Read the book: «The Man Who Was Afraid»

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

OUT of the darkest depths of life, where vice and crime and misery abound, comes the Byron of the twentieth century, the poet of the vagabond and the proletariat, Maxim Gorky. Not like the beggar, humbly imploring for a crust in the name of the Lord, nor like the jeweller displaying his precious stones to dazzle and tempt the eye, he comes to the world, – nay, in accents of Tyrtaeus this commoner of Nizhni Novgorod spurs on his troops of freedom-loving heroes to conquer, as it were, the placid, self-satisfied literatures of to-day, and bring new life to pale, bloodless frames.

Like Byron’s impassioned utterances, “borne on the tones of a wild and quite artless melody,” is Gorky’s mad, unbridled, powerful voice, as he sings of the “madness of the brave,” of the barefooted dreamers, who are proud of their idleness, who possess nothing and fear nothing, who are gay in their misery, though miserable in their joy.

Gorky’s voice is not the calm, cultivated, well-balanced voice of Chekhov, the Russian De Maupassant, nor even the apostolic, well-meaning, but comparatively faint voice of Tolstoy, the preacher: it is the roaring of a lion, the crash of thunder. In its elementary power is the heart rending cry of a sincere but suffering soul that saw the brutality of life in all its horrors, and now flings its experiences into the face of the world with unequalled sympathy and the courage of a giant.

For Gorky, above all, has courage; he dares to say that he finds the vagabond, the outcast of society, more sublime and significant than society itself.

His Bosyak, the symbolic incarnation of the Over-man, is as naive and as bold as a child – or as a genius. In the vehement passions of the magnanimous, compassionate hero in tatters, in the aristocracy of his soul, and in his constant thirst for Freedom, Gorky sees the rebellious and irreconcilable spirit of man, of future man, – in these he sees something beautiful, something powerful, something monumental, and is carried away by their strange psychology. For the barefooted dreamer’s life is Gorky’s life, his ideals are Gorky’s ideals, his pleasures and pains, Gorky’s pleasures and pains.

And Gorky, though broken in health now, buffeted by the storms of fate, bruised and wounded in the battle-field of life, still like Byron and like Lermontov,

 
“ – seeks the storm
As though the storm contained repose.”
 

And in a leonine voice he cries defiantly:

 
“Let the storm rage with greater force and fury!”
 

HERMAN BERNSTEIN.

September 20, 1901.

CHAPTER I

ABOUT sixty years ago, when fortunes of millions had been made on the Volga with fairy-tale rapidity, Ignat Gordyeeff, a young fellow, was working as water-pumper on one of the barges of the wealthy merchant Zayev.

Built like a giant, handsome and not at all stupid, he was one of those people whom luck always follows everywhere – not because they are gifted and industrious, but rather because, having an enormous stock of energy at their command, they cannot stop to think over the choice of means when on their way toward their aims, and, excepting their own will, they know no law. Sometimes they speak of their conscience with fear, sometimes they really torture themselves struggling with it, but conscience is an unconquerable power to the faint-hearted only; the strong master it quickly and make it a slave to their desires, for they unconsciously feel that, given room and freedom, conscience would fracture life. They sacrifice days to it; and if it should happen that conscience conquered their souls, they are never wrecked, even in defeat – they are just as healthy and strong under its sway as when they lived without conscience.

At the age of forty Ignat Gordyeeff was himself the owner of three steamers and ten barges. On the Volga he was respected as a rich and clever man, but was nicknamed “Frantic,” because his life did not flow along a straight channel, like that of other people of his kind, but now and again, boiling up turbulently, ran out of its rut, away from gain – the prime aim of his existence. It looked as though there were three Gordyeeffs in him, or as though there were three souls in Ignat’s body. One of them, the mightiest, was only greedy, and when Ignat lived according to its commands, he was merely a man seized with untamable passion for work. This passion burned in him by day and by night, he was completely absorbed by it, and, grabbing everywhere hundreds and thousands of roubles, it seemed as if he could never have enough of the jingle and sound of money. He worked about up and down the Volga, building and fastening nets in which he caught gold: he bought up grain in the villages, floated it to Rybinsk on his barges; he plundered, cheated, sometimes not noticing it, sometimes noticing, and, triumphant, be openly laughed at by his victims; and in the senselessness of his thirst for money, he rose to the heights of poetry. But, giving up so much strength to this hunt after the rouble, he was not greedy in the narrow sense, and sometimes he even betrayed an inconceivable but sincere indifference to his property. Once, when the ice was drifting down the Volga, he stood on the shore, and, seeing that the ice was breaking his new barge, having crushed it against the bluff shore, he ejaculated:

“That’s it. Again. Crush it! Now, once more! Try!”

“Well, Ignat,” asked his friend Mayakin, coming up to him, “the ice is crushing about ten thousand out of your purse, eh?”

“That’s nothing! I’ll make another hundred. But look how the Volga is working! Eh? Fine? She can split the whole world, like curd, with a knife. Look, look! There you have my ‘Boyarinya!’ She floated but once. Well, we’ll have mass said for the dead.”

The barge was crushed into splinters. Ignat and the godfather, sitting in the tavern on the shore, drank vodka and looked out of the window, watching the fragments of the “Boyarinya” drifting down the river together with the ice.

“Are you sorry for the vessel, Ignat?” asked Mayakin.

“Why should I be sorry for it? The Volga gave it to me, and the Volga has taken it back. It did not tear off my hand.”

“Nevertheless.”

“What – nevertheless? It is good at least that I saw how it was all done. It’s a lesson for the future. But when my ‘Volgar’ was burned – I was really sorry – I didn’t see it. How beautiful it must have looked when such a woodpile was blazing on the water in the dark night! Eh? It was an enormous steamer.”

“Weren’t you sorry for that either?”

“For the steamer? It is true, I did feel sorry for the steamer. But then it is mere foolishness to feel sorry! What’s the use? I might have cried; tears cannot extinguish fire. Let the steamers burn. And even though everything be burned down, I’d spit upon it! If the soul is but burning to work, everything will be erected anew. Isn’t it so?”

“Yes,” said Mayakin, smiling. “These are strong words you say. And whoever speaks that way, even though he loses all, will nevertheless be rich.”

Regarding losses of thousands of roubles so philosophically, Ignat knew the value of every kopeika; he gave to the poor very seldom, and only to those that were altogether unable to work. When a more or less healthy man asked him for alms, Ignat would say, sternly:

“Get away! You can work yet. Go to my dvornik and help him to remove the dung. I’ll pay you for it.”

Whenever he had been carried away by his work he regarded people morosely and piteously, nor did he give himself rest while hunting for roubles. And suddenly – it usually happened in spring, when everything on earth became so bewitchingly beautiful and something reproachfully wild was breathed down into the soul from the clear sky – Ignat Gordyeeff would feel that he was not the master of his business, but its low slave. He would lose himself in thought and, inquisitively looking about himself from under his thick, knitted eyebrows, walk about for days, angry and morose, as though silently asking something, which he feared to ask aloud. They awakened his other soul, the turbulent and lustful soul of a hungry beast. Insolent and cynical, he drank, led a depraved life, and made drunkards of other people. He went into ecstasy, and something like a volcano of filth boiled within him. It looked as though he was madly tearing the chains which he himself had forged and carried, and was not strong enough to tear them. Excited and very dirty, his face swollen from drunkenness and sleeplessness, his eyes wandering madly, and roaring in a hoarse voice, he tramped about the town from one tavern to another, threw away money without counting it, cried and danced to the sad tunes of the folk songs, or fought, but found no rest anywhere – in anything.

It happened one day that a degraded priest, a short, stout little bald-headed man in a torn cassock, chanced on Ignat, and stuck to him, just as a piece of mud will stick to a shoe. An impersonal, deformed and nasty creature, he played the part of a buffoon: they smeared his bald head with mustard, made him go upon all-fours, drink mixtures of different brandies and dance comical dances; he did all this in silence, an idiotic smile on his wrinkled face, and having done what he was told to do, he invariably said, outstretching his hand with his palm upward:

“Give me a rouble.”

They laughed at him and sometimes gave him twenty kopeiks, sometimes gave him nothing, but it sometimes happened that they threw him a ten-rouble bill and even more.

“You abominable fellow,” cried Ignat to him one day. “Say, who are you?”

The priest was frightened by the call, and bowing low to Ignat, was silent.

“Who? Speak!” roared Ignat.

“I am a man – to be abused,” answered the priest, and the company burst out laughing at his words.

“Are you a rascal?” asked Ignat, sternly.

“A rascal? Because of need and the weakness of my soul?”

“Come here!” Ignat called him. “Come and sit down by my side.”

Trembling with fear, the priest walked up to the intoxicated merchant with timid steps and remained standing opposite him.

“Sit down beside me!” said Ignat, taking the frightened priest by the hand and seating him next to himself. “You are a very near man to me. I am also a rascal! You, because of need; I, because of wantonness. I am a rascal because of grief! Understand?”

“I understand,” said the priest, softly. All the company were giggling.

“Do you know now what I am?”

“I do.”

“Well, say, ‘You are a rascal, Ignat!’”

The priest could not do it. He looked with terror at the huge figure of Ignat and shook his head negatively. The company’s laughter was now like the rattling of thunder. Ignat could not make the priest abuse him. Then he asked him:

“Shall I give you money?”

“Yes,” quickly answered the priest.

“And what do you need it for?”

He did not care to answer. Then Ignat seized him by the collar, and shook out of his dirty lips the following speech, which he spoke almost in a whisper, trembling with fear:

“I have a daughter sixteen years old in the seminary. I save for her, because when she comes out there won’t be anything with which to cover her nakedness.”

“Ah,” said Ignat, and let go the priest’s collar. Then he sat for a long time gloomy and lost in thought, and now and again stared at the priest. Suddenly his eyes began to laugh, and he said:

“Aren’t you a liar, drunkard?”

The priest silently made the sign of the cross and lowered his head on his breast.

“It is the truth!” said one of the company, confirming the priest’s words.

“True? Very well!” shouted Ignat, and, striking the table with his fist, he addressed himself to the priest:

“Eh, you! Sell me your daughter! How much will you take?”

The priest shook his head and shrank back.

“One thousand!”

The company giggled, seeing that the priest was shrinking as though cold water was being poured on him.

“Two!” roared Ignat, with flashing eyes.

“What’s the matter with you? How is it?” muttered the priest, stretching out both hands to Ignat.

“Three!”

“Ignat Matveyich!” cried the priest, in a thin, ringing voice. “For God’s sake! For Christ’s sake! Enough! I’ll sell her! For her own sake I’ll sell her!”

In his sickly, sharp voice was heard a threat to someone, and his eyes, unnoticed by anybody before, flashed like coals. But the intoxicated crowd only laughed at him foolishly.

“Silence!” cried Ignat, sternly, straightening himself to his full length and flashing his eyes.

“Don’t you understand, devils, what’s going on here? It’s enough to make one cry, while you giggle.”

He walked up to the priest, went down on his knees before him, and said to him firmly:

“Father now you see what a rascal I am. Well, spit into my face!”

Something ugly and ridiculous took place. The priest too, knelt before Ignat, and like a huge turtle, crept around near his feet, kissed his knees and muttered something, sobbing. Ignat bent over him, lifted him from the floor and cried to him, commanding and begging:

“Spit! Spit right into my shameless eyes!”

The company, stupefied for a moment by Ignat’s stern voice, laughed again so that the panes rattled in the tavern windows.

“I’ll give you a hundred roubles. Spit!”

And the priest crept over the floor and sobbed for fear, or for happiness, to hear that this man was begging him to do something degrading to himself.

Finally Ignat arose from the floor, kicked the priest, and, flinging at him a package of money, said morosely, with a smile:

“Rabble! Can a man repent before such people? Some are afraid to hear of repentance, others laugh at a sinner. I was about to unburden myself completely; the heart trembled. Let me, I thought. No, I didn’t think at all. Just so! Get out of here! And see that you never show yourself to me again. Do you hear?”

“Oh, a queer fellow!” said the crowd, somewhat moved.

Legends were composed about his drinking bouts in town; everybody censured him strictly, but no one ever declined his invitation to those drinking bouts. Thus he lived for weeks.

And unexpectedly he used to come home, not yet altogether freed from the odour of the kabaks, but already crestfallen and quiet. With humbly downcast eyes, in which shame was burning now, he silently listened to his wife’s reproaches, and, humble and meek as a lamb, went away to his room and locked himself in. For many hours in succession he knelt before the cross, lowering his head on his breast; his hands hung helplessly, his back was bent, and he was silent, as though he dared not pray. His wife used to come up to the door on tiptoe and listen. Deep sighs were heard from behind the door – like the breathing of a tired and sickly horse.

“God! You see,” whispered Ignat in a muffled voice, firmly pressing the palms of his hands to his broad breast.

During the days of repentance he drank nothing but water and ate only rye bread.

In the morning his wife placed at the door of his room a big bottle of water, about a pound and a half of bread, and salt. He opened the door, took in these victuals and locked himself in again. During this time he was not disturbed in any way; everybody tried to avoid him. A few days later he again appeared on the exchange, jested, laughed, made contracts to furnish corn as sharp-sighted as a bird of prey, a rare expert at anything concerning his affairs.

But in all the moods of Ignat’s life there was one passionate desire that never left him – the desire to have a son; and the older he grew the greater was this desire. Very often such conversation as this took place between him and his wife. In the morning, at her tea, or at noon during dinner hour he gloomily glared at his wife, a stout, well-fed woman, with a red face and sleepy eyes, and asked her:

“Well, don’t you feel anything?”

She knew what he meant, but she invariably replied:

“How can I help feeling? Your fists are like dumb-bells.”

“You know what I’m talking about, you fool.”

“Can one become pregnant from such blows?”

“It’s not on account of the blows that you don’t bear any children; it’s because you eat too much. You fill your stomach with all sorts of food – and there’s no room for the child to engender.”

“As if I didn’t bear you any children?”

“Those were girls,” said Ignat, reproachfully. “I want a son! Do you understand? A son, an heir! To whom shall I give my capital after my death? Who shall pray for my sins? Shall I give it to a cloister? I have given them enough! Or shall I leave it to you? What a fine pilgrim you are! Even in church you think only of fish pies. If I die, you’ll marry again, and my money will be turned over to some fool. Do you think this is what I am working for?”

And he was seized with sardonic anguish, for he felt that his life was aimless if he should have no son to follow him.

During the nine years of their married life his wife had borne him four daughters, all of whom had passed away. While Ignat had awaited their birth tremblingly, he mourned their death but little – at any rate they were unnecessary to him. He began to beat his wife during the second year of their married life; at first he did it while being intoxicated and without animosity, but just according to the proverb: “Love your wife like your soul and shake her like a pear-tree;” but after each confinement, deceived in his expectation, his hatred for his wife grew stronger, and he began to beat her with pleasure, in revenge for not bearing him a son.

Once while on business in the province of Samarsk, he received a telegram from relatives at home, informing him of his wife’s death. He made the sign of the cross, thought awhile and wrote to his friend Mayakin:

“Bury her in my absence; look after my property.”

Then he went to the church to serve the mass for the dead, and, having prayed for the repose of the late Aquilina’s soul, he began to think that it was necessary for him to marry as soon as possible.

He was then forty-three years old, tall, broad-shouldered, with a heavy bass voice, like an arch-deacon; his large eyes looked bold and wise from under his dark eyebrows; in his sunburnt face, overgrown with a thick, black beard, and in all his mighty figure there was much truly Russian, crude and healthy beauty; in his easy motions as well as in his slow, proud walk, a consciousness of power was evident – a firm confidence in himself. He was liked by women and did not avoid them.

Ere six months had passed after the death of his wife, he courted the daughter of an Ural Cossack. The father of the bride, notwithstanding that Ignat was known even in Ural as a “pranky” man, gave him his daughter in marriage, and toward autumn Ignat Gordyeeff came home with a young Cossack-wife. Her name was Natalya. Tall, well-built, with large blue eyes and with a long chestnut braid, she was a worthy match for the handsome Ignat. He was happy and proud of his wife and loved her with the passionate love of a healthy man, but he soon began to contemplate her thoughtfully, with a vigilant eye.

Seldom did a smile cross the oval, demure face of his wife – she was always thinking of something foreign to life, and in her calm blue eyes something dark and misanthropic was flashing at times. Whenever she was free from household duties she seated herself in the most spacious room by the window, and sat there silently for two or three hours. Her face was turned toward the street, but the look of her eyes was so indifferent to everything that lived and moved there beyond the window, and at the same time it was so fixedly deep, as though she were looking into her very soul. And her walk, too, was queer. Natalya moved about the spacious room slowly and carefully, as if something invisible restrained the freedom of her movements. Their house was filled with heavy and coarsely boastful luxury; everything there was resplendent, screaming of the proprietor’s wealth, but the Cossack-wife walked past the costly furniture and the silverware in a shy and somewhat frightened manner, as though fearing lest they might seize and choke her. Evidently, the noisy life of the big commercial town did not interest this silent woman, and whenever she went out driving with her husband, her eyes were fixed on the back of the driver. When her husband took her visiting she went and behaved there just as queerly as at home; when guests came to her house, she zealously served them refreshments, taking no interest whatever in what was said, and showing preference toward none. Only Mayakin, a witty, droll man, at times called forth on her face a smile, as vague as a shadow. He used to say of her:

“It’s a tree – not a woman! But life is like an inextinguishable wood-pile, and every one of us blazes up sometimes. She, too, will take fire; wait, give her time. Then we shall see how she will bloom.”

“Eh!” Ignat used to say to her jestingly. “What are you thinking about? Are you homesick? Brighten up a bit!”

She would remain silent, calmly looking at him.

“You go entirely too often to the church. You should wait. You have plenty of time to pray for your sins. Commit the sins first. You know, if you don’t sin you don’t repent; if you don’t repent, you don’t work out your salvation. You better sin while you are young. Shall we go out for a drive?”

“I don’t feel like going out.”

He used to sit down beside her and embrace her. She was cold, returning his caresses but sparingly. Looking straight into her eyes, he used to say:

“Natalya! Tell me – why are you so sad? Do you feel lonesome here with me?”

“No,” she replied shortly.

“What then is it? Are you longing for your people?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“I am not thinking.”

“What then?”

“Oh, nothing!”

Once he managed to get from her a more complete answer:

“There is something confused in my heart. And also in my eyes. And it always seems to me that all this is not real.”

She waved her hand around her, pointing at the walls, the furniture and everything. Ignat did not reflect on her words, and, laughing, said to her:

“That’s to no purpose! Everything here is genuine. All these are costly, solid things. If you don’t want these, I’ll burn them, I’ll sell them, I’ll give them away – and I’ll get new ones! Do you want me to?”

“What for?” said she calmly.

He wondered, at last, how one so young and healthy could live as though she were sleeping all the time, caring for nothing, going nowhere, except to the church, and shunning everybody. And he used to console her:

“Just wait. You’ll bear a son, and then an altogether different life will commence. You are so sad because you have so little anxiety, and he will give you trouble. You’ll bear me a son, will you not?

“If it pleases God,” she answered, lowering her head.

Then her mood began to irritate him.

“Well, why do you wear such a long face? You walk as though on glass. You look as if you had ruined somebody’s soul! Eh! You are such a succulent woman, and yet you have no taste for anything. Fool!”

Coming home intoxicated one day, he began to ply her with caresses, while she turned away from him. Then he grew angry, and exclaimed:

“Natalya! Don’t play the fool, look out!”

She turned her face to him and asked calmly:

“What then?”

Ignat became enraged at these words and at her fearless look.

“What?” he roared, coming up close to her.

“Do you wish to kill me?” asked she, not moving from her place, nor winking an eye.

Ignat was accustomed to seeing people tremble before his wrath, and it was strange and offensive to him to see her calm.

“There,” he cried, lifting his hand to strike her. Slowly, but in time, she eluded the blow; then she seized his hand, pushed it away from her, and said in the same tone:

“Don’t you dare to touch me. I will not allow you to come near me!”

Her eyes became smaller and their sharp, metallic glitter sobered Ignat. He understood by her face that she, too, was a strong beast, and if she chose to she wouldn’t admit him to her, even though she were to lose her life.

“Oh,” he growled, and went away.

But having retreated once, he would not do it again: he could not bear that a woman, and his wife at that, should not bow before him – this would have degraded him. He then began to realise that henceforth his wife would never yield to him in any matter, and that an obstinate strife for predominance must start between them.

“Very well! We’ll see who will conquer,” he thought the next day, watching his wife with stern curiosity; and in his soul a strong desire was already raging to start the strife, that he might enjoy his victory the sooner.

But about four days later, Natalya Fominichna announced to her husband that she was pregnant.

Ignat trembled for joy, embraced her firmly, and said in a dull voice:

“You’re a fine fellow, Natalya! Natasha, if it should be a son! If you bear me a son I’ll enrich you! I tell you plainly, I’ll be your slave! By God! I’ll lie down at your feet, and you may trample upon me, if you like!”

“This is not within our power; it’s the will of the Lord,” said she in a low voice.

“Yes, the Lord’s!” exclaimed Ignat with bitterness and drooped his head sadly.

From that moment he began to look after his wife as though she were a little child.

“Why do you sit near the window? Look out. You’ll catch cold in your side; you may take sick,” he used to say to her, both sternly and mildly. “Why do you skip on the staircase? You may hurt yourself. And you had better eat more, eat for two, that he may have enough.”

And the pregnancy made Natalya more morose and silent, as though she were looking still deeper into herself, absorbed in the throbbing of new life within her. But the smile on her lips became clearer, and in her eyes flashed at times something new, weak and timid, like the first ray of the dawn.

When, at last, the time of confinement came, it was early on an autumn morning. At the first cry of pain she uttered, Ignat turned pale and started to say something, but only waved his hand and left the bedroom, where his wife was shrinking convulsively, and went down to the little room which had served his late mother as a chapel. He ordered vodka, seated himself by the table and began to drink sternly, listening to the alarm in the house and to the moans of his wife that came from above. In the corner of the room, the images of the ikons, indifferent and dark, stood out confusedly, dimly illumined by the glimmering light of the image lamp. There was a stamping and scraping of feet over his head, something heavy was moved from one side of the floor to the other, there was a clattering of dishes, people were bustling hurriedly, up and down the staircase. Everything was being done in haste, yet time was creeping slowly. Ignat could hear a muffled voice from above,

“As it seems, she cannot be delivered that way. We had better send to the church to open the gates of the Lord.”

Vassushka, one of the hangers-on in his house, entered the room next to Ignat’s and began to pray in a loud whisper:

“God, our Lord, descend from the skies in Thy benevolence, born of the Holy Virgin. Thou dost divine the helplessness of human creatures. Forgive Thy servant.”

And suddenly drowning all other sounds, a superhuman, soul-rending cry rang out, and a continuous moan floated softly over the room and died out in the corners, which were filled now with the twilight. Ignat cast stern glances at the ikons, heaved a deep sigh and thought:

“Is it possible that it’s again a daughter?”

At times he arose, stupidly stood in the middle of the room, and crossed himself in silence, bowing before the ikons; then he went back to the table, drank the vodka, which had not made him dizzy during these hours, dozed off, and thus passed the whole night and following morning until noon.

And then, at last, the midwife came down hastily, crying to him in a thin, joyous voice.

“I congratulate you with a son, Ignat Matveyich!”

“You lie!” said he in a dull voice. “What’s the matter with you, batushka!” Heaving a sigh with all the strength of his massive chest, Ignat went down on his knees, and clasping his hands firmly to his breast, muttered in a trembling voice:

“Thank God! Evidently Thou didst not want that my stem should be checked! My sins before Thee shall not remain without repentance. I thank Thee, Oh Lord. Oh!” and, rising to his feet, he immediately began to command noisily:

“Eh! Let someone go to St. Nicholas for a priest. Tell him that Ignat Matveyich asked him to come! Let him come to make a prayer for the woman.”

The chambermaid appeared and said to him with alarm:

“Ignat Matveyich, Natalya Fominichna is calling you. She is feeling bad.”

“Why bad? It’ll pass!” he roared, his eyes flashing cheerfully. “Tell her I’ll be there immediately! Tell her she’s a fine fellow! I’ll just get a present for her and I’ll come! Hold on! Prepare something to eat for the priest. Send somebody after Mayakin!”

His enormous figure looked as though it had grown bigger, and intoxicated with joy, he stupidly tossed about the room; he was smiling, rubbing his hands and casting fervent glances at the images; he crossed himself swinging his hand wide. At last he went up to his wife.

His eyes first of all caught a glimpse of the little red body, which the midwife was bathing in a tub. Noticing him, Ignat stood up on tiptoes, and, folding his hands behind his back, walked up to him, stepping carefully and comically putting forth his lips. The little one was whimpering and sprawling in the water, naked, impotent and pitiful.

“Look out there! Handle him more carefully! He hasn’t got any bones yet,” said Ignat to the midwife, softly.

She began to laugh, opening her toothless mouth, and cleverly throwing the child over from one hand to the other.

“You better go to your wife.”

He obediently moved toward the bed and asked on his way:

“Well, how is it, Natalya?”

Then, on reaching her, he drew back the bed curtain, which had thrown a shadow over the bed.

“I’ll not survive this,” said she in a low, hoarse voice.

Ignat was silent, fixedly staring at his wife’s face, sunk in the white pillow, over which her dark locks were spread out like dead snakes. Yellow, lifeless, with black circles around her large, wide-open eyes – her face was strange to him. And the glance of those terrible eyes, motionlessly fixed somewhere in the distance through the wall – that, too, was unfamiliar to Ignat. His heart, compressed by a painful foreboding, slackened its joyous throbbing.

“That’s nothing. That’s nothing. It’s always like this,” said he softly, bending over his wife to give her a kiss. But she moaned right into his face:

“I’ll not survive this.”

Her lips were gray and cold, and when he touched them with his own he understood that death was already within her.

“Oh, Lord!” he uttered, in an alarmed whisper, feeling that fright was choking his throat and suppressing his breath.

“Natasha? What will become of him? He must be nursed! What is the matter with you?”

He almost began to cry at his wife. The midwife was bustling about him; shaking the crying child in the air. She spoke to him reassuringly, but he heard nothing – he could not turn his eyes away from the frightful face of his wife. Her lips were moving, and he heard words spoken in a low voice, but could not understand them. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he spoke in a dull and timid voice: “Just think of it! He cannot do without you; he’s an infant! Gather strength! Drive this thought away from you! Drive it away.”

He talked, yet he understood he was speaking useless words. Tears welled up within him, and in his breast there came a feeling heavy as stone and cold as ice.

“Forgive me. Goodbye! Take care. Look out. Don’t drink,” whispered Natalya, soundlessly.

The priest came, and, covering her face with something, and sighing, began to read gentle, beseeching words:

“Oh God, Almighty Lord, who cureth every disease, cure also Thy servant Natalya, who has just given birth to a child; and restore her from the bed on which she now lies, for in the words of David, ‘We indulge in lawlessness and are wicked in Thine eyes.”’

The old man’s voice was interrupted now and then, his thin face was stern and from his clothes came the odour of rock-rose.

“Guard the infant born of her, guard him from all possible temptation, from all possible cruelty, from all possible storms, from evil spirits, night and day.”

Ignat listened to the prayer, and wept silently. His big, hot tears fell on the bare hand of his wife. But the hand, evidently, did not feel that the tears were dropping upon it: it remained motionless, and the skin did not tremble from the fall of the tears. After the prayer Natalya became unconscious and a day later she died, without saying another word – she died just as quietly as she had lived. Having arranged a pompous funeral, Ignat christened his son, named him Foma, and unwillingly gave his boy into the family of the godfather, his old friend Mayakin, whose wife, too, had given birth to a child not long before. The death of his wife had sown many gray hairs in Ignat’s dark beard, but in the stern glitter of his eyes appeared a new expression, gentle, clear and mild.

CHAPTER II

MAYAKIN lived in an enormous two-story house near a big palisade, where sturdy, old spreading linden trees were growing magnificently. The rank branches covered the windows with a dense, dark embroidery, and the sun in broken rays peeped into the small rooms, which were closely crowded with miscellaneous furniture and big trunks, wherefore a stern and melancholy semi-darkness always reigned there supreme. The family was devout – the odour of wax, of rock-rose and of image-lamp oil filled the house, and penitent sighs and prayers soared about in the air. Religious ceremonials were performed infallibly, with pleasure, absorbing all the free power of the souls of the dwellers of the house. Feminine figures almost noiselessly moved about the rooms in the half-dark, stifling, heavy atmosphere. They were dressed in black, wore soft slippers on their feet, and always had a penitent look on their faces.

The family of Yakov Tarazovich Mayakin consisted of himself, his wife, a daughter and five kinswomen, the youngest of whom was thirty-four years old. These were alike devout and impersonal, and subordinate to Antonina Ivanovna, the mistress of the house. She was a tall, thin woman, with a dark face and with stern gray eyes, which had an imperious and intelligent expression. Mayakin also had a son Taras, but his name was never mentioned in the house; acquaintances knew that since the nineteen-year-old Taras had gone to study in Moscow – he married there three years later, against his father’s will – Yakov disowned him. Taras disappeared without leaving any trace. It was rumoured that he had been sent to Siberia for something.

Yakov Mayakin was very queerly built. Short, thin, lively, with a little red beard, sly greenish eyes, he looked as though he said to each and every one:

“Never mind, sir, don’t be uneasy. Even though I know you for what you are, if you don’t annoy me I will not give you away.”

His beard resembled an egg in shape and was monstrously big. His high forehead, covered with wrinkles, joined his bald crown, and it seemed as though he really had two faces – one an open, penetrating and intellectual face, with a long gristle nose, and above this face another one, eyeless and mouthless, covered with wrinkles, behind which Mayakin seemed to hide his eyes and his lips until a certain time; and when that time had arrived, he would look at the world with different eyes and smile a different smile.

He was the owner of a rope-yard and kept a store in town near the harbour. In this store, filled up to the ceiling with rope, twine, hemp and tow, he had a small room with a creaking glass door. In this room stood a big, old, dilapidated table, and near it a deep armchair, covered with oilcloth, in which Mayakin sat all day long, sipping tea and always reading the same “Moskovskiya Vedomosty,” to which he subscribed, year in and year out, all his life. Among merchants he enjoyed the respect and reputation of a “brainy” man, and he was very fond of boasting of the antiquity of his race, saying in a hoarse voice:

“We, the Mayakins, were merchants during the reign of ‘Mother’ Catherine, consequently I am a pure-blooded man.”

In this family Ignat Gordyeeff’s son lived for six years. By the time he was seven years old Foma was a big-headed, broad-shouldered boy, seemingly older that his years, both in his size and in the serious look of his dark, almond-shaped eyes. Quiet, silent and persistent in his childish desires, he spent all his days over his playthings, with Mayakin’s daughter, Luba, quietly looked after by one of the kinswomen, a stout, pock-marked old maid, who was, for some reason or other, nicknamed “Buzya.” She was a dull, somewhat timid creature; and even to the children she spoke in a low voice, in words of monosyllables. Having devoted her time to learning prayers, she had no stories to tell Foma.

Foma was on friendly terms with the little girl, but when she angered or teased him he turned pale, his nostrils became distended, his eyes stared comically and he beat her audaciously. She cried, ran to her mother and complained to her, but Antonina loved Foma and she paid but little attention to her daughter’s complaints, which strengthened the friendship between the children still more. Foma’s day was long and uniform. Getting out of bed and washing himself, he used to place himself before the image, and under the whispering of the pock-marked Buzya he recited long prayers. Then they drank tea and ate many biscuits, cakes and pies. After tea – during the summer – the children went to the big palisade, which ran down to a ravine, whose bottom always looked dark and damp, filling them with terror. The children were not allowed to go even to the edge of the ravine, and this inspired in them a fear of it. In winter, from tea time to dinner, they played in the house when it was very cold outside, or went out in the yard to slide down the big ice hill.

They had dinner at noon, “in Russian style,” as Mayakin said. At first a big bowl of fat, sour cabbage soup was served with rye biscuits in, but without meat, then the same soup was eaten with meat cut into small pieces; then they ate roast meat – pork, goose, veal or rennet, with gruel – then again a bowl of soup with vermicelli, and all this was usually followed by dessert. They drank kvass made of red bilberries, juniper-berries, or of bread – Antonina Ivanovna always carried a stock of different kinds of kvass. They ate in silence, only now and then uttering a sigh of fatigue; the children each ate out of a separate bowl, the adults eating out of one bowl. Stupefied by such a dinner, they went to sleep; and for two or three hours Mayakin’s house was filled with snoring and with drowsy sighs.

Awaking from sleep, they drank tea and talked about local news, the choristers, the deacons, weddings, or the dishonourable conduct of this or that merchant. After tea Mayakin used to say to his wife:

“Well, mother, hand me the Bible.”

Yakov Tarasovich used to read the Book of Job more often than anything else. Putting his heavy, silver-framed spectacles on his big, ravenous nose, he looked around at his listeners to see whether all were in their places.

They were all seated where he was accustomed to see them and on their faces was a familiar, dull and timid expression of piety.

“There was a man in the land of Uz,” began Mayakin, in a hoarse voice, and Foma, sitting beside Luba on the lounge in the corner of the room, knew beforehand that soon his godfather would become silent and pat his bald head with his hand. He sat and, listening, pictured to himself this man from the land of Uz. The man was tall and bare, his eyes were enormously large, like those of the image of the Saviour, and his voice was like a big brass trumpet on which the soldiers played in the camps. The man was constantly growing bigger and bigger; and, reaching the sky, he thrust his dark hands into the clouds, and, tearing them asunder, cried out in a terrible voice:

“Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?”

Dread fell on Foma, and he trembled, slumber fled from his eyes, he heard the voice of his godfather, who said, with a light smile, now and then pinching his beard:

“See how audacious he was!”

The boy knew that his godfather spoke of the man from the land of Uz, and the godfather’s smile soothed the child. So the man would not break the sky; he would not rend it asunder with his terrible arms. And then Foma sees the man again – he sits on the ground, “his flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust, his skin is broken.” But now he is small and wretched, he is like a beggar at the church porch.

Here he says:

“What is man, that he should be clean? And he which is born of woman, that he should be righteous?” [These words attributed by Mayakin to Job are from Eliphaz the Temanite’s reply – Translator’s Note.]

“He says this to God,” explained Mayakin, inspired. “How, says he, can I be righteous, since I am made of flesh? That’s a question asked of God. How is that?”

And the reader, triumphantly and interrogatively looks around at his listeners.

“He merited it, the righteous man,” they replied with a sigh.

Yakov Mayakin eyes them with a smile, and says:

“Fools! You better put the children to sleep.”

Ignat visited the Mayakins every day, brought playthings for his son, caught him up into his arms and hugged him, but sometimes dissatisfied he said to him with ill-concealed uneasiness:

“Why are you such a bugbear? Oh! Why do you laugh so little?”

And he would complain to the lad’s godfather:

“I am afraid that he may turn out to be like his mother. His eyes are cheerless.”

“You disturb yourself rather too soon,” Mayakin smilingly replied.

He, too, loved his godson, and when Ignat announced to him one day that he would take Foma to his own house, Mayakin was very much grieved.

“Leave him here,” he begged. “See, the child is used to us; there! he’s crying.”

“He’ll cease crying. I did not beget him for you. The air of the place is disagreeable. It is as tedious here as in an old believer’s hermitage. This is harmful to the child. And without him I am lonesome. I come home – it is empty. I can see nothing there. It would not do for me to remove to your house for his sake. I am not for him, he is for me. So. And now that my sister has come to my house there will be somebody to look after him.”

And the boy was brought to his father’s house.

There he was met by a comical old woman, with a long, hook-like nose and with a mouth devoid of teeth. Tall, stooping, dressed in gray, with gray hair, covered by a black silk cap, she did not please the boy at first; she even frightened him. But when he noticed on the wrinkled face her black eyes, which beamed so tenderly on him, he at once pressed his head close to her knees in confidence.

“My sickly little orphan!” she said in a velvet-like voice that trembled from the fulness of sound, and quietly patted his face with her hand, “stay close to me, my dear child!”

There was something particularly sweet and soft in her caresses, something altogether new to Foma, and he stared into the old woman’s eyes with curiosity and expectation on his face. This old woman led him into a new world, hitherto unknown to him. The very first day, having put him to bed, she seated herself by his side, and, bending over the child, asked him:

“Shall I tell you a story, Fomushka?”

And after that Foma always fell asleep amid the velvet-like sounds of the old woman’s voice, which painted before him a magic life. Giants defeating monsters, wise princesses, fools who turned out to be wise – troops of new and wonderful people were passing before the boy’s bewitched imagination, and his soul was nourished by the wholesome beauty of the national creative power. Inexhaustible were the treasures of the memory and the fantasy of this old woman, who oftentimes, in slumber, appeared to the boy – now like the witch of the fairy-tales – only a kind and amiable old witch – now like the beautiful, all-wise Vasilisa. His eyes wide open, holding his breath, the boy looked into the darkness that filled his chamber and watched it as it slowly trembled in the light of the little lamp that was burning before the image. And Foma filled this darkness with wonderful pictures of fairy-tale life. Silent, yet living shadows, were creeping over the walls and across the floor; it was both pleasant and terrible to him to watch their life; to deal out unto them forms and colours, and, having endowed them with life, instantly to destroy them all with a single twinkle of the eyelashes. Something new appeared in his dark eyes, something more childish and naive, less grave; the loneliness and the darkness, awaking in him a painful feeling of expectation, stirred his curiosity, compelled him to go out to the dark corner and see what was hidden there beyond the thick veils of darkness. He went and found nothing, but he lost no hope of finding it out.

He feared his father and respected him. Ignat’s enormous size, his harsh, trumpet-like voice, his bearded face, his gray-haired head, his powerful, long arms and his flashing eyes – all these gave to Ignat the resemblance of the fairy-tale robbers.

Foma shuddered whenever he heard his voice or his heavy, firm steps; but when the father, smiling kind-heartedly, and talking playfully in a loud voice, took him upon his knees or threw him high up in the air with his big hands the boy’s fear vanished.

Once, when the boy was about eight years old, he asked his father, who had returned from a long journey:

“Papa, where were you?”

“On the Volga.”

“Were you robbing there?” asked Foma, softly.

“Wha-at?” Ignat drawled out, and his eyebrows contracted.

“Aren’t you a robber, papa? I know it,” said Foma, winking his eyes slyly, satisfied that he had already read the secret of his father’s life.

“I am a merchant!” said Ignat, sternly, but after a moment’s thought he smiled kind-heartedly and added: “And you are a little fool! I deal in corn, I run a line of steamers. Have you seen the ‘Yermak’? Well, that is my steamer. And yours, too.”

“It is a very big one,” said Foma with a sigh.

“Well, I’ll buy you a small one while you are small yourself. Shall I?”

“Very well,” Foma assented, but after a thoughtful silence he again drawled out regretfully: “But I thought you were a robber or a giant.”

“I tell you I am a merchant!” repeated Ignat, insinuatingly, and there was something discontented and almost timorous in his glance at the disenchanted face of his son.

“Like Grandpa Fedor, the Kalatch baker?” asked Foma, having thought awhile.

“Well, yes, like him. Only I am richer than he. I have more money than Fedor.”

“Have you much money?”

“Well, some people have still more.”

“How many barrels do you have?”

“Of what?”

“Of money, I mean.”

“Fool! Is money counted by the barrel?”

“How else?” exclaimed Foma, enthusiastically, and, turning his face toward his father, began to tell him quickly: “Maksimka, the robber, came once to a certain town and filled up twelve barrels with money belonging to some rich man there. And he took different silverware and robbed a church. And cut up a man with his sword and threw him down the steeple because he tried to sound an alarm.”

“Did your aunt tell you that?” asked Ignat admiring his son’s enthusiasm.

“Yes! Why?”

“Nothing!” said Ignat, laughing. “So you thought your father was a robber.”

“And perhaps you were a robber long ago?”

Foma again returned to his theme, and it was evident on his face that he would be very glad to hear an affirmative answer.

“I was never a robber. Let that end it.”

“Never?”

“I tell you I was not! What a queer little boy you are! Is it good to be a robber? They are all sinners, the robbers. They don’t believe in God – they rob churches. They are all cursed in the churches. Yes. Look here, my son, you’ll have to start to study soon. It is time; you’ll soon be nine years old. Start with the help of God. You’ll study during the winter and in spring I’ll take you along with me on the Volga.”

“Will I go to school?” asked Foma, timidly.

“First you’ll study at home with auntie.” Soon after the boy would sit down near the table in the morning and, fingering the Slavonic alphabet, repeat after his aunt:

“Az, Buky, Vedy.”

When they reached “bra, vra, gra, dra” for a long time the boy could not read these syllables without laughter. Foma succeeded easily in gaining knowledge, almost without any effort, and soon he was reading the first psalm of the first section of the psalter: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.”

“That’s it, my darling! So, Fomushka, that’s right!” chimed in his aunt with emotion, enraptured by his progress.

“You’re a fine fellow, Foma!” Ignat would approvingly say when informed of his son’s progress. “We’ll go to Astrakhan for fish in the spring, and toward autumn I’ll send you to school!”

The boy’s life rolled onward, like a ball downhill. Being his teacher, his aunt was his playmate as well. Luba Mayakin used to come, and when with them, the old woman readily became one of them.

They played at “hide and seek” and “blind man’s buff;” the children were pleased and amused at seeing Anfisa, her eyes covered with a handkerchief, her arms outstretched, walking about the room carefully, and yet striking against chairs and tables, or looking for them in each and every commodious corner, saying:

“Eh, little rascals. Eh, rogues. Where have they hidden themselves? Eh?”

And the sun shone cheerfully and playfully upon the old worn-out body, which yet retained a youthful soul, and upon the old life, that was adorning, according to its strength and abilities, the life-path of two children.

Ignat used to go to the Exchange early in the morning and sometimes stayed away until evening; in the evening he used to go to the town council or visiting or elsewhere. Sometimes he returned home intoxicated. At first Foma, on such occasions, ran from him and hid himself, then he became accustomed to it, and learned that his father was better when drunk than sober: he was kinder and plainer and was somewhat comical. If it happened at night, the boy was usually awakened by his trumpet-like voice:

“Anfisa! Dear sister! Let me in to my son; let me in to my successor!”

And auntie answered him in a crying and reproachful voice:

“Go on. You better go to sleep, you cursed devil! Drunk again, eh? You are gray already?”

“Anfisa! May I see my son, with one eye?” Foma knew that Anfisa would not let him in, and he again fell asleep in spite of the noise of their voices. But when Ignat came home intoxicated during the day he immediately seized his son with his enormous paws and carried him about the rooms, asking him with an intoxicated, happy laughter:

“Fomka! What do you wish? Speak! Presents? Playthings? Ask! Because you must know there’s nothing in this world that I wouldn’t buy for you. I have a million! Ha, ha, ha! And I’ll have still more! Understand? All’s yours! Ha, ha!”

And suddenly his enthusiasm was extinguished like a candle put out by a violent puff of the wind. His flushed face began to shake, his eyes, burning red, filled with tears, and his lips expanded into a sad and frightened smile.

“Anfisa, in case he should die, what am I to do then?”

And immediately after these words he was seized with fury.

“I’d burn everything!” he roared, staring wildly into some dark corner of the room. “I’d destroy everything! I’d blow it up with dynamite!”

“Enough, you ugly brute! Do you wish to frighten the child? Or do you want him to take sick?” interposed Anfisa, and that was sufficient for Ignat to rush off hastily, muttering:

“Well, well, well! I am going, I am going, but don’t cry! Don’t make any noise. Don’t frighten him.”

And when Foma was somewhat sick, his father, casting everything aside, did not leave the house for a moment, but bothered his sister and his son with stupid questions and advice; gloomy, sighing, and with fear in his eyes, he walked about the house quite out of sorts.

“Why do you vex the Lord?” said Anfisa. “Beware, your grumblings will reach Him, and He will punish you for your complaints against His graces.”

“Eh, sister!” sighed Ignat. “And if it should happen? My entire life is crumbling away! Wherefore have I lived? No one knows.”

Similar scenes and the striking transitions of his father from one mood to another frightened the child at first, but he soon became accustomed to all this, and when he noticed through the window that his father, on coming home, was hardly able to get out of the sledge, Foma said indifferently:

“Auntie, papa came home drunk again.”

.............

Spring came, and, fulfilling his promise, Ignat took his son along on one of his steamers, and here a new life, abounding in impressions, was opened before Foma’s eyes.

The beautiful and mighty “Yermak,” Gordyeeff’s steam tow-boat, was rapidly floating down the current, and on each side the shores of the powerful and beautiful Volga were slowly moving past him – the left side, all bathed in sunshine, stretching itself to the very end of the sky like a pompous carpet of verdure; the right shore, its high banks overgrown with woods, swung skyward, sinking in stern repose.

The broad-bosomed river stretched itself majestically between the shores; noiselessly, solemnly and slowly flowed its waters, conscious of their invincible power; the mountainous shore is reflected in the water in a black shadow, while on the left side it is adorned with gold and with verdant velvet by a border of sand and the wide meadows. Here and there villages appear on mountain and on meadow, the sun shines bright on the window-panes of the huts and on the yellow roofs of straw, the church crosses sparkle amid the verdure of the trees, gray wind-mill wings revolve lazily in the air, smoke from the factory chimney rises skyward in thick, black curling clouds. Crowds of children in blue, red or white shirts, standing on the banks, shouted loudly at the sight of the steamer, which had disturbed the quiet of the river, and from under the steamer’s wheels the cheerful waves are rushing toward the feet of the children and splash against the bank. Now a crowd of children, seated in a boat, rowed toward the middle of the river to rock there on the waves as in a cradle. Trees stood out above the water; sometimes many of them are drowned in the overflow of the banks, and these stand in the water like islands. From the shore a melancholy song is heard:

“Oh, o-o-o, once more!”

The steamer passes many rafts, splashing them with waves. The beams are in continual motion under the blows of the waves; the men on the rafts in blue shirts, staggering, look at the steamer and laugh and shout something. The big, beautiful vessel goes sidewise on the river; the yellow scantlings with which it is loaded sparkle like gold and are dimly reflected in the muddy, vernal water. A passenger steamer comes from the opposite side and whistles – the resounding echo of the whistle loses itself in the woods, in the gorges of the mountainous bank, and dies away there. In the middle of the river the waves stirred up by the two vessels strike against one another and splash against the steamers’ sides, and the vessels are rocked upon the water. On the slope of the mountainous bank are verdant carpets of winter corn, brown strips of fallow ground and black strips of ground tilled for spring corn. Birds, like little dots, soar over them, and are clearly seen in the blue canopy of the sky; nearby a flock is grazing; in the distance they look like children’s toys; the small figure of the shepherd stands leaning on a staff, and looks at the river.

The glare of the water – freedom and liberty are everywhere, the meadows are cheerfully verdant and the blue sky is tenderly clear; a restrained power is felt in the quiet motion of the water; above it the generous May sun is shining, the air is filled with the exquisite odour of fir trees and of fresh foliage. And the banks keep on meeting them, caressing the eyes and the soul with their beauty, as new pictures constantly unfold themselves.

Everything surrounding them bears the stamp of some kind of tardiness: all – nature as well as men – live there clumsily, lazily; but in that laziness there is an odd gracefulness, and it seems as though beyond the laziness a colossal power were concealed; an invincible power, but as yet deprived of consciousness, as yet without any definite desires and aims. And the absence of consciousness in this half-slumbering life throws shades of sadness over all the beautiful slope. Submissive patience, silent hope for something new and more inspiriting are heard even in the cry of the cuckoo, wafted to the river by the wind from the shore. The melancholy songs sound as though imploring someone for help. And at times there is in them a ring of despair. The river answers the songs with sighs. And the tree-tops shake, lost in meditation. Silence.

Foma spent all day long on the captain’s bridge beside his father. Without uttering a word, he stared wide-eyed at the endless panorama of the banks, and it seemed to him he was moving along a broad silver path in those wonderful kingdoms inhabited by the sorcerers and giants of his familiar fairy-tales. At times he would load his father with questions about everything that passed before them. Ignat answered him willingly and concisely, but the boy was not pleased with his answers; they contained nothing interesting and intelligible to him, and he did not hear what he longed to hear. Once he told his father with a sigh:

“Auntie Anfisa knows better than you.”

“What does she know?” asked Ignat, smiling.

“Everything,” replied the boy, convincedly.

No wonderful kingdom appeared before him. But often cities appeared on the banks of the river, just such cities as the one where Foma lived. Some of them were larger, some smaller, but the people, and the houses, and the churches – all were the same as in his own city. Foma examined them in company with his father, but was still unsatisfied and returned to the steamer gloomy and fatigued.

“Tomorrow we shall be in Astrakhan,” said Ignat one day.

“And is it just the same as the other cities?”

“Of course. How else should it be?”

“And what is beyond Astrakhan?”

“The sea. The Caspian Sea it is called.”

“And what is there?”

“Fishes, queer fellow! What else can there be in the water?”

“There’s the city Kitezh standing in the water.”

“That’s a different thing! That’s Kitezh. Only righteous people live there.”

“And are there no righteous cities on the sea?”

“No,” said Ignat, and, after a moment’s silence, added: “The sea water is bitter and nobody can drink it.”

“And is there more land beyond the sea?”

“Certainly, the sea must have an end. It is like a cup.”

“And are there cities there too?”

“Again cities. Of course! Only that land is not ours, it belongs to Persia. Did you see the Persians selling pistachio-nuts and apricots in the market?”

“Yes, I saw them,” replied Foma, and became pensive.

One day he asked his father:

“Is there much more land left?”

“The earth is very big, my dear! If you should go on foot, you couldn’t go around it even in ten years.”

Ignat talked for a long time with his son about the size of the earth, and said at length:

“And yet no one knows for certain how big it really is, nor where it ends.”

“And is everything alike on earth?”

“What do you mean?”

“The cities and all?”

“Well, of course, the cities are like cities. There are houses, streets – and everything that is necessary.”

After many similar conversations the boy no longer stared so often into the distance with the interrogative look of his black eyes.

The crew of the steamer loved him, and he, too, loved those fine, sun-burnt and weather-beaten fellows, who laughingly played with him. They made fishing tackles for him, and little boats out of bark, played with him and rowed him about the anchoring place, when Ignat went to town on business. The boy often heard the men talking about his father, but he paid no attention to what they said, and never told his father what he heard about him. But one day, in Astrakhan, while the steamer was taking in a cargo of fuel, Foma heard the voice of Petrovich, the machinist:

“He ordered such a lot of wood to be taken in. What an absurd man! First he loads the steamer up to the very deck, and then he roars. ‘You break the machinery too often,’ he says. ‘You pour oil,’ he says, ‘at random.’”

The voice of the gray and stern pilot replied:

“It’s all his exorbitant greediness. Fuel is cheaper here, so he is taking all he can. He is greedy, the devil!”

“Oh, how greedy!”

This word, repeated many times in succession, fixed itself in Foma’s memory, and in the evening, at supper, he suddenly asked his father:

“Papa!”

“What?”

“Are you greedy?”

In reply to his father’s questions Foma told him of the conversation between the pilot and the machinist. Ignat’s face became gloomy, and his eyes began to flash angrily.

“That’s how it is,” ejaculated Ignat, shaking his head. “Well, you – don’t you listen to them. They are not your equals; don’t have so much to do with them. You are their master, they are your servants, understand that. If we choose to, we can put every one of them ashore. They are cheap and they can be found everywhere like dogs. Understand? They may say many bad things about me. But they say them, because I am their master. The whole thing arises because I am fortunate and rich, and the rich are always envied. A happy man is everybody’s enemy.”

About two days later there was a new pilot and another machinist on the steamer.

“And where is Yakov?” asked the boy.

“I discharged him. I ordered him away.”

“For that?” queried Foma.

“Yes, for that very thing.”

“And Petrovich, too?”

“Yes, I sent him the same way.”

Foma was pleased with the fact that his father was able to change the men so quickly. He smiled to his father, and, coming out on the deck, walked up to a sailor, who sat on the floor, untwisting a piece of rope and making a swab.

“We have a new pilot here,” announced Foma.

“I know. Good health to you, Foma Ignatich! How did you sleep?”

“And a new machinist, too.”

“And a new machinist. Are you sorry for Petrovich?”

“Really? And he was so good to you.”

“Well, why did he abuse my father?”

“Oh? Did he abuse him?”

“Of course he did. I heard it myself.”

“Mm – and your father heard it, too?”

“No, I told him.”

“You – so” – drawled the sailor and became silent, taking up his work again.

“And papa says to me: ‘You,’ he says, ‘you are master here – you can drive them all away if you wish.’”

“So,” said the sailor, gloomily looking at the boy, who was so enthusiastically boasting to him of his supreme power. From that day on Foma noticed that the crew did not regard him as before. Some became more obliging and kind, others did not care to speak to him, and when they did speak to him, it was done angrily, and not at all entertainingly, as before. Foma liked to watch while the deck was being washed: their trousers rolled up to their knees, or sometimes taken off altogether, the sailors, with swabs and brushes in their hands, cleverly ran about the deck, emptying pails of water on it, besprinkling one another, laughing, shouting, falling. Streams of water ran in every direction, and the lively noise of the men intermingled with the gray splash of the water. Before, the boy never bothered the sailors in this playful and light work; nay, he took an active part, besprinkling them with water and laughingly running away, when they threatened to pour water over him. But after Yakov and Petrovich had been discharged, he felt that he was in everybody’s way, that no one cared to play with him and that no one regarded him kindly. Surprised and melancholy, he left the deck, walked up to the wheel, sat down there, and, offended, he thoughtfully began to stare at the distant green bank and the dented strip of woods upon it. And below, on the deck, the water was splashing playfully, and the sailors were gaily laughing. He yearned to go down to them, but something held him back.

“Keep away from them as much as possible,” he recalled his father’s words; “you are their master.” Then he felt like shouting at the sailors – something harsh and authoritative, so his father would scold them. He thought a long time what to say, but could not think of anything. Another two, three days passed, and it became perfectly clear to him that the crew no longer liked him. He began to feel lonesome on the steamer, and amid the parti-coloured mist of new impressions, still more often there came up before Foma the image of his kind and gentle Aunt Anfisa, with her stories, and smiles, and soft, ringing laughter, which filled the boy’s soul with a joyous warmth. He still lived in the world of fairy-tales, but the invisible and pitiless hand of reality was already at work tearing the beautiful, fine web of the wonderful, through which the boy had looked at everything about him. The incident with the machinist and the pilot directed his attention to his surroundings; Foma’s eyes became more sharp-sighted. A conscious searchfulness appeared in them and in his questions to his father rang a yearning to understand which threads and springs were managing the deeds of men.

One day a scene took place before him: the sailors were carrying wood, and one of them, the young, curly-haired and gay Yefim, passing the deck of the ship with hand-barrows, said loudly and angrily:

“No, he has no conscience whatever! There was no agreement that I should carry wood. A sailor – well, one’s business is clear – but to carry wood into the bargain – thank you! That means for me to take off the skin I have not sold. He is without conscience! He thinks it is clever to sap the life out of us.”

The boy heard this grumbling and knew that it was concerning his father. He also noticed that although Yefim was grumbling, he carried more wood on his stretcher than the others, and walked faster than the others. None of the sailors replied to Yefim’s grumbling, and even the one who worked with him was silent, only now and then protesting against the earnestness with which Yefim piled up the wood on the stretchers.

“Enough!” he would say, morosely, “you are not loading a horse, are you?”

“And you had better keep quiet. You were put to the cart – cart it and don’t kick – and should your blood be sucked – keep quiet again. What can you say?”

Suddenly Ignat appeared, walked up to the sailor and, stopping in front of him, asked sternly:

“What were you talking about?”

“I am talking – I know,” replied Yefim, hesitating. “There was no agreement – that I must say nothing.”

“And who is going to suck blood?” asked Ignat, stroking his beard.

The sailor understood that he had been caught unawares, and seeing no way out of it, he let the log of wood fall from his hands, rubbed his palms against his pants, and, facing Ignat squarely, said rather boldly:

“And am I not right? Don’t you suck it?”

“I?”

“You.”

Foma saw that his father swung his hand. A loud blow resounded, and the sailor fell heavily on the wood. He arose immediately and worked on in silence. Blood was trickling from his bruised face on to the white bark of the birch wood; he wiped the blood off his face with the sleeve of his shirt, looked at his sleeve and, heaving a sigh, maintained silence, and when he went past Foma with the hand-harrows, two big, turbid tears were trembling on his face, near the bridge of his nose, and Foma noticed them.

At dinner Foma was pensive and now and then glanced at his father with fear in his eyes.

“Why do you frown?” asked his father, gently.

“Frown?”

“Are you ill, perhaps? Be careful. If there is anything, tell me.”

“You are strong,” said Foma of a sudden musingly.

“I? That’s right. God has favoured me with strength.”

“How hard you struck him!” exclaimed the boy in a low voice, lowering his head.

Ignat was about to put a piece of bread with caviar into his mouth, but his hand stopped, held back by his son’s exclamation; he looked interrogatively at Foma’s drooping head and asked:

“You mean Yefim, don’t you?”

“Yes, he was bleeding. And how he walked afterward, how he cried,” said the boy in a low voice.

“Mm,” roared Ignat, chewing a bite. “Well, are you sorry for him?”

“It’s a pity!” said Foma, with tears in his voice.

“Yes. So that’s the kind of a fellow you are,” said Ignat.

Then, after a moment’s silence, he filled a wineglass with vodka, emptied it, and said sternly, in a slightly reprimanding tone:

“There is no reason why you should pity him. He brawled at random, and therefore got what he deserved. I know him: he is a good fellow, industrious, strong and not a bit foolish. But to argue is not his business; I may argue, because I am the master. It isn’t simple to be master. A punch wouldn’t kill him, but will make him wiser. That’s the way. Eh, Foma! You are an infant, and you do not understand these things. I must teach you how to live. It may be that my days on earth are numbered.”

Ignat was silent for awhile, drank some more vodka and went on instinctively:

“It is necessary to have pity on men. You are right in doing so. But you must pity them sensibly. First look at a man, find out what good there is in him, and what use may be made of him! And if you find him to be strong and capable – pity and assist him. And if he is weak and not inclined to work – spit upon him, pass him by. Just keep this in mind – the man who complains against everything, who sighs and moans all the time – that man is worth nothing; he merits no compassion and you will do him no good whatever, even if you help him. Pity for such people makes them more morose, spoils them the more. In your godfather’s house you saw various kinds of people – unfortunate travellers and hangers-on, and all sorts of rabble. Forget them. They are not men, they are just shells, and are good for nothing. They are like bugs, fleas and other unclean things. Nor do they live for God’s sake – they have no God. They call His name in vain, in order to move fools to pity, and, thus pitied, to fill their bellies with something. They live but for their bellies, and aside from eating, drinking, sleeping and moaning they can do nothing. And all they accomplish is the soul’s decay. They are in your way and you trip over them. A good man among them – like fresh apples among bad ones – may soon be spoilt, and no one will profit by it. You are young, that’s the trouble. You cannot comprehend my words. Help him who is firm in misery. He may not ask you for assistance, but think of it yourself, and assist him without his request. And if he should happen to be proud and thus feel offended at your aid, do not allow him to see that you are lending him a helping hand. That’s the way it should be done, according to common sense! Here, for example, two boards, let us say, fall into the mud – one of them is a rotten one, the other, a good sound board. What should you do? What good is there in the rotten board? You had better drop it, let it stay in the mud and step on it so as not to soil your feet. As to the sound board, lift it up and place it in the sun; if it can be of no use to you, someone else may avail himself of it. That’s the way it is, my son! Listen to me and remember. There is no reason why Yefim should be pitied. He is a capable fellow, he knows his value. You cannot knock his soul out with a box on the ear. I’ll just watch him for about a week, and then I’ll put him at the helm. And there, I am quite sure, he’ll be a good pilot. And if he should be promoted to captain, he wouldn’t lose courage – he would make a clever captain! That’s the way people grow. I have gone through this school myself, dear. I, too, received more than one box on the ear when I was of his age. Life, my son, is not a dear mother to all of us. It is our exacting mistress.”

Ignat talked with his son about two hours, telling him of his own youth, of his toils, of men; their terrible power, and of their weakness; of how they live, and sometimes pretend to be unfortunate in order to live on other people’s money; and then he told him of himself, and of how he rose from a plain working man to be proprietor of a large concern. The boy listened to his words, looked at him and felt as though his father were coming nearer and nearer to him. And though his father’s story did not contain the material of which Aunt Anfisa’s fairy-tales were brimful, there was something new in it, something clearer and more comprehensible than in her fairy-tales, and something just as interesting. Something powerful and warm began to throb within his little heart, and he was drawn toward his father. Ignat, evidently, surmised his son’s feelings by his eyes: he rose abruptly from his seat, seized him in his arms and pressed him firmly to his breast. And Foma embraced his neck, and, pressing his cheek to that of his father, was silent and breathed rapidly.

“My son,” whispered Ignat in a dull voice, “My darling! My joy! Learn while I am alive. Alas! it is hard to live.”

The child’s heart trembled at this whisper; he set his teeth together, and hot tears gushed from his eyes.

Until this day Ignat had never kindled any particular feeling in his son: the boy was used to him; he was tired of looking at his enormous figure, and feared him slightly, but was at the same time aware that his father would do anything for him that he wanted. Sometimes Ignat would stay away from home a day, two, a week, or possibly the entire summer. And yet Foma did not even notice his absence, so absorbed was he by his love for Aunt Anfisa. When Ignat returned the boy was glad, but he could hardly tell whether it was his father’s arrival that gladdened him or the playthings he brought with him. But now, at the sight of Ignat, the boy ran to meet him, grasped him by the hand, laughed, stared into his eyes and felt weary if he did not see him for two or three hours: His father became interesting to him, and, rousing his curiosity, he fairly developed love and respect for himself. Every time that they were together Foma begged his father:

“Papa, tell me about yourself.”

............

The steamer was now going up the Volga. One suffocating night in July, when the sky was overcast with thick black clouds, and everything on the Volga was somewhat ominously calm, they reached Kazan and anchored near Uslon at the end of an enormous fleet of vessels. The clinking of the anchor chains and the shouting of the crew awakened Foma; he looked out of the window and saw, far in the distance, small lights glimmering fantastically: the water about the boat black and thick, like oil – and nothing else could be seen. The boy’s heart trembled painfully and he began to listen attentively. A scarcely audible, melancholy song reached his ears – mournful and monotonous as a chant on the caravan the watchmen called to one another; the steamer hissed angrily getting up steam. And the black water of the river splashed sadly and quietly against the sides of the vessels. Staring fixedly into the darkness, until his eyes hurt, the boy discerned black piles and small lights dimly burning high above them. He knew that those were barges, but this knowledge did not calm him and his heart throbbed unevenly, and, in his imagination, terrifying dark images arose.

“O-o-o,” a drawling cry came from the distance and ended like a wail.

Someone crossed the deck and went up to the side of the steamer.

“O-o-o,” was heard again, but nearer this time.

“Yefim!” some one called in a low voice on the deck. “Yefimka!”

“Well?”

“Devil! Get up! Take the boat-hook.”

“O-o-o,” someone moaned near by, and Foma, shuddering, stepped back from the window.

The queer sound came nearer and nearer and grew in strength, sobbed and died out in the darkness. While on the deck they whispered with alarm:

“Yefimka! Get up! A guest is floating!”

“Where?” came a hasty question, then bare feet began to patter about the deck, a bustle was heard, and two boat-hooks slipped down past the boy’s face and almost noiselessly plunged into the water.

“A gue-e-est!” Some began to sob near by, and a quiet, but very queer splash resounded.

The boy trembled with fright at this mournful cry, but he could not tear his hands from the window nor his eyes from the water.

“Light the lantern. You can’t see anything.”

“Directly.”

And then a spot of dim light fell over the water. Foma saw that the water was rocking calmly, that a ripple was passing over it, as though the water were afflicted, and trembled for pain.

“Look! Look!” they whispered on the deck with fright.

At the same time a big, terrible human face, with white teeth set together, appeared on the spot of light. It floated and rocked in the water, its teeth seemed to stare at Foma as though saying, with a smile:

“Eh, boy, boy, it is cold. Goodbye!”

The boat-hooks shook, were lifted in the air, were lowered again into the water and carefully began to push something there.

“Shove him! Shove! Look out, he may be thrown under the wheel.”

“Shove him yourself then.”

The boat-hooks glided over the side of the steamer, and, scratching against it, produced a noise like the grinding of teeth. Foma could not close his eyes for watching them. The noise of feet stamping on the deck, over his head, was gradually moving toward the stern. And then again that moaning cry for the dead was heard:

“A gue-e-est!”

“Papa!” cried Foma in a ringing voice. “Papa!” His father jumped to his feet and rushed toward him.

“What is that? What are they doing there?” cried Foma.

Wildly roaring, Ignat jumped out of the cabin with huge bounds. He soon returned, sooner than Foma, staggering and looking around him, had time to reach his father’s bed.

“They frightened you? It’s nothing!” said Ignat, taking him up in his arms. “Lie down with me.”

“What is it?” asked Foma, quietly.

“It was nothing, my son. Only a drowned man. A man was drowned and he is floating. That’s nothing! Don’t be afraid, he has already floated clear of us.”

“Why did they push him?” interrogated the boy, firmly pressing close to his father, and shutting his eyes for fright.

“It was necessary to do so. The water might have thrown him under the wheel. Under ours, for instance. Tomorrow the police would notice it, there would be trouble, inquests, and we would be held here for examination. That’s why we shoved him along. What difference does it make to him? He is dead; it doesn’t pain him; it doesn’t offend him. And the living would be troubled on his account. Sleep, my son.

“So he will float on that way?”

“He will float. They’ll take him out somewhere and bury him.”

“And will a fish devour him?”

“Fish do not eat human bodies. Crabs eat them. They like them.”

Foma’s fright was melting, from the heat of his father’s body, but before his eyes the terrible sneering face was still rocking in the black water.

“And who is he?”

“God knows! Say to God about him: ‘Oh Lord, rest his soul! ‘”

“Lord, rest his soul!” repeated Foma, in a whisper.

“That’s right. Sleep now, don’t fear. He is far away now! Floating on. See here, be careful as you go up to the side of the ship. You may fall overboard. God forbid! And – ”

“Did he fall overboard?”

“Of course. Perhaps he was drunk, and that’s his end! And maybe he threw himself into the water. There are people who do that. They go and throw themselves into the water and are drowned. Life, my dear, is so arranged that death is sometimes a holiday for one, sometimes it is a blessing for all.”

“Papa.”

“Sleep, sleep, dear.”

CHAPTER III

DURING the very first day of his school life, stupefied by the lively and hearty noise of provoking mischiefs and of wild, childish games, Foma picked out two boys from the crowd who at once seemed more interesting to him than the others. One had a seat in front of him. Foma, looking askance, saw a broad back; a full neck, covered with freckles; big ears; and the back of the head closely cropped, covered with light-red hair which stood out like bristles.

When the teacher, a bald-headed man, whose lower lip hung down, called out: “Smolin, African!” the red-headed boy arose slowly, walked up to the teacher, calmly stared into his face, and, having listened to the problem, carefully began to make big round figures on the blackboard with chalk.

“Good enough!” said the teacher. “Yozhov, Nicolai. Proceed!”

One of Foma’s neighbours, a fidgety little boy with black little mouse-eyes, jumped up from his seat and passed through the aisle, striking against everything and turning his head on all sides. At the blackboard he seized the chalk, and, standing up on the toes of his boots, noisily began to mark the board with the chalk, creaking and filling with chalk dust, dashing off small, illegible marks.

“Not so loud!” said the teacher, wrinkling his yellow face and contracting his fatigued eyes. Yozhov spoke quickly and in a ringing voice:

“Now we know that the first peddler made 17k. profit.”

“Enough! Gordyeeff! Tell me what must we do in order to find out how much the second peddler gained?”

Watching the conduct of the boys, so unlike each other, Foma was thus taken unawares by the question and he kept quiet.

“Don’t you know? How? Explain it to him, Smolin.”

Having carefully wiped his fingers, which had been soiled with chalk, Smolin put the rag away, and, without looking at Foma, finished the problem and again began to wipe his hands, while Yozhov, smiling and skipping along as he walked, returned to his seat.

“Eh, you!” he whispered, seating himself beside Foma, incidentally striking his side with his fist. “Why don’t you know it? What was the profit altogether? Thirty kopecks. And there were two peddlers. One of them got 17. Well, how much did the other one get?”

“I know,” replied Foma, in a whisper, feeling confused and examining the face of Smolin, who was sedately returning to his seat. He didn’t like that round, freckled face, with the blue eyes, which were loaded with fat. And Yozhov pinched his leg and asked:

“Whose son are you? The Frantic’s?”

“Yes.”

“So. Do you wish me to prompt you always?”

“Yes.”

“And what will you give me for it?”

Foma thought awhile and asked:

“And do you know it all yourself?”

“I? I am the best pupil. You’ll see for yourself.”

“Hey, there! Yozhov, you are talking again?” cried the teacher, faintly.

Yozhov jumped to his feet and said boldly:

“It’s not I, Ivan Andreyich – it’s Gordyeeff.”

“Both of them were whispering,” announced Smolin, serenely.

Wrinkling his face mournfully and moving his big lip comically, the teacher reprimanded them all, but his words did not prevent Yozhov from whispering immediately:

“Very well, Smolin! I’ll remember you for telling.”

“Well, why do you blame it all on the new boy?” asked Smolin, in a low voice, without even turning his head to them.

“All right, all right,” hissed Yozhov.

Foma was silent, looking askance at his brisk neighbour, who at once pleased him and roused in him a desire to get as far as possible away from him. During recess he learned from Yozhov that Smolin, too, was rich, being the son of a tan-yard proprietor, and that Yozhov himself was the son of a guard at the Court of Exchequer, and very poor. The last was clearly evident by the adroit boy’s costume, made of gray fustian and adorned with patches on the knees and elbows; by his pale, hungry-looking face; and, by his small, angular and bony figure. This boy spoke in a metallic alto, elucidating his words with grimaces and gesticulations, and he often used words whose meaning was known but to himself.

“We’ll be friends,” he announced to Foma.

“Why did you complain to the teacher about me?” Gordyeeff reminded Yozhov, looking at him suspiciously.

“There! What’s the difference to you? You are a new scholar and rich. The teacher is not exacting with the rich. And I am a poor hanger-on; he doesn’t like me, because I am impudent and because I never bring him any presents. If I had been a bad pupil he would have expelled me long ago. You know I’ll go to the Gymnasium from here. I’ll pass the second class and then I’ll leave. Already a student is preparing me for the second class. There I’ll study so that they can’t hold me back! How many horses do you have?”

“Three. What do you need to study so much for?” asked Foma.

“Because I am poor. The poor must study hard so that they may become rich. They become doctors, functionaries, officers. I shall be a ‘tinkler.’ A sword at my side, spur on my boots. Cling, cling! And what are you going to be?”

“I don’t know,” said Foma, pensively, examining his companion.

“You need not be anything. And are you fond of pigeons?”

“Yes.”

“What a good-for-nothing you are! Oh! Eh!” Yozhov imitated Foma’s slow way of speaking. “How many pigeons do you have?”

“I have none.”

“Eh, you! Rich, and yet you have no pigeons. Even I have three. If my father had been rich I would have had a hundred pigeons and chased them all day long. Smolin has pigeons, too, fine ones! Fourteen. He made me a present of one. Only, he is greedy. All the rich are greedy. And you, are you greedy, too?”

“I don’t know,” said Foma, irresolutely.

“Come up to Smolin’s and the three of us together will chase the pigeons.”

“Very well. If they let me.”

“Why, does not your father like you?”

“He does like me.”

“Well, then, he’ll let you go. Only don’t tell him that I am coming. Perhaps he would not let you go with me. Tell him you want to go to Smolin’s. Smolin!”

A plump boy came up to them, and Yozhov accosted him, shaking his head reproachfully:

“Eh, you red-headed slanderer! It isn’t worth while to be friends with you, blockhead!”

“Why do you abuse me?” asked Smolin, calmly, examining Foma fixedly.

“I am not abusing you; I am telling the truth,” Yozhov explained, straightening himself with animation. “Listen! Although you are a kissel, but – let it go! We’ll come up to see you on Sunday after mass.”

“Come,” Smolin nodded his head.

“We’ll come up. They’ll ring the bell soon. I must run to sell the siskin,” declared Yozhov, pulling out of his pocket a paper package, wherein some live thing was struggling. And he disappeared from the school-yard as mercury from the palm of a hand.

“What a queer fellow he is!” said Foma, dumfounded by Yozhov’s adroitness and looking at Smolin interrogatively.

“He is always like this. He’s very clever,” the red-headed boy explained.

“And cheerful, too,” added Foma.

“Cheerful, too,” Smolin assented. Then they became silent, looking at each other.

“Will you come up with him to my house?” asked the red-headed boy.

“Yes.”

“Come up. It’s nice there.”

Foma said nothing to this. Then Smolin asked him:

“Have you many friends?”

“I have none.”

“Neither did I have any friends before I went to school. Only cousins. Now you’ll have two friends at once.”

“Yes,” said Foma.

“Are you glad?”

“I’m glad.”

“When you have lots of friends, it is lively. And it is easier to study, too – they prompt you.”

“And are you a good pupil?”

“Of course! I do everything well,” said Smolin, calmly.

The bell began to bang as though it had been frightened and was hastily running somewhere.

Sitting in school, Foma began to feel somewhat freer, and compared his friends with the rest of the boys. He soon learned that they both were the very best boys in school and that they were the first to attract everybody’s attention, even as the two figures 5 and 7, which had not yet been wiped off the blackboard. And Foma felt very much pleased that his friends were better than any of the other boys.

They all went home from school together, but Yozhov soon turned into some narrow side street, while Smolin walked with Foma up to his very house, and, departing, said:

“You see, we both go home the same way, too.”

At home Foma was met with pomp: his father made him a present of a heavy silver spoon, with an ingenious monogram on it, and his aunt gave him a scarf knitted by herself. They were awaiting him for dinner, having prepared his favourite dishes for him, and as soon as he took off his coat, seated him at the table and began to ply him with questions.

“Well, how was it? How did you like the school?” asked Ignat, looking lovingly at his son’s rosy, animated face.

“Pretty good. It’s nice!” replied Foma.

“My darling!” sighed his aunt, with feeling, “look out, hold your own with your friends. As soon as they offend you tell your teachers about it.”

“Go on. What else will you tell him?” Ignat smiled. “Never do that! Try to get square with every offender yourself, punish him with your own hand, not with somebody else’s. Are there any good fellows there?”

“There are two,” Foma smiled, recalling Yozhov. “One of them is so bold – terrible!”

“Whose is he?”

“A guard’s son.”

“Mm! Bold did you say?”

“Dreadfully bold!”

“Well, let him be! And the other?”

“The other one is red-headed. Smolin.”

“Ah! Evidently Mitry Ivanovitch’s son. Stick to him, he’s good company. Mitry is a clever peasant. If the son takes after his father it is all right. But that other one – you know, Foma, you had better invite them to our house on Sunday. I’ll buy some presents and you can treat them. We’ll see what sort of boys they are.”

“Smolin asked me to come to him this Sunday,” said Foma, looking up at his father questioningly.

“So. Well, you may go! That’s all right, go. Observe what kind of people there are in the world. You cannot pass your life alone, without friendship. Your godfather and I, for instance, have been friends for more than twenty years, and I have profited a great deal by his common sense. So you, too, try to be friendly with those that are better and wiser than you. Rub against a good man, like a copper coin against silver, and you may then pass for a silver coin yourself.”

And, bursting into laughter at his comparison, Ignat added seriously:

“I was only jesting. Try to be, not artificial, but genuine. And have some common sense, no matter how little, but your own. Have you many lessons to do?”

“Many!” sighed the boy, and to his sigh, like an echo, his aunt answered with a heavy sigh.

“Well, study. Don’t be worse than others at school. Although, I’ll tell you, even if there were twenty-five classes in your school, they could never teach you there anything save reading, writing and arithmetic. You may also learn some naughty things, but God protect you! I shall give you a terrible spanking if you do. If you smoke tobacco I’ll cut your lips off.”

“Remember God, Fomushka,” said the aunt. “See that you don’t forget our Lord.”

“That’s true! Honour God and your father. But I wish to tell you that school books are but a trivial matter. You need these as a carpenter needs an adze and a pointer. They are tools, but the tools cannot teach you how to make use of them. Understand? Let us see: Suppose an adze were handed to a carpenter for him to square a beam with it. It’s not enough to have hands and an adze; it is also necessary for him to know how to strike the wood so as not to hit his foot instead. To you the knowledge of reading and writing is given, and you must regulate your life with it. Thus it follows that books alone are but a trifle in this matter; it is necessary to be able to take advantage of them. And it is this ability that is more cunning than any books, and yet nothing about it is written in the books. This, Foma, you must learn from Life itself. A book is a dead thing, you may take it as you please, you may tear it, break it – it will not cry out. While should you but make a single wrong step in life, or wrongly occupy a place in it, Life will start to bawl at you in a thousand voices; it will deal you a blow, felling you to the ground.”

CHAPTER IV

HIS father’s death stupefied Foma and filled him with a strange sensation; quiet was poured into his soul – a painful, immovable quiet, which absorbed all the sounds of life without accounting for it. All sorts of acquaintances were bustling about him; they appeared, disappeared, said something to him – his replies to them were untimely, and their words called forth no images in him, drowning, without leaving any trace, in the bottomless depths of the death-like silence which filled his soul. He neither cried, nor grieved, nor thought of anything; pale and gloomy, with knitted brow, he was attentively listening to this quiet, which had forced out all his feelings, benumbed his heart and tightly clutched his brains. He was conscious but of the purely physical sensation of heaviness in all his frame and particularly in his breast, and then it also seemed to him that it was always twilight, and even though the sun was still high in the sky – everything on earth looked dark and melancholy.

The funeral was arranged by Mayakin. Hastily and briskly he was bustling about in the rooms, making much clatter with the heels of his boots; he cried at the household help imperiously, clapped his godson on the shoulder, consoling him:

“And why are you petrified? Roar and you will feel relieved. Your father was old – old in body. Death is prepared for all of us, you cannot escape it – consequently you must not be prematurely torpid. You cannot bring him to life again with your sorrow, and your grief is unnecessary to him, for it is said: ‘When the body is robbed of the soul by the terrible angels, the soul forgets all relatives and acquaintances,’ which means that you are of no consequence to him now, whether you cry or laugh. But the living must care for the living. You had better cry, for this is human. It brings much relief to the heart.”

But neither did these words provoke anything in Foma’s head or in his heart. He came to himself, however, on the day of the funeral, thanks to the persistence of his godfather, who was assiduously and oddly trying to rouse his sad soul.

The day of the funeral was cloudy and dreary. Amid a heavy cloud of dust an enormous crowd of people, winding like a black ribbon, followed the coffin of Ignat Gordyeeff. Here and there flashed the gold of the priest’s robes, and the dull noise of the slow movement of the crowd blended in harmony with the solemn music of the choir, composed of the bishop’s choristers. Foma was pushed from behind and from the sides; he walked, seeing nothing but the gray head of his father, and the mournful singing resounded in his heart like a melancholy echo. And Mayakin, walking beside him, kept on intrusively whispering in his ears:

“Look, what a crowd – thousands! The governor himself came out to accompany your father to the church, the mayor, and almost the entire city council. And behind you – just turn around! There goes Sophya Pavlovna. The town pays its respects to Ignat.”

At first Foma did not listen to his godfather’s whisper, but when he mentioned Medinskaya, he involuntarily looked back and noticed the governor. A little drop of something pleasant fell into his heart at the sight of this important personage, with a bright ribbon across his shoulder, with orders on his breast, pacing after the coffin, an expression of sorrow on his stern countenance.

“Blessed is the road where this soul goeth today,” Yakov Tarasovich hummed softly, moving his nose, and he again whispered in his godson’s ear:

“Seventy-five thousand roubles is such a sum that you can demand so many escorts for it. Have you heard that Sonka is making arrangements for the laying of the corner-stone on the fifteenth? Just forty days after the death of your father.”

Foma again turned back, and his eyes met the eyes of Medinskaya. He heaved a deep sigh at her caressing glance, and felt relieved at once, as if a warm ray of light penetrated his soul and something melted there. And then and there he considered that it was unbecoming him to turn his head from side to side.

At church Foma’s head began to ache, and it seemed to him that everything around and underneath him was shaking. In the stifling air, filled with dust, with the breathing of the people and the smoke of the incense, the flames of the candles were timidly trembling. The meek image of Christ looked down at him from the big ikon, and the flames of the candles, reflected in the tarnished gold of the crown over the Saviour’s brow, reminded him of drops of blood.

Foma’s awakened soul was greedily feeding itself on the solemn, gloomy poetry of the liturgy, and when the touching citation was heard, “Come, let us give him the last kiss,” a loud, wailing sob escaped from Foma’s chest, and the crowd in church was stirred to agitation by this outburst of grief.

Having uttered the sob, Foma staggered. His godfather immediately caugh thim by his arms and began to push him forward to the coffin, singingquite loudly and with some anger:

 
“Kiss him who was but lately with us.
Kiss, Foma, kiss him – he is given over to the grave, covered with a stone.
He is settling down in darkness, and is buried with the dead.”
 

Foma touched his father’s forehead with his lips and sprang back from the coffin with horror.

“Hold your peace! You nearly knocked me down,” Mayakin remarked to him, in a low voice, and these simple, calm words supported Foma better than his godfather’s hands.

“Ye that behold me mute and lifeless before you, weep for me, brethren and friends,” begged Ignat through the mouth of the Church. But his son was not crying any longer; his horror was called forth by the black, swollen face of his father, and this horror somewhat sobered his soul, which had been intoxicated by the mournful music of the Church’s lament for its sinful son. He was surrounded by acquaintances, who were kindly consoling him; he listened to them and understood that they all felt sorry for him and that he became dear to them. And his godfather whispered in his ear:

“See, how they all fawn upon you. The tom-cats have smelt the fat.”

These words were unpleasant to Foma, but they were useful to him, as they caused him to answer at all events.

At the cemetery, when they sang for Ignat’s eternal memory, he cried again bitterly and loud. His godfather immediately seized him by the arms and led him away from the grave, speaking to him earnestly:

“What a faint-hearted fellow you are! Do I not feel sorry for him? I have known his real value, while you were but his son. And yet, I do not cry. For more than thirty years we lived together in perfect harmony – how much had been spoken, how much thought – how much sorrow drunk. You are young; it is not for you to grieve! Your life is before you, and you will be rich in all sorts of friendship; while I am old, and now that I buried my only friend, I am like a pauper. I can no longer make a bosom friend!”

The old man’s voice began to jar and squeak queerly. His face was distorted, his lips were stretched into a big grimace and were quivering, and from his small eyes frequent tears were running over the now contracted wrinkles of his face. He looked so pitiful and so unlike himself, that Foma stopped short, pressed him close to his body with the tenderness of a strong man and cried with alarm:

“Don’t cry, father – darling! Don’t cry.”

“There you have it!” said Mayakin, faintly, and, heaving a deep sigh, he suddenly turned again into a firm and clever old man.

“You must not cry,” said he, mysteriously, seating himself in the carriage beside his godson. “You are now the commander-in-chief in the war and you must command your soldiers bravely. Your soldiers are the roubles, and you have a great army of these. Make war incessantly!”

Surprised at the quickness of his transformation, Foma listened to his words and for some reason or other they reminded him of those clods of earth, which the people threw into Ignat’s grave upon his coffin.

“On whom am I to make war?” said Foma with a sigh.

“I’ll teach you that! Did your father tell you that I was a clever old man and that you should mind me?”

“He did.”

“Then do mind me! If my mind should be added to your youthful strength, a good victory might be won. Your father was a great man, but he did not look far before him and he could not take my advice. He gained success in life not with his mind, but more with his head. Oh, what will become of you? You had better move into my house, for you will feel lonesome in yours.”

“Aunt is there.”

“Aunt? She is sick. She will not live long.”

“Do not speak of it,” begged Foma in a low voice.

“And I will speak of it. You need not fear death – you are not an old woman on the oven. Live fearlessly and do what you were appointed to do. Man is appointed for the organisation of life on earth. Man is capital – like a rouble, he is made up of trashy copper groshes and copecks. From the dust of the earth, as it is said; and even as he has intercourse with the world, he absorbs grease and oil, sweat and tears – a soul and a mind form themselves in him. And from this he starts to grow upward and downward. Now, you see his price is a grosh, now a fifteen copeck silver piece, now a hundred roubles, and sometimes he is above any price. He is put into circulation and he must bring interests to life. Life knows the value of each of us and will not check our course before time. Nobody, dear, works to his own detriment, if he is wise. And life has saved up much wisdom. Are you listening?”

“I am.”

“And what do you understand?”

“Everything.”

“You are probably lying?” Mayakin doubted.

“But, why must we die?” asked Foma in a low voice.

Mayakin looked into his face with regret, smacked his lips and said:

“A wise man would never ask such a question. A wise man knows for himself that if it is a river, it must be flowing somewhere, and if it were standing in one place, it would be a swamp.”

“You’re simply mocking me at random,” said Foma, sternly. “The sea is not flowing anywhere.”

“The sea receives all rivers into itself, and then, powerful storms rage in it at times. Then the sea of life also submits on agitation, stirred up by men, and death renovates the waters of the sea of life, that they might not become spoiled. No matter how many people are dying, they are nevertheless forever growing in number.”

“What of it? But my father is dead.”

“You will die as well.”

“Then what have I to do with the fact that people are growing in number?” Foma smiled sadly.

“Eh, he, he!” sighed Mayakin. “That, indeed, concerns none of us. There, your trousers probably reason in the same way: what have we to do with the fact that there are all sorts of stuff in the world? But you do not mind them – you wear them out and throw them away.”

Foma glanced at his godfather reproachfully, and noticing that the old man was smiling, he was astonished and he asked respectfully:

“Can it be true, father, that you do not fear death?”

“Most of all I fear foolishness, my child,” replied Mayakin with humble bitterness. “My opinion is this: if a fool give you honey, spit upon it; if a wise man give you poison, drink it! And I will tell you that the perch has a weak soul since his fins do not stand on end.”

The old man’s mocking words offended and angered Foma. He turned aside and said:

“You can never speak without these subterfuges.”

“I cannot!” exclaimed Mayakin, and his eyes began to sparkle with alarm. “Each man uses the very same tongue he has. Do I seem to be stern? Do I?”

Foma was silent.

“Eh, you. Know this – he loves who teaches. Remember this well. And as to death, do not think of it. It is foolish, dear, for a live man to think of death. ‘Ecclesiastes’ reflected on death better than anybody else reflected on it, and said that a living dog is better than a dead lion.”

They came home. The street near the house was crowded with carriages, and from the open windows came loud sounds of talk. As soon as Foma appeared in the hall, he was seized by the arms and led away to the table and there was urged to drink and eat something. A marketplace noise smote the air; the hall was crowded and suffocating. Silently, Foma drank a glass of vodka, then another, and a third. Around him they were munching and smacking their lips; the vodka poured out from the bottles was gurgling, the wine-glasses were tinkling. They were speaking of dried sturgeon and of the bass of the soloist of the bishop’s choir, and then again of the dried sturgeon, and then they said that the mayor also wished to make a speech, but did not venture to do so after the bishop had spoken, fearing lest he should not speak so well as the bishop. Someone was telling with feeling:

“The deceased one used to do thus: he would cut off a slice of salmon, pepper it thickly, cover it with another slice of salmon, and then send it down immediately after a drink.”

“Let us follow his example,” roared a thick basso. Offended to the quick, Foma looked with a frown at the fat lips and at the jaws chewing the tasty food, and he felt like crying out and driving away all these people, whose sedateness had but lately inspired him with respect for them.

“You had better be more kind, more sociable,” said Mayakin in a low voice, coming up to him.

“Why are they gobbling here? Is this a tavern?” cried Foma, angrily.

“Hush,” Mayakin remarked with fright and hastily turned to look around with a kind smile on his face.

But it was too late; his smile was of no avail. Foma’s words had been overheard, the noise and the talk was subsiding, some of the guests began to bustle about hurriedly, others, offended, frowned, put down their forks and knives and walked away from the table, all looking at Foma askance.

Silent and angry, he met these glances without lowering his eyes.

“I ask you to come up to the table!” cried Mayakin, gleaming amid the crowd of people like an ember amid ashes. “Be seated, pray! They’re soon serving pancakes.”

Foma shrugged his shoulders and walked off toward the door, saying aloud:

“I shall not eat.”

He heard a hostile rumbling behind him and his godfather’s wheedling voice saying to somebody:

“It’s for grief. Ignat was at once father and mother to him.”

Foma came out in the garden and sat down on the same place where his father had died. The feeling of loneliness and grief oppressed his heart. He unbuttoned the collar of his shirt to make his breathing easier, rested his elbows on the table, and with his head tightly pressed between his hands, he sat motionless. It was drizzling and the leaves of the apple-tree were rustling mournfully under the drops of the rain. He sat there for a long time alone, motionless, watching how the small drops were falling from the apple-tree. His head was heavy from the vodka, and in his heart there was a growing grudge against men. Some indefinite, impersonal feelings and thoughts were springing up and vanishing within him; before him flashed the bald skull of his godfather with a little crown of silver hair and with a dark face, which resembled the faces of the ancient ikons. This face with the toothless mouth and the malicious smile, rousing in Foma hatred and fear, augmented in him the consciousness of solitude. Then he recalled the kind eyes of Medinskaya and her small, graceful figure; and beside her arose the tall, robust, and rosy-cheeked Lubov Mayakina with smiling eyes and with a big light golden-coloured braid. “Do not rely upon men, expect but little at their hands” – his father’s words began to ring in his memory. He sighed sadly and cast a glance around him. The tree leaves were fluttering from the rain, and the air was full of mournful sounds. The gray sky seemed as though weeping, and on the trees cold tears were trembling. And Foma’s soul was dry, dark; it was filled with a painful feeling of orphanhood. But this feeling gave birth to the question:

“How shall I live now that I am alone?”

The rain drenched his clothes, and when he felt that he was shivering with cold he arose and went into the house.

Life was tugging him from all sides, giving him no chance to be concentrated in thinking of and grieving for his father, and on the fortieth day after Ignat’s death Foma, attired in holiday clothes, with a pleasant feeling in his heart, went to the ceremony of the corner-stone laying of the lodging-asylum. Medinskaya notified him in a letter the day before, that he had been elected as a member of the building committee and also as honorary member of the society of which she was president. This pleased him and he was greatly agitated by the part he was to play today at the laying of the corner-stone. On his way he thought of how everything would be and how he should behave in order not to be confused before the people.

“Eh, eh! Hold on!”

He turned around. Mayakin came hastening to him from the sidewalk. He was in a frock-coat that reached his heels, in a high cap, and he carried a huge umbrella in his hand.

“Come on, take me up there,” said the old man, cleverly jumping into the carriage like a monkey. “To tell the truth, I was waiting for you. I was looking around, thinking it was time for you to go.”

“Are you going there?” asked Foma.

“Of course! I must see how they will bury my friend’s money in the ground.”

Foma looked at him askance and was silent. “Why do you frown upon me? Don’t fear, you will also start out as a benefactor among men.”

“What do you mean?” asked Foma, reservedly. “I’ve read in the newspaper this morning that you were elected as a member of the building committee and also as an honorary member of Sophya’s society.”

“Yes.”

“This membership will eat into your pocket!” sighed Mayakin.

“That wouldn’t ruin me.”

“I don’t know it,” observed the old man, maliciously.

“I speak of this more because there is altogether very little wisdom in this charity business, and I may even say that it isn’t a business at all, but simply harmful nonsense.”

“Is it harmful to aid people?” asked Foma, hotly.

“Eh, you cabbage head!” said Mayakin with a smile. “You had better come up to my house, I’ll open your eyes in regard to this. I must teach you! Will you come?”

“Very well, I will come!” replied Foma.

“So. And in the meantime, hold yourself proud at the laying of the corner-stone. Stand in view of everybody. If I don’t tell this to you, you might hide yourself behind somebody’s back.”

“Why should I hide myself?” said Foma, displeased.

“That’s just what I say: there is no reason why. For the money was donated by your father and you are entitled to the honour as his heir. Honour is just the same as money. With honour a business man will get credit everywhere, and everywhere there is a way open to him. Then come forward, so that everybody may see you and that if you do five copecks’ worth of work, you should get a rouble in return for it. And if you will hide yourself – nothing but foolishness will be the result.”

They arrived at their destination, where all the important people had gathered already, and an enormous crowd of people surrounded the piles of wood, bricks and earth. The bishop, the governor, the representatives of the city’s aristocracy and the administration formed, together with the splendidly dressed ladies, a big bright group and looked at the efforts of the two stonemasons, who were preparing the bricks and the lime. Mayakin and his godson wended their way toward this group. He whispered to Foma:

“Lose no courage, these people have robbed their bellies to cover themselves with silk.”

And he greeted the governor before the bishop, in a respectfully cheerful voice.

“How do you do, your Excellency? Give me your blessing, your Holiness!”

“Ah, Yakov Tarasovich!” exclaimed the governor with a friendly smile, shaking and squeezing Mayakin’s hand, while the old man was at the same time kissing the bishop’s hand. “How are you, deathless old man?”

“I thank you humbly, your Excellency! My respects to Sophya Pavlovna!” Mayakin spoke fast, whirling like a peg-top amid the crowd of people. In a minute he managed to shake hands with the presiding justice of the court, with the prosecutor, with the mayor – in a word, with all those people whom he considered it necessary to greet first; such as these, however, were few. He jested, smiled and at once attracted everybody’s attention to his little figure, and Foma with downcast head stood behind him, looking askance at these people wrapped in costly stuffs, embroidered with gold; he envied the old man’s adroitness and lost his courage, and feeling that he was losing his courage – he grew still more timid. But now Mayakin seized him by the hand and drew him up to himself.

“There, your Excellency, this is my godson, Foma, the late Ignat’s only son.”

“Ah!” said the governor in his basso, “I’m very pleased. I sympathise with you in your misfortune, young man!” he said, shaking Foma’s hand, and became silent; then he added resolutely and confidently: “To lose a father, that is a very painful misfortune.”

And, having waited about two seconds for Foma’s answer, he turned away from him, addressing Mayakin approvingly:

“I am delighted with the speech you made yesterday in the city hall! Beautiful, clever, Yakov Tarasovich. Proposing to use the money for this public club, they do not understand the real needs of the population.”

“And then, your Excellency, a small capital means that the city will have to add its own money.”

“Perfectly true! Perfectly true!”

“Temperance, I say, is good! Would to God that all were sober! I don’t drink, either, but what is the use of these performances, libraries and all that, since the people cannot even read?”

The governor replied approvingly.

“Here, I say, you better use this money for a technical institution. If it should be established on a small plan, this money alone will suffice, and in case it shouldn’t, we can ask for more in St. Petersburg – they’ll give it to us. Then the city wouldn’t have to add of its own money, and the whole affair would be more sensible.”

“Precisely! I fully agree with you! But how the liberals began to cry at you! Eh? Ha, ha!”

“That has always been their business, to cry.”

The deep cough of the archdeacon of the cathedral announced the beginning of the divine service.

Sophya Pavlovna came up to Foma, greeted him and said in a sad, low voice:

“I looked at your face on the day of the funeral, and my heart saddened. My God, I thought, how he must suffer!”

And Foma listened to her and felt as though he was drinking honey.

“These cries of yours, they shook my soul, my poor child! I may speak to you this way, for I am an old woman already.”

“You!” exclaimed Foma, softly.

“Isn’t that so?” she asked, naively looking into his face.

Foma was silent, his head bent on his breast.

“Don’t you believe that I am an old woman?”

“I believe you; that is, I believe everything you may say; only this is not true!” said Foma, feelingly, in a low voice.

“What is not true? What do you believe me?”

“No! not this, but that. I – excuse me! I cannot speak!” said Foma, sadly, all aflush with confusion. “I am not cultured.”

“You need not trouble yourself on this account,” said Medinskaya, patronisingly. “You are so young, and education is accessible to everybody. But there are people to whom education is not only unnecessary, but who can also be harmed by it. Those that are pure of heart, sanguine, sincere, like children, and you are of those people. You are, are you not?”

What could Foma say in answer to this question? He said sincerely:

“I thank you humbly!”

And noticing that his words called forth a gay gleam in Medinskaya’s eyes, Foma appeared ridiculous and stupid in his own eyes; he immediately became angry at himself and said in a muffled voice:

“Yes, I am such. I always speak my mind. I cannot deceive. If I see something to laugh at, I laugh openly. I am stupid!”

“What makes you speak that way?” said the woman, reproachfully, and adjusting her dress, she accidentally stroked Foma’s hand, in which he held his hat. This made him look at his wrist and smile joyously and confusedly.

“You will surely be present at the dinner, won’t you?” asked Medinskaya.

“Yes.”

“And tomorrow at the meeting in my house?”

“Without fail!”

“And perhaps sometime you will drop in, simply on a visit, wouldn’t you?”

“I – I thank you! I’ll come!”

“I must thank you for the promise.”

They became silent. In the air soared the reverently soft voice of the bishop, who recited the prayer expressively, outstretching his hand over the place where the corner-stone of the house was laid:

“May neither the wind, nor water, nor anything else bring harm unto it; may it be completed in thy benevolence, and free all those that are to live in it from all kinds of calumny.”

“How rich and beautiful our prayers are, are they not?” asked Medinskaya.

“Yes,” said Foma, shortly, without understanding her words and feeling that he was blushing again.

“They will always be opponents of our commercial interests,” Mayakin whispered loudly and convincingly, standing beside the city mayor, not far from Foma. “What is it to them? All they want is somehow to deserve the approval of the newspaper. But they cannot reach the main point. They live for mere display, not for the organisation of life; these are their only measures: the newspapers and Sweden! [Mayakin speaks of Sweden, meaning Switzerland. – Translator’s note.] The doctor scoffed at me all day yesterday with this Sweden. The public education, says he, in Sweden, and everything else there is first-class! But what is Sweden, anyway? It may be that Sweden is but a fib, is but used as an example, and that there is no education whatever or any of the other things there. And then, we don’t live for the sake of Sweden, and Sweden cannot put us to test. We have to make our lip according to our own last. Isn’t it so?”

And the archdeacon droned, his head thrown back:

“Eternal me-emo-ory to the founder of this ho-ouse!”

Foma shuddered, but Mayakin was already by his side, and pulling him by the sleeve, asked:

“Are you going to the dinner?”

And Medinskaya’s velvet-like, warm little hand glided once more over Foma’s hand.

The dinner was to Foma a real torture. For the first time in his life among these uniformed people, he saw that they were eating and speaking – doing everything better than he, and he felt that between him and Medinskaya, who was seated just opposite him, was a high mountain, not a table. Beside him sat the secretary of the society of which Foma had been made an honorary member; he was a young court officer, bearing the odd name of Ookhtishchev. As if to make his name appear more absurd than it really was, he spoke in a loud, ringing tenor, and altogether – plump, short, round-faced and a lively talker – he looked like a brand new bell.

“The very best thing in our society is the patroness; the most reasonable is what we are doing – courting the patroness; the most difficult is to tell the patroness such a compliment as would satisfy her; and the most sensible thing is to admire the patroness silently and hopelessly. So that in reality, you are a member not of ‘the Society of Solicitude,’ and so on, but of the Society of Tantaluses, which is composed of persons bent on pleasing Sophya Medinskaya.”

Foma listened to his chatter, now and then looking at the patroness, who was absorbed in a conversation with the chief of the police; Foma roared in reply to his interlocutor, pretending to be busy eating, and he wished that all this would end the sooner. He felt that he was wretched, stupid, ridiculous and he was certain that everybody was watching and censuring him. This tied him with invisible shackles, thus checking his words and his thoughts. At last he went so far, that the line of various physiognomies, stretched out by the table opposite him, seemed to him a long and wavy white strip besprinkled with laughing eyes, and all these eyes were pricking him unpleasantly and painfully.

Mayakin sat near the city mayor, waved his fork in the air quickly, and kept on talking all the time, now contracting, now expanding the wrinkles of his face. The mayor, a gray-headed, red-faced, short-necked man, stared at him like a bull, with obstinate attention and at times he rapped on the edge of the table with his big finger affirmatively. The animated talk and laughter drowned his godfather’s bold speech, and Foma was unable to hear a single word of it, much more so that the tenor of the secretary was unceasingly ringing in his ears:

“Look, there, the archdeacon arose; he is filling his lungs with air; he will soon proclaim an eternal memory for Ignat Matveyich.”

“May I not go away?” asked Foma in a low voice.

“Why not? Everybody will understand this.”

The deacon’s resounding voice drowned and seemed to have crushed the noise in the hail; the eminent merchants fixed their eyes on the big, wide-open mouth, from which a deep sound was streaming forth, and availing himself of this moment, Foma arose from his seat and left the hall.

After awhile he breathed freely and, sitting in his cab, thought sadly that there was no place for him amid these people. Inwardly, he called them polished. He did not like their brilliancy, their faces, their smiles or their words, but the freedom and the cleverness of their movements, their ability to speak much and on any subject, their pretty costumes – all this aroused in him a mixture of envy and respect for them. He felt sad and oppressed at the consciousness of being unable to talk so much and so fluently as all these people, and here he recalled that Luba Mayakina had more than once scoffed at him on this account.

Foma did not like Mayakin’s daughter, and since he had learned from his father of Mayakin’s intention to marry him to Luba, the young Gordyeeff began to shun her. But after his father’s death he was almost every day at the Mayakins, and somehow Luba said to him one day:

“I am looking at you, and, do you know? – you do not resemble a merchant at all.”

“Nor do you look like a merchant’s daughter,” said Foma, and looked at her suspiciously. He did not understand the meaning of her words; did she mean to offend him, or did she say these words without any kind thoughts?

CHAPTER V

FOMA’S dual relation toward Mayakin grew stronger and stronger as time went on; listening to his words attentively and with eager curiosity, he felt that each meeting with his godfather was strengthening in him the feeling of hostility toward the old man. Sometimes Yakov Tarasovich roused in his godson a feeling akin to fear, sometimes even physical aversion. The latter usually came to Foma whenever the old man was pleased with something and laughed. From laughter the old man’s wrinkles would tremble, thus changing the expression of his face every now and then; his dry, thin lips would stretch out and move nervously, displaying black broken teeth, and his red little beard was as though aflame. His laughter sounded like the squeaking of rusty hinges, and altogether the old man looked like a lizard at play. Unable to conceal his feelings, Foma often expressed them to Mayakin rather rudely, both in words and in gesture, but the old man, pretending not to notice it, kept a vigilant eye on him, directing his each and every step. Wholly absorbed by the steamship affairs of the young Gordyeeff, he even neglected his own little shop, and allowed Foma considerable leisure time. Thanks to Mayakin’s important position in town and to his extensive acquaintance on the Volga, business was splendid, but Mayakin’s zealous interest in his affairs strengthened Foma’s suspicions that his godfather was firmly resolved to marry him to Luba, and this made the old man more repulsive to him.

He liked Luba, but at the same time she seemed suspicious and dangerous for him. She did not marry, and Mayakin never said a word about it; he gave no evening parties, invited none of the youths to his house and did not allow Luba to leave the house. And all her girl friends were married already. Foma admired her words and listened to her just as eagerly as to her father; but whenever she started to speak of Taras with love and anguish, it seemed to him that she was hiding another man under that name, perhaps that same Yozhov, who according to her words, had to leave the university for some reason or other, and go to Moscow. There was a great deal of simplemindedness and kindness in her, which pleased Foma, and ofttimes her words awakened in him a feeling of pity for her; it seemed to him that she was not alive, that she was dreaming though awake.

His conduct at the funeral feast for his father became known to all the merchants and gave him a bad reputation. On the Exchange, he noticed, everybody looked at him sneeringly, malevolently, and spoke to him in some peculiar way. One day he heard behind him a low exclamation, full of contempt:

“Gordyeeff! Milksop!”

He felt that this was said of him, but he did not turn around to see who it was that flung those words at him. The rich people, who had inspired him with timidity before, were now losing in his eyes the witchery of their wealth and wisdom. They had more than once snatched out of his hands this or that profitable contract; he clearly saw that they would do it again, and they all seemed to him alike – greedy for money, always ready to cheat one another. When he imparted to his godfather his observation, the old man said:

“How then? Business is just the same as war – a hazardous affair. There they fight for the purse, and in the purse is the soul.”

“I don’t like this,” announced Foma.

“Neither do I like everything – there’s too much fraud.

“But to be fair in business matters is utterly impossible; you must be shrewd! In business, dear, on approaching a man you must hold honey in your left hand, and clutch a knife in your right. Everybody would like to buy five copecks’ worth for a half a copeck.”

“Well, this isn’t too good,” said Foma, thoughtfully. “But it will be good later. When you have taken the upper hand, then it will be good. Life, dear Foma, is very simple: either bite everybody, or lie in the gutter.”

The old man smiled, and the broken teeth in his mouth roused in Foma the keen thought:

“You have bitten many, it seems.”

“There’s but one word – battle!” repeated the old man.

“Is this the real one?” asked Foma, looking at Mayakin searchingly.

“That is, what do you mean – the real?”

“Is there nothing better than this? Does this contain everything?”

“Where else should it be? Everybody lives for himself. Each of us wishes the best for himself. And what is the best? To go in front of others, to stand above them. So that everybody is trying to attain the first place in life – one by this means, another by that means. But everyone is positively anxious to be seen from afar, like a tower. And man was indeed appointed to go upward. Even the Book of Job says: ‘Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks, to fly upward.’ Just see: even children at play always wish to surpass one another. And each and every game has its climax, which makes it interesting. Do you understand?”

“I understand this!” said Foma, firmly and confidently.

“But you must also feel this. With understanding alone you cannot go far, and you must desire, and desire so that a big mountain should seem to you but a hillock, and the sea but a puddle. Eh! When I was of your age I had an easy life, while you are only taking aim. But then, good fruit does not ripen early.”

The old man’s monotonous speeches soon accomplished what they were intended to do. Foma listened to them and made clear to himself the aim of life. He must be better than others, he resolved, and the ambition, kindled by the old man, took deep root in his heart. It took root within his heart, but did not fill it up, for Foma’s relations toward Medinskaya assumed that character, which they were bound to assume. He longed for her, he always yearned to see her; while in her presence he became timid, awkward and stupid; he knew it and suffered on this account. He frequently visited her, but it was hard to find her at home alone; perfumed dandies like flies over a piece of sugar – were always flitting about her. They spoke to her in French, sang and laughed, while he looked at them in silence, tortured by anger and jealousy. His legs crossed, he sat somewhere in a corner of her richly furnished drawing-room, where it was extremely difficult to walk without overturning or at least striking against something – Foma sat and watched them sternly.

Over the soft rugs she was noiselessly passing hither and thither, casting to him kind glances and smiles, while her admirers were fawning upon her, and they all, like serpents, were cleverly gliding by the various little tables, chairs, screens, flower-stands – a storehouse full of beautiful and frail things, scattered about the room with a carelessness equally dangerous to them and to Foma. But when he walked there, the rugs did not drown his footsteps, and all these things caught at his coat, trembled and fell. Beside the piano stood a sailor made of bronze, whose hand was lifted, ready to throw the life-saving ring; on this ring were ropes of wire, and these always pulled Foma by the hair. All this provoked laughter among Sophya Pavlovna and her admirers, and Foma suffered greatly, changing from heat to cold.

But he felt no less uncomfortable even when alone with her. Greeting him with a kindly smile, she would take a seat beside him in one of the cosy corners of her drawing-room and would usually start her conversation by complaining to him of everybody:

“You wouldn’t believe how glad I am to see you!” Bending like a cat, she would gaze into his eyes with her dark glance, in which something avidious would now flash up.

“I love to speak to you,” she said, musically drawling her words. “I’ve grown tired of all the rest of them. They’re all so boring, ordinary and worn-out, while you are fresh, sincere. You don’t like those people either, do you?”

“I can’t bear them!” replied Foma, firmly.

“And me?” she asked softly.

Foma turned his eyes away from her and said, with a sigh:

“How many times have you asked me that?”

“Is it hard for you to tell me?”

“It isn’t hard, but what for?”

“I must know it.”

“You are making sport of me,” said Foma, sternly. And she opened her eyes wide and inquired in a tone of great astonishment:

“How do I make sport of you? What does it mean to make sport?”

And her face looked so angelic that he could not help believing her.

“I love you! I love you! It is impossible not to love you!” said he hotly, and immediately added sadly, lowering his voice: “But you don’t need it!”

“There you have it!” sighed Medinskaya, satisfied, drawing back from him. “I am always extremely pleased to hear you say this, with so much youthfulness and originality. Would you like to kiss my hand?”

Without saying a word he seized her thin, white little hand and carefully bending down to it, he passionately kissed it for a long time. Smiling and graceful, not in the least moved by his passion, she freed her hand from his. Pensively, she looked at him with that strange glitter in her eyes, which always confused Foma; she examined him as something rare and extremely curious, and said:

“How much strength and power and freshness of soul you possess! Do you know? You merchants are an altogether new race, an entire race with original traditions, with an enormous energy of body and soul. Take you, for instance – you are a precious stone, and you should be polished. Oh!”

Whenever she told him: “You,” or “according to your merchant fashion,” it seemed to Foma that she was pushing him away from her with these words. This at once saddened and offended him. He was silent, looking at her small maidenly figure, which was always somehow particularly well dressed, always sweet-scented like a flower. Sometimes he was seized with a wild, coarse desire to embrace and kiss her. But her beauty and the fragility of her thin, supple body awakened in him a fear of breaking and disfiguring her, and her calm, caressing voice and the clear, but somewhat cautious look of her eyes chilled his passion; it seemed to him as though she were looking straight into his soul, divining all his thoughts. But these bursts of emotion were rare. Generally the youth regarded Medinskaya with adoration, admiring everything in her – her beauty, her words, her dresses. And beside this adoration there was in him a painfully keen consciousness of his remoteness from her, of her supremacy over him.

These relations were established between them within a short time; after two or three meetings Medinskaya was in full possession of the youth and she slowly began to torture him. Evidently she liked to have a healthy, strong youth at her mercy; she liked to rouse and tame the animal in him merely with her voice and glance, and confident of the power of her superiority, she found pleasure in thus playing with him. On leaving her, he was usually half-sick from excitement, bearing her a grudge, angry with himself, filled with many painful and intoxicating sensations. And about two days later he would come to undergo the same torture again.

One day he asked her timidly:

“Sophya Pavlovna! Have you ever had any children?”

“No.”

“I thought not!” exclaimed Foma with delight.

She cast at him the look of a very naive little girl, and said:

“What made you think so? And why do you want to know whether I had any children or not?”

Foma blushed, and, bending his head, began to speak to her in a heavy voice, as though he was lifting every word from the ground and as though each word weighed a few puds.

“You see – a woman who – has given birth to children – such a woman has altogether different eyes.”

“So? What kind are they then?”

“Shameless!” Foma blurted out.

Medinskaya broke into her silver laughter, and Foma, looking at her, also began to laugh.

“Excuse me!” said he, at length. “Perhaps I’ve said something wrong, improper.”

“Oh, no, no! You cannot say anything improper. You are a pure, amiable boy. And so, my eyes are not shameless?”

“Yours are like an angel’s!” announced Foma with enthusiasm, looking at her with beaming eyes. And she glanced at him, as she had never done before; her look was that of a mother, a sad look of love mingled with fear for the beloved.

“Go, dear one. I am tired; I need a rest,” she said to him, as she rose without looking at him. He went away submissively.

For some time after this incident her attitude toward him was stricter and more sincere, as though she pitied him, but later their relations assumed the old form of the cat-and-mouse play.

Foma’s relation toward Medinskaya could not escape his godfather’s notice, and one day the old man asked him, with a malicious grimace:

“Foma! You had better feel your head more often so that you may not lose it by accident.”

“What do you mean?” asked Foma.

“I speak of Sonka. You are going to see her too often.”

“What has that to do with you?” said Foma, rather rudely. “And why do you call her Sonka?”

“It’s nothing to me. I would lose nothing if you should be fleeced. And as to calling her Sonka – everybody knows that is her name. So does everybody know that she likes to rake up the fire with other people’s hands.”

“She is clever!” announced Foma, firmly, frowning and hiding his hands in his pockets. “She is intelligent.”

“Clever, that’s true! How cleverly she arranged that entertainment; there was an income of two thousand four hundred roubles, the expenses – one thousand nine hundred; the expenses really did not even amount to a thousand roubles, for everybody does everything for her for nothing. Intelligent! She will educate you, and especially will those idlers that run around her.”

“They’re not idlers, they are clever people!” replied Foma, angrily, contradicting himself now. “And I learn from them. What am I? I know nothing. What was I taught? While there they speak of everything – and each one has his word to say. Do not hinder me from being like a man.”

“Pooh! How you’ve learned to speak! With so much anger, like the hail striking against the roof! Very well, be like a man, but in order to be like a man it might be less dangerous for you to go to the tavern; the people there are after all better than Sophya’s people. And you, young man, you should have learned to discriminate one person from another. Take Sophya, for instance: What does she represent? An insect for the adornment of nature and nothing more!”

Intensely agitated, Foma set his teeth together and walked away from Mayakin, thrusting his hands still deeper into his pockets. But the old man soon started again a conversation about Medinskaya.

They were on their way back from the bay after an inspection of the steamers, and seated in a big and commodious sledge, they were enthusiastically discussing business matters in a friendly way. It was in March. The water under the sledge-runners was bubbling, the snow was already covered with a rather dirty fleece, and the sun shone warmly and merrily in the clear sky.

“Will you go to your lady as soon as we arrive?” asked Mayakin, unexpectedly, interrupting their business talk.

“I will,” said Foma, shortly, and with displeasure.

“Mm. Tell me, how often do you give her presents?” asked Mayakin, plainly and somewhat intimately.

“What presents? What for?” Foma wondered.

“You make her no presents? You don’t say. Does she live with you then merely so, for love’s sake?”

Foma boiled up with anger and shame, turned abruptly toward the old man and said reproachfully:

“Eh! You are an old man, and yet you speak so that it is a shame to listen to you! To say such a thing! Do you think she would come down to this?”

Mayakin smacked his lips and sang out in a mournful voice:

“What a blockhead you are! What a fool!” and suddenly grown angry, he spat out: “Shame upon you! All sorts of brutes drank out of the pot, nothing but the dregs remained, and now a fool has made a god unto himself of this dirty pot. Devil! You just go up to her and tell her plainly: ‘I want to be your lover. I am a young man, don’t charge me much for it.’”

“Godfather!” said Foma, sternly, in a threatening voice, “I cannot bear to hear such words. If it were someone else.”

“But who except myself would caution you? Good God!” Mayakin cried out, clasping his hands. “So she has led you by the nose all winter long! What a nose! What a beast she is!”

The old man was agitated; in his voice rang vexation, anger, even tears Foma had never before seen him in such a state, and looking at him, he was involuntarily silent.

“She will ruin you! Oh Lord! The Babylonian prostitute!”

Mayakin’s eyes were blinking, his lips were trembling, and in rude, cynical words he began to speak of Medinskaya, irritated, with a wrathful jar in his voice.

Foma felt that the old man spoke the truth. He now began to breathe with difficulty and he felt that his mouth had a dry, bitter taste.

“Very well, father, enough,” he begged softly and sadly, turning aside from Mayakin.

“Eh, you ought to get married as soon as possible!” exclaimed the old man with alarm.

“For Christ’s sake, do not speak,” uttered Foma in a dull voice.

Mayakin glanced at his godson and became silent. Foma’s face looked drawn; he grew pale, and there was a great deal of painful, bitter stupor in his half-open lips and in his sad look. On the right and on the left of the road a field stretched itself, covered here and there with patches of winter-raiment. Rooks were hopping busily about over the black spots, where the snow had melted. The water under the sledge-runners was splashing, the muddy snow was kicked up by the hoofs of the horses.

“How foolish man is in his youth!” exclaimed Mayakin, in a low voice. Foma did not look at him.

“Before him stands the stump of a tree, and yet he sees the snout of a beast – that’s how he frightens himself. Oh, oh!”

“Speak more plainly,” said Foma, sternly.

“What is there to say? The thing is clear: girls are cream; women are milk; women are near, girls are far. Consequently, go to Sonka, if you cannot do without it, and tell her plainly. That’s how the matter stands. Fool! If she is a sinner, you can get her more easily. Why are you so angry, then? Why so bristled up?”

“You don’t understand,” said Foma, in a low voice.

“What is it I do not understand? I understand everything!”

“The heart. Man has a heart,” sighed the youth.

Mayakin winked his eyes and said:

“Then he has no mind.”

CHAPTER VI

WHEN Foma arrived in the city he was seized with sad, revengeful anger. He was burning with a passionate desire to insult Medinskaya, to abuse her. His teeth firmly set together, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, he walked for a few hours in succession about the deserted rooms of his house, he sternly knitted his brow, and constantly threw his chest forward. His breast was too narrow to hold his heart, which was filled with wrath. He stamped the floor with heavy and measured steps, as though he were forging his anger.

“The vile wretch – disguised herself as an angel!” Pelageya vividly arose in his memory, and he whispered malignantly and bitterly:

“Though a fallen woman, she is better. She did not play the hypocrite. She at once unfolded her soul and her body, and her heart is surely just as her breast – white and sound.”

Sometimes Hope would whisper timidly in his ear:

“Perhaps all that was said of her was a lie.”

But he recalled the eager certainty of his godfather, and the power of his words, and this thought perished. He set his teeth more firmly together and threw his chest still more forward. Evil thoughts like splinters of wood stuck into his heart, and his heart was shattered by the acute pain they caused.

By disparaging Medinskaya, Mayakin made her more accessible to his godson, and Foma soon understood this. A few days passed, and Foma’s agitated feelings became calm, absorbed by the spring business cares. The sorrow for the loss of the individual deadened the spite he owed the woman, and the thought of the woman’s accessibility increased his passion for her. And somehow, without perceiving it himself, he suddenly understood and resolved that he ought to go up to Sophya Pavlovna and tell her plainly, openly, just what he wanted of her – that’s all! He even felt a certain joy at this resolution, and he boldly started off to Medinskaya, thinking on the way only how to tell her best all that was necessary.

The servants of Medinskaya were accustomed to his visits, and to his question whether the lady was at home the maid replied:

“Please go into the drawing-room. She is there alone.”

He became somewhat frightened, but noticing in the mirror his stately figure neatly clad with a frock-coat, and his swarthy, serious face in a frame of a downy black beard, set with large dark eyes – he raised his shoulders and confidently stepped forward through the parlour. Strange sounds of a string instrument were calmly floating to meet him; they seemed to burst into quiet, cheerless laughter, complaining of something, tenderly stirring the heart, as though imploring it for attention and having no hopes of getting it. Foma did not like to hear music – it always filled him with sadness. Even when the “machine” in the tavern played some sad tune, his heart filled with melancholy anguish, and he would either ask them to stop the “machine” or would go away some little distance feeling that he could not listen calmly to these tunes without words, but full of lamentation and tears. And now he involuntarily stopped short at the door of the drawing-room.

A curtain of long strings of parti-coloured glass beads hung over the door. The beads had been strung so as to form a fantastic figure of some kind of plants; the strings were quietly shaking and it seemed that pale shadows of flowers were soaring in the air. This transparent curtain did not hide the inside of the drawing-room from Foma’s eyes. Seated on a couch in her favourite corner, Medinskaya played the mandolin. A large Japanese umbrella, fastened up to the wall, shaded the little woman in black by its mixture of colours; the high bronze lamp under a red lamp-shade cast on her the light of sunset. The mild sounds of the slender strings were trembling sadly in the narrow room, which was filled with soft and fragrant twilight. Now the woman lowered the mandolin on her knees and began running her fingers over the strings, also to examine fixedly something before her. Foma heaved a sigh.

A soft sound of music soared about Medinskaya, and her face was forever changing as though shadows were falling on it, falling and melting away under the flash of her eyes.

Foma looked at her and saw that when alone she was not quite so good-looking as in the presence of people – now her face looked older, more serious – her eyes had not the expression of kindness and gentleness, they had a rather tired and weary look. And her pose, too, was weary, as if the woman were about to stir but could not. Foma noticed that the feeling which prompted him to come to her was now changing in his heart into some other feeling. He scraped with his foot along the floor and coughed.

“Who is that?” asked the woman, starting with alarm. And the strings trembled, issuing an alarmed sound.

“It is I,” said Foma, pushing aside the strings of the beads.

“Ah! But how quietly you’ve entered. I am glad to see you. Be seated! Why didn’t you come for such a long time?”

Holding out her hand to him, she pointed with the other at a small armchair beside her, and her eyes were gaily smiling.

“I was out on the bay inspecting my steamers,” said Foma, with exaggerated ease, moving his armchair nearer to the couch.

“Is there much snow yet on the fields?”

“As much as one may want. But it is already melting considerably. There is water on the roads everywhere.”

He looked at her and smiled. Evidently Medinskaya noticed the ease of his behaviour and something new in his smile, for she adjusted her dress and drew farther away from him. Their eyes met – and Medinskaya lowered her head.

“Melting!” said she, thoughtfully, examining the ring on her little finger.

“Ye-es, streams everywhere.” Foma informed her, admiring his boots.

“That’s good. Spring is coming.”

“Now it won’t be delayed long.”

“Spring is coming,” repeated Medinskaya, softly, as if listening to the sounds of her words.

“People will start to fall in love,” said Foma, with a smile, and for some reason or other firmly rubbed his hands.

“Are you preparing yourself?” asked Medinskaya, drily.

“I have no need for it. I have been ready long ago. I am already in love for all my life.”

She cast a glance at him, and started to play again, looking at the strings and saying pensively:

“Spring. How good it is that you are but beginning to live. The heart is full of power, and there is nothing dark in it.”

“Sophya Pavlovna!” exclaimed Foma, softly. She interrupted him with a caressing gesture.

“Wait, dearest! Today I can tell you something good. Do you know, a person who has lived long has such moments that when he looks into his heart he unexpectedly finds there something long forgotten. For years it lay somewhere in the depth of his heart, but lost none of the fragrance of youth, and when memory touches it, then spring comes over that person, breathing upon him the vivifying freshness of the morning of his life. This is good, though it is very sad.”

The strings trembled and wept under the touch of her fingers, and it seemed to Foma that their sounds and the soft voice of the woman were touching his heart gently and caressingly. But, still firm in his decision, he listened to her words and, not knowing their meaning, thought:

“You may speak! And I won’t believe anything you may say.”

This thought irritated him. And he felt sorry that he could not listen to her words as attentively and trustfully as before.

“Are you thinking of how it is necessary to live?” asked the woman.

“Sometimes I think of it, and then I forget again. I have no time for it!” said Foma and smiled. “And then, what is there to think of? It is simple. You see how others live. Well, consequently, you must imitate them.”

“Ah, don’t do this! Spare yourself. You are so good! There is something peculiar in you; what – I do not know. But it can be felt. And it seems to me, it will be very hard for you to get along in life. I am sure, you will not go along the usual way of the people of your circle. No! You cannot be pleased with a life which is wholly devoted to gain, to hunts after the rouble, to this business of yours. Oh, no! I know, you will have a desire for something else, will you not?”

She spoke quickly, with a look of alarm in her eyes. Looking at her, Foma thought:

“What is she driving at?”

And he answered her slowly:

“Perhaps I will have a desire for something else. Perhaps I have it already.”

Drawing up closer to him, she looked into his face and spoke convincingly:

“Listen! Do not live like all other people! Arrange your life somehow differently. You are strong, young. You are good!”

“And if I am good then there must be good for me!” exclaimed Foma, feeling that he was seized with agitation, and that his heart was beginning to beat with anxiety.

“Ah, but that is not the case! Here on earth it is worse for the good people than for the bad ones!” said Medinskaya, sadly.

And again the trembling notes of music began to dance at the touch of her fingers. Foma felt that if he did not start to say at once what was necessary, he would tell her nothing later.

“God bless me!” he said to himself, and in a lowered voice, strengthening his heart, began:

“Sophya Pavlovna! Enough! I have something to say. I have come to tell you: ‘Enough!’ We must deal fairly, openly. At first you have attracted me to yourself, and now you are fencing away from me. I cannot understand what you say. My mind is dull, but I can feel that you wish to hide yourself. I can see it – do you understand now what brought me here?”

His eyes began to flash and with each word his voice became warmer and louder. She moved her body forward and said with alarm:

“Oh, cease.”

“No, I won’t, I will speak!”

“I know what you want to say.”

“You don’t know it all!” said Foma, threateningly, rising to his feet. “But I know everything about you – everything.”

“Yes? Then the better it is for me,” said Medinskaya, calmly.

She also arose from the couch, as though about to go away somewhere, but after a few seconds she again seated herself on the couch. Her face was serious, her lips were tightly compressed, but her eyes were lowered, and Foma could not see their expression. He thought that when he told her, “I know everything about you!” she would be frightened, she would feel ashamed and confused, would ask his forgiveness for having made sport of him. Then he would embrace her and forgive her. But that was not the case; it was he who was confused by her calmness. He looked at her, searching for words to resume his speech, but found them not.

“It is better,” she repeated firmly and drily. “So you have learned everything, have you? And, of course, you’ve censured me, as I deserve. I understand. I am guilty before you. But no, I cannot justify myself.”

She became silent and suddenly, lifting her hands with a nervous gesture, clasped her head, and began to adjust her hair.

Foma heaved a deep sigh. Her words had killed in him a certain hope – a hope, whose presence in his heart he only felt now that it was dead. And shaking his head, he said, with bitter reproach:

“There was a time when I looked at you and thought, ‘How beautiful she is, how good, the dove!’ And now you say yourself, ‘I am guilty.’ Ah!”

The voice of the youth broke down. And the woman began to laugh softly.

“How fine and how ridiculous you are, and what a pity that you cannot understand all this!”

The youth looked at her, feeling himself disarmed by her caressing words and melancholy smile. That cold, harsh something, which he had in his heart against her, was now melting before the warm light of her eyes. The woman now seemed to him small, defenseless, like a child. She was saying something in a gentle voice as though imploring, and forever smiling, but he paid no attention to her words.

“I’ve come to you,” said he, interrupting her words, “without pity. I meant to tell you everything. And yet I said nothing. I don’t feel like doing it. My heart sank. You are breathing upon me so strangely. Eh, I should not have seen you! What are you to me? It would be better for me to go away, it seems.”

“Wait, dearest, don’t go away!” said the woman, hastily, holding out her hand to him. “Why so severe? Do not be angry at me! What am I to you? You need a different friend, a woman just as simple-minded and sound-souled as you are. She must be gay, healthy. I – I am already an old woman. I am forever worrying. My life is so empty and so weary, so empty! Do you know, when a person has grown accustomed to live merrily, and then cannot be merry, he feels bad! He desires to live cheerfully, he desires to laugh, yet he does not laugh – it is life that is laughing at him. And as to men. Listen! Like a mother, I advise you, I beg and implore you – obey no one except your own heart! Live in accordance with its promptings. Men know nothing, they cannot tell you anything that is true. Do not heed them.”

Trying to speak as plainly and intelligibly as possible, she was agitated, and her words came incoherently hurriedly one after another. A pitiful smile played on her lips all the time, and her face was not beautiful.

“Life is very strict. It wants all people to submit to its requests, and only the very strong ones can resist it with impunity. It is yet questionable whether they can do it! Oh, if you knew how hard it is to live. Man goes so far that he begins to fear his own self. He is split into judge and criminal – he judges his own self and seeks justification before himself. And he is willing to pass days and nights with those that despise him, and that are repulsive to him – just to avoid being alone with himself.”

Foma lifted his head and said distrustfully, with surprise:

“I cannot understand what it is! Lubov also says the same.”

“Which Lubov? What does she say?”

“My foster-sister. She says the same, – she is forever complaining of life. It is impossible to live, she says.”

“Oh, she is yet young! And it is a great happiness that she already speaks of this.”

“Happiness!” Foma drawled out mockingly. “It must be a fine happiness that makes people sigh and complain.”

“You’d better listen to complaints. There is always much wisdom in these complaints of men. Oh! There is more wisdom in these complaints than anywhere else. You listen to these, – they will teach you to find your way.”

Foma heard the woman’s voice, which sounded convincing; and perplexed, looked about him. Everything had long been familiar to him, but today it looked somewhat new to him. A mass of trifles filled the room, all the walls were covered with pictures and shelves, bright and beautiful objects were staring from every corner. The reddish light of the lamp filled one with melancholy. Twilight wrapped everything in the room, and only here and there the gold of the frames, or the white spots of marble flashed dimly. Heavy fabrics were motionlessly hanging before the doors. All this embarrassed and almost choked Foma; he felt as though he had lost his way. He was sorry for the woman. But she also irritated him.

“Do you hear how I speak to you? I wish I were your mother, or your sister. Never before did anybody awaken in me so warm and kindred a feeling as you have done. And you, you look at me in such an unfriendly way. Do you believe me? Yes? No?”

He looked at her and said with a sigh:

“I don’t know. I used to believe you.”

“And now?” she asked hastily.

“And now – it is best for me to go! I don’t understand anything, and yet I long to understand. I do not even understand myself. On my way to you I knew what to say, and here all is confused. You have put me up on the rack, you have set me on edge. And then you tell me – ‘I am as a mother to you’ – which means – begone!”

“Understand me, I feel sorry for you!” the woman exclaimed softly.

Foma’s irritation against her was growing stronger and stronger, and as he went on speaking to her, his words became absurd. While he spoke, he kept on moving his shoulders as though tearing something that entangled him.

“Sorry? What for? I do not need it. Eh, I cannot speak well! It is bad to be dumb. But – I would have told you! You did not treat me properly – indeed, why have you so enticed a man? Am I a plaything for you?”

“I only wanted to see you by my side,” said the woman simply, in a guilty voice.

He did not hear these words.

“And when it came to the point, you were frightened and you shut yourself off from me. You began to repent. Ha, ha! Life is bad! And why are you always complaining of some life? What life? Man is life, and except man there is no life. You have invented some other monster. You have done this to deceive the eye, to justify yourself. You do some mischief, you lose yourself in different inventions and foolishnesses and then you sigh! Ah, life! Oh, life! And have you not done it yourself? And covering yourself with complaints, you confuse others. You have lost your way, very well, but why do you want to lead me astray? Is it wickedness that speaks in you: ‘I feel bad,’ you say, ‘let him also feel bad – there, I’ll besprinkle his heart with my poisonous tears!’ Isn’t that so? Eh! God has given you the beauty of an angel, but your heart – where is it?”

Standing before her, he trembled in every limb, and examined her from head to foot with reproachful looks. Now his words came freely from his heart, he spoke not loud, but with power and pleasure. Her head raised, the woman stared into his face, with wide-open eyes. Her lips were trembling and deep wrinkles appeared at the corners of her mouth.

“A beautiful person should lead a good life. While of you they say things.” Foma’s voice broke down; he raised his hand and concluded in a dull voice:

“Goodbye!”

“Goodbye!” said Medinskaya, softly.

He did not give her his hand, but, turning abruptly, he walked away from her. But already at the door he felt that he was sorry for her, and he glanced at her across his shoulder. There, in the corner, she stood alone, her head bent, her hands hanging motionless.

Understanding that he could not leave her thus, he became confused, and said softly, but without repenting:

“Perhaps I said something offensive – forgive me! For after all I love you,” and he heaved a deep sigh.

The woman burst into soft, nervous laughter.

“No, you have not offended me. God speed you.”

“Well, then goodbye!” repeated Foma in a still lower voice.

“Yes,” replied the woman, also in a low voice.

Foma pushed aside the strings of beads with his hand; they swung back noisily and touched his cheeks. He shuddered at this cold touch and went out, carrying away a heavy, perplexed feeling in his breast, with his heart beating as though a soft but strong net were cast over it.

It was night by this time; the moon was shining and the frost covered the puddles with coatings of dull silver. Foma walked along the sidewalk, he broke these with his cane, and they cracked mournfully. The shadows of the houses fell on the road in black squares, and the shadows of the trees – in wonderful patterns. And some of them looked like thin hands, helplessly clutching the ground.

“What is she doing now?” thought Foma, picturing to himself the woman, alone, in the corner of a narrow room, in the reddish half-light.

“It is best for me to forget her,” he decided. But he could not forget her; she stood before him, provoking in him now intense pity, now irritation and even anger. And her image was so clear, and the thoughts of her were so painful, as though he was carrying this woman in his breast. A cab was coming from the opposite side, filling the silence of the night with the jarring of the wheels on the cobble-stones and with their creaking on the ice. When the cab was passing across a moonlit strip, the noise was louder and more brisk, and in the shadows it was heavier and duller. The driver and the passenger in it were shaking and hopping about; for some reason or other they both bent forward and together with the horse formed one big, black mass. The street was speckled with spots of light and shade, but in the distance the darkness seemed thick as though the street were fenced off by a wall, rising from earth to the skies. Somehow it occurred to Foma that these people did not know whither they were going. And he, too, did not know whither he was going. His house rose before his imagination – six big rooms, where he lived alone. Aunt Anfisa had gone to the cloister, perhaps never to return – she might die there. At home were Ivan, the old deaf dvornik, the old maid, Sekleteya, his cook and servant, and a black, shaggy dog, with a snout as blunt as that of a sheat-fish. And the dog, too, was old.

“Perhaps I really ought to get married,” thought Foma, with a sigh.

But the very thought of how easy it was for him to get married made him ill at ease, and even ridiculous in his own eyes. It were but necessary to ask his godfather tomorrow for a bride, – and before a month would pass, a woman would live with him in his house. And she would be near him day and night. He would say to her: “Let’s go for a walk!” and she would go. He would tell her: “Let’s go to sleep!” and again she would go. Should she desire to kiss him, she would kiss him, even though he did not like it. And if he should tell her: “Go away, I don’t want it,” she would feel offended. What would he speak to her about? What would she tell him? He thought and pictured to himself young ladies of his acquaintance, daughters of merchants. Some of them were very pretty, and he knew that any one of them would marry him willingly. But he did not care to have any of them as his wife. How awkward and shameful it must be when a girl becomes a wife. And what does the newly-married couple say to each other after the wedding, in the bedroom? Foma tried to think what he would say in such a case, and confused, he began to laugh, finding no appropriate words. Then he recalled Luba Mayakin. She would surely be first to say something, uttering some unintelligible words, which were foreign to herself. Somehow it seemed to him that all her words were foreign, and she did not speak as was proper for a girl of her age, appearance and descent.

And here his thoughts rested on Lubov’s complaints. His gait became slower; he was now astounded by the fact that all the people that were near to him and with whom he talked a great deal, always spoke to him of life. His father, his aunt, his godfather, Lubov, Sophya Pavlovna, all these either taught him to understand life, or complained of it. He recalled the words said by the old man on the steamer about Fate, and many other remarks on life, reproaches and bitter complaints against it, which he happened to hear from all sorts of people.

“What does it mean?” he thought, “what is life, if it is not man? And man always speaks as if life were something else, something outside of man, and that something hinders him from living. Perhaps it is the devil?”

A painful feeling of fear fell on the youth; he shuddered and hastily looked around. The street was deserted and quiet; the dark windows of the houses stared dimly into the dark of night, and along the walls and fences Foma’s shadow followed him.

“Driver!” he cried out aloud, quickening his steps. The shadow started and crawled after him, frightened, black, silent. It seemed to Foma that there was a cold breath behind him, and that something huge, invisible, and terrible was overtaking him. Frightened, he almost ran to meet the cab, which appeared noisily from the darkness, and when he seated himself in the cab, he dared not look back, though he wished to do so.

CHAPTER VII

ABOUT a week passed since Foma spoke to Medinskaya. And her image stood fixedly before Foma by night and by day, awakening in his heart a gnawing feeling of anxiety. He longed to go to her, and was so much afflicted over her that even his bones were aching from the desire of his heart to be near her again. But he was sternly silent; he frowned and did not care to yield to this desire, industriously occupying himself with his affairs and provoking in himself a feeling of anger against the woman. He felt that if he went up to her, he would no longer find her to be the same as he had left her; something must have changed within her after that conversation, and she would no longer receive him as cordially as before, would not smile at him the clear smile that used to awaken in him strange thoughts and hopes. Fearing that all this was lost and that something else must have taken its place, he restrained himself and suffered.

His work and his longing for the woman did not hinder him from thinking of life. He did not philosophize about this enigma, which was already stirring a feeling of alarm in his heart; he was not able to argue, but he began to listen attentively to everything that men said of life, and he tried to remember their words. They did not make anything clear to him; nay, they increased his perplexity and prompted him to regard them suspiciously. They were clever, cunning and sensible – he saw it; in dealings with them it was always necessary to be on one’s guard; he knew already that in important matters none of them spoke as they thought. And watching them carefully, he felt that their sighs and their complaints of life awakened in him distrust. Silently he looked at everybody with suspicion, and a thin wrinkle masked his forehead.

One morning his godfather said to him on the Exchange:

“Anany has arrived. He would like to see you. Go up to him toward evening, and see that you hold your tongue. Anany will try to loosen it in order to make you talk on business matters. He is cunning, the old devil; he is a holy fox; he’ll lift his eyes toward heaven, and meanwhile will put his paw into your pocket and grab your purse. Be on your guard.”

“Do we owe him anything?” asked Foma.

“Of course! We haven’t paid yet for the barge, and then fifty five-fathom beams were taken from him not long ago. If he wants everything at once – don’t give. A rouble is a sticky thing; the longer it turns about in your hand, the more copecks will stick to it. A rouble is like a good pigeon – it goes up in the air, you turn around and see – it has brought a whole flock with it into the pigeon-house.”

“But how can we help paying it now, if he demands it?”

“Let him cry and ask for it – and you roar – but don’t give it to him.”

“I’ll go up there soon.”

Anany Savvich Shchurov was a rich lumber-dealer, had a big saw-mill, built barges and ran rafts. He had had dealings with Ignat, and Foma had more than once seen this tall, heavily-bearded, long-armed, white-haired old man, who kept himself as erect as a pine-tree. His big, handsome figure, his open face and his clear eyes called forth in Foma a feeling of respect for Shchurov, although he heard it rumoured that this lumber-dealer had gained his wealth not by honest toil and that he was leading an evil life at home, in an obscure village of the forest district; and Ignat had told Foma that when Shchurov was young and was but a poor peasant, he sheltered a convict in the bath-house, in his garden, and that there the convict made counterfeit money for him. Since that time Anany began to grow rich. One day his bathhouse burned down, and in the ashes they discovered the corpse of a man with a fractured skull. There was a rumour in the village that Shchurov himself had killed his workman – killed and then burned him. Such things had happened more than once with the good-looking old man; but similar rumours were on foot with reference to many a rich man in town – they had all, it was said, hoarded up their millions by way of robberies, murders and, mainly, by passing counterfeit money. Foma had heard such stories in his childhood and he never before considered whether they were true or not.

He also knew that Shchurov had got rid of two wives – one of them died during the first night of the wedding, in Anany’s embraces. Then he took his son’s wife away from him, and his son took to drink for grief and would have perished in drunkenness had he not come to himself in time and gone off to save himself in a hermitage, in Irgiz. And when his mistress-daughter-in-law had passed away, Shchurov took into his house a dumb beggar-girl, who was living with him to this day, and who had recently borne him a dead child. On his way to the hotel, where Anany stayed, Foma involuntarily recalled all this, and felt that Shchurov had become strangely interesting to him.

When Foma opened the door and stopped respectfully on the threshold of the small room, whose only window overlooked the rusty roof of the neighbouring house, he noticed that the old Shchurov had just risen from sleep, and sitting on his bed, leaning his hands against it, he stared at the ground; and he was so bent that his long, white beard fell over his knees. But even bent, he was large.

“Who entered?” asked Anany in a hoarse and angry voice, without lifting his head.

“I. How do you do, Anany Savvich?”

The old man raised his head slowly and, winking his large eyes, looked at Foma.

“Ignat’s son, is that right?”

“The same.”

“Well, come over here, sit down by the window. Let me see how you’ve grown up. Will you not have a glass of tea with me?”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

“Waiter!” cried the old man, expanding his chest, and, taking his beard in his hand, he began to examine Foma in silence. Foma also looked at him stealthily.

The old man’s lofty forehead was all covered with wrinkles, and its skin was dark. Gray, curly locks covered his temples and his sharp-pointed ears; his calm blue eyes lent the upper part of his face a wise and good expression. But his cheeks and his lips were thick and red, and seemed out of place on his face. His thin, long nose was turned downward as though it wished to hide itself in his white moustache; the old man moved his lips, and from beneath them small, yellow teeth were gleaming. He had on a pink calico shirt, a silk belt around his waist, and black, loose trousers, which were tucked into his boots. Foma stared at his lips and thought that the old man was surely such as he was said to be.

“As a boy you looked more like your father,” said Shchurov suddenly, and sighed. Then, after a moment’s silence, he asked: “Do you remember your father? Do you ever pray for him? You must, you must pray!” he went on, after he heard Foma’s brief answer. “Ignat was a terrible sinner, and he died without repentance, taken unawares. He was a great sinner!”

“He was not more sinful than others,” replied Foma, angrily, offended in his father’s behalf.

“Than who, for instance?” demanded Shchurov, strictly.

“Are there not plenty of sinners?”

“There is but one man on earth more sinful than was the late Ignat – and that is that cursed heathen, your godfather Yashka,” ejaculated the old man.

“Are you sure of it?” inquired Foma, smiling.

“I? Of course, I am!” said Shchurov, confidently, nodding his head, and his eyes became somewhat darker. “I will also appear before the Lord, and that not sinless. I shall bring with me a heavy burden before His holy countenance. I have been pleasing the devil myself, only I trust to God for His mercy, while Yashka believes in nothing, neither in dreams, nor in the singing of birds. Yashka does not believe in God, this I know! And for his non-belief he will yet receive his punishment on earth.”

“Are you sure of this, too?”

“Yes, I am. And don’t you think I also know that you consider it ludicrous to listen to me. What a sagacious fellow, indeed! But he who has committed many sins is always wise. Sin is a teacher. That’s why Yashka Mayakin is extraordinarily clever.”

Listening to the old man’s hoarse and confident voice, Foma thought:

“He is scenting death, it seems.”

The waiter, a small man, with a face which was pale and characterless, brought in the samovar and quickly hastened out of the room, with short steps. The old man was undoing some bundles on the window-sill and said, without looking at Foma:

“You are bold, and the look of your eyes is dark. Before, there used to be more light-eyed people, because then the souls used to be brighter. Before, everything was simpler – both the people and the sins, and now everything has become complicated. Eh, eh!”

He made tea, seated himself opposite Foma and went on again:

“Your father at your age was a water-pumper and stayed with the fleet near our village. At your age Ignat was as clear to me as glass. At a single glance you could tell what sort of a man he was. While you – here I am looking at you, but cannot see what you are. Who are you? You don’t know it yourself, my lad, and that’s why you’ll suffer. Everybody nowadays must suffer, because they do not know themselves. Life is a mass of wind-fallen trees, and you must know how to find your way through it. Where is it? All are going astray, and the devil is delighted. Are you married?”

“Not yet,” said Foma.

“There again, you are not married, and yet, I’m quite sure, you are not pure any longer. Well, are you working hard in your business?”

“Sometimes. Meanwhile I am with my godfather.”

“What sort of work is it you have nowadays?” said the old man, shaking his head, and his eyes were constantly twinkling, now turning dark, now brightening up again. “You have no labour now! In former years the merchant travelled with horses on business. Even at night, in snowstorms, he used to go! Murderers used to wait for him on the road and kill him. And he died a martyr, washing his sins away with blood. Now they travel by rail; they are sending telegrams, or they’ve even invented something that a man may speak in his office and you can hear him five miles away. There the devil surely has a hand in it! A man sits, without motion, and commits sins merely because he feels lonesome, because he has nothing to do: the machine does all his work. He has no work, and without toil man is ruined! He has provided himself with machines and thinks it is good! While the machine is the devil’s trap for you. He thus catches you in it. While toiling, you find no time for sin, but having a machine – you have freedom. Freedom kills a man, even as the sunbeams kill the worm, the dweller of the depth of earth. Freedom kills man!”

And pronouncing his words distinctly and positively, the old Anany struck the table four times with his finger. His face beamed triumphantly, his chest rose high, and over it the silver hair of his beard shook noiselessly. Dread fell on Foma as he looked at him and listened to his words, for there was a ring of firm faith in them, and it was the power of this faith that confused Foma. He had already forgotten all he knew about the old man, all of which he had but a while ago believed to be true.

“Whoever gives freedom to his body, kills his soul!” said Anany, looking at Foma so strangely as if he saw behind him somebody, who was grieved and frightened by his words; and whose fear and pain delighted him. “All you people of today will perish through freedom. The devil has captured you – he has taken toil away from you, and slipped machines and telegrams into your hands. How freedom eats into the souls of men! Just tell me, why are the children worse than their fathers? Because of their freedom, yes. That’s why they drink and lead depraved lives with women. They have less strength because they have less work, and they have not the spirit of cheerfulness because they have no worries. Cheerfulness comes in time of rest, while nowadays no one is getting tired.”

“Well,” said Foma, softly, “they were leading depraved lives and drinking just as much in former days as now, I suppose.”

“Do you know it? You should keep silence!” cried Anany, flashing his eyes sternly. “In former days man had more strength, and the sins were according to his strength. While you, of today, have less strength, and more sins, and your sins are more disgusting. Then men were like oak-trees. And God’s judgment will also be in accordance with their strength. Their bodies will be weighed, and angels will measure their blood, and the angels of God will see that the weight of the sins does not exceed the weight of the body and the blood. Do you understand? God will not condemn the wolf for devouring a sheep, but if a miserable rat should be guilty of the sheep’s death, God will condemn the rat!”

“How can a man tell how God will judge man?” asked Foma, thoughtfully. “A visible trial is necessary.”

“Why a visible trial?”

“That people might understand.”

“Who, but the Lord, is my judge?”

Foma glanced at the old man and lowering his head, became silent. He again recalled the fugitive convict, who was killed and burnt by Shchurov, and again he believed that it really was so. And the women – his wives and his mistresses – had surely been hastened toward their graves by this old man’s caresses; he had crushed them with his bony chest, drunk the sap of their life with these thick lips of his which were scarlet yet from the clotted blood of the women, who died in the embraces of his long sinewy arms. And now, awaiting death, which was already somewhere beside him, he counts his sins, judges others, and perhaps judges himself, and says:

“Who, but the Lord, is my judge?”

“Is he afraid or not?” Foma asked himself and became pensive, stealthily scrutinising the old man.

“Yes, my lad! Think,” spoke Shchurov, shaking his head, “think, how you are to live. The capital in your heart is small, and your habits are great, see that you are not reduced to bankruptcy before your own self! Ho-ho-ho!”

“How can you tell what and how much I have within my heart?” said Foma, gloomily, offended by his laughter.

“I can see it! I know everything, because I have lived long! Oh-ho-ho! How long I have lived! Trees have grown up and been cut down, and houses built out of them, and even the houses have grown old. While I have seen all this and am still alive, and when, at times, I recall my life, I think, ‘Is it possible that one man could accomplish so much? Is it possible that I have witnessed all this?’” The old man glanced at Foma sternly, shook his head and became silent.

It became quiet. Outside the window something was softly rustling on the roof of the house; the rattle of wheels and the muffled sounds of conversation were heard from below, from the street. The samovar on the table sang a sad tune. Shchurov was fixedly staring into his glass of tea, stroking his beard, and one could hear that something rattled in his breast, as if some burden was turning about in it.

“It’s hard for you to live without your father, isn’t it?” said he.

“I am getting used to it,” replied Foma.

“You are rich, and when Yakov dies, you will be richer still. He’ll leave everything to you.”

“I don’t need it.”

“To whom else should he leave it? He has but one daughter, and you ought to marry that daughter, and that she is your godsister and foster-sister – no matter! That can be arranged – and then you would be married. What good is there in the life you are now leading? I suppose you are forever running about with the girls?”

“No.”

“You don’t say! Eh, eh, eh! the merchant is passing away. A certain forester told me – I don’t know whether he lied or not – that in former days the dogs were wolves, and then degenerated into dogs. It is the same with our calling; we will soon also be dogs. We will take up science, put stylish hats on our heads, we’ll do everything that is necessary in order to lose our features, and there will be nothing by which to distinguish us from other people. It has become a custom to make Gymnasium students of all children. The merchants, the nobles, the commoners – all are adjusted to match the same colour. They dress them in gray and teach them all the same subjects. They grow man even as they grow a tree. Why do they do it? No one knows. Even a log could be told from another by its knot at least, while here they want to plane the people over so that all of them should look alike. The coffin is already waiting for us old people. Ye-es! It may be that about fifty years hence, no one will believe that I lived in this world. I, Anany, the son of Savva, by the surname of Shchurov. So! And that I, Anany, feared no one, save God. And that in my youth I was a peasant, that all the land I possessed then was two desyatins and a quarter; while toward my old age I have hoarded up eleven thousand desyatins, all forests, and perhaps two millions in cash.”

“There, they always speak of money!” said Foma, with dissatisfaction. “What joy does man derive from money?” “Mm,” bellowed Shchurov. “You will make a poor merchant, if you do not understand the power of money.”

“Who does understand it?” asked Foma.

“I!” said Shchurov, with confidence. “And every clever man. Yashka understands it. Money? That is a great deal, my lad! Just spread it out before you and think, ‘What does it contain?’ Then will you know that all this is human strength, human mind. Thousands of people have put their life into your money and thousands more will do it. And you can throw it all into the fire and see how the money is burning, and at that moment you will consider yourself master.”

“But nobody does this.”

“Because fools have no money. Money is invested in business. Business gives bread to the masses. And you are master over all those masses. Wherefore did God create man? That man should pray to Him. He was alone and He felt lonesome, so He began to desire power, and as man was created in the image of the Lord, man also desires power. And what, save money, can give power? That’s the way. Well, and you – have you brought me money?”

“No,” answered Foma. From the words of the old man Foma’s head was heavy and troubled, and he was glad that the conversation had, at last, turned to business matters.

“That isn’t right,” said Shchurov, sternly knitting his brow. “It is overdue – you must pay.

“You’ll get a half of it tomorrow.”

“Why a half? Why not all?”

“We are badly in need of money now.”

“And haven’t you any? But I also need it.”

“Wait a little.”

“Eh, my lad, I will not wait! You are not your father. Youngsters like you, milksops, are an unreliable lot. In a month you may break up the whole business. And I would be the loser for it. You give me all the money tomorrow, or I’ll protest the notes. It wouldn’t take me long to do it!”

“I feel that everything is dark and narrow about me,” said Gordyeeff. “I feel that a burden is falling on my shoulders, but what it is I cannot understand! It puts a restraint on me, and it checks the freedom of my movements along the road of life. Listening to people, you hear that each says a different thing. But she could have said – ”

“Eh, my dear boy!” Ookhtishchev interrupted Foma, gently taking his arm. “That isn’t right! You have just started to live and already you are philosophizing! No, that is not right! Life is given us to live! Which means – live and let others live. That’s the philosophy! And that woman. Bah! Is she then the only one in the world? The world is large enough. If you wish, I’ll introduce you to such a virile woman, that even the slightest trace of your philosophy would at once vanish from your soul! Oh, a remarkable woman! And how well she knows how to avail herself of life! Do you know, there’s also something epic about her? She is beautiful; a Phryne, I may say, and what a match she would be to you! Ah, devil! It is really a splendid idea. I’ll make you acquainted with her! We must drive one nail out with another.”

“My conscience does not allow it,” said Foma, sadly and sternly. “So long as she is alive, I cannot even look at women.”

“Such a robust and healthy young man. Ho, ho!” exclaimed Ookhtishchev, and in the tone of a teacher began to argue with Foma that it was essential for him to give his passion an outlet in a good spree, in the company of women.

“This will be magnificent, and it is indispensable to you. You may believe me. And as to conscience, you must excuse me. You don’t define it quite properly. It is not conscience that interferes with you, but timidity, I believe. You live outside of society. You are bashful, and awkward. Youare dimly conscious of all this, and it is this consciousness that you mistake for conscience. In this case there can be no question about conscience. What has conscience to do here, since it is natural for man to enjoy himself, since it is his necessity and his right?”

Foma walked on, regulating his steps to those of his companion, and staring along the road, which lay between two rows of buildings, resembled an enormous ditch, and was filled with darkness. It seemed that there was no end to the road and that something dark, inexhaustible and suffocating was slowly flowing along it in the distance. Ookhtishchev’s kind, suasive voice rang monotonously in Foma’s ears, and though he was not listening to his words, he felt that they were tenacious in their way; that they adhered to him, and that he was involuntarily memorizing them. Notwithstanding that a man walked beside him, he felt as though he were alone, straying in the dark. And the darkness seized him and slowly drew him along, and he felt that he was drawn somewhere, and yet had no desire to stop. Some sort of fatigue hindered his thinking; there was no desire in him to resist the admonitions of his companion – and why should he resist them?

“It isn’t for everyone to philosophize,” said Ookhtishchev, swinging his cane in the air, and somewhat carried away by his wisdom. “For if everybody were to philosophize, who would live? And we live but once! And therefore it were best to make haste to live. By God! That’s true! But what’s the use of talking? Would you permit me to give you a shaking up? Let’s go immediately to a pleasure-house I know. Two sisters live there. Ah, how they live! You will come?”

“Well, I’ll go,” said Foma, calmly, and yawned. “Isn’t it rather late?” he asked, looking up at the sky which was covered with clouds.

“It’s never too late to go to see them!” exclaimed Ookhtishchev, merrily.

CHAPTER VIII

ON the third day after the scene in the club, Foma found himself about seven versts from the town, on the timber-wharf of the merchant Zvantzev, in the company of the merchant’s son of Ookhtishchev – a sedate, bald-headed and red-nosed gentleman with side whiskers – and four ladies. The young Zvantzev wore eyeglasses, was thin and pale, and when he stood, the calves of his legs were forever trembling as though they were disgusted at supporting the feeble body, clad in a long, checked top-coat with a cape, in whose folds a small head in a jockey cap was comically shaking. The gentleman with the side whiskers called him Jean and pronounced this name as though he was suffering from an inveterate cold. Jean’s lady was a tall, stout woman with a showy bust. Her head was compressed on the sides, her low forehead receded, her long, sharp-pointed nose gave her face an expression somewhat bird-like. And this ugly face was perfectly motionless, and the eyes alone, small, round and cold, were forever smiling a penetrating and cunning smile. Ookhtishchev’s lady’s name was Vera; she was a tall, pale woman with red hair. She had so much hair, that it seemed as though the woman had put on her head an enormous cap which was coming down over her ears, her cheeks and her high forehead, from under which her large blue eyes looked forth calmly and lazily.

The gentleman with the side whiskers sat beside a young, plump, buxom girl, who constantly giggled in a ringing voice at something which he whispered in her ear as he leaned over her shoulder.

And Foma’s lady was a stately brunette, clad all in black. Dark-complexioned, with wavy locks, she kept her head so erect and high and looked at everything about her with such condescending haughtiness, that it was at once evident that she considered herself the most important person there.

The company were seated on the extreme link of the raft, extending far into the smooth expanse of the river. Boards were spread out on the raft and in the centre stood a crudely constructed table; empty bottles, provision baskets, candy-wrappers and orange peels were scattered about everywhere. In the corner of the raft was a pile of earth, upon which a bonfire was burning, and a peasant in a short fur coat, squatting, warmed his hands over the fire, and cast furtive glances at the people seated around the table. They had just finished eating their sturgeon soup, and now wines and fruits were before them on the table.

Fatigued with a two-days’ spree and with the dinner that had just been finished, the company was in a weary frame of mind. They all gazed at the river, chatting, but their conversation was now and again interrupted by long pauses.

The day was clear and bright and young, as in spring. The cold, clear sky stretched itself majestically over the turbid water of the gigantically-wide, overflowing river, which was as calm as the sky and as vast as the sea. The distant, mountainous shore was tenderly bathed in bluish mist. Through it, there, on the mountain tops, the crosses of churches were flashing like big stars. The river was animated at the mountainous shore; steamers were going hither and thither, and their noise came in deep moans toward the rafts and into the meadows, where the calm flow of the waves filled the air with soft and faint sounds. Gigantic barges stretched themselves one after another against the current, like huge pigs, tearing asunder the smooth expanse of the river. Black smoke came in ponderous puffs from the chimneys of the steamers, slowly melting in the fresh air, which was full of bright sunshine. At times a whistle resounded – it was like the roar of some huge, enraged animal, embittered by toil. And on the meadows near the rafts, all was calm and silent. Solitary trees that had been drowned by the flood, were now already covered with light-green spangles of foliage. Covering their roots and reflecting their tops, the water gave them the appearance of globes, and it seemed as though the slightest breeze would send them floating, fantastically beautiful, down the mirror-like bosom of the river.

The red-haired woman, pensively gazing into the distance, began to sing softly and sadly:

“Along the Volga river A little boat is flo-o-oating.”

The brunette, snapping her large, stern eyes with contempt, said, without looking at her: “We feel gloomy enough without this.”

“Don’t touch her. Let her sing!” entreated Foma, kindly, looking into his lady’s face. He was pale some spark seemed to flash up in his eyes now and then, and an indefinite, indolent smile played about his lips.

“Let us sing in chorus!” suggested the man with the side whiskers.

“No, let these two sing!” exclaimed Ookhtishchev with enthusiasm. “Vera, sing that song! You know, ‘I will go at dawn.’ How is it? Sing, Pavlinka!”

The giggling girl glanced at the brunette and asked her respectfully:

“Shall I sing, Sasha?”

“I shall sing myself,” announced Foma’s companion, and turning toward the lady with the birdlike face, she ordered:

“Vassa, sing with me!”

Vassa immediately broke off her conversation with Zvantzev, stroked her throat a little with her hand and fixed her round eyes on the face of her sister. Sasha rose to her feet, leaned her hand against the table, and her head lifted haughtily, began to declaim in a powerful, almost masculine voice:

“Life on earth is bright to him, Who knows no cares or woe, And whose heart is not consumed By passion’s ardent glow!”

Her sister nodded her head and slowly, plaintively began to moan in a deep contralto:

“Ah me! Of me the maiden fair.”

Flashing her eyes at her sister, Sasha exclaimed in her low-pitched notes:

“Like a blade of grass my heart has withered.”

The two voices mingled and floated over the water in melodious, full sounds, which quivered from excess of power. One of them was complaining of the unbearable pain in the heart, and intoxicated by the poison of its plaint, it sobbed with melancholy and impotent grief; sobbed, quenching with tears the fire of the suffering. The other – the lower, more masculine voice – rolled powerfully through the air, full of the feeling of bloody mortification and of readiness to avenge. Pronouncing the words distinctly, the voice came from her breast in a deep stream, and each word reeked with boiling blood, stirred up by outrage, poisoned by offence and mightily demanding vengeance.

 
“I will requite him,”
 

sang Vassa, plaintively, closing her eyes.

 
“I will inflame him,
I’ll dry him up,”
 

Sasha promised sternly and confidently, wafting into the air strong, powerful tones, which sounded like blows. And suddenly, changing the tempo of the song and striking a higher pitch, she began to sing, as slowly as her sister, voluptuous and exultant threats:

“Drier than the raging wind, Drier than the mown-down grass, Oi, the mown and dried-up grass.”

Resting his elbows on the table, Foma bent his head, and with knitted brow, gazed into the face of the woman, into her black, half-shut eyes Staring fixedly into the distance, her eyes flashed so brightly and malignantly that, because of their light, the velvety voice, that burst from the woman’s chest, seemed to him also black and flashing, like her eyes. He recalled her caresses and thought:

“How does she come to be such as she is? It is even fearful to be with her.”

Ookhtishchev, sitting close to his lady, an expression of happiness on his face, listened to the song and was radiant with satisfaction. The gentleman with the side whiskers and Zvantzev were drinking wine, softly whispering something as they leaned toward each other. The red-headed woman was thoughtfully examining the palm of Ookhtishchev’s hand, holding it in her own, and the jolly girl became sad. She drooped her head low and listened to the song, motionless, as though bewitched by it. From the fire came the peasant. He stepped carefully over the boards, on tiptoe; his hands were clasped behind his back, and his broad, bearded face was now transformed into a smile of astonishment and of a naive delight.

“Eh! but feel, my kind, brave man!”

entreated Vassa, plaintively, nodding her head. And her sister, her chest bent forward, her hand still higher, wound up the song in powerful triumphant notes:

“The yearning and the pangs of love!”

When she finished singing, she looked haughtily about her, and seating herself by Foma’s side, clasped his neck with a firm and powerful hand.

“Well, was it a nice song?”

“It’s capital!” said Foma with a sigh, as he smiled at her.

The song filled his heart with thirst for tenderness and, still full of charming sounds, it quivered, but at the touch of her arm he felt awkward and ashamed before the other people.

“Bravo-o! Bravo, Aleksandra Sarelyevna!” shouted Ookhtishchev, and the others were clapping their hands. But she paid no attention to them, and embracing Foma authoritatively, said:

“Well, make me a present of something for the song.”

“Very well, I will,” Foma assented.

“What?”

“You tell me.”

“I’ll tell you when we come to town. And if you’ll give me what I like – Oh, how I will love you!”

“For the present?” asked Foma, smiling suspiciously. “You ought to love me anyway.”

She looked at him calmly and, after a moment’s thought, said resolutely:

“It’s too soon to love you anyway. I will not lie. Why should I lie to you? I am telling you frankly. I love you for money, for presents. Because aside from money, men have nothing. They cannot give anything more than money. Nothing of worth. I know it well already. One can love merely so. Yes, wait a little – I’ll know you better and then, perhaps, I may love you free of charge. And meanwhile, you mustn’t take me amiss. I need much money in my mode of life.”

Foma listened to her, smiled and now and then quivered from the nearness of her sound, well-shaped body. Zvantzev’s sour, cracked and boring voice was falling on his ears. “I don’t like it. I cannot understand the beauty of this renowned Russian song. What is it that sounds in it? Eh? The howl of a wolf. Something hungry, wild. Eh! it’s the groan of a sick dog – altogether something beastly. There’s nothing cheerful, there’s no chic to it; there are no live and vivifying sounds in it. No, you ought to hear what and how the French peasant sings. Ah! or the Italian.”

“Excuse me, Ivan Nikolayevich,” cried Ookhtishchev, agitated.

“I must agree with you, the Russian song is monotonous and gloomy. It has not, you know, that brilliancy of culture,” said the man with the side whiskers wearily, as he sipped some wine out of his glass.

“But nevertheless, there is always a warm heart in it,” put in the red-haired lady, as she peeled an orange.

The sun was setting. Sinking somewhere far beyond the forest, on the meadow shore, it painted the entire forest with purple tints and cast rosy and golden spots over the dark cold water. Foma gazed in that direction at this play of the sunbeams, watched how they quivered as they were transposed over the placid and vast expanse of waters, and catching fragments of conversation, he pictured to himself the words as a swarm of dark butterflies, busily fluttering in the air. Sasha, her head resting on his shoulder, was softly whispering into his ear something at which he blushed and was confused, for he felt that she was kindling in him the desire to embrace this woman and kiss her unceasingly. Aside from her, none of those assembled there interested him – while Zvantzev and the gentleman with the side whiskers were actually repulsive to him.

“What are you staring at? Eh?” he heard Ookhtishchev’s jestingly-stern voice.

The peasant, at whom Ookhtishchev shouted, drew the cap from his head, clapped it against his knee and answered, with a smile:

“I came over to listen to the lady’s song.”

“Well, does she sing well?”

“What a question! Of course,” said the peasant, looking at Sasha, with admiration in his eyes.

“That’s right!” exclaimed Ookhtishchev.

“There is a great power of voice in that lady’s breast,” said the peasant, nodding his head.

At his words, the ladies burst out laughing and the men made some double-meaning remarks about Sasha.

After she had calmly listened to these and said nothing in reply, Sasha asked the peasant:

“Do you sing?”

“We sing a little!” and he waved his hand, “What songs do you know?”

“All kinds. I love singing.” And he smiled apologetically.

“Come, let’s sing something together, you and I.”

“How can we? Am I a match for you?”

“Well, strike up!”

“May I sit down?”

“Come over here, to the table.”

“How lively this is!” exclaimed Zvantzev, wrinkling his face.

“If you find it tedious, go and drown yourself,” said Sasha, angrily flashing her eyes at him.

“No, the water is cold,” replied Zvantzev, shrinking at her glance.

“As you please!” The woman shrugged her shoulders. “But it is about time you did it, and then, there’s also plenty of water now, so that you wouldn’t spoil it all with your rotten body.”

“Fie, how witty!” hissed the youth, turning away from her, and added with contempt: “In Russia even the prostitutes are rude.”

He addressed himself to his neighbour, but the latter gave him only an intoxicated smile in return. Ookhtishchev was also drunk. Staring into the face of his companion, with his eyes grown dim, he muttered something and heard nothing. The lady with the bird-like face was pecking candy, holding the box under her very nose. Pavlinka went away to the edge of the raft and, standing there, threw orange peels into the water.

“I never before participated in such an absurd outing and – company,” said Zvantzev, to his neighbour, plaintively.

And Foma watched him with a smile, delighted that this feeble and ugly-looking man felt bored, and that Sasha had insulted him. Now and then he cast at her a kind glance of approval. He was pleased with the fact that she was so frank with everybody and that she bore herself proudly, like a real gentlewoman.

The peasant seated himself on the boards at her feet, clasped his knees in his hands, lifted his face to her and seriously listened to her words.

“You must raise your voice, when I lower mine, understand?”

“I understand; but, Madam, you ought to hand me some just to give me courage!”

“Foma, give him a glass of brandy!”

And when the peasant emptied it, cleared his throat with pleasure, licked his lips and said: “Now, I can do it,” she ordered, knitting her brow:

“Begin!”

The peasant made a wry mouth, lifted his eyes to her face, and started in a high-pitched tenor:

“I cannot drink, I cannot eat.”

Trembling in every limb, the woman sobbed out tremulously, with strange sadness:

“Wine cannot gladden my soul.”

The peasant smiled sweetly, tossed his head to and fro, and closing his eyes, poured out into the air a tremulous wave of high-pitched notes:

“Oh, time has come for me to bid goodbye!”

And the woman, shuddering and writhing, moaned and wailed:

“Oi, from my kindred I must part.”

Lowering his voice and swaying to and fro, the peasant declaimed in a sing-song with a remarkably intense expression of anguish:

“Alas, to foreign lands I must depart.”

When the two voices, yearning and sobbing, poured forth into the silence and freshness of the evening, everything about them seemed warmer and better; everything seemed to smile the sorrowful smile of sympathy on the anguish of the man whom an obscure power is tearing away from his native soil into some foreign place, where hard labour and degradation are in store for him. It seemed as though not the sounds, nor the song, but the burning tears of the human heart in which the plaint had surged up – it seemed as though these tears moistened the air. Wild grief and pain from the sores of body and soul, which were wearied in the struggle with stern life; intense sufferings from the wounds dealt to man by the iron hand of want – all this was invested in the simple, crude words and was tossed in ineffably melancholy sounds toward the distant, empty sky, which has no echo for anybody or anything.

Foma had stepped aside from the singers, and stared at them with a feeling akin to fright, and the song, in a huge wave, poured forth into his breast, and the wild power of grief, with which it had been invested, clutched his heart painfully. He felt that tears would soon gush from his breast, something was clogging his throat and his face was quivering. He dimly saw Sasha’s black eyes; immobile and flashing gloomily, they seemed to him enormous and still growing larger and larger. And it seemed to him that it was not two persons who were singing – that everything about him was singing and sobbing, quivering and palpitating in torrents of sorrow, madly striving somewhere, shedding burning tears, and all – and all things living seemed clasped in one powerful embrace of despair. And it seemed to him that he, too, was singing in unison with all of them – with the people, the river and the distant shore, whence came plaintive moans that mingled with the song.

Now the peasant went down on his knees, and gazing at Sasha, waved his hands, and she bent down toward him and shook her head, keeping time to the motions of his hands. Both were now singing without words, with sounds only, and Foma still could not believe that only two voices were pouring into the air these moans and sobs with such mighty power.

When they had finished singing, Foma, trembling with excitement, with a tear-stained face, gazed at them and smiled sadly.

“Well, did it move you?” asked Sasha. Pale with fatigue, she breathed quickly and heavily.

Foma glanced at the peasant. The latter was wiping the sweat off his brow and looking around him with such a wandering look as though he could not make out what had taken place.

All was silence. All were motionless and speechless.

“Oh Lord!” sighed Foma, rising to his feet. “Eh, Sasha! Peasant! Who are you?” he almost shouted.

“I am – Stepan,” said the peasant, smiling confusedly, and also rose to his feet. “I’m Stepan. Of course!”

“How you sing! Ah!” Foma exclaimed in astonishment, uneasily shifting from foot to foot.

“Eh, your Honour!” sighed the peasant and added softly and convincingly: “Sorrow can compel an ox to sing like a nightingale. And what makes the lady sing like this, only God knows. And she sings, with all her veins – that is to say, so you might just lie down and die with sorrow! Well, that’s a lady.”

“That was sung very well!” said Ookhtishchev in a drunken voice.

“No, the devil knows what this is!” Zvantzev suddenly shouted, almost crying, irritated as he jumped up from the table. “I’ve come out here for a good time. I want to enjoy myself, and here they perform a funeral service for me! What an outrage! I can’t stand this any longer. I’m going away!”

“Jean, I am also going. I’m weary, too,” announced the gentleman with the side whiskers.

“Vassa,” cried Zvantzev to his lady, “dress yourself!”

“Yes, it’s time to go,” said the red-haired lady to Ookhtishchev. “It is cold, and it will soon be dark.”

“Stepan! Clear everything away!” commanded Vassa.

All began to bustle about, all began to speak of something. Foma stared at them in suspense and shuddered. Staggering, the crowd walked along the rafts. Pale and fatigued, they said to one another stupid, disconnected things. Sasha jostled them unceremoniously, as she was getting her things together.

“Stepan! Call for the horses!”

“And I’ll drink some more cognac. Who wants some more cognac with me?” drawled the gentleman with the side whiskers in a beatific voice, holding a bottle in his hands.

Vassa was muffling Zvantzev’s neck with a scarf. He stood in front of her, frowning, dissatisfied, his lips curled capriciously, the calves of his legs shivering. Foma became disgusted as he looked at them, and he went off to the other raft. He was astonished that all these people behaved as though they had not heard the song at all. In his breast the song was alive and there it called to life a restless desire to do something, to say something. But he had no one there to speak to.

The sun had set and the distance was enveloped in blue mist. Foma glanced thither and turned away. He did not feel like going to town with these people, neither did he care to stay here with them. And they were still pacing the raft with uneven steps, shaking from side to side and muttering disconnected words. The women were not quite as drunk as the men, and only the red-haired one could not lift herself from the bench for a long time, and finally, when she rose, she declared:

“Well, I’m drunk.”

Foma sat down on a log of wood, and lifting the axe, with which the peasant had chopped wood for the fire, he began to play with it, tossing it up in the air and catching it.

“Oh, my God! How mean this is!” Zvantzev’s capricious voice was heard.

Foma began to feel that he hated it, and him, and everybody, except Sasha, who awakened in him a certain uneasy feeling, which contained at once admiration for her and a fear lest she might do something unexpected and terrible.

“Brute!” shouted Zvantzev in a shrill voice, and Foma noticed that he struck the peasant on the chest, after which the peasant removed his cap humbly and stepped aside.

“Fo-o-ol!” cried Zvantzev, walking after him and lifting his hand.

Foma jumped to his feet and said threateningly, in a loud voice:

“Eh, you! Don’t touch him!”

“Wha-a-at?” Zvantzev turned around toward him.

“Stepan, come over here,” called Foma.

“Peasant!” Zvantzev hurled with contempt, looking at Foma.

Foma shrugged his shoulders and made a step toward him; but suddenly a thought flashed vividly through his mind! He smiled maliciously and inquired of Stepan, softly:

“The string of rafts is moored in three places, isn’t it?

“In three, of course!”

“Cut the connections!”

“And they?”

“Keep quiet! Cut!”

“But – ”

“Cut! Quietly, so they don’t notice it!”

The peasant took the axe in his hands, slowly walked up to the place where one link was well fastened to another link, struck a few times with his axe, and returned to Foma.

“I’m not responsible, your Honour,” he said.

“Don’t be afraid.”

“They’ve started off,” whispered the peasant with fright, and hastily made the sign of the cross. And Foma gazed, laughing softly, and experienced a painful sensation that keenly and sharply stung his heart with a certain strange, pleasant and sweet fear.

The people on the raft were still pacing to and fro, moving about slowly, jostling one another, assisting the ladies with their wraps, laughing and talking, and the raft was meanwhile turning slowly and irresolutely in the water.

“If the current carries them against the fleet,” whispered the peasant, “they’ll strike against the bows – and they’ll be smashed into splinters.”

“Keep quiet!”

“They’ll drown!”

“You’ll get a boat, and overtake them.”

“That’s it! Thank you. What then? They’re after all human beings. And we’ll be held responsible for them.” Satisfied now, laughing with delight, the peasant dashed in bounds across the rafts to the shore. And Foma stood by the water and felt a passionate desire to shout something, but he controlled himself, in order to give time for the raft to float off farther, so that those drunken people would not be able to jump across to the moored links. He experienced a pleasant caressing sensation as he saw the raft softly rocking upon the water and floating off farther and farther from him every moment. The heavy and dark feeling, with which his heart had been filled during this time, now seemed to float away together with the people on the raft. Calmly he inhaled the fresh air and with it something sound that cleared his brain. At the very edge of the floating raft stood Sasha, with her back toward Foma; he looked at her beautiful figure and involuntarily recalled Medinskaya. The latter was smaller in size. The recollection of her stung him, and he cried out in a loud, mocking voice:

“Eh, there! Good-bye! Ha! ha! ha!”

Suddenly the dark figures of the people moved toward him and crowded together in one group, in the centre of the raft. But by this time a clear strip of water, about three yards wide, was flashing between them and Foma.

There was a silence lasting for a few seconds.

Then suddenly a hurricane of shrill, repulsively pitiful sounds, which were full of animal fright, was hurled at Foma, and louder than all and more repulsive than all, Zvantzev’s shrill, jarring cry pierced the ear:

“He-e-elp!”

Some one – in all probability, the sedate gentleman with the side whiskers – roared in his basso:

“Drowning! They’re drowning people!”

“Are you people?” cried Foma, angrily, irritated by their screams which seemed to bite him. And the people ran about on the raft in the madness of fright; the raft rocked under their feet, floated faster on account of this, and the agitated water was loudly splashing against and under it. The screams rent the air, the people jumped about, waving their hands, and the stately figure of Sasha alone stood motionless and speechless on the edge of the raft.

“Give my regards to the crabs!” cried Foma. Foma felt more and more cheerful and relieved in proportion as the raft was floating away from him.

“Foma Ignatyevich!” said Ookhtishchev in a faint, but sober voice, “look out, this is a dangerous joke. I’ll make a complaint.”

“When you are drowned? You may complain!” answered Foma, cheerfully.

“You are a murderer!” exclaimed Zvantzev, sobbing. But at this time a ringing splash of water was heard as though it groaned with fright or with astonishment. Foma shuddered and became as though petrified. Then rang out the wild, deafening shrieks of the women, and the terror-stricken screams of men, and all the figures on the raft remained petrified in their places. And Foma, staring at the water, felt as though he really were petrified. In the water something black, surrounded with splashes, was floating toward him.

Rather instinctively than consciously, Foma threw himself with his chest on the beams of the raft, and stretched out his hands, his head hanging down over the water. Several incredibly long seconds passed. Cold, wet arms clasped his neck and dark eyes flashed before him. Then he understood that it was Sasha.

The dull horror, which had suddenly seized him, vanished, replaced now by wild, rebellious joy. Having dragged the woman out of the water, he grasped her by the waist, clasped her to his breast, and, not knowing what to say to her, he stared into her eyes with astonishment. She smiled at him caressingly.

“I am cold,” said Sasha, softly, and quivered in every limb.

Foma laughed gaily at the sound of her voice, lifted her into his arms and quickly, almost running, dashed across the rafts to the shore. She was wet and cold, but her breathing was hot, it burned Foma’s cheek and filled his breast with wild joy.

“You wanted to drown me?” said she, firmly, pressing close to him. “It was rather too early. Wait!”

“How well you have done it,” muttered Foma, as he ran.

“You’re a fine, brave fellow! And your device wasn’t bad, either, though you seem to be so peaceable.”

“And they are still roaring there, ha! ha!”

“The devil take them! If they are drowned, we’ll be sent to Siberia,” said the woman, as though she wanted to console and encourage him by this. She began to shiver, and the shudder of her body, felt by Foma, made him hasten his pace.

Sobs and cries for help followed them from the river. There, on the placid water, floated in the twilight a small island, withdrawing from the shore toward the stream of the main current of the river, and on that little island dark human figures were running about.

Night was closing down upon them.

CHAPTER IX

ONE Sunday afternoon, Yakov Tarasovich Mayakin was drinking tea in his garden and talking to his daughter. The collar of his shirt unbuttoned, a towel wound round his neck, he sat on a bench under a canopy of verdant cherry-trees, waved his hands in the air, wiped the perspiration off his face, and incessantly poured forth into the air his brisk speech.

“The man who permits his belly to have the upper hand over him is a fool and a rogue! Is there nothing better in the world than eating and drinking? Upon what will you pride yourself before people, if you are like a hog?”

The old man’s eyes sparkled irritably and angrily, his lips twisted with contempt, and the wrinkles of his gloomy face quivered.

“If Foma were my own son, I would have made a man of him!”

Playing with an acacia branch, Lubov mutely listened to her father’s words, now and then casting a close and searching look in his agitated, quivering face. Growing older, she changed, without noticing it, her suspicious and cold relation toward the old man. In his words she now began to find the same ideas that were in her books, and this won her over on her father’s side, involuntarily causing the girl to prefer his live words to the cold letters of the book. Always overwhelmed with business affairs, always alert and clever, he went his own way alone, and she perceived his solitude, knew how painful it was, and her relations toward her father grew in warmth. At times she even entered into arguments with the old man; he always regarded her remarks contemptuously and sarcastically; but more tenderly and attentively from time to time.

“If the deceased Ignat could read in the newspapers of the indecent life his son is leading, he would have killed Foma!” said Mayakin, striking the table with his fists. “How they have written it up! It’s a disgrace!”

“He deserves it,” said Lubov.

“I don’t say it was done at random! They’ve barked at him, as was necessary. And who was it that got into such a fit of anger?”

“What difference does it make to you?” asked the girl.

“It’s interesting to know. How cleverly the rascal described Foma’s behaviour. Evidently he must have been with him and witnessed all the indecency himself.”

“Oh, no, he wouldn’t go with Foma on a spree!’ said Lubov, confidently, and blushed deeply at her father’s searching look.

“So! You have fine acquaintances, Lubka!” said Mayakin with humorous bitterness. “Well, who wrote it?”

“What do you wish to know it for, papa?”

“Come, tell me!”

She had no desire to tell, but the old man persisted, and his voice was growing more and more dry and angry. Then she asked him uneasily:

“And you will not do him any ill for it?”

“I? I will – bite his head off! Fool! What can I do to him? They, these writers, are not a foolish lot and are therefore a power – a power, the devils! And I am not the governor, and even he cannot put one’s hand out of joint or tie one’s tongue. Like mice, they gnaw us little by little. And we have to poison them not with matches, but with roubles. Yes! Well, who is it?”

“Do you remember, when I was going to school, a Gymnasium student used to come up to us. Yozhov? Such a dark little fellow!”

“Mm! Of course, I saw him. I know him. So it’s he?”

“Yes.”

“The little mouse! Even at that time one could see already that something wrong would come out of him. Even then he stood in the way of other people. A bold boy he was. I should have looked after him then. Perhaps, I might have made a man of him.”

Lubov looked at her father, smiled inimically, and asked hotly:

“And isn’t he who writes for newspapers a man?”

For a long while, the old man did not answer his daughter. Thoughtfully, he drummed with his fingers against the table and examined his face, which was reflected in the brightly polished brass of the samovar. Then he raised his head, winked his eyes and said impressively and irritably:

“They are not men, they are sores! The blood of the Russian people has become mixed, it has become mixed and spoiled, and from the bad blood have come all these book and newspaper-writers, these terrible Pharisees. They have broken out everywhere, and they are still breaking out, more and more. Whence comes this spoiling of the blood? From slowness of motion. Whence the mosquitoes, for instance? From the swamp. All sorts of uncleanliness multiply in stagnant waters. The same is true of a disordered life.”

“That isn’t right, papa!” said Lubov, softly.

“What do you mean by – not right?”

“Writers are the most unselfish people, they are noble personalities! They don’t want anything – all they strive for is justice – truth! They’re not mosquitoes.”

Lubov grew excited as she lauded her beloved people; her face was flushed, and her eyes looked at her father with so much feeling, as though imploring him to believe her, being unable to convince him.

“Eh, you!” said the old man, with a sigh, interrupting her. “You’ve read too much! You’ve been poisoned! Tell me – who are they? No one knows! That Yozhov – what is he? Only God knows. All they want is the truth, you say? What modest people they are! And suppose truth is the very dearest thing there is? Perhaps everybody is seeking it in silence? Believe me – man cannot be unselfish. Man will not fight for what belongs not to him, and if he does fight – his name is ‘fool,’ and he is of no use to anybody. A man must be able to stand up for himself, for his own, then will he attain something! Here you have it! Truth! Here I have been reading the same newspaper for almost forty years, and I can see well – here is my face before you, and before me, there on the samovar is again my face, but it is another face. You see, these newspapers give a samovar face to everything, and do not see the real one. And yet you believe them. But I know that my face on the samovar is distorted. No one can tell the real truth; man’s throat is too delicate for this. And then, the real truth is known to nobody.”

“Papa!” exclaimed Lubov, sadly, “But in books and in newspapers they defend the general interests of all the people.”

“And in what paper is it written that you are weary of life, and that it was time for you to get married? So, there your interest is not defended! Eh! You! Neither is mine defended. Who knows what I need? Who, but myself, understands my interests?”

“No, papa, that isn’t right, that isn’t right! I cannot refute you, but I feel that this isn’t right!” said Lubov almost with despair.

“It is right!” said the old man, firmly. “Russia is confused, and there is nothing steadfast in it; everything is staggering! Everybody lives awry, everybody walks on one side, there’s no harmony in life. All are yelling out of tune, in different voices. And not one understands what the other is in need of! There is a mist over everything – everybody inhales that mist, and that’s why the blood of the people has become spoiled – hence the sores. Man is given great liberty to reason, but is not permitted to do anything – that’s why man does not live; but rots and stinks.”

“What ought one to do, then?” asked Lubov, resting her elbows on the table and bending toward her father.

“Everything!” cried the old man, passionately. “Do everything. Go ahead! Let each man do whatever he knows best! But for that liberty must be given to man – complete freedom! Since there has come a time, when everyraw youth believes that he knows everything and was created for the complete arrangement of life – give him, give the rogue freedom! Here, Carrion, live! Come, come, live! Ah! Then such a comedy will follow; feeling that his bridle is off, man will then rush up higher than his ears, and like a feather will fly hither and thither. He’ll believe himself to be a miracle worker, and then he’ll start to show his spirit.”

The old man paused awhile and, lowering his voice, went on, with a malicious smile:

“But there is very little of that creative spirit in him! He’ll bristle up for a day or two, stretch himself on all sides – and the poor fellow will soon grow weak. For his heart is rotten – he, he, he! Here, he, he, he! The dear fellow will be caught by the real, worthy people, by those real people who are competent to be the actual civil masters, who will manage life not with a rod nor with a pen, but with a finger and with brains.

“What, they will say. Have you grown tired, gentlemen? What, they will say, your spleens cannot stand a real fire, can they? So – ” and, raising his voice, the old man concluded his speech in an authoritative tone:

“Well, then, now, you rabble, hold your tongues, and don’t squeak! Or we’ll shake you off the earth, like worms from a tree! Silence, dear fellows! Ha, ha, ha! That’s how it’s going to happen, Lubavka! He, he, he!”

The old man was in a merry mood. His wrinkles quivered, and carried away by his words, he trembled, closed his eyes now and then, and smacked his lips as though tasting his own wisdom.

“And then those who will take the upper hand in the confusion will arrange life wisely, after their own fashion. Then things won’t go at random, but as if by rote. It’s a pity that we shall not live to see it!”

The old man’s words fell one after another upon Lubov like meshes of a big strong net – they fell and enmeshed her, and the girl, unable to free herself from them, maintained silence, dizzied by her father’s words. Staring into his face with an intense look, she sought support for herself in his words and heard in them something similar to what she had read in books, and which seemed to her the real truth. But the malignant, triumphant laughter of her father stung her heart, and the wrinkles, which seemed to creep about on his face like so many dark little snakes, inspired her with a certain fear for herself in his presence. She felt that he was turning her aside from what had seemed so simple and so easy in her dreams.

“Papa!” she suddenly asked the old man, in obedience to a thought and a desire that unexpectedly flashed through her mind. “Papa! and what sort of a man – what in your opinion is Taras?”

Mayakin shuddered. His eyebrows began to move angrily, he fixed his keen, small eyes on his daughter’s face and asked her drily:

“What sort of talk is this?”

“Must he not even be mentioned?” said Lubov, softly and confusedly.

I don’t want to speak of him – and I also advise you not to speak of him! “ – the old man threatened her with his finger and lowered his head with a gloomy frown. But when he said that he did not want to speak of his son, he evidently did not understand himself correctly, for after a minute’s silence he said sternly and angrily:

“Taraska, too, is a sore. Life is breathing upon you, milksops, and you cannot discriminate its genuine scents, and you swallow all sorts of filth, wherefore there is trouble in your heads. That’s why you are not competent to do anything, and you are unhappy because of this incompetence. Taraska. Yes. He must be about forty now. He is lost to me! A galley-slave – is that my son? A blunt-snouted young pig. He would not speak to his father, and – he stumbled.”

“What did he do?” asked Lubov, eagerly listening to the old man’s words.

“Who knows? It may be that now he cannot understand himself, if he became sensible, and he must have become a sensible man; he’s the son of a father who’s not stupid, and then he must have suffered not a little. They coddle them, the nihilists! They should have turned them over to me. I’d show them what to do. Into the desert! Into the isolated places – march! Come, now, my wise fellows, arrange life there according to your own will! Go ahead! And as authorities over them I’d station the robust peasants. Well, now, honourable gentlemen, you were given to eat and to drink, you were given an education – what have you learned? Pay your debts, pray. Yes, I would not spend a broken grosh on them. I would squeeze all the price out of them – give it up! You must not set a man at naught. It is not enough to imprison him! You transgressed the law, and are a gentleman? Never mind, you must work. Out of a single seed comes an ear of corn, and a man ought not be permitted to perish without being of use! An economical carpenter finds a place for each and every chip of wood – just so must every man be profitably used up, and used up entire, to the very last vein. All sorts of trash have a place in life, and man is never trash. Eh! it is bad when power lives without reason, nor is it good when reason lives without power. Take Foma now. Who is coming there – give a look.”

Turning around, Lubov noticed the captain of the “Yermak,” Yefim, coming along the garden path. He had respectfully removed his cap and bowed to her. There was a hopelessly guilty expression on his face and he seemed abashed. Yakov Tarasovich recognized him and, instantly grown alarmed, he cried:

“Where are you coming from? What has happened?”

“I – I have come to you!” said Yefim, stopping short at the table, with a low bow.

“Well, I see, you’ve come to me. What’s the matter? Where’s the steamer?”

“The steamer is there!” Yefim thrust his hand somewhere into the air and heavily shifted from one foot to the other.

“Where is it, devil? Speak coherently – what has happened?” cried the old man, enraged.

“So – a misfortune, Yakov.”

“Have you been wrecked?”

“No, God saved us.”

“Burned up? Well, speak more quickly.”

Yefim drew air into his chest and said slowly:

“Barge No. 9 was sunk – smashed up. One man’s back was broken, and one is altogether missing, so that he must have drowned. About five more were injured, but not so very badly, though some were disabled.”

“So-o!” drawled out Mayakin, measuring the captain with an ill-omened look.

“Well, Yefimushka, I’ll strip your skin off.”

“It wasn’t I who did it!” said Yefim, quickly.

“Not you?” cried the old man, shaking with rage. “Who then?”

“The master himself.”

“Foma? And you. Where were you?”

“I was lying in the hatchway.”

“Ah! You were lying.”

“I was bound there.”

“Wha-at?” screamed the old man in a shrill voice.

“Allow me to tell you everything as it happened. He was drunk and he shouted: “‘Get away! I’ll take command myself!’ I said ‘I can’t! I am the captain.’ ‘Bind him!’ said he. And when they had bound me, they lowered me into the hatchway, with the sailors. And as the master was drunk, he wanted to have some fun. A fleet of boats was coming toward us. Six empty barges towed by ‘Cheruigorez.’ So Foma Ignatyich blocked their way. They whistled. More than once. I must tell the truth – they whistled!”

“Well?”

“Well, and they couldn’t manage it – the two barges in front crashed into us. And as they struck the side of our ninth, we were smashed to pieces. And the two barges were also smashed. But we fared much worse.”

Mayakin rose from the chair and burst into jarring, angry laughter. And Yefim sighed, and, outstretching his hands, said: “He has a very violent character. When he is sober he is silent most of the time, and walks around thoughtfully, but when he wets his springs with wine – then he breaks loose. Then he is not master of himself and of his business – but their wild enemy – you must excuse me! And I want to leave, Yakov Tarasovich! I am not used to being without a master, I cannot live without a master!”

“Keep quiet!” said Mayakin, sternly. “Where’s Foma?”

“There; at the same place. Immediately after the accident, he came to himself and at once sent for workmen. They’ll lift the barge. They may have started by this time.”

“Is he there alone?” asked Mayakin, lowering his head.

“Not quite,” replied Yefim, softly, glancing stealthily at Lubov.

“Really?”

“There’s a lady with him. A dark one.”

“So.”

“It looks as though the woman is out of her wits,” said Yefim, with a sigh. “She’s forever singing. She sings very well. It’s very captivating.”

“I am not asking you about her!” cried Mayakin, angrily. The wrinkles of his face were painfully quivering, and it seemed to Lubov that her father was about to weep.

“Calm yourself, papa!” she entreated caressingly. “Maybe the loss isn’t so great.”

“Not great?” cried Yakov Tarasovich in a ringing voice. “What do you understand, you fool? Is it only that the barge was smashed? Eh, you! A man is lost! That’s what it is! And he is essential to me! I need him, dull devils that you are!” The old man shook his head angrily and with brisk steps walked off along the garden path leading toward the house.

And Foma was at this time about four hundred versts away from his godfather, in a village hut, on the shore of the Volga. He had just awakened from sleep, and lying on the floor, on a bed of fresh hay, in the middle of the hut, he gazed gloomily out of the window at the sky, which was covered with gray, scattered clouds.

The wind was tearing them asunder and driving them somewhere; heavy and weary, one overtaking another, they were passing across the sky in an enormous flock. Now forming a solid mass, now breaking into fragments, now falling low over the earth, in silent confusion, now again rising upward, one swallowed by another.

Without moving his head, which was heavy from intoxication, Foma lookedlong at the clouds and finally began to feel as though silent cloudswere also passing through his breast, – passing, breathing a dampcoldness upon his heart and oppressing him. There was something impotentin the motion of the clouds across the sky. And he felt the same withinhim. Without thinking, he pictured to himself all he had gone throughduring the past months. It seemed to him as though he had fallen into aturbid, boiling stream, and now he had been seized by dark waves, thatresembled these clouds in the sky; had been seized and carried awaysomewhere, even as the clouds were carried by the wind. In the darknessand the tumult which surrounded him, he saw as though through a mistthat certain other people were hastening together with him – to-day notthose of yesterday, new ones each day, yet all looking alike – equallypitiful and repulsive. Intoxicated, noisy, greedy, they flew abouthim as in a whirlwind, caroused at his expense, abused him, fought, screamed, and even wept more than once. And he beat them. He rememberedthat one day he had struck somebody on the face, torn someone’s coat offand thrown it into the water and that some one had kissed his hands withwet, cold lips as disgusting as frogs. Had kissed and wept, imploringhim not to kill. Certain faces flashed through his memory, certainsounds and words rang in it. A woman in a yellow silk waist, unfastenedat the breast, had sung in a loud, sobbing voice:

 
“And so let us live while we can
And then – e’en grass may cease to grow.”
 

All these people, like himself, grown wild and beastlike, were seized by the same dark wave and carried away like rubbish. All these people, like himself, must have been afraid to look forward to see whither this powerful, wild wave was carrying them. And drowning their fear in wine, they were rushing forward down the current struggling, shouting, doing something absurd, playing the fool, clamouring, clamouring, without ever being cheerful. He was doing the same, whirling in their midst. And now it seemed to him, that he was doing all this for fear of himself, in order to pass the sooner this strip of life, or in order not to think of what would be afterward.

Amid the burning turmoil of carouses, in the crowd of people, seized by debauchery, perplexed by violent passions, half-crazy in their longing to forget themselves – only Sasha was calm and contained. She never drank to intoxication, always addressed people in a firm, authoritative voice, and all her movements were equally confident, as though this stream had not taken possession of her, but she was herself mastering its violent course. She seemed to Foma the cleverest person of all those that surrounded him, and the most eager for noise and carouse; she held them all in her sway, forever inventing something new and speaking in one and the same manner to everybody; for the driver, the lackey and the sailor she had the same tone and the same words as for her friends and for Foma. She was younger and prettier than Pelageya, but her caresses were silent, cold. Foma imagined that deep in her heart she was concealing from everybody something terrible, that she would never love anyone, never reveal herself entire. This secrecy in the woman attracted him toward her with a feeling of timorous curiosity, of a great, strained interest in her calm, cold soul, which seemed even as dark as her eyes.

Somehow Foma said to her one day:

“But what piles of money you and I have squandered!”

She glanced at him, and asked:

“And why should we save it?”

“Indeed, why?” thought Foma, astonished by the fact that she reasoned so simply.

“Who are you?” he asked her at another occasion.

“Why, have you forgotten my name?”

“Well, the idea!”

“What do you wish to know then?”

“I am asking you about your origin.”

“Ah! I am a native of the province of Yaroslavl. I’m from Ooglich. I was a harpist. Well, shall I taste sweeter to you, now that you know who I am?”

“Do I know it?” asked Foma, laughing.

“Isn’t that enough for you? I shall tell you nothing more about it. What for? We all come from the same place, both people and beasts. And what is there that I can tell you about myself? And what for? All this talk is nonsense. Let’s rather think a little as to how we shall pass the day.”

On that day they took a trip on a steamer, with an orchestra of music, drank champagne, and every one of them got terribly drunk. Sasha sang a peculiar, wonderfully sad song, and Foma, moved by her singing, wept like a child. Then he danced with her the “Russian dance,” and finally, perspiring and fatigued, threw himself overboard in his clothes and was nearly drowned.

Now, recalling all this and a great deal more, he felt ashamed of himself and dissatisfied with Sasha. He looked at her well-shaped figure, heard her even breathing and felt that he did not love this woman, and that she was unnecessary to him. Certain gray, oppressive thoughts were slowly springing up in his heavy, aching head. It seemed to him as though everything he had lived through during this time was twisted within him into a heavy and moist ball, and that now this ball was rolling about in his breast, unwinding itself slowly, and the thin gray cords were binding him.

“What is going on in me?” he thought. “I’ve begun to carouse. Why? I don’t know how to live. I don’t understand myself. Who am I?”

He was astonished by this question, and he paused over it, attempting to make it clear to himself – why he was unable to live as firmly and confidently as other people do. He was now still more tortured. by conscience. More uneasy at this thought, he tossed about on the hay and irritated, pushed Sasha with his elbow.

“Be careful!” said she, although nearly asleep.

“It’s all right. You’re not such a lady of quality!” muttered Foma.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing.”

She turned her back to him, and said lazily, with a lazy yawn:

“I dreamed that I became a harpist again. It seemed to me that I was singing a solo, and opposite me stood a big, dirty dog, snarling and waiting for me to finish the song. And I was afraid of the dog. And I knew that it would devour me, as soon as I stopped singing. So I kept singing, singing. And suddenly it seemed my voice failed me. Horrible! And the dog is gnashing his teeth. Oh Lord, have mercy on me! What does it mean?”

“Stop your idle talk!” Foma interrupted her sternly. “You better tell me what you know about me.”

“I know, for instance, that you are awake now,” she answered, without turning to him.

“Awake? That’s true. I’ve awakened,” said Foma, thoughtfully and, throwing his arm behind his head, went on: “That’s why I am asking you. What sort of man do you think I am?”

“A man with a drunken headache,” answered Sasha, yawning.

“Aleksandra!” exclaimed Foma, beseechingly, “don’t talk nonsense! Tell me conscientiously, what do you think of me?”

“I don’t think anything!” she said drily. “Why are you bothering me with nonsense?”

“Is this nonsense?” said Foma, sadly. “Eh, you devils! This is the principal thing. The most essential thing to me.”

He heaved a deep sigh and became silent. After a minute’s silence, Sasha began to speak in her usual, indifferent voice:

“Tell him who he is, and why he is such as he is? Did you ever see! Is it proper to ask such questions of our kind of women? And on what ground should I think about each and every man? I have not even time to think about myself, and, perhaps, I don’t feel like doing it at all.”

Foma laughed drily and said:

“I wish I were like this – and had no desires for anything.”

Then the woman raised her head from the pillow, looked into Foma’s face and lay down again, saying:

“You are musing too much. Look out – no good will come of it to you. I cannot tell you anything about yourself. It is impossible to say anything true about a man. Who can understand him? Man does not know himself. Well, here, I’ll tell you – you are better than others. But what of it?”

“And in what way am I better?” asked Foma, thoughtfully.

“So! When one sings a good song – you weep. When one does some mean thing – you beat him. With women you are simple, you are not impudent to them. You are peaceable. And you can also be daring, sometimes.”

Yet all this did not satisfy Foma.

“You’re not telling me the right thing!” said he, softly. “Well, I don’t know what you want. But see here, what are we going to do after they have raised the barge?”

“What can we do?” asked Foma.

“Shall we go to Nizhni or to Kazan?”

“What for?”

“To carouse.”

“I don’t want to carouse any more.”

“What else are you going to do?”

“What? Nothing.”

And both were silent for a long time, without looking at each other.

“You have a disagreeable character,” said Sasha, “a wearisome character.”

“But nevertheless I won’t get drunk any more!” said Foma, firmly and confidently.

“You are lying!” retorted Sasha, calmly.

“You’ll see! What do you think – is it good to lead such a life as this?”

“I’ll see.”

“No, just tell me – is it good?”

“But what is better?”

Foma looked at her askance and, irritated, said:

“What repulsive words you speak.”

“Well, here again I haven’t pleased him!” said Sasha, laughing.

“What a fine crowd!” said Foma, painfully wrinkling his face. “They’re like trees. They also live, but how? No one understands. They are crawling somewhere. And can give no account either to themselves or to others. When the cockroach crawls, he knows whither and wherefore he wants to go? And you? Whither are you going?”

“Hold on!” Sasha interrupted him, and asked him calmly: “What have you to do with me? You may take from me all that you want, but don’t you creep into my soul!”

“Into your so-o-ul!” Foma drawled out, with contempt. “Into what soul? He, he!”

She began to pace the room, gathering together the clothes that were scattered everywhere. Foma watched her and was displeased because she did not get angry at him for his words about her soul. Her face looked calm and indifferent, as usual, but he wished to see her angry or offended; he wished for something human from the woman.

“The soul!” he exclaimed, persisting in his aim. “Can one who has a soul live as you live? A soul has fire burning in it, there is a sense of shame in it.”

By this time she was sitting on a bench, putting on her stockings, but at his words she raised her head and sternly fixed her eyes upon his face.

“What are you staring at?” asked Foma.

“Why do you speak that way?” said she, without lifting her eyes from him.

“Because I must.”

“Look out – must you really?”

There was something threatening in her question. Foma felt intimidated and said, this time without provocation in his voice:

“How could I help speaking?”

“Oh, you!” sighed Sasha and resumed dressing herself

“And what about me?”

“Merely so. You seem as though you were born of two fathers. Do you know what I have observed among people?”

“Well?”

“If a man cannot answer for himself, it means that he is afraid of himself, that his price is a grosh!”

“Do you refer to me?” asked Foma, after a pause.

“To you, too.”

She threw a pink morning gown over her shoulders and, standing in the centre of the room, stretched out her hand toward Foma, who lay at her feet, and said to him in a low, dull voice:

“You have no right to speak about my soul. You have nothing to do with it! And therefore hold your tongue! I may speak! If I please, I could tell something to all of you. Eh, how I could tell it! Only, – who will dare to listen to me, if I should speak at the top of my voice? And I have some words about you, – they’re like hammers! And I could knock you all on your heads so that you would lose your wits. And although you are all rascals – you cannot be cured by words. You should be burned in the fire – just as frying-pans are burned out on the first Monday of Lent.”

Raising her hands she abruptly loosened her hair, and when it fell over her shoulders in heavy, black locks – the woman shook her head haughtily and said, with contempt:

“Of course, you did not earn them yourself; why should you spare them? Well, come. And couldn’t we drown that lady in the water for awhile?” said Mayakin, softly.

“Drive to the town, Sasha, and engage a room at the Siberian Inn. I’ll be there shortly!” said Foma and turning to Mayakin, he announced boldly:

“I am ready! Let us go!”

Neither of them spoke on their way to the hotel. Foma, seeing that his godfather had to skip as he went in order to keep up with him, purposely took longer strides, and the fact that the old man could not keep step with him supported and strengthened in him the turbulent feeling of protest which he was by this time scarcely able to master.

“Waiter!” said Mayakin, gently, on entering the hall of the hotel, and turning toward a remote corner, “let us have a bottle of moorberry kvass.”

“And I want some cognac,” ordered Foma.

“So-o! When you have poor cards you had better always play the lowest trump first!” Mayakin advised him sarcastically.

“You don’t know my game!” said Foma, seating himself by the table.

“Really? Come, come! Many play like that.”

“How?”

“I mean as you do – boldly, but foolishly.”

“I play so that either the head is smashed to pieces, or the wall broken in half,” said Foma, hotly, and struck the table with his fist.

“Haven’t you recovered from your drunkenness yet?” asked Mayakin with a smile.

Foma seated himself more firmly in his chair, and, his face distorted with wrathful agitation, he said:

“Godfather, you are a sensible man. I respect you for your common sense.”

“Thank you, my son!” and Mayakin bowed, rising slightly, and leaning his hands against the table.

“Don’t mention it. I want to tell you that I am no longer twenty. I am not a child any longer.”

“Of course not!” assented Mayakin. “You’ve lived a good while, that goes without saying! If a mosquito had lived as long it might have grown as big as a hen.”

“Stop your joking!” Foma warned him, and he did it so calmly that Mayakin started back, and the wrinkles on his face quivered with alarm.

“What did you come here for?” asked Foma.

“Ah! you’ve done some nasty work here. So I want to find out whether there’s much damage in it! You see, I am a relative of yours. And then, I am the only one you have.”

“You are troubling yourself in vain. Do you know, papa, what I’ll tell you? Either give me full freedom, or take all my business into your own hands. Take everything! Everything – to the last rouble!”

This proposition burst forth from Foma altogether unexpectedly to himself; he had never before thought of anything like it. But now that he uttered such words to his godfather it suddenly became clear to him that if his godfather were to take from him all his property he would become a perfectly free man, he could go wherever he pleased, do whatever he pleased. Until this moment he had been bound and enmeshed with something, but he knew not his fetters and was unable to break them, while now they were falling off of themselves so simply, so easily. Both an alarming and a joyous hope blazed up within his breast, as though he noticed that suddenly light had begun to flash upon his turbid life, that a wide, spacious road lay open now before him. Certain images sprang up in his mind, and, watching their shiftings, he muttered incoherently:

“Here, this is better than anything! Take everything, and be done with it! And – as for me – I shall be free to go anywhere in the wide world! I cannot live like this. I feel as though weights were hanging on me, as though I were all bound. There – I must not go, this I must not do. I want to live in freedom, that I may know everything myself. I shall search life for myself. For, otherwise, what am I? A prisoner! Be kind, take everything. The devil take it all! Give me freedom, pray! What kind of a merchant am I? I do not like anything. And so – I would forsake men – everything. I would find a place for myself, I would find some kind of work, and would work. By God! Father! set me at liberty! For now, you see, I am drinking. I’m entangled with that woman.”

Mayakin looked at him, listened attentively to his words, and his face was stern, immobile as though petrified. A dull, tavern noise smote the air, some people went past them, they greeted Mayakin, but he saw nothing, staring fixedly at the agitated face of his godson, who smiled distractedly, both joyously and pitifully.

“Eh, my sour blackberry!” said Mayakin, with a sigh, interrupting Foma’s speech. “I see you’ve lost your way. And you’re prating nonsense. I would like to know whether the cognac is to blame for it, or is it your foolishness?”

“Papa!” exclaimed Foma, “this can surely be done. There were cases where people have cast away all their possessions and thus saved themselves.”

“That wasn’t in my time. Not people that are near to me!” said Mayakin, sternly, “or else I would have shown them how to go away!”

“Many have become saints when they went away.”

“Mm! They couldn’t have gone away from me! The matter is simple – you know how to play at draughts, don’t you? Move from one place to another until you are beaten, and if you’re not beaten then you have the queen. Then all ways are open to you. Do you understand? And why am I talking to you seriously? Psha!”

“Papa! why don’t you want it?” exclaimed Foma, angrily.

“Listen to me! If you are a chimney-sweep, go, carrion, on the roof! If you are a fireman, stand on the watch-tower! And each and every sort of men must have its own mode of life. Calves cannot roar like bears! If you live your own life; go on, live it! And don’t talk nonsense, and don’t creep where you don’t belong. Arrange your life after your pattern.” And from the dark lips of the old man gushed forth in a trembling, glittering stream the jarring, but confident and bold words so familiar to Foma. Seized with the thought of freedom, which seemed to him so easily possible, Foma did not listen to his words. This idea had eaten into his brains, and in his heart the desire grew stronger and stronger to sever all his connections with this empty and wearisome life, with his godfather, with the steamers, the barges and the carouses, with everything amidst which it was narrow and stifling for him to live.

The old man’s words seemed to fall on him from afar; they were blended with the clatter of the dishes, with the scraping of the lackey’s feet along the floor, with some one’s drunken shouting. Not far from them sat four merchants at a table and argued loudly:

“Two and a quarter – and thank God!”

“Luka Mitrich! How can I?”

“Give him two and a half!”

“That’s right! You ought to give it, it’s a good steamer, it tows briskly.”

“My dear fellows, I can’t. Two and a quarter!”

“And all this nonsense came to your head from your youthful passion!” said Mayakin, importantly, accompanying his words with a rap on the table. “Your boldness is stupidity; all these words of yours are nonsense. Would you perhaps go to the cloister? or have you perhaps a longing to go on the highways?”

Foma listened in silence. The buzzing noise about him now seemed to move farther away from him. He pictured himself amid a vast restless crowd of people; without knowing why they bustled about hither and thither, jumped on one another; their eyes were greedily opened wide; they were shouting, cursing, falling, crushing one another, and they were all jostling about on one place. He felt bad among them because he did not understand what they wanted, because he had no faith in their words, and he felt that they had no faith in themselves, that they understood nothing. And if one were to tear himself away from their midst to freedom, to the edge of life, and thence behold them – then all would become clear to him. Then he would also understand what they wanted, and would find his own place among them.

“Don’t I understand,” said Mayakin, more gently, seeing Foma lost in thought, and assuming that he was reflecting on his words – “I understand that you want happiness for yourself. Well, my friend, it is not to be easily seized. You must seek happiness even as they search for mushrooms in the wood, you must bend your back in search of it, and finding it, see whether it isn’t a toad-stool.”

“So you will set me free?” asked Foma, suddenly lifting his head, and Mayakin turned his eyes away from his fiery look.

“Father! at least for a short time! Let me breathe, let me step aside from everything!” entreated Foma. “I will watch how everything goes on. And then – if not – I shall become a drunkard.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. Why do you play the fool?” cried Mayakin, angrily.

“Very well, then!” replied Foma, calmly. “Very well! You do not want it? Then there will be nothing! I’ll squander it all! And there is nothing more for us to speak of. Goodbye! I’ll set out to work, you’ll see! It will afford you joy. Everything will go up in smoke!” Foma was calm, he spoke with confidence; it seemed to him that since he had thus decided, his godfather could not hinder him. But Mayakin straightened himself in his chair and said, also plainly and calmly:

“And do you know how I can deal with you?”

“As you like!” said Foma, with a wave of the hand. “Well then. Now I like the following: I’ll return to town and will see to it that you are declared insane, and put into a lunatic asylum.”

“Can this be done?” asked Foma, distrustfully, but with a tone of fright in his voice.

“We can do everything, my dear.”

Foma lowered his head, and casting a furtive glance at his godfather’s face, shuddered, thinking:

“He’ll do it; he won’t spare me.”

“If you play the fool seriously I must also deal with you seriously. I promised your father to make a man of you, and I will do it; if you cannot stand on your feet, I’ll put you in irons. Then you will stand. Though I know all these holy words of yours are but ugly caprices that come from excessive drinking. But if you do not give that up, if you keep on behaving indecently, if you ruin, out of wantonness, the property accumulated by your father, I’ll cover you all up. I’ll have a bell forged over you. It is very inconvenient to fool with me.”

Mayakin spoke gently. The wrinkles of his cheeks all rose upward, and his small eyes in their dark sockets were smiling sarcastically, coldly. And the wrinkles on his forehead formed an odd pattern, rising up to his bald crown. His face was stern and merciless, and breathed melancholy and coldness upon Foma’s soul.

“So there’s no way out for me?” asked Foma, gloomily. “You are blocking all my ways?”

“There is a way. Go there! I shall guide you. Don’t worry, it will be right! You will come just to your proper place.”

This self-confidence, this unshakable boastfulness aroused Foma’s indignation. Thrusting his hands into his pockets in order not to strike the old man, he straightened himself in his chair and clinching his teeth, said, facing Mayakin closely:

“Why are you boasting? What are you boasting of? Your own son, where is he? Your daughter, what is she? Eh, you – you life-builder! Well, you are clever. You know everything. Tell me, what for do you live? What for are you accumulating money? Do you think you are not going to die? Well, what then? You’ve captured me. You’ve taken hold of me, you’ve conquered me. But wait, I may yet tear myself away from you! It isn’t the end yet! Eh, you! What have you done for life? By what will you be remembered? My father, for instance, donated a lodging-house, and you – what have you done?”

Mayakin’s wrinkles quivered and sank downward, wherefore his face assumed a sickly, weeping expression.

“How will you justify yourself?” asked Foma, softly, without lifting his eyes from him.

“Hold your tongue, you puppy!” said the old man in a low voice, casting a glance of alarm about the room.

“I’ve said everything! And now I’m going! Hold me back!”

Foma rose from his chair, thrust his cap on his head, and measured the old man with abhorrence.

“You may go; but I’ll – I’ll catch you! It will come out as I say!” said Yakov Tarasovich in a broken voice.

“And I’ll go on a spree! I’ll squander all!”

“Very well, we’ll see!”

“Goodbye! you hero,” Foma laughed.

“Goodbye, for a short while! I’ll not go back on my own. I love it. I love you, too. Never mind, you’re a good fellow!” said Mayakin, softly, and as though out of breath.

“Do not love me, but teach me. But then, you cannot teach me the right thing!” said Foma, as he turned his back on the old man and left the hall.

Yakov Tarasovich Mayakin remained in the tavern alone. He sat by the table, and, bending over it, made drawings of patterns on the tray, dipping his trembling finger in the spilt kvass, and his sharp-pointed head was sinking lower and lower over the table, as though he did not decipher, and could not make out what his bony finger was drawing on the tray.

Beads of perspiration glistened on his bald crown, and as usual the wrinkles on his cheeks quivered with frequent, irritable starts.

In the tavern a resounding tumult smote the air so that the window-panes were rattling. From the Volga were wafted the whistlings of steamers, the dull beating of the wheels upon the water, the shouting of the loaders – life was moving onward unceasingly and unquestionably.

Summoning the waiter with a nod Yakov Tarasovich asked him with peculiar intensity and impressiveness,

“How much do I owe for all this?”

CHAPTER X

PREVIOUS to his quarrel with Mayakin, Foma had caroused because of the weariness of life, out of curiosity, and half indifferently; now he led a dissipated life out of spite, almost in despair; now he was filled with a feeling of vengeance and with a certain insolence toward men, an insolence which astonished even himself at times. He saw that the people about him, like himself, lacked support and reason, only they did not understand this, or purposely would not understand it, so as not to hinder themselves from living blindly, and from giving themselves completely, without a thought, to their dissolute life. He found nothing firm in them, nothing steadfast; when sober, they seemed to him miserable and stupid; when intoxicated, they were repulsive to him, and still more stupid. None of them inspired him with respect, with deep, hearty interest; he did not even ask them what their names were; he forgot where and when he made their acquaintance, and regarding them with contemptuous curiosity, always longed to say and do something that would offend them. He passed days and nights with them in different places of amusement, and his acquaintances always depended just upon the category of each of these places. In the expensive and elegant restaurants certain sharpers of the better class of society surrounded him – gamblers, couplet singers, jugglers, actors, and property-holders who were ruined by leading depraved lives. At first these people treated him with a patronizing air, and boasted before him of their refined tastes, of their knowledge of the merits of wine and food, and then they courted favours of him, fawned upon him, borrowed of him money which he scattered about without counting, drawing it from the banks, and already borrowing it on promissory notes. In the cheap taverns hair-dressers, markers, clerks, functionaries and choristers surrounded him like vultures; and among these people he always felt better – freer. In these he saw plain people, not so monstrously deformed and distorted as that “clean society” of the elegant restaurants; these were less depraved, cleverer, better understood by him. At times they evinced wholesome, strong emotions, and there was always something more human in them. But, like the “clean society,” these were also eager for money, and shamelessly fleeced him, and he saw it and rudely mocked them.

To be sure, there were women. Physically healthy, but not sensual, Foma bought them, the dear ones and the cheap ones, the beautiful and the ugly, gave them large sums of money, changed them almost every week, and in general, he treated the women better than the men. He laughed at them, said to them disgraceful and offensive words, but he could never, even when half-drunk, rid himself of a certain bashfulness in their presence. They all, even the most brazen-faced, the strongest and the most shameless, seemed to him weak and defenseless, like small children. Always ready to thrash any man, he never laid a hand on women, although when irritated by something he sometimes abused them indecently. He felt that he was immeasurably stronger than any woman, and every woman seemed to him immeasurably more miserable than he was. Those of the women who led their dissolute lives audaciously, boasting of their depravity, called forth in Foma a feeling of bashfulness, which made him timid and awkward. One evening, during supper hour, one of these women, intoxicated and impudent, struck Foma on the cheek with a melon-rind. Foma was half-drunk. He turned pale with rage, rose from his chair, and thrusting his hands into his pockets, said in a fierce voice which trembled with indignation:

“You carrion, get out. Begone! Someone else would have broken your head for this. And you know that I am forbearing with you, and that my arm is never raised against any of your kind. Drive her away to the devil!”

A few days after her arrival in Kazan, Sasha became the mistress of a certain vodka-distiller’s son, who was carousing together with Foma. Going away with her new master to some place on the Kama, she said to Foma:

“Goodbye, dear man! Perhaps we may meet again. We’re both going the same way! But I advise you not to give your heart free rein. Enjoy yourself without looking back at anything. And then, when the gruel is eaten up, smash the bowl on the ground. Goodbye!”

And she impressed a hot kiss upon his lips, at which her eyes looked still darker.

Foma was glad that she was leaving him, he had grown tired of her and her cold indifference frightened him. But now something trembled within him, he turned aside from her and said in a low voice:

“Perhaps you will not live well together, then come back to me.”

“Thank you!” she replied, and for some reason or other burst into hoarse laughter, which was uncommon with her.

Thus lived Foma, day in and day out, always turning around on one and the same place, amid people who were always alike, and who never inspired him with any noble feelings. And then he considered himself superior to them, because the thoughts of the possibility of freeing himself from this life was taking deeper and deeper root in his mind, because the yearning for freedom held him in an ever firmer embrace, because ever brighter were the pictures as he imagined himself drifting away to the border of life, away from this tumult and confusion. More than once, by night, remaining all by himself, he would firmly close his eyes and picture to himself a dark throng of people, innumerably great and even terrible in its immenseness. Crowded together somewhere in a deep valley, which was surrounded by hillocks, and filled with a dusty mist, this throng jostled one another on the same place in noisy confusion, and looked like grain in a hopper. It was as though an invisible millstone, hidden beneath the feet of the crowd, were grinding it, and people moved about it like waves – now rushing downward to be ground the sooner and disappear, now bursting upward in the effort to escape the merciless millstone. There were also people who resembled crabs just caught and thrown into a huge basket – clutching at one another, they twined about heavily, crawled somewhere and interfered with one another, and could do nothing to free themselves from captivity.

Foma saw familiar faces amid the crowd: there his father is walking boldly, sturdily pushing aside and overthrowing everybody on his way; he is working with his long paws, massing everything with his chest, and laughing in thundering tones. And then he disappears, sinking somewhere in the depth, beneath the feet of the people. There, wriggling like a snake, now jumping on people’s shoulders, now gliding between their feet, his godfather is working with his lean, but supple and sinewy body. Here Lubov is crying and struggling, following her father, with abrupt but faint movements, now remaining behind him, now nearing him again. Striding softly with a kind smile on her face, stepping aside from everybody, and making way for everyone, Aunt Anfisa is slowly moving along. Her image quivers in the darkness before Foma, like the modest flame of a wax candle. And it dies out and disappears in the darkness. Pelagaya is quickly going somewhere along a straight road. There Sophya Pavlovna Medinskaya is standing, her hands hanging impotently, just as she stood in her drawing-room when he saw her last. Her eyes were large, but some great fright gleams in them. Sasha, too, is here. Indifferent, paying no attention to the jostling, she is stoutly going straight into the very dregs of life, singing her songs at the top of her voice, her dark eyes fixed in the distance before her. Foma hears tumult, howls, laughter, drunken shouts, irritable disputes about copecks – songs and sobs hover over this enormous restless heap of living human bodies crowded into a pit. They jump, fall, crawl, crush one another, leap on one another’s shoulders, grope everywhere like blind people, stumbling everywhere over others like themselves, struggle, and, falling, disappear from sight. Money rustles, soaring like bats over the heads of the people, and the people greedily stretch out their hands toward it, the gold and silver jingles, bottles rattle, corks pop, someone sobs, and a melancholy female voice sings:

“And so let us live while we can, And then – e’en grass may cease to grow!”

This wild picture fastened itself firmly in Foma’s mind, and growing clearer, larger and more vivid with each time it arose before him, rousing in his breast something chaotic, one great indefinite feeling into which fell, like streams into a river, fear and revolt and compassion and wrath and many another thing. All this boiled up within his breast into strained desire, which was thrusting it asunder into a desire whose power was choking him, and his eyes were filled with tears; he longed to shout, to howl like a beast, to frighten all the people, to check their senseless bustle, to pour into the tumult and vanity of their life something new, his own – to tell them certain loud firm words, to guide them all into one direction, and not one against another. He desired to seize them by their heads, to tear them apart one from another, to thrash some, to fondle others, to reproach them all, to illumine them with a certain fire.

There was nothing in him, neither the necessary words, nor the fire; all he had was the longing which was clear to him, but impossible of fulfillment. He pictured himself above life outside of the deep valley, wherein people were bustling about; he saw himself standing firmly on his feet and – speechless. He might have cried to the people:

“See how you live! Aren’t you ashamed?”

And he might have abused them. But if they were to ask on hearing his voice:

“And how ought we to live?”

It was perfectly clear to him that after such a question he would have to fly down head foremost from the heights there, beneath the feet of the throng, upon the millstone. And laughter would accompany him to his destruction.

Sometimes he was delirious under the pressure of this nightmare. Certain meaningless and unconnected words burst from his lips; he even perspired from this painful struggle within him. At times it occurred to him that he was going mad from intoxication, and that that was the reason why this terrible and gloomy picture was forcing itself into his mind. With a great effort of will he brushed aside these pictures and excitements; but as soon as he was alone and not very drunk, he was again seized by his delirium and again grew faint under its weight. And his thirst for freedom was growing more and more intense, torturing him by its force. But tear himself away from the shackles of his wealth he could not. Mayakin, who had Foma’s full power of attorney to manage his affairs, acted now in such a way that Foma was bound to feel almost every day the burden of the obligations which rested upon him. People were constantly applying to him for payments, proposing to him terms for the transportation of freight. His employees overwhelmed him in person and by letter with trifles with which he had never before concerned himself, as they used to settle these trifles at their own risk. They looked for him and found him in the taverns, questioned him as to what and how it should be done; he would tell them sometimes without at all understanding in what way this or that should be done. He noticed their concealed contempt for him, and almost always saw that they did not do the work as he had ordered, but did it in a different and better way. In this he felt the clever hand of his godfather, and understood that the old man was thus pressing him in order to turn him to his way. And at the same time he noticed that he was not the master of his business, but only a component part of it, and an insignificant part at that. This irritated him and moved him farther away from the old man, it augumented his longing to tear himself away from his business, even at the cost of his own ruin. Infuriated, he flung money about the taverns and dives, but this did not last long. Yakov Tarasovich closed his accounts in the banks, withdrawing all deposits. Soon Foma began to feel that even on promissory notes, they now gave him the money not quite as willingly as before. This stung his vanity; and his indignation was roused, and he was frightened when he learned that his godfather had circulated a rumour in the business world that he, Foma, was out of his mind, and that, perhaps, it might become necessary to appoint a guardian for him. Foma did not know the limits of his godfather’s power, and did not venture to take anyone’s counsel in this matter. He was convinced that in the business world the old man was a power, and that he could do anything he pleased. At first it was painful for him to feel Mayakin’s hand over him, but later he became reconciled to this, renounced everything, and resumed his restless, drunken life, wherein there was only one consolation – the people. With each succeeding day he became more and more convinced that they were more irrational and altogether worse than he – that they were not the masters of life, but its slaves, and that it was turning them around, bending and breaking them at its will, while they succumbed to it unfeelingly and resignedly, and none of them but he desired freedom. But he wanted it, and therefore proudly elevated himself above his drinking companions, not desiring to see in them anything but wrong.

One day in a tavern a certain half-intoxicated man complained to him of his life. This was a small-sized, meagre man, with dim, frightened eyes, unshaven, in a short frock coat, and with a bright necktie. He blinked pitifully, his ears quivered spasmodically, and his soft little voice also trembled.

“I’ve struggled hard to make my way among men; I’ve tried everything, I’ve worked like a bull. But life jostled me aside, crushed me under foot, gave me no chance. All my patience gave way. Eh! and so I’ve taken to drink. I feel that I’ll be ruined. Well, that’s the only way open to me!”

“Fool!” said Foma with contempt. “Why did you want to make your way among men? You should have kept away from them, to the right. Standing aside, you might have seen where your place was among them, and then gone right to the point!”

“I don’t understand your words.” The little man shook his close-cropped, angular head.

Foma laughed, self-satisfied.

“Is it for you to understand it?” “No; do you know, I think that he whom God decreed – ”

“Not God, but man arranges life!” Foma blurted out, and was even himself astonished at the audacity of his words. And the little man glancing at him askance also shrank timidly.

“Has God given you reason?” asked Foma, recovering from his embarrassment.

“Of course; that is to say, as much as is the share of a small man,” said Foma’s interlocutor irresolutely.

“Well, and you have no right to ask of Him a single grain more! Make your own life by your own reason. And God will judge you. We are all in His service. And in His eyes we are all of equal value. Understand?”

It happened very often that Foma would suddenly say something which seemed audacious even to himself, and which, at the same time, elevated him in his own eyes. There were certain unexpected, daring thoughts and words, which suddenly flashed like sparks, as though an impression produced them from Foma’s brains. And he noticed more than once that whatever he had carefully thought out beforehand was expressed by him not quite so well, and more obscure, than that which suddenly flashed up in his heart.

Foma lived as though walking in a swamp, in danger of sinking at each step in the mire and slime, while his godfather, like a river loach, wriggled himself on a dry, firm little spot, vigilantly watching the life of his godson from afar.

After his quarrel with Foma, Yakov Tarasovich returned home, gloomy and pensive. His eyes flashed drily, and he straightened himself like a tightly-stretched string. His wrinkles shrank painfully, his face seemed to have become smaller and darker, and when Lubov saw him in this state it appeared to her that he was seriously ill, but that he was forcing and restraining himself. Mutely and nervously the old man flung himself about the room, casting in reply to his daughter’s questions, dry curt words, and finally shouted to her:

“Leave me alone! You see it has nothing to do with you.”

She felt sorry for him when she noticed the gloomy and melancholy expression of his keen, green eyes; she made it her duty to question him as to what had happened to him, and when he seated himself at the dinner-table she suddenly approached him, placed her hands on his shoulders, and looking down into his face, asked him tenderly and anxiously:

CHAPTER XI

“LUBAVKA!” said Mayakin one day when he came home from the Exchange, “prepare yourself for this evening. I am going to bring you a bridegroom! Prepare a nice hearty little lunch for us. Put out on the table as much of our old silverware as possible, also bring out the fruit-vases, so that he is impressed by our table! Let him see that each and everything we have is a rarity!”

Lubov was sitting by the window darning her father’s socks, and her head was bent low over her work.

“What is all this for, papa?” she asked, dissatisfied and offended.

“Why, for sauce, for flavour. And then, it’s in due order. For a girl is not a horse; you can’t dispose of her without the harness.”

All aflush with offence, Lubov tossed her head nervously, and flinging her work aside, cast a glance at her father; and, taking up the socks again, she bent her head still lower over them. The old man paced the room to and fro, plucking at his fiery beard with anxiety; his eyes stared somewhere into the distance, and it was evident that he was all absorbed in some great complicated thought. The girl understood that he would not listen to her and would not care to comprehend how degrading his words were for her. Her romantic dreams of a husband-friend, an educated man, who would read with her wise books and help her to find herself in her confused desires, these dreams were stifled by her father’s inflexible resolution to marry her to Smolin. They had been killed and had become decomposed, settling down as a bitter sediment in her soul. She had been accustomed to looking upon herself as better and higher than the average girl of the merchant class, than the empty and stupid girl who thinks of nothing but dresses, and who marries almost always according to the calculation of her parents, and but seldom in accordance with the free will of her heart. And now she herself is about to marry merely because it was time, and also because her father needed a son-in-law to succeed him in his business. And her father evidently thought that she, by herself, was hardly capable of attracting the attention of a man, and therefore adorned her with silver. Agitated, she worked nervously, pricked her fingers, broke needles, but maintained silence, being aware that whatever she should say would not reach her father’s heart.

And the old man kept on pacing the room to and fro, now humming psalms softly, now impressively instructing his daughter how to behave with the bridegroom. And then he also counted something on his fingers, frowned and smiled.

“Mm! So! Try me, Oh Lord, and judge me. From the unjust and the false man, deliver me. Yes! Put on your mother’s emeralds, Lubov.”

“Enough, papa!” exclaimed the girl, sadly. “Pray, leave that alone.”

“Don’t you kick! Listen to what I’m telling you.”

And he was again absorbed in his calculations, snapping his green eyes and playing with his fingers in front of his face.

“That makes thirty-five percent. Mm! The fellow’s a rogue. Send down thy light and thy truth.”

“Papa!” exclaimed Lubov, mournfully and with fright.

“What?”

“You – are you pleased with him?”

“With whom?

“Smolin.”

“Smolin? Yes, he’s a rogue, he’s a clever fellow, a splendid merchant! Well, I’m off now. So be on your guard, arm yourself.”

When Lubov remained alone she flung her work aside and leaned against the back of her chair, closing her eyes tightly. Her hands firmly clasped together lay on her knees, and their fingers twitched. Filled with the bitterness of offended vanity, she felt an alarming fear of the future, and prayed in silence:

“My God! Oh Lord! If he were only a kind man! Make him kind, sincere. Oh Lord! A strange man comes, examines you, and takes you unto himself for years, if you please him! How disgraceful that is, how terrible. Oh Lord, my God! If I could only run away! If I only had someone to advise me what to do! Who is he? How can I learn to know him? I cannot do anything! And I have thought, ah, how much I have thought! I have read. To what purpose have I read? Why should I know that it is possible to live otherwise, so as I cannot live? And it may be that were it not for the books my life would be easier, simpler. How painful all this is! What a wretched, unfortunate being I am! Alone. If Taras at least were here.”

At the recollection of her brother she felt still more grieved, still more sorry for herself. She had written to Taras a long, exultant letter, in which she had spoken of her love for him, of her hope in him; imploring her brother to come as soon as possible to see his father, she had pictured to him plans of arranging to live together, assuring Taras that their father was extremely clever and understood everything; she told about his loneliness, had gone into ecstasy over his aptitude for life and had, at the same time, complained of his attitude toward her.

For two weeks she impatiently expected a reply, and when she had received and read it she burst out sobbing for joy and disenchantment. The answer was dry and short; in it Taras said that within a month he would be on the Volga on business and would not fail to call on his father, if the old man really had no objection to it. The letter was cold, like a block of ice; with tears in her eyes she perused it over and over again, rumpled it, creased it, but it did not turn warmer on this account, it only became wet. From the sheet of stiff note paper which was covered with writing in a large, firm hand, a wrinkled and suspiciously frowning face, thin and angular like that of her father, seemed to look at her.

On Yakov Tarasovich the letter of his son made a different impression. On learning the contents of Taras’s reply the old man started and hastily turned to his daughter with animation and with a peculiar smile:

“Well, let me see it! Show it to me! He-he! Let’s read how wise men write. Where are my spectacles? Mm! ‘Dear sister!’ Yes.”

The old man became silent; he read to himself the message of his son, put it on the table, and, raising his eyebrows, silently paced the room to and fro, with an expression of amazement on his countenance. Then he read the letter once more, thoughtfully tapped the table with his fingers and spoke:

“That letter isn’t bad – it is sound, without any unnecessary words. Well? Perhaps the man has really grown hardened in the cold. The cold is severe there. Let him come, we’ll take a look at him. It’s interesting. Yes. In the psalm of David concerning the mysteries of his son it is said: ‘When Thou hast returned my enemy’ – I’ve forgotten how it reads further. ‘My enemy’s weapons have weakened in the end, and his memory hath perished amid noise. Well, we’ll talk it over with him without noise.”

The old man tried to speak calmly and with a contemptuous smile, but the smile did not come; his wrinkles quivered irritably, and his small eyes had a particularly clear brilliancy.

“Write to him again, Lubovka. ‘Come along!’ write him, ‘don’t be afraid to come!’”

Lubov wrote Taras another letter, but this time it was shorter and more reserved, and now she awaited a reply from day to day, attempting to picture to herself what sort of man he must be, this mysterious brother of hers. Before she used to think of him with sinking heart, with that solemn respect with which believers think of martyrs, men of upright life; now she feared him, for he had acquired the right to be judge over men and life at the price of painful sufferings, at the cost of his youth, which was ruined in exile. On coming, he would ask her:

“You are marrying of your own free will, for love, are you not?”

What should she tell him? Would he forgive her faint-heartedness? And why does she marry? Can it really be possible that this is all she can do in order to change her life?

Gloomy thoughts sprang up one after another in the head of the girl and confused and tortured her, impotent as she was to set up against them some definite, all-conquering desire. Though she was in an anxious and compressing her lips. Smolin rose from his chair, made a step toward her and bowed respectfully. She was rather pleased with this low and polite bow, also with the costly frock coat, which fitted Smolin’s supple figure splendidly. He had changed but slightly – he was the same red-headed, closely-cropped, freckled youth; only his moustache had become long, and his eyes seemed to have grown larger.

“Now he’s changed, eh?” exclaimed Mayakin to his daughter, pointing at the bridegroom. And Smolin shook hands with her, and smiling, said in a ringing baritone voice:

“I venture to hope that you have not forgotten your old friend?”

“It’s all right! You can talk of this later,” said the old man, scanning his daughter with his eyes.

“Lubova, you can make your arrangements here, while we finish our little conversation. Well then, African Mitrich, explain yourself.”

“You will pardon me, Lubov Yakovlevna, won’t you?” asked Smolin, gently.

“Pray do not stand upon ceremony,” said Lubov. “He’s polite and clever,” she remarked to herself; and, as she walked about in the room from the table to the sideboard, she began to listen attentively to Smolin’s words. He spoke softly, confidently, with a simplicity, in which was felt condescendence toward the interlocutor. “Well then, for four years I have carefully studied the condition of Russian leather in foreign markets. It’s a sad and horrid condition! About thirty years ago our leather was considered there as the standard, while now the demand for it is constantly falling off, and, of course, the price goes hand in hand with it. And that is perfectly natural. Lacking the capital and knowledge all these small leather producers are not able to raise their product to the proper standard, and, at the same time, to reduce the price. Their goods are extremely bad and dear. And they are all to blame for having spoiled Russia’s reputation as manufacturer of the best leather. In general, the petty producer, lacking the technical knowledge and capital, is consequently placed in a position where he is unable to improve his products in proportion to the development of the technical side. Such a producer is a misfortune for the country, the parasite of her commerce.”

“Hm!” bellowed the old man, looking at his guest with one eye, and watching his daughter with the other. “So that now your intention is to build such a great factory that all the others will go to the dogs?”

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Smolin, warding off the old man’s words with an easy wave of the hand. “Why wrong others? What right have I to do so? My aim is to raise the importance and price of Russian leather abroad, and so equipped with the knowledge as to the manufacture, I am building a model factory, and fill the markets with model goods. The commercial honour of the country!”

“Does it require much capital, did you say?” asked Mayakin, thoughtfully.

“About three hundred thousand.”

“Father won’t give me such a dowry,” thought Lubov.

“My factory will also turn out leather goods, such as trunks, foot-wear, harnesses, straps and so forth.”

“And of what per cent, are you dreaming?”

“I am not dreaming, I am calculating with all the exactness possible under conditions in Russia,” said Smolin, impressively. “The manufacturer should be as strictly practical as the mechanic who is creating a machine. The friction of the tiniest screw must be taken into consideration, if you wish to do a serious thing seriously. I can let you read a little note which I have drawn up, based upon my personal study of cattle-breeding and of the consumption of meat in Russia.”

“How’s that!” laughed Mayakin. “Bring me that note, it’s interesting! It seems you did not spend your time for nothing in Western Europe. And now, let’s eat something, after the Russian fashion.”

“How are you passing the time, Lubov Yakovlevna?” asked Smolin, arming himself with knife and fork.

“She is rather lonesome here with me,” replied Mayakin for his daughter. “My housekeeper, all the household is on her shoulders, so she has no time to amuse herself.”

“And no place, I must add,” said Lubov. “I am not fond of the balls and entertainments given by the merchants.”

“And the theatre?” asked Smolin.

“I seldom go there. I have no one to go with.”

“The theatre!” exclaimed the old man. “Tell me, pray, why has it become the fashion then to represent the merchant as a savage idiot? It is very amusing, but it is incomprehensible, because it is false! Am I a fool, if I am master in the City Council, master in commerce, and also owner of that same theatre? You look at the merchant on the stage and you see – he isn’t life-life! Of course, when they present something historical, such as: ‘Life for the Czar,’ with song and dance, or ‘Hamlet,’ ‘The Sorceress,’ or ‘Vasilisa,’ truthful reproduction is not required, because they’re matters of the past and don’t concern us. Whether true or not, it matters little so long as they’re good, but when you represent modern times, then don’t lie! And show the man as he really is.”

Smolin listened to the old man’s words with a covetous smile on his lips, and cast at Lubov glances which seemed to invite her to refute her father. Somewhat embarrassed, she said:

“And yet, papa, the majority of the merchant class is uneducated and savage.”

“Yes,” remarked Smolin with regret, nodding his head affirmatively, “that is the sad truth.”

“Take Foma, for instance,” went on the girl.

“Oh!” exclaimed Mayakin. “Well, you are young folks, you can have books in your hands.”

“And do you not take interest in any of the societies?” Smolin asked Lubov. “You have so many different societies here.”

“Yes,” said Lubov with a sigh, “but I live rather apart from everything.”

“Housekeeping!” interposed the father. “We have here such a store of different things, everything has to be kept clean, in order, and complete as to number.”

With a self-satisfied air he nodded first at the table, which was set with brilliant crystal and silverware, and then at the sideboard, whose shelves were fairly breaking under the weight of the articles, and which reminded one of the display in a store window. Smolin noted all these and an ironical smile began to play upon his lips. Then he glanced at Lubov’s face: in his look she caught something friendly, sympathetic to her. A faint flush covered her cheeks, and she said to herself with timid joy:

“Thank God!”

The light of the heavy bronze lamp now seemed to flash more brilliantly on the sides of the crystal vases, and it became brighter in the room.

“I like our dear old town!” said Smolin, looking at the girl with a kindly smile, “it is so beautiful, so vigorous; there is cheerfulness about it that inspires one to work. Its very picturesqueness is somewhat stimulating. In it one feels like leading a dashing life. One feels like working much and seriously. And then, it is an intelligent town. Just see what a practical newspaper is published here. By the way, we intend to purchase it.”

“Whom do you mean by You?” asked Mayakin.

“I, Urvantzov, Shchukin – ”

“That’s praiseworthy!” said the old man, rapping the table with his hand. “That’s very practical! It is time to stop their mouths, it was high time long ago! Particularly that Yozhov; he’s like a sharp-toothed saw. Just put the thumb-screw on him! And do it well!”

Smolin again cast at Lubov a smiling glance, and her heart trembled with joy once more. With flushing face she said to her father, inwardly addressing herself to the bridegroom:

“As far as I can understand, African Dmitreivich, he wishes to buy the newspaper not at all for the sake of stopping its mouth as you say.”

“What then can be done with it?” asked the old man, shrugging his shoulders. “There’s nothing in it but empty talk and agitation. Of course, if the practical people, the merchants themselves, take to writing for it – ”

“The publication of a newspaper,” began Smolin, instructively, interrupting the old man, “looked at merely from the commercial point of view, may be a very profitable enterprise. But aside from this, a newspaper has another more important aim – that is, to protect the right of the individual and the interests of industry and commerce.”

“That’s just what I say, if the merchant himself will manage the newspaper, then it will be useful.”

“Excuse me, papa,” said Lubov.

She began to feel the need of expressing herself before Smolin; she wanted to assure him that she understood the meaning of his words, that she was not an ordinary merchant-daughter, interested in dresses and balls only. Smolin pleased her. This was the first time she had seen a merchant who had lived abroad for a long time, who reasoned so impressively, who bore himself so properly, who was so well dressed, and who spoke to her father, the cleverest man in town, with the condescending tone of an adult towards a minor.

“After the wedding I’ll persuade him to take me abroad,” thought Lubov, suddenly, and, confused at this thought she forgot what she was about to say to her father. Blushing deeply, she was silent for a few seconds, seized with fear lest Smolin might interpret this silence in a way unflattering to her.

“On account of your conversation, you have forgotten to offer some wine to our guest,” she said at last, after a few seconds of painful silence.

“That’s your business. You are hostess,” retorted the old man.

“Oh, don’t disturb yourself!” exclaimed Smolin, with animation. “I hardly drink at all.”

“Really?” asked Mayakin.

“I assure you! Sometimes I drink a wine glass or two in case of fatigue or illness. But to drink wine for pleasure’s sake is incomprehensible to me. There are other pleasures more worthy of a man of culture.”

“You mean ladies, I suppose?” asked the old man with a wink.

Smolin’s cheeks and neck became red with the colour which leaped to his face. With apologetic eyes he glanced at Lubov, and said to her father drily:

“I mean the theatre, books, music.”

Lubov became radiant with joy at his words.

The old man looked askance at the worthy young man, smiled keenly and suddenly blurted out:

“Eh, life is going onward! Formerly the dog used to relish a crust, now the pug dog finds the cream too thin; pardon me for my sour remark, but it is very much to the point. It does not exactly refer to yourself, but in general.”

Lubov turned pale and looked at Smolin with fright. He was calm, scrutinising an ancient salt box, decorated with enamel; he twisted his moustache and looked as though he had not heard the old man’s words. But his eyes grew darker, and his lips were compressed very tightly, and his clean-shaven chin obstinately projected forward.

“And so, my future leading manufacturer,” said Mayakin, as though nothing had happened, “three hundred thousand roubles, and your business will flash up like a fire?”

“And within a year and a half I shall send out the first lot of goods, which will be eagerly sought for,” said Smolin, simply, with unshakable confidence, and he eyed the old man with a cold and firm look.

“So be it; the firm of Smolin and Mayakin, and that’s all? So. Only it seems rather late for me to start a new business, doesn’t it? I presume the grave has long been prepared for me; what do you think of it?”

Instead of an answer Smolin burst into a rich, but indifferent and cold laughter, and then said:

“Oh, don’t say that.”

The old man shuddered at his laughter, and started back with fright, with a scarcely perceptible movement of his body. After Smolin’s words all three maintained silence for about a minute.

“Yes,” said Mayakin, without lifting his head, which was bent low. “It is necessary to think of that. I must think of it.” Then, raising his head, he closely scrutinised his daughter and the bridegroom, and, rising from his chair, he said sternly and brusquely: “I am going away for awhile to my little cabinet. You surely won’t feel lonesome without me.”

And he went out with bent back and drooping head, heavily scraping with his feet.

The young people, thus left alone, exchanged a few empty phrases, and, evidently conscious that these only helped to remove them further from each other, they maintained a painful, awkward and expectant silence. Taking an orange, Lubov began to peel it with exaggerated attention, while Smolin, lowering his eyes, examined his moustaches, which he carefully stroked with his left hand, toyed with a knife and suddenly asked the girl in a lowered voice:

“Pardon me for my indiscretion. It is evidently really difficult for you, Lubov Yakovlevna, to live with your father. He’s a man with old-fashioned views and, pardon me, he’s rather hard-hearted!”

Lubov shuddered, and, casting at the red-headed man a grateful look, said:

“It isn’t easy, but I have grown accustomed to it. He also has his good qualities.”

“Oh, undoubtedly! But to you who are so young, beautiful and educated, to you with your views… You see, I have heard something about you.”

He smiled so kindly and sympathetically, and his voice was so soft, a breath of soul-cheering warmth filled the room. And in the heart of the girl there blazed up more and more brightly the timid hope of finding happiness, of being freed from the close captivity of solitude.

CHAPTER XII

A DENSE, grayish fog lay over the river, and a steamer, now and then uttering a dull whistle, was slowly forging up against the current. Damp and cold clouds, of a monotone pallor, enveloped the steamer from all sides and drowned all sounds, dissolving them in their troubled dampness. The brazen roaring of the signals came out in a muffled, melancholy drone, and was oddly brief as it burst forth from the whistle. The sound seemed to find no place for itself in the air, which was soaked with heavy dampness, and fell downward, wet and choked. And the splashing of the steamer’s wheels sounded so fantastically dull that it seemed as though it were not begotten near by, at the sides of the vessel, but somewhere in the depth, on the dark bottom of the river. From the steamer one could see neither the water, nor the shore, nor the sky; a leaden-gray gloominess enwrapped it on all sides; devoid of shadings, painfully monotonous, the gloominess was motionless, it oppressed the steamer with immeasurable weight, slackened its movements and seemed as though preparing itself to swallow it even as it was swallowing the sounds. In spite of the dull blows of the paddles upon the water and the measured shaking of the body of the vessel, it seemed that the steamer was painfully struggling on one spot, suffocating in agony, hissing like a fairy tale monster breathing his last, howling in the pangs of death, howling with pain, and in the fear of death.

Lifeless were the steamer lights. About the lantern on the mast a yellow motionless spot had formed; devoid of lustre, it hung in the fog over the steamer, illuminating nothing save the gray mist. The red starboard light looked like a huge eye crushed out by some one’s cruel fist, blinded, overflowing with blood. Pale rays of light fell from the steamer’s windows into the fog, and only tinted its cold, cheerless dominion over the vessel, which was pressed on all sides by the motionless mass of stifling dampness.

The smoke from the funnel fell downwards, and, together with fragments of the fog, penetrated into all the cracks of the deck, where the third-class passengers were silently muffling themselves in their rags, and forming groups, like sheep. From near the machinery were wafted deep, strained groans, the jingling of bells, the dull sounds of orders and the abrupt words of the machinist:

“Yes – slow! Yes – half speed!”

On the stern, in a corner, blocked up by barrels of salted fish, a group of people was assembled, illuminated by a small electric lamp. Those were sedate, neatly and warmly clad peasants. One of them lay on a bench, face down; another sat at his feet, still another stood, leaning his back against a barrel, while two others seated themselves flat on the deck. Their faces, pensive and attentive, were turned toward a round-shouldered man in a short cassock, turned yellow, and a torn fur cap. That man sat on some boxes with his back bent, and staring at his feet, spoke in a low, confident voice:

“There will come an end to the long forbearance of the Lord, and then His wrath will burst forth upon men. We are like worms before Him, and how are we then to ward off His wrath, with what wailing shall we appeal to His mercy?”

Oppressed by his gloominess, Foma had come down on the deck from his cabin, and, for some time, had been standing in the shadow of some wares covered with tarpaulin, and listened to the admonitive and gentle voice of the preacher. Pacing the deck he had chanced upon this group, and attracted by the figure of the pilgrim, had paused near it. There was something familiar to him in that large, strong body, in that stern, dark face, in those large, calm eyes. The curly, grayish hair, falling from under the skull-cap, the unkempt bushy beard, which fell apart in thick locks, the long, hooked nose, the sharp-pointed ears, the thick lips – Foma had seen all these before, but could not recall when and where.

“Yes, we are very much in arrears before the Lord!” remarked one of the peasants, heaving a deep sigh.

“We must pray,” whispered the peasant who lay on the bench, in a scarcely audible voice.

“Can you scrape your sinful wretchedness off your soul with words of prayer?” exclaimed someone loudly, almost with despair in his voice.

No one of those that formed the group around the pilgrim turned at this voice, only their heads sank lower on their breasts, and for a long time these people sat motionless and speechless:

The pilgrim measured his audience with a serious and meditative glance of his blue eyes, and said softly:

“Ephraim the Syrian said: ‘Make thy soul the central point of thy thoughts and strengthen thyself with thy desire to be free from sin.’”

And again he lowered his head, slowly fingering the beads of the rosary.

“That means we must think,” said one of the peasants; “but when has a man time to think during his life on earth?”

“Confusion is all around us.”

“We must flee to the desert,” said the peasant who lay on the bench.

“Not everybody can afford it.”

The peasants spoke, and became silent again. A shrill whistle resounded, a little bell began to jingle at the machine. Someone’s loud exclamation rang out:

“Eh, there! To the water-measuring poles.”

“Oh Lord! Oh Queen of Heaven!” – a deep sigh was heard.

And a dull, half-choked voice shouted:

“Nine! nine!”

Fragments of the fog burst forth upon the deck and floated over it like cold, gray smoke.

“Here, kind people, give ear unto the words of King David,” said the pilgrim, and shaking his head, began to read distinctly: “‘Lead me, Oh Lord, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face. For there is no faithfulness in their mouths; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue. Destroy thou them, Oh God; let them fall by their own counsels.’”

“Eight! seven!” Like moans these exclamations resounded in the distance.

The steamer began to hiss angrily, and slackened its speed. The noise of the hissing of the steam deafened the pilgrim’s words, and Foma saw only the movement of his lips.

“Get off!” a loud, angry shout was heard. “It’s my place!”

“Yours?”

“Here you have yours!”

“I’ll rap you on the jaw; then you’ll find your place. What a lord!”

“Get away!”

An uproar ensued. The peasants who were listening to the pilgrim turned their heads toward the direction where the row was going on, and the pilgrim heaved a sigh and became silent. Near the machine a loud and lively dispute blazed up as though dry branches, thrown upon a dying bonfire, had caught the flame.

“I’ll give it to you, devils! Get away, both of you.”

“Take them away to the captain.”

“Ha! ha! ha! That’s a fine settlement for you!”

“That was a good rap he gave him on the neck!”

“The sailors are a clever lot.”

“Eight! nine!” shouted the man with the measuring pole.

“Yes, increase speed!” came the loud exclamation of the engineer.

Swaying because of the motion of the steamer, Foma stood leaning against the tarpaulin, and attentively listened to each and every sound about him. And everything was blended into one picture, which was familiar to him. Through fog and uncertainty, surrounded on all sides by gloom impenetrable to the eye, life of man is moving somewhere slowly and heavily. And men are grieved over their sins, they sigh heavily, and then fight for a warm place, and asking each other for the sake of possessing the place, they also receive blows from those who strive for order in life. They timidly search for a free road toward the goal.

“Nine! eight!”

The wailing cry is softly wafted over the vessel. “And the holy prayer of the pilgrim is deafened by the tumult of life. And there is no relief from sorrow, there is no joy for him who reflects on his fate.”

Foma felt like speaking to this pilgrim, in whose softly uttered words there rang sincere fear of God, and all manner of fear for men before His countenance. The kind, admonitive voice of the pilgrim possessed a peculiar power, which compelled Foma to listen to its deep tones.

“I’d like to ask him where he lives,” thought Foma, fixedly scrutinizing the huge stooping figure. “And where have I seen him before? Or does he resemble some acquaintance of mine?”

Suddenly it somehow struck Foma with particular vividness that the humble preacher before him was no other than the son of old Anany Shchurov. Stunned by this conjecture, he walked up to the pilgrim and seating himself by his side, inquired freely:

“Are you from Irgiz, father?”

The pilgrim raised his head, turned his face toward Foma slowly and heavily, scrutinized him and said in a calm and gentle voice:

“I was on the Irgiz, too.”

“Are you a native of that place?”

“Are you now coming from there?”

“No, I am coming from Saint Stephen.”

The conversation broke off. Foma lacked the courage to ask the pilgrim whether he was not Shchurov.

“We’ll be late on account of the fog,” said some one.

“How can we help being late!”

All were silent, looking at Foma. Young, handsome, neatly and richly dressed, he aroused the curiosity of the bystanders by his sudden appearance among them; he was conscious of this curiosity, he understood that they were all waiting for his words, that they wanted to understand why he had come to them, and all this confused and angered him.

“It seems to me that I’ve met you before somewhere, father,” said he at length.

The pilgrim replied, without looking at him:

“Perhaps.”

“I would like to speak to you,” announced Foma, timidly, in a low voice.

“Well, then, speak.”

“Come with me.”

“Whither?”

“To my cabin.”

The pilgrim looked into Foma’s face, and, after a moment’s silence, assented:

“Come.”

On leaving, Foma felt the looks of the peasants on his back, and now he was pleased to know that they were interested in him.

In the cabin he asked gently:

“Would you perhaps eat something? Tell me. I will order it.”

“God forbid. What do you wish?”

This man, dirty and ragged, in a cassock turned red with age, and covered with patches, surveyed the cabin with a squeamish look, and when he seated himself on the plush-covered lounge, he turned the skirt of the cassock as though afraid to soil it by the plush.

“What is your name, father?” asked Foma, noticing the expression of squeamishness on the pilgrim’s face.

“Miron.”

“Not Mikhail?”

“Why Mikhail?” asked the pilgrim.

“There was in our town the son of a certain merchant Shchurov, he also went off to the Irgiz. And his name was Mikhail.”

Foma spoke and fixedly looked at Father Miron; but the latter was as calm as a deaf-mute —

“I never met such a man. I don’t remember, I never met him,” said he, thoughtfully. “So you wished to inquire about him?”

“Yes.”

“No, I never met Mikhail Shchurov. Well, pardon me for Christ’s sake!” and rising from the lounge, the pilgrim bowed to Foma and went toward the door.

“But wait awhile, sit down, let’s talk a little!” exclaimed Foma, rushing at him uneasily. The pilgrim looked at him searchingly and sank down on the lounge. From the distance came a dull sound, like a deep groan, and immediately after it the signal whistle of the steamer drawled out as in a frightened manner over Foma’s and his guest’s heads. From the distance came a more distant reply, and the whistle overhead again gave out abrupt, timorous sounds. Foma opened the window. Through the fog, not far from their steamer, something was moving along with deep noise; specks of fantastic lights floated by, the fog was agitated and again sank into dead immobility.

“How terrible!” exclaimed Foma, shutting the window.

“What is there to be afraid of?” asked the pilgrim. “You see! It is neither day nor night, neither darkness nor light! We can see nothing, we are sailing we know not whither, we are straying on the river.”

“Have inward fire within you, have light within your soul, and you shall see everything,” said the pilgrim, sternly and instructively.

Foma was displeased with these cold words and looked at the pilgrim askance. The latter sat with drooping head, motionless, as though petrified in thought and prayer. The beads of his rosary were softly rustling in his hands.

The pilgrim’s attitude gave birth to easy courage in Foma’s breast, and he said:

“Tell me, Father Miron, is it good to live, having full freedom, without work, without relatives, a wanderer, like yourself?”

Father Miron raised his head and softly burst into the caressing laughter of a child. All his face, tanned from wind and sunburn, brightened up with inward joy, was radiant with tranquil joy; he touched Foma’s knee with his hand and said in a sincere tone:

“Cast aside from you all that is worldly, for there is no sweetness in it. I am telling you the right word – turn away from evil. Do you remember it is said:

‘Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners.’ Turn away, refresh your soul with solitude and fill yourself with the thought of God. For only by the thought of Him can man save his soul from profanation.”

“That isn’t the thing!” said Foma. “I have no need of working out my salvation. Have I sinned so much? Look at others. What I would like is to comprehend things.”

“And you will comprehend if you turn away from the world. Go forth upon the free road, on the fields, on the steppes, on the plains, on the mountains. Go forth and look at the world from afar, from your freedom.”

“That’s right!” cried Foma. “That’s just what I think. One can see better from the side!”

And Miron, paying no attention to his words, spoke softly, as though of some great mystery, known only to him, the pilgrim:

“The thick slumbering forests around you will start to rustle in sweet voices about the wisdom of the Lord; God’s little birds will sing before you of His holy glory, and the grasses of the steppe will burn incense to the Holy Virgin.”

The pilgrim’s voice now rose and quivered from excess of emotion, now sank to a mysterious whisper. He seemed as though grown younger; his eyes beamed so confidently and clearly, and all his face was radiant with the happy smile of a man who has found expression for his joy and was delighted while he poured it forth.

“The heart of God throbs in each and every blade of grass; each and every insect of the air and of the earth, breathes His holy spirit. God, the Lord, Jesus Christ, lives everywhere! What beauty there is on earth, in the fields and in the forests! Have you ever been on the Kerzhenz? An incomparable silence reigns there supreme, the trees, the grass there are like those of paradise.”

Foma listened, and his imagination, captivated by the quiet, charming narrative, pictured to him those wide fields and dense forests, full of beauty and soul-pacifying silence.

“You look at the sky, as you rest somewhere under a little bush, and the sky seems to descend upon you as though longing to embrace you. Your soul is warm, filled with tranquil joy, you desire nothing, you envy nothing. And it actually seems to you that there is no one on earth save you and God.”

The pilgrim spoke, and his voice and sing-song speech reminded Foma of the wonderful fairy-tales of Aunt Anfisa. He felt as though, after a long journey on a hot day, he drank the clear, cold water of a forest brook, water that had the fragrance of the grasses and the flowers it has bathed. Even wider and wider grew the pictures as they unfolded upon him; here is a path through the thick, slumbering forest; the fine sunbeams penetrate through the branches of the trees, and quiver in the air and under the feet of the wanderer. There is a savoury odour of fungi and decaying foliage; the honeyed fragrance of the flowers, the intense odour of the pine-tree invisibly rise in the air and penetrate the breast in a warm, rich stream. All is silence: only the birds are singing, and the silence is so wonderful that it seems as though even the birds were singing in your breast. You go, without haste, and your life goes on like a dream. While here everything is enveloped in a gray, dead fog, and we are foolishly struggling about in it, yearning for freedom and light. There below they have started to sing something in scarcely audible voices; it was half song, half prayer. Again someone is shouting, scolding. And still they seek the way:

“Seven and a half. Seven!”

“And you have no care,” spoke the pilgrim, and his voice murmured like a brook. “Anybody will give you a crust of bread; and what else do you need in your freedom? In the world, cares fall upon the soul like fetters.”

“You speak well,” said Foma with a sigh.

“My dear brother!” exclaimed the pilgrim, softly, moving still closer toward him. “Since the soul has awakened, since it yearns toward freedom, do not lull it to sleep by force; hearken to its voice. The world with its charms has no beauty and holiness whatever, wherefore, then, obey its laws? In John Chrysostom it is said: ‘The real shechinah is man!’ Shechinah is a Hebrew word and it means the holy of holies. Consequently – ”

A prolonged shrill sound of the whistle drowned his voice. He listened, rose quickly from the lounge and said:

“We are nearing the harbour. That’s what the whistle meant. I must be off! Well, goodbye, brother! May God give you strength and firmness to act according to the will of your soul! Goodbye, my dear boy!”

He made a low bow to Foma. There was something feminine, caressing and soft in his farewell words and bow. Foma also bowed low to him, bowed and remained as though petrified, standing with drooping head, his hand leaning against the table.

“Come to see me when you are in town,” he asked the pilgrim, who was hastily turning the handle of the cabin door.

“I will! I will come! Goodbye! Christ save you!”

When the steamer’s side touched the wharf Foma came out on the deck and began to look downward into the fog. From the steamer people were walking down the gang-planks, but Foma could not discern the pilgrim among those dark figures enveloped in the dense gloom. All those that left the steamer looked equally indistinct, and they all quickly disappeared from sight, as though they had melted in the gray dampness. One could see neither the shore nor anything else solid; the landing bridge rocked from the commotion caused by the steamer; above it the yellow spot of the lantern was swaying; the noise of the footsteps and the bustle of the people were dull.

The steamer put off and slowly moved along into the clouds. The pilgrim, the harbour, the turmoil of people’s voices – all suddenly disappeared like a dream, and again there remained only the dense gloom and the steamer heavily turning about in it. Foma stared before him into the dead sea of fog and thought of the blue, cloudless and caressingly warm sky – where was it?

On the next day, about noon, he sat In Yozhov’s small room and listened to the local news from the mouth of his friend. Yozhov had climbed on the table, which was piled with newspapers, and, swinging his feet, narrated:

“The election campaign has begun. The merchants are putting your godfather up as mayor – that old devil! Like the devil, he is immortal, although he must be upwards of a hundred and fifty years old already. He marries his daughter to Smolin. You remember that red-headed fellow. They say that he is a decent man, but nowadays they even call clever scoundrels decent men, because there are no men. Now Africashka plays the enlightened man; he has already managed to get into intelligent society, donated something to some enterprise or another and thus at once came to the front. Judging from his face, he is a sharper of the highest degree, but he will play a prominent part, for he knows how to adapt himself. Yes, friend, Africashka is a liberal. And a liberal merchant is a mixture of a wolf and a pig with a toad and a snake.”

“The devil take them all!” said Foma, waving his hand indifferently. “What have I to do with them? How about yourself – do you still keep on drinking?”

“I do! Why shouldn’t I drink?”

Half-clad and dishevelled, Yozhov looked like a plucked bird, which had just had a fight and had not yet recovered from the excitement of the conflict.

“I drink because, from time to time, I must quench the fire of my wounded heart. And you, you damp stump, you are smouldering little by little?”

“I have to go to the old man,” said Foma, wrinkling his face.

“Chance it!”

“I don’t feel like going. He’ll start to lecture me.”

“Then don’t go!”

“But I must.”

“Then go!”

“Why do you always play the buffoon?” said Foma, with displeasure, “as though you were indeed merry.”

“By God, I feel merry!” exclaimed Yozhov, jumping down from the table. “What a fine roasting I gave a certain gentleman in the paper yesterday! And then – I’ve heard a clever anecdote: A company was sitting on the sea-shore philosophizing at length upon life. And a Jew said to them: ‘Gentlemen, why do you employ so many different words? I’ll tell it to you all at once: Our life is not worth a single copeck, even as this stormy sea! ‘”

“Eh, the devil take you!” said Foma. “Good-bye. I am going.”

“Go ahead! I am in a fine frame of mind to-day and I will not moan with you. All the more so considering you don’t moan, but grunt.”

Foma went away, leaving Yozhov singing at the top of his voice:

“Beat the drum and fear not.”

“Drum? You are a drum yourself;” thought Foma, with irritation, as he slowly came out on the street.

At the Mayakins he was met by Luba. Agitated and animated, she suddenly appeared before him, speaking quickly:

“You? My God! How pale you are! How thin you’ve grown! It seems you have been leading a fine life.”

Then her face became distorted with alarm and she exclaimed almost in a whisper:

“Ah, Foma. You don’t know. Do you hear? Someone is ringing the bell. Perhaps it is he.”

And she rushed out of the room, leaving behind her in the air the rustle of her silk gown, and the astonished Foma, who had not even had a chance to ask her where her father was. Yakov Tarasovich was at home. Attired in his holiday clothes, in a long frock coat with medals on his breast, he stood on the threshold with his hands outstretched, clutching at the door posts. His green little eyes examined Foma, and, feeling their look upon him, Foma raised his head and met them.

“How do you do, my fine gentleman?” said the old man, shaking his head reproachfully. “Where has it pleased you to come from, may I ask? Who has sucked off that fat of yours? Or is it true that a pig looks for a puddle, and Foma for a place which is worse?”

“Have you no other words for me?” asked Foma, sternly, looking straight into the old man’s face. And suddenly he noticed that his godfather shuddered, his legs trembled, his eyes began to blink repeatedly, and his hands clutched the door posts with an effort. Foma advanced toward him, presuming that the old man was feeling ill, but Yakov Tarasovich said in a dull and angry voice:

“Stand aside. Get out of the way.”

And his face assumed its usual expression.

Foma stepped back and found himself side by side with a rather short, stout man, who bowed to Mayakin, and said in a hoarse voice:

“How do you do, papa?”

“How are you, Taras Yakovlich, how are you?” said the old man, bowing, smiling distractedly, and still clinging to the door posts.

Foma stepped aside in confusion, seated himself in an armchair, and, petrified with curiosity, wide-eyed, began to watch the meeting of father and son.

The father, standing in the doorway, swayed his feeble body, leaning his hands against the door posts, and, with his head bent on one side and eyes half shut, stared at his son in silence. The son stood about three steps away from him; his head already gray, was lifted high; he knitted his brow and gazed at his father with large dark eyes. His small, black, pointed beard and his small moustache quivered on his meagre face, with its gristly nose, like that of his father. And the hat, also, quivered in his hand. From behind his shoulder Foma saw the pale, frightened and joyous face of Luba – she looked at her father with beseeching eyes and it seemed she was on the point of crying out. For a few moments all were silent and motionless, crushed as they were by the immensity of their emotions. The silence was broken by the low, but dull and quivering voice of Yakov Tarasovich:

“You have grown old, Taras.”

The son laughed in his father’s face silently, and, with a swift glance, surveyed him from head to foot.

The father tearing his hands from the door posts, made a step toward his son and suddenly stopped short with a frown. Then Taras Mayakin, with one huge step, came up to his father and gave him his hand.

“Well, let us kiss each other,” suggested the father, softly.

The two old men convulsively clasped each other in their arms, exchanged warm kisses and then stepped apart. The wrinkles of the older man quivered, the lean face of the younger was immobile, almost stern. The kisses had changed nothing in the external side of this scene, only Lubov burst into a sob of joy, and Foma awkwardly moved about in his seat, feeling as though his breath were failing him.

“Eh, children, you are wounds to the heart – you are not its joy,” complained Yakov Tarasovich in a ringing voice, and he evidently invested a great deal in these words, for immediately after he had pronounced them he became radiant, more courageous, and he said briskly, addressing himself to his daughter:

“Well, have you melted with joy? You had better go and prepare something for us – tea and so forth. We’ll entertain the prodigal son. You must have forgotten, my little old man, what sort of a man your father is?”

Taras Mayakin scrutinized his parent with a meditative look of his large eyes and he smiled, speechless, clad in black, wherefore the gray hair on his head and in his beard told more strikingly.

“Well, be seated. Tell me – how have you lived, what have you done? What are you looking at? Ah! That’s my godson. Ignat Gordyeeff’s son, Foma. Do you remember Ignat?”

“I remember everything,” said Taras.

“Oh! That’s good, if you are not bragging. Well, are you married?”

“I am a widower.”

“Have you any children?”

“They died. I had two.”

“That’s a pity. I would have had grandchildren.”

“May I smoke?” asked Taras.

“Go ahead. Just look at him, you’re smoking cigars.”

“Don’t you like them?”

“I? Come on, it’s all the same to me. I say that it looks rather aristocratic to smoke cigars.”

“And why should we consider ourselves lower than the aristocrats?” said Taras, laughing.

“Do, I consider ourselves lower?” exclaimed the old man. “I merely said it because it looked ridiculous to me, such a sedate old fellow, with beard trimmed in foreign fashion, cigar in his mouth. Who is he? My son – he-he-he!” the old man tapped Taras on the shoulder and sprang away from him, as though frightened lest he were rejoicing too soon, lest that might not be the proper way to treat that half gray man. And he looked searchingly and suspiciously into his son’s large eyes, which were surrounded by yellowish swellings.

Taras smiled in his father’s face an affable and warm smile, and said to him thoughtfully:

“That’s the way I remember you – cheerful and lively. It looks as though you had not changed a bit during all these years.”

The old man straightened himself proudly, and, striking his breast with his fist, said:

“I shall never change, because life has no power over him who knows his own value. Isn’t that so?”

“Oh! How proud you are!”

“I must have taken after my son,” said the old man with a cunning grimace. “Do you know, dear, my son was silent for seventeen years out of pride.”

“That’s because his father would not listen to him,” Taras reminded him.

“It’s all right now. Never mind the past. Only God knows which of us is to blame. He, the upright one, He’ll tell it to you – wait! I shall keep silence. This is not the time for us to discuss that matter. You better tell me – what have you been doing all these years? How did you come to that soda factory? How have you made your way?”

“That’s a long story,” said Taras with a sigh; and emitting from his mouth a great puff of smoke, he began slowly: “When I acquired the possibility to live at liberty, I entered the office of the superintendent of the gold mines of the Remezovs.”

“I know; they’re very rich. Three brothers. I know them all. One is a cripple, the other a fool, and the third a miser. Go on!”

“I served under him for two years. And then I married his daughter,” narrated Mayakin in a hoarse voice.

“The superintendent’s? That wasn’t foolish at all.” Taras became thoughtful and was silent awhile. The old man looked at his sad face and understood his son.

“And so you lived with your wife happily,” he said. “Well, what can you do? To the dead belongs paradise, and the living must live on. You are not so very old as yet. Have you been a widower long?”

“This is the third year.”

“So? And how did you chance upon the soda factory?”

“That belongs to my father-in-law.”

“Aha! What is your salary?”

“About five thousand.”

“Mm. That’s not a stale crust. Yes, that’s a galley slave for you!”

Taras glanced at his father with a firm look and asked him drily:

“By the way, what makes you think that I was a convict?”

The old man glanced at his son with astonishment, which was quickly changed into joy:

“Ah! What then? You were not? The devil take them! Then – how was it? Don’t take offence! How could I know? They said you were in Siberia! Well, and there are the galleys!”

“To make an end of this once for all,” said Taras, seriously and impressively, clapping his hand on his knee, “I’ll tell you right now how it all happened. I was banished to Siberia to settle there for six years, and, during all the time of my exile, I lived in the mining region of the Lena. In Moscow I was imprisoned for about nine months. That’s all!”

“So-o! But what does it mean?” muttered Yakov Tarasovich, with confusion and joy.

“And here they circulated that absurd rumour.”

“That’s right – it is absurd indeed!” said the old man, distressed.

“And it did a pretty great deal of harm on a certain occasion.”