"Oh you silly goose!" answered Ilya, softly and reproachfully.
Two minutes later he was going along the street beside Petrusha, who was dressed in his best clothes, with a long overcoat and creaking boots.
"I'm taking you to a most worthy man, that all the town respects," said Petrusha, in an impressive tone, "to Kiril Ivanitch Strogany. He has been decorated and all sorts of things for his goodness and his benevolence; he is on the Town Council, and may be chosen Burgomaster. Serve him well and properly, and he may do something for you. You're a serious lad, and not a spoiled darling, and for him to do anyone a good turn's as easy as spitting."
Ilya listened, and tried to picture the merchant Strogany. He imagined in an odd way that he must be like Jeremy, as withered up and as good-hearted and sociable. But when he reached the fish-shop, he saw behind the desk a tall man with a big belly. There was not a single hair on his head, but from his eyes to his neck, his face was covered with a thick red beard. His eyebrows too, were red and thick, and from underneath them a pair of little greenish eyes looked angrily round about.
"Bow to him," whispered Petrusha to Ilya, indicating the red-bearded man with his eyes. Disillusioned, Ilya let his head sink on his breast.
"What's his name?" a deep bass voice boomed through the shop.
"He's called Ilya," answered Petrusha.
"Well, Ilya, open your eyes and listen to me. From now, there's no one in the world for you but your employer—no relations, no friends, d'you see? I'm your father and mother—and that's all I've got to say to you."
Ilya's eyes wandered furtively about the shop. Huge sturgeons and shad were in baskets with ice, against the walls; on shelves were piled up dried perch and carp, and everywhere gleamed small tin boxes. A penetrating reek of brine filled the air, and all was stuffy and close and damp in the shop. In great tubs on the floor swam the live fish, slowly and noiselessly—sterlet, eel-pout, perch, and tench. In one a little pike dashed angrily and quickly through the water, hustling the other fish, and splashing water on to the ground with great strokes of its tail. Ilya felt sorry for the poor thing. One of the shopmen, a little fat man, with round eyes and a hooked nose, very like an owl, told Ilya to take the dead fish out of the tubs. The lad tucked up his sleeve and plunged his arm carefully into the water.
"Take 'em by the head, stupid," said the shopman, in a low voice. Sometimes by mistake Ilya caught hold of a live fish that was not moving. It would slip through his fingers, dart through the water wildly hither and thither, and strike its head against the sides of the barrel.
"Get on! get on!" commanded the shopman, but Ilya had got a fin bone stuck in his finger, and put his hand to his mouth and began to suck the place.
"Take your finger out of your mouth," resounded the bass voice of his employer. Next a big heavy hatchet was given to the boy, and he was ordered to go to the cellar and smash up ice into even-sized pieces. The ice splinters flew in his face and slipped down his neck; it was cold and dark in the cellar, and if he did not handle the axe carefully it struck the ceiling. At the end of a few minutes, Ilya, wet from head to foot, came up out of the cellar, and said to his employer, "I've broken one of the bowls somehow."
His employer looked at him attentively, then said:
"The first time I forgive you, especially as you came and told me, but next time I'll pull your ears off."
Quite mechanically Ilya adapted himself to his new surroundings, like a little screw fitting into a big noisy machine. He got up at five o'clock every morning, cleaned the boots of his master and the family and the shopman, then went into the shop, cleaned it out, and washed down the tables and the scales. As the customers came, he fetched the goods out, and carried them to the different houses, then returned to the mid-day meal. In the afternoon there was little to do, and unless he were sent anywhere on an errand, he used to stand in the shop door and look at the busy marketing, and marvel what a number of people there were in the world, and what vast quantities of fish and meat and fruit they consumed. One day he asked the shopman, who was so like an owl:——
"Michael Ignatish!"
"Well—what is it?"
"What will people eat when they've caught all the fish there are, and killed all the cattle?"
"Stupid!" answered the shopman.
Another time he took a sheet of newspaper from the table, and settled himself in the shop door to read. But the shopman tore it out of his hand, tweaked his nose, and said crossly:
"Who said you could do that, fool!"
This shopman did not please Ilya at all. When he spoke to his employer, he said every word through his teeth, with a respectful hissing sound, but behind his back he called him a liar, a hypocrite, and a red-headed devil. Every Saturday and the eve of every saint's day, when his chief had gone to evening service, the shopman had a visit from his wife or his sister, and used to give them a big parcel of fish and caviare and preserves. He thought it a great joke to banter the poor beggars, among whom many an old man would remind Ilya very strongly of Grandfather Jeremy. If such an old man came to the shop door and begged for alms, the shopman would take a little fish by the head and hold it out, and as soon as the beggar took hold of it, the back fin would stick into his palm till the blood came. The beggar would shrink with the pain, but the shopman would laugh scornfully, and cry out:——
"Don't want it, eh? Not enough? Get out of this!"
Once an old beggar-woman took a dried perch quietly and hid it among her rags. The shopman saw. He seized the old woman by the neck, took away her stolen prize, then, bending her head back, he struck her in the face with his right hand. She made no sound of pain nor said a word, but went out silently with bent head, and Ilya saw how the dark blood ran from her nostrils.
"Had enough?" the shopman called after her, and, turning to Karp, the other shopman, he said:——
"I hate these beggars, idlers! Beg? Yes, and make a good thing of it! They know how to get along. Christ's brothers they call them. And I, what am I, then? A stranger to Christ, I suppose. I twist and turn all my life, like a worm in the sun, and get no peace and no respect."
Karp, the other shopman, was a silent, pious fellow. He talked of nothing but churches, church music, and church worship, and every Saturday was greatly distressed at the thought that he would be late for evening service. For the rest, he was deeply interested in all sorts of jugglery, and whenever a magician and wonder-worker appeared in the town, off went Karp for certain to see him. He was tall and thin and very agile. When customers thronged the shop, he would wind in and out among them like a snake, with a smile for all and a word for all, and the whole time keeping an eye on the fat face of his employer, as though to show off his quickness before him. He treated Ilya with little consideration, and the boy accordingly was not at all devoted to him. But his employer Ilya liked. From morning till night he stood behind his desk, opening the till and throwing in money. Ilya observed that he did it quite indifferently, without covetousness, and it gave him a pleasant feeling to see it. He liked, too, that his master spoke to him more often and in a more friendly way than to the shopmen. In the quiet times when there were no customers, he would often talk to Ilya as he stood in the shop-door, sunk in thought.
"Now, Ilya. Asleep, eh?"
"No."
"Oh, aren't you? What are you so solemn about, then?"
"I—I don't know."
"Find it dull here, eh?"
"Ye—es."
"Well, never mind, never mind. There was a time when I found life dull, too, from nineteen to thirty-two. I found it very tedious working for strangers, and now ever since then, I see what a bore others find it," and he nodded his head, as much as to say:
"So it is and it can't be helped."
After two or three speeches of this kind the question began to busy Ilya, why this rich and respected man should stay all day in a dirty shop and breathe the sharp, unpleasant reek of salt fish, when he owned such a big, clean house. It was quite a remarkable house; in it all was quiet and austere, and everything was ordered by fixed immutable rules. And yet in its two stories, there lived no one beyond the owner, his wife and his three daughters, except a cook, who was also housemaid, and a manservant, who acted also as coachman, so there was little life in it. All who dwelt there spoke in an undertone, and if they had to cross the big, clean courtyard, they would keep to the sides as if they feared to walk across the wide open space. When Ilya compared this quiet, solid house with Petrusha's, against his expectations he had to admit that the life in the latter was more to be preferred, poor, noisy and dirty though it were. He marvelled at this conviction of his, and could hardly believe in it; but thoughts of this kind filled his brain more and more frequently and distinctly, and the fact that his employer lived so little in his own house, strengthened Ilya still more in his preference. He would have liked to ask the merchant just why he spent the whole day in the unrest, noise and clamour of the market and not in his house, where it was still and peaceful. One day when Karp had gone on some errand, and Michael was in the cellar picking out the dead fish for the almshouse, the master fell again into conversation with Ilya, and in the course of it the boy said with a sudden impulse:
"You might give up your business, sir—you're so rich—it's so lovely in your house and so—so dull here."
Strogany rested his elbows on the desk supporting his head and looked attentively at his apprentice. His red beard twitched oddly.
"Well," he asked, as Ilya stopped, "Said all you want to?"
"Ye—ss, yes," stammered Ilya, a little frightened.
"Come here!"
Ilya went nearer to the desk. His master caught hold of his chin, turned his face up, looked him in the face with screwed-up eyes, then asked:
"Have you heard any one say that or did you think it yourself?"
"I thought of it—really and truly."
"Oh! If you thought it yourself, all right, but I'll just tell you one thing, in future have the goodness not to talk to your employer like that, you understand—your employer. Bear that in mind, and now get to your work!"
And when Karp returned, the merchant began suddenly to speak to him, for no apparent reason, constantly looking sideways at Ilya, so openly, that the boy quickly noticed it:
"A man must follow his business all his life—all—his—life! Whoever does not is an ass. How can a man live without something to do? A man who isn't absorbed in his business, is good for nothing."
"Of course, I quite agree, Kiril Ivanovitch," said the shopman, letting his glance travel round the shop as if he was seeking something more to do. Ilya looked at his employer and fell into deep thought. Life to him among these men became more and more tedious. The days dragged on one after the other like long grey threads, unrolling from some mighty unseen skein. And it seemed to him that these days would never come to an end, but that all his life long he would stand at this shop door and listen to the tumult of the market-place. But his intelligence, already awakened by early experience and by the reading of books, was not hampered by the drowsy influence of this monotonous life, and worked on without a pause, though perhaps more slowly. Every day the lad's soul received new impressions which simmered within him, and filled his head with a cloud of ideas concerning all that passed around him. He had no one to whom he could pour out his thoughts, which were therefore hidden, in his own breast. They were many, very many—they tortured him often, but they were without definite form, they melted one into the other, or contended in opposition and lay on brain and heart like a heavy load. Sometimes it was so painful to this serious silent lad to look on at the concourse of men that he would most gladly have closed his eyes or gone somewhere far, far away—farther than Pashka Gratschev had gone—never to return to this grey dulness and incomprehensible human worthlessness.
On holy days they sent him to church. He came back always with the sense that his heart had been washed clean in the sweet-smelling, warm stream that flowed through the house of God. In half a year he was only able to visit his uncle twice. There, all went on as of old. The hunchback grew thinner and Petrusha whistled louder, and his face once rosy, was now red. Jakov complained that his father treated him harshly: "He's always growling that I must begin to be reasonable, that he can't stand a book-worm: but I can't stand serving at the bar, nothing but noise and quarrels and rows, you can't hear yourself speak. I say, 'put me out as an apprentice, say in a shop where they sell eikons and things, there isn't much to do, and I like eikons.'"
Jakov's eyes blinked mournfully; the skin on his forehead looked very yellow and shone like the bald patch on his father's head.
"Do you still read books?" asked Ilya.
"Rather! It's my only comfort—as long as I can read, I feel as if I were in another place, and when I come to the end I feel as if I had pitched off a church tower."
Ilya looked at him and said:
"How old you look—and where is Mashutka?"
"She's gone to the almshouse for some things. I can't help her much now, father keeps too sharp a look out, and Perfishka is ill all the time, so she has to go to the almshouse. They give away cabbage soup there and that sort of thing. Matiza helps her a bit, but it's hard lines for her, poor Masha!"
"It's dull here—with you—too," said Ilya, thoughtfully.
"Is it dull in business?"
"Frightfully. You've got books at least, and in our whole house there's only one book, the 'Book of Newest Magic and Jugglery,' and the shopman keeps that in his box; and what d'you think, the beast won't let me have it. I hate him. Ah, my lad, it's a beastly life for both of us, isn't it?"
"Looks like it!"
They chatted a while and parted, both very sad and thoughtful.
Another fortnight passed in this same way, when suddenly there came a sharp turning in the course of Ilya's life. One morning, while business was proceeding in a lively manner, the chief suddenly began to look for something in his desk very eagerly. An angry red covered his forehead, and the veins of his neck swelled up.
"Ilya," he shouted, "come and look here on the floor, if you can't find a ten-rouble piece!"
Ilya looked at his master, then glanced quickly over the floor, and said quietly: "No, there's nothing."
"I tell you, look—look properly!" growled his employer, in his harsh bass voice.
"I have looked already."
"Ah, ah! Wait a bit, you impudent rascal!" And as soon as the customers were gone he called Ilya, seized the boy's ear in his strong fat fingers and twisted it, snarling in his harsh voice, "When you're told to look, look! When you're told to look, look!"
Ilya pressed with both hands against his master's body, released his ear from the fingers, and cried loudly and angrily, his whole frame quivering with excitement:
"Why do you bully me? Michael stole the money. Yes, he did. It's in his left waistcoat pocket."
The owl face of the shopman suddenly lengthened; he looked very disturbed, and began to tremble. Then suddenly he let out with his right arm, and struck Ilya on the ear. The boy sprang suddenly up, fell to the ground with a loud groan, and crying, crept on all fours into a corner of the shop. As one in a dream, he heard the threatening voice of his master:——
"Stay, there, give up that money!"
"It's a lie," squeaked the shopman.
"Come here!"
"I swear—I——"
"I'll throw the weight at your head!"
"Kiril Ivanitch, it's my own money, may God strike me dead if it isn't."
"Hold your tongue!"
Then silence. The chief went to his room, and from there came at once the loud rattle of the balls on the counting frame. Ilya sat on the floor, holding his head, and looking with hatred at the shopman, who stood in another corner of the shop, and on his side, cast threatening looks at the boy.
"Ah, you vagabond, shall I give you any more?" he asked in a low voice, showing his teeth.
Ilya shrugged his shoulders, and said nothing.
"Wait, my boy. I'll give you something, just in case you forget me."
The shopman strode slowly across to the boy, and looked in his face with round, malignant eyes.
Ilya got up, and with a rapid movement took a long, thin knife from the counter, and said "Come on!"
The shopman stood still, measuring with a fixed glance the strong sturdy figure, with long arms and the knife in one hand, then murmured scornfully: "Pooh, you convict's brat!"
"Just come on, come on!" repeated the boy, and advanced a step. Everything whirled before his eyes, but in his breast he felt a great strength which urged him bravely forward.
"Drop that knife!" said his master's voice.
Ilya shuddered when he saw the red beard and livid face of his master, but did not move.
"Put down that knife, I tell you," repeated the merchant quietly.
Ilya, who felt as though he were moving through a dark cloud, put the knife down on the counter, gave a loud sob, and sat down again on the floor. He felt giddy. His head and his damaged ear pained him. A heavy weight that lay on his breast hindered his breathing, pressed on his heart, and rose up slowly in his throat, choking his speech. He heard his employer's voice as though he were far away.
"Here is your salary due, Mishka."
"But let me——" the shopman tried to explain.
"Out you go, else I'll call the police."
"All right, I'll go, but keep an eye on that young cub, I advise you. He goes at people with a knife—he, he! His dear father is in Siberia, a convict—he, he!"
"Get out!"
There was stillness again in the shop. Ilya had an unpleasant feeling, as though something were crawling over his face. He wiped off his tears with his hand, looked about him, and saw his master behind his desk, examining him with a sharp searching look. Ilya got up and went towards his place at the door, staggering uncertainly.
"Stop! Hold on a minute," called out his master. "Would you really have put that knife in him?"
"Yes, I would," answered the boy, quietly, but with assurance.
"Oh, oh! What's your father in Siberia for? Murder?"
"No. Setting fire to a house."
"Good enough."
Karp, the other shopman, came back from an errand at this moment. He sat down on a stool near the door, and looked out at the street.
"Listen, Karpushka," began the master, with smile. "I've just sent Mishka packing."
"It's your right, Kiril Ivanovitch."
"Think! He robbed me."
"Impossible!" cried Karp, softly, but evidently frightened, "Is that true? The villain!"
The chief laughed behind his desk till he had to hold his sides and his red beard shook.
"Ho! ho! ho!" he laughed. "Ah, Karpushka, you conjuror, modest soul!"
Then he stopped laughing suddenly, gave a deep sigh, and said, sternly and thoughtfully, "Ah, men, men! All want to live, all want to eat, and every one better than his neighbour."
He shook his head and was silent.
Ilya, standing by the desk, felt hurt that his master paid no further attention to him.
"Well, Ilya," said the merchant finally, after a long, painful silence, "let's have a chat. Tell me, though, have you ever seen Michael steal before?"
"Yes, rather! He stole all the time. Fish and all the rest."
"And why didn't you tell me?"
"I—I——" stammered Ilya, after a short pause.
"Afraid of him, eh?"
"No, I wasn't afraid."
"So—then why didn't you say 'Master, you're being robbed'?"
"I don't know. I didn't want to."
"H'm! You only told me just now out of temper?"
"Yes," said Ilya, defiantly.
"There, see! What a young cub!"
The merchant stroked his red beard for a while, and looked earnestly at Ilya without speaking.
"And you, Ilya, have you ever stolen."
"No."
"I believe you—you have not stolen, but Karp now—this fellow Karp here, does he steal?"
"Yes, he steals," answered Ilya curtly.
Karp looked at him in astonishment, blinked his eyes and turned away as if the matter did not concern him in the least. The master's brows contracted darkly, and again he began to stroke his beard. Ilya felt clearly that something out of the common was impending and awaited the end, strung to the pitch of nervousness. The flies hovered about in the sharp, reeking air of the shop. The water in the tubs of live fishes splashed.
"Karpushka!" the chief addressed the shopman who was standing motionless in the door and looking attentively at the streets.
"What can I do, sir?" answered Karp, and hurried to his employer, looking at his face with submissive, friendly eyes.
"Do you hear what is said of you?"
"Yes, I heard."
"Well, what have you to say?"
"Nothing," said Karp, and shrugged his shoulders.
"Nothing! What d'you mean by that?"
"It's quite simple, Kiril Ivanovitch. I am a man that respects himself and so I don't feel that my character can be hurt by a boy. You see yourself how absolutely stupid he is, and doesn't understand anything. So I can forgive his wicked slander with a light heart."
"Stop, my friend! Let's have none of your juggling, but kindly tell me, has he spoken the truth?"
"What is truth?" answered Karp slowly, shrugging his shoulders and holding his head on one side. "Every one understands the truth in his own way—if you like, you can take his words for truth, but if you don't like, it's just as you wish."
Karp ended with a sigh, bowed to his employer, and made a gesture that indicated how deeply hurt he felt.
"H'm! so you leave it to me—you think the youngster silly?"
"Uncommonly silly," said Karp with brusque conviction.
"No, my lad, that's a lie," said Strogany, and laughed outright. "How he came out with the truth right in your face! Ho! Ho! Does Karp steal? Yes, he steals. Ho! Ho! Ho!"
Ilya had gone from the desk to the door and from there had listened to this conversation, which he felt clearly had in it something insulting to him. When he heard his master laugh, a joyful sense of revenge flooded his heart, he looked triumphantly at Karp and gratefully at his employer. Strogany screwed up his eyes and laughed heartily and Karp hearing his laugh, followed with a dry anxious "He! he! he!"
At the sound of this thin bleating, Strogany ordered sharply:
"Shut up the shop."
On the way to the merchant's house, Karp said to Ilya, shaking his head:
"A fool you are, an utter fool! starting all that rigmarole! d'you suppose that's the way to curry favour? You young ass! d'you think he doesn't know that Mishka and I, both of us, stole from him—he was a young man once—he! he! As he's sent off Mishka, I've that to thank you for to tell the truth, but for telling tales of me—I'll never forgive that, I tell you straight; it's stupid and wrong, too, to say a thing like that—in my presence too. No, I can't forget that; it showed that you don't respect me!"
Ilya listened, not understanding clearly, and said nothing. He had expected Karp to approach him very differently, probably to give him a good thrashing on the way home, and consequently he had been afraid to start. But in Karp's words sounded contempt more than anger, and for his mere threats Ilya cared nothing. It was the evening of that day before the meaning of the speech was clear to Ilya, when his employer sent for him to go upstairs.
"Ah! now you see! go on!" Karp called after him in a voice presaging evil.
Ilya went upstairs and stood at the door of a big room, with a long table under a hanging lamp, and a samovar on the table. His master sat there with his wife and three daughters, all red-haired and freckled.
When Ilya came in they crowded closer together and looked at him timidly out of their blue eyes.
"That's the boy," said his employer.
"You don't say so—such a young rascal," said the wife anxiously and looked at Ilya as if she had never seen him before.
Strogany smiled, stroked his beard, drummed on the table with his fingers, and said impressively:
"I've sent for you, Ilya, to tell you I don't need you any more, so get your things together and start off."
Ilya started and opened his mouth in astonishment, but could not get out a word, then turned and went out of the room.
"Stop!" called the merchant, stretching one arm out after him, and striking the table with his palm, "Stop!"
Then he held up one finger and went on slowly and composedly: "It's not only for that that I sent for you. No. I want to give you a lesson to take away with you. I wish to explain to you why I don't need you any more. You've done all right as far as I am concerned, you're a youngster that has had some education, you're industrious and honest and strong—yes, you've all those trump cards in your hand, and yet you won't suit me any more. I can't do with you in my business. Why? you ask—h'm—yes."
Ilya understood this much, that he seemed at the same time to be praised and dismissed. The contradiction would not come clear in his mind, but roused in him a strange double sensation and brought him to the idea that his employer himself did not know what he was doing. Strogany's face seemed to the lad to confirm this impression; on it there was an expression of tension, as though he were struggling in his mind with a thought for which he could not clearly find words. The boy stepped forward and said quietly and respectfully.
"You dismiss me because I took the knife to him?"
"Heavens!" cried his employer's wife. "Heavens! how insolent!"
"That is it," said the merchant complacently, while he smiled at Ilya, and tapped him with his forefinger, "you are insolent. That is the word—insolent. But a lad that goes out to work must be humble—humble and modest; the Scriptures teach it. He must sink himself in his master. Everything—his intelligence, his honesty, must be used for his master's advantage, and you take a stand of your own, and that won't do at all, you see, and that's why you're insolent; for instance, you tell a man to his face that he's a thief. That isn't good, it is insolent; if you are so honest yourself you might tell me what the man does, but quite privately. I would easily have settled the business, because I am the master. But you say right out—he steals. No, no, that won't do. If there's only one honest out of three that matters nothing; in these cases one must reckon according to circumstances. Suppose there's one honest and nine rascals, that's no good to anyone, generally the one goes to the wall, but if there are seven honest to three rascals, then you're right to speak out, d'you see? right goes with the majority, and one honest, what's the good of him? That's how it stands with honesty, my boy. Don't force your righteousness on people, but find out first if they want it."
Strogany wiped the sweat off his brow with his hand, sighed, and continued with an expression of compassion mingled with self-satisfaction:
"And then you take to the knife."
"O Lord!" cried his wife, and the three girls crowded closer together.
"It is written in the Scriptures, 'He who takes the sword shall perish by the sword.' H'm—yes—for this reason I can't keep you any more, that's the truth. Here take this half rouble and go—go your way, you need have no grudge against me, any more than I have against you. See, I give you half a rouble, take it, and I have spoken to you as one seldom speaks to a boy, quite seriously, that you may take it to heart, and so forth. Perhaps I'm sorry for you, but you're no good to me; if the linch pin does not fit, the wise man throws it away before he starts his journey. So, go your way!"
"Good-bye," said Ilya. He had listened with attention and explained the matter to himself quite simply; he was dismissed because the merchant could not get rid of Karp and leave himself without a shopman.
This thought cheered him and made him content, and his master seemed to him a very unusual man, simple and friendly.
"Take your money!" called Strogany.
"Good-bye," repeated Ilya, and held the little silver coin tight in his hand. "Thank you very much."
"There, he never cried a bit!" Ilya heard his master's wife say reproachfully.
When Ilya, bundle on back, came out of the heavy house door, it seemed to him as though he were leaving a grey, far-off land, that he had read of in some book, where there was nothing, no people, no villages, but only stones, and among these stones lived a good old magician, who showed the way out to wayfarers lost in the desert land.
It was the evening of a clear spring day. The sun was setting and the windows flamed red. Ilya remembered that other day when first he saw the town from the river shore. The bundle, heavy with all his worldly goods, weighed on his back and he slackened his speed. People on the pavements hurried by and struck against his load; carriages rolled noisily past him; the dust danced in the slanting sun rays, and over everything prevailed a sense of noisy, gay, lively activity. All that he had experienced during the year in the town was vivid in his memory. He felt like a grown-up man, his heart beat proudly and free, and in his ears rang the words of his master:
"You are a youngster that has had some education, you're not stupid, you're strong and not lazy; these are the trump cards in your hand."
"Well then, we'll try again," said Ilya to himself while he slackened his pace still more. A stirring feeling of joy possessed him, and involuntarily he smiled at the thought that to-morrow he would not have to go to the fish shop.
When Ilya returned to the house of Petrusha Filimonov, he discovered with pleasure that he had grown considerably during the time he had spent in the shop. Every one made a point of greeting him with flattering curiosity, and Perfishka held out a hand to him. "My respects to my lord the shopman. Well brother, have you served your time? I've heard of your bold strokes. Ha! ha! Ah, brother, men will let you use your tongue to lick their boots, but not to tell them the truth."
When Mashka saw Ilya, she cried joyfully, "Ah, how tall you've grown!"
And Jakov was delighted to see his comrade again.
"This is good," he said, "now we can live together again like we used to. Do you know, I've got a book called 'The Albigenses,' such a story, I tell you! There's a man in it, Simon Montfort, he's a real monster."
And Jakov, in his vague, hurried way, started to tell his friend the contents of the book. Ilya looked at him and thought with a peaceful content, that his big-headed comrade had stayed just as he was before. Jakov saw nothing at all unusual in Ilya's conduct towards the merchant Strogany. He listened to the whole story, then said simply, "That was all right." This unmoved reception of his experience by Jakov was not to Ilya's taste. Even Petrusha, when he had heard Ilya's account of what took place in the shop, had applauded the boy's behaviour and not stinted his approval.
"You gave it him very well, my lad, very cleverly. Of course, Kiril Ivanovitch couldn't send off Karp for you. Karp knows the business, and it wouldn't be easy to replace him. But after such a scene, you couldn't stay on with him. You stuck to the truth, and played with the cards on the table, you must have come off the better."
However, a day or two after, Terenti said to his nephew softly:
"Listen. Don't be too open with Petrusha. Be careful. He doesn't like you. He abuses you behind your back. He says, 'See how the boy loves the truth, but why is it? out of sheer stupidity.' H'm, yes. That's what he says."
Ilya listened and laughed.
"And yesterday, he praised me; said I'd managed cleverly. Men are all like that, they'll praise you to your face, but behind your back they'll say things."
Petrusha's duplicity did not in the least lessen Ilya's heightened self-confidence. He felt exactly like a hero, and was convinced that he had behaved very well with regard to the merchant—better than any other had ever behaved under similar circumstances.
Two months later, when a new place had been sought for Ilya, zealously but in vain, this conversation took place between the uncle and nephew:
"Yes, it's bad," said the hunchback, gloomily, "not a place to be found for you. Everywhere it's the same thing—he's too big! What shall we do, my boy? What I do you think?"
Ilya answered decidedly and with conviction: "I'm fifteen years old. I can read and write. I'm not stupid, and if I'm insolent they'll only send me away from any other place I get. Who can do with an insolent man?"
"But then, what shall we do?" asked Terenti, anxiously, sitting on his bed and supporting himself on it with his hands.
"I'll tell you. Let me have a big box and buy me some goods—soap and scent, needles and books, all sorts of small things, and I'll go round about with them and do business for myself."
"What?—What do you mean, Ilusha? I don't quite understand. In the bar room here, in the noise, it always goes tchk!—tchk! tchk! So that my head's got weak, and then there's something never lets me alone, always the same thing, I can't think of anything else!"
A strange tortured expression showed in the hunchback's eyes, as though he wanted to reckon up something and could not get it right.
"Try it, uncle; let me go once any way."
Ilya entreated, excited by his idea which promised him freedom.
"Well, God help us! we might try."
"Ah! splendid! you'll see how it'll go," cried Ilya delighted.
"Oh dear!" Terenti sighed deeply, and went on sorrowfully: "If only you were quite grown up! Ah! then I could go away, but now you're just an anchor to hold me, it's only for your sake I stay in this beastly hole, and go down, down. I might go to some holy men and say: 'Servants of God! doers of good! interceders! I have sinned, accursed that I am, my heart is heavy, save me, pray for pardon for me to my Father!'"
And the hunchback began to weep quietly.
Ilya knew well what sin oppressed his uncle and remembered it clearly. His heart was uplifted; he pitied, but could find no words of consolation and was silent, till he saw the tears flow from the sunken, introspective eyes of his uncle, then he said: "There—there, don't cry any more! See! Wait till I get on a bit in business, then you can get away from here." After a moment's silence he resumed consolingly, "There—you'll see, you'll be forgiven."
"Do you think so really?" asked Terenti softly, and the lad repeated in a tone of conviction:
"Of course you'll be forgiven, worse things than that have been pardoned, I'm sure of it."
So it came about that Ilya took to the pedlar's trade. From morning to night he traversed the streets, with his box at his breast, while his black eyebrows contracted, and he looked out on the world full of self-confidence with his nose in the air. With his cap drawn down on his forehead, he held up his head and cried with his boyish voice beginning to break:
"Soap! blacking! pomade! hairpins! needles and thread, pins! books—beautiful books!"
Life flowed round him in a gay and tumultuous stream, and he swam with it, free and light-hearted, and felt himself to be a man even as all the others were. He drove a trade round the bazaars, went to the inns, and would order his tea importantly, drink it slowly, and eat a piece of white bread like a man who knows his worth. Life seemed to him simple, easy and pleasant.
His dreams took on clear and simple forms. He imagined how in two or three years he would sit in a clean little shop of his own, somewhere in a good street, not too noisy, and in this shop he would deal in all sorts of clean and pretty wares, that were clean to handle and did not spoil the clothes. He himself would look clean and healthy and handsome. Every one in the street would respect him and the girls would look at him with friendly glances. When his shop was shut he would sit in a clean bright little room near it and drink his tea, and read books. Cleanliness in everything seemed to him the essential determining factor of a well-ordered life. So he dreamed when trade was good and no one hurt him by rough behaviour. But if he had sold nothing and was sitting tired in the bar or somewhere in the street, then all the harshness and hustling of the police, the insulting remarks of customers, the abuse and mockery of his fellows the other pedlars, weighed on his soul and he felt within him a painful sense of unrest. His eyes opened wide and looked deeper into the web of life, and his memory, so rich in impressions, pushed into the wheels of his thought one impression after another. He saw clearly how all men strove for the same goal as he, how all longed for the same quiet, full and clean life on which his desire was set. Yet no one scrupled to thrust aside whomsoever was in his way; all were so greedy, so pitiless, and harmed one another, with no necessity, with no advantage to themselves, out of sheer pleasure in another's pain. They often laughed when they could hurt most deeply and seldom had pity on those whom they made to suffer.
Such images made his work seem hateful. The dream of a clean little shop vanished away, and he felt in his heart an enervating weariness. It seemed to him that he would never save enough money out of his trading to open the shop, and that right on into his old age he must wander about the hot, dusty streets, his box on his breast, and the straps galling his shoulders. But every success in his undertaking awakened new courage and gave new life to his dreams.
One day in a busy street Ilya quite unexpectedly met Pashka Gratschev. The smith's son tramped along the pavement with the assured stride of one free of all care, his hands in the pockets of his torn trousers, wearing a blue blouse, also torn and dirty, which was much too big for him. The heels of his big, well-worn boots clumped on the pavement at every step. His cap with a broken peak rested jauntily over his left ear, leaving half of his close-cropped head exposed to the rays of the summer sun. Face and neck alike were covered with thick greasy black dirt. He recognised Ilya from a distance, and nodded to him in a friendly way, without hastening his easy pace.
"Good luck," said Ilya. "Fancy meeting you!"
Pashka took his hand, pressed it and laughed. His teeth and eyes shone bright and dear for a moment under his black mask.
"How goes it?" asked Ilya.
"It goes as it can. When there's anything to bite at, I bite, and when there's nothing I whine and lie curled up. Ha! ha! I'm jolly glad to meet you anyhow!"
"Why do you never come to see us?" asked Ilya, smiling. It was pleasant to him to see an old comrade glad to meet him in spite of his dirty face. He looked at Pashka's worn boots and then at his own new, shining pair that had cost nine roubles, and smiled complacently.
"How should I know where you live?" said Pashka.
"With Filimonov, just the same."
"Oh! Jashka said you were in some fish shop or other."
Ilya related with pride his experiences in the house of Strogany, and how now he was keeping himself.
"That's the way," cried Gratschev approvingly, "they turned me out of the printing works just the same way, for insolence. Then I was with a painter, mixed the colours and that sort of thing, till one day I sat down on a fresh-painted signboard, and then of course there was a row, they all went for me, master and mistress, and pupils, till their arms were tired out and then sent me to the devil. Now I'm with a well-sinker, six roubles a month. I've just had dinner and I'm going back to work."
"You don't seem in a hurry with your job."
"Oh! devil take it! Whoever knows what work is doesn't get excited over it. I must come and look you up some time."
"Yes! do come."
"Do you still read books?"
"Rather. And you?"
"Yes, when I can."
"And do you still make poetry?"
"Yes, I make poetry."
Pashka laughed again happily.
"You'll come then, won't you? And don't forget the poems."
"I'll come right enough. I'll bring some brandy, too."
"Have you taken to drinking then?"
"Oh, just a little—but now, good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Ilya.
He passed on his way, thinking deeply of Pashka. To him it seemed strange that this ragged fellow had showed no envy of his own shining boots and clean clothes, indeed had hardly appeared to notice them. Again, Pashka had rejoiced openly when Ilya spoke of his independent untrammelled life. His thoughts filled Ilya with an incomprehensible unrest, and he said to himself: "Doesn't this Gratschev, then, want the same things as all the rest. What is there to wish for in life but a clean, peaceful, independent existence?"
Melancholy and unrest of this kind possessed Ilya, especially after he had visited the church. He seldom missed a service, midday or evening. He used not to pray, but would simply stand in some corner and look, without any definite thought, at the worshipping crowd and listen to the singing of the choir. Men stood there, silent and motionless, and there was a certain sense of unanimity in the stillness, as though each were endeavouring to think as all the others thought. Waves of song, blended with waves of incense, swept through the house of God, and often Ilya felt as though he were borne upwards on the stream of sound to float in the warm caressing air above. There was something that comforted the soul in the earnest, solemn voice that filled the church, so different from the hubbub of life and not to be reconciled with it. At first this feeling remained apart from everyday impressions, did not mingle with them and left him undisturbed; but later it came to him to feel as though there was something living in his heart, ceaselessly observing him; shy and anxious it dwelt concealed in a corner of his heart as he went about his accustomed business, but grew in his soul whenever he entered the church and aroused in him a strange, disquieting thought, opposing his dream of a clean, sheltered life. At such times the tales of the hermit Antipa rose in his mind, and the talk of the pious old rag-picker concerning a loving God. "The Lord sees all things, knows all things, beside Him there is nothing."
Ilya would return home full of unrest and perplexity, feeling his dreams of the future fade, and recognising that hidden in him lay something that cared not at all for his little business. But life renewed its claims on him, and this something dived quickly down again to the depths of his soul.
Jakov, with whom Ilya discussed almost everything, knew nothing of this division in his friend's soul. Indeed, Ilya came to the consciousness of it against his will, and never voluntarily let his thoughts run on this incomprehensible sensation.
His evenings were spent pleasantly. As soon as he returned, he went straight to the cellar and said to Masha quite as if he were the master in his own home:
"Now Masha, is the samovar ready?" and the samovar would be already prepared and standing on the table steaming and singing. Ilya always brought some delicacy with him, almond or honey cakes, or gingerbread or syrup, and for this Masha supplied him with tea. Besides, the girl had begun to earn money for herself; Matiza had taught her to make paper flowers, and Masha loved to shape red roses out of the thin rustling sheets. She could earn ten kopecks a day. Her father had contracted typhus, and lay for two months in hospital, returning thin and meagre with beautiful dark curls. His tousled, untrimmed beard was shaved off, and in spite of his yellow sunken cheeks, he looked five years younger. As before he worked in various shops, frequently did not even sleep at home and left all care and management of his home to Masha. She patched his clothes and called her father "Perfishka" like all the rest. The shoemaker made great fun of her demeanour to him, but felt an evident respect for his little curly-headed girl, who could laugh as heartily and cheerfully as himself.
Ilya and Jakov took their tea in the evenings with Masha as a regular custom. The three children sat at table, and drank long and deeply, chattering of everything that interested them. Ilya related all that he had seen in the town, and Jakov, who read all day long, told of his books, the scenes in the tap room, complained of his father and many times poured out a screed, quite confused and unintelligible to the other two. Masha sat all day in her underground room, worked and sang, listened to the conversation of the lads, speaking herself seldom and laughing when she felt inclined. To them all the tea tasted admirable, and the samovar covered with a thick layer of rust grinned at them in a friendly cunning way with its funny old face. Almost every day, just when the children had arranged things to their liking, it would begin to murmur and hum, pretending anger, and it would appear that there was no water in it, Masha must take it out and fill it, and this performance had to be repeated several times every evening. When the moon rode in the heavens, her light would share the festival, falling through the windows into the little room in great, glimmering streaks. This little cave, shut in with a low, heavy ceiling, and half-rotten walls, almost always lacked air and light, water and bread, and sugar and many things, but life went all the more merrily, and every night many generous feelings and many naïve youthful thoughts were born there.
From time to time Perfishka joined the company. Generally he sat on a kind of bench in a dark corner near the sturdy stove, half buried in the ground, or else he climbed on to the stove itself, and his head hung down into the room, so that if he spoke or laughed his little white teeth glimmered in the darkness. His daughter passed him a big mug of tea and a piece of sugar and bread, he would take them, laughing and say: "Many thanks Maria Perfilyevna, I am overwhelmed with your kindness." Many a time he would say with a sigh of envy, "You have a fine life, children—confound you! first rate, just like men and women," and then laughing and sighing he would go on:
"Life gets better and better—it's jollier every year; at your age I got nothing but the strap. It was always on my back, and I howled for pleasure as loud as I could. When it stopped, my back began to hurt and grumble and sulk, because it missed its old friend; but it didn't have to wait long for it—it was a most sympathetic strap. That was all the company I had in my young days. You'll soon be growing up now, and will want to look back at things—the talks, and all the different things that have happened and all this jolly life, and I'm grown big and old—thirty-six—and have nothing I want to remember. Not a spark; nothing has remained in my memory, as if I'd been deaf and blind all my young days, I only remember how my teeth chattered for hunger and cold, and the blue patches on my face; how my bones and my ears and my hair stayed healthy I can't understand. They didn't quite hit me with the stove, but on the stove, bless you, they thrashed me to their hearts' content. That was an education for you; they twisted me about like a bit of thread; but flog me as they liked, and hack me to pieces, and suck my blood as they liked, the Russian in me clung to his life! tough fellows these Russians! Pound them to bits, and they'll come up smiling! See me! they ground me to powder and cut me to ribbons, and here I live happily like the cuckoo in the wood, flutter from one alehouse to another, and am at peace with all the world. God loves me, you know; if he saw me, He'd just say: 'Oh! it's you,' He'd say, and let me go on."
The youngsters listened and laughed. Ilya laughed with the others, though Perfishka's sing-song voice awakened in him a thought which always came back and back obstinately and occupied him greatly. One day he tried to get clear about it and asked the cobbler with an incredulous laugh: "And is there really nothing in all the world that you want, Perfishka?"
"Oh! I don't say that. A mouthful of brandy, for instance, I'm always wanting."
"No, tell me the truth! There must be something in the world that you want," persisted Ilya.
"Want to know the truth, do you? Well then, I should like a new harmonica, a right-down good harmonica, say twenty-five roubles. Ha! ha!thenI'd play to you!"
He stopped and laughed comfortably. Suddenly a thought pricked him, he became serious and said to Ilya, gravely:
"N—no, brother! I don't want a new one! In the first place, it's dear and I should pawn it for drink, for sure, and secondly, suppose it turned out worse than the one I have, what then? She's a real beauty, the one I've got. Beyond all money. My soul's gone into her, she understands me so well, just my finger on the keys and away she sings! She's a rare treasure—perhaps there's not another like her in the world. A harmonica, she's like a wife. Once I had a wife too, an angel—not a woman, and if I wanted to marry again—how could I? I'd never find another like my dear. Whether you like it or not, you get measuring the new one by the old, and if she isn't enough, it's bad, for me and for her. That's the way of things. Ah! brother, a thing isn't good when it's good, but when it pleases you."
Ilya could readily agree with Perfishka's praise of his instrument. No one who heard it but wondered at its ringing, tender tone. But he could not reconcile himself with the thought that the cobbler had no desire in the world. Clear and sharp, the question met him—can a man live his whole life in dirt, go about in rags, drink brandy, play the harmonica and never long for anything different, better? He had no wish to regard the contented Perfishka as half silly. He observed him constantly with the greatest interest, and was convinced that the cobbler at heart was better than all the other people in the house, tippler and good for nothing though he were.
Sometimes the young people ventured to approach those great and far-reaching questions, which open fathomless abysses before mankind, and draw down by force into their mysterious depths man's eagerly inquiring spirit and his heart. It was always Jakov who began on these questions. He had acquired an odd habit of leaning against everything as though his legs felt insecure. If he were sitting, he either held on to the nearest fixed object with his hands or supported his shoulder against it. If he were walking along the street with his quick, irregular strides, he would grasp the stone posts by the way as though he were counting them, or try the fences with his hand as though to test their stability. At tea in Masha's room, he sat generally at the window, his back against the wall and his long fingers holding fast to the chair or the edge of the table. Holding his big head sideways, with its fine, smooth, tow-coloured hair, he would look at the speaker and the blue eyes in his pale face were either wide open or half closed. He loved, as of old, to relate his dreams, and could never re-tell the story of a book he had been reading without adding something singular and incomprehensible. Ilya reproached him for this habit, but Jakov was undisturbed and said simply:
"It's better as I tell it. One mustn't alter the Holy Scriptures, but any other books, one can do as one likes about. They're written by men and I'm a man too. I can improve them if I want to. But tell me something different. When you're asleep, where is your soul?"
"How should I know?" answered Ilya, who disliked questions that roused a painful disquiet in him.
"I believe they just fly away," Jakov explained.
"Of course they fly away," Masha confirmed him in a tone of conviction.
"How do you know that?" asked Ilya sternly.
"Oh! I just think so."
"Yes, that's it, they fly away," said Jakov thoughtfully, smiling, "They must rest some time, that's how the dreams come."
Ilya did not know how to answer this observation, and said nothing in spite of a keen wish to reply. For a time all were silent. It became darker in the dim cave of a cellar; the lamp smouldered, a strong-smelling vapour came from the charcoal under the samovar. From far away a dull mysterious noise rolled down to them; it came from the bar room in wild riot and confusion above their heads, and again Jakov's voice was heard:
"See, men make a row, and work, all that sort of thing. They call that living, and then all at once—bang! and the man's dead. What does that mean? What do you think, Ilya?"
"It doesn't mean anything, they're old and they've got to die."
"That won't do, young people die, and children—healthy people die too."
"If they die, they're not healthy."
"What do men live for, anyway?"
"That's a clever question!" cried Ilya, mockingly, since he felt able to reply to this. "They live, just to live; they work and try to be happy. Every one wants to live well, and tries to get on; they all look out for chances to get rich and live comfortably."
"Yes, poor people. But rich people, they've got everything to start with, they've nothing to look out for."
"Ain't you clever! Rich. If there weren't any rich, whom would the poor work for?"
Jakov thought a little and then asked:
"You think then that every one lives just to work?"
"Yes, certainly, that is—not quite all. Some work and the rest just live. They worked before, saved money, and now they just enjoy their life."
"And what do people live for, anyhow?"
"Oh! get out with you! Because they want to. Perhaps you don't want to?" cried Ilya out of all patience. He could not have said exactly why he was annoyed, whether that Jakov raised these questions at all, or whether that he asked so stupidly. He felt definite doubts arise in him under the interrogations, and he could find no clear answer.
"Why do you live yourself? tell me that, then, why?" he shouted at Jakov.
"I don't know," answered Jakov resignedly. "I'd just as soon die. It must be beastly; still I'd like to know what it's like."
Then suddenly he began in a tone of friendly reproach:
"There's no reason to get cross. Just think; men live to work, and work comes because of men; it's just like turning a wheel, always in the same place, and you can't see why it goes round. But where does God come in? He's the axle of it all. He said to Adam and Eve, 'Be fruitful and multiply and people the earth,' but why?"
He bent over towards Ilya, and whispered mysteriously with an expression of fear in his blue eyes:
"Do you know, I believe the good God told them why; but then some one came and stole the explanation, stole it and hid it away, and that was Satan; who else could it be? and that's why no man knows why he is alive."
Ilya listened to the disconnected sentences, felt them possess his soul and was silent. But Jakov continued faster and more softly, fear quivered on his pale face, and his speech became more confused:
"What does God want of you? Do you know? Aha!" It sounded like a cry of triumph out of the flood of his trembling words. Then again they poured out of his mouth tumultuously in disconnected whispers. Masha gazed astounded, open-mouthed at her friend and protector. Ilya wrinkled his brows. He was pained that he could not follow Jakov's words. He considered himself the cleverer, but Jakov constantly reduced him to wonder by his wonderful memory and the fluency with which he spoke on all kinds of difficult questions. If he became weary of listening silently, and too straitly caught by the heavy cloud that Jakov's words begot in him, then he used to interrupt the speaker angrily:
"Oh! shut up for any sake! What are you babbling of? You've read too much, that's the truth—do you understand yourself what you say?"
"But that's just what I'm saying, that I don't understand at all," answered Jakov, wounded and obstinate.
"Then say straight out I don't understand anything, instead of chattering like a maniac, while I've got to listen to you!"
"No, wait a minute," Jakov went on. "Everything is beyond our understanding. Take the lamp, for instance—I see there is fire in it, but where does the fire come from? One minute it's there and the next it's gone. You strike a match, it burns—then the fire must be in it all the time—or does it fly about in the air, invisible?"
Ilya let himself be attracted by this new question. His face lost its contemptuous expression, and looking at the lamp, he said:
"If it were in the air, then it would always be warm. But the match burns just the same in the frost, so it can't be in the air."
"But then, where is it?" and Jakov looked expectantly at his friend.
"It's in the match," Masha's voice struck in. But the two friends, absorbed in the weighty argument, let Masha's remark pass unperceived. She was quite used to the treatment and did not resent it.
"Where is it?" cried Jakov again excitedly.
"I don't know, and I don't want to know! I only know you'd better not put your hand in it, and that it is warm when you're near it. That's enough for me."
"Oh! how clever!" cried Jakov with lively displeasure. "I don't want to know. I can say that, any fool can. No, explain to me, where does the fire come from? Bread I can understand, the corn gives the grain, and from the grain comes the flour, and the dough from the flour, and there's the bread. But what is man born for?"
Ilya looked with astonishment and envy at the big head of his friend. Sometimes when Jakov's questions drove him into a corner, he sprang up and uttered harsh, insulting words, more often he drew back to the stove, leant his broad, sturdy figure against it, and said, shaking his curly head and accentuating his words:
"You make my head go round with your topsy-turvy talk. What sort of a life do you live? To stand behind a counter—that's not so very difficult. You want to see the whole of life stand before you like a statue; you ought to wander about the town from morning to night, day after day like I do and earn your own bread, then you wouldn't worry your head over such silly things, you'd think all the time how to manage things so as to get on. Your head's so big that all this trash spreads about in it. Clever thoughts are small, they don't drive your head silly."
Jakov sat silent, bent over his chair, gripping the table. From time to time his lips moved soundlessly, and his eyes blinked. But when Ilya had finished and sat down again, Jakov began to philosophise anew:
"They say there's a book—a science—called 'Black Magic.' Everything is explained in it, how and why and wherefore. I'd like to find that book and read it, wouldn't you? It must be very horrible."
During the conversation, Masha had sat down on her bed and looked with her dark eyes first at one and then at the other. Then she began to yawn, swayed wearily, and finally stretched herself out on her couch.
"Now then, time for bed," said Ilya.
"Wait, I'll just say good-night to Masha and put out the lamp."
Then seeing Ilya stretch out a hand to open the door, he cried pettishly:
"Oh do wait. I'm frightened in the dark alone."
"What a fellow you are!" said Ilya contemptuously. "Sixteen, and like a little child. I'm not afraid of anything, if the devil came in my way, I wouldn't budge an inch. But you——"
He made a scornful gesture. Jakov looked once like an anxious nurse at Masha, and turned the lamp down. The flame flickered and went out and the darkness of night invaded the room silently from all sides, or on the nights when the moon stood high in the heavens, her gentle silver light streamed through the window on to the floor.
One day on a holiday, Ilya Lunev returned home, pale, with clenched teeth, and threw himself fully dressed on his bed. Wrath lay on his heart like a cold immovable lump, an aching pain in his neck kept him from moving his head, and he felt as though his whole body suffered from the bitter wrong he had undergone.
That morning a policeman had permitted him, at the price of a piece of soap and a dozen hooks, to take his stand in front of the circus, where a performance was to be given, and Ilya had placed himself conveniently close to the entrance. Then the assistant district superintendent came by, struck him on the neck, overthrew the stand that supported his box, and scattered his wares over the ground. Some things were lost, others fell in the dirt and were spoiled. Ilya picked up what he could and said: "That is not fair, sir."
"Wha—at?" said the other, stroking his red moustache.
"You've no right to strike me."
"Oh! is that it? Migunov, take him off to the station," said the assistant quietly.
And the same policeman who had given Ilya leave to stand there, took him to the station, where he was detained till the evening.
Before this Ilya had had slight conflicts with the police, but this was the first time he had been detained, and his soul was filled with shame and hate. He lay on his bed with his arms locked, and hugged the torturing sensation of pain that weighed on his heart. Behind the wall that separated his room from the bar came a confused noise of bustle and the talking of many voices, like the sound of swift turbid brooks, dashing down from the mountains in autumn.
He heard the rattle of the tin plates, the clink of glasses, the loud calling of the customers for brandy or tea or beer, the waiters' answers. "One minute! coming! coming!" and, piercing the noise like a steel string vibrating, a high, throaty voice sang dismally, "I never thought that I should lose thee." Another voice, a deep bass, that blended with the chaos, sang softly and harmoniously, "Oh, youth that passes quickly by." Then both voices united in a clear stream of melancholy notes that mastered the tumult for a second or two:
"No riches were ever my portion.And lonely my pathway through life."
Some one cried aloud, with a voice that sounded as though it came from a larynx of dry cracked wood:
"Do not lie! for it is written, 'Be patient and abide, and I will strengthen thee in the hour of trial.'"
"Liar yourself," struck in another voice sharply and briskly, "for it is also written, 'Since thou art neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.' D'you see? what have you proved?"
Loud laughter followed and then a squeaking voice: "So I gave her one in her silly face, and one on the ear, and one on the teeth, smack! smack! smack!"
"Ha! ha! ha! the devil! and what then?"
The squeaking voice went on, shrilly and rapidly. "She toppled over on to the ground and I hit her again on her pretty mouth—there's one for you, I kissed you once, and now I'll beat you."
"Hullo, you Bible reader!" cried a voice mockingly.
"No. I can't contain myself, I'm so hot-tempered. How can a fellow help it!"
"I love, I accuse, and I punish—have you forgotten? And then again, 'Judge not that ye be not judged,' and the words of King David—have you forgotten?"
Ilya listened to the quarrelling, the song and the laughter for a long time, but all fell alike on his soul and roused no familiar images. Before him in the darkness swam the lean face of the police officer who had so hurt him, with a big hooked nose, greenish, evil, twinkling eyes, and a quivering red moustache. He stared at the face and clenched his teeth harder. But behind the wall the song rose louder as the singers were carried away and let their voices ring out louder and more freely. The warm, melancholy notes found a way to Ilya's heart, and melted the icy lump of rage and bitterness that lay there.
"I wandered on so bravely," sang the high voice, "From mountain land to sea," went on the second, and then joined again:
"Siberia I have traversedTo seek the pathway home."
Ilya sighed and began to attend to the sad words of the song. They stood out against the tumult of the tap room like little stars in a cloudy sky. The clouds hurry on and the stars alternately shine out and vanish.
"My tongue was tortured with hunger,My limbs were stiffened with frost."
"Sing away, nightingales!" a voice shouted encouragingly.
"They're singing so beautifully," thought Ilya, "that it catches hold of one's heart, and presently they'll get drunk and fight most likely; man never holds on to the good very long."
"Ah! cruel, cruel fate," lamented the tenor, and the bass, deep and powerful, intoned:
"Thou load of iron weight."
Suddenly, before Ilya's mind flashed the vision of old Jeremy. The old man shook his head and spoke while the tears flowed down his cheeks:
"I have seen—I have seen, but have never perceived the truth."
Ilya thought that Jeremy, who loved God from his heart, had saved money in secret; and Terenti feared God, and had stolen it. And all men alike are thus divided in their souls, in their breasts is a balance and the heart inclines like the indicator of the scales, now to one side, now to the other and weighs the good and the bad.
"Aha—a!" some one roared in the bar room, and at once something fell to the ground with a crash that shook Ilya's bed beneath him.
"Stop! for God's sake."
"Hold him! Ah!"
"Help! Police!"
Every moment the noise grew stronger and more vehement, a confused medley of new sounds was added to it, and roared in a wild whirling howl through the air like a pack of evil, hungry, close-chained hounds. Individual voices were lost in the chaos of uproar. Ilya listened with a certain pleasure; it pleased him to find that occur that he had foreseen. It was an exact confirmation of his opinion of mankind. He rolled over on his bed, put his hands under his head and abandoned himself again to his thoughts:
"My grandfather Antipa must have sinned greatly, if he repented in silence for eight whole years, and every one forgave him, spoke of him with respect, and called him righteous; but they drove his children to ruin. One son they sent to Siberia, the other they hunted out of the village.
"Here one must reckon in a special way." The words of the merchant Strogany returned to Ilya's mind. "If there is one honest man to nine rogues, no one is any the better, and the one goes to the wall—it is the majority that is right."
Ilya laughed involuntarily. Through his heart glided a cold, evil feeling of anger against men, like an adder. Well-known pictures rose before him—big, fat Matiza turned in the mud in the midst of the court and groaned:
"A—ah! my dearest mother—my darling mother—if only you would forgive me."
Perfishka, quite drunk, was standing by, swaying to and fro, and said reproachfully:
"How drunk she is! the pig!"
And Petrusha, healthy and red-cheeked, stood on the steps and laughed contemptuously.