from here--it's
+time."
+
+She stood up and swayed like a drunken woman. But when she had fastened
+her veil, she said of a sudden, quite calmly:
+
+"What's going to happen, Ilya? Will it go hard----?"
+
+Ilya shook his head.
+
+"Tell the magistrate everything, just as it was; that is, not
+everything, but----"
+
+"I'll say it. Do you think I won't stand up for myself, or that I want
+to go to Siberia for this old wretch and a matter of two thousand
+roubles? No? I've something else to do with my life!"
+
+His face was red with excitement, and his eyes shone. She came close to
+him and said in a whisper:
+
+"Did you really only take two thousand roubles?"
+
+"Two thousand and a little more."
+
+"Poor boy; no luck even there!" and the tears shone in her eyes.
+
+Ilya, smiled and said bitterly:
+
+"Ah! d'you think I did it for the money? you know better--wait!--let me
+go first."
+
+"Come and see me soon; there's no need for us to hide; come soon."
+
+They parted with a long passionate kiss. As soon as Ilya reached the
+street he hailed a droshky. As he went he kept looking back to see if
+he were followed. His heart was lighter and a warm, tender feeling for
+Olympiada awaked in it. By no word or look had she wounded him, when
+he made his confession, she had rather taken on herself a part of the
+guilt than thrust him away. One minute before, when she did not know,
+she was ready to destroy him; he had read it in her face; then suddenly
+she had changed; he smiled gently as he thought of it.
+
+Next day Ilya felt like the quarry that finds the huntsman on its
+track. Petrusha met him in the bar room early; he answered Ilya's
+greeting with a nod, and looked at him strangely, searchingly. Terenti
+looked hard at him, sighed and said nothing, Jakov met him in Masha's
+room, and said with a terrified face:
+
+"Last night the Ward Superintendent was here; he asked father all about
+you. Why did he do that?"
+
+"What did he ask about?" said Ilya quietly.
+
+"Everything--how you live, if you drink brandy, if you go with
+women,--he mentioned some Olympiada; didn't you know her, he asked. Why
+did he want to know all this?"
+
+"Heaven knows;" answered Ilya, and left him.
+
+That evening came another letter from Olympiada.
+
+"They've questioned me about you. I have said everything exactly;
+there's nothing in all that, and it isn't risky. Don't be anxious. I
+kiss you dearest."
+
+He threw the letter at once in the fire. In Filimonov's house as well
+as in the bar, the talk was all of the murder. Ilya listened with
+a distinct sense of pleasure. He liked to pass near men who were
+discussing his deed, asking for details, which were invented freely,
+and thought with pleasure what profound amazement he could bring on
+them if he said:
+
+"I did it--I!"
+
+Some praised the cleverness of the criminal, some pointed out that he
+had failed to get all the money, some seemed to fear, lest he should
+yet be arrested, but not one single voice was heard to lament the
+victim, no one uttered on his account so much as a friendly word. Ilya
+despised them that they had no pity for the merchant, though he himself
+had none. He thought no more of Poluektov, only realising that he had
+taken a burden of guilt on himself and would be punished at some future
+time. This thought, in the present, disturbed him not at all; he bound
+it into his conscience and it became a part of his soul. It was like a
+bruise from a blow, it did not hurt if it were not disturbed.
+
+He was deeply convinced that the hour must come when the vengeance of
+God would overtake him. God knows everything, and would not forgive the
+transgressor of His law: but this calm steady readiness to meet the
+punishment, any day, any hour, enabled Ilya to feel and behave as he
+did before the murder. Only he watched men more closely, and traced
+their weaknesses more zealously. This pleased him, though he realised
+that he was in no way exonerated thereby.
+
+He was gloomier, more reserved, but from morning to night, as usual, he
+carried his wares about the town, visited alehouses, observed men, and
+listened to their talk. One day he thought of the money he had hidden
+and wondered if he would conceal it elsewhere. But at once he said
+to himself: "It's no good. Let it be. If they look and find it, I'll
+confess."
+
+There was as yet no search after the money, and it was the sixth day
+before Ilya was summoned before the magistrate. Before he went, he
+changed his linen, put on his best jacket, and brushed his boots till
+they shone. He went in a sleigh. It jolted over the uneven streets till
+he had difficulty in holding himself upright and motionless. He felt
+his body so tensely strung that he feared to break something in him by
+a sudden movement. He mounted the steps of the Court House slowly and
+carefully, as though he were wearing clothes of glass.
+
+The magistrate was a young man, with curly hair and a hooked nose,
+wearing gold-rimmed spectacles. When he saw Ilya, he first rubbed his
+thin white hands, then removed his spectacles and polished the lenses
+with his handkerchief, looking the while at Ilya with his big dark
+eyes. Ilya bowed silently.
+
+"Good-day! Sit down there."
+
+He indicated a chair at a big table covered with a dull red cloth.
+Ilya sat down, carefully pushing away with his elbow a pile of legal
+documents lying at the edge of the table. The magistrate noticed the
+movement, politely moved the papers, and sat down opposite Ilya.
+Without speaking, he began to turn the leaves of a book, and measured
+Ilya with sidelong glances. Ilya disliked the silence. He turned away
+and looked round the room. It was the first time he had seen a place
+so orderly and so richly furnished. All round the walls hung framed
+portraits and pictures. In one Christ was represented, walking, lost in
+thought, His head bowed, alone and sad, among ruins. Corpses of men
+and scattered weapons lay at his feet, and in the background, a dense
+black smoke rose up into the sky. Something was burning. Ilya looked
+long at this picture, and tried to understand what it represented.
+So much so that he was on the point of asking when suddenly the
+magistrate shut his book with a bang. Ilya started and looked at
+him. The magistrate's face wore a weary, dull expression, his lips
+were depressed oddly at the corners, as though some one had hurt his
+feelings.
+
+"Well," he said, and tapped the table with his finger, "you are Ilya
+Jakovlevitch Lunev, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You can guess why I have summoned you?"
+
+"No," answered Ilya, and took another fleeting look at the picture.
+Then his eyes travelled over the solid, fine furniture, and he was
+conscious of the perfume the magistrate had been using. It distracted
+his thoughts and calmed him to observe his surroundings, and envy rose
+in his heart.
+
+"This is how distinguished people live." The thought went through his
+head. "It must be very profitable to catch thieves and murderers. I
+wonder what he gets."
+
+"You can't guess?" repeated the magistrate. "Has Olympiada said nothing
+to you?"
+
+"No. It's some time since I saw her."
+
+The magistrate threw himself back in his chair, and the corners of his
+lips went down.
+
+"How long?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know, eight or nine days perhaps."
+
+"Ah! is that so? tell me, did you often meet old Poluektov at her
+house?"
+
+"The old man who was murdered a little while ago?" asked Ilya, and
+looked his questioner in the eyes.
+
+"Yes, that's the man."
+
+"I never met him."
+
+"Never?"
+
+"Never."
+
+The magistrate fired off his questions quickly with a certain
+nonchalance, and when Ilya, who answered very cautiously, was slow to
+reply, he drummed impatiently on the table with his fingers.
+
+"You knew that Olympiada Petrovna was kept by Poluektov?" he asked
+suddenly, and looked sharply through his spectacles.
+
+Ilya reddened at the glance, which seemed in some way to wound him.
+
+"No," he said in a dull tone.
+
+"Oh! yes, she was kept by him," repeated the magistrate, angrily,--"to
+my thinking that is not good," he added, as he saw Ilya about to answer.
+
+"How should there be anything good in it?" said Ilya softly, at length.
+
+"True."
+
+But Ilya said no more.
+
+"And you--you've known her a long time?"
+
+"More than a year."
+
+"You were intimate with her before her acquaintance with Poluektov?"
+
+"You're a cunning fox," thought Ilya, and said quietly:
+
+"How can I say, when I didn't know that she lived with the man that's
+dead."
+
+The magistrate drew his lips together and whistled, and began to finger
+the pile of documents. Ilya looked again at the picture; he felt that
+his interest in it helped him to keep calm. From somewhere, the clear,
+gay laugh of a child came to his ear. Then a happy, gentle, woman's
+voice sang tenderly: "My Annie, my little one, my darling, my dear."
+
+"That picture appears to interest you greatly."
+
+"Where is Christ supposed to be going?" asked Ilya.
+
+The magistrate looked in his face with a weary, disillusioned
+expression, and said after a pause:
+
+"You can see. He's come down to earth to see how men fulfil His
+commands. He's going over a battle-field--round about are dead men,
+houses destroyed, fire plundering."
+
+"Can't He see that from Heaven?"
+
+"H'm, it's rather an allegory, it's represented like that, so as to
+be plainer, to show how little real life agrees with the teaching of
+Christ, that is----But come, I must ask you a question or two yet."
+
+Ilya turned from the picture and looked in the magistrate's face; a
+number of little unimportant questions followed, annoying Ilya like
+autumn flies. He grew tired and felt his attention growing slack and
+his carefulness wither under the monotonous dull sound. He grew angry
+with the magistrate, who set these questions, as he well understood, on
+purpose to weary him.
+
+"Can you tell me perhaps," said the magistrate quickly, apparently
+without any particular intent, "where you were on Thursday between two
+o'clock and three."
+
+"In the ale-house; I was having tea."
+
+"Ah! in which inn then? Where?"
+
+"In the Plevna."
+
+"How is it you are so certain that you were there just at that time?"
+
+The magistrate's face looked tense, he leaned over the table and stared
+into Ilya's face with flaming eyes. Ilya did not reply at once. After a
+second or two he sighed and said with composure:
+
+"Just before I went in, I asked the time of a policeman."
+
+The magistrate leaned back again, and began to tap his finger-nails
+with a blue pencil.
+
+"The policeman told me it was twenty minutes to two, or something like
+that."
+
+"He knows you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you no watch?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Have you ever before asked him the time?"
+
+"Yes, it has happened."
+
+"The town hall is near, there's a clock."
+
+"One forgets to look, and then it was snowing."
+
+"Were you long in the Plevna?"
+
+"Till the news came of the murder."
+
+"Where did you go then?"
+
+"I went to look."
+
+"Did any one see you there, in front of the shop?"
+
+"That policeman saw me, he sent me off--pushed me."
+
+"Very good, very important for you," said the magistrate approvingly,
+then asked at once without looking at Ilya:
+
+"Did you ask the time before the murder or after?"
+
+Ilya saw the drift of the question. He turned sharp round in his chair
+full of rage against this man with the shining white linen, the thin
+fingers, well-tended nails, and gold spectacles in front of piercing
+dark eyes.
+
+Instead of answering, he asked:
+
+"How can I tell?"
+
+The magistrate coughed drily, and rubbed his hands till the fingers
+cracked.
+
+"Well done," he said in a tone of displeasure. "Splendid!--yes."
+
+And he shifted his chair as though tired.
+
+"Very good; one or two questions now and I'll let you go. Do you know,
+by any chance, that policeman's name?"
+
+"Jeremin, Matvey Ivanovitch."
+
+The magistrate's tone was bored and indifferent; obviously he did not
+expect now to hear anything interesting.
+
+Ilya answered, always on the look out for another question like the one
+as to the time of the murder. Every word echoed in his breast again as
+though it plucked a tense string in an empty space. But no more cunning
+questions came.
+
+"As you went down the street that day, did you not meet a tall man in a
+short fur jacket and black lambs-wool cap? Do you remember?"
+
+"No," said Ilya harshly.
+
+"Now, listen. I'll read over your statement to you, and you will sign
+it."
+
+He held a sheet of paper covered with writing before his face, and
+began to read quickly and monotonously. When he had finished, he put
+a pen in Ilya's hand. Ilya bent down, signed, rose slowly from his
+chair, and said in a loud, assured voice, looking at the magistrate:
+"Good-day!"
+
+A short, condescending nod was his answer, and the magistrate bent over
+his desk, and began to write. Ilya stood thinking. He would gladly have
+said something more to this man who had held him so long on the rack.
+In the quiet, only the scratch of the pen was heard, then the woman's
+voice, singing, "Dance away, dance away, dolly."
+
+"What do you want now?" asked the magistrate, and raised his head.
+
+"Nothing," said Ilya gloomily.
+
+"I told you, you can go."
+
+"I'm going."
+
+"All right, then."
+
+They looked angrily at one another, and Ilya felt something heavy,
+terrifying, grow in his breast. He turned sharp round and went out into
+the street. A cold wind greeted him, and for the first time he noticed
+that he was sweating profusely. Half-an-hour later he was sitting with
+Olympiada. She opened the door to him herself, having seen him from the
+window. She met him with almost a mother's joy. Her face was pale, and
+she gazed restlessly about with wide-open eyes.
+
+"My clever boy!" she cried, when Ilya told her that he had just come
+from the magistrate. "Tell me, tell me, how did you get on?"
+
+"The brute," said Ilya, in wrath. "He set traps for me."
+
+"He can't help it," remarked Olympiada, in a tone of common sense. "Let
+him be; it's his infernal duty."
+
+"Why didn't he say straight out--'So-and-so, this is what people think
+of you.'"
+
+"Did you tell him everything straight out?" she asked, smiling.
+
+"I!" cried Ilya in astonishment. "Why, yes--as a matter of fact--ah,
+devil take him!"
+
+He seemed quite abashed and said after a while:
+
+"And as I sat there, I thought, by God, I was right!"
+
+"Now, thank heaven, it's all passed over all right."
+
+Ilya looked at her with a smile. "I didn't need to lie much. I'm lucky,
+after all, Lipa!"
+
+He laughed again in a strange way.
+
+"The secret police are always at my heels," said Olympiada, in a low
+voice, "and after you too."
+
+"Of course," said Ilya, full of scorn and anger. "They go sniffing
+around, and want to hem me in, like the beaters do to the wolf in the
+forest. But they won't do it; they're not the men for that; and I'm not
+a wolf, but an unlucky man. I didn't mean to strangle any one. Fate
+strangles me--as Pashka says in his poem--and it strangles Pashka too,
+and Jakov, and all of us."
+
+"Never mind, Ilushka. Everything will go right now."
+
+Ilya got up, walked to the window, and said, with a despairing voice,
+as he looked at the street:
+
+"All my life I've had to wallow in the mud. I've always been pushed
+into things I disliked--hated. I've never met a soul I could look at
+really happily. Is there nothing pure in life, nothing noble? Now, I've
+strangled this--this man of yours,--why? I've only smirched myself, and
+damned myself. I took money. I ought not."
+
+"Don't be sorry!" She tried to console him. "He isn't worth it."
+
+"I'm not sorry for him; only I want to get myself straight. Every one
+tries, else he can't live. That magistrate, he lives like a sugar-plum
+in its box. No one will strangle him. He can be good and upright in his
+pretty nest."
+
+"Never mind, we'll go away together from this place."
+
+"No. I'll go nowhere," cried Ilya fiercely, and wheeled round to her,
+and added, seeming to threaten some unknown person.
+
+"No--no--patience! I'll wait and see what will come; I'll fight it
+out still," and he strode up and down the room, and shook his head
+defiantly.
+
+"Oh!" said Olympiada, in an injured tone. "You won't go with me,
+because you're afraid of me; you think I should always have a hold on
+you, you think I should use what I know--you're wrong, my dear. I'll
+never drag you with me by force."
+
+She spoke quietly, but her lips twitched as though she were in pain.
+
+"What did you say?" asked Ilya, quite surprised.
+
+"I won't compel you, don't be frightened; go where you will!"
+
+"Wait a moment," said Ilya, as he sat down near her, and took her hand.
+
+"I didn't understand what you said."
+
+"Don't pretend!" she cried, and drew away her hand. "I know you're
+proud, and passionate; you can't forgive the old man; you hate my
+life--you think that it's all come about through me."
+
+"You're talking foolishly," said Ilya, quietly. "I don't blame you in
+the very least, I know that for men like me there are no women who are
+pretty and fine and pure as well. Such women are dear, they are only
+for the rich, and we must love the soiled and those who are spat upon
+and abused."
+
+"Then leave me, the spat upon and abused!" cried Olympiada, springing
+up from her chair. "Go away--go away!"
+
+But suddenly tears shone in her eyes and she covered Ilya with a flood
+of burning words, like hot coals.
+
+"I myself, of my own will crept into this pit, because there's money
+in it. I meant to climb up the ladder again with the money, begin a
+decent life--and you helped me, I know, and I love you, and will love
+you though you strangle twenty men; it isn't your goodness I love, but
+your pride, and your youth, your curly head and your strong arms and
+your dark eyes, and your reproaches that pierce my heart. I shall be
+grateful for all this till I die.--I'll kiss your feet."
+
+She threw herself at his feet, and embraced his knees.
+
+"God is my witness, I sinned to save my soul. I must be dearer to Him
+if I don't end my life in this filth, but struggle through it and lead
+a clean life. Then I will entreat His forgiveness. I will not endure
+this torment all my life; they have soiled me with mud and filth; all
+my tears will never wash me clean."
+
+At first Ilya tried to free himself and raise her from the ground, but
+she clung close to him, pressed her head against his knees and laid her
+cheek at his feet. And she spoke on with a low, passionate, gasping
+voice. Presently he caressed her with a trembling hand, raised her,
+embraced her, and laid her head on his shoulder, her hot cheek pressed
+close to his, and as she lay supported by his arms on her knees before
+him, she whispered:
+
+"Does it do any one any good if a woman who has sinned once spends
+almost her whole life in humiliation? When I was a girl and my
+stepfather came near me to make me impure, I stuck a knife in him. I
+did it without a thought. Then they made me drunk with wine and ruined
+me. I was a girl, so tidy, so pretty and red-cheeked as an apple. I
+cried for myself. I hurt myself. I cried for my beauty. I didn't want
+it! I didn't want it! And then I said to myself: 'It's all the same
+now. There's no going back. Good,' I thought, 'at least I'll sell my
+shame as dear as I can.' I never kissed from my heart till I kissed
+you. I always just lived in filth and rioting."
+
+Her words were lost in a soft whisper. Suddenly she tore herself from
+Ilya's embrace. "Let me go!" she cried, and thrust him away.
+
+But he held her closer, and began to kiss her face, passionately,
+despairingly.
+
+"Let me go! You hurt me!" she said.
+
+"I can say nothing," said Ilya, feverishly. "Only one thing--no one
+has had pity on us, and we need have pity on no one. You spoke so
+beautifully! Come, let me kiss you. How else can I make it up to you?
+My dear! My dearest! I love you! Ah, I don't know how I love you. I've
+no words to tell you."
+
+Her lamentation had really roused in him a burning feeling of affection
+for this woman. Her sorrow and his misfortune were molten together,
+and their hearts came nearer and nearer. They held one another in a
+close embrace, and softly told one another all the long sufferings they
+had endured from life. A courageous, fierce feeling rose in Ilya's
+heart.
+
+"We were not born for fortune, we two," said the woman, and shook her
+head hopelessly.
+
+"Good! Then we will celebrate out misfortune! Shall we go to the mines,
+to Siberia, together? Eh? Ah, there's time for that. As yet we will
+enjoy our pain and our love. Now they might burn me with red-hot irons,
+my heart is so light. I repent nothing!"
+
+Outside the window, the sky was a monotonous grey. A cold mist
+enwrapped the earth and settled in white rime on the trees. In the
+little garden, a young birch-tree swayed its thin branches gently, and
+shook the snow away. The winter evening came on.
+
+
+
+
+XV.
+
+
+Two days later Ilya learnt that a tall man in a lambs-wool cap was
+being sought for as the probable murderer of Poluektov. During the
+investigations made in the shop, two silver clasps from an eikon were
+found and it appeared that these were stolen goods. The errand boy
+who had been employed in the business, stated that these mounts had
+been bought from a tall man in a short fur jacket, called Andrei, that
+this Andrei had several times before sold gold and silver ornaments to
+Poluektov, and that the money-changer had advanced him money. Further
+it was known that on the evening before the murder and on the same
+day, a man corresponding to the description, had wasted much money in
+carousing in the public houses of the town.
+
+Every day Ilya heard something new; the whole town took a keen interest
+in this crime, so ingeniously carried out, and in all the ale-houses
+and all the streets nothing else was spoken of. But all the talk had
+little attraction for Ilya. Fear had fallen from his heart, like the
+scab from a wound, and instead he only felt now a sense of awkwardness.
+He listened attentively to all that was said, but thought only--how
+would his life shape itself now, what had the future in store for
+him? And the conviction that the murderer would not be discovered,
+strengthened every day.
+
+He felt like a recruit before the conscription summons, or like a man
+who is proceeding towards some unknown far-off goal. More than ever he
+felt the need to live for himself and take thought for himself, but
+life hissed and boiled round him like water in a kettle, and almost
+every day came something to distract his mind from its preoccupation.
+He grew pale and thin.
+
+Of late Jakov had been more drawn to him again. Tousled and carelessly
+dressed, he wandered aimlessly about the tap room and the courtyard,
+looking vaguely at everything with wandering eyes and had the
+appearance of a man brought face to face with strange ideas. When he
+met Ilya he would ask him mysteriously, half aloud, or whispering,
+"Have you no time to talk?"
+
+"Wait a bit; I can't now."
+
+"It's something very important."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"It's a book. I tell you, brother, the things in it----Oh! oh!" said
+Jakov, with a terrified air.
+
+"Bother your books! I'd rather know why your father always scowls at me
+now."
+
+But Jakov had no mind for realities.
+
+At Ilya's question he looked astonished, as though he hardly
+understood, and said:
+
+"Eh? I don't know. That is, once I heard him speaking to your uncle
+about it; something about your passing false money; but he only said it
+chaffing."
+
+"How do you know he was only chaffing?"
+
+"Why, what a thing to say--false money," he interrupted Ilya with a
+gesture as though to wave the subject away. "But won't you talk to me?
+No time?"
+
+"About your book?"
+
+"Yes, there's a bit in it I've just read. Oh! well!"
+
+And the philosopher made a face as though something had scalded him.
+Ilya looked at his friend as at a person half idiotic. Sometimes Jakov
+seemed to him absolutely blind. He took him for an unlucky man, unfit
+to cope with life.
+
+The gossip ran in the house, and it was all over the street already,
+that Petrusha was going to marry his mistress, who kept a public house
+in the town. But Jakov paid absolutely no attention. When Ilya asked
+him when the wedding was to be, he said:
+
+"Whose wedding?"
+
+"Why, your father's."
+
+"Oh! who's to know? disgusting! A pretty witch he's chosen!"
+
+"Do you know she has a son--a big boy, who goes to the High School?"
+
+"No, I didn't know. Why?"
+
+"He'll come in for your father's property."
+
+"Oh!" said Jakov, indifferently, then with a sudden interest, "A son,
+you say?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A son--that'll just do, father can stick him behind the bar, and I can
+do what I like. That'll suit me."
+
+And he smacked his lips as with a foretaste of his longed-for freedom.
+Ilya looked at him with pity, then said, mockingly:
+
+"The proverb is right, 'Give the stupid child a piece of bread if he
+wants a carrot.' You! I can't imagine how you're going to live."
+
+Jakov pricked up his ears, looked at Ilya with big eyes starting out of
+his head, then said in a hurried whisper:
+
+"I know how I shall live! I've thought about it! Before everything, one
+must get one's soul in order; must understand what God wants one to do.
+Now I see one thing; the ways of men are all confused, like tangled
+threads, and they are drawn in different directions, and no one knows
+what to hold to or where to let himself be drawn. Now a man is born--no
+one knows why--and lives--I don't know why--and death comes and blows
+out the light. Before anything else I must know what I'm in the world
+for, mustn't I?"
+
+"You--you've tied yourself up in your cobwebs," said. Ilya with some
+heat. "I'd like to know what's the sense of that?"
+
+He felt that Jakov's dark sayings gripped his heart more strongly than
+of old, and waked very strange thoughts in him. He felt as though there
+were a being in his mind, the same that always opposed his clear,
+simple conception of a clean, comfortable life, that listened to Jakov
+with strange curiosity, and moved in his soul like a child in the
+mother's womb.
+
+This troubled Ilya, confused him, and seemed to him undesirable, and
+therefore he avoided conversation with Jakov; but it was not easy to
+get rid of him once he had begun.
+
+"What's the sense? It's very simple. Not to be clear where you're
+going's like trying to burn without fire, isn't it? You must know where
+you're going, and why, and if it's the right road."
+
+"You're like an old man, Jakov--you're a bit of a bore. My opinion is,
+as the proverb says: 'Seeing that even swine long to be happy, how
+should man do otherwise.' Good-bye!"
+
+After such conversation, he felt as though he had eaten something
+very salt; he was overcome with thirst, and longed for something out
+of the common. The thought of the punishment God held over him burned
+more brightly in him and singed his soul; he sought for loneliness and
+could not find it. Then he would go to Olympiada, and in her arms seek
+forgetfulness and peace from torturing thought. Sometimes he would go
+to see Vyera. The life she led had drawn her deeper and deeper into
+its deep turbid whirlpool. She used to tell Ilya with excitement,
+of feasting with rich young tradesmen, with officials and officers,
+of suppers in restaurants and troika excursions. She showed him new
+dresses and jackets, the gifts of her admirers. Luxurious, strong,
+and healthy, she was proud to be entreated and quarrelled over. Ilya
+rejoiced in her health and good spirits and beauty, but more than once
+warned her: "Don't lose your head at the game, Vyeratchka."
+
+"What's the odds? It's my way. At least, one lives in style. I take all
+I can get from life. That's enough!"
+
+"Well, what about Pavel?"
+
+As soon as he named her lover, she lost her gaiety and her brows
+contracted.
+
+"If only he'd let me go my own way! It troubles him so, and he torments
+himself so! If only he'd be content with what I can give him. But he
+wants me altogether, and I can't stop now; I'm like a fly caught in the
+treacle."
+
+"Don't you love him?"
+
+"I can't help it," she replied, seriously, "he's such a fine fellow."
+
+"Very well, then, you ought to live with him."
+
+"With him? Nice drag I should be on him! He has barely a bit of bread
+for himself, how's he to keep me too? No, I'm sorry for him."
+
+"Look out that no harm comes of it. He's hot-tempered," Ilya warned her
+one day; but she laughed.
+
+"He? He's as gentle--I can twist him which way I want."
+
+"You'll break him!"
+
+"Good heavens!" she cried crossly, "what am I to do? Was I born for
+just one man? Every one wants to enjoy his life, and every one lives
+for himself, as he pleases, just as you do, and I do."
+
+"N--No! it isn't so exactly," said Ilya gloomily and thoughtfully. "We
+all live, but not only for ourselves."
+
+"For whom, then?"
+
+"Take yourself, for instance. You live for the young clerks and all
+sorts of easy-going people."
+
+"I'm easy-going too," said Vyera, and laughed contentedly.
+
+Ilya left her, in a downcast mood. Only twice, and for a moment, had he
+seen Pavel during this time. Once when he met his friend at Vyera's
+house, he had sat there dark and troubled, silent, with teeth clenched
+and a red spot on each cheek. Ilya understood that Pavel was jealous
+of him, and that flattered his vanity. But he saw too, clearly, that
+Gratschev was tangled in a net, from which he would hardly free himself
+without severe injury. He pitied Pavel, and still more Vyera, and gave
+up visiting her. He was living a new honeymoon with Olympiada. But
+here too, a cold shadow glided in and took the peace from his heart.
+Sometimes, in the midst of a conversation, he would sink into a deep
+moodiness. Olympiada said to him once, in a loving whisper:
+
+"Dear, don't think of it. There are so few men in the world whose hands
+are clean."
+
+"Listen!" he answered seriously and tonelessly. "Please don't speak
+of that to me! I'm not thinking of my hands, but of my soul. You are
+clever, but you can never understand what it is that moves me. Tell me,
+if you can, how shall a man begin, what shall he do, to live honourably
+and cleanly, peacefully and rightly to others? That is what I want to
+know. But say nothing to me of the old man!"
+
+But she could not keep silence, and implored him again and again to
+forget. He grew angry, and went away. When he returned, she flew out at
+him, and exclaimed that he only loved her out of fear, or from pity;
+that she would not endure it, and would rather leave him, rather go
+away out of the town. She wept, pinched or bit him, then kissed his
+feet, or tore her clothes like a mad thing, and said:
+
+"Am I not beautiful, desirable? And I love you with every vein, every
+drop of my blood. Hurt me, tear me, and I'll laugh at it." Her blue
+eyes would darken, her lips quiver, and her bosom heave. Then he would
+embrace her and kiss her passionately; but afterwards, as he went home,
+he would wonder how she, so full of life, so passionate, how could she
+endure the disgusting caresses of that old man? Then Olympiada appeared
+so pitiable, so contemptible that he could spit for disgust when he
+thought of her kisses. One day, after such an outbreak, he said to her,
+tired of her caresses:
+
+"Do you love me more warmly since I strangled that old devil?"
+
+"Yes, of course. Why?"
+
+"Nothing. It makes me laugh to think there are people who like a
+stale egg better than a fresh, and would rather eat an apple when its
+rotten--odd!"
+
+She looked at him wearily, and said in a tired voice:
+
+"'Every beast likes something best,' as the saying goes. One likes the
+owl, another the nightingale."
+
+And both fell into a heavy moodiness.
+
+One day when Ilya had returned home and was changing his clothes,
+Terenti came quietly into the room. He shut the door fast behind him,
+stood a moment, as if listening, then pushed to the bolts.
+
+Ilya noticed this, and looked at him mockingly.
+
+"Ilusha," began Terenti, in a low voice as he sat down on a chair.
+
+"Well."
+
+"There are strange reports going about you; people say evil things of
+you."
+
+The hunchback sighed, and closed his eyes.
+
+"For instance?" said Ilya, drawing on his boots.
+
+"Some say one thing, some another; some say you were mixed up in that
+affair when the old merchant was strangled; others say you pass false
+money."
+
+"They're envious, eh?"
+
+"Different people have been here, secret police it
+seems--detectives--they questioned Petrusha about you."
+
+"Let them till they're tired," said Ilya, indifferently.
+
+"Certainly, what have they to do with us if we have no sins on our
+conscience?"
+
+Ilya laughed and stretched himself on the bed.
+
+"They don't come now, but Petrusha is always on about it," said Terenti
+shyly, in an embarrassed way. "He's always taunting one, Petrusha. You
+ought to take a little room for yourself somewhere, Ilusha, a room of
+your own to live in. Yes. 'I can't have these worthy dark gentlemen in
+my house,' says Petrusha. 'I'm a town councillor,' he says."
+
+Ilya turned, his face red with anger, on his uncle, and said loudly:
+
+"Listen! If he values his ugly face, let him hold his tongue! Tell him
+that! If I hear one word I don't like, I'll smash his skull for him.
+Whatever I am, he, at any rate, has no call to judge me, the scoundrel!
+And I'll go away when I want to. Meantime I shall stay and enjoy this
+honourable and distinguished company."
+
+The hunchback was terrified at Ilya's wrath; he sat silent a while,
+rubbing his back, and looking at his nephew with big eyes full of
+anxious expectation.
+
+Ilya compressed his lips and stared at the ceiling. Terenti looked at
+him, the curly head, serious handsome face, with the small moustache
+and strong chin, the broad chest and all the vigorous, well-knit body,
+and then said slowly, with a sigh:
+
+"What a fine lad you've grown! the girls in the village would crowd
+after you. We'll go to the village."
+
+Ilya was silent.
+
+"H'm, yes--you'll have a real life there! I'll give you money, and set
+you up in business, and then you'll marry a rich girl, he! he! And your
+life will glide along like a sleigh on the snow downhill."
+
+"Perhaps I prefer to go uphill," said Ilya, peevishly.
+
+"Of course, uphill," Terenti caught up his words. "That's what I meant;
+it's an easy life--that's what I meant; why, uphill, of course, to the
+very top."
+
+"And when I'm there, what then?"
+
+The hunchback looked at him and chuckled. Then he spoke again, but
+Ilya did not listen. He was thinking of all his experiences of this
+later time, and figuring to himself how evenly all life hangs together,
+like the strings in a net. Circumstances surround men and lead them
+where they will, as the police do the rogues. He had always had it in
+his mind to leave this house and live by himself, and now here chance
+comes to his aid! He was still thinking how he would plan out his life
+alone, when there came a sudden knock at the door.
+
+"Open it!" cried Ilya crossly to his uncle, who was shaking with fear.
+
+The hunchback drew back the bolts and Jakov appeared, a great,
+red-brown book in his hand.
+
+"Ilya, come to Mashutka!" he said quickly, and advanced to the bed.
+
+"What's wrong with her?" said Ilya hastily.
+
+"With her? I don't know, she's not at home."
+
+"Where does she always go gadding to in the evenings?" asked the
+hunchback in a tone of annoyance.
+
+"She always goes out with Matiza," said Ilya.
+
+"She'll get a lot of good there!" answered Terenti, with emphasis.
+
+"It doesn't matter. Come Ilya!"
+
+Jakov caught Ilya by the sleeve and drew him away.
+
+"Hold on!" cried Lunev. "Tell me, have you got your mind clear yet?"
+
+"Think--it's here--the Black Magic's here!" whispered Jakov, radiant.
+
+"Who?" asked Ilya, pulling on his felt slippers.
+
+"Why, you know, the book. Heavens! you'll see. Come. Extraordinary
+things, I tell you," Jakov went on enthusiastically, as he dragged his
+friend along the dark passage.
+
+"It's awful to read, it's like falling down a precipice."
+
+Ilya saw his friend's excitement and heard how his voice shook. When
+they reached the cobbler's room, and had lighted the lamp, he saw that
+Jakov's face was quite pale, and his eyes dim and happy, like those of
+a drunken man.
+
+"Have you been drinking?" asked Ilya, suspiciously.
+
+"I? No. Not a drop to-day! I never drink now, anyway, or only when
+father's at home, to screw up my courage, two or three glasses, no
+more. I'm afraid of father--always drinks stuff that doesn't smell too
+strong though--but never mind that, listen!"
+
+He fell into a chair so heavily that it creaked, opened his book, bent
+double over it, and fingering the old pages, yellow with age, he read
+in a hollow, trembling voice: "'Third Chapter--On the origin of man.'
+Now, listen!"
+
+He sighed, took his left hand off the book, and read aloud. The index
+finger of his right hand preceded his voice, as though writing in the
+old book. "'It is said, and Diodorus confirms, that the origin of man
+is conceived according to two ways, by the virtuous men'--d'you hear,
+virtuous men--'who have written on the nature of things. Some consider
+that the world is uncreated and imperishable, and that the race of men
+has existed from eternity, without any beginning.'"
+
+Jakov raised his head, and said in a whisper, gesticulating with his
+hand in the air:
+
+"D'you hear? Without beginning!"
+
+"Go on!" said Ilya, and looked distrustfully at the old leather-bound
+book. Jakov's voice continued, softly and solemnly: "'This opinion
+was held, according to Cicero, by Pythagoras of Samos, Archytas of
+Tarentum, Plato of Athens, Xenokrates, Aristotle of Stagira, and many
+others of the peripatetic philosophers, who took the view that all that
+is, exists from eternity, and has no beginning'--d'you see, again, no
+beginning--'but that there is a certain cycle of life, those that were
+born and those that are born, in which cycle is the beginning and the
+end of every man that is born.'"
+
+Ilya stretched out his hand and struck the book, and said mockingly:
+
+"Throw it away! Devil take it! Some German or other has been showing
+off his cleverness. There's no sense in it."
+
+"Wait a minute!" cried Jakov, and looked anxiously round, then at his
+friend, and said gently:
+
+"Perhaps you know your beginning?"
+
+"What beginning?" cried Ilya crossly.
+
+"Don't shout so! Take the soul. Man is born with a soul, isn't he?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Then he must know where he comes from, and how? The soul is immortal,
+they say. It was always there; isn't that true? Wait! It isn't so much
+to know how you were born as how you lived. When did you live? When
+did you first know that you were alive? You were born living. Well,
+then, when did you become living. In the womb? Very well. Why don't
+you remember more--what happened before your birth, and not only what
+happened after you were five years old? Eh? And, if you have a soul,
+how did it get inside you? Eh? Tell me."
+
+Jakov's eyes shone triumphantly, his face broke into a happy smile, and
+he cried, with a joy that seemed to Ilya very strange: "You see, there
+you have your soul!"
+
+"Stupid!" said Ilya, and looked at him angrily, "what's that to be glad
+about?"
+
+"I'm not glad. I'm only saying--I'm only saying----"
+
+"Well, I tell you, throw the book away! You see quite well it's written
+against God. It doesn't matter a bit how I was born alive, but how I
+live. How to live so that everything is clean and pleasant, so that no
+one hurts me, and I hurt nobody. Find me a book that'll make that plain
+to me."
+
+Jakov sat silent and thoughtful, his head on his breast. His joy
+vanished when it found no echo. After a time he said: "When I look at
+you, there's something about you I don't like. I don't understand your
+thoughts, but I see you've been getting very proud about something or
+other for some time. You go on as if you were the only righteous man."
+
+Ilya laughed aloud.
+
+"What are you laughing at? It's true. You judge every one so harshly.
+You don't love anybody."
+
+"There you're right," said Ilya, fiercely. "Whom should I love; and
+why? What good have men done to me? Every one wants to get his bread by
+some one else's work, and every one cries out: 'love me, respect me,
+give me a share of your goods; then perhaps I'll love you!' Every one,
+every where, thinks of nothing but stuffing himself."
+
+"No. I think men don't think only of stuffing themselves," answered
+Jakov displeased and hurt.
+
+"I know--every one tries to adorn himself with something, but it's
+only a mask. I see my uncle try and bargain with God, like the shopman
+with his master. Your papa gives one or two weathercocks to churches.
+I conclude from that that he either has swindled some one or is going
+to; and so they all behave, as far as I can see; there's your penny
+they say, but give me back five. I read the other day in the paper of
+Migunov the merchant, who gave three hundred roubles to a hospital, and
+then petitions the town council to knock off the arrears of his taxes,
+just a thousand roubles--and so they all do, trying to throw dust in
+one another's eyes and put themselves in the right. My view is, if
+you've sinned, willingly or unwillingly, take your punishment!"
+
+"You're right there," said Jakov thoughtfully. "What you said of father
+and the hunchback, that was right too. Ah! we're both born under an
+evil star. You have your wickedness at any rate, you comfort yourself
+by judging everybody, but I have not even that. Oh! if only I could go
+away somewhere, away from here."
+
+His speech ended with a cry of distress.
+
+"Away from here. Where d'you want to go?" asked Ilya with a faint smile.
+
+"It's all the same. I don't know."
+
+They sat at the table opposite one another, gloomy and silent, and
+there lay the big red-brown book with the steel clasp.
+
+Suddenly there was a rustling in the passage, a low voice was heard
+and a hand fumbled at the door for the latch. The friends waited
+in silence. The door opened slowly, and Perfishka staggered in: he
+stumbled on the threshold and fell on his knees, holding up his
+harmonica.
+
+"Prr,"--he said, and laughed drunkenly.
+
+Immediately behind him Matiza crept into the room. She bent over the
+cobbler, took his arm and tried to lift him up, saying with stammering
+tongue:
+
+"Ah! How drunk he is! Oh, you soaker!"
+
+"Don't touch me, jade! I'll stand alone, quite alone."
+
+He swayed hither and thither, but got on his legs with difficulty, and
+came up to the two friends: he stretched out his left hand and cried:
+
+"Welcome to my house!"
+
+Matiza laughed, a deep, silly laugh.
+
+"Where do you come from?" asked Ilya.
+
+Jakov looked at the two with a smile and said nothing.
+
+"Where? From the deep sea! Ha! ha! my dear, good boys. Oh! yes!"
+
+Perfishka stamped his feet on the floor and sang:
+
+    "Oh little bones, dear little bones,
+    I weep for you in piteous tones.
+    For hardly are you grown at all
+    Before the shopman cracks you small."
+
+"Sing, you jade, sing too," he screamed, turning to Matiza, "or let's
+sing the song you taught me, go ahead!"
+
+He leant his back against the stove, where Matiza had already found
+support, and dug his elbow into her ribs, while his fingers wandered
+over the harmonica keys.
+
+"Where is Mashutka?" asked Ilya suddenly, in a harsh voice.
+
+"Yes, tell us," cried Jakov, and sprang from his chair. "Where is she?
+Tell us!"
+
+But the drunken pair paid no heed to the question. Matiza leant her
+head to one side and sang:
+
+"Ah! neighbour, your brandy is rousing and good."
+
+And Perfishka struck in in a high tenor:
+
+"Drink it, my neighbour, it comforts the blood."
+
+Ilya stepped up to the cobbler, caught him by the shoulder, and shook
+him, till he fell against the stove.
+
+"Where's your daughter?" he said commandingly.
+
+    "And oh! his daughter she vanished away,
+    In the midnight hour, ere the break of day,"
+
+babbled Perfishka, and held his head with his hand.
+
+Jakov attempted to get the truth from Matiza, but she only said
+smirking: "I won't tell. I won't. I won't."
+
+"They've sold her, the devils," said Ilya to his friend, gloomily.
+Jakov looked at him in terror, then asked the cobbler almost weeping:
+
+"Perfishka! listen--Where is Mashutka?"
+
+"Mashutka?" repeated Matiza, scornfully. "Aha! you see. Now you
+remember."
+
+"Ilya! what shall we do?" cried Jakov full of anxiety.
+
+"We must tell the police," said Ilya, and looked with disgust at the
+drunkards.
+
+"Aha! jade! d'you hear," shouted Perfishka, beaming, "they want to tell
+the police! ha! ha! ha!"
+
+"The po--lice?" cried Matiza emphatically, and looked with
+extraordinary great eyes from Ilya to Jakov and back again. Then
+stretching out her hands helplessly, she screamed loudly:
+
+"You'll go to your police, will you? Get out of my room! It is my room
+now, we're just married, we two."
+
+"Ha! ha! ha! laughed the cobbler, holding his sides.
+
+"Come Jakov!" said Ilya. "The devil would be sickened at them! Come."
+
+"Wait!" cried Jakov, in anxious excitement. "Have they really married
+her? That child? Is it possible? Perfishka, tell me, have you really.
+Oh, tell me, where is Masha?"
+
+"Matiza, my wife, go for them! Catch them--catch--scream at them, bite
+them! Ha! ha! where is Masha?"
+
+Perfishka pursed his lips as though to whistle, but could not get out a
+sound, and instead, put out his tongue at Jakov and laughed again.
+
+Matiza pressed close to Ilya with her huge bosom heaving, and roared:
+
+"Who are you, eh? D'you think we don't know all about you?"
+
+Ilya gave her a push and left the cellar.
+
+In the passage Jakov overtook him, caught him by the shoulder, held him
+fast in the darkness, and said:
+
+"Is it allowed; can it be done? She's so little, Ilya! Have they really
+married her!"
+
+"Oh! don't whimper!" said Ilya wrathfully. "That's no good! You ought
+to have kept your eyes open before; you began it, and now they've
+finished it."
+
+Jakov was silent for a moment, then at once began again, as he stepped
+into the courtyard after Ilya.
+
+"It's not my fault. I only knew that she went out to work somewhere."
+
+"What does it matter, if you knew or didn't know?" said Ilya, harshly,
+and stood still in the middle of the courtyard. "I'll get out of this
+house anyhow; it ought to be burnt to the ground."
+
+"O God! O God!" sighed Jakov, in a low voice, keeping behind Ilya. Ilya
+wheeled round. Jakov stood there miserable, his arms hanging helplessly
+and his head bowed as if to receive a blow.
+
+"Cry away!" said Ilya, mockingly, and went off, leaving his friend in
+the middle of the dark courtyard. Next day Ilya learnt from Perfishka
+that Masha was actually married to Ehrenov the grocer, a widower of
+fifty, who had lost his wife shortly before.
+
+"'I've two children,' he said to me, 'one five years old, one three,'"
+explained Perfishka, "'and I shall have to get a nurse. But a nurse,'
+he says, 'is always a stranger. She'll rob me, and that sort of thing.
+Speak to your daughter, if she'll marry me!' Well, so I spoke to her,
+and Matiza spoke to her, and since Masha is a reasonable child, she
+understood it all, and what else was she to do? 'All right,' she says,
+'I'll do it!' And so she went to him. It was all settled in three days.
+We two--I and Matiza--got three roubles, so yesterday we got drunk.
+Heavens! how Matiza drinks, like a horse!"
+
+Ilya listened in silence. He understood that Masha had done better for
+herself than would have been generally expected. But all the same, his
+heart ached for the girl. He had seen little of her of late, and hardly
+thought of her, but now, without her, the house felt dirtier and more
+hateful than ever.
+
+The yellow, bloated face of the cobbler grinned down at Ilya from the
+stove, and his voice creaked like a broken branch in the autumn wind.
+Lunev looked at him disgustedly.
+
+"Ehrenov made one condition: I'm never to show up at his house! 'You
+can come to the shop,' he says. 'I'll give you schnapps and odds and
+ends, but to the house--never! It's shut to you, like Paradise.' Now
+then, Ilya Jakovlevitch, couldn't you hunt up a five-kopeck piece, to
+get a drink. Please give me five kopecks."
+
+"You shall have 'em in a minute," said Ilya. "What are you going to do
+now?"
+
+The cobbler spat on the ground, and replied: "I'll just become an
+out-and-out drunkard. Till Masha was provided for, I used to worry. I
+worked sometimes. I had a sort of conscience with her. But now I know
+she's enough to eat and shoes and clothes, and is shut up in a box, so
+to speak, I can devote myself, free and unhindered, to the drinking
+profession."
+
+"Can't you really give up brandy?"
+
+"Never!" answered the cobbler, and shook his shaggy head in a vigorous
+negative. "Why should I?"
+
+"Is there nothing else in life you want?"
+
+"Give me five kopecks. I don't want anything else."
+
+"I can't understand that," said Ilya, shrugging his shoulders. "I can't
+understand how a man can live, and want nothing out of life."
+
+"I'm different from the rest," answered Perfishka, with philosophical
+calm. "I think this way: keep quiet!--Fate gives what it will, and if
+a man is hollow and empty, so that nothing can be put in him, then,
+what can Fate do? Once, I admit, I wanted things, while my dead one was
+alive--I knew of Jeremy's pile. I'd have liked to have a fist in that.
+'If I don't rob him,' I thought, 'some one else will.' Well, thank God,
+two others actually got in before me. I don't complain, but then I
+understood that one must learn, too, how to wish."
+
+The cobbler laughed, climbed down from the stove, and added:
+
+"Now give me the five kopecks. My inside's on fire. I can't stand it
+any more."
+
+"There! Have your glass," said Ilya. Then he looked at Perfishka with a
+smile, and asked:
+
+"Shall I tell you something?"
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+"You're a humbug, and a good-for-nothing, and a miserable drunkard.
+That's all certain."
+
+"Yes, it's certain," confessed the cobbler, standing before Ilya with
+the five-kopeck piece in his hand.
+
+"And yet," Ilya went on seriously and thoughtfully, "I don't believe I
+know a better man than you, by God, I don't."
+
+Perfishka smiled incredulously, and looked at Lunev's serious but
+friendly face.
+
+"You're joking?"
+
+"Believe it or not, it is so. I don't say it to praise you, but only
+because, so far as I can see, that's my opinion."
+
+"Wonderful! my head's too stupid I'm afraid; did I understand you to
+say----But let me have a mouthful, perhaps then I'll be cleverer."
+
+"Not so fast!" said Ilya, and caught him by the shirt sleeve. "I want
+to ask you one thing--do you fear God?"
+
+Perfishka shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, and said in a
+voice that sounded a little hurt:
+
+"I have no reason to fear God. I do no harm to anyone--never have."
+
+"And now, do you pray?"
+
+"Oh, I pray, of course--not often."
+
+Ilya saw that the cobbler had no desire to talk, and that his whole
+soul was longing for the tap room.
+
+"There you are, Perfishka--ten more!"
+
+"My word! that's what I call treating!" cried Perfishka and beamed with
+joy.
+
+"But tell me, how do you pray?" Lunev pressed him again.
+
+"I? Quite simply. I don't know any prayers. I knew 'the Virgin Mother
+of God' once, but I forgot it long ago. There's a beggar's prayer: 'O
+Lord Jesus,' and so on, I know that by heart right to the end. Perhaps
+when I'm old I'll use it. But now I just pray in my own way. 'Lord have
+mercy,' I say."
+
+Perfishka looked at the ceiling, nodded with conviction, and went on.
+
+"He'll understand up there. Can I go now? I've an awful thirst."
+
+"Go on--go on," said Ilya, and looked at Perfishka thoughtfully. "But
+see here, when the day comes, when the Lord asks you, How have you
+lived?"
+
+"Then I'll say, 'when I was born I was small, and when I died I was
+dead drunk. So I don't know.' Then He'll laugh and forgive me."
+
+The cobbler smiled pleasantly and hurried away.
+
+Lunev remained in the cellar alone. He was strangely moved to think
+that Masha's pretty little face would never again appear to him in this
+narrow, dirty cave, and that Perfishka would soon be turned out.
+
+The April sun shone through the window and illuminated the floor, now
+long uncleaned. Everything there was untidy, hateful, and melancholy,
+as though a dead body had just been borne away. Ilya sat upright on his
+chair, looked at the big stove, rubbed away on the one side, and gloomy
+thoughts passed in succession through his mind.
+
+"Shall I go out and confess?" flashed suddenly up in his heart.
+
+But he thrust the thought away from him angrily.
+
+
+
+
+XVI.
+
+
+On the evening of this day Ilya was compelled to leave Petrusha's
+house. Events fell out in this way. When he returned, his uncle met him
+in the courtyard, with downcast countenance, led him aside to a corner
+behind a pile of wood, and said:
+
+"Now, Ilusha, you must get away from here. The things that have
+happened here to-day--awful, I tell you." The hunchback closed his
+eyes, wrung his hands, and broke into a fit of coughing. "Jashka got
+drunk and called his father to his face, 'You thief' and other bad
+names--'Shameless beast,' and 'heartless fellow.' He just screamed like
+a madman, and Petrusha hit him in the mouth, and tore his hair, and
+kicked him till he bled all over; and now Jashka's lying in his room
+and groaning and crying.--And then Petrusha began at me. 'It's your
+fault,' he growled. 'Get your Ilya away.' He thinks you've stirred up
+Jakov against him. He shouted awfully.--It was terrible!"
+
+Ilya took the straps from his shoulders, handed his box to his uncle,
+and said, "Wait a minute!"
+
+"Wait! But what? Why? He'll----"
+
+Ilya's hands trembled with wrath against Petrusha and pity for Jakov.
+
+"Hold my box, I say!" he said impatiently, and went into the bar.
+He clenched his teeth till his jaws ached, and a buzzing noise went
+through his head. He heard his uncle call after him something about
+police and damaging himself, and prison, but he did not stop. Petrusha
+stood behind the counter, smiling and talking to a raggedly-dressed
+man. The lamp-light fell on his bald head, and it shone as though the
+whole gleaming cranium smiled.
+
+"Aha! Mr. Merchant!" he cried mockingly, and his brows contracted at
+the sight of Ilya, "you're just in time."
+
+He stood before the door of his room, his body hiding it. Ilya went
+close up to him, insolent and overbearing, and said loudly:
+
+"Out of the way!"
+
+"Wh--at?" drawled Petrusha.
+
+"Let me by! I want to see Jakov."
+
+"I'll give you something to remember your Jakov!"
+
+Without another word, Ilya struck out with all his might and hit
+Petrusha on the cheek. He howled aloud and fell on the floor. The
+pot-boys ran from all sides, and some one cried: "Hold him! Thrash him!"
+
+The customers sprung up as though boiling water were poured on them,
+but Ilya sprung over Petrusha's body, went into the room behind,
+and bolted the door. A tin lamp with a blackened chimney burned
+flickeringly in the little room, made still smaller by wine-bins and
+boxes of all kinds.
+
+At first Ilya did not distinguish his friend in the dark, cramped
+space. Jakov lay on the floor, his head in the shadow, and his face
+seemed black and dreadful. Ilya took the lamp, and, bending down,
+examined the maltreated lad. Bluish spots and bruises covered the face
+like a horrible dark mask; the eyes were swollen; he breathed with
+difficulty and groaned and evidently could not see, for he asked, as
+Ilya bent over him:
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"I," said Lunev softly, and straightened himself.
+
+"Give me something to drink!"
+
+Ilya turned round. There was a loud knocking at the door, and some one
+called out:
+
+"We'll try it from the stairs at the back!"
+
+"Run for the police!" said another.
+
+Petrusha's whimpering rose above the noise: "You all saw it! I never
+touched him. O--oh!"
+
+Ilya smiled rejoicingly. He liked to realise that Petrusha was
+suffering. He stepped to the door and began to parley with the
+besiegers.
+
+"Hullo, you there! Stop your noise! If I gave him one in the mouth, he
+won't die of it, and I'll take my punishment from the magistrate. Don't
+you shove yourselves in! Don't bang on the door! I'll open it."
+
+He opened the door, and stood on the threshold, his fists clenched in
+case of an attack. The crowd gave back before his strong figure and
+fighting look. Only Petrusha growled, pushing the others aside:
+
+"Ah, you robber! Wait, I'll----"
+
+"Take him away--and look here, just look here!" cried Ilya, inviting
+the crowd to enter, "see how he's handled this fellow!"
+
+Several customers came in, with anxious side glances at Ilya, and bent
+down over Jakov.
+
+One said, astonished and frightened:
+
+"He's smashed him up!"
+
+"He's absolutely cut to ribbons!" added another.
+
+"Bring some water," said Ilya, "and then we must have the police." The
+crowd was now on his side, he read it in their manner, and said aloud
+and with emphasis:
+
+"You all know Petrusha Filimonov; you know that he is the biggest
+rascal in the street, and who has a word to say against his son? Well,
+here lies the son, wounded, perhaps maimed for life; and the father
+is to get off scot-free, is he? I have struck him once; I shall be
+condemned for that, is that right and fair? Is that even justice? And
+so it is all round. One man may do as he likes, and another must not
+move an eyelash."
+
+One or two sighed sympathetically, others went silently away. Ilya was
+going on, but Petrusha burst into the room and turned them all out.
+
+"Get out! Be off! This is my affair. He's my son, I'm his father. Be
+off! I'm not afraid of the police, and I don't need 'em, either--not a
+bit of it. I'll settle with you, my lad. Clear out of this!"
+
+Ilya kneeled down, gave Jakov a glass of water and looked with deep
+compassion at his friend's swollen closed eyes and discoloured face.
+Jakov drank and whispered:
+
+"He's knocked my teeth out, it hurts me to breathe, get me out of the
+house, Ilusha, get me away!"
+
+Tears flowed from his swollen eyes down over his cheeks.
+
+"He'll have to be taken to the hospital," said Ilya sternly, turning
+to Petrusha. Petrusha looked at his son and murmured to himself
+unintelligibly. Of his eyes, one was wide open, the other swollen up
+like Jakov's from the blow of Ilya's fist.
+
+"Do you hear?" shouted Ilya.
+
+"Don't shout so!" said Petrusha, suddenly becoming quiet and peaceful.
+"He can't go to the hospital. There'd be a row! You've made bother
+enough already here. I'm a town councillor, you know. It's bad for my
+reputation."
+
+"You old blackguard!" said Ilya, and spat contemptuously. "I tell you,
+take him to the hospital, or there'll be another sort of row."
+
+"Now, now, don't--keep your temper! you know it's half imagination."
+
+Ilya sprang up at these words, but Filimonov was already at the door
+and called to a waiter:
+
+"Ivan, call a droshky to go to the hospital! Jakov, pull yourself
+together, don't make yourself out worse than you are; it's your own
+father beat you, not a stranger--yes--I usen't to be so tenderly
+handled, my word, no!"
+
+He moved restlessly about the room, took Jakov's clothes from their
+pegs, and threw them to Ilya, still dilating freely upon the thrashings
+he had received in his young days.
+
+"Thanks," said Jakov in a voice hardly audible to Ilya, and the
+tears flowed on from his swollen eyes over his blood-stained cheeks.
+Terenti was standing behind the counter; he whispered shyly in Ilya's
+ear: "What'll you have? three kopecks' worth or five? There--please,
+five--caviar?--the caviar's all gone. I'm sorry, will you try a
+sardine?"
+
+After Lunev had left Jakov at the hospital he realised he could not
+return to Filimonov's house, and he went to Olympiada. He felt as
+though a cold mist drove through his body, something gnawed at his
+heart and stole away his strength. Sadness lay heavy on his breast,
+his thoughts were confused, he walked wearily; one thing only stood
+out clearly, he could not live much longer in this way. The dream of
+a little pretty shop, a life apart from the world in cleanliness and
+comfort, rose up anew and more strongly.
+
+Next day he hired a lodging, a little room next to a kitchen. A young
+woman in a red blouse let it to him. Her face was rosy, with a little
+saucy nose and a small, pretty mouth; she had a narrow brow framed in
+black curly hair that she frequently threw back with a quick movement
+of her slender, small fingers.
+
+"Five roubles for such a pretty little room, that is not dear!" she
+said cheerfully, and smiled as she saw that her dark, vivacious eyes
+threw the broad-shouldered lad into some confusion.
+
+Ilya looked at the walls of his future home, and wondered what sort of
+young woman this might be.
+
+"You see the paper is quite new, the window looks on the garden, what
+could be nicer? In the morning I'll put the samovar outside your door,
+but you must take it in yourself."
+
+"Do you do the waiting here, then?" asked Ilya with curiosity.
+
+The girl ceased to smile, her eyebrows twitched, she drew herself up
+and said, condescendingly:
+
+"I am not the housemaid, but the owner of this house, and my
+husband----"
+
+"Why, are you married?" cried Ilya in astonishment, and looked
+incredulously at her pretty slender figure. She was not angered, but
+laughed gaily:
+
+"How funny you are! first you take me for a housemaid, then you won't
+believe I'm married."
+
+"How can I believe it, when you look just like a little girl?" said
+Ilya, and laughed too.
+
+"And I tell you, that I've been married for three years, and that my
+man is district inspector--in the police."
+
+Ilya looked in her face and smiled quietly, he did not know why.
+
+"What a silly!" cried the girl, shrugging her shoulders and inspecting
+Ilya curiously. "Well, anyhow, will you take the room?"
+
+"Agreed! D'you want a deposit?"
+
+"Of course, a rouble, at least."
+
+"I'll bring my things in, in two or three hours."
+
+"As you please. I'm glad to have such a lodger, you're a cheerful one,
+I fancy."
+
+"Not specially," said Lunev, smiling.
+
+He went out into the street still smiling, with a feeling of pleasure
+in his breast. He liked both the room, with its blue wall-paper, and
+the brisk little woman, and he liked specially to think he was going to
+live in the house of a police inspector.
+
+It seemed to him at once comical, with a certain irony, and rather
+dangerous.
+
+He was on his way to visit Jakov at the hospital, and took a droshky
+to get there sooner. On the way he laughed in his heart and considered
+what to do with the money, and where to hide it. When he reached the
+hospital, he was told that Jakov had just had a bath, and was now fast
+asleep. He stood by the corridor window, and did not know whether to go
+away or wait till Jakov woke up. Patients passed him, shuffling slowly
+in slippers, in yellow night-gowns, and as they went they looked at him
+with melancholy eyes. They chattered in low voices with one another,
+and through their whispers rang a painful, groaning coming from
+somewhere far off. A dull echo, redoubling every sound, boomed through
+the long corridor; it was as though some one floated invisible on the
+heavy air of the hospital, groaning mournfully and lamenting.
+
+Ilya felt he must leave these yellow walls at once, but suddenly one
+of the patients came up to him with outstretched hand, and said in a
+muffled voice:
+
+"How are you?"
+
+Lunev looked up, then stepped back in surprise.
+
+"Pavel? Goodness! are you here too?"
+
+"Who else is here?" asked Pavel quickly.
+
+His face was curiously grey, his eyes blinked restlessly and confusedly.
+
+"Jakov is here! his father thrashed him--and now you here too! Been
+here long?" Then he added compassionately: "Ah, brother, how changed
+you look!"
+
+Pavel sighed, his lips twitched and his eyes looked strangely dull. He
+hung his head as though guilty, and repeated hoarsely: "Changed? Oh
+yes."
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Lunev sympathetically.
+
+"Matter? You can guess, surely."
+
+Pavel glanced at Ilya's face, and then let his head fall again.
+
+"Not Vyera?"
+
+"Who else?" answered Pavel gloomily.
+
+Ilya shook his head, was silent a moment, then said bitterly:
+
+"It's our fate, who knows when my turn'll come?"
+
+Pavel smiled sadly, then came closer and looking confidingly in Ilya's
+face, he said:
+
+"I thought you'd be disgusted with me. I was walking here and all at
+once I saw you. I was ashamed and turned my face away as I passed you."
+
+"That was a very clever thing to do," said Ilya, reproachfully.
+
+"How's one to know how people take a thing like that? To tell the
+truth, it's beastly. Ah, brother! two weeks have I been here. The
+torture, the dreariness! You go about, and lie in bed and think, think!
+The nights are awful. Like lying on red-hot coals. The time draws out,
+like a hair in the milk. It's like being drawn down into a swamp, and
+you're alone and can't call for help." Pavel spoke almost in a whisper.
+A shudder passed over his face, as if from cold, and his hands grasped
+convulsively at the collar of his dressing-gown. He shook his head, and
+said, still half-aloud: "Once fate starts against you to mock you, it
+goes like a hammer on your heart."
+
+"Where is Vyera?" asked Ilya, thoughtfully.
+
+"The devil knows!" said Pavel, with a bitter smile.
+
+"Doesn't she come to see you?"
+
+"Once. But I sent her packing. I can't bear the sight of her, the
+little beast!" cried Pavel angrily.
+
+Ilya looked reproachfully at his altered face, and said: "Nonsense! If
+you want justice, then be just! Why, is it her fault? Think a minute."
+
+"Then, whose fault is it?" cried Pavel, passionately, but in a low
+voice. "Whose? Tell me. Often I lie awake all night, and think how it
+is I have made such a mess of my life. It's just through loving Vyera.
+She took the place of mother and sister and wife and friends. I loved
+her. I can't say in words how much, nor even write it on the skies in
+writing of stars." His eyes grew red, and two big tears rolled down his
+face. He wiped them away with his sleeve, and went on, in a low voice:
+
+"She lay in my way like a stone that I have stumbled over."
+
+"That is not right," said Lunev, who felt clearly that he pitied Vyera
+even more than his friend. "What way do you speak of? You had no way.
+All that's just talk. You have longed for the mead, and praised it,
+that it was strong; now it has made you drunk, you blame it for getting
+into your head. And how about her? Isn't she ill too?"
+
+"Yes," said Pavel, then suddenly continued, his voice trembling with
+emotion, "Do you think I'm not sorry for her?"
+
+"Of course. How can you help it?"
+
+"I'm hard on her. Is it much wonder? I sent her away; and when she went
+and began to cry, so softly and bitterly, then my heart was wrung. I
+felt I should weep too, but I had no tears in my soul, only stones. And
+then I began to think it all over. Ah, Ilya! The life I live's no life
+at all."
+
+"Yes," said Lunev slowly, with a strange smile. "Things go very
+oddly in life. There's something takes us all by the throat and
+strangles--strangles us. There's Jakov, who's good. His father makes
+his life a burden; they've married Mashutka to an old devil; you're
+here in hospital----"
+
+Suddenly he smiled quietly, and said in a lower voice:
+
+"I'm the only lucky one! Fact! As soon as I wish for anything--pat, it
+comes!"
+
+"How?" asked Pavel, with curiosity and suspicion.
+
+"Trust me. I have luck. It draws me on and on."
+
+"I don't like the way you talk," said Pavel, and looked at Ilya
+searchingly. "Are you laughing at yourself?"
+
+"No, it's some one else who laughs at me," replied Ilya, and his brows
+contracted gloomily. "There's some one somewhere, laughs at us all. I
+could tell you things. Wherever I look, there's no justice anywhere."
+
+"I can see that," cried Pavel softly, but with intensity. "Come, let's
+go into that corner, there."
+
+They went along the corridor, close together, looking into one
+another's eyes. Red patches appeared in Pavel's cheeks, and his eyes
+sparkled brightly, as in the days when he was healthy. "And I can see
+how we're robbed down to the last stitch," he whispered in Ilya's ear.
+"Whatever you can see, none of it is for us."
+
+"That's true."
+
+"Everything for the others. See--my little girl. She was as good as my
+wife. I need her all. Every man wants his wife for himself. But I can't
+have mine, and she can't live for me, as she wanted. Why? Just because
+I am poor? Well, but I work, don't I? I've slaved all my life, ever
+since I was ten years old. Surely I may be allowed to live, at least!"
+
+"Petrusha Filimonov lives without working, so easily and comfortably,
+and can have everything he wants, do whatever he likes. Why is that?"
+said Ilya, seconding his friend's speech, with a scornful laugh.
+
+"The doctor shouts at me, as if I were a criminal--why?" went on
+Gratschev. "He's an educated man. He ought to treat people decently.
+I'm a man, surely. Eh? And so it comes. I turned Vyerka out, but I
+know quite well it's not her fault."
+
+"It's not the stick that gives the pain, but the one who uses it."
+
+They stayed in the dark corner close to the corridor window, whose
+panes were streaked with yellow colour, and here side by side they
+conversed in passionate words, each catching the other's thought as it
+flew.
+
+The heavy groaning came again from far away. The monotonous moan was
+like the muffled tone of a bass string, plucked at regular intervals,
+which vibrates wearily and hopelessly, as though it knew that no living
+heart beats fit to understand and appease its melancholy, quivering
+lament. Pavel was flaming with irritation over the buffets that life's
+heavy hand had dealt him.
+
+He too, vibrated, like that string, with excitement, and whispered
+hurriedly, disconnectedly his grievances and complaints, and Ilya felt
+that Pavel's words fell on his heart like sparks, stirring to life
+in his own breast something dark and contradictory, that constantly
+troubled him, now flaming up, now sinking down. It seemed as though,
+in place of the dull, evil doubt, with which till now he had faced
+life, something else was suddenly kindled in his soul, brightening its
+darkness and shaping for it rest and relief for ever.
+
+"Why is a man holy, if he's enough to eat? is he always in the right,
+if he's educated?" whispered Pavel, standing close to Ilya, and looking
+round him as though he were aware of the unknown enemy who had spoilt
+his life. "See," he went on, "if I am hungry, if I'm stupid, still
+I have a soul! Or hasn't a hungry man a soul? I see that I have no
+decent, real life, they have ruined my life, they've cut short my
+wishes and set up barriers on all my ways, and why?"
+
+"No one can say," cried Ilya harshly, "and there's no one we could ask
+who would understand? We are all strangers."
+
+"That's true, whom can we talk to?" asked Pavel, with a despairing
+gesture, and was silent.
+
+Lunev looked straight before him down the wide corridor, and sighed
+deeply.
+
+The dull moaning was heard again, now they were silent, it sounded
+more clearly; it seemed to come from the breast of a big, strong man,
+struggling with great pain.
+
+"Are you still with Olympiada?" asked Pavel.
+
+"Yes, still," answered Ilya.
+
+"And think," he added with a strange smile, "Jakov has got on so well
+with his reading that now he's doubtful about God."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes, he's found such a book! And you, what do you think about that?"
+
+"I, you see," said Pavel, thoughtfully, "I've never thought much about
+it. I never go to church."
+
+"And I do think about it, I think a lot about it, and I cannot
+understand how God endures it all!"
+
+And they began to talk again, short, disconnected sentences, and they
+remained absorbed in their conversation till an attendant came up to
+them and said severely to Lunev:
+
+"Why are you hiding here? eh?"
+
+"I'm not hiding."
+
+"Don't you see all the visitors are gone?"
+
+"I didn't notice. Good-bye Pavel--give Jakov a look up."
+
+"Now then, get on--get on!"
+
+"Come again soon, for God's sake!" implored Gratschev.
+
+"I tell you, get on!" and the attendant followed Ilya muttering:
+
+"These fellows, loafers, hiding in corners."
+
+Lunev slackened his pace and as the attendant came up to him, he said
+quietly and maliciously:
+
+"Don't growl, else I'll have to say, 'lie down dog! lie down!'"
+
+The attendant stopped suddenly, but Lunev went quickly on and felt an
+evil pleasure in having insulted a man.
+
+In the street he fell again into brooding on the fate of his friends.
+Pavel, since he was a little lad had fended for himself, had been in
+prison, and tried all sorts of hard work. What hunger and cold, what
+blows he had endured! And now finally he had come to the hospital.
+
+Masha would hardly see happy days again, and Jakov the same; how should
+a being like Jakov keep a whole skin in this world?
+
+Lunev saw that, as a matter of fact, of all the four he had the best of
+it. But this consciousness brought him no comfort, he only smiled, and
+looked suspiciously about him.
+
+
+
+
+XVII.
+
+
+Ilya settled quietly into his new dwelling-place, and his landlords
+interested him deeply. The woman's name was Tatiana Vlassyevna. As gay
+as a little bird, and always ready to chatter, she had given the new
+lodger a complete description of her life before he had spent many days
+in the little room.
+
+In the morning, while Ilya drank his tea, she bustled about in the
+kitchen, with skirts tucked up and sleeves rolled above her elbows, but
+gave many a smiling glance into his room, and said, cheerfully:
+
+"We're not rich, my husband and I, but we've got education and
+intelligence. I went to the progymnasium, and he was in the cadet
+corps, even if he didn't quite finish his time there. But we want to
+be rich, and we'll manage it too. We've no children; they're the big
+expense. I do the cooking and go to market, and I keep a maid for the
+rest, and she lives in the house, and gets a rouble and a half a month.
+You see what a lot I save!"
+
+She remained in the doorway and, shaking her curls, began to reckon:
+
+"Cook's wages, three roubles, and what she'd cost, seven--makes ten
+roubles. She'd steal at least three roubles' worth a month--thirteen
+roubles. Then I let her room to you--eighteen roubles. That's the cost
+of a cook, you see. Then I buy everything wholesale, butter--half
+a pood, flour--a whole sack, sugar by the loaf, and so on. I save
+another twelve roubles that way--that's thirty. If I had a place
+at the police-station or telegraph office, I should only work as a
+cook; and now I cost my man nothing, and I'm proud of it. One must
+understand how to arrange one's life, remember that, young man!" She
+looked roguishly at Ilya with her laughing eyes, and he smiled with
+some embarrassment. She pleased him, but yet inspired him with respect.
+When he waked in the morning she was already working in the kitchen,
+with a pock-marked, undersized girl, who stared at her mistress and
+every one else, with colourless, frightened eyes. In the evening, when
+Ilya came home, Tatiana opened the door to him, smiling and active,
+with a pleasant perfume surrounding her. When her husband was at home
+he played the guitar, and she chimed in with her clear voice, or they
+played cards for kisses. Ilya could hear everything in his room--the
+tones of the strings, gay or sentimental, the turning of the cards,
+and the kisses. Their dwelling consisted of two rooms--the bedroom and
+another adjoining Ilya's apartment, which served the pair for dining
+and drawing-room, where they spent their evenings. Clear birds' voices
+resounded from here in the mornings, the titmouse peeped, the siskin
+and thistle-finch sang for a wager, the bullfinch whistled in between,
+and, through it all, the linnet sounded his serious, gentle song.
+
+Titiana's husband, Kirik Nikodimovitch Avtonomov, was a man of
+twenty-six years, tall and big, with a big nose and black teeth. His
+good-tempered face was thick with pimples, and his watery blue eyes
+looked at everything with imperturbable calm. His close-cropped light
+hair stood up like a brush on his head, and in his whole plump figure
+there was something helpless and comical. His movements were clumsy,
+and immediately after his first greeting to Ilya, he said, for no
+particular reason:
+
+"Do you like singing birds?"
+
+"Very much."
+
+"Do you ever catch any?"
+
+"No," answered Ilya, looking wonderingly at the inspector, who wrinkled
+his nose, thought a moment, then said:
+
+"Used you ever to catch them?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Never?"
+
+"Never."
+
+Kirik Avtonomov smiled in a superior way, and said:
+
+"You can't be said to like them, if you've never caught any. Now, I
+love them, and have caught them often, and was dismissed from the cadet
+corps because of that. I'd like to catch 'em now, but I don't want to
+get into trouble with my superiors, for though the love of singing
+birds is a noble passion, to catch them is not a proper occupation for
+an established man. If I were in your shoes I'd catch siskins like
+anything. The siskin's a jolly bird. That's why he's called God's bird."
+
+Avtonomov looked with the expression of an enthusiast into Ilya's face,
+and a certain embarrassment came over Ilya as he listened. He felt
+as though the inspector spoke of bird-catching allegorically, with a
+hidden reference. His heart palpitated and he pricked up his ears. But
+the sight of Avtonomov's watery blue eyes quieted him, he saw in a
+moment that the inspector was quite a harmless individual, without any
+subtlety; so he smiled politely, and murmured some reply or other. The
+inspector was evidently taken with Ilya's modest demeanour and serious
+face, and said, smiling:
+
+"Come and have tea with us of an evening, when you feel inclined. We're
+simple people, without any style. We'll have a game of cards. We don't
+get many visitors. Visitors are all very well, but you have to treat
+them, and that's a nuisance and comes expensive." The longer Ilya
+observed the comfortable life of his landlords, the better it pleased
+him. Everything they had was so solid and clean, their existence ran
+so easily and peacefully, and they were evidently much attached to one
+another. The brisk little woman was like a tomtit, and her husband
+like a clumsy bullfinch, and their rooms were as tidy and pretty
+as a bird's nest. When Ilya was home of an evening, he listened to
+their conversation, and thought: "That's the kind of life!" He sighed
+enviously, and dreamed more vividly of the time when he would open his
+shop and have a little bright room of his own. He would keep birds, and
+live as in a dream, alone and quiet, peacefully and methodically.
+
+The other side of the wall, Tatiana was telling her husband how she
+bought everything she needed in the market, how much she had spent, and
+how much saved, and he laughed pleasantly and praised her.
+
+"Ah, the clever little woman! My dear little bird! Come, give me a
+kiss!"
+
+Then he would begin and relate all that had happened in the town, the
+processes he had drawn up, what the Chief of Police or any of his
+superiors had said. They talked of the possibility of a rise of salary
+for him, and discussed minutely whether, in such an event, they ought
+to take a bigger house.
+
+Ilya lay and listened till suddenly a melancholy weariness fell on him.
+The little blue room was too narrow; he looked restlessly round as
+if to seek the cause of his moodiness, then, unable longer to endure
+the weight that lay at his breast, he went to Olympiada, or loafed
+aimlessly in the streets.
+
+Olympiada became more and more full of reproaches. She plagued him
+with jealousy and more and more frequently they fell into contention.
+She grew thin, her eyes were sunken and looked darker, her arms were
+thinner, and all this was not pleasing to Ilya. Still less, however,
+did he like the fact that of late she had begun to talk of conscience
+and God, and of going into a nunnery. He did not believe in the
+genuineness of her words, for he knew she could not live without the
+society of men.
+
+"You needn't pray for me if you take the veil," he said one day with a
+mocking smile. "I'll manage my own sins alone."
+
+She looked at him full of fear and sadness.
+
+"Ilya, don't make a jest of it!"
+
+"But I mean it."
+
+"You don't believe that I shall go to a nunnery? You'll see, then
+you'll believe."
+
+"Not at all--I believe you; lots of people turn monks or nuns out of
+sheer wickedness."
+
+Olympiada grew angry with him and they quarrelled fiercely.
+
+"You unlucky, proud man!" she cried, with sparkling eyes. "Just wait!
+However you stiffen your back in your pride, you'll be bent down! What
+are you so proud of? Your youth and your beauty? It will all go--all,
+and then you'll creep on the ground like a snake and beg for mercy.
+'Have pity!' and no one will care."
+
+She heaped reproaches on him, and her eyes grew so bloodshot that it
+seemed as though great drops of blood instead of tears would flow
+over her cheeks. When they quarrelled she never spoke of Poluektov's
+murder, indeed, in her better moments she would bid him "forget." Lunev
+wondered at this, and asked her one day after a quarrel:
+
+"Lipa! tell me, when you're angry, why do you never speak of the old
+man."
+
+She answered readily:
+
+"Because that was really neither my doing nor yours. Since they haven't
+found you out, it must have been his fate. You were the instrument, not
+the force; you had no reason to strangle him, as you say yourself. So
+he only met his due punishment through you."
+
+Ilya laughed incredulously.
+
+"O--Oh! I thought that a man must either be a fool or a rascal--ha! ha!
+Anything is right for him if only he wants to do it, and in the same
+way anything can be wrong."
+
+"I don't understand," said Olympiada, and shook her head.
+
+"Where's the difficulty?" asked Ilya, sighing and shrugging his
+shoulders. "It's quite simple! Show me any one thing in life that holds
+for every one; find anything that a clever man can't make either right
+or wrong; anything that stands fast, permanent; you can't. That is what
+I meant to say. There is nothing fixed in life; it is all changing and
+confused, like a man's own soul--yes."
+
+"I don't understand," said the woman after a pause.
+
+"And I understand so well," answered Ilya. "That this is just the knot
+that strangles us all."
+
+At last, after one of the periodical quarrels, when Ilya had not been
+near Olympiada for four days, he received a letter from her; she wrote:
+
+    "Good-bye, my dear Ilyusha, good-bye for ever; we shall
+    never meet again. Don't look for me, you won't find me. I'm
+    leaving this unlucky town by the next steamboat; here I have
+    destroyed my soul for ever. I'm going away, far away, and
+    shall never come back; don't think of me and don't wait for
+    me. With all my heart, I thank you for the good you have
+    brought me, and the bad I will forget. I must tell you the
+    plain truth. I'm not going into a nunnery, I'm going away
+    with young Ananyin, who has been entreating me for a long
+    time. I have agreed at last, what does it matter to me? We
+    go to the sea to a village where Ananyin has fisheries. He
+    is simple, and even means to marry me, good, silly boy!
+    Good-bye! We have met as if in a dream, and when I waked
+    there was nothing. Forgive me too! If you knew how my
+    heart burns with longing. I kiss you--you, the one man in
+    the world for me. Don't be proud before men; we are all
+    unfortunate. I have grown calm, I, your Lipa, and I go as
+    though under the axe,--my heart pains me so.----
+
+    "OLYMPIADA SCHLYKOVA."
+
+    "I am sending you a token by the post, a ring. Please wear
+    it.--O.S."
+
+Ilya read the letter and bit his lips till they smarted. He read it
+again and again, and the more often he read, the better it pleased
+him; it was at once a pain and a pleasure to read the big irregularly
+written characters.
+
+Previously, Ilya had given little thought to determine what the nature
+might be of Olympiada's feelings for himself; now, however, he felt
+that she had loved him dearly and warmly, and as he read her letter he
+felt a deep peace sink into his heart. But the peace gave way gradually
+to a sense of loss, and the consciousness that there was no one now to
+whom he could reveal the bitterness of his soul depressed him.
+
+The image of this woman stood vividly before his eyes, he remembered
+her passionate caresses, her sensible talk, her jests, and more and
+more clearly he felt in his breast a harsh feeling of wretchedness. He
+stood moodily by the window, looking into the garden, and there in the
+darkness the elder-bushes rustled softly, and the thin, thready twigs
+of the birch-trees waved to and fro. From behind the wall the strings
+of the guitar resounded mournfully, and Tatiana sang in her high voice:
+
+    "Let him who will search through the seas
+    To find the amber golden----"
+
+Ilya held the letter in his hand and thought: "She always said she was
+persistent, and that I brought her good fortune, and yet she has left
+me, so the fortune can not have been so very good after all."
+
+He felt himself in the wrong before Olympiada, and sorrow and
+compassion weighed heavy on his soul.
+
+"But bring me back my little ring from out the deep blue sea," sounded
+behind the wall. Then the inspector laughed aloud and the singer chimed
+in merrily from the kitchen. Then, however, she was silent. Ilya felt
+her nearness, but dared not turn round to look, though he knew his room
+door was open. He gave the rein to his thoughts, and stood motionless,
+feeling himself deserted.
+
+The tree-tops in the garden shivered, and Lunev felt as though he had
+left the ground, and were floating out there in the cold twilight.
+
+"Ilya Jakovlevitch, will you have your tea?"
+
+"No," answered Ilya.
+
+The solemn note of a bell resounded through the air. The deep tone made
+the window panes quiver. Ilya crossed himself, remembered that it was
+long since he had been to church, and seized the occasion to get away
+from the house.
+
+"I'm going to evening service," he called as he went out.
+
+Tatiana stood in the doorway, her hands against the door-posts, and
+looked curiously at him. Her inquiring glance confused Ilya, and as if
+excusing himself, he said:
+
+"I haven't been to church for ever so long."
+
+"Very well. I'll get the samovar ready by nine o'clock," she replied.
+
+As he went, Lunev thought of young Ananyin. He knew the man; he was
+a rich young merchant, partner in fish business--Ananyin Brothers--a
+thin, fair young man, with a pale face and blue eyes. He had but
+recently come to the town and lived there at a great pace.
+
+"That is really living," thought Ilya bitterly, "like a rich young man
+does--hardly out of the nest before he gets a mate for himself."
+
+He entered the church in a discontented mood, and chose a dark corner,
+where lay the ladder to light the chandeliers.
+
+"O Lord, have mercy!" came from the left-hand choir. A choir boy sang
+with a shrill, unpleasing voice, and could not keep in tune with
+the hoarse, deep bass voice of the precentor. The lack of harmony
+embittered Ilya's mood still further, and roused a desire in him to
+seize the boy by the ears. The heating stove made the corner very hot,
+it smelt of burning rags. An old woman in a fur jacket, came up to him
+and said, grumbling:
+
+"You're not in your right place, sir."
+
+Ilya looked at the fox tails adorning the collar of her jacket, and
+went to one side silently, thinking: "Even in the church there's a
+special place for us."
+
+It was the first time he had been to church since the murder of
+Poluektov, and when he remembered this, involuntarily he shuddered. He
+thought of his guilt and forgot everything else, though the idea no
+longer terrified him, but only filled him with sorrow and heaviness of
+soul.
+
+"O Lord, have mercy!" he whispered and crossed himself. The choir
+burst into loud, harmonious song. The soprano voices, giving the words
+clearly and distinctly, rang under the dome like the clear, pleasant
+tones of sweet bells. The altos vibrated like a ringing tense string,
+and against their continued sound, flowing on like a stream, the
+soprano notes quivered like the reflection of the sun on a transparent
+pool. The full deep bass notes swept proudly through the church,
+supporting the children's song; from time to time the beautiful strong
+tones of the tenors pierced through, then again the children's voices
+rang out, and rose into the twilight of the dome, whence, serious and
+thoughtful, clad in white garments, the figure of the Almighty looked
+down, blessing the faithful with majestic outstretched hands. The waves
+of sound and the scent of incense rolled up to Him, and flowed round
+Him, and it seemed as though He floated in the midst, and swept ever
+higher into the depths of boundless space.
+
+When the music ceased, Ilya sighed deeply. His heart was light, and he
+felt no fear nor repentance, not even the irritation that had disturbed
+him when he entered the church. His thoughts flew far away from his own
+sins. The music had cleansed and lightened his soul. He could not trust
+his own sensations, feeling so unexpectedly calm and peaceful, and he
+strove to awaken in himself a sense of remorse, but it was in vain.
+
+Suddenly the thought darted through his mind: "Suppose that woman goes
+into my room out of curiosity and looks about and finds the money."
+
+He hurried away out of the church, and hailed a droshky to reach home
+as quickly as he could. All the way the thought tormented him, and set
+him in a quiver of excitement.
+
+"Suppose they do find the money, what then? They won't lay an
+information about it, they'll just steal it."
+
+And this thought roused him still more; he became quite positive that
+if it should happen he would go straight to the police in this same
+droshky and confess that he had murdered Poluektov. No, he would not
+any longer be tortured, and live in dirt and turmoil while others enjoy
+in peace and comfort the money for which he sinned so deeply. The
+mere idea of it drove him nearly crazy. When the droshky drew up at
+his door, he darted out and tugged at the bell; his fist clenched and
+his teeth locked, he waited impatiently for the door to open. Tatiana
+appeared on the threshold.
+
+"My, what a ring you gave! What's the matter? What's wrong?" she cried,
+frightened at the sight of him.
+
+Without a word he pushed her aside, went quickly to his room, and
+assured himself in one glance, that his fears were unnecessary. The
+money lay behind the upper window-boxing, and he had stuck on a little
+scrap of down, in such a way that it must be removed if any one tried
+to get at the packet. He saw the white fleck at once against the brown
+background.
+
+"Aren't you well?" asked his landlady, appearing at the door of his
+room.
+
+"I'm all right; I beg your pardon, I pushed you."
+
+"That's nothing; but see here, how much is the droshky?"
+
+"I don't know, ask him please, and pay him."
+
+She hurried away, and Ilya in a moment sprang on a chair, snatched away
+the packet of money, knew by the feel that it had not been tampered
+with, and dropped it in his pocket with a sigh of relief. He was
+ashamed now of his anxiety, and the precaution of the scrap of down
+seemed foolish and ridiculous.
+
+"Witchcraft!" he thought, and laughed to himself. Tatiana Vlassyevna
+appeared again.
+
+"I gave him twenty kopecks--but what's the matter? were you faint?"
+
+"Yes. I was standing in the church, and then all at once----"
+
+"Lie down," she said, and came into the room. "Lie down quietly. Don't
+worry! I'll sit by you a little. I'm at home alone. My husband's
+working late and going on to his club."
+
+Ilya sat down on the bed, while she took the only chair.
+
+"I disturbed you I'm afraid," said Ilya, with an embarrassed smile.
+
+"Doesn't matter," she answered, and looked in his face with frank
+curiosity. There was a pause. Ilya did not know what to talk about. She
+still looked at him, and suddenly laughed in an odd way.
+
+"What are you laughing at?" said Ilya, and dropped his eyes.
+
+"Shall I tell you?" she asked, mischievously.
+
+"Yes, tell me!"
+
+"You can't pretend well, d'you know?"
+
+Ilya started and looked at her uneasily.
+
+"No, you can't. You are not ill; only you've had a letter that troubles
+you. I saw--I saw----"
+
+"Yes, I've had a letter," said Ilya slowly.
+
+Something rustled in the branches outside. Tatiana looked quickly out
+at the window, then again at Ilya.
+
+"It was only the wind, or a bird," she said. "Now, young man, will you
+listen to my advice? I'm only a young woman, but I'm not a fool!"
+
+"If you'll be so good--please," said Lunev, and looked at her with
+curiosity.
+
+"Tear up the letter and throw it away," she said in a decided tone.
+"If she has written you your dismissal, she's acted well, and like
+a sensible girl. It's too soon for you to marry. You've no settled
+standing, and you ought not to marry without. You're a strong young man
+and you work, and you're good-looking. You're bound to get on. Only
+take care you don't fall in love. Earn a lot of money, and save, and
+try to get on to something bigger. Open a shop, and then, when you've
+got firm ground under your feet, you can marry. You're bound to get on.
+You don't drink, you're unassuming, you've no ties."
+
+Ilya listened, with bowed head and smiled quietly. He longed to laugh
+out loud.
+
+"There's nothing more silly than to hang your head down," continued
+Tatiana, in the tone of an experienced man of the world. "It will pass.
+Love is a disease that is easily cured. Before I was married I fell in
+love three times, fit to drown myself, but it passed. And when I saw
+that it was time for me to marry, I married without all that love."
+
+"Ilya raised his head and looked at the woman as she said this:
+
+"What's the matter?" she asked. "Afterwards I learnt to love my
+husband. It happens often that a woman falls in love with her husband."
+
+"What does that mean?" asked Ilya, opening his eyes. Tatiana laughed
+gaily. "I was only joking--but quite seriously, you can really marry a
+man without love, and come to care for him afterwards."
+
+And she chattered away and made play with her eyes. Ilya listened
+attentively, and looked with great interest at the little, trim figure,
+and was full of wonder. She was so small and slender and yet she had
+such foresight and strength of will, and good sense.
+
+"With a wife like that," he thought, "a man couldn't come to grief."
+He found it pleasant to sit there with an intelligent woman, a real,
+trim, neat housewife, who was not too proud to chat with him, a simple
+working lad. A feeling of gratitude towards her arose in him, and when
+she got up to go, he sprang up at once, bowed, and said:
+
+"Thank you very much for the honour you have done me; your talk has
+done me a lot of good."
+
+"Really, think of that!" she said, smiling quietly, while her cheeks
+reddened and she looked for a second or two steadily in Ilya's face.
+"Well then, good-bye for the present," she added with a strange
+intonation and slipped out with the easy gait of a young girl.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII.
+
+
+Ilya came to like the Avtonomovs better every day, and he envied
+them their peaceful, sheltered life. In a general way he had no love
+for police officials, for he saw many evil qualities among them. But
+Kirik seemed like a simple working-man, good-tempered, if limited.
+He was the body, and his wife the soul. He was seldom at home, and
+not of much importance there. Tatiana Vlassyevna became more and more
+at home with Ilya. She got him to chop wood, fetch water, empty away
+slops. He obeyed dutifully, and these little services gradually became
+his daily duty. Then his landlady dismissed the pock-marked girl who
+helped her, and only had her on Sundays. Occasionally visitors came to
+the Avtonomovs. Korsakov, the assistant town inspector, often came,
+a thin man with a long moustache. He wore dark glasses, smoked thick
+cigarettes, and could not endure droshky drivers, speaking of them
+always with great irritation. "No one breaks rules and orders so often
+as these drivers," he used to say. "Insolent brutes! Foot passengers in
+the streets you can deal with easily; it only means a police notice in
+the papers. Those going down the street keep to the right, those going
+up to the left, and at once you get excellent discipline. But these
+drivers, you can't get at them with any notice. A driver, well, the
+devil only knows what he's like!"
+
+He could talk of droshky drivers a whole evening, and Lunev never heard
+him speak of anything else.
+
+Also the inspector of the Orphan Asylum, Gryslov, came occasionally, a
+silent man, with a black beard. He loved to sing, in his bass voice,
+the song: "Over the sea, the deep blue sea," and his wife, a stately,
+stout woman with big teeth, always ate up the whole provision of
+sweetmeats, a feat which occasioned remarks after her departure.
+
+"Felizata Segarovna does that on purpose. Whatever sweets come on the
+table, she always swallows the lot."
+
+Alexandra Fedorovna Travkina used to come with her husband. She was
+tall and thin, with a large nose and short red hair. She had big eyes
+and a piping voice, and blew her nose frequently with a sound like the
+tearing of calico. Her husband suffered from a disease of the throat,
+and spoke in consequence in a whisper. But he would talk incessantly
+by the hour, and the sounds that came from his mouth were like the
+rustling of dry straw. He was very well-to-do, had served in the Excise
+Department, and was a director of a flourishing benevolent society.
+Both he and his wife spoke of little else but charitable institutions.
+
+"Just think what has just happened in our society!"
+
+"Ah, yes, yes. Just imagine!" cried his wife.
+
+"An appeal has been presented for assistance."
+
+"I tell you, these charitable institutions ruin the people----"
+
+"A woman writes, her husband is dead. She has three children. They are
+starving and she is always ill."
+
+"The old story, you know----"
+
+"They were to get three roubles----"
+
+"But, for my part, I don't believe in this widow," cried Alexandra
+Fedorovna, triumphantly.
+
+"My wife says to me, 'Wait,' she says: 'I'll see first what kind of a
+person it is.'"
+
+"And what do you think? The husband had been dead five years."
+
+"She's two children, not three."
+
+"The things they say!"
+
+"And she's as healthy as can be."
+
+"Then I said to her: 'See now, my friend, how would you like to be
+tried for fraud?' Of course, she fell at my feet."
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Kirik Avtonomov. And every one praised Fedorovna
+for her acuteness, and blamed the poor, because of their lying and
+greed, and want of respect towards their benefactors.
+
+Lunev sat in his room, and listened attentively to the conversations
+that went on close by. He wanted to understand what these people
+thought and said of life. But what he heard was incomprehensible
+to him. It seemed as though these people had made up their minds
+about life, had settled all questions, and knew everything; and they
+condemned in the strongest terms every one who lived differently
+from themselves. Most frequently, they talked of all kinds of family
+scandals, of different services in the cathedral, or of the evil
+behaviour of their acquaintances. It wearied Ilya to listen.
+
+Sometimes his landlord invited him to tea in the evening. Tatiana
+Vlassyevna was merry, and her husband waxed enthusiastic over the
+possibility of becoming rich, when he would retire from the service and
+buy himself a house.
+
+"Then I'd keep fowls," he said, and screwed up his eyes. "All sorts of
+fowls--Brahmahpootras, Cochin Chinas, Guinea-fowl, and turkeys--and
+a peacock--yes. Think of sitting at the window in a dressing-gown,
+smoking a scented cigarette, and seeing the peacock, my own peacock, in
+the courtyard, spreading his tail. That would be something like a life.
+He'd stalk round like a police officer, and say: 'Brr--Brrll--Brrll!'"
+
+Tatiana smiled, and, looking at Ilya, went on in her turn:
+
+"And every summer I'd go away somewhere, to the Crimea or the Caucasus,
+and in winter I'd be on some charitable committee. Then I'd have a
+black cloth dress, quite simple with no ornament, and I wouldn't wear
+any jewels except a ruby brooch and pearl ear-rings. I read a poem
+in the 'Niva,' where it said, 'that the blood and tears of the poor
+are turned to rubies and pearls,'" then with a soft sigh, she added,
+"Rubies look so nice on dark women."
+
+Ilya smiled and said nothing. It was warm and clean in the room, an
+odour of tea and of some pleasant scent mingled in the air. The birds,
+little feather balls, were asleep in the cages. A few gaudy pictures
+hung on the walls. A little étagère between the two windows was
+covered with all kinds of pretty little boxes, china birds, and gay
+Easter eggs of sugar or glass. The whole place pleased Ilya and filled
+him with a kind of soft, comfortable melancholy. Sometimes however,
+especially when he had earned little or nothing, this melancholy
+changed into a restless fretfulness. Then the china fowls and the eggs
+and the boxes annoyed him; he wanted to throw them on the ground and
+smash them.
+
+This mood disturbed and frightened him; he could not understand it and
+it seemed strange and unlike himself. As soon as it came upon him, he
+maintained an obstinate silence, kept his eyes fixed on one spot, and
+was afraid to speak lest he should somehow hurt the feelings of these
+good people.
+
+Once, however, as he was playing cards with them, he could not contain
+himself, and asked Kirik drily, looking him straight in the face:
+
+"I say, Kirik Nikodimovitch, you've never caught him--the murderer of
+the merchant in Dvoryanskaya Street?"
+
+As he spoke he felt a pleasant tingling in his breast.
+
+"Poluektov, the money-changer?" said the inspector, thoughtfully,
+as he examined his cards. "Poluektov? Ah! ah! No! I have not caught
+Poluektov--ah! I haven't caught him, my friend; that's to say, of
+course, not Poluektov, but the man who----I haven't even looked for
+him. I don't want him, anyhow--I only want to know who has the queen
+of spades? You, Tanya, played three cards--queen of clubs, queen of
+diamonds and--what was the other?"
+
+"Seven of diamonds--hurry up!"
+
+"He's quite lost!" said Ilya, and laughed scornfully.
+
+But the inspector paid no attention to him, he was absorbed in the game.
+
+"Quite lost," he repeated mechanically, "and he twisted poor
+Poluektov's neck--ah! ah!"
+
+"Kirya, do stop that, ah! ah!" said his wife. "Be quick!"
+
+"Patience, patience."
+
+"He must be a smart fellow who murdered him," remarked Ilya.
+
+The indifference with which his words were received roused in him a
+desire to speak of the murder.
+
+"Smart?" said the inspector slowly. "No! I am the smart fellow! There!"
+and he played a five, slapping the card down on the table. Ilya could
+not follow suit, and lost the round.
+
+The husband and wife laughed at him, and he grew more restive. As he
+was dealing, he said defiantly:
+
+"To kill a man in broad daylight, in the main street of the town, that
+takes some courage."
+
+"Luck, not courage," Tatiana corrected.
+
+Ilya looked first at her, then at her husband, laughed softly and asked:
+
+"You call it luck to kill some one?"
+
+"Why, yes; to kill some one and not get caught."
+
+"You've given me ace of diamonds again," cried the inspector.
+
+"I could do with an ace," said Ilya seriously.
+
+"Kill a rich man, that's the best ace!" said Tatiana jokingly.
+
+"Hold on a bit with your killing, here's an ace of cards to go on
+with," cried Kirik, with a loud laugh and played two nines and an ace.
+
+Ilya glanced again at their pleasant, happy faces, and the desire to
+speak further of the murder left him.
+
+Living side by side with these people, separated only by a thin wall
+from their sheltered, peaceful life, Ilya was seized more and more
+frequently with fits of painful dissatisfaction. The feeling poured
+over him like a dense, cold flood, and he could not understand whence
+it came. At the same time thoughts of life's contradictions rose up
+in him, of God who knows everything, yet does not punish but waits
+patiently. Why does He wait?
+
+Out of sheer boredom he began to read again. His landlady had a couple
+of volumes of the "Niva," and the "Illustrated Review," and a few
+other odd volumes. Just as in his childhood, so now, he cared only
+for tales and romances, in which a strange unknown life was depicted,
+and not at all for representations of the real, the wrong and misery
+filling the life that surrounded him. Whenever he read tales of actual
+life, dealing with simple folk, he found them wearisome and full of
+false descriptions. Sometimes it is true they amused him, when it
+seemed as though these tales were written by clever people, anxious
+to paint this miserable, dull, grey life in fair colours and gloss
+over its wretchedness. He knew this life and daily learned to know
+it better. As he passed through the streets he never failed to see
+something that appealed to his critical faculties. In this way once he
+witnessed a scene on his way to visit his friend at the hospital which
+he related to Pavel:
+
+"This is what they call law and order. I saw some people like
+carpenters and plasterers going along the pavement. Up comes a
+policeman. 'Now then, you rascals!' he shouts, and turns them off into
+the road. That's to say, walk with the horses, else your dirty clothes
+may soil the fine gentry; build me a house, oh, yes, but I'll chuck you
+out of it, ah!"
+
+Pavel's wrath was aroused too, by the incident, and added fuel to
+Ilya's flame. He endured tortures in the hospital, little better to him
+than a prison; his thoughts would not let him rest, and his eyes glowed
+with despair and grim defiance. To think where Vyera might then be,
+consumed him, and he grew thin and wasted. Jakov he did not like, and
+avoided his society in spite of the wearisomeness that plagued him.
+
+"He's half silly," he answered when Ilya asked after Jakov.
+
+But Jakov, two of whose ribs it appeared were broken, lived very
+happily in the hospital. He had made friends with the patient next him,
+a servant in a church, whose leg had been amputated a little while
+before for sarcoma. He was a short, thick-set man, with a big bald head
+and a black beard that covered his breast. His eyebrows were thick
+and bushy, and he moved them constantly up and down; his voice sounded
+hollow as though it came from his stomach. Every time Lunev visited the
+hospital he found Jakov by the bedside of this man, who lay and moved
+his eyebrows without speaking, while Jakov read half-aloud out of a
+Bible, that was as short and thick as its owner.
+
+"'Because in the night Ar of Moab is laid waste and brought to
+silence,'" read Jakov. "'Because in the night Kin of Moab is laid waste
+and brought to silence.'"
+
+Jakov's voice sounded weak and creaking, like the noise of a saw
+cutting wood. As he read, he held up his left hand, as if to summon
+all the patients in the ward to hear the calamitous prophecies of
+Isaiah. The blue bruises were not yet quite gone from his face, and
+the big, thoughtful eyes in the midst of them gave him a very strange
+expression. As soon as he saw Ilya, he threw down the book, and always
+asked the same anxious question:
+
+"Haven't you seen Mashutka?"
+
+Ilya had not seen her.
+
+"O God!" said Jakov sadly. "How strange it is! Like a fairy tale!
+She was there, and suddenly a magician snatches her away, and she's
+disappeared."
+
+"Has your father been to see you?"
+
+"Yes--he came again."
+
+A shiver passed over Jakov's face, and he looked anxiously here and
+there.
+
+"He brought a pound of cakes, and tea and sugar. 'You've loafed
+round here enough,' he said, 'let them send you out!' But I begged
+the doctors not to send me away yet. It's so jolly here, quiet and
+comfortable. This is Nikita Jegarowitch. We read together. He has a
+Bible. He's read it for seven years. He knows it all by heart and can
+explain the prophecies. When I'm well, I'm going to leave my father and
+live with Nikita. I'll help him in the church and sing in the choir."
+
+The church servant lifted his eyebrows, underneath which a pair of
+big dark eyes moved slowly in deep sockets. Quiet and lustreless,
+they looked at Ilya's face with a fixed, dull look, and Ilya tried
+involuntarily to avoid them.
+
+"What a lovely book the Bible is!" said Jakov, quite enraptured,
+Mashka, his father, and all his dreams forgotten. "What things it says,
+brother! What words!"
+
+His widely-opened eyes glanced from the book to Ilya's face and back
+again, and he shook with excitement.
+
+"And that saying is in it--do you remember?--that the old preacher said
+to your uncle in the bar--'The tabernacles of robbers prosper!'--It's
+there, I found it, and things worse than that!"
+
+Jakov shut his eyes and said solemnly, with uplifted hand:
+
+"'How oft is the candle of the wicked put out, and how oft cometh
+destruction upon them! God distributed sorrows in his anger'--Do you
+hear?--'God layeth up his iniquity for his children: He rewardeth him
+and he shall know it.'"
+
+"Does it really say that?" said Ilya, incredulously.
+
+"Word for word."
+
+"Then I think that is--not right--wicked," said Ilya.
+
+The church servant drew down his bushy brows till they shaded his eyes,
+his beard moved up and down, and he spoke clearly in a dull, strange
+voice:
+
+"The boldness of the man who seeks the Truth is not sinful, for it
+springs from divine prompting."
+
+Ilya shuddered. The speaker sighed deeply, and went on, slowly and
+distinctly:
+
+"'The Truth itself bids a man seek Me! For Truth is God, and it is
+written: It is a great glory to follow the Lord.'"
+
+The man's face, covered with thick hair, inspired Ilya with shyness and
+respect. There was in it something strong, sublime. His brows went up
+again, he looked at the ceiling, and his big beard moved again:
+
+"Read him, Jakov, from the Book of Job, the beginning of the tenth
+chapter."
+
+Jakov turned over the leaves quickly, and read, in a low, trembling
+voice:
+
+"'My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself;
+I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. I will say unto God, do not
+condemn me: Show me wherefore thou contendest with me. Is it good unto
+Thee that Thou shouldest oppress; that Thou shouldest despise the work
+of Thine hands?'"
+
+Ilya stretched out his neck and looked at the book with blinking eyes.
+
+"You don't believe it?" cried Jakov. "How silly you are!"
+
+"Not silly, only cowardly," said the church servant, quietly, "because
+he cannot look God in the face."
+
+He turned his dull eyes from the ceiling to Ilya's face, and went on
+sternly as though he would shatter him with words.
+
+"There are parts that are more difficult than that one. The third verse
+of the twenty-second chapter says plainly: 'Is it any pleasure to the
+Almighty that thou art righteous? or is it gain to Him that thou makest
+thy ways perfect?' You need to think very diligently, so as not to go
+astray in these matters and to understand them."
+
+"And you, do you understand?" asked Lunev softly.
+
+"He?" cried Jakov. "Nikita Jegarowitch understands everything."
+
+But the church servant said, sinking his voice lower:
+
+"For me, it's too late already. It is time for me to understand death;
+they've taken off my leg, but it's swelling higher up, and the other
+leg is swelling, and my breast, and I shall soon die of it."
+
+His eyes stared steadily at Ilya and he continued slowly and quietly:
+
+"And I do not want to die yet, for I have lived wretchedly in sickness
+and bitterness, with no joy in my life. I've worked ever since I was
+a little boy, and like Jakov, under the scourge of a father. He was a
+drunkard and a brute. Three times he damaged my skull, once he scalded
+my leg with boiling water. I had no mother, she died when I was born. I
+married; I was compelled to take a wife who did not love me; three days
+after the wedding she hanged herself. Yes. I had a brother-in-law who
+robbed me, and my own sister said to my face that I drove my wife to
+her death. And they all said it, although they knew I had not touched
+her, that she died a maid. Then I lived nine years, alone and solitary.
+It is terrible to live alone. I've always waited for happiness to come
+at last, and now I'm dying. That is my whole life."
+
+He closed his eyes, paused a moment, then asked:
+
+"Why was life given to me? Guess that riddle."
+
+Ilya listened, pale, with fear in his heart.
+
+A dark shadow lay on Jakov's face and tears glimmered in his eyes; both
+were silent.
+
+"Why was I born? I ask. The Lord has done me wrong. I do not pray that
+He will lengthen my life. I find no words to pray with. I lie here and
+think and think: Why has life been given to me?"
+
+His voice choked. He broke off all at once, like a muddy brook that
+flows along and suddenly vanishes under ground.
+
+"For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope, for a
+living dog is better than a dead lion," said the church servant after a
+while in the words of the Scripture; then again his eyebrows went up,
+his eyes opened and his beard moved.
+
+"Also in Ecclesiastes it says: 'In the day of prosperity be joyful,
+but in the day of adversity, consider. God also hath set the one over
+against the other to the end that man should find nothing after him.'
+Well?"
+
+Ilya could hear no more. He got up quietly, gave Jakov a hand, bowed
+low to the sick man, as though he were taking leave of the dead; and
+this he did involuntarily.
+
+This time he left the hospital with a new, strangely oppressive
+feeling. The talk with the church servant had left no clear impression
+on his brain, but the mournful spectacle the sick man presented was
+stamped deep on his memory.
+
+Another was added to the men, he knew, whose lives had proved a
+delusion. He held the words of this man clear in his memory, and turned
+them over and over to get at their secret meaning. They confused him
+and disturbed something in the depths of his soul, where he hid his
+faith in the justice of God, and these words which he could not fathom,
+awaked in him a bitter gnawing brain-activity that drove him on to
+examine and analyse all that he saw or experienced. It appeared to
+him now that somehow, in a way unknown to himself, his faith in the
+justice of God had sustained a shock and was no longer so firm as of
+old. Something had gnawed at it, like the rust gnaws the iron. He felt
+clearly that this had happened; the fierce commotion into which the
+lament of the church servant had thrown him, convinced him. There were
+sensations and ideas in his breast as irreconcilable as fire and water,
+continually at strife. His bitterness against his own past, against all
+men and all the laws of life, broke out with new strength. In his anger
+he came finally to the question:
+
+"Thoughts grow in the soul like roots in the ground, but where is the
+fruit?"
+
+He would gladly have torn all these troubles from his heart, that he
+might begin the realisation of his dream of a solitary, peaceful,
+sheltered life.
+
+"I will mix with men no more. It's no good to me or any one. I can't
+live like this."
+
+He took to wandering the streets for hours, and came back home tired
+and moody.
+
+Every day the Avtonomovs became more friendly and obliging to Ilya.
+Kirik clapped him on the shoulder, jested with him, and said, in a tone
+of conviction:
+
+"You busy yourself with useless things, my friend. So modest and
+serious a lad must take a wider view. It isn't good to remain district
+inspector if you're fit to look after the whole town."
+
+Tatiana, too, began to ask Ilya definitely and in detail, how his
+peddling trade did, and how much he put by every month. He talked
+freely to her, and his respect for this woman, who could make so tidy
+and comfortable a life out of small possibilities, grew every day.
+
+One evening, as he sat by the open window of his room, in a dark mood,
+looking at the garden and thinking of the faithless Olympiada, Tatiana
+Vlassyevna came out of her dining-room to the kitchen and called Ilya
+to tea. He accepted the invitation against his will. He could not
+break free from his moodiness, and had no inclination to talk. He sat
+at the table, sulky and silent, and, looking at his hostess, noticed
+that her face wore an unusually solemn and troubled expression. Neither
+spoke; the samovar bubbled cheerily, a bird fluttered in a cage, the
+air was full of the scent of fried onions and eau-de-Cologne. Kirik
+twisted about on his chair, drummed with his fingers on the edge of the
+tea-tray, and sang under his breath.
+
+"Ilya Jakovlevitch," began his wife, with an important air, "we--my
+husband and I--have arranged a little matter, and would like to talk
+seriously with you."
+
+"Ho! ho! ho!" laughed the inspector suddenly, and rubbed his big red
+hands. Ilya started and looked at him in surprise.
+
+"Wait, Kirik! There's nothing to laugh at," said Tatiana.
+
+"_We've_ arranged it," cried Kirik, with a big laugh, then looked at
+Ilya and winked towards his wife. "Clever little girl!"
+
+"We've saved some money----"
+
+"_We! We've_ saved money! Ho! ho! ho! My clever, dear little wife!"
+
+"Kirya, be quiet!" said Tatiana, severely. Her face seemed thinner and
+more pointed than ever.
+
+"We have saved close on a thousand roubles," she went on half aloud,
+and bent over towards Ilya and looked him full in the face with her
+sharp little eyes. He sat quiet, but in his breast something seemed to
+jump for joy.
+
+"The money's in the bank, and brings us four per cent," went on Tatiana.
+
+"And that's too little, devil take it!" cried Kirik, and struck the
+table with his hand. "We want----"
+
+His wife silenced him with a reproving look.
+
+"Naturally, we are quite satisfied with this return, but we should like
+to help you in case you care to start on a bigger scale. You are so
+steady----" She paid Ilya a compliment or two, and then proceeded:
+
+"They say that a fancy ware shop can bring in twenty per cent., or even
+more if you go about it the right way. Now, we are ready to find you
+the money for a bill of exchange, at sight, of course, on condition
+that you open a shop. You will manage it under my supervision, and
+we'll halve the profits. You will insure the goods in my name, and
+you'll give me besides a document of some sort, nothing of importance.
+And now, think over the matter, and tell us simply--yes or no."
+
+Ilya listened to the thin, clear voice, and rubbed his forehead hard.
+While she spoke he looked many times at the corner where the golden
+frame of the eikon shone between the two wedding candles. He felt a
+kind of helplessness and fear as he listened to his hostess's words.
+Her proposal all at once assured his dream of years. It astonished him
+and filled him with joy. Smiling in confusion, he looked at the little
+woman and thought:
+
+"That's it, it's Fate."
+
+She spoke now in a motherly tone:
+
+"Consider it well, look at it from all sides! whether you have
+confidence in yourself, if you have enough strength--enough experience
+for it? And then tell us, what could you put to it besides your
+work,--our money won't go so very far, will it?"
+
+"I can," said Ilya slowly, "put in five hundred roubles. My uncle will
+give them to me--I have an uncle--I told you. He'll give me the money,
+perhaps more."
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Kirik.
+
+"Then is it a bargain?" asked Tatiana.
+
+"Yes. I agree," said Lunev.
+
+"Well, I should think so!" cried the inspector. Then he put his hand in
+his pocket and called out: "Now, let's have some champagne. Ilya, my
+boy, run to the wine merchant, and bring some champagne. Let's crack
+a bottle,--here's the money, you're our guest, of course. Ask for Don
+Champagne at ninety kopecks, and say it's for me, for Avtonomov, then
+they'll give it you for sixty-five,--hurry up, my lad!"
+
+Ilya looked smilingly at the beaming faces of the couple and went.
+
+So Fate had pushed him and buffeted him, led him to grievous sin,
+troubled his soul, and now suddenly she seemed to ask his forgiveness,
+to smile on him and offer her favours. Now before him the way lay open
+to a sheltered corner in life, where he could live quietly and find
+peace for his soul. He had taken a man's life, and for that he would
+help many and so make amends before the Lord. No, the Lord would not
+punish him severely, for He knows all. Olympiada was right; in the
+murder he was only the instrument, not the will, and evidently the Lord
+Himself was helping him to straighten his course, since he had made
+easy the attainment of his life's desire. Thoughts whirled through
+Ilya's head as in a happy dance, and inspired his heart with joys of
+life unknown till now. He brought from the wine shop a bottle of real
+champagne for which he paid seven roubles.
+
+"Oho!" cried Avtonomov, "that's what I call proper, my boy; that's an
+idea! Ha! yes."
+
+Tatiana thought differently; she shook her head disparagingly and said
+in a tone of reproach, looking at the bottle:
+
+"Seven roubles! Ei--ei! Ilya Jakovlevitch, how unpractical, how
+foolish!"
+
+Lunev stood before her, happy, deeply stirred; he smiled and said
+joyfully:
+
+"It's real champagne,--for the first time in my life I'll drink
+something real. What's my life been up to now? All spoilt, dirt and
+coarseness, and stuffiness, injuries and insults, and all kinds of
+torment. Is that a real life do you suppose? Can any one go on living
+like that?"
+
+He touched the sore place in his heart; his words rang bitterly, his
+eyes grew gloomy; he sighed deeply, and went on firmly and decidedly:
+
+"Ever since I was small I've looked for the real thing and have lived
+all the time like a wood-shaving in a brook. I was swept about, now
+here, now there, and all round me everything was dull and dirty and
+restless. I didn't know where to catch hold; only misery and injustice
+and knavishness all round me, and all that disgusts me: and now fate
+brings me to you, for the first time in my life I see how people can
+live in peace and comfort and love."
+
+He looked at them with a bright smile and bowed to them.
+
+"I thank you. With you I've found relief for my soul, by God! You've
+helped me for my whole life, now I can step out boldly, now I know how
+a man should live! It will go well with me and no other shall suffer
+for me. How many unlucky ones there are in the world! how many go
+under. I've seen it all, I know it all."
+
+Tatiana Vlassyevna regarded him with the look of the cat who lies in
+wait for the bird, ravished by his own song. A greenish fire gleamed in
+her eyes and her lips twitched; Kirik was busy with the bottle, he had
+it between his knees and bent over it. The veins of his neck swelled
+and his ears moved.
+
+"My friends," continued Ilya, "for I have two friends----"
+
+The cork popped, hit the ceiling and fell on the table; a glass that it
+fell against rang, quivering.
+
+Kirik smacked his lips, filled the glasses and commanded:
+
+"Ready."
+
+Then when his wife and Lunev had taken their glasses, he held his high
+over his head and cried:
+
+"To the firm of Tatiana Avtonomov and Lunev; may it bloom and flourish!
+Hurrah!"
+
+
+
+
+XIX.
+
+
+The following days were spent by Lunev and Tatiana Vlassyevna in
+arranging together the details of the new undertaking. She knew
+everything and spoke of everything with as much certainty as if she had
+dealt in fancy wares all her life. Ilya listened with amazement, smiled
+and was silent. He wanted to find a suitable place to make a beginning
+as soon as possible, and he agreed to all Tatiana's proposals, without
+considering their significance at all.
+
+At last everything was settled, and it appeared that Tatiana had
+a suitable shop ready chosen. It was arranged exactly as Ilya had
+imagined to himself, in a clean street, small and neat, with a room
+at the back. Ilya knew the shop; there had formerly been a milk
+shop there, and he had often visited it with his wares. Everything
+went splendidly, down to the least detail, and Ilya was triumphant,
+energetic, and happy. He visited his friends in the hospital. Pavel met
+him, cheerful for once. "To-morrow I'm to be discharged!" he explained
+with joyful excitement, even before he answered Ilya's greeting. "I've
+had a letter from Vyerka. She grumbles, says I insulted her, little
+devil!"
+
+His eyes shone and his cheeks reddened. He could not keep still a
+moment, but shuffled with his slippers on the ground and flourished
+with his hands.
+
+"Take care of yourself," said Ilya. "Be careful."
+
+"Of course. I shall simply say: 'Mam'selle Vyera Kapitanovna, will
+you marry me? Please! No?--then there's a knife in your heart!'" A
+convulsive shudder passed over his face.
+
+"Come, come!" said Ilya, laughing. "What, threaten her with a knife
+straight away?"
+
+"No--believe me, I've had enough of it. I can't live without her. And
+she too; she's no good without me; she's had enough of her beastly
+life. She must be sick of it. To-morrow it shall be settled between us,
+this way or that."
+
+Lunev looked at his friend's face and thought: "In a mood like this he
+might kill her." Suddenly a clear, simple idea came into his head. He
+blushed, then smiled. "Pashutka, think, I've made my fortune," he began
+after a pause, and told his friend shortly what had happened to him.
+Pavel listened, sighed with bent head, and said:
+
+"Ye--es, you are lucky!"
+
+"Envious?"
+
+"Rather! Devil take it!"
+
+"Really, I'm ashamed of my luck with you, speaking quite honestly."
+
+"Thank you!" said Pavel, with a dull laugh.
+
+"Do you know?" said Ilya slowly, "I'm not boasting. I mean it. I am
+ashamed, by God!"
+
+Pavel glanced at him without speaking, and hung his head lower.
+
+"And I'll say something to you. We've hung together in bad times. Let
+us share the good times."
+
+"H--m--m!" growled Pavel. "I've heard that happiness can't be shared,
+any more than a woman's love."
+
+"Oh, yes, it can! Just you find out all that is wanted to set up as a
+well-sinker--instruments and so on--and how much it costs, and I'll
+find the money."
+
+"Wha--at!" cried Pavel, looking at his friend incredulously.
+
+Lunev seized his hand with a lively gesture, and pressed it.
+
+"Really, you silly! I'll find it for you."
+
+But it needed a long conversation to assure Pavel of the seriousness of
+his intentions. Pavel kept shaking his head, growling, and saying: "No,
+it'll come to nothing."
+
+Finally Lunev succeeded in convincing him. Then Pashka embraced him,
+and said, in a voice full of emotion:
+
+"Thank you, brother! You'll pull me out of the pit. Now, listen to me.
+A workshop of my own--that's not for me. Give me some money, and I'll
+take Vyerka and go away from here. It will be easier for you, and you
+won't need to give me so much, and it'll suit me better. I'll go off
+somewhere and get an assistant's job in a workshop."
+
+"That's ridiculous," said Ilya. "It's much better to be your own
+master."
+
+"What sort of a master should I be?" cried Pavel. "I don't know how to
+deal with workmen like a master. No, a business of my own, and all that
+goes with it, is not to my taste. I know the sort of fellow a man must
+be for that, it isn't in my line. You can't turn a goat into a pig."
+
+Ilya did not understand clearly Pashka's conception of a master, but it
+pleased him and drew him still nearer to his comrade. He looked at him
+full of joy and love, and said jestingly:
+
+"True! You are very like a goat. Just about as thin. Do you know whom
+you remind me of? Perfishka, the cobbler. Well, then, we'll meet
+to-morrow, and then I'll give you the money to make a start, till you
+get a job. And now I'll have a look at Jakov."
+
+"Agreed, and thank you, brother!"
+
+"How do you get on now with Jakov?"
+
+"Same as before; we can't hit it off," said Gratschev laughing.
+
+"He's an unlucky fellow. It's not easy to deal with him," said Ilya
+thoughtfully.
+
+"Ah, we've most of us something to put up with," answered Pavel, and
+shrugged his shoulders. "He always seems to me not quite all there,
+half silly. Well, I'm off."
+
+"Good-bye, then."
+
+And when Ilya had already left him, he called after him once more from
+the passage:
+
+"Thank you, brother!"
+
+Ilya nodded to him with a smile. He found Jakov quite sorrowful and
+cast down. He lay on his bed, his face upturned to the ceiling, looking
+up with wide-open eyes, and did not notice Ilya's approach.
+
+"Nikita Jegarovitch's gone to another ward," he said gloomily.
+
+"That's a mercy," answered Lunev. "He really looked too terrible, and
+then he said such odd things! God be with him!" Jakov looked at him
+reproachfully, but said nothing.
+
+"Getting on?" asked Ilya.
+
+"Ye--es," answered Jakov with a sigh. "I mayn't even be ill as long as
+I want. Yesterday father was here again. He's bought another house. He
+says he's going to open another inn, and all that'll be on my head."
+
+Ilya wanted to speak of his own success, but something restrained him.
+
+The spring sun shone gaily through the windows and the yellow walls of
+the hospital seemed still more yellow. In the bright light, the paint
+showed many spots and gaps. Two patients were sitting on their beds,
+silently playing cards, quite absorbed in their game. A tall thin man,
+with his bandaged head bent down, walked noiselessly up and down the
+ward. All was quiet, save for an occasional smothered cough, and the
+shuffling of the patients' slippers as they walked in the corridor.
+
+Jakov's yellow face seemed lifeless and his dull eyes had a troubled
+expression.
+
+"Oh, I wish I were dead!" he said in his dry, creaking voice. "When I
+lie here I say to myself, 'it must be interesting to die.' Up there
+things are very different--so different, that no one has ever seen,
+no noise, everything is easy to understand and bright and clear." His
+voice sank lower, became more muffled. "There are kind angels there;
+they can explain everything to you, and answer all your questions--the
+angels----"
+
+He was silent and began to blink his eyes, watching the pale reflection
+of the sun rays play on the ceiling.
+
+"Do you know----?" began Lunev.
+
+Jakov interrupted him at once.
+
+"Haven't you seen Mashutka?"
+
+"N--No."
+
+"Ah! you--you ought to have gone to see her long ago."
+
+"I forgot. I can't remember everything."
+
+"You must remember with your heart."
+
+Lunev was embarrassed and said nothing. A little man on crutches
+wearing a moustache with pointed ends, hobbled in out of the corridor,
+and said in a hoarse, hissing voice to the tall man with the bandaged
+head:
+
+"Schurka has not come again, the rascal."
+
+Jakov looked at him, sighed and threw his head backwards and forwards
+on the pillow restlessly.
+
+"Nikita Jegarovitch will die, and he doesn't want to,--the surgeon told
+me, he must die, and I want to die, and I can't. I shall get well again
+and go behind the counter, and drink brandy and so I go down."
+
+His lips lengthened into a melancholy smile.
+
+"To endure this life, a man needs an iron body and an iron heart, and
+he must live like all the rest, without thinking, without conscience."
+
+Ilya detected in Jakov's words something hostile and cold, and his brow
+wrinkled.
+
+"And I'm a glass between stones," Jakov continued, "if I turn, there's
+a smash."
+
+"You grumble far too much," said Lunev carelessly.
+
+"And what about you?" asked Jakov.
+
+Ilya turned away and did not speak. Then observing that Jakov showed no
+signs of going on, he said thoughtfully:
+
+"It's hard for us all. Look at Pavel, for instance."
+
+"I don't like him," said Jakov, and made a grimace.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Oh! Just I don't like him."
+
+"Well, I do."
+
+"I don't care."
+
+"H'm--yes--well, I must be off."
+
+Jakov held out his hand in silence, and then implored, in a tearful,
+entreating voice:
+
+"Do find out about Mashutka, will you? for Christ's sake!"
+
+"Yes. I will," said Ilya.
+
+It disturbed and worried him to listen to Jakov's eternal complaints,
+and he felt relieved when he got away from him. But the entreaty to
+find out about Masha roused a certain feeling of shame in him for his
+conduct towards Perfishka's daughter, and he determined to look up
+Matiza, as she was certain to know how Mashutka was taking to her new
+life. Like all the people in Petrusha's house, he knew that Matiza used
+to wash the floors every Saturday at the house of Ehrenov, receiving
+a quarter-rouble for the task, and also for granting more personal
+favours. Ilya took the road towards Filimonov's tavern, and his soul
+was full of thoughts of his future. It seemed to smile sweetly on
+him, and lost in his fancies, he passed the tavern without noticing,
+and when he discovered his mistake felt no inclination to turn back.
+He went on right out of the town; the fields stretched away in front
+of him, bounded far off by the dark wall of the forest. The sun was
+setting; its rosy reflection gleamed on the tender green of the turf.
+Ilya strode forward with head high and looked up to the sky, where
+purple clouds stood almost motionless, flaming in the sun's rays. He
+felt at ease, wandering thus aimlessly; every step forward, every
+breath awakened a new thought. He imagined himself rich and mighty and
+with the power to ruin Petrusha Filimonov, in his dream he had brought
+him to beggary, and Petrusha stood before him weeping, but he addressed
+the suppliant:
+
+"Have compassion, should I? And you, have you ever had compassion on
+a soul? Have you not maltreated your son, and led my uncle into sin?
+Have you not looked down on me and despised me? In your accursed house
+no one has ever been happy, no one has ever known joy. Your house is
+rotten through and through, a trap for men, a prison for those that
+live in it."
+
+Petrusha stood there, shivering and groaning with fear, lamenting like
+a beggar and Ilya thundered on at him:
+
+"I will burn your house, for it brings misery to all who dwell in it,
+and do you go out in the world and beg forgiveness from all that you
+have wronged; go, wander till the day of your death, and then die of
+hunger, like a dog!"
+
+The evening twilight had fallen on the fields, the forest rose in the
+distance like a thick dark wall, like a mountain range. A little bat
+flitted noiselessly through the air like a dark speck, seeming to
+sow the darkness. Far off on the river was heard the beating noise
+of a steamboat's paddles; it was as though somewhere in the distance
+a monstrous bird were wheeling, making the air tremble with mighty
+strokes of its wings. Lunev remembered all the people who had opposed
+him on his way through life, and haled them all without mercy before
+his judgment seat. A pleasant sense of relief came to him, and as he
+strode alone through the fields, wrapped now in darkness, he began to
+sing softly. Suddenly the odour of rubbish and decay filled the air. He
+stopped singing; but the odour had only pleasant associations for him.
+He had reached the town rubbish-heap, in the narrow valley where he had
+so often searched with Jeremy.
+
+The stench seemed to him more penetrating and suffocating than in his
+childhood.
+
+The vision of the old rag-picker rose in his memory, and he glanced
+round to find in the twilight the spot where the old man used to rest
+with him. But he could not find it; evidently it was buried under new
+mountains of refuse and rubbish. He sighed, and felt that there was a
+part of his soul smothered beneath the refuse of life.
+
+"If only I hadn't killed that man; then I should want nothing." The
+thought flashed through his brain; but immediately from his heart came
+another, answering: "What has that man to do with my life? He is only
+my misfortune, not my sin."
+
+Suddenly there was a slight rustling, a little dog slipped past Ilya's
+feet, and fled, whimpering softly. Ilya shuddered; he felt as though a
+part of this darkness of night had taken life and then vanished again,
+groaning.
+
+"It's all the same," he thought. "Even without that, there'd be no
+peace in my heart. How many injuries I have endured; how many more I
+have seen others bear! Once the heart is wounded, it never ceases to
+feel pain."
+
+He paced slowly along the edge of the valley. His feet sank in the
+dust. He could hear the wood-shavings and pieces of paper rustle and
+crackle as he walked. An open part of the ground, not yet encumbered
+with rubbish, led away into the valley like a narrow tongue of land. He
+went to the end of it, and there sat down. Here the air was fresher,
+and as his eyes travelled along the gully, they rested far off on the
+steely ribbon of the river. The lights of invisible vessels glimmered
+on the water, which seemed as still as ice, and one light swayed, like
+a red speck, in the air. Another glowed steadily, green and foreboding,
+without rays; and at his feet, full of mist, the wide throat of the
+valley seemed itself like the bed of a stream, wherein black air-waves
+rolled noiselessly. Deep melancholy fell on Ilya's heart. He looked
+down and thought, "A moment ago I felt full of courage, light, and
+happy, and now it's all gone again. Why does life drive a man on and on
+against his will, where he has no desire to go? Everything in life is
+so oppressive and heavy, full of injustice, full of perplexity! Perhaps
+Jakov is right--men must first of all understand themselves, how they
+live and by what laws?"
+
+He remembered how strange, almost hostile, Jakov had been towards him
+to-day, and he grew more sorrowful as he remembered. Suddenly there
+was a noise in the valley, a mass of earth had loosened and rolled
+down. The damp night wind breathed on Ilya's face; he looked up to the
+sky. The stars burned shyly, and over the wood the great red ball of
+the moon heaved slowly up, like a huge, pitiless eye. And like the bat
+through the twilight, dark images and memories fluttered through Ilya's
+soul. They came and went without solving the riddles that oppressed
+him, and denser and heavier grew the darkness over his heart.
+
+"Men rob and torment and strangle one another, and no one dreams of
+making life easier for his fellows, but each watches only for a chance
+to fight his way out and rest in a peaceful corner. I, too, am seeking
+for such a corner, and where is the Truth and Reality and Steadfastness
+in this life?"
+
+He sat a long time there, thinking, looking now at the sky, now at the
+valley. All was still in the fields. The moonlight looking into the
+dark gully, showed its clefts and the bushes on its slopes, that threw
+vague shadows on the ground. The sky was pure and clear, nothing showed
+but the moon and stars. A cold shiver ran through Ilya, he got up and
+went slowly to the town, whose lights gleamed in the distance. He had
+no further wish to think at all. His breast was now filled with cold
+indifference.
+
+He reached home late, and stood thoughtfully before the door,
+hesitating to ring. The windows were dark already. Evidently his
+landlord had gone early to rest. He disliked to disturb Tatiana
+Vlassyevna so late, for she always saw to the door herself; but he
+had to get in. He pulled the bell gently. The door opened almost
+immediately, and the slender form of Tatiana appeared, dressed in white.
+
+"Shut the door quickly," she said, in a strange voice. "It is cold;
+I've hardly anything on. My husband's not at home."
+
+"I'm so sorry to be late," murmured Ilya.
+
+"Yes, you are late. Where have you been?"
+
+Ilya closed the door and turned round to answer, and suddenly felt
+her close to him; she did not move, but nestled closer; he could not
+give way, the door was at his back. Then suddenly she laughed--a soft,
+trembling laugh. Lunev put his hands tenderly on her shoulders; he
+shook with excitement and longing to embrace her. Then all at once she
+straightened herself, laid her slender warm arms round his neck, and
+said in a ringing voice:
+
+"Why do you wander abroad in the night? Why? You can be happy nearer
+home--for a long time you might have been--my dearest, my beautiful,
+strong boy!"
+
+As if in a dream, Ilya felt for her lips and swayed beneath the
+convulsive embrace of the slender body; she clung to his breast like a
+cat, and kissed him again and again. He caught her in his strong arms
+and bore her away, carrying his burden as easily as though he trod on
+air.
+
+In the morning Ilya woke with trouble in his heart.
+
+"How can I look Kirik in the face?" he thought, and shame was added to
+the anxiety that the thought of the inspector aroused in him.
+
+"If only I had quarrelled with him, or didn't like him. But to injure
+him, and so deeply, without any cause----" he thought with fear in his
+heart, and a feeling of disgust arose in him for Tatiana. He felt that
+Kirik was certain to find out his wife's unfaithfulness, and he could
+not imagine what would happen.
+
+"How she fell on me, as if she were starving!" he thought, in restless,
+painful doubt; and yet felt, too, a pleasing sense of gratified vanity.
+This was no "tradesman's darling," as he used to call Olympiada in his
+thoughts, but a woman, respected by all the world--an educated, pretty
+married woman.
+
+"There must be something special about me," his vanity whispered to
+him. "It's too bad--too bad! But I'm not made of stone, and I couldn't
+turn her away."
+
+He was young in fact, and his fancy was full of the woman's caresses.
+Besides his practical mind saw involuntarily several advantages that
+might arise from this new relationship. But close on the heels of these
+ideas, like a dark cloud, came other gloomy thoughts.
+
+"Now I'm in a corner again. Did I want it? I respected her! I never had
+an evil thought about her; and now it's happened like this."
+
+Then again, all the disturbance and contradiction in his soul was
+covered by the joyful thought that soon now his sheltered, clean life
+would begin. But to the end the painful, stabbing thought persisted:
+
+"It would have been better without this."
+
+He stayed in bed, pondering, till Avtonomov went to his duties. He
+heard the inspector say to his wife, smacking his lips:
+
+"Let me have meat pasties for dinner, Tanya. Take a little more pork,
+and then just brown them a little, till they look like tiny little
+sucking pigs on the plate--you know; and just a little pepper with
+them, my dear, the way I like it. Then I'll bring you some marmalade,
+shall I?"
+
+"Now, go along! go along! As if I didn't know what you like!" said his
+wife tenderly.
+
+"And now, my darling, my little Tanya, give me one more kiss!"
+
+Lunev shuddered. It all seemed to him horrible and ridiculous.
+
+"Tchik! tchik!" cried Avtonomov as he kissed his wife, and she laughed.
+As soon as she had shut the door behind him, she danced into Ilya's
+room, and cried:
+
+"Kiss me quick--I've no time."
+
+"You've just kissed your husband," said Ilya moodily.
+
+"Wha--at? Eh? Aha! He's jealous!" she cried, delighted, then sprang up
+and drew the window curtain.
+
+"Jealous!" she said. "That's so nice! Jealous men are always passionate
+lovers."
+
+"I didn't say it out of jealousy."
+
+"Don't talk!" she commanded, and put her hand on his lips. Then, when
+she had been kissed enough, she looked at Ilya, with a smile, and could
+not keep from saying:
+
+"Well, you're a bold fellow--a downright daredevil--to carry on like
+this under the husband's nose."
+
+Her greenish eyes sparkled impudently, and she cried:
+
+"Oh, it's quite a common thing, not in the least unusual! Do you
+suppose there are many women true to their husbands? Only the ugly ones
+and the sick ones--a pretty woman always wants to enjoy herself and
+have a little romance."
+
+During the whole morning she instructed Ilya on this point, told him
+all sorts of stories of wives who were untrue to their husbands. In her
+red blouse, with her skirts tucked up, and her sleeves rolled above
+her elbows, supple and light, she danced about the kitchen, preparing
+the pasties for her husband, and chattering all the time in her clear,
+ringing voice:
+
+"A husband!--d'you think a wife must be always content with him? The
+husband can sometimes be very disagreeable, even if you love him; and
+then he never thinks twice if he has a chance to be false to his wife.
+So it's dull for a wife, too, to think of nothing all her life but--my
+husband, my husband, my husband."
+
+Ilya listened, as he drank his tea, which seemed to have a bitter
+taste. In this woman's speech there was something defiant, unpleasantly
+provocative, that was new to him. Involuntarily he remembered
+Olympiada, the deep voice, the quiet movements, and the glowing words
+that had power to grip his heart. For the rest Olympiada was a woman of
+no great education, who might have been the wife of a small tradesman,
+but even because of that she was simpler in her shamelessness. Ilya
+answered Tatiana's pleasantries with a slight laugh, and had to
+force himself even to laugh. His heart was sick, and he only laughed
+because he did not know what to speak of. Her words aroused a painful
+melancholy in him, and yet he listened with deep interest, and finally
+said thoughtfully:
+
+"I did not believe that such things happened in your set?"
+
+"Things, my dear, are the same everywhere."
+
+"You don't mind much, do you? Why do you look so cross?"
+
+Ilya stood in the doorway and looked fixedly at her, wrinkling his
+brow. She went up to him, put her hands on his shoulders, and looked
+into his face curiously.
+
+"I'm not cross," said Ilya seriously.
+
+"Really? Oh! thank you--ha! ha! ha! how good you are!" She laughed
+brightly.
+
+"I was only thinking," said Ilya, speaking slowly--"It's all quite
+right, what you say--but there's something bad in it too."
+
+"Oho! What a touchy person you are! Something bad, eh? What
+then--explain to me!"
+
+But he could not. He himself did not understand what it was in her
+words that displeased him. Olympiada had often spoken, more simply,
+more plainly; but her words had never given him the pain of soul that
+he felt from the chatter of this pretty little bird. He pondered all
+day obstinately on the strange feeling of discomfort that had arisen in
+his heart through this new intimacy, so flattering to his vanity, and
+he could not arrive at the source of the sensation.
+
+When he came home that night, Kirik met him in the kitchen, and said in
+a friendly way:
+
+"I say, Ilya, Tanyusha did some cooking to-day--meat pasties--I tell
+you, it seemed almost a pity to eat them! Almost as bad as eating
+living nightingales. I've left a plateful for you, brother. Hang up
+your box, sit down, and see what you will see."
+
+Ilya looked at him conscience-stricken, and said with a forced laugh:
+
+"Thank you, Kirik Nikodimovitch." Then he added, with a sigh: "You're a
+good fellow, by Jove!"
+
+"What," answered Kirik, "a plate of pasty--that's nothing! No, brother,
+if I were chief of police--then you might perhaps thank me, but I'm
+not. I shall give up the police altogether, and start as agent or
+manager in a big business. A manager, that's something like a good
+position; if I get it I'll soon get a little capital together."
+
+Tatiana was busy at the stove and singing softly. Ilya looked at
+her, and again felt a painful discomfort; but almost immediately the
+sensation vanished under the influence of new impressions and cares.
+During these days he had no time to give to brooding; the arrangement
+of the shop and the purchase of goods occupied him entirely, and from
+day to day amidst his work he grew accustomed to this woman, almost
+without knowing, like a drunkard to the taste of brandy. She pleased
+him more and more as a mistress, although her caresses often caused
+him shame, even anxiety; her caresses and her talk together slowly
+destroyed his respect for her as a woman. Every morning after she had
+seen her husband off to work, or in the evenings when he was on duty,
+she called Ilya to her or came into his room, and told him all sorts of
+stories "of real life;" and all her stories were curiously vicious, as
+though they related to a country inhabited only by liars and scoundrels
+of both sexes, whose greatest pleasure lay in adultery.
+
+"Is that all true?" asked Ilya gloomily. He didn't want to believe, but
+felt helpless and unable to contradict.
+
+He listened, and life seemed to him like a swill-tub, and men moving in
+it like worms.
+
+"Ugh!" he said wearily, "is there nothing clean or true anywhere?"
+
+"What d'you call true? What d'you mean?" asked Tatiana in surprise.
+
+"Why, something honourable!" cried Lunev angrily.
+
+"Why, it's honourable people I'm speaking of--how funny you are! I
+don't make it all up."
+
+"That's not what I mean. Is there anywhere anything honourable--pure,
+or not?"
+
+She did not understand and laughed at him. Sometimes her conversation
+took a different tone; looking at him with greenish eyes, darting an
+uncanny fire, she asked him:
+
+"Tell me, what was your first experience of women?"
+
+Ilya was ashamed of the memory, it was hateful to him. He turned away
+from the glance of his mistress, and said in a low reproachful voice:
+
+"What horrid things you ask! I think you ought to be ashamed--men don't
+even speak like that with one another."
+
+But she laughed happily, and went on talking till Lunev often felt
+defiled with her words as with pitch. But if she read in his face any
+hostile feeling, or perceived in his eyes any weariness, or distress,
+or sorrow, she knew how to kindle his desire afresh and banish by her
+caresses all feelings hostile to her influence.
+
+One day when Ilya returned from the shop, where already the joiners
+were putting in the shelves, he saw to his astonishment, Matiza in the
+kitchen. She was sitting at the table, her big hands folded in her lap,
+and conversing with the mistress of the house, who was standing by the
+hearth.
+
+"Here," said Tatiana, and nodded at Matiza, "this lady has been waiting
+for you, for ever so long."
+
+"Good evening!" said Matiza, and got up clumsily.
+
+"Why," cried Ilya, "are you still living?"
+
+"Even pigs don't eat dirty bits of wood," answered Matiza in her deep
+voice.
+
+Ilya had not seen her for a long time, and looked at her now with
+mingled feelings of compassion and pleasure. She was dressed in ragged
+fustian, an old faded kerchief covered her head, her feet were bare.
+She moved with difficulty, but supporting herself with her hands on the
+wall, she crept slowly into Ilya's room, sat heavily in a chair, and
+spoke in a hoarse toneless voice:
+
+"I shall soon die. You see, I can hardly move my feet, and when I can't
+walk, I can't find food, and then I must die."
+
+Her face was horribly bloated and covered with dark flecks. The big
+eyes were hardly visible between the swollen lids.
+
+"What are you looking at?" she said to Ilya. "You think some one has
+struck me? No, it is a disease, devouring me."
+
+"What are you doing?"
+
+"I sit by the church door and beg for coppers," said Matiza,
+indifferently, in her deep, resonant voice. "I'm come on business. I
+heard from Perfishka that you were living here, and so I came."
+
+"May I give you some tea?" asked Lunev. It hurt him to hear Matiza's
+voice and see her big, slack body perishing visibly.
+
+"The devil wash his tail in your tea! Give me five kopecks, do! I came
+to you--well, you can ask me why."
+
+Speech was difficult. She breathed short, and an overpowering odour
+came from her.
+
+"Well, why?" asked Ilya, turning away and remembering how he had
+insulted her once.
+
+"Do you remember Mashutka? What? You've a poor memory! You've grown
+rich!"
+
+"I remember, of course I remember," said Ilya quickly.
+
+"What's the good of your remembering?" she interrupted. "Has that made
+her life any easier?"
+
+"What's the matter with her? How is she getting on?"
+
+Matiza's head swayed, and she said briefly:
+
+"She hasn't hanged herself yet."
+
+"Oh, speak out!" cried Ilya roughly. "What do you begin at me for? You
+sold her yourself for three roubles."
+
+"I don't reproach you, only myself," she answered quietly and
+emphatically, then began to tell of Masha, choking with the exertion.
+
+"Her old husband is jealous and torments her, he lets her go nowhere,
+not even into the shop. She sits in one room, and mayn't go into the
+courtyard without leave. He's got rid of his children somehow, and
+lives alone with Masha. He pinches her and ties her hands, he treats
+her so badly because his first wife was untrue, and the two children
+are not his. Masha has run away twice, but both times the police have
+brought her back, and the old man pinches her and starves her for it.
+See, what a life!"
+
+"Yes, you and Perfishka did a good deed," said Ilya gloomily.
+
+"I thought it was better," said the woman, in her toneless voice. Her
+face motionless as though carved in stone, and her dead voice, weighed
+on Ilya.
+
+"I thought--it was cleaner so. But the worse would have been better.
+She might have been sold to a rich man, he would have given her a home
+and clothes, and everything, and afterwards she would have sent him
+off and lived like all the others. Ever so many live like that."
+
+"Well, why have you come to me?" asked Ilya.
+
+"You live here, in a policeman's house. You see, they always catch her.
+Tell him to let her go, let her run away. She'll manage somehow. Is one
+not allowed to run away?"
+
+"You really came for that?"
+
+"Yes, why not? They ought not to stop her, tell them!"
+
+"Ah, you people!" cried Ilya, trying to think what he could do for
+Masha.
+
+Matiza rose from her chair, and shuffled carefully over the floor. She
+sighed and groaned, and she was not like a human being walking, but
+like an old, decayed tree falling slowly down.
+
+"Good-bye! We shan't meet again! I shall soon die," she murmured.
+"Thank you, thank you, my fine, trim fellow! Thank you!"
+
+As soon as she was gone, Tatiana hurried into Ilya's room, embraced
+him, and asked smiling:
+
+"That's the one--your first love, eh?"
+
+"Who?" asked Ilya slowly, absorbed in memories of Masha.
+
+"That horror----"
+
+Ilya unclasped her hands from his neck, and said moodily:
+
+"She can hardly drag one foot after the other, but she cares for those
+she loves."
+
+"Whom does she love?" asked the woman, and looked with wonder and
+curiosity at Ilya's anxious face.
+
+"Wait, Tatiana, wait! Don't make fun of her."
+
+He told her briefly of Masha, and asked: "What is to be done?"
+
+"Here, nothing," answered Tatiana, shrugging her shoulders. "By the
+law, the wife belongs to her husband, and no one has any right to take
+her from him." And, with the important air of one who knows the law
+well and is convinced of its stability, she explained at length that
+Masha must obey her husband.
+
+"She must just hang on for the present. Let her wait--he's old; he'll
+soon die. Then she'll be free, and all his money will go to her. And
+then you'll marry the rich young widow, eh?"
+
+She laughed and continued to instruct Ilya seriously.
+
+"It would be best for you to give up your old acquaintances. They're no
+use to you now, and they might get in your way. They're all so coarse
+and dirty--that one, for instance, you lent money to--such a skinny
+fellow, with wicked eyes."
+
+"Gratschev?"
+
+"Yes. What funny names common people have--Gratschev, Lunev, Petuchev,
+Skvarzov.--In our set the names are much better, prettier--Avtonomov,
+Korsakov--my father's name was Florianov. When I was a young girl I
+was courted by a lawyer, Gloriantov. Once at the skating, he stole my
+garter, and threatened to make a scandal if I did not go to his house
+to get it back----"
+
+Ilya listened, remembering his own past. He felt his soul bound by
+invisible threads fast to the house of Petrusha Filimonov, and it
+seemed this house would always hold him back from the peaceful life he
+longed for.
+
+
+
+
+XX.
+
+
+At last Ilya Lunev's dream was realised. Full of calm joy, he stood
+from morning to night behind the counter of his own business, and
+swelled with pride over all he saw round him. Boxes of wood and
+cardboard were ranged carefully on the shelves; in the window was a
+display of waist-buckles, purses, soap, buttons, with gay-coloured
+ribbons and laces. It was all bright and clean, and shone in the
+sunshine in rainbow colours. Handsome and steady-looking, he received
+his customers with a polite bow and displayed his goods on the counter
+before them. He heard pleasant music in the rustling of his laces and
+ribbons, and all the girls--tailoresses, who bought a few kopecks'
+worth--seemed to him pretty and lovable. All at once life became
+pleasant and easy, a clear, simple meaning seemed to have entered into
+it, and the past was veiled in a cloud. No thoughts came to him save
+of business, and goods and customers. He had taken on an errand boy,
+dressed him in a well-fitting grey jacket, and took great care that the
+lad washed himself well, and kept as clean as possible.
+
+"You and I, Gavrik," he said, "deal in fine goods, and we must be
+clean."
+
+Gavrik was a lad of twelve years, rather fat, snub-nosed and slightly
+pock-marked, with little grey eyes and a lively face. He had passed
+through the town school, and considered himself a full-grown, serious
+man. He took a great interest in his work in the clean little shop; it
+delighted him to handle the boxes, and he was at great pains to be as
+polite to the customers as his master. But this he found difficult--his
+talents for mimicry were too strongly developed, and he was apt to
+reproduce on his coarse face any expression that he observed in a
+customer. Above all he was the sworn foe of all little girls, and could
+seldom resist the temptation to pinch them or push them, or pull their
+hair, and generally make their lives a burden. Ilya watched him, and
+remembered how he had served in the fish shop, and as he had a liking
+for the boy, he joked with him and spoke to him in a friendly way when
+there were no customers in the shop.
+
+"If you're dull, Gavrik, read books when there's no work to be done,"
+he advised. "Time passes easily with a book, and reading's pleasant."
+
+From this time Lunev began to regard mankind cheerfully and
+attentively, and he smiled as much as to say:
+
+"I'm a lucky one, you see; but patience! Your turn will come soon."
+
+He opened his shop at seven and closed at ten. There were few
+customers; he sat on a chair near the door basking in the rays of the
+spring sun, and resting, almost without a thought, without a wish.
+Gavrik sat in the doorway, observed the passers-by, imitated their
+ways, enticed the dogs to him, and threw stones at the pigeons and
+sparrows, or else read a book, and breathed heavily through his nose.
+Sometimes his master would make him read aloud, but the actual reading
+did not interest Ilya, he listened rather to the stillness and peace
+in his heart. This inner peace filled him with delight, it was new to
+him and unspeakably pleasant. Now and then, however, the sweetness
+was disturbed, there was a strange, incomprehensible sensation, a
+premonition of unrest; it could not shatter the peace in his soul, but
+rested lightly on it like a shadow. Then Ilya began to talk to the boy.
+
+"Gavrik! What is your father?"
+
+"He's a postman."
+
+"Are you a big family?"
+
+"Big? There's a crowd of us. Some grown-up, but some are still little."
+
+"How many little ones?"
+
+"Five, and three grown-up. We three have all got places. I'm with you,
+Vassili is in Siberia in a telegraph office, Sonyka gives lessons. She
+earns a lot, twelve roubles a month. Then there's Mishka--he is older
+than I am, but he's still at school."
+
+"Then there are four grown-up, not three?"
+
+"No, how?" cried Gavrik, and added sententiously: "Mishka is still
+learning, but a grown-up is one who works."
+
+"Do you have a hard time at home?"
+
+"Rather," answered Gavrik indifferently, and sniffed loudly. Then he
+began to explain his schemes for the future.
+
+"When I'm big, I shall be a soldier. Then there'll be a war, and I'll
+go to the war. I'm brave, and so I'll rush at the enemy before all the
+others and capture the standard--that's what my uncle did--and General
+Gourko gave Kim a medal and five roubles."
+
+Ilya listened, smiling, and looked at the pock-marked face, and the
+wide, twitching nostrils. In the evening when the shop was shut, Ilya
+went into the little room at the back. The samovar made ready by
+the lad was on the table, and bread and sausage. Gavrik had his tea
+and bread and went into the shop to sleep, but Ilya sat long by the
+samovar, often as much as two hours. Two chairs, a table, a bed, and a
+cupboard for household utensils made up all the furniture of Ilya's new
+home. The room was small and low, with a square window from which could
+be seen the feet of the passers-by, the roofs of the houses over the
+way, and the sky above the roofs. He hung a white muslin curtain before
+the window. An iron railing cut the window off from the street, and
+this displeased Ilya very much. Over his bed was a picture--"The Steps
+of Man's Life." This picture was a great favourite with Ilya, and he
+had long wished to buy it, but for one reason and another he had never
+possessed it till he opened his shop, though it cost but ten kopecks.
+
+The steps of man's life were arranged in the form of an arch, under
+which was represented Paradise; here the Almighty, surrounded with rays
+of light and flowers, talked with Adam and Eve. There were seventeen
+steps in all. On the first stood a child supported by his mother,
+and underneath, in red letters: "The first step." On the second the
+child was beating a drum, and the inscription ran: "Five years old--he
+plays." At seven years of age he began "to learn;" at ten, "goes to
+school;" at twenty-one he stood on the step with a rifle in his hand,
+and a smiling face, and underneath was written: "Serves his time as a
+soldier." On the next step he is twenty-five, he is in evening dress,
+with an opera hat in one hand and a bouquet in the other--"he is a
+bridegroom." Then his beard is grown, he has a long coat and a red tie,
+and is standing near a stout lady in yellow, and pressing her hand.
+Next he is thirty-five; he stands with rolled-up shirt-sleeves by an
+anvil and hammers the iron. At the top of the arch he is sitting in a
+red chair reading the paper, his wife and four children are listening
+to him. He himself and all his family are well dressed, respectable,
+with healthy, happy faces. At this time he is fifty years old. But note
+how the steps begin to go down; the man's beard is already grey, he is
+clad in a long yellow coat, and in his hands he holds a bag of fish and
+a jar of some sort. This step is labelled: "Household duties." On the
+following step the man is rocking the cradle of his grandson; lower
+down "he is led," being now eighty years old; and in the last--he is
+ninety-five--he is in a chair with his feet in a coffin, and behind the
+chair stands Death, with the scythe in his hand.
+
+When Ilya sat by the samovar he looked at the picture, and it pleased
+him to see the life of man so accurately and simply depicted. The
+picture radiated peace, the bright colours seemed to smile at him, and
+he was persuaded that the series represented honourable life wisely and
+intelligibly, as an example to men--life exactly as it should be led.
+As he gazed at this representation of life, he thought that now that he
+had attained his desire, his career must henceforth follow the picture
+exactly. He would mount upwards, and right at the summit, when he had
+saved enough money, he would marry a modest girl who had learned to
+read and to write.
+
+The samovar hummed and whistled in a melancholy way. The sky looked
+dull through the glass of the window and the muslin curtain, and the
+stars were hardly visible. There is always something disturbing in the
+glance of the stars.
+
+"Perhaps it would be better to marry at forty," thought Ilya. "Life is
+so disturbed with women; they bring such useless hurrying and so many
+petty things: and it is better to marry a girl who is close on thirty.
+But then, if you marry late, you die and never have time to start your
+children for themselves."
+
+The samovar whistles more gently but more shrilly. The fine sound
+pierces the ears unbearably; it is like the buzzing of a fly, and
+distracts and confuses thought. But Ilya does not put the lid on
+the chimney, for if the samovar ceases to whistle, the room becomes
+so still. In his new house, new feelings, hitherto unknown, come to
+visit him. Formerly he had lived constantly close to people, separated
+from them only by thin partitions; now he was shut off by stone walls
+and felt no man at his back. "Why must we die?" Lunev asks himself
+suddenly, looking at the man declining from the height of his fortune
+towards the grave. Then he remembers Jakov, who was always pondering on
+death, and Jakov's saying: "It is interesting to die."
+
+Angrily Ilya thrusts the memory away, and tries to think of something
+quite different.
+
+"How are Pavel and Vyera getting on?" he wonders suddenly. A droshky
+drives by; the window-panes shake with the noise of the wheels on the
+stony street, the lamp trembles on the wall. Then strange sounds arise
+in the shop--it is Gavrik talking in his sleep. The dense darkness
+in the corner of the room seems to move. Ilya sits propped up at the
+table, presses his temples with the palms of his hands, and looks at
+the picture. Next to the Almighty is a fine big lion, on the ground
+crawls a tortoise, and there is a badger and a frog jumping, and the
+Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is adorned with great blood-red
+flowers. The old man with his feet in the coffin is like Poluektov, he
+is bald-headed and lean, and his neck is of just the same thin kind. A
+dull noise of footsteps sounds from the street. Some one goes slowly
+past the shop. The samovar has gone out, and now the room is so still
+that the air in it seems thickened and as solid as the walls.
+
+The memory of Poluektov did not trouble Ilya and, generally speaking,
+his thoughts were not disturbing--they lay soft and easily on his soul,
+enwrapping it as a cloud the moon. The colours of the picture were made
+a little pale by them, and a vague dark spot appeared on it, while
+the stillness round about grew denser. Frequently he thought with
+calmness, as he had done after the murder of Poluektov, that there must
+be justice in life, and that, sooner or later, men must be punished for
+their sins. After such thoughts, he would look sharply into the dark
+corner of the room, where it was so mysteriously still, and where the
+darkness would take on a definite form. Then he undressed, lay down,
+and extinguished the lamp. He did not put it out at once, but turned
+the wick first up, then down. The light would all but go out, then
+again flare up, and the darkness danced round the bed, now threw itself
+on the bed from all sides, now again sprung back into the corner of
+the room. Ilya watched how the pitiless black waves tried to overwhelm
+him, and he played in this way for a long time, whilst trying to pierce
+the darkness with wide-open eyes, as though he expected to catch sight
+of something. At last the light flickered for the last time, and went
+out in a moment. The blackness flooded the room, and seemed to waver
+as though still disturbed by its struggle with the light. Then the
+dull bluish patch of the window became visible. When the moon shone,
+black streaks of shadow from the railings in front of the window fell
+across the table and the floor. There was so tense a stillness in the
+room that it seemed as if his whole frame must quiver if he sighed. He
+wrapped the bed-clothes round him, drawing them up to his chin, but
+with his face uncovered, and lay and looked at the twilight of the
+window till sleep overpowered him. In the morning he woke fresh and
+rested, almost ashamed of his follies of the night before. He had tea
+with Gavrik at the counter and looked at his shop as at a new thing.
+Sometimes Pavel came in from his work, covered with dirt and grease, in
+a scorched blouse and with smoke-blackened face. He was working again
+with a well-sinker, and carried with him a little kettle, with lead
+piping and soldering-iron. He was always in a hurry to get home, and if
+Ilya asked him to stay, he would say, with a shame-faced smile:
+
+"I can't. I feel, brother, as though I had a wonderful bird at home,
+but as if the cage were too weak. She sits there alone all day, and
+who knows what she thinks about? It's a dull kind of life for her. I
+know that very well--if only we had a child!"
+
+And Gratschev sighed heavily. Once when Ilya asked him if he still
+wrote poems, he replied smiling:
+
+"On the sky, with my finger! Oh, the devil! How can you make cabbage
+soup of bast shoes. I'm on the sand-bank, brother, altogether. Not a
+spark in my head, not one little one! I think of her all the time. I
+work, begin to solder or something, and at once dreams of my little
+girl fly through my head. You see that's my poetry nowadays--ha! ha!
+Surely, honour to him who devotes himself body and soul!--You see,
+though I think this, she thinks differently--yes, it's hard for her."
+
+"And you?" asked Ilya.
+
+"Oh, yes; it's hard for me because of her. If she could have a happier
+life! She's used to being happy, that's it. She dreams of money all the
+time. If we had money, anyhow, she says everything would be different.
+I'm stupid she says; I ought to rob a rich man; she's always talking
+nonsense. She does it all out of compassion for me--I know. It is hard
+for her."
+
+Presently Pavel became restless and departed.
+
+Often the ragged half-naked cobbler came to Ilya with his inseparable
+companion, his harmonica, under his arm. He told what had happened at
+Filimonov's and of Jakov. Thin and dirty and dishevelled, he pushed
+into the door of the shop; smiling all over his face, and scattering
+his jests.
+
+"Petrusha is married, his wife is like--like a beetroot, and the
+stepson like a carrot. Quite a vegetable garden, by God! The wife
+is thick and short and red, and her face is built in three storeys;
+three chins she has, but only one mouth; eyes like a beautiful pig,
+they are little and can't look up. Her son is yellow and long, with
+spectacles--an aristocrat. He's called Savva--speaks through his nose.
+When his lady-mother's there he's an absolute sheep, but if she's
+away, chatterbox isn't the word! Such a crew--with all due respect!
+Jashutka looks now as if he'd like to crawl into a crack like a
+terrified black beetle. He drinks on the quiet, poor lad, and coughs
+away like anything. Evidently his dear papa has damaged his liver for
+him; they're always at him. He's a feeble fellow; they'll soon swallow
+him down. Your uncle has written from Kiev; I think he is worrying
+himself for nothing. Hunchbacks don't get in to Paradise, I'm thinking.
+Matiza's feet are no good at all now. She goes about in a little cart.
+She's got a blind man for partner, harnesses him to the cart, and
+guides him like a horse--it's really funny. They get enough to eat out
+of it though. She's a good sort, I say. That's to say if I hadn't had
+such a wonderful wife I'd marry this Matiza right away. I say boldly,
+there are two real women in the world--on my word I mean it--my wife
+and Matiza. Of course she drinks, but why not? A good man always
+drinks."
+
+"But what about Mashutka?" Ilya reminded him. At the mention of his
+daughter all the cobbler's jests and laughter came to a sudden end,
+like the leaves torn from the trees by the winds of autumn. His lips
+quivered, his yellow face lengthened, and he said in a confused low
+voice:
+
+"I don't know. Ehrenov said to me plainly I won't have you about my
+house, else I'll thrash you.--Give me something, Ilya Jakovlevitch, for
+a little drink of brandy."
+
+"You'll come to grief, Perfily," said Ilya compassionately.
+
+"I'm on the way," admitted the cobbler. "Lots of people will be sorry
+when I'm dead," he went on with conviction. "For I'm a good fellow, and
+I like to make people laugh. Every one cries--ah! and alas! and laments
+and talks of God and sin; but I sing little songs and laugh. Whether
+you sin a pennyworth or a pound's-worth, you've got to die all the
+same. You go under, and the Devil will torment you anyhow; and besides
+the world needs good fellows."
+
+Finally he went off, laughing and jesting, like a tousled old
+greenfinch. But Ilya, when he had seen him out, shook his head; while
+he pitied Perfishka, he saw the uselessness of his compassion. His
+own past seemed far behind him, and all that reminded him of it made
+him uncomfortable. Now he resembled a weary man who rests and sleeps
+quietly, but the autumn flies buzz persistently in his ear and will
+not let him have his sleep out. When he talked to Pavel or listened to
+Perfishka's tales, he smiled in sympathy, but when they were gone, he
+shook his head. Especially he found Pavel's conversation melancholy
+and troubling. At such times he hurriedly and obstinately offered him
+money, gesticulated, and said: "What else can I do to help you? I
+should advise you--break with Vyera!"
+
+"I can't," said Pavel, softly. "You only throw away things you don't
+want. But I need her--ah, yes, and others want her too, and would like
+to take her from me, that's the trouble. And perhaps I don't love her
+with my soul, but out of wickedness and desperation. She's the best
+that life has offered me. All my good fortune. Why should I let her go?
+What shall I have left? No, I won't sell her. It's a lie.--I'll kill
+her, but I won't let her go."
+
+Gratschev's drawn face was covered with red patches, and he clenched
+his fists convulsively.
+
+"Do you find, then, that people hang about after her?"
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"How do you mean, then--they'd like to take her away?"
+
+"There's a power that will snatch her from my hands. Ah! the devil! My
+father came to grief through a woman, and seems to have left me the
+same fortune."
+
+"It's impossible to help you, I'm afraid," said Lunev, and felt a
+certain relief as he said it. Pavel distressed him more than Perfishka,
+and when his friend spoke with hate and anger, a similar feeling surged
+up in Ilya's breast against some undefined person. But the enemy that
+caused the suffering, that ruined Pavel's life, was not there, but
+invisible, and Lunev felt anew that his enmity or his compassion
+availed nothing, like nearly all his sympathetic feelings towards other
+men. It seemed these feelings were all superfluous, useless. Pavel went
+on, more gloomily:
+
+"I know--it's impossible to help me.--How could I be helped? Who is
+there? We're alone in life, brother; our lot is settled--work, suffer,
+be silent--and then go out. Devil take you!"
+
+He looked searchingly into his friend's face, and added in a decided,
+sinister tone:
+
+"Look! You've crawled into a corner and sit quiet there. But I tell
+you, there's some one, who watches by night, thinking how to drag you
+out."
+
+"No, no!" said Lunev smiling. "I'll make a fight for it. It's not so
+easy."
+
+"Ah, don't be so sure! You think you'll run this business all your
+life, eh?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"They'll have you out, or else you yourself will give it up."
+
+"But how? You'll have to wait to see that!" said Ilya, smiling.
+
+But Gratschev maintained his statement. He looked hard at his friend,
+and said obstinately:
+
+"I tell you, you'll leave it. You are not the kind to sit quiet and
+warm all your life, and it's certain either you'll take to drink or
+you'll go bankrupt. Something's bound to happen to you."
+
+"Yes, but why?" cried Lunev, in surprise.
+
+"For this--You can't stand a quiet life. You're a good fellow, you've
+a good heart, there are a few like that--they live healthy lives, are
+never ill, and all of a sudden--bang!"
+
+"What d'you mean?"
+
+"They fall down dead."
+
+Ilya laughed, straightened himself, stretched his strong muscles, and
+breathed out a deep breath.
+
+"That's all rubbish," he said. But at night, as he sat by the samovar,
+Gratschev's words returned involuntarily, and he considered his
+business relations with the Avtonomovs. In his delight at their
+proposal to open a shop, he had agreed to everything that was
+suggested. Now, suddenly he perceived that, although he had put into
+the business about four hundred roubles of Poluektov's money, he was
+rather a manager, engaged by Tatiana Vlassyevna, than her partner. This
+discovery surprised and annoyed him. "Aha! that's why she kisses me,
+so as to pick my pocket more easily," he thought. He determined to use
+the rest of his money to get the business away from his mistress and
+then separate from her. Even earlier, Tatiana Vlassyevna had seemed
+to him unnecessary, and of late she had become a burden. He could not
+reconcile himself to her caresses, and once said to her face:
+
+"You're absolutely shameless, Tanyka!"
+
+She only laughed. As before, she constantly told him tales of the
+people of her circle, and once he remarked, doubtfully:
+
+"If that's all true, Tatiana, your respectable life isn't good for
+much."
+
+"Why, pray? It's very jolly!" she replied, and shrugged her pretty
+shoulders.
+
+"Jolly? In the day, a fight for crumbs, and at night--beastliness. No!
+There's something wrong about that."
+
+"How simple you are! Now listen," and she began to praise the orderly,
+respectable middle-class life, and as she praised, strove to hide its
+hideousness and foulness.
+
+"Is that what you call good, then?" asked Ilya.
+
+"How odd you are! I don't call it good; but if it weren't it would be
+very dull."
+
+Sometimes she would advise him:
+
+"It's time you gave up wearing cotton shirts--a respectable man must
+wear linen. And listen to the way I pronounce words, and learn. You're
+not a peasant any longer, and you must drop your peasant ways, and get
+a little polish."
+
+More often she would point out the difference between him, the peasant,
+and herself, the educated woman, and by the comparison frequently hurt
+his feelings. When he lived with Olympiada, he felt constantly that
+she was near him, like a good comrade. Tatiana aroused no feeling of
+comradeship; he saw that she was more interesting than Olympiada, and
+studied her with curiosity, but completely lost his respect for her.
+When he lived with the Avtonomovs, he used sometimes to hear Tatiana
+praying before she went to sleep:
+
+"Our Father, Who art in heaven"--her loud rapid whisper sounded behind
+the partition. "Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our
+trespasses--Kirya, get up and shut the kitchen door--there's a draught
+at my feet."
+
+"Why do you kneel on the bare floor?" answered Kirik lazily.
+
+"Be quiet, don't interrupt me!" and again Ilya would hear the rapidly
+murmured prayer. The haste displeased him; he saw well she prayed from
+custom, not from inner need.
+
+"Do you believe in God, Tatiana?" he asked her once.
+
+"What a question," she cried. "Of course I do. Why do you ask?"
+
+"Oh, then when you pray, you hurry up so as to get away from Him, I
+suppose," said Ilya laughing.
+
+"First of all, don't say hurry up, but make haste; in the second place,
+I'm so tired with my day's work that God must forgive my haste."
+
+And she closed her eyes, and added in a tone of deep conviction:
+
+"He will forgive everything. He is merciful."
+
+Olympiada used to pray silently and for a long time. She knelt before
+the eikon, hung her head, and remained motionless as if turned to
+stone. At such times her face was downcast, serious; and she did not
+answer if addressed. Now that Ilya grasped that Tatiana had cleverly
+over-reached him over the business, he felt a kind of disgust towards
+her.
+
+"If she were a stranger--well and good," he thought. "All men try to
+cheat one another, but she is almost like my wife." He began to behave
+coldly and suspiciously towards her, and to avoid meeting her on all
+sorts of pretexts.
+
+Just at this time he became acquainted with another woman. This was
+Gavrik's sister, who came now and then to see her brother. Tall, thin,
+and lanky, she was not pretty, and though Gavrik had said she was
+nineteen she seemed to Ilya much older. Her face was long and thin and
+yellow; fine wrinkles furrowed the brow. She had a flat nose, and the
+wide nostrils seemed distended with anger, while the thin lips were
+usually pressed together. She spoke distinctly, but as it were through
+her teeth, and unwillingly. She walked quickly with her head high,
+as though she were proud to display her ugly face, though possibly
+it was her long, thick black hair that drew her head backwards. Her
+big dark eyes looked serious and earnest, and the whole effect of her
+features was to give her tall figure an air of definite uprightness
+and inflexibility. Lunev felt afraid of her. She seemed to him proud
+and inspired him with respect. Whenever she appeared in the shop, he
+offered her a chair politely and said:
+
+"Please take a seat."
+
+"Thank you," she said shortly--bowed slightly and sat down. Lunev
+looked secretly at her face, absolutely different from the women's
+faces he had seen hitherto, her dark-brown well-worn dress, her
+patched shoes and yellow straw hat. She sat there, and talked to her
+brother, while the long fingers of her right hand drummed rapidly
+but noiselessly on her knee; in her left hand she swung some books,
+strapped together. It struck Ilya as strange to see a girl so badly
+dressed, so proud. After sitting two or three minutes she would say to
+her brother:
+
+"Well--good-bye. Behave yourself!" Then she would bow silently to the
+owner of the shop and go out into the street with the stride of a brave
+soldier going to the attack.
+
+"What a serious sister you've got," said Lunev once to Gavrik.
+
+Gavrik distended his nostrils, rolled his eyes wildly, and drew out his
+lips into a straight line, and so gave his face a carefully caricatured
+resemblance to his sister's. Then he explained with a smile:
+
+"Yes--but she only puts it on."
+
+"But why should she?"
+
+"It looks well. She likes it.--I can imitate any face you like."
+
+The girl interested Ilya very much; he thought about her as he used to
+think of Tatiana Vlassyevna.
+
+"There, that's the kind of girl to marry--she's got a heart, for
+certain."
+
+Once she brought a thick book with her and said to her brother:
+
+"There--read it! It's very interesting."
+
+"What is it, may I see?" asked Ilya politely.
+
+She took the book from her brother and passed it to Ilya saying:
+
+"Don Quixote--the story of a worthy knight."
+
+"Ah! I've read a lot about knights," said Ilya with a friendly smile,
+and looked her in the face. Her eyebrows twitched, and she said quickly
+in a dry way:
+
+"You've read fairy tales, but this is a fine clever book. The man in it
+devotes himself to help the unfortunate and unjustly oppressed--this
+man was always ready to give his life for others. You see? The book is
+written amusingly--but that's because of the conditions under which it
+was written. It must be read seriously and attentively."
+
+"Then that's how we'll read it," said Ilya. This was the first time
+she had spoken to him; he felt curiously pleased, and smiled. But she
+looked in his face, said drily:
+
+"I fancy you won't like it."
+
+Then she went away. Ilya felt that she had spoken with intention and
+was annoyed. He spoke sharply to Gavrik who was looking at the pictures
+in the book.
+
+"Now then--it's no time for reading now."
+
+"But there are no customers," answered Gavrik without closing the book.
+
+Ilya looked at him and said nothing; the girl's words rang in his ears,
+but he thought of her with a feeling of discomfort in his heart.
+
+"My word; doesn't she think a lot of herself!"
+
+
+
+
+XXI.
+
+
+Time passed on. Ilya stood behind the counter, twisted his moustache,
+and conducted his business, but it began to seem to him that the days
+went more slowly. Sometimes he felt a desire to close the shop and go
+for a walk, but he knew that such a proceeding would be bad for his
+business and he did not go. To walk in the evenings was inconvenient;
+Gavrik was afraid to be alone in the shop and there was a certain risk
+in leaving him, he might set the place on fire by accident or let
+in some rascal or other. Business went fairly well. Ilya thought it
+might be necessary to take an assistant. His intimacy with Tatiana had
+insensibly grown less, and she seemed willing that it should come to an
+end. She laughed cheerfully when she came, and looked very carefully
+through the book that recorded the day's business. While she sat and
+made calculations in Ilya's room, he felt that this woman with the
+bird's face was repugnant to him; but still from time to time she would
+be pert and gay, jesting and making eyes at him, and calling him her
+partner. Then he would rouse himself and re-enter what in his heart
+he called a horrible web. Sometimes Kirik came too, stretched himself
+out in a chair by the counter and cracked jokes with the tailoresses
+who came in to make purchases while he was there. He had discarded
+his police uniform, and boasted of his success in his new commercial
+employment.
+
+"Sixty roubles salary and then in different ways I make as much again
+extra--not so bad, eh? I work very carefully for the extras, keep
+within the law--ho! ho! We've moved, did you hear? We've a jolly house
+now. We've taken on a cook--cooks splendidly, the wretch! When the
+autumn comes we'll ask lots of our friends and play cards; it's very
+pleasant, by Jove! To have a good time and make money at it; we play
+into one another's hands, I and my wife, one of us must always win,
+and the winnings pay the cost of entertainment, ho! ho! my boy! There,
+that's living cheaply and pleasantly!"
+
+He settled himself in a chair, puffed out the smoke of his cigarette
+and went on, lowering his voice:
+
+"A little while ago, brother, I was in a village--have you heard? I
+tell you, the girls there--d'you know, such children of Nature, so
+solid you know, you can't pinch them, the rascals,--and so cheap, too;
+a bottle of Schnapps, a pound of honey cakes, and she is yours!"
+
+Lunev listened, but said nothing. For some reason or other he was sorry
+for Kirik, and pitied him without realising why this fat and stupid
+fellow should rouse such a feeling. At the same time he almost always
+wanted to laugh at the sight of him. Ilya did not believe Kirik's tales
+of his adventures in the village, but thought he was only boasting,
+talking as he had heard others talk. But when he was in a gloomy mood,
+then he listened to Kirik and thought: "Fighting for crumbs!"
+
+"Yes, brother, it's splendid to make love in the bosom of Nature, in
+the shade of the leaves as they say in books."
+
+"But if Tatiana Vlassyevna knew?"
+
+"She won't know, brother," answered Kirik, and winked cheerfully.
+
+But when Avtonomov departed Ilya thought of his words, and felt hurt.
+It was evident that Kirik, good-tempered and ridiculous though he were,
+yet held himself to be a man out of the common, whom Ilya could not
+hope to equal, higher in station and more important. Yet he profited
+by the business Ilya carried on with his wife. Perfishka had told them
+that Petrusha laughed at his shop and called him a rascal. Jakov had
+said to the cobbler that formerly Ilya was better and more friendly
+than now and did not think so much of himself, and Gavrik's sister
+constantly demonstrated that she thought herself superior to him.
+The daughter of a postman, who went about almost in rags, behaved as
+though it were too much for her to live on the same world as he did.
+Ilya's ambition had grown since he had opened his shop, and he was more
+sensitive than before. His interest deepened in this girl who was so
+ugly, but had so strong a personality; he sought to understand whence
+came this pride in a poor ragged girl, a pride which grew to annoy him
+more and more. At first she would not talk to him, and that pained
+him. Her brother was his servant, and therefore she ought to be more
+friendly with him, the employer. He said to her once:
+
+"I'm reading the book of 'Don Quixote.'"
+
+"Well, do you like it?" she asked, without looking at him.
+
+"Rather, most amusing,--he was a funny old owl that fellow!"
+
+She looked at him, and Ilya felt as though her proud dark eyes pierced
+his face angrily.
+
+"I knew you would say something like that," she said, slowly and with
+meaning.
+
+Ilya was conscious of something reproachful, contemptuous and hostile
+in her words.
+
+"I'm an uneducated man," he said, and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+She said nothing as though she had not heard him.
+
+Once again the mood that long ago had possessed Ilya, began to invade
+his soul again; once more he was angered at mankind, pondered long and
+deeply upon justice, and his sins, and what might be in store for him
+in the future. The last question troubled him persistently. He liked
+his shop, he liked almost all his life at this time; in comparison with
+the life of his younger days it was cleaner, more peaceful, freer. But
+would it always be like this; to squat in his shop from morning to
+night, then sit awhile with his thoughts by the samovar, and then go
+to sleep, only to wake and begin again in the shop? He knew that many
+tradesmen, perhaps all, lived just such a life. But then they were
+married, and had children, they drank brandy, played cards, and among
+them all there was hardly one like himself.
+
+He had many reasons, outward as well as inward, to consider himself an
+unusual man, unlike the rest.
+
+He did not care for tradesmen; some of them were like Kirik, boasted
+of everything and spoke of nothing but their business, others swindled
+openly. Once, as he meditated on all these things, he remembered
+Jakov's words: "God guard you from good fortune--you are greedy," and
+the words appeared to him a deep insult. No, he was not covetous; he
+wanted to live simply, cleanly, and quietly, to have men respect him
+and to have no one say: "I stand higher than you, Ilya Lunev, I am
+better than you."
+
+Again he began to wonder what the future held in store for him. Would
+the murder be avenged on him or not? Up and down, he thought, whether
+it would be unjust for the sin to be avenged on him. He had had no
+desire to strangle the man, it happened of itself, he said to himself
+a hundred times. In the town there live many murderers, libertines,
+robbers, all know they are murderers and robbers and libertines of
+their own choice, yet all live, and enjoy the good things of life, and
+no punishment is swift to fall upon them. In justice, every injury done
+to man must be avenged on the evildoer, and in the Bible it is written:
+"He rewardeth him and he shall know it." These thoughts set all his old
+wounds throbbing and a raging thirst burned in his heart to revenge his
+blighted life. Sometimes the idea came to him to do some daring deed;
+to go and set fire to Petrusha's house, and when it began to burn, and
+people began to run from it, to cry out: "I have done it, and I have
+murdered Poluektov, the merchant." Then men would seize him and judge
+him, and send him to Siberia as they had sent his father. This thought
+roused him and narrowed his thirst for revenge to the desire to tell
+Kirik of his intimacy with Tatiana, or to visit old Ehrenov and thrash
+him for torturing Masha.
+
+Often he lay on his bed in the darkness listening to the deep
+stillness, and felt as though all round him life quivered, and twisted
+in a wild whirlpool with noise and outcry. The whirlpool would suck him
+in, and sweep him away like a feather or a fallen leaf, and destroy
+him, and he shuddered with the premonition of something uncanny.
+
+One evening, as he was about to close the shop, Pavel appeared, and
+said quietly, without greeting him: "Vyera has run away."
+
+He sat down on a chair, rested his elbows on the counter, and whistled
+softly as he gazed out into the street. His face was as though turned
+to stone, but his fair moustache twitched like a cat's whiskers.
+
+"Alone?" asked Ilya.
+
+"I don't know; it's three days ago."
+
+Ilya looked at him without speaking. The quiet face and voice made it
+impossible to tell how Gratschev felt the flight of his companion, but
+in the stillness Ilya was aware of an unalterable resolution.
+
+"What are you going to do?" he asked at length, when he saw that Pavel
+would not speak. Pavel stopped whistling, and said sharply, without
+turning round: "I'll cut her throat!"
+
+"Ah! talking like that again!" cried Ilya, and with a gesture of
+annoyance.
+
+"She's trod my heart under foot," said Pavel half-aloud. "There's the
+knife!" He drew from his bosom a little bread-knife and shook it.
+
+"I'll stick it in her throat."
+
+Ilya caught his hand, tore the knife away, and threw it on the counter,
+and said angrily:
+
+"An ox once raged against a fly----"
+
+Pavel sprang from his chair and turned his face on Ilya. His eyes were
+blazing, his face convulsed, and he trembled in all his limbs; then he
+sank back again on his chair and said, contemptuously:
+
+"You're a fool!"
+
+"You're so very clever, aren't you?"
+
+"The strength is in the hand, not in the knife."
+
+"Talk!"
+
+"And if my hands fall off, I'd tear her windpipe with my teeth."
+
+"Don't talk so horribly!"
+
+"Don't talk to me Ilya," said Pavel, once more quietly. "Believe or
+don't believe, but don't torment me. Fate is bad enough."
+
+"Think, think, you silly fellow----" began Ilya, speaking in a friendly
+tone.
+
+"I've thought for two years. Everything's settled long ago. Anyhow,
+I'll go--how can a fellow talk to you? You're well fed; you're no
+comrade for me."
+
+"Get rid of your crazy thoughts!" cried Ilya reproachfully.
+
+"But I'm hungry, body and soul."
+
+"It surprises me, the way men judge," said Ilya mockingly and shrugged
+his shoulders. "A woman is to be a man's property, like a cow or a
+horse! Will you do what I want? All right, you shan't be beaten,--won't
+you? then crack! there's one on the head for you, devil! A woman is
+like a man, and has a character of her own."
+
+Pavel looked at him and laughed hoarsely.
+
+"Then who am I, am I no man?"
+
+"Well, ought you to be just or not?"
+
+"Oh, go to the devil with your old justice!" shouted Gratschev
+furiously, and sprang up again. "Be just, that's easy for the well fed,
+d'you hear? Now, good-bye."
+
+He went quickly from the shop and in the doorway, for some reason, took
+off his cap. Ilya sprang from behind the counter after him, but already
+Gratschev was away down the street, holding his cap in his hand, and
+shaking it excitedly.
+
+"Pavel!" cried Ilya. "Stop!"
+
+He did not stop, nor turn round once, but turned into a side street,
+and disappeared.
+
+Ilya turned slowly back and felt his face burn with the words of his
+friend as though he had looked into a hot oven.
+
+"How angry he was!" said Gavrik.
+
+Ilya smiled.
+
+"Whose throat did he want to cut?" asked the boy, and came up to the
+counter. He held his hands behind his back, his head thrown up, and his
+coarse face was red with excitement.
+
+"His wife," said Ilya.
+
+Gavrik was silent for a moment, then he wrinkled his forehead and said
+softly and thoughtfully to his master:
+
+"There was a woman near us poisoned her husband last Christmas with
+arsenic, because he was always drinking."
+
+"It does happen," said Lunev slowly, thinking of Pavel.
+
+"But this man, will he really kill her?"
+
+"Go away now, Gavrik."
+
+The boy turned round and went to the door murmuring: "Marry! O Lord!"
+
+The dusk of twilight filled the streets and lights appeared in the
+windows opposite.
+
+"It's time to shut up," said Gavrik quietly.
+
+Ilya looked at the lighted windows. Below they were decked with flowers
+and above with white curtains. Between the flowers, golden frames could
+be seen on the walls within. When the windows were opened, sounds of
+song and guitar and loud laughter poured into the street. There was
+singing and music and laughter in this house almost every evening.
+Lunev knew that a man, Gromov, lived there, of the district court of
+justice, a fat, red-cheeked man, with a big, black moustache. His wife
+was stout, too, fair-haired, with little friendly blue eyes; she went
+proudly along the street like the queen in a fairy tale, but if she was
+talking to any one, she smiled all the time. Gromov had an unmarried
+sister, a tall, brown-skinned and black-haired girl, a crowd of young
+officials courted her; they all assembled at Gromov's almost every
+evening and laughed and sang.
+
+Gromov's cook bought thread of Ilya, complained of her employers, and
+said that they fed their servants badly and were always behindhand with
+their wages, and Lunev thought:
+
+"There--there are people who live well."
+
+"Really it is time to shut up," persisted Gavrik.
+
+"Shut up then."
+
+The boy closed the door and the shop grew dark; there was a noise as
+the key turned in the lock.
+
+"Like a prison," thought Ilya.
+
+The insulting words of his friend about his well fed condition stabbed
+his heart like splinters. As he sat by the samovar he thought angrily
+of Pavel, but did not believe he could murder Vyera.
+
+"It was no good trying to help them, hang them; they don't know how to
+live, they spoil one another," he thought crossly.
+
+Gavrik drank noisily out of his saucer and shuffled his feet under the
+table.
+
+"Has he killed her or not?" he asked his master, suddenly.
+
+Lunev looked at him moodily and said:
+
+"Drink your tea, and go to bed."
+
+The samovar boiled and bubbled as though it would jump off the table.
+From the courtyard of a neighbouring house an angry cry resounded.
+"Nifont! Ni--if--ont."
+
+Suddenly a dark figure appeared at the window, and a trembling, timid
+voice asked:
+
+"Does Ilya Jakovlevitch live here?"
+
+"Yes, he does," cried Gavrik, sprang up and flew to the door of the
+courtyard so quickly that Ilya had no time to say anything.
+
+"It's sure to be she," he said in a loud whisper, holding the latch of
+the door.
+
+"Who?" asked Ilya, involuntarily lowering his voice.
+
+"Why--she--he wanted to kill."
+
+He pushed open the door and the thin small figure of a woman appeared,
+wearing a cotton dress and a small kerchief on her head. She supported
+herself by the doorpost with one hand and with the other pulled at the
+ends of her kerchief. She stood sideways, as though ready to go away
+again at once.
+
+"Come in," said Lunev roughly; he looked at her and did not recognise
+her. She started at the sound of his voice, then lifted her head with a
+smile on the pale small face.
+
+"Masha!" cried Ilya, and sprang up. She laughed softly, shut the door
+fast behind her and came towards him.
+
+"You didn't know me--you didn't know me a bit," she said and stood in
+the middle of the room.
+
+"God! Yes. I can recognise you now. But--how--you've changed!"
+
+Ilya took her hand with exaggerated politeness, and led her to the
+table, bowed, looked at her face and did not know how to say in what
+way she had changed. She was incredibly thin and walked as though her
+feet gave under her.
+
+"Where have you come from? Are you tired? Ah--you--how you look!"--he
+murmured, settled her carefully in a chair and looked steadily at her.
+
+"See how he treats me," she said, and looked at Ilya with a smile. His
+heart contracted painfully. Now that the lamplight fell on her, he saw
+her face plainly. She leant back in the chair, with her thin hands in
+her lap, bent her head sideways, and her flat chest heaved in shallow
+rapid breathing. She looked as though made of skin and bone; through
+the cotton stuff of her dress showed the bony shoulders, elbows and
+knees, and her face was terrible in its thinness. Over the temples,
+and the cheek-bones and chin, the bluish skin was tight drawn, the
+mouth was half open, the thin lips did not cover the teeth, and the
+expression of pain and fear stared from the long narrow face. The eyes
+looked dull and dead.
+
+"Have you been ill?" asked Ilya.
+
+"N--no," she answered slowly. "I'm quite well--he has made me like
+this."
+
+"Your husband?"
+
+"Yes--my husband."
+
+Her slow, drawling speech came like groans, the uncovered teeth gave
+her a fish-like, dead look--it seemed as though the dead might smile as
+she smiled now and then.
+
+Gavrik stood beside her and looked at her with lips compressed and fear
+in his eyes.
+
+"Go to bed!" said Lunev to him.
+
+The lad went into the shop, moved about a little there--then his head
+appeared again in the doorway. Masha sat motionless, only her eyes
+moved and wandered from one thing to another. Lunev poured her out some
+tea, looked at her, but asked her no questions.
+
+"Ye--es--he torments me so," she said. Her lips trembled and her eyes
+closed for a moment; when she opened them again two big, heavy tears
+rolled down from under the lashes.
+
+"Don't cry," said Ilya, turning away.
+
+"Drink your tea--and tell me all about it--then it will be easier."
+
+"I'm afraid--he'll come," she said, and shook her head.
+
+"We'll turn him out."
+
+"He's strong," Masha warned him.
+
+"Have you run away?"
+
+"Yes--it's the fourth time--when I can't bear it any more, I run
+away--before I meant to drown myself--but he caught me--and beat me and
+hurt me so." Her eyes grew unnaturally big from the fear her memories
+roused, and her lower jaw trembled. She hung her head and said in a
+whisper:
+
+"He always hurts my feet."
+
+"Ah," cried Ilya. "What's the matter with you? Haven't you a tongue?
+Tell the police--say--he tortures me! He can be punished for that; put
+in prison."
+
+"But--he's one of the judges," said Masha, hopelessly.
+
+"Ehrenov?--a judge? What do you mean?"
+
+"I know. A little while ago, he was on the bench for two
+weeks--judging. He came back angry and hungry. He pinched my breast
+with the tongs and twisted it and turned it like a rag--look!"
+
+She unbuttoned her dress with trembling fingers and showed the small
+withered breast, all covered with dark patches, as though it had been
+gnawed.
+
+"Don't!" said Ilya gloomily. It made him sick to see the tortured,
+lacerated body--he could not believe that it was Masha, the friend of
+his childhood, once so gay, who sat before him. She bared her shoulder
+and said in a toneless voice:
+
+"See how my shoulder is knocked about! Everything he can, all my body
+is pinched and hair torn out."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"He's a beast. He says, 'You don't love me,' and he pinches me."
+
+"Perhaps--before he married you, there was some one else?"
+
+"How could there be? I saw only you and Jakov--no one ever touched me.
+Yes, and now I hate all that. It hurts me. I hate it. I'm always sick."
+
+"Don't--don't--Masha," said Ilya gently. She was silent, sat once more
+as though turned to stone, her breast still bare. Ilya looked from
+behind the samovar again at her thin bruised body and said: "Do up your
+dress!"
+
+"I don't mind you," she answered mechanically, and began to button her
+blouse with shaking fingers. All was still. Then the sound of loud
+sobbing came from the shop. Ilya got up and went to the door and closed
+it, saying crossly:
+
+"Be quiet--Gavrushka--go to sleep!"
+
+"Is that the boy?" asked Masha.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Crying?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is he frightened?"
+
+"No. I think--he's sorry."
+
+"For what?"
+
+"For you."
+
+"Ah--the boy!" said Masha, indifferently; but her lifeless face did not
+move. Then she began to drink her tea, but her hands shook so that the
+saucer rattled against her teeth. Ilya looked on and wondered--was he
+sorry for Masha--or not? But his heart was heavy, and he thought of her
+husband with hatred.
+
+"What will you do?" he asked after a long pause.
+
+"I don't know," she answered with a sigh. "What can I do? I'll
+rest--till they catch me again."
+
+"You ought to complain to the police," said Lunev, firmly. "Why should
+he torment you? Who has any right to torment any one like that?"
+
+"He did the same to his first wife," said Masha. "He tied her to the
+bed by her hair--and pinched her--just the same--and once I was asleep
+and suddenly I felt a pain and woke and screamed--he'd burnt me with a
+lighted match."
+
+Lunev sprang up and said fiercely and loudly that the very next morning
+she should go to the police and show her bruises and demand to have her
+husband condemned. She listened to him, shifting unceasingly to and
+fro, looked at him in terror, and said:
+
+"Don't shout--don't shout, please! They'll hear you."
+
+His words only distressed her. He soon perceived this little girl, once
+so cheerful and gay, had been beaten and crushed till all human spirit
+was tortured out of her.
+
+"Very well," he said, and sat down again. "I'll see to it. I'll find a
+way. You'll stay here, Mashutka--d'you hear?"
+
+"Yes. I hear," she answered softly, and looked round the room.
+
+"You can have my bed, and I'll go into the shop--but to-morrow."
+
+"I'll lie down at once, I think. I'm tired." He folded back the
+coverlet from the bed. She fell on it and tried to cover herself with
+the bedclothes, but could not manage it, and said with a dull smile:
+
+"How silly I am. I might be drunk."
+
+Ilya drew the coverlet over her, arranged the pillows, and was going
+away, when she said anxiously:
+
+"Don't go. Stay a little. I'm so frightened alone--there's something
+haunts me." He sat down by the bed, looked once at her pale face,
+framed in its curls, and turned away. All at once he was full of
+shame that she should lie there, hardly alive. He remembered Jakov's
+entreaties, and Matiza's account of Masha's life, and he hung his head.
+
+"And his father beats Jasha, they say. Matiza says, 'What a life!'" she
+said.
+
+"Such fathers," said Lunev between his teeth, interrupting her soft,
+lifeless speech. "Such fathers--ought to go to penal servitude--your
+father and Petrusha Filimonov."
+
+"No, my father is weak--he isn't wicked."
+
+"If you can't look after your children you've no business to have any."
+
+From the house opposite came the music of two voices singing together,
+and the words of the song drifted through the open window into Ilya's
+room. A strong, deep bass sang fiercely:
+
+"My heart is disenchanted."
+
+"There. I shall go to sleep," murmured Masha. "How nice it is--so
+peaceful--and the singing--they sing well."
+
+"Oh, yes--they sing,", said Lunev smiling, grimly. "Though the skin is
+torn off one, the others can shout."
+
+"It will not trust again," sang the tenor voice, the clear, round tones
+ringing through the quiet night lightly and freely up into the sky.
+Lunev got up and shut the window crossly; the song was unendurable,
+it tormented him. The noise of the window-frame made Masha start. She
+opened her eyes, raised her head in terror and asked: "Who's there?"
+
+"I. I was shutting the window."
+
+"For Heaven's sake--are you going?"
+
+"No, no--don't be afraid."
+
+She turned on her pillow and went to sleep again. Ilya's least
+movement, or the noise of footsteps in the street, disturbed her. She
+opened her eyes at once and cried in her sleep.
+
+"Coming--oh--I'm coming."
+
+Or she stretched out her hand to Ilya and asked: "Is that a knock at
+the door?" While he tried to sit still, and looked out of the window
+which he had opened again, Ilya pondered how he could help Masha, and
+determined grimly not to let her go till the matter was in the hands of
+the police.
+
+"I must work it through Kirik."
+
+"Please, please--go on!" through the windows came the sound of lively
+appeals and applause from Gromov's house. Masha groaned in her sleep,
+but the music began again.
+
+"A pair of bay horses, and early away."
+
+Lunev shook his head despairingly. The singing and outcry and laughter
+disturbed him. He propped his elbows on the window-ledge and stared at
+the lighted windows opposite, with wrath and fierce resentment, and
+thought how good it would be to cross the street and hurl a paving
+stone through into the room; or to have a gun and send a charge of
+shot among these cheerful people. The shot would come whizzing in--he
+imagined the terrified bleeding faces, the confusion and outcry, and
+smiled with an evil joy in his heart. But the words of the song crept
+involuntarily into his ears, he repeated them to himself, and suddenly
+grasped with amazement, that these happy people were singing of the
+burial of a mistress. This surprised him; he began to listen more
+attentively and thought:
+
+"Why do they sing that? What sort of pleasure can there be in such
+a song? See, what a thing to think of--the fools! A funeral--such a
+funeral! And here--ten steps away lies a living, suffering human being."
+
+"Bravo! Bravo!" came from over the street.
+
+Lunev smiled, looked first at Masha, and then at the street; it seemed
+to him ridiculous that men should find amusement in singing of the
+burial of a light-o'-love.
+
+"Vassily--Vassilitch," murmured Masha. "I won't. O God!"
+
+She threw herself about in bed as if she were burning, threw the
+coverlet on the floor, stretched her arms out, and stared in front
+of her. Her mouth was half open, she rattled in her throat. Lunev
+bent quickly over her, he was afraid she was dying. Then, relieved
+by hearing her breathe, he covered her up again, crawled back to the
+window, leaned his face against the bars and looked over at Gromov's
+house. There they were still singing, now one voice, now two, now
+several in chorus. Music was followed by laughter. Past the windows
+flitted ladies dressed in white or pink or blue. He listened to the
+music and marvelled how these men could sing long-drawn, melancholy
+songs of the Volga and of funerals and of desert lands, and laugh
+at the end of every song as though it were all nothing, as if they
+had sung of indifferent things. Is it possible that they find sorrow
+amusing? But every time that Masha attracted his attention, he looked
+at her stupidly and wondered what was to become of her. Suppose Tatiana
+came in and saw her--what was he to do with Masha? He felt as though
+caught in a mist; his heart was weighed down with the songs and Masha's
+groans, and his own heavy, disconnected thoughts. When he felt sleepy
+he crawled from under the window-ledge, lay down on the floor by the
+bed and put his overcoat under his head. He dreamed that Masha was dead
+and lying on the ground in a big shed, and round about were standing
+ladies, dressed in white and pink and blue, and singing songs over her;
+and when they sang mournful songs they all laughed, and when the songs
+were cheerful they wept bitterly, and nodded their heads sadly and
+wiped away their tears with white pocket-handkerchiefs. In the shed it
+was dark and damp, and in the corner stood Savel the smith, hammering
+at an iron railing and striking noisy blows on the red-hot bars. On
+the roof of the shed someone went round about and cried, "Ilya. Il--ya."
+
+But he lay in the shed, bound somehow fast, he could hardly turn, he
+could not speak.
+
+
+
+
+XXII.
+
+
+"Ilya, get up please."
+
+He opened his eyes and recognised Pavel Gratschev. Pavel was sitting on
+a chair, kicking Ilya's legs gently. The bright sunlight streamed into
+the room and shone on the samovar boiling on the table; Lunev blinked,
+dazzled.
+
+"Listen, Ilya."
+
+Pavel's voice was hoarse, as though after heavy drinking, his face was
+yellow, his hair disordered. Lunev looked at him, then sprung up from
+the floor and cried half aloud:
+
+"What?"
+
+"She's caught," said Pavel, and shook his head.
+
+"What? Where is she?" asked Ilya, bending over him and catching him by
+the shoulder. Gratschev swayed and said miserably:
+
+"They've put her in prison, yesterday morning, they say; they brought
+her to the prison."
+
+"What for?" asked Ilya in a loud whisper. Masha waked up, shuddered at
+the sight of Pavel, and stared at him terrified. From the door into the
+shop Gavrik looked in, his lips compressed in disapproval.
+
+"They say she's stolen six hundred roubles from a merchant, a pocket
+book, bills, and so on."
+
+Ilya laid a hand on his friend's shoulder, and then moved silently away.
+
+"When they searched they found the money at her house," said Gratschev,
+in a dull way. "The police inspector, she struck him in the face."
+
+"Oh, of course," said Ilya with a harsh laugh. "If you've got to go to
+prison, why not go in style!"
+
+When Masha understood that all this did not concern her she smiled and
+said softly: "If they'd take me to prison."
+
+Pavel looked at her, then at Ilya.
+
+"Don't you know her?" asked Ilya. "Masha, Perfishka's daughter, you
+remember."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Pavel slowly and indifferently, and turned away,
+although Masha, who had recognised him, greeted him with a smile.
+
+"Ilya," said Gratschev gloomily. "If she's done that for me? She spoke
+of it."
+
+"Oh, I don't know for whom, for you or for herself, it's all the same!
+Her song is finished."
+
+Lunev could not collect his thoughts. Weary for want of sleep,
+unwashed, and dishevelled, he sat down at Masha's feet, and looked
+first at her, then at Pavel, and felt overwhelmed.
+
+"I knew," he said slowly, "the whole business could come to no good
+end."
+
+"She wouldn't listen to me," said Pavel, in a lifeless tone.
+
+"That's it, of course!" cried Lunev ironically. "That's the whole
+trouble, that she wouldn't listen to you! What could you say to her?"
+
+"I loved her."
+
+"What's the good of your love? in the devil's name! What can you get
+with that? Apart from anything else you never got her enough to eat by
+your work."
+
+"That's true," said Pavel, sighing. Lunev was irritated, he felt that
+all these lives, Pavel's, Masha's, stirred him to wrath, excited him,
+and not knowing where to direct his feelings, he vented them on his
+friend.
+
+"Every one wants to be decent and happy, you too, but you say to her, I
+love you, therefore live with me, and suffer want; do you think that's
+the way to take it?"
+
+"How should I then?" asked Pavel gently.
+
+The question calmed Ilya a little, involuntarily he fell to thinking
+of it. "It would be easier for me to kill her with my own hands," said
+Pavel.
+
+Gavrik looked in. "Ilya Jakovlevitch! shall I open the shop!"
+
+"Oh, go to the devil!" shouted Lunev in anger. "Don't worry me with the
+shop."
+
+"Am I in the way," asked Pavel.
+
+He sat in the chair leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and
+looked at the floor. A vein, full of blood, swelled on his temple.
+
+"You," cried Lunev, and looked at him. "You don't disturb me, nor
+Masha; it's a very different thing! I've told you before, that there's
+something gets in the way of us all, you and me, and Masha. It's our
+folly or something. I don't know what; but it's not possible to live
+like human beings!"
+
+Lunev looked round his little room at Masha sitting on the bed,
+motionless with downcast expression, into the shop where Gavrik was
+having his tea, into the street, through the railed-in window, and
+continued with despair in his soul, excitedly, angrily, and hoarsely:
+
+"It's impossible to live. It's cramped and stupid, and absurd; you
+find a quiet corner, and there's no peace there! Everything is impure,
+heavy, painful; you can't understand; everything goes wrong, you hear
+people singing and you think you're happy. But it hurts you to hear
+their songs if your soul's in pain."
+
+"What are you talking of?" asked Pavel, without looking at him.
+
+"Of every one," cried Lunev. "I feel now that nothing's any use, damn
+it! I don't understand, perhaps, well then I don't! But I do understand
+what I want. I want to live like a man, cleanly, and honourably, and
+happily! I don't want to see trouble and horrors and sin, and all sorts
+of beastliness. I don't want it! But----"
+
+He stopped and grew pale.
+
+"Well?" said Pavel.
+
+"No, that's not it. I only meant----" began Lunev, and his voice
+dropped.
+
+"You always speak of yourself," observed Pavel.
+
+"And whom do you speak of? Of her? But who is it she troubles, me or
+you? Every man cares for his own wounds, and groans with his own voice.
+I don't speak of myself only, I speak of every one, for every one
+troubles me."
+
+"I'll go," said Gratschev, and got up heavily.
+
+"Ah," cried Ilya. "Don't be hurt, try to understand. I'm hurt too, and
+sufferers should understand one another, then it will be clear who it
+is who torments us."
+
+"Brother, it's as though you hit me on the head with a stone. I don't
+understand. I'm sorry for Vyera--there, I am, really. What can I do? I
+don't know."
+
+"You can't do anything," said Ilya firmly. "I tell you she's done for!
+They'll condemn her, she's caught in the act."
+
+Gratschev sat down again.
+
+"But if I declare she did it for me?"
+
+"Are you a prince? Say it, and they'll put you in prison too. Anyhow,
+we must pull things together. You had better have a wash, and you, too,
+Masha. We're going into the shop, but you get up and tidy yourself,
+have some tea, make yourself at home."
+
+Masha shuddered, raised her head from the pillow and asked:
+
+"What, am I to go home?"
+
+"No. You're home is where, at any rate, you're not tortured. Come
+Pasha!"
+
+When they were in the shop, Pavel asked gloomily:
+
+"Why is she here? She's like a corpse."
+
+Lunev told him briefly how matters stood. To his astonishment,
+Gratschev seemed cheered.
+
+"My word, the old devil!" he said, and smiled.
+
+Ilya stood by him, looking round his shop, and said:
+
+"Theft and lying, and robbery, and drunkenness--all kinds of filth and
+disorder--that is life. You don't want it, but it's all the same, you
+go down the same stream as the rest and the same water soaks you; live
+as you have to! You can't get out of it anyhow. Run away to the forest?
+or a monastery? You told me a little while ago that I should find no
+peace here."
+
+He indicated the shop with a sweeping gesture, nodded and smiled
+unpleasantly. "Right, there is no peace. What's the good to me to stand
+on one spot and do business? Plenty of worry, but no freedom. I can't
+go out. Before, I went where I liked, in the streets, if I found a nice
+comfortable place I sat down and enjoyed myself, but now here I squat,
+day in day out, and that's all."
+
+"See, you might have taken Vyera as an assistant," said Pavel.
+
+Ilya looked at him, but said nothing.
+
+"Come in," cried Masha.
+
+At tea, hardly a word was spoken.
+
+The sun shone on the street, the bare feet of the children shuffled
+along the pavement, the hawkers of vegetables went by the window.
+
+"Fresh leeks, onions!" a woman cried.
+
+"Fresh cucumbers!"
+
+Everything spoke of spring, of fine warm, clear days, but in the little
+room it smelt damp and close. From time to time a melancholy, sorrowful
+word was uttered, the samovar hummed and glittered in the sunshine.
+
+"We sit here as if we were at a funeral," said Ilya.
+
+"Yes, Vyera's," added Gratschev. He sat there like a beaten hound. His
+hands moved slackly, his face was despairing, and he spoke slowly in a
+dull voice.
+
+"Pull yourself together," said Ilya to him coldly. "It's no good giving
+way."
+
+"It's my conscience," said Gratschev, shaking his head. "I sit here and
+think that I drove her to prison."
+
+"That's quite possible," said Ilya remorselessly.
+
+Gratschev raised his head and looked at his friend reproachfully.
+
+"Why do you look at me?"
+
+"You're a bad-hearted man."
+
+"Well, why should I be good? What joy have I to make me cheerful?"
+cried Ilya. "Who has ever done any good thing for me? Who has cared for
+me? One soul perhaps in all the world, and she was a ne'er-do-well, a
+vicious woman, ah! Every one may strike me, and I'm to keep quiet? No
+thank you!"
+
+His face flushed as anger welled up in him, his eyes grew bloodshot; he
+sprang up in a paroxysm of rage, longing to scream, to insult them, to
+strike the walls or the table with his fists. Masha, terrified, cried
+aloud like a child:
+
+"I want to go home, let me go," she said in a trembling tearful voice,
+and moved her head as though trying to hide it.
+
+Lunev was silent; he saw Pavel look at him with enmity.
+
+"Well, what are you crying at?" he said ill-temperedly. "I didn't shout
+at you, and you needn't go. I'll go, I must. Pavel will stay with you."
+
+"Gavrilo! If Tatiana Vlassyevna----"
+
+"Who's that?"
+
+There was a knock at the door of the courtyard. Gavrik looked
+inquiringly at his master.
+
+"Open," said Ilya.
+
+Gavrik's sister appeared on the threshold. She stood without moving for
+a few seconds, as straight as a dart, her head drawn back, and looked
+at them all with screwed-up eyes. Then on her cold, ugly face appeared
+a grimace of disgust, and without noticing Ilya's bow, she said to her
+brother:
+
+"Gavrik, come here a moment."
+
+Ilya flared out. The blood rushed to his face at the insult with such
+force that his eyes burned.
+
+"If you're saluted, madam, you might acknowledge it," he said
+emphatically, restraining himself as well as he could. But she held
+her head higher and her brows contracted. With lips close-pressed, she
+measured Ilya with her eyes, and said nothing. Gavrik also looked with
+anger at his master.
+
+"You are not visiting drunkards or rascals," Ilya went on, quivering
+with his emotion. "You receive a respectful greeting, and as a
+well-mannered lady, you are bound to acknowledge it."
+
+"Don't be stuck up, Sonyka," said Gavrik suddenly, in a peaceful tone,
+and took her hand. A painful silence followed. Ilya and the girl faced
+one another and waited. Masha shrunk silently into a corner. Pavel
+blinked stupidly.
+
+"Speak up! Sonyka," said Gavrik impatiently. "Do you suppose they'll
+hurt you?" and he added with an unexpected smile, "You are funny, you
+people."
+
+His sister snatched away her hand and said to Lunev coldly and sharply:
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"Nothing, only----"
+
+But here a fine idea came into his head. He advanced and said as
+politely as he could:
+
+"Allow me; you see we are three uneducated people, quite obscure. You
+are an educated lady."
+
+He was eager to speak out his thought but could not. The stern, open
+glance of the dark eyes confused him; it never wavered and seemed to
+drive his senses from him. Her nostrils twitched, and her fingers
+pressed her brother's hand nervously. Ilya lowered his eyes and
+murmured confusedly and angrily:
+
+"I don't know how to say it right off; if you've time, come in, sit
+down," and he made way for her.
+
+"Stay here, Gavrik!" said the girl, left her brother by the door and
+went into the room. Ilya pushed a stool towards her. She sat down;
+Pavel went into the shop, Masha shrank into the corner by the stove,
+but Lunev stood motionless two paces from the girl and sought for words
+to speak.
+
+"Well," she said.
+
+"See, this is the business," said Ilya, with a deep sigh. "You see,
+this girl, that is, she's not a girl, she's married to an old man, who
+bullies her; she is all bruised and tortured and she ran away, she
+came to me. Perhaps you think that means something sinful. It doesn't
+at all." He confused his words and spoke vaguely between his desire
+to tell Masha's story and give the girl his own thoughts about it.
+He wanted especially to make his hearer share his own thoughts. She
+looked at him, and her face was more yielding, though her eyes flashed
+strangely.
+
+"I understand," she interrupted. "You don't know what to do. First of
+all you must get a doctor; he must examine her. I know a good doctor,
+if you like, shall I take her to him? Gavrik, what's the time? Close on
+eleven. Good, that's his consultation hour. Gavrik, call a droshky, and
+you introduce me to her."
+
+But Ilya did not move. He had not imagined that this stern, serious
+girl could speak in such a soft voice. Her face, too, amazed him; still
+proud, but now wholly anxious, and in it something good, kind, capable,
+that Ilya had never seen before. He looked at her and smiled in silent
+amazement. She, however, had turned away already, and going over to
+Masha, spoke to her gently.
+
+"Don't cry, dear; don't be frightened, the doctor is a good man, he'll
+examine you and make out a certificate, and that's all. I'll bring you
+back here; now my dear, don't cry like that." She put her hands on
+Masha's shoulders, and tried to draw her closer.
+
+"A--ah! that hurts," groaned Masha softly.
+
+"How? What is it?"
+
+Lunev heard and smiled.
+
+"How? Good heavens, how awful!" cried the girl, falling back; her face
+was pale, and fear and anger glittered in her eyes.
+
+"How she's bruised! Ah!"
+
+"You see how we live!" cried Lunev, flaring up again. "Do you see? I
+can show you another, there! Allow me, my comrade, Pavel Savelitch
+Gratschev." Pavel came slowly out of the shop, and held out his hand
+without looking at the girl.
+
+"Medvedeva, Sofia Nikonovna," she said, as she looked at Pavel's
+despairing face. "And you are Ilya Jakovlevitch?" and she turned again
+to Lunev.
+
+"Yes," said Ilya, pressed her hand, and went on, still holding it----
+
+"You see, since you're so good--that's to say--as you've helped in one
+business, you won't despise the other. There's a trouble here too."
+
+She looked attentively and seriously in his handsome excited face and
+tried quietly to withdraw her hand; but he told her of Vyera and Pavel,
+speaking warmly, passionately, feeling that a load was falling from his
+heart. He shook her hand hard and said:
+
+"He makes verses and all sorts of things. But he's quite knocked
+over by this. And she too, you think, that it's all right because
+she's--that kind of woman? No, don't think that! No one is all good or
+all bad!"
+
+"How d'you mean?"
+
+"I mean, even if any one is bad, still there's something good there,
+and if he's good, there's sure to be something bad. All our souls are
+two-coloured--all."
+
+"That's well said," she agreed, and nodded seriously. "That's thought
+like a man! but please let go my hand, you hurt me."
+
+Ilya began to apologise, but she did not attend to him, saying to Pavel
+in a tone of conviction;
+
+"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Gratschev; you mustn't be like
+that; you must do something. One must always try to do something,
+either defend or attack. We must get her a lawyer, an advocate, d'you
+see? I'll find you one, and nothing will happen to her because he'll
+get her off. I promise you, he'll get her off."
+
+Her face was flushed, the hair on her temples disordered, and her eyes
+burned with a strange joy. Masha stood by her and looked at her with
+the trustful curiosity of a child. But Lunev looked at Pavel and Masha
+triumphantly, and felt mingled pride and joy at the presence of this
+girl in his room.
+
+"If you can really help," said Pavel, with a trembling voice, "help us.
+I'll never forget it as long as I live; although I don't believe it can
+come to a good end, yet I _will_ believe it!"
+
+"Come to me at seven o'clock, will you? Gavrik will tell you where."
+
+"I'll come. I don't know how to thank you."
+
+"Why--thank me?"
+
+"But I feel----"
+
+"Don't say anything! we ought to help one another."
+
+"Yes, men think that, don't they?" cried Ilya, ironically.
+
+The girl turned round on him quickly. But Gavrik, who felt himself in
+this confusion the only healthy, sensible person, caught her hand and
+said:
+
+"There, get on, you chatterbox!"
+
+"Yes, Masha, get your things on!"
+
+"I haven't anything to put on," said Masha shyly.
+
+"Ah! well, anyhow, let's go. You'll come then, Gratschev, eh? Good-bye
+Ilya Jakovlevitch."
+
+The men pressed her hand respectfully and silently, then she went out
+leading Masha. In the door, however, she turned round, threw her head
+up, and said to Ilya:
+
+"I forgot, but it's important! I didn't acknowledge your greeting when
+I came in. That was abominable. I beg your pardon."
+
+Her face flamed red, and her eyes were lowered; Ilya looked at her and
+his heart rejoiced.
+
+"I'm sorry, very sorry! I thought you had a drinking party; it was very
+stupid, but----"
+
+She broke off as though the words choked her.
+
+"When you blamed me for not speaking, I thought he's speaking as the
+employer, and I was wrong. I'm very glad it was a real human feeling
+that spoke."
+
+She broke into a bright happy smile and said sincerely, and as though
+it gave her pleasure to say it:
+
+"Oh! it is so good to recognise human feeling in any one. I'm very
+glad, very; everything has come right, so splendidly--splendidly."
+
+She disappeared like a little grey cloud, lighted with the rays of the
+morning sun. The friends looked after her; both faces were solemn and
+withal a little comic. Lunev looked round the room and said:
+
+"Quite jolly here? eh?" Pavel laughed softly.
+
+"Well, she's a good sort!" Lunev continued with a little sigh. "How
+she----ah!"
+
+"She just swept everything clean like the wind!"
+
+"There, did you see?" cried Ilya in triumph, pulling at his curly
+hair, "How she apologised, eh? You see what it's like to be really
+cultivated; you can respect a person, but you're never the first to
+make advances, see?"
+
+"She's good," Gratschev confirmed him. "How long was she here? Close on
+an hour; it seems like a minute or two."
+
+"Like a star."
+
+"Yes, and put everything straight in no time; told us how and where and
+when."
+
+Lunev laughed excitedly; he was delighted that this proud girl should
+have shown herself so capable and cheerful, and he was pleased with
+himself for knowing how to conduct himself worthily.
+
+"Ah, yes," he cried regretfully. "I forgot; she took me by surprise
+with her apology."
+
+"What did you forget?"
+
+"I ought to have kissed her hand; that's what they do, educated people;
+it shows special respect."
+
+Gavrik came in apparently loafing aimlessly.
+
+"Ah, Gavrik!" said Ilya, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Your
+sister's a brick."
+
+"Yes, she's a good sort," the boy agreed condescendingly. "Are we going
+to work to-day, or have a holiday? for I'd like to go into the country."
+
+"No work to-day. Pavel, come, let's go for a walk."
+
+"I shall go to the police station," said Pavel, and his face clouded
+over again.
+
+"Perhaps they'll let me see her."
+
+"I shall go for a walk," said Ilya.
+
+Fresh and happy he strolled through the streets thinking of Gavrik's
+sister, and comparing this strange girl with all the people he had ever
+known. It was clear to him that she was better than them all, and had
+treated him better. The words of her apology rang in his ears, and he
+saw before him her face, with its wide nostrils, and every feature
+stamped with an expression of striving towards some unknown goal.
+
+"And how she used to look down on me at first," he said to himself
+smiling, and began to wonder why at first she had treated him so
+proudly and distantly when she did not know him, and had hardly
+exchanged a word with him.
+
+Life surged round about him. Students went by laughing, droshkys and
+carts of goods rolled past, a beggar limped along in front of him, his
+wooden leg tapping loudly on the stone pavement.
+
+Two prisoners, guarded by a soldier, were carrying a wooden tub on a
+pole between them. A seller of pears passed along shouting, "Garden
+pears! Cooking pears!" Behind him ran a little dog with lolling tongue,
+rattle and crash, shouting and tramping, every sound blended in a
+lively, exciting hubbub. A warm dust whirled aloft and tickled the
+nostrils; the sun flamed out of a deep clean sky, and flooded the whole
+world with radiant splendour. Lunev looked at everything with a joy to
+which he had long been a stranger; everything in the streets seemed new
+and interesting; there, almost dancing along, goes a pretty girl with a
+merry red-cheeked face, and looks Ilya in the eyes, frank and friendly,
+as though she would say: "How nice you are!" Lunev smiled back at
+her. A droshky driver took off his hat, bowing sideways, with a grin,
+and said to a fat lady standing on the pavement: "It's too little,
+lady, five kopecks more." Ilya saw by his face that he was lying, the
+rascal--he had his proper fare. A young man hurries out of a shop with
+a copper can in his hand, pours out the cold water, sprinkling the
+passers-by, and the lid of the can rings cheerfully. The street is hot,
+stifling, noisy, and the thick green of the old lime-trees in the town
+churchyard is enticing with its peace and cool shade. The churchyard
+is surrounded with a white stone wall, and the thick foliage of the
+old trees sweeps up in a mighty wave to heaven, crowned with a spray
+of pointed green leaves. Against the blue every leaf stands out, and
+slowly quivering seems to melt away, and high over the foam of leaves
+shines the golden crosses of the church, a net-work of glancing,
+trembling rays.
+
+Lunev entered the churchyard and went slowly along the broad alley,
+drawing deep breaths of perfume from the blossoming limes. Between
+the trees, under the branches' shade, stood monuments of marble and
+granite, stout and heavy, overgrown with moss and lichen. Here and
+there in the mysterious twilight crosses or half-erased inscriptions
+glimmered; golden honeysuckle, acacia, whitethorn and elder grew
+in the hedges, and their branches hid the graves. Here and there
+in the dense green a slender grey wooden cross appeared and was
+lost immediately among the surrounding bushes. White stems of young
+birch-trees glimmered like velvet through the thick network of leaves;
+they seemed to choose the shade with calculated modesty in order to be
+seen more easily. On green mounds, behind railings, shone gay flowers,
+a bee buzzed by in the stillness, two white butterflies played in the
+air; all kinds of flies swarmed noiselessly; and everywhere grasses
+and plants made towards the light, hid the mournful graves, and all
+the green of the churchyard was full of a tense striving to grow, to
+develop, to drink in air and light and change the richness of the
+earth to colour and scent and beauty for the joy of eyes and hearts.
+Everywhere life prevails and will prevail.
+
+Lunev rejoiced to wander at will in the quiet and breathe in the sweet
+perfume of the flowers and the lime-trees. In his heart, too, there was
+rest and peace, he thought of nothing, but tasted the joy of solitude
+long unknown to him. He turned to the left out of the alley by a
+narrow path, and went slowly reading the inscriptions on crosses and
+gravestones. The graves hemmed him in with their railings, ornamental
+and wrought, or plain cast-iron.
+
+"Beneath this cross rest the ashes of Vonifanty, servant of God."
+
+He read and smiled, the name seemed ridiculous. Over the ashes of
+Vonifanty was set a huge granite stone. Near by in another enclosure
+rested "Peter Babushkin, twenty-eight years old."
+
+"A young fellow," thought Ilya.
+
+On a pillar of white marble he read:
+
+    "Earth's little flower is plucked and dies,
+    A new star shines in heaven's skies."
+
+Lunev read the couplet over and felt something touching in it. Suddenly
+he felt as though he had been struck to the heart, he swayed and
+shut his eyes; but through his closed lids he still saw clearly the
+inscription that had terrified him. The shining, golden letters on the
+big, brown stone seemed to have been cut on his brain:
+
+"Here lies the body of the merchant Gilde Vassily Gavrilovitsch
+Poluektov, the younger."
+
+After a moment or two, terrified at his own fear, he opened his
+eyes quickly, and looked suspiciously round about him. No one was
+there, only far off a burial service was being conducted. Through the
+stillness rang a thin tenor voice singing:
+
+"Let us pray."
+
+A deep, rather unpleasant voice answered, "Have mercy," and the
+clinking of the censers was just audible.
+
+Lunev stood with his back against a maple-tree, his head thrown back,
+staring at the grave of the man he had murdered. He had pushed his
+cap off his brow, and it was pressed against the tree by the back of
+his head. His eyebrows were dark, his upper lip twitched, showing his
+teeth; his hands were deep in his jacket pockets, and his feet braced
+against the ground.
+
+Poluektov's monument represented a coffin, and carved on it an open
+book, and a skull and crossbones. Beside it in the same enclosure
+was another smaller stone with an inscription that beneath it rested
+Eupraxia Poluektov, twenty-two years old.
+
+"The first wife," thought Lunev. The thought came from only a small
+part of his brain, that remained free from the straining labour of his
+memory. He was gripped by the recollections of Poluektov; the first
+meeting, the murder, the feeling of the old man's saliva on his hands.
+But while all this stirred to life in his memory, he felt no trouble,
+no remorse, he looked at the gravestone with hate and bitterness and
+deep ill-will; and under his breath, with hot anger in his heart, and a
+real conviction of the truth of his words, he addressed the merchant:
+
+"It's for you, damn you, that I ruined all my life, for you! You devil.
+What life is it I lead, through you! I have smirched myself for ever
+through you."
+
+The words "for you" thumped in him like hammer strokes. He longed to
+cry with all his might these words for every one to hear, and he could
+hardly restrain the fierce desire. He pressed his teeth together till
+they ached, and stared before him while the thought of his life took
+hold of his soul like fire. Before him appeared the little, spiteful
+face, and near it somehow the wicked, bald head of Strogany with the
+red eyebrows, the self-satisfied face of Petrusha, the stupid Kirik,
+the grey head of Ehrenov, snub-nosed and pig-eyed--a whole crowd of
+familiar faces. There was a roaring in his ears, and it seemed as
+though all these men surrounded him, pressed on him, crowded him
+obstinately. He stepped away from the tree; his cap fell down behind
+him; as he bent to pick it up, he could not help stealing a sidelong
+glance at the money-changer's gravestone. He felt hot and sick, his
+face was full of blood, his eyes were strained with the tenseness of
+their gaze. With great difficulty he tore them away, walked straight up
+to the enclosure, grasped the railings in his hands and trembling with
+hate, spat on the grave; as he went away he stamped his feet on the
+ground as though to free them from a pain.
+
+He could not go home; his soul was heavy and a sense of sick, cold
+weariness grew suffocatingly upon him. He walked with slow steps
+without looking at any one, without caring for anything, without
+thinking. In this way he walked along one street, turned mechanically
+into a second at the corner, went on a little further, and then found
+himself close to Petrusha Filimonov's tavern; the thought of Jakov
+came into his mind. As he passed by the door he felt that he must go
+in, though he had no wish to do so. As he went up the steps he heard
+Perfishka's voice.
+
+"Oh! good people, be tender with your hands and spare my sides."
+
+Lunev stood still in the open door; he saw Jakov behind the counter
+through the clouds of dust and tobacco smoke. His hair plastered down,
+in a coat with short sleeves, he was hurrying about, putting tea in
+teapots, counting lumps of sugar, pouring out brandy, and drawing the
+drawer of the till noisily in and out. The waiters hurried up and
+called, throwing the counters on the table: "Half a bottle, two beers,
+roast meat, ten kopecks' worth."
+
+"He's grown handier," thought Lunev with an almost malicious pleasure,
+as he saw how quickly his friend's red hands moved.
+
+"Ah! I'll remember that half-rouble against him," growled the loud
+harsh voice of a customer.
+
+"Ah!" cried Jakov in delight, as Ilya came up to the counter, then
+looked nervously at the door behind him. His forehead was wet with
+perspiration, his cheeks yellow, with red patches. He grasped Ilya's
+hand and shook it, coughing at the same time, a harsh, dry cough.
+
+"How are you?" asked Lunev, forcing a smile.
+
+"Pretty well. I help in the business."
+
+"Brought into the yoke at last?"
+
+"What's a fellow to do?"
+
+Jakov's shoulders were bowed, and he looked as if he had grown smaller.
+
+"What ages it is since we met," he said, and looked in Ilya's face
+with his loving mournful eyes. "I'd like a bit of a talk with you.
+Father isn't there as it happens. See here, come in, and I'll ask the
+step-mother to let me away for a little."
+
+He opened the door of his father's room slightly, and called
+respectfully:
+
+"Mamma, can I speak to you a minute?"
+
+Ilya entered the room that he had shared with his uncle, and looked
+round with interest. It was hardly altered; the wall-paper was darker,
+and instead of two beds there was only one, and above it a shelf of
+books. On the spot where he used to sleep stood a high, stout chest.
+
+"There, I've got off for an hour," said Jakov cheerfully as he came in,
+and then shut and bolted the door. "But would you like some tea? All
+right. Ivan, tea," he called loudly, then began to cough and coughed
+for a long time; he supported himself with a hand against the wall,
+bowed his head and bent his back as though he would force something
+from his chest.
+
+"That's a pretty noise to make," said Lunev,
+
+"It's consumption, but I am glad to see you again, and my word, how you
+look! so swell, quite splendid! Well and how are you getting on?"
+
+"I? What?" answered Lunev hesitatingly.
+
+"Oh! I get along, but you, tell me, that's much more interesting."
+
+Lunev felt absolutely disinclined to give information about himself;
+he hardly wanted to speak at all. He looked at Jakov and seeing him
+suffering, pitied him, but it was a cold pity, almost an empty,
+unmeaning feeling.
+
+"I, brother? I endure my life as well as I can," answered Jakov, half
+aloud.
+
+"Your father sucks your blood."
+
+"Oh, he's in a tight place himself."
+
+"Serves him right!"
+
+"Step-mother's the chief person in the house now; if she says a thing,
+that's the law."
+
+    "Child, what use is money to you?
+    Give me a kiss, I'll give you two,"
+
+sang Perfishka in a piping voice in the next room, and played on his
+harmonica.
+
+"What kind of a chest is that?" asked Ilya.
+
+"That? That's a harmonium. Father bought it for me for four roubles.
+'Learn to play it,' he said, 'then I'll buy you a good one at three
+hundred roubles,' he said, 'and we'll put it in the restaurant, and
+you can play to the guests and be some use, anyhow.' It was smart of
+him; they have organs in all the taverns now except ours, and I like
+playing."
+
+"He's a mean wretch!" cried Lunev.
+
+"Not at all! Why? Let him alone. It's quite true, I'm no use to him."
+
+Ilya looked darkly at his friend, and said bitterly:
+
+"Here's a good idea for him! Tell him when you die to make a show of
+you in the bar, and charge to see it, five kopecks a head. Then you'll
+be worth something to him."
+
+Jakov laughed in an embarrassed way, and began to cough again, holding
+his hand first against his chest, then against his throat.
+
+And Perfishka went on cheerfully:
+
+    "He kept the fast days as 'tis fit,
+    He did not eat or drink a bit,
+    His empty stomach felt the pain,
+    But oh! his soul was clean again!"
+
+"So, ho--holiness!" And his harmonica drowned
+the words with a confused medley of sounds.
+
+"How do you get on with your step-brother?" asked Ilya when Jakov
+ceased coughing. His friend raised his face, quite blue with the
+exertion of coughing, and said, struggling to get his breath:
+
+"He doesn't live here. His superiors won't let him--because of--the
+business. He--is bearable--a little uppish--plays the gentleman. Comes
+often for money to his mother. He's always wanting money."
+
+Jakov lowered his voice, and went on in a troubled way:
+
+"Do you remember that book? You know? Yes--he took it away from me--it
+was rare he said--that it was worth a lot--and so he took it away. I
+begged him--leave it to me--but no!--he would have it." Ilya laughed
+aloud. Then the two friends began their tea. Through the chinks in the
+wooden partition all kinds of noises and different odours made their
+way into the little room. One angry voice, towering above the rest,
+shouted:
+
+"Mitry Nikolayitch--don't you throw my words back at me!"
+
+"I'm reading a story now, brother," Jakov went on again; "it's called
+'Julia, or the Subterranean Vault of the Muzzini Castle'--most
+interesting. And you? What are you doing that way?"
+
+"Go to the devil with your subterranean vaults. I don't live so very
+high above ground myself," was Lunev's sulky answer.
+
+Jakov looked at him sympathetically, and asked:
+
+"Is there anything gone wrong with you?"
+
+Lunev did not reply. He was wondering whether to tell Jakov of Masha or
+not; but Jakov began again gently:
+
+"Ilya, you're so touchy and bitter--about nothing, as far as I can see.
+Because you see--after all--it isn't anybody's fault. It's all settled.
+They haven't any hand in it--it was all arranged and ordered long
+before them."
+
+Lunev drank his tea and said nothing.
+
+"And you know--every man shall be rewarded according to his deeds--that
+is certain. There's my father--to tell the truth. What is he? Why, a
+tyrant! And then comes along Thekla Timofeyevna and--crock! She has
+him under the harrow. He leads a life of it now--ah! ah! He's begun to
+drink out of worry--and how long is it since they were married? And
+so for every man there's a Thekla Timofeyevna somewhere for his evil
+deeds."
+
+Ilya was weary and uninterested; he pushed away his teacup and said
+suddenly:
+
+"And what are you looking for now?"
+
+"How do you mean? From whom?" replied Jakov in a low voice with eyes
+wide open.
+
+"Why--in the future--what are you looking for?" Ilya repeated his
+question sharply.
+
+Jakov hung his head and became thoughtful.
+
+"Well?" said Ilya half aloud, feeling a burning restlessness at his
+heart and a wish to get away as soon as possible.
+
+"What could I look for?" Jakov began at last softly and without looking
+at his friend.
+
+"To look for? There's no more of that for me. I shall die--that's
+all--and soon--that's certain."
+
+He held up his head and went on with a gentle happy smile on his wasted
+face.
+
+"I always see things blue in my dreams--d'you know? as if everything
+were sky-blue--not only the sky, but the ground and the trees and the
+flowers and the grass. Everything! And so quiet--quite, quite peaceful!
+As if nothing at all existed--everything seems so still--and all bright
+blue. I feel so light--as though I could go anywhere, without feeling
+tired--go right on and never stop--and you can't tell whether it's
+really you or not--so light, so light. Dreams like that--that's a sign
+of death."
+
+"Good-bye!" said Lunev, and got up.
+
+"Where are you going so soon? Stay a little."
+
+"No. Good-bye!"
+
+Jakov got up also. "Very well then--go!"
+
+Lunev pressed his hot hand and looked at him silently, finding no words
+to bid his comrade farewell; he wanted to say something, wanted so
+strongly and so much that his heart pained him.
+
+"Why do you look at me like that?" asked Jakov, smiling.
+
+"Forgive me, brother," said Lunev slowly and heavily, lowering his eyes.
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Just that--forgive."
+
+"Am I a priest then?" said Jakov, smiling gently. "But wait, wait a
+minute. I forgot what I wanted to say to you. Mashutka--you know?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"She too--have you heard? She has a bad time too."
+
+"Yes. I heard."
+
+"You see, we all have the same fate. You too. I feel sure. Your heart
+is sad--isn't it?"
+
+He spoke with a dull smile. The tone of his voice, and every word of
+his conversation, everything about him seemed bloodless, colourless;
+Lunev let go his hand--and it fell slackly down.
+
+"Well, Jasha--forgive me, anyway."
+
+"God forgives! You'll come again?"
+
+Ilya went out without replying. Once in the street his heart felt
+lighter and less weary. He saw that Jakov must soon die, and the
+knowledge irritated him vaguely. He did not exactly pity Jakov, because
+he could not imagine how this gentle, quiet youth could live in this
+world. Long ago he had come to regard his friend as one who was
+ordained to depart from the riot of life. But what irritated him was
+the thought--Why do people torture this harmless man? Why do they drive
+him out of the world before his time? And from this thought his hostile
+feeling against life now became almost the most deeply rooted of his
+sensations, grew and strengthened. That night he could not sleep. In
+spite of the open window the room was close.
+
+He went out into the courtyard and lay down on the ground under the
+elm-tree by the fence. Lying on his back, he looked up into the clear
+sky, and the more intently he gazed the more stars he could see. The
+Milky Way stretched across the heavens from one end to the other, like
+a silver tissue, and to look up at it through the branches of the tree
+was at once pleasant and saddening. The sky where no one lives glitters
+with stars, and the earth--What is there to adorn it? Ilya blinked his
+eyes, the branches seemed to mount up higher and higher; against the
+blue velvet of the arch of heaven sown with sparkling stars, the black
+outlines of the leaves looked like hands stretched up in the attempt
+to scale the heights. Ilya thought involuntarily of his friend's "blue
+dreams," and before his mind appeared the image of Jakov--blue, light,
+and transparent, his kind eyes shining like stars. There--that was a
+man, and he was martyred because he lived peaceably. But the tormentors
+live on as their hearts desire, and will live long.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII.
+
+
+From henceforth there was a new and rather disturbing feature in Ilya's
+life. Gavrik's sister began to visit his shop almost every day. She
+appeared always anxious over one thing or another, greeted Ilya with a
+hearty handshake, and vanished again after exchanging a few words with
+him. But always she left something new in Ilya's mind. Once she asked
+him:
+
+"Do you like a business like this?"
+
+"Not so very much," answered Ilya, shrugging his shoulders; "but a man
+must earn his living some way or other."
+
+She looked at him attentively with her serious eyes, and her face
+looked even more tense than usual.
+
+"A man must live!" repeated Ilya with a sigh.
+
+"Have you never tried to make your living by work?"
+
+Ilya did not understand.
+
+"How?"
+
+"Have you ever worked?"
+
+"Always. All my life. I--sell things," answered Ilya doubtfully.
+
+She smiled, and Ilya felt a little hurt at her smile.
+
+"You think--selling things--is work?"
+
+"Yes, surely. It often makes me tired." Looking in her face he felt
+that she was not joking, but speaking earnestly.
+
+"Oh, no"--the girl went on with a condescending smile. "To work
+means to make something by the exercise of one's strength--to create
+something. Thread or ribbons or chairs or chests--d'you see?" Lunev
+nodded and blushed; he was ashamed to say that he did not understand.
+
+"But trade--what's the good of it? it makes nothing," she said with
+conviction, and looked challengingly at Ilya.
+
+"Yes," he answered slowly and carefully. "You're right there--it isn't
+difficult when you're used to it. But still trade must be some use, or
+else there wouldn't be any, would there?"
+
+She did not reply to this, but turned away and began to speak to her
+brother. Soon after she took her leave, only nodding to Ilya as she
+went. Her expression was cold and proud, even as it was before the
+encounter with Masha. Ilya pondered on this; could he by any chance
+have hurt her feelings by a careless word? He thought over everything
+he had said, and could find nothing in it to wound her. Then he began
+to consider her words, and the more he thought the more they occupied
+him. What sort of difference could she see between trade and work?
+
+She interested him more and more; but he could not understand why her
+features looked cross and irritable when she herself was so kind, and
+could not only sympathise with people, but also help them. Pavel had
+visited her at home, and was full of enthusiastic praises for her and
+all the mode of life in her family.
+
+"The minute you come in--at once, they say, 'Welcome.' If they're at
+table, then--'Sit down with us.' If they're having tea--'Have a cup of
+tea with us.' It's so simple--and the people, there--my word!--and so
+happy--they drink tea and talk all at once and quarrel over books; and
+the books all lie about as if it were a book-shop. It's often crowded,
+you knock into your neighbour, and he laughs. All educated people--one
+is an advocate, another will soon be a doctor, and students and that
+sort. You forget altogether who you are, and laugh as if you were in
+your own set, and smoke and so on. It's splendid--so jolly, and so
+sensible."
+
+"Ah--they'll never ask me," said Lunev, gloomily, "that proud young
+lady."
+
+"Proud?--she?" cried Pavel. "I tell you, she's simplicity itself. Don't
+wait for an invitation--meet her by accident at the house door--and
+there you are. All people are equal, there--like in an inn, my boy.
+You feel so free. I tell you--what am I compared to you? But after two
+visits--like a child of the house!--and interesting--the noise, the
+row--the words start up--it's like a game."
+
+"Well, and how's Mashutka?" asked Ilya.
+
+"Pretty well, she's picked up a bit--sits and smiles now and then. They
+look after her--give her lots of milk--as for Ehrenov, he'll catch
+it! The advocate said the old devil would get it properly. Masha will
+be taken to the Judge of Inquiry--and as for my girl, they're taking
+a lot of trouble to bring the case on soon. Ah--it's good to be near
+them--the little house--people there like wood in the stove--they glow."
+
+"But she, she herself?" asked Ilya.
+
+Of "her" Pavel began to talk, as once he had talked of the prisoners
+who taught him to read and write. Every nerve was tense, and he talked
+emphatically, his speech full of interjections.
+
+"She, brother? Oh--ho! Where did she learn it? She orders them all
+about, and if any one says anything unfair, or else--she, frrr--like a
+cat."
+
+"I know that," said Ilya, and smiled involuntarily.
+
+Yet he envied Pavel; he longed to visit the house, but his self-conceit
+forbade him to take the straight way there.
+
+Standing behind the counter he thought obstinately:
+
+"All the men there are, every one looks out for a chance to get
+something somehow from the rest. But she, what good does it do her to
+take up Mashutka and Vyera? She's poor; perhaps everything in the house
+has to be reckoned. That means she must be very good. And yet she talks
+to me that way, how am I worse than Pavel?"
+
+These thoughts troubled him so, that he began to feel almost
+indifferent to everything else. A chink seemed to have opened in
+the darkness of his life, and through it he felt, rather than saw,
+something glimmer that he had never perceived before.
+
+"My friend," said Tatiana Vlassyevna to him, coldly but impressively:
+"The stock of narrow tape wants renewing; the trimming, too, is almost
+used up, and there's very little black thread number fifty. A firm
+offers us pearl buttons at--the traveller came to me. I sent him on
+here. Has he been?"
+
+"No," answered Ilya shortly.
+
+This woman became more repugnant to him daily. He had a suspicion that
+she had taken Karsakov, recently named District Chief of Police, for a
+lover. She appointed meetings with Ilya more and more seldom, although
+she had just the same tender, gay manner with him as before. He did his
+best to avoid even these rarer meetings on one pretext or another, and
+finding that she was not at all annoyed, he called her in his heart
+fickle and shameless.
+
+She was especially irksome to him when she came to the shop to inspect
+the stock. She turned about like a top, jumped on the counter, hauled
+out the cardboard boxes from the highest shelves, sneezing in the dust
+she raised, shook her head, and worried the life out of Gavrik.
+
+"An apprentice in business must be quick and ready, he isn't fed to sit
+in the door all day and rub his nose; and when he's spoken to he ought
+to listen attentively, and not stare like a scarecrow."
+
+But Gavrik had a character quite his own. While he listened to her
+flood of comments he preserved a complete indifference. Especially
+when she was rummaging about among the upper shelves, and holding up
+her skirts, Gavrik would look mischievously at his master. When he
+addressed her it was roughly and without any sign of respect, and when
+she departed he would remark: "There goes the plover at last."
+
+"You mustn't speak of your mistress like that," said Ilya, trying to
+hide a smile.
+
+"What sort of a mistress is she?" answered Gavrik. "She comes here and
+chatters, and hops off again! You--are the master."
+
+"She is, too," said Ilya feebly, for he liked the honourable,
+high-spirited lad.
+
+"Ah; she's a plover," insisted Gavrik.
+
+"You teach that youngster nothing," said Madame Avtonomov to Ilya on
+another occasion. "And I must say, frankly, that lately everything
+seems carried on without enthusiasm, with no love for the work."
+
+Lunev said nothing, but in his soul he hated her so that he thought:
+
+"I wish to goodness, you she-devil, you'd break your leg; coming
+skipping about here."
+
+One day he received a letter from his uncle, and learnt that Terenti
+had not only been to Kiev, but also the Sergius Monastery and in
+Valvam. He had nearly gone to Solovky, on the Dvina, but had abandoned
+that pilgrimage, and expected soon to reach home again.
+
+"Another joy," thought Ilya bitterly. "He'll come here to live for
+certain."
+
+He considered eagerly how to arrange that his uncle should live alone.
+But he had little time for thought; customers came in, and while he was
+busy with them, Gavrik's sister appeared. She seemed tired and out of
+breath, greeted him, and asked, nodding at the door of the room behind:
+
+"Is there any water there?"
+
+"I'll get it," said Ilya.
+
+"No, I'll go."
+
+She went into the room and stayed there till Lunev had finished
+with his customers, and followed her. He found her standing before
+the "Steps of Man's Life." Turning her head towards him, she said,
+indicating the picture:
+
+"What awful taste!"
+
+Confused by the remark, Ilya smiled, and felt somewhat guilty.
+
+"Burr! What middle-class sentiment!" she repeated with disgust, and
+before he could ask for an explanation she was gone. A few days later
+she brought her brother some new linen, and reproved him for being
+careless with his clothes, tearing and soiling them.
+
+"Well," said Gavrik, crossly. "That's enough. That woman's always on at
+me, and now you're beginning."
+
+"What's the matter with him? Is he very rude?" she asked Ilya at this.
+
+"N--no. He doesn't mean to be," answered Ilya kindly.
+
+"I--I always keep quite quiet!" said the boy.
+
+"His tongue goes a little fast!" said Ilya.
+
+"Do you hear?" asked his sister, knitting her brows.
+
+"Oh, yes, I hear!" cried Gavrik crossly.
+
+"It doesn't matter much," said Ilya good-humouredly. "A man who can
+show his teeth has always an advantage over the rest. A man who bears
+blows silently gets beaten to his grave by the stupid people."
+
+She listened and a smile of pleasure came over her face. Ilya noticed
+it.
+
+"I wanted to ask you----" he began, in some confusion.
+
+"Well?"
+
+The girl came closer and looked right into his eyes. He could not meet
+her glance, but hung his head and went on:
+
+"As far as I can make out, you don't care for tradesmen?"
+
+"Not much."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because they live on the work of others," she explained, speaking very
+distinctly.
+
+Ilya threw up his head, and his brows contracted. The words did not
+only astonish him, but pained him; and she said them so simply, so much
+as if it were a matter of course.
+
+"But--excuse me--that isn't true!" he said loudly, after a pause.
+
+Her face twitched and she blushed.
+
+"How much does this ribbon cost you?" she asked coldly and sternly.
+
+"Ribbon?--this ribbon?--Seventeen kopecks the arshin."
+
+"And how do you sell it?"
+
+"At twenty"
+
+"Very well. The three kopecks that you make don't really belong to you,
+but to the one who made the ribbon. Do you see?"
+
+"No," confessed Lunev frankly.
+
+A flame shot from her eyes. Ilya saw it, and was afraid, yet angered
+with himself because of his fear.
+
+"Yes. I thought it wouldn't be easy for you to understand such a
+simple idea," she said, and turned away towards the door. "But
+see, now--imagine you are a worker, that you've made all this
+yourself,"--she swept her hand round with a big gesture, and went on to
+explain to him how labour enriches all except the labourer. At first
+she spoke in her ordinary manner, coldly, distinctly, and her ugly
+face was unmoved; but presently her eyebrows quivered and contracted,
+her nostrils dilated, and, standing close to Ilya, with head erect,
+she hurled mighty words at him, nerved by her youthful, unshakeable
+confidence in their truth.
+
+"The retailer stands between the worker and the purchaser. He does
+nothing himself, he only increases the cost of the goods. Trading! It's
+only legal, permissible robbery."
+
+Ilya felt deeply hurt, but he could find no words to answer this
+bold girl, who told him to his face he was a loafer and a robber. He
+clenched his teeth and listened silently, but did not believe, he
+could not believe; and while he ransacked his brain for the word to
+controvert her argument, to silence her forthwith, while he marvelled
+at her boldness, the contemptuous phrases, so amazing to his ears,
+stirred in his mind the question: "Why--what have I done to her?"
+
+"All that is just not true," he interrupted her finally in a
+loud voice, feeling that he could not listen any longer without
+contradicting. "No--I can't agree with you."
+
+"Then disprove it!" the young girl replied quietly. She sat down on a
+stool, drew the long plait of her hair over her shoulder, and began to
+play with it. Lunev turned away to avoid her challenging glance.
+
+"I'll disprove it!" he cried, no longer able to contain himself. "I'll
+disprove it by my whole life. I--perhaps I did commit a great sin once
+before I came to this."
+
+"So much the worse--but this is no argument," answered the girl; and
+her words fell on Ilya like a cold douche. He supported himself with
+both hands on the counter, and bent forward as though he were going
+to spring over, and gazed at her for some seconds in silence, cut to
+the heart, and astonished at her quietness. Her glance and her unmoved
+countenance, full of profound conviction, restrained his anger and
+confused him; he felt something fearless, impregnable in her, and the
+words he needed to refute her died on his tongue.
+
+"Well? What then?" she asked with a cool challenge, then laughed, and
+said triumphantly:
+
+"It's impossible to disprove it, because I spoke the truth."
+
+"Impossible?" repeated Ilya in a dull voice.
+
+"Yes, impossible. What can you say against it?"
+
+She laughed again condescendingly.
+
+"Good-bye!" and she went out, her head even higher than usual.
+
+"That's all nonsense! It isn't true, excuse me"--Lunev shouted after
+her. But she did not turn round. Ilya sat down on the stool. Gavrik
+stood at the door and looked at him, evidently well pleased with his
+sister's behaviour; his face had an important triumphant expression.
+
+"What are you staring at?" cried Lunev crossly, feeling annoyed by the
+boy's expression.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Oh! oh!" cried Lunev threateningly; then after a short pause he added:
+"You can go, take a holiday."
+
+He felt the necessity for solitude, but even when alone he could not
+collect his thoughts. He could not grasp the sense of the girl's words;
+they pained him before everything. Leaning his elbows on the counter,
+he thought in irritation:
+
+"Why did she abuse me? What have I done to her? And she's kind, too.
+Comes here, condemns me, and goes away--without any justice; without
+even finding out anything. She is very clever; but wait till you come
+back here--I'll answer you."
+
+But even while he threatened his mind was searching for the fault
+wherefore she had so attacked him. He remembered what Pavel had said of
+her intelligence and simplicity.
+
+"Pashka--no fear--she wouldn't hurt him."
+
+Raising his head he saw his reflection in the mirror, and as he looked
+he seemed to question his image. The black moustache moved on his lip,
+the big eyes looked weary, and a red flush burned on his cheek-bones;
+but yet, in spite of its look of annoyance over his defeat, the face
+was handsome, with a coarse, peasant's beauty; certainly more handsome
+than Pavel's yellow, bony countenance.
+
+"Does she really like Pashka better than me?" he thought, and at once
+answered his thought:
+
+"What good's my face? I'm no man for her. She'll marry some doctor or
+advocate, or official. Whatever interest could she take in us?"
+
+He smiled bitterly, and began to question again:
+
+"But why has she asked Pashka to go and see her? Why does she despise
+me? A tradesman--is he a thief? He doesn't work--think. I live on the
+work of others? And who is it stands here stiff and tired all day long,
+and never gets away?"
+
+Now he began to oppose her, and found many words to justify his life;
+but now she was not there, and his fine words did not console him, but
+only increased the feeling of exasperation that glowed within him.
+He got up, went into his room, swallowed a mouthful of water, and
+looked round him. It was close and stuffy in the low room, with the
+iron railings in front of the window; the picture caught his eye with
+its bright colours; standing in the doorway, he raised his eyes to the
+"Steps of Life," so accurately measured out, and thought:
+
+"All a lie! As if life were like that!" He looked long at the picture,
+comparing in his mind his own life with this sample, set out in such
+glowing colours.
+
+"Is that life?" he repeated to himself, and suddenly added, hopelessly:
+"Yes, even if it were really, it's dreary and monotonous--clean enough,
+but not jolly!"
+
+He stepped slowly up to the wall, tore the picture down, and carried
+it into the shop. There he laid it on the counter, and began again to
+observe the development of man as it was here depicted. Now he regarded
+it with scorn, but while he looked, he thought only of Gavrik's sister.
+
+"As if she knew that I strangled the old man! However little she likes
+me, why need she say such things?"
+
+His thoughts circled in his brain slowly and heavily, and the picture
+wavered before his eyes. Then he crumpled it up and threw it under
+the counter, but it rolled out again under his feet. Still more
+exasperated, he crushed it into a tighter ball, and flung it out into
+the street. The street was full of noise. On the other side some
+one was walking with a stick. The stick did not strike the pavement
+regularly, so that it sounded as though the man had three feet.
+The doves cooed; the clank of metal sounded somewhere, probably a
+chimney-sweep going over a roof. A droshky went by; the driver was
+drowsy and his head nodded to and fro. Everything seemed to sway round
+Ilya. Half asleep he took his reckoning frame and counted off twenty
+kopecks. From them he took seventeen--three were left. He flipped the
+little balls with his finger-nail, and they slid along the wire with a
+slight noise, separated out and stopped. Ilya sighed, laid the frame
+aside, threw himself on the counter, and lay so, listening to the
+beating of his heart. Next day Gavrik's sister came back. She looked
+just the same, in the same old dress, with the same expression.
+
+"There!" thought Lunev angrily, looking at her from his room. He bowed
+ungraciously as she greeted him, but she laughed suddenly and said in a
+friendly way:
+
+"Why are you so pale? Aren't you well?"
+
+"Quite well!" answered Ilya shortly, and tried to conceal from her
+the feeling that her friendly observation of him had roused. It was a
+warm, happy feeling. Her smile and her words touched his heart, but he
+resolved to show her he felt hurt, hoping she would give him another
+smile or friendly word. He resolved, and waited therefore sulkily
+without looking at her.
+
+"I'm afraid--you feel hurt!" her usual firm voice said. The tone was
+so different from that of her earlier words that Ilya looked at her
+in surprise. But she was as proud as ever, and in her dark eyes lay
+something disdainful, angry.
+
+"I'm used to being hurt," said Lunev now, and smiled at her in
+challenge, but with the coldness of disillusion in his heart.
+
+"Ah, you're playing with me!" was his thought. "First you'll stroke me,
+and then strike? Well, you shan't!"
+
+"I didn't mean to hurt you!" Her words sounded to Ilya hard, even
+condescending.
+
+"It would be hard for you to hurt me, really," he began loudly and
+boldly. "I think I know now the kind of lady you are. You're a bird
+that doesn't fly very high."
+
+At these words she drew herself up, astonished, with eyes wide open.
+But Ilya noticed nothing now, the hot desire to pay her back for what
+she had done to him burned in him like a flame, and he used hard, harsh
+words, slowly and carefully.
+
+"Your superiority--this pride--they don't cost much. Any one who has
+the chance of education can get them. If it wasn't for your education,
+you'd be a tailoress or a housemaid. As poor as you are, you couldn't
+be anything else!"
+
+"What's that you say?" she exclaimed.
+
+Ilya looked at her and was glad to see how her nostrils quivered and
+her cheeks reddened.
+
+"I say what I think; and I do think it. All your cheap airs of
+superiority aren't worth a button."
+
+"I've no airs of superiority!" the girl cried in a ringing voice. Her
+brother hurried to her, took her hand and said loudly, looking angrily
+at his master, "Come away, Sonyka."
+
+Lunev glanced at the pair and answered, with aversion, but coldly:
+
+"Please do go! I am nothing to you, nor you to me."
+
+Both gave one strange lightning glance at him, and then disappeared.
+He laughed as they went. Then he stood alone in the shop for several
+minutes, motionless, intoxicated with the bitter sweetness of complete
+revenge. The angry face of the girl, half astonished, half frightened,
+was stamped on his memory, and he was pleased with himself.
+
+"But that rascal--he----" a sudden thought buzzed in his brain.
+Gavrik's behaviour annoyed him and disturbed his self-satisfied mood.
+
+"Another of the conceited lot!" he thought. "Now, if only Tanitshka
+were to come, I'd talk to her too--now's the time."
+
+He experienced the desire to thrust all mankind away from him, harshly
+and contemptuously, and felt the strength in him now to do it.
+
+But Tanitshka did not come; he was alone all day, and the time hung
+very heavily on his hands. When he lay down to sleep he felt isolated,
+and his sense of injury at his isolation was greater even than at the
+girl's words. He remembered Olympiada, and thought now that she had
+been kinder to him than any one. Closing his eyes, he listened in the
+stillness of the night; but at every sound he started, raised his head
+from the pillow, and stared into the darkness with eyes wide open. All
+night he could not get to sleep, because of his terrified expectation
+of something unknown--a feeling as though he were imprisoned in a
+cellar, gasping in a damp, close air, full of helpless, disconnected
+thoughts. He got up with an aching head, tried to get the samovar
+going, but gave it up. He washed, drank some water, and opened the shop.
+
+About midday Pavel appeared, his forehead wrinkled in anger. Without
+any greeting, he asked:
+
+"What on earth's the matter with you?"
+
+Ilya understood the drift of the question, and shook his head
+hopelessly. He was silent awhile, thinking: "He's against me, too."
+
+"Why have you insulted Sophie Nikonovna?" said Pavel sternly, standing
+very straight.
+
+Ilya read his condemnation in Gratschev's angry face and reproachful
+eyes, but he bore that with indifference. He said slowly, in a tired
+voice:
+
+"You might say 'good day' when you come in, don't you think? and take
+off your cap. There's an eikon here."
+
+Pavel simply clutched his cap and drew it on more firmly, while his
+lips twitched with anger. Then he began, speaking fast and bitterly,
+with a trembling voice:
+
+"Go on! Got lots of money, haven't you? and plenty to eat? You'd better
+think how you once said: 'There's no one to care about us,' and then
+you find one, and you turn her out. Ah, you--you pedlar, you!"
+
+A dull feeling of slackness prevented Lunev from replying. With an
+unmoved, indifferent look he regarded Pavel's angry contemptuous
+features, feeling that the reproaches could not bite into his soul.
+On Pavel's chin and upper lip lay a thin yellow down, and Lunev found
+himself looking at this as he thought, indifferently:
+
+"Now he's beginning. She must have complained of me to him. Did I
+really insult her? I might have said far worse things."
+
+"She, who understands everything and can explain everything; and it's
+to her--you----Ah!" said Pavel, his talk full of interjections as
+usual: "All of them--there, are good--clever--they know everything you
+can think of by heart. Yes!--you ought to have held to her--and you----"
+
+"That'll do anyhow, Pashka," said Lunev slowly. "What are you trying to
+teach me? I do what I like.'
+
+"Yes, but what do you do? It's a shame!"
+
+"Whatever I like I'll do. I've had enough of all of you! Only get away
+and chatter what you like." Lunev leaned heavily against the boxes of
+goods, and went on thoughtfully, as though questioning himself:
+
+"And what could you tell me that I don't know?"
+
+"She can do anything," cried Pavel, with deep conviction, holding up
+his hand as though prepared to take an oath. "They know everything."
+
+"Then go to them!" cried Ilya, with complete unconcern. Pavel's words
+and his excitement were distasteful to him, but he felt no wish to
+contradict his friend. A dull, blank weariness hindered him from
+speaking or thinking or even moving. He wanted to be alone, to hear
+nothing and see nothing and nobody.
+
+"And I'll leave you, once and for all," said Pavel threateningly. "I'll
+go because I understand one thing--I can only live near them, near them
+I can find all I need--I--they know right and truth! Life to me was
+never before what it is now, worthy of a man! Who ever respected me
+before?"
+
+"Don't shout so!" said Lunev half aloud.
+
+"You wooden idol you!" screamed Pavel.
+
+At this moment a little girl came into the shop for a dozen
+shirt-buttons. Ilya served her politely, took her twenty kopeck piece,
+twirled it a moment in his fingers, and then gave it back, saying:
+
+"I've no change. You can bring it by-and-bye." He had change in his
+till, but the key was in his room, and he had no inclination to fetch
+it. When the child had gone Pavel made no show of renewing the quarrel.
+He stood by the counter, striking his knee with his cap, and looked
+at his friend as though he expected something from him; but Lunev,
+who had turned half away, only whistled softly through his teeth. The
+groaning sound of heavy waggons in the street and the noise of hasty
+footsteps of passers-by came into the shop, the dust drifted in.
+
+"Well--what?" asked Pavel.
+
+"Nothing!"
+
+"Oh, very well, then--nothing!"
+
+"For God's sake, let me alone!" said Ilya impatiently.
+
+Gratschev threw on his cap and walked quickly out without another word.
+Ilya followed him slowly with his eyes, but did not move his head.
+
+"Am I ill, I wonder?" he thought.
+
+A big, fox-coloured dog looked in at the door, wagged his tail, and
+made off again. Then an old beggar-woman, quite grey, with a big nose,
+she begged in a half-whisper:
+
+"Please, give me something, kind gentleman."
+
+Lunev shook his head. The noise of the busy day swept by outside. It
+was as though a huge stove were kindled, where wood crackled in the
+flames, and glowing heat poured out. A cart, loaded with long iron
+bars, goes by; the ends of the elastic bars reached the ground and
+struck, clanking, on the pavement. A knife-grinder sharpens a knife; an
+evil, hissing sound cuts the air.
+
+"Cherries from Vladimir!" shouts a fruit-seller in a sing-song voice.
+Every moment brings forth something new and unexpected; life amazes our
+ears with the multiplicity of its noises, the unwearied persistence
+of its movement, the strength of its restless creative might. But in
+Lunev's soul everything there was calm and dead. Everything there
+was still together. There was there no thought, no wish, only a dull
+weariness. He spent the whole day in this state, and was tortured all
+night by nightmare and wild dreams--and many days and nights thereafter
+passed in the same way. People came, bought what they needed, and went
+again; his only thought was:
+
+"I don't need them, and they don't need me. That's only strange at
+first; I shall get used to it! I will just live alone. I will live!"
+
+Instead of Gavrik, the former cook of the owner of the house saw to
+his samovar and brought him his midday meal. She was a lean, sinister
+woman, with a red face and eyes that were colourless and staring.
+Sometimes when he looked at her Ilya felt fear deep down in his soul.
+"Shall I, then, never see anything beautiful in my life?" And darkly,
+despairingly, he said to himself: "See how life goes." There had been a
+time when he had grown accustomed to the manifold impressions of life,
+and although they irritated him and angered him, he yet felt--it is
+better to live among men. But now men had disappeared from the world,
+and there were only customers left. His sense of a common humanity and
+the longing for a better life vanished together in his indifference
+towards all and everything, and again the days slipped slowly by in a
+suffocating stupor.
+
+One evening, when he had closed the shop, he went out into the
+courtyard, lay down under the elm-tree, and listened to the noise on
+the further side of the fence. Some one clicked with the tongue, and
+said softly:
+
+"O--Oh! Good dog! Good little dog!"
+
+Through a chink between the planks Ilya saw a fat old woman, with a
+long face, sitting on a bench; a big yellow dog had laid one of his
+fore-paws on her knee, and raising his muzzle, tried to lick her face.
+The woman turned her face away, and stroked the dog, smiling.
+
+"People caress dogs, then, if there's no one else," Ilya mused. With
+deep pain in his heart, he thought of Gavrik and his stern sister; then
+of Pashka, Masha. "If they wanted me they'd come. They can go to the
+devil. To-morrow I'll go and see Jakov."
+
+"My good dog!" murmured the woman beyond the fence.
+
+"If even Tanyka would come!" thought Ilya, sadly. But Tatiana
+Vlassyevna was living in a country house a good way from the town, and
+never appeared in the shop.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV.
+
+
+Ilya did not succeed in visiting Jakov next day, because his uncle
+Terenti arrived in the town. It was early morning.
+
+Ilya was just awoke, and sat on his bed saying to himself that another
+day was here that must be lived through somehow.
+
+"It's a life--like travelling through a swamp in autumn, cold and
+muddy--and you get more and more tired, and hardly get on at all."
+
+There came a knocking at the door of the yard, repeated, single knocks.
+Ilya got up, thinking the cook had come for the samovar, opened the
+door, and found himself face to face with the hunchback.
+
+"Ha! ha!" laughed Terenti, shaking his head playfully: "Close on nine,
+Mr. Shopman, and your shop still shut up!"
+
+Ilya stood, blocking the entrance, and smiled at his uncle. Terenti's
+face was sunburnt and looked younger; his eyes were cheerful and happy;
+his bags and bundles lay at his feet, and amid them he himself looked
+almost like another bundle.
+
+"How goes it, my dear nephew? Will you let me into your house?"
+
+Ilya stood aside, and began to collect the bundles without speaking.
+Terenti's eyes sought the eikon, he crossed himself, and said, bending
+reverently: "Thanks be to thee, oh Lord! I am home again. Well, Ilya!"
+
+As Ilya embraced his uncle he felt that the body of the hunchback had
+grown stronger and stouter.
+
+"If I could have a wash," said Terenti, standing and looking round the
+room. He stood less bent than of old. Wandering with a knapsack on his
+back seemed to have drawn down his hump. He held himself straighter,
+and his head higher.
+
+"And how are you?" he asked his nephew, as he washed his face.
+
+Ilya was glad to see his uncle looking so much younger. He made
+him sit down at the table, and prepared tea, and answered questions
+pleasantly, though a little hesitatingly.
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I? Splendid!" Terenti closed his eyes and moved his head with a happy
+smile. "I have made a good pilgrimage; couldn't have done better. I've
+drunk of the Water of Life, in one word."
+
+He settled himself at the table, twisted a finger in his beard, put his
+head on one side, and began to relate his experiences.
+
+"I went to St. Athanasius and the other holy miracle workers, to
+Mithrophanes at Voronesh, and the holy Tichon on the Don. And I went to
+the island of Valaam too. I've travelled a great way round. I've prayed
+to many Saints and Holy ones, and I've now come from the last--St.
+Peter and the holy Febroma in Murom."
+
+Evidently it delighted him to tell of all the Saints and places; his
+face was mild, his eyes moist and confident. He spoke in the half
+singing way that experienced storytellers adopt in their tales and
+legends of Saints.
+
+Outside it began to rain; at first the rain drops struck the window as
+it were carefully and without hurry, then by degrees harder and faster
+till the glass rang under the shower.
+
+"In the depths of the sacred monasteries there's an unbroken stillness;
+the darkness is over everything; but through it the lamps before the
+shrines shine like the eyes of children, and there's a perfume of holy
+oil of unction." The rain increased; a sound as of weeping and sighing
+came from outside the window; the galvanised iron on the roof rattled
+and groaned, the water pouring off it splashed, sobbing, and a network
+of strong steel threads seemed to quiver in the air.
+
+"This oil of unction, the Chrism, comes from the heads of the Saints."
+
+"O--oh!" said Ilya, slowly. "Well, did you find peace for your soul?"
+
+Terenti was silent for a moment, then straightened himself in his
+chair, bent forward to Ilya and said, lowering his voice:
+
+"See, it's like this, my unwilling sin crushed my heart like a wooden
+boot. I say unwilling because if I had not obeyed Petrusha--bang! he
+would have kicked me out! He would have thrown me on the streets,
+wouldn't he?"
+
+"Yes," Ilya agreed.
+
+"Well, then, as soon as I began my pilgrimage, my heart was lighter at
+once, and as I went I prayed. 'Oh, Lord, see, I am going to Thy holy
+Saints. I know I am a sinner.'"
+
+"That's to say, you bargained with Him?" asked Ilya, with a smile.
+
+"His will be done! How He received my prayer I do not know," said the
+hunchback, looking upwards.
+
+"But your conscience?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Is it at peace?"
+
+Terenti considered for a moment, as if he were listening, then said:
+
+"It is silent."
+
+Lunev smiled.
+
+"Prayer, if it comes from a clean heart, always brings relief," said
+the hunchback, softly but emphatically.
+
+Ilya got up and went to the window. Wide streams of dirty water flowed
+down the gutters; little pools were formed between the stones of the
+pavement; they trembled under the descending shower, so that it looked
+as though all the pavement quivered. The house over the way was quite
+wet and gloomy, its window-panes were dim and the flowers behind
+them invisible. The streets were deserted and quiet; only the rain
+hissed and all the little gutters splashed along. A solitary pigeon
+was sheltering under the eaves by the gable-window, and a damp, heavy
+dreariness invaded the town from all sides.
+
+"Autumn is here!" The thought shot through Lunev's brain.
+
+"How else can a man set himself right with God except through prayer?"
+asked Terenti, as he began to open one of his bags.
+
+"It's very simple," remarked Ilya gloomily, without turning round. "You
+sin as you please; then you pray hard, and it's all right! All settled,
+begin again, sin some more!"
+
+"But why? On the contrary, live honestly!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"How d'you mean?"
+
+"What I say. Why should you?"
+
+"To have a clear conscience."
+
+"What's the good of that?"
+
+"Oh--oh!" said Terenti, slowly and reproachfully, "How can you say
+that?"
+
+"I do say it, though," said Ilya obstinately and firmly, turning his
+back.
+
+"That is wicked!"
+
+"Tcha! Wicked!"
+
+"Punishment will follow."
+
+"No!"
+
+At this he turned away from the window and looked Terenti in the face.
+The hunchback, in his turn looked searchingly at his nephew's strong
+face, moving his lips, he tried to find a word in reply, and at last he
+said, emphatically:
+
+"'No' you say; but it does come! There--I fell into sin, and have been
+punished for it."
+
+"How?" asked Ilya, darkly.
+
+"Is anxiety nothing? I lived in fear and trembling. Any moment it might
+be found out, and I should----"
+
+"Well. I fell into sin, and I'm not afraid at all," said Ilya, with an
+insolent laugh.
+
+"Don't jest!" said Terenti warningly.
+
+"It's a fact! I'm not afraid! Life is hard for me, but----"
+
+"Aha!" cried Terenti, and stood up in triumph. "Hard, you say?"
+
+"Yes! Every one keeps away from me as if I were a mangey dog."
+
+"That's your punishment! D'you see?"
+
+"But why?" screamed Ilya, almost in fury; his jaw quivered, and he tore
+at the wall behind his back with his fingers. Terenti looked at him in
+terror, and flourished in the air with a piece of string.
+
+"Don't shout--don't shout so!" he said, half aloud.
+
+But Ilya went on unheeding. It was so long since he had spoken to any
+one, and now he hurled from his soul all that had accumulated there in
+these last days of loneliness; he spoke passionately and furiously.
+
+"You've been on a pilgrimage for nothing--nothing--nothing! It's all
+the same. Nothing would have happened to you. It's not only stealing;
+you can kill if you like. Nothing will come of it. There's no one to
+punish you! The stupid get punished; but the clever man--he can do
+anything, everything!"
+
+"Ilya," answered Terenti, approaching him anxiously, "Wait, wait. Don't
+get so excited! Sit down. We can talk of it quite quietly."
+
+Suddenly from the other side of the door came the noise of something
+breaking; there was a rolling and a cracking, and finally whatever it
+was came to a stop close to the door. The two men startled and were
+silent for a moment. All was still again; only the rain poured down.
+
+"What was that?" asked the hunchback, softly and timidly.
+
+Ilya went silently to the door, opened it, and looked through.
+
+"Some card-board boxes have fallen down," he said, closed the door
+and returned to his old place by the window. Terenti still stood up
+arranging his belongings. After a short silence he began again.
+
+"No--no, think a moment! You say such things! Such Godlessness does
+not anger God, but it destroys you yourself. Try to understand that;
+they are wise words. I heard them on my pilgrimage. Ah! how many wise
+sayings I heard!"
+
+He began again to tell of his travels, looking sideways at Ilya from
+time to time. But his nephew listened, as he listened to the patter of
+the rain, and wondered all the time how he should live with his uncle.
+
+Things adjusted themselves fairly well.
+
+Terenti knocked a bed together out of some old boxes, placed it in the
+corner between the stove and the door, where the darkness was thickest
+at night. He observed the course of Ilya's life and took upon himself
+the duties Gavrik had formerly fulfilled; he set out the samovar, swept
+the shop and the room, went to the tavern to fetch the mid-day meal,
+humming all the time his pious hymns. In the evening he related to his
+nephew how the wife of Alliluevov had saved Christ from his enemies
+by throwing her own infant into the glowing fire and taking the child
+Jesus in her arms. Or he told of the monk who had listened to the
+bird's song for three hundred years; or of Kirik and Ulit and of many
+others. Lunev listened and followed the course of his own thoughts.
+At this time he made a point of taking a walk every evening, and was
+always overjoyed to leave the town behind him. There in the open
+fields, at night, it was still and dark and desolate, as in his own
+soul.
+
+A week after his return Terenti went to the house of Petrusha
+Filimonov, and came away sad and grieved. But when Ilya asked him what
+was wrong, he answered: "Nothing--nothing at all. I went. I mean I saw
+them all, and we had a talk--h'm--yes!"
+
+"What's Jakov doing?" asked Ilya.
+
+"Jakov? Jakov is dying; he spoke of you; so yellow, and coughs."
+
+Terenti was silent and looked at one corner of the room, sad and
+melancholy, gnawing his lips.
+
+Life went on uniformly and monotonously every day as like the rest
+as copper pennies of the same year. Dark misery hid in the depths of
+Ilya's soul like a huge snake, that swallowed the sensations of the
+days. None of his old acquaintances visited him; Pavel and Masha seemed
+to have found for themselves another road in life; Matiza was run over
+by a horse and died in hospital; Perfishka had disappeared as if the
+earth had swallowed him. Lunev determined from time to time to go and
+see Jakov, and could not carry out his determination; he felt only too
+well that he had nothing to say to his dying comrade.
+
+In the morning he read the newspaper, all day he sat in the shop and
+watched the yellow withered leaves whirl down the street before the
+autumn wind. Sometimes a leaf would drift into the shop.
+
+"Holy Father Tichon intercede for us in Heaven," murmured Terenti in a
+voice that seemed to resemble the dry leaves, while he busied himself
+about the room.
+
+One Sunday, when Ilya opened the newspaper, he saw a poem on the first
+page: "Then and Now," and the signature at the end was P. Gratschev.
+
+    "Once my heart like a strife-weary warrior
+    Torn by black thoughts as by fierce birds of prey,
+    All hope seemed dead and for evermore buried,
+    Torment and pain were my portion each day."
+
+So Pavel wrote. Lunev read the verse and before his eyes he seemed to
+see the lively face of his comrade; now restless, with bright bold
+eyes, now sad and darkened, concentrated on one thought. In his verses
+Pavel told again how he wandered poor and alone in a foreign town,
+receiving no greeting or friendly word. But when he was at the point of
+death from longing and want, then he found kind people, who bade him
+welcome to their hearth, where he drank new life: "Drank from their
+words that were radiant with love," words that fell upon his heart like
+sparks of fire:
+
+    "Hope flamed again in the heart of the hopeless,
+    Songs of rejoicing resound through his soul."
+
+Lunev read to the end, and then pushed the paper impatiently aside.
+
+"Always rhyming, always with some crank in your head! Wait a little!
+these kind people of yours will handle you presently! kind people!" A
+scornful smile drew his mouth awry. Then suddenly he thought as though
+with a new soul. "Suppose I went there? Just went and said: 'Here I am,
+forgive me?'"
+
+"Why?" he asked himself the next moment, and he ended with the gloomy
+words: "They'll turn me out."
+
+He read the verses again with sorrow and envy, and fell into a new
+meditation on the girl. "She's proud. She'll just look at me, and well;
+I should go away the way I'd come."
+
+In the same newspaper among the official information, he found that the
+case against Vyera Kapitanovna for robbery would be tried in court on
+September 23rd.
+
+A malicious feeling flared up in him, and in his thought he addressed
+Pavel: "Make verses do you? and she--she's in prison!"
+
+"Lord be merciful to me a sinner," murmured Terenti with a sigh, and
+shook his head sadly. Then he looked at his nephew who was turning over
+his paper and called to him: "Ilya!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Petrusha----" the hunchback smiled sadly and stopped.
+
+"Well--what?"
+
+"He has robbed me!" Terenti explained in a slow, conscience-stricken
+voice, and smiled again in a melancholy way.
+
+"Serves you right!"
+
+"He's done me fairly!"
+
+"How much did you steal altogether?" asked Ilya quietly. His uncle
+pushed his chair back from the table, and with his hands on his knees
+began to twist his fingers.
+
+"Say, ten thousand?" asked Lunev again.
+
+The hunchback turned his head quickly, and said in a long-drawn tone of
+astonishment.
+
+"T--e--n?"
+
+Then he waved his hand and added:
+
+"Whatever's got into your head? good Lord! Altogether it was three
+thousand seven hundred and a little over, and you think ten
+thousand--ten; you've fine ideas!"
+
+"Jeremy had more than ten thousand," said Ilya, laughing mockingly.
+
+"That's a lie!"
+
+"Not a bit; he told me himself."
+
+"Why, could he reckon money?"
+
+"As well as you and Petrusha."
+
+Terenti fell into deep thought, and his head sank again on his breast.
+
+"How much has Petrusha to pay you still?"
+
+"About seven hundred," answered Terenti, with a sigh. "Well, well, more
+than ten."
+
+Lunev was silent; he hated the sight of his uncle's troubled,
+disappointed face.
+
+"Where on earth did he hide it all?" asked the hunchback thoughtfully
+and wonderingly. "I thought we had taken the lot; but perhaps Petrusha
+had been there already, eh?"
+
+"I wish you'd stop talking of it!" said Lunev harshly.
+
+"Yes, it's no good now; what's the good of talking?" agreed Terenti
+with another deep sigh.
+
+Lunev could not keep his mind off the greed of mankind, and the evil
+and miserable meanness practised for money. Then he began to think;
+if he possessed all this money, ten thousand, a hundred thousand then
+he'd show the world! How they should creep on all fours before him!
+Carried away with revengeful feelings, he smashed on the table with his
+fist; at the blow he started, glanced at his uncle, and saw that he was
+staring with terrified eyes and mouth half open.
+
+"I was thinking of something," he said moodily, and stood up.
+
+"Yes, of course," said his uncle suspiciously, as Ilya passed into
+the shop he looked searchingly at Terenti, and saw his lips moving
+silently; he felt the suspicious look behind his back, though he could
+not see; he had noticed for some time that his uncle followed his
+every movement and seemed anxious to find out something, or to ask
+something. But this only made Lunev anxious to avoid all conversation;
+every day he felt more plainly that his hunchbacked guest troubled the
+course of his life, and more and more often he asked himself:
+
+"Will it go on much longer?"
+
+It was as though a cancer were gnawing at his soul; life became daily
+more wearisome, and worst of all was the sense that he had no longer
+any desire to do anything. Days passed aimlessly, and often his feeling
+was that he sank slowly, but every hour deeper, into a bottomless
+abyss. Convinced that mankind had deeply injured him, he concentrated
+all the strength of his soul on one point--the bitter sense of injury;
+he stirred the flames by constant brooding and found therein the
+exculpation for every fault he had himself committed.
+
+Shortly after Terenti's arrival, Tatiana Vlassyevna appeared, after a
+holiday spent some distance from the town. When she saw the hunchbacked
+peasant in brown fustian, she pinched her lips together in disgust and
+asked Ilya:
+
+"Is that your uncle?"
+
+"Yes"
+
+"Is he going to live with you?"
+
+"Naturally."
+
+Tatiana perceived dislike and challenge in her partner's answers and
+ceased to take any notice of Terenti. But he, who had Gavrik's old
+place by the door, twisted his yellow beard and followed the small,
+slender woman in grey clothes with eager curious eyes.
+
+Lunev noticed how she hopped about the shop like a sparrow, and waited
+silently for further questions, fully prepared to hurl at her rough
+ill-tempered words. But she spoke no more, after stealing a glance at
+his grim, cold face, standing at the desk, turning over the leaves of
+the book of daily sales. She remarked how pleasant it was to spend a
+couple of weeks in the country, and live in a village; how cheap it
+was, and how good for the health.
+
+"There was a little stream, so quiet and still, and pleasant company,
+a telegraph official, for instance, who played the violin beautifully.
+I learned to row, but the peasant children! a perfect plague! like
+flies, they worry, and beg and whine--give--give! they learn it from
+their parents; it's disgusting!"
+
+"No one teaches them anything!" replied Ilya coldly. "Their parents
+work, and the children live as they can--it's not true what you say."
+
+Tatiana looked at him in astonishment and opened her mouth to speak;
+but at that moment Terenti smiled propitiatingly and remarked:
+
+"When ladies come to the villages nowadays, that's quite a wonder to
+the people. Formerly the owner used to live there all his life, and now
+they only come for a holiday."
+
+Madame Avtonomov looked at him, then at Ilya, and without saying
+anything fixed her eyes on the book. Terenti was confused, and began
+to pull at his shirt. For a minute no one spoke in the shop, only the
+rustling leaves of the book and a kind of purring as Terenti rubbed his
+hump against the door posts.
+
+"But you," said Ilya's calm, cold voice suddenly, "before you address a
+lady, say, 'Excuse me, or allow me, and bow.'"
+
+The book fell from Tatiana's hand and slipped over the desk; but she
+caught it, slapped her hand on it and began to laugh. Terenti went out,
+hanging his head. Tatiana looked up smiling into Ilya's gloomy face,
+and asked softly: "You're cross, is it with me? Why?"
+
+Her face was roguish, tender; her eyes shone teasingly. Lunev stretched
+out his arm and caught her by the shoulder.
+
+All at once his hate against her flared up, a wild tigerish desire to
+embrace her, to hug her till he heard her bones crack. He drew her
+towards him, showing his teeth; she caught his hand, tried to loosen
+his grasp, and whispered:
+
+"Let go, you hurt me, are you mad? you can't kiss me here. And listen:
+I don't like your uncle being here, he's a hunchback, and people will
+be afraid of him; let go, I say. We must get rid of him somehow, d'you
+hear?"
+
+But he held her in his arms and bent his head down to her, with
+wide-open eyes.
+
+"What are you doing, it's impossible here. Let go!"
+
+Suddenly she let herself sink to the ground and slipped out of his
+hands like a fish. Through a hot mist he saw her standing in the street
+door, straightening her jacket with trembling hands: she said:
+
+"Oh, you're brutal! can't you wait, then?"
+
+In his head was a noise of running waters; standing motionless, with
+fingers intertwined, he looked at her from behind the counter as if in
+her alone he saw all the evil and sorrow of his life.
+
+"I like you to be passionate, but, my dear, you must be able to control
+yourself."
+
+"Go!" said Ilya.
+
+"I'm going. I can't see you to-day, but the day after to-morrow, the
+twenty-third, it's my birthday, will you come?"
+
+As she spoke she fingered her brooch without looking at Ilya.
+
+"Go away!" he repeated, trembling with desire to clutch and torture her.
+
+She went. Almost immediately, Terenti reappeared and asked politely:
+
+"Is that your partner?"
+
+Ilya sighed with relief and nodded.
+
+"A fine lady! isn't she? Small but----"
+
+"She's a beast!" said Ilya.
+
+"H'm--h'm," growled Terenti suspiciously. Ilya felt the searching look
+on his face, and asked angrily, "Well what are you looking at?"
+
+"I? good Lord! nothing."
+
+"I know what I'm saying. I said a beast, and that's all about it. And
+if I said worse things it'd be just as true!"
+
+"A--ha! Is that it? O--Oh!" said the hunchback slowly, with an air of
+condolence.
+
+"What? cried Ilya roughly.
+
+"Only that."
+
+"Only what?"
+
+Terenti stood shifting from one foot to the other, frightened and hurt
+at being shouted at; his face was sorrowful and he blinked his eyes
+rapidly.
+
+"Only, you know best, of course," he said at last.
+
+"And that's enough," cried Ilya. "I know them; these people that are so
+clean and tidy outside!"
+
+"I talked with the boot boy once," said the hunchback gently, as he
+sat down, "about his brother, the magistrate sentenced him to seven
+days, think! The lad said he was such a peaceable fellow, never drunk,
+and yet all at once he broke out as if he were mad. He got drunk and
+smashed up everything; hit his master on the nose, and the shopman, and
+before, think! his master had often struck him and he kept quite quiet,
+never did anything."
+
+Lunev listened and thought.
+
+"I'll have to drop all this and get away. This beautiful life can go
+to the devil! There's no life left for me! I'll give it all up and go.
+I'll get away--here, I'm just going to pieces."
+
+"He bore it, bore everything and then at last bang, like a bombshell!"
+Terenti went on.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Why, the boy's brother. He got seven days for assault."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"Seven days! I say, the fellow had borne it, stood everything, but it
+had all piled up in his soul like the soot in the chimney, and then all
+of a sudden it catches fire, and the flames flare up."
+
+"Uncle, look after the shop for a bit! I'm going out," answered Lunev.
+
+His uncle's monotonous, well-meant words rang in his ears as mournfully
+as the sound of bells in Lent, and it was cold in the shop and there
+seemed no room to move, but it was hardly more cheerful in the street.
+It had been raining now for several days steadily. The clean, grey
+pavement stones stared unwinkingly back at the grey sky, and seemed
+weary like the faces of men. The dirt in the spaces between the
+stones, showed up clearly against the cold, clean surface. The air was
+heavy with damp, and the houses seemed oppressed with it. The yellow
+leaves still left on the trees seemed to shudder with the knowledge of
+approaching death.
+
+At the end of the street behind the roofs clouds, bluish-grey or white,
+rose up to the height of the sky. They shouldered over one another
+higher and higher, constantly changing their shapes, now like the reek
+of a bonfire, now like mountains, or waves of a turbid river. They
+seemed to mount to the summit only to fall the heavier on houses and
+trees and ground. Lunev grew weary of the moving wall and turned back
+to the shop, shivering from dreariness and cold.
+
+"I must give it up, the shop and all, uncle can see to it with Tanyka,
+but I, I'll go away."
+
+In his mind he had a vision of a wet, boundless plain, arched by grey
+clouds; there was a broad road set with birch-trees; he himself walked
+forward, his knapsack on his back; his feet stuck fast in the mud, a
+cold rain drove in his face, and on the plain and on the road no living
+soul, not even crows on the branches.
+
+"I'll hang myself," he thought, without emotion, when he saw that he
+had no place to go to, nowhere in all the world.
+
+
+
+
+XXV.
+
+
+When he awoke on the morning of the next day but one, he saw on his
+calendar the black figure 23, and remembered that this was the day that
+Vyera would appear for trial. He rejoiced at the excuse to get away
+from the shop, and felt keen curiosity over the girl's fate. He dressed
+hastily, drank his tea, almost ran to the court, and reached it too
+early. No one was admitted yet--a little crowd of people pressed about
+the steps, waiting for the doors to open; Lunev took his place with
+the rest and leant his back against the wall. There was an open space
+before the court-house, with a big church in the middle of it. Shadows
+swept over the ground. The sun's disc, dim and pale, now appeared, now
+vanished behind the clouds. Almost every moment a shadow fell widely
+over the square, gliding over the stones, climbing the trees, so that
+the branches seemed to bend under its weight; then it wrapped the
+church from base to cross, covered it entirely, then noiselessly moved
+further to the court of justice and the waiting crowd.
+
+The people all looked strangely grey, with hungry faces; they looked at
+one another with tired eyes and spoke slowly. One--a long-haired man
+in a light overcoat buttoned to his chin and a crushed hat, twisted
+his pointed red beard with cold red fingers, and stamped the ground
+impatiently with his worn out shoes. Another in a patched waistcoat,
+and cap pulled down over his brows, stood with bent head, one hand in
+his bosom, the other in his pocket. He seemed asleep. A little swarthy
+man in an overcoat and high boots looking like a cockchafer, moved
+about restlessly. He looked up to the sky showing a pale pointed little
+nose, whistled, wrinkled his brows, ran his tongue over the edge of his
+moustache and spoke more than all the others.
+
+"Are they opening?" he called, listening with his head on one side.
+
+"No--h'm. Time is cheap! Been to the library yet, my boy?"
+
+"No--too early," answered the long-haired man briefly.
+
+"The Devil! it _is_ cold!"
+
+The other growled agreement and said thoughtfully:
+
+"Where should we warm ourselves if it weren't for the law courts and
+the libraries?"
+
+The dark man shrugged his shoulders. Ilya looked at them more carefully
+and listened. He saw they were loafers--people who passed their lives
+in various "shady" businesses either cheating the peasants, for whom
+they drew up petitions or papers of different kinds, or going from
+house to house with begging letters. Once he had feared them, now they
+roused his curiosity.
+
+"What's the good of these people? Yet, they live."
+
+A pair of pigeons settled on the pavement near the steps. The man with
+the bent head swayed from one foot to the other and began to circle
+round the birds, making a loud cooing noise.
+
+"Pfui!" whistled the dark little man sharply. The man in the waistcoat
+started and looked up; his face was blue and swollen, and his eyes
+glassy.
+
+"I can't stand pigeons," cried the little man watching them as they
+flew away. "Fat--as rich tradesmen--and their beastly cooing! Are you
+summoned?" he asked Ilya, unexpectedly.
+
+"No."
+
+"You're not called?"
+
+"No."
+
+The dark man looked Ilya up and down and growled: "That's strange."
+
+"What is strange?" asked Ilya, laughing.
+
+"You have the kind of face," answered the little man speaking quickly.
+"Ah, they're opening."
+
+He was one of the first to enter the building. Struck by his remark
+Ilya followed him and in the doorway pushed the long-haired man with
+his shoulder.
+
+"Don't shove so, you clown!" said the man half aloud, and giving Ilya a
+push in his turn passed in first. The push did not anger Ilya, but only
+astonished him.
+
+"Odd!" he thought. "He pushes in as if he were a great lord and must go
+in first, and he's only just a poor wretch."
+
+In the court of justice it was dark and quiet. The long table covered
+with a green cloth, the high-backed chairs, the gold frames round the
+big full-length portraits, the mulberry coloured chairs for the jury,
+the big wooden bench behind the railing--all this inspired respect and
+a sense of gravity. The windows were set deep in gray walls; curtains
+of canvas hung in heavy folds in front of them, and the window panes
+looked dim. The heavy doors opened without noise, and people in
+uniform walked here and there with rapid silent steps. Everything in
+the big room seemed to bid the spectators to remain quiet and still.
+Lunev looked round him, and a painful sensation caught at his heart;
+when an official announced--"The Court," he started and sprang up
+before any one else, though he did not know that he was expected to
+rise. One of the four men who entered was Gromov, who lived in the
+house opposite Ilya's shop. He took the middle chair, ran both his
+hands over his hair, rumpling it a little and settled the gold-trimmed
+collar of his uniform. The sight of his face had a calming effect on
+Ilya; it was just as jolly and red-cheeked as ever, only the ends of
+the moustache were turned up. On his right sat a good-natured looking
+old man with a little, grey beard, a blunt nose, and spectacles--on
+the left a bald-headed man with a divided foxy beard, and a yellow,
+expressionless face. Besides these a young judge stood at a desk, with
+a round head, smoothly plastered hair, and black prominent eyes. They
+were all silent for a few moments, looking through the papers on the
+table. Lunev looked at them full of respect and waited for one of them
+to rise and say something loudly and importantly. But suddenly, turning
+his head to the left Ilya saw the well-known fat face of Petrusha
+Filimonov shining as if it were lacquered. Petrusha sat in the front
+row of the jury, with his head against the back of the chair looking
+placidly at the public. Twice his glance passed over Ilya, and both
+times Ilya felt a wish to stand up and say something to Petrusha or to
+Gromov or to all the people.
+
+"Thief, who killed his son!" flamed through his brain, and there was a
+feeling in his throat like heartburn.
+
+"You are therefore accused," said Gromov in a friendly voice, but Ilya
+did not see who was addressed; he looked at Petrusha's face, oppressed
+with doubt and could not reconcile himself to the thought that
+Filimonov should be a dispenser of justice.
+
+"Now, tell us," asked the president, rubbing his forehead. "You said to
+the tradesman Anissimov, you wait! I'll pay you for this!"
+
+A ventilator squeaked somewhere, "ee--oo, ee--oo."
+
+Among the jury Ilya saw two other faces he knew. Behind Petrusha and
+above him sat a worker in stucco--Silatschev, a big peasant's figure
+with long arms and little ill-tempered face, a friend of Filimonov and
+his constant companion at cards. It was told of Silatschev, that once
+in a quarrel he had pushed his master from a scaffolding, with fatal
+result. And in the front row, two places from Petrusha sat Dodonov, the
+proprietor of a big fancy-ware shop. Ilya bought from him and knew him
+for hard and grasping and a man who had been twice bankrupt, and paid
+his creditors only ten per cent.
+
+"Witness! when did you see that Anissimov's house was on fire?"
+
+The ventilator lamented steadily, seeming to echo the sadness in
+Lunev's breast.
+
+"Fool!" said the man next him in a whisper. Ilya looked round, it was
+the little dark man who now sat with his lips contemptuously drawn.
+
+"A fool," he repeated, nodding to Ilya.
+
+"Who?" whispered Ilya stupidly.
+
+"The accused--he had a fine chance to upset the witness and lets it go.
+If I--ah."
+
+Ilya looked at the prisoner. He was a tall, bony peasant with an
+angular head. His face was terrified and gloomy; he showed his teeth
+like a tired, beaten dog, crowded into a corner by its foes and without
+strength to defend itself. Stupid, animal fear was impressed on every
+feature; and Petrusha, Silatschev and Dodonov looked at him quietly
+with the eyes of the well fed. To Lunev it seemed as though they
+thought: "He's been caught--that is, he is guilty."
+
+"Dull!" whispered his neighbour. "Nothing interesting. The accused--a
+fool, the Public Prosecutor a gaping idiot, the witnesses blockheads as
+usual. If I were Prosecutor I'd settle his job in ten minutes."
+
+"Guilty?" asked Lunev in a whisper, shivering as if with cold.
+
+"Probably not. But easy to condemn him. He doesn't know how to defend
+himself. These peasants never do. A poor lot! Bones and muscles--but
+intelligence, quickness--not a glimmer!"
+
+"That is true. Ye--es."
+
+"Have you by any chance twenty kopecks about you?" asked the little man
+suddenly.
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"Give it to me."
+
+Ilya had taken out his purse and handed over the piece of money, before
+he could make up his mind whether to give it or no. When he had parted
+with it he thought with an involuntary respect as he looked sideways at
+his neighbour:
+
+"He's quick, but that's the way to live; just take----"
+
+"A stupid ass, that's all," whispered the dark man again, and indicated
+the accused with his eyes.
+
+"Sh!--sh!" said the usher.
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury," began the Prosecutor with a low but emphatic
+voice, "look at the face of this man--it is more eloquent than any
+testimony of the witnesses who have given their evidence without
+contradiction--er--er--it must be so--it must convince you that a
+typical criminal stands before you, an enemy of law and order, an enemy
+of society--stands before you."
+
+The enemy of society was sitting down; but as it evidently troubled him
+to sit while he was being spoken of, he stood up slowly with bent head.
+His arms hung feebly by his sides, and the long gray figure bowed as
+though before the vengeance of justice.
+
+Lunev let his head fall also. His heart was sick, almost to death;
+helpless thoughts circled slowly and heavily in his head--he could find
+no words for them, and they fought him and strangled him. Petrusha's
+red, uneasy face drifted through his thoughts, as the moon through
+clouds.
+
+When Gromov announced the adjournment of the sitting Ilya went out into
+the corridor with the little man who took a damaged cigarette from his
+coat pocket, pressed it into shape and began:
+
+"The silly fellow stands there and swears he has not kindled the fire.
+Oaths are no good here. It's a serious business--some shopkeeper's been
+injured--you have done it or another--that doesn't matter. What does
+matter is to have it punished--you walk into the net. Very well, you
+shall be punished."
+
+"Do you think he's guilty, that fellow?" asked Ilya thoughtfully.
+
+"Of course he's guilty, because he's stupid; clever people don't get
+condemned," said the little man calmly and quickly, and smoked his
+cigarette vigorously. He had little black eyes like a mouse, and his
+teeth were also small-pointed and mouse-like.
+
+"In that jury," began Ilya slowly and with emphasis, "there are men."
+
+"Not men, tradesmen," the dark-headed man improved the phrase. Ilya
+looked at him and repeated:
+
+"Tradesmen. I know some of them."
+
+"Aha!"
+
+"A fine sort--not to put it too finely."
+
+"Thieves--eh?" his companion helped him out. He spoke loudly, but in an
+ordinary way, then threw away his cigarette end, pinched up his lips in
+a loud whistle and looked at Ilya with eyes bold almost to insolence;
+all these movements followed one another in eager restlessness.
+
+"Of course; anyway, justice so-called is mostly a pretty good farce,"
+he said shrugging. "The fat people improve the criminal tendencies
+of the hungry people. I often come to the courts, but I never saw a
+hungry man sit in judgment on the well fed--if the well fed do it among
+themselves--it happens generally from extra greed and means--don't take
+everything, leave me some!"
+
+"It also means--the well fed can't understand the hungry," said Ilya.
+
+"Oh, nonsense!" answered his companion. "They understand all
+right--that's what makes them so severe."
+
+"Well--well fed and honourable--that might pass!" Ilya went on half
+aloud. "But well fed scoundrels, how can they judge other men?"
+
+"The scoundrels are the severest judges," the black-haired man
+announced quietly.
+
+"Now, sir, we'll hear a case of robbery."
+
+"It's some one I know," said Lunev softly.
+
+"Ah!" cried the little man and shot a glance at him. "Let us have a
+look at your acquaintance!"
+
+In Ilya's head all was confusion. He wanted to question this clever
+little man about many things, but the words rattled in his brain like
+peas in a basket. There was in the man something unpleasant, dangerous,
+that frightened Ilya, but at once the persistent thought of Petrusha in
+the seat of justice, swamped every other idea. The thought forged an
+iron ring round his heart and kept out every other.
+
+As he drew near to the door of the hall he saw in the crowd in front
+of him the thick neck and small ears of Pavel Gratschev. Overjoyed, he
+twitched Pavel by the sleeve and smiled in his face; Pavel smiled too,
+but feebly, with evident effort.
+
+"How are you?"
+
+"How are you?"
+
+They stood for a few moments in silence, and the thought of each was
+expressed almost simultaneously.
+
+"Come to see?" asked Pavel with a wry smile.
+
+"She--is she here?" asked Ilya.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Why--your Sophie Nik----"
+
+"She isn't mine," answered Pavel, interrupting coldly.
+
+Both went into the hall without further speech. "Sit near me!" asked
+Lunev.
+
+Pavel stammered. "You see--I--I'm with some people."
+
+"Oh, very well."
+
+"I say--d'you know," added Pavel quickly. "Listen to what her advocate
+says."
+
+"I'll listen," said Ilya quietly, and added in a lower voice:
+"So--good-bye--brother."
+
+"Good-bye--we'll meet presently."
+
+Gratschev turned away and walked quickly to one side. Ilya looked at
+him with the sensation that Pavel had rubbed an open wound. Burning
+sorrow possessed him, and an envious, evil feeling to see his friend
+in a good new overcoat, looking, too, healthier, clearer in the face.
+Gavrik's sister sat on the same bench with Pavel; he said something
+to her, and she turned her head quickly to Lunev. When he saw her
+expressive, eager face, he turned away and his soul was wrapped more
+firmly and densely in dark feelings of injury, enmity and inability to
+understand. His thoughts stormed giddily in his head like a whirlwind,
+one tangled in another; suddenly they stopped--vanished; he felt a
+void in his brain, and everything outside seemed to move against him
+malevolently--and he ceased to follow the course of events.
+
+Vyera had already been brought in. She stood behind the railing in
+a grey dress, reaching to her heels like a night-gown, with a white
+kerchief. A strand of yellow hair lay against her left temple, her
+cheeks were pale, her lips compressed, and her eyes, widely opened,
+rested earnestly and immovably on Gromov.
+
+"Yes--yes--no--yes," her voice rang in Ilya's ears, as though muffled.
+
+Gromov looked at her kindly, and spoke in a subdued low voice like a
+cat purring.
+
+"And do you plead guilty, Kapitanovna, that on that night----" his
+insinuating voice glided on.
+
+Lunev looked at Pavel; he sat bent forward, his head down, twisting
+his fur cap in his hands. His neighbour, however, sat straight and
+upright, and looked as though she were sitting in judgment on every one
+there, Vyera and the judges and the public. Her head turned often from
+side to side, her lips were compressed scornfully, and her proud eyes
+glanced coldly and sternly from under her wrinkled brows.
+
+"I plead guilty," said Vyera. Her voice broke and the sound was like
+the ring of a cup that is cracked.
+
+Two of the jury, Dodonov and his neighbour, a red-haired, clean-shaven
+man, bent their heads together, moved their lips silently, and their
+eyes, that rested on the girl, smiled. Petrusha, holding with both
+hands to his chair, bent his whole body forward; his face was even
+redder than usual and the ends of his moustache twitched; others of the
+jury looked at Vyera, all with the same definite attentiveness, which
+Lunev understood but hated furiously.
+
+"They sit in judgment, and every one of them looks at her lustfully!"
+he thought, and clenched his teeth; he longed to call out to Petrusha:
+
+"You rascal! what are you thinking? Where are you? What is your duty?"
+
+Something stuck in his throat, like a heavy ball, and hampered his
+breath.
+
+"Tell me, Kapitanovna," said Gromov lazily, while his eyes stood out
+like those of a lustful he-goat, "have you-ah--practised prostitution
+long?"
+
+Vyera passed her hand over her face as though the question stuck fast
+to her fiery red cheeks.
+
+"A long time."
+
+She answered firmly. A whisper ran among the people like a snake.
+Gratschev bowed lower as though he would hide, and twisted his cap
+ceaselessly.
+
+"About how long?"
+
+Vyera said nothing, but looked earnestly, seriously at Gromov out of
+her wide-open eyes:
+
+"One year? Two? Five?" persisted the president.
+
+She was still silent; her grey figure stood as though hewn from stone,
+only the ends of her kerchief quivered on her breast.
+
+"You have the right not to reply, if you wish," said Gromov, stroking
+his beard.
+
+Now an advocate sprang up, a thin man with a small pointed beard and
+long eyes. His nose was long and thin, and the nape of his neck wide so
+that his face looked like a hatchet.
+
+"Say, what compelled you to adopt this, this profession!" he said
+loudly and clearly.
+
+"Nothing compelled me," answered Vyera, her eyes fixed on the judge's.
+
+"H'm, that's not altogether correct; you see, I know, you told me."
+
+"You know nothing!" answered Vyera.
+
+She turned her head towards him, and looking at him sternly, went on
+angrily:
+
+"I told you nothing, you yourself have made it all up!"
+
+Her eyes glanced quickly over the audience, then she turned back to the
+judges and asked with a movement of her head towards her defender:
+
+"Need I answer him?"
+
+A new hissing whisper crawled through the room, but louder and plainer.
+Ilya shivered with the tension and looked at Gratschev. He expected
+something from him, awaited it with confidence. But Pavel, looking out
+from behind the shoulders of the people in front of him, sat silent and
+motionless. Gromov smiled and said, his words were smooth and oily;
+then Vyera began not loudly but quite firmly:
+
+"It's quite simple. I wanted to be rich, so I took it, that is all,
+there's nothing else, and I was always like that."
+
+The jury began to whisper together; their faces grew dark and
+displeasure appeared on the features of the judges. The room was
+still; from the street came the dull regular sound of footsteps on the
+pavement; soldiers were marching by outside.
+
+"In view of the prisoner's confession," said the Prosecutor.
+
+Ilya felt he could sit still no longer. He got up, and took a step
+forward.
+
+"Sh--silence!" said the usher loudly. He sat down again and hung his
+head like Pavel. He could not see Petrusha's red face, now puffed out
+importantly, and apparently annoyed at something; but for all the
+unaltered friendliness of Gromov's face, he saw a cold heart behind the
+kind demeanour of the judge, and he understood that this cheerful man
+was accustomed to condemn men and women as a joiner is to plane boards.
+And an angry, oppressive thought rose in Ilya's mind:
+
+"If I confessed, it would be the same with me. Petrusha would judge; to
+the prison with me, while he stays here."
+
+At this he stopped and sat there, to listen, seeing nobody.
+
+"I will not have you speak of it," came in a trembling, sorrowful cry
+from Vyera; she screamed, cried, caught at her breast, and tore the
+kerchief from her head.
+
+"I will not. I will not."
+
+A confused noise filled the room.
+
+The girl's cry set all in movement, but she threw herself down behind
+the railing as though burnt, and sobbed heart-brokenly.
+
+"Don't torture me, let me go, for Christ's sake!"
+
+Ilya sprang up and tried to force his way forward, but the people
+opposed him and before he could realize it he found himself in the
+corridor.
+
+"They've stripped her soul," said the voice of the black-haired man.
+
+Pavel, pale, and with dishevelled hair, stood against the wall, his
+jaw quivering. Ilya went up to him and scowled at him in anger; people
+stood or moved round them talking eagerly. There was a smell of tobacco
+smoke in the air.
+
+"It's imprisonment! She can scream till she's tired, it's all the same."
+
+"She confessed, little fool!"
+
+"But they found the money."
+
+"Why didn't she say he gave it to her."
+
+The words buzzed about the corridor like autumn flies, and penetrated
+into Ilya's ears.
+
+"What?" he asked Pavel gloomily and angrily, going quite close to him.
+
+Pavel looked at him and opened his mouth but said nothing.
+
+"You've ruined a human being," said Lunev. Pavel started as though he
+had been lashed with a whip; he raised his hand, laid it on Ilya's
+shoulder, and asked in a sorrowful voice:
+
+"Is it my fault?"
+
+Ilya shook off the hand from his shoulder; he wanted to say: "you--oh!
+don't be afraid, no one called out that it was for you she stole," but
+he said instead, "and Petrusha Filimonov to condemn her, that's as it
+should be, isn't it?" and laughed.
+
+Then with scorn in his face he went out into the street, and went
+slowly along with a sense as though he were fast bound by invisible
+cords. Anxiety lay like a heavy stone on his heart; it sent a coldness
+through him confusing his thoughts, and until the evening he wandered
+about aimlessly, from street to street, like a stray dog, tired and
+hungry. No wish, no desire moved within him, and he saw nothing of all
+that passed round about him, till at last a sick feeling of hunger
+roused him from his brooding.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI.
+
+
+It was already dark; lights shone in the houses, broad yellow streaks
+fell across the road, and against them stood out the shadows of the
+flowers in the windows. Lunev stood still, and the sight of these
+shadows reminded him of Gromov's house, of the lady who was like the
+queen in a fairy tale, and the sorrowful songs that did not disturb the
+laughter--a cat came cautiously across the street, shaking its paws.
+
+He went on till he reached a place of four cross roads, then stood
+still again. One of the houses at the corner was brilliantly lighted
+up, and from it came the sound of music.
+
+"I'll go into the Restaurant," Ilya decided, and began to cross the
+road.
+
+"Look out!" cried a voice. The black head of a horse sprang up close
+to his face--he felt its warm breath. He jumped to one side, while the
+droshky driver swore at him; he went on away from the tavern.
+
+"There's no fun in being run over," he thought quietly. "I must get
+something to eat!--and now Vyera is done for."
+
+His mind ran still on the girl, his thoughts revolved about her almost
+mechanically. All the time he felt with one small part of his brain,
+that he ought to be thinking of himself, and not of Vyera, but he had
+no strength of will to change the course of his reflections.
+
+"She's proud too--she wouldn't say a word of Pashka--saw that it was
+no good, there--she's the best of the lot--Olympiada would have. No!
+Olympiada was a good sort too--but Tanyka."
+
+Suddenly he remembered that to-day Tatiana Vlassyevna had a birthday
+festivity, and that he was invited. At first he felt quite disinclined
+to go, but almost at once came an ill-tempered desire to compel himself
+against his wish, and then a sharp burning sensation shot through his
+heart. He called a droshky, and, a few minutes later, stood at the
+dining-room door, blinking his eyes in the strong light. He looked at
+the company sitting packed round the table in the big room, with a
+stupid smile.
+
+"Ah! there he is at last!" cried Kirik.
+
+"How pale he is!" said Tatiana.
+
+"Have you brought any sweetmeats? a birthday present, eh? What's the
+matter, my friend?"
+
+"Where have you come from?" asked his hostess.
+
+Kirik caught him by the sleeve, and led him round the table presenting
+him to the guests. Lunev pressed several warm hands, but the faces swam
+before his eyes, and blended into one long cold face, smiling politely
+and showing big teeth. The reek of cooking tickled his nose; the
+chattering of the women sounded in his ears like rushing rain; his eyes
+were hot, a dull pain prevented him from moving them, and a coloured
+mist seemed to widen out before them. When he sat down he felt that his
+knees were aching with weariness, while hunger gnawed his entrails. He
+took a piece of bread and began to eat. One of the guests blew his nose
+loudly, while Tatiana said:
+
+"Won't you congratulate me? You're a nice person! You come here, and
+say nothing, and sit down and begin to eat."
+
+Beneath the table she pressed her foot hard on his, and bent over the
+teapot as she poured him out his tea. Ilya heard her whisper through
+the noise of pouring,
+
+"Behave yourself properly!"
+
+He put his bread back on the table, rubbed his hands, and said loudly.
+"I've been at the law courts all day."
+
+His voice dominated the noise of conversation, and there was a silence
+among the guests. Lunev was confused as he felt their glances on
+his face, and looked back at them stupidly from under his brows.
+They looked at him a little suspiciously, as though doubting if this
+broad-shouldered, curly-haired youth could have anything interesting to
+relate. An embarrassed silence continued in the room. Isolated thoughts
+circled in Ilya's brain--disconnected and gray, they seemed to sink and
+suddenly disappear in the darkness of his soul.
+
+"Sometimes it's very interesting in the courts," remarked Madame
+Felizata Yegarovna Grislova, nibbling a piece of marmalade cake. Red
+patches appeared on Tatiana's cheeks, Kirik blew his nose loudly and
+said:
+
+"Well, brother, you begin, but you don't go on. You were at the
+court----?"
+
+"I'll let them have it!" thought Ilya, and smiled slowly. The
+conversation began again here and there.
+
+"I once heard a murder trial," said a young telegraph official, a pale
+dark-eyed man with a small moustache.
+
+"I love to read or hear about murders," cried Madame Travkina;
+her husband looked round the table and said, "Public trials are an
+excellent institution."
+
+"It was a friend of mine, Yevgeniyev--you see he was on duty in the
+strong room, got playing with a young fellow and shot him by accident."
+
+"Ah--how horrible!" cried Tatiana.
+
+"Dead as a door nail!" added the telegraph official, with distinct
+enjoyment.
+
+"I was called as a witness once," began Travkin now in a dry, creaking
+voice, "and I heard a man condemned who had carried out twenty-three
+robberies--not so bad, eh?"
+
+Kirik laughed loudly. The company fell into two groups, one listening
+to the tale of the boy who was shot, the other to the drawling remarks
+of Travkin on the man who had carried out twenty-three robberies. Ilya
+looked at his hostess, and felt a little flame begin to flicker within
+him--it illuminated nothing but caused a persistent burning at his
+heart. From the moment he realised that the Avtonomovs were anxious
+lest he should commit some solecism before their guests, his thoughts
+became clearer as though he had found a clue to their course.
+
+Tatiana Vlassyevna was busy in the next room at a table covered with
+bottles. Her bright red silk blouse flamed against the white walls; in
+her tightly-laced corset she flitted about like a butterfly, all the
+pride of the skilful housewife shining in her face. Twice Ilya saw her
+beckon him to her with quick, hardly noticeable gestures, but he did
+not go and felt glad to think that his refusal would disturb her.
+
+"Why, brother, you're sitting there like an owl!" said Kirik, suddenly.
+"Say something--don't be afraid--these are educated people who won't be
+offended with you!"
+
+"There was a girl being tried," Ilya began loudly all at once, "a girl
+I know, she is a prostitute, but she's a good girl for all that."
+
+Again he attracted the attention of the company, and all eyes were
+once more fixed on him. Felizata Yegarovna showed her big teeth in a
+broad, mocking smile; the telegraph official twisted his moustache,
+covering his mouth with his hand; almost all tried hard to seem serious
+and attentive. Tatiana suddenly dropped a handful of knives and forks,
+and the clash rang in Ilya's heart like loud martial music. He looked
+quietly round the company with widely opened eyes and went on:
+
+"Why do you smile? There are good girls among----"
+
+"Quite possible," Kirik interrupted, "but you needn't be quite so frank
+about it."
+
+"These are cultivated people," said Ilya, "if I say anything that is
+unusual, they won't be offended."
+
+A whole sheaf of bright sparks shot up suddenly in his breast; a
+sneering smile appeared on his face, and he felt almost choked with the
+flood of words that poured from his brain.
+
+"This girl had stolen some money from a merchant."
+
+"Better and better," cried Kirik, and shook his head with a comical
+grimace.
+
+"You can readily imagine under what circumstances she stole it, but
+perhaps she did not steal it, perhaps he gave it to her."
+
+"Tanitshka!" cried Kirik, "come here a minute! Ilya's telling such
+anecdotes."
+
+But Tatiana was already close to Ilya, and said with a forced smile and
+a shrug of her shoulders: "What's the fuss about? It's a very ordinary
+story; you, Kirik, know hundreds of cases like that, there are no young
+girls here. But let us leave that till later, shan't we?--and now we'll
+have something to eat."
+
+"Yes, of course," cried Kirik, "I'm ready, he! he! Clever conversation
+is all very well, but----"
+
+"Anyhow, it gives an appetite," said Travkin, and stroked his throat.
+
+All turned away from Ilya. He understood that the guests did not want
+to hear, that his hosts were anxious he should not continue, and the
+thought spurred him on. He rose from his chair and said, addressing the
+company:
+
+"And men sat in judgment on this girl, who perhaps had themselves
+more than once made use of her. I know some of them, and to call them
+rascals is to put it mildly."
+
+"Excuse me," said Travkin, firmly, holding up a finger, "you must not
+speak like that! They're a sworn jury, and I myself----"
+
+"Quite right, they're sworn in," cried Ilya. "But can men like that
+judge fairly if----"
+
+"Excuse me, the jury system is one of the great reforms instituted by
+the Czar Alexander the Second. How can you make such aspersions on a
+state institution?"
+
+He hurled his words in Ilya's face, and his fat, smooth-shaved cheeks
+shook, and his eyes rolled right and left. The company crowded round in
+the hope of a rousing scandal. Felizata Yegarovna looked at her hostess
+condescendingly, and Tatiana, pale and excited, plucked her guests by
+the sleeve and called hurriedly:
+
+"Oh, do let that alone! it is so uninteresting. Kirik, ask the ladies
+and gentlemen----"
+
+Kirik looked distractedly here and there and cried: "Please, for my
+sake, these reforms, and all this philosophy----"
+
+"This is not philosophy, it's politics," croaked Travkin, "and people
+who express opinions like this gentleman are called untrustworthy
+politicians."
+
+A hot whirlwind swept round Ilya. He rejoiced to oppose this
+fat, smooth-shaved, wet-lipped man, and see him grow angry. The
+consciousness that the Avtonomovs felt embarrassed before their guests
+filled him with malicious pleasure.
+
+He grew calmer, and the impulse to have matters out with these people,
+to say insolent things to them and drive them to fury, swelled up in
+his breast, and raised him to a mental height that was at once pleasant
+and terrifying. Every moment he felt calmer, and his voice sounded more
+and more assured.
+
+"Call me what you like," he said to Travkin. "You are an educated
+man. I hold to my opinion, and I say, 'can the well fed understand the
+hungry?' The hungry man may be a thief, but the well fed was a thief
+before him."
+
+"Kirik Nikodimovitch!" shouted Travkin in fury. "What does this mean?
+I--I cannot----"
+
+At this moment Tatiana Vlassyevna slipped her arm through his and drew
+him away, saying loudly:
+
+"Come along, the little rolls you like are here, with herrings and
+hard-boiled eggs, and grated onions with melted butter."
+
+"Ha! I ought not to let this pass," said Travkin, still excited, and
+smacked his lips. His wife looked contemptuously at Ilya, and took her
+husband's other arm, saying: "Don't excite yourself, Anton, over such
+foolishness!"
+
+Tatiana continued to quiet her most honoured guest. "Pickled sturgeon
+with tomato----"
+
+"That was not right, young man," said Travkin suddenly, in a tone both
+reproachful and magnanimous, standing firm and turning round towards
+Ilya. "That was not right! you should know how to value things--you
+need to understand them."
+
+"But I don't understand," cried Ilya, "that's just what I'm talking
+about. How does it come about that Petrusha Filimonov is the lord of
+life and death?"
+
+The guests went past Ilya without looking at him, and carefully avoided
+even touching his clothes. Kirik, however, came close up to him, and
+said in a harsh, insulting voice, "Go to the devil, you clown, that's
+what you are!"
+
+Ilya started, a mist came over his eyes as though he had received a
+blow on the head, and he moved threateningly against Avtonomov with his
+fist clenched. But Kirik had already turned away without heeding his
+movements, and entered the other room. Ilya groaned aloud. He stood in
+the doorway, regarding the backs of the people round the table, and
+heard them eating noisily. The bright blouse of the hostess seemed to
+colour everything red, and make a cloud before his eyes.
+
+"Ah," said Travkin. "This is good, quite excellent."
+
+"Have some pepper with it?" asked the hostess tenderly.
+
+"I'll add the pepper," thought Lunev scornfully. He was strung to the
+highest tension, and in two strides was standing by the table with head
+erect. He grasped the first glass of wine he saw, held it out towards
+Tatiana Vlassyevna, and said clearly and sharply, as though he would
+stab her with the words:
+
+"To your health, Tanyka!"
+
+His words had an effect on the company as though the lights had gone
+out with a deafening crash, and every one stood frozen to the floor in
+dense darkness. The half-open mouths, with their unswallowed morsels,
+looked like wounds on their terror-stricken faces.
+
+"Come! let us drink! Kirik Nikodimovitch, tell my mistress to drink
+with me! Don't be disturbed--what do these others matter? Why should
+we sin always in secret? Let us deal openly. I have resolved, you see,
+from henceforth everything shall be done openly."
+
+"You beast!" screamed the piercing voice of Tatiana.
+
+Ilya saw her hand shoot out, and struck aside the plate she hurled
+at him. The crash of the flying pieces added to the confusion of the
+guests. They crept aside slowly and noiselessly, leaving Ilya alone
+face to face with the Avtonomovs. Kirik was holding a small fish by
+the tail, and blinked, looking pale and miserable and almost idiotic.
+Tatiana Vlassyevna shook in every limb, and threatened Ilya with her
+fists; her face was the colour of her dress, and her tongue could
+hardly form a word.
+
+"You liar--you liar!" she hissed, stretching out her head towards Ilya.
+
+"Shall I mention some of your birthmarks?" said Ilya quietly, "and your
+husband shall say if I speak the truth or no."
+
+There was a murmur in the room and suppressed laughter. Tatiana
+stretched up her arms, caught at her throat and sank on a chair without
+a sound.
+
+"Police!" cried the telegraph official. Kirik turned round at the cry,
+then suddenly ran at Ilya headlong. Ilya stretched out his arms and
+pushed him away as he came, shouting roughly,
+
+"Where are you coming?--you're too impatient. I can send you flying
+with one blow. Listen--all of you--listen, you'll hear the truth for
+once."
+
+Kirik paid no attention, but bent his head forward and attacked again.
+The guests looked on silently; no one moved except Travkin, who went
+quietly on tiptoe into a corner, sat down on the seat by the stove and
+put his clasped hands between his knees.
+
+"Look out. I'll hit you!" Ilya warned the furious Kirik. "I've no wish
+to hurt you--you're a stupid ass, but you never did me any harm--get
+away."
+
+He pushed Kirik off again, this time more forcibly, and got his own
+back against the wall. Here he stood and began to speak, his eyes
+travelling over the company.
+
+"Your wife threw herself into my arms. Oh, she's clever--but vicious!
+In the whole world there's no one worse. But all of you--all are
+vicious and degraded. I was in the court to-day--there I learnt to
+judge."
+
+He had so much to say, that he was in no condition to arrange his
+thoughts, and hurled them like fragments of rock.
+
+"But I will not condemn Tanya--it just happened so--just of itself--as
+long as I've lived, everything seems to happen of itself--as if by
+accident. I strangled a man by accident. I didn't mean to, but I
+strangled him--and think, Tanyka--the money I stole from him is the
+money that helps to carry on our business!"
+
+"He's mad," cried Kirik in sudden joy, and sprang round the room from
+one to the other, crying with joy and excitement.
+
+"D'you hear? d'you see? he's out of his mind! Ah, Ilya--oh you--how you
+hurt me!"
+
+Ilya laughed aloud; his heart was easier and lighter now that he had
+spoken of the murder. He hardly felt the floor under his feet, and
+seemed to rise higher and higher. Broad-shouldered and sturdy, he
+stood there before them all with head erect, and chest thrown out. His
+black curls framed his high pale brow and temples, and his eyes were
+full of scorn and malice.
+
+Tatiana got up, tottered to Felizata Yegarovna, and said in a trembling
+voice:
+
+"I've seen it coming on--a long time--his eyes have looked so wild and
+terrible for ever so long."
+
+"If he's mad, we must call the police," said Felizata, looking in
+Ilya's face.
+
+"Mad? of course he's mad!" cried Kirik.
+
+"He may attack us all," whispered Gryslov, and looked anxiously round
+the room.
+
+All were afraid to move.
+
+Lunev stood close to the door, and whoever wanted to go out had to pass
+him. He laughed again; he loved to see how these people feared him, and
+when he looked at their faces, he saw that they had no compassion for
+their hosts, and would have listened all night, while he held them up
+to scorn, had they not themselves been afraid of him.
+
+"I am not mad," he said, and his brows contracted, "I only want you to
+stay here and listen. I won't let you out, and if you come near I'll
+strike you--and if I kill you--I am strong."
+
+He held up a long arm and powerful fist, shook it, and let it drop
+again.
+
+"Tell me," he went on, "what sort of men are you? What do you live for?
+Such stingy wretches--such a rabble!"
+
+"Here, listen--you--you shut up!" cried Kirik.
+
+"Shut up yourself! I will speak now. I look at you--stuffing and
+swilling, and lying to one another--and loving no one. What do you want
+in this world? I have striven for a clean honourable life--there's
+no such thing. Nowhere is there such a thing. I have only soiled
+and destroyed myself. A good man cannot live among you--he must go
+under--you kill good men--and I--I am bad, but among you I'm like
+a feeble cat in a dark cellar among a thousand rats--you--are
+everywhere! You judge, you rule--you make the laws--you wretches--you
+have devoured me--destroyed me."
+
+Suddenly a deep sorrow overcame him.
+
+"And now--what am I to do now?" he asked, and his head sank and he fell
+into a dull brooding. In a moment the telegraph official sprang by him
+and slipped out of the room.
+
+"Ah! I've let one get away!" said Ilya, and held his head up again.
+
+"I'll fetch the police!" came a cry from the next room.
+
+"I don't care--fetch them!" said Ilya.
+
+Tatiana went by him, tottering, walking as if asleep, without looking
+at him.
+
+"She's had enough," said Lunev with a scornful nod at her, "but she
+deserves it, the snake."
+
+"Shut up!" cried Avtonomov from his corner; he was on his knees
+fumbling in a box.
+
+"Don't shout, good stupid fellow," answered Ilya, sitting down and
+crossing his arms, "Why do you shout? I've lived with you, I know
+you--I killed a man too--Poluektov the merchant. I've spoken of it with
+you ever so many times, do you remember? I did it because it was I who
+strangled him--and his money is in our business--by God!"
+
+Ilya looked round the room. Terrified and trembling the guests stood
+round the walls in silence. He felt that he had said his say, that a
+yawning, melancholy emptiness was growing in his breast, from which
+echoed the cold inquiry:
+
+"What now?" and he said, listening to the ring of his own words:
+
+"Perhaps you think I'm sorry, that I'm making amends here before
+you all? Ha! ha! you can wait for that. I rejoice over you--do you
+understand?"
+
+Kirik sprang from his corner, dishevelled and red; he brandished a
+revolver, and rolled his eyes and shouted:
+
+"Now you shan't escape! Aha! you have murdered, too, have you?"
+
+The women screamed, Travkin sprang from the bench where he had been
+sitting and running aimlessly to and fro croaked: "Let me go--I can't
+bear it--Let me go!--this is a family affair."
+
+But Avtonomov paid no attention; he ran backwards and forwards before
+Ilya aiming at him and screaming:
+
+"Penal servitude! wait--that's what we'll give you."
+
+"Listen--your pistol is not even loaded, is it?" asked Ilya
+indifferently, looking at him wearily, "why do you make such a fuss? I
+shan't run away. I don't know where to go. Penal servitude, eh? Well,
+as for that, it's all one to me now."
+
+"Anton! Anton!" shrieked Madame Travkin. "Come at once!"
+
+"I can't, my dear, I can't."
+
+She took his arm, and both slipped by Ilya, huddled together, with
+bowed heads. Tatiana sat in the next room, whimpering and sobbing, and
+in Lunev's breast the dark cold feeling of emptiness grew and grew.
+
+"All my life is ruined," he said slowly and thoughtfully, "and there's
+nothing to be pitied about--who has destroyed it?"
+
+Avtonomov stood in front of him and cried triumphantly:
+
+"Aha! how you want to work on our feelings! but you won't."
+
+"I don't want that, go to the devil all of you! I shall not make you
+sorry, the only thing that can do that is the money that doesn't reach
+your pocket, nor am I sorry for you. I'd far sooner pity a dog. I'd
+rather live with dogs than with men. Ah! why don't the police come. I
+am tired; get out, Kirik, I can't bear the sight of you."
+
+It really troubled him to sit opposite Avtonomov. The guests left the
+room, slipped out softly with anxious glances at Ilya. He saw nothing
+but grey flecks floating before him, that roused in him neither thought
+nor feeling. The emptiness in his soul grew and enfolded everything.
+He was silent for a space, listening to Avtonomov's cries, then
+suddenly proposed jestingly:
+
+"Come Kirik, come and wrestle."
+
+"I'll put a bullet in you," growled Kirik.
+
+"You haven't a bullet there," answered Ilya mockingly, and added, "I'll
+throw you in a minute!"
+
+After that he said nothing, but sat there without moving, without
+thinking. At last two policemen came with the district inspector. Lunev
+shuddered at the sight of them, and stood up; close behind them came
+Tatiana Vlassyevna, she pointed to Ilya, and said in breathless haste:
+
+"He has confessed that he murdered Poluektov the money-changer, you
+remember?"
+
+"Do you admit that?" asked the inspector harshly.
+
+"Oh yes! I admit it," answered Ilya, quietly and wearily. "Good-bye
+Tanyka, don't trouble, don't be afraid, and for the rest of you, go to
+the devil!"
+
+The inspector sat down at the table, and began to write; the two
+policemen stood right and left of Lunev; he looked at them, sighed and
+let his head fall. The room was still, save for the scratching of the
+pen; outside in the street, the night built up its black impenetrable
+walls. Kirik stood by the window, and looked out into the darkness;
+suddenly he threw the revolver into a corner of the room, and said:
+
+"Savelyev! give him a kick and let him go, he's quite mad."
+
+The official looked at Kirik, thought a moment, and answered: "Can't
+now, information's been laid before me, my assistant knows."
+
+"A--ah! sighed Avtonomov.
+
+"You're a good fellow, Kirik Nikodimovitch," said Ilya and nodded.
+"There are dogs like that, you beat them and they fawn on you, but
+perhaps you're afraid I shall speak of your wife in court? Don't be
+afraid, that won't happen! I'm ashamed to think of her, much less speak
+of her."
+
+Avtonomov went quickly into the next room, and sat down noisily on a
+chair.
+
+"Now," began the inspector, turning to Ilya, "can you sign this?"
+
+"Yes, I will."
+
+He took the pen and signed without reading, in big letters, Ilya Lunev.
+When he raised his head, he noticed that the inspector was gazing
+at him with astonishment. They looked at one another silently for a
+moment or two, one with curiosity and a certain pleasure, the other
+indifferently and quietly.
+
+"Your conscience would not be still?" asked the inspector half aloud.
+
+"There's no such thing," answered Ilya firmly.
+
+Both were silent, then Kirik's voice was heard in the next room. "He's
+out of his mind."
+
+"We'll go," said the inspector, shrugging. "I won't tie your hands, but
+don't try to escape! The police are close by at the foot of the hill."
+
+"Where should I go to?" answered Ilya briefly.
+
+"Oh! I don't know that. Swear you won't try, say, by God!"
+
+Ilya looked at the inspector's face, wrinkled and now moved with an
+expression of sympathy, and said moodily, "I don't believe in God."
+
+The inspector waved his hand. "Forward!" he said to the policemen.
+
+When the damp darkness of the night wrapped him round, Lunev sighed
+deeply, stood still and looked up at the sky, which hung black and low
+over the earth like the smoky ceiling of a small, stuffy room.
+
+"Come along, come along!" said one of the policemen. He moved on, the
+houses rose like huge rocks on each side of the road, the wet filth of
+the street slopped under foot, and the way led on and on, where the
+darkness was thickest; Ilya stumbled over a stone and nearly fell.
+Always the obstinate question rang in the despairing emptiness of his
+soul, "What now!" Suddenly a vision of the court came before him;
+the good-natured Gromov, the red face of Petrusha. He had bruised
+his toes on the stone and they hurt him; he went more slowly. In his
+ears sounded the words of the little impudent, dark man. "The well
+fed understands the hungry well enough--that's why he's so severe."
+Then he heard Gromov's friendly voice, "Do you plead guilty?" and the
+Prosecutor said slowly, "Tell us."
+
+Petrusha's red face was overcast, and his swollen lips twitched.
+
+Lunev began to limp, and dropped back a pace or two. "Get on--get on!"
+the policeman said harshly. An unspeakable grief as hot as glowing iron
+and as sharp as a dagger darted through Ilya's heart. He made a spring
+forward, and ran with all his might down hill. The wind whistled in
+his ears, his breath gave out, but he hurled his body forward into the
+darkness, urging himself on with his arms. Behind him the policeman
+ran heavily, a sharp shrill whistle pierced the air, and a deep bass
+voice roared, "Stop him!" Everything round him, houses, pavement,
+sky--quivered and danced, and moved on him like a heavy black mass. He
+rushed forward, feeling no weariness, lashed by the hot desire to avoid
+Petrusha. Something grey and regular rose up before him out of the
+darkness, breathing despair into his heart. Memory flashed sharply into
+his brain; he knew that this street turned almost at a right angle away
+to the main street of the town--men would be there, he would be caught!
+
+"Ah--fly away, my soul!" he screamed with all his might, and bending
+his head down began to run faster than ever. The cold grey stone wall
+rose before him. A dull crash, like waves meeting, sounded through the
+night and died away at once.
+
+Two dark figures rushed up to the wall. They threw themselves on
+another dark form that lay in a heap, and at once stood up again.
+People hurried down from the hill, with noise of footsteps and cries,
+and a piercing whistling.
+
+"Smashed?" asked one of the policemen breathlessly. The other struck
+a match, and bent down. At his feet lay a quivering hand, and the
+clenched fingers straightened slowly out.
+
+"The skull's smashed to pieces."
+
+"Ah--yes--see--the brains."
+
+Black figures started up out of the darkness round about.
+
+"Ah--the madman!" said one policeman. His comrade straightened himself
+up, crossed himself, and still breathless, said in a dull voice:
+
+"Let him--rest in peace--O Lord!"
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Three Men, by Maxime Gorky
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56456 ***