She sat on the deck close to the side of the steamer, and, leaning her head against a heap of ropes, she wept. Foma saw that her bare white shoulders were trembling, he heard her pitiful moans, and began to feel depressed. Bending over her, he asked her timidly:
“What is it?”
She nodded her head and said nothing in reply.
“Have I offended you?”
“Go away,” she said.
“But, how?” said Foma, alarmed and confused, touching her head with his hand. “Don’t be angry. You came of your own free will.”
“I am not angry!” she replied in a loud whisper. “Why should I be angry at you? You are not a seducer. You are a pure soul! Eh, my darling! Be seated here by my side.”
And taking Foma by the hand, she made him sit down, like a child, in her lap, pressed his head close to her breast, and, bending over him, pressed her lips to his for a long time.
“What are you crying about?” asked Foma, caressing her cheek with one hand, while the other clasped the woman’s neck.
“I am crying about myself. Why have you sent me away?” she asked plaintively.
“I began to feel ashamed of myself,” said Foma, lowering his head.
“My darling! Tell me the truth—haven’t you been pleased with me?” she asked with a smile, but her big, hot tears were still trickling down on Foma’s breast.
“Why should you speak like this?” exclaimed the youth, almost frightened, and hotly began to mumble to her some words about her beauty, about her kindness, telling her how sorry he was for her and how bashful in her presence. And she listened and kept on kissing his cheeks, his neck, his head and his uncovered breast.
He became silent—then she began to speak—softly and mournfully as though speaking of the dead:
“And I thought it was something else. When you said, ‘Be gone!’ I got up and went away. And your words made me feel sad, very sad. There was a time, I remembered, when they caressed me and fondled me unceasingly, without growing tired; for a single kind smile they used to do for me anything I pleased. I recalled all this and began to cry! I felt sorry for my youth, for I am now thirty years old, the last days for a woman! Eh, Foma Ignatyevich!” she exclaimed, lifting her voice louder, and reiterating the rhythm of her harmonious speech, whose accents rose and fell in unison with the melodious murmuring of the water.
“Listen to me—preserve your youth! There is nothing in the world better than that. There is nothing more precious than youth. With youth, as with gold, you can accomplish anything you please. Live so that you shall have in old age something to remind you of your youth. Here I recalled myself, and though I cried, yet my heart blazed up at the very recollection of my past life. And again I was young, as though I drank of the water of life! My sweet child I’ll have a good time with you, if I please you, we’ll enjoy ourselves as much as we can. Eh! I’ll burn to ashes, now that I have blazed up!”
And pressing the youth close to herself, she greedily began to kiss him on the lips.
“Lo-o-ok o-u-u-u-t!” the watch on the barge wailed mournfully, and, cutting short the last syllable, began to strike his mallet against the cast-iron board.
The shrill, trembling sounds harshly broke the solemn quiet of the night.
A few days later, when the barges had discharged their cargo and the steamer was ready to leave for Perm, Yefim noticed, to his great sorrow, that a cart came up to the shore and that the dark-eyed Pelageya, with a trunk and with some bundles, was in it.
“Send a sailor to bring her things,” ordered Foma, nodding his head toward the shore.
With a reproachful shake of his head, Yefim carried out the order angrily, and then asked in a lowered voice:
“So she, too, is coming with us?”
“She is going with me,” Foma announced shortly.
“It is understood. Not with all of us. Oh, Lord!”
“Why are you sighing?”
“Yes. Foma Ignatyich! We are going to a big city. Are there not plenty of women of her kind?”
“Well, keep quiet!” said Foma, sternly.
“I will keep quiet, but this isn’t right!”
“What?”
“This very wantonness of ours. Our steamer is perfect, clean—and suddenly there is a woman there! And if it were at least the right sort of a woman! But as it is, she merely bears the name of woman.”
Foma frowned insinuatingly and addressed the captain, imperiously emphasizing his words:
“Yefim, I want you to bear it in mind, and to tell it to everybody here, that if anyone will utter an obscene word about her, I’ll strike him on the head with a log of wood!”
“How terrible!” said Yefim, incredulously, looking into the master’s face with curiosity. But he immediately made a step backward. Ignat’s son, like a wolf, showed his teeth, the apples of his eyes became wider, and he roared:
“Laugh! I’ll show you how to laugh!”
Though Yefim lost courage, he nevertheless said with dignity:
“Although you, Foma Ignatyich, are the master, yet as I was told, ‘Watch, Yefim,’ and then I am the captain here.”
“The captain?” cried Foma, shuddering in every limb and turning pale. “And who am I?”
“Well, don’t bawl! On account of such a trifle as a woman.”
Red spots came out on Foma’s pale face, he shifted from one foot to the other, thrust his hands into the pockets of his jacket with a convulsive motion and said in a firm and even voice:
“You! Captain! See here, say another word against me—and you go to the devil! I’ll put you ashore! I’ll get along as well with the pilot! Understand? You cannot command me. Do you see?”
Yefim was dumfounded. He looked at his master and comically winked his eyes, finding no reply to his words.
“Do you understand, I say?”
“Yes. I understand!” drawled Yefim. “But what is all this noise about? On account of—”
“Silence!”
Foma’s eyes, which flashed wildly, and his face distorted with wrath, suggested to the captain the happy thought to leave his master as soon as possible and, turning around quickly, he walked off.
“Pshaw! How terrible! As it seems the apple did not fall too far from the tree,” he muttered sneeringly, walking on the deck. He was angry at Foma, and considered himself offended for nothing, but at the same time he began to feel over himself the real, firm hand of a master. For years accustomed to being subordinate, he rather liked this manifestation of power over him, and, entering the cabin of the old pilot, he related to him the scene between himself and his master, with a shade of satisfaction in his voice.
“See?” he concluded his story. “A pup coming from a good breed is an excellent dog at the very first chase. From his exterior he is so-so. A man of rather heavy mind as yet. Well, never mind, let him have his fun. It seems now as though nothing wrong will come out of this. With a character like his, no. How he bawled at me! A regular trumpet, I tell you! And he appointed himself master at once. As though he had sipped power and strictness out of a ladle.”
Yefim spoke the truth: during these few days Foma underwent a striking transformation. The passion now kindled in him made him master of the soul and body of a woman; he eagerly absorbed the fiery sweetness of this power, and this burned out all that was awkward in him, all that gave him the appearance of a somewhat stupid, gloomy fellow, and, destroying it, filled his heart with youthful pride, with the consciousness of his human personality. Love for a woman is always fruitful to the man, be the love whatever it may; even though it were to cause but sufferings there is always much that is rich in it. Working as a powerful poison on those whose souls are afflicted, it is for the healthy man as fire for iron, which is to be transformed into steel.
Foma’s passion for the thirty-year-old woman, who lamented in his embraces her dead youth, did not tear him away from his affairs; he was never lost in the caresses, or in his affairs, bringing into both his whole self. The woman, like good wine, provoked in him alike a thirst for labour and for love, and she, too, became younger from the kisses of the youth.
In Perm, Foma found a letter waiting for him. It was from his godfather, who notified him that Ignat, out of anxiety for his son, had begun to drink heavily, and that it was harmful to drink thus, for a man of his age. The letter concluded with advice to hurry up matters in order to return home the sooner. Foma felt alarmed over this advice, and it clouded the clear holiday of his heart. But this shadow soon melted in his worries over his affairs, and in the caresses of Pelageya. His life streamed on with the swiftness of a river wave, and each day brought to him new sensations, awakening in him new thoughts. Pelageya’s relations with him contained all the passion of a mistress, all that power of feeling which women of her age put into their passion when drinking the last drops from the cup of life. But at times a different feeling awoke in her, a feeling not less powerful, and by which Foma became still more attached to her—something similar to a mother’s yearning to guard her beloved son from errors, to teach him the wisdom of life. Oftentimes at night, sitting in his embraces on the deck, she spoke to him tenderly and sadly:
“Mind me as an older sister of yours. I have lived, I know men. I have seen a great deal in my life! Choose your companions with care, for there are people just as contagious as a disease. At first you cannot tell them even when you see them; he looks to be a man like everybody else, and, suddenly, without being aware of it yourself, you will start to imitate him in life. You look around—and you find that you have contracted his scabs. I myself have lost everything on account of a friend. I had a husband and two children. We lived well. My husband was a clerk at a volost.” She became silent and looked for a long time at the water, which was stirred by the vessel. Then she heaved a sigh and spoke to him again:
“May the Holy Virgin guard you from women of my kind—be careful. You are tender as yet, your heart has not become properly hardened. And women are fond of such as you—strong, handsome, rich. And most of all beware of the quiet women. They stick to a man like blood-suckers, and suck and suck. And at the same time they are always so kind, so gentle. They will keep on sucking your juice, but will preserve themselves. They’ll only break your heart in vain. You had better have dealings with those that are bold, like myself. These live not for the sake of gain.”
And she was indeed disinterested. In Perm Foma purchased for her different new things and what-not. She was delighted, but later, having examined them, she said sadly:
“Don’t squander your money too freely. See that your father does not get angry. I love you anyway, without all this.”
She had already told him that she would go with him only as far as Kazan, where she had a married sister. Foma could not believe that she would leave him, and when, on the eve of their arrival at Kazan, she repeated her words, he became gloomy and began to implore her not to forsake him.
“Do not feel sorry in advance,” she said. “We have a whole night before us. You will have time to feel sorry when I bid you good-bye, if you will feel sorry at all.”
But he still tried to persuade her not to forsake him, and, finally—which was to be expected—announced his desire to marry her.
“So, so!” and she began to laugh. “Shall I marry you while my husband is still alive? My darling, my queer fellow! You have a desire to marry, eh? But do they marry such women as I am? You will have many, many mistresses. Marry then, when you have overflowed, when you have had your fill of all sweets and feel like having rye bread. Then you may marry! I have noticed that a healthy man, for his own peace, must not marry early. One woman will not be enough to satisfy him, and he’ll go to other women. And for your own happiness, you should take a wife only when you know that she alone will suffice for you.”
But the more she spoke, the more persistent Foma became in his desire not to part with her.
“Just listen to what I’ll tell you,” said the woman, calmly. “A splinter of wood is burning in your hand, and you can see well even without its light—you had better dip it into water, so that there will be no smell of smoke and your hand will not be burned.”
“I do not understand your words.”
“Do understand. You have done me no wrong, and I do not wish to do you any. And, therefore, I am going away.”
It is hard to say what might have been the result of this dispute if an accident had not interfered with it. In Kazan Foma received a telegram from Mayakin, who wrote to his godson briefly: “Come immediately on the passenger steamer.” Foma’s heart contracted nervously, and a few hours later, gloomy and pale, his teeth set together, he stood on the deck of the steamer, which was leaving the harbour, and clinging to the rail with his hands, he stared motionlessly into the face of his love, who was floating far away from him together with the harbour and the shore. Pelageya waved her handkerchief and smiled, but he knew that she was crying, shedding many painful tears. From her tears the entire front of Foma’s shirt was wet, and from her tears, his heart, full of gloomy alarm, was sad and cold. The figure of the woman was growing smaller and smaller, as though melting away, and Foma, without lifting his eyes, stared at her and felt that aside from fear for his father and sorrow for the woman, some new, powerful and caustic sensation was awakening in his soul. He could not name it, but it seemed to him as something like a grudge against someone.
The crowd in the harbour blended into a close, dark and dead spot, faceless, formless, motionless. Foma went away from the rail and began to pace the deck gloomily.
The passengers, conversing aloud, seated themselves to drink tea; the porters bustled about on the gallery, setting the tables; somewhere below, on the stern, in the third class, a child was crying, a harmonica was wailing, the cook was chopping something with knives, the dishes were jarring—producing a rather harsh noise. Cutting the waves and making foam, shuddering under the strain and sighing heavily, the enormous steamer moved rapidly against the current. Foma looked at the wide strip of broken, struggling, and enraged waves at the stern of the steamer, and began to feel a wild desire to break or tear something; also to go, breast foremost, against the current and to mass its pressure against himself, against his breast and his shoulders.
“Fate!” said someone beside him in a hoarse and weary voice.
This word was familiar to him: his Aunt Anfisa had often used it as an answer to his questions, and he had invested in this brief word a conception of a power, similar to the power of God. He glanced at the speakers: one of them was a gray little old man, with a kind face; the other was younger, with big, weary eyes and with a little black wedge-shaped beard. His big gristly nose and his yellow, sunken cheeks reminded Foma of his godfather.
“Fate!” The old man repeated the exclamation of his interlocutor with confidence, and began to smile. “Fate in life is like a fisherman on the river: it throws a baited hook toward us into the tumult of our life and we dart at it with greedy mouths. Then fate pulls up the rod—and the man is struggling, flopping on the ground, and then you see his heart is broken. That’s how it is, my dear man.”
Foma closed his eyes, as if a ray of the sun had fallen full on them, and shaking his head, he said aloud:
“True! That is true!”
The companions looked at him fixedly: the old man, with a fine, wise smile; the large-eyed man, unfriendly, askance. This confused Foma; he blushed and walked away, thinking of Fate and wondering why it had first treated him kindly by giving him a woman, and then took back the gift from him, so simply and abusively? And he now understood that the vague, caustic feeling which he carried within him was a grudge against Fate for thus sporting with him. He had been too much spoiled by life, to regard more plainly the first drop of poison from the cup which was just started, and he passed all the time of the journey without sleep, pondering over the old man’s words and fondling his grudge. This grudge, however, did not awaken in him despondency and sorrow, but rather a feeling of anger and revenge.
Foma was met by his godfather, and to his hasty and agitated question, Mayakin, his greenish little eyes flashing excitedly, said when he seated himself in the carriage beside his godson:
“Your father has grown childish.”
“Drinking?”
“Worse—he has lost his mind completely.”
“Really? Oh Lord! Tell me.”
“Don’t you understand? A certain lady is always around him.”
“What about her?” exclaimed Foma, recalling his Pelageya, and for some reason or other his heart was filled with joy.
“She sticks to him and—bleeds him.”
“Is she a quiet one?”
“She? Quiet as a fire. Seventy-five thousand roubles she blew out of his pocket like a feather!”
“Oh! Who is she?”
“Sonka Medinskaya, the architect’s wife.”
“Great God! Is it possible that she—Did my father—Is it possible that he took her as his sweetheart?” asked Foma, with astonishment, in a low voice.
His godfather drew back from him, and comically opening his eyes wide, said convincedly:
“You are out of your mind, too! By God, you’re out of your mind! Come to your senses! A sweetheart at the age of sixty-three! And at such a price as this. What are you talking about? Well, I’ll tell this to Ignat.”
And Mayakin filled the air with a jarring, hasty laughter, at which his goat-like beard began to tremble in an uncomely manner. It took Foma a long time to obtain a categorical answer; the old man, contrary to his habit, was restless and irritated; his speech, usually fluent, was now interrupted; he was swearing and expectorating as he spoke, and it was with difficulty that Foma learned what the matter was. Sophya Pavlovna Medinskaya, the wealthy architect’s wife, who was well known in the city for her tireless efforts in the line of arranging various charitable projects, persuaded Ignat to endow seventy-five thousand roubles for the erection of a lodging-house in the city and of a public library with a reading-room. Ignat had given the money, and already the newspapers lauded him for his generosity. Foma had seen the woman more than once on the streets; she was short; he knew that she was considered as one of the most beautiful women in the city, and that bad rumours were afoot as to her behaviour.
“Is that all?” exclaimed Foma, when his godfather concluded the story. “And I thought God knows what!”
“You? You thought?” cried Mayakin, suddenly grown angry. “You thought nothing, you beardless youngster!”
“Why do you abuse me?” Foma said.
“Tell me, in your opinion, is seventy-five thousand roubles a big sum or not?”
“Yes, a big sum,” said Foma, after a moment’s thought.
“Ah, ha!”
“But my father has much money. Why do you make such a fuss about it?”
Yakov Tarasovich was taken aback. He looked into the youth’s face with contempt and asked him in a faint voice:
“And you speak like this?”
“I? Who then?”
“You lie! It is your young foolishness that speaks. Yes! And my old foolishness—brought to test a million times by life—says that you are a young dog as yet, and it is too early for you to bark in a basso.”
Foma hearing this, had often been quite provoked by his godfather’s too picturesque language.
Mayakin always spoke to him more roughly than his father, but now the youth felt very much offended by the old man and said to him reservedly, but firmly:
“You had better not abuse me without reflection, for I am no longer a small child.”
“Come, come!” exclaimed Mayakin, mockingly lifting his eyebrows and squinting.
This roused Foma’s indignation. He looked full into the old man’s eyes and articulated with emphasis:
“And I am telling you that I don’t want to hear any more of that undeserved abuse of yours. Enough!”
“Mm! So-o! Pardon me.”
Yakov Tarasovich closed his eyes, chewed a little with his lips, and, turning aside from his godson, kept silent for awhile. The carriage turned into a narrow street, and, noticing from afar the roof of his house, Foma involuntarily moved forward. At the same time Mayakin asked him with a roguish and gentle smile:
“Foma! Tell me—on whom you have sharpened your teeth? Eh?”
“Why, are they sharp?” asked Foma, pleased with the manner in which Mayakin now regarded him.
“Pretty good. That’s good, dear. That’s very good! Your father and I were afraid lest you should be a laggard. Well, have you learned to drink vodka?”
“I drank it.”
“Rather too soon! Did you drink much of it?”
“Why much?”
“Does it taste good?”
“Not very.”
“So. Never mind, all this is not so bad. Only you are too outspoken. You are ready to confess all your sins to each and every pope that comes along. You must consider it isn’t always necessary to do that. Sometimes by keeping silent you both please people and commit no sins. Yes. A man’s tongue is very seldom sober. Here we are. See, your father does not know that you have arrived. Is he home yet, I wonder?”
He was at home: his loud, somewhat hoarse laughter was heard from the open windows of the rooms. The noise of the carriage, which stopped at the house, caused Ignat to look out of the window, and at the sight of his son he cried out with joy:
“Ah! You’ve come.”
After a while he pressed Foma to his breast with one hand, and, pressing the palm of his other hand against his son’s forehead, thus bending his head back, he looked into his face with beaming eyes and spoke contentedly:
“You are sunburnt. You’ve grown strong. You’re a fine fellow! Madame! How’s my son? Isn’t he fine?”
“Not bad looking,” a gentle, silver voice was heard. Foma glanced from behind his father’s shoulder and noticed that a slender woman with magnificent fair hair was sitting in the front corner of the room, resting her elbows on the table; her dark eyes, her thin eyebrows and plump, red lips strikingly defined on her pale face. Behind her armchair stood a large philodendron-plant whose big, figured leaves were hanging down in the air over her little golden head.
“How do you do, Sophya Pavlovna,” said Mayakin, tenderly, approaching her with his hand outstretched. “What, are you still collecting contributions from poor people like us?”
Foma bowed to her mutely, not hearing her answer to Mayakin, nor what his father was saying to him. The lady stared at him steadfastly and smiled to him affably and serenely. Her childlike figure, clothed in some kind of dark fabric, was almost blended with the crimson stuff of the armchair, while her wavy, golden hair and her pale face shone against the dark background. Sitting there in the corner, beneath the green leaves, she looked at once like a flower, and like an ikon.
“See, Sophya Pavlovna, how he is staring at you. An eagle, eh?” said Ignat.
Her eyes became narrower, a faint blush leaped to her cheeks, and she burst into laughter. It sounded like the tinkling of a little silver bell. And she immediately arose, saying:
“I wouldn’t disturb you. Good-bye!”
When she went past Foma noiselessly, the scent of perfume came to him, and he noticed that her eyes were dark blue, and her eyebrows almost black.
“The sly rogue glided away,” said Mayakin in a low voice, angrily looking after her.
“Well, tell us how was the trip? Have you squandered much money?” roared Ignat, pushing his son into the same armchair where Medinskaya had been sitting awhile before. Foma looked at him askance and seated himself in another chair.
“Isn’t she a beautiful young woman, eh?” said Mayakin, smiling, feeling Foma with his cunning eyes. “If you keep on gaping at her she will eat away all your insides.”
Foma shuddered for some reason or other, and, saying nothing in reply, began to tell his father about the journey in a matter-of-fact tone. But Ignat interrupted him:
“Wait, I’ll ask for some cognac.”
“And you are keeping on drinking all the time, they say,” said Foma, disapprovingly.
Ignat glanced at his son with surprise and curiosity, and asked:
“Is this the way to speak to your father?”
Foma became confused and lowered his head.
“That’s it!” said Ignat, kind-heartedly, and ordered cognac to be brought to him.
Mayakin, winking his eyes, looked at the Gordyeeffs, sighed, bid them good-bye, and, after inviting them to have tea with him in his raspberry garden in the evening, went away.
“Where is Aunt Anfisa?” asked Foma, feeling that now, being alone with his father, he was somewhat ill at ease.
“She went to the cloister. Well, tell me, and I will have some cognac.”
Foma told his father all about his affairs in a few minutes and he concluded his story with a frank confession:
“I have spent much money on myself.”
“How much?”
“About six hundred roubles.”
“In six weeks! That’s a good deal. I see as a clerk you’re too expensive for me. Where have you squandered it all?”
“I gave away three hundred puds of grain.”
“To whom? How?”
Foma told him all about it.
“Hm! Well, that’s all right!” Ignat approved. “That’s to show what stuff we are made of. That’s clear enough—for the father’s honour—for the honour of the firm. And there is no loss either, because that gives a good reputation. And that, my dear, is the very best signboard for a business. Well, what else?”
“And then, I somehow spent more.”
“Speak frankly. It’s not the money that I am asking you about—I just want to know how you lived there,” insisted Ignat, regarding his son attentively and sternly.
“I was eating, drinking.” Foma did not give in, bending his head morosely and confusedly.
“Drinking vodka?”
“Vodka, too.”
“Ah! So. Isn’t it rather too soon?”
“Ask Yefim whether I ever drank enough to be intoxicated.”
“Why should I ask Yefim? You must tell me everything yourself. So you are drinking? I don’t like it.”
“But I can get along without drinking.”
“Come, come! Do you want some cognac?”
Foma looked at his father and smiled broadly. And his father answered him with a kindly smile:
“Eh, you. Devil! Drink, but look out—know your business. What can you do? A drunkard will sleep himself sober, a fool—never. Let us understand this much at least, for our own consolation. And did you have a good time with girls, too? Be frank! Are you afraid that I will beat you, or what?”
“Yes. There was one on the steamer. I had her there from Perm to Kazan.”
“So,” Ignat sighed heavily and said, frowning: “You’ve become defiled rather too soon.”
“I am twenty years old. And you yourself told me that in your days fellows married at the age of fifteen,” replied Foma, confused.
“Then they married. Very well, then, let us drop the subject. Well, you’ve had dealings with a woman. What of it? A woman is like vaccination, you cannot pass your life without her. As for myself, I cannot play the hypocrite. I began to go around with women when I was younger than you are now. But you must be on your guard with them.”
Ignat became pensive and was silent for a long time, sitting motionless, his head bent low on his breast.
“Listen, Foma,” he started again, sternly and firmly. “I shall die before long. I am old. Something oppresses my breast. I breathe with difficulty. I’ll die. Then all my affairs will fall on your shoulders. At first your godfather will assist you—mind him! You started quite well; you attended to everything properly; you held the reins firmly in your hands. And though you did squander a big sum of money, it is evident that you did not lose your head. God grant the same in the future. You should know this: business is a living, strong beast; you must manage it ably; you must put a strong bridle on it or it will conquer you. Try to stand above your business. Place yourself so that it will all be under your feet; that each little tack shall be visible to you.”
Foma looked at his father’s broad chest, heard his heavy voice and thought to himself:
“Oh, but you won’t die so soon!”
This thought pleased him and awakened in him a kind, warm feeling for his father.
“Rely upon your godfather. He has enough common sense in his head to supply the whole town with it. All he lacks is courage, or he would have risen high. Yes, I tell you my days on earth are numbered. Indeed, it is high time to prepare myself for death; to cast everything aside; to fast, and see to it that people bear me good-will.”
“They will!” said Foma with confidence.
“If there were but a reason why they should.”
“And the lodging-house?”
Ignat looked at his son and began to laugh.
“Yakov has had time to tell it to you already! The old miser. He must have abused me?”
“A little.” Foma smiled.
“Of course! Don’t I know him?”
“He spoke of it as though it were his own money.”
Ignat leaned back in his chair and burst into still louder laughter.
“The old raven, eh? That’s quite true. Whether it be his own money or mine, it is all the same to him. There he is trembling now. He has an aim in view, the bald-headed fellow. Can you tell me what it is?”
Foma thought awhile and said:
“I don’t know.”
“Eh, you’re stupid. He wants to tell our fortunes.”
“How is that?”
“Come now, guess!”
Foma looked at his father and—guessed it. His face became gloomy, he slightly raised himself from the armchair and said resolutely:
“No, I don’t want to. I shall not marry her!”
“Oh? Why so? She is a strong girl; she is not foolish; she’s his only child.”
“And Taras? The lost one? But I—I don’t want to at all!”
“The lost one is gone, consequently it is not worthwhile speaking of him. There is a will, dear, which says: ‘All my movable and real estates shall go to my daughter, Lubov.’ And as to the fact that she is your godfather’s daughter, we’ll set this right.”
“It is all the same,” said Foma, firmly. “I shall not marry her!”
“Well, it is rather early to speak of it now! But why do you dislike her so much?”
“I do not like such as she is.”
“So-o! Just think of it! And which women are more to your liking, sir, may I ask?”
“Those that are more simple. She’s always busy with her Gymnasium students and with her books. She’s become learned. She’ll be laughing at my expense,” said Foma, emotionally.
“That is quite true. She is too bold. But that is a trifle. All sorts of rust can be removed if you try to do it. That’s a matter for the future. And your godfather is a clever old man. His was a peaceful, sedentary life; sitting in one place he gave a thought to everything. It is worthwhile listening to him, for he can see the wrong side of each and every worldly affair. He is our aristocrat—descending from Mother Yekaterina—ha, ha! He understands a great deal about himself. And as his stem was cut off by Taras, he decided to put you in Taras’s place, do you see?”
“No, I’d rather select my place myself,” said Foma, stubbornly.
“You are foolish as yet.” Ignat smiled in reply to his son’s words.
Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Aunt Anfisa.
“Foma! You’ve come,” she cried out, somewhere behind the doors. Foma rose and went to meet her, with a gentle smile.
Again his life streamed on slowly, calmly, monotonously. Again the Exchange and his father’s instructions. Retaining a kindly sarcastic and encouraging tone in his relation toward his son, Ignat began to treat him more strictly. He censured him for each and every trifle and constantly reminded him that he brought him up freely; that he was never in his way and that he never beat him.
“Other fathers beat fellows like yourself with logs of wood. And I never even touched you with a finger.”
“Evidently I didn’t deserve it,” said Foma one day, calmly.
Ignat became angry at his son for these words and for the tone.
“Don’t talk so much!” he roared. “You’ve picked up courage because of the softness of my hand. You find an answer to every word I say. Beware; though my hand was soft, it can nevertheless still squeeze you so that tears will gush forth from your heels. You’ve grown up too soon, like a toad-stool, just sprung up from the ground. You have a bad smell already.”
“Why are you so angry at me?” asked Foma, perplexed and offended, when his father chanced to be in a happy frame of mind.
“Because you cannot tolerate it when your father grumbles at you. You’re ready to quarrel immediately.”
“But it is offensive. I have not grown worse than I was before. Don’t I see how others live at my age?”
“Your head wouldn’t fall off from my scolding you. And I scold you because I see there is something in you that is not mine. What it is, I do not know, but I see it is there. And that something is harmful to you.”
These words of Ignat made the son very thoughtful. Foma also felt something strange in himself, something which distinguished him from the youth of his age, but he, too, could not understand what it was. And he looked at himself with suspicion.
Foma liked to be on the Exchange amid the bustle and talk of the sedate people who were making deals amounting to thousands of roubles; the respect with which the less well-to-do tradesmen greeted and spoke to him—to Foma, the son of the millionaire—flattered him greatly. He felt happy and proud whenever he successfully managed some part of his father’s business, assuming all responsibility on his own shoulders, and received a smile of approval from his father for it. There was in him a great deal of ambition, yearning to appear as a grown-up man of business, but—just as before his trip to Perm—he lived as in solitude; he still felt no longing for friends, although he now came in contact everyday with the merchants’ sons of his age. They had invited him more than once to join them in their sprees, but he rather rudely and disdainfully declined their invitations and even laughed at them.
“I am afraid. Your fathers may learn of your sprees, and as they’ll give you a drubbing, I might also come in for a share.”
What he did not like in them was that they were leading a dissipated and depraved life, without their fathers’ knowledge, and that the money they were spending was either stolen from their parents or borrowed on long-termed promissory notes, to be paid with exorbitant interest. They in turn did not like him for this very reserve and aversion, which contained the pride so offensive to them. He was timid about speaking to people older than himself, fearing lest he should appear in their eyes stupid and thick-headed.
He often recalled Pelageya, and at first he felt melancholy whenever her image flashed before his imagination. But time went on, and little by little rubbed off the bright colours of this woman; and before he was aware of it his thoughts were occupied by the slender, angel-like Medinskaya. She used to come up to Ignat almost every Sunday with various requests, all of which generally had but one aim—to hasten the building of the lodging-asylum. In her presence Foma felt awkward, huge, heavy; this pained him, and he blushed deeply under the endearing look of Sophya Pavlovna’s large eyes. He noticed that every time she looked at him, her eyes would grow darker, while her upper lip would tremble and raise itself slightly, thus displaying very small white teeth. This always frightened him. When his father noticed how steadfastly he was staring at Medinskaya he told him one day:
“Don’t be staring so much at that face. Look out, she is like a birch ember: from the outside it is just as modest, smooth and dark—altogether cold to all appearances—but take it into your hand and it will burn you.”
Medinskaya did not kindle in the youth any sensual passion, for there was nothing in her that resembled Pelageya, and altogether she was not at all like other women. He knew that shameful rumours about her were in the air, but he did not believe any of them. But his relations to her were changed when he noticed her one day in a carriage beside a stout man in a gray hat and with long hair falling over his shoulders. His face was like a bladder—red and bloated; he had neither moustache nor beard, and altogether he looked like a woman in disguise. Foma was told that this was her husband. Then dark and contradicting feelings sprang up within him: he felt like insulting the architect, and at the same time he envied and respected him. Medinskaya now seemed to him less beautiful and more accessible; he began to feel sorry for her, and yet he thought malignantly:
“She must surely feel disgusted when he kisses her.”
And after all this he sometimes perceived in himself some bottomless and oppressive emptiness, which could not be filled up by anything—neither by the impressions of the day just gone by nor by the recollection of the past; and the Exchange, and his affairs, and his thoughts of Medinskaya—all were swallowed up by this emptiness. It alarmed him: in the dark depth of this emptiness he suspected some hidden existence of a hostile power, as yet formless but already carefully and persistently striving to become incarnate.
In the meantime Ignat, changing but little outwardly, was growing ever more restless and querulous and was complaining more often of being ill.
“I lost my sleep. It used to be so sound that even though you had torn off my skin, I would not have felt it. While now I toss about from side to side, and I fall asleep only toward morning. And every now and then I awaken. My heart beats unevenly, now, though tired out; often thus: tuk-tuk-tuk. And sometimes it sinks of a sudden—and it seems as though it would soon tear itself away and fall somewhere into the deep; into the bosom. Oh Lord, have pity upon me through Thy great mercy.” And heaving a penitent sigh, he would lift heavenward his stern eyes, grown dim now, devoid of their bright, sparkling glitter.
“Death keeps an eye on me somewhere close by,” he said one day morosely, but humbly. And indeed, it soon felled his big, sturdy body to the ground.
This happened in August, early in the morning. Foma was sound asleep when suddenly he felt somebody shaking him by the shoulder, and a hoarse voice called at his ear:
“Get up.”
He opened his eyes and saw that his father was seated in a chair near his bed, monotonously repeating in a dull voice:
“Get up, get up.”
The sun had just risen, and its light, falling on Ignat’s white linen shirt, had not yet lost its rosy tints.
“It’s early,” said Foma, stretching himself.
“Well, you’ll sleep enough later.”
Lazily muffling himself in the blanket, Foma asked:
“Why do you need me?”
“Get up, dear, will you, please?” exclaimed Ignat, adding, somewhat offended: “It must be necessary, since I am waking you.”
When Foma looked closely at his father’s face, he noticed that it was gray and weary.
“Are you ill?”
“Slightly.”
“Shall we send for a doctor?”
“The devil take him!” Ignat waved his hand. “I am not a young man any longer. I know it as well without him.”
“What?”
“Oh, I know it!” said the old man, mysteriously, casting a strange glance around the room. Foma was dressing himself, and his father, with lowered head, spoke slowly:
“I am afraid to breathe. Something tells me that if I should now heave a deep sigh, my heart would burst. Today is Sunday! After the morning mass is over, send for the priest.”
“What are you talking about, papa?” Foma smiled.
“Nothing. Wash yourself and go into the garden. I ordered the samovar to be brought there. We’ll drink our tea in the morning coolness. I feel like drinking now hot, strong tea. Be quicker.”
The old man rose with difficulty from the chair, and, bent and barefooted, left the room in a staggering gait. Foma looked at his father, and a shooting chill of fear made his heart shrink. He washed himself in haste, and hurried out into the garden.
There, under an old, spreading apple-tree sat Ignat in a big oaken armchair. The light of the sun fell in thin stripes through the branches of the trees upon the white figure of the old man clad in his night-garments. There was such a profound silence in the garden that even the rustle of a branch, accidentally touched by Foma’s clothes, seemed to him like a loud sound and he shuddered. On the table, before his father, stood the samovar, purring like a well-fed tom-cat and exhaling a stream of steam into the air. Amid the silence and the fresh verdure of the garden, which had been washed by abundant rains the day before, this bright spot of the boldly shining, loud brass seemed to Foma as something unnecessary, as something which suited neither the time nor the place—nor the feeling that sprang up within him at the sight of the sickly, bent old man, who was dressed in white, and who sat alone underneath the mute, motionless, dark-green foliage, wherein red apples were modestly peeping.
“Be seated,” said Ignat.
“We ought to send for a doctor.” Foma advised him irresolutely, seating himself opposite him.
“It isn’t necessary. It’s a little better now in the open air. And now I’ll sip some tea and perhaps that will do me more good,” said Ignat, pouring out tea into the glasses, and Foma noticed that the teapot was trembling in his father’s hand.
“Drink.”
Silently moving up one glass for himself, Foma bent over it, blowing the foam off the surface of the tea, and with pain in his heart, hearing the loud, heavy breathing of his father. Suddenly something struck against the table with such force that the dishes began to rattle.
Foma shuddered, threw up his head and met the frightened, almost senseless look of his father’s eyes. Ignat stared at his son and whispered hoarsely:
“An apple fell down (the devil take it!). It sounded like the firing of a gun.”
“Won’t you have some cognac in your tea?” Foma suggested.
“It is good enough without it.”
They became silent. A flight of finches winged past over the garden, scattering a provokingly cheerful twittering in the air. And again the ripe beauty of the garden was bathed in solemn silence. The fright was still in Ignat’s eyes.
“Oh Lord, Jesus Christ!” said he in a low voice, making the sign of the cross. “Yes. There it is—the last hour of my life.”
“Stop, papa!” whispered Foma.
“Why stop? We’ll have our tea, and then send for the priest, and for Mayakin.”
“I’d rather send for them now.”
“They’ll soon toll for the mass—the priest isn’t home—and then there’s no hurry, it may pass soon.”
And he noisily started to sip the tea out of the saucer.
“I should live another year or two. You are young, and I am very much afraid for you. Live honestly and firmly; do not covet what belongs to other people, take good care of your own.”
It was hard for him to speak, he stopped short and rubbed his chest with his hand.
“Do not rely upon others; expect but little from them. We all live in order to take, not to give. Oh Lord! Have mercy on the sinner!”
Somewhere in the distance the deep sound of the bell fell on the silence of the morning. Ignat and Foma crossed themselves three times.
After the first sound of the bell-tone came another, then a third, and soon the air was filled with sounds of the church-bells, coming from all sides—flowing, measured, calling aloud.
“There, they are tolling for the mass,” said Ignat, listening to the echo of the bell-metal. “Can you tell the bells by their sounds?”
“No,” answered Foma.
“Just listen. This one now—do you hear? the bass—this is from the Nikola Church. It was presented by Peter Mitrich Vyagin—and this, the hoarse one—this is at the church of Praskeva Pyatnitza.”
The singing waves of the bell-tones agitated the air, which was filled with them, and they died away in the clear blue of the sky. Foma stared thoughtfully at his father’s face and saw that the alarm was disappearing from his eyes, and that they were now brighter.
But suddenly the old man’s face turned very red, his eyes distended and rolled out of their orbits, his mouth opened with fright, and from it issued a strange, hissing sound:
“F-F-A-A-ch.”
Immediately after this Ignat’s head fell back on his shoulder, and his heavy body slowly slipped down from the chair to the ground as if the earth had dragged him imperiously unto itself. Foma was motionless and silent for awhile, then he rushed up to Ignat, lifted his head from the ground and looked into his face. The face was dark, motionless, and the wide-open eyes expressed nothing—neither pain, nor fear, nor joy. Foma looked around him. As before, nobody was in the garden, and the resounding chatter of the bells was still roaring in the air. Foma’s hands began to tremble, he let go his father’s head, and it struck heavily against the ground. Dark, thick blood began to gush in a narrow stream from his open mouth across his blue cheek.
Foma struck his breast with both hands, and kneeling before the dead body, he wildly cried aloud. He was trembling with fright, and with eyes like those of a madman he was searching for someone in the verdure of the garden.