"Let him who will search through the seasTo find the amber golden——"
Ilya held the letter in his hand and thought: "She always said she was persistent, and that I brought her good fortune, and yet she has left me, so the fortune can not have been so very good after all."
He felt himself in the wrong before Olympiada, and sorrow and compassion weighed heavy on his soul.
"But bring me back my little ring from out the deep blue sea," sounded behind the wall. Then the inspector laughed aloud and the singer chimed in merrily from the kitchen. Then, however, she was silent. Ilya felt her nearness, but dared not turn round to look, though he knew his room door was open. He gave the rein to his thoughts, and stood motionless, feeling himself deserted.
The tree-tops in the garden shivered, and Lunev felt as though he had left the ground, and were floating out there in the cold twilight.
"Ilya Jakovlevitch, will you have your tea?"
"No," answered Ilya.
The solemn note of a bell resounded through the air. The deep tone made the window panes quiver. Ilya crossed himself, remembered that it was long since he had been to church, and seized the occasion to get away from the house.
"I'm going to evening service," he called as he went out.
Tatiana stood in the doorway, her hands against the door-posts, and looked curiously at him. Her inquiring glance confused Ilya, and as if excusing himself, he said:
"I haven't been to church for ever so long."
"Very well. I'll get the samovar ready by nine o'clock," she replied.
As he went, Lunev thought of young Ananyin. He knew the man; he was a rich young merchant, partner in fish business—Ananyin Brothers—a thin, fair young man, with a pale face and blue eyes. He had but recently come to the town and lived there at a great pace.
"That is really living," thought Ilya bitterly, "like a rich young man does—hardly out of the nest before he gets a mate for himself."
He entered the church in a discontented mood, and chose a dark corner, where lay the ladder to light the chandeliers.
"O Lord, have mercy!" came from the left-hand choir. A choir boy sang with a shrill, unpleasing voice, and could not keep in tune with the hoarse, deep bass voice of the precentor. The lack of harmony embittered Ilya's mood still further, and roused a desire in him to seize the boy by the ears. The heating stove made the corner very hot, it smelt of burning rags. An old woman in a fur jacket, came up to him and said, grumbling:
"You're not in your right place, sir."
Ilya looked at the fox tails adorning the collar of her jacket, and went to one side silently, thinking: "Even in the church there's a special place for us."
It was the first time he had been to church since the murder of Poluektov, and when he remembered this, involuntarily he shuddered. He thought of his guilt and forgot everything else, though the idea no longer terrified him, but only filled him with sorrow and heaviness of soul.
"O Lord, have mercy!" he whispered and crossed himself. The choir burst into loud, harmonious song. The soprano voices, giving the words clearly and distinctly, rang under the dome like the clear, pleasant tones of sweet bells. The altos vibrated like a ringing tense string, and against their continued sound, flowing on like a stream, the soprano notes quivered like the reflection of the sun on a transparent pool. The full deep bass notes swept proudly through the church, supporting the children's song; from time to time the beautiful strong tones of the tenors pierced through, then again the children's voices rang out, and rose into the twilight of the dome, whence, serious and thoughtful, clad in white garments, the figure of the Almighty looked down, blessing the faithful with majestic outstretched hands. The waves of sound and the scent of incense rolled up to Him, and flowed round Him, and it seemed as though He floated in the midst, and swept ever higher into the depths of boundless space.
When the music ceased, Ilya sighed deeply. His heart was light, and he felt no fear nor repentance, not even the irritation that had disturbed him when he entered the church. His thoughts flew far away from his own sins. The music had cleansed and lightened his soul. He could not trust his own sensations, feeling so unexpectedly calm and peaceful, and he strove to awaken in himself a sense of remorse, but it was in vain.
Suddenly the thought darted through his mind: "Suppose that woman goes into my room out of curiosity and looks about and finds the money."
He hurried away out of the church, and hailed a droshky to reach home as quickly as he could. All the way the thought tormented him, and set him in a quiver of excitement.
"Suppose they do find the money, what then? They won't lay an information about it, they'll just steal it."
And this thought roused him still more; he became quite positive that if it should happen he would go straight to the police in this same droshky and confess that he had murdered Poluektov. No, he would not any longer be tortured, and live in dirt and turmoil while others enjoy in peace and comfort the money for which he sinned so deeply. The mere idea of it drove him nearly crazy. When the droshky drew up at his door, he darted out and tugged at the bell; his fist clenched and his teeth locked, he waited impatiently for the door to open. Tatiana appeared on the threshold.
"My, what a ring you gave! What's the matter? What's wrong?" she cried, frightened at the sight of him.
Without a word he pushed her aside, went quickly to his room, and assured himself in one glance, that his fears were unnecessary. The money lay behind the upper window-boxing, and he had stuck on a little scrap of down, in such a way that it must be removed if any one tried to get at the packet. He saw the white fleck at once against the brown background.
"Aren't you well?" asked his landlady, appearing at the door of his room.
"I'm all right; I beg your pardon, I pushed you."
"That's nothing; but see here, how much is the droshky?"
"I don't know, ask him please, and pay him."
She hurried away, and Ilya in a moment sprang on a chair, snatched away the packet of money, knew by the feel that it had not been tampered with, and dropped it in his pocket with a sigh of relief. He was ashamed now of his anxiety, and the precaution of the scrap of down seemed foolish and ridiculous.
"Witchcraft!" he thought, and laughed to himself. Tatiana Vlassyevna appeared again.
"I gave him twenty kopecks—but what's the matter? were you faint?"
"Yes. I was standing in the church, and then all at once——"
"Lie down," she said, and came into the room. "Lie down quietly. Don't worry! I'll sit by you a little. I'm at home alone. My husband's working late and going on to his club."
Ilya sat down on the bed, while she took the only chair.
"I disturbed you I'm afraid," said Ilya, with an embarrassed smile.
"Doesn't matter," she answered, and looked in his face with frank curiosity. There was a pause. Ilya did not know what to talk about. She still looked at him, and suddenly laughed in an odd way.
"What are you laughing at?" said Ilya, and dropped his eyes.
"Shall I tell you?" she asked, mischievously.
"Yes, tell me!"
"You can't pretend well, d'you know?"
Ilya started and looked at her uneasily.
"No, you can't. You are not ill; only you've had a letter that troubles you. I saw—I saw——"
"Yes, I've had a letter," said Ilya slowly.
Something rustled in the branches outside. Tatiana looked quickly out at the window, then again at Ilya.
"It was only the wind, or a bird," she said. "Now, young man, will you listen to my advice? I'm only a young woman, but I'm not a fool!"
"If you'll be so good—please," said Lunev, and looked at her with curiosity.
"Tear up the letter and throw it away," she said in a decided tone. "If she has written you your dismissal, she's acted well, and like a sensible girl. It's too soon for you to marry. You've no settled standing, and you ought not to marry without. You're a strong young man and you work, and you're good-looking. You're bound to get on. Only take care you don't fall in love. Earn a lot of money, and save, and try to get on to something bigger. Open a shop, and then, when you've got firm ground under your feet, you can marry. You're bound to get on. You don't drink, you're unassuming, you've no ties."
Ilya listened, with bowed head and smiled quietly. He longed to laugh out loud.
"There's nothing more silly than to hang your head down," continued Tatiana, in the tone of an experienced man of the world. "It will pass. Love is a disease that is easily cured. Before I was married I fell in love three times, fit to drown myself, but it passed. And when I saw that it was time for me to marry, I married without all that love."
"Ilya raised his head and looked at the woman as she said this:
"What's the matter?" she asked. "Afterwards I learnt to love my husband. It happens often that a woman falls in love with her husband."
"What does that mean?" asked Ilya, opening his eyes. Tatiana laughed gaily. "I was only joking—but quite seriously, you can really marry a man without love, and come to care for him afterwards."
And she chattered away and made play with her eyes. Ilya listened attentively, and looked with great interest at the little, trim figure, and was full of wonder. She was so small and slender and yet she had such foresight and strength of will, and good sense.
"With a wife like that," he thought, "a man couldn't come to grief." He found it pleasant to sit there with an intelligent woman, a real, trim, neat housewife, who was not too proud to chat with him, a simple working lad. A feeling of gratitude towards her arose in him, and when she got up to go, he sprang up at once, bowed, and said:
"Thank you very much for the honour you have done me; your talk has done me a lot of good."
"Really, think of that!" she said, smiling quietly, while her cheeks reddened and she looked for a second or two steadily in Ilya's face. "Well then, good-bye for the present," she added with a strange intonation and slipped out with the easy gait of a young girl.
Ilya came to like the Avtonomovs better every day, and he envied them their peaceful, sheltered life. In a general way he had no love for police officials, for he saw many evil qualities among them. But Kirik seemed like a simple working-man, good-tempered, if limited. He was the body, and his wife the soul. He was seldom at home, and not of much importance there. Tatiana Vlassyevna became more and more at home with Ilya. She got him to chop wood, fetch water, empty away slops. He obeyed dutifully, and these little services gradually became his daily duty. Then his landlady dismissed the pock-marked girl who helped her, and only had her on Sundays. Occasionally visitors came to the Avtonomovs. Korsakov, the assistant town inspector, often came, a thin man with a long moustache. He wore dark glasses, smoked thick cigarettes, and could not endure droshky drivers, speaking of them always with great irritation. "No one breaks rules and orders so often as these drivers," he used to say. "Insolent brutes! Foot passengers in the streets you can deal with easily; it only means a police notice in the papers. Those going down the street keep to the right, those going up to the left, and at once you get excellent discipline. But these drivers, you can't get at them with any notice. A driver, well, the devil only knows what he's like!"
He could talk of droshky drivers a whole evening, and Lunev never heard him speak of anything else.
Also the inspector of the Orphan Asylum, Gryslov, came occasionally, a silent man, with a black beard. He loved to sing, in his bass voice, the song: "Over the sea, the deep blue sea," and his wife, a stately, stout woman with big teeth, always ate up the whole provision of sweetmeats, a feat which occasioned remarks after her departure.
"Felizata Segarovna does that on purpose. Whatever sweets come on the table, she always swallows the lot."
Alexandra Fedorovna Travkina used to come with her husband. She was tall and thin, with a large nose and short red hair. She had big eyes and a piping voice, and blew her nose frequently with a sound like the tearing of calico. Her husband suffered from a disease of the throat, and spoke in consequence in a whisper. But he would talk incessantly by the hour, and the sounds that came from his mouth were like the rustling of dry straw. He was very well-to-do, had served in the Excise Department, and was a director of a flourishing benevolent society. Both he and his wife spoke of little else but charitable institutions.
"Just think what has just happened in our society!"
"Ah, yes, yes. Just imagine!" cried his wife.
"An appeal has been presented for assistance."
"I tell you, these charitable institutions ruin the people——"
"A woman writes, her husband is dead. She has three children. They are starving and she is always ill."
"The old story, you know——"
"They were to get three roubles——"
"But, for my part, I don't believe in this widow," cried Alexandra Fedorovna, triumphantly.
"My wife says to me, 'Wait,' she says: 'I'll see first what kind of a person it is.'"
"And what do you think? The husband had been dead five years."
"She's two children, not three."
"The things they say!"
"And she's as healthy as can be."
"Then I said to her: 'See now, my friend, how would you like to be tried for fraud?' Of course, she fell at my feet."
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Kirik Avtonomov. And every one praised Fedorovna for her acuteness, and blamed the poor, because of their lying and greed, and want of respect towards their benefactors.
Lunev sat in his room, and listened attentively to the conversations that went on close by. He wanted to understand what these people thought and said of life. But what he heard was incomprehensible to him. It seemed as though these people had made up their minds about life, had settled all questions, and knew everything; and they condemned in the strongest terms every one who lived differently from themselves. Most frequently, they talked of all kinds of family scandals, of different services in the cathedral, or of the evil behaviour of their acquaintances. It wearied Ilya to listen.
Sometimes his landlord invited him to tea in the evening. Tatiana Vlassyevna was merry, and her husband waxed enthusiastic over the possibility of becoming rich, when he would retire from the service and buy himself a house.
"Then I'd keep fowls," he said, and screwed up his eyes. "All sorts of fowls—Brahmahpootras, Cochin Chinas, Guinea-fowl, and turkeys—and a peacock—yes. Think of sitting at the window in a dressing-gown, smoking a scented cigarette, and seeing the peacock, my own peacock, in the courtyard, spreading his tail. That would be something like a life. He'd stalk round like a police officer, and say: 'Brr—Brrll—Brrll!'"
Tatiana smiled, and, looking at Ilya, went on in her turn:
"And every summer I'd go away somewhere, to the Crimea or the Caucasus, and in winter I'd be on some charitable committee. Then I'd have a black cloth dress, quite simple with no ornament, and I wouldn't wear any jewels except a ruby brooch and pearl ear-rings. I read a poem in the 'Niva,' where it said, 'that the blood and tears of the poor are turned to rubies and pearls,'" then with a soft sigh, she added, "Rubies look so nice on dark women."
Ilya smiled and said nothing. It was warm and clean in the room, an odour of tea and of some pleasant scent mingled in the air. The birds, little feather balls, were asleep in the cages. A few gaudy pictures hung on the walls. A little étagère between the two windows was covered with all kinds of pretty little boxes, china birds, and gay Easter eggs of sugar or glass. The whole place pleased Ilya and filled him with a kind of soft, comfortable melancholy. Sometimes however, especially when he had earned little or nothing, this melancholy changed into a restless fretfulness. Then the china fowls and the eggs and the boxes annoyed him; he wanted to throw them on the ground and smash them.
This mood disturbed and frightened him; he could not understand it and it seemed strange and unlike himself. As soon as it came upon him, he maintained an obstinate silence, kept his eyes fixed on one spot, and was afraid to speak lest he should somehow hurt the feelings of these good people.
Once, however, as he was playing cards with them, he could not contain himself, and asked Kirik drily, looking him straight in the face:
"I say, Kirik Nikodimovitch, you've never caught him—the murderer of the merchant in Dvoryanskaya Street?"
As he spoke he felt a pleasant tingling in his breast.
"Poluektov, the money-changer?" said the inspector, thoughtfully, as he examined his cards. "Poluektov? Ah! ah! No! I have not caught Poluektov—ah! I haven't caught him, my friend; that's to say, of course, not Poluektov, but the man who——I haven't even looked for him. I don't want him, anyhow—I only want to know who has the queen of spades? You, Tanya, played three cards—queen of clubs, queen of diamonds and—what was the other?"
"Seven of diamonds—hurry up!"
"He's quite lost!" said Ilya, and laughed scornfully.
But the inspector paid no attention to him, he was absorbed in the game.
"Quite lost," he repeated mechanically, "and he twisted poor Poluektov's neck—ah! ah!"
"Kirya, do stop that, ah! ah!" said his wife. "Be quick!"
"Patience, patience."
"He must be a smart fellow who murdered him," remarked Ilya.
The indifference with which his words were received roused in him a desire to speak of the murder.
"Smart?" said the inspector slowly. "No! I am the smart fellow! There!" and he played a five, slapping the card down on the table. Ilya could not follow suit, and lost the round.
The husband and wife laughed at him, and he grew more restive. As he was dealing, he said defiantly:
"To kill a man in broad daylight, in the main street of the town, that takes some courage."
"Luck, not courage," Tatiana corrected.
Ilya looked first at her, then at her husband, laughed softly and asked:
"You call it luck to kill some one?"
"Why, yes; to kill some one and not get caught."
"You've given me ace of diamonds again," cried the inspector.
"I could do with an ace," said Ilya seriously.
"Kill a rich man, that's the best ace!" said Tatiana jokingly.
"Hold on a bit with your killing, here's an ace of cards to go on with," cried Kirik, with a loud laugh and played two nines and an ace.
Ilya glanced again at their pleasant, happy faces, and the desire to speak further of the murder left him.
Living side by side with these people, separated only by a thin wall from their sheltered, peaceful life, Ilya was seized more and more frequently with fits of painful dissatisfaction. The feeling poured over him like a dense, cold flood, and he could not understand whence it came. At the same time thoughts of life's contradictions rose up in him, of God who knows everything, yet does not punish but waits patiently. Why does He wait?
Out of sheer boredom he began to read again. His landlady had a couple of volumes of the "Niva," and the "Illustrated Review," and a few other odd volumes. Just as in his childhood, so now, he cared only for tales and romances, in which a strange unknown life was depicted, and not at all for representations of the real, the wrong and misery filling the life that surrounded him. Whenever he read tales of actual life, dealing with simple folk, he found them wearisome and full of false descriptions. Sometimes it is true they amused him, when it seemed as though these tales were written by clever people, anxious to paint this miserable, dull, grey life in fair colours and gloss over its wretchedness. He knew this life and daily learned to know it better. As he passed through the streets he never failed to see something that appealed to his critical faculties. In this way once he witnessed a scene on his way to visit his friend at the hospital which he related to Pavel:
"This is what they call law and order. I saw some people like carpenters and plasterers going along the pavement. Up comes a policeman. 'Now then, you rascals!' he shouts, and turns them off into the road. That's to say, walk with the horses, else your dirty clothes may soil the fine gentry; build me a house, oh, yes, but I'll chuck you out of it, ah!"
Pavel's wrath was aroused too, by the incident, and added fuel to Ilya's flame. He endured tortures in the hospital, little better to him than a prison; his thoughts would not let him rest, and his eyes glowed with despair and grim defiance. To think where Vyera might then be, consumed him, and he grew thin and wasted. Jakov he did not like, and avoided his society in spite of the wearisomeness that plagued him.
"He's half silly," he answered when Ilya asked after Jakov.
But Jakov, two of whose ribs it appeared were broken, lived very happily in the hospital. He had made friends with the patient next him, a servant in a church, whose leg had been amputated a little while before for sarcoma. He was a short, thick-set man, with a big bald head and a black beard that covered his breast. His eyebrows were thick and bushy, and he moved them constantly up and down; his voice sounded hollow as though it came from his stomach. Every time Lunev visited the hospital he found Jakov by the bedside of this man, who lay and moved his eyebrows without speaking, while Jakov read half-aloud out of a Bible, that was as short and thick as its owner.
"'Because in the night Ar of Moab is laid waste and brought to silence,'" read Jakov. "'Because in the night Kin of Moab is laid waste and brought to silence.'"
Jakov's voice sounded weak and creaking, like the noise of a saw cutting wood. As he read, he held up his left hand, as if to summon all the patients in the ward to hear the calamitous prophecies of Isaiah. The blue bruises were not yet quite gone from his face, and the big, thoughtful eyes in the midst of them gave him a very strange expression. As soon as he saw Ilya, he threw down the book, and always asked the same anxious question:
"Haven't you seen Mashutka?"
Ilya had not seen her.
"O God!" said Jakov sadly. "How strange it is! Like a fairy tale! She was there, and suddenly a magician snatches her away, and she's disappeared."
"Has your father been to see you?"
"Yes—he came again."
A shiver passed over Jakov's face, and he looked anxiously here and there.
"He brought a pound of cakes, and tea and sugar. 'You've loafed round here enough,' he said, 'let them send you out!' But I begged the doctors not to send me away yet. It's so jolly here, quiet and comfortable. This is Nikita Jegarowitch. We read together. He has a Bible. He's read it for seven years. He knows it all by heart and can explain the prophecies. When I'm well, I'm going to leave my father and live with Nikita. I'll help him in the church and sing in the choir."
The church servant lifted his eyebrows, underneath which a pair of big dark eyes moved slowly in deep sockets. Quiet and lustreless, they looked at Ilya's face with a fixed, dull look, and Ilya tried involuntarily to avoid them.
"What a lovely book the Bible is!" said Jakov, quite enraptured, Mashka, his father, and all his dreams forgotten. "What things it says, brother! What words!"
His widely-opened eyes glanced from the book to Ilya's face and back again, and he shook with excitement.
"And that saying is in it—do you remember?—that the old preacher said to your uncle in the bar—'The tabernacles of robbers prosper!'—It's there, I found it, and things worse than that!"
Jakov shut his eyes and said solemnly, with uplifted hand:
"'How oft is the candle of the wicked put out, and how oft cometh destruction upon them! God distributed sorrows in his anger'—Do you hear?—'God layeth up his iniquity for his children: He rewardeth him and he shall know it.'"
"Does it really say that?" said Ilya, incredulously.
"Word for word."
"Then I think that is—not right—wicked," said Ilya.
The church servant drew down his bushy brows till they shaded his eyes, his beard moved up and down, and he spoke clearly in a dull, strange voice:
"The boldness of the man who seeks the Truth is not sinful, for it springs from divine prompting."
Ilya shuddered. The speaker sighed deeply, and went on, slowly and distinctly:
"'The Truth itself bids a man seek Me! For Truth is God, and it is written: It is a great glory to follow the Lord.'"
The man's face, covered with thick hair, inspired Ilya with shyness and respect. There was in it something strong, sublime. His brows went up again, he looked at the ceiling, and his big beard moved again:
"Read him, Jakov, from the Book of Job, the beginning of the tenth chapter."
Jakov turned over the leaves quickly, and read, in a low, trembling voice:
"'My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. I will say unto God, do not condemn me: Show me wherefore thou contendest with me. Is it good unto Thee that Thou shouldest oppress; that Thou shouldest despise the work of Thine hands?'"
Ilya stretched out his neck and looked at the book with blinking eyes.
"You don't believe it?" cried Jakov. "How silly you are!"
"Not silly, only cowardly," said the church servant, quietly, "because he cannot look God in the face."
He turned his dull eyes from the ceiling to Ilya's face, and went on sternly as though he would shatter him with words.
"There are parts that are more difficult than that one. The third verse of the twenty-second chapter says plainly: 'Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that thou art righteous? or is it gain to Him that thou makest thy ways perfect?' You need to think very diligently, so as not to go astray in these matters and to understand them."
"And you, do you understand?" asked Lunev softly.
"He?" cried Jakov. "Nikita Jegarowitch understands everything."
But the church servant said, sinking his voice lower:
"For me, it's too late already. It is time for me to understand death; they've taken off my leg, but it's swelling higher up, and the other leg is swelling, and my breast, and I shall soon die of it."
His eyes stared steadily at Ilya and he continued slowly and quietly:
"And I do not want to die yet, for I have lived wretchedly in sickness and bitterness, with no joy in my life. I've worked ever since I was a little boy, and like Jakov, under the scourge of a father. He was a drunkard and a brute. Three times he damaged my skull, once he scalded my leg with boiling water. I had no mother, she died when I was born. I married; I was compelled to take a wife who did not love me; three days after the wedding she hanged herself. Yes. I had a brother-in-law who robbed me, and my own sister said to my face that I drove my wife to her death. And they all said it, although they knew I had not touched her, that she died a maid. Then I lived nine years, alone and solitary. It is terrible to live alone. I've always waited for happiness to come at last, and now I'm dying. That is my whole life."
He closed his eyes, paused a moment, then asked:
"Why was life given to me? Guess that riddle."
Ilya listened, pale, with fear in his heart.
A dark shadow lay on Jakov's face and tears glimmered in his eyes; both were silent.
"Why was I born? I ask. The Lord has done me wrong. I do not pray that He will lengthen my life. I find no words to pray with. I lie here and think and think: Why has life been given to me?"
His voice choked. He broke off all at once, like a muddy brook that flows along and suddenly vanishes under ground.
"For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion," said the church servant after a while in the words of the Scripture; then again his eyebrows went up, his eyes opened and his beard moved.
"Also in Ecclesiastes it says: 'In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity, consider. God also hath set the one over against the other to the end that man should find nothing after him.' Well?"
Ilya could hear no more. He got up quietly, gave Jakov a hand, bowed low to the sick man, as though he were taking leave of the dead; and this he did involuntarily.
This time he left the hospital with a new, strangely oppressive feeling. The talk with the church servant had left no clear impression on his brain, but the mournful spectacle the sick man presented was stamped deep on his memory.
Another was added to the men, he knew, whose lives had proved a delusion. He held the words of this man clear in his memory, and turned them over and over to get at their secret meaning. They confused him and disturbed something in the depths of his soul, where he hid his faith in the justice of God, and these words which he could not fathom, awaked in him a bitter gnawing brain-activity that drove him on to examine and analyse all that he saw or experienced. It appeared to him now that somehow, in a way unknown to himself, his faith in the justice of God had sustained a shock and was no longer so firm as of old. Something had gnawed at it, like the rust gnaws the iron. He felt clearly that this had happened; the fierce commotion into which the lament of the church servant had thrown him, convinced him. There were sensations and ideas in his breast as irreconcilable as fire and water, continually at strife. His bitterness against his own past, against all men and all the laws of life, broke out with new strength. In his anger he came finally to the question:
"Thoughts grow in the soul like roots in the ground, but where is the fruit?"
He would gladly have torn all these troubles from his heart, that he might begin the realisation of his dream of a solitary, peaceful, sheltered life.
"I will mix with men no more. It's no good to me or any one. I can't live like this."
He took to wandering the streets for hours, and came back home tired and moody.
Every day the Avtonomovs became more friendly and obliging to Ilya. Kirik clapped him on the shoulder, jested with him, and said, in a tone of conviction:
"You busy yourself with useless things, my friend. So modest and serious a lad must take a wider view. It isn't good to remain district inspector if you're fit to look after the whole town."
Tatiana, too, began to ask Ilya definitely and in detail, how his peddling trade did, and how much he put by every month. He talked freely to her, and his respect for this woman, who could make so tidy and comfortable a life out of small possibilities, grew every day.
One evening, as he sat by the open window of his room, in a dark mood, looking at the garden and thinking of the faithless Olympiada, Tatiana Vlassyevna came out of her dining-room to the kitchen and called Ilya to tea. He accepted the invitation against his will. He could not break free from his moodiness, and had no inclination to talk. He sat at the table, sulky and silent, and, looking at his hostess, noticed that her face wore an unusually solemn and troubled expression. Neither spoke; the samovar bubbled cheerily, a bird fluttered in a cage, the air was full of the scent of fried onions and eau-de-Cologne. Kirik twisted about on his chair, drummed with his fingers on the edge of the tea-tray, and sang under his breath.
"Ilya Jakovlevitch," began his wife, with an important air, "we—my husband and I—have arranged a little matter, and would like to talk seriously with you."
"Ho! ho! ho!" laughed the inspector suddenly, and rubbed his big red hands. Ilya started and looked at him in surprise.
"Wait, Kirik! There's nothing to laugh at," said Tatiana.
"We'vearranged it," cried Kirik, with a big laugh, then looked at Ilya and winked towards his wife. "Clever little girl!"
"We've saved some money——"
"We! We'vesaved money! Ho! ho! ho! My clever, dear little wife!"
"Kirya, be quiet!" said Tatiana, severely. Her face seemed thinner and more pointed than ever.
"We have saved close on a thousand roubles," she went on half aloud, and bent over towards Ilya and looked him full in the face with her sharp little eyes. He sat quiet, but in his breast something seemed to jump for joy.
"The money's in the bank, and brings us four per cent," went on Tatiana.
"And that's too little, devil take it!" cried Kirik, and struck the table with his hand. "We want——"
His wife silenced him with a reproving look.
"Naturally, we are quite satisfied with this return, but we should like to help you in case you care to start on a bigger scale. You are so steady——" She paid Ilya a compliment or two, and then proceeded:
"They say that a fancy ware shop can bring in twenty per cent., or even more if you go about it the right way. Now, we are ready to find you the money for a bill of exchange, at sight, of course, on condition that you open a shop. You will manage it under my supervision, and we'll halve the profits. You will insure the goods in my name, and you'll give me besides a document of some sort, nothing of importance. And now, think over the matter, and tell us simply—yes or no."
Ilya listened to the thin, clear voice, and rubbed his forehead hard. While she spoke he looked many times at the corner where the golden frame of the eikon shone between the two wedding candles. He felt a kind of helplessness and fear as he listened to his hostess's words. Her proposal all at once assured his dream of years. It astonished him and filled him with joy. Smiling in confusion, he looked at the little woman and thought:
"That's it, it's Fate."
She spoke now in a motherly tone:
"Consider it well, look at it from all sides! whether you have confidence in yourself, if you have enough strength—enough experience for it? And then tell us, what could you put to it besides your work,—our money won't go so very far, will it?"
"I can," said Ilya slowly, "put in five hundred roubles. My uncle will give them to me—I have an uncle—I told you. He'll give me the money, perhaps more."
"Hurrah!" cried Kirik.
"Then is it a bargain?" asked Tatiana.
"Yes. I agree," said Lunev.
"Well, I should think so!" cried the inspector. Then he put his hand in his pocket and called out: "Now, let's have some champagne. Ilya, my boy, run to the wine merchant, and bring some champagne. Let's crack a bottle,—here's the money, you're our guest, of course. Ask for Don Champagne at ninety kopecks, and say it's for me, for Avtonomov, then they'll give it you for sixty-five,—hurry up, my lad!"
Ilya looked smilingly at the beaming faces of the couple and went.
So Fate had pushed him and buffeted him, led him to grievous sin, troubled his soul, and now suddenly she seemed to ask his forgiveness, to smile on him and offer her favours. Now before him the way lay open to a sheltered corner in life, where he could live quietly and find peace for his soul. He had taken a man's life, and for that he would help many and so make amends before the Lord. No, the Lord would not punish him severely, for He knows all. Olympiada was right; in the murder he was only the instrument, not the will, and evidently the Lord Himself was helping him to straighten his course, since he had made easy the attainment of his life's desire. Thoughts whirled through Ilya's head as in a happy dance, and inspired his heart with joys of life unknown till now. He brought from the wine shop a bottle of real champagne for which he paid seven roubles.
"Oho!" cried Avtonomov, "that's what I call proper, my boy; that's an idea! Ha! yes."
Tatiana thought differently; she shook her head disparagingly and said in a tone of reproach, looking at the bottle:
"Seven roubles! Ei—ei! Ilya Jakovlevitch, how unpractical, how foolish!"
Lunev stood before her, happy, deeply stirred; he smiled and said joyfully:
"It's real champagne,—for the first time in my life I'll drink something real. What's my life been up to now? All spoilt, dirt and coarseness, and stuffiness, injuries and insults, and all kinds of torment. Is that a real life do you suppose? Can any one go on living like that?"
He touched the sore place in his heart; his words rang bitterly, his eyes grew gloomy; he sighed deeply, and went on firmly and decidedly:
"Ever since I was small I've looked for the real thing and have lived all the time like a wood-shaving in a brook. I was swept about, now here, now there, and all round me everything was dull and dirty and restless. I didn't know where to catch hold; only misery and injustice and knavishness all round me, and all that disgusts me: and now fate brings me to you, for the first time in my life I see how people can live in peace and comfort and love."
He looked at them with a bright smile and bowed to them.
"I thank you. With you I've found relief for my soul, by God! You've helped me for my whole life, now I can step out boldly, now I know how a man should live! It will go well with me and no other shall suffer for me. How many unlucky ones there are in the world! how many go under. I've seen it all, I know it all."
Tatiana Vlassyevna regarded him with the look of the cat who lies in wait for the bird, ravished by his own song. A greenish fire gleamed in her eyes and her lips twitched; Kirik was busy with the bottle, he had it between his knees and bent over it. The veins of his neck swelled and his ears moved.
"My friends," continued Ilya, "for I have two friends——"
The cork popped, hit the ceiling and fell on the table; a glass that it fell against rang, quivering.
Kirik smacked his lips, filled the glasses and commanded:
"Ready."
Then when his wife and Lunev had taken their glasses, he held his high over his head and cried:
"To the firm of Tatiana Avtonomov and Lunev; may it bloom and flourish! Hurrah!"
The following days were spent by Lunev and Tatiana Vlassyevna in arranging together the details of the new undertaking. She knew everything and spoke of everything with as much certainty as if she had dealt in fancy wares all her life. Ilya listened with amazement, smiled and was silent. He wanted to find a suitable place to make a beginning as soon as possible, and he agreed to all Tatiana's proposals, without considering their significance at all.
At last everything was settled, and it appeared that Tatiana had a suitable shop ready chosen. It was arranged exactly as Ilya had imagined to himself, in a clean street, small and neat, with a room at the back. Ilya knew the shop; there had formerly been a milk shop there, and he had often visited it with his wares. Everything went splendidly, down to the least detail, and Ilya was triumphant, energetic, and happy. He visited his friends in the hospital. Pavel met him, cheerful for once. "To-morrow I'm to be discharged!" he explained with joyful excitement, even before he answered Ilya's greeting. "I've had a letter from Vyerka. She grumbles, says I insulted her, little devil!"
His eyes shone and his cheeks reddened. He could not keep still a moment, but shuffled with his slippers on the ground and flourished with his hands.
"Take care of yourself," said Ilya. "Be careful."
"Of course. I shall simply say: 'Mam'selle Vyera Kapitanovna, will you marry me? Please! No?—then there's a knife in your heart!'" A convulsive shudder passed over his face.
"Come, come!" said Ilya, laughing. "What, threaten her with a knife straight away?"
"No—believe me, I've had enough of it. I can't live without her. And she too; she's no good without me; she's had enough of her beastly life. She must be sick of it. To-morrow it shall be settled between us, this way or that."
Lunev looked at his friend's face and thought: "In a mood like this he might kill her." Suddenly a clear, simple idea came into his head. He blushed, then smiled. "Pashutka, think, I've made my fortune," he began after a pause, and told his friend shortly what had happened to him. Pavel listened, sighed with bent head, and said:
"Ye—es, you are lucky!"
"Envious?"
"Rather! Devil take it!"
"Really, I'm ashamed of my luck with you, speaking quite honestly."
"Thank you!" said Pavel, with a dull laugh.
"Do you know?" said Ilya slowly, "I'm not boasting. I mean it. I am ashamed, by God!"
Pavel glanced at him without speaking, and hung his head lower.
"And I'll say something to you. We've hung together in bad times. Let us share the good times."
"H—m—m!" growled Pavel. "I've heard that happiness can't be shared, any more than a woman's love."
"Oh, yes, it can! Just you find out all that is wanted to set up as a well-sinker—instruments and so on—and how much it costs, and I'll find the money."
"Wha—at!" cried Pavel, looking at his friend incredulously.
Lunev seized his hand with a lively gesture, and pressed it.
"Really, you silly! I'll find it for you."
But it needed a long conversation to assure Pavel of the seriousness of his intentions. Pavel kept shaking his head, growling, and saying: "No, it'll come to nothing."
Finally Lunev succeeded in convincing him. Then Pashka embraced him, and said, in a voice full of emotion:
"Thank you, brother! You'll pull me out of the pit. Now, listen to me. A workshop of my own—that's not for me. Give me some money, and I'll take Vyerka and go away from here. It will be easier for you, and you won't need to give me so much, and it'll suit me better. I'll go off somewhere and get an assistant's job in a workshop."
"That's ridiculous," said Ilya. "It's much better to be your own master."
"What sort of a master should I be?" cried Pavel. "I don't know how to deal with workmen like a master. No, a business of my own, and all that goes with it, is not to my taste. I know the sort of fellow a man must be for that, it isn't in my line. You can't turn a goat into a pig."
Ilya did not understand clearly Pashka's conception of a master, but it pleased him and drew him still nearer to his comrade. He looked at him full of joy and love, and said jestingly:
"True! You are very like a goat. Just about as thin. Do you know whom you remind me of? Perfishka, the cobbler. Well, then, we'll meet to-morrow, and then I'll give you the money to make a start, till you get a job. And now I'll have a look at Jakov."
"Agreed, and thank you, brother!"
"How do you get on now with Jakov?"
"Same as before; we can't hit it off," said Gratschev laughing.
"He's an unlucky fellow. It's not easy to deal with him," said Ilya thoughtfully.
"Ah, we've most of us something to put up with," answered Pavel, and shrugged his shoulders. "He always seems to me not quite all there, half silly. Well, I'm off."
"Good-bye, then."
And when Ilya had already left him, he called after him once more from the passage:
"Thank you, brother!"
Ilya nodded to him with a smile. He found Jakov quite sorrowful and cast down. He lay on his bed, his face upturned to the ceiling, looking up with wide-open eyes, and did not notice Ilya's approach.
"Nikita Jegarovitch's gone to another ward," he said gloomily.
"That's a mercy," answered Lunev. "He really looked too terrible, and then he said such odd things! God be with him!" Jakov looked at him reproachfully, but said nothing.
"Getting on?" asked Ilya.
"Ye—es," answered Jakov with a sigh. "I mayn't even be ill as long as I want. Yesterday father was here again. He's bought another house. He says he's going to open another inn, and all that'll be on my head."
Ilya wanted to speak of his own success, but something restrained him.
The spring sun shone gaily through the windows and the yellow walls of the hospital seemed still more yellow. In the bright light, the paint showed many spots and gaps. Two patients were sitting on their beds, silently playing cards, quite absorbed in their game. A tall thin man, with his bandaged head bent down, walked noiselessly up and down the ward. All was quiet, save for an occasional smothered cough, and the shuffling of the patients' slippers as they walked in the corridor.
Jakov's yellow face seemed lifeless and his dull eyes had a troubled expression.
"Oh, I wish I were dead!" he said in his dry, creaking voice. "When I lie here I say to myself, 'it must be interesting to die.' Up there things are very different—so different, that no one has ever seen, no noise, everything is easy to understand and bright and clear." His voice sank lower, became more muffled. "There are kind angels there; they can explain everything to you, and answer all your questions—the angels——"
He was silent and began to blink his eyes, watching the pale reflection of the sun rays play on the ceiling.
"Do you know——?" began Lunev.
Jakov interrupted him at once.
"Haven't you seen Mashutka?"
"N—No."
"Ah! you—you ought to have gone to see her long ago."
"I forgot. I can't remember everything."
"You must remember with your heart."
Lunev was embarrassed and said nothing. A little man on crutches wearing a moustache with pointed ends, hobbled in out of the corridor, and said in a hoarse, hissing voice to the tall man with the bandaged head:
"Schurka has not come again, the rascal."
Jakov looked at him, sighed and threw his head backwards and forwards on the pillow restlessly.
"Nikita Jegarovitch will die, and he doesn't want to,—the surgeon told me, he must die, and I want to die, and I can't. I shall get well again and go behind the counter, and drink brandy and so I go down."
His lips lengthened into a melancholy smile.
"To endure this life, a man needs an iron body and an iron heart, and he must live like all the rest, without thinking, without conscience."
Ilya detected in Jakov's words something hostile and cold, and his brow wrinkled.
"And I'm a glass between stones," Jakov continued, "if I turn, there's a smash."
"You grumble far too much," said Lunev carelessly.
"And what about you?" asked Jakov.
Ilya turned away and did not speak. Then observing that Jakov showed no signs of going on, he said thoughtfully:
"It's hard for us all. Look at Pavel, for instance."
"I don't like him," said Jakov, and made a grimace.
"Why not?"
"Oh! Just I don't like him."
"Well, I do."
"I don't care."
"H'm—yes—well, I must be off."
Jakov held out his hand in silence, and then implored, in a tearful, entreating voice:
"Do find out about Mashutka, will you? for Christ's sake!"
"Yes. I will," said Ilya.
It disturbed and worried him to listen to Jakov's eternal complaints, and he felt relieved when he got away from him. But the entreaty to find out about Masha roused a certain feeling of shame in him for his conduct towards Perfishka's daughter, and he determined to look up Matiza, as she was certain to know how Mashutka was taking to her new life. Like all the people in Petrusha's house, he knew that Matiza used to wash the floors every Saturday at the house of Ehrenov, receiving a quarter-rouble for the task, and also for granting more personal favours. Ilya took the road towards Filimonov's tavern, and his soul was full of thoughts of his future. It seemed to smile sweetly on him, and lost in his fancies, he passed the tavern without noticing, and when he discovered his mistake felt no inclination to turn back. He went on right out of the town; the fields stretched away in front of him, bounded far off by the dark wall of the forest. The sun was setting; its rosy reflection gleamed on the tender green of the turf. Ilya strode forward with head high and looked up to the sky, where purple clouds stood almost motionless, flaming in the sun's rays. He felt at ease, wandering thus aimlessly; every step forward, every breath awakened a new thought. He imagined himself rich and mighty and with the power to ruin Petrusha Filimonov, in his dream he had brought him to beggary, and Petrusha stood before him weeping, but he addressed the suppliant:
"Have compassion, should I? And you, have you ever had compassion on a soul? Have you not maltreated your son, and led my uncle into sin? Have you not looked down on me and despised me? In your accursed house no one has ever been happy, no one has ever known joy. Your house is rotten through and through, a trap for men, a prison for those that live in it."
Petrusha stood there, shivering and groaning with fear, lamenting like a beggar and Ilya thundered on at him:
"I will burn your house, for it brings misery to all who dwell in it, and do you go out in the world and beg forgiveness from all that you have wronged; go, wander till the day of your death, and then die of hunger, like a dog!"
The evening twilight had fallen on the fields, the forest rose in the distance like a thick dark wall, like a mountain range. A little bat flitted noiselessly through the air like a dark speck, seeming to sow the darkness. Far off on the river was heard the beating noise of a steamboat's paddles; it was as though somewhere in the distance a monstrous bird were wheeling, making the air tremble with mighty strokes of its wings. Lunev remembered all the people who had opposed him on his way through life, and haled them all without mercy before his judgment seat. A pleasant sense of relief came to him, and as he strode alone through the fields, wrapped now in darkness, he began to sing softly. Suddenly the odour of rubbish and decay filled the air. He stopped singing; but the odour had only pleasant associations for him. He had reached the town rubbish-heap, in the narrow valley where he had so often searched with Jeremy.
The stench seemed to him more penetrating and suffocating than in his childhood.
The vision of the old rag-picker rose in his memory, and he glanced round to find in the twilight the spot where the old man used to rest with him. But he could not find it; evidently it was buried under new mountains of refuse and rubbish. He sighed, and felt that there was a part of his soul smothered beneath the refuse of life.
"If only I hadn't killed that man; then I should want nothing." The thought flashed through his brain; but immediately from his heart came another, answering: "What has that man to do with my life? He is only my misfortune, not my sin."
Suddenly there was a slight rustling, a little dog slipped past Ilya's feet, and fled, whimpering softly. Ilya shuddered; he felt as though a part of this darkness of night had taken life and then vanished again, groaning.
"It's all the same," he thought. "Even without that, there'd be no peace in my heart. How many injuries I have endured; how many more I have seen others bear! Once the heart is wounded, it never ceases to feel pain."
He paced slowly along the edge of the valley. His feet sank in the dust. He could hear the wood-shavings and pieces of paper rustle and crackle as he walked. An open part of the ground, not yet encumbered with rubbish, led away into the valley like a narrow tongue of land. He went to the end of it, and there sat down. Here the air was fresher, and as his eyes travelled along the gully, they rested far off on the steely ribbon of the river. The lights of invisible vessels glimmered on the water, which seemed as still as ice, and one light swayed, like a red speck, in the air. Another glowed steadily, green and foreboding, without rays; and at his feet, full of mist, the wide throat of the valley seemed itself like the bed of a stream, wherein black air-waves rolled noiselessly. Deep melancholy fell on Ilya's heart. He looked down and thought, "A moment ago I felt full of courage, light, and happy, and now it's all gone again. Why does life drive a man on and on against his will, where he has no desire to go? Everything in life is so oppressive and heavy, full of injustice, full of perplexity! Perhaps Jakov is right—men must first of all understand themselves, how they live and by what laws?"
He remembered how strange, almost hostile, Jakov had been towards him to-day, and he grew more sorrowful as he remembered. Suddenly there was a noise in the valley, a mass of earth had loosened and rolled down. The damp night wind breathed on Ilya's face; he looked up to the sky. The stars burned shyly, and over the wood the great red ball of the moon heaved slowly up, like a huge, pitiless eye. And like the bat through the twilight, dark images and memories fluttered through Ilya's soul. They came and went without solving the riddles that oppressed him, and denser and heavier grew the darkness over his heart.
"Men rob and torment and strangle one another, and no one dreams of making life easier for his fellows, but each watches only for a chance to fight his way out and rest in a peaceful corner. I, too, am seeking for such a corner, and where is the Truth and Reality and Steadfastness in this life?"
He sat a long time there, thinking, looking now at the sky, now at the valley. All was still in the fields. The moonlight looking into the dark gully, showed its clefts and the bushes on its slopes, that threw vague shadows on the ground. The sky was pure and clear, nothing showed but the moon and stars. A cold shiver ran through Ilya, he got up and went slowly to the town, whose lights gleamed in the distance. He had no further wish to think at all. His breast was now filled with cold indifference.
He reached home late, and stood thoughtfully before the door, hesitating to ring. The windows were dark already. Evidently his landlord had gone early to rest. He disliked to disturb Tatiana Vlassyevna so late, for she always saw to the door herself; but he had to get in. He pulled the bell gently. The door opened almost immediately, and the slender form of Tatiana appeared, dressed in white.
"Shut the door quickly," she said, in a strange voice. "It is cold; I've hardly anything on. My husband's not at home."
"I'm so sorry to be late," murmured Ilya.
"Yes, you are late. Where have you been?"
Ilya closed the door and turned round to answer, and suddenly felt her close to him; she did not move, but nestled closer; he could not give way, the door was at his back. Then suddenly she laughed—a soft, trembling laugh. Lunev put his hands tenderly on her shoulders; he shook with excitement and longing to embrace her. Then all at once she straightened herself, laid her slender warm arms round his neck, and said in a ringing voice:
"Why do you wander abroad in the night? Why? You can be happy nearer home—for a long time you might have been—my dearest, my beautiful, strong boy!"
As if in a dream, Ilya felt for her lips and swayed beneath the convulsive embrace of the slender body; she clung to his breast like a cat, and kissed him again and again. He caught her in his strong arms and bore her away, carrying his burden as easily as though he trod on air.
In the morning Ilya woke with trouble in his heart.
"How can I look Kirik in the face?" he thought, and shame was added to the anxiety that the thought of the inspector aroused in him.
"If only I had quarrelled with him, or didn't like him. But to injure him, and so deeply, without any cause——" he thought with fear in his heart, and a feeling of disgust arose in him for Tatiana. He felt that Kirik was certain to find out his wife's unfaithfulness, and he could not imagine what would happen.
"How she fell on me, as if she were starving!" he thought, in restless, painful doubt; and yet felt, too, a pleasing sense of gratified vanity. This was no "tradesman's darling," as he used to call Olympiada in his thoughts, but a woman, respected by all the world—an educated, pretty married woman.
"There must be something special about me," his vanity whispered to him. "It's too bad—too bad! But I'm not made of stone, and I couldn't turn her away."
He was young in fact, and his fancy was full of the woman's caresses. Besides his practical mind saw involuntarily several advantages that might arise from this new relationship. But close on the heels of these ideas, like a dark cloud, came other gloomy thoughts.
"Now I'm in a corner again. Did I want it? I respected her! I never had an evil thought about her; and now it's happened like this."
Then again, all the disturbance and contradiction in his soul was covered by the joyful thought that soon now his sheltered, clean life would begin. But to the end the painful, stabbing thought persisted:
"It would have been better without this."
He stayed in bed, pondering, till Avtonomov went to his duties. He heard the inspector say to his wife, smacking his lips:
"Let me have meat pasties for dinner, Tanya. Take a little more pork, and then just brown them a little, till they look like tiny little sucking pigs on the plate—you know; and just a little pepper with them, my dear, the way I like it. Then I'll bring you some marmalade, shall I?"
"Now, go along! go along! As if I didn't know what you like!" said his wife tenderly.
"And now, my darling, my little Tanya, give me one more kiss!"
Lunev shuddered. It all seemed to him horrible and ridiculous.
"Tchik! tchik!" cried Avtonomov as he kissed his wife, and she laughed. As soon as she had shut the door behind him, she danced into Ilya's room, and cried:
"Kiss me quick—I've no time."
"You've just kissed your husband," said Ilya moodily.
"Wha—at? Eh? Aha! He's jealous!" she cried, delighted, then sprang up and drew the window curtain.
"Jealous!" she said. "That's so nice! Jealous men are always passionate lovers."
"I didn't say it out of jealousy."
"Don't talk!" she commanded, and put her hand on his lips. Then, when she had been kissed enough, she looked at Ilya, with a smile, and could not keep from saying:
"Well, you're a bold fellow—a downright daredevil—to carry on like this under the husband's nose."
Her greenish eyes sparkled impudently, and she cried:
"Oh, it's quite a common thing, not in the least unusual! Do you suppose there are many women true to their husbands? Only the ugly ones and the sick ones—a pretty woman always wants to enjoy herself and have a little romance."
During the whole morning she instructed Ilya on this point, told him all sorts of stories of wives who were untrue to their husbands. In her red blouse, with her skirts tucked up, and her sleeves rolled above her elbows, supple and light, she danced about the kitchen, preparing the pasties for her husband, and chattering all the time in her clear, ringing voice:
"A husband!—d'you think a wife must be always content with him? The husband can sometimes be very disagreeable, even if you love him; and then he never thinks twice if he has a chance to be false to his wife. So it's dull for a wife, too, to think of nothing all her life but—my husband, my husband, my husband."
Ilya listened, as he drank his tea, which seemed to have a bitter taste. In this woman's speech there was something defiant, unpleasantly provocative, that was new to him. Involuntarily he remembered Olympiada, the deep voice, the quiet movements, and the glowing words that had power to grip his heart. For the rest Olympiada was a woman of no great education, who might have been the wife of a small tradesman, but even because of that she was simpler in her shamelessness. Ilya answered Tatiana's pleasantries with a slight laugh, and had to force himself even to laugh. His heart was sick, and he only laughed because he did not know what to speak of. Her words aroused a painful melancholy in him, and yet he listened with deep interest, and finally said thoughtfully:
"I did not believe that such things happened in your set?"
"Things, my dear, are the same everywhere."
"You don't mind much, do you? Why do you look so cross?"
Ilya stood in the doorway and looked fixedly at her, wrinkling his brow. She went up to him, put her hands on his shoulders, and looked into his face curiously.
"I'm not cross," said Ilya seriously.
"Really? Oh! thank you—ha! ha! ha! how good you are!" She laughed brightly.
"I was only thinking," said Ilya, speaking slowly—"It's all quite right, what you say—but there's something bad in it too."
"Oho! What a touchy person you are! Something bad, eh? What then—explain to me!"
But he could not. He himself did not understand what it was in her words that displeased him. Olympiada had often spoken, more simply, more plainly; but her words had never given him the pain of soul that he felt from the chatter of this pretty little bird. He pondered all day obstinately on the strange feeling of discomfort that had arisen in his heart through this new intimacy, so flattering to his vanity, and he could not arrive at the source of the sensation.
When he came home that night, Kirik met him in the kitchen, and said in a friendly way:
"I say, Ilya, Tanyusha did some cooking to-day—meat pasties—I tell you, it seemed almost a pity to eat them! Almost as bad as eating living nightingales. I've left a plateful for you, brother. Hang up your box, sit down, and see what you will see."
Ilya looked at him conscience-stricken, and said with a forced laugh:
"Thank you, Kirik Nikodimovitch." Then he added, with a sigh: "You're a good fellow, by Jove!"
"What," answered Kirik, "a plate of pasty—that's nothing! No, brother, if I were chief of police—then you might perhaps thank me, but I'm not. I shall give up the police altogether, and start as agent or manager in a big business. A manager, that's something like a good position; if I get it I'll soon get a little capital together."
Tatiana was busy at the stove and singing softly. Ilya looked at her, and again felt a painful discomfort; but almost immediately the sensation vanished under the influence of new impressions and cares. During these days he had no time to give to brooding; the arrangement of the shop and the purchase of goods occupied him entirely, and from day to day amidst his work he grew accustomed to this woman, almost without knowing, like a drunkard to the taste of brandy. She pleased him more and more as a mistress, although her caresses often caused him shame, even anxiety; her caresses and her talk together slowly destroyed his respect for her as a woman. Every morning after she had seen her husband off to work, or in the evenings when he was on duty, she called Ilya to her or came into his room, and told him all sorts of stories "of real life;" and all her stories were curiously vicious, as though they related to a country inhabited only by liars and scoundrels of both sexes, whose greatest pleasure lay in adultery.
"Is that all true?" asked Ilya gloomily. He didn't want to believe, but felt helpless and unable to contradict.
He listened, and life seemed to him like a swill-tub, and men moving in it like worms.
"Ugh!" he said wearily, "is there nothing clean or true anywhere?"
"What d'you call true? What d'you mean?" asked Tatiana in surprise.
"Why, something honourable!" cried Lunev angrily.
"Why, it's honourable people I'm speaking of—how funny you are! I don't make it all up."
"That's not what I mean. Is there anywhere anything honourable—pure, or not?"
She did not understand and laughed at him. Sometimes her conversation took a different tone; looking at him with greenish eyes, darting an uncanny fire, she asked him:
"Tell me, what was your first experience of women?"
Ilya was ashamed of the memory, it was hateful to him. He turned away from the glance of his mistress, and said in a low reproachful voice:
"What horrid things you ask! I think you ought to be ashamed—men don't even speak like that with one another."
But she laughed happily, and went on talking till Lunev often felt defiled with her words as with pitch. But if she read in his face any hostile feeling, or perceived in his eyes any weariness, or distress, or sorrow, she knew how to kindle his desire afresh and banish by her caresses all feelings hostile to her influence.
One day when Ilya returned from the shop, where already the joiners were putting in the shelves, he saw to his astonishment, Matiza in the kitchen. She was sitting at the table, her big hands folded in her lap, and conversing with the mistress of the house, who was standing by the hearth.
"Here," said Tatiana, and nodded at Matiza, "this lady has been waiting for you, for ever so long."
"Good evening!" said Matiza, and got up clumsily.
"Why," cried Ilya, "are you still living?"
"Even pigs don't eat dirty bits of wood," answered Matiza in her deep voice.
Ilya had not seen her for a long time, and looked at her now with mingled feelings of compassion and pleasure. She was dressed in ragged fustian, an old faded kerchief covered her head, her feet were bare. She moved with difficulty, but supporting herself with her hands on the wall, she crept slowly into Ilya's room, sat heavily in a chair, and spoke in a hoarse toneless voice:
"I shall soon die. You see, I can hardly move my feet, and when I can't walk, I can't find food, and then I must die."
Her face was horribly bloated and covered with dark flecks. The big eyes were hardly visible between the swollen lids.
"What are you looking at?" she said to Ilya. "You think some one has struck me? No, it is a disease, devouring me."
"What are you doing?"
"I sit by the church door and beg for coppers," said Matiza, indifferently, in her deep, resonant voice. "I'm come on business. I heard from Perfishka that you were living here, and so I came."
"May I give you some tea?" asked Lunev. It hurt him to hear Matiza's voice and see her big, slack body perishing visibly.