Pashka's face quivered and his thin angular body began to shudder. He drew in a deep breath, then breathed out again, and said:
"Then he hit her on the head with the tongs."
A movement ran through the children, who had not stirred hitherto.
"She stretched out her arms and fell forward, as if she were diving into the water."
He stopped speaking, picked up a shaving, looked at it carefully, and threw it away over the heads of the children. They all sat still, silent and motionless, as if they expected him to speak again. But he said no more, and let his head fall on to his breast.
"Did he kill her quite dead?" asked Masha in her thin, trembling voice.
"Silly!" said Pashka, without raising his head.
Jakov put his arms round the little one and drew her close to him, while Ilya moved nearer to Pashka and asked him gently:
"Does it hurt you?"
"What's that to do with you?" answered Pashka, crossly.
All the children looked at him silently.
"She was always idling about," said Mashka's clear voice, but Jakov interrupted her uneasily.
"Idling? But think what the smith was like, always so cross and grumbling, enough to make any one afraid, and she so lively, like Perfishka—it was dull for her with the smith."
Pashka looked at him and spoke solemnly and gloomily like a grown-up person.
"I always said to her, 'Mother,' I said, 'look out for yourself, he'll kill you,' but she wouldn't listen. She always told me not to say anything to him. She bought me sweets and things, and the sergeant gave me five kopecks every time—every time I took him a letter from her—I got five kopecks. He's a good fellow, and so strong, and he's got a big moustache."
"Has he a sword?" asked Mashka.
"Rather," said Pashka, and added proudly, "Once I drew it out of the sheath—my word! it was heavy!"
"Now you're an orphan like Ilyushka," said Jakov thoughtfully, after a pause.
"Hardly," answered Pashka angrily. "Do you mean I've got to go and be a rag-picker? I should think not."
"I don't mean that."
"I shall just live as I like," went on Pashka proudly, with his head held up and his eyes sparkling. "I'm not an orphan, I'm only just alone in the world, and I will just live for myself, my father wouldn't send me to school, and now they'll put him in prison, and I shall just go to school and learn more than you."
"Where will you get the clothes?" said Ilya, and looked triumphantly at Pashka, "you can't go there in rags."
"Clothes? I will sell the smithy!"
All looked respectfully at Pashka, and Ilya felt himself beaten. Pashka observed the impression his words produced, and held himself still straighter.
"Yes, and I'll buy a horse, a real live horse, and I'll ride to school."
This idea pleased him so much that he even smiled, only a very, very shy smile that flitted over his mouth and was gone in a moment.
"No one will beat you now," said Mashka suddenly to Pashka, and looked at him enviously.
"He'll soon find some one willing," said Ilya in a tone of conviction.
Pashka looked at him, then spat to one side and said,
"What do you mean by that? Just you try it on with me!"
Jakov joined again in the conversation.-"How strange it is, children! there was some one—walked about and talked—and so on—full of life like all the rest, and one blow on the head with the tongs—and that's the end."
The children looked attentively at Jakov whose eyes stood out oddly under his brows.
"Yes, I thought of that, too," said Ilya.
"People say dead," went on Jakov slowly and mysteriously, "but then what is it to be dead?"
"The soul has flown away," explained Pashka moodily.
"To Heaven," added Masha, and looked up into the sky, while she nestled closer to Jakov. The stars were already flaming; one of them a great bright star that did not twinkle, seemed nearer to the earth than the rest and looked down on them like a cold unmoving eye. The three boys turned their faces upwards like Mashka. Pashka glanced up and at once slipped away. Ilya looked up long and keenly, with an expression of fear, always at the one point, and Jakov's big eyes wandered here and there over the deep blue heavens as if they were seeking something there.
"Jakov!" called out his friend, looking down again.
"What?"
"I was thinking——" Ilya broke off.
"What were you thinking?" asked Jakov, speaking softly too.
"About the people here."
"What then?"
"How they——I can't bear it. Here is some one killed, and they all run about the place and seem so busy and talk all the time; but no one cried, not one."
"Yes, Jeremy did."
"He always has tears in his eyes. But Pashka, how he behaves—as if he were telling a tale."
"It isn't that, really. It pains him, but he's ashamed to cry before us; but now he's gone away, and is crying—as he's reason enough to."
Huddled close together, they sat still for a minute or two. Mashka had fallen asleep on Jakov's knees, her face still turned to the sky.
"Are you afraid?" asked Jakov very softly.
"A little," replied Ilya, in the same tone. "Now her soul is wandering round here. Yes—yes, and Masha is asleep; we must take her into the house, and I'm so afraid to go away from here."
"Let's go together."
Jakov laid the head of the sleeping child against his shoulder, put his arms round her slender body and rose with an effort, while he whispered to Ilya, who stood in the way, "Hold on, let me go in front!"
He stepped down into the cellar, staggering under his burden, while Ilya followed so close that he almost trod on his friend's heels. It seemed to Ilya that an invisible shape glided behind him, that he felt its cold breath on his neck, and he feared every moment to be gripped by it. He touched his friend on the back and called to him in a barely audible voice:
"Go quicker!"
Old Jeremy's health began to fail soon after these events. He went out collecting rags more and more seldom, and stayed at home most of the time, moving languidly about the courtyard, or lying in bed in his dark cabin.
The spring came on, and as the sun's rays streamed down from the blue sky with more warmth, the old man would sit in a sunny corner and count something on his fingers in an absorbed way, while his lips moved soundlessly. More and more seldom could he tell the children stories, his tongue moved with more and more difficulty. He had hardly begun to speak before a fit of coughing stopped him. Something rattled hoarsely in his chest, as though it wanted to be free.
"Please go on," Masha would command, who loved stories beyond everything.
"Wait—wait!" the old man would reply, drawing his breath with difficulty. "Wait—in a minute—it'll stop in a minute."
But the cough would not stop, but shook the exhausted frame more and more fiercely.
Sometimes the children would go away without waiting for the end of the story; as they went they would look at the old man with a strange sorrowful expression.
Ilya observed that the rag-picker's illness caused unusual anxiety both to the potman Petrusha and his uncle Terenti. Several times a day, Petrusha would appear on the steps leading from the court to the bar, take a look with his cunning grey eyes at the old man and ask:
"Now then, how goes it, grandfather? Better, eh?"
He would swagger about in his pink cotton shirt, his hands in the pockets of his wide linen trousers, whose ends were tucked into brilliantly polished boots. He was always chinking the money in his pockets. His round head was beginning to go bald already above the forehead, but there was still a good thick tuft of fair, curly hair on it, and he loved to throw it back in a foppish way. Ilya had never taken kindly to him, and now his feeling of aversion grew stronger every day. He knew that Petrusha did not like Jeremy. One day he heard the potman giving Terenti instructions concerning the old man.
"Keep an eye on him, Terenti! He's an old miser. He's got a pretty store of cash sewed up in his pillow somewhere. Keep your eyes open! He isn't long for this world, the old mole; you're a friend of his and he hasn't a living soul left him in the world! Remember that, my boy!"
In the evenings Jeremy came into the bar to Terenti as before; he conversed with the hunchback about God and Truth and the concerns of mankind. Since he had lived in the town the hunchback had become still more deformed; he seemed to have been bleached by his occupation. His eyes had got a dull, shy expression, and his body was as though melted in the hot vapours of the bar. His dirty shirt used to slip up on to his hump and leave his naked loins visible. All the time he was speaking with any one he kept both his hands behind his back, trying constantly to draw his shirt into its place, and this habit gave him the air of trying to stuff away his big hump.
When Jeremy sat outside in the courtyard, Terenti would come out frequently on to the steps and look at him, and his eyes twitched as he shaded them with his hand. The straw-coloured beard quivered on his pointed face as he asked the old man in his weak voice, embarrassed as from a guilty conscience, "Grandfather! do you want anything?"
"Many thanks. No—nothing. I don't need anything," the old man would answer.
The hunchback turned slowly on his withered legs and went back into the bar. But the old man felt himself growing weaker every day.
"It'll soon be all over with me," he said one day to Ilya, who was sitting near him. "It's time for me to die—there's only one thing still——"
He peered round the courtyard mistrustfully and went on in a whisper:
"I'm dying too soon, Ilyushka! My work is not done. I haven't had time. I've stored up money—money. I've pinched and saved for seventeen years; I wanted to build a church with it. I meant to make a temple for the Lord in the village—my home. Ah! there's need of it—such need for men to have a temple to God; our only refuge is with God. It's too little, all I've saved, it won't do it, and what shall I do with what I have? I don't know. O God! show me the way. And the ravens already flutter about me, and croak and smell a fat morsel. Listen, Ilyushka, I've got money; don't say a word to any one, but listen."
Ilya listened; he felt himself uplifted as the sharer of a great important secret, and understood very well whom the old man spoke of as the ravens.
A couple of days later when Ilya came back from school and went to his accustomed corner, he heard strange sounds in the old man's room. It was like some one murmuring—sobbing with a hoarse rattle in his throat, as though he were being strangled. Every now and then a whisper was audible.
"Ksch! Ksch! Go away!"
Full of anxiety the lad went to the door of the room, but it was fast shut. Then he cried out in a trembling voice:
"Grandfather!"
Behind the door the only answer he heard was a painful breathless whisper:
"Tsch! Ksch! O Lord, have mercy—have mercy—have mercy!"
And suddenly all was still. Ilya sprang back from the door, and hesitated a moment what to do; then he went to part of the wooden partition, and, quivering with excitement, looked through a crack in it. It was dark and obscure in the old man's little room. The light could hardly penetrate the little dirty window. The sound of a spring shower was heard, as the rain drops struck the pane and the water ran down into a hollow in the yard outside the window. Ilya looked closely into the room and saw the old man lying in bed stretched out on his back and fighting the air above him with his hands.
"Grandfather!" cried the boy again, full of terror.
The old man started, lifted his head, and murmured aloud:
"Ksch! Petrusha—let it alone, think of God, it belongs to Him! I must build Him a temple with it. Ksch! Go away! Off! you raven. O God! it is Thine—Thine—guard it, take it for Thyself. Have mercy! have mercy!"
Ilya shivered with fear and was unable to stir from the spot. He saw Jeremy's black, withered hands move feebly in the air, and threaten some invisible person with his crooked fingers.
"See! it belongs to God, don't touch it!" and then the old man raised himself up and his hair bristled. Suddenly he sat upright in his bed. His white beard quivered like the wings of a flying dove. He stretched out his arms, as if to thrust some one away from him with a last effort, and fell on the ground.
Ilya shrieked and ran away. In his ears rang the whisper, "Ksch! Ksch!"
He burst into the bar room and cried breathlessly: "Uncle—he's dead!"
Terenti gave an "Ah!" of astonishment, then moved nervously up and down, pulling at his shirt and looking at Petrusha behind the bar.
"Uncle, go to him!—go quick!"
"There, what are you waiting for," said Petrusha, decidedly. "Go along. God have mercy on his soul! He was a sturdy old man. I'll go with you to see him. Ilya, you stay here. If anything is wanted, fetch me, d'you hear? Jakov, look after the bar, I shan't be a minute."
Petrusha left the bar room without undue haste, putting his feet down noisily. The two boys heard him speak again to the hunchback behind the door:
"Get on—get on—you lout!"
Ilya was seized with a great fear, from all he had seen and heard, but it did not prevent him from seeing quite exactly all that went on around him.
"Did you see how he died?" asked Jakov, who had taken his place behind the bar.
Ilya looked at him and answered with another question: "Why have they gone there?"
"To look at him—you called them."
Ilya was silent. Then he closed his eyes and said,
"It was awful. How he pushed them away!"
"Who?" asked Jakov, stretching his head forward with curiosity.
"The Devil," answered Ilya, after a short thoughtful pause.
"Did you see him?"
"What do you say?"
"Did you see the Devil, I say?" cried Jakov, devoured with curiosity, going quickly up to Ilya. But Ilya shut his eyes again and said nothing.
"Are you very frightened?" questioned Jakov further, and plucked Ilya by the sleeve.
"Wait," said Ilya, becoming mysterious all of a sudden, "I'll go after them for a minute, eh? But don't tell your father, will you?"
"I won't say a word. But come back soon."
Spurred by suspicion, Ilya hurried from the bar and in a moment was down again in the cellar. He stole, carefully, noiselessly as a mouse to the chink in the partition and looked through again. The old man was still alive, he could hear the rattle in his throat. But Ilya could not see him; the dying man's body lay on the floor at the feet of two dark figures, that in the darkness seemed grown into one enormous mis-shaped creature. Then Ilya saw how his uncle knelt beside the bed, and held the pillow which he was hurriedly sewing up. He heard the threads drawn through the stuff quite clearly; Petrusha stood behind Terenti and bent over him. He threw back his hair and whispered angrily:
"Get on—get on! you abortion! I always told you—keep needle and thread ready! But no! you haven't even a needle threaded. Oh you! Silly fool! You've made a nice mess of it—there—that'll do. God have mercy on his soul! It'll do. What's that? Pull yourself together, coward!"
The low whispering of Petrusha, the gurgling sighs of the dying man, the sound of the needle, and the monotonous rush of the water that ran into the hole in front of the window, all combined into a dull noise beneath which Ilya felt his senses wavering. He left the wall, where he had listened, and crept out of the cellar. A great black patch whirled before his eyes like a wheel, making him sick and giddy. He had to cling to the railing as he climbed the stairs to the bar room, and felt his limbs drag heavily. When at last he reached the tap-room door, he stood still and began to weep. Jakov hurried to him and spoke cheerily to him. Then he felt a slap on the back and heard Perfishka's voice, "Hullo! What's up? Speak up man! Is he dead? Ah!"
And pushing Ilya aside, he ran down the steps again so fast that they shook beneath his feet. But at the bottom he stood on the last step and cried out loudly and complainingly:
"Ah! these sharpers!"
Then Ilya heard his uncle and Petrusha come up the stairs; he did not want to cry before them, but he could not hold back the tears.
"Jakov," called Petrusha, "run down to the police station; say the old rag-picker has gone to his God—make haste!"
"Oh you," cried Perfishka, who had come up again with them, "So you've been there already, eh?"
Terenti passed by his nephew and could not look him in the face; but Petrusha laid his hand on Ilya's shoulder and said:
"Crying, lad? Cry away! that's right, it shows you have a grateful heart, and understood what the old fellow did for you. He was very, very good to you."
After a while he took Ilya by the hand and led him aside saying:
"But you needn't stand right in the doorway, all the same."
Ilya wiped away the tears with his shirt sleeve and let his glance stray over the bystanders. Petrusha had gone behind the bar again and was throwing back his curls. In front of him stood Perfishka, looking at him with a mocking grin. His face had an expression as though he had just lost his last five-kopeck piece at pitch and toss.
"Well, what's the matter, Perfishka?" asked Petrusha as he drew the drink.
"Matter? Oh! Aren't you going to give me a fee?" he answered suddenly.
"How d'you mean? For what?" asked the potman, indifferently.
"Oh you scoundrel!" cried the cobbler crossly, and stamped on the ground. "My mouth's wide open, but the roast pigeon is not for me. Well, well, that's done, anyhow. Here's luck, Peter Sakinytsch."
"What's the matter? What are you jawing about?" asked Petrusha and smiled as unconcernedly as he could.
"I only mean—I'm speaking quite simply——"
"Ah! you want a drink, that's it, eh?"
"Ha! Ha!" the cobbler's gay laugh sounded loudly.
Ilya tossed his head as though to shake off something and went outside.
That night he lay down to sleep very late, and not in his corner of the cellar but in the tap room under the table where his uncle washed the glasses. The hunchback made a bed there for his nephew, then began to wash down the tables. A lamp burned on the bar, lighting up the bulging teapots and the bottles in the cupboards against the wall. In the room it was dark. The black night came close up to the window; a fine rain pattered on the panes and the wind rustled softly.
Like a great hedgehog, Terenti crept about between the tables, sighing frequently. Whenever he came near the lamp his figure threw a great black shadow on the floor. It seemed to Ilya that the soul of old Jeremy glided behind his uncle and whispered in his ear:
"Ksh—Kshsh."
The boy was frightened and shivered. The damp atmosphere of the bar oppressed him. It was Saturday. The floor was newly washed, and smelt mouldy. Ilya wanted to beg his uncle to lie down beside him as soon as possible, yet a painful, perverse feeling held him back from speaking. In his mind he saw the bent figure of old Jeremy with his white beard, and his friendly words rang in his ears all the time.
"Mind my son—God knows the measure of all things—mark that!"
"Oh, come and lie down!" Ilya burst out at last.
The hunchback started and looked up terrified.
Then he said, softly, fearfully:
"What? Who is there?"
"It is I. Come and lie down, I say."
"Soon—soon—soon," cried the hunchback quickly, and began to twist about the tables like a top. Ilya perceived that his uncle was afraid of him and thought in the stillness with a feeling of pleasure:
"Right—that's right."
The rain drummed on the window panes and from all round came dull sounds. The lamp flame flickered up. Ilya covered his head with his uncle's fur jacket and lay there holding his breath. Suddenly something moved near him. A paroxysm of terror seized him; trembling, he put his head out and saw Terenti kneeling on the ground, his head bent, so that his chin touched his breast. And Ilya heard him praying in a whisper:
"O Lord, our Father in Heaven, O Lord——!"
The whisper reminded him of the death rattle of the old man. The darkness in the room began to move, the floor seemed to go round and round, and the wind howled in the chimney: "Hu—u—u——!"
"Stop that praying!" called Ilya's clear voice.
"What? What is it?" said the hunchback half aloud. "Go to sleep, for Christ's sake."
"Stop praying," repeated the boy, commandingly.
"Yes—yes. I'll stop."
The dampness and the darkness in the room weighed more and more heavily on Ilya, his breathing was oppressed and his soul was filled with fear and sorrow for the dead old man, and with a deep ill-will against his uncle. At last he sat up and groaned aloud.
"What is the matter? What is it?" called out his uncle frightened, and put an arm round him. But Ilya pushed him back, and spoke in a voice choked with tears, but ringing with bitter pain and horror.
"O God! If only I could go away and hide from it all. O God!"
He could not speak for tears. His breathing was laboured in the heavy air of the tap room, and, sobbing, he hid his face on the floor.
Ilya's character underwent a great change as a result of these experiences. Formerly it was only from his school fellows that he had held aloof, as he had never become accustomed to their behaviour towards him or felt the smallest inclination to yield to it. In the house, on the contrary, he had always been frank and trustful, and had felt a singular joy, if any one of the grown-up people took any notice of him. Now, however, he kept away from every one, and grew serious beyond his years. His face wore an unfriendly expression, his lips were compressed, he observed his elders with attention and listened to their conversations with a searching look in his eyes. The memory of all he saw on the day that old Jeremy died weighed heavy on him, and it seemed to him that not only Petrusha and his uncle, but also he himself was guilty before the old man. Perhaps Jeremy had thought as he lay there dying and saw his store rifled, that he, Ilya, had betrayed the treasure. This fear had arisen in Ilya quite suddenly, but had grown in strength and filled his soul with doubt and torturing pain. He locked his thoughts in his heart and thereby there grew in him a mistrust of all the world, and as often as he noticed anything wicked in any one, his heart was a little easier, as though his own guilt towards the dead were lessened thereby. And he found so much evil among men and women. Every one called Petrusha a hypocrite and a liar, but all flattered him to his face, bowed respectfully to him, and addressed him with humility as Peter Akimytsch. Every one called big Matiza of the attics by a hateful name; when she was drunk they all pushed or struck her, and once as she sat below the kitchen window, the cook poured a pail of dirty water right over her, and yet they all took from her endless small kindnesses and services, and gave her no thanks but foul names and blows. Perfishka would call her to watch his ailing wife, Petrusha would get her to wash down the bar room before holidays for nothing, and she was always mending shirts for Terenti. She went everywhere and did everything without a complaint and very handily, tended the sick devotedly and loved to play with the children.
Ilya saw that the most hard-working man in the whole house, the cobbler Perfishka, was looked upon universally as a ridiculous figure, and that no notice was taken of him except when he sat on the bench in the bar room with his harmonica, half drunk, or reeled about the courtyard singing his jolly little songs.
No one could see how carefully he carried his crippled wife up the stairs, how he put his little daughter to bed, tucked her in, and made all sorts of droll faces to entertain her. No one noticed him when he taught Masha, with laughter and fun, to cook the dinner and clean the room, then settled to his work, sitting far into the night bent over a dirty shapeless boot.
When the smith was taken off to prison, no one but the cobbler troubled about his boy. But he took Pashka at once, and the unruly lad waxed the thread, swept the room, fetched water, and went to the shop for bread, kvass and onions. Every one had seen the cobbler drunk on holidays, but no one heard him next day, when, sober once more, he excused himself to his wife:
"Forgive me, Dunya, I'm not really a drunkard, I only took a mouthful to cheer me up. I work all the week—it's very weary, and then I just go and have a drink, and——"
"But do I complain of you? My God, I'm only so sorry for you," answered his wife in her hoarse voice, that sounded like a sob in her throat. "D'you think I don't see how you slave? The Lord has put me like a heavy stone round your neck. If only I could die! then you'd be free of me!"
"Don't talk like that! I won't have you say such things. It's I who trouble you, and not you, me, but I don't do it out of wickedness, only I'm so weak. See now, we'll move into another street. Everything shall be different, door and windows and everything. The windows shall look out on the street, and we'll cut out a boot in paper and stick it on them. That'll be our sign. Everybody will come to us in a crowd, and the business will flourish. Ah! then! work—work—that's the way to fill the cupboard!"
Ilya knew every detail of Perfishka's life. He saw how he toiled like a fish that tries to break the ice closing round it, and respected him the more because he jested all the time with every one and had a smile for all occasions, and played so beautifully on the harmonica.
Meanwhile Petrusha sat behind the bar, played cards with an acquaintance now and again, drank tea from morning to night, and scolded the lads who waited on the customers. Soon after Jeremy's death he installed Terenti as barman, while he amused himself by strolling about the court whistling, observing the house from all sides and tapping the walls with his fists.
Ilya observed many other things, and everything was hateful and depressing, and repelled him from his fellows more and more. Sometimes all the thoughts and impressions that accumulated in him roused a strong desire to pour out his soul to some one. But he had no desire to talk to his uncle. After the death of Jeremy, there grew up as it were an invisible wall between them, which prevented the boy from approaching Terenti as often and as frankly as before. Even Jakov could throw little, if any, light for him on the experiences of his soul; for he lived apart from every one in his own special way. The death of old Jeremy troubled him, he often thought sadly.
"How dull everything is—if only grandfather Jeremy was alive, he used to tell us stories; there's nothing so nice as stories, and he could tell them so well."
"He could do everything well," answered Ilya gloomily.
One day Jakov said to his friend, mysteriously:
"Shall I show you something? Shall I?"
"Yes—do."
"But promise you'll never say a word."
"I promise."
"Say—may I be damned in Hell, if I do."
Ilya repeated the formula, whereupon Jakov led him to the old lime-tree in the furthest corner of the courtyard. There he lifted from the stem a strip of bark, cunningly fastened, and behind it Ilya saw a big hollow in the tree. It was a space cleverly scooped out with a knife, and adorned with gay rags, scraps of paper, and bits of tin foil. In the depth of the hollow stood a small figure, cast in bronze, and a wax candle end was fixed upright before it.
"Did you see it?" asked Jakov, putting the bark again over the opening.
"Yes, I saw. What is it?"
"It's a chapel," explained Jakov. "At night I can always come out very quietly and light the candle and pray. Isn't it beautiful?"
Ilya liked his friend's idea, but at once perceived the danger.
"Suppose any one saw the light. You'd get a fine thrashing!"
"Who's going to see it in the night? They're all asleep, the world is all quiet. I'm very little and God can't hear my prayer at the end of the day, but He'll hear it at night when it's quiet, don't you think?"
"I don't know, perhaps He will," said Ilya thoughtfully, looking into the pale, big-eyed face of his comrade.
"And you? Will you come and pray too?"
"What will you pray for?" asked Ilya. "I should ask God to make me very clever, and after that, to give me everything I want. What will you ask for?"
"I? I should ask for that too," answered Jakov. After a moment he added: "I should just pray without asking for anything special, just pray, that's all, and He can give what He likes, but if you think the other way's better, then I'll do the same as you."
"All right," said Ilya.
They decided to start praying the next night at the lime-tree, and both went to bed firmly determined to wake and meet at the corner. But neither then nor on the following night could they wake, and they overslept on many other occasions; then new impressions came to bear on Ilya and the thought of the chapel fell into the background.
In the twigs of this same lime-tree where Jakov had established his chapel, Pashka set bird snares, to catch finches and siskins. He had grown clumsy and thin, and his eyes looked this way and that like the eyes of a beast of prey. He had now no time to loaf about the court. He was kept busy with Perfishka all day, and the friends only saw him on holidays, when the cobbler was drunk. Pashka used to ask them what they were learning at school, and would look gloomy and envious when they gave accounts coloured with a consciousness of their superiority.
"You needn't be so stuck up, anyhow," he said once. "I'll learn something, too, some day."
"But Perfishka won't let you."
"Then I'll run away," answered Pashka, shortly and decidedly.
And as a matter of fact soon after this speech the cobbler went round the courtyard saying with a laugh:
"My young companion has run away, the young devil! Couldn't get on with my leather science!"
It was a rainy day. Ilya looked at the worried cobbler and then at the dull grey skies, and felt pity for the froward Pashka who might now be wandering God knows where. He stood by Perfishka under a shed, leant against the wall and looked across at the house. It seemed to him that day by day it became lower, as though it were sinking into the earth under the burden of the years. Its old ribs stood out more and more sharply, as though the dirt that had accumulated within them for years could no longer find room, and were pushing them asunder. Saturated with misery, wild riot and mournful drunken songs its only abundance, pounded and bruised by never-ceasing footsteps, the house could no longer endure its life, and slowly crumbled to decay, while its dim windows stared mournfully upon God's world.
"Heigh-ho!" began the cobbler, "the old shop'll soon smash up and strew its spawn over the earth, and we that live in it, we'll scatter to the four winds, we'll seek out new holes somewhere else—we'll soon find 'em, as good as these. Then we'll begin a new life—new windows and new doors, and new bugs to bite us. Well, let's have it soon, I've had enough of this pig-sty—only in the end one gets used to it, devil take it!"
But the shoemaker's dream was not to be fulfilled. The house did not crumble down, but was bought by Petrusha. As soon as the sale was complete, Petrusha spent two days creeping into every hole and corner, and feeling and testing the old box of rubbish. Then came bricks and boards, scaffolding surrounded the whole house, and for three months on end it creaked and quivered under the blows of the workmen's hatchets. All round there was sawing and chopping, nails were driven in, old beams torn out with loud crackings and whirls of dust, and new ones put in the places, till at last the old shanty had received a new clothing of planks, and its façade was widened by a new outbuilding. Broad and thickset, the house rose now from the ground straight and sturdy, as though it had driven new roots far into the earth; along its front just below the roof, Petrusha had a big hanging sign put up, which bore the statement in golden letters on a blue ground:
"The Jolly Companions Tavern, P. S. Filimonov."
"And inside it's rotten through and through," said Perfishka mockingly.
Ilya, to whom he made this comment, smiled in sympathy. To him, too, this house, after its rebuilding, seemed a gigantic fraud. He remembered Pashka, who must now be living in another place, and seeing quite different things.
Ilya dreamed, like the cobbler, of other doors and windows and men. Now life in the house became even more unpleasant than before. The old lime-tree fell a victim to the axe, the intimate little corner in its shadow disappeared, and a new outbuilding occupied its place, and all the other favourite places where the children used to sit together and chatter, existed no longer. Only where once the smithy stood, there was one quiet little corner left, behind a heap of old chips and rotten wood. But to sit there was to court uncanny feelings, as though beneath the pile of wood lay Savel's wife with a shattered skull.
Petrusha set aside a new place for Terenti—a tiny little room next the big bar room. Through the thin partition with green paper penetrated all the noise, the smell of brandy and the reek of tobacco. It was clean and dry in Terenti's new room, and yet it was more uncomfortable there than in the cellar. The window looked on the grey wall of the shed, which concealed the sky with the sun and stars, whereas, from the old cellar window, any one kneeling down could see them all quite easily.
Terenti henceforth wore a lilac-coloured shirt, and over it a coat that hung on him as it might have done over a box. From early morning till late at night he took his place behind the bar. He spoke distantly now to every one and held few conversations, and these in a dull, snappy way, as though he were barking, and looked at his acquaintances across the counter with the eyes of a faithful dog that guards his master's property. He bought Ilya a grey cloth jacket, boots, an overcoat, and a cap. When the lad put them on for the first time, the memory of the old rag-picker came vividly before him. He hardly ever spoke to his uncle and his life passed by, monotonous and still; and although the unusual unchildlike feelings and thoughts which had grown in him kept his mind busy, he was burdened with the weight of a suffocating dreariness. More and more often his thoughts turned back to the village. Now it seemed to him quite clear and definite, how much better it had been to live there. Everything there was quieter, simpler, more intelligible. He remembered the dense woods of Kerschenez, and his uncle's tales of the hermit Antipa, and the thought of Antipa aroused the memory of another lonely soul—of Pashka. Where was he now? Perhaps he, too, had fled to the woods, and there dug out a cave to live in. The storm-wind rages through the forest, the wolves howl; it is so terrifying, and yet so good to listen. And in the winter everything shines in the sun like silver, and all is so still, so quiet, that nothing can be heard but the crunch of the snow under foot, and if you stand a moment motionless, you hear only the beating of your own heart. But in the town, it is always wild and noisy, and even the night is filled with clamour. Men sing songs, shout for the police, groan aloud, the carriages pass to and fro, and shake the window-panes with their rattling. Even in school there is much the same confusion; the boys cry out and do all sorts of mischief, and the grown-up people in the streets roar and insult one another and fight and get drunk. And all this not only causes unrest, at times it is absolutely horrible. Mankind here is mad, some are liars, like Petrusha, some evil-tempered and passionate like Savel, others miserably wretched like Perfishka or Uncle Terenti or Matiza. Ilya was specially surprised and provoked at the hateful conduct which the cobbler had lately displayed.
One morning, as Ilya was getting ready for school, Perfishka came into the bar, all dishevelled and heavy with want of sleep. He stood silently at the counter and looked at Terenti. His left eyelid quivered and blinked constantly and his underlip hung down in a strange manner. Terenti looked at him, smiled, and poured him out a small glass, three kopecks worth, Perfishka's usual morning allowance.
Perfishka took it with a shaking hand and tossed it off, but neither smacked his lips after it as usual, nor showed his approval by an oath, and forgot entirely to take his accustomed morsel of food. With his blinking left eye he looked once more at the new barman searchingly, while his right eye remained dull and motionless and seemed to see nothing.
"What's wrong with your eye?" asked Terenti.
Perfishka rubbed his eye with his hand, then looked at his hand and said loudly and emphatically:
"My wife, Avdotya Petrovna is dead."
"What? Truly?" asked Terenti, crossing himself with a glance at the sacred image. "The Lord have mercy on her soul!"
"Eh?" said Perfishka sharply, still gazing into Terenti's face.
"I said, 'The Lord have mercy on her soul!'"
"Oh!—yes—yes! She is dead," said the cobbler. Then he turned suddenly on his heel and went out.
"A strange man," muttered Terenti, shaking his head. Ilya, too, found the cobbler's behaviour very strange. On his way to school he went for a moment into the cellar to see the dead woman. It was all dark and stuffy; the women had come from the attics and were talking half aloud in a group round the death-bed. Matiza was dressing the little Masha and asked her:
"Does it catch you under the arm?"
And Masha, standing with her arms stretched out sideways said crossly:
"Yes—ye—es!"
The cobbler sat bent forward at the table and looked at his daughter, his eye blinking all the time. Ilya gave a glance at the pale, swollen face of the dead; he remembered her dark eyes, now closed for ever, and went out with a painful gnawing feeling at his heart.
When he returned from school and went into the bar room, he heard Perfishka playing the harmonica and singing in a merry tone:
"Ah, my bride, my only dear,My heart is gone, I sadly fear,Why have you stolen it away,And where on earth is it to-day?"
"Oh yes! the women have turned me out!—get out, you villain, they screamed—old tippler, they called me. But I don't mind a bit. I'm a patient lamb. Blackguard me as much as you like, hit me if you like. Only let me live a little—just a little if you please. Aha! my brothers, every man likes to enjoy his life, eh? Call it Vaska, call it Jakov, the soul's the same all the time."
"Tell me who is weeping there?What does he want, in this affair?Be still my friend and don't complain,But stuff your mouth with bread again."
Perfishka's face wore an expression of idiotic happiness. Ilya looked at him and felt disgust and fear. He thought in his heart that without a doubt God would punish the cobbler heavily for such behaviour on the day of his wife's death. But Perfishka was drunk the next day too, even behind his wife's coffin he reeled as he walked and winked and laughed. All held his conduct blameworthy, he was even struck in the face.
"Do you know," said Ilya to Jakov the day of the funeral, "Perfishka is a downright unbeliever!"
"Oh! bother him!" answered Jakov indifferently.
Ilya had noticed already that Jakov had altered considerably. He hardly ever appeared in the courtyard, but sat indoors all the time and seemed to take pains to avoid Ilya. At first Ilya thought that Jakov envied him his success at school and was sitting indoors over his school work. But he soon showed that he learned with even more difficulty than before; constantly his teacher had to reprove him for his inattention and his failure to understand the simplest things. Ilya did not wonder at Jakov's indifference over Perfishka, for Jakov took no special interest in the affairs of the house, but he did wish to understand what was passing in his friend's mind and he asked him:
"Why are you so down on me now? Don't you want to be friends?"
"I? Not be your friend? What on earth are you saying?" said Jakov taken aback, and then called quickly with an eager expression:
"See now, go into the house. I'm coming in a moment—I'll show you."
He jumped up and ran off, while Ilya went to his room in great perplexity.
Jakov soon appeared. He closed the door behind him, went to the window, and took a red book from his coat pocket.
"Come here!" he said, softly, with an important air, sitting down on Terenti's bed and making room for Ilya beside him. Then he opened the book, laid it on his knee, bent over it and began to read aloud, following the words along the grey paper with his finger:
"And sudden—suddenly the bold knight saw a mountain a long way off, so high that it reached to heaven, and midway up its slope was an iron tower. There the fire of his courage flamed up in his brave heart. He put his lance in rest and charged forward with a mighty shout, and sp—spurring his horse, he rushed with all his-gi—gigantic strength against the door. There was a—fearful clap of thunder—the iron tower flew into fragments, and at the same time there streamed out of the mountain fire and v—va—vapour, and a voice of thunder was heard, at which the earth trembled and the stones rolled from the mountain down to the horse's feet. 'Ha! Ha! Is it thou, bold madcap. Death and I have long awaited thee.' The knight was blinded with the fire and smoke."
"But who—who is this?" asked Ilya, amazed at the excitement that quivered in his friend's voice.
"What?" said Jakov, lifting his pale face from the book.
"Who is this—this knight?"
"He's a man, that rides a horse, with a spear, his name is Raoul the Fearless—a dragon has carried off his bride, the beautiful Louise—but listen," Jakov broke off impatiently.
"Hold on a minute—tell me, what's a dragon?"
"Oh! it's a snake with wings and feet with iron claws, and it has three heads, and breathes fire, and—d'you see?"
"My word!" cried Ilya, opening his eyes wide, "that'll be a handful to tackle!"
"Yes, just listen."
Sitting close together, trembling with curiosity and a strange delightful excitement, the two boys made their entry into a new wonder-world where huge evil monsters met their death beneath the mighty strokes of brave knights, where all was glorious and lovely and wonderful, and nothing resembled the dull monotony of daily life. There were no drunken, stupid, dwarfed little men, and instead of half-rotten wooden barracks, were gold-gleaming palaces and impregnable mountains of iron soaring to heaven, and while in thought they wandered through this wondrous fantasy realm of romance, at their backs the mad cobbler played his harmonica and sang his rhyming couplets:
"I'll serve the devil onlyWhile my life is whole,So when I am done for,He cannot catch my soul."
"That's the way, my brothers," he went on, "keep it up every day. God loves the happy men."
The harmonica began to whimper again as though it taxed it to overtake the hurrying voice of the cobbler, then he sang a jolly dance tune, his voice as it were running a race with the accompaniment:
"Never mind if in your youthYour lot be cold and rough,Once you make your way to Hell,You'll find it hot enough."
Every verse gained laughter and applause from the audience. The sounds of the harmonica mingled with the clatter of glasses, the heavy tread of the drinkers, and the noise of the benches dragged here and there, and the whole blended into a wild tumult, not unlike the howling of the winter storm through the forest.
But in the little cabin, shut off from this chaos of noise only by a thin partition of wood, the two boys sat bent over the book, and one read aloud softly,
"The knight caught the monster in his iron embrace, and it bellowed like thunder with wrath and pain."
After the book of the Knight and the dragon came other wonderful works of the same kind—"Guak, or Invincible Loyalty," then "The History of the Brave Prince Franzil of Venice and the Young Queen Renzivena," and all impressions of reality in Ilya's mind gave way before the knights and ladies. The comrades in turn stole twenty kopeck pieces out of the bar till, and so had no lack of books. They became acquainted with the adventurous journeys of "Jashka Sinentensky," they delighted in "Japantsha the Tartar Robber-chief," and more and more they deserted the harsh pitiless realities of life for a realm where man at all times could tear asunder the bonds of Fate and make a prize of happiness. They lived long in the thrall of these fairy tales. Ilya retained the memory of only one event of his daily life during this time. One day Perfishka was summoned to the police station. He went in fear and trembling, but came joyfully back, and with him, Pashka Gratshev, whom he held fast by the hand lest he should run away again. Pashka's eyes looked as quick and bright as ever, but he had become terribly thin and yellow, and his face had no longer its former froward expression. The cobbler brought him into the bar, and began to relate, his left eye twitching rapidly.
"Behold, my friends, here we have Mr. Pavlusha Gratshev back again as large as life—just back from the town of Pensa conveyed by favour of the police. Ah! what people there are in the world! No staying happily at home for them! When they're hardly able to stand upright they're off into the wide world to seek their fortune."
Pashka stood by, one hand in the pocket of his tattered trousers, while he strove to detach the other from the cobbler's hold, looking at him sideways, darkly.
Some one advised Perfishka to give him a good sound thrashing, but the cobbler answered seriously, letting the boy go:
"What for? let him wander a bit, perhaps he'll find his happiness."
"He'll get jolly hungry, anyway," threw in Terenti, then added in a friendly tone, giving Pashka a bit of bread.
"Here, eat it, Pashka."
Pashka took the bread quietly and went towards the tap-room door.
"Whew!" the cobbler whistled after him, "going off again? Good-bye then, my friend."
Ilya, who had witnessed this scene from the door of his room, called Pashka back.
The lad stayed a moment before answering, then went up to Ilya and asked, looking suspiciously round the little room:
"What do you want?"
"Only to say how d'ye do."
"All right, good day to you."
"Sit down a minute."
"Why?"
"Oh, we'll have a chat."
The short sulky questions, and the hoarse, harsh voice made a painful impression on Ilya. He wanted to ask Pashka where he had been all the summer and what he had seen. But Pashka, who had found a chair and begun to gnaw his bread, started questioning on his own account.
"Finished school?"
"Early next year I'm done."
"Well, I've done my learning too!"
"Why—how?" said Ilya, incredulously.
"I've been pretty quick, eh?"
"Where did you learn?"
"In prison, with the prisoners."
Ilya approached him and asked, looking respectfully into the thin face, "How long were you in? Was it bad?"
"Oh, not so bad—four months I had of it in several prisons and different towns. I got to know some fine people there, my boy, ladies too—real swells! Spoke different languages and knew everything. I always swept out their cells. Very nice people they were, if they were in gaol."
"Were they thieves?"
"No, regular villains," answered Pashka, proudly.
Ilya blinked and his respect for Pashka increased still more.
"Russians?"
"A couple of Jews too—fine fellows! I tell you, my lad, they knew their way about. Stripped everyone that they got a hand on—properly. Got caught in the end, and now going to Siberia!"
"But how did you learn things there?"
"Oh! I just said 'teach me to read,' and they did."
"Have you learnt to write too?"
"Writing I'm not so good at, but I'll read as much as you like. I've read lots of books already."
Ilya became excited now the conversation turned on books.
"I read with Jakov, too," he said, "and such books!"
Both began to name all the books they had read, in rivalry. Pashka had to admit with a sigh:
"I see, you've read the most, you lucky devil, and your books are nicer too. I've read mostly poetry. They had a lot of books there, but nearly all verses."
Jakov came in at this point, he raised his eyebrows and laughed:
"Now then sheep, what are you laughing at?" Pashka greeted him.
"Hullo! Where have you been?"
"Where you'll never be able to go."
"Just think," put in Ilya, "he's been reading books, too!"
"Really?" said Jakov, and came nearer in a more friendly way.
The three boys sat close together, in lively desultory conversation.
"I've seen such things, I couldn't even tell you!" cried Pashka, proud and excited. "Once I went two days without eating—not a bite! I've spent a night in the forest, alone."
"Was it bad?" asked Ilya.
"You go and try it, then you'll know. And once the dogs nearly killed me. That was in Kazan, where they put up a monument to a man, just because he made verses. A great, big man he was—his legs, I tell you, as thick as that, and his fist as big as your head, Jakov. I'll make you some poetry, boys—I know how, a bit."
He suddenly sat straight up, drew his legs in, and, looking steadily at one point, he said, quickly, with a serious, important air:——
"Men, well fed and richly dressedPass through the streets all day,But if I beg a bit of breadThey answer—go away!"
He stopped, looked at the other two, and hung his head down. For a minute they all stared in an embarrassed silence, then Ilya asked, hesitatingly:——
"Is that poetry?"
"Can't you hear?" replied Pashka, crossly. "It rhymes—day, away—so of course it's poetry."
"Of course," chimed in Jakov, quickly. "You're always finding fault, Ilya."
"I've made more poetry than that!" Pashka turned to Jakov and went on again:——
"The earth is wet and the clouds are grey,The autumn draws nearer, day by day,And I—have no house for the winter's coldAnd my clothes are tattered and worn and old."
"Ah!" said Jakov, and looked at Pashka with round eyes.
"That was regular poetry," admitted Ilya.
A fleeting blush passed over Pashka's face and he screwed up his eyes as if the smoke had got into the room.
"I shall make a long poem," he boasted. "It's not so very difficult. You go out and look about you—stream, dream, tree, free—the rhymes come up by themselves."
"And what will you do now?" asked Ilya.
Pashka let his glance wander round; there was a pause, then he said, slowly and vaguely, "oh, something or other," then added decidedly, "If I don't like it, I'll run away again."
For the time being, however, he lived with the cobbler, and every evening the children gathered there. It was quieter and more cosy in the cellar than in Terenti's room. Perfishka was seldom at home. He had sold for drink all that could be sold, and now worked by the day in various workshops, and if there was no work to be got, he sat in the bar-room. He went about half-clothed and barefoot, and his beloved old harmonica was always under his arm. It had come to be almost a part of his body, it had absorbed a portion of his cheerful disposition. The two were very much alike, out at elbows and worn, but full of jolly songs and tunes. In all the workshops of the town, Perfishka was known as a tireless singer of gay rollicking rhymes and dance tunes. Wherever he appeared he was a welcome guest, and all liked him because he could lighten the heavy weary load of existence, with his drolleries tales and anecdotes.
Whenever he earned a couple of kopecks, he gave his daughter the half. His only care now was for her. For the rest, Masha was mistress of her own fate. She had grown tall, her black hair fell below her shoulders, her big dark eyes looked out on the world seriously, and she played the hostess in the underground room most excellently. She collected shavings from the places where new building was in progress, and tried to cook the soup with them, and up to midday went about with her skirts tucked up, quite black, and wet, and busy. But once her meal was prepared, then she cleaned up the room, washed, put on a clean dress, and settled herself at the table before the window to mend her clothes. While she cobbled away with her needle at the rags, she would sing a gay song, and in her liveliness and activity, she was like a titmouse in a cage.
Matiza would often pay her a visit, and bring her rolls of bread, tea, and sugar, and once even gave her a blue dress. Masha received the visit quite like a grown-up person, a proper housewife. She would put the little samovar on the table and serve Matiza with tea, and while they enjoyed the hot stimulating drink, they would chat of the events of the day and Perfishka's conduct. Matiza used to get quite carried away with anger over the cobbler, while Masha, in her clear little voice, would not dispute, out of politeness to her guest, but still would speak of Perfishka without a trace of resentment. In everything that she said of her father, a resolute forbearance was always present.
"Quite true," she would say, in an old-fashioned way, "it is not reasonable for a man to drink so. But he loves gaiety, and only drinks to cheer himself up. While mother was alive, he did not drink much."
"Serve him right, if his liver dries up," grumbled Matiza, in her deep bass, contracting her eyebrows fiercely. "Does the soaker forget he has a child sitting at home? Disgusting brute! He'll die like a dog!"
"He knows that I'm grown up, and can look after myself," answered Masha.
"My God! my God!" Matiza would say, with a big sigh, "the things that go on in this world of God's! What'll happen to the girl? I had a little girl just like you. She stayed at home there, in the town of Chorol, and it is so far to Chorol that if I wanted to go, I couldn't find the way. That's the way with people, they live on the earth, and forget the home where they were born."
Masha liked to hear the deep voice and see the big face and the brown eyes, like those of a cow. And, even if Matiza constantly smelt of brandy, none the less Masha would sit on her lap, nestle against her big, swelling bosom, and kiss the full lips of the well-formed mouth. Matiza used to come in the morning, and in the evening the children gathered in Masha's room. They sometimes played card games of various sorts, but more often sat over a book. Masha listened always with great interest while they read aloud, and would give a little scream at any peculiarly terrifying places.
Jakov was more careful of the child than ever. He brought her from the house bread and meat, tea and sugar, and oil in beer bottles. Sometimes even he gave her any money that was left from the purchases of books. It had become an established thing for him to do all this, and he managed it all so quietly that no one noticed. Masha, for her part, took his labours as a matter of course, and made little to do over them.
"Jakov," she would say, "I've no more coals."
"All right." And presently he would either bring some coal or give her a two-kopeck bit and say, "You'll have to buy some—I couldn't steal any."
He brought Masha a slate and began to teach her in the evenings. They got on slowly, but at the end of two months Masha could read all the letters, and write them on the slate.
Ilya had become accustomed to these relations between the two, and everyone in the house seemed also to overlook them. Many a time Ilya, commissioned by his friend, would himself steal something from the kitchen or the counter and get it secretly down to the cellar. He liked the slender brown girl, who was an orphan, like himself, but he liked her specially because she knew how to face the world alone, and conducted all her affairs like a full-grown woman. He loved to see her laugh, and would always try to amuse her, and if he did not succeed, he grew cross and teased her.
"Dirty blackbird!" he would cry, scornfully.
She would blink her eyes, and reply jeeringly, "Skinny devil!"
One word would lead to another, and soon they would be quarrelling in real earnest. Masha was hot tempered and would fly at Ilya to scratch him, but he readily escaped laughing.
One day, while they were playing cards, he saw her cheat, and in his rage, called at her:
"You—Jashka's darling!" and followed it with an ugly word, whose significance he understood already. Jakov, who was present, laughed at first, then seeing his little friend's face contract with pain at the insult, and her eyes shine with tears, he became pale and dumb. Suddenly he sprang from his chair, flung himself on Ilya, struck him on the nose with his fist, grasped him by the hair and threw him to the ground. It all happened so quickly that Ilya had no time to defend himself, then he picked himself up and rushed headlong at Jakov, blind with wrath and pain. "Wait, my boy, I'll teach you," he shouted furiously. But he saw Jakov with his elbow on the table, crying bitterly, and Masha beside him saying to him with a voice choked with tears:
"Let him alone, the beast—the brute—they're a bad lot, his father's a convict, and his uncle's a hunchback—and a hump'll grow on you too, you beast," she cried, attacking Ilya quite furiously.
"You beastly dirt-grabber—rag-picker! Come here—just you come here, and I'll scratch your face for you—you dare touch me!"
Ilya did not stir. He was much distressed at the sight of Jakov crying, for he had not meant to hurt him, and he was ashamed to scuffle with a girl—though she was ready enough he could see. Without a word he left the cellar and paced the courtyard for a long time, his heart tortured with bitter feelings. At last he went to the window and looked carefully in from above. Jakov was playing cards again with his friend, Masha, the lower part of her face concealed with her cards held fanwise, seemed to be laughing, while Jakov looked at his cards and touched first one then the other. Ilya's heart was heavy. He walked up and down a while longer, then boldly and decidedly went back to the cellar.
"Let me come in again," he said, going up to the table.
His heart thumped, his face burned and his eyes were downcast. Jakov and Masha said nothing.
"I'll never insult you so again, by God, I won't any more," he went on, and looked at them.
"Well, sit down then—you!" said Masha, and Jakov added:
"Silly! You're big enough now to know what you're saying."
"No no, we're all little—just children," Masha put in, and struck the table with her fist, "and that's why we don't need any low words."
"You gave me a jolly good licking, all the same," said Ilya to Jakov reproachfully.
"You deserved it, don't complain!" said Masha, sententiously, and with a darkened face.
"All right—all right I'm not angry, it was my fault," and Ilya smiled at Petrusha's son. "We'll make it up, shall we?"
"All right, take your cards."
"You wild devil!" said Masha.
And with that peace was made. A moment later, Ilya was deep in the game, thoughtfully wrinkling his brow. He always arranged to play next to Masha; he disliked her to lose, and thought of little else all through the game. But the child played quite cleverly, and generally it was Jakov who lost.
"Oh you goggle eyes!" Masha would say, pityingly, "You've lost again."
"Devil take the cards!" answered Jakov, "it's jolly dull, nothing but playing cards. Let's read some more Kamtchadalky."
They got out a torn and dirty book and read the sorrowful history of the amorous and unfortunate Kamtchadalky.
When Pashka saw the three children amuse themselves so pleasantly, he used to say in the tone of a world explorer:
"You lead a pleasant life here, you cunning ones."
Then he would look at Jakov and Masha and smile, then add seriously:
"Go on all the same! and later on you can marry Masha, eh Jakov?"
"Silly," Masha would say, laughing, and then they all four laughed together.
Pashka was generally with them. If they had finished a book or if there was a pause in the reading, he would relate his experiences, and his tales were no less interesting than the books.
"When I found, lads, that I couldn't travel easily without a passport, I had to be very cunning. When I saw a policeman, I used to walk faster, as if some one had sent me on an errand, or I'd get up alongside the nearest grown up person, as if he was my master or my father, or some one; the policeman would look at me and let me go on, he didn't notice anything.
"It was jolly in the villages. They don't have policemen, only old men, and old women and children, peasants that work on the fields. If any one asks me who I am, I say a beggar; whom I do belong to? No one, got no relations. Where do I come from? From the town. That's all. They'd give me things to eat and drink—good things. And then you can go where you like, can run as fast as you like or crawl if you want to. And the fields and the woods are everywhere, the larks sing, you feel as if you could fly up with them. When you're full, then you don't want anything else; feel as if you could go to the end of the world. It's just as if someone was coaxing you on, like a mother with a child. But lots of times I've been jolly hungry. Oho! and my stomach wasted inside, it was so dried up. I could have eaten the dirt, my head was giddy; but then if I got a bit of bread and got my teeth in it—ah—aah—that was good—I could have eaten all day and all night. That was something like! All the same I was glad when I got into prison. At first I was frightened, but soon I was quite pleased.
"I was always so frightened of the police. I thought when they first got hold of me and began to cuff me, they'd kill me. But what d'you think it was like really? He just came softly behind and nipped me by the collar—snap!—I was looking at the watches in a jeweller's window. Oh, such a lot. Gold ones and others. All at once—snap! I began to howl, and he says quite friendly, 'who are you? Where do you come from?' So I just told him—they found it out, they know everything. 'Where do you want to go?' they ask you then. I said 'I'm wandering about'—they laughed. Then I went to gaol. They all laughed there, and then the young gentlemen took me—they were devils if you like—oho!"
Pashka never spoke of the "gentlemen" without interjections—evidently they had made a deep impression on him, though their aspect had become vague in his memory like a big, dark spot. Pashka remained a month with the cobbler, then disappeared again. Later on Perfishka found out that he had entered a printing works as an apprentice and was living in a distant quarter of the town. When Ilya heard it he was filled with envy and said to Jakov with a sigh:
"And we two have got to stay rotting here!"
At first after Pashka's disappearance Ilya felt as though he missed something, but soon he slipped back into his unreal wonderworld. The book-reading proceeded busily and Ilya's soul fell into a pleasant half-asleep condition.
The awakening was sudden and unexpected. Ilya was just starting for school one day when his uncle said to him:
"You'll soon be done with learning now. You're fourteen years old. You'll have to look out for a place for yourself."
"Of course," added Petrusha, "that won't be difficult among all our acquaintances. There's a place ready for Jashka—another year and he goes behind the counter. And for you, Terenti, I'll open another place close by, you can run it on account, and be your own master. H'm, yes! I may well thank the Lord. He has cared for me."
Ilya heard these speeches as though they came from somewhere a great way off. They bore no relation to anything that he was busied with then, and left him completely cold. But one day his uncle waked him early in the morning and said:——
"Get up and wash yourself—but be quick."
"Why, what's the matter?" asked Ilya, sleepily.
"It's a place for you. Something has turned up, thank God! You're to go into a fishmonger's."
Ilya's heart sank with unpleasant anticipation. The wish to leave this house, where he knew everything and was used to everything, suddenly disappeared, and Terenti's room, which he had never liked, all at once seemed so clean and bright. With downcast eyes he sat on his bed and had no inclination to dress. Jakov came in, unkempt and grey in the face, his head bent towards his left shoulder. He gave a fleeting glance at his friend, and said:
"Come on! Father's waiting. You'll come here often?"
"Of course, I'll come."
"Now, go and say good-bye to Masha!"
"But I'm not going away for altogether," cried Ilya, crossly.
Masha came in herself at this point. She stood by the door, looked at Ilya, and said sorrowfully:——
"Good-bye, Ilya"
Ilya tugged at his jacket, got into it somehow, and swore. Masha and Jakov both sighed deeply.
"Come and see us soon."
"All right, all right!" answered Ilya, crossly.
"See how he begins to stick it on—mister shopman!" remarked Masha.