"We were not born for fortune, we two," said the woman, and shook her head hopelessly.
"Good! Then we will celebrate out misfortune! Shall we go to the mines, to Siberia, together? Eh? Ah, there's time for that. As yet we will enjoy our pain and our love. Now they might burn me with red-hot irons, my heart is so light. I repent nothing!"
Outside the window, the sky was a monotonous grey. A cold mist enwrapped the earth and settled in white rime on the trees. In the little garden, a young birch-tree swayed its thin branches gently, and shook the snow away. The winter evening came on.
Two days later Ilya learnt that a tall man in a lambs-wool cap was being sought for as the probable murderer of Poluektov. During the investigations made in the shop, two silver clasps from an eikon were found and it appeared that these were stolen goods. The errand boy who had been employed in the business, stated that these mounts had been bought from a tall man in a short fur jacket, called Andrei, that this Andrei had several times before sold gold and silver ornaments to Poluektov, and that the money-changer had advanced him money. Further it was known that on the evening before the murder and on the same day, a man corresponding to the description, had wasted much money in carousing in the public houses of the town.
Every day Ilya heard something new; the whole town took a keen interest in this crime, so ingeniously carried out, and in all the ale-houses and all the streets nothing else was spoken of. But all the talk had little attraction for Ilya. Fear had fallen from his heart, like the scab from a wound, and instead he only felt now a sense of awkwardness. He listened attentively to all that was said, but thought only—how would his life shape itself now, what had the future in store for him? And the conviction that the murderer would not be discovered, strengthened every day.
He felt like a recruit before the conscription summons, or like a man who is proceeding towards some unknown far-off goal. More than ever he felt the need to live for himself and take thought for himself, but life hissed and boiled round him like water in a kettle, and almost every day came something to distract his mind from its preoccupation. He grew pale and thin.
Of late Jakov had been more drawn to him again. Tousled and carelessly dressed, he wandered aimlessly about the tap room and the courtyard, looking vaguely at everything with wandering eyes and had the appearance of a man brought face to face with strange ideas. When he met Ilya he would ask him mysteriously, half aloud, or whispering, "Have you no time to talk?"
"Wait a bit; I can't now."
"It's something very important."
"What is it?"
"It's a book. I tell you, brother, the things in it——Oh! oh!" said Jakov, with a terrified air.
"Bother your books! I'd rather know why your father always scowls at me now."
But Jakov had no mind for realities.
At Ilya's question he looked astonished, as though he hardly understood, and said:
"Eh? I don't know. That is, once I heard him speaking to your uncle about it; something about your passing false money; but he only said it chaffing."
"How do you know he was only chaffing?"
"Why, what a thing to say—false money," he interrupted Ilya with a gesture as though to wave the subject away. "But won't you talk to me? No time?"
"About your book?"
"Yes, there's a bit in it I've just read. Oh! well!"
And the philosopher made a face as though something had scalded him. Ilya looked at his friend as at a person half idiotic. Sometimes Jakov seemed to him absolutely blind. He took him for an unlucky man, unfit to cope with life.
The gossip ran in the house, and it was all over the street already, that Petrusha was going to marry his mistress, who kept a public house in the town. But Jakov paid absolutely no attention. When Ilya asked him when the wedding was to be, he said:
"Whose wedding?"
"Why, your father's."
"Oh! who's to know? disgusting! A pretty witch he's chosen!"
"Do you know she has a son—a big boy, who goes to the High School?"
"No, I didn't know. Why?"
"He'll come in for your father's property."
"Oh!" said Jakov, indifferently, then with a sudden interest, "A son, you say?"
"Yes."
"A son—that'll just do, father can stick him behind the bar, and I can do what I like. That'll suit me."
And he smacked his lips as with a foretaste of his longed-for freedom. Ilya looked at him with pity, then said, mockingly:
"The proverb is right, 'Give the stupid child a piece of bread if he wants a carrot.' You! I can't imagine how you're going to live."
Jakov pricked up his ears, looked at Ilya with big eyes starting out of his head, then said in a hurried whisper:
"I know how I shall live! I've thought about it! Before everything, one must get one's soul in order; must understand what God wants one to do. Now I see one thing; the ways of men are all confused, like tangled threads, and they are drawn in different directions, and no one knows what to hold to or where to let himself be drawn. Now a man is born—no one knows why—and lives—I don't know why—and death comes and blows out the light. Before anything else I must know what I'm in the world for, mustn't I?"
"You—you've tied yourself up in your cobwebs," said. Ilya with some heat. "I'd like to know what's the sense of that?"
He felt that Jakov's dark sayings gripped his heart more strongly than of old, and waked very strange thoughts in him. He felt as though there were a being in his mind, the same that always opposed his clear, simple conception of a clean, comfortable life, that listened to Jakov with strange curiosity, and moved in his soul like a child in the mother's womb.
This troubled Ilya, confused him, and seemed to him undesirable, and therefore he avoided conversation with Jakov; but it was not easy to get rid of him once he had begun.
"What's the sense? It's very simple. Not to be clear where you're going's like trying to burn without fire, isn't it? You must know where you're going, and why, and if it's the right road."
"You're like an old man, Jakov—you're a bit of a bore. My opinion is, as the proverb says: 'Seeing that even swine long to be happy, how should man do otherwise.' Good-bye!"
After such conversation, he felt as though he had eaten something very salt; he was overcome with thirst, and longed for something out of the common. The thought of the punishment God held over him burned more brightly in him and singed his soul; he sought for loneliness and could not find it. Then he would go to Olympiada, and in her arms seek forgetfulness and peace from torturing thought. Sometimes he would go to see Vyera. The life she led had drawn her deeper and deeper into its deep turbid whirlpool. She used to tell Ilya with excitement, of feasting with rich young tradesmen, with officials and officers, of suppers in restaurants and troika excursions. She showed him new dresses and jackets, the gifts of her admirers. Luxurious, strong, and healthy, she was proud to be entreated and quarrelled over. Ilya rejoiced in her health and good spirits and beauty, but more than once warned her: "Don't lose your head at the game, Vyeratchka."
"What's the odds? It's my way. At least, one lives in style. I take all I can get from life. That's enough!"
"Well, what about Pavel?"
As soon as he named her lover, she lost her gaiety and her brows contracted.
"If only he'd let me go my own way! It troubles him so, and he torments himself so! If only he'd be content with what I can give him. But he wants me altogether, and I can't stop now; I'm like a fly caught in the treacle."
"Don't you love him?"
"I can't help it," she replied, seriously, "he's such a fine fellow."
"Very well, then, you ought to live with him."
"With him? Nice drag I should be on him! He has barely a bit of bread for himself, how's he to keep me too? No, I'm sorry for him."
"Look out that no harm comes of it. He's hot-tempered," Ilya warned her one day; but she laughed.
"He? He's as gentle—I can twist him which way I want."
"You'll break him!"
"Good heavens!" she cried crossly, "what am I to do? Was I born for just one man? Every one wants to enjoy his life, and every one lives for himself, as he pleases, just as you do, and I do."
"N—No! it isn't so exactly," said Ilya gloomily and thoughtfully. "We all live, but not only for ourselves."
"For whom, then?"
"Take yourself, for instance. You live for the young clerks and all sorts of easy-going people."
"I'm easy-going too," said Vyera, and laughed contentedly.
Ilya left her, in a downcast mood. Only twice, and for a moment, had he seen Pavel during this time. Once when he met his friend at Vyera's house, he had sat there dark and troubled, silent, with teeth clenched and a red spot on each cheek. Ilya understood that Pavel was jealous of him, and that flattered his vanity. But he saw too, clearly, that Gratschev was tangled in a net, from which he would hardly free himself without severe injury. He pitied Pavel, and still more Vyera, and gave up visiting her. He was living a new honeymoon with Olympiada. But here too, a cold shadow glided in and took the peace from his heart. Sometimes, in the midst of a conversation, he would sink into a deep moodiness. Olympiada said to him once, in a loving whisper:
"Dear, don't think of it. There are so few men in the world whose hands are clean."
"Listen!" he answered seriously and tonelessly. "Please don't speak of that to me! I'm not thinking of my hands, but of my soul. You are clever, but you can never understand what it is that moves me. Tell me, if you can, how shall a man begin, what shall he do, to live honourably and cleanly, peacefully and rightly to others? That is what I want to know. But say nothing to me of the old man!"
But she could not keep silence, and implored him again and again to forget. He grew angry, and went away. When he returned, she flew out at him, and exclaimed that he only loved her out of fear, or from pity; that she would not endure it, and would rather leave him, rather go away out of the town. She wept, pinched or bit him, then kissed his feet, or tore her clothes like a mad thing, and said:
"Am I not beautiful, desirable? And I love you with every vein, every drop of my blood. Hurt me, tear me, and I'll laugh at it." Her blue eyes would darken, her lips quiver, and her bosom heave. Then he would embrace her and kiss her passionately; but afterwards, as he went home, he would wonder how she, so full of life, so passionate, how could she endure the disgusting caresses of that old man? Then Olympiada appeared so pitiable, so contemptible that he could spit for disgust when he thought of her kisses. One day, after such an outbreak, he said to her, tired of her caresses:
"Do you love me more warmly since I strangled that old devil?"
"Yes, of course. Why?"
"Nothing. It makes me laugh to think there are people who like a stale egg better than a fresh, and would rather eat an apple when its rotten—odd!"
She looked at him wearily, and said in a tired voice:
"'Every beast likes something best,' as the saying goes. One likes the owl, another the nightingale."
And both fell into a heavy moodiness.
One day when Ilya had returned home and was changing his clothes, Terenti came quietly into the room. He shut the door fast behind him, stood a moment, as if listening, then pushed to the bolts.
Ilya noticed this, and looked at him mockingly.
"Ilusha," began Terenti, in a low voice as he sat down on a chair.
"Well."
"There are strange reports going about you; people say evil things of you."
The hunchback sighed, and closed his eyes.
"For instance?" said Ilya, drawing on his boots.
"Some say one thing, some another; some say you were mixed up in that affair when the old merchant was strangled; others say you pass false money."
"They're envious, eh?"
"Different people have been here, secret police it seems—detectives—they questioned Petrusha about you."
"Let them till they're tired," said Ilya, indifferently.
"Certainly, what have they to do with us if we have no sins on our conscience?"
Ilya laughed and stretched himself on the bed.
"They don't come now, but Petrusha is always on about it," said Terenti shyly, in an embarrassed way. "He's always taunting one, Petrusha. You ought to take a little room for yourself somewhere, Ilusha, a room of your own to live in. Yes. 'I can't have these worthy dark gentlemen in my house,' says Petrusha. 'I'm a town councillor,' he says."
Ilya turned, his face red with anger, on his uncle, and said loudly:
"Listen! If he values his ugly face, let him hold his tongue! Tell him that! If I hear one word I don't like, I'll smash his skull for him. Whatever I am, he, at any rate, has no call to judge me, the scoundrel! And I'll go away when I want to. Meantime I shall stay and enjoy this honourable and distinguished company."
The hunchback was terrified at Ilya's wrath; he sat silent a while, rubbing his back, and looking at his nephew with big eyes full of anxious expectation.
Ilya compressed his lips and stared at the ceiling. Terenti looked at him, the curly head, serious handsome face, with the small moustache and strong chin, the broad chest and all the vigorous, well-knit body, and then said slowly, with a sigh:
"What a fine lad you've grown! the girls in the village would crowd after you. We'll go to the village."
Ilya was silent.
"H'm, yes—you'll have a real life there! I'll give you money, and set you up in business, and then you'll marry a rich girl, he! he! And your life will glide along like a sleigh on the snow downhill."
"Perhaps I prefer to go uphill," said Ilya, peevishly.
"Of course, uphill," Terenti caught up his words. "That's what I meant; it's an easy life—that's what I meant; why, uphill, of course, to the very top."
"And when I'm there, what then?"
The hunchback looked at him and chuckled. Then he spoke again, but Ilya did not listen. He was thinking of all his experiences of this later time, and figuring to himself how evenly all life hangs together, like the strings in a net. Circumstances surround men and lead them where they will, as the police do the rogues. He had always had it in his mind to leave this house and live by himself, and now here chance comes to his aid! He was still thinking how he would plan out his life alone, when there came a sudden knock at the door.
"Open it!" cried Ilya crossly to his uncle, who was shaking with fear.
The hunchback drew back the bolts and Jakov appeared, a great, red-brown book in his hand.
"Ilya, come to Mashutka!" he said quickly, and advanced to the bed.
"What's wrong with her?" said Ilya hastily.
"With her? I don't know, she's not at home."
"Where does she always go gadding to in the evenings?" asked the hunchback in a tone of annoyance.
"She always goes out with Matiza," said Ilya.
"She'll get a lot of good there!" answered Terenti, with emphasis.
"It doesn't matter. Come Ilya!"
Jakov caught Ilya by the sleeve and drew him away.
"Hold on!" cried Lunev. "Tell me, have you got your mind clear yet?"
"Think—it's here—the Black Magic's here!" whispered Jakov, radiant.
"Who?" asked Ilya, pulling on his felt slippers.
"Why, you know, the book. Heavens! you'll see. Come. Extraordinary things, I tell you," Jakov went on enthusiastically, as he dragged his friend along the dark passage.
"It's awful to read, it's like falling down a precipice."
Ilya saw his friend's excitement and heard how his voice shook. When they reached the cobbler's room, and had lighted the lamp, he saw that Jakov's face was quite pale, and his eyes dim and happy, like those of a drunken man.
"Have you been drinking?" asked Ilya, suspiciously.
"I? No. Not a drop to-day! I never drink now, anyway, or only when father's at home, to screw up my courage, two or three glasses, no more. I'm afraid of father—always drinks stuff that doesn't smell too strong though—but never mind that, listen!"
He fell into a chair so heavily that it creaked, opened his book, bent double over it, and fingering the old pages, yellow with age, he read in a hollow, trembling voice: "'Third Chapter—On the origin of man.' Now, listen!"
He sighed, took his left hand off the book, and read aloud. The index finger of his right hand preceded his voice, as though writing in the old book. "'It is said, and Diodorus confirms, that the origin of man is conceived according to two ways, by the virtuous men'—d'you hear, virtuous men—'who have written on the nature of things. Some consider that the world is uncreated and imperishable, and that the race of men has existed from eternity, without any beginning.'"
Jakov raised his head, and said in a whisper, gesticulating with his hand in the air:
"D'you hear? Without beginning!"
"Go on!" said Ilya, and looked distrustfully at the old leather-bound book. Jakov's voice continued, softly and solemnly: "'This opinion was held, according to Cicero, by Pythagoras of Samos, Archytas of Tarentum, Plato of Athens, Xenokrates, Aristotle of Stagira, and many others of the peripatetic philosophers, who took the view that all that is, exists from eternity, and has no beginning'—d'you see, again, no beginning—'but that there is a certain cycle of life, those that were born and those that are born, in which cycle is the beginning and the end of every man that is born.'"
Ilya stretched out his hand and struck the book, and said mockingly:
"Throw it away! Devil take it! Some German or other has been showing off his cleverness. There's no sense in it."
"Wait a minute!" cried Jakov, and looked anxiously round, then at his friend, and said gently:
"Perhaps you know your beginning?"
"What beginning?" cried Ilya crossly.
"Don't shout so! Take the soul. Man is born with a soul, isn't he?"
"Well?"
"Then he must know where he comes from, and how? The soul is immortal, they say. It was always there; isn't that true? Wait! It isn't so much to know how you were born as how you lived. When did you live? When did you first know that you were alive? You were born living. Well, then, when did you become living. In the womb? Very well. Why don't you remember more—what happened before your birth, and not only what happened after you were five years old? Eh? And, if you have a soul, how did it get inside you? Eh? Tell me."
Jakov's eyes shone triumphantly, his face broke into a happy smile, and he cried, with a joy that seemed to Ilya very strange: "You see, there you have your soul!"
"Stupid!" said Ilya, and looked at him angrily, "what's that to be glad about?"
"I'm not glad. I'm only saying—I'm only saying——"
"Well, I tell you, throw the book away! You see quite well it's written against God. It doesn't matter a bit how I was born alive, but how I live. How to live so that everything is clean and pleasant, so that no one hurts me, and I hurt nobody. Find me a book that'll make that plain to me."
Jakov sat silent and thoughtful, his head on his breast. His joy vanished when it found no echo. After a time he said: "When I look at you, there's something about you I don't like. I don't understand your thoughts, but I see you've been getting very proud about something or other for some time. You go on as if you were the only righteous man."
Ilya laughed aloud.
"What are you laughing at? It's true. You judge every one so harshly. You don't love anybody."
"There you're right," said Ilya, fiercely. "Whom should I love; and why? What good have men done to me? Every one wants to get his bread by some one else's work, and every one cries out: 'love me, respect me, give me a share of your goods; then perhaps I'll love you!' Every one, every where, thinks of nothing but stuffing himself."
"No. I think men don't think only of stuffing themselves," answered Jakov displeased and hurt.
"I know—every one tries to adorn himself with something, but it's only a mask. I see my uncle try and bargain with God, like the shopman with his master. Your papa gives one or two weathercocks to churches. I conclude from that that he either has swindled some one or is going to; and so they all behave, as far as I can see; there's your penny they say, but give me back five. I read the other day in the paper of Migunov the merchant, who gave three hundred roubles to a hospital, and then petitions the town council to knock off the arrears of his taxes, just a thousand roubles—and so they all do, trying to throw dust in one another's eyes and put themselves in the right. My view is, if you've sinned, willingly or unwillingly, take your punishment!"
"You're right there," said Jakov thoughtfully. "What you said of father and the hunchback, that was right too. Ah! we're both born under an evil star. You have your wickedness at any rate, you comfort yourself by judging everybody, but I have not even that. Oh! if only I could go away somewhere, away from here."
His speech ended with a cry of distress.
"Away from here. Where d'you want to go?" asked Ilya with a faint smile.
"It's all the same. I don't know."
They sat at the table opposite one another, gloomy and silent, and there lay the big red-brown book with the steel clasp.
Suddenly there was a rustling in the passage, a low voice was heard and a hand fumbled at the door for the latch. The friends waited in silence. The door opened slowly, and Perfishka staggered in: he stumbled on the threshold and fell on his knees, holding up his harmonica.
"Prr,"—he said, and laughed drunkenly.
Immediately behind him Matiza crept into the room. She bent over the cobbler, took his arm and tried to lift him up, saying with stammering tongue:
"Ah! How drunk he is! Oh, you soaker!"
"Don't touch me, jade! I'll stand alone, quite alone."
He swayed hither and thither, but got on his legs with difficulty, and came up to the two friends: he stretched out his left hand and cried:
"Welcome to my house!"
Matiza laughed, a deep, silly laugh.
"Where do you come from?" asked Ilya.
Jakov looked at the two with a smile and said nothing.
"Where? From the deep sea! Ha! ha! my dear, good boys. Oh! yes!"
Perfishka stamped his feet on the floor and sang:
"Oh little bones, dear little bones,I weep for you in piteous tones.For hardly are you grown at allBefore the shopman cracks you small."
"Sing, you jade, sing too," he screamed, turning to Matiza, "or let's sing the song you taught me, go ahead!"
He leant his back against the stove, where Matiza had already found support, and dug his elbow into her ribs, while his fingers wandered over the harmonica keys.
"Where is Mashutka?" asked Ilya suddenly, in a harsh voice.
"Yes, tell us," cried Jakov, and sprang from his chair. "Where is she? Tell us!"
But the drunken pair paid no heed to the question. Matiza leant her head to one side and sang:
"Ah! neighbour, your brandy is rousing and good."
And Perfishka struck in in a high tenor:
"Drink it, my neighbour, it comforts the blood."
Ilya stepped up to the cobbler, caught him by the shoulder, and shook him, till he fell against the stove.
"Where's your daughter?" he said commandingly.
"And oh! his daughter she vanished away,In the midnight hour, ere the break of day,"
babbled Perfishka, and held his head with his hand.
Jakov attempted to get the truth from Matiza, but she only said smirking: "I won't tell. I won't. I won't."
"They've sold her, the devils," said Ilya to his friend, gloomily. Jakov looked at him in terror, then asked the cobbler almost weeping:
"Perfishka! listen—Where is Mashutka?"
"Mashutka?" repeated Matiza, scornfully. "Aha! you see. Now you remember."
"Ilya! what shall we do?" cried Jakov full of anxiety.
"We must tell the police," said Ilya, and looked with disgust at the drunkards.
"Aha! jade! d'you hear," shouted Perfishka, beaming, "they want to tell the police! ha! ha! ha!"
"The po—lice?" cried Matiza emphatically, and looked with extraordinary great eyes from Ilya to Jakov and back again. Then stretching out her hands helplessly, she screamed loudly:
"You'll go to your police, will you? Get out of my room! It is my room now, we're just married, we two."
"Ha! ha! ha! laughed the cobbler, holding his sides.
"Come Jakov!" said Ilya. "The devil would be sickened at them! Come."
"Wait!" cried Jakov, in anxious excitement. "Have they really married her? That child? Is it possible? Perfishka, tell me, have you really. Oh, tell me, where is Masha?"
"Matiza, my wife, go for them! Catch them—catch—scream at them, bite them! Ha! ha! where is Masha?"
Perfishka pursed his lips as though to whistle, but could not get out a sound, and instead, put out his tongue at Jakov and laughed again.
Matiza pressed close to Ilya with her huge bosom heaving, and roared:
"Who are you, eh? D'you think we don't know all about you?"
Ilya gave her a push and left the cellar.
In the passage Jakov overtook him, caught him by the shoulder, held him fast in the darkness, and said:
"Is it allowed; can it be done? She's so little, Ilya! Have they really married her!"
"Oh! don't whimper!" said Ilya wrathfully. "That's no good! You ought to have kept your eyes open before; you began it, and now they've finished it."
Jakov was silent for a moment, then at once began again, as he stepped into the courtyard after Ilya.
"It's not my fault. I only knew that she went out to work somewhere."
"What does it matter, if you knew or didn't know?" said Ilya, harshly, and stood still in the middle of the courtyard. "I'll get out of this house anyhow; it ought to be burnt to the ground."
"O God! O God!" sighed Jakov, in a low voice, keeping behind Ilya. Ilya wheeled round. Jakov stood there miserable, his arms hanging helplessly and his head bowed as if to receive a blow.
"Cry away!" said Ilya, mockingly, and went off, leaving his friend in the middle of the dark courtyard. Next day Ilya learnt from Perfishka that Masha was actually married to Ehrenov the grocer, a widower of fifty, who had lost his wife shortly before.
"'I've two children,' he said to me, 'one five years old, one three,'" explained Perfishka, "'and I shall have to get a nurse. But a nurse,' he says, 'is always a stranger. She'll rob me, and that sort of thing. Speak to your daughter, if she'll marry me!' Well, so I spoke to her, and Matiza spoke to her, and since Masha is a reasonable child, she understood it all, and what else was she to do? 'All right,' she says, 'I'll do it!' And so she went to him. It was all settled in three days. We two—I and Matiza—got three roubles, so yesterday we got drunk. Heavens! how Matiza drinks, like a horse!"
Ilya listened in silence. He understood that Masha had done better for herself than would have been generally expected. But all the same, his heart ached for the girl. He had seen little of her of late, and hardly thought of her, but now, without her, the house felt dirtier and more hateful than ever.
The yellow, bloated face of the cobbler grinned down at Ilya from the stove, and his voice creaked like a broken branch in the autumn wind. Lunev looked at him disgustedly.
"Ehrenov made one condition: I'm never to show up at his house! 'You can come to the shop,' he says. 'I'll give you schnapps and odds and ends, but to the house—never! It's shut to you, like Paradise.' Now then, Ilya Jakovlevitch, couldn't you hunt up a five-kopeck piece, to get a drink. Please give me five kopecks."
"You shall have 'em in a minute," said Ilya. "What are you going to do now?"
The cobbler spat on the ground, and replied: "I'll just become an out-and-out drunkard. Till Masha was provided for, I used to worry. I worked sometimes. I had a sort of conscience with her. But now I know she's enough to eat and shoes and clothes, and is shut up in a box, so to speak, I can devote myself, free and unhindered, to the drinking profession."
"Can't you really give up brandy?"
"Never!" answered the cobbler, and shook his shaggy head in a vigorous negative. "Why should I?"
"Is there nothing else in life you want?"
"Give me five kopecks. I don't want anything else."
"I can't understand that," said Ilya, shrugging his shoulders. "I can't understand how a man can live, and want nothing out of life."
"I'm different from the rest," answered Perfishka, with philosophical calm. "I think this way: keep quiet!—Fate gives what it will, and if a man is hollow and empty, so that nothing can be put in him, then, what can Fate do? Once, I admit, I wanted things, while my dead one was alive—I knew of Jeremy's pile. I'd have liked to have a fist in that. 'If I don't rob him,' I thought, 'some one else will.' Well, thank God, two others actually got in before me. I don't complain, but then I understood that one must learn, too, how to wish."
The cobbler laughed, climbed down from the stove, and added:
"Now give me the five kopecks. My inside's on fire. I can't stand it any more."
"There! Have your glass," said Ilya. Then he looked at Perfishka with a smile, and asked:
"Shall I tell you something?"
"Well, what?"
"You're a humbug, and a good-for-nothing, and a miserable drunkard. That's all certain."
"Yes, it's certain," confessed the cobbler, standing before Ilya with the five-kopeck piece in his hand.
"And yet," Ilya went on seriously and thoughtfully, "I don't believe I know a better man than you, by God, I don't."
Perfishka smiled incredulously, and looked at Lunev's serious but friendly face.
"You're joking?"
"Believe it or not, it is so. I don't say it to praise you, but only because, so far as I can see, that's my opinion."
"Wonderful! my head's too stupid I'm afraid; did I understand you to say——But let me have a mouthful, perhaps then I'll be cleverer."
"Not so fast!" said Ilya, and caught him by the shirt sleeve. "I want to ask you one thing—do you fear God?"
Perfishka shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, and said in a voice that sounded a little hurt:
"I have no reason to fear God. I do no harm to anyone—never have."
"And now, do you pray?"
"Oh, I pray, of course—not often."
Ilya saw that the cobbler had no desire to talk, and that his whole soul was longing for the tap room.
"There you are, Perfishka—ten more!"
"My word! that's what I call treating!" cried Perfishka and beamed with joy.
"But tell me, how do you pray?" Lunev pressed him again.
"I? Quite simply. I don't know any prayers. I knew 'the Virgin Mother of God' once, but I forgot it long ago. There's a beggar's prayer: 'O Lord Jesus,' and so on, I know that by heart right to the end. Perhaps when I'm old I'll use it. But now I just pray in my own way. 'Lord have mercy,' I say."
Perfishka looked at the ceiling, nodded with conviction, and went on.
"He'll understand up there. Can I go now? I've an awful thirst."
"Go on—go on," said Ilya, and looked at Perfishka thoughtfully. "But see here, when the day comes, when the Lord asks you, How have you lived?"
"Then I'll say, 'when I was born I was small, and when I died I was dead drunk. So I don't know.' Then He'll laugh and forgive me."
The cobbler smiled pleasantly and hurried away.
Lunev remained in the cellar alone. He was strangely moved to think that Masha's pretty little face would never again appear to him in this narrow, dirty cave, and that Perfishka would soon be turned out.
The April sun shone through the window and illuminated the floor, now long uncleaned. Everything there was untidy, hateful, and melancholy, as though a dead body had just been borne away. Ilya sat upright on his chair, looked at the big stove, rubbed away on the one side, and gloomy thoughts passed in succession through his mind.
"Shall I go out and confess?" flashed suddenly up in his heart.
But he thrust the thought away from him angrily.
On the evening of this day Ilya was compelled to leave Petrusha's house. Events fell out in this way. When he returned, his uncle met him in the courtyard, with downcast countenance, led him aside to a corner behind a pile of wood, and said:
"Now, Ilusha, you must get away from here. The things that have happened here to-day—awful, I tell you." The hunchback closed his eyes, wrung his hands, and broke into a fit of coughing. "Jashka got drunk and called his father to his face, 'You thief' and other bad names—'Shameless beast,' and 'heartless fellow.' He just screamed like a madman, and Petrusha hit him in the mouth, and tore his hair, and kicked him till he bled all over; and now Jashka's lying in his room and groaning and crying.—And then Petrusha began at me. 'It's your fault,' he growled. 'Get your Ilya away.' He thinks you've stirred up Jakov against him. He shouted awfully.—It was terrible!"
Ilya took the straps from his shoulders, handed his box to his uncle, and said, "Wait a minute!"
"Wait! But what? Why? He'll——"
Ilya's hands trembled with wrath against Petrusha and pity for Jakov.
"Hold my box, I say!" he said impatiently, and went into the bar. He clenched his teeth till his jaws ached, and a buzzing noise went through his head. He heard his uncle call after him something about police and damaging himself, and prison, but he did not stop. Petrusha stood behind the counter, smiling and talking to a raggedly-dressed man. The lamp-light fell on his bald head, and it shone as though the whole gleaming cranium smiled.
"Aha! Mr. Merchant!" he cried mockingly, and his brows contracted at the sight of Ilya, "you're just in time."
He stood before the door of his room, his body hiding it. Ilya went close up to him, insolent and overbearing, and said loudly:
"Out of the way!"
"Wh—at?" drawled Petrusha.
"Let me by! I want to see Jakov."
"I'll give you something to remember your Jakov!"
Without another word, Ilya struck out with all his might and hit Petrusha on the cheek. He howled aloud and fell on the floor. The pot-boys ran from all sides, and some one cried: "Hold him! Thrash him!"
The customers sprung up as though boiling water were poured on them, but Ilya sprung over Petrusha's body, went into the room behind, and bolted the door. A tin lamp with a blackened chimney burned flickeringly in the little room, made still smaller by wine-bins and boxes of all kinds.
At first Ilya did not distinguish his friend in the dark, cramped space. Jakov lay on the floor, his head in the shadow, and his face seemed black and dreadful. Ilya took the lamp, and, bending down, examined the maltreated lad. Bluish spots and bruises covered the face like a horrible dark mask; the eyes were swollen; he breathed with difficulty and groaned and evidently could not see, for he asked, as Ilya bent over him:
"Who is it?"
"I," said Lunev softly, and straightened himself.
"Give me something to drink!"
Ilya turned round. There was a loud knocking at the door, and some one called out:
"We'll try it from the stairs at the back!"
"Run for the police!" said another.
Petrusha's whimpering rose above the noise: "You all saw it! I never touched him. O—oh!"
Ilya smiled rejoicingly. He liked to realise that Petrusha was suffering. He stepped to the door and began to parley with the besiegers.
"Hullo, you there! Stop your noise! If I gave him one in the mouth, he won't die of it, and I'll take my punishment from the magistrate. Don't you shove yourselves in! Don't bang on the door! I'll open it."
He opened the door, and stood on the threshold, his fists clenched in case of an attack. The crowd gave back before his strong figure and fighting look. Only Petrusha growled, pushing the others aside:
"Ah, you robber! Wait, I'll——"
"Take him away—and look here, just look here!" cried Ilya, inviting the crowd to enter, "see how he's handled this fellow!"
Several customers came in, with anxious side glances at Ilya, and bent down over Jakov.
One said, astonished and frightened:
"He's smashed him up!"
"He's absolutely cut to ribbons!" added another.
"Bring some water," said Ilya, "and then we must have the police." The crowd was now on his side, he read it in their manner, and said aloud and with emphasis:
"You all know Petrusha Filimonov; you know that he is the biggest rascal in the street, and who has a word to say against his son? Well, here lies the son, wounded, perhaps maimed for life; and the father is to get off scot-free, is he? I have struck him once; I shall be condemned for that, is that right and fair? Is that even justice? And so it is all round. One man may do as he likes, and another must not move an eyelash."
One or two sighed sympathetically, others went silently away. Ilya was going on, but Petrusha burst into the room and turned them all out.
"Get out! Be off! This is my affair. He's my son, I'm his father. Be off! I'm not afraid of the police, and I don't need 'em, either—not a bit of it. I'll settle with you, my lad. Clear out of this!"
Ilya kneeled down, gave Jakov a glass of water and looked with deep compassion at his friend's swollen closed eyes and discoloured face. Jakov drank and whispered:
"He's knocked my teeth out, it hurts me to breathe, get me out of the house, Ilusha, get me away!"
Tears flowed from his swollen eyes down over his cheeks.
"He'll have to be taken to the hospital," said Ilya sternly, turning to Petrusha. Petrusha looked at his son and murmured to himself unintelligibly. Of his eyes, one was wide open, the other swollen up like Jakov's from the blow of Ilya's fist.
"Do you hear?" shouted Ilya.
"Don't shout so!" said Petrusha, suddenly becoming quiet and peaceful. "He can't go to the hospital. There'd be a row! You've made bother enough already here. I'm a town councillor, you know. It's bad for my reputation."
"You old blackguard!" said Ilya, and spat contemptuously. "I tell you, take him to the hospital, or there'll be another sort of row."
"Now, now, don't—keep your temper! you know it's half imagination."
Ilya sprang up at these words, but Filimonov was already at the door and called to a waiter:
"Ivan, call a droshky to go to the hospital! Jakov, pull yourself together, don't make yourself out worse than you are; it's your own father beat you, not a stranger—yes—I usen't to be so tenderly handled, my word, no!"
He moved restlessly about the room, took Jakov's clothes from their pegs, and threw them to Ilya, still dilating freely upon the thrashings he had received in his young days.
"Thanks," said Jakov in a voice hardly audible to Ilya, and the tears flowed on from his swollen eyes over his blood-stained cheeks. Terenti was standing behind the counter; he whispered shyly in Ilya's ear: "What'll you have? three kopecks' worth or five? There—please, five—caviar?—the caviar's all gone. I'm sorry, will you try a sardine?"
After Lunev had left Jakov at the hospital he realised he could not return to Filimonov's house, and he went to Olympiada. He felt as though a cold mist drove through his body, something gnawed at his heart and stole away his strength. Sadness lay heavy on his breast, his thoughts were confused, he walked wearily; one thing only stood out clearly, he could not live much longer in this way. The dream of a little pretty shop, a life apart from the world in cleanliness and comfort, rose up anew and more strongly.
Next day he hired a lodging, a little room next to a kitchen. A young woman in a red blouse let it to him. Her face was rosy, with a little saucy nose and a small, pretty mouth; she had a narrow brow framed in black curly hair that she frequently threw back with a quick movement of her slender, small fingers.
"Five roubles for such a pretty little room, that is not dear!" she said cheerfully, and smiled as she saw that her dark, vivacious eyes threw the broad-shouldered lad into some confusion.
Ilya looked at the walls of his future home, and wondered what sort of young woman this might be.
"You see the paper is quite new, the window looks on the garden, what could be nicer? In the morning I'll put the samovar outside your door, but you must take it in yourself."
"Do you do the waiting here, then?" asked Ilya with curiosity.
The girl ceased to smile, her eyebrows twitched, she drew herself up and said, condescendingly:
"I am not the housemaid, but the owner of this house, and my husband——"
"Why, are you married?" cried Ilya in astonishment, and looked incredulously at her pretty slender figure. She was not angered, but laughed gaily:
"How funny you are! first you take me for a housemaid, then you won't believe I'm married."
"How can I believe it, when you look just like a little girl?" said Ilya, and laughed too.
"And I tell you, that I've been married for three years, and that my man is district inspector—in the police."
Ilya looked in her face and smiled quietly, he did not know why.
"What a silly!" cried the girl, shrugging her shoulders and inspecting Ilya curiously. "Well, anyhow, will you take the room?"
"Agreed! D'you want a deposit?"
"Of course, a rouble, at least."
"I'll bring my things in, in two or three hours."
"As you please. I'm glad to have such a lodger, you're a cheerful one, I fancy."
"Not specially," said Lunev, smiling.
He went out into the street still smiling, with a feeling of pleasure in his breast. He liked both the room, with its blue wall-paper, and the brisk little woman, and he liked specially to think he was going to live in the house of a police inspector.
It seemed to him at once comical, with a certain irony, and rather dangerous.
He was on his way to visit Jakov at the hospital, and took a droshky to get there sooner. On the way he laughed in his heart and considered what to do with the money, and where to hide it. When he reached the hospital, he was told that Jakov had just had a bath, and was now fast asleep. He stood by the corridor window, and did not know whether to go away or wait till Jakov woke up. Patients passed him, shuffling slowly in slippers, in yellow night-gowns, and as they went they looked at him with melancholy eyes. They chattered in low voices with one another, and through their whispers rang a painful, groaning coming from somewhere far off. A dull echo, redoubling every sound, boomed through the long corridor; it was as though some one floated invisible on the heavy air of the hospital, groaning mournfully and lamenting.
Ilya felt he must leave these yellow walls at once, but suddenly one of the patients came up to him with outstretched hand, and said in a muffled voice:
"How are you?"
Lunev looked up, then stepped back in surprise.
"Pavel? Goodness! are you here too?"
"Who else is here?" asked Pavel quickly.
His face was curiously grey, his eyes blinked restlessly and confusedly.
"Jakov is here! his father thrashed him—and now you here too! Been here long?" Then he added compassionately: "Ah, brother, how changed you look!"
Pavel sighed, his lips twitched and his eyes looked strangely dull. He hung his head as though guilty, and repeated hoarsely: "Changed? Oh yes."
"What's the matter?" asked Lunev sympathetically.
"Matter? You can guess, surely."
Pavel glanced at Ilya's face, and then let his head fall again.
"Not Vyera?"
"Who else?" answered Pavel gloomily.
Ilya shook his head, was silent a moment, then said bitterly:
"It's our fate, who knows when my turn'll come?"
Pavel smiled sadly, then came closer and looking confidingly in Ilya's face, he said:
"I thought you'd be disgusted with me. I was walking here and all at once I saw you. I was ashamed and turned my face away as I passed you."
"That was a very clever thing to do," said Ilya, reproachfully.
"How's one to know how people take a thing like that? To tell the truth, it's beastly. Ah, brother! two weeks have I been here. The torture, the dreariness! You go about, and lie in bed and think, think! The nights are awful. Like lying on red-hot coals. The time draws out, like a hair in the milk. It's like being drawn down into a swamp, and you're alone and can't call for help." Pavel spoke almost in a whisper. A shudder passed over his face, as if from cold, and his hands grasped convulsively at the collar of his dressing-gown. He shook his head, and said, still half-aloud: "Once fate starts against you to mock you, it goes like a hammer on your heart."
"Where is Vyera?" asked Ilya, thoughtfully.
"The devil knows!" said Pavel, with a bitter smile.
"Doesn't she come to see you?"
"Once. But I sent her packing. I can't bear the sight of her, the little beast!" cried Pavel angrily.
Ilya looked reproachfully at his altered face, and said: "Nonsense! If you want justice, then be just! Why, is it her fault? Think a minute."
"Then, whose fault is it?" cried Pavel, passionately, but in a low voice. "Whose? Tell me. Often I lie awake all night, and think how it is I have made such a mess of my life. It's just through loving Vyera. She took the place of mother and sister and wife and friends. I loved her. I can't say in words how much, nor even write it on the skies in writing of stars." His eyes grew red, and two big tears rolled down his face. He wiped them away with his sleeve, and went on, in a low voice:
"She lay in my way like a stone that I have stumbled over."
"That is not right," said Lunev, who felt clearly that he pitied Vyera even more than his friend. "What way do you speak of? You had no way. All that's just talk. You have longed for the mead, and praised it, that it was strong; now it has made you drunk, you blame it for getting into your head. And how about her? Isn't she ill too?"
"Yes," said Pavel, then suddenly continued, his voice trembling with emotion, "Do you think I'm not sorry for her?"
"Of course. How can you help it?"
"I'm hard on her. Is it much wonder? I sent her away; and when she went and began to cry, so softly and bitterly, then my heart was wrung. I felt I should weep too, but I had no tears in my soul, only stones. And then I began to think it all over. Ah, Ilya! The life I live's no life at all."
"Yes," said Lunev slowly, with a strange smile. "Things go very oddly in life. There's something takes us all by the throat and strangles—strangles us. There's Jakov, who's good. His father makes his life a burden; they've married Mashutka to an old devil; you're here in hospital——"
Suddenly he smiled quietly, and said in a lower voice:
"I'm the only lucky one! Fact! As soon as I wish for anything—pat, it comes!"
"How?" asked Pavel, with curiosity and suspicion.
"Trust me. I have luck. It draws me on and on."
"I don't like the way you talk," said Pavel, and looked at Ilya searchingly. "Are you laughing at yourself?"
"No, it's some one else who laughs at me," replied Ilya, and his brows contracted gloomily. "There's some one somewhere, laughs at us all. I could tell you things. Wherever I look, there's no justice anywhere."
"I can see that," cried Pavel softly, but with intensity. "Come, let's go into that corner, there."
They went along the corridor, close together, looking into one another's eyes. Red patches appeared in Pavel's cheeks, and his eyes sparkled brightly, as in the days when he was healthy. "And I can see how we're robbed down to the last stitch," he whispered in Ilya's ear. "Whatever you can see, none of it is for us."
"That's true."
"Everything for the others. See—my little girl. She was as good as my wife. I need her all. Every man wants his wife for himself. But I can't have mine, and she can't live for me, as she wanted. Why? Just because I am poor? Well, but I work, don't I? I've slaved all my life, ever since I was ten years old. Surely I may be allowed to live, at least!"
"Petrusha Filimonov lives without working, so easily and comfortably, and can have everything he wants, do whatever he likes. Why is that?" said Ilya, seconding his friend's speech, with a scornful laugh.
"The doctor shouts at me, as if I were a criminal—why?" went on Gratschev. "He's an educated man. He ought to treat people decently. I'm a man, surely. Eh? And so it comes. I turned Vyerka out, but I know quite well it's not her fault."
"It's not the stick that gives the pain, but the one who uses it."
They stayed in the dark corner close to the corridor window, whose panes were streaked with yellow colour, and here side by side they conversed in passionate words, each catching the other's thought as it flew.
The heavy groaning came again from far away. The monotonous moan was like the muffled tone of a bass string, plucked at regular intervals, which vibrates wearily and hopelessly, as though it knew that no living heart beats fit to understand and appease its melancholy, quivering lament. Pavel was flaming with irritation over the buffets that life's heavy hand had dealt him.
He too, vibrated, like that string, with excitement, and whispered hurriedly, disconnectedly his grievances and complaints, and Ilya felt that Pavel's words fell on his heart like sparks, stirring to life in his own breast something dark and contradictory, that constantly troubled him, now flaming up, now sinking down. It seemed as though, in place of the dull, evil doubt, with which till now he had faced life, something else was suddenly kindled in his soul, brightening its darkness and shaping for it rest and relief for ever.
"Why is a man holy, if he's enough to eat? is he always in the right, if he's educated?" whispered Pavel, standing close to Ilya, and looking round him as though he were aware of the unknown enemy who had spoilt his life. "See," he went on, "if I am hungry, if I'm stupid, still I have a soul! Or hasn't a hungry man a soul? I see that I have no decent, real life, they have ruined my life, they've cut short my wishes and set up barriers on all my ways, and why?"
"No one can say," cried Ilya harshly, "and there's no one we could ask who would understand? We are all strangers."
"That's true, whom can we talk to?" asked Pavel, with a despairing gesture, and was silent.
Lunev looked straight before him down the wide corridor, and sighed deeply.
The dull moaning was heard again, now they were silent, it sounded more clearly; it seemed to come from the breast of a big, strong man, struggling with great pain.
"Are you still with Olympiada?" asked Pavel.
"Yes, still," answered Ilya.
"And think," he added with a strange smile, "Jakov has got on so well with his reading that now he's doubtful about God."
"Really?"
"Yes, he's found such a book! And you, what do you think about that?"
"I, you see," said Pavel, thoughtfully, "I've never thought much about it. I never go to church."
"And I do think about it, I think a lot about it, and I cannot understand how God endures it all!"
And they began to talk again, short, disconnected sentences, and they remained absorbed in their conversation till an attendant came up to them and said severely to Lunev:
"Why are you hiding here? eh?"
"I'm not hiding."
"Don't you see all the visitors are gone?"
"I didn't notice. Good-bye Pavel—give Jakov a look up."
"Now then, get on—get on!"
"Come again soon, for God's sake!" implored Gratschev.
"I tell you, get on!" and the attendant followed Ilya muttering:
"These fellows, loafers, hiding in corners."
Lunev slackened his pace and as the attendant came up to him, he said quietly and maliciously:
"Don't growl, else I'll have to say, 'lie down dog! lie down!'"
The attendant stopped suddenly, but Lunev went quickly on and felt an evil pleasure in having insulted a man.
In the street he fell again into brooding on the fate of his friends. Pavel, since he was a little lad had fended for himself, had been in prison, and tried all sorts of hard work. What hunger and cold, what blows he had endured! And now finally he had come to the hospital.
Masha would hardly see happy days again, and Jakov the same; how should a being like Jakov keep a whole skin in this world?
Lunev saw that, as a matter of fact, of all the four he had the best of it. But this consciousness brought him no comfort, he only smiled, and looked suspiciously about him.
Ilya settled quietly into his new dwelling-place, and his landlords interested him deeply. The woman's name was Tatiana Vlassyevna. As gay as a little bird, and always ready to chatter, she had given the new lodger a complete description of her life before he had spent many days in the little room.
In the morning, while Ilya drank his tea, she bustled about in the kitchen, with skirts tucked up and sleeves rolled above her elbows, but gave many a smiling glance into his room, and said, cheerfully:
"We're not rich, my husband and I, but we've got education and intelligence. I went to the progymnasium, and he was in the cadet corps, even if he didn't quite finish his time there. But we want to be rich, and we'll manage it too. We've no children; they're the big expense. I do the cooking and go to market, and I keep a maid for the rest, and she lives in the house, and gets a rouble and a half a month. You see what a lot I save!"
She remained in the doorway and, shaking her curls, began to reckon:
"Cook's wages, three roubles, and what she'd cost, seven—makes ten roubles. She'd steal at least three roubles' worth a month—thirteen roubles. Then I let her room to you—eighteen roubles. That's the cost of a cook, you see. Then I buy everything wholesale, butter—half a pood, flour—a whole sack, sugar by the loaf, and so on. I save another twelve roubles that way—that's thirty. If I had a place at the police-station or telegraph office, I should only work as a cook; and now I cost my man nothing, and I'm proud of it. One must understand how to arrange one's life, remember that, young man!" She looked roguishly at Ilya with her laughing eyes, and he smiled with some embarrassment. She pleased him, but yet inspired him with respect. When he waked in the morning she was already working in the kitchen, with a pock-marked, undersized girl, who stared at her mistress and every one else, with colourless, frightened eyes. In the evening, when Ilya came home, Tatiana opened the door to him, smiling and active, with a pleasant perfume surrounding her. When her husband was at home he played the guitar, and she chimed in with her clear voice, or they played cards for kisses. Ilya could hear everything in his room—the tones of the strings, gay or sentimental, the turning of the cards, and the kisses. Their dwelling consisted of two rooms—the bedroom and another adjoining Ilya's apartment, which served the pair for dining and drawing-room, where they spent their evenings. Clear birds' voices resounded from here in the mornings, the titmouse peeped, the siskin and thistle-finch sang for a wager, the bullfinch whistled in between, and, through it all, the linnet sounded his serious, gentle song.
Titiana's husband, Kirik Nikodimovitch Avtonomov, was a man of twenty-six years, tall and big, with a big nose and black teeth. His good-tempered face was thick with pimples, and his watery blue eyes looked at everything with imperturbable calm. His close-cropped light hair stood up like a brush on his head, and in his whole plump figure there was something helpless and comical. His movements were clumsy, and immediately after his first greeting to Ilya, he said, for no particular reason:
"Do you like singing birds?"
"Very much."
"Do you ever catch any?"
"No," answered Ilya, looking wonderingly at the inspector, who wrinkled his nose, thought a moment, then said:
"Used you ever to catch them?"
"No."
"Never?"
"Never."
Kirik Avtonomov smiled in a superior way, and said:
"You can't be said to like them, if you've never caught any. Now, I love them, and have caught them often, and was dismissed from the cadet corps because of that. I'd like to catch 'em now, but I don't want to get into trouble with my superiors, for though the love of singing birds is a noble passion, to catch them is not a proper occupation for an established man. If I were in your shoes I'd catch siskins like anything. The siskin's a jolly bird. That's why he's called God's bird."
Avtonomov looked with the expression of an enthusiast into Ilya's face, and a certain embarrassment came over Ilya as he listened. He felt as though the inspector spoke of bird-catching allegorically, with a hidden reference. His heart palpitated and he pricked up his ears. But the sight of Avtonomov's watery blue eyes quieted him, he saw in a moment that the inspector was quite a harmless individual, without any subtlety; so he smiled politely, and murmured some reply or other. The inspector was evidently taken with Ilya's modest demeanour and serious face, and said, smiling:
"Come and have tea with us of an evening, when you feel inclined. We're simple people, without any style. We'll have a game of cards. We don't get many visitors. Visitors are all very well, but you have to treat them, and that's a nuisance and comes expensive." The longer Ilya observed the comfortable life of his landlords, the better it pleased him. Everything they had was so solid and clean, their existence ran so easily and peacefully, and they were evidently much attached to one another. The brisk little woman was like a tomtit, and her husband like a clumsy bullfinch, and their rooms were as tidy and pretty as a bird's nest. When Ilya was home of an evening, he listened to their conversation, and thought: "That's the kind of life!" He sighed enviously, and dreamed more vividly of the time when he would open his shop and have a little bright room of his own. He would keep birds, and live as in a dream, alone and quiet, peacefully and methodically.
The other side of the wall, Tatiana was telling her husband how she bought everything she needed in the market, how much she had spent, and how much saved, and he laughed pleasantly and praised her.
"Ah, the clever little woman! My dear little bird! Come, give me a kiss!"
Then he would begin and relate all that had happened in the town, the processes he had drawn up, what the Chief of Police or any of his superiors had said. They talked of the possibility of a rise of salary for him, and discussed minutely whether, in such an event, they ought to take a bigger house.
Ilya lay and listened till suddenly a melancholy weariness fell on him. The little blue room was too narrow; he looked restlessly round as if to seek the cause of his moodiness, then, unable longer to endure the weight that lay at his breast, he went to Olympiada, or loafed aimlessly in the streets.
Olympiada became more and more full of reproaches. She plagued him with jealousy and more and more frequently they fell into contention. She grew thin, her eyes were sunken and looked darker, her arms were thinner, and all this was not pleasing to Ilya. Still less, however, did he like the fact that of late she had begun to talk of conscience and God, and of going into a nunnery. He did not believe in the genuineness of her words, for he knew she could not live without the society of men.
"You needn't pray for me if you take the veil," he said one day with a mocking smile. "I'll manage my own sins alone."
She looked at him full of fear and sadness.
"Ilya, don't make a jest of it!"
"But I mean it."
"You don't believe that I shall go to a nunnery? You'll see, then you'll believe."
"Not at all—I believe you; lots of people turn monks or nuns out of sheer wickedness."
Olympiada grew angry with him and they quarrelled fiercely.
"You unlucky, proud man!" she cried, with sparkling eyes. "Just wait! However you stiffen your back in your pride, you'll be bent down! What are you so proud of? Your youth and your beauty? It will all go—all, and then you'll creep on the ground like a snake and beg for mercy. 'Have pity!' and no one will care."
She heaped reproaches on him, and her eyes grew so bloodshot that it seemed as though great drops of blood instead of tears would flow over her cheeks. When they quarrelled she never spoke of Poluektov's murder, indeed, in her better moments she would bid him "forget." Lunev wondered at this, and asked her one day after a quarrel:
"Lipa! tell me, when you're angry, why do you never speak of the old man."
She answered readily:
"Because that was really neither my doing nor yours. Since they haven't found you out, it must have been his fate. You were the instrument, not the force; you had no reason to strangle him, as you say yourself. So he only met his due punishment through you."
Ilya laughed incredulously.
"O—Oh! I thought that a man must either be a fool or a rascal—ha! ha! Anything is right for him if only he wants to do it, and in the same way anything can be wrong."
"I don't understand," said Olympiada, and shook her head.
"Where's the difficulty?" asked Ilya, sighing and shrugging his shoulders. "It's quite simple! Show me any one thing in life that holds for every one; find anything that a clever man can't make either right or wrong; anything that stands fast, permanent; you can't. That is what I meant to say. There is nothing fixed in life; it is all changing and confused, like a man's own soul—yes."
"I don't understand," said the woman after a pause.
"And I understand so well," answered Ilya. "That this is just the knot that strangles us all."
At last, after one of the periodical quarrels, when Ilya had not been near Olympiada for four days, he received a letter from her; she wrote:
"Good-bye, my dear Ilyusha, good-bye for ever; we shall never meet again. Don't look for me, you won't find me. I'm leaving this unlucky town by the next steamboat; here I have destroyed my soul for ever. I'm going away, far away, and shall never come back; don't think of me and don't wait for me. With all my heart, I thank you for the good you have brought me, and the bad I will forget. I must tell you the plain truth. I'm not going into a nunnery, I'm going away with young Ananyin, who has been entreating me for a long time. I have agreed at last, what does it matter to me? We go to the sea to a village where Ananyin has fisheries. He is simple, and even means to marry me, good, silly boy! Good-bye! We have met as if in a dream, and when I waked there was nothing. Forgive me too! If you knew how my heart burns with longing. I kiss you—you, the one man in the world for me. Don't be proud before men; we are all unfortunate. I have grown calm, I, your Lipa, and I go as though under the axe,—my heart pains me so.——"OLYMPIADA SCHLYKOVA.""I am sending you a token by the post, a ring. Please wear it.—O.S."
"Good-bye, my dear Ilyusha, good-bye for ever; we shall never meet again. Don't look for me, you won't find me. I'm leaving this unlucky town by the next steamboat; here I have destroyed my soul for ever. I'm going away, far away, and shall never come back; don't think of me and don't wait for me. With all my heart, I thank you for the good you have brought me, and the bad I will forget. I must tell you the plain truth. I'm not going into a nunnery, I'm going away with young Ananyin, who has been entreating me for a long time. I have agreed at last, what does it matter to me? We go to the sea to a village where Ananyin has fisheries. He is simple, and even means to marry me, good, silly boy! Good-bye! We have met as if in a dream, and when I waked there was nothing. Forgive me too! If you knew how my heart burns with longing. I kiss you—you, the one man in the world for me. Don't be proud before men; we are all unfortunate. I have grown calm, I, your Lipa, and I go as though under the axe,—my heart pains me so.——
"OLYMPIADA SCHLYKOVA."
"I am sending you a token by the post, a ring. Please wear it.—O.S."
Ilya read the letter and bit his lips till they smarted. He read it again and again, and the more often he read, the better it pleased him; it was at once a pain and a pleasure to read the big irregularly written characters.
Previously, Ilya had given little thought to determine what the nature might be of Olympiada's feelings for himself; now, however, he felt that she had loved him dearly and warmly, and as he read her letter he felt a deep peace sink into his heart. But the peace gave way gradually to a sense of loss, and the consciousness that there was no one now to whom he could reveal the bitterness of his soul depressed him.
The image of this woman stood vividly before his eyes, he remembered her passionate caresses, her sensible talk, her jests, and more and more clearly he felt in his breast a harsh feeling of wretchedness. He stood moodily by the window, looking into the garden, and there in the darkness the elder-bushes rustled softly, and the thin, thready twigs of the birch-trees waved to and fro. From behind the wall the strings of the guitar resounded mournfully, and Tatiana sang in her high voice: