From the Caucasus he came again to Moscow, in a Circassian dress, a dagger in his sash, a high-peaked cap on his head. This costume he retained to the end, though he was no longer in the army, from which he had been discharged for outstaying his leave. He stayed with me, borrowed a little money ... and forthwith began his ‘plunges,’ his wanderings, or, as he expressed it, ‘his peregrinations from pillar to post,’ then came the sudden disappearances and returns, and the showers of beautifully written letters addressed to people of every possible description, from an archbishop down to stable-boys and mid-wives! Then came calls upon persons known and unknown! And this is worth noticing: when he made these calls, he was never abject and cringing, he never worried people by begging, but on the contrary behaved with propriety, and had positively a cheerful and pleasant air, though the inveterate smell of spirits accompanied him everywhere, and his Oriental costume gradually changed into rags. ‘Give, and God will reward you, though I don’t deserve it,’ he would say, with a bright smile and a candid blush; ‘if you don’t give, you’ll be perfectly right, and I shan’t blame you for it. I shall find food to eat, God will provide! And there are people poorer than I, and much more deserving of help—plenty, plenty!’ Misha was particularly successful with women: he knew how to appeal to their sympathy. But don’t suppose that he was or fancied himself a Lovelace....Oh, no! in that way he was very modest. Whether it was that he had inherited a cool temperament from his parents, or whether indeed this too is to be set down to his dislike for doing any one harm—as, according to his notions, relations with a woman meant inevitably doing a woman harm—I won’t undertake to decide; only in all his behaviour with the fair sex he was extremely delicate. Women felt this, and were the more ready to sympathise with him and help him, until at last he revolted them by his drunkenness and debauchery, by the desperateness of which I have spoken already.... I can think of no other word for it.
But in other relations he had by that time lost every sort of delicacy, and was gradually sinking to the lowest depths of degradation. He once, in the public assembly at T——, got as far as setting on the table a jug with a notice: ‘Any one, to whom it may seem agreeable to give the high-born nobleman Poltyev (authentic documents in proof of his pedigree are herewith exposed) a flip on the nose, may satisfy this inclination on putting a rouble into this jug.’ And I am told there were persons found willing to pay for the privilege of flipping a nobleman’s nose! It is true that one such person, who put in only one rouble and gave himtwoflips, he first almost strangled, and then forced to apologise; it is true, too, that part of the money gained in this fashion he promptly distributed among other poor devils ... but still, think what a disgrace!
In the course of his ‘peregrinations from pillar to post,’ he made his way, too, to his ancestral home, which he had sold for next to nothing to a speculator and money-lender well known in those days. The money-lender was at home, and hearing of the presence in the neighbourhood of the former owner, now reduced to vagrancy, he gave orders not to admit him into the house, and even, in case of necessity, to drive him away. Misha announced that he would not for his part consent to enter the house, polluted by the presence of so repulsive a person; that he would permit no one to drive him away, but was going to the churchyard to pay his devotions at the grave of his parents. So in fact he did.
In the churchyard he was joined by an old house-serf, who had once been his nurse. The money-lender had deprived this old man of his monthly allowance, and driven him off the estate; since then his refuge had been a corner in a peasant’s hut. Misha had been too short a time in possession of his estate to have left behind him a particularly favourable memory; still the old servant could not resist running to the churchyard as soon as he heard of his young master’s being there. He found Misha sitting on the ground between the tombstones, asked for his hand to kiss, as in old times, and even shed tears on seeing the rags which clothed the limbs of his once pampered young charge.
Misha gazed long and silently at the old man. ‘Timofay!’ he said at last; Timofay started.
‘What do you desire?’
‘Have you a spade?’
‘I can get one.... But what do you want with a spade, Mihailo Andreitch, sir?’
‘I want to dig myself a grave, Timofay, and to lie here for time everlasting between my father and mother. There’s only this spot left me in the world. Get a spade!’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Timofay; he went and got it. And Misha began at once digging in the ground, while Timofay stood by, his chin propped in his hand, repeating: ‘It’s all that’s left for you and me, master!’
Misha dug and dug, from time to time observing: ‘Life’s not worth living, is it, Timofay?’
‘It’s not indeed, master.’
The hole was already of a good depth. People saw what Misha was about, and ran to tell the new owner about it. The money-lender was at first very angry, wanted to send for the police: ‘This is sacrilege,’ said he. But afterwards, probably reflecting that it was inconvenient anyway to have to do with such a madman, and that it might lead to a scandal,—he went in his own person to the churchyard, and approaching Misha, still toiling, made him a polite bow. He went on with his digging as though he had not noticed his successor. ‘Mihail Andreitch,’ began the money-lender, ‘allow me to ask what you are doing here?’
‘You can see—I am digging myself a grave.’
‘Why are you doing so?’
‘Because I don’t want to live any longer.’
The money-lender fairly threw up his hands in amazement. ‘You don’t want to live?’
Misha glanced menacingly at the money-lender. ‘That surprises you? Aren’t you the cause of it all? ... You? ... You? ... Wasn’t it you, Judas, who robbed me, taking advantage of my childishness? Aren’t you flaying the peasants’ skins off their backs? Haven’t you taken from this poor old man his crust of dry bread? Wasn’t it you? ... O God! everywhere nothing but injustice, and oppression, and evil-doing.... Everything must go to ruin then, and me too! I don’t care for life, I don’t care for life in Russia!’ And the spade moved faster than ever in Misha’s hands.
‘Here’s a devil of a business!’ thought the money-lender; ‘he’s positively burying himself alive.’ ‘Mihail Andreevitch,’ he began again: ‘listen. I’ve been behaving badly to you, indeed; they told me falsely of you.’
Misha went on digging.
‘But why be desperate?’
Misha still went on digging, and kept throwing the earth at the money-lender’s feet, as though to say, ‘Here you are, land-grabber.’
‘Really, you ‘re wrong in this. Won’t you be pleased to come in to have some lunch, and rest a bit?’
Misha raised his head. ‘So that’s it now! And anything to drink?’
The money-lender was delighted. ‘Why, of course ... I should think so.’
‘You invite Timofay too?’
‘Well, ... yes, him too.’
Misha pondered. ‘Only, mind ... you made me a beggar, you know.... Don’t think you can get off with one bottle!’
‘Set your mind at rest ... there shall be all you can want.’
Misha got up and flung down the spade.... ‘Well, Timosha,’ said he to his old nurse; ‘let’s do honour to our host.... Come along.’
‘Yes, sir,’ answered the old man.
And all three started off to the house together. The money-lender knew the man he had to deal with. At the first start Misha, it is true, exacted a promise from him to ‘grant all sorts of immunities’ to the peasants; but an hour later, this same Misha, together with Timofay, both drunk, were dancing a galop in the big apartments, which still seemed pervaded by the God-fearing shade of Andrei Nikolaevitch; and an hour later still, Misha in a dead sleep (he had a very weak head for spirits), laid in a cart with his high cap and dagger, was being driven off to the town, more than twenty miles away, and there was flung under a hedge.... As for Timofay, who could still keep on his legs, and only hiccupped—him, of course, they kicked out of the house; since they couldn’t get at the master, they had to be content with the old servant.
Some time passed again, and I heard nothing of Misha.... God knows what he was doing. But one day, as I sat over the samovar at a posting-station on the T—— highroad, waiting for horses, I suddenly heard under the open window of the station room a hoarse voice, uttering in French the words: ‘Monsieur ... monsieur ... prenez pitié d’un pauvre gentil-homme ruiné.’ ... I lifted my head, glanced.... The mangy-looking fur cap, the broken ornaments on the ragged Circassian dress, the dagger in the cracked sheath, the swollen, but still rosy face, the dishevelled, but still thick crop of hair.... Mercy on us! Misha! He had come then to begging alms on the high-roads. I could not help crying out. He recognised me, started, turned away, and was about to move away from the window. I stopped him ... but what could I say to him? Give him a lecture? ... In silence I held out a five-rouble note; he, also in silence, took it in his still white and plump, though shaking and dirty hand, and vanished round the corner of the house.
It was a good while before they gave me horses, and I had time to give myself up to gloomy reflections on my unexpected meeting with Misha; I felt ashamed of having let him go so unsympathetically.
At last I set off on my way, and half a mile from the station I observed ahead of me, in the road, a crowd of people moving along with a curious, as it seemed rhythmic, step. I overtook this crowd—and what did I see?
Some dozen or so beggars, with sacks over their shoulders, were walking two by two, singing and leaping about, while in front of them danced Misha, stamping time with his feet, and shouting, ‘Natchiki-tchikaldy, tchuk, tchuk, tchuk! ... Natchiki-tchikaldy, tchuk, tchuk, tchuk!’ Directly my carriage caught them up, and he saw me, he began at once shouting, ‘Hurrah! Stand in position! right about face, guard of the roadside!’
The beggars took up his shout, and halted; while he, with his peculiar laugh, jumped on to the carriage step, and again yelled: Hurrah!
‘What’s the meaning of this?’ I asked with involuntary astonishment.
‘This? This is my company, my army—all beggars, God’s people, friends of my heart. Every one of them, thanks to you, has had a glass; and now we are all rejoicing and making merry! ... Uncle! Do you know it’s only with beggars, God’s people, that one can live in the world ... by God, it is!’
I made him no answer ... but at that moment he struck me as such a kind good creature, his face expressed such childlike simple-heartedness.... A light seemed suddenly as it were to dawn upon me, and I felt a pang in my heart.... ‘Get into the carriage,’ I said to him. He was taken aback....
‘What? Into the carriage?’
‘Yes, get in, get in,’ I repeated; ‘I want to make you a suggestion. Sit down.... Come along with me.’
‘Well, as you will.’ He sat down. ‘Well, and you, my honoured friends, my dear comrades,’ he added, addressing the beggars, ‘fare-well, till we meet again.’ Misha took off his high cap, and bowed low. The beggars all seemed overawed.... I told the coachman to whip up the horses, and the carriage rolled off.
The suggestion I wanted to make Misha was this: the idea suddenly occurred to me to take him with me to my home in the country, about five-and-twenty miles from that station, to rescue him, or at least to make an effort to rescue him. ‘Listen, Misha,’ I said; ‘will you come along and live with me? ... You shall have everything provided you; you shall have clothes and linen made you; you shall be properly fitted out, and you shall have money to spend on tobacco, and so on, only on one condition, that you give up drink.... Do you agree?’
Misha was positively aghast with delight; he opened his eyes wide, flushed crimson, and suddenly falling on my shoulder, began kissing me, and repeating in a broken voice, ‘Uncle ... benefactor ... God reward you.’ ... He burst into tears at last, and taking off his cap fell to wiping his eyes, his nose, his lips with it.
‘Mind,’ I observed; ‘remember the condition, not to touch strong drink.’
‘Damnation to it!’ he cried, with a wave of both arms, and with this impetuous movement, I was more than ever conscious of the strong smell of spirits with which he seemed always saturated.... ‘Uncle, if you knew what my life has been.... If it hadn’t been for sorrow, a cruel fate.... But now I swear, I swear, I will mend my ways, I will show you.... Uncle, I’ve never told a lie—you can ask whom you like.... I’m honest, but I’m an unlucky fellow, uncle; I’ve known no kindness from any one....’
Here he broke down finally into sobs. I tried to soothe him, and succeeded so far that when we reached home Misha had long been lost in a heavy sleep, with his head on my knees.
He was at once assigned a room for himself, and at once, first thing, taken to the bath, which was absolutely essential. All his clothes, and his dagger and cap and torn boots, were carefully put away in a loft; he was dressed in clean linen, slippers, and some clothes of mine, which, as is always the way with poor relations, at once seemed to adapt themselves to his size and figure. When he came to table, washed, clean, and fresh, he seemed so touched and happy, he beamed all over with such joyful gratitude, that I too felt moved and joyful.... His face was completely transformed.... Boys of twelve have faces like that on Easter Sundays, after the communion, when, thickly pomaded, in new jacket and starched collars, they come to exchange Easter greetings with their parents. Misha was continually—with a sort of cautious incredulity—feeling himself and repeating: ‘What does it mean? ... Am I in heaven?’ The next day he announced that he had not slept all night, he had been in such ecstasy.
I had living in my house at that time an old aunt with her niece; both of them were extremely disturbed when they heard of Misha’s presence; they could not comprehend how I could have asked him into my house! There were very ugly rumours about him. But in the first place, I knew he was always very courteous with ladies; and, secondly, I counted on his promises of amendment. And, in fact, for the first two days of his stay under my roof Misha not merely justified my expectations but surpassed them, while the ladies of the household were simply enchanted with him. He played piquet with the old lady, helped her to wind her worsted, showed her two new games of patience; for the niece, who had a small voice, he played accompaniments on the piano, and read Russian and French poetry. He told both the ladies lively but discreet anecdotes; in fact, he showed them every attention, so that they repeatedly expressed their surprise to me, and the old lady even observed how unjust people sometimes were.... The things—the things they had said of him ... and he such a quiet fellow, and so polite ... poor Misha! It is true that at table ‘poor Misha’ licked his lips in a rather peculiar, hurried way, if he simply glanced at the bottle. But I had only to shake my finger at him, and he would turn his eyes upwards, and lay his hand on his heart ... as if to say, I have sworn.... ‘I am regenerated now,’ he assured me.... ‘Well, God grant it be so,’ was my thought.... But this regeneration did not last long.
The first two days he was very talkative and cheerful. But even on the third day he seemed somehow subdued, though he remained, as before, with the ladies and tried to entertain them. A half mournful, half dreamy expression flitted now and then over his face, and the face itself was paler and looked thinner. ‘Are you unwell?’ I asked him.
‘Yes,’ he answered; ‘my head aches a little.’ On the fourth day he was completely silent; for the most part he sat in a corner, hanging his head disconsolately, and his dejected appearance worked upon the compassionate sympathies of the two ladies, who now, in their turn, tried to amuse him. At table he ate nothing, stared at his plate, and rolled up pellets of bread. On the fifth day the feeling of compassion in the ladies began to be replaced by other emotions—uneasiness and even alarm. Misha was so strange, he held aloof from people, and kept moving along close to the walls, as though trying to steal by unnoticed, and suddenly looking round as though some one had called him. And what had become of his rosy colour? It seemed covered over by a layer of earth. ‘Are you still unwell?’ I asked him.
‘No, I’m all right,’ he answered abruptly.
‘Are you dull?’
‘Why should I be dull?’ But he turned away and would not look me in the face.
‘Or is it that wretchedness come over you again?’ To this he made no reply. So passed another twenty-four hours.
Next day my aunt ran into my room in a state of great excitement, declaring that she would leave the house with her niece, if Misha was to remain in it.
‘Why so?’
‘Why, we are dreadfully scared with him.... He’s not a man, he’s a wolf,—nothing better than a wolf. He keeps moving and moving about, and doesn’t speak—and looks so wild.... He almost gnashes his teeth at me. My Katia, you know, is so nervous.... She was so struck with him the first day.... I’m in terror for her, and indeed for myself too.’ ... I didn’t know what to say to my aunt. I couldn’t, anyway, turn Misha out, after inviting him.
He relieved me himself from my difficult position. The same day,—I was still sitting in my own room,—suddenly I heard behind me a husky and angry voice: ‘Nikolai Nikolaitch, Nikolai Nikolaitch!’ I looked round; Misha was standing in the doorway with a face that was fearful, black-looking and distorted. ‘Nikolai Nikolaitch!’ he repeated ... (not ‘uncle’ now).
‘What do you want?’
‘Let me go ... at once!’
‘Why?’
‘Let me go, or I shall do mischief, I shall set the house on fire or cut some one’s throat.’ Misha suddenly began trembling. ‘Tell them to give me back my clothes, and let a cart take me to the highroad, and let me have some money, however little!’
‘Are you displeased, then, at anything?’
‘I can’t live like this!’ he shrieked at the top of his voice. ‘I can’t live in your respectable, thrice-accursed house! It makes me sick, and ashamed to live so quietly! ... Howyoumanage to endure it!’
‘That is,’ I interrupted in my turn, ‘you mean—you can’t live without drink....’
‘Well, yes! yes!’ he shrieked again: ‘only let me go to my brethren, my friends, to the beggars! ... Away from your respectable, loathsome species!’
I was about to remind him of his sworn promises, but Misha’s frenzied look, his breaking voice, the convulsive tremor in his limbs,—it was all so awful, that I made haste to get rid of him; I said that his clothes should be given him at once, and a cart got ready; and taking a note for twenty-five roubles out of a drawer, I laid it on the table. Misha had begun to advance in a menacing way towards me,—but on this, suddenly he stopped, his face worked, flushed, he struck himself on the breast, the tears rushed from his eyes, and muttering, ‘Uncle! angel! I know I’m a ruined man! thanks! thanks!’ he snatched up the note and ran away.
An hour later he was sitting in the cart dressed once more in his Circassian costume, again rosy and cheerful; and when the horses started, he yelled, tore off the peaked cap, and, waving it over his head, made bow after bow. Just as he was going off, he had given me a long and warm embrace, and whispered, ‘Benefactor, benefactor ... there’s no saving me!’ He even ran to the ladies and kissed their hands, fell on his knees, called upon God, and begged their forgiveness! Katia I found afterwards in tears.
The coachman, with whom Misha had set off, on coming home informed me that he had driven him to the first tavern on the highroad—and that there ‘his honour had stuck,’ had begun treating every one indiscriminately—and had quickly sunk into unconsciousness. From that day I never came across Misha again, but his ultimate fate I learned in the following manner.
Three years later, I was again at home in the country; all of a sudden a servant came in and announced that Madame Poltyev was asking to see me. I knew no Madame Poltyev, and the servant, who made this announcement, for some unknown reason smiled sarcastically. To my glance of inquiry, he responded that the lady asking for me was young, poorly dressed, and had come in a peasant’s cart with one horse, which she was driving herself! I told him to ask Madame Poltyev up to my room.
I saw a woman of five-and-twenty, in the dress of the small tradesman class, with a large kerchief on her head. Her face was simple, roundish, not without charm; she looked dejected and gloomy, and was shy and awkward in her movements.
‘You are Madame Poltyev?’ I inquired, and I asked her to sit down.
‘Yes,’ she answered in a subdued voice, and she did not sit down. ‘I am the widow of your nephew, Mihail Andreevitch Poltyev.’
‘Is Mihail Andreevitch dead? Has he been dead long? But sit down, I beg.’
She sank into a chair.
‘It’s two months.’
‘And had you been married to him long?’
‘I had been a year with him.’
‘Where have you come from now?’
‘From out Tula way.... There’s a village there, Znamenskoe-Glushkovo—perhaps you may know it. I am the daughter of the deacon there. Mihail Andreitch and I lived there.... He lived in my father’s house. We were a whole year together.’
The young woman’s lips twitched a little, and she put her hand up to them. She seemed to be on the point of tears, but she controlled herself, and cleared her throat.
‘Mihail Andreitch,’ she went on: ‘before his death enjoined upon me to go to you; “You must be sure to go,” said he! And he told me to thank you for all your goodness, and to give you ... this ... see, this little thing (she took a small packet out of her pocket) which he always had about him.... And Mihail Andreitch said, if you would be pleased to accept it in memory of him, if you would not disdain it.... “There’s nothing else,” said he, “I can give him” ... that is, you....’
In the packet there was a little silver cup with the monogram of Misha’s mother. This cup I had often seen in Misha’s hands, and once he had even said to me, speaking of some poor fellow, that he really was destitute, since he had neither cup nor bowl, ‘while I, see, have this anyway.’
I thanked her, took the cup, and asked:
‘Of what complaint had Misha died? No doubt....’
Then I bit my tongue ... but the young woman understood my unuttered hint.... She took a swift glance at me, then looked down again, smiled mournfully, and said at once: ‘Oh no! he had quite given that up, ever since he got to know me ... But he had no health at all! ... It was shattered quite. As soon as he gave up drink, he fell into ill health directly. He became so steady; he always wanted to help father in his land or in the garden, ... or any other work there might be ... in spite of his being of noble birth. But how could he get the strength? ... At writing, too, he tried to work; as you know, he could do that work capitally, but his hands shook, and he couldn’t hold the pen properly. ... He was always finding fault with himself; “I’m a white-handed poor creature,” he would say; “I’ve never done any good to anybody, never helped, never laboured!” He worried himself very much about that.... He used to say that our people labour,—but what use are we? ... Ah, Nikolai Nikolaitch, he was a good man—and he was fond of me ... and I... Ah, pardon me....’
Here the young woman wept outright. I would have consoled her, but I did not know how.
‘Have you a child left you?’ I asked at last.
She sighed. ‘No, no child.... Is it likely?’ And her tears flowed faster than ever.
‘And so that was how Misha’s troubled wanderings had ended,’ the old man P. wound up his narrative. ‘You will agree with me, I am sure, that I’m right in calling him a desperate character; but you will most likely agree too that he was not like the desperate characters of to-day; still, a philosopher, you must admit, would find a family likeness between him and them. In him and in them there’s the thirst for self-destruction, the wretchedness, the dissatisfaction.... And what it all comes from, I leave the philosopher to decide.’
BOUGIVALLE,November1881.
Fifteen years ago—began H.—official duties compelled me to spend a few days in the principal town of the province of T——. I stopped at a very fair hotel, which had been established six months before my arrival by a Jewish tailor, who had grown rich. I am told that it did not flourish long, which is often the case with us; but I found it still in its full splendour: the new furniture emitted cracks like pistol-shots at night; the bed-linen, table-cloths, and napkins smelt of soap, and the painted floors reeked of olive oil, which, however, in the opinion of the waiter, an exceedingly elegant but not very clean individual, tended to prevent the spread of insects. This waiter, a former valet of Prince G.‘s, was conspicuous for his free-and-easy manners and his self-assurance. He invariably wore a second-hand frockcoat and slippers trodden down at heel, carried a table-napkin under his arm, and had a multitude of pimples on his cheeks. With a free sweeping movement of his moist hands he gave utterance to brief but pregnant observations. He showed a patronising interest in me, as a person capable of appreciating his culture and knowledge of the world; but he regarded his own lot in life with a rather disillusioned eye. ‘No doubt about it,’ he said to me one day; ‘ours is a poor sort of position nowadays. May be sent flying any day!’ His name was Ardalion.
I had to make a few visits to official persons in the town. Ardalion procured me a coach and groom, both alike shabby and loose in the joints; but the groom wore livery, the carriage was adorned with an heraldic crest. After making all my official calls, I drove to see a country gentleman, an old friend of my father’s, who had been a long time settled in the town.... I had not met him for twenty years; he had had time to get married, to bring up a good-sized family, to be left a widower and to make his fortune. His business was with government monopolies, that is to say, he lent contractors for monopolies loans at heavy interest.... ‘There is always honour in risk,’ they say, though indeed the risk was small.
In the course of our conversation there came into the room with hesitating steps, but as lightly as though on tiptoe, a young girl of about seventeen, delicate-looking and thin. ‘Here,’ said my acquaintance, ‘is my eldest daughter Sophia; let me introduce you. She takes my poor wife’s place, looks after the house, and takes care of her brothers and sisters.’ I bowed a second time to the girl who had come in (she meanwhile dropped into a chair without speaking), and thought to myself that she did not look much like housekeeping or looking after children. Her face was quite childish, round, with small, pleasing, but immobile features; the blue eyes, under high, also immobile and irregular eyebrows, had an intent, almost astonished look, as though they had just observed something unexpected; the full little mouth with the lifted upper lip, not only did not smile, but seemed as though altogether innocent of such a practice; the rosy flush under the tender skin stood in soft, diffused patches on the cheeks, and neither paled nor deepened. The fluffy, fair hair hung in light clusters each side of the little head. Her bosom breathed softly, and her arms were pressed somehow awkwardly and severely against her narrow waist. Her blue gown fell without folds—like a child’s—to her little feet. The general impression this girl made upon me was not one of morbidity, but of something enigmatical. I saw before me not simply a shy, provincial miss, but a creature of a special type—that I could not make out. This type neither attracted nor repelled me; I did not fully understand it, and only felt that I had never come across a nature more sincere. Pity ... yes! pity was the feeling that rose up within me at the sight of this young, serious, keenly alert life—God knows why! ‘Not of this earth,’ was my thought, though there was nothing exactly ‘ideal’ in the expression of the face, and though Mademoiselle Sophie had obviously come into the drawing-room in fulfilment of those duties of lady of the house to which her father had referred.
He began to talk of life in the town of T——, of the social amusements and advantages it offered. ‘We’re very quiet here,’ he observed; ‘the governor’s a melancholy fellow; the marshal of the province is a bachelor. But there’ll be a big ball in the Hall of the Nobility the day after to-morrow. I advise you to go; there are some pretty girls here. And you’ll see all ourintelligentsitoo.’
My acquaintance, as a man of university education, was fond of using learned expressions. He pronounced them with irony, but also with respect. Besides, we all know that moneylending, together with respectability, developes a certain thoughtfulness in men.
‘Allow me to ask, will you be at the ball?’ I said, turning to my friend’s daughter. I wanted to hear the sound of her voice.
‘Papa intends to go,’ she answered, ‘and I with him.’
Her voice turned out to be soft and deliberate, and she articulated every syllable fully, as though she were puzzled.
‘In that case, allow me to ask you for the first quadrille.’
She bent her head in token of assent, and even then did not smile.
I soon withdrew, and I remember the expression in her eyes, fixed steadily upon me, struck me as so strange that I involuntarily looked over my shoulder to see whether there were not some one or some thing she was looking at behind my back.
I returned to the hotel, and after dining on the never-varied ‘soupe-julienne,’ cutlets, and green peas, and grouse cooked to a dry, black chip, I sat down on the sofa and gave myself up to reflection. The subject of my meditations was Sophia, this enigmatical daughter of my old acquaintance; but Ardalion, who was clearing the table, explained my thoughtfulness in his own way; he set it down to boredom.
‘There is very little in the way of entertainment for visitors in our town,’ he began with his usual easy condescension, while he went on at the same time flapping the backs of the chairs with a dirty dinner-napkin—a practice peculiar, as you’re doubtless aware, to servants of superior education. ‘Very little!’
He paused, and the huge clock on the wall, with a lilac rose on its white face, seemed in its monotonous, sleepy tick, to repeat his words: ‘Ve-ry! ve-ry!’ it ticked. ‘No concerts, nor theatres,’ pursued Ardalion (he had travelled abroad with his master, and had all but stayed in Paris; he knew much better than to mispronounce this last word, as the peasants do)—‘nor dances, for example; nor evening receptions among the nobility and gentry—there is nothing of the kind whatever.’ (He paused a moment, probably to allow me to observe the choiceness of his diction.) ‘They positively visit each other but seldom. Every one sits like a pigeon on its perch. And so it comes to pass that visitors have simply nowhere to go.’
Ardalion stole a sidelong glance at me.
‘But there is one thing,’ he went on, speaking with a drawl, ‘in case you should feel that way inclined....’
He glanced at me a second time and positively leered, but I suppose did not observe signs of the requisite inclination in me.
The polished waiter moved towards the door, pondered a moment, came back, and after fidgeting about uneasily a little, bent down to my ear, and with a playful smile said:
‘Would you not like to behold the dead?’
I stared at him in perplexity.
‘Yes,’ he went on, speaking in a whisper; ‘there is a man like that here. He’s a simple artisan, and can’t even read and write, but he does marvellous things. If you, for example, go to him and desire to see any one of your departed friends, he will be sure to show him you.’
‘How does he do it?’
‘That’s his secret. For though he’s an uneducated man—to speak bluntly, illiterate—he’s very great in godliness! Greatly respected he is among the merchant gentry!’
‘And does every one in the town know about this?’
‘Those who need to know; but, there, of course—there’s danger from the police to be guarded against. Because, say what you will, such doings are forbidden anyway, and for the common people are a temptation; the common people—the mob, we all know, quickly come to blows.’
‘Has he shown you the dead?’ I asked Ardalion.
Ardalion nodded. ‘He has; my father he brought before me as if living.’
I stared at Ardalion. He laughed and played with his dinner-napkin, and condescendingly, but unflinchingly, looked at me.
‘But this is very curious!’ I cried at last. ‘Couldn’t I make the acquaintance of this artisan?’
‘You can’t go straight to him; but one can act through his mother. She’s a respectable old woman; she sells pickled apples on the bridge. If you wish it, I will ask her.’
‘Please do.’
Ardalion coughed behind his hand. ‘And a gratuity, whatever you think fit, nothing much, of course, should also be handed to her—the old lady. And I on my side will make her understand that she has nothing to fear from you, as you are a visitor here, a gentleman—and of course you can understand that this is a secret, and will not in any case get her into any unpleasantness.’
Ardalion took the tray in one hand, and with a graceful swing of the tray and his own person, turned towards the door.
‘So I may reckon upon you!’ I shouted after him.
‘You may trust me!’ I heard his self-satisfied voice say: ‘We’ll talk to the old woman and transmit you her answer exactly.’
I will not enlarge on the train of thought aroused in me by the extraordinary fact Ardalion had related; but I am prepared to admit that I awaited the promised reply with impatience. Late in the evening Ardalion came to me and announced that to his annoyance he could not find the old woman. I handed him, however, by way of encouragement, a three-rouble note. The next morning he appeared again in my room with a beaming countenance; the old woman had consented to see me.
‘Hi! boy!’ shouted Ardalion in the corridor; ‘Hi! apprentice! Come here!’ A boy of six came up, grimed all over with soot like a kitten, with a shaved head, perfectly bald in places, in a torn, striped smock, and huge goloshes on his bare feet. ‘You take the gentleman, you know where,’ said Ardalion, addressing the ‘apprentice,’ and pointing to me. ‘And you, sir, when you arrive, ask for Mastridia Karpovna.’
The boy uttered a hoarse grunt, and we set off.
We walked rather a long while about the unpaved streets of the town of T——; at last in one of them, almost the most deserted and desolate of all, my guide stopped before an old two-story wooden house, and wiping his nose all over his smock-sleeve, said: ‘Here; go to the right.’ I passed through the porch into the outer passage, stumbled towards my right, a low door creaked on rusty hinges, and I saw before me a stout old woman in a brown jacket lined with hare-skin, with a parti-coloured kerchief on her head.
‘Mastridia Karpovna?’ I inquired.
‘The same, at your service,’ the old woman replied in a piping voice. ‘Please walk in. Won’t you take a chair?’
The room into which the old woman conducted me was so littered up with every sort of rubbish, rags, pillows, feather-beds, sacks, that one could hardly turn round in it. The sunlight barely struggled in through two dusty little windows; in one corner, from behind a heap of boxes piled on one another, there came a feeble whimpering and wailing.... I could not tell from what; perhaps a sick baby, or perhaps a puppy. I sat down on a chair, and the old woman stood up directly facing me. Her face was yellow, half-transparent like wax; her lips were so fallen in that they formed a single straight line in the midst of a multitude of wrinkles; a tuft of white hair stuck out from below the kerchief on her head, but the sunken grey eyes peered out alertly and cleverly from under the bony overhanging brow; and the sharp nose fairly stuck out like a spindle, fairly sniffed the air as if it would say: I’m a smart one! ‘Well, you’re no fool!’ was my thought. At the same time she smelt of spirits.
I explained to her the object of my visit, of which, however, as I observed, she must be aware. She listened to me, blinked her eyes rapidly, and only lifted her nose till it stuck out still more sharply, as though she were making ready to peck.
‘To be sure, to be sure,’ she said at last; ‘Ardalion Matveitch did say something, certainly; my son Vassinka’s art you were wanting.... But we can’t be sure, my dear sir....’
‘Oh, why so?’ I interposed. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you may feel perfectly easy.... I’m not an informer.’
‘Oh, mercy on us,’ the old woman caught me up hurriedly, ‘what do you mean? Could we dare to suppose such a thing of your honour! And on what ground could one inform against us? Do you suppose it’s some sinful contrivance of ours? No, sir, my son’s not the one to lend himself to anything wicked ... or give way to any sort of witchcraft.... God forbid indeed, holy Mother of Heaven! (The old woman crossed herself three times.) He’s the foremost in prayer and fasting in the whole province; the foremost, your honour, he is! And that’s just it: great grace has been vouchsafed to him. Yes, indeed. It’s not the work of his hands. It’s from on high, my dear; so it is.’
‘So you agree?’ I asked: ‘when can I see your son?’
The old woman blinked again and shifted her rolled up handkerchief from one sleeve to the other.
‘Oh, well, sir—well, sir, I can’t say.’
‘Allow me, Mastridia Karpovna, to hand you this,’ I interrupted, and I gave her a ten-rouble note.
The old woman clutched it at once in her fat, crooked fingers, which recalled the fleshy claws of an owl, quickly slipped it into her sleeve, pondered a little, and as though she had suddenly reached a decision, slapped her thighs with her open hand.
‘Come here this evening a little after seven,’ she said, not in her previous voice, but in quite a different one, more solemn and subdued; ‘only not to this room, but kindly go straight up to the floor above, and you’ll find a door to your left, and you open that door; and you’ll go, your honour, into an empty room, and in that room you’ll see a chair. Sit you down on that chair and wait; and whatever you see, don’t utter a word and don’t do anything; and please don’t speak to my son either; for he’s but young yet, and he suffers from fits. He’s very easily scared; he’ll tremble and shake like any chicken ... a sad thing it is!’
I looked at Mastridia. ‘You say he’s young, but since he’s your son ...’
‘In the spirit, sir, in the spirit. Many’s the orphan I have under my care!’ she added, wagging her head in the direction of the corner, from which came the plaintive whimper. ‘O—O God Almighty, holy Mother of God! And do you, your honour, before you come here, think well which of your deceased relations or friends—the kingdom of Heaven to them!—you’re desirous of seeing. Go over your deceased friends, and whichever you select, keep him in your mind, keep him all the while till my son comes!’
‘Why, mustn’t I tell your son whom ...’
‘Nay, nay, sir, not one word. He will find out what he needs in your thoughts himself. You’ve only to keep your friend thoroughly in mind; and at your dinner drink a drop of wine—just two or three glasses; wine never comes amiss.’ The old woman laughed, licked her lips, passed her hand over her mouth, and sighed.
‘So at half-past seven?’ I queried, getting up from my chair.
‘At half-past seven, your honour, at half-past seven,’ Mastridia Karpovna replied reassuringly.
I took leave of the old woman and went back to the hotel. I did not doubt that they were going to make a fool of me, but in what way?—that was what excited my curiosity. With Ardalion I did not exchange more than two or three words. ‘Did she see you?’ he asked me, knitting his brow, and on my affirmative reply, he exclaimed: ‘The old woman’s as good as any statesman!’ I set to work, in accordance with the ‘statesman’s’ counsel, to run over my deceased friends.
After rather prolonged hesitation I fixed, at last, on an old man who had long been dead, a Frenchman, once my tutor. I selected him not because he had any special attraction for me; but his whole figure was so original, so unlike any figure of to-day, that it would be utterly impossible to imitate it. He had an enormous head, fluffy white hair combed straight back, thick black eyebrows, a hawk nose, and two large warts of a pinkish hue in the middle of the forehead; he used to wear a green frockcoat with smooth brass buttons, a striped waistcoat with a stand-up collar, a jabot and lace cuffs. ‘If he shows me my old Dessaire,’ I thought, ‘well, I shall have to admit that he’s a sorcerer!’
At dinner I followed the old dame’s behest and drank a bottle of Lafitte, of the first quality, so Ardalion averred, though it had a very strong flavour of burnt cork, and a thick sediment at the bottom of each glass.
Exactly at half-past seven I stood in front of the house where I had conversed with the worthy Mastridia Karpovna. All the shutters of the windows were closed, but the door was open. I went into the house, mounted the shaky staircase to the first story, and opening a door on the left, found myself, as the old woman had said, in a perfectly empty, rather large room; a tallow candle set in the window-sill threw a dim light over the room; against the wall opposite the door stood a wicker-bottomed chair. I snuffed the candle, which had already burnt down enough to form a long smouldering wick, sat down on the chair and began to wait.
The first ten minutes passed rather quickly; in the room itself there was absolutely nothing which could distract my attention, but I listened intently to every rustle, looked intently at the closed door.... My heart was throbbing. After the first ten minutes followed another ten minutes, then half an hour, three-quarters of an hour, and not a stir of any kind around! I coughed several times to make my presence known; I began to feel bored and out of temper; to be made a fool of in just that way had not entered into my calculations. I was on the point of getting up from my seat, taking the candle from the window, and going downstairs.... I looked at it; the wick again wanted snuffing; but as I turned my eyes from the window to the door, I could not help starting; with his back leaning against the door stood a man. He had entered so quickly and noiselessly that I had heard nothing. He wore a simple blue smock; he was of middle height and rather thick-set. With his hands behind his back and his head bent, he was staring at me. In the dim light of the candle I could not distinctly make out his features. I saw nothing but a shaggy mane of matted hair falling on his forehead, and thick, rather drawn lips and whitish eyes. I was nearly speaking to him, but I recollected Mastridia’s injunction, and bit my lips. The man, who had come in, continued to gaze at me, and, strange to say, at the same time I felt something like fear, and, as though at the word of command, promptly started thinking of my old tutor.Hestill stood at the door and breathed heavily, as though he had been climbing a mountain or lifting a weight, while his eyes seemed to expand, seemed to come closer to me—and I felt uncomfortable under their obstinate, heavy, menacing stare; at times those eyes glowed with a malignant inward fire, a fire such as I have seen in the eyes of a pointer dog when it ‘points’ at a hare; and, like a pointer dog,hekepthiseyes intently following mine when I ‘tried to double,’ that is, tried to turn my eyes away.
So passed I do not know how long—perhaps a minute, perhaps a quarter of an hour. He still gazed at me; I still experienced a certain discomfort and alarm and still thought of the Frenchman. Twice I tried to say to myself, ‘What nonsense! what a farce!’ I tried to smile, to shrug my shoulders.... It was no use! All initiative had all at once ‘frozen up’ within me—I can find no other word for it. I was overcome by a sort of numbness. Suddenly I noticed that he had left the door, and was standing a step or two nearer to me; then he gave a slight bound, both feet together, and stood closer still.... Then again ... and again; while the menacing eyes were simply fastened on my whole face, and the hands remained behind, and the broad chest heaved painfully. These leaps struck me as ridiculous, but I felt dread too, and what I could not understand at all, a drowsiness began suddenly to come upon me. My eyelids clung together ... the shaggy figure with the whitish eyes in the blue smock seemed double before me, and suddenly vanished altogether! ... I shook myself; he was again standing between the door and me, but now much nearer.... Then he vanished again—a sort of mist seemed to fall upon him; again he appeared ... vanished again ... appeared again, and always closer, closer ... his hard, almost gasping breathing floated across to me now.... Again the mist fell, and all of a sudden out of this mist the head of old Dessaire began to take distinct shape, beginning with the white, brushed-back hair! Yes: there were his warts, his black eyebrows, his hook nose! There too his green coat with the brass buttons, the striped waistcoat and jabot.... I shrieked, I got up.... The old man vanished, and in his place I saw again the man in the blue smock. He moved staggering to the wall, leaned his head and both arms against it, and heaving like an over-loaded horse, in a husky voice said, ‘Tea!’ Mastridia Karpovna—how she came there I can’t say—flew to him and saying: ‘Vassinka! Vassinka!’ began anxiously wiping away the sweat, which simply trickled from his face and hair. I was on the point of approaching her, but she, so insistently, in such a heart-rending voice cried: ‘Your honour! merciful sir! have pity on us, go away, for Christ’s sake!’ that I obeyed, while she turned again to her son. ‘Bread-winner, darling,’ she murmured soothingly: ‘you shall have tea directly, directly. And you too, sir, had better take a cup of tea at home!’ she shouted after me.
When I got home I obeyed Mastridia and ordered some tea; I felt tired—even weak. ‘Well?’ Ardalion questioned me, ‘have you been? did you see something?’
‘He did, certainly, show me something ... which, I’ll own, I had not anticipated,’ I replied.
‘He’s a man of marvellous power,’ observed Ardalion, carrying off the samovar; ‘he is held in high esteem among the merchant gentry.’ As I went to bed, and reflected on the incident that had occurred to me, I fancied at last that I had reached some explanation of it. The man doubtless possessed a considerable magnetic power; acting by some means, which I did not understand of course, upon my nerves, he had evoked within me so vividly, so definitely, the image of the old man of whom I was thinking, that at last I fancied that I saw him before my eyes.... Such ‘metastases,’ such transferences of sensation, are recognised by science. It was all very well; but the force capable of producing such effects still remained, something marvellous and mysterious. ‘Say what you will,’ I thought, ‘I’ve seen, seen with my own eyes, my dead tutor!’
The next day the ball in the Hall of Nobility took place. Sophia’s father called on me and reminded me of the engagement I had made with his daughter. At ten o’clock I was standing by her side in the middle of a ballroom lighted up by a number of copper lamps, and was preparing to execute the not very complicated steps of the French quadrille to the resounding blare of the military band. Crowds of people were there; the ladies were especially numerous and very pretty; but the first place among them would certainly have been given to my partner, if it had not been for the rather strange, even rather wild look in her eyes. I noticed that she hardly ever blinked; the unmistakable expression of sincerity in her eyes did not make up for what was extraordinary in them. But she had a charming figure, and moved gracefully, though with constraint. When she waltzed, and, throwing herself a little back, bent her slender neck towards her right shoulder, as though she wanted to get away from her partner, nothing more touchingly youthful and pure could be imagined. She was all in white, with a turquoise cross on a black ribbon.
I asked her for a mazurka, and tried to talk to her. But her answers were few and reluctant, though she listened attentively, with the same expression of dreamy absorption which had struck me when I first met her. Not the slightest trace of desire to please, at her age, with her appearance, and the absence of a smile, and those eyes, continually fixed directly upon the eyes of the person speaking to her, though they seemed at the same time to see something else, to be absorbed with something different.... What a strange creature! Not knowing, at last, how to thaw her, I bethought me of telling her of my adventure of the previous day.
She heard me to the end with evident interest, but was not, as I had expected, surprised at what I told her, and merely asked whether he was not called Vassily. I recollected that the old woman had called him ‘Vassinka.’ ‘Yes, his name is Vassily,’ I answered; ‘do you know him?’
‘There is a saintly man living here called Vassily,’ she observed; ‘I wondered whether it was he.’
‘Saintliness has nothing to do with this,’ I remarked; ‘it’s simply the action of magnetism—a fact of interest for doctors and students of science.’
I proceeded to expound my views on the peculiar force called magnetism, on the possibility of one man’s will being brought under the influence of another’s will, and so on; but my explanations—which were, it is true, somewhat confused—seemed to make no impression on her. Sophie listened, dropping her clasped hands on her knees with a fan lying motionless in them; she did not play with it, she did not move her fingers at all, and I felt that all my words rebounded from her as from a statue of stone. She heard them, but clearly she had her own convictions, which nothing could shake or uproot.
‘You can hardly admit miracles!’ I cried.
‘Of course I admit them,’ she answered calmly. ‘And how can one help admitting them? Are not we told in the gospel that who has but a grain of faith as big as a mustard seed, he can remove mountains? One need only have faith—there will be miracles!’
‘It seems there is very little faith nowadays,’ I observed; ‘anyway, one doesn’t hear of miracles.’
‘But yet there are miracles; you have seen one yourself. No; faith is not dead nowadays; and the beginning of faith ...’
‘The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom,’ I interrupted.
‘The beginning of faith,’ pursued Sophie, nothing daunted, ‘is self-abasement ... humiliation.’
‘Humiliation even?’ I queried.
‘Yes. The pride of man, haughtiness, presumption—that is what must be utterly rooted up. You spoke of the will—that’s what must be broken.’
I scanned the whole figure of the young girl who was uttering such sentences.... ‘My word, the child’s in earnest, too,’ was my thought. I glanced at our neighbours in the mazurka; they, too, glanced at me, and I fancied that my astonishment amused them; one of them even smiled at me sympathetically, as though he would say: ‘Well, what do you think of our queer young lady? every one here knows what she’s like.’
‘Have you tried to break your will?’ I said, turning to Sophie again.
‘Every one is bound to do what he thinks right,’ she answered in a dogmatic tone. ‘Let me ask you,’ I began, after a brief silence, ‘do you believe in the possibility of calling up the dead?’
Sophie softly shook her head.
‘There are no dead.’
‘What?’
‘There are no dead souls; they are undying and can always appear, when they like.... They are always about us.’
‘What? Do you suppose, for instance, that an immortal soul may be at this moment hovering about that garrison major with the red nose?’
‘Why not? The sunlight falls on him and his nose, and is not the sunlight, all light, from God? And what does external appearance matter? To the pure all things are pure! Only to find a teacher, to find a leader!’
‘But excuse me, excuse me,’ I put in, not, I must own, without malicious intent. ‘You want a leader ... but what is your priest for?’
Sophie looked coldly at me.
‘You mean to laugh at me, I suppose. My priestly father tells me what I ought to do; but what I want is a leader who would show me himself in action how to sacrifice one’s self!’
She raised her eyes towards the ceiling. With her childlike face, and that expression of immobile absorption, of secret, continual perplexity, she reminded me of the pre-raphaelite Madonnas....
‘I have read somewhere,’ she went on, not turning to me, and hardly moving her lips, ‘of a grand person who directed that he should be buried under a church porch so that all the people who came in should tread him under foot and trample on him.... That is what one ought to do in life.’
Boom! boom! tra-ra-ra! thundered the drums from the band.... I must own such a conversation at a ball struck me as eccentric in the extreme; the ideas involuntarily kindled within me were of a nature anything but religious. I took advantage of my partner’s being invited to one of the figures of the mazurka to avoid renewing our quasi-theological discussion.
A quarter of an hour later I conducted Mademoiselle Sophie to her father, and two days after I left the town of T——, and the image of the girl with the childlike face and the soul impenetrable as stone slipped quickly out of my memory.
Two years passed, and it chanced that that image was recalled again to me. It was like this: I was talking to a colleague who had just returned from a tour in South Russia. He had spent some time in the town of T——, and told me various items of news about the neighbourhood. ‘By the way!’ he exclaimed, ‘you knew V. G. B. very well, I fancy, didn’t you?’
‘Of course I know him.’
‘And his daughter Sophia, do you know her?’
‘I’ve seen her twice.’
‘Only fancy, she’s run away!’
‘How’s that?’
‘Well, I don’t know. Three months ago she disappeared, and nothing’s been heard of her. And the astonishing thing is no one can make out whom she’s run off with. Fancy, they’ve not the slightest idea, not the smallest suspicion! She’d refused all the offers made her, and she was most proper in her behaviour. Ah, these quiet, religious girls are the ones! It’s made an awful scandal all over the province! B.‘s in despair.... And whatever need had she to run away? Her father carried out her wishes in everything. And what’s so unaccountable, all the Lovelaces of the province are there all right, not one’s missing.’
‘And they’ve not found her up till now?’
‘I tell you she might as well be at the bottom of the sea! It’s one rich heiress less in the world, that’s the worst of it.’
This piece of news greatly astonished me. It did not seem at all in keeping with the recollection I had of Sophia B. But there! anything may happen.
In the autumn of the same year fate brought me—again on official business—into the S—— province, which is, as every one knows, next to the province of T——. It was cold and rainy weather; the worn-out posting-horses could scarcely drag my light trap through the black slush of the highroad. One day, I remember, was particularly unlucky: three times we got ‘stuck’ in the mud up to the axles of the wheels; my driver was continually giving up one rut and with moans and grunts trudging across to the other, and finding things no better with that. In fact, towards evening I was so exhausted that on reaching the posting-station I decided to spend the night at the inn. I was given a room with a broken-down wooden sofa, a sloping floor, and torn paper on the walls; there was a smell in it of kvas, bast-mats, onions, and even turpentine, and swarms of flies were on everything; but at any rate I could find shelter there from the weather, and the rain had set in, as they say, for the whole day. I ordered a samovar to be brought, and, sitting on the sofa, settled down to those cheerless wayside reflections so familiar to travellers in Russia.
They were broken in upon by a heavy knocking that came from the common room, from which my room was separated by a deal partition. This sound was accompanied by an intermittent metallic jingle, like the clank of chains, and a coarse male voice boomed out suddenly: ‘The blessing of God on all within this house. The blessing of God! the blessing of God! Amen, amen! Scatter His enemies!’ repeated the voice, with a sort of incongruous and savage drawl on the last syllable of each word.... A noisy sigh was heard, and a ponderous body sank on to the bench with the same jingling sound. ‘Akulina! servant of God, come here!’ the voice began again: ‘Behold! Clothed in rags and blessed! ... Ha-ha-ha! Tfoo! Merciful God, merciful God, merciful God!’ the voice droned like a deacon in the choir. ‘Merciful God, Creator of my body, behold my iniquity.... O-ho-ho! Ha-ha! ... Tfoo! And all abundance be to this house in the seventh hour!’
‘Who’s that?’ I asked the hospitable landlady, who came in with the samovar.
‘That, your honour,’ she answered me in a hurried whisper, ‘is a blessed, holy man. He’s not long come into our parts; and here he’s graciously pleased to visit us. In such weather! The wet’s simply trickling from him, poor dear man, in streams! And you should see the chains on him—such a lot!’
‘The blessing of God! the blessing of God!’ the voice was heard again. ‘Akulina! Hey, Akulina! Akulinushka—friend! where is our paradise? Our fair paradise of bliss? In the wilderness is our paradise, ... para-dise.... And to this house, from beginning of time, great happiness, ... o ... o ... o ...’ The voice muttered something inarticulate, and again, after a protracted yawn, there came the hoarse laugh. This laugh broke out every time, as it were, involuntarily, and every time it was followed by vigorous spitting.
‘Ah, me! Stepanitch isn’t here! That’s the worst of it!’ the landlady said, as it were to herself, as she stood with every sign of the profoundest attention at the door. ‘He will say some word of salvation, and I, foolish woman, may not catch it!’
She went out quickly.
In the partition there was a chink; I applied my eye to it. The crazy pilgrim was sitting on a bench with his back to me; I saw nothing but his shaggy head, as huge as a beer-can, and a broad bent back in a patched and soaking shirt. Before him, on the earth floor, knelt a frail-looking woman in a jacket, such as are worn by women of the artisan class—old and wet through—and with a dark kerchief pulled down almost over her eyes. She was trying to pull the holy man’s boots off; her fingers slid off the greasy, slippery leather. The landlady was standing near her, with her arms folded across her bosom, gazing reverently at the ‘man of God.’ He was, as before, mumbling some inarticulate words.
At last the woman succeeded in tugging off the boots. She almost fell backwards, but recovered herself, and began unwinding the strips of rag which were wrapped round the vagrant’s legs. On the sole of his foot there was a wound.... I turned away.
‘A cup of tea wouldn’t you bid me get you, my dear?’ I heard the hostess saying in an obsequious voice.
‘What a notion!’ responded the holy man. ‘To indulge the sinful body.... O-ho-ho! Break all the bones in it ... but she talks of tea! Oh, oh, worthy old woman, Satan is strong within us.... Fight him with hunger, fight him with cold, with the sluice-gates of heaven, the pouring, penetrating rain, and he takes no harm—he is alive still! Remember the day of the Intercession of the Mother of God! You will receive, you will receive in abundance!’
The landlady could not resist uttering a faint groan of admiration.
‘Only listen to me! Give all thou hast, give thy head, give thy shirt! If they ask not of thee, yet give! For God is all-seeing! Is it hard for Him to destroy your roof? He has given thee bread in His mercy, and do thou bake it in the oven! He seeth all! Se ... e ... eth! Whose eye is in the triangle? Say, whose?’
The landlady stealthily crossed herself under her neckerchief.
‘The old enemy is adamant! A ... da ... mant! A ... da ... mant!’ the religious maniac repeated several times, gnashing his teeth. ‘The old serpent! But God will arise! Yes, God will arise and scatter His enemies! I will call up all the dead! I will go against His enemy.... Ha-ha-ha! Tfoo!’