Three Men: A Novel

By Maksim Gorky

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Title: Three Men
       A Novel

Author: Maxime Gorky

Translator: Charles Horne

Release Date: January 28, 2018 [EBook #56456]

Language: English


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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.





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