"The devil wash his tail in your tea! Give me five kopecks, do! I came to you—well, you can ask me why."
Speech was difficult. She breathed short, and an overpowering odour came from her.
"Well, why?" asked Ilya, turning away and remembering how he had insulted her once.
"Do you remember Mashutka? What? You've a poor memory! You've grown rich!"
"I remember, of course I remember," said Ilya quickly.
"What's the good of your remembering?" she interrupted. "Has that made her life any easier?"
"What's the matter with her? How is she getting on?"
Matiza's head swayed, and she said briefly:
"She hasn't hanged herself yet."
"Oh, speak out!" cried Ilya roughly. "What do you begin at me for? You sold her yourself for three roubles."
"I don't reproach you, only myself," she answered quietly and emphatically, then began to tell of Masha, choking with the exertion.
"Her old husband is jealous and torments her, he lets her go nowhere, not even into the shop. She sits in one room, and mayn't go into the courtyard without leave. He's got rid of his children somehow, and lives alone with Masha. He pinches her and ties her hands, he treats her so badly because his first wife was untrue, and the two children are not his. Masha has run away twice, but both times the police have brought her back, and the old man pinches her and starves her for it. See, what a life!"
"Yes, you and Perfishka did a good deed," said Ilya gloomily.
"I thought it was better," said the woman, in her toneless voice. Her face motionless as though carved in stone, and her dead voice, weighed on Ilya.
"I thought—it was cleaner so. But the worse would have been better. She might have been sold to a rich man, he would have given her a home and clothes, and everything, and afterwards she would have sent him off and lived like all the others. Ever so many live like that."
"Well, why have you come to me?" asked Ilya.
"You live here, in a policeman's house. You see, they always catch her. Tell him to let her go, let her run away. She'll manage somehow. Is one not allowed to run away?"
"You really came for that?"
"Yes, why not? They ought not to stop her, tell them!"
"Ah, you people!" cried Ilya, trying to think what he could do for Masha.
Matiza rose from her chair, and shuffled carefully over the floor. She sighed and groaned, and she was not like a human being walking, but like an old, decayed tree falling slowly down.
"Good-bye! We shan't meet again! I shall soon die," she murmured. "Thank you, thank you, my fine, trim fellow! Thank you!"
As soon as she was gone, Tatiana hurried into Ilya's room, embraced him, and asked smiling:
"That's the one—your first love, eh?"
"Who?" asked Ilya slowly, absorbed in memories of Masha.
"That horror——"
Ilya unclasped her hands from his neck, and said moodily:
"She can hardly drag one foot after the other, but she cares for those she loves."
"Whom does she love?" asked the woman, and looked with wonder and curiosity at Ilya's anxious face.
"Wait, Tatiana, wait! Don't make fun of her."
He told her briefly of Masha, and asked: "What is to be done?"
"Here, nothing," answered Tatiana, shrugging her shoulders. "By the law, the wife belongs to her husband, and no one has any right to take her from him." And, with the important air of one who knows the law well and is convinced of its stability, she explained at length that Masha must obey her husband.
"She must just hang on for the present. Let her wait—he's old; he'll soon die. Then she'll be free, and all his money will go to her. And then you'll marry the rich young widow, eh?"
She laughed and continued to instruct Ilya seriously.
"It would be best for you to give up your old acquaintances. They're no use to you now, and they might get in your way. They're all so coarse and dirty—that one, for instance, you lent money to—such a skinny fellow, with wicked eyes."
"Gratschev?"
"Yes. What funny names common people have—Gratschev, Lunev, Petuchev, Skvarzov.—In our set the names are much better, prettier—Avtonomov, Korsakov—my father's name was Florianov. When I was a young girl I was courted by a lawyer, Gloriantov. Once at the skating, he stole my garter, and threatened to make a scandal if I did not go to his house to get it back——"
Ilya listened, remembering his own past. He felt his soul bound by invisible threads fast to the house of Petrusha Filimonov, and it seemed this house would always hold him back from the peaceful life he longed for.
At last Ilya Lunev's dream was realised. Full of calm joy, he stood from morning to night behind the counter of his own business, and swelled with pride over all he saw round him. Boxes of wood and cardboard were ranged carefully on the shelves; in the window was a display of waist-buckles, purses, soap, buttons, with gay-coloured ribbons and laces. It was all bright and clean, and shone in the sunshine in rainbow colours. Handsome and steady-looking, he received his customers with a polite bow and displayed his goods on the counter before them. He heard pleasant music in the rustling of his laces and ribbons, and all the girls—tailoresses, who bought a few kopecks' worth—seemed to him pretty and lovable. All at once life became pleasant and easy, a clear, simple meaning seemed to have entered into it, and the past was veiled in a cloud. No thoughts came to him save of business, and goods and customers. He had taken on an errand boy, dressed him in a well-fitting grey jacket, and took great care that the lad washed himself well, and kept as clean as possible.
"You and I, Gavrik," he said, "deal in fine goods, and we must be clean."
Gavrik was a lad of twelve years, rather fat, snub-nosed and slightly pock-marked, with little grey eyes and a lively face. He had passed through the town school, and considered himself a full-grown, serious man. He took a great interest in his work in the clean little shop; it delighted him to handle the boxes, and he was at great pains to be as polite to the customers as his master. But this he found difficult—his talents for mimicry were too strongly developed, and he was apt to reproduce on his coarse face any expression that he observed in a customer. Above all he was the sworn foe of all little girls, and could seldom resist the temptation to pinch them or push them, or pull their hair, and generally make their lives a burden. Ilya watched him, and remembered how he had served in the fish shop, and as he had a liking for the boy, he joked with him and spoke to him in a friendly way when there were no customers in the shop.
"If you're dull, Gavrik, read books when there's no work to be done," he advised. "Time passes easily with a book, and reading's pleasant."
From this time Lunev began to regard mankind cheerfully and attentively, and he smiled as much as to say:
"I'm a lucky one, you see; but patience! Your turn will come soon."
He opened his shop at seven and closed at ten. There were few customers; he sat on a chair near the door basking in the rays of the spring sun, and resting, almost without a thought, without a wish. Gavrik sat in the doorway, observed the passers-by, imitated their ways, enticed the dogs to him, and threw stones at the pigeons and sparrows, or else read a book, and breathed heavily through his nose. Sometimes his master would make him read aloud, but the actual reading did not interest Ilya, he listened rather to the stillness and peace in his heart. This inner peace filled him with delight, it was new to him and unspeakably pleasant. Now and then, however, the sweetness was disturbed, there was a strange, incomprehensible sensation, a premonition of unrest; it could not shatter the peace in his soul, but rested lightly on it like a shadow. Then Ilya began to talk to the boy.
"Gavrik! What is your father?"
"He's a postman."
"Are you a big family?"
"Big? There's a crowd of us. Some grown-up, but some are still little."
"How many little ones?"
"Five, and three grown-up. We three have all got places. I'm with you, Vassili is in Siberia in a telegraph office, Sonyka gives lessons. She earns a lot, twelve roubles a month. Then there's Mishka—he is older than I am, but he's still at school."
"Then there are four grown-up, not three?"
"No, how?" cried Gavrik, and added sententiously: "Mishka is still learning, but a grown-up is one who works."
"Do you have a hard time at home?"
"Rather," answered Gavrik indifferently, and sniffed loudly. Then he began to explain his schemes for the future.
"When I'm big, I shall be a soldier. Then there'll be a war, and I'll go to the war. I'm brave, and so I'll rush at the enemy before all the others and capture the standard—that's what my uncle did—and General Gourko gave Kim a medal and five roubles."
Ilya listened, smiling, and looked at the pock-marked face, and the wide, twitching nostrils. In the evening when the shop was shut, Ilya went into the little room at the back. The samovar made ready by the lad was on the table, and bread and sausage. Gavrik had his tea and bread and went into the shop to sleep, but Ilya sat long by the samovar, often as much as two hours. Two chairs, a table, a bed, and a cupboard for household utensils made up all the furniture of Ilya's new home. The room was small and low, with a square window from which could be seen the feet of the passers-by, the roofs of the houses over the way, and the sky above the roofs. He hung a white muslin curtain before the window. An iron railing cut the window off from the street, and this displeased Ilya very much. Over his bed was a picture—"The Steps of Man's Life." This picture was a great favourite with Ilya, and he had long wished to buy it, but for one reason and another he had never possessed it till he opened his shop, though it cost but ten kopecks.
The steps of man's life were arranged in the form of an arch, under which was represented Paradise; here the Almighty, surrounded with rays of light and flowers, talked with Adam and Eve. There were seventeen steps in all. On the first stood a child supported by his mother, and underneath, in red letters: "The first step." On the second the child was beating a drum, and the inscription ran: "Five years old—he plays." At seven years of age he began "to learn;" at ten, "goes to school;" at twenty-one he stood on the step with a rifle in his hand, and a smiling face, and underneath was written: "Serves his time as a soldier." On the next step he is twenty-five, he is in evening dress, with an opera hat in one hand and a bouquet in the other—"he is a bridegroom." Then his beard is grown, he has a long coat and a red tie, and is standing near a stout lady in yellow, and pressing her hand. Next he is thirty-five; he stands with rolled-up shirt-sleeves by an anvil and hammers the iron. At the top of the arch he is sitting in a red chair reading the paper, his wife and four children are listening to him. He himself and all his family are well dressed, respectable, with healthy, happy faces. At this time he is fifty years old. But note how the steps begin to go down; the man's beard is already grey, he is clad in a long yellow coat, and in his hands he holds a bag of fish and a jar of some sort. This step is labelled: "Household duties." On the following step the man is rocking the cradle of his grandson; lower down "he is led," being now eighty years old; and in the last—he is ninety-five—he is in a chair with his feet in a coffin, and behind the chair stands Death, with the scythe in his hand.
When Ilya sat by the samovar he looked at the picture, and it pleased him to see the life of man so accurately and simply depicted. The picture radiated peace, the bright colours seemed to smile at him, and he was persuaded that the series represented honourable life wisely and intelligibly, as an example to men—life exactly as it should be led. As he gazed at this representation of life, he thought that now that he had attained his desire, his career must henceforth follow the picture exactly. He would mount upwards, and right at the summit, when he had saved enough money, he would marry a modest girl who had learned to read and to write.
The samovar hummed and whistled in a melancholy way. The sky looked dull through the glass of the window and the muslin curtain, and the stars were hardly visible. There is always something disturbing in the glance of the stars.
"Perhaps it would be better to marry at forty," thought Ilya. "Life is so disturbed with women; they bring such useless hurrying and so many petty things: and it is better to marry a girl who is close on thirty. But then, if you marry late, you die and never have time to start your children for themselves."
The samovar whistles more gently but more shrilly. The fine sound pierces the ears unbearably; it is like the buzzing of a fly, and distracts and confuses thought. But Ilya does not put the lid on the chimney, for if the samovar ceases to whistle, the room becomes so still. In his new house, new feelings, hitherto unknown, come to visit him. Formerly he had lived constantly close to people, separated from them only by thin partitions; now he was shut off by stone walls and felt no man at his back. "Why must we die?" Lunev asks himself suddenly, looking at the man declining from the height of his fortune towards the grave. Then he remembers Jakov, who was always pondering on death, and Jakov's saying: "It is interesting to die."
Angrily Ilya thrusts the memory away, and tries to think of something quite different.
"How are Pavel and Vyera getting on?" he wonders suddenly. A droshky drives by; the window-panes shake with the noise of the wheels on the stony street, the lamp trembles on the wall. Then strange sounds arise in the shop—it is Gavrik talking in his sleep. The dense darkness in the corner of the room seems to move. Ilya sits propped up at the table, presses his temples with the palms of his hands, and looks at the picture. Next to the Almighty is a fine big lion, on the ground crawls a tortoise, and there is a badger and a frog jumping, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is adorned with great blood-red flowers. The old man with his feet in the coffin is like Poluektov, he is bald-headed and lean, and his neck is of just the same thin kind. A dull noise of footsteps sounds from the street. Some one goes slowly past the shop. The samovar has gone out, and now the room is so still that the air in it seems thickened and as solid as the walls.
The memory of Poluektov did not trouble Ilya and, generally speaking, his thoughts were not disturbing—they lay soft and easily on his soul, enwrapping it as a cloud the moon. The colours of the picture were made a little pale by them, and a vague dark spot appeared on it, while the stillness round about grew denser. Frequently he thought with calmness, as he had done after the murder of Poluektov, that there must be justice in life, and that, sooner or later, men must be punished for their sins. After such thoughts, he would look sharply into the dark corner of the room, where it was so mysteriously still, and where the darkness would take on a definite form. Then he undressed, lay down, and extinguished the lamp. He did not put it out at once, but turned the wick first up, then down. The light would all but go out, then again flare up, and the darkness danced round the bed, now threw itself on the bed from all sides, now again sprung back into the corner of the room. Ilya watched how the pitiless black waves tried to overwhelm him, and he played in this way for a long time, whilst trying to pierce the darkness with wide-open eyes, as though he expected to catch sight of something. At last the light flickered for the last time, and went out in a moment. The blackness flooded the room, and seemed to waver as though still disturbed by its struggle with the light. Then the dull bluish patch of the window became visible. When the moon shone, black streaks of shadow from the railings in front of the window fell across the table and the floor. There was so tense a stillness in the room that it seemed as if his whole frame must quiver if he sighed. He wrapped the bed-clothes round him, drawing them up to his chin, but with his face uncovered, and lay and looked at the twilight of the window till sleep overpowered him. In the morning he woke fresh and rested, almost ashamed of his follies of the night before. He had tea with Gavrik at the counter and looked at his shop as at a new thing. Sometimes Pavel came in from his work, covered with dirt and grease, in a scorched blouse and with smoke-blackened face. He was working again with a well-sinker, and carried with him a little kettle, with lead piping and soldering-iron. He was always in a hurry to get home, and if Ilya asked him to stay, he would say, with a shame-faced smile:
"I can't. I feel, brother, as though I had a wonderful bird at home, but as if the cage were too weak. She sits there alone all day, and who knows what she thinks about? It's a dull kind of life for her. I know that very well—if only we had a child!"
And Gratschev sighed heavily. Once when Ilya asked him if he still wrote poems, he replied smiling:
"On the sky, with my finger! Oh, the devil! How can you make cabbage soup of bast shoes. I'm on the sand-bank, brother, altogether. Not a spark in my head, not one little one! I think of her all the time. I work, begin to solder or something, and at once dreams of my little girl fly through my head. You see that's my poetry nowadays—ha! ha! Surely, honour to him who devotes himself body and soul!—You see, though I think this, she thinks differently—yes, it's hard for her."
"And you?" asked Ilya.
"Oh, yes; it's hard for me because of her. If she could have a happier life! She's used to being happy, that's it. She dreams of money all the time. If we had money, anyhow, she says everything would be different. I'm stupid she says; I ought to rob a rich man; she's always talking nonsense. She does it all out of compassion for me—I know. It is hard for her."
Presently Pavel became restless and departed.
Often the ragged half-naked cobbler came to Ilya with his inseparable companion, his harmonica, under his arm. He told what had happened at Filimonov's and of Jakov. Thin and dirty and dishevelled, he pushed into the door of the shop; smiling all over his face, and scattering his jests.
"Petrusha is married, his wife is like—like a beetroot, and the stepson like a carrot. Quite a vegetable garden, by God! The wife is thick and short and red, and her face is built in three storeys; three chins she has, but only one mouth; eyes like a beautiful pig, they are little and can't look up. Her son is yellow and long, with spectacles—an aristocrat. He's called Savva—speaks through his nose. When his lady-mother's there he's an absolute sheep, but if she's away, chatterbox isn't the word! Such a crew—with all due respect! Jashutka looks now as if he'd like to crawl into a crack like a terrified black beetle. He drinks on the quiet, poor lad, and coughs away like anything. Evidently his dear papa has damaged his liver for him; they're always at him. He's a feeble fellow; they'll soon swallow him down. Your uncle has written from Kiev; I think he is worrying himself for nothing. Hunchbacks don't get in to Paradise, I'm thinking. Matiza's feet are no good at all now. She goes about in a little cart. She's got a blind man for partner, harnesses him to the cart, and guides him like a horse—it's really funny. They get enough to eat out of it though. She's a good sort, I say. That's to say if I hadn't had such a wonderful wife I'd marry this Matiza right away. I say boldly, there are two real women in the world—on my word I mean it—my wife and Matiza. Of course she drinks, but why not? A good man always drinks."
"But what about Mashutka?" Ilya reminded him. At the mention of his daughter all the cobbler's jests and laughter came to a sudden end, like the leaves torn from the trees by the winds of autumn. His lips quivered, his yellow face lengthened, and he said in a confused low voice:
"I don't know. Ehrenov said to me plainly I won't have you about my house, else I'll thrash you.—Give me something, Ilya Jakovlevitch, for a little drink of brandy."
"You'll come to grief, Perfily," said Ilya compassionately.
"I'm on the way," admitted the cobbler. "Lots of people will be sorry when I'm dead," he went on with conviction. "For I'm a good fellow, and I like to make people laugh. Every one cries—ah! and alas! and laments and talks of God and sin; but I sing little songs and laugh. Whether you sin a pennyworth or a pound's-worth, you've got to die all the same. You go under, and the Devil will torment you anyhow; and besides the world needs good fellows."
Finally he went off, laughing and jesting, like a tousled old greenfinch. But Ilya, when he had seen him out, shook his head; while he pitied Perfishka, he saw the uselessness of his compassion. His own past seemed far behind him, and all that reminded him of it made him uncomfortable. Now he resembled a weary man who rests and sleeps quietly, but the autumn flies buzz persistently in his ear and will not let him have his sleep out. When he talked to Pavel or listened to Perfishka's tales, he smiled in sympathy, but when they were gone, he shook his head. Especially he found Pavel's conversation melancholy and troubling. At such times he hurriedly and obstinately offered him money, gesticulated, and said: "What else can I do to help you? I should advise you—break with Vyera!"
"I can't," said Pavel, softly. "You only throw away things you don't want. But I need her—ah, yes, and others want her too, and would like to take her from me, that's the trouble. And perhaps I don't love her with my soul, but out of wickedness and desperation. She's the best that life has offered me. All my good fortune. Why should I let her go? What shall I have left? No, I won't sell her. It's a lie.—I'll kill her, but I won't let her go."
Gratschev's drawn face was covered with red patches, and he clenched his fists convulsively.
"Do you find, then, that people hang about after her?"
"No, no!"
"How do you mean, then—they'd like to take her away?"
"There's a power that will snatch her from my hands. Ah! the devil! My father came to grief through a woman, and seems to have left me the same fortune."
"It's impossible to help you, I'm afraid," said Lunev, and felt a certain relief as he said it. Pavel distressed him more than Perfishka, and when his friend spoke with hate and anger, a similar feeling surged up in Ilya's breast against some undefined person. But the enemy that caused the suffering, that ruined Pavel's life, was not there, but invisible, and Lunev felt anew that his enmity or his compassion availed nothing, like nearly all his sympathetic feelings towards other men. It seemed these feelings were all superfluous, useless. Pavel went on, more gloomily:
"I know—it's impossible to help me.—How could I be helped? Who is there? We're alone in life, brother; our lot is settled—work, suffer, be silent—and then go out. Devil take you!"
He looked searchingly into his friend's face, and added in a decided, sinister tone:
"Look! You've crawled into a corner and sit quiet there. But I tell you, there's some one, who watches by night, thinking how to drag you out."
"No, no!" said Lunev smiling. "I'll make a fight for it. It's not so easy."
"Ah, don't be so sure! You think you'll run this business all your life, eh?"
"Why not?"
"They'll have you out, or else you yourself will give it up."
"But how? You'll have to wait to see that!" said Ilya, smiling.
But Gratschev maintained his statement. He looked hard at his friend, and said obstinately:
"I tell you, you'll leave it. You are not the kind to sit quiet and warm all your life, and it's certain either you'll take to drink or you'll go bankrupt. Something's bound to happen to you."
"Yes, but why?" cried Lunev, in surprise.
"For this—You can't stand a quiet life. You're a good fellow, you've a good heart, there are a few like that—they live healthy lives, are never ill, and all of a sudden—bang!"
"What d'you mean?"
"They fall down dead."
Ilya laughed, straightened himself, stretched his strong muscles, and breathed out a deep breath.
"That's all rubbish," he said. But at night, as he sat by the samovar, Gratschev's words returned involuntarily, and he considered his business relations with the Avtonomovs. In his delight at their proposal to open a shop, he had agreed to everything that was suggested. Now, suddenly he perceived that, although he had put into the business about four hundred roubles of Poluektov's money, he was rather a manager, engaged by Tatiana Vlassyevna, than her partner. This discovery surprised and annoyed him. "Aha! that's why she kisses me, so as to pick my pocket more easily," he thought. He determined to use the rest of his money to get the business away from his mistress and then separate from her. Even earlier, Tatiana Vlassyevna had seemed to him unnecessary, and of late she had become a burden. He could not reconcile himself to her caresses, and once said to her face:
"You're absolutely shameless, Tanyka!"
She only laughed. As before, she constantly told him tales of the people of her circle, and once he remarked, doubtfully:
"If that's all true, Tatiana, your respectable life isn't good for much."
"Why, pray? It's very jolly!" she replied, and shrugged her pretty shoulders.
"Jolly? In the day, a fight for crumbs, and at night—beastliness. No! There's something wrong about that."
"How simple you are! Now listen," and she began to praise the orderly, respectable middle-class life, and as she praised, strove to hide its hideousness and foulness.
"Is that what you call good, then?" asked Ilya.
"How odd you are! I don't call it good; but if it weren't it would be very dull."
Sometimes she would advise him:
"It's time you gave up wearing cotton shirts—a respectable man must wear linen. And listen to the way I pronounce words, and learn. You're not a peasant any longer, and you must drop your peasant ways, and get a little polish."
More often she would point out the difference between him, the peasant, and herself, the educated woman, and by the comparison frequently hurt his feelings. When he lived with Olympiada, he felt constantly that she was near him, like a good comrade. Tatiana aroused no feeling of comradeship; he saw that she was more interesting than Olympiada, and studied her with curiosity, but completely lost his respect for her. When he lived with the Avtonomovs, he used sometimes to hear Tatiana praying before she went to sleep:
"Our Father, Who art in heaven"—her loud rapid whisper sounded behind the partition. "Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses—Kirya, get up and shut the kitchen door—there's a draught at my feet."
"Why do you kneel on the bare floor?" answered Kirik lazily.
"Be quiet, don't interrupt me!" and again Ilya would hear the rapidly murmured prayer. The haste displeased him; he saw well she prayed from custom, not from inner need.
"Do you believe in God, Tatiana?" he asked her once.
"What a question," she cried. "Of course I do. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, then when you pray, you hurry up so as to get away from Him, I suppose," said Ilya laughing.
"First of all, don't say hurry up, but make haste; in the second place, I'm so tired with my day's work that God must forgive my haste."
And she closed her eyes, and added in a tone of deep conviction:
"He will forgive everything. He is merciful."
Olympiada used to pray silently and for a long time. She knelt before the eikon, hung her head, and remained motionless as if turned to stone. At such times her face was downcast, serious; and she did not answer if addressed. Now that Ilya grasped that Tatiana had cleverly over-reached him over the business, he felt a kind of disgust towards her.
"If she were a stranger—well and good," he thought. "All men try to cheat one another, but she is almost like my wife." He began to behave coldly and suspiciously towards her, and to avoid meeting her on all sorts of pretexts.
Just at this time he became acquainted with another woman. This was Gavrik's sister, who came now and then to see her brother. Tall, thin, and lanky, she was not pretty, and though Gavrik had said she was nineteen she seemed to Ilya much older. Her face was long and thin and yellow; fine wrinkles furrowed the brow. She had a flat nose, and the wide nostrils seemed distended with anger, while the thin lips were usually pressed together. She spoke distinctly, but as it were through her teeth, and unwillingly. She walked quickly with her head high, as though she were proud to display her ugly face, though possibly it was her long, thick black hair that drew her head backwards. Her big dark eyes looked serious and earnest, and the whole effect of her features was to give her tall figure an air of definite uprightness and inflexibility. Lunev felt afraid of her. She seemed to him proud and inspired him with respect. Whenever she appeared in the shop, he offered her a chair politely and said:
"Please take a seat."
"Thank you," she said shortly—bowed slightly and sat down. Lunev looked secretly at her face, absolutely different from the women's faces he had seen hitherto, her dark-brown well-worn dress, her patched shoes and yellow straw hat. She sat there, and talked to her brother, while the long fingers of her right hand drummed rapidly but noiselessly on her knee; in her left hand she swung some books, strapped together. It struck Ilya as strange to see a girl so badly dressed, so proud. After sitting two or three minutes she would say to her brother:
"Well—good-bye. Behave yourself!" Then she would bow silently to the owner of the shop and go out into the street with the stride of a brave soldier going to the attack.
"What a serious sister you've got," said Lunev once to Gavrik.
Gavrik distended his nostrils, rolled his eyes wildly, and drew out his lips into a straight line, and so gave his face a carefully caricatured resemblance to his sister's. Then he explained with a smile:
"Yes—but she only puts it on."
"But why should she?"
"It looks well. She likes it.—I can imitate any face you like."
The girl interested Ilya very much; he thought about her as he used to think of Tatiana Vlassyevna.
"There, that's the kind of girl to marry—she's got a heart, for certain."
Once she brought a thick book with her and said to her brother:
"There—read it! It's very interesting."
"What is it, may I see?" asked Ilya politely.
She took the book from her brother and passed it to Ilya saying:
"Don Quixote—the story of a worthy knight."
"Ah! I've read a lot about knights," said Ilya with a friendly smile, and looked her in the face. Her eyebrows twitched, and she said quickly in a dry way:
"You've read fairy tales, but this is a fine clever book. The man in it devotes himself to help the unfortunate and unjustly oppressed—this man was always ready to give his life for others. You see? The book is written amusingly—but that's because of the conditions under which it was written. It must be read seriously and attentively."
"Then that's how we'll read it," said Ilya. This was the first time she had spoken to him; he felt curiously pleased, and smiled. But she looked in his face, said drily:
"I fancy you won't like it."
Then she went away. Ilya felt that she had spoken with intention and was annoyed. He spoke sharply to Gavrik who was looking at the pictures in the book.
"Now then—it's no time for reading now."
"But there are no customers," answered Gavrik without closing the book.
Ilya looked at him and said nothing; the girl's words rang in his ears, but he thought of her with a feeling of discomfort in his heart.
"My word; doesn't she think a lot of herself!"
Time passed on. Ilya stood behind the counter, twisted his moustache, and conducted his business, but it began to seem to him that the days went more slowly. Sometimes he felt a desire to close the shop and go for a walk, but he knew that such a proceeding would be bad for his business and he did not go. To walk in the evenings was inconvenient; Gavrik was afraid to be alone in the shop and there was a certain risk in leaving him, he might set the place on fire by accident or let in some rascal or other. Business went fairly well. Ilya thought it might be necessary to take an assistant. His intimacy with Tatiana had insensibly grown less, and she seemed willing that it should come to an end. She laughed cheerfully when she came, and looked very carefully through the book that recorded the day's business. While she sat and made calculations in Ilya's room, he felt that this woman with the bird's face was repugnant to him; but still from time to time she would be pert and gay, jesting and making eyes at him, and calling him her partner. Then he would rouse himself and re-enter what in his heart he called a horrible web. Sometimes Kirik came too, stretched himself out in a chair by the counter and cracked jokes with the tailoresses who came in to make purchases while he was there. He had discarded his police uniform, and boasted of his success in his new commercial employment.
"Sixty roubles salary and then in different ways I make as much again extra—not so bad, eh? I work very carefully for the extras, keep within the law—ho! ho! We've moved, did you hear? We've a jolly house now. We've taken on a cook—cooks splendidly, the wretch! When the autumn comes we'll ask lots of our friends and play cards; it's very pleasant, by Jove! To have a good time and make money at it; we play into one another's hands, I and my wife, one of us must always win, and the winnings pay the cost of entertainment, ho! ho! my boy! There, that's living cheaply and pleasantly!"
He settled himself in a chair, puffed out the smoke of his cigarette and went on, lowering his voice:
"A little while ago, brother, I was in a village—have you heard? I tell you, the girls there—d'you know, such children of Nature, so solid you know, you can't pinch them, the rascals,—and so cheap, too; a bottle of Schnapps, a pound of honey cakes, and she is yours!"
Lunev listened, but said nothing. For some reason or other he was sorry for Kirik, and pitied him without realising why this fat and stupid fellow should rouse such a feeling. At the same time he almost always wanted to laugh at the sight of him. Ilya did not believe Kirik's tales of his adventures in the village, but thought he was only boasting, talking as he had heard others talk. But when he was in a gloomy mood, then he listened to Kirik and thought: "Fighting for crumbs!"
"Yes, brother, it's splendid to make love in the bosom of Nature, in the shade of the leaves as they say in books."
"But if Tatiana Vlassyevna knew?"
"She won't know, brother," answered Kirik, and winked cheerfully.
But when Avtonomov departed Ilya thought of his words, and felt hurt. It was evident that Kirik, good-tempered and ridiculous though he were, yet held himself to be a man out of the common, whom Ilya could not hope to equal, higher in station and more important. Yet he profited by the business Ilya carried on with his wife. Perfishka had told them that Petrusha laughed at his shop and called him a rascal. Jakov had said to the cobbler that formerly Ilya was better and more friendly than now and did not think so much of himself, and Gavrik's sister constantly demonstrated that she thought herself superior to him. The daughter of a postman, who went about almost in rags, behaved as though it were too much for her to live on the same world as he did. Ilya's ambition had grown since he had opened his shop, and he was more sensitive than before. His interest deepened in this girl who was so ugly, but had so strong a personality; he sought to understand whence came this pride in a poor ragged girl, a pride which grew to annoy him more and more. At first she would not talk to him, and that pained him. Her brother was his servant, and therefore she ought to be more friendly with him, the employer. He said to her once:
"I'm reading the book of 'Don Quixote.'"
"Well, do you like it?" she asked, without looking at him.
"Rather, most amusing,—he was a funny old owl that fellow!"
She looked at him, and Ilya felt as though her proud dark eyes pierced his face angrily.
"I knew you would say something like that," she said, slowly and with meaning.
Ilya was conscious of something reproachful, contemptuous and hostile in her words.
"I'm an uneducated man," he said, and shrugged his shoulders.
She said nothing as though she had not heard him.
Once again the mood that long ago had possessed Ilya, began to invade his soul again; once more he was angered at mankind, pondered long and deeply upon justice, and his sins, and what might be in store for him in the future. The last question troubled him persistently. He liked his shop, he liked almost all his life at this time; in comparison with the life of his younger days it was cleaner, more peaceful, freer. But would it always be like this; to squat in his shop from morning to night, then sit awhile with his thoughts by the samovar, and then go to sleep, only to wake and begin again in the shop? He knew that many tradesmen, perhaps all, lived just such a life. But then they were married, and had children, they drank brandy, played cards, and among them all there was hardly one like himself.
He had many reasons, outward as well as inward, to consider himself an unusual man, unlike the rest.
He did not care for tradesmen; some of them were like Kirik, boasted of everything and spoke of nothing but their business, others swindled openly. Once, as he meditated on all these things, he remembered Jakov's words: "God guard you from good fortune—you are greedy," and the words appeared to him a deep insult. No, he was not covetous; he wanted to live simply, cleanly, and quietly, to have men respect him and to have no one say: "I stand higher than you, Ilya Lunev, I am better than you."
Again he began to wonder what the future held in store for him. Would the murder be avenged on him or not? Up and down, he thought, whether it would be unjust for the sin to be avenged on him. He had had no desire to strangle the man, it happened of itself, he said to himself a hundred times. In the town there live many murderers, libertines, robbers, all know they are murderers and robbers and libertines of their own choice, yet all live, and enjoy the good things of life, and no punishment is swift to fall upon them. In justice, every injury done to man must be avenged on the evildoer, and in the Bible it is written: "He rewardeth him and he shall know it." These thoughts set all his old wounds throbbing and a raging thirst burned in his heart to revenge his blighted life. Sometimes the idea came to him to do some daring deed; to go and set fire to Petrusha's house, and when it began to burn, and people began to run from it, to cry out: "I have done it, and I have murdered Poluektov, the merchant." Then men would seize him and judge him, and send him to Siberia as they had sent his father. This thought roused him and narrowed his thirst for revenge to the desire to tell Kirik of his intimacy with Tatiana, or to visit old Ehrenov and thrash him for torturing Masha.
Often he lay on his bed in the darkness listening to the deep stillness, and felt as though all round him life quivered, and twisted in a wild whirlpool with noise and outcry. The whirlpool would suck him in, and sweep him away like a feather or a fallen leaf, and destroy him, and he shuddered with the premonition of something uncanny.
One evening, as he was about to close the shop, Pavel appeared, and said quietly, without greeting him: "Vyera has run away."
He sat down on a chair, rested his elbows on the counter, and whistled softly as he gazed out into the street. His face was as though turned to stone, but his fair moustache twitched like a cat's whiskers.
"Alone?" asked Ilya.
"I don't know; it's three days ago."
Ilya looked at him without speaking. The quiet face and voice made it impossible to tell how Gratschev felt the flight of his companion, but in the stillness Ilya was aware of an unalterable resolution.
"What are you going to do?" he asked at length, when he saw that Pavel would not speak. Pavel stopped whistling, and said sharply, without turning round: "I'll cut her throat!"
"Ah! talking like that again!" cried Ilya, and with a gesture of annoyance.
"She's trod my heart under foot," said Pavel half-aloud. "There's the knife!" He drew from his bosom a little bread-knife and shook it.
"I'll stick it in her throat."
Ilya caught his hand, tore the knife away, and threw it on the counter, and said angrily:
"An ox once raged against a fly——"
Pavel sprang from his chair and turned his face on Ilya. His eyes were blazing, his face convulsed, and he trembled in all his limbs; then he sank back again on his chair and said, contemptuously:
"You're a fool!"
"You're so very clever, aren't you?"
"The strength is in the hand, not in the knife."
"Talk!"
"And if my hands fall off, I'd tear her windpipe with my teeth."
"Don't talk so horribly!"
"Don't talk to me Ilya," said Pavel, once more quietly. "Believe or don't believe, but don't torment me. Fate is bad enough."
"Think, think, you silly fellow——" began Ilya, speaking in a friendly tone.
"I've thought for two years. Everything's settled long ago. Anyhow, I'll go—how can a fellow talk to you? You're well fed; you're no comrade for me."
"Get rid of your crazy thoughts!" cried Ilya reproachfully.
"But I'm hungry, body and soul."
"It surprises me, the way men judge," said Ilya mockingly and shrugged his shoulders. "A woman is to be a man's property, like a cow or a horse! Will you do what I want? All right, you shan't be beaten,—won't you? then crack! there's one on the head for you, devil! A woman is like a man, and has a character of her own."
Pavel looked at him and laughed hoarsely.
"Then who am I, am I no man?"
"Well, ought you to be just or not?"
"Oh, go to the devil with your old justice!" shouted Gratschev furiously, and sprang up again. "Be just, that's easy for the well fed, d'you hear? Now, good-bye."
He went quickly from the shop and in the doorway, for some reason, took off his cap. Ilya sprang from behind the counter after him, but already Gratschev was away down the street, holding his cap in his hand, and shaking it excitedly.
"Pavel!" cried Ilya. "Stop!"
He did not stop, nor turn round once, but turned into a side street, and disappeared.
Ilya turned slowly back and felt his face burn with the words of his friend as though he had looked into a hot oven.
"How angry he was!" said Gavrik.
Ilya smiled.
"Whose throat did he want to cut?" asked the boy, and came up to the counter. He held his hands behind his back, his head thrown up, and his coarse face was red with excitement.
"His wife," said Ilya.
Gavrik was silent for a moment, then he wrinkled his forehead and said softly and thoughtfully to his master:
"There was a woman near us poisoned her husband last Christmas with arsenic, because he was always drinking."
"It does happen," said Lunev slowly, thinking of Pavel.
"But this man, will he really kill her?"
"Go away now, Gavrik."
The boy turned round and went to the door murmuring: "Marry! O Lord!"
The dusk of twilight filled the streets and lights appeared in the windows opposite.
"It's time to shut up," said Gavrik quietly.
Ilya looked at the lighted windows. Below they were decked with flowers and above with white curtains. Between the flowers, golden frames could be seen on the walls within. When the windows were opened, sounds of song and guitar and loud laughter poured into the street. There was singing and music and laughter in this house almost every evening. Lunev knew that a man, Gromov, lived there, of the district court of justice, a fat, red-cheeked man, with a big, black moustache. His wife was stout, too, fair-haired, with little friendly blue eyes; she went proudly along the street like the queen in a fairy tale, but if she was talking to any one, she smiled all the time. Gromov had an unmarried sister, a tall, brown-skinned and black-haired girl, a crowd of young officials courted her; they all assembled at Gromov's almost every evening and laughed and sang.
Gromov's cook bought thread of Ilya, complained of her employers, and said that they fed their servants badly and were always behindhand with their wages, and Lunev thought:
"There—there are people who live well."
"Really it is time to shut up," persisted Gavrik.
"Shut up then."
The boy closed the door and the shop grew dark; there was a noise as the key turned in the lock.
"Like a prison," thought Ilya.
The insulting words of his friend about his well fed condition stabbed his heart like splinters. As he sat by the samovar he thought angrily of Pavel, but did not believe he could murder Vyera.
"It was no good trying to help them, hang them; they don't know how to live, they spoil one another," he thought crossly.
Gavrik drank noisily out of his saucer and shuffled his feet under the table.
"Has he killed her or not?" he asked his master, suddenly.
Lunev looked at him moodily and said:
"Drink your tea, and go to bed."
The samovar boiled and bubbled as though it would jump off the table. From the courtyard of a neighbouring house an angry cry resounded. "Nifont! Ni—if—ont."
Suddenly a dark figure appeared at the window, and a trembling, timid voice asked:
"Does Ilya Jakovlevitch live here?"
"Yes, he does," cried Gavrik, sprang up and flew to the door of the courtyard so quickly that Ilya had no time to say anything.
"It's sure to be she," he said in a loud whisper, holding the latch of the door.
"Who?" asked Ilya, involuntarily lowering his voice.
"Why—she—he wanted to kill."
He pushed open the door and the thin small figure of a woman appeared, wearing a cotton dress and a small kerchief on her head. She supported herself by the doorpost with one hand and with the other pulled at the ends of her kerchief. She stood sideways, as though ready to go away again at once.
"Come in," said Lunev roughly; he looked at her and did not recognise her. She started at the sound of his voice, then lifted her head with a smile on the pale small face.
"Masha!" cried Ilya, and sprang up. She laughed softly, shut the door fast behind her and came towards him.
"You didn't know me—you didn't know me a bit," she said and stood in the middle of the room.
"God! Yes. I can recognise you now. But—how—you've changed!"
Ilya took her hand with exaggerated politeness, and led her to the table, bowed, looked at her face and did not know how to say in what way she had changed. She was incredibly thin and walked as though her feet gave under her.
"Where have you come from? Are you tired? Ah—you—how you look!"—he murmured, settled her carefully in a chair and looked steadily at her.
"See how he treats me," she said, and looked at Ilya with a smile. His heart contracted painfully. Now that the lamplight fell on her, he saw her face plainly. She leant back in the chair, with her thin hands in her lap, bent her head sideways, and her flat chest heaved in shallow rapid breathing. She looked as though made of skin and bone; through the cotton stuff of her dress showed the bony shoulders, elbows and knees, and her face was terrible in its thinness. Over the temples, and the cheek-bones and chin, the bluish skin was tight drawn, the mouth was half open, the thin lips did not cover the teeth, and the expression of pain and fear stared from the long narrow face. The eyes looked dull and dead.
"Have you been ill?" asked Ilya.
"N—no," she answered slowly. "I'm quite well—he has made me like this."
"Your husband?"
"Yes—my husband."
Her slow, drawling speech came like groans, the uncovered teeth gave her a fish-like, dead look—it seemed as though the dead might smile as she smiled now and then.
Gavrik stood beside her and looked at her with lips compressed and fear in his eyes.
"Go to bed!" said Lunev to him.
The lad went into the shop, moved about a little there—then his head appeared again in the doorway. Masha sat motionless, only her eyes moved and wandered from one thing to another. Lunev poured her out some tea, looked at her, but asked her no questions.
"Ye—es—he torments me so," she said. Her lips trembled and her eyes closed for a moment; when she opened them again two big, heavy tears rolled down from under the lashes.
"Don't cry," said Ilya, turning away.
"Drink your tea—and tell me all about it—then it will be easier."
"I'm afraid—he'll come," she said, and shook her head.
"We'll turn him out."
"He's strong," Masha warned him.
"Have you run away?"
"Yes—it's the fourth time—when I can't bear it any more, I run away—before I meant to drown myself—but he caught me—and beat me and hurt me so." Her eyes grew unnaturally big from the fear her memories roused, and her lower jaw trembled. She hung her head and said in a whisper:
"He always hurts my feet."
"Ah," cried Ilya. "What's the matter with you? Haven't you a tongue? Tell the police—say—he tortures me! He can be punished for that; put in prison."
"But—he's one of the judges," said Masha, hopelessly.
"Ehrenov?—a judge? What do you mean?"
"I know. A little while ago, he was on the bench for two weeks—judging. He came back angry and hungry. He pinched my breast with the tongs and twisted it and turned it like a rag—look!"
She unbuttoned her dress with trembling fingers and showed the small withered breast, all covered with dark patches, as though it had been gnawed.
"Don't!" said Ilya gloomily. It made him sick to see the tortured, lacerated body—he could not believe that it was Masha, the friend of his childhood, once so gay, who sat before him. She bared her shoulder and said in a toneless voice:
"See how my shoulder is knocked about! Everything he can, all my body is pinched and hair torn out."
"But why?"
"He's a beast. He says, 'You don't love me,' and he pinches me."
"Perhaps—before he married you, there was some one else?"
"How could there be? I saw only you and Jakov—no one ever touched me. Yes, and now I hate all that. It hurts me. I hate it. I'm always sick."
"Don't—don't—Masha," said Ilya gently. She was silent, sat once more as though turned to stone, her breast still bare. Ilya looked from behind the samovar again at her thin bruised body and said: "Do up your dress!"
"I don't mind you," she answered mechanically, and began to button her blouse with shaking fingers. All was still. Then the sound of loud sobbing came from the shop. Ilya got up and went to the door and closed it, saying crossly:
"Be quiet—Gavrushka—go to sleep!"
"Is that the boy?" asked Masha.
"Yes."
"Crying?"
"Yes."
"Is he frightened?"
"No. I think—he's sorry."
"For what?"
"For you."
"Ah—the boy!" said Masha, indifferently; but her lifeless face did not move. Then she began to drink her tea, but her hands shook so that the saucer rattled against her teeth. Ilya looked on and wondered—was he sorry for Masha—or not? But his heart was heavy, and he thought of her husband with hatred.
"What will you do?" he asked after a long pause.
"I don't know," she answered with a sigh. "What can I do? I'll rest—till they catch me again."
"You ought to complain to the police," said Lunev, firmly. "Why should he torment you? Who has any right to torment any one like that?"
"He did the same to his first wife," said Masha. "He tied her to the bed by her hair—and pinched her—just the same—and once I was asleep and suddenly I felt a pain and woke and screamed—he'd burnt me with a lighted match."
Lunev sprang up and said fiercely and loudly that the very next morning she should go to the police and show her bruises and demand to have her husband condemned. She listened to him, shifting unceasingly to and fro, looked at him in terror, and said:
"Don't shout—don't shout, please! They'll hear you."
His words only distressed her. He soon perceived this little girl, once so cheerful and gay, had been beaten and crushed till all human spirit was tortured out of her.
"Very well," he said, and sat down again. "I'll see to it. I'll find a way. You'll stay here, Mashutka—d'you hear?"
"Yes. I hear," she answered softly, and looked round the room.
"You can have my bed, and I'll go into the shop—but to-morrow."
"I'll lie down at once, I think. I'm tired." He folded back the coverlet from the bed. She fell on it and tried to cover herself with the bedclothes, but could not manage it, and said with a dull smile:
"How silly I am. I might be drunk."
Ilya drew the coverlet over her, arranged the pillows, and was going away, when she said anxiously:
"Don't go. Stay a little. I'm so frightened alone—there's something haunts me." He sat down by the bed, looked once at her pale face, framed in its curls, and turned away. All at once he was full of shame that she should lie there, hardly alive. He remembered Jakov's entreaties, and Matiza's account of Masha's life, and he hung his head.
"And his father beats Jasha, they say. Matiza says, 'What a life!'" she said.
"Such fathers," said Lunev between his teeth, interrupting her soft, lifeless speech. "Such fathers—ought to go to penal servitude—your father and Petrusha Filimonov."
"No, my father is weak—he isn't wicked."
"If you can't look after your children you've no business to have any."
From the house opposite came the music of two voices singing together, and the words of the song drifted through the open window into Ilya's room. A strong, deep bass sang fiercely:
"My heart is disenchanted."
"There. I shall go to sleep," murmured Masha. "How nice it is—so peaceful—and the singing—they sing well."
"Oh, yes—they sing,", said Lunev smiling, grimly. "Though the skin is torn off one, the others can shout."
"It will not trust again," sang the tenor voice, the clear, round tones ringing through the quiet night lightly and freely up into the sky. Lunev got up and shut the window crossly; the song was unendurable, it tormented him. The noise of the window-frame made Masha start. She opened her eyes, raised her head in terror and asked: "Who's there?"
"I. I was shutting the window."
"For Heaven's sake—are you going?"
"No, no—don't be afraid."
She turned on her pillow and went to sleep again. Ilya's least movement, or the noise of footsteps in the street, disturbed her. She opened her eyes at once and cried in her sleep.
"Coming—oh—I'm coming."
Or she stretched out her hand to Ilya and asked: "Is that a knock at the door?" While he tried to sit still, and looked out of the window which he had opened again, Ilya pondered how he could help Masha, and determined grimly not to let her go till the matter was in the hands of the police.
"I must work it through Kirik."
"Please, please—go on!" through the windows came the sound of lively appeals and applause from Gromov's house. Masha groaned in her sleep, but the music began again.
"A pair of bay horses, and early away."
Lunev shook his head despairingly. The singing and outcry and laughter disturbed him. He propped his elbows on the window-ledge and stared at the lighted windows opposite, with wrath and fierce resentment, and thought how good it would be to cross the street and hurl a paving stone through into the room; or to have a gun and send a charge of shot among these cheerful people. The shot would come whizzing in—he imagined the terrified bleeding faces, the confusion and outcry, and smiled with an evil joy in his heart. But the words of the song crept involuntarily into his ears, he repeated them to himself, and suddenly grasped with amazement, that these happy people were singing of the burial of a mistress. This surprised him; he began to listen more attentively and thought:
"Why do they sing that? What sort of pleasure can there be in such a song? See, what a thing to think of—the fools! A funeral—such a funeral! And here—ten steps away lies a living, suffering human being."
"Bravo! Bravo!" came from over the street.
Lunev smiled, looked first at Masha, and then at the street; it seemed to him ridiculous that men should find amusement in singing of the burial of a light-o'-love.
"Vassily—Vassilitch," murmured Masha. "I won't. O God!"
She threw herself about in bed as if she were burning, threw the coverlet on the floor, stretched her arms out, and stared in front of her. Her mouth was half open, she rattled in her throat. Lunev bent quickly over her, he was afraid she was dying. Then, relieved by hearing her breathe, he covered her up again, crawled back to the window, leaned his face against the bars and looked over at Gromov's house. There they were still singing, now one voice, now two, now several in chorus. Music was followed by laughter. Past the windows flitted ladies dressed in white or pink or blue. He listened to the music and marvelled how these men could sing long-drawn, melancholy songs of the Volga and of funerals and of desert lands, and laugh at the end of every song as though it were all nothing, as if they had sung of indifferent things. Is it possible that they find sorrow amusing? But every time that Masha attracted his attention, he looked at her stupidly and wondered what was to become of her. Suppose Tatiana came in and saw her—what was he to do with Masha? He felt as though caught in a mist; his heart was weighed down with the songs and Masha's groans, and his own heavy, disconnected thoughts. When he felt sleepy he crawled from under the window-ledge, lay down on the floor by the bed and put his overcoat under his head. He dreamed that Masha was dead and lying on the ground in a big shed, and round about were standing ladies, dressed in white and pink and blue, and singing songs over her; and when they sang mournful songs they all laughed, and when the songs were cheerful they wept bitterly, and nodded their heads sadly and wiped away their tears with white pocket-handkerchiefs. In the shed it was dark and damp, and in the corner stood Savel the smith, hammering at an iron railing and striking noisy blows on the red-hot bars. On the roof of the shed someone went round about and cried, "Ilya. Il—ya."
But he lay in the shed, bound somehow fast, he could hardly turn, he could not speak.
"Ilya, get up please."
He opened his eyes and recognised Pavel Gratschev. Pavel was sitting on a chair, kicking Ilya's legs gently. The bright sunlight streamed into the room and shone on the samovar boiling on the table; Lunev blinked, dazzled.
"Listen, Ilya."
Pavel's voice was hoarse, as though after heavy drinking, his face was yellow, his hair disordered. Lunev looked at him, then sprung up from the floor and cried half aloud:
"What?"
"She's caught," said Pavel, and shook his head.
"What? Where is she?" asked Ilya, bending over him and catching him by the shoulder. Gratschev swayed and said miserably:
"They've put her in prison, yesterday morning, they say; they brought her to the prison."
"What for?" asked Ilya in a loud whisper. Masha waked up, shuddered at the sight of Pavel, and stared at him terrified. From the door into the shop Gavrik looked in, his lips compressed in disapproval.
"They say she's stolen six hundred roubles from a merchant, a pocket book, bills, and so on."
Ilya laid a hand on his friend's shoulder, and then moved silently away.
"When they searched they found the money at her house," said Gratschev, in a dull way. "The police inspector, she struck him in the face."
"Oh, of course," said Ilya with a harsh laugh. "If you've got to go to prison, why not go in style!"
When Masha understood that all this did not concern her she smiled and said softly: "If they'd take me to prison."
Pavel looked at her, then at Ilya.
"Don't you know her?" asked Ilya. "Masha, Perfishka's daughter, you remember."
"Oh, yes," said Pavel slowly and indifferently, and turned away, although Masha, who had recognised him, greeted him with a smile.
"Ilya," said Gratschev gloomily. "If she's done that for me? She spoke of it."
"Oh, I don't know for whom, for you or for herself, it's all the same! Her song is finished."
Lunev could not collect his thoughts. Weary for want of sleep, unwashed, and dishevelled, he sat down at Masha's feet, and looked first at her, then at Pavel, and felt overwhelmed.
"I knew," he said slowly, "the whole business could come to no good end."
"She wouldn't listen to me," said Pavel, in a lifeless tone.
"That's it, of course!" cried Lunev ironically. "That's the whole trouble, that she wouldn't listen to you! What could you say to her?"
"I loved her."
"What's the good of your love? in the devil's name! What can you get with that? Apart from anything else you never got her enough to eat by your work."
"That's true," said Pavel, sighing. Lunev was irritated, he felt that all these lives, Pavel's, Masha's, stirred him to wrath, excited him, and not knowing where to direct his feelings, he vented them on his friend.
"Every one wants to be decent and happy, you too, but you say to her, I love you, therefore live with me, and suffer want; do you think that's the way to take it?"
"How should I then?" asked Pavel gently.
The question calmed Ilya a little, involuntarily he fell to thinking of it. "It would be easier for me to kill her with my own hands," said Pavel.
Gavrik looked in. "Ilya Jakovlevitch! shall I open the shop!"
"Oh, go to the devil!" shouted Lunev in anger. "Don't worry me with the shop."
"Am I in the way," asked Pavel.
He sat in the chair leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and looked at the floor. A vein, full of blood, swelled on his temple.
"You," cried Lunev, and looked at him. "You don't disturb me, nor Masha; it's a very different thing! I've told you before, that there's something gets in the way of us all, you and me, and Masha. It's our folly or something. I don't know what; but it's not possible to live like human beings!"
Lunev looked round his little room at Masha sitting on the bed, motionless with downcast expression, into the shop where Gavrik was having his tea, into the street, through the railed-in window, and continued with despair in his soul, excitedly, angrily, and hoarsely:
"It's impossible to live. It's cramped and stupid, and absurd; you find a quiet corner, and there's no peace there! Everything is impure, heavy, painful; you can't understand; everything goes wrong, you hear people singing and you think you're happy. But it hurts you to hear their songs if your soul's in pain."
"What are you talking of?" asked Pavel, without looking at him.
"Of every one," cried Lunev. "I feel now that nothing's any use, damn it! I don't understand, perhaps, well then I don't! But I do understand what I want. I want to live like a man, cleanly, and honourably, and happily! I don't want to see trouble and horrors and sin, and all sorts of beastliness. I don't want it! But——"
He stopped and grew pale.
"Well?" said Pavel.
"No, that's not it. I only meant——" began Lunev, and his voice dropped.
"You always speak of yourself," observed Pavel.
"And whom do you speak of? Of her? But who is it she troubles, me or you? Every man cares for his own wounds, and groans with his own voice. I don't speak of myself only, I speak of every one, for every one troubles me."
"I'll go," said Gratschev, and got up heavily.
"Ah," cried Ilya. "Don't be hurt, try to understand. I'm hurt too, and sufferers should understand one another, then it will be clear who it is who torments us."
"Brother, it's as though you hit me on the head with a stone. I don't understand. I'm sorry for Vyera—there, I am, really. What can I do? I don't know."
"You can't do anything," said Ilya firmly. "I tell you she's done for! They'll condemn her, she's caught in the act."
Gratschev sat down again.
"But if I declare she did it for me?"
"Are you a prince? Say it, and they'll put you in prison too. Anyhow, we must pull things together. You had better have a wash, and you, too, Masha. We're going into the shop, but you get up and tidy yourself, have some tea, make yourself at home."
Masha shuddered, raised her head from the pillow and asked:
"What, am I to go home?"
"No. You're home is where, at any rate, you're not tortured. Come Pasha!"
When they were in the shop, Pavel asked gloomily:
"Why is she here? She's like a corpse."
Lunev told him briefly how matters stood. To his astonishment, Gratschev seemed cheered.
"My word, the old devil!" he said, and smiled.
Ilya stood by him, looking round his shop, and said: